 In my previous post, I shared the most common obstacles to implementing your business development and growth plans. Now that you have identified these saboteurs, and you have chosen to rally your most trusted advisors to keep you on track, how will you use their time wisely?
The EnergizeGrowth® Plan Review Process will help. I have led over 100 plan reviews in the past decade using this approach. Benefits far outweigh the time and effort you will invest. For example, teams have discovered vulnerabilities in their plans that they otherwise would have entirely missed. Within just a short time, the process gives you a holistic view of the company’s growth potential from the perspective of customers, adversaries, and senior management.
View and download the EnergizeGrowth® Plan Review Process by clicking here.
Business growth reviews take discipline–and they can also be highly rewarding. This process removes some of the fear and mystery. Let me know how yours progresses and post your comments here.
[Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net]
[This post originally appeared in FastCompany.]
Copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
Lisa Nirell is the Chief Energy Officer of EnergizeGrowth®. She helps companies grow customer mind share and market share. Since 1983, Lisa has worked with Trend Micro, Zappos, BMC Software, Microsoft, IBM, and hundreds of entrepreneurs in nine countries. Lisa is also an award-winning expert speaker, business columnist and the author of “EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.” To download your five complimentary educational bonuses and sample chapter, visit www.energizegrowth.com and register for EnergizeNews.
As you approach the end of the first quarter of 2011, your growth plan and marketing activities are well underway. How will you keep them fresh and relevant?
Launching and implementing your growth plan entails risks. Plans often expose underlying conflicts within the organization. It may disrupt the status quo, the ways decisions are made, and strain the most established relationships among key players. How can you prevent current operating norms and B.S. (Belief Systems) from dictating, derailing, or delaying your growth plan?
The first step is to understand the main causes of plan derailment. Here are the most 9 common ones that I have observed over the past two decades:
- Lack of communication — The plan doesn’t get communicated to employees or allies who keep on working in the dark.
- Mired in the day-to-day — Managers consumed by daily operating problems lose sight of long-term goals. Today’s technical outage, employee resignation, or client emergency will happen. The question is: how well are you structured to delegate some of these emergencies to others who can handle them?
- Out of the ordinary – The plan is treated as something separate and removed from the management process.
- People perceive vision, mission and value statements as fluff. How did that limiting belief become part of your company culture?
- The plan is reviewed too infrequently to stay relevant. If you are relying on one annual retreat to review your plan, you might as well not have one. It has already become obsolete.
- Conducting business as usual after a live planning meeting. How often have you seen teams leave a
 planning session and quietly comment about “getting back to normal again?”
- Failing to make the tough choices. A solid, well thought out plan will reveal deficiencies in your team, your marketing plan, your funding, or your capacity. Are you ready to fill those gaps and relieve people who are a poor fit in the new organization? Or, do you tend to hope they will leave on their own accord? Will you need to meet with your banker and request a higher line of credit? These are challenges you must confront, not ignore.
- Lacking a scoreboard: Are you measuring what’s easy, or what is important?
- Neglecting to benchmark your company against the competition. Remember that your biggest competitors may include Inertia, Inc. and Not Invented Here.
You can overcome these common planning mishaps.
For best results, regularly share the strategic plan with other stakeholders like investors, customers, alliance partners, etc. An “open book” approach will likely generate more helpful ideas and suggestions about the future of your business.In our next post, I will show you a process to guide the reviews and turbo-charge your teams.
[Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net]
[This post originally appeared in FastCompany.]
Copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
Lisa Nirell is the Chief Energy Officer of EnergizeGrowth®. She helps companies grow customer mind share and market share. Since 1983, Lisa has worked with Trend Micro, Zappos, BMC Software, Microsoft, IBM, and hundreds of entrepreneurs in nine countries. Lisa is also an award-winning expert speaker, business columnist and the author of “EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.” To download your five complimentary educational bonuses and sample chapter, visit www.energizegrowth.com and register for EnergizeNews.
Our last two posts, The Secret Life of Customer Advisory Boards, Part 1 and The Secret Life of Customer Advisory Boards, Part 2, showcased the definition and design of customer advisory boards. Let’s say you succeeded in these first two steps in your CAB strategy: Design and Recruitment. How can you keep the CAB vibrant for years to come?
Set the stage for success by creating a high-impact meeting framework and follow up strategy.
After interviewing over two dozen B2B companies who actively manage CABs, I discovered strategies they have in common that keep CAB programs vibrant:
1. Allocate ample meeting preparation time. Well-established CAB program leaders told me that it is not unusual for each executive sponsor to invest at least 15-20 hours per quarter in preparatory activity. Provide the agenda at least a week in advance to participants, and don’t be shy about requesting they complete homework in advance.
2. Select locations conducive to creative thinking and collaboration. Choose modestly upscale retreat settings over over-stimulating adult playgrounds. The managing partner of a management consulting firm based in Seattle recently chose Las Vegas for an upcoming advisory board meeting, and began to re-consider his choice of location.
3. Create a collaborative container at every meeting. Effective customer board meetings begin with a clear purpose and ground rules. Transplace, a supply chain technology firm based in Dallas, launches every meeting with the mission of “Providing a forum where Transplace customers can share ideas, discuss solutions and plan activities that achieve global supply chain excellence.” Marnie Ochs-Raleigh, CEO of Evolve Systems, says: “During the CAB, you should not complain about other clients, employees or competitors. Instead, focus on what is going well and what needs to improve. I also make a point while introducing each person to the group what the reason was they were chosen to participate and provide a 30 second commercial about their skill set and business. In all things, add value and credit where it is due.”
4. Balance structure with white space. Deb Bradley, Senior Vice President of Client Solutions at Verisk Health, adds “In the early meetings, we found that we were mainly the ‘talking heads’ and provided more of a status update. We found that by asking for topics ahead of time, assigning homework, and then scheduling dedicated time on the agenda for open discussion, we increased the value of the meetings. Also, as the client interaction grew, so did the communication outside of council meetings. Clients began using each other as support groups. Issues addressed between meetings were then shared with the group at the next session.”
5. Engage seasoned external CAB experts. According to Luc Vezina, VP of Product Management and Product Management at Kinaxis, “it really helps to have an outside facilitator. We feel uncomfortable telling a very loud customer to allow time for other members to contribute.” Luis Ramos, CEO of The Network Inc., suggests “A facilitator is seen as a neutral party. This encourages open participation and allows members to feel less pressure from the company concerning their responses.” Consider hiring companies such as The Geehan Group and Advisory Board Architects to minimize costly trial and error. Both companies have launched and managed over 100 advisory boards. (full disclosure: I have no financial ties to either firm).
6. Create positive forums for interaction. Ian Knox, VP of Worldwide Marketing for Daptiv, a privately held technology company based in Seattle Washington, suggests smaller lunch breakout groups and discussion topics. Daptiv also invites well-known industry analysts as guest speakers. Some B2B organizations have customers who are very comfortable with virtual meetings. Chris Pick, VP of Marketing for Apptio, designed the CAB to help CIOs run IT more like a business. Their audience feels comfortable using web-based collaboration tools.
7. Implement the best ideas. You want the CAB members to feel heard and valued–respond quickly to their recommendations, and implement the best ones. Every CAB host also shared meeting minutes immediately following the gatherings.
8. Maintain strong follow up systems. Betty Otter-Nickerson, President of Sage Healthcare in Tampa, Florida, recommends virtual web-based monthly meetings. Beware of becoming overzealous with technology. Depending on their learning orientation and preferences, your advisory board members may not prefer crowdsourcing tools and online forums over live face to face meetings.
9. Aim for transformation, not just conversation. The key to CAB longevity is engaging your members in different and deeper ways over time. If you are effective at adding more value to their business lives during each meeting, you will notice that they start helping you solve really tough issues. CAB members naturally begin to care as much or more about the individuals as they do the companies.
10. Conduct meaningful ROI analysis. Colin Gounden, the President and Chief Marketing Officer of Integreon, tracks the growth rate of customer advocate growth and innovation that is spawned by the group. John Fuller, Toro’s Product Manager for the Irrigation Golf Business Division, tracks both the number of individual product improvement submissions received and attainment of year to date product sales goals. By the end of Toro’s latest fiscal year, they exceeded product sales goal by twenty percent. Fuller says “we would have probably met these goals without the Council, but it would have taken significantly more time. Furthermore, our R&D costs would have been higher.” Huang Vuong, CEO of Unisfair, measures customer retention and renewals. Since they launched the Customer Advisory Board in 2009, this technology startup saw retention and renewals for their tier A accounts grow 20% year over year.
Doug Mow, Senior VP of Marketing from Virtusa, reminds us that assessing ROI extends far beyond the sponsoring company’s strategic objectives. “The real value to the participant is the opportunity to be heard.”
READER BONUS: Hear this exclusive interview with Chris Smith, Founder of Arryve Consulting, on launching and sustaining strong CABs.
www.energizegrowth.com/audio/Arryve_Chris_Smith.mp3
In this 33 minute audio, Smith shares the reasons why this 45 employee firm launched a CAB, and the powerful business results it has generated after just three years.
[Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net]
[This post originally appeared in FastCompany.]
Copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
Lisa Nirell is the Chief Energy Officer of EnergizeGrowth®. She helps companies increase their wealth, improve their performance and attract great clients. Since 1983, Lisa has worked with Trend Micro, Zappos, BMC Software, Microsoft, IBM, and hundreds of entrepreneurs in nine countries. Lisa is also an award-winning expert speaker, business columnist and the author of “EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.” To download your five complimentary educational bonuses and sample chapter, visit www.energizegrowth.com and register for EnergizeNews.
Our previous post outlined the essential definition and purpose of a customer advisory board (CAB). If you are embarking on this effort, be prepared for the potential to generate breakthroughs you never imagined.
During my interviews with advisory board experts and over two dozen B2B firms, I discovered nine strategies for designing an effective CAB. Many of them shared some impressive ROI from their program. These strategies will give you a foundation for success and will minimize time-wasting planning activities.
1. Define the purpose of your CAB. As stated earlier, do not confuse a CAB with a focus group, product user group, one time symposium, or client recognition event. According to Simon Angove, CEO of GMT Corporation, “Our advisory board has four key goals. First, we want to get our clients involved in early release programs so they can act as references when the product is released. Second, our board formally influences our products’ strategic direction. The result is a better quality product that is field-proven. Additionally, the board members act as ‘trusted advisors’ s on how GMT can act on key trends. Finally, the board provides a formal channel through which customers can share best practices and offer advice.” It’s no accident that GMT has boasted a 95 percent client retention rate over the past five years.
2. Create a written profile of the ideal CAB member. Keep your executive team at bay, and do not invite anyone until the profile is documented. For example, do you want them to be influential industry pundits? Are they passionate about some aspect of your business, such as employee development and retention, marketing, or federal tax laws? If you strictly invite your biggest clients or industry celebrities, you may later be thrust in an uncomfortable position to fire that member.
3. Give yourself ample time to recruit members. Bob Arciniaga, founder of Advisory Board Architects, asserts that “most people don’t understand that building an advisory board is going to take 150 hours and 4-6 months to identify and recruit members.” Provide member candidates ample time to consider your invitation; with their busy schedules, they may need at least a month.
4. Establish clear expectations with potential new members. A minimum of five days’ effort per year is a common time requirement. Much like a board of directors, your CAB needs time to prepare for meetings, contribute to the agenda, and reach out to other members for input.
5. Keep the group small and intimate. Among the twenty-eight B2B companies I interviewed, those with longstanding, highly collaborative groups averaged six to fifteen members. When groups expand beyond that size, they are forced to divide the group into special interest areas, and managing discussions can become unwieldy.
6. Mix it up. C olin Gounden, President and Chief Marketing Officer of Integreon, hosts a board which comprises an equal number of existing clients, top-tier clients, and a few prospects. The group also includes one or two industry thought leaders and executive board members. He has found that a variety of backgrounds creates a draw.
7. Address the compensation issue early. At a minimum, plan on covering out-of-town members’ travel and living expenses. If they are locally based, provide a modest but memorable event at an upscale location. As a special bonus, consider donating fees to their favorite charity. Some firms deduct their advisory board fee (typically $500-$1,000) from a future engagement or product invoice.
8. Develop a written advisory board member agreement. This should include an indemnification clause that holds members harmless from any damages, losses, suits, and fines against your firm. The agreement should also stipulate time expectations and grounds for termination. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. Consult your legal team to generate a simple, straightforward agreement.
9. Stay fluid. Since every CAB has a shelf life, be prepared to replace up to a third of your members every year. You will achieve milestones that your group helped you reach. As your company reaches the next level of growth, naturally seek out different talent. Ask your group to recommend new members. Their willingness to help is a clear sign that you have succeeded with your CAB.
Bob Arciniaga, founder of Advisory Board Architects, comments that “most B2B and professional services firms (e.g., legal, financial, engineering, staffing, architecture, etc.) can be helped by a CAB, as their businesses are highly competitive and commoditized with few differentiating factors between them. Having a group helps a firm understand how it can better market, price and service those clients to meet their exact needs while expanding its market penetration. In these challenging economic times, who couldn’t benefit from this type of business intelligence?”
I couldn’t agree more.
[Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net]
[This post originally appeared in FastCompany.]
Copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
Lisa Nirell is the Chief Energy Officer of EnergizeGrowth®. She helps companies increase their wealth, improve their performance and attract great clients. Since 1983, Lisa has worked with Trend Micro, Zappos, BMC Software, Microsoft, IBM, and hundreds of entrepreneurs in nine countries. Lisa is also an award-winning expert speaker, business columnist and the author of “EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.” To download your five complimentary educational bonuses and sample chapter, visit www.energizegrowth.com and register for EnergizeNews.
If you were the VP of Marketing of an Atlanta-based technology firm three years ago, chances are you were not having fun.
Jill, the VP, was working diligently in her office one day when the CEO walked in to pay a visit. The CEO, Don, proudly announced that he was ready to fund a customer advisory board (CAB). The company just recently received a hefty VC financial boost, and the CAB would help them grow faster.
Or so he hoped.
Don hand-picked the members he wanted to invite–over 30 individuals–and Jill had no say in the group nominees. Over a two year period, the CAB experienced sixty % turnover. Group members were tired being used primarily as a test bed for new innovations. The CAB disbanded with little fanfare.
When I recently interviewed more than 30 B2B companies with CAB experiences, similar debacles were reported more often than you would think.
What is a CAB?
If you are considering building a CAB program for your organization, tread carefully. Begin first with understanding its true purpose.
A CAB is defined as an ongoing customer membership program. Ideally, it contains fewer than 16 members. Well designed programs help B2B companies:
- Refine and validate strategic plans.
- Radically improve customer service.
- Uncover new product and service opportunities and ideas.
- Deepen customer relationships.
- Provide value added, confidential discussion forums for customers and industry allies.
Here is what a CAB is NOT. It is not a collection of hand-picked friends and diehard fans who will perpetuate  groupthink.
The Purpose of a Customer Advisory Board
Customer advisory boards differ from focus groups, impersonal satisfaction surveys or celebratory recognition events. They are infinitely better than relying exclusively on your sales team to report second hand information. Most importantly, they serve to create a long-term, collaborative container for deepening your customer relationships and community impact.
While researching companies who deploy CABs, we found that their sponsor companies had several common traits:
- They are sincerely growth-oriented.
- They believe in gathering unfiltered feedback to refine their future plans and services.
- They are passionate about developing trusted advisor relationships with senior decision makers and industry influencers–and making a difference.
- They need to adapt quickly to industry and regulatory shifts to ensure continuity.
- They are action-oriented, and are willing to implement actions that advisors recommend.
If these traits describe your firm, you may just be well-positioned to build a strong CAB program. In our next article, we will discuss nine strategies to design an effective Customer Advisory Board and myriad examples of companies with high performing boards.
Until then, keep your office door closed and your CEO distracted.
[Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net]
[This post originally appeared in FastCompany.]
Copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
Lisa Nirell is the Chief Energy Officer of EnergizeGrowth®. She helps companies increase their wealth, improve their performance and attract great clients. Since 1983, Lisa has worked with Trend Micro, Zappos, BMC Software, Microsoft, IBM, and hundreds of entrepreneurs in nine countries. Lisa is also an award-winning expert speaker, business columnist and the author of “EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.” To download your five complimentary educational bonuses and sample chapter, visit www.energizegrowth.com and register for EnergizeNews.
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