Excerpt-

“When did the job of selling get lumped in with everything else? Asking a great sales person to clean CRM data, lick envelopes and turn over rocks looking for prospects is about the same as asking your attorney to cut the grass – it could be fun but overall, it is not a good use of skills, time or money”…

Read the article here http://bit.ly/adpHax

This ties-in to the last discussion about “design thinking”.  When you approach your selling effort as a product development process you can learn much more about what is happening.  If you elicit feedback from your market & employees and understand your competition there is a much higher succes rate in building something that is sustainable and repeatable other than a continuous cycle of hiring and firing salespeople.  If you were to step back from the day-to-day and really examine what you are doing, you might find things are very different than they seem. 

Here are a list of things to look for:

1.  Do you know who you are selling too?  Do you have clean data for them?  Do you have a process to manage data collection, cleaning and communication?  Do you have a collaborative technology platform for the data?  

2.  Do you know how to be “useful” in the selling process?  Do you know what “job” you do for your clients?

3.  Do you have a big idea?  (For instance if you sell services you probably say something like this… “We have a methodology, we hire the best people, we have lots of customer references, etc…)  WHO CARES?  Everybody says this.  Come up with a big idea!

4.  Does everyone on your sales team operate at 100% of quota or more?

5.  Have you tried to buy “appointments” or “leads” with little or no success?

6.  Do you print a lot of “brochures” and create lots of PPT’s?

7.  Do you ask your sales team members to do too many jobs?   Prospect, Help Marketing, Find Data, Cold Call, Trade-Shows, Write Proposals, Manage Partnerships, Close Deals, Support Delivery, Account Manage, Grow the Account, Pick-Up Donuts for the office, etc…

8.  Do you execute “something” every month or better yet every week as part of your demand generation process?

9.  Do you use the web as part of your demand generation process?  Not just a request form but strategically using your site, social media, SEO, useful content, video and other things to drive the demand generation engine.

10.  Is finding more customers and more revenue really important to you?  What if you stayed flat?  What would happen then?  What if you hire and fire in a six month cycle again?

IF you can ask and begin to answer these questions you can start designing an efficient, scalable and repeatable sales process.  You can also begin to understand the roles of the people in the process and start hiring the right people for the right job with the highest likelihood of success.

Don’t hire this guy if you can help it!  Even if he is family…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bECV_yF_I0w

My two recent customer experiences with American Airlines kind of made me feel like I ate the brown acid at Woodstock and I was on a “bad trip”

Experience #1

I had a round trip to Silicon Valley and back.  When I went to check-in online the night before leaving (so I could use the cool iPhone boarding pass) I was disturbed to see that the seat assignment I made weeks before was blank and I was not allowed to check-in.  No big deal.  It said I needed to check-in at the ticket counter when arriving at the airport.  Sooooo…  I left for O’Hare early the next morning to try and get the best seat from the pool released the day of the flight.  After waiting in line for twenty minutes I got to the counter and relayed my story.  The guy at the counter said, “Sorry sir, I can’t give you a seat assignment.”  I said WHAT!?  He said “The agent has already taken control of the flight.”  I looked at him with a puzzled look and repeated what he said and just shook my head in confusion and disappointment.  He then half-way checked me in so I could get through security, but I now needed to stand in line at the gate.

When I got to the gate I waited for a minute or two and got up to the counter.  The woman at the counter greeted me and asked me what I needed.  I said “I need a seat.”  She then asked me why, I repeated the whole story and she said, “Who checked you in?”  I said, “I don’t know the guy at the counter”.  She said “let me look”.  Then proceeded to rant at me about how this guy is trained as a supervisor, he does this all the time and nobody ever reports him, etc…”  I said “so he should have given me a seat?”  She said “YES!”  Then she continues to rail on this guy at me, writes his name down and says I should report him.  I thought to myself… Why is this bad employee my problem?  Why is she bringing me into the internal politics of the O’Hare American Airlines staff?  After she got me a seat (The very last row in the back of the plane next to the lavatory and the kitchen) I said “You know, now I know why Southwest Airlines is the only airline making any money.”  She said, “You are entitled to your opinion and I don’t care.  I just go where the money is!.”  I assumed this meant she was part of an acquisition or just got a job with American because they are hiring or whatever.  Regardless, this is one of the worst customer experiences I have had in a long time…

Experience # 2

Upon returning from my Silicon Valley trip me, my wife and my 20 month old daughter all became very ill.  The guy next to me on the flight home looked like he might pass out the entire way.  It reminded me of Monty Python’s “Bring Out Your Dead”.  I assume this is where we got it.    This illness, unfortunately, was cause for my wife and daughter to cancel a trip to Miami for Grammy’s 90th birthday celebration.  This is where the fun starts!

My wife made a call to American Airlines the day before scheduled departure to alert them that they were ill and it was possibly H1N1,  we needed to cancel the trip for health reasons and we wanted to re-book.  They said that was fine but there is a $150.00 per ticket re-booking fee.  Considering the round-trip tickets were only $170.00 each, this was a tough pill to swallow.  We asked if there was something that could be done and the agent said…  “Well, you could travel anyway and just bring a lot of Kleenex and hand sanitizer.”  My wife hung up the phone and told me the story.  I said, “what?”  She said, “Yep that is what they told me.”  I grabbed the phone and called right back in to American Airlines and started over with a new agent.  We went through the whole thing and I told her that we had all been to the doctor and they advised us not to travel, we are sick and could be putting others at risk, etc…  The agent said, “well you could still fly if you don’t want to be charged the re-booking fee, but you booked on the internetand in the fine print it says that there is a $150.00 per ticket re-booking fee and that any new ticket must be issued to the ticketed traveler.”  I then said did you know that on Southwest Airlines if I need to re-book they simply put the total amount of the tickets in an account for travel funds and I can re-book at any time and apply the funds without any “re-booking” fee?  The agent ignored the comment and again referred me to the fine print about the re-booking fee for tickets purchased on the internet.  I hung up the phone!

After some discussion with my wife about “Sunk Cost” theory (Thanks Grad School and Dr. Debra Aron!) we decided that we would probably just eat the cost of the tickets as it did not make sense to commit to American Airlines for another flight and pay $320.00 plus for tickets we might be able to re-book for as much or less than the $150.00 fee.  We felt good enough to take the risk and let the tickets go unused…

The morning of the flight my wife, still very sick, woke up early and decided to be nice and actually let them know that they would not be on the flight and………  Viola!!!  An agent got the call that actually knows the American Airlines policy.  As she asked about my wife’s story she said, “If you went to the doctor and you have a note and proof (which we did) you can fax it to us and we will not charge you a re-booking fee.”  My wife was very excited to tell me this and let me know right away.  I said that’s great, but why did it take so much stress, work and aggravation to figure this out?  She said, “You should write a post on your site.”  So that leads me to today’s lessons…

1.  Southwest Airlines makes it much easier to do business with them…  Simple process, easy to book, change and cancel travel as well as a great staff at all of their customer touch points.  Compare the 10K’s for each company.  I wonder if this has any impact on results?

2.  American has a broken culture.  The legacy culture of we are the “big boys”  you can choose us or United no longer exists.  I suggest they start engaging their customers and understand how to be useful.  (Maybe they don’t care and only want frequent business travelers that are in the “Admirals Club”.  If so, just tell the marketplace and you will not have so many bad stories floating around and probably not as many customers too!  Air travel is like the Greyhound of yester-year.)  Do a google search if you care… http://bit.ly/AA_Google_Search) 

3.  Every interface to the market is your BRAND!  It is not the AA on the tail.  It is not the TV commercial.  It is every interaction a customer has with AA.  From research on AA.com, to time at the ticket counter and everything that happens in between.  You had better start trying to get your hands around this or profits will remain elusive!  http://bit.ly/2Xtr6O

4.  Don’t make it hard for your customers to do business with you and try to make it easy for them to keep coming back!  Bag Fees, re-booking fees, bad attitude, people not doing their job, competing on legacy assets (flight routes and a 30 year old market position) in a “customer-centric” 21st century.

5.  Bring in some fresh talent to AMR and American Airlines.  Get rid of the legacy employees.  Things are changing and if they don’t they will be permanently grounded!

I will do everything in my power to NOT fly American Airlines in the future.

P.S.  It took over a week of faxing, e-mail back and forth and digging for a phone number on google (American Airlines - Customer Relations does not give you the ability to call them.  WOW!  That is a great idea!  Unbelievable, they must have a lot of unhappy people trying to reach them…) to get this resolved.  It was finally fixed and they have rescheduled their trip.  I’m glad I am not going on this trip!  I’ve had enough Brown Acid for a while…

“Have you ever been experienced?  Well…. I haaaavvvveeee….”

Are You Experienced?

I thought I would provide a top 11 list.  Why 11?  Simple, because everyone else counts to ten.  11 is one more…  I go to 11!

If you hear yourself saying any of these or you hear any of these at your company it is time to take a step back and understand… why? 

1.  Business Owners and Executives don’t have time to focus on sales right now.  Too busy keeping the ship from sinking. 

2.  What do I pay the Sales & Marketing people for?  Nobody is reaching their targets!

3.  The economy is really hurting us.

4.  We are working on some new partnerships that should really help.

5.  When I used to run sales and marketing we never had this problem.

6.  We need to try something new!  I am not sure what, but let’s do it different.

7.  Our competition is doing worse than we are.

8.  I think 2010 is going to really pick up for us.

9.  If we just used Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn we would generate more leads.

10.  We won’t be hiring anyone for the next year.

11.  The Holiday Party is cancelled since it has been a bad year.  

Remember if you are hearing any of these you need to stop and ask WHY?  These may be signs that you are not keeping your organization “Ready” or you work for an organization that is not “Ready”.  Complacency Kills!

Coley goes to eleven!

During a recent unloading of the DW, as we call it at home, I realized that Sales & Marketing is the dishwasher of many organizations.  It is kind of there in the corner waiting to be unloaded.  Yes, sometimes you want to get right in there and unload that bad boy and it can be an easy job.  But usually, when that weird platter is in there and you have no idea where it goes and it sits on the counter for two days waiting to be put away, it becomes a crappy job that is left unfinished.  It gets done in the end but only because you know it should get done so you can cook another meal and serve dinner.  Very rarely do you want to dive right in and do it. 

This is very common in companies that do not have Sales & Marketing as a core competency or consider themselves Sales & Marketing focused.  They end up struggling, hiring the wrong people for the wrong job and not understanding the process.  Revenue goes up and down and there is no sustained growth.  Sales & Marketing feels like unloading the dishwasher.  If you are not a Sales & Marketing focused organization do you think you can hire good Sales & Marketing people?  Who wants to go to work and unload the dishwasher?

How can you begin to transform your organization into a Sales & Marketing focused organization? 

At my house we approach it with these 5 steps as a framework…

1.  Cross -Functional Team (Me – VP of Sales & Marketing, My Wife - President, COO, CFO, VP of Supply Chain,etc…)

2.  Good Strategy and Communication (“I will do silverware, you take the platter that I have never seen before.”  We work on opposite ends of the kitchen, we won’t be in each others way.  It’s efficient, goals and tasks are defined and we measure it by how long it takes to unload and whether or not everything is put away.)

3.  Feedback Loop and Adjustment (“Next time can you take silverware and the dishes for the china cabinet in the dinning room?  It is closer to the silverware drawer.”)

4.  Right People, Right Role (My wife puts away the platter because I have never seen it and I do silverware because my mild OCD wants me to make sure it is all stacked and lined up nice in the silverware drawer insert thingy.  This works great.  We may even be excited about our roles but not quite the idea of unloading the DW.)

5.  An Eye Toward Innovation (“Maybe I can strap the dishes to the dogs back and she can carry them to the dining room while I am putting away the silverware?” – The President did not fund this initiative.  Too much risk for our portfolio.  I am safe enough within my working environment to share this kind of idea without fear of being fired!  This is a pretty important point…)

Good luck and if you need help getting your dishwasher unloaded let me know.  I can bring my OCD and my Rottweiler to help you out.  The President is my competitive advantage and is not available for engagements!

Unloading the dishwasher

“True Marketing Doesn’t Just Sell The Story”…

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=138760

As I was thumbing through the new issue of Fast Company I ran across an article about Hot Topic, the teenage mall clothing shop.  It was interesting, as I read it, I realized they were using the same strategies that Malcolm used back in 1975.  They were highlighted in an “Innovation” section of the magazine.

The reason I bring this to your attention is to make an important point.  In today’s world you must know your customer.  You must understand how to bring value.  Not how to sell them stuff.  Hot Topic bet on music as a big part of their business model in the middle of the iTunes rage.  They saw an opportunity in the music market and capitalized on it and as an output sell a bunch more stuff while they are at it.  Sounds crazy right?  Well they happen to be one of a few retailers increasing sales in this economy.   Oh, they also engage their employees in this process and give them ownership and inclusion in the Hot Topic culture.  They are the culture.  Their employee is their customer.  Gee what a novel idea.

Kudos to Hot Topic for taking an old idea from the days of the Sex Pistols and repackaging it for today.  In 1975 they called it a “movement”, “anti-establishment” or a “counter culture”.  I think fancy marketing 2.0  folks call it “Community” today.

Catch the show if you can and look at the Fast Company article on Hot Topic. 

Biography Channel “Sex Pistols” -

http://www.biography.com/listings/episode_details.do?episodeid=385070&airingid=470238

Fast Company “Hot Topic” -

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/rock-solid.html

In honor of our post topic and the history of Rock N Roll…  The Sex Pistols… 

Stop by a Hot Topic next time you are in the mall and see if the style looks familiar…

• The Magic of it all!-  I think it is wonderful that the Internet can facilitate a scope and breadth of conversation not possible before it’s invention.  However, technology will not create this phenomenon on its own.  You need to have a good mission, vision and value proposition all supported by a product or service that meets and exceeds the perceived value the customer has paid.  Oh yeah, you had better also have outstanding customer service.  Money is tight these days and we are changing our opinions on spending money as a society.  It is REALLY EASY to move to a competitor.

• Technology does not equal “no human interaction” – Just because technology is enabling massive reach and capability it does not mean that we have eliminated people from this process.  Let’s put the “social” back in social media.  Mining data about your customer is great but actually engaging them and talking to them live is way more valuable.  This is especially true when your competition is not!  Trust me most of them are not.  They are busy building iPhone Ap’s and cool Facebook sites.  Here is an idea…Pick up the phone.  If you are the CEO call 5 customers per day.  That story will go a looooooong way when you are looking for referrals…  Oops, I mean W.O.M. marketing.  If you think this is silly or you do not have time you should retire.  Things are changing faster than you are.

• MEASUREMENT-  Ahhhhhhh, the Holy Grail of Web Marketing 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever we are on.  Yes there are some things that can be measured.  Conversations, threads, forwards, comments, web traffic, conversions, drop offs, eCommerce purchases, etc…  How about we measure increase in sales and customer service/experience scores?  After all, for profit businesses want to sell more stuff and make more profit right?  And if you are doing that without improving your customer experience you are making it hard on yourself.  I want my customers to sell for me.   I want them to buy from me over and over and over.  Finding new customers is really hard.  Shouldn’t I make sure I keep them once I have them?  Do not get caught up in the nitty gritty out of the gate.  Execute small projects that you can measure very specifically on the two metrics mentioned. 

I have reached the 500 word limit imposed on me by the “blog police” so I better sign off…

GREAT CARTOON FROM Mashable / Hubspot – http://mashable.com/2009/04/17/social-media-cartoon-flitterin/

A quick analysis looks like this…

• Second Place in the Market (AL East)  The evil empire in NY was still the king of the division (Market segment) and MLB (overall marketplace)
• An old stadium that was unpopular with the players (employees) and needed improvements for the fans (customers) to have a better experience
• A business model of trying to compete with the #1 NY Yankees by spending lots of money and trying to copy their strategy without the results
• The model was to go out and try to buy the best available talent or block the Yankees from obtaining the talent

This had delivered exactly ZERO world series titles, but had built a loyal customer base (Red Sox Nation) with limited capabilities for growth within the confines of the MLB business model.  To expand reach, generate more revenue and deliver a superior product something had to change…

So what happened?

In 2002 Larry Lucchino hired Theo Epstein, a Brookline, Mass native to work for the Red Sox coming over from the San Diego Padre’s organization where he started his career.  This fulfilled a childhood dream for Theo.  In Boston, he quickly assumed the GM role for the Red Sox and assembled the first World Series championship team in 86 years in Boston and killed the curse of the Bambino!  This is the end of the story…  Here is where I see the innovation happening…  LEADERSHIP,  CUSTOMER FOCUSED STRATEGY and NEW OPERATING MODEL CREATION.

• LEADERSHIP – The Red Sox took a risk and hired the youngest GM in the history of MLB.  They were told this was a bad move, that it wouldn’t work.  He did not have the skills or the chops to do the job and compete with the evil empire in NY.  They saw the potential and he very clearly articulated his goals and vision for the future.  The Red Sox did not hire a resume.  They hired the skills, the brain, the vision and WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR ME?  not what have you done for someone else.
• CUSTOMER FOCUSED STRATEGY – The Red Sox also simultaneously began overhauling Fenway Park.  They added more seating (revenue) and they updated the look and feel of the park (customer experience & demand generation).  This is key to their customer strategy.  Fenway is a destination.  It is a big part of the business model.  Have you tried getting a Red Sox ticket during Theo’s reign?  The Red Sox now deliver a consistent, high performance product that meets and exceeds customer expectation (THEY WON A WORLD SERIES).  This is a nice look at understanding who your customer is and building a truly customer focused strategy.
• NEW OPERATING MODEL -  Theo was also able to shift the Red Sox focus inside.  His foresight to the fact that you could not continue to win the war by just spending money on talent was well timed.  Theo began to build a farm system that has produced some of the top Red Sox big leaguers on the roster including Kevin Youkilis, Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia, etc…  This shift to the development of talent is a huge competitive advantage in MLB right now.  The business of baseball is very complex with labor relations, free agency, revenue sharing, etc…   To be able to produce a superior product consistently, retain the talent developed and have sustainable growth and success is truly difficult.  This operational model shift has enabled the Red Sox to do this.  They were first movers and it has given them a distinct advantage in the market.  It has put them in position to build a dynasty.  Not to mention the players like the culture they work within, they like their customers and are dedicated to the mission.  (Except for Manny of course.  I would consider that managed turnover!)

Hopefully this provided a fun lens to think about something other than the daily business page and gain a better understanding of change and innovation. 

Innovation is the process and outcome of creating something new, which is also of value! (- Paul Leonardi, Northwestern University)

Let’s Go Red Sox!…..   Let’s Go Red Sox!……

I know Sesame Street has been written about by many people in the past but I wanted to touch on some thoughts that I synthesized recently and hopefully provide a quick, easy way to think about how you do business.  I tried it out at i.c.stars a non-profit organization I work with and it was received well.  (A great organization by the way.  Check them out at www.icstars.org).

Do you operate like Sesame Street?  If you don’t you better start watching PBS and the Sprout Channel!  Here are some things to think about…

1.  Why does your young child watch Sesame Street?  Is it because they are born with the gene?  Do they just know it is on at 7am?  I don’t think so.  They watch it because someone else turns them on to it.  A parent, sibling, grandparent, child care worker, etc…  (Word of Mouth POWERHOUSE!)

2.  Why do you AUTOMATICALLY turn a child on to Sesame Street?  Because you are supposed to?  Because it is in the parent manual?  Because your Mom or Dad did it for you?  Because you need a babysitter in the form of the TV?  I say it is all of the above.  This is because it is perceived as the thing to do, it has no known negative effect (even though there is a lot of debate about how much TV a child should watch) and they will interact with the “customer” on their terms.  i.e.  TV, Internet, Toys, Clothing, Live Entertainment, Sesame Street Amusement Park, etc…  And finally, they have an AWESOME product!

3.  Awesome Product = Deliver Value…  Sesame Street is consistent.  They deliver value whether real or perceived.  As a member of the first Sesame Street Generation I find it amazing that the show follows the same model for the most part that it did when I was young.  This is not an accident.  I have a Cookie Monster T-shirt that my daughter loves.  This is an Adult XL size.  Not intended for children at all.  Intended for me…  The parent to continue the Word of Mouth model and influence model on future customers.  My child, grandchildren, her friends, etc…  They have also extended this consistency to their other engagement points.  Partnership with Fisher Price and other high end toy manufacturers, an excellent web 2.0 type Internet site… blah, blah, blah…

4.  Understand your customer, their buying process and how you engage them…  As a first generation Sesame Street’er I loved the show as a child.  I then went away for about 30 years and jumped back in with my young daughter.  I found it amazing as I mentioned that the show was essentially the same.  They also continue to integrate “old school” clips from when I was a kid.  If you go to the website these clips are labeled as “classic”.  This is an outstanding way to keep your passive customer engaged and keep the pump primed for when I am ready to return.  I may buy a gift for a friend or a niece or nephew and research it on the web or in a store.  When I have my own child however they integrate me right in to the fold without missing a beat, showing me the old clips that make me feel comfortable and bring back childhood memories.  OF COURSE I WANT MY CHILD TO SHARE THE SAME MEMORIES WITH ME!  Sesame Street knows its customer, its buyer and its influencer very well.  They also know how to engage and nurture them through relevant interaction.

5.  Building Blocks…  Now that I have my own daughter and have integrated her into the Sesame Street World what do you think will happen when she has a child and I am a Grandparent?  The influence will be double!  This is almost scary and cult like in its development.  Think about the power of a brand that continues to layer support on top of support through every generation.  This is a concept that you could think about for any consumer product like “My Dad always bought a Chevy”, or “We always vote Republican”…  The difference is Sesame Street continues to deliver a consistent product, continues to innovate new engagement points and creates new business models to continually add value while making it relevant to its entire influencer group and new customer group.  A very difficult task to cross generations and stay relevant.

In all I hope this generates some thought about how you take your product or service to market and how you engage and understand your customers and clients.

Sunny Days….

Your Friend,

Elmo