Hey Tech Marketers, How About Helping Your Customers Solve Problems
Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing, Organizational Transformation, Product Management, Sales
“Nobody Cares About Your Products (Except You),” is one of the core rules that author and marketing thought-leader David Meerman Scott espouses in his latest book, World Wide Rave, and throughout his other works and blogs.
The most zealous anti-smokers that I know are former smokers. The fact that in hindsight, I can see that I was guilty of being a bit too proud of the features and functions of my own products as a technology marketer makes me just a bit maniacal about David’s product rule as a user and consumer of tech products today. Unfortunately, it seems like there are still quite a few technology marketers out there that did not get the memo.
My Mini-Technology Odyssey:
For the past few weeks, I’ve been in search of a solution that will allow me to better serve my customers and grow my business. My opportunity is to extend my service offerings by providing e-learning services/courses to subscribers to specific audiences. Based on the feedback that I’ve received in teaching or supplementing my MBA programs with on-line offerings and given the time and cost challenges that so many professionals are facing, I’m convinced that it is time to expand into subscription-based e-learning.
What I thought would be a simple search has turned into a quest worthy of Homer. While it is quite possible that I’m seeking fulfillment for a problem that has not yet been solved—a service that will allow independents and small firms to offer e-learning via a hosted platform with e-commerce and participant management functions, I don’t think this is the issue. There are plenty of firms that purport to offer all, most of or parts of this solution. I think.
Here are the Marketing Lessons I’ve Discovered Thus Far:
-Value-chain and systems thinking are foreign topics. There are a myriad of pieces and parts providers that might sell more pieces and parts if they were able to connect people like me with other providers and partners in the value chain.
Instead of focusing on where their offering fits, these firms view the world through the eyes of their products, not the needs of their customers. Remember the old saying that no one buys a drill, they are buying the hole? It’s true.
In one memorable discussion with a rep for a flash authoring tool, he seemed taken aback that I might ask about platforms or other service providers where I could use the output of his company’s offerings. A review of their web site left you thinking that this very substantial organization viewed themselves as the center of the e-learning universe, yet in reality they are just one component provider. Marketing myopia, anyone?
-Feature lists do not equal answers to business problems. Most of the service providers that sound like they might just solve my problem forced me to wade through long lists of discrete, acronym filled feature lists and jargon, only to leave me wondering whether they truly have what I need. What do you do? Who do you serve? How are your offerings solving problems? None of those questions are tackled head-on.
-Once you get a live human on the phone, you want to throw him/her back. Not once have I encountered a rep on the phone that is capable of indicating whether their offerings meet my needs. They either are clueless or they are so obviously incented to sell what they have, that they engage in something that reeks of used car sales tactics.
-Speaking of used car sales: What will it take for you to drive this product home today? I love the vendors that require you to walk on hot coals to gain access to pricing. Most often, they require a demo before sharing pricing with you. Sorry, but life is too short. I don’t care about YOUR SELLING PROCESS! I want a solution to my business challenge.
Tough Love for Marketers:
1. Revisit your website and ask your customers and targeted buyers to tell you whether your messaging and presentation are helping them understand how you might solve their problems. Build content to match your buyers and ensure that it speaks to solutions, not features.
2. Develop a systems-thinking mentality if you are selling pieces and parts. More than likely, no one needs your piece and part in isolation. The better you can relate and link your offerings to other good offerings in the value-chain, the more your prospective buyers will be comfortable in purchasing your offerings.
3. Stop with the offensive, insulting and invasive selling tactics and pricing shell games! You are just pissing us off.
4. Educate your reps. Teach them how to ask questions and help clients solve problems.
The Bottom-line for Now:
Enough with the myopic thinking and feature-focused, jargon-filled gobbledygook that passes for marketing messaging. Help someone solve a problem and you will sell more. Guaranteed.
Leadership Caffeine for the Week of March 30, 2009
Filed under: Career, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills, Life and Business, Middle Management, Performance, Professional Growth, Project Management, Surviving Lousy Leaders, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
A healthy spring snowstorm blanketed the northwest suburbs of Chicago overnight, making the morning cup of coffee particularly relevant as a source of both warmth and energy.
I’m back with a fresh pound of my favorite fair trade Mexican Roast from a great local roaster aptly named Conscious Cup. My first contribution to stimulating the economy today is to let you know that these great people ship.
My second contribution is to encourage a renewed sense of personal professional accountability. Yep, I’m striking a blow against Boss-Blame…that world class sport that so many engage in as part of rationalizing why their own results might just be falling short of something resembling excellence.
Quit Grousing…It’s Wasted Energy!
It’s common for me to hear quite a bit of grousing about the people we work for from attendees at workshops, at client sites or in classes. And while I don’t doubt that there’s a fair amount of truth in much of the talk about lousy managers and do-nothing exec teams, I truly don’t care and neither should you.
Do not let the chucklehead that you work for hold you back! Do not blame the management team for your inability to hit your targets, develop professionally or create a high performance team. The only one in charge of you is you.
I’ve long since concluded that in spite of our best intentions we have a low probability of fixing most of the bad bosses. Our best bet and your best bet is to develop a multi-pronged approach to the situation.
Suggestions for Overcoming Bad Boss Syndrome:
1. Mitigation. Sometimes “Bad Boss” syndrome can be mitigated by changing your own behavior. I’ve observed many situations where the boss has issues and the individuals that report to him or her have no qualms publicly depicting their lack of respect. While that might in some perverted way feel good, it is wrong.
Try using judo on the situation and increase your efforts to be respectful and helpful and to portray a genuine sense of empathy for the burdens that this individuals bears as a leader and as a person. Hey, no guarantees here, but you’ll be the better person for trying, and it might be you some latitude in the workplace.
2. Partnering. I work with many different project teams in IT and new product development, and I can predict with near certainty the top reasons that will surface in the post-mortem on failed projects. You know the issues as well, and yes, most of them have to do with people and leadership. (An oft-quoted E&Y study indicates that 80% of the reasons associated with poor project performance are tied to people.)
Work on a few project teams, and you can predict the problems like clockwork. Estimates will be off…people sandbag or play politics. The matrix gets in the way…people have multiple priorities and are not linked to one team. The sponsor spends her time jetting around Asia and is never present at critical times to do what a sponsor is supposed to do. And so on.
What is stopping you from working with your peers to focus your collective energies on eradicating the mostly controllable and predictable problems that bedevil so many teams? Nothing! If the project manager lacks the leadership savvy to broker resolutions and build a performance culture, jump in along with your peers and help out. Have an ineffective sponsor? Either educate him or her on the role or seek out a new one. There are few problems that arise that are dependent upon those upstream.
3. Your Personal Pursuit of Excellence:
In the final leg of my bad-boss mitigation & you must develop your own sense of accountability rant, this is for all of you first-time or mid-level leaders that are not getting the support and coaching that you genuinely should receive. Get over it, and make certain that you go to extraordinary lengths to give to your colleagues in spades what you are not receiving from your manager.
Boss not talked to you about career development? Well, you are in charge of your own career, and oh by the way, nothing is precluding you from working with your team members on their own personal development plans.
Don’t get much feedback on your performance? That’s unfortunate, but it is not an excuse for you not recognizing that feedback is your most powerful performance tool and practicing it constantly.
Does the boss work hard to protect turf and strengthen silo walls? Don’t fall into that shortsighted trap. Become a network broker across organizational boundaries. Learn and apply the art of lateral leadership and diplomacy.
The bottom-line
Just as it is common in life for people to hitch their sense of well-being and happiness to the actions and opinions of others, it is common for people to wallow in business misery because of the shortcomings of our leaders. It’s time to unhitch that wagon and take responsibility for your own business happiness and health. Get started this week!
Management Lessons From the Memphis Belle-Rule #1
Filed under: Career, Crisis Leadership, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Life and Business, Management Education, Management Innovation, Professional Growth
Note from Art: It is a pleasure and a privilege to have Eric Lieberman publishing his Management Lessons from the Memphis Belle as a guest author here at Management Excellence. I had the pleasure of working for Eric and the co-creator of the Rules, Paul Byrne, and it is exciting to see the wisdom that helped us navigate so many challenges come to life here on the blog. Just as the world waited eagerly for the next installment from Dickens to learn the fate of Little Nell, I predict you’ll find yourself looking forward to future installments of these creative, powerful and practical rules for managing and leading.
Sometimes the power of a rule is found in its exceptions
When my father learned that I had been drafted by a board of directors to lead a failing software company through a financial turnaround, he reacted: “But, what do you know about running a business?”
The words stung – but he was right: I knew nothing. I’d been an attorney for a wide variety of businesses for years – but had never been responsible for a bottom line, never done a budget, never managed people and had never created a strategic plan!
I began looking everywhere I could for advice. I devoured business and management books by the carload. Most often, I found good counsel in the talented people – like Art Petty – that surrounded me. They brought the experience and skills to the corporate table that I lacked. But, the single most unusual fount of wisdom came one night when my CFO, Paul Byrne, and I drank a bottle of Thompson’s Bourbon Whiskey in the corporate house we shared in Wisconsin and watched the 1990 movie The Memphis Belle.
The namesake of the movie is an Army B-17 WWII bomber (“Flying Fortress”) whose crew had flown 24 missions into enemy territory. According to military policy, the crew would return home if they returned safely from their 25th mission. The movie tells the story of that final mission.
We were in the early days of our trench warfare trying to save the company, so it was natural that we felt a kinship with the pilot and crew of the Belle. As we drank and watched, we began to discover business rules and management lessons within the war-movie plot. By the time we were done, we had Ten Rules of Management From The Memphis Belle. Then, Paul came up with an 11th. I cussed and said “you can’t just have an odd number like 11” – so we replayed the movie in our heads and thought of 9 more.
And thus we discovered the 20 Lessons From The Memphis Belle. We had them printed up on little cards and handed them out to employees. We gifted them to strategic partners and customers. We printed them on posters and hung them in our offices. When we ran into a hard issue in the business we would refer to the Rules: more often than not there was a rule that was right on point. Each time we’d be amazed, but then we’d say: “Ah! The Rules know all!”
I credit these rules with getting me through difficult times. Even today, after leaving the company upon accomplishing a turnaround and eventual sale, I see the continued applicability of these rules to the difficult times we face today. And so, when Art offered some of his blog space for me to do “my thing”, I jumped at the chance to share these rules with a broader audience.
Today, and in weeks to come, I am going to share the rules with you, describe their origin in the movie and illustrate their applicability with some real-world stories. its not mandatory – but you might think about renting the movie and watching it along with these articles.
Ironically, rule number one echoes my father’s comments to me:
Rule No. 1: Don’t pretend to do jobs you’re not trained for!
Val, the bombardier of the Belle, boasts that he has medical training. But when one of his crew-mates is seriously wounded by enemy gunfire, the bombardier must admit to having had far less medical expertise than he had claimed. Val proposes that the only way to save the wounded crew member is to parachute him into enemy hands and hope that he is rushed to a hospital. “Bad plan” say the rest of the crew, and the bombardier successfully treats his wounded mate despite his fear and sense of inadequacy.
Despite his lack of training, Val had the courage and resolve to succeed.
It doesn’t fare so well for another crew member that wants to try his untrained hand at one of the big on-board machine guns. Convincing the real gunner to let him try, he loses control of the gun and slices through another B-17 sending it crashing to the ground in flames and killing its crew.
Sometimes, it is just plain dumb and dangerous to put people in charge that don’t know what they are doing. But, sometimes…
When I was picked to run the company, I clearly didn’t appear to be a person with the right qualifications. I didn’t have the usual training or experience to accomplish what I needed to do. And yet, the board saw in me certain strengths and qualities that they valued more than traditional qualifications. For example, an old law partner told them that I was a “workaholic, he will not rest until the job is done”. And, they made a good call: I succeeded!
I had a young man working for me who was simply an outstanding person. He’d started in the company as a staff guy supporting the company’s internal computer systems and worked his way up the ladder to head the IT department. Despite his technology training, he proved to be a “Jack of all trades”. He was loyal to the company, a great leader and had a “can do” spirit that was unbelievable. Point him in the direction of a mission – and he would accomplish it without fail! I recognized his talents superseded any particular training he had, and I was able to deploy him in a variety of key company positions well beyond IT services. He was a big contributor to the success of the company. If I had limited him to his trained position – IT – I wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of the broader range of skills and talent that this “Jack” had.
Lesson Learned:
When you have a mission to complete, a task to be accomplished or a job to be filled, take inventory of the candidates and their qualifications. At times, on-the-job training might just be inappropriate. Be alert, though, to circumstances that require betting on a candidate that may be non-traditional. Before you write off someone for a position or a mission, figure out whether they have the courage, the mettle, the “right stuff” to succeed in spite of your perception that they lack the obvious qualifications for the job. Always consider whether the obvious qualifications for a job are really the true qualities that will define success. Don’t simply evaluate candidates – always test the premises of your qualifications.
Next time: Rule #2: Don’t Applaud the Event (especially good news) before it happens!
About Eric Lieberman: Eric Lieberman writes from his home in Evanston, Illinois and is available for comments and consultations and can be reached via e-mail. by writing ejlieberman@gmail.com. Click here for Eric’s personal website and resume.
Values in Action-Helping Your Son or Daughter Choose a College
Filed under: Customer Service, Leadership, Performance, Social Commentary
For anyone who has lived through the process of supporting their son or daughter in the search for a college, it is a truly exciting, perplexing and tiring endeavor. It’s also an opportunity to watch values in action at the various institutions as well as with your own child as they wrestle with what is to them a monumental choice.
First, a word about my son. I have no qualms highlighting my parental pride as I’ve watched him arm-wrestle peer pressure to the ground during this process. Many of his friends are escaping across state lines to “Party U” and their exuberance over staying together and their encouragement for him to join the herd has reached the point where it now annoys him.
This is a great test of character and while he has excellent grades and good test scores and has some options, he is looking at this decision from a very mature perspective. Oh, and just to add some real-world context for his decision, like most of us, he faces some parameters that complicate the decision-making process.
The Parameters:
- In the absence of a clear-cut academic or professional goal, we will support him for in-state tuition, or he can take it upon himself to make up the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition. He is also welcome to move out of state, work for a year and gain residency before starting college.
- If he chooses to complete his general education requirements at the community college, and if he has a clear academic and professional goal at the end of two years, we will support him for the institution of his choice.
- He must work during vacations to contribute to his books and living expenses.
- Four years only and Mom and Dad are done.
He’s in the process of working through the choices, and is considering two very different institutions and the community college route. We are trying hard to not hinder or complicate the process for him. If asked, we offer our thoughts, mostly in the form of questions. We’ve also suggested various frameworks for decision-making, but we are trying hard to not influence his choice. I know what I would do given the opportunity, but the extra 30 years of life experience tends to help simplify the choices. To an 18 hear-old, it seems like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. Stay tuned.
The Values and Performance Commitment of the Institutions:
I have a hard time not letting my sensitivity to values and my quest for performance excellence interfere with my opinion about different academic institutions. In the case of universities, I believe that you learn a lot by how the organizations conduct themselves during student open house events.
The formula is pretty much the same everywhere you go. The visiting parents and prospective students meet in a big auditorium, watch a video or two, listen to the Director of Admissions and hear from a panel of over-achieving students. After a general session, you break out into a College Fair, take a campus tour that ends up with a visit to a typical dorm room (yikes!).
At noon, you grab a quick lunch and then hustle across campus to hear from the academic area that your son or daughter is most interested in. You ask questions, walk around a bit more, and cap off the visit by buying a t-shirt at the bookstore and then embarking on the long trip home.
The formula is OK, and you can learn a lot if you pay attention, ask questions and immerse yourself in the experience. If your son or daughter has strong interests in a particular area of study, these are great opportunities to compare schools. However, for the undecided masses, after you do this three or four times, they all tend to blend together.
Finding Gold in the Corn:
While all of the institutions that we’ve looked at have some great positives to offer, one stands out head and shoulders above the rest. Surprisingly (to me), it is Western Illinois University. This relatively small (by state school standards) institution in the middle of who knows where, IL, definitely has it going on.
Attend an open house at WIU, and you’ll meet and hear from University President, Al Goldfarb and the top executives. Most other organizations roll out the Director of Admissions, but at WIU, the entire management team thinks enough of you to attend, talk and mingle. Mr. Goldfarb stresses values, treats and talks to the students and parents like they are customers and goes so far to offer his personal e-mail address and an invitation to use it.
While one might be able to dismiss the President’s good sounding rhetoric, as you meet and talk with the executives of the institution, you hear the same messages about values and personal care and students as customers over and over again. The cynic in me thinks, “Hmmm, OK, Al runs a tight ship and has his managers singing out of the same song book.”
Start meeting with the instructors and administrators, and the same encouraging messages come through. People talk like they believe this stuff.
Fast forward a few months and bump into a group of purple-clad people in the airport and introduce yourself to realize that you are meeting Al’s entire management group on their way to California. Try as I might to penetrate their P.R. message defense, I can’t. These people are genuine in how they view the world. They are like the old Avis commercial…”They Try Harder,” because they have to.
Our oldest son decided to attend WIU a few years ago, and as we mingled in a room of hundreds at the new student orientation session the Summer before he started I was shocked when one of the university employees walked up to me, looked at my name badge and said, “Mr. Petty, you must be “son’s” father.”
It turns out this was his counselor. Talk about an impression. My memory is fuzzy, but I believe that I went through four years at a remarkable institution, the University of Illinois, and never met a counselor, much less someone that knew my Dad’s name.
At every turn, we’ve been impressed with this lesser known school in the cornfields of Macomb, IL. The other very good institutions just seem to fail in comparison. The passion, the customer-focus and the strong sense of values-based management come through loud and clear at WIU and are missing in the presentations of the other programs. At WIU, you begin to establish context for the people behind the bricks and mortar and at least for a parent, this is palpable.
Our youngest son may or may not attend WIU, the choice is his, but I do know a group of people focused on performance excellence when I see it. Kudos to the team at Western Illinois University. He could do much, much worse.
Leadership Caffeine for the Week of March 22, 2009
Filed under: Innovation, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Management Excellence Tips for Tough Times, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
This week’s focus is on innovation.
It’s time to head back to work and jump-start your innovation-machine. While we all pursue creativity in different ways, mine always starts with a great cup of coffee.
Speaking of innovation, some of my best pots of coffee come from “custom blends” that are nothing more than the last few beans from several different varieties. While purists might cringe, I smile as I sip the always unique, often great but unfortunately unreproducible output. In your case, we are seeking similar results…something that surprises and delights customers, but of course, we want the output to be reproducible.
One of the great things about my view on innovation is that it’s not the sole domain of the engineers, researchers and technologists. My definition of innovation might invite a bit of controversy, but it allows me to extend it to everyone and every function in an organization. There are no boundaries that limit where innovation can take place.
An “Operational” Definition of Innovation and the 3 Leadership Conditions:
Innovation: creating incremental positive value for the firm by solving vexing problems with unique and reproducible approaches.
Easy to say, but the real issue is getting an entire team or organization thinking in those terms. This does not happen with the flip of a switch, but rather is the direct result of your leadership practices.
The Three Fundamental Leadership Conditions for Innovation.
1. You as a leader must have high personal credibility. If you lack credibility, no amount of cajoling, cheerleading, imploring or dictating will matter. People do not innovate on command.
2. An effective working environment is essential. The process of innovating requires people to expose radical and sometimes outlandish ideas. People will only put themselves at risk in an environment where they feel safe.
3. Good team chemistry and problem-solving experience enable innovation. Groups that enjoy working together and have experience in tackling and solving tough problems are capable of remarkable things. Getting a team to this level is of course your challenge.
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Take the three conditions, add in a good crisis or a unique set of opportunities and shake vigorously, and you’ve got the ideal situation for innovation to occur.
We are living in a target rich environment right now, and whether your firm is focusing on survival, sustaining or seizing opportunities, developing a spirit of innovation is critical. Use this concept to help drive fear out of the workplace
Some managers look at their more administrative or infrastructure focused teams and functions and discount their ability to innovate. I’ll push back on that self-limiting view of the world.
I’ve seen remarkable innovations come from marketing organizations, sales teams, IT groups and support departments. In all cases, these groups responded to a crisis or a challenge by working together to do things like cut costs, increase revenues, outflank competitors, improve service to customers, drive more leads etc.
If you’ve got conditions 1 and 2 covered (credibility and working environment), but your team is not used to thinking and acting on innovation, you may need to prime the pump.
- Find a common cause or vexing issue, ideally focused on serving internal or external customers. The more you can link the vexing issue to serving customers, beating competitors or enabling another team to deliver on those goals, the more interesting it will be for your team to pursue.
- Not all teams know how to problem-solve. Teach your team to brainstorm. You may not be the right person to facilitate, so bring in someone from another group or from outside and get out of the way so that people are not encumbered by your presence.
- Ensure that the team moves from brainstorming to selection and implementation planning in an orderly fashion. Some groups go into brainstorm mode and never come out.
- As leader, support the implementation of ideas by knocking down obstacles.
Not every innovation attempt succeeds. Foster a learning culture where failures are leveraged to identify improvements. When you do succeed, make certain to identify why things worked and encourage people to do more.
The Bottom-Line:
The faster you get people focused on problem-solving and in the mindset of “seizing opportunities,” the more effective you will be at pushing fear out the door in favor of value creating activities. It’s time to push the “GO” button on your innovation machine.
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