What Are You Waiting For?

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Steven Waters

Let’s face it, there are some brands that are so iconic that, to advertise, all they need do is print their logo.  Those that come easily to mind are Apple, Nike, Ford, Volkswagen, Target, IBM, GM and Virgin.  Certainly there are others but the point here is that these companies have invested lots of money and time to create and sustain their brands in the mind of their customers.  So, how should an organization that traces its history all the way back to the second half of the 15th Century market itself?  And, oh by the way, the organization is a secret one!

The solution?  Take out full-page advertisements in London papers.  The adverts must include lots of words printed in a tiny font and no logos should appear anywhere on the page.  Seriously?

Seriously.  According to The Guardian, that is exactly the approach taken by M&C Saatchi when Britain’s MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service) decided to launch a new recruitment program titled What are you waiting for?[1]  In a brilliant move, M&C Saatchi composed the advertisement to be so completely different from all the rest that they created something akin to Volkswagen’s “Think Small” campaign.  You’ve got to read the entire advert to even figure out what it’s all about and who is doing the advertising.

MI6AdvertObviously, MI6 isn’t just interested in anyone joining the organization.   They expect a minority of readers to even read the advert by pointing out in the third paragraph that, “Only 17% of people ever read adverts past the headline.”  If you persevere to the end, you’ll find that MI6 is serious about its recruitment and its secrecy.  “You may feel like talking to friends or family about this, “ they write, “That’s completely natural and will end your application process before it’s even started.”

An article in the Daily Mail quotes a spokesperson from the Foreign Office as saying that the campaign is “designed to attract people from a wide variety of backgrounds who have the skills we are looking for, but for various reasons may not have considered a career in MI6…it is important that we continue to ensure talented people consider the Service as a career.”[2]  MI6 is reaching out to a very refined, specific audience.

No one will ever know the efficacy of these advertisements; after all, its success is a secret.  My guess is that they are highly effective because the design targets the right audience; precisely intriguing the qualified few that MI6 is seeking to hire.  Herein lies the lesson:  too many organizations misspend their advertising resources.  The Pareto principle works in advertising just as well as in any other endeavor, 20% of your audience is going to produce 80% of your revenues.  Like MI6, your organization wants, and needs, a refined customer base.  You want to motivate them to do business with you and a great way to do that is to differentiate yourself from all other competitors for customer mindshare.

In my consulting work, I am surprised at the number of clients who look to see what their competitors are doing and copy their actions.  While they may tailor their activities to their own businesses, client and competitor mostly do the same thing.  So be bold, break from tradition, use a different approach focused on the top 20% of your customers.  If an organization with a history dating back to the 15th Century can learn to do it, why not yours?  What’s holding you back?  What are you waiting for?

[1] The name’s Saatchi – M&C Saatchi. (2012, February 3). The Guardian [online]. Retrieved May 8, 2013, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2012/feb/03/mi6-ad-newspaper-advertisements.html

[2] MI6, the not-so secret service: Agency opts to advertise for staff using full page newspaper advert. (2012, October 28). Daily Mail [online]. Retrieved May 8, 2013, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224611/ MI6-secret-service-Agency-opts-advertise-staff using-page-newspaper-advert.html

Posted in sales and marketing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

WWJCPD?

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Steven Waters

J.C. Penney’s Board of Directors took a bold step in luring Ron Johnson from Apple to become CEO.  It looked like spectacular coup.  After all, Mr. Johnson’s tenure at Target Corporation was legendary as was his innovative retail concepts that have made the Apple store into a retail powerhouse.  However, reinventing a 111-year-old retail chain proved to be a risky adventure.  Under Mr. Johnson’s leadership, J.C. Penney initiated a series of rapid changes that included dropping certain brands and eliminating coupon programs.  These changes were often done without customer testing, perhaps an attitude carried over from his days working with former Apple CEO Steve Jobs.  (It was Jobs who famously asked, ‘Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?’)[1]  In all the upheaval of the past few years it appears that J.C. Penney lost sight of their biggest asset – their customers.

Last month, J.C. Penney Corporation tapped their credit line to the tune of $850 million to shore-up inventory and pay for store remodeling.  At issue is whether the company can lure back the traditional J.C. Penney retail customer.  That job now falls to returning J.C. Penney chief executive, Mike Ullman.  Balancing financing with decisions regarding how much of Mr. Johnson’s strategy to keep and/or jettison is a top priority for Mr. Ullman.  It remains to be seen what will be the impact of the credit line infusion and if the J.C. Penney Corporation will survive in the long run.

All of this begs the question, “What would James Cash Penney do?”

James Cash Penney

James Cash Penney

James Cash Penney’s original store was called The Golden Rule Store and was opened in Kemmerer, Wyoming in 1902.  He only accepted cash for payment at his store, believing that debt was an enemy to his customers.  “Penney’s store was successful because his customers liked the merchandise and good service [and] the store name represented his religious beliefs and gave him a business motto.”[2]

Penney was able to quickly grow his business and, in 1913, changed the name to the J.C. Penney Company.  The company’s motto was “Honor, Confidence, Service, and Cooperation.”[3]  Although successful, James Cash Penney was no stranger to difficulty and tragedy.  Two of his wives had died by the time he was 43 years old.  As the Great Depression gripped the economy in the early 1930s, Penney almost lost everything – his fortune, his family, and his life.  “I was at the end of my rope, he said later. “My business had crumbled, my communications with colleagues had faltered, and even my…wife and our children were estranged from me.  It was all my fault.”[4]

It was at this point that James Cash Penney entered a sanitarium for rest and medical attention.  In the sanitarium’s chapel, Penney found something that would change the rest of his life.  “It was a life-changing miracle, and I’ve been a different person ever since…In the midst of failure to believe, I was helped back to believing.”  He had rediscovered his Christian faith.  He acknowledged that his mistake was in trusting success – not in God.  “Is not service part and parcel of business?  It seems to me so,” Penney would later write, “If we follow the admonition to love God, and our neighbors as ourselves, it will lead us understand that, first of all, success is a matter of the spirit.”[5]  James Cash Penney went on to greater financial success and established many charitable enterprises, including shoring-up the finances of The Bowery Mission in New York and over 100 other organizations around the world.

Perhaps, under Mr. Ullman’s leadership, J.C. Penney can revisit its past in order to position itself for the future.  As James Cash Penney believed, debt can enslave you.  Penney also never lost sight of the customer, dedicating himself to the Golden Rule and making service part and parcel of his business.   There is no better time than now for Mr. Ullman to recommit himself, his executive team and all J.C. Penney employees to “Honor, Confidence, Service, and Cooperation.”

[1] Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster. Pg. 190

[2] Historic Missourians: James Cash Penney. The State Historical Society of Missouri. Retrieved April 15, 2013 from http://shs.umsystem.edu/historicmissourians/name/p/penney/index.html

[3] Ibid.

[4] J.C. Penney. Christianity.com.  Retrieved April 15, 2013 from http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1901-2000/jc-penney-11630672.html

[5] Ibid.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Executives vs. The Sales Zombies!

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Steven Waters
© 1983 Optimum Productions

© 1983 Optimum Productions

In 1983 the greatest music video ever produced was released.  Directed by award-winning director John Landis and co-produced by Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones, Thriller became a mega-hit.  According to Billboard magazine, with over 29 million units sold, Thriller is the best-selling studio album in U.S. history.[1]  Thriller’s accompanying music video re-introduced zombies to the public.

Zombies are big business right now and it is estimated that zombie videogames alone are responsible for $2.5 billion in annual sales.  However, as Daniel Drezner points out in his recent essay in the Wall Street Journal, “there’s a real downside to these constant references to the living dead…zombie stories…are relentlessly, depressingly apocalyptic.”[2]

It is not my aim to be depressing nor is it to warn of dire apocalyptic events.  It is my aim, however, to point out that an over-emphasis on rigid sales methodology can create a zombie-like atmosphere and culture within an organization.  Webster defines a zombie as “a supernatural power through which a corpse supposedly is brought to a state of trancelike animation and made to obey the commands of a person exercising the power.”[3]  If this describes your last sales meeting, it’s time to reanimate your sales team by doing something completely different.

When I started out in sales I was “unconsciously incompetent,” as Ken Blanchard used to say.  I just didn’t know what I didn’t know.  As a result, I was trained in a rigid sales methodology.  I needed it because the framework got me productive in a shorter period of time than any trial-and-error method ever could.  However, the longer I used the methodology, the more of a sales zombie I became.  Rather than pick up on my client’s buying signals, I was more focused on getting through the steps in my methodology.  I’ll never know how many sales I lost because I focused on the methodology, not the client.  I was in “a trancelike state.”

Now there is nothing wrong with implementing a good sales methodology and there are many positive examples out there for you to review.  The reality is that very few executives take the time to manage the process, mentor their salespeople and inspect the things that really matter.  Executives often make the decision to fund the implementation and delegate the task of managing it to others.  Unfortunately, I can cite too many examples of large Fortune 500 companies that have implemented multiple sales methodologies over the years simply because they never actively managed the process.  In this way, multiple generations of sales zombies get created.

It is notoriously difficult to kill a zombie.  In order to positively reanimate your sales teams, you’ve got to take a proactive approach to sponsoring and mentoring change.  Louis V. Gerstner, former CEO and Chairman of IBM states, “Too many executives don’t want to fight the tough battles of resurrecting, resuscitating, and strengthening their base business.”[4]  Without inspecting what you expect out of your sales team you inadvertently create a lack of focus.  “Competitors rejoice at, and prosper from, the lack of focus,” says Gerstner, “And the company ultimately sinks into a deeper hole.”[5]

So, let’s kill off those sales zombies by changing the focus away from methodology by inspecting what we expect out of our sales organizations.  Doing so will focus the organization, strengthen the base business and limit the impact of competitors.  Don’t be afraid of those zombies!  After all, “any species that has managed to invent duct tape, Twinkies and smartphones stands a fighting chance against the living dead.”[6]

[1] Greenburg, S. (2012). Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ at 30: How One Album Changed the World. Retrieved April 15, 2013 from http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/473949/michael-jacksons-thriller-at-30-how-one-album-changed-the-world

[2] Drezner, D. (2013, April 5). The Lessons of Zombie Mania: From TV to CDC brochures, the living dead are everywhere.  What’s behind this apocalyptic fixation? Wall Street Journal [online], essay. Retrieved April 15, 2013 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323611604578398952000653448.html?KEYWORDS=zombies

[3] Zombie. (2000). Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4th ed.) Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.

[4] Gerstner, Louis V. (2002). Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? New York: HarperCollins. pg. 220.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Drezner, D.

Posted in Sales Strategy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

It’s OK, Dad – You Used To Be Cool!

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Steven Waters

These were the actual words used during a telephone conversation with my daughter a couple of years back.  I have to admit, it’s tough when you are no longer “cool.”  I mean how, exactly, do you get your “cool” back if you’ve lost it?  The good news, I suppose, is that I’m not alone.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg News, Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, stated that “we used to have these ads, I’m a Mac and I’m a PC, and the Mac was always the cool guy. And ouch, it’s painful, because we kind of are losing that. ”[1]  The perception that Apple has lost its “cool” has been actively exploited by Samsung.  During last year’s “Next Big Thing is Already Here” ad campaign, Samsung turned Apple’s cool and hype against itself when Apple announced the iPhone 5.  Since then, much has been written about Apple’s cool being stolen by Samsung.  Setting aside the feature/function/benefit equation between the two products, Samsung’s gambit was simply brilliant.

In the end, however, what makes Apple or Samsung “cool?”  Is it simply marketing hype or the actual technology?  The answer may be a bit more complicated.  Take for example a car that was conceived by Adolph Hitler and driven by Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox,” during the World War II battles for North Africa.  Seriously, how do you take something conceived by a satanic dictator and sell over 22 million copies?

Think Small

The 1950s in the U.S. was the era of “thinking big.”  Detroit was pumping out cars that were big: Buicks, Pontiacs, Cadillacs, DeSotos, Chevrolets – all of them with big engines and oversized features.  Some even sprouted fins.  “The dominant culture of the time urged consumers toward believing that the answer to life’s ills was in acquiring more, and this resulted in the well-known inertia of trying to keep up with the Joneses.”[2]  During this time, big was considered “cool.”  It would take a small, boutique, advertising agency to change all of that.

Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) was considered a quirky advertising agency.  They didn’t represent any of the Big Three automakers that were all making big cars.  DDB represented a German automaker that made an unusual automobile that was compact and powered by an air-cooled, rear-mounted engine.  To the eye, it looked like the antithesis of the American car.  Designed by Ferdinand Porsche, the VW Beetle was well engineered, good on gas, and durable.  It was also inexpensive, making it an attractive alternative to American cars and opened-up new consumer segments.

thinksmall

DDB’s “Shot heard ’round the world.”

DDB did the exact opposite of what all the other advertising agencies were doing.  Instead of extolling the “bigness” of their competitors’ products, they encouraged American consumers to “Think Small.”  The ad became DDB’s “shot heard ‘round the world.”[3]  DDB was able to tap into the unexpressed feelings of the consumer and immediately created a cult following for both the VW Beetle and the ad itself!  All of a sudden, the Beetle was “cool.”  “DDB’s Volkswagen campaign is considered to this day to be the best ad campaign ever conceived.”[4]  The campaign assured DDB instant stardom.

Clearly, “cool” requires that a product (or a person) be unique, have a distinct purpose, function on a higher level than the competition, and be reliable.  All of those things get you on the playing field, but they are not enough.  The product needs to be marketed in a way that sets it apart and connects it to the feelings of the consumer.

Is Apple losing its connection to the consumer?  So many devices now appear to have the same functionality and Samsung is taking advantage of the situation.  The battle of “Cool” isn’t over.  It will be interesting to see what Apple does next to recapture the space once inhabited by the Beetle.

Tremendous insight can be found within the pages of Andrea Hiott’s book, Thinking Small: The Long, Strange Trip of the Volkswagen Beetle.  I highly recommend it to you.  If you read it, please let me know your reaction.  If you do, I’ll think you are pretty cool!


[1] Kleinman, A. (2013, February 20). Yet Again, Steve Wozniak Is Worried Apple Is Losing Its Cool. Huffington Post [online], Tech. Retrieved February 27, 2013, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/steve-wozniak-apple_n_2725276.html

[2] Hiott, A. (2012). Thinking Small: The Long Strange Trip of the Volkswagen Beetle. New York: Random House. eBook version.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What Are You REALLY Doing With All That Data?

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Steven Waters

A couple of years ago I was attending a conference for salespeople that manage strategic accounts in a complex environment.   Having just completed a statistics course in a graduate program, I was intrigued by one of the conference session topics: “Implementing Six Sigma Within Sales Teams.”  I decided to see what all this was about.

To make a long story short, the more the speaker said during his presentation, the more appalled I became.  The premise was certainly admirable: using the principles of six sigma to drive uncertainty out of the sales process and create predictability within sales forecasting.  However, I became appalled when I realized that the speaker regarded salespeople as essentially all the same and that they could be “improved” by more critical and measurable oversight of every aspect of their sales activity.  I’m not against oversight, I AM against trying to make salespeople all the same.

soviet_poster_004_new_accomplishments_comrades_676x530

Soviet Poster: New accomplishments, Comrade!

This need to control sales people has been going on since time immemorial.  We offer our reps sales training that asks them to conform to certain frameworks, we ask them to attend courses in deal management or strategic account planning and we ask them to fill out reports that half the time never get read.  Or we can really go off a cliff and turn them into robots measuring everything under the sun using the latest and greatest six sigma tool.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are currently 2,362,460 non-retail (i.e. outbound) salespeople in the U.S.[1]  Applying the Pareto Principle to that number means that 472,492 salespeople are generating 80% of all salesperson-generated revenue.  I would submit to you that these 472,492 outbound salespeople are the ones that are the most frustrating people to manage and certainly not ones who willingly submit to six sigma measurement.  In fact, the characteristics that make them outshine the other 80% are precisely those characteristics that make them great salespeople.  These are the people who are always late filing sales and expense reports, entering information into the CRM system and letting the office know exactly where they are during the day.

One of the groups that I follow on LinkedIn had a discussion going about how to reign in top sales reps so that they will use CRM and other tools within an organization.  That reminds me of an old sales management joke: “How do you ruin a good salesperson?  Promote them.”  You can also ruin them by trying to make them just like everyone else in your sales organization.  As my Dad used to say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

Over the weekend, I was reading a scholarly article on CRM adoption.  Yet again, I was confronted with the statistic that “60% of web-based CRM software installations are failures.”[2]  That percentage hasn’t changed in 13 years and is a persistent reminder that user attitudes, behavioral response and organizational expectations must be given equal consideration when implementing CRM solutions.  Most organizations originally installed CRM simply because they wanted more data on customer interactions.  Once management saw the myriad of reports that could be generated by the new CRM system, they’d go nuts and ask salespeople to start tracking just about anything management could think of.  I used to sell for a company that designed and built large enterprise CRM systems and sold them to Fortune 500 companies.   They provided all of their salespeople with laptops that had no hard drives in them and all ports were disabled so that no one could download anything onto a flash drive, etc.  So what did I do (as well as most of my colleagues)?  I bought my own computer and used it as my primary customer management tool.  If you think that this could never happen in your organization or is uncommon, you are simply kidding yourself.

Please do not misunderstand me – I believe firmly in training sales people and giving them the tools necessary to bolster their success.  I also believe that it is extremely important to hold sales people accountable and to regularly inspect their performance.  Technology, however benign, is turning sales managers and executives into Soviet-era central planners with an insatiable need to feed the statistical beast with more and more data.  Much of that data never gets used in any significant way.

So what’s an executive to do?

1.)  Determine the 3 to 5 “must have” criteria needed to successfully run the business – It can’t be the 29 to 35 things that are currently being tracked.  It is just not possible to effectively monitor that many variables within a sales organization and to properly analyze its significance on sales performance or customer satisfaction.  Management experts have long advocated for establishing those “critical few” metrics that drive growth, improve team management, and add value to customers.  One very effective way to do this is to map your current sales process and evaluate which steps move the actual sale forward.  Once complete, simply focus your energy on those steps.  You’ll quickly see things improve and you will get a much better handle on the business.

2.)   Stop and analyze where you currently are in the lifecycle of your sales process and management tools (such as CRM) – Be prepared, you may not like what you find!  While serving as VP of Sales for a global company, I found the quality of information in our CRM system to be very poor.  For one thing, the system was extremely unfriendly for the user and had become obsolete.  For another, no one was using the system for anything other than a large Rolodex.  We needed to move quickly to improve our sales and get accurate information back to our Board of Directors.  Out came the spreadsheets and manual back-ups until we could re-automate after replacing our outdated CRM system.  This was a hard decision but absolutely critical to delivering against our overall business metric. (Yes, ‘metric’ is singular here – we only had one measure!)

3.)   Stop punishing the 472,492 top 20%! – Treating your entire sales organization the same is a recipe for disaster.  Granted, some salespeople need additional training and thrive after its implementation.  Most executives I’ve talked to over the years have told me that “the training is great but now what?”  The training just becomes another piece of shelf-ware and behavior remains unaffected – AND THE 472,492 CONTINUE TO DELIVER 80% OF THE REVENUE!

So what are you really doing with all that data?  Are you really wringing more production out of your sales department or are you simply placing barriers in the way of productivity?  Is the push for more data driving your top performers out of your business and into the arms of your competitors?  Believe me, it’s worth the effort to answer these questions!

[1] United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site. (2013). Retrieved February 4, 2013, from http://www.bls.gov/data/#employment

[2] I-L Wu & K-W Wu (2005). A hybrid technology acceptance approach for exploring e-CRM adoption in organizations. Behavior & Information Technology, 24:4, 303-316

Posted in sales and marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Singing Cowboy & Cross Promotion – Singing All the Way to the Bank

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Steven Waters

A couple of weeks ago I was suffering from this year’s iteration of the flu.  Barely able to lift up my head, I reclined on my couch and watched television for a couple of days.  I was rewarded with an old black and white film from 1949 called “Riders In The Sky” starring Gene Autry, Gloria Henry, Pat Buttram and, of course, Champion the Horse.[1]

Gene-Autry CBSIt had been years since I’d seen a Gene Autry movie.  When I was a kid, I used to go to the Saturday movie matinee at the Lansdowne Theater in suburban Philadelphia.  You could get in for 25 cents at the time and see great films, including Gene Autry westerns.  Often the old films were part of a double feature with a newer one.  It was a great way to spend a winter’s afternoon.  Gene’s movies were always filled with music, horse chases and the good guys always won.

The theme song from the 1949 film, (Ghost) Riders In The Sky, was a huge hit for Autry.  In fact, the song has been a hit for other musicians as well.  It has been recorded by the likes of Johnny Cash, Dick “King of the Surf Guitar” Dale, The Outlaws and was also a hit for 40s bandleader Vaughn Monroe.  (I even found a jazz version of the song done by Bob James.)  However, as I watched Gene Autry sing the song in his movie I was struck by the power of his marketing.  Every movie in which Autry starred included a set of songs; many of them became hits.  His movies became a vehicle for selling his songs and his songs became promotional pieces for his movies.  This cross-promotion was absolutely brilliant!  Intrigued, I did some digging.

Gene Autry recorded over 640 songs from 1929 through 1964.  He made 93 feature films and produced numerous television shows.  Throughout his career as a “singing cowboy,” he was able to cross promote his work and found multiple ways to make money through endorsements and merchandising.  Simply put, Gene Autry was a merchandising wizard and, beginning the 1930s, “was one of the first cowboy icons to license his name and image to hundreds of products…During the cowboy craze of the 1950s, Autry-licensed goods ranged from comic books to bedspreads to breakfast cereal.” [2] He became so successful that he eventually was able to buy the California Angels and, in 1992, was listed on the Forbes 400.

What are some business lessons that we can learn from Gene Autry?  Here’s a partial list:

1.) Leverage what you have – Gene Autry learned to play the guitar and sing.  He had a clear, mellow voice that even appeals to audiences today.  According to his biographer, however, Gene was not very good at riding horseback and he actually had to take lessons early on in his career.[3]  Meeting customer demands will require additional time and investment to make sure that you are delivering as much value as possible.  While you may not need to learn to ride horseback, you might need to learn new customer service skills, enhance logistics practices, acquire new talent, provide new financial tools, etc., to leverage what you already have in place.

2.) Do what you do well and do it using every avenue available – Gene Autry’s genius was that he leveraged his songs and movies for cross promotion and used it as a foundation for licensing.  People often ask me which platforms work best for marketing today?  The answer is: ALL of them – cross promote your products and services using every method that your budget can afford.  No one, in today’s market, can avoid using social media tools and online advertising and presence in addition to traditional marketing mechanisms.  If Gene were alive today, you’d be sure to find that he was on Twitter.

3.) Let the customer decide the time to change marketing tactics – If you are close to your customers, they will give you plenty of warning signs that it’s time to do something different.  Perhaps it may even be time to exit the market?  Gene Autry made a lot of money by making personal appearances.  He and Champion would show up at events around the U.S. and beyond.  However, by the 1960s, the cowboy craze came to an end.  Gene stopped doing live performances by listening to his customer base, close friends and business associates.  Gene didn’t stop working; he just began working at something else.  We need to be sensitive to our customers as well.  They made still need us, just in a different way.  The only way to know for sure is to remain as close to your customers as possible.  Look for ways to solicit and analyze customer feedback when it is communicated through your sales and marketing teams.

Take the time to learn from and implement these business lessons from Gene Autry.  If you do you, too, will be singing “Yippee-i-oh, yippee-i-a” all the way to the bank!

[1] Riders in the Sky: summary. (1949). IMDb.com. Retrieved January 7, 2013, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041807/

[2] George-Warren, H. (2007). Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry. New York: Oxford University Press. P. 3.

[3] Ibid. p. 129.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Is Your Business Strategy “Out of this World?”

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Steven Waters

Voyager Spacecraft – Courtesy of NASA

On December 3rd, NASA once again captured world attention by announcing that the Voyager 1 spacecraft had entered a new region of space marking its departure from our solar system.  As I write this, Voyager 1 is approximately 18.5 billion kilometers from earth (roughly 11.4 billion miles) and traveling at a speed of 35,000 miles per hour.  Having visited Jupiter and Saturn, and giving the world its first close-ups of these planets, the spacecraft now stands at the threshold of interstellar space.  Not bad for 1970’s era technology!

Once every 175 years the alignments of Earth and its outer planets coincide perfectly so that a spacecraft can be launched in a trajectory allowing it to encounter each planet.  “The Grand Tour,” as it is known, captured the imagination of astrophysicists, space engineers, scientists and even politicians after its discovery in the early 1960s.  A group of specialists met and prepared a plan for exploiting this opportunity and calling it the “Outer Planet Grand Tour.”[1]  The last time that such an alignment occurred, Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States.

For budgetary reasons, the original Grand Tour project was shelved.  However, NASA, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, conceived of a scaled-down, economy version mission using two identical spacecraft that would be launched within two weeks of one another.  Doing so would leave open the opportunity of visiting Uranus and Neptune as well as Jupiter and Saturn while getting an up-close and personal look at their moons as well.

Voyager 1 and 2 were built at a cost of $320 million by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, with funding from NASA.[2]  Included in its design was a unique instrument for measuring solar wind and the charged particles of space.  It is called the Low-Energy Charged Particle Instrument or LECP and was designed by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).  Speaking recently of the LECP, the principal investigator commented that the “device [was] designed to work for 500,000 [rotational] ‘steps’ and four years.”[3] In reality, the device has been working for 35 years and has produced well over 6 million rotational steps!

One thing is for sure: Voyager 1 and 2 will continue to capture our attention and the imaginations of many in the years ahead.  These spacecraft have enough fuel on board to continue to operate over the next decade.

The Voyager Mission has a lot to teach us about the power of a well-planned and executed strategy.  Think about it.  How long does your business strategy last?  Here are some observations about Voyager that we can apply to our current business situation:

1.)  Executive support is not optional – Bruce Murray, Ph.D., was Director of JPL during the first phase of the launch of Voyager.  He quickly realized that he needed the support of the President of the United States in order to gain sufficient momentum for the project and to acquire the necessary budget.  If this didn’t happen, “Budget decisions become policy decisions.  Mediocrity is the likely outcome.”[4]  We need to make sure that our executive officer is 100 percent committed to any strategy that we’ve developed or we might be doomed to mediocre performance or complete failure.

2.)  Work with what you have but make sure it is flexible – The Voyager spacecraft were designed in the early 70’s using the best technology of the day.  After their launch in 1977, both Voyagers ran into technical issues, one of them shortly after blasting off from Cape Canaveral.  (The Titan rocket used for launching Voyager 1 underperformed and could have resulted in the spacecraft failing to meet the necessary velocity to reach its trajectory.)  In dealing with unexpected technical problems, the Voyager support team used every ounce of their team’s energy and experience to overcome obstacles.  We should expect to run into problems during the launch and execution of our business strategy.  Lone rangers need not apply – we need to leverage the energy and experience of our entire team to make strategy a success.

3.)  Challenge conventional wisdom – During Voyager 1’s fly-by of Jupiter, a scientist postulated that Jupiter had a ring around it.  The scientific community stated that this was simply not possible due to Jupiter’s extreme tidal forces being exerted from its enormous moons.  One of the Voyager team members sent instructions to the spacecraft to point its cameras at a specific angle.  Sure enough, the cameras clearly detected the ring.  We need to constantly challenge the conventional wisdom in our businesses.  It is entirely too easy to fall into the trap that “we know better.”  Just as the discovery of a ring around Jupiter sent theoreticians back to the drawing board, we need to go back to our original assumptions for our strategy and test them.  Re-launching is NOT an option!

4.)  Debate, revise and blend – Voyager’s support team had to make critical, real-time decisions.  They did so by debating their options, making many revisions to the code being transmitted to the spacecraft and making sure that they were properly blended with existing instructions.  A major point of failure for business strategy is when the field team receives conflicting messages and instructions.  “This too shall pass,” is an oft-heard lament from field staff regarding instructions from headquarters.  Leverage your team by debating options when strategy changes are necessary.  Revise them according to the realities of the business and make sure that they are blended with the overall message being sent out to the field.

The Voyager Mission was only designed to last for five years.  Instead, it has employed the talents of more that 11,000 people, has lasted for 35 years, and is expected to produce new discoveries through 2025.  How does that match with your business strategy??


[1] Casani, John. Experience with Past Outer Planet Missions. Course Lecture. Alpbach Summer Study Program.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Applied Physics Laboratory. (2012). NASA’s Voyager 1 Cruising on a ‘Magnetic Highway.’ [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2012/121203.asp

[4] Murray, B. (1989). Journey Into Space: The First Three Decades of Space Exploration. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. P. 169.

Posted in sales and marketing | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bangalore, Bogotá & Birthdays

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Steven Waters

Meet Raj.  When I met him, Raj was 13 years old and had been shining shoes since he was a little boy.   It was January of 2007 and I was studying in India as part of my graduate school education.  We were killing some time before traveling to Rashtrapati Bhavan (India’s Presidential Palace) for a private audience with Dr. Abdul Khalam, India’s President at that time.

Phillipa getting the “Raj” Treatment

We stopped at a bazaar and as soon as we stepped off our tour bus, a group of boys met us and were all screaming, “Shine your shoes, Sir?”  Raj was the quickest and got the first job out of our group.  “How much?” my colleague asked.  Five rupees was the answer, about $0.125 at that time.  Phillipa, pictured here, was the first to get service.

I came back about a half hour later.  Raj was shining my professor’s shoes and asked me if I was next.  I said yes.  I sat and listened to him as he talked with my professor.  As he finished, I heard him say, “That will be 20 rupees.”  Hmmm…the price had gone up.  Raj then began working on my shoes.

He was a smart boy with a fantastic smile and dark shining eyes.  Although he did not go to school, he showed a high degree of financial knowledge.  Raj asked me if I thought he did a good job.  I told him it was the best shoeshine I had ever had.  “Thirty rupees,” said Raj.  “What are you talking about?” I said, “You just charged him 20 rupees?!”  At this Raj threw down his shoe shine brush and rags, stood up and said to me, quite indignantly, “Mister!  This is my ONLY business!”  I laughed and gave him 40 rupees.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Common-looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.”[1]  The extreme poor in the world live on less than $1.25 per day.  They are the common people of the world.  The United Nations estimates that 1.4 billion people are living below this international poverty line.  In 2010, 64 million people were pushed into extreme poverty as a result of the economic crisis.[2]  We have nothing to compare with this in the United States.

While in India, I learned of ICICI Bank’s micro-financial services.  Aimed mostly at women in rural areas, where there are no bank branch offices, they sought to provide basic financial services and insurance using cutting-edge technology to help the extreme poor out of poverty.  The subject of micro-finance intrigued me because it provided a mechanism for the transformation of the lives of individuals, their families and their communities.  You see, the extreme poor have the same aspirations as we do.  They want a better life for their families, they want their children to get a good education and they want to help others in their communities.  And just because they are uneducated doesn’t mean they aren’t smart!

Last year my wife and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary.  We wanted to do something completely different to celebrate and chose to join a group of people traveling to Colombia, South America to see firsthand the work being done by Opportunity International.  For over 40 years, Opportunity International has been providing micro-financial services solely to those in extreme poverty.  Operating in over 24 countries, Opportunity now has over 2.8 million clients that are investing in income-generating activities.  These activities are bringing stability to the families of these entrepreneurs and farmers, transforming their lives and breaking the cycle of extreme poverty.

A client visit with Opportunity International

We saw with our own eyes this transformation in the lives of men and women in Bogotá and Cartagena.  One woman, whose home we visited, had started seven businesses: making dollhouse furniture, opening a snack shop, and growing houseplants, among others.  She talked about how each business contributed to supporting her family.  She also talked about wanting business accounting education to help her better manage her businesses.  Her face lit-up with dignity as she spoke! Many of Opportunity’s clients are saving money for the first time and now have access to insurance, financial tools that they could never have dreamed of before.  I believe in micro-financial services for one big reason: it works!

This month marks a milestone birthday for me.  Once again, we are doing something completely different.  My wife and I are throwing a fundraiser for Opportunity International and for Hope Unlimited for Children.  You can learn about the event and our efforts by visiting www.spin60.com.  On the website are informational videos on these programs and how they are actively transforming the lives of those in poverty.  If you are so inclined, you can donate something to their work right from the site.  A donation of any amount would be greatly appreciated.  The Raj’s of this world will be forever grateful to you!

[1] Taken from Letters of John Hay, December 23, 1863

[2] 2015 Millennium Goals, United Nations Summit fact sheet, UN Department of Public Information. September 2010.

Posted in Micro finance | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Sing At Work For Better Performance

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Steven Waters

“Over the last few months I have been traveling all over the country sussing out choirs in workplaces.  Why workplaces? Well, I believe in the power of singing to bring people together regardless of the circumstances.  And it doesn’t matter to me if you are the company director or the man that makes the tea, you have a place in the choir.”[1]       Gareth Malone, Choir Director, Writer, TV Presenter

Earlier this month, BBC Television aired the finals of a singing competition between choirs found within the workplace.  The show was titled, The Choir - Sing While You Work and featured the talents of the employees of Bristol Royal Mail, Severn Trent Water and Lewisham NHS Trust.  It was brilliant!

Gareth Malone with the Severn Trent Water Choir

There are very few programs on television that can bring me to tears.  The Choir is something completely different.  Series creator, Gareth Malone, has taken his passion for bringing people together via music to depressed neighborhoods, schools, the military and, now, the workplace.  In every case, the participants in these choirs see their own lives transformed.  To see and hear the difference this makes in the individual’s lives is one of the most moving things I have witnessed.  In fact, participants rave about the following benefits:

1.)  They see a tremendous boost in confidence.

2.)  They have a respect for the difference of expression among their coworkers.

3.)  Being together as a choir brings them together and they support one another.

4.)  They feel as if they are coming together to do something good.

In this last episode, the three finalist choirs competed against each other by performing at an international music festival in front of an audience of several thousand people.  The preparation was intense and the pressure built as the day of the performance neared.  Ultimately, the winning choir was to be picked by a three-judge panel of vocal experts.

Each choir was made up of people with a variety of titles and job experience.  In the case of Lewisham NHS Trust, their choir was composed of nurses, an anesthesiologist, a cardiac surgeon, various therapists and medical support staff.  And this got me to thinking – each member of the choir has a particular role to fill; soloist, bass, tenor, soprano, alto.  Each member is gifted in a different way.  Yet in the end, the result is an outstanding performance.  After each performance there were smiles all around, participants indicated that they were feeling great and that they truly felt like a team.  One participant yelled out, “We delivered!”[2]  How come they didn’t feel this way at work?

Executives would drool over the performance improvement achieved by Gareth Malone.  There is something significant to learn here.  As you watch Gareth lead the choirs in practice you immediately notice the following:

1.)  He meets each member where they are.  They audition for him and he looks for the bright spots in their performance.

2.)  Rather than focus on the negatives, Gareth reinforces the bright spots at each level of development and provides immediate feedback.

3.)  To bolster performance, Gareth Malone models the correct posture, note, phrasing, etc. and mentors each member in their particular role.

4.)  He finds the appropriate method of getting his point across to the choir.  For instance, in the case of the Lewisham NHS Trust, the doctors did not smile – the result of their medical training.  Gareth found a way to appeal to their scientific minds by conducting an experiment proving that the music sounded better when sung while smiling.  The result? The doctors began smiling while singing!

5.)  He praises good performance when he sees it!  This reinforces the behavior that he is looking for, helps the individual feel valued and builds teamwork.

With all of our performance management tools, process orientation and the speed at which business moves today, we often overlook some simple basics.  Get back to some foundational principles in your organization.  Take a lesson from Gareth Malone and lead your “choir” to an outstanding performance!

 

[1] Cooksley, P. (Producer).  (2012, October 25).  The Choir – Sing While You Work. (Television broadcast).  London, England: BBC Two.

[2] Ibid.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Now He Doesn’t Know The Territory – Part 2

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Steven Waters

Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. – Courtesy, IBM

Prior to being named CEO of IBM, Louis V. Gerstner had served as CEO of RJR Nabisco, Inc.  At the time of his appointment IBM was struggling, its stock price had dropped precipitously and the “blue” was fading off the IBM logo.  There was quite a bit of concern about Mr. Gerstner within the business community and the press.  After all, he was coming out of the consumer packaged goods industry and, before that, was with American Express!  What did he know about technology?

IBM, insular, bureaucratic, bloated, and bleeding cash looked like it was on the ropes.  Gerstner had his hands full.  As he made his rounds within the company, he began to see the enormity of the task at hand.  On July 14th, 1993 USA Today ran an article that stated, “IBM stockholders and customers might have hoped for miracles in Louis Gerstner’s first 100 days as IBM’s CEO.  But that honeymoon period ended Friday – with no major organizational overhauls or strategic moves.”[1]  However, the media miscalculated and misunderstood Mr. Gerstner’s apparent lack of new ideas his vision for IBM.

Overhauling IBM was a herculean task.  Gerstner’s experience at McKinsey & Co. served him well.  He clearly understood “that people do what you inspect, not what you expect.”[2]  As a result, he was able to focus the entire organization on a new set of measures and bring into balance revenue, expenses and profits.  “No company is a success, financially or otherwise, without satisfied customers,” wrote Gerstner.[3] The net result was a world-class turnaround that is now studied in business schools around the world.

Marketing and sales cannot live and be effective by operating in their traditional silos.  Each can benefit directly from understanding the customer’s perspective.  Marketing understands the customer from the macro-view, building from a composite of individual needs across demographics and industries.  Sales understands each customer on a personal level, not just as a certain demographic.  Both perspectives are correct and both perspectives are necessary.  They are needed to inform strategy.

In Part 1, I discussed the need to focus salespeople on truly understanding their customers rather than simply “winging it.”  Now we need to take it a step further, and develop strategies designed to focus our efforts on our most profitable, productive sales opportunities and customers.  Moving your high-potential at-risk customers to the high-value/high-revenue quadrant is critical for long-term growth. Moving your lip-service value customers to the price-driven/transactional quadrant is just as critical.  In some cases, business do not have the right infrastructure in place to support low dollar, low margin business transactions and may actually need to “fire” these type of customers altogether.

This means translating these strategies into action plans and placing the proper measures in those plans to determine their success.  This is hard, but necessary, work.  As Louis Gerstner has observed:

“Proper execution involves building measurable targets and holding people accountable for them.  But, most of all, it usually requires that the organization do something different, value something more than it has in the past, acquire skills it doesn’t have, and move more quickly and effectively in day-to-day relationships with customers…All of this spells change, and companies don’t like to change because individuals don’t like to change.”[4]

Personalize it and ask yourself, “What do I need to do different?  What do I need to value more?  What skills do I need to add?”  It won’t make the change easier but it will focus your efforts and take you to a new level with your customers.


[1] Gerstner, Louis V. (2002). Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? New York: HarperCollins.  p. 56.

[2] Ibid. p. 231.

[3] Ibid. p. 201.

[4] Ibid. p. 231.

Posted in sales and marketing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment