Category Archives: Best Practices

Make your 2012 Resolutions on Mercury Time

Posted on 11 January 2012 by | Leave a comment

Another year dawns… and we go through the time-honored (but not people-honored) tradition of setting New Year’s resolutions.  We set them with the best of intentions, yet forget them and quickly fail.   You can either continue with what you tried last year (did it work?) or make some changes.  This year make your resolutions on Mercury time.

Make this year different.  This year, instill revolutionary change:

  1. Be selective and intentional – not all goals are created equal.  Choose fewer goals.  Choose the right goals, those that will matter in your life and your business.  Lose 20 pounds?  Or exercise 20 minutes daily?  Grow revenue 25% annually?  Or close one new deal each week?
  2. Set goals continuously – one of the jobs of a leader is to ensure the goals are appropriate as the environment changes.  To do this effectively one cannot wait until next quarter or next year to assess the goals.  Has your team met the challenge to close a new deal a week?  Set the bar higher.  Don’t wait for the earth to circle the sun again.  Do it now.  Too hard?  Then at least consider setting goals as Mercury circles the sun (every 88 days).
  3. Track results with a vengeance – where are we?  Assuming you’ve set the right goals, ensure that progress towards meeting them is known, published publicly and discussed in the hallways.  I once worked for a company that launched a company-wide initiative but failed to report results to employees for over 9 months.  The result?  People assumed the initiative was tabled, unimportant, or worse.
  4. Celebrate often –People appreciate knowing that you noticed a goal was met.  If we fail to celebrate or acknowledge we miss one of the simplest ways to build momentum to accomplish more each day.  (Author’s confession: an area for personal development.)

The pivot point is to set fewer goals that have more meaning and to focus on them relentlessly.  If we set our aspirations on the basis of the earth’s path around the sun, we would be better suited to becoming farmers than business people.

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The Third Secret – Targeting Qualified Prospects

Posted on 3 October 2011 by | Leave a comment

The third secret customers keep from you is which [future] customers to target.  If you knew the answer to this question, you could grow your customer base in a cost-effective way by amortizing customer acquisition costs across a larger number of clients.  There are two ways this may occur:

Wanted: Qualified Prospects

Ask for Qualified Prospects

Customers tell your company who would benefit from your product.  This information won’t appear magically so you have to ask for it.  (Note: some companies offer referral bonuses for this information.  I’m against such perks because they introduce a quid pro quo aspect that resembles pork-barrel politics.  Better that your product is so strong that they feel like their reputation will be enhanced in the process.)  The company actively and directly participates in this method.

Earn Qualified Prospects

Customers tell their contact that you would help them solve a problem.  This method is word of mouth (WoM) marketing and is one of the premises behind NetPromoter Scores.  To make it work, the customer’s experience with your brand must be so positive (or cult-like in the case of Apple) that consumers purchase goods and services to be part of the experience.   The company actively but indirectly participates in this method.

Gain Customer Trust

Regardless of which method you choose, your goal is to gain customer trust through a valuable customer experience:

  1. Know thy customer
  2. Create a great product that meets customer goals
  3. Support the customer like they’re the last customer on earth
  4. Develop some market buzz by appealing to perceived customer needs
  5. Laugh all the way to bank like Apple

The pivot point in this secret and others is that customers must trust your company and brand.  Products and service must work together to create an experience that customers value.  When this work is done customers become willing to reveal qualified prospects and interactions become collaborative endeavors which benefit company, customer, and shareholder.

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Aligning your Business to Customers: Pillar 3 – Communication

Posted on 5 July 2011 by | Leave a comment

In earlier posts we’ve focused on how important employees and products are to ensuring the business is aligned to your customers.  In this post, we’ll look at how communication helps your company align with customers.

  1. Listen and Understand the ‘Need’ – Technology companies often miss this piece.  Very ‘cool’ technology that doesn’t meet a need will not be turned into revenue.  Recognize that the ‘need’ will be different depending on the audience.  The user may need new features; the buyer may need different contractual terms.  But each of these elements (and more) makes up the total experience and must be considered.  It sometimes helps to map the customer experience from the first interaction (e.g. learning about you via billboard, website, radio jingle, etc.) to the purchase point, to the point after which they’ve made a purchase and need to receive ongoing support.
  2. Respond – I’d never advocate doing everything your customers ask (rejection is good in business) but you should respond in some way.  Some companies set up automatic mechanisms where the feedback is self-evident (for example, online voting where results are visible).  Customers know that a certain number of votes are required before an idea is considered and learn not to expect anything for unpopular (read: not profitable) ideas.
  3. Follow-Through – The most-missed step.  Your brand relies on integrity, just ask Congressman Weiner.  Your company can’t afford to agree to change and remain stagnant.  If it does, there’s no point in listening in the first place.
  4. (Optional:  Claim Credit) – Dizzy Dean is often attributed with saying “it ain’t braggin’ if you done it.”  If you listen to your customers and use their feedback to change some aspect of your company, make sure you (1) thank them and (2) point out how responsive you were.)

The pivot point is that to align your company to your customers, it must start with a commitment to listening, and then continue with a commitment to doing.  Companies that omit Step 3 become known for listening and ignoring (a shaky pillar indeed).

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