Census night melt-down was expected

Census night melt-down was expected

Aug 11, 2016 | Governance, Leadership

Human beings are pre-disposed to trust, is it a part of our evolutionary DNA, we need each other to survive. We all know we are stronger in a group, relate to those similar to us, who share similar histories and beliefs, and who are held to us by shared relationships.

We need to feel that someone we know and trust ‘has our back’

British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed in the 1990’s that there was a cognitive limit to the number of relationships an individual could hold at any one time,  of 150, now known as Dunbar’s number.

However, and it is a huge ‘however’, trust has to be earned over time, it is never just given without thought and an emotional commitment. It is this emotional component of trust that leads to the  depth of emotion when we are let down by someone we trusted, because it is not just a let down, it is a betrayal.

Tuesday’s census was a debacle. It makes absolute sense (no pun intended) to collect the data electronically, unless of course the arrangements made to receive the information are inadequate. Predictably as soon as the servers crashed, the inevitability of which was widely assumed outside the cocoon of Canberra, nobody was prepared to recognise the stuff-up for what it was. The Canberra two-step blame game was in immediate view.

‘Of course it was  not a stuff up, it was the hackers’ is not a defence that allays any of the cynicism of the population, sick to death of the self serving bullshit fed to us in the expectation that we will just keep on believing.

Our so called leaders wonder aloud at the drastic decline of public trust in our institutions over the last 25 years, and I wonder why they are so publicly naive, as few of them are completely stupid.

Trust comes with consistent over-delivery on undertakings. We listen to the words, but it is the actions that really count. It is no different in small groups to the whole community, business and elsewhere, we trust those who do as they say, and say as they do.

Our political institutions in all their manifestations have consistently and significantly over-promised and under-delivered over the last 25 years, and that is the sole reason we do  not trust them, and the census night debacle has been met with a collective sigh of resignation to the inevitable.

Credit to Larry Pickering for  the header cartoon

PS. Two further thoughts that occurred during the day.

  1. How reliable will the data really be? I can hear the blathering now, assuring us that all is well, but where have we heard similar assurances before?
  2. Will those who failed to fill in the forms on Tuesday be fined, or perhaps they will the sue the Bureau of Stats for making false promises? Make false promises in advertisements and public utterings in the private sector and you have the the consumer protection grizzley’s after you.

 

 

9 considerations when planning  sales follow up

9 considerations when planning  sales follow up

Aug 8, 2016 | Sales

You never fail to get a sale because you followed up too much, but understanding the inflexion points in the process when you reach them is critical, and it will vary almost every time.

You might follow up poorly, or with inappropriate ineffective material, but the number is important.

Most sales functions operate on some  sort of commission basis, and this encourages cherry picking, and limits follow up, which takes time away from the less obvious cherries. However, there is often great value in the follow up when done well, it builds a depth of understanding that can significantly enhance the lifetime value of a customer, rather than the short term transactional relationships so encouraged by default.

Besides, it is unusual in B2B to make a sale on first contact. There is plenty of research around that points conclusively to the majority of sales happening after the 5th follow up.

So here are some thoughts on follow up.

  • People buy when they are ready to buy. They do not buy when you are ready to sell, at least not without significant inducement. They might be prime prospects, just not at the moment, and failing to follow up risks them not coming back to you at the time they are ready to buy.
  • Pepper your follow ups with smart questions, things that encourage meaningful conversations, and demonstrate you are across the issues that the prospect faces.
  • Continuously demonstrate the value of your solution by demonstrating how it can solve the problem they face.
  • Use old fashioned snail mail with handwritten envelopes and notes. Because they are so rare now, and the investment of time you have made is obvious, snail mail always gets opened, usually read and understood.
  • Have a follow up plan, a sequence that is logical and suites the industry and circumstances of the lead you are nurturing.
  • Ensure the material you follow up with is appropriate to the prospects position in the buying cycle.
  • Make it easy for the prospect to take the next step.
  • Give yourself permission to follow up again. E.g. Don’t just leave a message saying you called, leave one that primes them for the next time you call.  ‘I missed you today, but will try again tomorrow morning at 8.30, as I think this may be important to you’.
  • Try the dead horse approach. At some point, you have to move on when all else fails. However,  before you do, ‘Dead Horse’ is a technique that has some sort of psychological motivation, so it often works, e.g.. ‘I have called and left a number of messages, none of them have been returned. While we are both busy, I thought this might have been important for you, but apparently not, so I will not bother you again. If you would like to reconnect, I would be happy to do so, but until, then, I assume we are done. Have a great day.’

Even doing a couple of these will lift your sales hit rate significantly, so don’t let the ‘hunter’ instinct of many sales people  move them onto greener pastures too quickly.

4 simple measures of Digital Marketing Effectiveness for small business

4 simple measures of Digital Marketing Effectiveness for small business

Aug 4, 2016 | Marketing, Small business

Marketing has always been a bit like juggling. Lots of balls in the air, and everything seems fine until… it isn’t.

Digital has just added significant complication, try juggling on a unicycle.

Many small businesses shy away from measuring the effectiveness of their digital marketing investments, to hard, too small to be bothered, no time. I have heard all the excuses.

Too often they do not even see their marketing expenditure  as investments, they are just table stakes, one of the costs of doing business.

Digital enables measurement of marketing effectiveness as never before.

Why should small businesses miss out? Indeed, their agility is the source of their greatest advantage over their larger rivals, as they can make decisions quickly and act on them immediately, usually before their bigger rivals have finished the first meeting to discuss the situation.

Too often the ease of measurement, lack of real understanding of what the measures mean, and easy availability of pro forma “vanity measures” such as “likes” substitute for meaningful measures that guide decision making and shine a light in the digital corners.

Digital has many paths, many options, and layers, but the common factor in all of it should be the presence of a functional and well maintained website as a focal point of activity.

It makes sense therefore to have a few simple measures of the effectiveness of that focal point.

Following are 4 that I have used effectively for clients

Registration.  It has become common practise to seek email addresses in return for some item of value. In effect this is registration. The registrant is offering you the permission and  opportunity to market to them. The simple measure is the number of visitors divided by the number of registrations. It is in effect the first step in the development of a process that can lead to a transaction, and we have all heard the cliché ‘The money is in the list’.

Activation. This can come in many forms, and is often driven by the reason for registration. For example, how many of those who register for a webinar actually turn up and listen too the whole session. Again this is easily calculated as registrations divided by the activation activity.

Retention. Once activated, how many are retained? In other words, they become active participants in the activities you have on offer. This may be purchasing after a webinar and returning for a further stage, perhaps just turning up for the next webinar, but at some point there needs to be a transaction, often offline.

Referral. How often does an active and retained customer refer others to you? We all understand the most successful marketing tool is a satisfied customer motivated to refer their networks to a product or service. This being the case, measure it.

12 common & avoidable marketing mistakes I see small businesses repeating.

12 common & avoidable marketing mistakes I see small businesses repeating.

Aug 2, 2016 | Marketing, Small business

How true is the old chestnut “those who do not know history are destined to repeat it”?

It is an unfortunate truth, but in a business environment where 75% of new businesses fail, and 61% of actively trading businesses have no employees, it may be understandable. The new ‘entrepreneurs’ come and go, many having no background in business for themselves, and little beyond an often significant functional skill that they think will lead customers to their door.

That strategy may have worked in the past, but no longer.

Being an employee is generally a lousy training to be an entrepreneur, of any type.

Following are a number of the most common causes of those failures I see, several on a disturbingly regular basis.

Funding ‘institutional’ advertising & promotion.

Most advertising I see is for an institution, or business, not for  the benefit of the customer and potential customer. The “buy from me, I am better” type advertising. Instead, advertisers should  think about every piece of communication as a piece of direct response advertising, something that requires and points to an action. Advertising should be just a media centric form of direct response, otherwise, why do it? Spending money on advertising without directing people to a course of action  is a waste.

Many will wail at that, and point to the need to build a brand. True. But it gets the order in which things happen back to front. You do  not build a brand just by advertising to attract customers/consumers, you build a brand by performing, delivering value to those who try you out, then come back again and again because the value is terrific, and in the process tell their friends. Advertising is just a tool to apply leverage to this process.

Not testing.

These days everything, or almost everything can be tested. Test so you can generate the maximum leverage for your activity. Any marketing activity costs a fixed amount of money, it is the maths of the responses that give you leverage. Spend $100 on an activity, and you get $150 back might seem OK, but if you got back $300, or $500, or $5,000 how much better would that be? The leverage you are generating from your activity is greater. Test for  the elements that will generate you the leverage, as adverting is just leverage applied in a different form.

Not having some sort of differentiator

Delivering value to your specific target audience that they cannot get elsewhere is essential.  Whatever is your key value, it has to be unique to somebody or you are just competing on price, and when you compete  on price, even if you win, you lose.

Not sufficiently recognising the value of their existing customers.

We all know at some level that is it easier to get more from an existing customer than it is to get a new one, but we still insist on going looking for new customers and to some degree ignoring the value still to be gained from the existing ones. Even if you bring them value for someone else that is complementary to what you can deliver, and perhaps clip the ticket, by bringing them that value you ensure you are  always on their radar, and they are receptive to any offer you make. This applies as much to heavy machinery and capital intensive industries as it does to the way Amazon flogs you more books by knowing what you have bought and looked at in the past, and comparing that to others that seem similar.

Insufficient customer research and understanding.

The clearer the understanding you have of your customers and  prospects needs, the  better able you are able to craft a compelling offer, negate objections, and solve their problems. Once you solve their problems they are yours forever, they will always have you on the short list, if  not be the only choice.

Do not have price as the only motivator to a sale. Winning the race to the bottom of the price curve, you also lose. When you use price as the motivator, as you might if you make a blue  and have a warehouse full of stock you need to flog, find some other way to add value. Provide a a guarantee, or assurance that this cut price is only available for a short time and then only to the most valued customers you have, there are many tried and true tactics . This puts a sense of urgency and exclusivity in the offer which obscures the discount as a motivator, so it does  not erode the full price that you need to be profitable when things return too normal.

Not making it easy to do business  with you.

We all know how annoying it is to be shunted from person to person, not  getting answers, we all hate it, so why do we do it to our customers?? Make it easy to do business with you. Often this requires that you give the decision making power to those at the front lines, those who have the first contact with the customer. Ensure they are sufficiently well trained and informed that they can answer all the questions that may be asked. How bloody annoying is it to ask a question, and be asked to wait while they go and get their supervisor! Make it easy, even fun to do  business with you, find ways to add that bit of extra value that others leave out, the little things make all  the difference.

Not being transparent and answering “Why‘.

‘Why does this cost more than the opposition?’… ‘Because it is hand made from rare materials, not some imitation, or it is twice as durable, so is really cheap at the price’.  Failing to communicate your ‘Why’ is a grave failure. If you have lots of inventory, and want to get rid of it quickly, as often happens in many forms of  retailing, tell them why, that this is a one time only limited to available stock offer, created  by your buying ability with your suppliers. Tell them why, is a very powerful tactic in selling.

Not being persistent 

When you have done the work, be prepared to stick with it, and not change tactics mid stream just because there is a bump in the road. Strategy is about the long term. When activities are consistent with the strategies and add to the long term, be prepared to hang in there, and not be seduced by the newest shiny thing that comes along and seems attractive, Most businesses get tired of their own marketing well before the market does, so stick. An old boss of mine used to say that consumers were just getting to see our advertising about the time we were getting sick of it, and that is so true. Stick with what works, vary the tone and tactics to keep it fresh and new as necessary, but stick to the strategy.

Lack of focus. Any sort of activity should be directed at a specific target, the more focused the better. When others see it and act on it, great, but the clearer the focus on a benefit to a target customer you have the better. This clearly requires that you have a very clear idea of the ‘where what how and why’ of your ideal customer, but without that you are just spraying messages and hoping they hit something that looks like a prospective customer, rather  when focusing on one and ensuring that you are adding value to them.

Not educating your customers.

Never sell to customers, educate them to the benefits they will see by the use of your solution to their problems and opportunities. By setting out to add value to your customers by educating them, you can earn the right to have them buy from you. The old fashioned hard sell rarely works any more.  Instead, educate, appeal to their emotions, and show them the benefits, as did Don Draper in this Man Men classic.

lack of understanding ‘lifetime customer value’.

In most markets, customers are customers more than once, so understanding the arithmetic supporting the value of your customer is crucial. If you spend 150% of the first sales value to acquire a customer who then stays on for a further couple of  sales that cost you little to get, you are way ahead. Never burn off a customer once you have them by failing to live up to expectations. Over-delivering to customers is always a great strategy, and maximises the lifetime value.

Ignoring the value of Social media.

Social media is deceptively hard to get right, and getting it wrong can be a disaster. However, every business should be leveraging the potential power of Social media, recognising the downside. The help of the 14 year old down the street can be useful, but it can also be hugely misleading, and potentially commercially dangerous.

There are many more, but these 12 are the most common marketing mistakes, but I cannot leave without adding another. Know your numbers. Failure to  understand the financial realities of a business brings more unstuck than all the rest put together.

Has Woolworths done enough?

Has Woolworths done enough?

Jul 29, 2016 | Governance, Leadership, Management

I have been around long enough to see Coles and Woolworths swap places a couple of times. It seems that just like most blood sports, there is room only for one at a time at the top. This is understandable given that between them they have 70% plus of grocery sales, depending on whose numbers you use.

While Woolworths are still on top by most measures, Coles are rising like a phoenix from the ashes, and Woolies are desperately trying to halt the slide they embarked on several years ago.

Mondays announcement of job cuts, store closures, and a $967 million write-down has been a while coming, and must be a bitter pill following on the heels of the decision to exit the Masters hardware business after  incurring significant losses.

They have been progressively winding down the Thomas Dux, business, which in my view will prove to be a short sighted decision, symptomatic of the strategic malaise that has haunted Woolies after a decade of stellar performance.

The announcement also indicated 4 of the ‘Metro’ branded stores will close, presumably because they do not deliver the required return. While those stores, like Thomas Dux, might not be performing to expectations, they should both be seen as experiments at the edge, in anticipation of the acknowledged trends slowly transforming our lifestyle. In the case of Dux, a desire by a small but growing number of consumers for the unusual, products of superior quality, with clear provenance, and for Metro, the convenience for commuters, and CBD dwellers.   The potential strategic research value of both, assuming they were well managed (which Dux was not towards the end) would be well worth the slightly less than benchmark returns, as in reality the absolute numbers would be tiny.

Nipping on everyone’s heels is Aldi, whose success over the last 15 years or so has been substantial. There are now 423 stores, and Aldi is currently opening 4 or 5 new ones a month. The Aldi business model is hard for Woolies and Coles to beat with their current set-up, so they probably should stop trying, and find another way. 1000 Aldi Sku’s vs 12-20,000 in Woolies and Coles keeps Aldi  transaction costs low, as does the uncomplicated trading terms with suppliers. In store, Aldi pay far fewer staff very well by comparison, and by observation lead and motivate them very well, benefiting from the resultant productivity. Meanwhile they generate store traffic with the low prices, and quirky weekly specials that promise to be sold out quickly, creating a sense of shopper urgency. In addition, their fixed overheads on stores would be much lower than the two gorillas due to the smaller floor space, and less expensive locations.

After all the financial engineering is done, I trust that Woolworths management and more importantly the front line staff will remember that it is the little things in the stores  that really counts to their customers as they spend their money. They could  not care less about the head office  shenanigans, they can always go down the road when they see better value for their ‘hard-earned’.