Jul 27, 2020 | Customers, Sales
Every business needs a flow of leads that can be turned into a transaction, and better still, a relationship that includes numerous transactions.
You have current customers, who are, hopefully, very happy with your service and products. What better source of more business could you ask for?
In his seminal book ‘Influence’ published 30 years ago, and updated several times since, Dr. Robert Cialdini noted one of the 6 principals of persuasion is ‘Reciprocity’. The sense of obligation created when you do something, even a really small thing, for someone else out of pure generosity.
You do something generous for them, and they will feel obligated to, at some time, do something in return.
When that something happens to be a referral to someone they know, who could use your services, and with whom they have a relationship with mutual trust as a foundation, and they refer you to them, it is like money in the bank.
I have a client who has made successful referrals a central KPI of his workforce. His service requires that his employees are in peoples homes, and so trust is a fundamental part of a successful project completion. When those happy customers refer him to someone else, the conversion rate dwarfs anything coming from other sources. It is not always immediate, people are not always ready to buy when you are ready to sell, but when that time comes around, he is always at the front of the line.
Ask yourself a very simple question, and implement the answer to double your sales at very low cost.
‘How can I engage a customer in a way that they offer to refer me to their networks’?
You will probably find there are some simple answers to the question, including doing a great job for your current clients. However, the most effective way is to do something nice for them, with no (obvious) agenda.
My client has a modest bunch of flowers delivered to the lady of the house with a personalised thank you note attached. The note includes the suggestion that they might know somebody who would benefit from his services, and he would appreciate a referral.
A simple gesture, with a profound impact.
Leads are great, genuine referrals emerging from trusting relationships are money.
Jul 17, 2020 | Change, Strategy
‘Pivot’ has been the word of the year so far.
Cafes have ‘pivoted’ to takeaway, fitness centres ‘pivoted’ to on line classes, supermarkets ‘pivoted’ to home delivery, entertainers ‘pivoted’ to all sorts of variations of on line delivery, and so on.
Huge changes to the business models of many businesses amidst the chaos.
Now things are starting to go back to some sort of normal activity, although the signs of a re-emergence of the Bug are alarming.
The entrepreneurs amongst us are thinking about the bits of the emerged business models to keep, adjust, or throw away.
It seems that while there is a new normal emerging, for many the challenge is not to slip back into the old ways, but to see the coming months as the second start-up for their business.
It may have been forced on them, but there is silver in the cloud.
New business models, new relationships and types of relationship, a wider recognition that communication is the core of success, and that customers are looking for value from all sorts of new sources.
This coming period for most will be much more than just a re-opening, it will have many of the elements of a start-up. For others, it will be the sad walk to the under-taker. It is unlikely there will be too many businesses remaining unchanged.
Header photo credit: Peter Orr photography
Jul 13, 2020 | Communication, Customers, Strategy
Writing an email sequence is not as easy, or effective, as the videoed on-line courses (special deal $695, ends at midnight) would have you believe.
The templates and advice is all pretty vanilla although useful, but does not get to the heart of why people buy from you, and how, amidst the tsunami of stuff coming at them, they pick out yours.
Many seem to think digital is different from the old fashioned advertising I grew up with, and it is, tactically, but strategically, it is the same.
A potential customer goes through some sort of journey that differs in every case, but generally follows a process:
- recognition that there is something of interest out there for them
- Awareness that the stuff out there has relevance to them as a solution to some sort of a problem they have, or have recognised as a result of the discovery process.
- The problem now seen becomes something that has a value in its solution
- There is activity seeking that solution
- Choosing a supplier, and installation of the solution
- The after sales process, where they can be persuaded, assuming you did a good job, to be an advocate for the problem you solved for them, and more specifically for you as the solution provider.
The process by which this all happens is not a nice logical ‘Sales funnel’ where progress is made in an orderly manner. In reality is looks more like a huge ball of tangled fishing line, a real mess. Seeking to put order to the mess makes sense so long as you do not lose sight of the simple fact that the whole thing will resist the orderly, sequential nature of software, and revert to the mess at any and every opportunity.
The targets of your ‘content’ at each stage also has wrinkles.
You have current customers, the easiest to reach, potential customers, those you really want to reach who may have the problem unrecognised, some who may have recognised their problem, and you have advocates, those who might amplify your content.
The further audience is the wider community, out of whom all the other three groups emerge in one way or another.
Therefore, you need to mix and match between the mediums and the message to maximise the outcomes of the investment in content. You do this by the combination of focus on specific market personas. This includes personalised messaging of current and past customers, as well as more general communication of the problem/value proposition equation to gain reach into the varying audiences, to generate marketing leverage.
How deeply have your considered your mix of content and medium to reach your preferred audience?
Header credit: Maksym Kopylov via Flikr
Jul 6, 2020 | Analytics, Communication, Marketing
Marketing has moved significantly into the digital domain, online. It appears to make sense, as it appears ‘SMART’ (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time driven).
The engineers and accountants amongst us warm to this sort of seemingly measurable expenditure, they can look at a dashboard of quantitative outcomes, and feel good that they are not wasting money.
However, a closer look might give them pause.
Specific.
Yes, you can have a specific, focused activity that either happened, or did not, and people can be held accountable for them.
Measurable.
Yes, you can measure an activity done on line, so long as you are prepared to discount the bots and fakery hiding in the digital supply chain. The ad did appear, we got X 000 likes, Y 00 email addresses when they downloaded the clickbait, and sales reps are now chasing them as qualified leads. Hopefully a few of them actually are, but we may never really know.
Achievable.
Yes, the goal of getting likes and qualified leads has been achieved
Accountable.
Again, you know the intern in the marketing department was accountable for ensuring that there were X entries in the twitter feed, Y postings on Facebook and Instagram, and that the agency supplied a white paper a week as clickbait.
Timely.
Again, yes, the boss wanted this all done by the end of the month, as it was, Hooray!!
Problem with all of this is that we are measuring the wrong things. They are all about activity, nothing about outcomes. When we understand and can quantify the cause and effect links between activity and outcomes, a really tough problem, SMART goals may become useful.
‘Digital marketing’ has replaced using ‘digital’ as a tool of marketing. Those amongst us who do not understand the wide impact of ‘marketing’ have got it all the wrong way around. They have been seduced by the new shiny thing that appears to be useful, and sometimes it is, but not often as a standalone strategy, it is by its nature a short term tactic only.
Jun 29, 2020 | Collaboration, Governance, Leadership
I was recently asked to turn my mind and experience to the question of mentoring, and to reflect on the benefits and pitfalls that may be present.
Over the years, I have had the benefit of a couple of mentors who profoundly influenced my view of the world, and in turn, have set out to pass on these lessons to others.
At the core of a mentoring relationship is the opportunity to engage in ways not easily replicated in the normal run of activities in an enterprise. Attributed to Benjamin Franklin is the sentence: ‘Tell me and I will forget, show me and I will remember, engage me and I will learn’. Over 45 years of commercial life, this simple observation has proven to be absolutely true.
The means of engagement comes from Greek philosopher Socrates, and as a result is commonly called the ‘Socratic Method’. It relies on leading someone to a conclusion by asking questions. By driving towards a conclusion that the mentee reaches by themselves, being directed by questions, the impact will be greater, as they will be fully engaged.
Objective of a mentor/mentee relationship.
To pass on experience, both professional and life, that enables the mentee to develop their capabilities and skills faster than would otherwise have been possible.
The role of a mentor is:
- Develop the mentee professionally and personally. To achieve this requires mutual trust and respect, which has to be earned, as it will not be just given, in either direction.
- A precursor of trust is that there is a clear understanding that mutual confidentiality will be maintained.
- Listen to the words, and understand the meaning of the words of the mentee, as a means to ensure there is clear understanding of the questions, problems, and personal nuances present.
- Help the mentee to solve their own problems themselves, do not do it for them, but assist in the process by questioning.
- Not to expect, or want the mentee to be a clone of yourself. Everyone is different, and those differences of experience and perspective should be encouraged and leveraged.
- Advocate for the mentee, offering exposure and guidance to others in the enterprise, and to the challenges that emerge in every organisation and personal career.
- Deliver appropriate resources to the mentee when they will be most useful
- Act as a role model
The process of mentoring
- Establish ground rules, goals, and mutual expectations early on.
- Do a ‘needs’ assessment and gap analysis, that recognises the strengths and weaknesses of the mentee, as well as their opportunities for growth. The gap analysis should be influenced by the next logical step, mentee aspirations, and observed/agreed weaknesses that require being addressed.
- Agree mutual goals for the process, together. What are the expectations and goals of both parties?
- Agree a formal contact schedule, supplemented by the ‘rules’ that may apply around informal contact.
- Listen and question, rather than advising, and only advise after listening. This should be an iterative process, and advice should be the last item, well after questions that are often ‘What if’, ‘Why not’, or ‘How’, have been exhausted
- Let them make their own decisions and understand the consequences of accountability, and the buzz that comes from it.
- Be mutually accountable
- Recognise, address and be transparent about your own biases.
- Build trust, an authentic connection.
- Recognise a round peg that may be in a square hole, and provide feedback and assistance to either reshape or move elsewhere, to everyone’s benefit.
- Finally, and perhaps most importantly. Ensure there is a sense of psychological safety for the mentee, such that they are prepared to open up, knowing that there are no negative repercussions, just advice and acceptance. This will only happen over time, and assumes that the relationship has evolved positively.
- Not every mentor/mentee relationship will work, and there should be no hesitation for either party to acknowledge that, and move on.
Why invest the time in mentoring
- Every enterprise needs to build a functional and leadership ‘bench’. People move on, and around. A successful enterprise ensures that there are processes in place to renew management and leadership capability that are robust and continuously improving, so that they can accommodate those movements of individuals.
- It is a means to identify and develop those skills that will be of benefit to both the enterprise and the individual.
- Mentoring is a powerful way to build personal and functional networks. This enables problem solving and collaboration on a scale much wider than would happen in the absence of a mentoring process.
- Teaching, or mentoring, is the process of breaking down and addressing challenges and problems, considering options, and their possible outcomes. Engaging in such a process improves the capability of the mentor, as much as it does that of the mentee.
- It is simply making a contribution, not only to the mentee, but to the organisation and wider community.
What makes a good mentor?
- They need to be keen to do it, and enjoy the process
- They must engage with the mentee, and show they value learning, and teaching, and learning as they go from the act of teaching.
- They will encourage mentees to go out of their comfort zone, continually expanding it by way of active listening and Socratic questioning.
- They provide regular, formal and informal feedback, and articulate the paths to improvement.
- They are experts, and willing to share that expertise.
- They show the mentee the value of being mentored, what is in it for them.
- Leads by example.
- Recognises that the process is one of education, not training. Educating implies developing an open and critical analysis of situations, and formulation of tactics that reflect that situation. By contrast, training implies the application of a template that tells you what to do, which may not always be the optimum reaction. The ‘Why’ is always more important than the ‘What’ in a conversation.
What makes a good mentee?
- Watches and learns from the mentor
- Critically evaluate the lessons taken from the mentor and actively discuss the implications and application of the lessons.
- Willing and able to engage in the process
- Puts a high priority on the relationship with the mentor, without becoming dependent
- Actively engages in mutual critical thinking in the setting of goals, improvement initiatives, and improvement milestones.
- Is able to accept negative feedback when it comes, by seeing it as an opportunity to improve, rather than an attack on performance.
A final observation. In this day of #metoo and great sensitivity about the relationships of all types between genders in the workplace, we have to be absolutely transparent. The majority of mentoring relationships, at least in the near future, will be between a woman and an older man, someone who has the power by virtue of position and influence that can be leveraged for the benefit of the younger woman. In some instances this may create an obstacle absent in a mono gender relationship.
