It was a small gift before the holidays, buried within the extended tax relief package -- a two-year extension of the R&D tax credit. Industrial manufacturing across the country did ok by this, but they can do much better for themselves.
At a time when American innovation continues to decline, having fallen by over 50% as a percentage of GDP since 1964, it seems that a permanent and thereby predictable tax incentive for R&D would be a good idea; but then again, maybe not.
Maybe there are other forces at work. Many say, what's been getting in the way of American industrial innovation are the tax structures in the United States, that industrial manufacturers have for too long been encouraged to create jobs and profits in other countries. If this were true, you would think the U.S. ranked low on the world's innovation totem pole. When the fact is, we are still number one.
Maybe there is another reason why American manufacturers are not reaching their innovative potential, and why a permanent R&D tax credit will make no difference for many, if not most, of them: The R&D tax credit has been renewed thirteen times since 1981. At a time when "uncertainty" is the explanation for so much managerial indecision, the fact is, innovation has been tax-supported in the U.S. for decades.
If innovation as a function of building market advantage isn't paramount to every CEO and his or her core coalition, then perhaps the decline should not be blamed entirely on U.S. tax structures, or a disproportionate number of free trade agreements, or an unfair China. Maybe it is time industrial manufacturers became better marketers, better brand builders, better marketing communication strategists.
Making permanent an R&D tax credit may bring more "certainty" to some industrial manufacturing executives, but it won't make them better marketers.
jb
Monday, December 27, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Uncertainty is a double-edged sword...
Our firm is helping a select few industrial manufacturers grow during this recession and their leaders will tell you, $1.9 trillion is sitting on the sidelines right now for reasons other than uncertainty.
Entrepreneurship and innovation are founded on the marketing management of uncertainty and risk. Remove either, and you are not a marketer, you are a hopeful participant.
Winning manufacturers use marketing and branding to capitalize on the uncertainty of both their competitors and their prospective customers, by defining competitive advantages and strategically leveraging these advantages to solve the needs of a market segment -- even when that segment doesn't yet KNOW it has needs you can solve.
Some observations about uncertainty...
• Uncertainty is proportional to product complexity.
• If your product is close to becoming a commodity, then you are feeling very uncertain right now.
• If you are a manufacturer of more complex products that flow from a genuine depth of innovation and other sources of potential value, then you should be feeling CERTAIN that you are going to crush your competitors coming out of this recession.
If the marketing and selling of complex products were easy, you wouldn't have a sales force or reps or system integrators or distributors. You would have an e-commerce web site and your prices would be listed for all to see.
And THAT is the definition of business uncertainty.
jb
www.centrifuge-now.com
Entrepreneurship and innovation are founded on the marketing management of uncertainty and risk. Remove either, and you are not a marketer, you are a hopeful participant.
Winning manufacturers use marketing and branding to capitalize on the uncertainty of both their competitors and their prospective customers, by defining competitive advantages and strategically leveraging these advantages to solve the needs of a market segment -- even when that segment doesn't yet KNOW it has needs you can solve.
Some observations about uncertainty...
• Uncertainty is proportional to product complexity.
• If your product is close to becoming a commodity, then you are feeling very uncertain right now.
• If you are a manufacturer of more complex products that flow from a genuine depth of innovation and other sources of potential value, then you should be feeling CERTAIN that you are going to crush your competitors coming out of this recession.
If the marketing and selling of complex products were easy, you wouldn't have a sales force or reps or system integrators or distributors. You would have an e-commerce web site and your prices would be listed for all to see.
And THAT is the definition of business uncertainty.
jb
www.centrifuge-now.com
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Marcom B2B or not to be, that is the question...
As this recession lingers like a bronchitis, robbing oxygen and decision-making willpower from many B2B organizations, marketing communication managers are in an especially unhealthy situation. The problem for many of these professionals is that they have dug themselves into holes, or roles, they can't easily climb out of now.
"Marcom" and "marketing communications" have become insider terms seldom used outside of marcom office cubicles. Marcom has become a mysterious cost center, tolerated due to its vague connection to sales; and as anyone in sales will tell you, the real action happens a safe distance down the hall from marcom, in the offices of the CEO and the VP of Sales, where plans for next year's growth have been well underway, with little thought as to the relevance of marcom.
This new level of endangerment is what every marcom manager needs.
It is certainly what every B2B company needs.
Marketing and branding communications are essential to business growth, because they are essential to building internal value definition and external value recognition. They are the tools an organization uses to become a preferred brand, to reach its full potential and to stop selling itself short.
But such progress requires change on both sides: Top management and marcom managers alike, are challenged to at last put "marketing" into the marcom equation: Marketing, as in the creation of customers, not the creation of routine marcom tactics and expenses.
It's time for marcom managers to stand up, walk down the hall and get in the game. CEOs and VPs of Sales must do the same.
jb
www.centrifuge-now.com
"Marcom" and "marketing communications" have become insider terms seldom used outside of marcom office cubicles. Marcom has become a mysterious cost center, tolerated due to its vague connection to sales; and as anyone in sales will tell you, the real action happens a safe distance down the hall from marcom, in the offices of the CEO and the VP of Sales, where plans for next year's growth have been well underway, with little thought as to the relevance of marcom.
This new level of endangerment is what every marcom manager needs.
It is certainly what every B2B company needs.
Marketing and branding communications are essential to business growth, because they are essential to building internal value definition and external value recognition. They are the tools an organization uses to become a preferred brand, to reach its full potential and to stop selling itself short.
But such progress requires change on both sides: Top management and marcom managers alike, are challenged to at last put "marketing" into the marcom equation: Marketing, as in the creation of customers, not the creation of routine marcom tactics and expenses.
It's time for marcom managers to stand up, walk down the hall and get in the game. CEOs and VPs of Sales must do the same.
jb
www.centrifuge-now.com
Monday, November 22, 2010
Valuations and other ways to sell your company short...
At a recent breakfast forum I attended, the central topic was private equity valuation, investment and growth in 2011. The panel was staffed with financiers, the audience mostly bankers and lawyers. Discussions encompassed all the ways valuations are conducted, factoring in such things as customer concentrations and bookings.
During the closing Q&A, I asked the panel whether any of their due diligence measures included marketing excellence. One of the panelists began to suggest how this might occur, citing how research of a prospective investment's customers once revealed no expectations for increased volumes, refuting the candidate company's contention of 40% growth in the coming year; when, as though to hastily recover this moment of lost sanity, another panelist quickly interjected that the only necessary measure of any business was in the financials. Marketing excellence, whatever that meant, was almost never a consideration.
And there it was. The private equity valuation blind spot seemingly shared by so many advisors whose profession is to evaluate the growth potential of a company: growth potential, as in the difference between internal value definition and external value recognition, the difference between a company that is aligned on mission, message and value delivery, versus an organization that is leaderless and going through the motions; i.e. valuations based on an understanding of the gaps that can exist between brand identity and brand image, management and leadership, momentum and entropy.
Valuation experts who insist on P&L-only measures to assess the investment worthiness of an enterprise keep missing the point. Success cannot be solely determined by customer concentrations and bookings.
And owners who think this way are also selling their companies short.
jb
www.centrifuge-now.com
During the closing Q&A, I asked the panel whether any of their due diligence measures included marketing excellence. One of the panelists began to suggest how this might occur, citing how research of a prospective investment's customers once revealed no expectations for increased volumes, refuting the candidate company's contention of 40% growth in the coming year; when, as though to hastily recover this moment of lost sanity, another panelist quickly interjected that the only necessary measure of any business was in the financials. Marketing excellence, whatever that meant, was almost never a consideration.
And there it was. The private equity valuation blind spot seemingly shared by so many advisors whose profession is to evaluate the growth potential of a company: growth potential, as in the difference between internal value definition and external value recognition, the difference between a company that is aligned on mission, message and value delivery, versus an organization that is leaderless and going through the motions; i.e. valuations based on an understanding of the gaps that can exist between brand identity and brand image, management and leadership, momentum and entropy.
Valuation experts who insist on P&L-only measures to assess the investment worthiness of an enterprise keep missing the point. Success cannot be solely determined by customer concentrations and bookings.
And owners who think this way are also selling their companies short.
jb
www.centrifuge-now.com
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The reality of diversity in business and in life...
In 2008, minorities were about one-third of the U.S. population. By 2042, they will be the majority. The business world will be the first to understand the opportunity here, as informed business leaders and their HR departments build their own internal diversities to come into alignment with their sales and market share ambitions.
Meanwhile, as demographics in America and the world change, so must America's high schools and colleges, if they are to remain relevant; not because diversity is the ethical or legislated way forward, but because diversity makes better business sense: Between 1990 and 2007, minority group market share and purchasing power doubled and in some sectors tripled. By 2012, minority purchasing power is predicted to increase by another 30%.
Soon, marketing realities will force the leaving-behind of negative connotations associated with the word "diversity." Which is to say, for some, diversity means uncertainty and discomfort over progressive changes in our schools and places of work, and for now this viewpoint can only see color; while for the rest of us, diversity will mean that we have seen the light.
jb
www.centrifuge-now.com
Meanwhile, as demographics in America and the world change, so must America's high schools and colleges, if they are to remain relevant; not because diversity is the ethical or legislated way forward, but because diversity makes better business sense: Between 1990 and 2007, minority group market share and purchasing power doubled and in some sectors tripled. By 2012, minority purchasing power is predicted to increase by another 30%.
Soon, marketing realities will force the leaving-behind of negative connotations associated with the word "diversity." Which is to say, for some, diversity means uncertainty and discomfort over progressive changes in our schools and places of work, and for now this viewpoint can only see color; while for the rest of us, diversity will mean that we have seen the light.
jb
www.centrifuge-now.com
Monday, November 1, 2010
You don't need to polish an apple before you eat it...
Yet you probably do. And you've probably seen others do it. People will buff up an apple, rub it on a shirtsleeve before taking that first bite. It's an impulse seemingly programmed into us, a ritualistic final act of quality inspection, preparation and delivery.
It doesn't make the apple much more sanitary.
No, but what it does do is reassure you that you've got a quality apple in your hand – as you polish the apple you confirm there are no bruises, no ugly blemishes, no worm holes. And what it does inside your brain, when you see the apple's shine, is trigger a feeling of assurance and readiness, if not eagerness to buy – or bite – into that apple.
Buy or bite, these are actions that have very similar meanings. Before customers will buy your product or service, they will judge your offer based on the quality of your communications, your ability to put a shine on what you promise them. Whether it's an apple, a brochure, a web site, or your company's brand identity, customer's have a very deep need to feel you are a professional.
All successful sales people are professional communicators. Their communication materials come across as equally professional. Crafting a professional image is hard to do, when your company's marketing communications are blemished, when value articulation is weak, design is faulty and execution is spotty.
Such miscommunication taints the professional image of everyone in the company; not to mention, it diminishes your prospective customer's appetite.
jb
It doesn't make the apple much more sanitary.
No, but what it does do is reassure you that you've got a quality apple in your hand – as you polish the apple you confirm there are no bruises, no ugly blemishes, no worm holes. And what it does inside your brain, when you see the apple's shine, is trigger a feeling of assurance and readiness, if not eagerness to buy – or bite – into that apple.
Buy or bite, these are actions that have very similar meanings. Before customers will buy your product or service, they will judge your offer based on the quality of your communications, your ability to put a shine on what you promise them. Whether it's an apple, a brochure, a web site, or your company's brand identity, customer's have a very deep need to feel you are a professional.
All successful sales people are professional communicators. Their communication materials come across as equally professional. Crafting a professional image is hard to do, when your company's marketing communications are blemished, when value articulation is weak, design is faulty and execution is spotty.
Such miscommunication taints the professional image of everyone in the company; not to mention, it diminishes your prospective customer's appetite.
jb
Monday, October 25, 2010
WDYDWYD?
Why do you do what you do? That's the question used nowadays during employee team-building exercises in places like Silicon Valley, google and Twitter. The thought being, if you and your co-workers can hammer out WHY you do the kind of work you do, then perhaps the group of you can agree on the underlying shared core values that should be driving your business, the values that should in turn drive value definition and value delivery to your customers.
The goal is to dig deeper to expose any misalignment between what we do and what we would aspire to do, were we to follow our inner motivations.
Now, ask this same question of the decision makers within your most coveted customer segments. Dig deep enough, and if you find the answer to be similar, then you have struck gold. The discovery being, what matters most is not on your company's line card, or in the technical discussion of what your products do. What matters is that you connect with your customer on a deeper level of need.
WDYDWYD is a question every business manager needs to encounter on the path to becoming a business leader, because the answers are not written on lengthy and all-absorbing daytime to-do lists. They are written on many a wish list kept among our more private thoughts, tucked away nightly after the lights have been turned off.
jb
The goal is to dig deeper to expose any misalignment between what we do and what we would aspire to do, were we to follow our inner motivations.
Now, ask this same question of the decision makers within your most coveted customer segments. Dig deep enough, and if you find the answer to be similar, then you have struck gold. The discovery being, what matters most is not on your company's line card, or in the technical discussion of what your products do. What matters is that you connect with your customer on a deeper level of need.
WDYDWYD is a question every business manager needs to encounter on the path to becoming a business leader, because the answers are not written on lengthy and all-absorbing daytime to-do lists. They are written on many a wish list kept among our more private thoughts, tucked away nightly after the lights have been turned off.
jb
Sunday, October 17, 2010
On reaching the age of reason and delaying dementia...
We reach the age of reason at age seven and from there on apparently, we need to train our brains to delay dementia. I take this to be the message of the banner ad on my Linked in home page. Philips is the sponsor of the ad, and since my business partner and I once did some cool web work for them, I don't doubt the veracity of the ad. Moreover, I am convinced there is a message here for all business leaders.
Putting an organization together is like reaching the age of reason: Here you are in the world, now what? You've got all your brains, what are you going to do with them?
Somewhere along the way, if we are lucky, as individuals we discover what we are really good at, passionate about and can be successful doing. But when you are an organization trying to become a successful company, then you are many brains, brains that have matured beyond the age of reason to find their own way, brains that have formed their own beliefs and opinions, and your vision is not really theirs.
It's easy to see how disoriented an organization can be when it needs to become a company, but is not guided by a clear understanding of its value potential, vision and mission. The Philips ad is right, inasmuch as business leadership goes.
An organization without a unifying brand identity faces early dementia.
jb
Putting an organization together is like reaching the age of reason: Here you are in the world, now what? You've got all your brains, what are you going to do with them?
Somewhere along the way, if we are lucky, as individuals we discover what we are really good at, passionate about and can be successful doing. But when you are an organization trying to become a successful company, then you are many brains, brains that have matured beyond the age of reason to find their own way, brains that have formed their own beliefs and opinions, and your vision is not really theirs.
It's easy to see how disoriented an organization can be when it needs to become a company, but is not guided by a clear understanding of its value potential, vision and mission. The Philips ad is right, inasmuch as business leadership goes.
An organization without a unifying brand identity faces early dementia.
jb
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Organizational alignment isn't about consensus...
I have long believed that clarity and consensus were prerequisites to organizational change. My belief being, a company cannot move in a cohesive direction until a CEO's executive team achieves a "consensus" opinion as to that direction. In my firm's world, that direction enables the building of brand identity and going to market, strategically guided by two reference points: internal value definition and external value recognition.
But it turns out I've been wrong. Achieving clarity is essential, but achieving consensus is not. I became convinced of this recently upon meeting a gentleman by the name of Miles Kierson.
Mr. Kierson (kiersonconsulting.com) speaks with a quiet confidence. He has been a leadership consultant for over twenty-five years; so when I told him of my many encounters with B2B organizations unable to market and to sell to their full potential, due to their lack of clarity and consensus, he genuinely understood. Then he shared the following observation, which he has also summed up nicely in his book, The Transformational Power of Executive Team Alignment:
"Executive team alignment is only powerful when it is a function of a commitment that has been made in advance. The commitment is this: Whenever a decision is made, I will align with it."
The revelation here is that most CEO's believe they have been moving their companies forward by seeking and getting consensus agreement on mission, message and strategic direction – when in fact, consensus is almost always impossible to achieve. All too often, what a CEO has really been experiencing is silent disagreement, caused by the CEO's failure to communicate up front exactly how he or she intends to arrive at each decision. In his book, Mr. Kierson identifies six different ways a decision can be made, all of them legitimate, but only one of which is by consensus. So when a CEO thinks he's looking for consensus, but the executive team knows otherwise, then "what we have here is failure to communicate." Which leads to organizational entropy and failures to execute.
Communication is a funny, fluid thing. Enlightened, insight-based communication flows from the top down and from the customer back up (value definition/value recognition), allowing wrong-headed beliefs to be eroded or washed away; or more often than not, allowing them to be smoothly, agreeably bypassed to create alignment and momentum.
jb
But it turns out I've been wrong. Achieving clarity is essential, but achieving consensus is not. I became convinced of this recently upon meeting a gentleman by the name of Miles Kierson.
Mr. Kierson (kiersonconsulting.com) speaks with a quiet confidence. He has been a leadership consultant for over twenty-five years; so when I told him of my many encounters with B2B organizations unable to market and to sell to their full potential, due to their lack of clarity and consensus, he genuinely understood. Then he shared the following observation, which he has also summed up nicely in his book, The Transformational Power of Executive Team Alignment:
"Executive team alignment is only powerful when it is a function of a commitment that has been made in advance. The commitment is this: Whenever a decision is made, I will align with it."
The revelation here is that most CEO's believe they have been moving their companies forward by seeking and getting consensus agreement on mission, message and strategic direction – when in fact, consensus is almost always impossible to achieve. All too often, what a CEO has really been experiencing is silent disagreement, caused by the CEO's failure to communicate up front exactly how he or she intends to arrive at each decision. In his book, Mr. Kierson identifies six different ways a decision can be made, all of them legitimate, but only one of which is by consensus. So when a CEO thinks he's looking for consensus, but the executive team knows otherwise, then "what we have here is failure to communicate." Which leads to organizational entropy and failures to execute.
Communication is a funny, fluid thing. Enlightened, insight-based communication flows from the top down and from the customer back up (value definition/value recognition), allowing wrong-headed beliefs to be eroded or washed away; or more often than not, allowing them to be smoothly, agreeably bypassed to create alignment and momentum.
jb
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Leadership starts with an appreciation for the truth…
Honesty really is the best policy, whether in branding or in government or most any other social endeavor. In the B2B marketplace, a company must not make promises that its organization is not prepared to keep, and this is what brand identity development is all about. There really is a process to this. Business leadership starts with an understanding of the company’s greater value potential, an understanding that guides organizational alignment and strategic marketing in the context of a given market segment’s related unmet needs. This is rather straightforward stuff.
If only political leadership worked this way.
As a small business owner, I can attest that government has not been kind to business. The state of Illinois has been especially adversarial. So I have been quite persuaded by the republican refrain that the democratic agenda is the growth of government by way of a tax-and-spend mindset. But notice now, how the republicans are hitting the airwaves, announcing a new “Pledge to America”. In their every rehearsed statement, whichever newfound republican “leader” is being introduced, you hear this united explanation for their total, foot-dragging, in absentia throughout the beginning, middle and final closeout to this recession: It turns out the reason republicans have been so divided, divisive and irrelevant when their country needed them is because all this time…
“We were listening to the American people.”
Honesty is the best policy in business leadership, because the intelligence of B2B customers is understood and respected. Not so in politics, where would-be “leaders” are incapable of overestimating the intelligence of voters.
jb
If only political leadership worked this way.
As a small business owner, I can attest that government has not been kind to business. The state of Illinois has been especially adversarial. So I have been quite persuaded by the republican refrain that the democratic agenda is the growth of government by way of a tax-and-spend mindset. But notice now, how the republicans are hitting the airwaves, announcing a new “Pledge to America”. In their every rehearsed statement, whichever newfound republican “leader” is being introduced, you hear this united explanation for their total, foot-dragging, in absentia throughout the beginning, middle and final closeout to this recession: It turns out the reason republicans have been so divided, divisive and irrelevant when their country needed them is because all this time…
“We were listening to the American people.”
Honesty is the best policy in business leadership, because the intelligence of B2B customers is understood and respected. Not so in politics, where would-be “leaders” are incapable of overestimating the intelligence of voters.
jb
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
An old warning about changing the rules…
If you are a small to mid-size US manufacturer, government “stimulus” money is a foreign concept: Foreign, as in not relevant; foreign, perhaps even as not American; but more properly, foreign as in mucking up the laws of free market enterprise.
The argument in favor of a government stimulus is that just like in FDR days, stimulus money builds roads and bridges, putting people to work. But as economists are now disclosing about the “New Deal” days, for every $10 million dollars spent on work programs, $10 million in tax money investments were diverted away from jobs elsewhere as a free market would naturally decide. Using tax dollars to fund more bridge workers got those folks jobs, but other jobs were either displaced or destroyed.
My firm helps marketers market, build brand identity, communicate, sell and grow market share. On this playing field, you build internal value definition and external value recognition, or you lose. The rules are clear. But that’s not the game we are being allowed to play, when the government messes with the rules.
Here’s a timely quote from the Illinois Manufacturer’s Association regarding the government's massive borrowing and spending in general, and its unpredictable messing with the rules of a free enterprise in particular:
“The principal obstacle to business revival, with accompanying increase in unemployment, is the almost universal attitude of uncertainty and apprehension on the part of business executives regarding the future policies of the federal government on issues directly affecting the welfare of private enterprise.”
The above verbatim warning was sent by the IMA to FDR in the early 1930’s.
The depression lasted 11 years.
jb
The argument in favor of a government stimulus is that just like in FDR days, stimulus money builds roads and bridges, putting people to work. But as economists are now disclosing about the “New Deal” days, for every $10 million dollars spent on work programs, $10 million in tax money investments were diverted away from jobs elsewhere as a free market would naturally decide. Using tax dollars to fund more bridge workers got those folks jobs, but other jobs were either displaced or destroyed.
My firm helps marketers market, build brand identity, communicate, sell and grow market share. On this playing field, you build internal value definition and external value recognition, or you lose. The rules are clear. But that’s not the game we are being allowed to play, when the government messes with the rules.
Here’s a timely quote from the Illinois Manufacturer’s Association regarding the government's massive borrowing and spending in general, and its unpredictable messing with the rules of a free enterprise in particular:
“The principal obstacle to business revival, with accompanying increase in unemployment, is the almost universal attitude of uncertainty and apprehension on the part of business executives regarding the future policies of the federal government on issues directly affecting the welfare of private enterprise.”
The above verbatim warning was sent by the IMA to FDR in the early 1930’s.
The depression lasted 11 years.
jb
Sunday, September 5, 2010
It’s third-and-long for many B2B companies.
The football season has returned and along with it, the inspirational goal line speeches used by B2B sales managers to get their teams back in the game, back on the field of play and off to a better, winning season. As the decades-old cheer goes: The team was in a huddle, the coach was at the head, they had a conversation and this is what they said:
“We’re going to fight, score more, and generally play harder this year. Our goal is to increase sales, and to do this we are going to increase lead generation and new customer acquisition.”
Score more sales -- that's the finding of a recent Global Spec survey of manufacturing companies. The report, called “8 Trends in Industrial Marketing,” offered this finding: Generating leads to get new customers is the #1 goal of manufacturing companies this year. The survey observed some related trends, including the ongoing shift in marketing dollars away from print media to web sites, email campaigns, and other internet services such as, ahem, Global Spec.
But let’s not get distracted by the motivations behind so many surveys published on the internet these days. Buying more online promotional space is logical, equally as logical as another “trend” reported by many metrics providers, which is that what business leaders really need is more data, before they can make any decisions of consequence.
First and ten, do it again. At some point, it’s not about the numbers. Just like in the world of market research, quantitative survey scores are a distraction, when what you need to measure is not efficiency, but effectiveness. You can measure the game in dollars, percentage points or yards, but the dynamics for business growth are still the same: Winning companies, just like winning football teams, build winning “programs.” They do so 1) by recruiting players to execute your company’s vision, mission and distinctive value propositions, 2) by communicating and incenting teamwork to cultivate market segment recognition of this value, and 3) by empowering and enforcing a winning culture.
It’s a game of value definition and value recognition; and sooner or later, a winning business leader stops focusing on the first-and-ten hash marks and starts seeing the forces at work across the larger field of play.
From a top-down perspective, the relationship between branding, marketing and sales are readily observable. The dynamic is there to see. All a leader has to do is climb up into the coach’s box to get an informed, holistic, top-down perspective on it all.
jb
“We’re going to fight, score more, and generally play harder this year. Our goal is to increase sales, and to do this we are going to increase lead generation and new customer acquisition.”
Score more sales -- that's the finding of a recent Global Spec survey of manufacturing companies. The report, called “8 Trends in Industrial Marketing,” offered this finding: Generating leads to get new customers is the #1 goal of manufacturing companies this year. The survey observed some related trends, including the ongoing shift in marketing dollars away from print media to web sites, email campaigns, and other internet services such as, ahem, Global Spec.
But let’s not get distracted by the motivations behind so many surveys published on the internet these days. Buying more online promotional space is logical, equally as logical as another “trend” reported by many metrics providers, which is that what business leaders really need is more data, before they can make any decisions of consequence.
First and ten, do it again. At some point, it’s not about the numbers. Just like in the world of market research, quantitative survey scores are a distraction, when what you need to measure is not efficiency, but effectiveness. You can measure the game in dollars, percentage points or yards, but the dynamics for business growth are still the same: Winning companies, just like winning football teams, build winning “programs.” They do so 1) by recruiting players to execute your company’s vision, mission and distinctive value propositions, 2) by communicating and incenting teamwork to cultivate market segment recognition of this value, and 3) by empowering and enforcing a winning culture.
It’s a game of value definition and value recognition; and sooner or later, a winning business leader stops focusing on the first-and-ten hash marks and starts seeing the forces at work across the larger field of play.
From a top-down perspective, the relationship between branding, marketing and sales are readily observable. The dynamic is there to see. All a leader has to do is climb up into the coach’s box to get an informed, holistic, top-down perspective on it all.
jb
Friday, August 27, 2010
Overtaxed, over-governed and over-fearful…
B2B manufacturing CEOs have a good reason for “sitting on their cash” and not investing in new hires. You’re oppressively taxed and over-governed, especially when you are in an Illinois business state-of-mind.
Your management team awaits your decisions on many fronts. Let them wait. When you are paralyzed by what business-killing legislation will come next, this is no time to be making business decisions of consequence. Besides, in a public enterprise nowadays, indecision has the appearance of prudence; and in a private enterprise, indecision seems a virtue.
The importance of cost cutting and cost prevention seems obvious. Then again, there’s the Price Waterhouse study that determined the value you can add to a business through cost cutting is mathematically limited to zero. If the decision is to NOT invest in business-building strategies, then there is no business-building decision of consequence.
Which is why a few highly strategic B2B manufacturing leaders will not just sit on their cash for the next year, and why they will come out of this recession victorious. They will invest in growth by building internal value definition and external value recognition. Guided by these two reference points for strategic decision-making, they will lead their companies forward.
By definition, innovation and marketing are inherently risky.
Moreso, indecision powered by fear.
jb
Your management team awaits your decisions on many fronts. Let them wait. When you are paralyzed by what business-killing legislation will come next, this is no time to be making business decisions of consequence. Besides, in a public enterprise nowadays, indecision has the appearance of prudence; and in a private enterprise, indecision seems a virtue.
The importance of cost cutting and cost prevention seems obvious. Then again, there’s the Price Waterhouse study that determined the value you can add to a business through cost cutting is mathematically limited to zero. If the decision is to NOT invest in business-building strategies, then there is no business-building decision of consequence.
Which is why a few highly strategic B2B manufacturing leaders will not just sit on their cash for the next year, and why they will come out of this recession victorious. They will invest in growth by building internal value definition and external value recognition. Guided by these two reference points for strategic decision-making, they will lead their companies forward.
By definition, innovation and marketing are inherently risky.
Moreso, indecision powered by fear.
jb
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
What is HR doing for your business?
A business forum in the Chicago area last week discussed HR’s role toward business recovery and during the lively exchanges, one of the panelists offered this observation:
"Performance is not an HR problem, it’s a managerial or supervisory problem.”
Upon hearing this, I noted in the program guide that the panelist was with the Illinois Management Association. The keyword leaping out here was management, and yet it seemed that such a statement would not go uncontested. Surely, during the closing Q&A, one of the many HR titles in the audience would raise a hand to say something. Something like, hey wait a minute. Did I hear you right?
But no such follow-up occurred. Audience applause, the forum was over. Time to go.
Days later, just now digging through the stuff handed out during the event, I come across an HRMAC publication called FORUM. HRMAC stands for the Human Resources Management Association of Chicago. It turns out HRMAC has been around since 1915 and the organization has arrived at some interesting conclusions regarding the role of HR, in any economy. The feature article in the publication, written by freelancer Matt Alderton, quotes an HRMAC board member, Bob Davis. And what Mr. Davis has to say should be taught in management school.
“It used to be that your go-to-market strategy was the most important thing in your organization, but really it’s your people,” Davis says. “That realization has allowed and forced the HR profession to step up from being what were historically functional experts to being full business partners and consultants. We as a profession need to evolve – and have been evolving – to better understand our organizations’ financial drivers, customers and value propositions so that we can take a holistic approach to what we do.”
Go-to-market strategy. Customers. Value propositions.
These are not refrains calling for better management. They are calls for educated leadership. The kind of leadership that will bring marketing, branding, sales and HR together at last and put them to work for America’s businesses.
jb
"Performance is not an HR problem, it’s a managerial or supervisory problem.”
Upon hearing this, I noted in the program guide that the panelist was with the Illinois Management Association. The keyword leaping out here was management, and yet it seemed that such a statement would not go uncontested. Surely, during the closing Q&A, one of the many HR titles in the audience would raise a hand to say something. Something like, hey wait a minute. Did I hear you right?
But no such follow-up occurred. Audience applause, the forum was over. Time to go.
Days later, just now digging through the stuff handed out during the event, I come across an HRMAC publication called FORUM. HRMAC stands for the Human Resources Management Association of Chicago. It turns out HRMAC has been around since 1915 and the organization has arrived at some interesting conclusions regarding the role of HR, in any economy. The feature article in the publication, written by freelancer Matt Alderton, quotes an HRMAC board member, Bob Davis. And what Mr. Davis has to say should be taught in management school.
“It used to be that your go-to-market strategy was the most important thing in your organization, but really it’s your people,” Davis says. “That realization has allowed and forced the HR profession to step up from being what were historically functional experts to being full business partners and consultants. We as a profession need to evolve – and have been evolving – to better understand our organizations’ financial drivers, customers and value propositions so that we can take a holistic approach to what we do.”
Go-to-market strategy. Customers. Value propositions.
These are not refrains calling for better management. They are calls for educated leadership. The kind of leadership that will bring marketing, branding, sales and HR together at last and put them to work for America’s businesses.
jb
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Don't fall in love with your line card...
"Over 71% of the firms in the Inc. 500 list of newer, faster-growing companies were started by individuals who duplicated or modified innovations at their former employers."* In other words, most innovation is being done by people who felt compelled to leave their companies in order to create new products and services.
Consider the implications this has for a maturing B2B manufacturing company.
If your line card hasn’t changed recently, then you are an easy target for talent defection. Worse, you are an easy target for commoditization. You become your own enemy as your organization sells itself short.
And the reason for this?
Business leaders allow their people to fall in love with their products. The connection between innovation and growth is this simple: Companies whose organizations are focused on line card marketing have misplaced their passion. It’s not so much the products that matter. It’s the reasons why you set out to create those products in the first place.
*Source: Baruch Lev, in his book Management, Measurement, and Reporting. Dr. Lev is a world-renowned researcher and consultant on business valuation, and professor of finance and accounting at New York University.
jb
Consider the implications this has for a maturing B2B manufacturing company.
If your line card hasn’t changed recently, then you are an easy target for talent defection. Worse, you are an easy target for commoditization. You become your own enemy as your organization sells itself short.
And the reason for this?
Business leaders allow their people to fall in love with their products. The connection between innovation and growth is this simple: Companies whose organizations are focused on line card marketing have misplaced their passion. It’s not so much the products that matter. It’s the reasons why you set out to create those products in the first place.
*Source: Baruch Lev, in his book Management, Measurement, and Reporting. Dr. Lev is a world-renowned researcher and consultant on business valuation, and professor of finance and accounting at New York University.
jb
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Performance trumps price even in a depression
One of our clients is in the steel construction industry, in a sector that has experienced an incredible 62% decline. The president of the company tells me, if this is not a depression, what is? And yet, here is a company that is certain to come roaring out of these difficult times, and here’s why:
Even in the deepest recession since the Great Depression, this company has put performance ahead of price. They have marched through the valley of this recession holding on to their margins, when competitors could not.
In a largely bid-based industry where the lowest qualified bid gets the job, here is a company that has held tight to the belief that demonstrated value has value in any economy. And you know what? The company’s nearly down and out, but tough-minded and business-smart customers agree: Performance trumps price.
The lesson is here and now for all B2B companies to witness and to learn. If a company cannot define its core business advantage internally, then it cannot articulate and defend this value in the marketplace.
It is a function of branding to establish the value – the brand identity – a company brings. And it is a function of leadership to recognize this need.
jb
Even in the deepest recession since the Great Depression, this company has put performance ahead of price. They have marched through the valley of this recession holding on to their margins, when competitors could not.
In a largely bid-based industry where the lowest qualified bid gets the job, here is a company that has held tight to the belief that demonstrated value has value in any economy. And you know what? The company’s nearly down and out, but tough-minded and business-smart customers agree: Performance trumps price.
The lesson is here and now for all B2B companies to witness and to learn. If a company cannot define its core business advantage internally, then it cannot articulate and defend this value in the marketplace.
It is a function of branding to establish the value – the brand identity – a company brings. And it is a function of leadership to recognize this need.
jb
Sunday, July 25, 2010
On deciding to make the right decisions…
A frequent observation being made now among B2B circles is that manufacturing is coming back and cash reserves are mounting, but that C-level managers will not be spending on new hires for a long time to come. Hence, manufacturing related unemployment will not recover for another year or two.
Add to this leaned-down, thinned-out, super-cautious state-of-mind the nation’s sluggish summer doldrums, the departure of congress and everyone else on vacation, the upcoming pre-election gridlock, and you have the perfect non-storm for decision making. We have business entropy, worst among weakly-lead manufacturers who further retreat from marketing and the marketplace, sensing this is a time of validation for their longstanding indifference to such "cost centers" as marketing and branding.
Such indecision will be argued as prudent, by those who simply cannot lead.
Not so, the remaining few. While most managers of manufacturing companies continue to play trench warfare, digging in so deep that they can no longer see the battlefield, savvy C-level leaders are using market insights, marketing and branding to change the field of play in their favor. And there are firms like ours that are helping these wiser leaders to grow their brands and their companies NOW.
Here are 5 ways we are helping them do it…
1. Bring forward the organization’s distinctive strengths
2. Understand how these strengths support market segments in need
3. Align the external Brand Image with the internal Brand Identity
4. Build momentum via internal/external communication strategies
5. Grow a culture wherein everyone makes the right decisions
jb
Add to this leaned-down, thinned-out, super-cautious state-of-mind the nation’s sluggish summer doldrums, the departure of congress and everyone else on vacation, the upcoming pre-election gridlock, and you have the perfect non-storm for decision making. We have business entropy, worst among weakly-lead manufacturers who further retreat from marketing and the marketplace, sensing this is a time of validation for their longstanding indifference to such "cost centers" as marketing and branding.
Such indecision will be argued as prudent, by those who simply cannot lead.
Not so, the remaining few. While most managers of manufacturing companies continue to play trench warfare, digging in so deep that they can no longer see the battlefield, savvy C-level leaders are using market insights, marketing and branding to change the field of play in their favor. And there are firms like ours that are helping these wiser leaders to grow their brands and their companies NOW.
Here are 5 ways we are helping them do it…
1. Bring forward the organization’s distinctive strengths
2. Understand how these strengths support market segments in need
3. Align the external Brand Image with the internal Brand Identity
4. Build momentum via internal/external communication strategies
5. Grow a culture wherein everyone makes the right decisions
jb
Monday, July 19, 2010
What do you do for a living?
It’s unfortunate how incapacitated B2B companies are when it comes to value definition and value recognition. Seeing as how these are the essential halves to every successful seller-buyer relationship, you would think every B2B organization would be skilled at both, but this is not the case.
We tell prospects what we make. We tell friends what we do.
Prospects are the strangers you meet at chamber of commerce breakfasts and other business networking events. Most prospects will give you about 20 seconds to articulate your elevator pitch and then it’s their turn. And so on, around the breakfast table. This gives you enough time to introduce yourself, explain that you are with company X and that your company offers product Y or service Z. According to ritual, no time is allowed for value definition or value recognition, and any attempts to do so are frowned upon by the table.
Friends and relatives on the other hand, actually care what you do for a living. Possibly unfamiliar with the rules of B2B networking, they are still listening after 20 seconds, long enough for you to further explain the value you and your company can create, value that can only be understood when the conversation is not limited to what you make, but what you can do.
Too bad B2B organizations have not learned to communicate the way most friends and relatives do. If they did, they would all be wiser buyers and sellers.
JB
We tell prospects what we make. We tell friends what we do.
Prospects are the strangers you meet at chamber of commerce breakfasts and other business networking events. Most prospects will give you about 20 seconds to articulate your elevator pitch and then it’s their turn. And so on, around the breakfast table. This gives you enough time to introduce yourself, explain that you are with company X and that your company offers product Y or service Z. According to ritual, no time is allowed for value definition or value recognition, and any attempts to do so are frowned upon by the table.
Friends and relatives on the other hand, actually care what you do for a living. Possibly unfamiliar with the rules of B2B networking, they are still listening after 20 seconds, long enough for you to further explain the value you and your company can create, value that can only be understood when the conversation is not limited to what you make, but what you can do.
Too bad B2B organizations have not learned to communicate the way most friends and relatives do. If they did, they would all be wiser buyers and sellers.
JB
Monday, July 12, 2010
Is your business model on the catwalk to success?
You hear the phrase “business model” being used more and more in B2B circles, as in, “So what’s your business model going to be after 2010?”
If you think social media was confusing, brace yourself. There are at least 25 kinds of “business models” and several new books on the subject will tell you more than you will ever need to know about “disruptive innovation” and why your company’s business model should be rebuilt.
Business model reconstruction is an appealing concept, because it implies a tangible, engineered approach to organizational change. But here’s the really interesting part -- central to the success of every business model is the process of building value definition and value recognition.
All ascending business models, those moving away from commoditization, are based on the achievement of deeper value definitions (brand identity) and value recognition (marketing). Segmentation matters here, based on profound insights into a segment’s values, beliefs and aspirations.
It seems that the more complicated B2B marketing gets, the more we return to the basics of branding and marketing. What will your business model be after 2010? The answer depends on whether your company’s leadership believes in the power of highly informed and strategic branding and marketing.
jb
If you think social media was confusing, brace yourself. There are at least 25 kinds of “business models” and several new books on the subject will tell you more than you will ever need to know about “disruptive innovation” and why your company’s business model should be rebuilt.
Business model reconstruction is an appealing concept, because it implies a tangible, engineered approach to organizational change. But here’s the really interesting part -- central to the success of every business model is the process of building value definition and value recognition.
All ascending business models, those moving away from commoditization, are based on the achievement of deeper value definitions (brand identity) and value recognition (marketing). Segmentation matters here, based on profound insights into a segment’s values, beliefs and aspirations.
It seems that the more complicated B2B marketing gets, the more we return to the basics of branding and marketing. What will your business model be after 2010? The answer depends on whether your company’s leadership believes in the power of highly informed and strategic branding and marketing.
jb
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Winning B2B manufacturers are leading execution
In the hard-edged world of mid-sized B2B manufacturing, corporate “culture” is a soft concept, one of those nebulous notions akin to “branding” or “marketing”. Most C-level managers here understand the disciplines of engineering, manufacturing and in-your-face feature-benefit selling. But they would rather delegate the “culture” stuff to HR.
HR meanwhile, often sees its role to be that of recruiting and managing the best and the brightest. The assumption being, if you employ the smartest people and give them adequate incentives to engineer, manufacture and sell, your company will be the best.
What’s missing from this approach is leadership, the kind that unifies people around company vision and mission (brand identity), the kind that welcomes intellectual honesty and true dialogue about solving deeper customer problems (marketing), leadership that moves the business strategically forward.
One of the first things a business leader will tell you is that it’s not the super-smart people who make a business succeed. It’s the focused and diligent believers who know how to execute.
American manufacturing needs leaders who expect more from their people, and people who expect more from their management.
jb
HR meanwhile, often sees its role to be that of recruiting and managing the best and the brightest. The assumption being, if you employ the smartest people and give them adequate incentives to engineer, manufacture and sell, your company will be the best.
What’s missing from this approach is leadership, the kind that unifies people around company vision and mission (brand identity), the kind that welcomes intellectual honesty and true dialogue about solving deeper customer problems (marketing), leadership that moves the business strategically forward.
One of the first things a business leader will tell you is that it’s not the super-smart people who make a business succeed. It’s the focused and diligent believers who know how to execute.
American manufacturing needs leaders who expect more from their people, and people who expect more from their management.
jb
Monday, June 21, 2010
Organizational change starts at the top.
As this is being written, the BP oil blowout in the golf is approaching 78 million gallons and former BP CEO Tony Hayward has his life back. He was off yacht racing over the weekend.
Meanwhile, we are learning that the failsafe “shear ram” function used by BP on this well was failing around 45% of the time in tests dating back to the year 2000. Add to this the revelation that BP has cut corners on its maintenance programs for many years, according to its own internal documents, including a 2007 internal report showing the same problems that had been documented in a 2001 internal report.
Which leads to the question, why? And which leads to the obvious answer, it was all in the name of stockholders. That is, unless you look further into the power of a corporate culture, and the fact that every organization emulates the people at the top – whether those people are managers of money or leaders of people.
It’s a distinction that matters, because leaders will always seek to employ and cultivate people who are motivated by excellence, who dare to ask questions, love dialogue and the exploration of better ideas and ways of doing things.
It’s a difference that begins with the presence or absence of intellectual honesty and separates from there. Like oil and water.
jb
Meanwhile, we are learning that the failsafe “shear ram” function used by BP on this well was failing around 45% of the time in tests dating back to the year 2000. Add to this the revelation that BP has cut corners on its maintenance programs for many years, according to its own internal documents, including a 2007 internal report showing the same problems that had been documented in a 2001 internal report.
Which leads to the question, why? And which leads to the obvious answer, it was all in the name of stockholders. That is, unless you look further into the power of a corporate culture, and the fact that every organization emulates the people at the top – whether those people are managers of money or leaders of people.
It’s a distinction that matters, because leaders will always seek to employ and cultivate people who are motivated by excellence, who dare to ask questions, love dialogue and the exploration of better ideas and ways of doing things.
It’s a difference that begins with the presence or absence of intellectual honesty and separates from there. Like oil and water.
jb
Sunday, June 13, 2010
The sin of certainty before insight…
Our marketing communications firm participates in RFPs from time to time, on the basis that we will not offer solutions until we conduct a discovery to understand the client’s business and marketing problem. Repeatedly, we find this is NOT the method of other firms participating in the RFP, as they continue to pitch a range of ideas along with an impressively presumptuous calendar of tactics.
This is a dangerous disservice to the prospective client.
So why does it keep happening?
It happens because people and companies don’t want to make decisions based on deep insight. They want instant expertise from instant experts who can boldly prescribe a new website, a new pdf brochure and an email campaign with social media thrown in. In other words, companies want certainty, and there are agencies still around that are willing to sell certainty in lieu of insight, planning and strategic execution.
Don’t believe this? It happens to be a neurological fact.
In his recent book How We Decide, author Jonah Lehrer documents the human brain’s capacity to short-circuit logic in favor of emotionally desired decisions. Among the many research and real-life examples cited is the inaccuracy of political pundits, quite possibly the most “confident” experts on the planet. In a study done by psychologist Philip Tetlock, 82,361 different predictions by political pundits were evaluated as to the accuracy of their outcomes. These pundits include the folks we watch Sunday mornings on the various political roundtables. On average, the pundits had predicted the correct historical outcome less than 33% of the time. In other words, a dart-throwing bubba could have beaten the majority of these overconfident prognosticators.
Why are so many “experts” so wrong? As Lehrer conveys, the central error diagnosed by the study was the sin of certainty: “Even though practically all of the professionals in Tetlock’s study claimed that they were dispassionately analyzing the evidence – everybody wanted to be rational – many of them were actually indulging in some conveniently cultivated ignorance.”
When agencies confidently present solutions to business problems they don’t yet understand, it is because they have learned that many clients would rather see the creative decision than the business understanding. When this happens, agency and client are both like political pundits whose thinking is short-circuited by their stubborn ideologies.
Except, in the case of many an RFP, the sin of certainty ends months later with the presumptuous agency moving on to the next RFP, and the client holding the agency's invoices.
jb
This is a dangerous disservice to the prospective client.
So why does it keep happening?
It happens because people and companies don’t want to make decisions based on deep insight. They want instant expertise from instant experts who can boldly prescribe a new website, a new pdf brochure and an email campaign with social media thrown in. In other words, companies want certainty, and there are agencies still around that are willing to sell certainty in lieu of insight, planning and strategic execution.
Don’t believe this? It happens to be a neurological fact.
In his recent book How We Decide, author Jonah Lehrer documents the human brain’s capacity to short-circuit logic in favor of emotionally desired decisions. Among the many research and real-life examples cited is the inaccuracy of political pundits, quite possibly the most “confident” experts on the planet. In a study done by psychologist Philip Tetlock, 82,361 different predictions by political pundits were evaluated as to the accuracy of their outcomes. These pundits include the folks we watch Sunday mornings on the various political roundtables. On average, the pundits had predicted the correct historical outcome less than 33% of the time. In other words, a dart-throwing bubba could have beaten the majority of these overconfident prognosticators.
Why are so many “experts” so wrong? As Lehrer conveys, the central error diagnosed by the study was the sin of certainty: “Even though practically all of the professionals in Tetlock’s study claimed that they were dispassionately analyzing the evidence – everybody wanted to be rational – many of them were actually indulging in some conveniently cultivated ignorance.”
When agencies confidently present solutions to business problems they don’t yet understand, it is because they have learned that many clients would rather see the creative decision than the business understanding. When this happens, agency and client are both like political pundits whose thinking is short-circuited by their stubborn ideologies.
Except, in the case of many an RFP, the sin of certainty ends months later with the presumptuous agency moving on to the next RFP, and the client holding the agency's invoices.
jb
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Has your company entered the summer recess-ion?
For many B2B companies, summer is a slower, even less decisive time of year. You may already be witnessing this perennial indecision in-action at your company.
Notice especially, how the sense of urgency is waning, as plans for competitive recovery are somehow being set aside. Like the many would-be leaders in congress, the C-level suites across B2B America are packing it in and packing up, eager to take the low road into a summer vacation state of mind.
What else explains such an exodus from leadership?
How about the fact that very few B2B top executives understand the transformational power of strategic marketing and branding. This is the real reason why so many potentially great companies will use the summer slowdown to snatch mediocrity from the jaws of success. They do not know how to break through the barriers they face: Including an absence of value recognition (your prospects don’t recognize the value you bring); organizational entropy (marketing indecision is preventing business momentum); and weak market insights (guessing only keeps your marketing in the dark).
Survival of the fittest. Bring it on. This summer, only a few B2B leaders will be keeping watch to make sure that their marketing and branding strategies break through the barriers to their companies’ greatness.
These are the kind of leaders and companies our firm loves to work with. As for the rest, see you in September.
jb
Notice especially, how the sense of urgency is waning, as plans for competitive recovery are somehow being set aside. Like the many would-be leaders in congress, the C-level suites across B2B America are packing it in and packing up, eager to take the low road into a summer vacation state of mind.
What else explains such an exodus from leadership?
How about the fact that very few B2B top executives understand the transformational power of strategic marketing and branding. This is the real reason why so many potentially great companies will use the summer slowdown to snatch mediocrity from the jaws of success. They do not know how to break through the barriers they face: Including an absence of value recognition (your prospects don’t recognize the value you bring); organizational entropy (marketing indecision is preventing business momentum); and weak market insights (guessing only keeps your marketing in the dark).
Survival of the fittest. Bring it on. This summer, only a few B2B leaders will be keeping watch to make sure that their marketing and branding strategies break through the barriers to their companies’ greatness.
These are the kind of leaders and companies our firm loves to work with. As for the rest, see you in September.
jb
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Don’t blame the BP blowout on the engineers
After 42 days of hand wringing at corporate BP, it’s pretty clear that the blowout now wrecking the world’s most fertile delta was not the fault of engineers. It was the fault of managerial titles, none of which included the title of safety, security, environment or brand.
A year ago, you can bet the view among BP’s top management was that they answer to nobody but the “shareholders” and the rest of us can all go jump in the lake, or the ocean. With no serious investments in deepwater backup, just surface skimming “technology” from the sixties, it’s clear now that BP’s management invested another year of risk, hoping to cash in on another $20 billion year in profits. But hey, in their defense, it was a calculated risk.
The shareholders would have approved, right?
Somewhere along the way, you can bet the would-be leaders at BP raised their voices in favor of safety, security, environment and brand; and among these were the engineering teams whose voices were politely heard…
Then buried by 5,280 feet of deep disregard.
jb
A year ago, you can bet the view among BP’s top management was that they answer to nobody but the “shareholders” and the rest of us can all go jump in the lake, or the ocean. With no serious investments in deepwater backup, just surface skimming “technology” from the sixties, it’s clear now that BP’s management invested another year of risk, hoping to cash in on another $20 billion year in profits. But hey, in their defense, it was a calculated risk.
The shareholders would have approved, right?
Somewhere along the way, you can bet the would-be leaders at BP raised their voices in favor of safety, security, environment and brand; and among these were the engineering teams whose voices were politely heard…
Then buried by 5,280 feet of deep disregard.
jb
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
B2B’s marketing blind spots
Had the chance to sit in on a roundtable of business owners talking about how indecisive customers are nowadays. Your sales team has likely commiserated over the same conclusion we came to, which is that your value is no longer self-evident and the customer’s buying cycle now seems to possess an invisible new gear that fails to mesh with your sales cycle.
These are times that challenge B2B organizations to test the greater meaning of marketing, which is the creation of customers -- creation that can only come from deeper exploration of a customer’s problems, and often in spite of that customer’s own blind spots. Nevertheless, it is this juncture where marketing is being put to the test. Just as kaizen is the practice of discovering and celebrating failures for the purpose of improving quality, marketing must discover customer problems for the purpose of improving value delivery.
But this is generally not the way of most B2B organizations. The tendency is to manage away from problems, rather than to lead people to seek them out. The tendency is to look back in the rear view mirror of product features and benefits, rather than to help focus a customer’s blurred perception of their own problems and costs – kaizen opportunities to be cultivated by your company’s deeper wherewithal.
When a B2B company fails to fail on behalf of its customers, it is because there is an imbalance between management and leadership. A marketing blind spot has formed that prevents the exploration and creation of greater value. Looking at ourselves in the mirror of B2B marketing, some will insist that it is the role of management to minimize failure.
If so, then it is the role of leadership to capitalize on it.
jb
These are times that challenge B2B organizations to test the greater meaning of marketing, which is the creation of customers -- creation that can only come from deeper exploration of a customer’s problems, and often in spite of that customer’s own blind spots. Nevertheless, it is this juncture where marketing is being put to the test. Just as kaizen is the practice of discovering and celebrating failures for the purpose of improving quality, marketing must discover customer problems for the purpose of improving value delivery.
But this is generally not the way of most B2B organizations. The tendency is to manage away from problems, rather than to lead people to seek them out. The tendency is to look back in the rear view mirror of product features and benefits, rather than to help focus a customer’s blurred perception of their own problems and costs – kaizen opportunities to be cultivated by your company’s deeper wherewithal.
When a B2B company fails to fail on behalf of its customers, it is because there is an imbalance between management and leadership. A marketing blind spot has formed that prevents the exploration and creation of greater value. Looking at ourselves in the mirror of B2B marketing, some will insist that it is the role of management to minimize failure.
If so, then it is the role of leadership to capitalize on it.
jb
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Social media up-close…
Just flew back from a B2B trade show and boy are my arms tired. Sorry. Actually, after the short-lived knee pain from walking the show for three days, the pain that lingers comes from having again witnessed the failure of marketing, and being struck by the similarities between trade show marketing and social media marketing.
Judging by the behaviors of booth staffs at the show, a few marketers are highly effective, but most are not. Up close at a trade show, you can see this failure. Here is an unscientific account of the three approaches I witnessed this past week...
“What can I sell you today?”
Maybe 60% of booth workers conveyed this attitude, and you can bet it’s their approach every other business day of the year. They lead with, “We make X. Are you buying from us yet?” And if the passer-by’s answer is “no,” then the next question is, “Why not?” This aggressive approach actually works on rare occasions, but usually the spirit of the question will be taken for what it is, insincere and off-putting, because it does not help passers-by think about their business problems in the context of your capabilities. Just the opposite, it reinforces their negative image of salespeople. They wincingly nod, fight or flight instincts kicking in. Almost begrudgingly, they let you swipe their card, but mentally they are on the run, needing to get as far as possible away from your brand and your booth.
“Do not disturb.”
Around 35% of booth workers apparently feel this way. How else can you explain their weary passivity, their genuine disinterest? If you are a passer-by, they may see you coming, but so what? They have retreated within their booth, looking out as though penned by an invisible electric fence, unwilling to step forward for fear of getting zapped. So they mingle among themselves, clearly preferring each other’s company. As to why they are here, is it not apparent to all? They are here, because they have booth duty; so they huddle to share business “war stories” and to be critical of competitors, and to complain about low show attendance. They are ineffective at the show, and they would be ineffective in social media.
“How are you today?”
The interest is genuine. The booth worker cares even as you squint to understand the booth signage. He or she intercepts your thoughts in stride by asking the question that both explains and engages: “Are you using X?” Followed by, “What problems have you been experiencing in this area?” Within seconds you are a visitor inside the booth, because you have established a mutual frame of reference, which is your problem and not the booth worker’s product. Incredibly, the booth worker has helped you think about a problem you have in the midst of the messaging chaos that is the trade show environment. The approach is neither passive nor aggressive. It is the simple act of being genuinely interested.
It is this latter approach that works. It works within the broader messaging chaos that is social media, and it works within the marketplace at large.
JB
Judging by the behaviors of booth staffs at the show, a few marketers are highly effective, but most are not. Up close at a trade show, you can see this failure. Here is an unscientific account of the three approaches I witnessed this past week...
“What can I sell you today?”
Maybe 60% of booth workers conveyed this attitude, and you can bet it’s their approach every other business day of the year. They lead with, “We make X. Are you buying from us yet?” And if the passer-by’s answer is “no,” then the next question is, “Why not?” This aggressive approach actually works on rare occasions, but usually the spirit of the question will be taken for what it is, insincere and off-putting, because it does not help passers-by think about their business problems in the context of your capabilities. Just the opposite, it reinforces their negative image of salespeople. They wincingly nod, fight or flight instincts kicking in. Almost begrudgingly, they let you swipe their card, but mentally they are on the run, needing to get as far as possible away from your brand and your booth.
“Do not disturb.”
Around 35% of booth workers apparently feel this way. How else can you explain their weary passivity, their genuine disinterest? If you are a passer-by, they may see you coming, but so what? They have retreated within their booth, looking out as though penned by an invisible electric fence, unwilling to step forward for fear of getting zapped. So they mingle among themselves, clearly preferring each other’s company. As to why they are here, is it not apparent to all? They are here, because they have booth duty; so they huddle to share business “war stories” and to be critical of competitors, and to complain about low show attendance. They are ineffective at the show, and they would be ineffective in social media.
“How are you today?”
The interest is genuine. The booth worker cares even as you squint to understand the booth signage. He or she intercepts your thoughts in stride by asking the question that both explains and engages: “Are you using X?” Followed by, “What problems have you been experiencing in this area?” Within seconds you are a visitor inside the booth, because you have established a mutual frame of reference, which is your problem and not the booth worker’s product. Incredibly, the booth worker has helped you think about a problem you have in the midst of the messaging chaos that is the trade show environment. The approach is neither passive nor aggressive. It is the simple act of being genuinely interested.
It is this latter approach that works. It works within the broader messaging chaos that is social media, and it works within the marketplace at large.
JB
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Got a minute? Let’s launch a new company.
C’mon, we can do this. We’ll make millions. Let’s take that product idea you’ve had in your back pocket for years, put it on a line card and start selling features and benefits. Not sure what's selling? Check your competitors’ line cards. Smaller. Faster. Modular. Green. Hey – yours too! Only, yours is THE BEST.
Now let’s get the word out, but first what are the competitors doing? Not much? Good, we can match them easy and save money right off the bat. Our new accountant will love that. All we need to do is get out there and start selling and we’re in business.
Pick a product. Any product. Put it on a line card. Say it’s the best.
Sound familiar? If it does, then the time has come to escape the world of me-too B2B mismarketing, misbranding and miscommunication.
Our firm is looking for a few good B2B business leaders who want to finally put the power of marketing and branding to work for them: www.centrifuge-now.com
JB
Now let’s get the word out, but first what are the competitors doing? Not much? Good, we can match them easy and save money right off the bat. Our new accountant will love that. All we need to do is get out there and start selling and we’re in business.
Pick a product. Any product. Put it on a line card. Say it’s the best.
Sound familiar? If it does, then the time has come to escape the world of me-too B2B mismarketing, misbranding and miscommunication.
Our firm is looking for a few good B2B business leaders who want to finally put the power of marketing and branding to work for them: www.centrifuge-now.com
JB
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
B2B TALKS about social media…
Nothing gets sold until it gets communicated. However, communication is a fluid thing. It’s difficult to manage and even harder to lead.
Meanwhile, smaller B2B companies are attending social media seminars almost monthly, trying to catch up with larger B2B companies. That won’t take long. And when they do, many of these entrepreneurial businesses will do a better job of it, because they won’t allow themselves to come up against the social media “policy” wall -- that barrier built by lawyers and managers as no-fault disclaimers, establishing a hands-off approach to having employees walk-the-walk when it comes to all the social media talk.
The uneven adoption of social media illustrates the difference between management driven and leadership driven business cultures. A management driven culture is inclined to control social media. Realizing this isn’t possible, the decision will be, “Ok, if we can’t manage it, let’s minimize the damage it can cause.” Alternatively, in a business culture driven by leadership, the attitude will be, “Let’s cultivate our employee leaders to use social media to build our brand. Not only that, let’s show them how!”
B2B leaders understand that social media is just another way a company can invest in the professional development of people. It’s just another way to go to market and to build brand identity.
It’s another way to communicate. Or not.
JB
Meanwhile, smaller B2B companies are attending social media seminars almost monthly, trying to catch up with larger B2B companies. That won’t take long. And when they do, many of these entrepreneurial businesses will do a better job of it, because they won’t allow themselves to come up against the social media “policy” wall -- that barrier built by lawyers and managers as no-fault disclaimers, establishing a hands-off approach to having employees walk-the-walk when it comes to all the social media talk.
The uneven adoption of social media illustrates the difference between management driven and leadership driven business cultures. A management driven culture is inclined to control social media. Realizing this isn’t possible, the decision will be, “Ok, if we can’t manage it, let’s minimize the damage it can cause.” Alternatively, in a business culture driven by leadership, the attitude will be, “Let’s cultivate our employee leaders to use social media to build our brand. Not only that, let’s show them how!”
B2B leaders understand that social media is just another way a company can invest in the professional development of people. It’s just another way to go to market and to build brand identity.
It’s another way to communicate. Or not.
JB
Sunday, April 25, 2010
What’s your line?
A lesson of this economy has been to market smarter, not to just sell harder; so how can it be that some B2B companies continue to go to market by focusing on their line cards as “product solutions” to complex customer problems?
We can report that the B2B brands we work with are starting to capitalize on insight based marketing and selling (and buying – by taking the customer’s point of view!)
As we move out of this recession, longer-term and more profitable relationships are being built and it’s happening because there are B2B leaders who are making the decision to act now. Such decisiveness is nearly impossible in those organizations where customer insight is lacking, because there are no clear reference points guiding such decisions; and in these organizations where indecision stays the course, the question is this...
Is your marketing helping your company reach it’s full business potential?
The answer is not based on your company’s line card, but on its line of work: What is your company really good at and do your customers know this?
JB
We can report that the B2B brands we work with are starting to capitalize on insight based marketing and selling (and buying – by taking the customer’s point of view!)
As we move out of this recession, longer-term and more profitable relationships are being built and it’s happening because there are B2B leaders who are making the decision to act now. Such decisiveness is nearly impossible in those organizations where customer insight is lacking, because there are no clear reference points guiding such decisions; and in these organizations where indecision stays the course, the question is this...
Is your marketing helping your company reach it’s full business potential?
The answer is not based on your company’s line card, but on its line of work: What is your company really good at and do your customers know this?
JB
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The ultimate value of social media
The first step B2B corporations have taken regarding social media has been to establish employee social media policies. It was as though corporate counsel ran down the hall to the CEO and the CIO and without inviting HR, PR or marketing into the discussion, they decided the first thing to be done about social media was to protect the company from its use or misuse by employees.
Such a rush to "policy" exposes the lack of marketing and branding in many B2B organizations. In those few B2B companies that know the importance of becoming aligned on purpose, value delivery and greater business potential, leadership is now realizing that social media is a huge brand-building opportunity.
The wise approach is not to govern social media, but to encourage it and capitalize on it. Nevertheless, you can bet that this year most B2B organizations will continue to walk the legal tightrope of social media policy making.
Their wiser competitors will do just the opposite.
JB
Such a rush to "policy" exposes the lack of marketing and branding in many B2B organizations. In those few B2B companies that know the importance of becoming aligned on purpose, value delivery and greater business potential, leadership is now realizing that social media is a huge brand-building opportunity.
The wise approach is not to govern social media, but to encourage it and capitalize on it. Nevertheless, you can bet that this year most B2B organizations will continue to walk the legal tightrope of social media policy making.
Their wiser competitors will do just the opposite.
JB
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Is 3-D coming soon to a competitor near you?
3-D movies are becoming prolific and it’s about time. Those of us who grew up wearing the cheap cardboard frames with the crinkled and smeary lenses have long ago paid our dues. It was always more novelty than authenticity and that’s the difference today – authenticity.
The same can be said of our business, the development of B2B marketing communications for organizations in need of more authentic, three-dimensional identities - branding that can sharpen the vision of an organization and reveal a better business reality.
Just like the latest 3-D moviemaking, effective branding is effective storytelling, but it’s the authenticity of the customer’s experience that wins out.
Some organizations don't see this coming. They struggle because they lack clearly articulated brand identities. They sell themselves short, because they lack the vision to see beyond their products to the deeper needs of customers.
A customer sees such an organization as if through paper-framed lenses.
Until a competitor offers that customer a more authentic experience.
The same can be said of our business, the development of B2B marketing communications for organizations in need of more authentic, three-dimensional identities - branding that can sharpen the vision of an organization and reveal a better business reality.
Just like the latest 3-D moviemaking, effective branding is effective storytelling, but it’s the authenticity of the customer’s experience that wins out.
Some organizations don't see this coming. They struggle because they lack clearly articulated brand identities. They sell themselves short, because they lack the vision to see beyond their products to the deeper needs of customers.
A customer sees such an organization as if through paper-framed lenses.
Until a competitor offers that customer a more authentic experience.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
We are looking for a few good B2B leaders
You are out there somewhere. B2B leaders. You can see the greater potential of your organizations, because you can see beyond the features and benefits of your products to the deeper problems and aspirations of your customers. Or at least, you are determined to find out.
This weekend, you have been thinking about how to align your underachieving organizations into up-and-coming companies, and there’s a chance you will succeed in leading this transformation, because you understand the roles of insight and communication, you can discern enterprise from entropy, brand transparency from brand identity, and you will not sacrifice collective progress for individual preservation.
Happily, you are surrounded by a world of B2B non-leaders.
B2B non-leaders have you outnumbered by a preposterous percentage. They occupy the C-level offices of your weakest competitors and on this fine Sunday morning, these non-leaders are not thinking about organizational alignment, mission and message, greater value delivery or something called brand identity.
B2B non-leaders were never prepared for this - an economy that separates go-with-the-flow non-leaders from B2B leaders who get it.
In the months ahead, non-leaders in your marketplace will continue to exercise indecision on the most vital of issues. Uncomfortable in matters of vision, mission and message, and with a shallow understanding of their organizations' greater value potential, they will remain intolerant of the vagaries of “insight” and “communication” and organizational behavior. They will continue to read the tea leaves of recovery and find no confidence or courage there. They will dig deeper into their fox holes even as the marketplace shifts miles away from them.
And in the coming year, as sure as the sun will set on this fine Sunday, with a little branding and marketing help your company will make their organizations obsolete.
Free enterprise. Let it be.
Our firm is looking for a few good B2B leaders.
So is America.
jb
This weekend, you have been thinking about how to align your underachieving organizations into up-and-coming companies, and there’s a chance you will succeed in leading this transformation, because you understand the roles of insight and communication, you can discern enterprise from entropy, brand transparency from brand identity, and you will not sacrifice collective progress for individual preservation.
Happily, you are surrounded by a world of B2B non-leaders.
B2B non-leaders have you outnumbered by a preposterous percentage. They occupy the C-level offices of your weakest competitors and on this fine Sunday morning, these non-leaders are not thinking about organizational alignment, mission and message, greater value delivery or something called brand identity.
B2B non-leaders were never prepared for this - an economy that separates go-with-the-flow non-leaders from B2B leaders who get it.
In the months ahead, non-leaders in your marketplace will continue to exercise indecision on the most vital of issues. Uncomfortable in matters of vision, mission and message, and with a shallow understanding of their organizations' greater value potential, they will remain intolerant of the vagaries of “insight” and “communication” and organizational behavior. They will continue to read the tea leaves of recovery and find no confidence or courage there. They will dig deeper into their fox holes even as the marketplace shifts miles away from them.
And in the coming year, as sure as the sun will set on this fine Sunday, with a little branding and marketing help your company will make their organizations obsolete.
Free enterprise. Let it be.
Our firm is looking for a few good B2B leaders.
So is America.
jb
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Every CEO needs a Final Four
College basketball fans know the winning names in Division I coaching. They are the coaches who have taken their programs to the NCAA Final Four and won. Someone ought to write a good-to-great book about why some coaches can do this, and why others never will. I bet a key finding of such a study would be this:
Winning coaches position their programs to capitalize on good fortune.
In the B2B marketing and branding arena, positioning an organization to win should be the purpose of every business leader. And yet so many B2B companies continue to fall short of this objective, not for lack of desire or having talented players, but for a lack of execution – failing to be in the right place at the right time when the game is on the line.
For the winning coach or CEO, it is never enough to just be in the tournament. Winning means your program and your people have lived up to their full potential.
JB
Winning coaches position their programs to capitalize on good fortune.
In the B2B marketing and branding arena, positioning an organization to win should be the purpose of every business leader. And yet so many B2B companies continue to fall short of this objective, not for lack of desire or having talented players, but for a lack of execution – failing to be in the right place at the right time when the game is on the line.
For the winning coach or CEO, it is never enough to just be in the tournament. Winning means your program and your people have lived up to their full potential.
JB
Monday, March 22, 2010
Greater expectations
We set out each day facing personal and business challenges. Late Friday, I learned that my daughter’s thyroid nodule biopsy came back abnormal. No further explanation would be given over the phone and we have had the weekend to think about it.
Business leaders will set out this Monday counting their blessings as they continue to count the rise of economic indicators. Many have learned the lesson of our times, that people and companies must not be allowed to sell themselves short, but must be guided and encouraged each day to reach their greatest potential.
I will go to work this morning and later we will meet with the doctor to learn our options. And whatever “abnormal” means, it means together we will try each day to achieve our greatest potential in business and in life.
JB
Business leaders will set out this Monday counting their blessings as they continue to count the rise of economic indicators. Many have learned the lesson of our times, that people and companies must not be allowed to sell themselves short, but must be guided and encouraged each day to reach their greatest potential.
I will go to work this morning and later we will meet with the doctor to learn our options. And whatever “abnormal” means, it means together we will try each day to achieve our greatest potential in business and in life.
JB
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The problem with elevator pitches
If you are networking at the chamber meetings and trying to get into the social media flow, then you know how handy it is to have memorized and rehearsed a speedy business proposition. In about the time it takes to reach into your pocket to dispense your business card, you can by now recite your elevator pitch in such an efficient way as to trigger nods all around the table. You have become like a matador, able to face down the big moment, sharply delivering your value proposition, then deftly stepping aside in time for the next person to take their stab at it.
I on the other hand, stumble to do this.
Our firm helps companies communicate more effectively, so that they can sell more effectively. We are a marketing communications firm specializing in B2B brand identity development. But what does that really tell you? Already, your eyes have glazed over.
It seems characteristic of our overall business malaise that the way we listen to each other has changed. We have learned to communicate and to sell the same way we listen, by way of compressed, digitized sound bytes. So even as we move away from the networking table to a prospective customer’s conference table, we continue to address complex customer problems with thirty-second attention spans.
The business world needs more listeners and fewer matadors.
jb
I on the other hand, stumble to do this.
Our firm helps companies communicate more effectively, so that they can sell more effectively. We are a marketing communications firm specializing in B2B brand identity development. But what does that really tell you? Already, your eyes have glazed over.
It seems characteristic of our overall business malaise that the way we listen to each other has changed. We have learned to communicate and to sell the same way we listen, by way of compressed, digitized sound bytes. So even as we move away from the networking table to a prospective customer’s conference table, we continue to address complex customer problems with thirty-second attention spans.
The business world needs more listeners and fewer matadors.
jb
Monday, March 8, 2010
You want it. You got it. Toyota.
If you still doubt the value or even the legitimacy of branding, watch how readily Toyota recovers from their staggering recall. Unless they continue to mis-engineer their products, all the company must do is extend respect, heartfelt apologies, offer an incentive or two and most Toyota fans will keep coming back. And the marketplace will continue to pay a premium for this brand.
Without branding, the company would be mortally wounded.
Meanwhile, today thousands of mid-size manufacturers across the country will charge through their daily lives with their heads down, keeping their fingers crossed, unprotected by such brand equity. When their recall comes, their businesses will be much more likely to fail, because a similar product manufacturer is right is around the corner.
If you are the leader of such a company and you doubt this can happen to you, ask your customers. Branding beats just keeping your fingers crossed.
jb
Without branding, the company would be mortally wounded.
Meanwhile, today thousands of mid-size manufacturers across the country will charge through their daily lives with their heads down, keeping their fingers crossed, unprotected by such brand equity. When their recall comes, their businesses will be much more likely to fail, because a similar product manufacturer is right is around the corner.
If you are the leader of such a company and you doubt this can happen to you, ask your customers. Branding beats just keeping your fingers crossed.
jb
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Is your company selling itself short?
Yesterday I was in a meeting with a client when word came that one of our competitors was going under. The reaction among us was mixed. Someone said hoorah and someone else said now we can raise prices, but the group’s tone then became muted. That competitor has families and people we know. That competitor could have been us. Unlike us, for a long time now that competitor has been trying to become the lowest price option.
Offering the lowest price can be a smart tactic on occasion. But when it becomes your internal brand identity, when your own people come to see that this is the mission and message, then your brand image in the marketplace will also become just that and only that: You are the low price option. And in any market, there may only be room for one low price option, so you had better be built for it, otherwise, here is the risk…
Companies don’t fail, their leaders do.
To be clear, the people who are expected to lead their organizations, they fail when they fall out of touch with their customer segments; they fail when they fall out of touch with themselves, with their own companies’ greater capabilities and potential for creating value.
Leaders fail, when they do not use their positions of power to bring about a greater understanding of expectations to their people and to the people who would thereby become better customers.
jb
Offering the lowest price can be a smart tactic on occasion. But when it becomes your internal brand identity, when your own people come to see that this is the mission and message, then your brand image in the marketplace will also become just that and only that: You are the low price option. And in any market, there may only be room for one low price option, so you had better be built for it, otherwise, here is the risk…
Companies don’t fail, their leaders do.
To be clear, the people who are expected to lead their organizations, they fail when they fall out of touch with their customer segments; they fail when they fall out of touch with themselves, with their own companies’ greater capabilities and potential for creating value.
Leaders fail, when they do not use their positions of power to bring about a greater understanding of expectations to their people and to the people who would thereby become better customers.
jb
Monday, February 22, 2010
Have we lost our sense of urgency?
The phrase did not originate with President Obama. John Kotter first articulated the value of having a constructive sense of urgency in his book Leading Change back in 1996. And in case business leaders and America’s leaders missed it, he underscored the message again in his latest work A Sense of Urgency in 2008.
Both books outlined the steps to leading organizational change, of which having a sense of urgency is just step one. The next steps are to establish an achievable vision and mission, construct the core coalition that agrees with and will carry out this mission, communicate the mission internally to align the organization, empower the many others who must carry out the plan, report on the short term wins that reinforce and encourage the new way of doing things – and then finally anchor this new way of doing things in the culture of the organization.
As we look at the business of bringing recovery to America, it can’t be said that President Obama missed this first step to leading change. But he sure has hit some snags leading the next steps.
It’s not enough to say, “Yes, we can,” when “we” becomes the democratic party. This is the observation all effective business leaders can recognize, an observation that can be made about too many of our politicians, democrats and republicans alike. To be clear, it is not an observation about the shift now in power from one party to another, but about wasted opportunity to bring meaningful change.
This was the greater meaning of the Paul Brown senatorial "upset" election in Massachusetts. And this is the greater meaning of Evan Bayh’s resignation as senator in Indiana. While the news media reported on how the democrats received another major blow, and while democrats are now rethinking their exposure, and while republicans are jockeying to take advantage, they all overlook the simple message Evan Bayh has tried to make…
"There is too much partisanship and not enough progress – too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples' business is not being done.”
Both books outlined the steps to leading organizational change, of which having a sense of urgency is just step one. The next steps are to establish an achievable vision and mission, construct the core coalition that agrees with and will carry out this mission, communicate the mission internally to align the organization, empower the many others who must carry out the plan, report on the short term wins that reinforce and encourage the new way of doing things – and then finally anchor this new way of doing things in the culture of the organization.
As we look at the business of bringing recovery to America, it can’t be said that President Obama missed this first step to leading change. But he sure has hit some snags leading the next steps.
It’s not enough to say, “Yes, we can,” when “we” becomes the democratic party. This is the observation all effective business leaders can recognize, an observation that can be made about too many of our politicians, democrats and republicans alike. To be clear, it is not an observation about the shift now in power from one party to another, but about wasted opportunity to bring meaningful change.
This was the greater meaning of the Paul Brown senatorial "upset" election in Massachusetts. And this is the greater meaning of Evan Bayh’s resignation as senator in Indiana. While the news media reported on how the democrats received another major blow, and while democrats are now rethinking their exposure, and while republicans are jockeying to take advantage, they all overlook the simple message Evan Bayh has tried to make…
"There is too much partisanship and not enough progress – too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples' business is not being done.”
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Turn your sales funnel upside down
Any company still attempting to SELL a complex product as a “solution” is in trouble. So long as a CEO and his or her core coalition allow this behavior to continue, the company’s sales force will not learn how to explore with customers to bring higher-margin value beyond the fixed, immediate “product solution” they are pushing.
In our own presentations with clients, we sometimes use the classic metaphor of a sales funnel to illustrate this problem. Sales-driven companies want a big funnel that narrows quickly to close the sale. My firm helps companies re-engineer this funnel, so that it opens up just as widely on the customer’s side.
As we move out of this recession, longer term and more profitable relationships will not come from the selling and buying of today’s product, but from an understanding of where company and customer can continue to grow together.
In our own presentations with clients, we sometimes use the classic metaphor of a sales funnel to illustrate this problem. Sales-driven companies want a big funnel that narrows quickly to close the sale. My firm helps companies re-engineer this funnel, so that it opens up just as widely on the customer’s side.
As we move out of this recession, longer term and more profitable relationships will not come from the selling and buying of today’s product, but from an understanding of where company and customer can continue to grow together.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
A tale of two realities
Yet another lesson of this economy is that it has exposed the stark difference between sales and marketing – the function of selling and the function of cultivating customers. We say functions, when of course we are talking about people. Human behavior. The pressure is on to sell, when the greater need is for stronger and longer-term customer relationships.
In the world of B2B, marketing never did get a lot of respect. But look at it from the sale engineer’s point of view: Marketing is a cost center. Sales is a profit center. Marketing is mysterious voodoo. Sales deals in tangible features and benefits. You know all this because the VP of Sales told you so. And since when did marketing ever help you close a sale?
Marketing has failed you. Or more precisely, your company’s leadership has failed to prove the worth of marketing. So you will continue to do what you get paid to do. Sell stuff. So long as you are recruited, hired, trained and paid to sell what is in front of you, you will continue to sell what is in front of you. There will be no deeper exploration of customer problems and opportunities.
It’s a tale of two realities.
Your company’s leaders can see this clearly now.
JB
In the world of B2B, marketing never did get a lot of respect. But look at it from the sale engineer’s point of view: Marketing is a cost center. Sales is a profit center. Marketing is mysterious voodoo. Sales deals in tangible features and benefits. You know all this because the VP of Sales told you so. And since when did marketing ever help you close a sale?
Marketing has failed you. Or more precisely, your company’s leadership has failed to prove the worth of marketing. So you will continue to do what you get paid to do. Sell stuff. So long as you are recruited, hired, trained and paid to sell what is in front of you, you will continue to sell what is in front of you. There will be no deeper exploration of customer problems and opportunities.
It’s a tale of two realities.
Your company’s leaders can see this clearly now.
JB
Sunday, January 31, 2010
On cutting one’s nose off…
As B2B companies get ready for “the recovery” they are finding out just how deeply and dangerously lean they have made themselves after so much cutting. If survival is the only revenge your company can have on its competitors, then it’s hard to argue there is a smarter way.
But what if you are a company that has a genuine business advantage and you were to take this time to face your marketplace, raise your identity, your voice and your message of greater value, while others languish indecisively?
The greater tragedy of this recession will be that so many B2B companies will have cut off their noses despite their faces, and learned nothing from it.
JB
But what if you are a company that has a genuine business advantage and you were to take this time to face your marketplace, raise your identity, your voice and your message of greater value, while others languish indecisively?
The greater tragedy of this recession will be that so many B2B companies will have cut off their noses despite their faces, and learned nothing from it.
JB
Friday, January 22, 2010
You can lead a horse to water…
But why bother. Horses have the instinct and sensory skills to find it on their own. Humans, on the other hand, are not wired that way. People who work within organizations need to be led, or the organization will default to a state of entropy. This is especially dangerous at a time when organizations are desperately challenged to behave as unified companies.
Sadly, it may take a recession for many B2B companies to learn the difference between business management and business leadership. Even more sad is the fact that so many companies will not learn this difference, even if they survive the recession.
Yet the difference is clear. The managerial approach is to cut costs, make the necessary layoffs and furloughs. The leadership approach is to more fully exploit competitive advantage, become aligned on mission and identity, become all the better positioned for faster recovery, better margins and a stronger future.
Managing cost reductions is a lot easier than leading organizational change.
The entropy that now hampers the organization was there before this recession, only now it is magnified by the absence of leadership. You can blame it on corporate culture, but that would be wrong. Corporate culture is the planned outcome of thoughtful leadership. Entropy is the outcome of bureaucracy.
Who in your organization, if not the CEO, is asking the right questions about company identity, value generation, related customer needs and the greater growth potential of your company?
JB
Sadly, it may take a recession for many B2B companies to learn the difference between business management and business leadership. Even more sad is the fact that so many companies will not learn this difference, even if they survive the recession.
Yet the difference is clear. The managerial approach is to cut costs, make the necessary layoffs and furloughs. The leadership approach is to more fully exploit competitive advantage, become aligned on mission and identity, become all the better positioned for faster recovery, better margins and a stronger future.
Managing cost reductions is a lot easier than leading organizational change.
The entropy that now hampers the organization was there before this recession, only now it is magnified by the absence of leadership. You can blame it on corporate culture, but that would be wrong. Corporate culture is the planned outcome of thoughtful leadership. Entropy is the outcome of bureaucracy.
Who in your organization, if not the CEO, is asking the right questions about company identity, value generation, related customer needs and the greater growth potential of your company?
JB
Friday, January 15, 2010
If they aren’t buying, stop selling
I just dropped out of a Linkedin discussion group thread called “5 Qualities of a Great Salesman”. It’s one of those “discussions” impeded by self-promotion, with someone upping the anti to 7 and others contesting what the number should be.
Apparently misunderstanding the assignment, I briefly suggested that the ability to explore a customer’s need was important, to which one participant replied: “Solely understanding the customer's need is not enough, the word "need" had gone out of marketing dictionaries since WWII.”
Here’s the point I would try to make, were anyone listening:
Whether a great sales person should have 5 qualities or 10, they should all add up to the one quality of helping a customer solve a set of problems. In any engineered or considered purchase situation, when a sales person finds that the customer is not buying, then he or she should stop selling and start listening.
I suspect the problem with this discussion group is that they are all classically trained salespeople. They are mostly selling and not listening.
JB
Apparently misunderstanding the assignment, I briefly suggested that the ability to explore a customer’s need was important, to which one participant replied: “Solely understanding the customer's need is not enough, the word "need" had gone out of marketing dictionaries since WWII.”
Here’s the point I would try to make, were anyone listening:
Whether a great sales person should have 5 qualities or 10, they should all add up to the one quality of helping a customer solve a set of problems. In any engineered or considered purchase situation, when a sales person finds that the customer is not buying, then he or she should stop selling and start listening.
I suspect the problem with this discussion group is that they are all classically trained salespeople. They are mostly selling and not listening.
JB
Saturday, January 9, 2010
The power of perspective
Life can be especially hard on companies that do not have the means to sort mission critical problems from the problems of this day, this month or this year, versus the problems that can set them off course for years to come. Or worse.
Once again my wife and I are on the couch watching Star Trek TNG reruns. This time captain Jean-Luc Picard and crew are entering an energy-draining asteroid field, big problems and little problems coming at us on-screen. You can bet we are about to deflect some of these smaller problems and take real care not to collide with the bigger ones.
But managing our own problems is not the mission of the Enterprise.
Today, we are going to make an important discovery about our marketplace, adjust, stay on course and come out stronger. Marketing leadership isn't going to let the Enterprise run aground or worse, idle about forever in this asteroid field thinking this is our mission.
This Enterprise has the reference points it needs to come out of these hard times, having maintained the strong sense of identity every B2B company needs.
JB
Once again my wife and I are on the couch watching Star Trek TNG reruns. This time captain Jean-Luc Picard and crew are entering an energy-draining asteroid field, big problems and little problems coming at us on-screen. You can bet we are about to deflect some of these smaller problems and take real care not to collide with the bigger ones.
But managing our own problems is not the mission of the Enterprise.
Today, we are going to make an important discovery about our marketplace, adjust, stay on course and come out stronger. Marketing leadership isn't going to let the Enterprise run aground or worse, idle about forever in this asteroid field thinking this is our mission.
This Enterprise has the reference points it needs to come out of these hard times, having maintained the strong sense of identity every B2B company needs.
JB
Saturday, January 2, 2010
What's your major?
Having long ago left the college scene, I still hear a similar social question around the B2B networking table: “What business are you in?” is one of those loaded questions: “No, what business are you really in?” which can lead to the more provocative: “What’s your passion?” or more to the point, though never asked at the table this way: “Are you achieving your full potential in life?”
Such questions can make one uncomfortable. Even as thousands of people remain unemployed, the questions seem ungratefully out of place. The overriding sentiment is that now is the time to be thankful and to accept what we have.
And therein lies a danger all B2B leaders now face.
It is one thing to be grateful for a job, but it is counterproductive for a company’s workforce to accept status quo. For CEO’s and other business leaders, now is the time to lead; and if you agree that establishing a sense of urgency is the first step to leading organizational change, then you will also agree that now is the time for your marketing and branding disciplines to communicate the change vision for your company.
From the perspective of business leadership, these earlier questions go to the heart of the matter: What business are you in? What is your company’s passion? Is it the purpose of your company to more efficiently sell products, or to create customer relationships that bring greater profitability?
The point being, clarity and consensus is essential to overcoming the entropy that will otherwise hold your company back. As to the need for establishing this clarity and consensus within your company, it depends on your answer to yet another question:
What is your company’s greater business potential?
JB
Such questions can make one uncomfortable. Even as thousands of people remain unemployed, the questions seem ungratefully out of place. The overriding sentiment is that now is the time to be thankful and to accept what we have.
And therein lies a danger all B2B leaders now face.
It is one thing to be grateful for a job, but it is counterproductive for a company’s workforce to accept status quo. For CEO’s and other business leaders, now is the time to lead; and if you agree that establishing a sense of urgency is the first step to leading organizational change, then you will also agree that now is the time for your marketing and branding disciplines to communicate the change vision for your company.
From the perspective of business leadership, these earlier questions go to the heart of the matter: What business are you in? What is your company’s passion? Is it the purpose of your company to more efficiently sell products, or to create customer relationships that bring greater profitability?
The point being, clarity and consensus is essential to overcoming the entropy that will otherwise hold your company back. As to the need for establishing this clarity and consensus within your company, it depends on your answer to yet another question:
What is your company’s greater business potential?
JB
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