Sound familiar?

Hearing what a prospective customer planned to do with the product was the best thing that could have happened to a software company I worked with in the Boston area. There were things the customer wanted that hadn’t been designed in; things the customer insisted were important. The company had a long list of enhancements and ‘bug’ fixes and wasn’t really sure why anyone would need the particular functions being requested but the customer was being very vocal. Smart company: they decided to listen with intent. When the developers and marketers still didn’t ‘get it’, they decided to go watch some of the users, well, try to use it. That was the ‘aha’ moment.

At a Cleveland-based company, a product team was meeting with some users of their product in a factory setting. During the 20 minute conversation, an inefficient pattern – one that really had little to do with the product – was observed. During lunch, one of the team members mentioned his observation. It turned out that by creating a new mounting and wiring mechanism, the customer would have other options for where the product was installed. By moving the equipment, 10 tiring steps up and back several times a day would be eliminated, saving each employee valuable minutes and energy. It might not sound like much, but in the course of a week, it added up to a great deal of saved time, and it was only possible because we were on site.

Smart companies involve employees from cross-functional disciplines in assuring customer success. Corporate and field marketing teams need to get out and talk to customers and prospects and be the voice of the customer. The best companies get their developer and designers in front of customers, too. In both of the cases above, asking and listening were good first steps, but observation and cooperation were what made the difference. Visiting and collaborating with customers should be the normal way of operating, not a burden or exception.

Face-to-face meetings are the best way. Employees will feel pride of ownership for company success and even the R&D folks will tell stories about ‘when I visited that trading floor on Wall Street…’.

Innovation does not occur in a vacuum.

Photo by gadl

The post Why Listening to Customers Makes Your Company Stronger appeared first on The Faster Times.

What’s not to get? It’s here, it’s in use, it’s addictive, and, it ain’t going away.

Every company, even those serving B2B markets, needs to have a social media strategy, one that has phases and measurement criteria that is tracked for years, not weeks.

Five Good Reasons to Get on the Bandwagon:

1. Have conversations with real customers.

Without the expense of focus groups or advisory councils and without stepping on sales’ toes, the company can engage in conversations.

2. Learn what is important to your target market.

By watching competitors or partners, and following the thought leaders, you can be a voyeur to thousands.

3. Find problems before they find you.

Unhappy customers? Issues that arise over and over again? Find them first on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Prevent a disaster before it happens.

4. Increase retention and loyalty.

It is proven that companies that go the extra mile to help customers gain a loyal following. Proactively help explain product shortcomings, offer assistance on complex products, show someone where to find the info they need, answer support questions; even better, get your followers to help you do all of this. Reward those that help.

5. Grow your brand and convey your company values.

Many companies do good deeds but often the deeds are localized (like working in the local food pantry). Social media is a way to let people know what you do. Also, social media can be the platform for these good works. Example: have employees help answer tough science questions, post information that is important to your customers, even when it isn’t about you. A social media presence also helps in SEO rankings so you can be found in relevant organic searches.

To start: Identify a few folks who are good general business or product people; product managers are likely suspects as are support personnel. Assign them the task of spending a certain amount of time trolling the blogs and social media sites. Their goal: find the right conversations and thought leaders in your industry, in your target market and using your products. (Do set up a company policy; you can always change it.) Narrow down the list to a manageable number to follow for several weeks. Gather statistics on categories that get the most buzz, on people providing the most useful info (thought leaders and other helpful types), and those sites that are forwarded, linked repeatedly and re-Tweeted (Digg, Re-Tweet, Delicious, etc.).

Watch these. You want to make sure you get the style of the owner and learn what’s acceptable.

- Do not start your own company blog yet

Put together a strategy with clear goals: what do you want to accomplish at first? Remember, be helpful, not blatantly self promotional. Goals must be realistic and measurable. Having an initial goal of ‘sales leads’ doesn’t make sense. Having a goal of ‘entering in xx quality conversations’ or ‘finding product evangelists’ or ‘receiving xx re-tweets’ makes more sense. From the research you just finished, identity the sites you want to tackle first. Assign people to own them. Allocate time. Start to respond to posts re-actively – to things in your area of expertise. To get any traction, you must be willing to contribute a few times a week to each blog/ site. And, you must monitor those sites to make sure you are being responsive. Define further phases of your social media plan. Perhaps, be more public on existing (and fairly forgiving) social media sites or start conversations.

Figure out how your customers can help you be more successful while you help them.

In addition, social media is useful for finding and checking out potential employees, communicating with your own employees in a formal, informal fashion, and conducting business development.

What are you waiting for?

The post Don’t Be Left in the Dust: Get on the Social Media Bandwagon appeared first on The Faster Times.

It is not only expressed in art and entertainment, but in business; especially in our culture which, though it may not always seem so, embraces entrepreneurship. Our economy is based on the tens of thousands of new business that spring to life every year. Some of these stay small; others have global impact. It is creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit that contribute.

Unfortunately, as companies grow, goals and objectives can become muddy, people’s job functions become redundant or ill defined, and process gets in the way of progress.

To keep a competitive advantage, larger companies need to revisit what led them to success in the first place. Often it was a culture that embraced creativity, determination and action more than procedure, rules, and analysis paralysis. This culture – of Intrapreneurship as my old business school professor called it – comes from the top.

Signs of an uninspiring culture:

1. Tasks are completed because they always have been, not always understanding the usefulness

2. Decisions are made by consensus or, worse, factions

3. Decisions require more than a small (4-5) team and weeks of signatory approval, even for items that are low risk or low cost, and can take weeks and are revisited many times

4. There are turf wars and information is hidden and not shared

5. Employees in the trenches can’t tell the company’s story or talk about the products and what’s on the roadmap

6. Priorities across the company are unclear

7. There is no method or budget or process for a ‘skunkworks’ to occur, even on employees’ own time

8. Mid-level folks are not included in decisions that they are closest to

9. Those who make decisions under time pressures, in the company’s best interest or with best available data, are rebuked

10. Employees seem down trodden or negative; 9-to-5 is really the norm.

In smaller companies, it is easier to get everyone with pertinent information in to a room for a discussion and decision. Decisions are often made on ‘gut’ or the 80/20 rule. Ideas are quickly checked out by close thought leaders and customers. Employees are empowered to make decisions within their areas of expertise (and then feel responsible and appreciated). Strategic direction, goals and objectives are clearly delineated (although, they may change).

Larger companies need to remember their roots. Clean up poor processes. Get clear job descriptions and responsibilities. Listen to their troops (and the squeaky wheels). Put the resources in place to try a few new things. Communicate company direction, values, roadmap and market position.

Back to the future.

The post Intrapreneurship: Bringing Good Companies to Life appeared first on The Faster Times.

- less than 3% CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are women - few (est.15%) women sit on the boards of companies although only a few percent are on F500 Boards - CEOs of companies are mostly male (83%) - Women earn an average of 75 cents for every dollar earned by men in the same roles. Even women CEOs earn 85% of male counterparts.

And yet, a study by Catalyst (2008) and management consultant McKinsey & Co. found that companies with more female executives and directors perform better.

With so many young women entering the workforce, our economy will depend on them becoming leaders. There needs to be a concerted effort to offer equal opportunity. Yes, you heard me right. The environment of corporate America and corporate Europe are mostly exclusionary.

- The ‘guys’ go out for a beer or pay basketball after work. They get to know each other and bond. Common experiences are referred to in meetings.

- In the senior management and executive suites, golf outings, sailing jaunts and martini and cigar parties serve to bond the men; they also exclude the women.

- Even as I write, an event is occurring on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. This annual event is comprised of the movers and shakers of the tech economy in the area. This crowd is younger and still mostly male. The majority of speakers are also male.

- Most venture capitalists were former CEOs or founders so most of them are male. Board rooms are often hostile, truly, toward women.

- Men still, perhaps subconsciously, ignore what women say at meetings and discount their significance in business situations and events.

Many situations that exclude women are occurring passively – by that, I mean that there isn’t necessarily malice of intent.

A novel effort by telecommunications giant, Deutsche Telekom, has declared that its hiring plans are for 30% of its managers to be female. Some are critical of DT’s plan but perhaps one major ‘correction’ of an inequitable situation will have longer term benefit.

And women executives are taking steps to support other women trying to break through the glass ceiling. Young women need role models and mentors.

One final note, we will never have racial equal opportunity if we don’t provide equity for women who, after all, are not even a minority!

Photo by World Economic Forum

The post Companies That Embrace Diversity Succeed — Ahem, Women Too appeared first on The Faster Times.

As it turned out, I listened to what the prospect planned to do with my product. There were things they wanted to do that I hadn’t designed in. However, it was obvious that the product would be better if I added those capabilities in the next version. We can argue about whether making promises in front of a customer was the right thing to do however it was really obvious that we just didn’t have a robust enough understanding of how the product would be used, despite MRDs and PRDs. I added the features. The result was an eventual sale, a very happy internal field marketing and sales team, and the defining moment in my career.

Later, as a Product Marketing Manager for an industrial automation product, I was given the opportunity to follow a Six Sigma-like ‘light’ training and observe a factory where my product line to be used. By seeing the whole process, we determined that we could save time for the production people by locating our interface in a different physical place. The 10 steps up and back several times a day saved minutes per user per day. Doesn’t seem like much, but it was. That and the fact that we observed and listened.

Recently, I worked for a communications company. The corporate and field marketing teams we not allowed out to talk to customers and prospects.

Smart companies get their employees to feel pride of ownership for company success. Innovation is not successful in a vacuum. All functions in a company need face-to-face time with customers, proactively, not reactively. Customer-centric companies win.

The post Meeting Customers Face-to-Face: A Recipe for Success appeared first on The Faster Times.

As I wrap up my semester teaching college, I am once again reminded of how many smart, eager, hardworking young people there are.

This year, more than in the past, the students are stressed. It isn’t just final papers and projects; this year they are really worried about finding meaningful work. The outlook is grim.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about hiring the over-qualified/over experienced and what a bargain that is for savvy companies. The same holds true for hiring recent graduates.

Young folks are our future. The quicker we can get them contributing meaningfully to the economy, the better for all of us in the long run.

Smart companies will scoop up these eager-beavers and train them.

I believe in the pendulum effect. At one time, folks worked at the same company for 25 or more years. With the irrational exuberance of the dot-bomb era, folks jumped ship every 6 months for larger paychecks and more foosball tables. The balance point will likely be in-between with loyalty back in fashion, as long as both parties – the employee and employer – gaining from one another.

Recent graduates are often viewed as having little-to-no experience; this isn’t really true. Here are some tips for finding a great recent graduate:

– Ask to see or present a project they developed or contributed to. This is true for biology majors as well as marketing majors. What did they contribute? What did they learn? What would they do differently? – Look for students who worked while going to school. Even working at a coffee shop while getting good grades (3.0) is impressive. – Find those who take initiative. This is made evident on a resume where the student is involved in student government, professional associations (PRSSA, TYE, IEEE) and team sports. Ask about missions and accomplishments. – Find out what they do to improve themselves. Do they read? Do they blog? – Success today is also based on their ability to network. Do they go to professional meetings? Are they using LinkedIn? Find out how they value their alumni organizations and network.

Colleges host career fairs and post openings. Craigslist, Groovejobs and Collgegrad.com are popular sites for recent grads.

Photo by m00by

The post Hiring the “Inexperienced” – Put a Recent Grad to Work appeared first on The Faster Times.

The most important resources a company has are its employees. Happy employees make for happy customers. Then why are existing employees being stressed to the breaking point? And why is the hiring process treated as a necessary evil by many companies with the choosing of these precious, potential resources relegated to low level employees?

In these tough economic times, companies have a greater choice of candidates for an open position, receiving hundreds of resumes for each opening. The mistake is in filtering out applications based on a few key words using automated search tools or lower level humans. This is taking the easy way out and not giving each candidate the attention they deserve. When companies use boiler plate job descriptions without putting in the upfront time to meet and discuss and determine what really matters, they are missing an opportunity. For example: what if the person has had some great accomplishments in their area of expertise, gone the extra mile, taken on other projects for past employers but has only 8 of the 10 years you’ve decided is important? Or, what if they did the job, with great accomplishments in a different industry sector?

A subtle form of age discrimination has reared its ugly head- that is, hiring experienced “over qualified” workers – by posting job requirements of 5-7 years and rejecting those with more. Why not get more for less? Old ways of thinking, that the person will jump ship once the economy picks up, don’t hold true anymore.

A resume for a professional position is intended to provide a picture of the person’s experiences, flexibility, personality, education and potential. It is like a painting in that viewing only a corner limits the experience.

Smart companies treat the hiring process more seriously, investing more work up front, paying attention to company values, company strategy, and how well the person may fit now and in the future.

Photo by foundphotoslj

The post Valuing Precious Resources Makes Economic Sense appeared first on The Faster Times.

The best customers are your current customers.

I was just chatting with a support person from a well-known security software company using a live chat tool. I had ordered extra online storage to back up files, paid, got my receipt, and still wasn’t able to access the extra storage. Frustrating, but their website is pretty clear about how to get support.

After 45 minutes of the person parroting back to me what my problem was and not responding to further queries from me, he asks for control of my PC. I agree. He did a few things I’d already tried, overwrote my already backed up files without asking, and then re-booted my PC, again, without asking. Of course, I have security software and he can’t get back in without my passwords. I wait to see if he’ll call and ask me to log back in — they had asked for my phone number when I initiated contact. After 15 minutes, I finally give in and log back in. The ‘service’ person reconnects and then leaves the chat room! My problem is unresolved and he hasn’t told me what to do next. To add insult to injury, at 2:30AM, I get a phone call from someone at the company acknowledging that we were ‘cut off’.

- Experts estimate that is costs between 5 and 10 times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing customer.

- For every customer who complains, there are at least 9 others who do not (B2B); it is higher for consumer products

- With easy access to public forums such as blogs, unhappy customers command even more notice

Without getting into the differences between loyalty and retention, I think most of us would agree that we’d like customers to buy more and to tell their friends and colleagues about their positive experience. And yes, there are customers who companies should ‘fire’. Many companies today base their competitive differentiation on product features when, in fact, the dimensions from the customer’s perspective include reputation, reliability, and ease of doing business.

How easy is it to:

- Find out where to buy your product?

- Get pre-sales questions answered?

- Get to a support person?

- Straighten out a billing issue or even cancel an order?

When someone contacts your company:

- Is the operator or receptionist or support person or sales person friendly and gracious?

- If the person isn’t the best resource, do they try to find someone?

- Is the right level of resource made available to important customers?

- Does a caller go through IVR jungles? Is critical information, such as an account number, asked for repeatedly?

- Does your web site really make it easy to get self-service?

- Are you called back when promised? If cut off?

- How long is the hold time?

- How quickly is a contact assisted?

Any CEOs or Business Owners reading this are thinking that this doesn’t apply to them. My response is: can you afford to assume this is true?

Customer retention and loyalty are based on many dimensions of interaction. They are often driven by corporate culture and values – that is, from the C-suite. Companies of all sizes need to audit themselves. And in this new economy, customer retention is equal to success.

Photo by Furryscaly

The post How Easy is it to Do Business with Your Company? appeared first on The Faster Times.

My accountant has one. A colleague, who is a financial advisor, has one. The professional association I belong to has one. A well-known marketing research firm, MarketingSherpa, uses them. There are books about them. Yet most are a waste of time.

Newsletters, whether sent electronically or by physical mail, take a lot of work.

Most of us, both in personal and professional lives, are inundated with e-mail, voice-mail, mail, phone calls and text messages. According to Microsoft, in 2005, workers worldwide were averaging over 40 emails a day. Forrester Research estimates that there will be over 838 billion marketing messages sent (US) by 2013.

As a result, any message we receive needs to get to the point right away. In business, most information and data need to be directly related to a current task or problem or, a task or problem expected in the not-too-distant future. To capture someone’s attention, it needs to be obvious that the information falls into one of these categories.

Before a company or organization begins, fundamental questions need to be answered:

- Who you are targeting and what do they care about?

- What are you trying to accomplish (what are your goals)?

- How will you know if it is working (how will you measure success)?

One of the most fundamental changes that has occurred in the part several years relates to information overload. To get someone to consider reading all or part of a newsletter, you must have pithy titles and short summaries. For electronic newsletter, have short summaries link to the full article online. Fit almost entire newsletter on one screen (no scrolling). Have few, if any, graphics, and a short header.

Newsletters, unlike other tools, are periodic. In general, they are intended to be helpful and offer information (versus other types of marketing). Before you even begin, make sure you have enough useful material to share every month or quarter. Have the resources lined up to develop this useful content. Otherwise: don’t even begin!

The post Why Newsletters Don’t Work appeared first on The Faster Times.

Why LinkedIn Matters

Last week, I was at a meeting of senior level folks who had been laid off. Several of them had been with their former employer for many years. They made good money, were competent, and seemed like nice folks. However, most of them were practically frozen with the fear at the idea of reaching out to people to let them know of their new status. It wasn’t so much from embarrassment. It was from not knowing where to begin.

We live in a flat world (thanks Thomas) in which it is easy to travel, easy to meet people from other cultures, easy to keep in touch with old friends and easy to make new ones you’ve never actually met.

Social media participation can be addictive. I use Facebook and have reconnected with high school friends that I’d never meant to lose track of. It is easier to make people aware of my niece’s new baby and show photos from a trip by posting in a broad-brush fashion. I also teach college. And, I am fine with business colleagues and students knowing that I have a life, within reason.

The seven musts of effectively socialized people: 1. You have a LinkedIn account. You have spent the time to reach out to all the people you have worked with in the past – coworkers, employees and bosses – to make sure you can reach then when you need them. Who knows, your star employee may be CFO of a company next year.

2. You have posted a bio that lists your past companies and education so others can easily find and reach out to you.

3. You help people in your network who ask for introductions to another in your network. Personally, I only connect directly to people I’ve met or spoken with. Huge, unknown fan-bases are better served with other tools.

4. You belong to Groups related to your industry, functional expertise, educational institution and professional affiliation. You scan these for postings about interesting meetings, which you attend, to find other people you forgot you knew.

5. You share things you find with others: re-posting a job you saw to the Jobs tab of a Group, sharing information about an interesting conference or helpful articles.

6. If you care to join more personal, social media sites like Facebook, you realize that employers, current and future, may see you, depending on your settings. When you post a message that you called in sick to go drink with friends for three days (note to college students), viewers may question your work ethic. Many hiring companies do look. Don’t post your birth year (U.S.), even when you are still young, remembering that web pages are indexed and saved.

7. Even when you are gainfully employed, you make a habit of checking for messages and being helpful.

In a global, fast paced, ever changing world, to be successful, one needs to work to establish a network. Maintaining an online presence helps. If you are an executive, a student or a small business owner, you don’t have a choice if you want to compete. Past connections can open doors to new jobs and new business.

Don’t wait for a pink slip before you get your house in order.

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