Be Different or be dead

January 30, 2012

Why you shouldn’t benchmark others if you want a great strategy

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Why you shouldn’t benchmark others if you want a great strategy.

Benchmarking is viewed as a necessary process for most organizations. There are benchmarking consultant experts and courses you can take to learn how to benchmark proficiently and gain the maximum benefit.

In my view, benchmarking is a simple concept as is its process:

▪️Identify the organization that excels in some aspect of your operations that you believe requires improvement — customer service, business planning, customer engagement, sales management, accounts receivable, advertising planning and so on;

▪️Map (understand deeply) their system or process to understand exactly how they perform the operation;

▪️Define the actions you must take to incorporate their operating system into your operation with the objective of replicating their level of efficiency.

Benchmarking might help you improve your operations efficiency but it won’t make you stand-out from your competition.

Benchmarking can be problematic on several levels:

#1. Benchmarking is copying not strategy

It’s ‘sucking up’ to an organization or individual recognized (by someone presumed to be the thought leader) to be the best at performing a particular function and is therefore the organization you should aspire to be.

It doesn’t make you special. It may help you improve your position in the crowd of hungry competitors by being more efficient at something, but it won’t help you stand out from them by being more relevant or unique.

Copying is the enemy of being different. The maximum benefit you can achieve by copying is best in class levels of performance which may return better operating results than previously obtained but unless you vault beyond these levels true differentiation won’t happen.

#2. Benchmarking keeps you in the crowd, it doesn’t separate you from it

The herd is a place where organizations go to blend in with others; to conform with what others do and to lose the DNA attributes that make them special.

Even if you are the ‘best of breed’ you’re still in the herd. It’s just that you execute a process better than any other herd member; you’re still rubbing shoulders with your sameness brethren.

And because you’re tagged ‘the best’, you have no motivation to break away from the herd; you find consolation in it.

The world is becoming a home for best practice addicts and as a result it’s boring and benign.

#3. Benchmarking is the instrument of compliance

Benchmarking results in conformance; it sucks any unique thinking you may have out of your system and replaces it with the need to capitulate to the leader of the herd.

Rather than look for a unique solution to your problem, you look for another herd member that has put in the work to create a solution that works for them and you assume you can boilerplate it and it will work for you.

When you copy someone or something, you relegate — subordinate — yourself to them. You roll over, put your ‘paws in the air’ and subsume yourself to the leadership of someone else. Looking up when you’re lying on the ground isn’t a very liberating place to be.

#4. Benchmarking won’t differentiate you from your competitors

It has no strategic value in moving the organization to a position in the marketplace that ONLY you occupy.

“What are our competitors doing?” is often asked when organizations are thinking about improving how they conduct business, and the benchmarking process ensues — adding zero space between them and their competitors.

And, of course, if you’re chasing another organization, you’re adding nothing to the kitbag of things that make you ‘special’ in the eyes of your customers and encouraging them to spread your word to others and attract new business.

If you copy someone, all you do is lower the bar.

#5. Benchmarking prevents innovation

If you’re a copycat, you’re not an innovator. Benchmarking does little or nothing to stimulate innovation and creativity which seem to be values organizations covet in today’s world of uncertainty and constant change.

In fact benchmarking kills real innovation because it has performance improvement using the standard of another as its end game as opposed to revolutionary changes that determine new strategic outcomes.

We need to get our thinking straight.

Few organizations today stand out, which is sad; few are deemed to be really special by their customers.
Being remarkable isn’t a strategy on the radar of most, or if it is, it’s an elusive goal because leaders allow people to use traditional tools — like benchmarking best of class — to do their jobs.

Uniqueness, remarkability and being special come from being different than your competitors, not copying what they and others do, even if they perform certain functions more efficiently than you do.

We need to change our ways and stick copying where it belongs.

Let’s:
— Start thinking about being different than best in class, not copying best of breed;
— Covet being ‘different than breed’, not best of breed;
— Think about doing what others are not doing, not looking to other’s successes;
— Go in the opposite direction that others are going, not following in their footsteps.
— Define best in class to be the highest bar to be different from, not emulate;
— Purge boilerplates from our toolbox and break new ground (and maybe be the author of a new boilerplate).

Copying is the enemy of being special and remarkable.

And as leaders, let’s change the conversation in our organizations; purging the notion of benchmarking and copying as ways of achieving strategic progress by asking these types of questions of our teams:

▪️”What can we do to be different from the crowd of competitors?”;
▪️“How does what you’re proposing make us stand out from the competition and be special to our customers?”.
▪️“What crazy ‘insane’ thing is a different business to ours doing and how can we use the basics of the idea to morph it into a special idea for us?”

Benchmarking is absolutely the wrong thing to do when the end game for most organizations seems to be uniqueness and remarkability, but there are ways to ‘bend the curve’ and go in the right direction.

Start the change now, though, because time is not your friend.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 1.30.12 at 10:20 am by Roy Osing
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January 26, 2012

5 simple ways to build the best marketing loyalty program

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5 simple ways to build the best marketing loyalty program.

Most marketing loyalty programs are the same. Points are acquired for purchases and they can be redeemed for a variety of things: another product or service, travel and so on.

Most loyalty programs lack the marketing juice that make them memorable. Every program is the same. Boring-ness pervades.

The intent is to bind the customer to a specific organization forever; to provide them with so much additional value that they will never be enticed by another provider to leave.

Some loyalty programs are more effective than others but the one ingredient that seems to be missing in many of them is marketing juice — the treatment that is normally given to products and services to make them unique and to make them stand out from the competition.

Here are some ways to inject ‘the juice’ in your loyalty program:

1. Be relevant — A loyalty program should be relevant, something your customers care about. I know it sounds trite, but generally some marketing analyst decides what rewards define the program without an extensive amount of individual customer research.
In fact most of the time the program reward portfolio is determined by what the organization wants to supply (based largely on economics and logistics) as opposed to reflecting their customers’ demand profile.

Furthermore, most loyalty initiatives are based on mass market one-size-fits-all considerations rather than a more personalized approach. What drives loyalty is most often a personal motivation: what makes one person loyal to an organization doesn’t make any impact at all on another.

Build your loyalty program on the principle of personalization. Discover the secrets of your target customer group and construct the elements of the program around them.
Remember if you treat your program as something for the masses, it won’t be for anyone.

2. Be unique — A loyalty program should be unique, something your target customers can ONLY get from you. And if you do a good job to define specifically what your customers desire as hooks for their loyalty, you will end up with something very close to being unmatched in the market because most others will be building their programs on mass market needs.

If you can’t make your program special in some exciting way, don’t do it. Doing the same thing as everyone else will diminish its value to the point of making it worthless.
As an expression of your program’s uniqueness, develop an ONLY statement for it using the framework I discussed elsewhere. Remember to be as specific as you can; the things that your program has (that other programs don’t have) must jump out at you when you read it.

‘Our loyalty program is the ONLY one that….’

This is the most effective claim that makes it easy to explain what your program is all about to customers and to make explicit how your program is different from the competition — YOU become the benchmark for others to follow.

3. Be targeted — Tailor your program around your top customers. They are the ones who probably create a disproportionate amount of wealth for your organization and who should be the first ones in line to reap the benefits for their loyalty. Again, stay away from thinking what ALL of your customers want; reserve your loyalty investment for the special ones.

Consider providing greater benefits to those who have been with you the longest. Someone who has been with you for 10 years is worth more than someone who has been loyal for 2 years.

Success is measured by retention rates in your high value customer groups not by its attractiveness to your entire customer base, so make sure you can track how well it resonates there. In fact if it appeals to a broad base of customers it’s a symptom that the program design is flawed.

4. Be myopic — Let your special customers guide the design of your program; base it on what they are telling you rather than by what your competitors are doing. Their programs might work for them, but they won’t likely work for you.
In fact, avoid benchmarking other plans completely if you want to do something remarkable.
You know by now I am absolutely against copying what others do and tagging your actions as innovative and it applies here unless you want to be contrarian and go in the opposite direction of the herd.

Be open — Before launch, test the plan design with your target customer group and be prepared to modify it on the basis of their feedback. If your program doesn’t address their high priority wants and desires it will fail, dragging your investment under water.

Rather than go the traditional hard core quantitative route, I suggest using focus groups as the way to get customer input.

It’s a more informal setting that, in my experience, is much more effective in deciding on whether your proposed program hits the mark or not. Plus, it’s a great way to gather more insights — secrets — on the special ones you’ve invited.

And btw, they love to be asked and they love to help.

If you want to be unique in the loyalty program space, just ask your reward recipients how you can make your program better

5. Be engaging — The communications strategy for your program should be based on continual customer engagement. It’s important that your customers are kept up to speed on the details of the program, their rewards status and the new rewards opportunities available to them.

Invite them to respond with how well they are liking your program — does it continue to be relevant to what they care about? — and with any suggestions they have to improve it.

Because you’ve designed your program to be more personal to the individual, it’s critical that you have a stream of feedback on whether you’re hitting the mark.

It’s interesting to me that even though there are thousands of loyalty programs being offered in the market, I’ve never once been asked to provide feedback or ideas to make them more personal for me.

How about providing loyalty club members a dedicated communications channel — phone, email or whatever — only for them to connect with your organization when they need to. Simple. Easy. Impressive. Different.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 1.26.12 at 01:04 pm by Roy Osing
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January 23, 2012

11 great questions to know if you are hiring the right person

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11 great questions to know if you are hiring the right person.

You are about to interview a candidate for a job with your organization; doesn’t matter what job.

Here are 11 questions you should ask to determine if they have what it takes to help you build a unique and distinctive organization.

1. Tell me about a project you led where your execution was brilliant. What did you do to make it so? The words passion, clear vision, shared purpose, recognition and relentless focus on the goal should be sprinkled through their answer.

2. Define marketing. Make sure their answer contains the following principles: providing value, focusing on loyal fans, providing personalized solutions, market segments of 1, customer wants and desires. Give them the heave-ho if they constantly reference marketing 101 stuff like the 4 p’s and satisfying customer needs.

3. What does leadership mean to you? Listen for the concept of serving people. If you don’t hear it, wave to them as they leave your office.

4. How much experience do you have in eliminating stuff that is no longer relevant — CRAP —  in your past experience? If they don’t understand the question, you could be looking at a good candidate for someone else.

5. Do you like human beings? Watch for a confused look on their face. They know it’s a trick question but don’t know where you are leading them.

6. As a follow up, tell me a story that would prove that you love humans. They will either leave you cold with their answer or they will give you goosebumps. If you get goosebumps you have a winner.

7. How would you go about developing a strategy for service for an organization? What would it say? Listen for words like experiences, memories, WOW! and dazzle. Then ask them how they implemented it.

8. Define sales. If they talk about selling products and nothing about building deep relationships, throw them out.

9. Have you ever worked for a company that had “dumb rules”? - Rules or policies that made no sense to customers? What did you do to help eliminate them? If they don’t say how they were instrumental in changing them stop the interview. It’s over.

10. What would you do to help you make your organization remarkable, unique, distinctive and gaspworthy? Look for stuff done to serve customers. Ignore technology answers.

11. How are you different? What makes you special? If they can’t define how THEY stand out from the herd, what makes you think they will be able to help your organization stand out?

Anyone who gives thoughtful answers to these questions is a keeper. Send the others packing.

There are no questions on education — formal learning credentials are a given.

If the person across the table answers these 11 questions reasonable well, perhaps they deserve a shot at the job. If not, send them packing.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 1.23.12 at 10:00 am by Roy Osing
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January 16, 2012

3 practical ways to ‘bloody-up’ your business plan

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3 practical ways to ‘bloody-up’ your business plan.

Your strategic plan document should not look pretty.

Pristine. Like the pages have been bleached and ironed. Like you haven’t looked at it since it was created. Probably a year ago.

Rather, the document should look like it has been used. Used a lot. To record what you have learned while trying to execute your strategy. In addition to a statement of direction, your business plan document should be viewed as a repository of learning.

Here are three ways to do it:

1. Record results constantly — As you implement your strategy, what worked? What didn’t? Why? Write it down: in RED if the outcome was NOT on plan; in BLACK if things worked out as planned.

Clarify the implications of falling short of your objectives so you can take corrective action. Evaluate what worked well with reasons so it can be repeated.

2. Work in the document daily — Refer to your plan everyday. Make a point of commenting on some aspect of it. Study your notes. Call a meeting with colleagues to problem solve an important matter.

3. Shout out the negatives — Executing any plan is neither nice nor tidy. It’s a messy business. Progress is extremely Inelegant. People get hurt. They get frustrated. They sometimes get stressed out.

That’s the way it is. And it needs to be told that way. People won’t believe that the plan is going along well and that there are no bumps being encountered.
Keep it real and honor those Heroes who been relentless in squeaking out progress in the face of painful odds.

And, if after religiously following these 3 tasks you have not messed up your plan document - blood stains from paper cuts, coffee stains, dog-eared pages and barely legible notes on every page then it’s clearly of no value to you and you are getting nowhere implementing it.

Bloody it up!

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 1.16.12 at 10:00 am by Roy Osing
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