Be Different or be dead

April 14, 2012

Why being comfortable in your current position can destroy you

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Why being comfortable in your current position can destroy you.

It is very easy to get into the relaxing position of staying the current course of your business

Continuing to manage your organizational affairs with the assumption that what got you here will get you where you need to get to.

This is momentum management.

The reality is that the marketplace rarely lets us get away with this. It is always changing as a result of demand, competitive and economic factors.

The most common case is economic fluctuations which can ravage businesses that continue to do things the way they have always done them assuming that eventually they will pay off.

When things are going well (growing demand for your services, loyal customers and healthy market position) we can disguise certain inefficiencies but when things are not going well we stand “raw naked” in the marketplace completely exposed and will be punished for our inadequacies.

When the wind is blowing fast enough, even turkeys can fly. But as soon as that wind dies down, the turkeys start dropping — Steve Gedeon, Ryerson Entrepreneur Institute, Ted Rogers School of Business .

The point is that in the face of constant unpredictability you need to be driving change in your organization, you need to be a change leader.

You need to be forcing organizational discontinuity to prevent the momentum management dilemma from happening.

I appreciate that change, particularly being the forcing agent of it, is uncomfortable. But if you want to be identified with moving your team successfully into the future and avoiding the recessionary road kill you really have no choice.

The essence of change leadership is to initiate new creative ways to cause an overwhelming distinction between you and your competitors.

To stand-out not fit-in.

And to take responsibility for this change within you organization. To take risks. To make mistakes but to learn from them.

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

 

 

• Posted 4.14.12 at 10:18 am by Roy Osing
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April 12, 2012

Why this excellent book on ‘Delivering Happiness’ will blow your mind

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Why this excellent book on ‘Delivering Happiness’ will blow your mind.

This book fits into the category of timelessness. Written several years ago, it takes us through the creative things Tony Hsieh — may he Rest In Peace — as leader introduced to make Zappos an organization that ‘delivered happiness’ to its customers.

His ideas and methods are as relevant today as when the book was written. In fact my observation is that organizations today are doing a poorer job at delivering WOW! service than ever, despite what they say about themselves. It should be a must-read for today’s leaders.

This was my review in 2012. It’s still one of the best guides for leaders who want to do more than simply aspire to have a customer focussed culture, they want to deliver it.

I rarely find an organization that practices what I fundamentally believe is required to distinguish oneself in the market to succeed and survive. My regular reader will know that I am relentless in advocating proven and practical practices to create distance between yourself and the competitive herd.

I am a ‘simple’, ‘execute’ and ONLY strategy hawk, a ‘value’ marketing guy, a ‘relationship’ sales believer and a ‘dazzling experience’ customer server

This book is evidence of a leader that also believed in these principles and built a phenomenally successful business by relentlessly applying them.

Tony has created an interesting and enjoyable read by his informal captivating writing style. You don’t have to ‘fight the words’ on every page. You find yourself easily consuming page after page effortlessly. The recounting of his early years and what he did to prepare himself for ‘The Show’ was informative and to the analytical hemisphere in each of us made it easy to predict his future as a business entrepreneur.

But what impressed me was the rich examples of what he did to establish Zappos as a stand-out company; one that focused on a single value dimension to attract and build a loyal customer base; one that literally created a culture that served his chosen strategic direction.

In no particular order, here is a sample of the climax learning moments for me in Delivering Happiness:

▪️ Never outsource a core competency. He unlike others resisted the economic temptation to outsource his call center operations;

▪️ You always have a choice of which table to sit at (from his poker days). Choose the table - pick the customer group to serve - that maximizes your chances of success. WHO to serve;

▪️ He had an audacious goal of generating $1 Billion in revenue by 2010. This growth goal drove all activity in the business. An excellent example of HOW BIG in action;

▪️ Lifelong learning through the Zappos Library. People make their business - everyone’s business!

▪️ THE strategic driving force behind Zappos is to create WOW! experiences for customers, employees, suppliers and owners. Tight strategy. Easy to understand. Easy to relate to;

▪️ All activities are aligned to the service experience goal. Direct line of sight for all people in the organization. Random Acts of WOW-ness are expected and are a part of performance management;

▪️ When Zappos can’t supply what the customer wants, they are directed to research their competition. They are driven by the relationship not the short term sale. Lose a sale but save the customer;

▪️The language of Zappos is all about the customer — Not Call Centers, but The Customer Loyalty Team;

▪️ They created, published AND - more importantly - practice the Ten Core Values of Zappos;

▪️ The #1 Core Value = Deliver WOW Through Service;

▪️ ‘The power of 1%’, a blog posted by Alfred the CFO/COO. A brilliant example of ‘get a nano-inch’ of progress FAST. Increments of advancement add up to impressive performance improvements;

▪️ Weirdness is promulgated as a differential advantage. Tony’s words “We want the company to have a unique and memorable personality”;

▪️ Build a pipeline of people rather than thinking of individuals as assets. You need to build a steady stream of people with the skills and competencies you need. A Pipeline Team delivers courses to various departments.

As an author I was WOW’d by the way Tony and crew distributed the advanced copy of his book for comment. Delivering Happiness was made available to bloggers who post blog articles regularly with a ‘promise’ to blog the book on the Publication date June 7, 2010.

What a slick method of, first, getting the Advanced Copy out to a large group of people; second, receiving complementary promotion of his book, and, third, gathering a repository of testimonials for his book. Brilliant example of how Authors can use Social Media to leverage their work. Nice!

Rarely have I seen such a cornucopia of ‘stuff’ that not only mirrors the business practices I believe in but which also have been executed in the real world. Tony has personally breathed life into the notions that people espouse as the right things to do. He did it and he nailed it in his book.

I strongly recommend Delivering Happiness to anyone looking to build something successful and memorable.

Cheers,
Roy

Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

 

• Posted 4.12.12 at 10:00 am by Roy Osing
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April 9, 2012

Why successful marketers are moving out of crowds to ‘ME’

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Why successful marketers are moving out of crowds to ‘ME’.

‘ME’ marketing will destroy traditional marketing; it’s all about the individual not the crowd.

Brilliant marketers get that ‘ME’ segments generate higher returns than market segments produced by traditional marketing.

The four bases of commonly prescribed market segmentation are demographics, psychographics, behavior and location (‘geographics’) and the marketing process is to develop programs targeted at potential customers with similar traits within a particular segment.

Segmentation studies are based on observations of population behavior;  the characteristics of the masses (represented by the ‘average’ person in the population) determine the conclusions of the study.

Why are these four segments used as the prescription for marketing segmentation? Because this type of data on people is readily available to the marketer.

Census data provides demographic and location information, billing and web visitor tracking systems produce product usage information and standard market research studies ask for lifestyle preferences which people are generally ok with providing.

For a marketing program, individuals are ‘mapped’ into each of these segments and are assumed to be like everyone else in their segment in terms of their likelihood to be attracted to a particular marketing program targeted to the segment.

The marketer’s assumption is that each person in the segment ‘looks the same’ in terms of the segmentation variable chosen and because of this similarity will all exhibit the same buying propensity.

Source: Unsplash

I’ve always found this assumption to be a non-starter. Just because I’m a skier does not in any way suggest that other skiers would be interested in buying the same products as I do.
And just because I’m in the boomer demographic with a specific income in no way is a good predictor of what others with similar characteristics will be interested in buying. 

In this approach, an ‘average’ target for a service might be ‘a male boomer with an annual income of between $60 - $100K who lives in Vancouver and who has an annual ski pass at Whistler’.

And the flaw is that there may actually be some people who do have the targets attributes and who would be interested in what is being offered, but there will also be many with these attributes who won’t be interested and who will not be interested in the offer.

Traditional segmentation produces hits and misses and the marketer hopes there are more of the former. But you can’t count on it 

There are two serious issues with traditional segmentation methodology; its underlying assumptions are flawed.

First, having segmentation variables prescribed with the simplifying assumption that people tend to make purchase decisions on the basis of their demographics and so on, is fallacious; people express their differences with their own buying triggers which can’t be prescribed up front.

And second, assuming that people who exhibit the same segment characteristics will make similar buying decisions is simply not true; there are many sub-clusters within any given segment that have their own buying motivations quite apart from those in the overall segment.

‘ME segmentation’ is different from the commonly-used methodology, and should be adopted by a marketing organization that wants to stand out and perform above their peers.
ME segmentation poses the research question to an individual person not the population.

ME segmentation is strategic

It is considered as a strategic exercise which asks the question “How should the market be segmented to expose as many opportunities as I can?” not how do I assign my customer base into the prescribed segments.

The prescribed segmentation variables such as demographics, location, usage and lifestyle are not automatically used; they are given mild attention only: the focus is on determining the appropriate variable that will unlock the growth key for the organization.

The objective is not to place people in the prescribed segments, but to discover the appropriate segmentation elements that will produce the best sales result.

For example, if a specific web application best appeals to a Gen-Z individual with an IOS device, lives in Tsawwassen BC, is a member of a family of 4, and has a household provider who is female, then this is the appropriate segmentation to use.

Source: Unsplash

It’s focus is on differences

Traditional segmentation seeks to define small numbers of customer groups that share similar characteristics, and these characteristics are broad and general in nature.
People who are over 65 years old who have right-of-centre political beliefs, women who live on the west coast who are pro abortion are examples of the segments that are produced by the traditional approach.

ME segmentation, on the other hand, is a process driven by the intent to find differences in customer clusters in order to expose as many customer clusters as possible.

Opportunities come from the differences between people NOT similarities among them

And greater the number of segments that are defined, the more intelligence you have on each person in the cluster AND the better the ability to match a product, service or experience to their specific individual need.

It’s end game is on ‘the many’

As stated above, ME segmentation tries to define as many different customer clusters as possible in order to get closer to the individual with the belief that if you have a tight fit with an individual person, you have a better chance of selling them something than if the person’s desires are watered down by a larger group.

The probability of making a sale increases due to the fact that you are better able to match your offering with the more precise needs. wants and desires of the individuals in each cluster.

Person-research will yield many conclusions; one for each person you talk to.

And each conclusion will be valid unlike conclusions from population research which will be valid for some individuals (who just happen to be exactly identical to the population profile) and invalid for others (whose special unique characteristics don’t match the population profile.)

Better to have 100 different conclusions from 100 individual people rather than 1 conclusion based on the “average” person in a population of 100.

It’s never-ending

ME segmentation is a continuous process of going deeper and deeper into a cluster of customers. Obtaining more and more information on the individuals in the cluster.

The marketer needs to keep looking for differences until they are nose-to-nose with an individual because that’s when total understanding of people’s desires is achieved

If there were one million customers, the result of the ME process would be one million segments of 1.

What are the implications of a million clusters of 1?

▪️you would be different as few undertake the journey;

▪️you would have more rich and deep knowledge on your customers than your competitors have;

▪️your sales potential would increase exponentially;

▪️you would build both share of market and customer share;

▪️customer loyalty would increase because you are better able to match your solutions to their needs and wants;

▪️you would be better able to survive unpredictable ’body blows’ you might suffer in an ever changing world because you are so tight with your customers.

All because you choose to put in place a marketing philosophy to treat segmentation as a continuous strategic learning down to the individual.

Keep segmenting your market until you are nose-to-nose with a person.

Source: Unsplash

The role of the ME marketer

Within the ‘ME’ context of segmenting markets down to ‘the nose’ of an individual and examining their needs and wants rather than treating markets as homogeneous groups, the ME marketer’s role is different than what marketers have done in the past.

The ME marketer:

— Is driven by individual people have to say, not by what is implied by large markets or populations, and puts the individual before the average needs of the crowd;

— Is ok with the possibility of creating a unique marketing plan and product or service solution for an individual;

— Drives IT to ‘mass-personalized’ serving systems capable of uniqueness delivered to thousands of customers;

— Reserves Customer Appreciation Day events for specific customers who have demonstrated their loyalty to the company for many years;

— Looks to the power of new technology to define the needs of individuals and to use the secrets discovered to create personalized solutions and not to flog their current product portfolio;

— Uses every tactic available to build long term relationships with people rather than flog products at them with a focus on making short term sales. They see AI as a way to create new experiences for people and not a productivity tool;

— Is a strong advocate for the customer inside their organization, ‘doing battle’ for them to protect their interests in their own bureaucracy;

— Does whatever it takes to try and eliminate any dumb rules in their organization that infuriate customers and threaten their loyalty.

Mass marketers are the dying breed of the profession, and it starts with the practice of segmentation.

Segmenting down to ‘the nose of a person’ enables a deep understanding of what people want and desire, and exposes opportunities to not only enhance marketing productivity but also to create sustaining long term value for the organization.

ME markets are superior to crowds.

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

• Posted 4.9.12 at 10:54 am by Roy Osing
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April 4, 2012

Why too many layers in an organization prevent great customer service

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Why too many layers in an organization prevent great customer service.

How many levels in your organization separate the executives from the customer? Too many I suspect…

Stand-out organizations have a specific objective to minimize the number of layers between those that serve customers and those that are in leadership positions.

Amazing things happen when these structural filters are removed.

— leadership is better informed about market - both customers and competitors- behaviour since communication lines are more direct and fewer numbers of managers are in a position to filter any market news that could be helpful in executing the organiation’s strategy;

— the frontline gets heard in terms of the barriers to their performance; leaders have a better chance to cleanse the internal environment and make it easier for customer serving employees to do a better job;

— managers in the organization are forced to actually do more than manage. A flatter structure requires managers to perform tasks rather than delegate;

— response times to customer problems improve as leaders are made aware of problems in a timely manner;

— the organization’s customer learning abilities improve as information within the organization flows more freely;

— decisions are made faster as leaders are informed of performance levels in real time mode;

— operating expenses are reduced without impacting the customer;

— the ability to respond to unanticipated events in the environment is dramatically improved. Feedback on events happens quicker; reaction time shortens.

Organization structure is the vehicle to allocate resources to execute a strategy.

It will encumber plan execution if it is too vertical and bureaucratic; it will facilitate it if it is flat.

Structures don’t serve management; they should serve the customer

Does yours?

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

• Posted 4.4.12 at 10:00 am by Roy Osing
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