Are You Customer Obsessed?

Forrester's head of research made an interesting statement in its recent CIO/CMO Forum. Cliff Condon, Chief Research Officer said that "customer obsession is your only source of competitive advantage." I am curious what you think about that statement. Forrester says its now the 'age of the customer'. I agree with them, but there is definitely a lot of work to do. 

Did you know that only 18% of marketers say they have a complete view of their clients(Teradata, see the great article from CMO Lisa Arthur http://t.co/W1MWTf3cTH ).

Similarly, only 15% of companies believe they have the talent, resources, and alignment to execute on a truly digital strategy. 93% of those same companies said that they are being impacted by some form of digital disruption(Forrester)

At the same time, customers are setting the bar higher than ever before when it comes to choosing and keeping suppliers, vendors and partners. And for good measure, there are plenty of choices besides your company. The challenge is now out there in plain site and the good news is that its an open field for your organization to shoot to the head of the pack in your industry. Are you ready to compete solely on the basis of customer 'obsession'? More importantly, what does it take to succeed in the age of the customer? Here are a few key elements to chew on:

1. Define The Customer Experience - Back in the late '80's when I was in the manufacturing space, we had "the customer is always right." Well he's still right but he's evolving so fast, you had better keep up. You must create a strategy which puts the customer in the center of everything you do. From when he is just a name on a target list to a serious prospect consuming your content and the first conversation he has with your team. From the time he makes a decision to buy your solution until you deliver his final product. Then there is the ongoing development and nurturing of this relationship into a long term returning client. You gain and continue earn the customer's trust throughout. Rinse and repeat for all of your clients across all of the channels through which you sell. 

2. Use Technology To Drive It- Email platforms, CRM, social media, marketing automation, client portals, mobile automation tools, sales tools, interactive content, playbooks, predictive analytics, content management, employee advocacy platforms and even customer experience platforms. All of them yielding reams of data about your clients and prospects and designed to help you personalize their experiences, deliver valuable insights, anticipate, meet and exceed their needs.

3. Invent and Innovate: The digital disruption that companies are feeling are being driven by new inventions in addition to product and technology innovations. Aim to be the disruptor instead of the disruptee. Employee advocacy platforms and programs are becoming an integral part of turning employees loose to deliver ideas, solve problems and preach your companies gospel to the world. Develop a culture of free thinking and communicating. The companies that invent and innovate will attract and keep their customers from fleeing to a sexier or more cost effective solutions.

4. Learn and Teach: As you bring your digital and mobile capabilities to full maturity, strive for subject matter expertise in your space and teach your clients how do to the same. Your ability to provide ongoing value to your clients will determine your future in the age of the customer. At Alinean, we changed our focus and business model as our clients evolved. We invented around the iPad, mobile devices and HTML5. We changed our strategy to help clients identify issues, deliver insights, solve problems, create more effective content and ultimately bring personalized value to their customers in a compelling and engaging fashion. We are working closely with our clients to accelerate change in their organizations. What is your organization doing to be more customer obsessed? Eager for your comments!

Why is Sales Performance Declining? Part 1: Buying Committees

Did you know that...?
....In 2014, only 59% of sales reps will achieve their quota?(Accenture) -this number is down sharply from 67% last year. Not only that, this number had been gradually increasing for each of the past 5 years before this drop-off.

...The #1 criteria that decision makers look for in making a purchasing decision is widespread support for you and your company across his organization? (CEB)

....At the enterprise level, there are as many as 10 members in the buying decision committee. A recent deal we were involved in needed 21 signatures before completion! As Chris Berman would say: "C'mon Man!"

The reality though is that its getting immensely complicated to sell effectively today. The number of decision makers and influencers involved in a purchasing decision has increased steadily over the past 3 years and is direct fallout from the Great Recession. Buyers continue to remain risk averse and require compelling evidence to move forward with your solution as opposed to staying with the status quo. Here's how to deal with this new selling fact of life:

1. Identify The Members of The Buying Committee- One of our senior leaders and Alinean Co-Founder, Betty McNeil, a former sales trainer and current rainmaker advises to ask the following question: "Who besides yourself will be involved in the decision?" This is a critical first step in identifying the team that will be involved in the prospect's(or current customer's) final decision. While it is great to have a champion on your side within the organization, it is very rare that this person alone can seal the deal with you. Step 1 is to create a map of all of the folks involved in this decision, the executive sponsor, budget holder, product and technical leaders, and influencers of all types.

2. Connect Deep Within The Organization- As a general rule, connecting with numerous stakeholders within your client or prospect's organization is now a must. Jill Konrath in her popular sales blog outlines a formula which heavily uses LinkedIn as a tool: http://bit.ly/1tprRJO. If you haven't already uncovered the names of the buyer decision committee, Konrath advises to search your champion's name on LinkedIn and then look for 'others at company xyz' for ideas. You can also leverage the advanced search to select specific titles at that company. Now you need to connect with these folks on LinkedIn. Konrath also advises that you may actually need to help your champion identify others who will help finalize the deal. Again, LinkedIn is a great tool for this. This must be managed tactfully and on a case-by-case basis. Work with and leverage your champion as much as possible. Let her know that you will be working to help her move your deal through the process. But the new terrain means you need to be more proactive and involved in your client's decision making process than ever before.



3. Demonstrate Personalized Value To Each Decision Maker-As you move along the process with your champion, invariably you will be called upon to meet several new members of the committee and each of them likely will have a different agenda. Their focus may be technical, operations, business, marketing, sales or financially focused. In order to be able to facilitate each of these stakeholders decision, you will need to understand what challenges are important to each unique person and then deliver a tailored and personalized identification of the pain and value message in response.

 Beyond mere value messaging, today’s buyer requires more motivation. It is key to also provide a quantification of the “cost of do nothing” and business benefits, as well as 3^rd party evidence to support the claims. The ability to connect with each buyer’s unique point-of-value is critical. 

 Our team at Alinean creates value messaging and tools that do just this.ValueStory for Sales enables sale execs to deliver tailored messages for each stakeholder in the organization. The Tools intelligently create messaging paths and personalized value conversations on the fly based on role in the decision making process, industry, company size or any other pertinent profile data. The ability to connect and build a bridge of value to each member of the buying decision committee is critical.

4. Use Social Channels To Closely Monitor The Company: In addition to connecting with as many key players from the prospect's organization on LinkedIn, there are other social tactics that are effective. Set up a Google Alert for the prospect company so you can stay up to date on everything that is happening around the organization whether its product releases, executive moves, company priorities, positioning against the competition or financial reporting.
Follow the company on Twitter and Facebook to get a sense of the company's social personality and the issues which on which it chooses to focus. Having detailed knowledge about your prospect's organization and its challenges will help you properly position your solution and also give you added confidence in future conversations.

The Bottom Line: With more stakeholders involved in each decision, your deals are getting more complex, with more deals getting stalled, and the deals that do close taking longer to close as a result.

To overcome quota shortfalls and thrive in this more complex sales environment, you need to find new ways to identify the stakeholders involved in the decision and deliver tailored value messages and quantification to all members of the buying decision committee. 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"The ROI Guy", Tom Pisello

*Thanks to Tom Pisello, CEO & Founder of Alinean for co- writing this post. See his popular 'ROI Guy" Blog here: http://bit.ly/1ytlWH0

What's Missing From Nearly Every Agency Website

Did you know that.....

82% of agency search consultants say that brands are looking for a 'differentiated experience' when selecting a new agency partner (Avidan Strategies) and that...
57% of a CMO's decision making process is complete before even engaging an agency (CEB)? and that..
In two years, 90% of companies expect to compete almost entirely on the basis of customer experience(Gartner)

So what does this mean for the future revenue growth of marketing and ad agencies? It means that the marketing world is racing down the tracks at a breakneck pace and the very core of what it means to be a relevant agency is on the line. How do you differentiate? What does a CMO find when he researches your agency? Compelling content? Regular thought leadership pieces from your senior strategists? Insights gleaned from across your client base? A community portal for answering questions about marketing challenges? All of your fully engaged employees serving as brand advocates across social media? A personalized experience that tells a story and leverages the latest technology to effectively nurture this new relationship? Unfortunately, a look over many agency websites and social presence delivers little of this. A total reset is needed. Here's a framework:

1. Blow Up Your Website! The typical agency website looks like this: A ton of random videos, 'who we are' sections, 'awards' 'the team', 'client names' more jargon, 'services' and more videos with no context. The agency that truly wants to differentiate needs to take a challenge focused approach to its web presence. Are CMO's looking for specific awards you won or rather trying to solve important business issues? Are they just looking to web surf for cool videos or seeking partners that understand their challenges? Marketing leaders need to be agile, customer obsessed and data focused. They are trying to navigate an abundance of new marketing technologies, developing and reporting on metrics for success, assisting in setting the strategic agenda with the CEO, outlining a seamless customer journey which delivers personalized and contextual conversations across the digital and mobile terrain, converting and retaining customers and oh yes, delivering profitable revenue gains. While you might be doing this all day long with your current clients, your site needs show how you address these challenges. Position yourself to proactively set the buying agenda as opposed to reacting in a shootout with ten other agencies.

2. Thought Leadership is a Must According to The Challenger Sale by Matt Dixon and Brent Adamson, buyers today want more than anything to learn something new from a prospective new supplier. The ability to deliver unique insights is the most powerful weapon that can be leveraged. That's why agencies need to do a better job of delivering thought leadership in the form of regular online posts. Agencies today have some of the brightest minds in the world on their team. Its time for them to build a pipeline of though leadership bloggers and attract radically more prospects to your agency.

3. Build an Online Community Learning Center  IDC, in its Worldwide Social Business Predictions for 2015, lists the continued growth of online communities in support of business innovation (+30%) as its #1 prediction. The newly renovated agency online image should include a community learning portal which will bring together agency employees and prospects in a socially engaging, welcoming and low pressure environment. Prospects can interact with agency thought leaders, execs, and 'regular' employees to develop and nurture an authentic relationship built on credible information and trust. Trust, by the way, is moving to the top of the list of foundational components needed to drive revenue, and social media is an ideal way to develop and nurture this trust. The Edelman Trust Barometer of 2014 shows regular employees and subject matter experts to be the most credible sources of information about a company--more so than the senior executives. Companies that have deployed online community learning sites have seen impressive results. Performance Bicycle realized a 300% increase in traffic to its e-commerce site in the first four months with a 20% higher conversion rate.

4. Create an Employee Advocacy Program- In addition to deploying a new online community, agencies can leverage the power of the many to become a fully socially engaged business. Your non-sales employees are a huge source of untapped potential and Employee Advocacy channels their passion, personality and knowledge across their social networks. It acts as compound interest for the agency and delivers significant benefits for a very low cost investment. Advocacy programs maximize the chances of reaching the right person at the right time with the right message from a person they trust. While still a relatively new concept, IBM is one company that is delivering impressive results through Employee Advocacy and there are a number of platforms which can automate the process. In an initial run with 200 internal thought leaders, the company pushed out 146,000 shares which delivered 188M impressions and 603,000 clicks-an organically generated program which would have cost potentially $1M in paid advertising.

5. Look Out for Oracle, Dell, Salesforce and Adobe! These power house tech firms have all recently rolled out "marketing cloud" initiatives and are going after the CMO's budget. And they are leading with technology. Software is starting to eat every industry. Is marketing services next? Competition has always been fierce and costly for agencies. There are now some very big and powerful players looking for a seat at the table and agencies need to show more of their chops around the subject of marketing technology to continue to thrive.

By radically transforming its online and social presence, agencies have the opportunity to leverage its exceptional brainpower and the strength of its full organizations to ride the next wave of massive opportunity in the marketing space.