The Wealthy Business - by EnergizeGrowth

Make Some Marketing Waves-- Offer Ends July 1

Many members of my marketing and CEO communities often ask me how they can access the key learnings from my private, exclusive CMO breakfasts. They often experience hectic travel schedules, and feel a sense of isolation.

 

That is why I recently launched a new program for marketing leaders.

Lisa Nirell’s Making Marketing Waves™ provides a “just in time” virtual learning system and online community designed to help you: 

• Raise the bar on your personal and organization performance
• Rapidly generate fresh new marketing and growth ideas
• Increase your credibility with your CEO and board of directors
• Slash the time required to spot important trends
• Tap into the collective wisdom of the top tier CMOs globally
• Expand your community and circle of influence -without leaving your office

Startups: How to Go Beyond the Honeymoon Phase

Cincom's Expert Access team recently interviewed me for their show. Here is a reprint of that program and a replay of the radio interview.

“A company is like a marriage,” says Lisa Nirell, author of EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company and recent guest on Expert Access Radio. “When you have a start-up mentality, things are great and it can be a lot of fun, like the honeymoon; but like all honeymoons, it has to come to an end.”

During the “honeymoon stages” of a business, you are constantly feeling like you are fighting fires and crises. It’s that love for the adrenaline rush of doing different things every day that leads you to a point where you have to move on. When you reach that crossroads in the life of your business, you are forced to make a decision on where you want your company to go.

In most cases, there are two choices:

Option 1 - Build an infrastructure, clearly defining the roles and responsibilities for the staff, so that they know how their jobs are tied directly to the vision of the company.

Option 2 - Continue to immerse yourself in the adrenaline rush. That chaos and frantic excitement is not always the wrong direction. Some people live off the adrenaline rush and need it constantly through their careers. When you choose to stay in the adrenaline rush stage, you have to come to terms with the fact that your ability to predict your growth will diminish greatly.

The Parallel Worlds Of Gondolas And iPads

When we arrived in Venice last week, I could not locate a single car. Only gondolas and transport boats peppered the waterfront. After hundreds of years, the transportation system has barely changed. The gondola, a marvelous, ancient rowing craft, is part of a complex web of commercial and passenger interdependence, and has withstood the test of time. Will today's game-changing mobile innovations be able to boast the same infamy?

Timeless Success Recipes from Stephen Covey

"Here, have an oatmeal cookie."

That is the disarming way in which my first interview with Stephen Covey began in 2004. In light of Dr. Covey's passing this week, his lessons are more alive than they have ever been. I'm certain that my experiences with Stephen were consistent with many others. This is my attempt to summarize those life lessons.

I wish that I could say my first live interview with Stephen went smoothly. Although FranklinCovey's press team invited me to their Long Beach, CA conference, they asserted that Stephen's full schedule would not allow time for me to interview him. My expectations were very low. Suddenly, after the Day 1 main session, the reporter from the LA Times contacted Deb Lund, the Director of PR, and cancelled his interview. Deb offered me his interview time slot.

I paused three seconds for dignity, then said yes. Here's the rub: I had 7 minutes' notice to prepare for the interview.

As a rookie journalist and freelancer for The San Diego Transcript, I was panicking over my lack of preparation. I felt that I just didn't have enough time to make a strong first impression.

My hike to the 2nd story of the conference center felt somewhat like the Bataan death march. I kept a stiff upper lip, looked him straight in the eyes, and spoke the truth. "Stephen, I apologize for not being prepared for this interview." He deftly offered me an oatmeal cookie, sat back in his chair, and proceeded to ask me about my life, my family, and my passions.

Needless to say, the interview is one of my most memorable. Our 15 minute interview spilled into 40. We covered a wide range of topics. Five years later, he graciously agreed to endorse my book and granted me another interview.

Many will remember Stephen for his prolific contributions to the burgeoning self-help movement. Others will applaud him for his global impact through his nonprofit endeavors and his prolific speaking and writing abilities. I applaud him for something else.

Stephen had an uncanny abililty to push his ego aside and make others feel included and valued. His book, The 8th Habit, outlines his belief that we must find our voice and inspire others to find theirs. Even though we only met three times, he inspired me year over year to weave that philosophy into my daily business activities.

These are the timeless Covey gifts that Stephen gave me:

1. Encourage critical thinking during meetings. I ask for evidence behind every opportunity or problem. I seldom allow hearsay or gossip to drive my own strategic choices or my clients'. When I stray from this philosophy and make irrational, knee-jerk choices, I lose clients and create unnecessary tension. Covey says in The The 8th Habit, "between stimulus and response there is a space where we choose our response."
2. I constantly strive for deeper meaning and purpose. While some of my contemporaries become enamored with the latest marketing automation, performance management, or social media platforms, I strive to stay grounded in my life's true purpose. Generating more leads or driving higher EBITDA are not examples of a noble purpose. Automated performance management and stack ranking programs have proven to be a hornet's nest, because they often stray from a company's purpose and assume that some people will always be worthy of termination. Are these ideas holding your company back from reaching its true potential?
3. I strive to eliminate the hourly worker mindset forever. Covey opened my eyes to the foolishness of our Industrial Age thinking. In The 8th Habit, he described the four Industrial Age maladies:
   
   • "The belief that you must control people;
   • Our view of accounting (People are an expense; machines are assets);
   • The carrot-and-stick motivational philosophy; and
   • Centralized budgeting...a reactive approach that produces 'kiss-up' cultures bent on 'spending it so we won't lose it next year.'"
4. I schedule time for self-reflection every day. This may mean a five minute check in with a colleague or my husband, but it gets done. During my CMO peer meetings, I encourage each member to provide a "check in": what's different from our last meeting? What worked in your performance? What didn't work? What are you celebrating? Self-knowledge must take front and center position to text messaging, email, and tweeting. The majority of senior executives I meet confess that reflection is often rejected in favor of addressing the crisis du jour (the urgent versus the important). Picasso once said that "without great solitude no serious work is possible." Perhaps he and Covey conspired at some point to help us strike more balance in our lives.

Stephen made this world a better place. I will savor that "oatmeal cookie" moment for the rest of my life.

P.S. If you feel so moved to show your appreciation for Stephen's contributions, please make a donation to the I Am A Leader Foundation. This is a charity dedicated to developing character and leadership skills in children and youth in public schools. Stephen's surviving wife, Sandra Covey, requests that donations be sent in lieu of flowers to:

I Am A Leader Foundation
PO Box 1936
Provo, UT 84603-1936

Related posts:

The Power of Stillness http://www.fastcompany.com/1806703/the-power-of-stillness
Meditating on Growth Challenges http://www.fastcompany.com/1769098/meditating-on-growth-challenges
Choose Civility http://www.fastcompany.com/1723408/choose-civility

copyright 2012, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.

Don't Occupy Seattle! Harvest More Value from Your Customer Base

Nancy Porte of Vovici (now a Verint company) recently read my book, and asked me to spend time discussing some highlights. In this Listening Post interview, you will learn:

• Why it's important to balance online and offline customer feedback approaches
• The one factor most companies ignore when profiling their ideal customer
• How to gather valuable, live customer feedback

Customer-Centric Strategies to Escape the Commodity Trap

One of my close friends provides image consulting and communications training to corporations and professionals in career transition. She regularly receives calls from low level corporate gatekeepers in Human Resources, Finance, Training, and other non-revenue producing areas. They ask for proposals for training programs, and never expect to get into any conversation about their business with my friends. All they want is that proposal to prove they did their due diligence.

These gatekeepers are doing what they do best: saving their company money and treating vendors like commodities.

If you are lucky or just a downright innovative genius, you will never fall into this commodity trap. If, however, you have been dragged into the land of commoditization, your job is to escape as quickly as you can. It is a dubious place to live with marginal value or spark.Things will not improve--unless you are willing to experiment with customer-centric ideas to uncover category-killing innovations. With some determination, planning, and a bit of luck, you may just position yourself to become the next Apple in your industry.

Let me illustrate why this is the ideal time to consider customer-centric marketing. Most of your competitors are still hoarding cash and focusing inward. Worse yet, they may be buying into the media naysayers, who are claiming that the U.S. is ostensibly in the midst of a "lost decade." (You can't make this stuff up--I heard it on the BBC this week. I guess the BBC reporter forgot that Facebook, Google, Apple, and Zappos are defining a new decade. But I digress).

I recently interviewed two executives who live and breathe customer centric marketing strategies: Chris Golec, CEO of DemandBase and Jim Bampos, VP of Customer Quality at EMC Corporation. This roundtable recording will provide details.

Here are our collective recommendations to help you engage your customers in your commodity "escape plan":

1. Accept the fact that sometimes, your products and services cannot escape the commodity trap. The only remaining area where you can outpace competition are your relationships with customers, vendors, your employees, and your community. Zappos, now an amazon subsidiary, does this very well.Their culture is obsessed with delivering fun, weird, memorable customer experiences. Golec reported that DemandBase's unique customer relationships and customer success program have enabled them to discover an unmet need, which resulted in a new product idea that now comprises nearly 90% of their total revenues.

2. Track how often you put your customer first while making strategic and marketing decisions. Customer-centric cultures share one thing in common: the entire company is oriented and incented around customer success, and a single customer metric shapes behavior.

3. Be mindful of end of quarter pressures to close business at any cost. They will undermine your customer-centric efforts and core competencies. Whether you are a startup or a publicly traded company, this can become a huge obstacle to long term success. Avoid succumbing to unique customization requests. Jim Bampos indicated that EMC mitigates this risk. "We take a holistic view of what is most important to the customer, then we tie it back to each business unit. The proof points are if the business units are using our customer metrics to drive business decisions." 

4.  While enrolling customers in key decisions, and gathering valuable feedback, monitor how your stakeholders going to take action on the data. Your customers want to know that their input is valued beyond the interview or advisory board discussion. EMC distributes mirror surveys to the entire organization to assess employee's perception of how well EMC is managing the customer experience.

5. Get creative on metrics. If you are truly committed to building a customer centric culture and marketing plan, look beyond customer renewal rates. Golec indicates that time to value is a priceless measure: "We track the time from when we close the sale how long it takes before they have a measurable benefit from our technology. The minute that happens, we improve our relationship with that account." Find a way to temper sales' innate desire to drive a bigger sale and boil the ocean.

6. Focus your customer centric efforts on ideal customers. Any program will fail if you administer programs across all customer segments and try to serve anyone with a pulse and a budget.

7. Let customers know you are building a customer-centric company. They may just have a new idea on how you can further strengthen the program. Don't keep it a secret!

8. Build social media incentive programs for your initiative. EMC is launching several new online forums where they will announce the agreed upon action steps generated from from their Voice of the Customer programs.

Gatekeepers play an important role in managing expenses. That doesn't mean you have to live in their world.These strategies will help you avoid getting ensnared in their commodity trap.

This post originally appeared on Fastcompany.com.

copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.

Why Customer Driven Cultures will Stall Your Growth

When your biggest customer calls with an emergency request, do you dial 911? Chances are you are setting off unintended fire alarms – and causing your profits to lose altitude.

I met Shane, a dubiously anointed “star salesperson,” on a client assignment in San Diego. He piloted the biggest customers. When I worked with the General Manager of this $40M software division—his boss—I noticed how Shane could turn the entire support and customer service organization into a tailspin with one email. I cringed when I witnessed how his knee-jerk

YouTube Now Energizes Your Business Growth!

My community keeps asking me to provide videos to generate new business growth ideas, discover new go to market strategies, and accelerate revenues.

You asked, and I listened.

The YouTube EnergizeGrowth® Channel  is now live.

Every month, I will post fresh new content and CEO interviews on the EnergizeGrowth® Channel. You're invited to subscribe, and enjoy over 25 "how to" videos. Click here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/energizegrowth

Let me know what other topics you would like me to cover on the EnergizeGrowth channel.The first two people who nominate topics will receive a signed copy of my book.

Thank you!

Lisa

Skip Best Practices – Think “Next Practices”

 

The term "best practices" is SOOO yesterday.

In this guest post from Patricia Wheeler of The Levin Group, you will hear why.She proffers three strategies you can implement immediately to ensure you are defining the next big thing, and avoid falling behind the leadership curve. Without these strategies, you will find your products and services becoming commodities faster than the hottest song from Lady Gaga.

  

Seven Wealth Builders That Most B2B Companies Ignore

Your business is a living organism – something that has potential to grow and thrive long after you’ve played your role in it. Yet many firms are still smarting from a very tough recession, and feel like they are on life support. The “new normal” has accelerated industry consolidation, longer sales cycles, fee pressures, and tight credit. If you are a seriously growth-oriented B2B company, what can you do to ensure that you swiftly return to wealth creation mode?