Innovation Perspectives - Challenge Your Specialists

This is the sixth of several 'Innovation Perspectives' articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on 'How should firms develop the organizational structure, culture, and incentives (e.g., for teams) to encourage successful innovation?'. Here is the next perspective in the series:

by Michael Soerensen

Challenge your specialists, to help you develop an innovative culture!

After you have checkmarked all the essentials of getting your company to focus on innovation - tools, workshops, gurus, funding, and management buy in - you are now faced with the biggest challenge:

How to develop and maintain it!?

First, try to SWOT what you need to succeed - HR competencies, communication, internal marketing, ROI methods, nifty design, IT...

Why start doing this halfhearted, when you already know that you don't possess these skills?

Many innovative efforts - even with the largest funding and management buy in - have failed because these key elements were not done properly. Instead of failing, make sure that you get carte blanche to tap into your company's specialists:

HR - They are brilliant at helping you tackle the different sub-cultures of the company - and knowing how to get them involved!

Sales & Marketing - They can help you design a marketing plan and a pitch - and your webmaster probably knows some mind-blowing methods of spreading the word on your intranet!

Finance - The numbers people will love the challenge of setting up that awesome spreadsheet on the innovation ROI!

Production & Engineering - These hands-on groups will be pleased to evaluate - and test - the groundbreaking new product ideas!

IT - Don't forget them - they are vital!


All of above are savvy specialists, who know their way around their subjects, and if you involve their key competencies in the challenge, you will be on the road to success - harnessing their vast knowledge and dedication.

And a great side effect is that you will get ambassadors and lobbyists working for your project, in every vital and strategic corner of your company!

After you do the above, don't forget to play your part:

• Publish all results... good or bad!
  
• Support, support... and support everybody involved!
  
• Make sure to announce any progress - personally - and throughout the company!
  
• Embrace suggestions to your project with enthusiasm!
  
• In general, spread kudos and karma to everyone helping you out!

And finally - keep challenging your enrolled experts and specialists, with important new tasks!



You can check out all of the 'Innovation Perspectives' articles from the different contributing authors on 'How should firms develop the organizational structure, culture, and incentives (e.g., for teams) to encourage successful innovation?' by clicking the link in this sentence.

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Michael Soerensen is CMO at Nosco.dk, a danish company, creators of the SaaS innovation platform; Idea Exchange. Michael is a serial entrepreneur, and after great successes and learnful failures he is now truly at home with his buddies at Nosco.

When Selling Your Innovation is Your Constraint

by Michael A. Dalton

In a recent Fast Company article and video on Open Forum, Dan & Chip Heath, co-authors of "Made to Stick", look at how to explain what your innovation is and what it does. If ideas aren't accepted they can die quickly, and there's a lot riding on getting it right. From a Theory of Constraints or critical chain perspective, once your new product is launched, your constraint often becomes market acceptance. In some cases that means getting people to understand what your innovation is and how it can help them.

There are lots of things that can constrain how readily the market accepts your new product or innovation, but the Heaths cover a very important one: helping potential buyers quickly understand what the product is and what it does. Anchor and Twist are the two suggestions they offer. Anchor your product to something they already know. Twist to show how it's different than everything else. Here's an example with Palm's Pre phone:

First the anchor: The new Palm Pre phone is like Apple's iPhone.

So big deal - it's just another touchscreen smartphone...

Then that's where the twist comes in: But it has a slide out keyboard if you don't want to use the touch screen and it can run multiple applications at the same time - something the iPhone can't do (yet).

You might recognize anchor and twist as part of the unique selling proposition. The only thing I would add is the benefit. Why do they care? What's in it for them (WIFT)?

Back to the Palm example --

WIFT: It can run multiple applications at the same time, which makes it easier to use. I can be writing an email, switch to my contacts to copy a phone number or address or jump over to Amazon to copy a link, and then hop back to the open email without having to restart the email application. A big deal when you use your smartphone for greater than 50% of your emails.

The Simple Bottom Line: So, the point here isn't to sell anyone on the Pre. The iPhone has some pretty big benefits too. But the point is that whatever your innovation, you can speed acceptance and increase your new product sales by getting the marketing right - that means Anchor, Twist... and be clear on WIFT.


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Mike Dalton is the Chief Innovation Coach for Guided Innovation Group and the author of "Simplifying Innovation" and the Simplifying Innovation Blog. Guided Innovation Group has a simple mission - helping companies turn their new product innovation into more bottom-line impact.

Driving Trial to Drive Sales

by Paul Williams

Mocha Valencia Frappuccino, was the one of the new beverages in the summer of 2002* at Starbucks Coffee. I was the marketing manager in charge of the summer promotion.

The beverage team described the taste profile like eating pieces of "chocolate orange" - like that made by Terry's. (Which is interesting - because Terry's Chocolate Orange wasn't / isn't a universal flavor the way Oreo Cookie or Orange Creamsicle are).

Anyhow, it became a featured beverage.

I don't know about you... but orange + chocolate isn't one of my favorite flavors.

I don't know about you... but I would never order that flavor... I wouldn't even try it because it was new and different - it is not a taste that sounds appealing to me.

However, sales of Mocha Valencia Frappuccino did fairly well that summer.

Why?

Because partners (employees) in stores sampled it morning, noon, and night. That summer, you couldn't walk into a Starbucks without a tray of mini-Frappuccino samples being thrust at you.

Long story short - trial led to purchase. Through trial you drive sales.

Allowing me to try your product or service prior to purchase reduces the anxiety I have about buying your product. The risk is gone. I'm not going to fork-out $50 for your software to find out it doesn't do what I want. I'm not going to buy that phone without first trying out the buttons.

Which leads to this great direct mail ad.


Neat Idea No. 1

How does a phone company get you to try their product before purchase? They get you to try it at the retail store. But how do they get you if you're not visiting the store?

Below is a way to creatively solve the problem of "how do we get trial of our expensive device."


[click for larger view]

The purple area is actually cut out... The idea is to put your thumbs through the holes and "try" the BlackBerry...



I'm not sure if this ad for this "groundbreaking new phone" drove sales and exceeded expectations. But it was a clever way to engage the customer. I wouldn't be surprised to find out the mail carrier tried it - just for fun - before he delivered it.


Neat Idea No. 2

How do you get people to try grape juice? You could sample in-aisle at the grocery store. Or, maybe have a booth at the mall. But how do you get them in their home? Short of shipping small bottles to customers?

Welch's used a flavor strip in print ads. Peel up the tab and lick to taste. (I wouldn't recommend this if you found the ad at the doctor or dentist office).

I used to drink grape juice all the time as a kid. I can't recall ever buying it myself. Perhaps the taste is enough trigger the memory of that flavor as a kid and prompting the addition of "grape juice" to this week's grocery shopping list?


So, what are ways you can get your customers to - taste, smell, feel, see, touch, hear - experience your product?


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*I'm pretty sure it was 2002 that the Mocha Valencia drink launched, it could have been 2001 or 2003...

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Paul Williams is a professional problem solver at Idea Sandbox. He can help you create remarkable ideas to grow your business. You may read more at his website and find him Twittering as @IdeaSandbox.

Setting Expectations for White Space - Apple iPad

by Adam Hartung

It's easy to misunderstand White Space. About twenty years ago Apple launched the Newton. The company sold about 375,000 of the first commercial PDAs, but Apple's leadership thought the market wasn't really there - and decided instead to focus on growing Mac sales. Obviously, as Palm and other PDA makers demonstrated, there was a tremendous market for PDAs. Apple misread the feedback from White Space.

Look now at the recent iPad launch. Silicon Alley Insider headlined "Now That They've Seen Apple's iPad, Most People Don't Want One." The headline keys on the fact that after the launch the number of people who said they were not interested to buy doubled (26% to 52%). Wrong fact to grab onto.


Instead, look at the fact that the number who said they would buy one tripled, from 3% to 9%. This is incredible, and should excite Apple's management as well as employees, suppliers and shareholders.

Most people will see a new, innovative product and say "why would I want that? I already have this other thing and it works great." And that is what marketers should expect. Most people are just trying to 'Defend & Extend' what they regularly do, and thus all the want is a product that helps them do their thing a little easier, faster, better and cheaper. They want minor improvements - variations and derivatives of what they already have. Improvements that are immediate, without them doing anything new or different.

All new deeply innovative products start with customers who are under-served or unserved. And this is why it is so important they be launched in White Space. White Space teams aren't intended to develop the big, mass market of known customers looking for something new. White Space is about doing new things that bring in new customers, give new solutions that attract real growth. And White Space teams have to learn how the market is evolving, how they fit into the market shift and how their solution will advance the market in order to sell more.

For the iPad, the 3% to 9% shift in likely buyers is huge because it shows that the iPad is an offering that appeals to people who are not today well served by their existing PC, laptop, netbook, mobile phone, kindle or mix of these solutions. 9% of respondents are saying that they see the iPad and they see a solution for what they want to get done. And if 9% of potential buyers see this option, that is HUGE. By White Space standards, often there are only .5% or 1% or 2% of people who initially see how the new product fulfills their under-served needs.

Set expectations right for White Space. White Space is not for launching variation 4 of an existing product - targeted at existing customers. That's what the marketing and sales department can do fine, thank you very much. White Space is the team that finds the 3% (or in Apple's case 9%) of users that see value in this solution, then works with them to implement the product/solution in order to make sure it fulfills the market need and is priced to sell effectively while providing a profit to the company.

Apple understands this, you can be assured. Look at how successfully the Apple White Space teams found the underserved users that jumped all over the iPod and iTunes, the iTouch and then the iPhone. They got the product positioned and selling in a hurry. And now that Apple has that skill, the company is going to apply it to the iPad. If you understand this chart correctly, you understand that it bodes very, very good things for Apple.

And it tells you the importance of having White Space teams, setting their expectations correctly, and managing them for the kind of results that can turn your organization into the next Apple. It took Apple 10 years to reach this skill level. It did not happen overnight. Or with one product introduction. And it will take your organization a few years to build this skill. So, what are you waiting on?


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Adam Hartung, author of "Create Marketplace Disruption", is a Faculty and Board member of the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, Managing Partner of Spark Partners, and writes for "Forbes" and the "Journal for Innovation Science."

Selling Innovation to Your Boss

by Jeffrey Phillips

I've argued before that most firms innovate when faced one of two conditions: fear or greed. The fear factor indicates the firm has explored all other options, and now only the most "radical" option - innovation - remains. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, "when you've eliminated the possible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the answer". And, like Gordon Gecko from Wall Street, I believe many firms innovate when they believe they've spotted an emerging opportunity or new market. In this case, greed is good.

But if all innovation were based on these two drivers, then little innovation would get done. Clearly many firms latch onto innovation as a life preserver, a last ditch effort rather than a strategic focus, but there's more innovation underway than could be accounted for by desperation. And I'm relatively certain that while some firms are good at spotting innovation opportunities and moving aggressively to produce new products and services, they are fairly few and far between. That leaves us with the majority of innovation getting done by the firms in the hazy middle - not really desperate, but not really leading innovators either. If that's the case, what methods do they use to "sell" innovation to the appropriate decisioning individuals or bodies?

Innovation can be "sold" to executives in one of several methods:

1. As a method to increase organic growth, driving new profits
   
2. As a method to disrupt the existing market or adjacent markets, preempting a competitor
   
3. As a method to create significant differentiation within a market space
   
4. As a method to create product or service leadership

These are the hard-headed, rational reasons, and the reasons that organizations tell themselves they innovate. in reality, most firms take on innovation efforts because:

1. An employee created a great idea and we really have no choice but to exploit it
   
2. A competitor has launched a new (product, initiative, campaign) and we need to respond to it
   
3. A senior leader within the firm has made it his/her mission to create an innovation program and the squeaky wheel must be greased

We often find that innovation programs are formed around existing assets - people or ideas - that persist until they must be addressed. Sort of like a plant that must be weeded out or watered. Otherwise, most new innovation efforts are based on a response to what a competitor is doing. This "reactive" innovation is not, in our minds, the best way to innovate, but it may be the best way to sell an innovation program, to give your initiative the final "kickstart" needed to get the funding or resources you need.

Thus, to "sell" innovation you need to:

1. Link it to a corporate objective (growth, differentiation, disruption)
   
2. Build ideas and momentum under the covers
   
3. Demonstrate what your competitors and new market entrants are doing
   
4. Link all three together (strategy, existing momentum, competitive threats) to complete the package

Without all three "legs" of the stool, you'll struggle to gain credibility. Without a strategic linkage any innovation will be incremental point solutions. Without some existing momentum, the work will seem too overwhelming. Without the ability to demonstrate what competitors are doing, you rely on executives who place great emphasis on longer term strategic goals.


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Jeffrey Phillips is a senior leader at OVO Innovation. OVO works with large distributed organizations to build innovation teams, processes and capabilities. Jeffrey is the author of "Make us more Innovative", and innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com.

Boosting Sales for Beginners

by Paul Williams

Ah... "Drive Sales." Is there a company that doesn't have 'sales driving' as a key strategy?


It can't be much simpler than a choice of three levers.

1. Find New Customers
   
   • Create a New Market with a new product or service, or
     
   • Go deeper with your existing targets
   
   
2. Increase Frequency - Get existing customers to use your business more often.


3. Increase Average Ticket - Get existing customers to spend more when they use your business.

While simple doesn't mean easy. It helps to know that these are your three launching points.

When choosing one - or perhaps all three - of these strategies. The next step is to ask "How?"

• How can I find new customers?
  
• How can I get existing customers to come more often?
  
• How can I get them to buy more?

From these base questions will branch new, potential solutions.


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Paul Williams is a professional problem solver at Idea Sandbox. He can help you create remarkable ideas to grow your business. You may read more at his website and find him Twittering as @IdeaSandbox.

10 Simple Ways to Stay Connected

by Matt Heinz

No matter what you do for a living, an active network is critical to your current and future success. That said, it's very easy to ignore the often simple, tactical things you can do to keep your network engaged and growing.

Here's a list of ten things to consider doing daily. If ten is too much to start (although this list should take all of 15-20 minutes if you stay focused), start with just 2-4 and expand from there. Each piece incrementally will help, and you'll be surprised how quickly your investment comes back in the way of opportunities, introductions and more.

1. Email three people you haven't spoken with in some time, just to catch up
   
2. Scan your LinkedIn home page for profile updates, and comment back on 2-3 that are particularly interesting to you
   
3. Use Gist.com to see what your contacts have done, read or published recently
   
4. Send one hand-written thank you or congratulations note to someone
   
5. Return one phone call or email from a sales rep. Make it short, but return the connection. You'd be surprised how often these turn into something more valuable than the pitch.
   
6. Give someone an unsolicited recommendation in LinkedIn
   
7. Scan your blog RSS feed, and forward 1-3 articles to people you think will find them interesting or valuable
   
8. Invite someone to lunch today. You have to eat anyway. If they say no, they're happy you asked. If they say yes, you get a valuable chance to reconnect.
   
9. Thank someone for the hard work they did yesterday, and copy their manager if sent via email
   
10. Send an unsolicited email to someone you've always wanted to meet, asking for a quick phone call or coffee. Do this daily, and I guarantee your response rate will be better than zero.

What would you add to this list?


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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

The 'Captive Upsell' Business Model

by Rocco Tarasi

I was reading Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson the other day, and it got me thinking about other innovative business models. One of the best that I have encountered recently was at the Bridgestone tire store when I got new tires for my car.

What was so impressive was how they convince you to purchase an alignment while they are mounting your new tires. While your car is being worked on, they come out with a computer generated report that shows the misalignment of each of your tires, and offer to do the alignment for an additional fee. It is a very compelling sales pitch:

1. The computer generated report provides reliable evidence that your tires are misaligned, instead of just looking at the wear on your tires (a computer can't lie, right?).


2. To some extent, you have already experienced the problem that they are selling you a solution for - the reason you are there in the first place is for new tires, and misalignment wears tires out faster. The alignment is offering you a chance to extend the life of your tires, and you are most receptive to that sale when you are about to pay for your new tires.


3. Since your car is already up on the jacks, you believe - rightly or wrongly - that doing the alignment will be cheaper now than if you want to do it later. You've already paid, via your new tires, for the labor to get the car on and off the jacks.


4. You expect (and they verify) that it will only take a few additional minutes to do the alignment, since again it is already on the jacks. Deciding to get an alignment later will most certainly take more time.


5. You are already spending many hundreds of dollars on new tires, so the alignment seems inexpensive in comparison.

This honestly is an impressive sales technique. The manager that I worked with was personable and not at all pushy - he didn't have to be, he had all of the above factors in his favor. I bought the alignment - I wouldn't say I "happily" bought it, but I didn't leave there with a negative experience even though I spent more on the trip than I intended to.

It is interesting to compare this to a somewhat similar sales technique - an electronics store trying to sell you the extended warranty on your new technology purchase. How does that situation compare to the five factors above?

1. Reliable evidence? Not really. TVs, stereos, cameras, DVD players – they aren't known for their poor quality.
   
2. Already experienced the problem? Probably not. Odds are you are buying a new toy not to replace a broken one, but because you are upgrading (DVD to Blu-ray) or because you have a new need (like a bigger house).
   
3. Cheaper now? Yes. You can only buy the extended warranty at or soon after your purchase.
   
4. Only take a few minutes? Yes.
   
5. Inexpensive in comparison? Yes (usually).

So three "Yes" and two "No" answers. But those two "No's" are important - without reliable evidence you don't believe your new purchase is going to break, especially if you haven't had one break before.

The lack of evidence is also supported by countless stories you've read of how extended warranties are a rip-off. Perhaps if they lowered the warranty price then it wouldn't be considered a rip-off anymore - but then again, they have likely maximized the price that consumers would consider "acceptable" to maximize their revenues. If they lowered the price it probably wouldn't gain any new consumers, so they would be just giving away revenues.

There is one other problem with the extended warranty purchase - there is no "immediate gratification". The warranty payment is for something that might happen in the future. It doesn't make me enjoy my new TV or DVD player any more now. This reminds me of one more experience - buying my first big screen TV at Best Buy, and the salesperson talking me into an overpriced Monster surge protector. I bought it - partly for its insurance policy, and partly for the supposed immediate improvement in having a "cleaner electrical signal to the TV". I know, I know... but how did that experience stack up against our five factors above (plus our new sixth "immediate gratification" factor)?

1. Reliable evidence? Not for the "cleaner signal"
   
2. Already experienced the problem? Not for the cleaner signal either, but I did have a relative lose their electronics from a lightning strike.
   
3. Cheaper now? Not really, I could buy it at any time.
   
4. Only take a few minutes? Yes.
   
5. Inexpensive in comparison? Yes.
   
6. Immediate gratification? Yes.

When I think back to why I chose the surge protector and not the extended warranty, I think it was a combination of (1) from every news story I heard I knew the warranty was overpriced; and (2) since the surge protector served a dual role - part product improvement, part insurance policy, I was able to more easily justify the high price since it was still much less expensive relative to the TV itself.

I know that I didn't need a Monster surge protector, but I wonder how many other people have gone through the same thought process, and what other similar sales cases we could apply these factors?


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Rocco Tarasi was an accountant, investment banker, and CFO before becoming a technology entrepreneur. He writes about innovation at www.InnovationMinute.com with a focus on "everyday" innovations in business models, sales strategies, products and services.

Creating Preference in a Commodity Business

by Matt Heinz

I was asked recently how to successfully sell value in a commodity business. When your product or service is virtually identical to what is available elsewhere, how do you create differentiation, preference, value and market share acceleration?

It's not easy, but there are ways. Here are five to start:

Service: How well you treat your customers can make a big difference, especially if you want to be a premium-priced commodity seller. Customers who don't value service will always buy on price, and if you want to be the low-cost leader, that's fine too. But if you want to sell value with a commodity, provide excellent, remarkable service at every level and every interaction with your customers and prospects.

Trust: What's your reputation? What are you known for? Do customers trust you, and why? Know what your customers value, and establish a tight bond between those values and the trust you create and strengthen in the way you do business, every day.

The Little Things: There are countless ways to do little, remarkable things for your customers. Unexpected things that make you stand out, thoughtful gestures that show you're different, and that you care. Real estate agents who bring new buyers a pizza or sandwiches on moving day, that's special. Auto dealerships that offer free car wash service for life. Things like that can be huge for differentiation and preference, not to mention word-of-mouth for your business to new prospective customers.

A Consultative Approach to Selling: Are you just selling the commodity, or are you providing additional value in the sale? Are you teaching customers more about the industry they work in, the environment in which they need that commodity. Are you helping them be more successful in the process of buying? Provide that kind of value-added service as part of the sale, and you're creating immediate value & differentiation.

Results: A commodity market doesn't necessarily mean that every option is the same, and will deliver the same results. How are you able to transcend what you're selling, and deliver differentiation and value in how that commodity impacts your customers? Is the end-result better through you? How? And how effectively can you communicate that results-based differentiation? Let your happy customers tell that story for you. Use their enthusiasm and success in the market to drive preference and value.


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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Five Nonprofit Marketing Fundamentals

by Matt Heinz

We've been working more closely with several local nonprofit organizations lately, and the more I speak with those responsible for fundraising and donor relations, the more I realize just how similar the process is to creating and managing a for-profit sales process.

I'm also seeing the same fundamental needs for those marketing a charitable cause or nonprofit organization. The below five fundamentals of nonprofit marketing are a starting point, but should be at the core of every nonprofit's strategy.

Donor Profiles: There are so many worthy organizations out there. Which prospective donors are going to be most predisposed to support your cause? What do those potential donors have in common - their associations, their history, their demo or psychographic make-up? You don't need to hone in on just one specific donor profile, but you should have a good sense for the 2-4 profiles that are your primary target. The more you know about them, the more self-evident the messages, channels and tactics will be to engage them directly.

Defining Your Product: What are you "selling" to prospective donors? It's not the tactics of what you actually do, but the outcome of that work. All too often, nonprofits tell their donors about the operations, or what additional infrastructure or materials they need. But what is all that for? What are you enabling? How are you making lives better? What's the benefit, the result, the outcome of what you're doing? THAT is your product, and that's the kind of vision your prospective donors will be attracted to.

Storytelling: Spend less time describing what you do, and more time telling stories about the differences you're making. Tell stories about the recipients of your work. Share the before and after. When it's an option, let the recipients of your work tell the story for you - in print, on video, and in person. Stories make an impression far longer-lasting than mission statements and operational descriptions. Stories can communicate the emotion behind what you're doing better than anything else.

Mobilizing the Community: Take your product definition, your mission, and think carefully about the ecosystem of people, groups, organizations, communities and businesses that relate to it. How can those various individuals and groups help you spread the word, or even contribute directly? If you're involved in transitional housing, how good are your relationships with local real estate offices? Are they giving directly? Are the individual Realtors involved, and getting their own buyer/seller customers involved? Be exhaustive and creative about mobilizing related communities on behalf of your organization.

Creating Evangelists: You have them already. Passionate donors. Highly-involved volunteers and board members. A variety of individuals and groups who feel strongly about what you're doing. No matter their level of passion, they won't help spread the word as widely as they could if you don't help them. Give them reminders to do so, give them content to pass along, give them the facilities and tools to share. This alone can be so simple, but so powerful. Identifying, arming and mobilizing the evangelists in and around your organization can be the very foundation of your marketing strategy.

Over the next several weeks, I'll go deeper into each of these fundamentals with more examples and suggestions for action.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Five Fast Steps to Sales & Marketing Success

by Matt Heinz

Too often, Sales & Marketing blame each other for a lack of results. The leads aren't good. Sales doesn't follow up. The excuses go on and on.

If this sounds familiar for your organization, there are things you can start doing right away to mend fences and start on a path towards not only better relations, but far better revenue results.

Call a Sales & Marketing Summit, and don't let anyone leave the room until the following five things are agreed upon:

1. Common Lead Definitions

• What, exactly, is a qualified lead? What are its characteristics? Get as detailed as you need to be, but make sure both Sales & Marketing agree on that definition. That way, when leads are delivered to Sales, they at minimum meet the basic criteria you've both agreed on to make them worth the sales team's time for follow-up.

2. Initial Response Time

• If the leads are good (and meet the minimum qualified definition), you need a "service agreement" for how quickly those leads will get their first response. If the lead is waiting for something (a white paper, for instance) response time should likely be no longer than 24 business hours. In other cases, 48 hours may be acceptable. Decide what's right for your organization and customer, get sales management's buy-in, communicate it clearly to the sales team, and put in place reporting tools to make it super-easy to track this on a daily basis (and send both you and the sales rep alerts when leads fall outside of the service agreement).

3. Lead Follow-up Steps & Channels

• How many times should a lead be attempted before the sales rep gives up and moves on? Should all of those attempts be via phone, or should there be a mix of other channels - email, social media channels, in-person, etc.? If you don't reach agreement on this critical process, every sales rep will have his or her own idea of what's right. Some will call once, leave a message, and consider the lead dead. Others will call the poor prospect 20 times. Create a standard with sales not only to ensure leads are thoroughly vetted, but also to ensure sales is moving on to fresher opportunities if there's nobody at home.

4. Clear Lead Stages

• A lead comes in. The rep starts to attempt a call back. They reach the lead and determine it's a good prospect, or long-term prospect, or just not qualified. How do they report this information to you? What lead stages have you set up in your lead management or CRM system to not only make it easy and clear how you want sales to categorize their working leads, but also to report to management progress & quality of leads (not to mention improve your lead generation ROI performance moving forward)? Don't go overboard - 15 lead stages gets way too complicated - but 4-6 stages is reasonable and actionable for most sales environments.

5. Handing Leads Back to Marketing

• According to MarketingSherpa and others, the vast majority of leads generated by B2B organizations in particularly will buy - just not right now. Those leads (once they're identified as such) need to be passed back to Marketing for active nurturing. Make sure there's a clear process for Sales to do just that - ideally with the click of a button.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Five Steps to a Successful B2B Social Media Strategy

by Matt Heinz

The beauty of most social media channels is that they're so easy to join and engage. Most are free. It takes just a few minutes to get set up, and literally seconds to start publishing. But if you're marketing and selling a B2B product, a simple five-step process can ensure you're getting the maximum, measurable yield from your efforts in terms of increased pipeline size and new sales. Here's how.

1. Strategize

Social media is mostly about engaging & participating with like-minded others, but that doesn't mean you don't need a strategy. Execution without strategy, after all, is really just guessing. That said, creating a strategy for your social media implementation shouldn't take long. Most important, answer a few basic questions.

Who are your target customers? Are you targeting different types of customers within a target account? Are there deal influencers (inside and outside of the organization) you want to target & influence as well? For each of these groups, think about what you want them to hear, what you need from them, and how all of this translates into the type of content you want to share with them.

This up-front thinking should also extend to the specific social media channels on which you'll focus. First priority should be external networks where your customers already participate and engage. Could be mass-market channels such as Facebook and Twitter, but it also could be vertical or audience-specific channels elsewhere - like LinkedIn Groups or Ning.

You'll likely refine this strategy and content/audience focus over time, but thinking about it in advance helps hone the how and where you'll launch your social media efforts.

2. Publish

With an eye towards the value-added content your audiences will want to read, start publishing. Publish original content, and start commenting on the content of others. This is especially important if you're using Twitter, as you'll need a stable of at least 20-30 tweets under your belt before others think you're relevant, and choose to follow you.

This doesn't have to be your own content. You know what your audience cares about, and wants to read, so part of your content and publishing strategy should be redistributing content they need. Give credit where credit is due, of course, but there's a lot of value in filtering and aggregating content from a variety of sources into a single feed for a particular audience.

When publishing on Twitter specifically, use short headlines followed by a "shortened" URL. Use a service like bit.ly to shorten and track your links. Where to find content to republish? Start following a bunch of audience-appropriate blogs and news feeds, and pull interesting headlines out of those feeds to republish. Eventually you'll want to start publishing your own originated content (we'll get into why later), but for now you can create value and "follow appeal" from others by using primarily third-party content.

If you're using Twitter, apply hashtags to your content so that it's more easily discoverable (and both followable and retweetable) by others. If you're using Facebook and LinkedIn, take advantage of their "linking" tools to publish content on multiple platforms at once.

3. Follow

The easiest way to start getting the attention of people you want to engage is to follow them first. Use Twitter Search, for example, to find individuals you'd like to follow (and eventually follow you) based on keywords in their own Twitter feeds. Use TweepSearch to find users based on keywords in their Twitter bios. The same would apply within LinkedIn Groups. Spend time every day for awhile finding and following others. On average, between 25-35% of people you follow will follow you back.

Eventually, you can start using tools to automate the task of finding like-minded others to follow. You can search for followers by keywords, hashtag, organization and more.

As you gain followers, you'll start to get pass-along from those primary followers to their followers. Over time, those secondary followers will follow you directly back, and that process and volume will pick up significantly as your audience grows. This works not just on Twitter, but on other social networks as well. The more you write good content, and help others discover you via that content, the more quickly your reach, influence and return click volume will grow.

4. Engage

Perhaps the most important component of building a healthy social media presence is to engage with your audience. Don't just publish, don't just follow. Interaction is key to building trust, credibility and action among those prospective customers.

This engagement can take many shapes. If you're using Twitter, retweet interesting content from those you follow, and reply to them with ideas and questions. Follow the blogs of your prospective customers, and add comments to their posts. Ask your followers for feedback on new ideas, new messages. Occasionally share pictures, share something personal so they know you're a human being.

Your engagement strategy will be somewhat custom to your intended audience and what they're already doing/saying/posting, but engagement in whatever format is important. Without it, you're not a member of the community - you're just a lurker. And without becoming an active community member, you won't get nearly the pass-along and clickthrough value you otherwise could.

5. Convert & Measure

By engaging your network and new community, by becoming one of them, and by significantly increasing the frequency with which they see your name on value-added content and participation, you will naturally and dramatically increase the volume of these prospects who take action to learn more about how you can help their business.

But once you get momentum with your networks, you can also start to feed direct conversion links directly into the conversation. These prospects aren't ready for a pricing promotion or special purchase offer, that's probably too early. But give them something value-added for which registration is required. It can be a research report, a sweepstakes entry, a Webinar invitation. The possibilities are endless, but all focused on helping those interested prospects to "raise their hand" so you can have a direct conversation with them.

These aren't necessary "hot" sales leads. Some may be ready to buy right away, most probably won't be. With the right lead nurture strategy in place, you can now take these new "hand raisers" and accelerate your direct relationship so that, once they are ready to enter a buying cycle, it goes much faster and has a higher likelihood of conversion.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

It is NOT who you know

Why Trust Trumps Volume

by Matt Heinz

The assumption that a big network - thousands of followers on Twitter, an enormous rolodex, a really big mailing list - directly translates into influence and performance is ridiculous. Anybody can build a big list of names.

The more important question is whether those people care about you.

• Do they respect you?


• Do they trust you?


• When called upon, will they help you?


• Will they buy from you?

The trick is translating that big list into an army of evangelists, a group of individuals who respect and trust you.

That's how to measure the value of your network. Not by sheer volume, but by trust.

Trust drives influence, and influence enables action.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

7 Reasons I Joined the Local Chamber of Commerce

by Matt Heinz

Last week I finally joined the Kirkland Chamber of Commerce. I've attended a few events over the past year, but it was time for me to become an active member.

I know in an age of Twitter and LinkedIn and all kinds of alternatives to business networking, joining the local Chamber can sometimes be seen like less of a priority. Many young businesses believe there are better uses of their time and money.

I disagree. It may have taken me longer than it should have, but joining the Chamber was an inevitable no-brainer. Here are seven reasons why:

1. Pipeline Development

• For our clients, everything we do is about helping them accelerate sales & revenue. Everything is measured based on its contribution to sales & revenue growth. The way I operate my own business is the same. So reason number one for joining the Chamber is sales pipeline - meeting and acquiring new prospects and clients for us.


• My pipeline already has businesses met both directly at Chamber events as well as referrals from Chamber introductions. Two weeks in, and if one of those clients converts, it more than pays for the Chamber membership. That's already good ROI (and we're just getting started).

2. Networking

• Every business owner needs to devote a significant amount of time to marketing, and in my business that means a lot of networking. Networking with prospective clients, as well as fellow business owners who either might be clients or who know, work with, live with or otherwise associate with prospective clients.


• Networking is a numbers game, in which you treat everyone equally. Everybody knows somebody (or is somebody), and the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. A big part of joining the Chamber is having more opportunities to network at a local level.

3. Peer Group

• Other Chamber members are a lot like me. They have a business they're trying to make a success, and grow bigger/better than it is today. We all do different things, but we're struggling with many of the same issues - growth, operations, product set, sales channels, etc. Sometimes the best new ideas I apply to my business come from someone in an entirely different industry, selling to a very different customer. The more you spend with fellow business owners, the smarter you'll be about how to operate, optimize and grow your own business.

4. Credibility

• As a growing business, being a member of the local Chamber establishes credibility. It just does. It demonstrates to other businesses and prospective clients that we're a real business, and willing to invest time and money to be an active member of the business community.


• If I'm going to be a member of the local business community, I consider it an obligation to do what I can to foster health & growth for that same community. The rising tide will lift all boats. The health of the local business environment is a big part of why I'm in business today, so it's my duty to both give back and actively contribute to that community.

5. Introductions

• My participation with the Chamber has already created introductions for myself and our business to community, government and business leaders I otherwise would have either never had, or taken much longer to gather. Those new relationships are with influencers, "connectors" as Malcolm Gladwell would describe them, people who can open up huge new doors and opportunities for our business.


• If what you're doing or selling as a business has value, and you can clearly & succinctly articulate what that is, others who get it and need it (or know people who need it) will help you identify new opportunities for growth as well. That's what influencers and connectors can do. And you'll meet them through the Chamber.

6. Belly to Belly Relationships ("LinkedIn is not enough")

• I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn and other social networking tools. They make creating and fostering a network faster and more efficient than ever. But they're no replacement for getting out there and meeting people live. They never will be.


• Some of the smartest social media people in the world make a point of telling their followers to step away from the computer and get out to actually see people. They know that networking, at its core, is about people meeting people. And there's simply no better way to do that than belly-to-belly, looking at the whites of another person's eyes, and demonstrating in real time the value, credibility and trust you (and your business) represent.

7. Opportunities I can't even think about yet (but will discover and create)

• I mentioned above that networking is a numbers game. You meet some great contacts and occasionally some clunkers. Inherent in that belief is the knowledge that enough contacts will net you revenue-producing opportunities. Also inherent in that belief, I believe, is the knowledge that completely unexpected opportunities will come your way when you seek them out, keep an ear open for them, and explore them when they materialize.


• If I'm not a member of and active in the Chamber, I'm missing an opportunity to discover something I can't even fathom yet, an opportunity that could significantly change my business and my life.


• I can't afford to miss that.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Stop Telling Prospects What You Do

by Matt Heinz

Your prospects don't care what you do. They don't care how it works.

They're only thinking of themselves. And can you blame them?

Their butt is on the line if they don't deliver results, cut costs, delight their own customers. They have their own problems, their own pain, their own priorities.

Your prospects don't care what you do. They will only care about you if you can solve their problem. Ease their pain. Make their job easier. Make them look like a hero.

Your prospects don't care what you do. They care deeply about what you can do for them.

There is only demand for your product if there is more demand for the solution it represents.

Sell that way.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Stop Selling and Add Value

by Mike Myatt

What I'm about to espouse will cause many an eyebrow to furrow and jaw to drop. I truly believe that the practice of sales as a business discipline has become at best ineffective, and in many cases flat out obsolete. You see, good business practices are not static. Stale methodologies and disciplines simply die a slow and very painful death, and it is my contention that the overwhelming majority of sales processes I see in today's marketplace are just that...stale. If you want to create revenue, increase customer satisfaction, and drive brand equity, stop selling and start adding value. In the text that follows I'll share my thoughts on how the practice of sales must change in order to survive.

Lest you think I've lost my mind, I want to be clear that I'm not advocating taking your eye off the revenue creation ball. Rather what I'm recommending will help you generate more revenue, with greater velocity by simply doing the right thing in putting your customer's needs first. I hear a lot of noise about the tough economy, and revenue being down for many companies. I hear complaint upon complaint that companies just don't have money to spend, and that nobody is buying. If you're experiencing this type of reaction from your customer, it's not because they don't have money to spend, it's because you're selling and not adding value. It's because you're talking and not listening. It's because you don't get it. It's not about you, your company, your products or your services. It's about meeting customer needs and adding value.

The problem with many sales organizations is that they still operate with the same principles and techniques they were using in the 60's, 70's and 80's. While the technology supporting sales process have clearly evolved, the traditional sales strategies proffered by sales gurus 20 or 30 years ago have not kept pace with market needs. They are not nearly as effective as they once were, and as I've eluded to, in most cases they are obsolete. Trust me when I tell you that your prospects and customers have heard it all before. They can see the worn-out, old school closes coming a mile away. They can sniff antiquated selling strategies, and will immediately tune out on presentations not deemed relevant. If your sales force is still FAB-selling, spin-selling, soft-selling or using any number of outdated, one size fits all selling methodologies, your sales are suffering whether you realize it or not.

So, my first suggestion is that you change nomenclature. Think about this example - in most corporations there exists a hierarchy of sales that comes with a very established and entrenched pecking order. The enterprise sales folks and key accounts reps sit atop the food chain, followed by inside sales reps, and at the bottom of the latter you'll find the customer service reps. The hunters are revered and the farmers are tolerated. Regardless of the titles being used, this entire concept of sales is so antiquated it's laughable. Frankly, most people I know would rather talk to a knowledgeable customer service person over a sales rep any day of the week. The reason for this should be obvious. The perception is that a customer service professional is providing information and helping them meet their needs. A sales person is trying to sell them something.

Call me crazy, but I don't want to talk to someone who wants to manage my account, develop my business, or engineer my sale. I want to communicate with someone who wants to service my needs or solve my problems. Any organization that still has "sales" titles on their org charts and business cards is living in another time and place while attempting to do business in a world that's already passed them by. It's time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding. Today's consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys - they are not sold.

Engage me, communicate with me, add value to my business, solve my problems, create opportunity for me, educate me, inform me, but don't try and sell me...it won't work. An attempt to sell me insults my intelligence and wastes my time. Think about it. Do you like to be sold? News flash...nobody does. Now ask yourself this question, do you like to be helped? Most reasonable people do. The difference between the two positions while subtle, are very meaningful and powerful. If customer centricity is a buzzword as opposed to the foundation of your corporate culture then you have some work to do. The reality is that until I know that you care more about meeting my needs than yours, you'll remain on the outside looking in. By the way, in order to understand my needs you have to actually know something about me.

The first thing to do when assessing your sales model is to take a giant step back, and critically examine the current landscape. You can't fix a problem that you don't understand, and implementing change for the sake of change will likely only make matters worse. If what you've read thus far even remotely resonates with you, then I would suggest reading "Don't Negotiate...Facilitate." Teach your sales force to become true professionals focused on helping their customers for all the right reasons vs. closing the big deal for personal benefit. Otherwise you will likely miss substantial opportunities without even being aware of it.

The bottom line is that the most important factor in creating revenue and building brand equity is the client/customer/end-user. If you don't engineer everything around the client, your client relationships will vanish before your very eyes. I would strongly recommend reading "Understanding Your Customers," and "Leveraging the Customer Experience."

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Are you turning leads into sales?

by Matt Heinz

Leads alone mean nothing.

Leads don't equal revenue. By definition, leads are just prospective buyers who haven't yet bought a thing.

Marketers get upset when their executives think of them, and their budgets, as a cost center. But those same marketers often focus on generating leads, and that's it. They don't hold themselves accountable for the sale.

What happens after the lead is what's really important. So you have someone who qualifies as a prospective buyer. Maybe that prospect has even shown interest, shared a pain that you can ease.

They still need to buy. They will still have objections. Some may buy on their own, but most need to be walked through the sale.

Smart marketers know that leads are just the beginning. They know that their job isn't really done until leads buy.

Successful marketers go beyond setting a common definition for qualified leads with their sales counterparts. They also work with sales to define stages of the sales process, and develop tools to help sales reps sell, and make it easier for buyers to buy.

The best B2B marketers think, work and execute like they're in sales, not marketing. Because your sales reps know that generating the lead is at the top of their funnel, not the bottom.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Smart 'R' Us?

by Steve McKee

Toys 'R' Us has faced its share of difficulties over the past several years. The company has had to contend with the likes not only of traditional competitors including Sears, KB Toys and FAO Schwarz, but bricks-and-mortar bruisers like Target and Walmart and Web behemoth Amazon. Not so long ago the company faced what appeared to be an existential threat from a very-well funded (and heavily advertised) "new economy" competitor, an online startup called eToys. There was a period when I thought Toys 'R' Us not only had seen its better days, but would have very few days left.

My how times have changed. Toys 'R' Us now owns--that's right, owns--the FAO Schwarz, eToys and KB Toys brands. And in a gutsy move that runs counter to the loss of nerve by which most retailers are still being tripped up, the company, which has fewer than 850 stores, will launch an additional 350 temporary locations during the upcoming holiday season. That means more rent, more people, more inventory, and more risk. It also means significant potential to gain market share.

In a Wall Street Journal interview, Toys 'R' Us CEO Gerald Storch said about the decision, "The current economic disruption provides an opportunity. The people who made their fortunes during the Great Depression where those that moved when everyone else was pulling back."

He's right, of course. The same Wall Street Journal article cites a CIT Group study which suggests that two thirds of retailers plan on hunkering down during the upcoming holiday season. While they make their toys easier to buy (with bigger discounts) but harder to find ( by stocking less inventory), Toys 'R' Us is positioning itself to be in the right place at the right time as harried shoppers look to cross items off their list (given the category, often impulsively). That will help the company not only pick up share, but protect its margins.

Rather than sitting around, wringing its hands about another potentially difficult holiday season, the Toys 'R' Us team has decided that disruptive times often call for disruptive measures. I predict their stockings will be full this year.

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Steve McKee is a BusinessWeek.com columnist, marketing consultant, and author of "When Growth Stalls: How it Happens, Why You're Stuck, and What To Do About It." Learn more about him at www.WhenGrowthStalls.com and at http://twitter.com/whengrowthstall.