Tag Archives: Behavior

What is Coming in Digital Marketing? Six Points

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Situation: In traditional marketing, many marketers were more focused on activity than results. In the digital environment, successful marketing organizations must become better at listening to their customers, watching them, and tracking their purchase decision behavior. What does this mean for the marketer? What is coming in digital marketing?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The digital world has changed marketing. The traditional marketing campaign was led by creative. Through the early 90’s marketing was directed by media players and large publishers. Once a campaign was developed the pitch was “buy lots of impressions and customers will come.”
  • Since the dot.com boom there has been a shift to ROI – originally it was spend $x with Google, get y clicks that will yield z buying customers. This was very transactional and could be expressed relatively simply. Behavior is now changing, and the model is becoming more collaborative: a potential customer expresses interest and a need, a supplier offers a solution, the potential customer verifies and validates the offer through online communities: LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and other online communities. Eventually the potential customer may make a buying decision
  • The buying decision today is very different from the traditional offer-driven process. The whole decision process can happen in minutes.
  • For the marketer, this means moving far beyond simple advertisements. The marketer needs a presence on the sites mentioned above in addition to their website to woo potential customers. For marketers this is expensive and requires a different level of resource commitment. It is important for them to attribute the appropriate value to each online presence that the customer engages as they evaluate their buying choices.
  • Only through developing complex metrics, which change real time as customer behavior changes, can the marketer track and understand customer behavior and adapt the offer to the needs of the customer. As individual consumers increasingly engage employ new forms of digital technology the challenge to marketers only increases.
  • The digital marketer who will thrive will develop a sophisticated, metric-driven understanding of the multiple touchpoints and social interaction of a given transaction.

Thanks to Vikas Sharan, CEO, Regalix, Inc. for his contribution to this article.

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How Do You Attract a Resistant Audience? Three Thoughts

Situation: A new start-up has developed a SaaS application focused on helping sales people and small businesses leverage LinkedIn and other social media for prospecting. The company’s customers build private shared networks which can be used by sales people to accelerate the pipeline. Their concern is that historically sales people have not adopted sales productivity and prospecting solutions.  How do you attract a resistant audience?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Keep it simple and make the application very intuitive and easy to use. Do not try to change behavior; make it easier for sales people to do things they already like to do. Create an instant “I get it” experience. Bias the interface toward instant gratification. This is critical to generating viral marketing. Make it easy to tell others what you’ve found – similar to a “Like” button to share a YouTube video.
  • There are 15 million sales people in the US. You won’t get everyone, but you want to get the “believers” and avoid the “haters”. You must quickly find segments of the market who are likely early adopters. Examples of early adopters are in the SMB segment (startups, 25-200 employees) and the service provider industry.
  • Select channels which are open to your messaging and solution. LinkedIn Groups are an excellent way to network with like-minded people who can spread the word. Look to past contacts to whom you have provided value and who value you. They are more likely to get your value proposition and introduce you to others. Allow customers to collaborate with referral sources: potential business partners and collaborators who aim at the same audience that you will serve and lead sharing partners. These individuals can help you find customers who will value your solution.

Thanks to Pradeep Bakshi of Foundation3 for his contribution to this article.

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How Do You Leverage Digital Marketing? Six Points

Situation: In traditional marketing, many marketers have been more focused on activity than results. In the digital environment, top marketing organizations need to become better at listening to their customers, watching them, and tracking their purchase decision behavior. What does this mean for the marketer? How do you leverage digital marketing?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The digital world has changed marketing. The traditional marketing campaign was led by creative staff. Marketing was directed by media players and large publishers. Once a campaign was developed the pitch was “buy lots of impressions and customers will come.” During the dot.com boom and into the 2000s there was a shift to ROI – spend $x with Google, get y clicks that will yield z buying customers. This was transactional and could be expressed relatively simply.
  • Behavior has changed. The model has become more collaborative. A potential customer expresses interest and a need. A supplier offers a solution. The potential customer verifies and validates the offer through online communities – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or other platforms, and may eventually make a buying decision based on what they find along the way.
  • The buying decision today is very different from the traditional offer-driven process. All of this can happen in minutes.
  • For the marketer, this means moving far beyond the simple advertisement. A presence is required on multiple social media sites, in addition to their website, to woo potential customers. This is expensive and requires a different level of resource commitment. Therefore, it is important to attribute the appropriate value to each online presence that the customer engages as they evaluate their buying choices.
  • This requires developing complex metrics, which change real time as customer behavior changes, so the marketer can track and understand customer behavior and adapt the offer to the individual needs of the customer. As individual consumers increasingly engage and employ new forms of digital technology the challenge to marketers only increases.
  • The digital marketer who will thrive will develop a sophisticated, metric-driven understanding of the multiple touchpoints and social interactions of a given transaction and will adapt new marketing approaches as the marketing environment continually changes.

Thanks to Vikas Sharan of Regalix, Inc. for his contribution to this article.

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How Do You Select Good Business Developers? Five Thoughts

Situation: A company wants to expand its business development staff. What is your experience, and what has worked best for you in selecting among business development candidates? How do you select good business developers?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The first priority is your compensation plan for the new person. There are three basic compensation schemes: High Base/Low Commission, Medium Base/Medium Commission, Low to No Base/High Commission.
  • Choice between these options depends on your own philosophy, as well as common practice within your industry. Compensation is central to candidate selection. The CEOs recommended asking candidates about their own preferences for compensation. If they prefer Option 1, don’t hire them – they either lack experience or confidence. Ideally they prefer Option 3 – they can make more money, but cost you little unless they perform. If they prefer Option 2, probe. They may be good but face personal obligations that make it difficult to choose the high risk/high reward option. Ask about past compensation and performance. Verify any claims made during the interview.
  • You want to structure sales compensation so that non-performers leave of their own accord – without costing you dearly in time or money.                                              
  • What are the most important traits to seek in a good B.D. candidate? Understanding of customer’s requirements as well as purchase behavior and understanding of your product or service.
  • How do you find candidates? Use a Head Hunter who knows your industry and competitors. Use written tests to evaluate the individual’s traits. Let the hunter find and screen prospects and present the top 2-3 to you as a test of their skills.

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How Do You Coach a New Manager Who Isn’t Cutting It? Six Points

Situation: A CEO recently hired a new high level manager. To integrate the individual into the company the original set of assignments was limited in scope – to help the manager get to know others within the company. The new manager seems to overanalyze things. Long hours are spent carefully drafting plans but there is little action. How can the CEO manage this individual without micromanaging? How do you coach a new manager who isn’t cutting it?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • It looks like this person is working long but not necessarily productive hours. This is costing you time and money – both yours and your employees. The question is whether the root cause is the individual’s behavior or your own expectations and behavior. Ask yourself the following questions:
  • Have you clearly outlined your expectations in terms of what is to be delivered, the time in which it is to be delivered, and any constraints around the projects for which this person is responsible?
  • Have you provided the necessary resources and empowered the individual to make the decisions required to bring projects to completion?
  • Have you scheduled regular update meetings with this individual and openly discussed project progress and obstacles to completion?
  • Have you set appropriate expectations with your other staff as to the authority of the new individual? Are you honoring those expectations in your own behavior?
  • If you have done these things, and the individual is not performing, then it is time to ask whether you hired the right person.

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How Do You Make Sales “Farmers” More like “Hunters”? Three Approaches

Situation: A CEO finds that his sales team are relationship managers who are excellent at growing business in existing customers, but not as skilled at either developing new business opportunities with current customers or bringing in new customers. In sales parlance, they are more like “farmers” than “hunters”. To meet revenue goals, the company needs additional business. How do you make sales “farmers” more like “hunters”?
Advice from the CEOs:
• When working with the team be sure to considering what’s in it for them, not what’s in it for you. Communicate with and coach them so that they are inspired to try and adopt new behavior that will help them in their jobs.
• Create a low pressure script for your relationship managers. Build this around easy questions that they can ask both current and prospective clients:
 How are we doing?
 What are your most pressing needs?
 What more could we do for you?
 Can you see other ways that our services could benefit you?
 We have a new offering. May I tell you about it?
 Do you know other companies that can utilize our product or service?
• For training, pair the relationship managers in teams of their choosing. Have them rehearse and coach each other. As they learn or develop new techniques, have them coach the rest of the team.

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How Do You Manage Long-Term Members of the Team? Three Strategies

Situation: A company has a team that built their critical systems some time ago. The CEO is upgrading skills and adding new team members to update these systems to current technology. The challenge is that the original team members don’t see the need to update the company’s systems.  How does the CEO help them to see the benefit of upgrades? How do you manage long-term members of the team?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Given the company’s values of loyalty between company and employees, it’s not possible to just shoot these people. Given them the opportunity to remain valuable to the company. Be patient
  • If there is friction between the employees who have been with the company for a long time and the newcomers, make them work things out. Don’t try to fix it.
    • Be public about company and team objectives, expectations and timelines. Explain where and why the company is going and the potential benefit to them and to the company.
    • It will be messy at first. There is risk. However, these are mature individuals and the new people come in with a great deal of experience, so this may mitigate the risk.
    • As necessary, work one-on-one with individuals. Make it clear what is and is not acceptable behavior; for example, sniping at each other and spreading discontent.
    • Where obvious conflict occurs, have the individuals involved go talk it out over a beer. Let them know that they are expected to be able to handle and resolve their differences.
    • Don’t let individuals become destructive. If necessary, put individual long-termers in roles that are not obstructive to new initiatives.
  • Some long-termers may leave on their own and solve the problem. It will become obvious who they are.

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What are Best Practices for Interviewing and Hiring? Three Points

Situation: A company typically interviews candidates for open positions in a two-day process. The candidate talks to four or more people. The total time with a candidate is about 6 hours, and the hiring process, once a good candidate is identified, takes about 1 week. Is this typical of other companies? What are best practices for interviewing and hiring?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Extend the process – add some pressure to it.
    • All companies deal with pressure and stress from time to time. The team is frequently under pressure. Artificially create a pressure situation for a candidate – preferably later in the day when they are tired. This will help to identify whether they are cool under pressure, irritable or sloppy.
    • For example, put an engineering candidate in front of a computer and give them 30 minutes to do a job that you know would normally take 60 minutes. Don’t mention the mismatch to the candidate. The point is NOT whether they can complete the task, but to watch how they respond under high pressure.
    • This is not unfair to the candidate. It puts them precisely in a situation that they will find while working at the company. Give them the opportunity to demonstrate through their behavior that they either respond positively or really don’t want to be put into these situations.
  • Conduct thorough reference checks – including past employers or clients.
  • DISC profiles (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance) are used to improve teamwork and understand different communication styles
    • Identify an experienced local resource who can help to assess the DISC profile of the company.
    • This individual can advise human resources and hiring managers on the use and interpretation of DISC profiles of candidates to help assure good company fit.

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How Do You Hire the Right Person? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is in the process of hiring a new employee for a key position. The company is now writing the position description to post for candidates. What can they do to improve on past hiring experiences? How do you hire the right person?

Advice of the Forum:

  • Two of the members of the Forum have worked with a skilled consultant who taught them a system for improving employee selection. Both companies have experienced excellent results from this system.
  • Key points of this system include:
    • Screening applicants for appropriate skills and inviting for interviews those who have the right background. The interview process is a 2-day affair. Day 1 focuses principally on behavior and culture.
    • Day 1 Interviews: the focus is behavior and adaptability. This involves 2-4 hours of tightly scheduled 15-minute interviews. These are scripted with standardized questions. Several candidates are run through this process simultaneously. The objective is to create the same type of pressure that an employee normally face when the company is chasing a tight deadline. Interviewers are instructed to observe how the individuals being interviewed respond to this pressure. Those who are not right for your culture quickly screen themselves out of the process. Those who pass Day 1 are invited back for Day 2
    • Day 2 Interviews: the focus is on a skill drill down. This includes real-time tests of the key skills that are typical of the position for which the interviewees are interviewing. The objective is to assess the familiarity of the interviewees with the required skills, and to determine who reacts both competently and creatively.

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How Do You Keep Your Culture in the Face of Rapid Growth? Ten Points

Situation: A CEO’s company is facing rapid growth. The CEO is concerned that the cordial team culture that he has carefully nurtured will be strained as the company adapts to this growth. The present culture is characterized by lack of politics and truthful, frank communications. How do you keep your culture in the face of rapid growth?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The company currently markets its culture, complemented by a solid history of performance. Clients receive highly personalized service at a competitive cost. This combination attracts and retains clients.
  • The company’s employees are a happy, competent group that enjoys what they are doing. This differentiates the company from other firms all by itself.
  • Identify the key attributes of the company’s culture. This will simplify internal and external communication when discussing what makes the culture special.
  • Use one several tools available to develop behavioral profiles of the current employees. This will help to understand how team members interact with each other. It will also help to build profiles for ideal additional employees as the team expands.
  • Hire an expert do a formal evaluation of the team around individual and group dynamics, as well as bottlenecks in the current structure and culture. This will help determine how scalable the company’s current culture is.
  • Grow at the rate the company’s culture allows, not at the rate that salespeople bring in new business. With gradual, careful growth size will less of an issue as it would be if the company were to simply grow as fast as possible.
  • The more the company grows organically – through additional business from existing clients – the fewer additional clients the company needs to meet growth objectives. This means adding fewer new employees to maintain target client/employee ratios.
  • If the plan is to grow larger, consider growing around core groups of 9-12 employees, perhaps in distinct locations with good communication between the groups. In the military, operating groups are 9 to 12 soldiers; the more specialized and highly trained the group the more it tends toward 9 soldiers instead of 12.
  • There is a Zen saying that a healthy tree grows as tall as it can. Use this as your guide.
  • The key role of the CEO is as CCO – Chief Culture Officer!

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