Tag Archives: Evaluate

How Do You Leverage Digital Marketing? Six Points

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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 Maintain The Focus on Your Plan? Five Suggestions

Situation: A company has both an annual and a 5-year plan. These are discussed both in company meetings and in 1-on-1s with managers. The CEO fears that she’s starting to sound like a broken record. How do you maintain the focus on your plan?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Break the 1-year plan into quarterly objectives. Don’t just divide annual objectives by four. Vary objectives for each quarter so that the total sums to the annual plan.
  • Create a series of milestones to guide the plan. Celebrate the achievement of each milestone. This helps to maintain momentum and keeps everyone engaged.
  • Establish metrics to assess progress against both the milestones and the plan. These will enable you to evaluate progress against the overall plan and the degree to which you are ahead of or behind the plan. It will also help to evaluate whether underperformance is a matter of externalities or a flaw in the plan itself. If there is a flaw, fix it as soon as you find it.
  • Evaluate your “worst case” scenario so that you know the implications. This enables you to compare current performance against “worst case.”
  • In his book “Good to Great,” Jim Collins found that an important difference between G2G and non-G2G companies was the ability of the G2G companies to maintain faith and to slowly build momentum regardless of the apparent obstacles faced. This allowed good companies to establish the momentum that eventually made them great. Non-G2G companies continually changed direction and never built sustainable momentum.

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What are Best Methods to Develop Your Staff? Three Thoughts

Situation:  A CEO wants to build her team, identify leaders within the company, and develop managers. How have others done this? What are best methods to develop your staff?

Advice of the CEOs:

  • A valuable resource is “First Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham. Among Buckingham’s findings are that great leaders are different from great managers. Good leaders are outgoing and goal-oriented whereas good managers are people-oriented. Expecting good leaders to be good managers and vice versa is not effective. Only the exceptional individual exhibits both sets of talents. The traditional business structure assumes that talented people will want to “move up” the organizational chart. The reality is that some people are very good at a particular level of responsibility, and are happiest with this responsibility.
  • How do to enhance your team’s leadership and management capabilities? Evaluate your team for candidates who possess the qualities of leadership or management. Tailor your training to enhance the natural strengths of your candidates. Draft agreed upon written responsibilities and performance objectives with each of your candidates. Regularly follow up and provide feedback. Establish trial projects for new candidates that will allow them to experience additional responsibility, and allow you to see how well they perform. Make small steps at first. If the individual demonstrates talent, make successive steps more challenging.
  • Look at your organizational chart. Does it provide room for both leaders and managers? Does it provide room for the skilled role player who thrives in a particular role? If not, how will you fix it?

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How Do You Open a New Branch Office? – Five Analyses

Situation: A company plans to open their first branch office. There are considering several possible locations as well as the details that they should consider while opening in the new location. What are the most important considerations as they prepare? How do you open a new branch office?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Perform a ROI analysis for the planned office. How will the ROI for the branch office differ from your primary office? Look for potential economies of scale in your business model. This may prompt a rethinking of how you generate your products or services.
  • Simultaneously, look at the potential costs per location and the level of business required to (1) break even and (2) to match/exceed home office return in the new location. As you consider different geographical locations, compare costs and potential contribution of each against the others’.
  • Decide whether you need to build full operations in your branch office, or whether you can use a distributed services model, working from a central hub that performs some operations that needn’t be replicated in the branch office as well as future branch offices.
  • Once these three analyses are completed, perform a make/buy analysis to determine whether you get a better return from setting up your own office or purchasing a local company in the new location, if one exists.
  • Lower risk by starting with a relatively low cost operation – essentially a satellite office with minimal staff. As the new office develops initial business, they can be supported by your home office operations. They will serve as local feet on the street to evaluate the true potential and local barriers to entry within the new market.

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How Do You Maximize Customer Satisfaction? Six Suggestions

Situation: The CEO of a company wants to assure that his company is doing everything that it can to maximize customer satisfaction. What have others done to evaluate and measure whether their customers are satisfied with the service and/or products provided? How do you maximize customer satisfaction?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Ask customers what they like and don’t like about your services.
• Ask what other things they are struggling with and whether or not you can offer services to improve this situation.
• By asking these questions, other opportunities may arise. Act like a business partner not hired help.
• Set targets for the company and sales team. What do you want to measure? How will you know if the client will reuse your services? What are you looking for?
• In the case of a new installation or activating a new service, as CEO be there when the implementation is complete and ready for “live” time. You may see complementary products or services to suggest to build a partnership with the client.
• Look closely at what added value you are offering so clients want to keep you on retainer. Identify what retainer business looks like and look for options to offer retainer services. This will help to differentiate the offering.

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What are the Trade-offs of Becoming a Company Principal? Four Points

Situation: A senior employee is on a good growth track within her company. The CEO has stated that he believes that she has the potential to become a principal of the company in the future. What are the tradeoffs of becoming a company principal?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Becoming a principal involves both greater potential rewards than being an employee and greater potential risks. Create a chart with two columns. In one, list the potential rewards of having a stake in the company. In the other list the costs and potential liabilities. This will help to weigh the rewards against the liabilities.
• Areas to negotiate include voting rights, granting of options, understanding the perks of becoming a partner, and also the possibility of legal liability for any malfeasance that the company may commit.
• If you see liabilities that concern you talk to an attorney – your own, not the company’s – about how to address these liabilities in the terms of an employment contract as a principal.
• Evaluate the potential long term value of the ownership share being offered. Does the company have a buy-back policy for a principal’s ownership share and, if so, what are the terms?

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How Do You Hire Good Salespeople? Eight Points

Situation: A CEO struggles with finding competent sales people. Issues include both finding these people, evaluating their skills, and assuring that they fit with the culture of his company. What techniques do others employ to find good candidates? How do you hire good salespeople?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Hiring salespeople is one of the most important jobs a CEO has, yet is paid the least attention. In a small company the CEO is deeply involved in the process, while in larger companies the CEO’s role is assuring that those responsible for selection and hiring are bringing in quality individuals. In either case the important points for the CEO to oversee are as follows:
• Determine what you want the person to do. What skills do they need? How much can you pay? Is that competitive with the market?
• Advertise – use internet portals, print media and referrals. Beyond this, one of the most successful means of recruiting is to hire individuals who have proven their skills in other companies and who are known to and respected by your existing salespeople.
• Review resumes for basic qualifications and weed out all that do not meet those qualifications.
• Test potential hires. There are a number of good tests including: DISC, Meyers-Briggs and Identity Compass.
• Bring candidates in for interview. See how they react to pressure. Are they a good match for the company culture? What is their personality like? Are they comfortable with the company’s philosophy, size, reputation, products and services, and so on?
• Check references and contact their current customers to gather their impressions of the candidate’s capabilities.
• Remember that past performance does not guarantee future results – particularly if there is a significant change in what is being sold.

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How Do You Interview New Tech Hires? Four Necessities

Situation: A CEO wants advice on hiring new technical staff. Important considerations are cultural fit, identifying the characteristics of effective people, assuring that the right people are hired, and evaluating people for specifics tasks. In the past hiring technical people has proven challenging and poor hires have inhibited company growth. How do you interview new tech hires?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • It is critical to be clear on the factors necessary to be successful in the enterprise. Once these have been identified, align the factors with existing individuals in the organization as role models. Also align these factors with those who will be involved in candidate selection. This facilitates identification of good candidates.
  • Develop clarity on candidate evaluation. Identify and develop questions that will allow candidates to describe what is important to them and what they want to get out of their career choice.  In addition to specific knowledge, candidates should demonstrate a personal value system compatible with the company’s culture. They must also demonstrate a high energy level.
  • Once there is clear articulation of desired characteristics of candidates work with others such as college placement organizations, friends of the firm, Craig’s list, and so on to assist with candidate identification. A well written position description not only describes the type of individual desired, but also why someone would want to join the firm.
  • It’s imperative to be able to give a sales presentation on the company including specific reasons why people should join it. Avoid getting so wrapped up in the selection mode that you fail to recruit. Some who have done this were stunned to find that after they have made their selection the candidate was no longer interested.

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How Do You Develop and Train Leaders? Ten Suggestions

Situation: Many CEOs face challenges developing and training leaders within their ranks. What guidance can the group give to help guide them improve leadership development? How do you develop and train leaders?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • On the hiring end, pick good people and support them.
  • Empower employees and encourage self-management.
  • Constructively manage the company’s growth rate rather than just “grow as much as you can.” Some growth rates are unsustainable.
    • Estimate the risks and rewards.
    • Consider the pros and cons of growth and manage growth to maximize the pros while minimizing the cons.
  • Respect personality types – not everyone is or wants to be a potential leader.
  • Mentoring – pair leadership candidates with proven leaders.
  • “Response to error” is one of the key values to define. If errors are always used to evaluate individuals, people tend to hide their mistakes or deflect blame. If errors are viewed as a “company resource”, people are more willing to bring them out into the open. Furthermore properly addressing errors are the best opportunity for correction and improvement.
  • Design the compensation system to reward both innovation and leadership.
    • Focus rewards on long-term results. For example, reward sales people on follow-up and quality of service or product actually delivered rather than on just booking the sale.
    • Align rewards with company culture and objectives. This may include profits, sales and production. Alternatives to consider – team vs. individual goals and bonuses, process improvement vs. focus on dollars, and percent of salary represented by bonus or award.
  • Ask the employees what is important to them. Don’t try to guess.
  • Evaluate and adjust the company’s career growth opportunities.
  • Make management thoughts and goals visible. Mentor the next level of management by demonstrating executive thought patterns rather than just sharing the final decision.

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How Do You Build the Right Organization? Four Observations

Situation: To accommodate future growth, a company has to build its management infrastructure and has developed an organizational chart to guide this process. Should preference  be given to existing personnel who are qualified and have expressed an interest in the new positions or should leadership wait until they identify exceptional outside talent for the new positions? How do you build the right organization?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Move forward with internal talent that have been identified. The company and management know these people and the “ideal” outsider may also come with “less than ideal” baggage.
  • Create a 90-day plan with specific broad objectives for those who will be offered the open positions. Let them know that the assignments are conditional upon their ability to achieve their objectives during the 90-day period. Provide coaching, and cross-departmental training to give them the best chance to succeed.
  • For one position, there are two individuals who have expressed an interest in the decision. How should the CEO choose between these individuals?
    • Move forward with the individual who is considered the best choice, but offer training and support for the second individual so that there is a ready candidate for new positions that may open, or a natural successor should the position in question open up for any reason.
  • The company has a very flat organization chart. Individual employees work on several projects, with a different manager for each, simultaneously. What is the best way to evaluate individuals in this situation?
    • Use a 360 peer-to-peer and peer-to-boss approach to gather feedback for performance appraisals. There are a number of web-based systems available. This will provide an objective source of feedback to support performance appraisals and reviews.

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