Autospeak-Straight Talk contains articles covering digital and social media marketing social communities and events marketing
Social media marketing has changed the approach to selling today and requires a new perspective on how to attract clients. If we listen to what is happening in the marketplace today across social media channels inbound marketing offers a higher probability of conversion than outbound marketing strategies.
This applies not only to the B2C sector but also to the B2B sectors where people’s expectations have shifted to being educated and informed first and engaging with a company in their own way in their own time.
Another point to make is how important the relationship is after the sale.  In Gerry Morin’s article below he indirectly refers to a fact that I and others have been stressing for years, “I have purchased over 10 cars in my lifetime and cannot remember any of the names, faces or other details of the people who sold them to me. However, I remember every car mechanic I’ve ever worked with. I remember each of them because we built a trusting relationship. They taught me and did not sell me. They showed me how to maintain my car and advised me on what to look for when buying a new car. They were my trusted advisor who helped me fix my current problem and frame my future purchase. Wow!â€,
The sale takes but a fleeting moment to conclude compared to the relationship with the customer after the sale that will last for years if nurtured properly and pay you back many times over. See Focus on the Heart and Not Just The Wallet
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
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This applies not only to the B2C sector but also to the B2B sectors where people’s expectations have shifted to being educated and informed first and engaging with a company in their own way in their own time.
Another point to make is how important the relationship is after the sale.  In Gerry Morin’s article below he indirectly refers to a fact that I and others have been stressing for years, “I have purchased over 10 cars in my lifetime and cannot remember any of the names, faces or other details of the people who sold them to me. However, I remember every car mechanic I’ve ever worked with. I remember each of them because we built a trusting relationship. They taught me and did not sell me. They showed me how to maintain my car and advised me on what to look for when buying a new car. They were my trusted advisor who helped me fix my current problem and frame my future purchase. Wow!â€,
The sale takes but a fleeting moment to conclude compared to the relationship with the customer after the sale that will last for years if nurtured properly and pay you back many times over. See Focus on the Heart and Not Just The Wallet
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
Â
10 Ways To Teach Your Customers to Buy From You
When it comes successful social selling and meeting your sales quota, being more like a car mechanic, instead of a car salesman, might be the key to your success. Huh? How are you going to meet your quota if you don’t act like the tenacious and famous car salesman, Cal Worthington?
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I have purchased over 10 cars in my lifetime and cannot remember any of the names, faces or other details of the people who sold them to me. However, I remember every car mechanic I’ve ever worked with. I remember each of them because we built a trusting relationship. They taught me and did not sell me. They showed me how to maintain my car and advised me on what to look for when buying a new car. They were my trusted advisor who helped me fix my current problem and frame my future purchase. Wow!When it comes successful social selling and meeting your sales quota, being more like a car mechanic, instead of a car salesman, might be the key to your success. Huh? How are you going to meet your quota if you don’t act like the tenacious and famous car salesman, Cal Worthington?
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Whether you are selling enterprise software solutions in the cloud or trading show shipping services you can position yourself as a teacher, like my car mechanics, and reap the rewards of being a top seller.
Social Selling Lessons | Be A Teacher Not A Seller1. Differentiate Yourself From The Sales Sharks. With InsideView reporting that 90% of CEO’s do not return cold emails or calls, becoming a trusted advisor and teacher to your customers makes sense. It’s the only way to break through to them. Don’t ‘look’ like the typical sales professional and you will separate yourself form the herd of sales sharks.
2. Don’t Be All About Making A Deal. Instead of focusing on a small amount of sales, build a large social network people modeled after your customers and their influencers. 75% of B2B decision makers use social media to learn. So, plug into this larger network, to bust your quota.
3. Pass On Valuable Information. Don’t use your social media and network channels to promote your solutions. Pass on valuable information, instead, to lead the conversation to you when the time is right to buy. You want to be known for handing out knowledge and not brochures.
4. Associate Yourself With Great 3rd-part Brands. You are the company you keep, so keep good company. Associate yourself with great knowledge brands, like Harvard Business Review, Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, to build your reputation and brand.
5. Think Outside The Trade-Show Booth. Cast the trade booth sales mentality away and spread your knowledge so people will eventually visit your trade booth when it’s time to buy; 73% of customers are willing to engage with you on social media, so get to it!
6. Use Social Media To Teach And Not Sell. Selling is best done face-to-face. However, Social Media Today reports B2B buyers look at an average of over 10 digital resources before ever making a purchase. Since customers need to learn before they buy, use this opportunity on social media to connect. Your customers are there whether or not you are.
7. Teach And Connect With Today’s Technology. Connect and get on the radar of your customers and potential networks by retweeting, sharing, commenting and favoriting others’ content. Intersecting with their learning tools is a great way to build a relationship instead of finding and phoning them from a LinkedIn search. LinkedIn reports 85% of IT Decision Makers use social networks for business, so your future customers are waiting for you to socially engage.
8. Develop Insights. Before you teach and connect with your customers, you need to listen to the customer and their customers. Listening is a great way to prepare for your connections and calls. SirisuDecisions reports 82% B2B decision makers think sales representatives are unprepared for meetings, so this insight-driven approach will help you build the best social selling lesson plan.
9. Tap Into The Ready-made Network. There is an entire social community on LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs, where customers are tapping to learn how to be smarter, more effective, more efficient to make more money. Determine how to tap into this potential, leverage the rules of engagement, and position yourself as a teacher; especially since the Sales Benchmark Index reports reps with 5000+ linked in connections have a 98% chance of attaining quota.
10. Be A Publisher. In addition to curating and passing on the great content to your network, create your own assets on a blog. Blogging is the social selling secret weapon. Hubspot reports that 92% of companies that blog multiple times per day have acquired a customer from their blog, so this strategy seems like a no-brainer!
Do you have another teaching tip to share? If so, please comment below. Or, contact me directly at MarketingThink.com, on LinkedIn, Twitter or Google+.
If you are looking to set yourself up as a social selling teacher, you might enjoy learning how to:
- Create the perfect LinkedIn profile
- Create the perfect Twitter profile
- How to create the perfect blog post
By Gerry Moran
Image Source: BTSTire.com
Lessons from Threadless: Why building online community can unlock e-commerce success
Tags:
(Posted on Feb 23, 2014 at 01:50PM )
The success of companies who have found the value of having an onsite community is all around us. It lets you connect and stay close to your customers and employees in ways that cannot be accomplished by any other means.
More and more companies are creating onsite social communities for their customers in which to interact. Companies can read the needs and concerns of their customers in new ways and can benefit from the relevant content being generated in the community via comments and articles that can be integrated into their Digital marketing initiatives.
It shows that you are customer and employee centric and can produce a culture of brand ambassadors that can be broadcast across the internet and your social channels to greatly increase traffic to your site by people who will already have confidence in you as a company who is dedicated to serving its customers, employees and community.
These communities provide for limitless marketing opportunities at a fraction of the cost of any other form of marketing.
 Below Caitlin Fitzsimmons social media editor for BRW shares another success story that an onsite social community has brought to this ecommerce company.  However, onsite communities can be customized to any company in any industry to provide the same kind of results.
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
Related content:
Focus on the Heart and Not Just The Wallet
Todd Lido:Â The idea for Threadless began when CEO and founder Jake Nickell began hosting T-shirt design challenges on a design forum. Jake saw how much everyone was enjoying these challenges, and realised it could be a great model to source incredible artwork for T-shirts.
BRW:Â How has Threadless grown and changed since then?
Lido:Â Over a decade later, the community continues to grow. Artists from all over the world submit on Threadless. We received submissions from artists in 71 different countries last month.
One of the great things about the community-based design model is there is no singular Threadless look or design sense. That said, it’s been interesting to see the aesthetics of what the community produces and which products are popular evolve over time.
We continue evolving the model to make it work better, both for Threadless as a business and for the artists who participate. We want to make sure Threadless stays the best platform in the world for artists to come together, share and monetise their work.
BRW:Â How is community and social marketing baked into what you do?
Lido: At its core, Threadless is a platform for connecting artists. So a community-centric approach to communication is very natural for us. We aim to inspire creativity and individuality and keep Threadless fun. It’s partly about managing a community of artists – engaging them in design submissions through themed design challenges, encouraging constructive feedback and collaboration and celebrating success in the community. And it’s partly about making a meaningful connection between artists and the rest of the community that supports them. We really want to keep a focus on the idea that when you buy from Threadless, you are supporting independent artists.
BRW:Â What have you learned about social marketing that might be useful for other companies?
Lido: Think about what makes your offering unique and what resonates most with the audience. Where is the emotional connection that’s going to make the audience want to share your content? Strive to mirror the tone of your communications with the conversations that are happening within your community. I’m sure that some marketers, especially in the business-to-business space, might think that doesn’t apply, but keep in mind at the end of the day your goal is to connect with people too. I definitely encourage as much playful experimentation with different types of content as possible. And pay attention to your social metrics while you experiment. You might be surprised by the results.
BRW:Â What have you done well and what would you do differently if you had your time over?
Lido: I’m most proud of the work we’ve done celebrating artists and telling the stories of the real people who make Threadless what it is. (Some great examples can be found here.)
I’m always dissatisfied when we do anything that doesn’t reinforce the narrative of community-based design. If we have a promotion which is only about “buy these discounted teesâ€, then it could be a promo for any retailer. If what we are talking about doesn’t represent the community behind Threadless, we might as well have stayed home that day.
BRW:Â What are some of the key things you plan to cover in your conference presentation?
Lido: I’m really looking forward to it! I actually think I’m going to get more out of the experience than anyone. I’m looking forward to telling the Threadless story and relating ideas for sustainable community engagement. Threadless certainly has a unique story, but there’s a lot to draw from which is relevant to almost any organisation seeking to grow its online community.
I’ll talk a little about our core mission, the business model and culture and how they inform everything else we do. I will walk through examples of how community participation informs business decisions. I plan on going into detail about our content marketing strategy and how we pull stories out of our community. There will be relatable examples of what has worked for us on a channel and campaign level, especially social media examples. And I will also talk about the balancing act of driving marketing strategy with both community and e-commerce goals, and how these don’t have to be at odds with each other.
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons
More and more companies are creating onsite social communities for their customers in which to interact. Companies can read the needs and concerns of their customers in new ways and can benefit from the relevant content being generated in the community via comments and articles that can be integrated into their Digital marketing initiatives.
It shows that you are customer and employee centric and can produce a culture of brand ambassadors that can be broadcast across the internet and your social channels to greatly increase traffic to your site by people who will already have confidence in you as a company who is dedicated to serving its customers, employees and community.
These communities provide for limitless marketing opportunities at a fraction of the cost of any other form of marketing.
 Below Caitlin Fitzsimmons social media editor for BRW shares another success story that an onsite social community has brought to this ecommerce company.  However, onsite communities can be customized to any company in any industry to provide the same kind of results.
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
Related content:
Focus on the Heart and Not Just The Wallet
Threadless is a T-shirt company with a twist: artists submit designs, Threadless members vote on their favourites, the winners get paid and the T-shirts are produced and sold online.
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Chicago-based Threadless started in 2000 with $1000 and is now widely estimated to have more than $30Â million in revenue.
The intriguing thing about the business is how it was borne out of the idea of an online community of artists and designers. Artists submit designs, Threadless members vote on their favourites, the winners get paid and the T-shirts are produced and sold through the shop at Threadless.com. It is worth reading this profile of Threadless (and the reader comments) in Chicago Magazine.
Threadless has more than 2 million members and a social presence that includes more than 800,000 fans on Facebook and 2.2 million Twitter followers. Chief marketing officer Todd Lido is giving a keynote at the E-commerce Conference & Expo in Melbourne from March 26-27 on the company’s strategy for community building and engagement.
BRW:Â What was the initial idea behind Threadless and how did it all start?
The intriguing thing about the business is how it was borne out of the idea of an online community of artists and designers. Artists submit designs, Threadless members vote on their favourites, the winners get paid and the T-shirts are produced and sold through the shop at Threadless.com. It is worth reading this profile of Threadless (and the reader comments) in Chicago Magazine.
Threadless has more than 2 million members and a social presence that includes more than 800,000 fans on Facebook and 2.2 million Twitter followers. Chief marketing officer Todd Lido is giving a keynote at the E-commerce Conference & Expo in Melbourne from March 26-27 on the company’s strategy for community building and engagement.
BRW:Â What was the initial idea behind Threadless and how did it all start?
Todd Lido:Â The idea for Threadless began when CEO and founder Jake Nickell began hosting T-shirt design challenges on a design forum. Jake saw how much everyone was enjoying these challenges, and realised it could be a great model to source incredible artwork for T-shirts.BRW:Â How has Threadless grown and changed since then?
Lido:Â Over a decade later, the community continues to grow. Artists from all over the world submit on Threadless. We received submissions from artists in 71 different countries last month.
One of the great things about the community-based design model is there is no singular Threadless look or design sense. That said, it’s been interesting to see the aesthetics of what the community produces and which products are popular evolve over time.
We continue evolving the model to make it work better, both for Threadless as a business and for the artists who participate. We want to make sure Threadless stays the best platform in the world for artists to come together, share and monetise their work.
BRW:Â How is community and social marketing baked into what you do?
Lido: At its core, Threadless is a platform for connecting artists. So a community-centric approach to communication is very natural for us. We aim to inspire creativity and individuality and keep Threadless fun. It’s partly about managing a community of artists – engaging them in design submissions through themed design challenges, encouraging constructive feedback and collaboration and celebrating success in the community. And it’s partly about making a meaningful connection between artists and the rest of the community that supports them. We really want to keep a focus on the idea that when you buy from Threadless, you are supporting independent artists.
BRW:Â What have you learned about social marketing that might be useful for other companies?
Lido: Think about what makes your offering unique and what resonates most with the audience. Where is the emotional connection that’s going to make the audience want to share your content? Strive to mirror the tone of your communications with the conversations that are happening within your community. I’m sure that some marketers, especially in the business-to-business space, might think that doesn’t apply, but keep in mind at the end of the day your goal is to connect with people too. I definitely encourage as much playful experimentation with different types of content as possible. And pay attention to your social metrics while you experiment. You might be surprised by the results.
BRW:Â What have you done well and what would you do differently if you had your time over?
Lido: I’m most proud of the work we’ve done celebrating artists and telling the stories of the real people who make Threadless what it is. (Some great examples can be found here.)
I’m always dissatisfied when we do anything that doesn’t reinforce the narrative of community-based design. If we have a promotion which is only about “buy these discounted teesâ€, then it could be a promo for any retailer. If what we are talking about doesn’t represent the community behind Threadless, we might as well have stayed home that day.
BRW:Â What are some of the key things you plan to cover in your conference presentation?
Lido: I’m really looking forward to it! I actually think I’m going to get more out of the experience than anyone. I’m looking forward to telling the Threadless story and relating ideas for sustainable community engagement. Threadless certainly has a unique story, but there’s a lot to draw from which is relevant to almost any organisation seeking to grow its online community.
I’ll talk a little about our core mission, the business model and culture and how they inform everything else we do. I will walk through examples of how community participation informs business decisions. I plan on going into detail about our content marketing strategy and how we pull stories out of our community. There will be relatable examples of what has worked for us on a channel and campaign level, especially social media examples. And I will also talk about the balancing act of driving marketing strategy with both community and e-commerce goals, and how these don’t have to be at odds with each other.
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons
People have little interest in purchasing a bed; what they want is a good night's sleep.
Some folks would sleep on a cardboard box if it meant they’d wake up refreshed—that’s what makes it a real problem in need of a solution.
Entrepreneurs must go beyond simply building products; they have to sell what their product will allow customers to do.
If they don't, you know they’re inexperienced. Take a look at this quote from investor Dina Routhier:
The most common thing that pegs an entrepreneur as an amateur is when they come in and immediately start talking about their amazing new technology, and forget to start the discussion with, “What big problem in the market am I trying to solve?†If they don’t start with the problem, then I know they are green."
Let’s look at some examples of how benefits help sell products.
"Lose 30 Pounds in 30 Days!"
(Thanks, Mega Shake!)
As an armchair observer, it's all too easy to scoff at over-the-top late night infomercials. And yet, these ads are making sales, often far more than that super neat-o new web app everybody talks about but nobody wants to pay for.
In fact, the infomercial industry is still growing. It's even gone on to eclipse the TV industry itself:
Collectively, the U.S. market for infomercial products stood at $170 billion in 2009 and could exceed $250 billion by 2015. In fact, with the worth of the entire U.S. network and cable industry estimated at $97 billion as of 2013, DRTV [direct response television] is much bigger than TV itself.Why bring this up? If there is anything that infomercials are good at, it's selling benefits. For one, they understand that people can be coaxed, not driven.
Claude C. Hopkins once said, "Prevention is not a popular subject, however much it should be." It is far easier to sell around existing desires than it is to create desire.
Infomercials might all sound the same, but they work because they sell solutions that are perpetually in demand. It’s similar to how the most successful tech startups take a problem that already exists / has always existed, and make their solution easier, faster, cheaper, or more accessible.
There's also the effective use of selling a system. "30 pounds in 30 days" is appealing because you know what you're getting. Magic diet pills use this dishonestly, but with legitimate workout programs like P90X and Insanity, the language is the same. Nobody actually wants to buy a workout program, they want abs and better conditioning in a reasonable time-frame.
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What's In It For Me?
Let's step away from infomercials and observe the effectiveness of selling benefits in the "real" business world. This stuff works, sans sleaze.
Apple understood this when they released the first iPod. MP3 players were nothing new, and the technology trounced CDs. The problem was marketing; the right pitch hadn't been made to explain just how much better customers’ lives were going to be once they owned an iPod.
How do you think Apple decided to frame the magic of the iPod? Around its technical prowess, or what customers could do with it?
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The message was persuasive because, in the words of Seth Godin, it was all about "Me, me, me. My favorite person:Â me."Â Gigs of data have nothing to do with me, but a pocket full of my favorite songs certainly does.
The irony is that those who most often admire Apple and Jobs—those in the startup community—tend to have the biggest problem with selling. Many a HackerNews thread is filled with vitriolic commentors who insist that he who lists the most compelling technical features wins.
This has become such a problem that Justin Jackson recently wrote a very popular article reminding software developers that they aren't "normal" in relation to their customers:
Increasing the technical challenge while creating a product does not increase the chance for more sales. This surprises us. We get an idea for a thing, think about the technology we’d use to build it, and get excited.Â
“I could build this on the Twilio API!â€Â “I could learn that new CSS framework!â€Â “I could use this new tool I just purchased!â€Â
The problem is that all of this is focused on us, the creator, and not on the customer, the consumer.
There's a natural inclination for craftsman to want to talk about the craft.
But remember, customers generally won’t care about the cogs that make your product turn. What they want to know is, "What's in it for me?"
A Better Version of You
In a well-stated case for solution selling, Belle from Buffer argued that people don't buy products; they buy better versions of themselves. As Jason Fried noted:
"Here's what our product can do" and "Here's what you can do with our product" sound similar, but they are completely different approaches.
As with many aspects of marketing, it all comes back to having a compelling proposition of value. This is what many miss, and it’s why you'll see ill-informed comments like this crop up from time to time:
I'm one of those developers who thinks that marketing in general is 'scummy'... I'm willing to acknowledge that there can exist marketing that is not scummy but it's hard for me to think of real world examples... I love building things that people enjoy using but I hate sales and marketing."
Apparently, you're supposed to sit in your basement and build things without ever trying to sell them to the people who need them the most.
Bullshit!
Take a look at the homepage of a great company like Bidsketch:
It reads an awful lot like the "benefit selling" we've discussed throughout this article, but to my knowledge, you won't find founder Ruben Gamez on late night TV exclaiming, "But wait, there's more!"
Â
The “selling†here is beneficial to me as a customer: I find out what you provide and what I can do with it without being forced to slog through details I don't need.
As an example of what not to do, I once came across a SaaS app (that wasn't made for developers) that stated in their sub-heading, “Proudly made with Ruby on Rails.â€
“What's Ruby on Rails, a level from Mario Kart?†Ninety-nine percent of customers won't know and simply won't care. It’s like shoving the schematics in their face before they even have a chance to decide, "Is this what I need?"
Kudos to many bootstrapped companies, who tend to deeply understand the value of selling benefits (perhaps because they actually have to make money).
Freckle doesn't even mention the word "software" before you're reminded of your biggest problem when using time-tracking apps.
SerpIQÂ knows prospects will say yes to their question. Once the benefits are clear, they learn about how and why it's a faster and more accurate tool.
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Features Still Matter
Obviously, letting features "tell" still matters a great deal—once you've sold a prospect on what you can do for them, the details ease their decision-making.
Take buying a car; what you need is a car spacious and safe enough for your family, but when it comes down to a split decision, you might select the one with the heated leather seats. Until the benefits are obvious, stuff like this is just eye-candy.
Features can often connect the dots and put the benefits into a greater context. There are two important ways they do this:
- Justification:Â Esurance uses comparative pricing to explain why their insurance is cheaper (through features). The savings are gained from their lean operation, which was "born online." Once the benefit is sold, features are used to explain how you'll make it happen. If a hosting company says your site is totally secure (hooray!), features show you how and why that claim is a guarantee. Sell the benefits first, then highlight the great features you offer to close.
- Differentiation: Describing your point of difference means elaborating on your features. We often tell Help Scout customers about how most help desks outsource their email parsing. Ours is in-house, which allows us to do email integration and voicemail support that others can't do (only after the "help desk headache" issue is addressed does this feature become important).
My personal persuasion hero, Claude Hopkins, has a useful tactic on how to correctly frame features and benefits:
There is one simple and right way to answer many advertising questions. Ask yourself, “Would this help a salesman sell the goods? Would it help me sell them if I met the buyer in person?â€
Would you, making a sale in person, talk about the titanium frame or the nickel-cadmium alloy mix of your brake pads before addressing the benefits to a customer?
Â
Remember that by not selling on benefits, you're doing a disservice to customers. Give them what they want by showing them why your product is that "one thing" they've been searching for.
Last but certainly not least, be wary of selling "fake benefits," or completely hiding away your features, especially when appealing to a highly technical or business audience. Features matter, and are an essential complement to the solution selling that gets prospects interested in the first place.Written by Gregory Ciotti
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Most of the actions we take in marketing are oriented in two directions: First we present our products / services for users to find us when they make a spontaneous decision and perform an action that had not been raised in advance or the Push strategy (Outbound Marketing). Secondly using content to draw someone with content when they have a need to search to get information is what is referred to as the Pull strategy (In bound Marketing.)Outbound marketing strategies are carried out to provide the products / services to potential customers. E-mail marketing is a big part of this technique, but gradually promotions and discounts using tweets or Facebook posts have been displacing traditional e-mails. Whatever the technique, the Push Marketing is boosting buying action through promotions and discounts.
Today, inbound marketing offers a higher probability of conversion, as it is the customer who is drawn to you with relevant content providing information pertaining to what they need or are looking for. Inbound marketing happens with the consent of the prospective buyer who has given prior permission for you to send advertising, typically through a contact form, mailing lists or newsletter.
Brian Conlin recently shared this in a recent article “It’s no secret that content marketing has become ubiquitous. After all, 93 percent of B2B marketers use it, a bump of 2 percentage points from 2012. However, just how effective content marketing is might surprise you. Despite costing 62 percent less than traditional marketing, content marketing generates about three times as many leads.†59 Killer Content Marketing Stats: 2014 Edition—via B2C.
Today, people prefer to be informed and educated with relevant content that relates to their interest on a particular product or service they are researching and the ones with the most relevant content in their inbound marketing now will have the best chance of being contacted to begin the communication process with the intention of eventually winning their business.
Although both outbound and inbound marketing should be a part of your overall mix, the days of pushing your message to gain people’s attention is quickly fading and inbound marketing is taking prominence and statistics are showing the benefits that Inbound marketing offers.
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
Being nimble on your feet and being able to move fast has its advantages when competing in the marketplace.This has always been the case and reasons that one business may succeed where others do not.
By finding a niche to focus your efforts on to gain exposure you can get the attention you need to show the advantage of working with your company over another.
By highlighting an advantage of your service or product to gain that attention you open up the door to form the relationships that will make it easier to communicate all that you have to offer.
Today, online marketing provides the forum in which to get your message out to more potential clients or customers than ever before. Cutting through all the noise may seem like an impossible task but persistence and creativity can make the difference in getting noticed and making those crucial contacts necessary to move forward and be successful.
However, online marketing as important as it is in today’s business plans should just be one of the tools in your quiver to get exposure and produce leads. You must also incorporate traditional approaches like getting out and talking to people and using the telephone and get up close and personal.
There is still no substitute for physical contact to get your point across to convince potential clients of the value you can offer them. If getting out and meeting people to discuss the benefits you can bring them is not one of your strong points, find someone who has the personality and experience who has these qualities.
No one person possess all the qualities needed to run a business and make it successful and those who realize and accept this will move forward at a much faster pace and be more successful.
If you are to succeed you must use every option available to you and implement them in your business plan and figure out ways to make them work for you, be willing to experiment make mistakes learn from them and you will be on your way.
In his classic book, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Peter F. Drucker describes innovation as a delicate dance between perception and analysis. Analysis, with all its discipline, must be based on a perception of change: “This requires a willingness to say, I don’t actually know enough to analyze, but I shall find out. I’ll go out, look around, ask questions, and listen.’â€
In an age of unanswerable questions, asking the right question might just be the answer.
Here is another thought to keep in mind that is good advice from a very charismatic women who you all have probably heard of Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt our 32 President,  said “ Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself. “
William CosgroveÂ
According to Nielson, The Hispanic consumer represents the greatest potential for sustained growth in the U.S. today. At the current rate of expansion, Hispanics will drive population growth and, in turn, consumption in America for the next generation. Reaching Hispanics effectively should be at the top of every marketer’s to-do list. Hispanics actively embrace new technologies and platforms, while keeping close ties to their roots, especially language. And while Hispanics do consume English-language media, Spanish-language media holds the key to connecting with the greatest number of Hispanic consumers most effectively.
Nielsen breaks down the prevailing myths surrounding Hispanic interaction with today’s media.
MYTH #1:
There is a belief that once Hispanics learn to speak English well and become bilingual, they become “acculturated†and use English as their primary language. However, acculturation is a process rather than an absolute classification whereby Hispanics adopt American customs while still guarding their culture, heritage and traditions. While 77 percent of U.S. Hispanics speak English well, according to current American Community Survey estimates, 61 percent of Hispanics aged 18+ tell Nielsen they prefer to speak Spanish in their homes versus only 17 percent who say they speak only English. Spanish language remains a core component of the Hispanic home long after English proficiency is gained
Monique Manso, publisher of People en Espanol, cautioned that publishers entering this space -- whether in English or Spanish -- need to speak to Hispanic consumers in a contextually relevant way. "There is the danger of not speaking to them correctly," she said.
MYTH #2:
 I can reach Hispanics through my general market campaigns; SPANISH-LANGUAGE ADVERTISING IS AN EXPENDABLE PART OF MY BUDGET. Besides providing access to a unique audience, Spanish-language advertising is generally more effective than English-language advertising for Hispanics. Nielsen’s advertising effectiveness studies show that advertisers who translate English ads into Spanish receive an increase in general recall among Hispanics when compared to general market English-language commercials. However, original Spanish ads (ads that do not have an English counterpart or that are based on existing ads by modifying the narrative and soundtrack) see a 15 percent general recall lift from English-dominant Hispanics and a 69 percent general recall increase from Spanish-dominant Hispanics. Two reasons for this effect are that Spanish ads create a deeper personal connection to Hispanic consumers and Hispanics are less likely to time shift Spanish-language programming.
Michael Sebastian AdAge Media News "Publishing companies realized they had to do a specific product for these consumers," he said. "It was not just about adding a couple of pages in their main book to reach these consumers."Â
MYTH #3:
HISPANICS are late adopters of technology, so using online and mobile campaigns is unnecessary. New studies are finding that Hispanics are equally, if not more involved in emerging technologies than the general market. A recent look at Nielsen’s national people meter panel reveals that Hispanics are just as likely as non-Hispanics to own an HDTV (69% vs.66%). And Nielsen’s 2010 Q4 mobile insights survey of more than 50,000 people and more than 8,000 Hispanics reveals that Hispanics are not only more likely to own a smartphone, but also they are part of the most valuable mobile consumer segments, carrying an average monthly bill that is 14 percent higher than the market average. Hispanics also lead all ethnic groups with an average of 40 percent more calls made per day and are the most likely ethnic group to use text messaging, mobile Internet and e-mail. They are also more likely to download pictures or music on mobile devices.
The Hispanic consumer represents the greatest potential for sustained growth in the U.S. today. At the current rate of expansion, Hispanics will drive population growth and, in turn, consumption in America for the next generation. Reaching Hispanics effectively should be at the top of every marketer’s to-do list. Hispanics actively embrace new technologies and platforms, while keeping close ties to their roots, especially language. And while Hispanics do consume English-language media, Spanish-language media holds the key to connecting with the greatest number of Hispanic consumers most effectively.
Nielsen breaks down the prevailing myths surrounding Hispanic interaction with today’s media.
MYTH #1:
There is a belief that once Hispanics learn to speak English well and become bilingual, they become “acculturated†and use English as their primary language. However, acculturation is a process rather than an absolute classification whereby Hispanics adopt American customs while still guarding their culture, heritage and traditions. While 77 percent of U.S. Hispanics speak English well, according to current American Community Survey estimates, 61 percent of Hispanics aged 18+ tell Nielsen they prefer to speak Spanish in their homes versus only 17 percent who say they speak only English. Spanish language remains a core component of the Hispanic home long after English proficiency is gained
Monique Manso, publisher of People en Espanol, cautioned that publishers entering this space -- whether in English or Spanish -- need to speak to Hispanic consumers in a contextually relevant way. "There is the danger of not speaking to them correctly," she said.
MYTH #2:
 I can reach Hispanics through my general market campaigns; SPANISH-LANGUAGE ADVERTISING IS AN EXPENDABLE PART OF MY BUDGET. Besides providing access to a unique audience, Spanish-language advertising is generally more effective than English-language advertising for Hispanics. Nielsen’s advertising effectiveness studies show that advertisers who translate English ads into Spanish receive an increase in general recall among Hispanics when compared to general market English-language commercials. However, original Spanish ads (ads that do not have an English counterpart or that are based on existing ads by modifying the narrative and soundtrack) see a 15 percent general recall lift from English-dominant Hispanics and a 69 percent general recall increase from Spanish-dominant Hispanics. Two reasons for this effect are that Spanish ads create a deeper personal connection to Hispanic consumers and Hispanics are less likely to time shift Spanish-language programming.
Michael Sebastian AdAge Media News "Publishing companies realized they had to do a specific product for these consumers," he said. "It was not just about adding a couple of pages in their main book to reach these consumers."Â
MYTH #3:
HISPANICS are late adopters of technology, so using online and mobile campaigns is unnecessary. New studies are finding that Hispanics are equally, if not more involved in emerging technologies than the general market. A recent look at Nielsen’s national people meter panel reveals that Hispanics are just as likely as non-Hispanics to own an HDTV (69% vs.66%). And Nielsen’s 2010 Q4 mobile insights survey of more than 50,000 people and more than 8,000 Hispanics reveals that Hispanics are not only more likely to own a smartphone, but also they are part of the most valuable mobile consumer segments, carrying an average monthly bill that is 14 percent higher than the market average. Hispanics also lead all ethnic groups with an average of 40 percent more calls made per day and are the most likely ethnic group to use text messaging, mobile Internet and e-mail. They are also more likely to download pictures or music on mobile devices.
The Hispanic consumer represents the greatest potential for sustained growth in the U.S. today. At the current rate of expansion, Hispanics will drive population growth and, in turn, consumption in America for the next generation. Reaching Hispanics effectively should be at the top of every marketer’s to-do list. Hispanics actively embrace new technologies and platforms, while keeping close ties to their roots, especially language. And while Hispanics do consume English-language media, Spanish-language media holds the key to connecting with the greatest number of Hispanic consumers most effectively.
The Hispanic segment of the US Population Represent the 13th largest economy in the world and are the youngest, fastest growing segment of the US population representing 60 % of overall population growth here in the US.
The tremendous Buying power of Hispanics is growing exponentially including a current per capita income of ($39,730) that is closing in on the national average ($57,009.00) makes it important to finds ways to effectively penetrate this market now and into the future.
Hispanic households defined as having an income of $75,000 or more have more than doubled accounting for 75% of all Hispanic Consumers. Their buying power will be worth over 680 billion dollars by 2015.
More than 8 in 10 (82%) Latino Adults say they speak Spanish and nearly all (95%) say it is important for future generations to do so.
54% of Spanish- dominant Hispanics are “Much more loyal to companies that show appreciation of our culture by advertising in Spanish.
Hispanics are the largest users of internet and mobile data services of any segment of the population in the US.
Hispanics are:
The most community minded segment of the US population
The most socially active segment of the US population
The most connected segment of the US Population
Monique Manso, publisher of People en Espanol, cautioned that publishers entering this space -- whether in English or Spanish -- need to speak to Hispanic consumers in a contextually relevant way. "There is the danger of not speaking to them correctly," she said.
William Cosgrove
Additional Must read material:
A Market not to be Ingnored
Statistics:
(United States Census Bureau & Income Pew Research Center 2012.)
Humphries J, The multicultural economy 2012
Selig Center for economic growth 2012
Nielson Pop-Facts 2011-2016
Why You've already missed the hottest marketing opportunity
Tags:
(Posted on Feb 6, 2014 at 11:59AM )
One must always be looking to innovate and try new things. The old saying that the early bird gets the worm holds true in most cases. Always be experimenting and measuring your marketing initiatives and remember some of the most lasting initiatives are right in front of you, you read about them and do nothing.Don’t miss out on opportunities because you want to play it safe and take a wait and see attitude. I am sure this is not what got you started or made you successful.  Some of the most cost effective and lasting initiatives are here now-take action!
Make the commitment this year to experiment and really look for and listen to fresh new ideas and just maybe you will find more success because success will most often not look for you.
William Cosgrove
Related articles:
Know These Must Have Social Media Marketing Tools
Introducing “AutoPhotoâ€
Article:
                Why you've already missed the hottest marketing opportunity
By Eric Wittlake, {grow} Contributing Columnist
Want to take advantage of today’s hot new marketing opportunity? Sorry, you’ve already missed the boat.
The best opportunity goes to the marketers who identify it well before it’s hot, not the ones who join at the frothy peak. You won’t see those initial eye-popping results today.
This trend has played out time and time again.
The first online banner ad, for AT&T, 44% click rate. Today’s average click rate for an ad the same size (468×60) rounds off to a nice even 0.0%! The only 44% you are likely to find in today’s banner discussion is the percentage of people with an ad blocker installed.
In 1978, Gary Thuerk sent the first unsolicited email to a whopping 400 people. The result? He successfully drove attendance to two in-person events and ultimately closed more than $10 million in sales. Today’s unsolicited marketing email to 400 people wouldn’t be expected to get a single webinar attendee!
Over the last 16 months, organic reach of brand posts on Facebook dropped from 26% to just 7.8%. That’s 70% shaved from the results of your Facebook efforts just for getting started 16 months later!
The story is the always the same. Twitter. Online video. Google AdWords. Blogging. Infographics. Native Ads. The marketers who get in early are the ones with the headline-making results.
Find Your OpportunitiesWhat can we learn from these and other early adopters who captured outsized returns?
- Innovate. AT&T took advantage of a brand new type of opportunity on HotWired. More recently, SAP was the first marketer to join the Forbes BrandVoice program and they are continuing to see some of the best results today.
- Know the trend setters and early adopters in your market. Just like Gary’s first email blast, Pinterest delivered astounding results for early adopters. Often the best opportunities are right in front of you—you just need to see them through a marketing lens.
- Be different. Did you already miss the best opportunity? Whatever you do, don’t just follow the masses! The unexpected nature of something completely new breaks through the filters we have all established for marketing. For a bit of inspiration in a stodgy B2B space, look up Maersk on Facebook. Or if you prefer, consider Red Bull’s marketing.
- In social media, marketers that started early had a head start building an engaged audience.
- In content marketing, early adopters learned how to connect with their audience effectively (and got a head start on SEO as well).
- In online advertising, early movers found the hidden gems. Working with a B2B advertising client about 10 years ago, we helped a niche site create their online ad offering. They became one of our best performing advertising partners for years.
By the time something is broadly recognized as the next great opportunity, it’s really just table stakes.
Here are some of the areas I’m watching with a marketing, not just product and marketplace, lens:
- The sharing economy.
- The Internet of things.
- The proliferation of inexpensive sensors.
- The brand new insights, segmentation, personalization and (most importantly) services this information and connectivity enables.
Where do you see potentially uncharted and untapped opportunity for today’s innovative marketers?
PhotoRep, is the first photo app of its kind developed by OneBigBroadcast’s innovative technology that augments reputation management, social awareness, search and solidifies your brand through positive feedback from satisfied customers.You no longer need to let these invaluable marketing opportunities slip by. Capture these happy moments as they happen and share them instantly on your customer satisfaction page and across your social channels.
The happiest time in the buyers experience is the day they take delivery of their new or preowned vehicle, product or service. We have made it easy to capture that moment with a photo and a text statement from the customer as to why they purchased from your business. There are also many times in Service where a customer is more than satisfied with a repair or the prompt and friendly service they received.
These pictures with customer texted statements from your satisfied customers will do more for your reputation and social awareness than anything that is available to you today and will also help with your search rankings. Customer testimonials also have the highest effectiveness rating for content marketing at 89%. Â Your employees will also benefit from sharing these treasured moments on their social channels.
Plus, you can capture those funny or treasured moments that occur during business hours and share them with your current and potential customers to show them that you are people to, transparent and customer centric.
PhotoRep also makes a great contest App.
How many products have you invested in that produce invaluable guaranteed benefits from day one, do not need to be proven and take no time to implement.
Start the New Year on a positive and productive note. It may be the best investment you make this year.
Take advantage of our introductory offer and get two first market products at no extra cost for the entire year that will give you the best ROI on anything you do this year.
Follow this link to see our Introductory Special Offer
William Cosgrove
One Big Broadcast
Below I have outlined some examples of how you can setup and implement an onsite social community to start reaping the multitude of benefits and good will that no other form of marketing or rewards program can offer. The possibilities are only limited to your creative ideas.*The benefits that these communities will bring are the most cost effective way in which to engage, retain, manage and form alliances with your community members that will not only foster retention but promote your business in the most positive ways imaginable.
Onsite Communities brings together the customer's voice with data from enterprise systems such as CRM. In addition to other benefits, engaging customers in community also drives transparency and openness - attributes that modern consumers increasingly expect.
Companies with private social networks can experience better employee relations, customer service, reduced customer complaints and even higher brand loyalty due to brand ambassador programs. Think of having a central place in which to read and understand your customers’ concerns, wants, needs and expectations.
Onsite communities also connect to onsite/online events marketing allowing businesses their customers, employees and event sponsors to manage their own profiles – including creating their own content, updating their company news and social media – which can all be administered with specified permissions tools. This “conglomerateâ€-style online network harnesses the power of multiple which acts like a magnet to attract search back to your site.
Imagine by combining your onsite community with onsite/online events marketing (Social casting) with blog casting,  and mobile applications all working together to engage potential viewers and fans in real time with GPS galleries that comb your area to attract visibility to the event both during and after it’s over.  These can also be used as a multichannel online sales or advertising event tools to enhance your inbound leads.
Socialcasting in its many forms can boost page ranking and drive traffic in ways that no other form of media can. This can positively impact your overall marketing efforts and is something that any business can benefit from. Technology is constantly providing us with new and creative ways of marketing. Socialcasting is a product of all this new technology and is another way of driving social content to get help get your message out, create attention and drive traffic.
It might seem like a foreign concept at first, but implementing these Socialcasting tools and applications that span the digital realm will take your business to a whole new level and right into the heart of the action.
Although your social brand strategy is important, don’t overlook the potential of harnessing and combining  your own community in a niche social community network with your social brand strategy.Â
An onsite social community offers many benefits for you as the business, your employees and the customer that cannot be duplicated elsewhere-providing a win-win situation for all.
*Examples of how to set up an onsite social community. Remember that the possibilities are only limited to your creative ideas.*
Community Members:
Existing members will automatically be made members and sent an e-mail to inform them.
New customers will automatically become members of the community as part of the benefit of doing business with your company.
Site visitors will be invited to join to enjoy member benefits as calls to actions on your web pages.
Member Benefits:
10% discount on service-Link to make an appointment or contact service or free rental etc.
Discount on  purchases- examplean $$$ automatic Discount
Discounts on Extended Warranties, Maintenance Contracts and/or Services
Discounts on financing
Drawing, contests and Special Offers:
Have a monthly drawing for $$$ In Free service that members can entered every month with their e-mail to win to keep members engaged. Take a picture of winners, get testimonial and post to Customer Satisfaction Page and Social Media Sites.
Website would have a link from your website pages or members community profile page for members that is a landing page listing member benefits, news, articles and comments with a link to the entry form for the monthly drawing for services- sales-etc
Take pictures of members when they get discounts etc. get testimonials
Product or detail pages would have an invitation to join free of charge to enjoy members benefits.
William Cosgrove
One Big Broadcast
Not convinced? Here are some related articles that will.
Activating Employees In Social: Is Your Organization Ready?
Are You Ignoring Your Best Brand Advocates?
Make Your Customers Brand Ambassadors [Video]
This is an article recently co-authored by Disney Institute and McKinsey & Company. It explores the connection between companies that are good at both making their customers happy and making their employees happy. Below we explore four of the most important activities customer experience leaders do to make their employees happy. What other activities have you found that are effective?
On a visit to a Disney theme park, a little girl and her mother came to a fenced-off construction site. To her mother’s dismay, the little girl threw her favorite Disney doll, Belle, over the fence. When park staff retrieved the doll, it was in a sorry state, spattered with mud, dress torn, hair bedraggled. Attempts to find a replacement in the shop proved futile: Belle had been replaced by a newer model. So the doll was taken first to a makeup artist, who washed her and styled her hair, then to the wardrobe department, which made her a new dress, and finally to a “party†with other Disney princesses, with a photographer in attendance.Â
Good as new, Belle was returned to her owner that evening, along with a photo album that showed what a great time she’d had during her “makeover.†Later, in a thank you letter, the girl’s mother described the moment of Belle’s return as “pure magic.â€
What motivates employees to go above and beyond the call of duty to provide this kind of a memorable customer experience? It’s not magic, but method. The theme park team didn’t consult a script or take instructions from their manager. They did what they did because Disney has created a culture where going the extra mile for customers comes naturally.Â
Such devotion to customer service pays handsome dividends. Companies offering an exceptional customer experience can exceed their peers’ gross margin by more than 26 percent. Emotionally engaged customers are typically three times more likely to recommend a product and to repurchase it themselves.Â
Delivering an exceptional experience consistently is especially important in a world where customers interact with a brand at many different points – in person, through social networks, online. Analyses reveal that performing well across these customer journeys1 is linked with greater market success than individual touchpoint performance. Companies that had a 1-percentage-point lead over their peers in key customer journeys typically enjoyed a 2-percentage-point advantage in revenue growth. In addition, companies that deliver excellent customer journeys increase employee satisfaction and engagement by 30 percent.Â
Yet corporate initiatives to improve customer experience struggle to make a tangible difference where it matters most: at the front line. Call center agents read from rigid scripts and get paid for keeping calls short rather than for resolving complaints. Websites try to drive upsell rather than help customers find what they’re looking for.Â
In our experience, the best way for companies to create emotional connections with their customers is by ensuring that every interaction delights them. To do that, you need more than great products – you need motivated, empowered people at the front line.
Great customer experience and how to create it Creating great customer experience comes down to having great people and treating them well. Looking after your people makes them feel more engaged with your organization and more committed to your service goals. But how do you put principle into practice? We’ve found that the best companies adopt four habits.
1. Listen to your employeesÂ
If you want your employees to take good care of your customers, start by taking good care of your employees. Treating them respectfully and fairly goes without saying. But go a step further, and get personally involved in tackling their issues and needs. Ensure you have formal mechanisms for employees to express their concerns, either at regular open meetings, through anonymous channels such as internal surveys, or via an ombudsman. Then take action. Communicate what you are doing and how long it will take, and involve the employees themselves in the solution.Â
When the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort first opened in 2005, for example, its cast members – Disney’s term for employees – had to pick up their costumes from attendants before starting their shifts. With up to 3,000 cast members arriving at once, waiting in line created delays and frustration. Leaders responded by introducing self-service kiosks, where cast members could simply pick up a costume, scan the tag and their ID, check the screen display, and walk away. Having a smoother start to their day enabled them to focus their energy where it belonged: on guests. So effective was the new approach that Disney subsequently rolled it out to all its theme parks and cruise ships. Not only does it make cast members’ lives easier; it has resulted in significant savings in inventory counting and maintenance.Â
Or take BCI, a Chilean bank that acts on its belief that happy employees take better care of customers. It holds regular meetings for staff to voice their problems and needs. More importantly, having listened, it acts. When auditors complained of stiffness and eyestrain, the bank commissioned an ergonomic assessment of their workstations. When new recruits in the legal department said it took them a while to find their footing in their new positions, BCI set up additional briefing sessions.Â
Clearly there are limits to what management can do, but by taking tangible action to address employees’ concerns, you demonstrate the strength of your commitment to your front line.
2. Hire for attitude, not aptitude – then reinforceÂ
If you want friendly service, hire friendly people. Put another way, you can train for skill, but you can’t train for attitude. JetBlue, a perennial leader in customer satisfaction, has embedded this conviction in its front-line hiring process. To recruit individuals with a natural service bent, it uses group interviews. Watching how applicants interact with each other enables the interviewer to assess candidates’ communications and people skills to an extent that wouldn’t be possible in a one-to-one setting.
Best Chevrolet, a large auto dealership in Massachusetts, is another believer in “hiring for nice.†Since adopting and sustaining this approach over several years, it has seen a rise in employee retention and a flow of testimonials from satisfied customers, not to mention a customer-satisfaction rating more than 10 percentage points above the industry average. It also racks up a 69 percent retention rate of customers who still return for services five years after purchase, compared with an industry average of 40 percent.Â
Having hired people with the right attitudes, leaders need to ensure they reinforce the behaviors they want to see. Although Disney hires people to pick up trash, everyone in the organization knows that they share responsibility for maintaining a clean and pleasant environment. Asked why he was picking up paper in the restroom, one leader replied, “I can’t afford not to.†Leaders’ actions are visible to all, or as Disney puts it, “Every leader is telling a story about what they value.â€
3. Give people purpose, not rulesÂ
To ensure consistent execution across all their operations, large corporations need to define standard operating processes. However, rules and guidelines go only so far. Front-line employees participating in infinitely varied customer interactions won’t always find the answers in manuals. Besides, mechanically following a script saps interactions of authenticity. Instead of detailed lists of process steps, the best companies supply front-line staff with common purpose backed by clear quality standards.
Common purpose – a succinct explanation of the customer experience you are trying to create at an emotional level – motivates employees and gives their work meaning. They choose to go that extra mile through personal passion, not passive compliance. At Disney, for example, common purpose – “We create happiness†– figures in the first day of training for every new recruit at every level. When cast members rescued Belle the doll from a muddy puddle in a construction site, they knew their organization’s purpose was to make her owner happy; their job was to do everything they could to bring that about.Â
When BCI was defining its common purpose – developing trust-based customer relationships that last a lifetime – senior leaders kicked off the process, and then cross-functional teams stepped in to craft it, in a collaborative effort that built ownership across the business.Â
Defining a common purpose is one thing; living it, however, is another. The bank’s leaders like to tell a story about a lottery winner who was looking for a bank to entrust with his prize money. When he visited a BCI branch, he was impressed to find that employees didn’t just try to sell him products but made an effort to identify and satisfy his needs. Explaining why he chose BCI, he said its employees struck him as genuine. By living the company’s values, they had earned his trust without even realizing it.
After aligning on a common purpose, an organization needs to make it concrete through a set of qualityÂ
standards: priorities that guide front-line staff in delivering the desired customer experience. BCI employees follow four quality standards: safety (fulfill commitments with transparency and competence); closeness (get to know your customer and connect emotionally); diligence (promptly advise and execute responsibly with agility, ease, and simplicity); and image (project the values of BCI in each action and location).Â
When people are trusted to do their job and given clear expectations rather than an instruction manual, they feel more valued and empowered – qualities that can’t help but show in the customer experience they provide. In the first year of BCI’s program to improve customer experience, satisfaction among its retail banking customers rose by 33 percent.
4. Tap into the creativity of your front lineÂ
Giving front-line employees responsibility and autonomy creates a sense of ownership that inspires them to do everything they can to improve the customer experience. When they see a problem, they fix it without waiting to be asked.Â
The best companies recognize that front-line staff are also a rich source of customer insights. They can help leaders understand what customers want – and how to provide it – without the time and expense of market research. To get the most value from these insights, organizations need to build good “plumbingâ€: robust channels to get information up the hierarchy to leaders who can act on it.Â
Consider Wawa, a U.S. convenience-store chain based on the East Coast. Knowing that its store managers understand local customers’ needs better than any desk-bound analyst ever could, it grants them considerable latitude over what they sell.
One enterprising manager decided his customers would welcome a coffee bar and more fresh food options. When customer traffic and profits soared, head office noticed and quickly dispatched a team to investigate. On their return, the team explained how the manager had boosted sales and presented a plan for rapidly replicating the innovation across other stores in the network.
How do you do it? Show you genuinely C.A.R.E. So what does it take to deliver a consistently top-level customer experience? Sadly, there is no short cut to becoming best in class. Most companies take years. But there are four things you can do to get off to a good start:Â
Clarify. Before you embark on a customer-experience transformation, put as much effort and rigor into understanding your employees as you do into understanding your customers. Treat interviews, surveys, and suggestion boxes as important sources of information. Combine the input you receive with customer satisfaction scores, business metrics, and employee churn rates to isolate the issues that matter most to your employees and your business.Â
Align. Define a common purpose that encapsulates what your organization stands for, and make it the emotional pivot around which all your employee and customer strategies revolve. Forget slick marketing campaigns; instead, use common purpose to rouse your people to action on the things that count. Make sure all your leaders are 100 percent on board. Without their commitment, communication and implementation will soon break down.Â
Reinforce. Even the best customer-experience program is of no use unless leaders put their commitment into practice by being role models for the behaviors they want employees to adopt. Seeing leaders acting in a new way encourages employees to follow suit and makes common purpose a living reality within the organization. To help the changes stick you need a systematic reinforcement program combining training, coaching, and 360-degree feedback mechanisms. Develop metrics to track how employees are performing, and intervene when necessary. Training and coaching should evolve over time as the needs of employees and the organization change.Â
Empower. Clarity about expectations plus freedom to act equals an empowered front line. Establish quality standards to ensure your people make real-time decisions that are consistent with your common purpose. Then support your quality standards with behavioral guidelines to shape your desired customer experience and enable your staff to measure, coach, recognize, and reward one another in their day-to-day work. Armed with this framework, they’ll be able to handle every customer encounter in a way that expresses your company’s vision and values.
Technological advances have made it much easier for business enterprises to understand customers on an individual basis. Even so, engaging with them is still largely done by people at the front line, through personal contact. The continuous relationship of trust with customers that companies seek to nurture is built one interaction at a time. That’s what your people are hired to do. So to create an emotional bond with your customers, start by engaging your employees.
Disney Institute and McKinsey & Company collaborate to provide customer experience transformations to a portfolio of global clients.
Authors: Fernando Beltran, Dilip Bhattacharjee, Harald Fandel, Bruce Jones, Scott Lippert, Francisco Ortega
Disney Institute and McKinsey & Company
