S&MM SoundOff

Marketing’s Self-Immolation? From Scott Hornstein

My previous post’s theme was spontaneous combustion. Now I’d like to go a bit deeper and focus on an act of self-immolation. Yes, you read that correctly.

No matter how you read the results, at the end of the day there is nothing more powerful in generating leads and sales than high-quality, outbound telemarketing. Unfortunately, a lot of folks took the power without the quality, which resulted in the National Do Not Call Registry. it's unbelievable that the government could produce something so effective (though there are exceptions to the Registry, such as exemptions for political organizations).

Bear in mind that there are selected uses, users, and providers of high-quality outbound telemarketing who are a tremendous asset to marketing and customer satisfaction efforts. However, the egregious excesses of the seamy side of the industry hurt everyone.

So, confronted with this palpable demonstration of consumer outrage, the underbelly of outbound telemarketing has now found a new tool – the prerecorded message. The rationale probably goes something like this: We make money talking, not listening. The prerecorded message bulldozes the customer and now they have to listen to us. If they’re not interested, they’ll hang up. People with answering machines will get the entire pitch, and the prerecorded message lowers labor costs, too.

I liken it to the outbound industry’s self-immolation—consumers are breathing fire. Why are these guys dousing themselves in gasoline?

Politically Correct or Good Business?

An article in last week's New York Times points out a trend in business travel: More hotels are catering to the preferences of minority business travelers. The new amenities—like emergency make-up packages at W hotels—aren’t about appearing more politically correct, it is
just good business sense.

Female business travelers tend to stay longer than their male counterparts to visit a museum or see a play, making them a more profitable demographic. Gay travelers often extend their stay as well, and many Latino travelers visit family when traveling abroad to their home country for business. To capture the loyalty of these lucrative groups, the Kimpton Hotel chain prominently displays its
support of AIDS and HIV charities, and Continental Airlines sponsors events like Cinco de Mayo festivals.

Much like offering Spanish-speaking operators, appealing to the needs of minorities is often a smart business move because it opens up your business to more customers. For more on hotel offerings

designed to lure business travelers, check out this article from our S&MM archives.

A Word on Technology from Sales Maven Dave Stein

I’ve been thinking a lot about technology and sales. Technology often determines whether or not a sales process gets adopted by a sales team. If the sales team works without a process, even in small transaction sales, their chances of delivering at or above target are greatly reduced. That’s not good.

There are different technology applications to consider when it comes to supporting process-driven selling. Here are five technologies in order of the level of value they provide salespeople:

1. Microsoft Word or Excel. Taking an account planning or opportunity planning document or a qualification checklist and formatting it in Word or Excel is a small but useful step past writing it by hand. It is fair to mention that a lot of big deals have been won by smart sales executives that planned effectively and recorded their documentation in Word.

2. Contact Managers. We love Microsoft Outlook here at my company, ESR, for managing contacts, calendars and e-mail. It gets the job done, but it is not a selling tool. Keeping prospects' names in a contact manager so your salespeople can create an e-mail or track call-back dates in your calendar will not help them sell more.

3. SFA -- Traditional Sales Force Automation. Many of the functional capabilities of traditional sales force automation tools have been swallowed by CRM. Traditional SFA products, if used properly and regularly, could save a rep a little time, but will not directly contribute to the advancement of a sales campaign, especially a complex one. (By the way, Googling SFA gets you about 11 million hits.)

4. CRM -- Customer Relationship Management. 174 million hits on Google! It must be hot! If implemented the right way, CRM can offer a multitude of benefits to different constituencies within selling organizations. The problem is, out of the box CRM will likely not deliver value for the salesperson. CRM has been designed and written for the people who pay for it: MANAGEMENT. For the salesperson it is often a burden and they prove it’s a burden by not complying. They don’t log on and don’t fill out the forms.

5. PRM -- Prospect Relationship Management. Never heard of that before? You will. PRM is the next generation of Sales Force Automation, with sales process workflow support, analytics, and other critical elements of CRM. There is a tremendous need for a new breed of technology solutions that really help people sell. These new PRM solutions will be designed and written by sales training and sales methodology providers. Why? Because those companies are sales process-centric and know what it takes to win. So the PRM solutions will be designed for people who sell rather than how CRM is designed, where the sales methodology is layered on top of the technology, almost as an afterthought.

Do you agree with my assessment?

Mary Donato Asks: How Do You Get New Clients?

There are really three different ways to get a new prospect:

1.    Wait until someone calls
2.    Take the opportunity away from a competitor
3.    Initiate your own opportunity

Number one is the easiest by far. The only problem is that it usually doesn’t happen frequently enough and the customer already has an idea of what it is he wants. But what he wants may not be exactly what your company can provide. Sometimes it can be hard to change his mind once he has it set. Plus, there’s a good chance that he'll also call one of your competitors.

Option number two is when your competitor is working on an opportunity and you somehow find a way to get involved. I don’t mind this option, but it typically requires price negotiations and battling with the competition.

My preferred option is number three. Initiating your own opportunity happens when you have the chance to ask your client questions about her current pain points. Through mutual discovery, you and your customer identify ways to improve her business. You come with ideas she hasn't thought about before. You become a trusted advisor.

Which option do you prefer?

Are You Paula, Randy, or Simon?

I’ll admit it—I’m a diehard American Idol viewer. It has been my guilty pleasure for the past five seasons. But I didn’t realize that I could take management lessons away from the show until I saw this Monster Poll on which Idol judge most resembles your boss.

The slight majority of polltakers said their bosses were most like Randy Jackson, the judge who doles out the best balance of praise and criticism. That’s the good news. The bad? More than twice as many people have bosses who are harsh critics rather than cheerleaders: 33 percent say their bosses are like the abrasive Simon Cowell (who isn’t afraid to hurl insults), while 14 percent have managers like Paula Abdul, who is almost always supportive and emotionally invested (as seen in her teary reactions whenever a contestant gets voted off).

The nature of the competition itself provides a lot of insight into talent management as well. Most people were shocked when Chris Daughtry, a rocker who many believed could take the whole competition, was kicked off a few weeks ago. It showed that no candidate is ever a sure thing: Your top sellers, for instance, may not be gifted for management, or a top performer in one industry may not find success in another. Chris’ vote-off also proceeded one of his weaker performances, and despite his past stellar showings, he wasn’t spared by the audience. In the often-harsh world of sales, bungling one opportunity could cost sellers their jobs. But in Chris’s case, I wondered whether he would have redeemed himself if given another week.

Of course, when it comes down to it, American Idol is a reality show that no more mirrors reality than Donald Trump mirrors Jack Welch. But you can still scrape together some take-aways to justify your guilty-pleasure viewings. Are you a well-balanced boss like Randy? Or do you manage your salespeople as if they’ve only got one shot?

For more effective management strategies, visit our management section.

Spontaneous Combustion From Marketing Guru Scott Hornstein

The phrase “spontaneous combustion” always brings to mind the wonderment of grade school science or the untimely demise of the drummers in the fictitious British rock band Spinal Tap, who spontanously burst into flame.

But I’m talking about a different kind of spontaneous combustion: Customers forming ad-hoc alliances because they are mad as hell about marketing practices and they’re not going to take it anymore.

An excellent illustration is gethuman.com, a Web site whose stated goal is, “to improve the quality of customer service and phone support in the US. This free Web site is run by volunteers and is powered by over one million consumers who demand high quality phone support from the companies that they use.”

They achieve this goal by compiling a database of customer-generated instructions on how to bypass auto attendants and phone menus, and get to a human for 365 well-known companies. And the list is growing every day. 

There are also tips on how to find a company’s 1-800 number and how to get to a human once you do.  My favorite tip is to select the option for Spanish, because you’re more likely to get to a bilingual human than an English-only CSR.

This is an example of our customers coming together spontaneously because of dissatisfaction. Is this a brush fire? Or is it a burning platform? What do you think?

Hand in the Cookie Jar: How much can you fudge on your T&E report?

Sometimes taking the corporate credit card on a business trip or to a client luncheon gives you that same giddy feeling as taking mom and dad’s car keys while they’re away on vacation.  The possibilities seem endless: Why not upgrade your measly one-bedroom hotel room to a suite—who’s going to know?  A couple of extra long-distance phone calls on the company cellphone to your family back home won’t cause a single eye to blink, right? 

Wrong.  We’ve all heard the “Cookie Jar Song,” in which the blame for taking the last cookie from the cookie jar gets passed from one singer to another.  Well, when it comes to fudging some extra bucks on your travel-and-entertainment expense report, pinning the blame on some one else isn’t as easy as simply singing the song’s chorus. As a recent BusinessWeek Online article pointed out, companies are getting smarter as executives get less creative with their excuses.  And with the help of external T&E management services, some one will find out, and it could cost you a hefty reimbursement or, even worse, your job.

But why do people continue to take the chance and lie on their T&E reports, anyway?  Some people feel the company owes them for their hard work, or they think they’re safe in lying about expenses because “everybody does it.”  I don’t believe either excuse, but there is one thing I do believe: Stealing is wrong.  It’s a crime.  And just because swiping the company’s Amex a few extra times takes money from a faceless victim (even one that makes millions in revenue), it’s stealing nonetheless.

Think about it this way: Can we really criticize the Enron thieves of the world while we keep swindling money from our employers?  Something reeks of hypocrisy.  Do you smell it, too?

Treat Your Customers Like Your Mother

Over Mothers' Day weekend, a friend e-mailed me a funny music video of 1980s icon Mr. T paying homage to moms everywhere. The video had me in stitches, but it also got me thinking about how we treat others, especially customers.

Treat your customers like you would your mother. Here's how:

1. Show Respect
Respect is the building block of any relationship. Every mother deserves respect and so does every customer.

2. Listen
The easiest way to avoid problems down the road is to listen from the very beginning. As children, we're instructed to listen to our mothers' wishes, and as businesspeople, we should also listen to our customers' needs. Remember: The customer is your boss.

3. Go Above and Beyond
As a kid, I'd go out of my way to make my mother proud. I'd study hard to bring home impressive grades or do my chores before she could ask. I learned early on that I would be rewarded with hugs or compliments for going above and beyond. Do more than the status quo, and you'll notice the difference in your relationship with your customers.

4. Be Thankful
My mother always reminded me to say "Thank you" whenever I received a kind word, gift, or anything from someone else. Whether you say "Thanks" via e-mail, in a written note, or in person, it's a practice that will make your customers feel valued.

What are your customer service tips? Share them with us.

Plus, check out "What Customers Really Want" in the pages of S&MM.

Over Compensating?

The New York Times’ package on executive compensation reveals some interesting facts: The growth in CEO pay far outpaces growth in the average workers’ salaries. Many chief executives payouts aren’t in proportion to their company’s performance. And despite scandals like Enron and Tyco, execs still partake in lavish perks, like taking private jets for personal use, and bill them to the shareholders.

On the one hand, chief executives are the face of their company. They get the accolades when a company does well, and are ousted when performance goes down the tubes. But even with this burden on their shoulders, these headlines imply there is little rhyme or reason to executive compensation. An interactive graphic shows that many CEOs’ pay went up, even as stock prices fell, and double-digit compensation increases outpaced shareholder return. Meanwhile, CEOs of companies that dwarf in market capitalization to GE and Microsoft received higher base salaries than Jeff Immelt or Steve Ballmer.

Of course, executive pay packages are complicated, with stock options and complex performance bonuses that are beyond comprehension. Every CEO’s pay must be considered on a case-by-case basis before judgment about excess payouts can be made. What I take away from it all, however, is that the value of decision makers is a subjective thing—can these executives prove that their big-picture ideas and management strategies are worth multimillion-dollar payouts? Or are their companies’ successes actually more a result of those working in the cubicles, in the plants—and out on the street selling?

S&MM’s own compensation survey revealed that pay has been more steady than soaring—which means your feet on the street may be the ones most responsible for padding the corner-office guy’s paycheck. So are you paying your sales—and marketing—people what they are worth? Are they reaping the benefits of their hard work?

Sales Maven Dave Stein Sounds Off: What’s Your Problem?

I got to thinking about what a tough job sales management is. Just when you think you have it all figured out and your team is delivering their numbers, there is invariably something to mess it all up.

Many sales leaders wait until a crisis before taking action. Many take action without objectively assessing their situation and properly evaluating alternatives. But every once in a while, I come across someone whose team is overdelivering, but who wants to retool his team for the next challenge because if they don’t, the competition will eat his lunch.

Last week I spent an hour on the phone with the global vice president of sales of a major division of a large company. Although this VP's sales team is performing well, he wanted to be proactive in protecting the competitive advantage he currently had.

They were about to hire a sales training company to replace the one they had used for a number of years. In addition to generally not performing well in some key areas, the incumbent provider did not offer a train-the-trainer option. Though the VP felt this training strategy was the right one for his division to pursue, he wasn’t certain and a mistake would cost him his leadership position.

I did my best to explain that the company needed to perform a comprehensive assessment of their current situation before making any decisions. I was pleased to hear them step on the brakes, take a deep breath, and agree among themselves to do this the right way.

Very rarely do sales problems fix themselves. In fact, most often they get worse until something breaks. So here are three questions for you, as food for thought:
1.    What are your top three sales-related problems, in order of how much business they are costing you?
2.    If you fixed those problems, what else might you fix proactively to carry your team successfully through the next 12 months?
3.    What action are you taking to improve your situation?