Business901 » Mirror Marketing

Developing a winning Culture the Zappos way!

business901 — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:35:00 +0000

My guest on the podcast Joseph Michelli takes you through the Zappos company culture now and what may be the future. Joseph’s latest book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and WOW has generated my interest on the relationship of employee and customer experience as demonstrated in my blog post, Is Zappos the Next Toyota?. We discussed this and the Zappos approach that Michelli breaks into five key elements:

Serve a Perfect Fit—create bedrock company values
Make it Effortlessly Swift—deliver a customer experience with ease
Step into the Personal—connect with customers authentically
S T R E T C H—grow people and products
Play to Win—play hard, work harder

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Download Podcast: Click and choose options: Zappos or go to the Business901 iTunes Store.

Against all odds this online business (known primarily for selling shoes in a playful and emotionally engaging ways) has revolutionized social media strategies, developed an environment which has earned it a consistent spot in the top ten of Fortune Magazine’s best places to work, created zealous fans, and attracted Amazon.com as a purchaser for more than 1.2 billion dollars. It’s time to integrate (not balance) work and fun. It’s time to benefit from the unique and effective customer employee and customer engagement techniques of Zappos!

Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D., is an internationally sought-after speaker, author, and organizational consultant who transfers his knowledge of exceptional business practices in ways that develop joyful and productive workplaces with a focus on the total customer experience. His insights encourage leaders and frontline workers to grow and invest passionately in all aspects of their lives. Dr. Michelli has been recognized by Focus as “one of the top five Customer Service Influencers to Track in 2011.”

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Is your marketing firm having this conversation with you?

business901 — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 02:59:00 +0000

Essential concepts in the new way of thinking about marketing is that customers are always co-creators of value. It’s the way that the customer sees value, whether it’s in the physical good, or if it’s in a service or a combination of both of those and if they don’t see a benefit to them they’re not going to engage with you.

Is your marketing firm or department having this conversation with you? Are words like SD-Logic, Service Dominant, Co-Creation, Value in Use, Customer Decision Making Process, Experience Economy, etc. part of your normal marketing conversation. If not, you may need to re-consider your marketing communication efforts.

The Video is from University of Queensland Business School. With dual accreditation from the world’s two pre-eminent education accrediting bodies, and a 5 star rating for its MBA program, University of Queensland Business School is among the ranks of elite global leaders. It was the first business school in Australia to meet the high standards of the world’s most influential accrediting bodies – the US-based AACSB International and Europe’s EQUIS accreditation.

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Can anyone truly understand and empathize with another?

business901 — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:33:00 +0000

By leading the Americans in his audience at TEDxPSU step by step through the thought process, sociologist Sam Richards sets an extraordinary challenge: can they understand — not approve of, but understand — the motivations of an Iraqi insurgent? And by extension, can anyone truly understand and empathize with another?

This is very powerful video but my use of it is not to encourage agreement in the messages presented but instead the big picture message that Sam Richards is portraying, understanding others!

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

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Integrating Value Networks

business901 — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:30:00 +0000

Some great tips to start visualizing the process of collaborative networks. You don’t have to throw the organization chart away, even though it seems that way sometimes. A key reason to look at this video is for better understanding by sales and marketing on what is taking place in organizations that they must sell too.

Verna Allee describes how to integrate value networks with traditional business approaches such as organizational charts and processes. This video, #2 of 6, is from a series of interviews with Jeff Saperstein, co-author Bust the Silos. Verna Allee is CEO, ValueNetworks.com.

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Future Framework for Understanding your Customers

business901 — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 03:58:00 +0000

I think this is an interesting framework that is worth exploring this year. This decision model closely resembles where I think sales and marketing is headed. Our efforts will not be based on the traditional metrics as we know them now but how our stories, our content is being interpreted by our customers. For example, we will not place emphasis on traffic to our website but rather the way our content is interacted with and the patterns that are created.

Cynefin, pronounced kuh-nev-in, is a Welsh word that signifies the multiple factors in our environment and our experience that influence us in ways we can never understand. In this video, Dave Snowden introduces the Cynefin Framework with a brief explanation of its origin and evolution and a detailed discussion of its architecture and function.

The Cynefin Framework is central to Cognitive Edge methods and tools. It allows executives to see things from new viewpoints, assimilate complex concepts, and address real-world problems and opportunities. Using the Cynefin framework can help executives sense which context they are in so that they can not only make better decisions but also avoid the problems that arise when their preferred management style causes them to make mistakes.

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Profiting from Customer Value

business901 — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:00:00 +0000

I had the pleasure this past week of interviewing the co-author of the book Strategy from the Outside In, Christine Moorman for an upcoming Business901 Podcast. Christine is the T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor and founder of The CMO Survey at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

She stated that many strategies such has shareholder value, core competence, six sigma and right sizing have lured many companies into a dangerous internal focus, viewing the world from the inside out. As a result, companies lose sight of the market, which leads to poor results over the long run. Inside-out thinking distracts companies from the core purpose of a business: to create and serve customers.

In research for the podcast, I came across this video by the other co-author George S. Day. George is the Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor and co-Director of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In this video he emphasized that we must stop looking at your customer as another competitive force but rather embracing how they perceive your relative market position. Understanding this as your market orientation will allow you to achieve greater revenue and profit. He also claims that this orientation with allow you to react sooner sooner to market shifts.

The four imperatives that are discussed in the video:

Be a customer value leader
Innovate new value for customers
Capitalize on the customer as an asset
Capitalize on the brand as an asset

If you have been reading my blog for any period of time, you realize George is preaching to the choir here. Great delivery and a real enforcer of why Customer Value is so important.

From the Driving Market Share Website: Every customer is looking for value, and practically every company claims to offer it. Yours is likely no exception. But do you really know what value means to your customers? If you suspected they were less than thrilled with your products and services, how would you go about discovering why? And if you discovered that you were missing a piece or two of the value equation, what would you do to address the problem? These are questions that every business leader should consider, especially in today’s economy. When you make an effort to figure out what value looks like to your customer—and take steps to provide it—the results can be extraordinary.very.

And remember, Customer Value is the best Leading Indicator of Growing Market Share.

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Value Stream Mapping your Sales Team

business901 — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:15:00 +0000

In my Microsoft Newsletter this week, I received the following enticement:

Find, Keep, and Grow Customer Relationships with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Start Your 30-Day Free Trial Today!

Today, businesses are asked to do more with less. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online delivers exceptional value because it combines your everyday Microsoft Office applications with powerful CRM software accessed over the Internet to rapidly improve marketing, boost sales, and enrich customer service interactions. Try it now for 30 days! (This is not an affiliate Link).

I am trying it this week but what I wanted to share is a piece of the collateral information, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Power Couple. In this PDF, MSN highlighted the Customer Decision Making Process aka Mirror Marketing( Your Marketing Funnel from your Customer’s Perspective.) but extended the concept to show the process from several other points of view.

I have always been an advocate of seeking Sales and Marketing’s response to each of the customer’s decision steps but MSN (they are selling software), highlighted the technology enabler and a team response to the Customer Value Stream process. This simple exercise utilizing a high level Value Stream Map can really get your individual departments on the same page!

In my recent work, I have been advocating breaking down the Sales Silo and making Sales a team effort. In most organizations, I have been met with strong resistance to this concept. Most sales people look at as another silly initiative and most internal people see sales as a vehicle to customer data. As a result, sales resist and rightfully so preventing themselves from becoming an extended clerk. However, the approach really should be about how to increase face time with the customer. The #1 enabler of increased sales.

Create your own sales team by reviewing who responds to your Customer’s Value Stream Map. Start having a few meetings, similar to a daily standup meeting which may not be feasible. I would recommend at first error in having the meeting to often, just cut them short. In a spirit of true collaboration, don’t automatically exclude your customer from the team. This concept really could increase face time!

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The Importance of the Value Proposition – Rackham

business901 — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 00:40:45 +0000

If you follow my blog you know what a fan I am of SPIN Selling and Neal Rackham. Though I feel the book is getting somewhat dated, Rackham is still offering great advice.

Understanding your Value Proposition from your customers perspective may be the most important strategic advantage you can have as a company.

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Great discussion on Content Marketing

business901 — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 11:26:00 +0000

Jason Fried is the founder and CEO of 37signals. Fried is a passionate leader in the field of simple, clear, and elegant web-based user interface design. He spearheaded the concept, design, and development of Basecamp, 37signal’s web-based project management tool for designers, freelancers, and creative services firms. Fried is also the co-author of Defensive Design for the Web.

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Current State Map – Where are You?

business901 — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:25:00 +0000

I have to admit, I was always and still am a Scooby Doo fan. Those famous words “Scooby Doo – Where are you” still bring a smile to my face. Where are you…in marketing circles seldom do I win a lot points by asking that question.

Where are You? Defining your current marketing state can be quite a job. Most feedback has been received from current customers or people that will take the time to respond; people that like you. Sure, you have a few real disgruntled people that give you feedback but you rule them out as extremists..right?

Where are You? Do you understand your marketing process? I mean the progression people take moving through your system…you have a system don’t you? Mapping this process and creating an accurate value stream is seldom created without proper customer segmentation.

Where are you? Measurements, we talk about them but do we really follow them. Are we making decisions on metrics or are we spending time justifying why they are what they are? I see a lot of metrics floating around these days but understanding them and what they mean is an entirely different story.

Where are you? Do you understand what triggers your customer/prospect to move through your value chain? Learn what causes a response, both positive and negative and determine if you are providing enough value at each stage? Think, would your customer pay to get it?

Where are you? Are the right people participating at the right time during the sale process? Key staff members may be required at critical times. Don’t think this only happens at the end of the cycle, star power can work practically at any point.

Most organizations want to know where they are going versus where they are at. I can use all the corny phrases that we have all heard but the point is you need to know what you need to change before changing it. Running new ads, publishing new material and just creating new material for the sake of movement is wasteful and non-productive.

Shameless Plug: Jim Luckman was a recent Business901 podcast guest and discussed Applying Value Stream Concepts. Jim will be facilitating Value-Stream Mapping for the Office and Service for the Lean Enterprise Institute workshop June 22-23, 2010, in Indianapolis, IN. This link will take you to the full list of Lean Management Workshops.

This interactive workshop demonstrates how to apply value-stream mapping, a fundamental and critical tool, to address what many companies find difficult to do: making a fundamental change in business processes such as administrative, professional, and transactional activities. You will see how the key elements of lean thinking and value-stream mapping apply to such activities by identifying key processes to tackle, drawing an accurate current-state map of each process, applying lean principles to envision a leaner future-state for each process, and implementing the future-state in a way that can be sustained.

P.S. Learning how to create an accurate Current State Map may prevent you from screaming these words – “Scooby Doo – Where are you?”

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Your Marketing Funnel from your Customer’s Perspective.

business901 — Sun, 30 May 2010 13:58:57 +0000

The Mirror Marketing eBook describes an alternative way of looking at your marketing funnel…from your customer’s perspective.

Mirror Marketing

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Mistake Proofing your Marketing by using Poka-Yoke

business901 — Sat, 29 May 2010 12:38:29 +0000

Created a short e-book on Mistake Proofing your Marketing by using the Lean tool of Poka-Yoke. The e-book is not meant to be a complete diagram of Poka-Yoke but an alternative approach to help facilitate and create some additional ideas on how to improve your marketing.

Free download, just please keep the tags and links intact.

Poka-Yoke your Marketing –

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Does your customer know why you do it?

business901 — Sun, 23 May 2010 12:37:00 +0000

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers — and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (until a recent court victory that tripled its stock price) appeared to be struggling.

In 2009, Simon Sinek released the book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action -a synopsis of the theory he has begun using to teach others how to become effective leaders and inspire change.

Do you know why we do what we do?
(Do you know why you do what you do?)

Even if you do –

Do you communicate it to others?

Related Posts: Mirror Marketing

Are you a RECOGNIZED EXPERT in your field?

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Staying engaged with your Core Values

business901 — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 10:10:57 +0000

Last year, I was introduced and read a book by Steve Blank called, The Four Steps to the Epiphany. It has served me well and there are five questions from it that I constantly use and have found it to be a great help in determining my own core values – from MY CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE .

A quick overview of the book on Amazon states:

The essential "how to" book for anyone bringing a product to market, writing a business plan, marketing plan or sales plan. Step-by-step strategy of how to successfully organize sales, marketing and business development for a new product or company. The book offers insight into what makes some startups successful and leaves others selling off their furniture. Packed with concrete examples, the book will leave you with new skills to organize sales, marketing and your business for success.

This series of questions I have recently been using in discussing potential marketing opportunities with customers. It quickly determines how effective I can be marketing their product. If they have trouble answering these, there can be a huge disconnect between them and their customers/prospects.

What problem are you solving for your customer?
Does the customer know they have this problem?
Are your customers actively trying to solve this problem?
Do customers have a budget allocated to solve this problem or otherwise trying to spend money to solve it?
Are your customers actively spending money, time or effort on solving this problem and failing?

These questions though derived for a startup sometimes are even hard to answer for a mature company. I would even encourage you to re-visit these questions as time goes on so that you don’t drift away from your core values or mission.

If you would like to learn more about Steve Blank, he is participating in the Start-up Lessons Learned Conference Friday, April 23, 2010 from 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM (PST)
San Francisco, CA. The goal for this event is to give practitioners and students of the lean startup methodology the opportunity to hear insights from leaders in embracing and deploying the core principles of the lean startup methodology. It is also being Simulcast across many locations.

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