Lean Marketing may be a fuzzy concept to some, can you explain your approach and how it applies to the typical organization?
In my thinking, Lean Marketing still has it’s genesis in the 5 basic principles of Lean. However, I take a slightly more outside in approach in explaining it. More what I would call from a customer viewpoint. However, when it gets down to it, it is about those basic tenants or pillars, Continuous Improvement which I might emphasize as Continuous Learning…the ability to learn faster from our customers than our competition and Respect for People and taking that a step further Respect for Customer. Which in my terminology is no games or manipulation sharing our learning in an open and transparent way. Lean Solutions by Womack and Jones written ten years ago, is still my favorite “Lean Marketing Book” After that I might go back to some of Scholtes and Joiners writings.
Most of the books and articles seem to center on applying Lean Start-up, customer development principles to sales and marketing, is that how you view Lean?
I think the Lean Startup has been a great boost to the Lean Movement I not so jokingly say that you need to distinguish the perspective of the person you are talking to. Is it from traditional Lean or Lean Startup? It really is sort of a Ying and Yang situation. But simply stated I think Lean Startup is powerful for Exploring new Product/Market fit. But for most of us, innovation is only one part of our company. The Continuous improvement side of PDCA and the Standard Work of SDCA are the dominant factors within most companies. I practice using those 3 concepts in Lean Marketing – SDCA for Std work, PDCA for Improvement, EDCA (Explore) for the Lean Startup or Design Thinking. You need a little of all three, and all successful companies have all three, it just varies how much of each.
When we think about Lean, most of us have this pre-disposed idea about Lean either from a tool or a culture perspective? Can you tie marketing to either or those or both?
The concepts of Design Thinking, Interaction Design and Service Design, puts Customer Empathy in the foremost part of their discipline. This is where many Lean practitioners fail in applying Lean to sales and Marketing. Instead of the concept of Respect for the Customer, they view the Lean Process of removing waste and making a streamlined approached towards the customer as their ultimate goal. The first thing everyone wants to do is Value Stream Map the process to make more efficient, many times at the expense of the customer. I think Sales is meant to be messy. I think we must show respect for our customer and truly understand, demonstrate empathy, respect for the customer and using that old analogy leave the rocks to appear in the stream. I promote effectiveness and efficiency in the practice of SDCA, but not before transitioning from EDCA to PDCA and ultimately SDCA when I can clearly see the rock. That old ERP, USA principle of Understand, Simplify then automate.
Lean is about making things effective and efficient, Sales and Marketing seem to have a lot of areas that Lean could be applied, why do you think it has had limited use?
I want to learn from my customer. I like to think of it as a way of creating and gaining knowledge for the customer and myself. Linear thinking, prescriptive processes, and practices are becoming less successful in today’s world. Instead, we must speculate, experiment and adapt.
Peter Drucker had a catchy statement: “Efficiency is doing things right: effectiveness is doing the right thing.’ If you have enough foresight to know with certainty what the “right thing’ is in advance, then efficiency is a fitting substitution for effectiveness. In the world of Sales and Marketing, however, the correlation between efficiency and effectiveness breaks down.
In General McChrystal’s book Team of Team’s he talks about the task force in Iran. The greatest army in the world with the most sophisticated weaponry and data available could not keep up. The model and leader development process were sorely out of date. He said, “We often demand unrealistic levels of knowledge in leaders and force them into ineffective attempts to micromanage. The temptation to lead as a chess master, controlling each move of the organization, must give way to an approach as a gardener, enabling rather than directing. A gardening approach to leadership is anything but passive. The leader acts as an “Eyes-On, Hands-Off’ enabler who creates and maintains an ecosystem in which the organization operates.”
When we think of Lean and how we empower a line worker… are we doing the same for a sales person? Are we giving them an Andon? Or are we asking them to follow a prescription? Are we showing the same respect…with an Eyes-On, Hands-Off approach?
Respect for People is one of the pillars of Lean or TPS. How is that applied and is it an important concept within the realm of Lean Sales and Marketing?
In my previous thoughts, I think you can see how Respect for People, Respect for Customer, Empathy…play a massive role in how I believe Lean in Sales, in Marketing, should be applied. It does not mean we sit by the phone waiting for it to ring or that you don’t call someone because it is an interruption in their day. It means we respect the fact the customer has a job to get done. And the part job is learning more effective and efficient ways of doing, that’s what we bring to the table. The point is that we need to bring that value, each and every time. However, that value may be relationship building because the simple fact is people buy from people they like; they want to do business with.
My problem is with this linear approach that most “process” people envision or the manipulation of a customer. I think that is a big issue. A linear approach to predict, plan, and proceed down some sales funnel is a dangerous way to advance. This approach prematurely foresees a solution for the customer without ever understanding their needs. Linear planning actually increases the risk for a customer to engage in an inappropriate course of action. It is no more than just a collection of sales activities. Funnels are useful tools to have a conversation about, but the truth is that more and more sales processes are unique to the customer.
The iterative approach is ideal for today cycles, but a linear approach is still trying to be used.
Has Sales and Marketing been receptive to Lean? Is there resistance?
Of course, it has been embraced by the Lean Startup community. They are looking at iterative ways to go about both inbound and outbound marketing. Many in the SaaS community are using these methods, heck they grew up with them We are seeing other traditional companies practicing similar methods in new products and innovation. We are seeing companies that are starting to use the Lean Method of A3s. However, we still see that traditional linear type thinking is trying to be used in introducing Lean to Sales and Marketing. Most of those companies have had terrible results, and most Lean Champions within companies are welcomed by Sales Managers, but the efforts often fizzle out. And the truth is if someone is hitting their numbers, they often left alone. You can tell practically immediately if the company is talking to the customer; they are the expert, versus listening to the customer it will be a failed approach.
How do you introduce Lean Sales and Marketing to an organization? What is your approach?
It really is very similar to how any marketing person or most Lean Consultants go into a situation. You develop a current state. I have become more reliant on using an A3 in the last several years as it provides a little more structure that we can follow, but we might call a One-Page Marketing Plan, I don’t get hung up on terms too much. The process to capture it for a Lean Audience is CAP-Do. We start with Check and Act with an emphasis on Reflection before starting. It is very difficult because in sales and marketing we want to get to that Do stage so quickly. Not much different than a marketing plan where we start with an audit and segmentation before formulating a strategy.
How do you Lean is adding value, do you see more prospects, more revenue? Do you have a before and after snapshot you could share?
Outside of the traditional sense of greater efficiencies and effectiveness through standardization and improvement, I think Lean adds value through the ability to learn at a quicker rate from our customer. If you can do that, you position yourself to win. A good example would be.I will take a non-Lean company maybe to signify that. The transition that Mercedes-Benz just did from Product -Centric to Customer Centric is literally amazing. The efforts that Jason Spiegler is doing down in Charlotte, at CamStar with his Roundtables and knowledge building efforts, on a smaller scale a few SaaS companies that have taken Marketing as a service to another level…Hubspot for example. The underlying thread to all these is that they are qualitative and quantitative methods to understand and learn from their customer at a faster rate..the promise of Lean
Is there a Toyota Way in Sales and Marketing?
Toyota has always had the mysterious Silver Book, and there have been a few books written. I have seen their A3s from the sales and marketing side. They just talked to Eric Ries about the Lean Startup. Toyota via Graham Hill, who was an interim VP of Customer Relationship is where I learned about EDCA – Explore-Do-Check-Act. I think it largely goes unnoticed the application of Lean in sales and marketing. It is just a way of doing things. Also, the tenants of TPS and Ohno was developed in a different era…when we had demand. If you think about those concepts, it was all about demand improving the supply chain. Nowadays, it is little different and that difference can be exemplified the introduction of Lexus that is EDCA. All new dealerships, etc. Mercedes-Benz, for example, re-tooled their old dealerships, PDCA. So, I am not sure that there is a Toyota Way but what there is a culture of learning that is really hard to beat, maybe that is the Toyota Way.
Wrap up Question:
If there is one thing I would leave behind is to remember that PDCA is an iterative process, it is not linear. I actually call it the culture of Lean. That understanding coupled with the thought process that we cannot and should not be trying to manipulate a customer to our way of thinking….it should be an iterative process of knowledge building on each side or maybe it could be summed up with one thought of Respect for Customer.