Making User and Customer Experience a Business Competency
The only question we would ask Mr. Manning in addition to what UX magazine asked is "How to crowd source the user interface design?"
Enjoy!
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
From UX Magazine: Interview with Harley Manning Vice President at Forrester Research about customer and user experience
This interview was not done by us. But we think for our series Conversations, this interview by UX magazine is very relevant and important discussion. UX Magazine interviews Harley Manning Vice President, Customer Experience at Forrester Research at the Forrester Customer Experience Forum
Making User and Customer Experience a Business Competency
The only question we would ask Mr. Manning in addition to what UX magazine asked is "How to crowd source the user interface design?"
Enjoy!
Making User and Customer Experience a Business Competency
The only question we would ask Mr. Manning in addition to what UX magazine asked is "How to crowd source the user interface design?"
Enjoy!
Friday, December 3, 2010
Conversations with Marianne Curran, EVP of Go Daddy, discussing Social Media as a channel to provide Customer Care
As Executive Vice President of Media & Communications for The Go Daddy Group Inc. , a Hawkeye, and a yoga enthusiast, Marianne Curran is responsible for the strategic expansion of Go Daddy’s communication efforts. She oversees Public Relations, Go Daddy Productions and Social Media. She also leads Go Daddy's Culture Team, which ensures that Go Daddy preserves its unique qualities and internal brand.
This interview with Marianne is the ninth in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing and work performance.
RD> Are you a gamer?
MC> I haven't been a 'gamer' since I was a teenager. Back in the day, I enjoyed playing Mario Brothers.
RD> How do you learn?
MC> I'm definitely a visual learner.
RD> At the recent Customer Response Summit, you discussed how your company uses social media to manage customer experience. What led you to take on such an initiative?
MC> It's really Go Daddy's customers who led us into the social media space. A number of years ago, we took notice of many customers discussing Go Daddy and asking questions out in this public space. From years of experience providing the industry's best customer service, with 24/7 telephone and e-mail support, we've learned to make ourselves available in just about any and all of the communication platforms our customers might seek engagement.
RD> What were the unique challenges that social media channels presented that you and your team had to overcome?
MC> There are definitely challenges when communicating through social media. Expectations of real-time responses can be demanding from a resource perspective. To meet this challenge, we expanded our social media team to a "24/7" staff. We also cross train members in other areas where appropriate.
RD> Is Go Daddy focused only in B2B customers or personal websites (which is more consumer)? What % of your outreach are Small-Medium Enterprises v. Large enterprises?
MC> Go Daddy is focused on ALL of our 8.6 million global customers. Each and every one is important to Go Daddy as we want to provide them the tools and support to succeed online, quickly and affordably. A slight majority of Go Daddy customers are Small-Medium enterprises - but we have millions of personal users and large business customers as well.
RD> Do you use social media as a channel for selling (i.e. new customer acquisition) too? What kind of resistance do you see among B2B companies like yours in utilizing social selling?
MC> As the world's largest domain name registrar and top Web hosting provider, Go Daddy uses social media to interact with our customers, fans and followers on many levels. We discuss public relations events, brand initiatives, recruiting information as well as straight marketing promotions such as product discounts. For the most part, our fans and followers have been quite receptive to these types of promotions, which are geared toward them and offer a benefit. Go Daddy closely manages the frequency in which we communicate these types of messages out to our community - we are cognizant of customers' time and do our best each and every day to communicate only what they want to hear.
RD> I think employees, especially younger know how to use the tools faster than others but still do not know how to use the content to their advantage -- that requires critical thinking skills. How do you teach critical thinking skills now? Do you envision using games/simulations to teach employees what to do in this space?
MC> Go Daddy has an experienced, dedicated social media team. They are out there every day communicating with Go Daddy customers and potential customers. Our social media team members were selected because they have a strong knowledge of our company, our products and because they have excellent "people skills." Many of Go Daddy's social media employees have customer service experience from working directly within our highest escalation department, the Office of the President. Our external hires in the social media realm have spent considerable time training with the Office of the President team to build that knowledge.
As far as training our employees, Go Daddy uses a number of methods and is always looking to try out new techniques.
RD> How successful have you been in crowd-sourcing solutions?
MC> Yes, Go Daddy has had success in crowd sourcing. Through our ongoing engagement on social media platforms, we've built relationships over time, which is how crowd sourcing transpires. Go Daddy has a loyal community, which understands and appreciates our best-in-class 24/7-customer support, low prices and top-notch quality products - they love speaking about Go Daddy and we love to hear it!
RD> In your experience what are the key factors that are driving company adoption?
MC> There are a number of factors that help drive company adoption.
First, it is to acknowledge and address any and all service issues that arise. Until you step up and help the customer solve their issue, they simply will not be open to engage with you on any other level.
Second, bi-directional communication is so important - folks do not just want to be talked TO - they like to share and express their opinions as much as they like to hear what's going on around them.
Third, but certainly not least, when Go Daddy communicates with our community, it's around all sorts of topics - a charitable contribution, a business tip from our CEO and Founder Bob Parsons to help an entrepreneur succeed, an order-level discount, news about one of our famous Go Daddy Girls, and so on. In other words, Go Daddy stays open and is actively sharing company information on all sorts of levels.
RD> Thank you for your time Marianne. Good Luck with your strategies.
MC> You are welcome!
This interview with Marianne is the ninth in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing and work performance.
RD> Are you a gamer?
MC> I haven't been a 'gamer' since I was a teenager. Back in the day, I enjoyed playing Mario Brothers.
RD> How do you learn?
MC> I'm definitely a visual learner.
RD> At the recent Customer Response Summit, you discussed how your company uses social media to manage customer experience. What led you to take on such an initiative?
MC> It's really Go Daddy's customers who led us into the social media space. A number of years ago, we took notice of many customers discussing Go Daddy and asking questions out in this public space. From years of experience providing the industry's best customer service, with 24/7 telephone and e-mail support, we've learned to make ourselves available in just about any and all of the communication platforms our customers might seek engagement.
RD> What were the unique challenges that social media channels presented that you and your team had to overcome?
MC> There are definitely challenges when communicating through social media. Expectations of real-time responses can be demanding from a resource perspective. To meet this challenge, we expanded our social media team to a "24/7" staff. We also cross train members in other areas where appropriate.
RD> Is Go Daddy focused only in B2B customers or personal websites (which is more consumer)? What % of your outreach are Small-Medium Enterprises v. Large enterprises?
MC> Go Daddy is focused on ALL of our 8.6 million global customers. Each and every one is important to Go Daddy as we want to provide them the tools and support to succeed online, quickly and affordably. A slight majority of Go Daddy customers are Small-Medium enterprises - but we have millions of personal users and large business customers as well.
RD> Do you use social media as a channel for selling (i.e. new customer acquisition) too? What kind of resistance do you see among B2B companies like yours in utilizing social selling?
MC> As the world's largest domain name registrar and top Web hosting provider, Go Daddy uses social media to interact with our customers, fans and followers on many levels. We discuss public relations events, brand initiatives, recruiting information as well as straight marketing promotions such as product discounts. For the most part, our fans and followers have been quite receptive to these types of promotions, which are geared toward them and offer a benefit. Go Daddy closely manages the frequency in which we communicate these types of messages out to our community - we are cognizant of customers' time and do our best each and every day to communicate only what they want to hear.
RD> I think employees, especially younger know how to use the tools faster than others but still do not know how to use the content to their advantage -- that requires critical thinking skills. How do you teach critical thinking skills now? Do you envision using games/simulations to teach employees what to do in this space?
MC> Go Daddy has an experienced, dedicated social media team. They are out there every day communicating with Go Daddy customers and potential customers. Our social media team members were selected because they have a strong knowledge of our company, our products and because they have excellent "people skills." Many of Go Daddy's social media employees have customer service experience from working directly within our highest escalation department, the Office of the President. Our external hires in the social media realm have spent considerable time training with the Office of the President team to build that knowledge.
As far as training our employees, Go Daddy uses a number of methods and is always looking to try out new techniques.
RD> How successful have you been in crowd-sourcing solutions?
MC> Yes, Go Daddy has had success in crowd sourcing. Through our ongoing engagement on social media platforms, we've built relationships over time, which is how crowd sourcing transpires. Go Daddy has a loyal community, which understands and appreciates our best-in-class 24/7-customer support, low prices and top-notch quality products - they love speaking about Go Daddy and we love to hear it!
RD> In your experience what are the key factors that are driving company adoption?
MC> There are a number of factors that help drive company adoption.
First, it is to acknowledge and address any and all service issues that arise. Until you step up and help the customer solve their issue, they simply will not be open to engage with you on any other level.
Second, bi-directional communication is so important - folks do not just want to be talked TO - they like to share and express their opinions as much as they like to hear what's going on around them.
Third, but certainly not least, when Go Daddy communicates with our community, it's around all sorts of topics - a charitable contribution, a business tip from our CEO and Founder Bob Parsons to help an entrepreneur succeed, an order-level discount, news about one of our famous Go Daddy Girls, and so on. In other words, Go Daddy stays open and is actively sharing company information on all sorts of levels.
RD> Thank you for your time Marianne. Good Luck with your strategies.
MC> You are welcome!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
In the "Instant" world of "Push" Technology how long is 4 minutes?
Question: In the "Instant" world of "Push" Technology to upgrade web solutions, how long is 4 minutes to a user?
The answer: Per minute delay in instant connect, increases the probability of losing a sale (a customer) or disengaging an employee by 5%.
First, a disclaimer, our company blog is not a bully pulpit to bring personal gripes. This is a case study that I share in order to help us and our readers learn about critical thinking skills, crowd-sourcing, social media and customer service.
We are a remarkable learning SaaS company. We consider ourselves small, but innovative and agile and have maturity to listen and address prospect/customer's needs. So! what will happen 5 years from now, when we have grown and introduced the complexity and structure? Will that not bring down the level of innovation and agility to meet our customer's needs?
When people ask me, "what keeps you awake at night?" I can safely say, this scenario of impending downside of growth keeps me awake at night.
Why does this scenario keep me awake at night?
Let me share an example of a Great Company where some of my good friends have worked and some continue to work. It is a company whose innovation, business model and spirit of agility were something I admired and emulated for PAKRA --- that Great Company also happens to be a key technology provider for us. Their once innovative technology helps our company reach out globally, conduct meetings both internal with our employees and partners and is the place where every potential buyer experiences our products for the first time. In other words, this service provider is as valuable as fuel, electricity and water for our existence. Using their products, we do 100% of our sales and almost all our staff and internal meetings.
This past Monday, they launched and delivered their new upgrade on client-user instance via push technology (browser and O/S agnostic). This upgrade was supposed to bring some delightful array of features (which frankly we did not ask for). By their own estimates (and verified separately by three unrelated individuals) "it can take on average 4 minutes on a reasonable connection for a participant to download this upgrade on their side before they can connect".
This push upgrade brought our lives to a standstill.
After 24 hours of my first tweet (I heard from a conference speaker about their great use of social media to drive customer care) and retweets of other users, I finally heard from them and then it took another hour and half for them to call me.
Then the situation of mitigation became more frustrating.
The customer service representative who finally called seemed to be in a hurry and with a non-empathetic voice wanted to determine the root cause. In summary: why our customers are concerned about on average 4-minute delay; if it was a user related error i.e. us.
This is why?
"All participants over 6 meetings with innumerable O/S and browsers and their versions, from different parts of the world(India, US, Canada, UK) had problems connecting from 3 minutes to 20 minutes. Let me explain, it takes me weeks to coordinate a prospect company to get their team to agree to a 20-30 minutes meeting and coordinate their calendars to find a date and time. Let's say there are 1 to 5 participants and the last person -- the Boss Man joins and starts the process 5 minutes past the scheduled meeting time. Now we are theoretically into a wait of 9 minutes of a potential 20-minutes sales call. We are not even going bring in the statistic of variation, where in one case, one person could not connect over 20 minutes. We just lost a sell. Now do you see the problem?"
When we operate in the world where instant meeting connect means "instant". That 9 minutes just decreased our chance to win our prospect by 45%. Most of our meetings got rescheduled which given the timing of the year, meant delayed the sales cycle by additional 60 days. That's how long 4 minutes is.
What do we learn at PAKRA from this experience – because this can happen to our customers, as we grow?
First lesson:
If at any time, our developers tell me to push a new upgrade to all our customers, and in testing it shows that it will take the user X minutes wait time before they can use the product, I say, "No Go forward".
Second lesson:
Teach our customer service agents, critical thinking skills when discussing with the customer (our brand after all).
For example, teach the necessary skills to the customer service agents, such that they never say things such as -- (These are paraphrased quotes.)
(i) "Oh I am so sorry your customers are not nice to you."
(ii) "Ma'am, your participants delayed in joining -- we cannot be responsible for their actions."
(ii) "Oh! we are giving such a better interface. This is only one-time interface download. Upgrades are free. so! this should be only a minor frustration."
(iii) "How is a few minutes delay an issue?"
Third Lesson:
Teach all employees to understand
-- the impact on the customer when our product and services fail to meet the "must-have" and "more-is-better" Kano features of our products.
-- how the customer uses our products and how they get value out of them.
-- the value our company provides to our customers.
Fourth lesson:
Have 24X7 coverage to listen-in, since social media is the most important channel for us to listen-in.
Fifth lesson:
We must provide influence-capital to the employees who engage in social-media channels with our customers. The agents servicing this channel of in/outbound listening are typically handling situations where "must-have" needs of customers are not being met. Those inquiries require special skilled people not your "let me see which browser you are using M'aam?" problem solvers.
OK! Now I feel relieved, we are just beginning to define a plan to prevent and mitigate issues as they emerge while our company grows.
As I still feel loyal to my friends at this Great Company and I have no guarantee that other providers would not have lost their vision, their strength like Great Company has, I will not cancel our subscription yet. Plus, they said it will take 48 hours while they petition their Bosses, whether our company's account can be locked to past version such that no one invited to participate in our meeting ever has a 4 minute delay, --- I am dying with curiosity and want to see how this plays out.
Meanwhile, we have a company-wide moratorium to use our key provider's products for 2 days -- because we are loyal but not stupid.
Few days from now, on our blog, you will read a fabulous case study of another company that has figured out how to use social media channels to implement a great customer-care and customer acquisition.
The answer: Per minute delay in instant connect, increases the probability of losing a sale (a customer) or disengaging an employee by 5%.
First, a disclaimer, our company blog is not a bully pulpit to bring personal gripes. This is a case study that I share in order to help us and our readers learn about critical thinking skills, crowd-sourcing, social media and customer service.
We are a remarkable learning SaaS company. We consider ourselves small, but innovative and agile and have maturity to listen and address prospect/customer's needs. So! what will happen 5 years from now, when we have grown and introduced the complexity and structure? Will that not bring down the level of innovation and agility to meet our customer's needs?
When people ask me, "what keeps you awake at night?" I can safely say, this scenario of impending downside of growth keeps me awake at night.
Why does this scenario keep me awake at night?
Let me share an example of a Great Company where some of my good friends have worked and some continue to work. It is a company whose innovation, business model and spirit of agility were something I admired and emulated for PAKRA --- that Great Company also happens to be a key technology provider for us. Their once innovative technology helps our company reach out globally, conduct meetings both internal with our employees and partners and is the place where every potential buyer experiences our products for the first time. In other words, this service provider is as valuable as fuel, electricity and water for our existence. Using their products, we do 100% of our sales and almost all our staff and internal meetings.
This past Monday, they launched and delivered their new upgrade on client-user instance via push technology (browser and O/S agnostic). This upgrade was supposed to bring some delightful array of features (which frankly we did not ask for). By their own estimates (and verified separately by three unrelated individuals) "it can take on average 4 minutes on a reasonable connection for a participant to download this upgrade on their side before they can connect".
This push upgrade brought our lives to a standstill.
After 24 hours of my first tweet (I heard from a conference speaker about their great use of social media to drive customer care) and retweets of other users, I finally heard from them and then it took another hour and half for them to call me.
Then the situation of mitigation became more frustrating.
The customer service representative who finally called seemed to be in a hurry and with a non-empathetic voice wanted to determine the root cause. In summary: why our customers are concerned about on average 4-minute delay; if it was a user related error i.e. us.
This is why?
"All participants over 6 meetings with innumerable O/S and browsers and their versions, from different parts of the world(India, US, Canada, UK) had problems connecting from 3 minutes to 20 minutes. Let me explain, it takes me weeks to coordinate a prospect company to get their team to agree to a 20-30 minutes meeting and coordinate their calendars to find a date and time. Let's say there are 1 to 5 participants and the last person -- the Boss Man joins and starts the process 5 minutes past the scheduled meeting time. Now we are theoretically into a wait of 9 minutes of a potential 20-minutes sales call. We are not even going bring in the statistic of variation, where in one case, one person could not connect over 20 minutes. We just lost a sell. Now do you see the problem?"
When we operate in the world where instant meeting connect means "instant". That 9 minutes just decreased our chance to win our prospect by 45%. Most of our meetings got rescheduled which given the timing of the year, meant delayed the sales cycle by additional 60 days. That's how long 4 minutes is.
What do we learn at PAKRA from this experience – because this can happen to our customers, as we grow?
First lesson:
If at any time, our developers tell me to push a new upgrade to all our customers, and in testing it shows that it will take the user X minutes wait time before they can use the product, I say, "No Go forward".
Second lesson:
Teach our customer service agents, critical thinking skills when discussing with the customer (our brand after all).
For example, teach the necessary skills to the customer service agents, such that they never say things such as -- (These are paraphrased quotes.)
(i) "Oh I am so sorry your customers are not nice to you."
(ii) "Ma'am, your participants delayed in joining -- we cannot be responsible for their actions."
(ii) "Oh! we are giving such a better interface. This is only one-time interface download. Upgrades are free. so! this should be only a minor frustration."
(iii) "How is a few minutes delay an issue?"
Third Lesson:
Teach all employees to understand
-- the impact on the customer when our product and services fail to meet the "must-have" and "more-is-better" Kano features of our products.
-- how the customer uses our products and how they get value out of them.
-- the value our company provides to our customers.
Fourth lesson:
Have 24X7 coverage to listen-in, since social media is the most important channel for us to listen-in.
Fifth lesson:
We must provide influence-capital to the employees who engage in social-media channels with our customers. The agents servicing this channel of in/outbound listening are typically handling situations where "must-have" needs of customers are not being met. Those inquiries require special skilled people not your "let me see which browser you are using M'aam?" problem solvers.
OK! Now I feel relieved, we are just beginning to define a plan to prevent and mitigate issues as they emerge while our company grows.
As I still feel loyal to my friends at this Great Company and I have no guarantee that other providers would not have lost their vision, their strength like Great Company has, I will not cancel our subscription yet. Plus, they said it will take 48 hours while they petition their Bosses, whether our company's account can be locked to past version such that no one invited to participate in our meeting ever has a 4 minute delay, --- I am dying with curiosity and want to see how this plays out.
Meanwhile, we have a company-wide moratorium to use our key provider's products for 2 days -- because we are loyal but not stupid.
Few days from now, on our blog, you will read a fabulous case study of another company that has figured out how to use social media channels to implement a great customer-care and customer acquisition.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Conversations with Jill Konrath, a sales thought-leader, author of best-selling books and avid Gamer -- Part III
As an author of several best-selling books such as SNAP Selling (#1 Amazon sales books) and Selling to Big Companies (Amazon Top25 sales book since 2006) , founder of the Sales SheBang and a premier thought-leader for building high-performing sales teams, Jill Konrath brings passion and well-articulated wisdom daily to deliver results to her vast and diverse group of clients.
… Continued from Part II
RD> Do you envision that salespeople have to be trained and coached differently to meet the needs of today's crazy-busy buyer?
JK> Look at the current buyer: The amount of information they're exposed to daily through all their "devices" impacts their ability to think and pay attention. They are easily distracted. They clearly have a “net it out” mentality. And, they get quickly overwhelmed with what’s on their plate to do.
A salesperson has to change their message and how they communicate with these people. Buyers listen to voice-mails with a finger on the Delete button. If a salesperson cannot sustain their interest, they'll get deleted immediately. With email, ExactTarget stated that the average person makes a decision to delete/read/forward the message in 2.7 seconds.
These facts force a rethinking of what it means to be successful to sell. In last year, a recent survey 49% of salespersons did not meet their sales quota. What do sales leaders to react to the decline last year? They raise the quota, so now 2010 will be even worse. They don't invest in the salespeople so they can learn to work differently. Instead they just cut the training budget to save money.
RD> Do you think the lack of investment in skills training is due to spending more in technology?
JK> They cut training when they get scared. Instead of figuring out what they can do differently, sales leaders go to an activity-driven work habit. Let’s do more of these sales calls and increase the pipeline instead of targeting more their efforts. They don't spend enough on appropriate technology and training to enable the best results.
The truth of the matter is that I think the training providers themselves are part of the issue for less spend. Budgets allocation is based on real ROI measures. Most training companies provide event-based training and convince sales leaders every few years to do the customer-centric selling or solutions-based selling or some such acronym based training methods.
The sales leaders in turn forget to focus in what helps them manage sales end-to-end from lead generation to contracts to up-selling. And worse, both providers and sales leaders never link the training investment to actual sales. There is little to no learning community to extract the tribal knowledge within an organization. There is very little tracking of sales coaching that is linked to again sales effectiveness.
Having said this, I think companies are realizing this and are forming sales enablement teams where they are determining a framework on that best helps the salesperson integrate their sales conversations and manage the tribal knowledge. Bottom-line is that sales leaders have to stop treating all issues as special causes and stop reverting back to activity based life (checking the box) whenever crisis hits.
RD>Well! [Chuckles] Thank you for endorsing our differentiator. I seldom plug our company in these interviews, but that’s what our software platform does i.e. give on-demand real time linkage and ROI to sales leaders, so they can effectively manage the entire buyer cycle and skills sets of salespeople that meet the buyer’s needs. We care about performance goals and not just learning goals.
RD> What do you think about the using social media tools and its current utilization?
JK> Right now, I am seeing a great seduction of the tools. There are many tools that capture all information about the buyer and that information can be very useful. There is good stuff available and the tools are a very cool aid to prepare for the sales calls.
However, the most important thing is the relevance of the information and how we use it on sales calls. On my website, I have information about my cat. So many people call me and say, “I saw on your website that you have a cat named Cali.” How is that relevant to our conversation?
This comes down to the critical thinking skills – or lack of them. They're not thinking about how to best use all the information that's available. I think this needs to be taught, or else the tools itself becomes ineffective in delivering results. For example, if I see on your website, that you are Lean Six Sigma person, then as a person selling to you, if I can integrate that information while selling to you, you will be more likely to listen to me. The value of the information needs to be appropriately leveraged.
RD> We are actually considering building some games that teach sales and service professional how to filter and use social media information that is relevant to the buyer or customer.
JK> Great idea.
RD> Not to switch the conversation, before we end, I wanted to ask you about your SalesShebang.com website. Tell me more about it and how it got started.
JK> Sales SheBang started when media folks contacted me and would always express “Oh! It is so nice to find a woman sales expert who can talk about sales strategy – and not just the soft stuff like networking and communications.” And I would always respond, there are tons of women sales experts out there that you should talk too – and I'd give them names.
Then I decided that I should bring these experts together and share our wisdom via a website and conference. The best part was having the extraordinary talented people like Anneke Seley , Anne Miller come together and send our message to more talented women salespeople whose ideas are under-leveraged.
RD> One last question, what do you see as trends in B2B sales process?
JK> I think that buyers will be harder and harder to reach. They will have more expectations from salespeople than ever before – and will choose to work with the ones who have good solid creative and critical thinking skills. Sellers who are proficient in this area will excel. I also see the increase use of technology to learn more about customers more quickly. And, I think you'll see companies doing much more online to attract prospects into "their world," then educating them as they're trying to make good decisions for their firm.
RD> Thank you Jill. This was a fabulous learning time for me.
JK> Truly my pleasure. Let's keep in touch so we can continue conversation.
… Continued from Part II
RD> Do you envision that salespeople have to be trained and coached differently to meet the needs of today's crazy-busy buyer?
JK> Look at the current buyer: The amount of information they're exposed to daily through all their "devices" impacts their ability to think and pay attention. They are easily distracted. They clearly have a “net it out” mentality. And, they get quickly overwhelmed with what’s on their plate to do.
A salesperson has to change their message and how they communicate with these people. Buyers listen to voice-mails with a finger on the Delete button. If a salesperson cannot sustain their interest, they'll get deleted immediately. With email, ExactTarget stated that the average person makes a decision to delete/read/forward the message in 2.7 seconds.
These facts force a rethinking of what it means to be successful to sell. In last year, a recent survey 49% of salespersons did not meet their sales quota. What do sales leaders to react to the decline last year? They raise the quota, so now 2010 will be even worse. They don't invest in the salespeople so they can learn to work differently. Instead they just cut the training budget to save money.
RD> Do you think the lack of investment in skills training is due to spending more in technology?
JK> They cut training when they get scared. Instead of figuring out what they can do differently, sales leaders go to an activity-driven work habit. Let’s do more of these sales calls and increase the pipeline instead of targeting more their efforts. They don't spend enough on appropriate technology and training to enable the best results.
The truth of the matter is that I think the training providers themselves are part of the issue for less spend. Budgets allocation is based on real ROI measures. Most training companies provide event-based training and convince sales leaders every few years to do the customer-centric selling or solutions-based selling or some such acronym based training methods.
The sales leaders in turn forget to focus in what helps them manage sales end-to-end from lead generation to contracts to up-selling. And worse, both providers and sales leaders never link the training investment to actual sales. There is little to no learning community to extract the tribal knowledge within an organization. There is very little tracking of sales coaching that is linked to again sales effectiveness.
Having said this, I think companies are realizing this and are forming sales enablement teams where they are determining a framework on that best helps the salesperson integrate their sales conversations and manage the tribal knowledge. Bottom-line is that sales leaders have to stop treating all issues as special causes and stop reverting back to activity based life (checking the box) whenever crisis hits.
RD>Well! [Chuckles] Thank you for endorsing our differentiator. I seldom plug our company in these interviews, but that’s what our software platform does i.e. give on-demand real time linkage and ROI to sales leaders, so they can effectively manage the entire buyer cycle and skills sets of salespeople that meet the buyer’s needs. We care about performance goals and not just learning goals.
RD> What do you think about the using social media tools and its current utilization?
JK> Right now, I am seeing a great seduction of the tools. There are many tools that capture all information about the buyer and that information can be very useful. There is good stuff available and the tools are a very cool aid to prepare for the sales calls.
However, the most important thing is the relevance of the information and how we use it on sales calls. On my website, I have information about my cat. So many people call me and say, “I saw on your website that you have a cat named Cali.” How is that relevant to our conversation?
This comes down to the critical thinking skills – or lack of them. They're not thinking about how to best use all the information that's available. I think this needs to be taught, or else the tools itself becomes ineffective in delivering results. For example, if I see on your website, that you are Lean Six Sigma person, then as a person selling to you, if I can integrate that information while selling to you, you will be more likely to listen to me. The value of the information needs to be appropriately leveraged.
RD> We are actually considering building some games that teach sales and service professional how to filter and use social media information that is relevant to the buyer or customer.
JK> Great idea.
RD> Not to switch the conversation, before we end, I wanted to ask you about your SalesShebang.com website. Tell me more about it and how it got started.
JK> Sales SheBang started when media folks contacted me and would always express “Oh! It is so nice to find a woman sales expert who can talk about sales strategy – and not just the soft stuff like networking and communications.” And I would always respond, there are tons of women sales experts out there that you should talk too – and I'd give them names.
Then I decided that I should bring these experts together and share our wisdom via a website and conference. The best part was having the extraordinary talented people like Anneke Seley , Anne Miller come together and send our message to more talented women salespeople whose ideas are under-leveraged.
RD> One last question, what do you see as trends in B2B sales process?
JK> I think that buyers will be harder and harder to reach. They will have more expectations from salespeople than ever before – and will choose to work with the ones who have good solid creative and critical thinking skills. Sellers who are proficient in this area will excel. I also see the increase use of technology to learn more about customers more quickly. And, I think you'll see companies doing much more online to attract prospects into "their world," then educating them as they're trying to make good decisions for their firm.
RD> Thank you Jill. This was a fabulous learning time for me.
JK> Truly my pleasure. Let's keep in touch so we can continue conversation.
Conversations with Jill Konrath, a sales thought-leader, author of best-selling books and avid Gamer -- Part II
As an author of several best-selling books such as SNAP Selling (#1 Amazon sales books) and Selling to Big Companies (Amazon Top25 sales book since 2006) , founder of the Sales SheBang and a premier thought-leader for building high-performing sales teams, Jill Konrath brings passion and well-articulated wisdom daily to deliver results to her vast and diverse group of clients.
… Continued from Part I
RD> Your website and our website are probably the only ones that talk about critical-thinking skills for sales professionals. What is your definition of critical-thinking skills?
JK> When I started doing sales, charisma and networking skills were considered as salesperson’s key assets. Also, they needed to have strong product knowledge because it was their responsibility to convey all that knowledge to their customers.
Nowadays all that's available online ⎯ Prospects can go to a vendor’s website or do a Google search and find everything they need. They don't need salespeople for that function. Nor do they have time to meet with a chit-chatty salesperson.
Today the salesperson who wins is the one who is a problem-solvers for his/her clients and who uses critical-thinking skills where she/he can synthesize, curate and dispense vast quantities of information to the client.
This salesperson also needs creative thinking skills by which they are seen as “idea people” who can deliver results for the buyer. Both these skills (creative-thinking and critical-thinking) help them successfully provide the insights on the value of changing from the status quo – and how to do it most easily. This kind of thinking is invaluable to today's crazy-busy buyers.
RD> Are you seeing that many sales managers seeing these two skills as an asset for a salesperson?
JK> I would say, I see it as emerging awareness among sales managers. I don't see it though in middle market and small businesses. In that size company, there's the still the perception that a salesperson needs to be a fearless hunter – who will open the doors. Of course, these businesses struggle because they tell their salespeople to “go get the meat we are starving here.”
On the other hand, larger sales organizations are devoting more time to training salesperson to manage complex situations. They are business savvy and people savvy at the same time. They can navigate these complex buying-cycles.
Recently I was reading the book on successful leaders called Multipliers. In it, the authors Liz Wiseman with Greg McKeown mentions that one factor emerged as the biggest differentiator among successful versus average leaders.
What was it? “Intellectual curiosity”. Those who were intellectually curious and actively listened were able to motivate and facilitate internal discussions with “what if” and “how will” questions that led to multiplying the effect of the results.
RD> It is interesting you said that, I read about an year ago, an interview of Orit Gadiesh, the CEO of Bain Consulting with Harvard Business Review, where she says that, curiosity is what made her successful.
JK> That’s wonderful. I think that “intellectual curiosity” is a soft-skill asset for salespeople. Because if they can provide prospective buyers with new insights, share how other companies are solving problems – they are more likely to make a sale. The salesperson that is curious will step beyond the “old” skills and learn how-to use information to guide the buyer.
The old requirements of a salesperson’s skills are on a quick decline. However, there are many sales leaders who are holding on to that definition, in fact clinging to it. But they will not be able to deal with the new realities. I don't mean to be demeaning about the Sales Gurus of yesterday who still promoting these "old school" skills. Their wisdom was very effective twenty or thirty years ago. But with the advent of the internet and having “crazy busy people” as buyers, their strategies do not work any more.
Salespeople have to become more creative. When my daughter was younger, I coached her Destination Imagination creative-thinking team. I spent a lot of time studying how to help the kids be more creative.
One thing I learned that really stuck out was this: The only difference between people who were creative versus those who weren't was how their perceived themselves. Nothing else. If they thought they were creative, they were. If they didn't think they were creative, they weren't. It was the only variable.
So when sales leaders are asked to train their salespeople to critically think and be creative, it's hard for them to do if they don't see themselves that way. It becomes this vicious cycle. They do not want to experiment. They want binary “right or wrong”. They do not know how to deal with the continuum of possibilities i.e. degree of effectiveness. They are not curious about things like:
− “How can I make it more effective?”
− “What else can we do to make the client excited?”
− “How can we make this interaction where an objection not flare up?”
This lack of curiosity and creativity leads to average or low-performing sales teams. But those who can teach their salespeople these skills will have enormous success.
… To be Continued
… Continued from Part I
RD> Your website and our website are probably the only ones that talk about critical-thinking skills for sales professionals. What is your definition of critical-thinking skills?
JK> When I started doing sales, charisma and networking skills were considered as salesperson’s key assets. Also, they needed to have strong product knowledge because it was their responsibility to convey all that knowledge to their customers.
Nowadays all that's available online ⎯ Prospects can go to a vendor’s website or do a Google search and find everything they need. They don't need salespeople for that function. Nor do they have time to meet with a chit-chatty salesperson.
Today the salesperson who wins is the one who is a problem-solvers for his/her clients and who uses critical-thinking skills where she/he can synthesize, curate and dispense vast quantities of information to the client.
This salesperson also needs creative thinking skills by which they are seen as “idea people” who can deliver results for the buyer. Both these skills (creative-thinking and critical-thinking) help them successfully provide the insights on the value of changing from the status quo – and how to do it most easily. This kind of thinking is invaluable to today's crazy-busy buyers.
RD> Are you seeing that many sales managers seeing these two skills as an asset for a salesperson?
JK> I would say, I see it as emerging awareness among sales managers. I don't see it though in middle market and small businesses. In that size company, there's the still the perception that a salesperson needs to be a fearless hunter – who will open the doors. Of course, these businesses struggle because they tell their salespeople to “go get the meat we are starving here.”
On the other hand, larger sales organizations are devoting more time to training salesperson to manage complex situations. They are business savvy and people savvy at the same time. They can navigate these complex buying-cycles.
Recently I was reading the book on successful leaders called Multipliers. In it, the authors Liz Wiseman with Greg McKeown mentions that one factor emerged as the biggest differentiator among successful versus average leaders.
What was it? “Intellectual curiosity”. Those who were intellectually curious and actively listened were able to motivate and facilitate internal discussions with “what if” and “how will” questions that led to multiplying the effect of the results.
RD> It is interesting you said that, I read about an year ago, an interview of Orit Gadiesh, the CEO of Bain Consulting with Harvard Business Review, where she says that, curiosity is what made her successful.
JK> That’s wonderful. I think that “intellectual curiosity” is a soft-skill asset for salespeople. Because if they can provide prospective buyers with new insights, share how other companies are solving problems – they are more likely to make a sale. The salesperson that is curious will step beyond the “old” skills and learn how-to use information to guide the buyer.
The old requirements of a salesperson’s skills are on a quick decline. However, there are many sales leaders who are holding on to that definition, in fact clinging to it. But they will not be able to deal with the new realities. I don't mean to be demeaning about the Sales Gurus of yesterday who still promoting these "old school" skills. Their wisdom was very effective twenty or thirty years ago. But with the advent of the internet and having “crazy busy people” as buyers, their strategies do not work any more.
Salespeople have to become more creative. When my daughter was younger, I coached her Destination Imagination creative-thinking team. I spent a lot of time studying how to help the kids be more creative.
One thing I learned that really stuck out was this: The only difference between people who were creative versus those who weren't was how their perceived themselves. Nothing else. If they thought they were creative, they were. If they didn't think they were creative, they weren't. It was the only variable.
So when sales leaders are asked to train their salespeople to critically think and be creative, it's hard for them to do if they don't see themselves that way. It becomes this vicious cycle. They do not want to experiment. They want binary “right or wrong”. They do not know how to deal with the continuum of possibilities i.e. degree of effectiveness. They are not curious about things like:
− “How can I make it more effective?”
− “What else can we do to make the client excited?”
− “How can we make this interaction where an objection not flare up?”
This lack of curiosity and creativity leads to average or low-performing sales teams. But those who can teach their salespeople these skills will have enormous success.
… To be Continued
Conversations with Jill Konrath, a sales thought-leader, author of best-selling books and avid Gamer -- Part I
As an author of several best-selling books such as SNAP Selling (#1 Amazon sales books) and Selling to Big Companies (Amazon Top25 sales book since 2006) , founder of the Sales SheBang and a premier thought-leader for building high-performing sales teams, Jill Konrath brings passion and well-articulated wisdom daily to deliver results to her vast and diverse group of clients.
This interview with Jill is the seventh in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing and work performance.
RD> The first question for you, are you a gamer?
JK> I am a gamer. My favourite games right now are word games. I have addictive crossword puzzle syndrome and start every morning with the New York Times crossword. I especially like the Thursday, Friday and Saturday ones which are much harder than the ones earlier in the week. As I've done more writing, word games have helped me learn and write better. I also recognize that Games and Business go hand–in-hand and I love solving problems, so yes! I am gamer.
RD> How do you learn?
JK> First and foremost, I learn by reading. When I'm interested in a topic, I do an immersion in it and read everything that is out there. As I read, I look for emerging patterns and start determining what is effective and what is not.
I want to first learn from the Masters and get a comprehensive picture. Then I start experimenting with different approaches and strategies till I ultimately figure the puzzle out. That’s where “learning by doing” comes into play. When I first got into sales at Xerox, I followed the exact same learning path I just described.
RD> I find that our age-cohort, you and I acquire information and learn very differently from the under-40 generation. Do you agree? What are the differences and similarities you see among those getting into sales profession now versus when we got into our careers?
JK> I am not sure if age plays a role. I think we have adapted to new way of acquiring information (which is not age-dependent). We have become scanners online till something attracts our attention. However, the content summary has to first wet our appetite in small chunks before we pay attention. This is very different to what probably you and I did twenty years ago.
I think people learn differently. My daughter learns via reading and can assimilate and process information and learn by reading just like you and me. My son loves physical learning and being in aviation he learns via simulators.
However both are not afraid of failing and they like failing fast. Our age group probably is more afraid of failing and will spend endless hours to get to the right answer.
For example, the younger generation will crash few planes on the flight simulator and then learn quickly to make correct landings. If I played flight simulator, I would do everything I could to get it right the first time.
Younger people will experiment more and they will say “Oh! That’s ok – I blew that light on the runway and I will do it again and I will correct it.” Whereas I will sit there thinking ‘Gosh I don’t want to blow it. I don’t want to fail.” I did the same when I played PAKRA Games.
… To Be Continued
This interview with Jill is the seventh in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing and work performance.
RD> The first question for you, are you a gamer?
JK> I am a gamer. My favourite games right now are word games. I have addictive crossword puzzle syndrome and start every morning with the New York Times crossword. I especially like the Thursday, Friday and Saturday ones which are much harder than the ones earlier in the week. As I've done more writing, word games have helped me learn and write better. I also recognize that Games and Business go hand–in-hand and I love solving problems, so yes! I am gamer.
RD> How do you learn?
JK> First and foremost, I learn by reading. When I'm interested in a topic, I do an immersion in it and read everything that is out there. As I read, I look for emerging patterns and start determining what is effective and what is not.
I want to first learn from the Masters and get a comprehensive picture. Then I start experimenting with different approaches and strategies till I ultimately figure the puzzle out. That’s where “learning by doing” comes into play. When I first got into sales at Xerox, I followed the exact same learning path I just described.
RD> I find that our age-cohort, you and I acquire information and learn very differently from the under-40 generation. Do you agree? What are the differences and similarities you see among those getting into sales profession now versus when we got into our careers?
JK> I am not sure if age plays a role. I think we have adapted to new way of acquiring information (which is not age-dependent). We have become scanners online till something attracts our attention. However, the content summary has to first wet our appetite in small chunks before we pay attention. This is very different to what probably you and I did twenty years ago.
I think people learn differently. My daughter learns via reading and can assimilate and process information and learn by reading just like you and me. My son loves physical learning and being in aviation he learns via simulators.
However both are not afraid of failing and they like failing fast. Our age group probably is more afraid of failing and will spend endless hours to get to the right answer.
For example, the younger generation will crash few planes on the flight simulator and then learn quickly to make correct landings. If I played flight simulator, I would do everything I could to get it right the first time.
Younger people will experiment more and they will say “Oh! That’s ok – I blew that light on the runway and I will do it again and I will correct it.” Whereas I will sit there thinking ‘Gosh I don’t want to blow it. I don’t want to fail.” I did the same when I played PAKRA Games.
… To Be Continued
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Conversations with Bill Forquer an entrepreneur, strategy consultant and a soap-box derby enthusiast -- Part II
As an entrepreneur, angel investor, executive leader, and soap-box derby enthusiast, Bill Forquer delivers strategic consulting using game-theoretic modeling that produces roadmaps for C-level executives on their best strategic moves that will preempt market changes and mitigate competitive responses. He is out there preaching the virtues of game theory every day.
... Continued from Part I
RD> Tell me more how these game theory models actually get used.
BF> Through a series of surveys and workshops given to the executives and thought leaders of our client, we extract the three components required in a game model . First, is the “who” ─ the players in the game. These are current and future competitors, partners, regulators, and any stakeholder that can affect the outcome. Second, is the “what” ─ what strategic options are available to each player. Third, we capture the interests of each player. What is a player trying to accomplish? The discussion around this third part is quite revealing because we codify all the players interests using a game theory construct called “preference trees”. A preference tree is a stack-rank list of all the options of all the players from most important to least important. Each participant role plays being a player in the game to construct that preference tree. The preference tree expresses the importance of each option either positively or negatively. That is, a player desires an option to occur, or fears that an option will occur. Priiva takes these inputs, goes away, runs all our mathematical models, and returns to the client with analysis and predictions.
RD> Then what happens?
BF> The analysis and predictions drive the strategic actions that need to be taken. Metaphors often emerge that help communicate that strategic plan. For example, “a rising tide” might describe an immature market where all the players benefit from a technological breakthrough by any of the players. At the end of the workshop, the client is left with contingent scenarios, has a deeper understanding of their market, and is well prepared when big headline events actually occur ─ like a competitor announcing an acquisition, a government scandal that triggers economic turmoil, or new regulatory surcharges on product shipments.
RD> Are these preference trees a proxy for risk tolerance of a competitor’s management team, and not just a proxy for preferences? If yes, do you think it creates a data collection bias because the participant in the room will probably bring in their personal risk tolerance and preferences while role-playing Player X? If no, how do you elicit those “real” risk preferences of Player X?
BF> Yes, it is a proxy for risk tolerance as well. We attempt to eliminate personal bias by confirming each preference tree with group thinking. We also re-run our models tweaking key assumptions. In terms of the risk tolerance of competitors, that comes out in the role-play as the participants need to really understand what makes Player X tick, including their risk tolerance. The team needs to learn everything they can about Player X ─ their personality, their history, where their leadership team trained, the tenure of their CEO, their ownership structure, their swagger (or lack thereof) at investor meeting events, their words, their play, and every piece of information we and the client can get on that player.
RD> How do you drive consensus?
BF> Sticking with our Player X example, a small team would be assigned to role-play Player X, use all the available information, and construct the preference tree. Then that team would appear before the entire group and defend their tree by stating the behavior profile for Player X. This leads to a great discussion, and often the original preference tree is changed. Once the preference tree is agreed to for Player X, we will inspect where Player X’s own options are in the stack-ranking of all options. If a player’s own options are at the top of its own tree, that is an indicator the player is aggressive and will act without fear or consequence from others. Conversely, when Player X’s own options are well down in the ranking it means Player X is more sensitive to the actions of others before initiating their own actions. The models can be run few times on our system – in order to take away disagreements and give a more definitive answer. Insights are the value we provide.
RD> Because your insights are only as good as the information you and the participants bring to the table, do you see games and simulations fitting into your workshops? And do you think there is value in redirecting play online where you could create additional simulations, involve more participants, avoid “GroupThink” issues, or facilitate better decisions?
BF> Today, we use our proprietary software to facilitate the discussion we are leading. But we do not install, teach, nor provide software for clients to use. Starting in 2011, we will have the option to leave the facilitation software tool with the client so they can spark additional discussion on their own. The question about a crowd-sourced simulation model and service is an interesting one. I can envision a cloud service of hand-picked or anonymous participants simulating a game model, and creating a piece of publishable research that Priiva would monetize. Right now, we do not have that in our plans, but we are not ruling it out.
RD> Thank you Bill. It has been most lovely to hear that you and Priiva have monetized game theory and strategic decision-making, something I intensely dabbled with in my past life. Wish you all the best with increasing your client base.
BF> Its rewarding to help companies learn to make better strategic decisions. Thanks for listening.
... Continued from Part I
RD> Tell me more how these game theory models actually get used.
BF> Through a series of surveys and workshops given to the executives and thought leaders of our client, we extract the three components required in a game model . First, is the “who” ─ the players in the game. These are current and future competitors, partners, regulators, and any stakeholder that can affect the outcome. Second, is the “what” ─ what strategic options are available to each player. Third, we capture the interests of each player. What is a player trying to accomplish? The discussion around this third part is quite revealing because we codify all the players interests using a game theory construct called “preference trees”. A preference tree is a stack-rank list of all the options of all the players from most important to least important. Each participant role plays being a player in the game to construct that preference tree. The preference tree expresses the importance of each option either positively or negatively. That is, a player desires an option to occur, or fears that an option will occur. Priiva takes these inputs, goes away, runs all our mathematical models, and returns to the client with analysis and predictions.
RD> Then what happens?
BF> The analysis and predictions drive the strategic actions that need to be taken. Metaphors often emerge that help communicate that strategic plan. For example, “a rising tide” might describe an immature market where all the players benefit from a technological breakthrough by any of the players. At the end of the workshop, the client is left with contingent scenarios, has a deeper understanding of their market, and is well prepared when big headline events actually occur ─ like a competitor announcing an acquisition, a government scandal that triggers economic turmoil, or new regulatory surcharges on product shipments.
RD> Are these preference trees a proxy for risk tolerance of a competitor’s management team, and not just a proxy for preferences? If yes, do you think it creates a data collection bias because the participant in the room will probably bring in their personal risk tolerance and preferences while role-playing Player X? If no, how do you elicit those “real” risk preferences of Player X?
BF> Yes, it is a proxy for risk tolerance as well. We attempt to eliminate personal bias by confirming each preference tree with group thinking. We also re-run our models tweaking key assumptions. In terms of the risk tolerance of competitors, that comes out in the role-play as the participants need to really understand what makes Player X tick, including their risk tolerance. The team needs to learn everything they can about Player X ─ their personality, their history, where their leadership team trained, the tenure of their CEO, their ownership structure, their swagger (or lack thereof) at investor meeting events, their words, their play, and every piece of information we and the client can get on that player.
RD> How do you drive consensus?
BF> Sticking with our Player X example, a small team would be assigned to role-play Player X, use all the available information, and construct the preference tree. Then that team would appear before the entire group and defend their tree by stating the behavior profile for Player X. This leads to a great discussion, and often the original preference tree is changed. Once the preference tree is agreed to for Player X, we will inspect where Player X’s own options are in the stack-ranking of all options. If a player’s own options are at the top of its own tree, that is an indicator the player is aggressive and will act without fear or consequence from others. Conversely, when Player X’s own options are well down in the ranking it means Player X is more sensitive to the actions of others before initiating their own actions. The models can be run few times on our system – in order to take away disagreements and give a more definitive answer. Insights are the value we provide.
RD> Because your insights are only as good as the information you and the participants bring to the table, do you see games and simulations fitting into your workshops? And do you think there is value in redirecting play online where you could create additional simulations, involve more participants, avoid “GroupThink” issues, or facilitate better decisions?
BF> Today, we use our proprietary software to facilitate the discussion we are leading. But we do not install, teach, nor provide software for clients to use. Starting in 2011, we will have the option to leave the facilitation software tool with the client so they can spark additional discussion on their own. The question about a crowd-sourced simulation model and service is an interesting one. I can envision a cloud service of hand-picked or anonymous participants simulating a game model, and creating a piece of publishable research that Priiva would monetize. Right now, we do not have that in our plans, but we are not ruling it out.
RD> Thank you Bill. It has been most lovely to hear that you and Priiva have monetized game theory and strategic decision-making, something I intensely dabbled with in my past life. Wish you all the best with increasing your client base.
BF> Its rewarding to help companies learn to make better strategic decisions. Thanks for listening.
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