ENTRA

Remember Lou Gerstner?

The joke when he was hired by IBM from Nabisco was would he know the difference from cookie chips and computer chips.

Funny, heh?

Not really.

(Lou also said when he started that the last thing he needed was a strategy, which turned out to be true)

I dread almost blogging about this. But the time has come.

When you hire an accountant for your software company, do they need to know your industry? Do they come from a competitor?

How about your admin? ( you have an admin? Probably a FAX machine too.)

Wait, how about your engineer? Is it a must? Or are you looking for certain skills sets (in software this may be your programming methodology, language and tools, environment, etc.).

But when you hire a CEO, or a salesperson, or a Product Manager, well of course we are looking for domain expertise. If we are hiring for a K-12 educational software company CEO we MUST hire someone ‘from the business’. Or if we are hiring a product manager for an Internet security appliance, god forbid if they aren’t an insider. We want them to have domain expertise; to come from the business. So they can come in and ‘hit the ground running’. And our salespeople? Ooh, boy! Lets get them from a competitor! We take away from them and immediately get their ‘rolodex’ (does anyone use that term anymore?) aka contacts J and they can start generating sales right away! Woo Hoo!!!!

While admittedly there are some exceptions to this, for the most part this type of hiring is total bullshit.

Let me be clear.

If this is how you think about this positions get your head out of your ass. Because that’s where it is---for the most part.

Let me go first: here are how many different technology product areas I have worked in as a product manager, or a senior exec in software/technology:

Network and systems management software; application development tools for enterprise and client/server; Internet, intranet, and embedded systems management (including Digital Signal Processing and Digital Rights Management) and application development software; factory automation software and hardware; design and analysis software; Internet and enterprise security software; IT asset management, CRM and service desk, Cloud/ software as a service (SaaS); SOX/Segregation of Duties (SOD) and ERP systems.

Hope I didn’t miss any J. Each of these markets I a multibillion product and services market. No one could ever hope t be intimate with any of them.

Look, I am no gift to any of these markets. It’s a riot when people say to me ‘you now the security market’ or you ‘know’ any of these markets. Here is what I know:

I know the B2B go to market process.

I know Product Management and Marketing.

I understand B2B strategy.

I know business development and alliance/partnerships.

I know sales and sales management.

And I have run a few companies as a CEO.

In 2007 I took the helm of eBillingHub, a company that focused on law firm billing with a SaaS/cloud product.

So lets go through the check list:

1.)  Law firm contacts? None

2.)  Legal software experience? None.

3.)  SaaS/cloud experience? Little---some form time sharing and early 2000 ASP.

4.)  Contacts in the business with other legal technology vendors? None.

5.)  Understanding of the electronic billing process in law firms? None.

6.)  Knowledge of anything is this space? Nada, zippo , zero. Zilch…

I could go on.

So I started here as the second employee. The other guy was the cofounder, a Spanish immigrant who did development, customer support, etc. They had 9 customers after 4+ years of trying to market the offering. Every deal was different technically and financially.

Beyond all this they couldn’t pay me since they only had $155K in revenue. Clearly I was a bad choice and I shouldn’t have even been interested in the role.

I don’t know about you but going to work in the second bedroom of somebody’s townhouse, with their two elementary school kids coming in and out at 3PM every day, is not probably your idea of a career move.

Fast-forward two years—exactly.

·      Customers? 105. Globally. And many from the AmLaw 200, the Fortune 500 of law firms.

·      Sales: +$2.5M

·      Partners? The 3 largest in the legal software business. Not just technology integration, but they RESOLD the product REPLACING their internally built products with ours. That’s killer.

Now some of you might say big deal, $2.5M is small (however keep in mind the huge players in this space are $50M). And maybe they would have done even better if they did have someone from the business. We can argue that. Not sure anyone owns the facts. I can say in less than a month I was doing full blown presentations on the product and many times law firm CFOs called me as an expert on the subject, as well as trade show /professional organizations. 

And I didn’t do this by myself, but you can clearly since that my lack of ‘domain knowledge’ or being ‘from the space’ was a huge liability.

And I really don’t think I am anything special. Other product managers, other CEOs, other salespeople have a skill besides the market they come from.

They are good product managers because product management is their domain expertise! Ask on the interview ‘how many products have you taken to market?’ or ‘made commercially successfully?’  ---that’s a billion times more important than coming from the business. And there are a thousand more like that about core product management skills.

The other item that quite frankly frustrates me when folks say they want a product manager, and what they really want is a ‘super SE who knows marketing speak’. Stupidity knows no bounds.

Years ago Tom Peters, who in the 80s was considered a management genius, wrote about the importance dong things outside your business, to gain different experiences and perspective. This is still great advice.

In 1983-85 I sold products in the factory automation equipment, and I learned every aspect of new technology being applied to the American manufacturing process, in those days to competing against the Japanese. We were building the ‘factor of the future’ and GE in those days had its ‘lights out’ manufacturing efforts.  In 1987 I was put in charge of a systems software product for a mainframe manufacturer. The goal? Lights out data centers…..I had to laugh. The issues were a re-visitation of the factor ones I was in a few years earlier. But the data center space ‘hadn’t seen that movie yet’. So I applied what I learned and I looked like Nostradamus.  Good thing I DIDN’T come from the business. The movie hadn’t played yet.

So when you are hiring for these positions THINK—am I hiring for what they do or a domain expert. If you can find both God bless you. Even then remember that may not be an advantage.

BTW: As us Steeler fans get over the recent Super Bowl loss, I find it interesting that Mike Tomlin, the youngest coach to ever win a Super Bowl, and now at 38 and in 5 years has taken his team to 2 Super Bowls, NEVER played professional football…..hmmm. 

I sat in a meeting last week---actually a sales kick off (please see below for more on that subject)---where there was a wonderful speaker--an ex-CEO ---who was running a new business and product area of the company. He did a wonderful presentation on why he felt the new product area he 'owned' was a winner. He put the  product and its opportunity in the context of a start-up, and provided what he called the four basic questions of strategy.

We hate it

But then again we love it

Esepcially when we are at the bar as everyone arrives, meeting with salespeople who we have worked with (screamed at?) through the year to get deals done and drive revenue---selling them to sell so they sell the prospect

And now we hit ‘reset’ , meet as the year is new, and get to do it all over again

What is it that we do this ritual? Is it effective? Can we make it better? More interesting? How about shorter ( yes I will take that one J!)

We as we end a year and celebrate a new one, there is no better time than January, when pipelines are drained, and hope springs eternal for a even better year ---or in recent economic times a year that shows progress, whatever that is. We setr new sales goals; we introduce new people; we laugh at ourselves and ourt mistakes during the previous year and suggest hwo we are going to do more or even better; and we generally enjoy the ‘forced socialization’ of these meetings---almost like the annual holiday party , without spouses and more education.

So how can we do better from the start? How about we look at this meeting.

Here are three things that you should consider to make yours better this year---and next!

1.)  It’s a SALES meeting. Please remember that. Yet we see the VP of Sales or CEO go to the head of MARKETING to organize the meeting. Usually at the previous year-end, because of course, sales is busy closing business! (Good thing you are planning the company party---yeah, right).  Anyways I would strongly suggest no matter who gets to be the ‘color picker/taste fairy’ of the meeting, when setting the agenda, remember its about sales. Yes we want to tell the salespeople EVERYTHIGN we are doing and are going to do for them to help make their lives easier and help them hit the enormous number their sales chief has just saddled them with---sure. But the essence of exchange here is also the company learning from them! We bring these folks in the from the field, and we talk to them? NO! Think of them as customers! Ask them what they need! We preach to them not to ‘show up and throw up’ to prospects, yet we do that to them…..think about it.

2.)  Marketing needs to match the deliverables with the Sales process. When it is marketings chance to talk, how about not just rambling about ‘and then this quarter we are going to do this; and next quarter we are going to do that’. Sales is sitting there thinking ‘yeah if I don’t hit my number, you are spending zippo buddy’.  So why not match up the sales forecasting cycle with what is in the marketing goodie bag and show them two things;

a.     What you are adding to help SHORTEN a particular stage

b.     How you will hold yourself accountable to a metric like they have a quota

3.)  Product Plans (Roadmap) needs to be presented in the context of Competiton. Or better yet, HOW WE WIN. Who really cares about feature X is coming! And then feature y! and the technical people all say ‘that is so cool’ or ‘wait til XYZ company sees this!’. Who cares. If I am in sales I want to know specifically how each feature on the road map:

a.     Beats/Meets a competitor

b.    Shortens the sales cycle

c.     Overcomes an objection

d.    Provides differentiated VALUE to the prospect

If you cant present the roadmap that way sit down.

Remember the focus of these meeting is improving the ability of the company’s ‘go to market’ to meet its financial goals. Think through that process.  That’s the agenda. If its anything but that you’re wasting your money for a nice party. And didn’t you just have one?

So long to 2010.

I wish it were that easy to kiss good bye to B2B marketing stupidity.

But its not.

I recently provided marketing assistance to a small business in the ever growing security business. The company is well run, but its marketing communication is not its strong suit. Let me give you an example.

We all realize that ‘issues marketing’ can be the lifeblood of a small or stat-up company. So when major headlines cover something your business can help with, you need to associate yourself with it. Sure, everyone in your business comes out of the closet and they try to do the same---if they have a brain ---but its essential to do so, especially in the world we live in today of SEO, search engines and social media.

So when the Wikileaks breach hit the major news markets let alone the technical news rags and blogs, and my client could assist/solve this challenge, it seemed obvious to coat tail the issue. But that’s where the clients marcom person disagreed. She stated to me that Wikileaks was a ‘market opportunity not a PR opportunity’---Huh?

I guess that’s like putting the candle under the bushel J (Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Matthew 5:15)  Those poor salespeople out there with no air cover, they would be talking to prospects, saying ‘oh, we could solve that’ with what backup evidence, interview , article reprint or even blog---ah, that would be NONE.

Anyways lucky for this company that the White House issued a ‘don’t store WikiLeaks stuff that’s on the internet on your servers” which this company did take advantage of as a PR opportunity---I guess that’s a sub market opportunity that warranted press activity. Definitely good to get the ink in any manner associated with this issue, and its nice this aspect of the WikiLeaks issue is founded in a need with their current customers, but the associated PRdoes little, if nothing, for getting broader market traction in the commercial market, where the company is attempting to gain new customers.  Too nichy.

Worse lets do a simple Google search on “Wikileaks Security’ or even ‘Wikileaks Security Threat’

Do we see any of the press associated with the more focused press the company decided to finally act on?

NOTHING

No hits.

No Adwords associated with it.

No ‘velocity’ created ion the net as a result.

But we do get other vendors: Venafi, CA Technologies, Network Associates, Layer 7, Checkpoint, etc.

OK, so that’s a BIG MISS on two counts: association with the larger issue---strategic association with the market you want to move to, and no search engine pick up that preserves that association beyond the date of the issue.

Now, given that those opportunities are lost, how about other use of the articles that were obtained in some mainstream publications?

No emails to the customer base (Mention of it in a customer newsletter did appear)

No Blog/Twitter/LinkedIn discussion....

No resending of the articles to prospects or customers

No webinar on the ‘nichy’ aspect or broader one

Etc etc etc

In short, poor execution on an issue that a small sub $10M company could use to get awareness. 

It wasn't that hard. But the marcom person resisted it for some reason, or just didn't get it, or couldn't/wouldn't do it. Maybe Holiday shopping was more important? :)

Bad marketing still reigns.

Here’s to the hope that in 2011 those that doing marcom in companies of all sizes are not the secretary that likes interior decorating that impresses the CEO---or as my wife calls them color pickers and taste fairies. Marketing is a profession. Treat it like one in 2011. That’s how we end with these that can’t recognize PR opportunities versus market opportunities and what do to with them when they are served up on a silver platter.

Good luck.

I am often asked to help a company with its strategy. I find that when I am asked to do so, the company suffers usually is suffering with the following symptoms:

1.) Low/flat sales
2.) Technology is search of a problem which results in low /flat sales
3.) Low/flat sales
4.) They had success with an initial set of customers and that has now 'gone away' resulting in low/flat sales.

See the pattern?

I had a boss, Lee Ehrlichmann, who used to say 'there are only two problems in business: not enough sales and everything else". Not sure if Lee was the first to come up with that, but I can say that the #1 reason companies engage ENTRA is that their business has hit a roadblock and they want to get it on the right track for growth (again). As a result they need a 'strategy'.

Strategy is a three legged stool: WHERE are we, is, WHERE  do we/you want to go, HOW do we/you get there.

That’s seems so simple. Almost childlike to the point that the questions are often dismissed or ignored.

Isn’t there some methodology? Some systems folks use to derive their strategy that results in a winning formula? As if someone could divine how to win football games or elections and just repeat it and guarantee the outcome.

 So often folks are looking for a 'tag line; or some magic pixie dust that is they simply 'attach their business to some messaging or set of words or some emerging category the business will magically start growing in sales and revenue and all the employees will be happy and the all the investors will be happy and eventually everyone will be successful and rich. All your friends will say ‘you worked there? WOW!’ and future readers of your resume will say ‘you must be successful since you worked at ‘X’’. Its what I call the Fiddler on the Roof phenomena: because your rich they think you know.

Strategy is hard work.

I do agree with Ries& Trout in their book Bottom Up Marketing. All great strategy comes from tactics. It derives from heir work in Marketing Warfare.  The premise is simple: It all starts in the field and in sales. Find the repeatable go to market pattern in the sales process.  Extrapolate that and simplify it for marketing messaging.

Ries and Trout argue for the bottom-up approach because a deep knowledge of the tactics actually used on the battlefield is needed to formulate a strategy that has the goal of achieving tactical objectives. More specifically, Ries and Trout argue that the sole purpose of strategy is to put the forces in motion to overpower the competitor at the point of contact using the principle of force. On the military battlefield, this means having more soldiers or force at the point of battle. On the marketing battlefield, it means overpowering the competitor in a specific position in the mind of the customer.

Ries and Trout explain that a good strategy does not depend on brilliant tactics. Mediocre tactics usually are sufficient for a good strategy. Even the best possible tactics are unlikely to compensate for a poor strategy. In marketing, advertising can be considered tactics and many managers falsely assume that success depends almost entirely on the quality of the advertising campaign. If a strategy requires top-notch tactics to win the battle, Ries and Trout maintain that such a strategy is unsound because tactical brilliance is rare.

Any strategy should take into account the probable response of the competitor. The best way to protect against a response is to attack the weakness in the leader's strength so that the leader cannot respond without giving up its strength.

To support the argument of a bottom-up strategy, Ries and Trout point out that many large companies incorrectly believe that they can do anything if they simply allocate enough resources. History shows otherwise when one considers failed attempts such as Exxon's entry into office systems and Mobil's acquisition of Montgomery Ward. Such diversions shift resources away from the point of battle where they are needed. This is one of the dangers that can be avoided by a bottom-up strategy based on what can be accomplished on the tactical level.

The lesson?

Yes, those strategy meetings are very important. And yes, you should have them to get everyone on the same page about messaging and resource allocation, etc. But real strategy happens at the field level, belly to belly with the prospect/customer. And seeing and hearing that pattern will lead you to the magic pixie dust you desire.

Now, one word of caution

You may , as a result of the above, be tempted to listen to your sales reps solely to derive this. That could work but would most likely be a mistake.

Sales is not a market research tool.  Sales is also not your strategy diving rod. Their feedback as to what is working and what is not is colored by their coin operated incentives and also their focus on ONE customer versus a market. That is as it should be and not their ‘issue’. Even your head of sales is not necessarily going to see or hear the pattern. They are after results in revenue, not pulling the camera back to see the whole picture. Its not their job, in short, and in many cases not how they are wired.

So get your butt out there and see if for yourself. Ask questions. Why is a good one to star with J

Have you ever been in a sales cycle, working the last bits of a contract, for the prospect to suddenly change their mind? Maybe, like me, you were down to the last three items in a contract negotiation, hopeful of getting the completed after months of discussion and weeks of contract 'back and forth'. 

I just read Nick Vaidya's blog entitled ‘Time to Dump B2B Marketing’ at http://nickvaidya.blogspot.com/2010/09/time-to-dump-b2b-marketing.html

I don’t know Mr. Vaidya, and I am sure he is a nice man. But he is clearly ignorant of what B2B Marketing is.

In his blog he states, after beginning by telling us marketing is confusing, similar to the old saw about blind men and the elephant, where each doesn’t know exactly what they’re touching, he goes on to state, that beyond confusing marketing is different at different companies. Specifically he states: “For example, marketing at Cisco has little to do with marketing as it would be at Nike or Victoria’s Secret.”

Wow. Really?  How insightful.

The objectives are the same at both companies for their marketing departments: reducing barriers to transactions. How they implement them is different. And that goes for every discipline in different markets, not just marketing.

But, I bet you Mr. Vaidya didn’t realize that while the accounting is different at Cisco than it is at Victoria’s Secret.  Surprise! Their income statements and balance sheets are very different, and what matters to them in terms of financial heuristics, are also different. For instance I am sure they have very different supply chains and COGS. In that same vein, I bet you Mr. Vaidya doesn’t realize that development and engineering is different at Cisco than it is at Victoria’s Secret. I haven’t asked my wife to try on the new Cisco bra and panties, nor have I installed the new Victoria’s Secret router on my FIOS network, but I can guarantee you if you switched development organizations at these tow companies everything about how they design their products is different.  Odes that mean its time to throw out the ‘Design department’ or ‘Development’ and call them ‘The People Who Make Stuff’? I don’t think so.

But Mr.Vaidya, with these as his justification, goes further to basically state the following, which, as a practicing marketing professional, specializing in B2B for over 25 years, I find highly offensive and even regressive. I really thought we were past the Neanderthal stage in recognition of marketing activities. Here is the core advice Mr. Vaidya gives regarding marketing:

“I would venture to say that most B2B firms should dump their marketing department and create a “Lead Generation Department”.  Set the agenda straight. Give precise and clear marching orders.  Additionally, you can set up a Customer and Markets Insights Team in support of business strategy and product development.  PR should be a separate function.  As the need for branding increases outside agency should work to create MarCom, until such time that an in-house team is warranted.  But there is no need for nebulous terms and departments such as marketing.  These teams should report to Chief Profits Officer, except the customer Insights Team, which should report to the person in charge of strategy.”

Dump your marketing department and create a lead generation department. WOW! A+ for radical thinking. F for thinking.

Mr. Vaidya, like a very small group of the unwashed, clearly doesn’t understand marketing as a profession, let alone as an integrated function.  His suggestion that others can do all the traditional functions of the marketing department, some internal and some external, such as handing over product management and marketing to development/engineering, or just hire an outside firm to create your marcom materials, when you need them of course (hate to see what the lead generation fulfillment look like in the meantime J), is a rare naïveté in the year 2010.  At one point in his discourse, Mr. Vaidya sounds very entrepreneurial by suggesting we focus on just the lead gen aspects of marketing, yet he finished his statement with a call for reporting to the Chief Profits Officer (not sure I ever met one of them! ---do they exist?) or the person in charge of strategy---well if you have abolished product management, I guess you go to development…or the CEO.  Not really sure unless you hire a strategy person….and they would do ----product management! Aha! I think I am getting this----

I think Mr.Vaidya has either never worked with a good marketing person, or has never worked with a good marketing person, or perhaps has never worked with a good marketing person.  Did I repeat myself? He clearly doesn’t respect the function and/or understand what it entails. And because he doesn’t he simplifies it into one aspect, lead gen, and suggest scattering all other parts to the wind. Again, lets make do the same for other departments---we can take the Finance group---lets call them the Number Counters J, and have them just do book keeping. The other functions of Finance, like purchasing, should be done by the Chief Procurement Officer; contracts can be done by outside counsel as you need it; financial planning for the business needs of the company can be done by the CEO and a local accounting firm; and each department can handle its own budgeting process and roll it up to the exec team as needed. Keep those Finance people focused on counting beans!

We could do the same for any other group/department in any other company. I look forward to Mr. Vaidya descriptions and calls for the disintegration of those departments.

We all know that B2B Marketing encompasses WAY MORE than Demand/Lead Gen; it includes

1.)  All Thought Leadership and Awareness vehicles, including PR and analyst relationships and in some cases financial analysts.

2.)  Go To Market Sales/Chanel Support: all the materials (Collateral and sales aids) that allow sales to be knowledgeable and effective in the sales process to move the prospect in the pipeline from one stage to the next, and generate sales revenue.

3.)  Product Management /Marketing. This is a separate and unique discipline from Development/Engineering.  I don’t have enough time and space to write about effective PM here; needless to say it’s a key part of marketing.

4.)  Business Development/Alliances/Partnerships. While not always a part of the marketing department, it is closely aligned or part of it in many companies. Creating a whole product offering is key to competitive advantage and sales success.

5.)  Pricing. This is the domain of marketing as well. Certainly sales and finance have input, especially on discounting policy and the business rationale, but the price list is marketing’s.

6.)  Channel Strategy and Support. Defining and support the Channel is key for any successful organization and is also a part of the marketing department.

I could go on.

Mr. Vaidya hints at the end of his blog that he is looking for measurement of marketing. This may be his real reason for wanting to put the marketing function is such a small box. He states “Set the goals and metrics straight if you want your firm to grow.  Only weeds grow without the benefit of measurements.”. What Mr. Vaidya doesn’t realize is that every aspect of marketing, all the areas I suggest are a part of marketing above, can and should be measured. Weeds can grow in any department; as a result we should just neuter the department but apply the right metrics to manage them. I realize that takes effort and simply ‘defanging’ marketing, as Mr. Vaidya would have us do, is easier. But that would hurt the business, something you wouldn’t realize until it’s too late. And of course I am not sure of the quality of marketing person you would have work in a organization that Mr. Vaidya runs, but I guarantee you it wouldn’t be anyone you would want in the ‘fox hole’ with you to run your business.

Hey, I teach a course called ‘Business to Business Marketing’ at the MBA level at the University of Pittsburgh, and I can tell you we don’t just cover lead gen in the class. If I did, it would be a very short class, like one session.  Mr. Vaidya early in his piece takes a shot at MBA programs saying they “They pack students' minds with theories but provide little clarity.” Ah, with all respect, that bullshit. What I teach is not theories, Mr. Vaidya. It’s all from the real world. And what I suggest for you is instead of spouting off your opinions, which have no basis in fact or reality, you take a course at a local university in Austin, Texas, on marketing. You’ll be surprised to learn a lot about what you don’t know.

And don’t throw away the brochure the University sends you---someone worked hard on that----J

While much of this is true about me, I have to attribute this line to Jack Roseman, a good friend and great entrepreneur. Jack has taught me alot over the years. But this may be his single greatest lesson to me.

There are only two problems in business: not enough sales and everything else.

Businesspeople get frustrated with lack of sales. And when faced with these issues, especially lack of sales, they wonder 'why?' Everyone gets a turn n the barrel

·      Product Management is not directing a compelling vision

·      Marketing has brought us NO LEADS and zippo awareness!

·      The product stinks---does it even work?

·      Is there a market for this stuff?

We could go on. I am sure you could too.

Add to the stew the following feelings often expressed:

·      'We were once successful here and now we are stalled' or

·      'We were successful at other companies, why is it not happening here?' or

·      'We need 'PLACE X FACTOR/SILVER BULLET HERE" and that will make us successful".

Its an interesting mix of ingredients: Add ‘slow /no sales to a healthy serving of ‘blame some department/someone on the team for our problems’ combined with a layer of ‘why me/us—I am smart/been successful’. Bake each quarter until the company blows up.

All that being said, people try to change. At least they say that. Going back to Jack, they have reached the point of bottoming out. They are ready for the rehab program.  28 days baby! Or to Jacks point: Put me on the diet! Send me to Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers…get me to South Beach! I am ready to be Atkinized! I GOT TO LOSE WEIGHT! Because what we are doing now isn’t working! Or we can do better! A lot better!

Well I hate to say it. They are the fat man on a diet. They want to lose weight, they really do! They are sincere when they want to do it. But when they are heading home after work they stop at Dairy Queen. They order off the desert menu at the restaurant. They snack on pop and candy throughout the day, while telling you how they need to lose weight. They need to; they have to! Yet they don’t. Hmmmm

Change is hard. Change in any activity is difficult. Change from habits that made you successful in the past may be the most difficult thing you ever have to do. That point is outlined in Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm as he underscores the things that made you successful in the early adoption stage work against you in the early majority market---thus the chasm. And that’s one example of the many pitfalls.

Unfortunately much of it shows up in sales first and its not always the sales team fault. Many cases they are victimized by the leadership who can hold the nice offsite meetings and agreed to what needs to be done, but cant make the difficult changes that need to be made.  They delude themselves in thinking that there is less risk in not doing anything different, rather than taking the risk of changing. And what I have seen happens, like someone with a drug/alcohol addiction, is the company needs to be put in crisis prior to real change, change that makes a difference to the business, takes place. So the ‘fat man on a diet’ needs to have a heart attack or a stroke in order to say.’hey this exercise and eating right is a good idea!’. Unfortunately just like people, sometimes the patient dies. And the chance to change never happens. Or the damage done to the patient is so severe, that the recovery is impossible to achieve. In company lingo this is called the ‘walking dead’.

As a leader, someone directing marketing or product management or marketing, or as a COO or CEO, or leader of another key part of a management team, when you state, ‘we need to’ as yourself if you will and if you can. Do you have the will to do so?

Don’t be the fat man on the diet. While change may seem risky, the outcome for the ill patient is the riskiest. By the way, others know you are fat, and may even tell you. Don’t be offended. They are trying to help you avoid a nasty outcome.

Yesterday I received a recommendation on LinkedIn. Here it is:

Kanye West sang these words ---not original of course, ---in his hit 'Stronger' (if you missed it listen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsO6ZnUZI0g). The song is great advice in many areas of B2B Marketing. How?

The process of taking a product to market, a new product, or an existing product that has been updated or revised, or a new/revamped service, is one of iteration. Failing fast is crucial to success. Compiling those mistakes, finding the patterns of success and failure, and understanding the 'what to do' and 'what to avoid' is the hard work--the heavy lifting---of taking a product to market.  

In many cases, companies are lazy. They avoid doing the heavy lifting, the failing fast---make sure none of the failures are fatal:)--and instead look for some 'splendid insight' or worse yet, some external market driver that is going to hand them sales magically. Now, there have been 'legislated' markets, and companies have benefitted from that, much like companies in the software business benefitted from Y2K hysteria 10 years ago. But I will never forget Glen Chatfield in 1992, when presented with some software product that did some aspect of Y2K remediation, asking the cofounders--'so what do you do after 2000?’ 

Good question.

Now some would say 'hey we made or money up until then'. That may be true. But you didn't build a business. You built a giant one off. That’s why so many of these companies in the Y2K field ended up---or even started---as services companies. They struggled to find the next product, or even the next repeatable sale, and it wasn't there. But the leaders of those firms when confronted with this reality in most cases sold or try to sell the company in some fire sale. It’s not a pretty history for companies looking for external validation and market drive versus building momentum and getting to the tipping point. However the latter, as Kanye says, will make you stronger.

One thing folks also need to remember is as you 'exercise your corporate muscles' its important to have truthfulness about the issues. The cards need to be dealt from the top of the deck so to speak. Low integrity people and organizations tend to tell the troops 'all is well', like Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House as he gets run over by the crowd. You can’t win by not accepting where you are in the company or product lifecycle.

The team you rely on to help you is key to this. A solid cross-functional team is essential. And trusting them is also essential. You can’t play games. You can’t pit people against each other; you can’t create rumors about people on your team and then expect teamwork and trust. You can't decide not to communicate where the product and company is going, and hope that the team will fill in the blanks and somehow succeed. Unfortunately people will fill in the blanks and it may not be with the information you want! At a minimum it wont be aligned as a team for the success of the product.

I have been blessed with folks who have worked with me and for me multiple times over the last 25 years. I have had some folks work for me 3, 4 and even one person 5 times. When you have people that work for you multiple times its says alot about your skills. Don’t take that for granted. Having that trust can allow for faster learning when faced with uncertainty in launching new products. That’s one way to minimize the risk.

As with so many things in business people, process and technology are the components and a healthy dose of communication around it all is key. To paraphrase another great business leader, Dawn Steel, 'They can kill you but they can’t eat you'. Dawn was literally fired by phone while giving birth to her first baby at the age of 40. If you have read the book it’s a great read. But like Kanye, Dawn's advice is important: keep moving. Don’t be afraid to fail and learn from the failures. 

This is what makes new products as they go to market successful. Its hard work...and if it don’t kill ya, it can make you stronger...important to remember instead of for success to appear on your doorstep.

Vacation
All I ever wanted
Vacation
Had to get away

Vacation may be all the Go-Gos ever needed. But for most of us vacation is somewhat spent checking in with work and doing some work. Or even reflecting on what we do for a living, our careers, what we have accomplished and what we want to do in the next half of the year and beyond.  Vacations are good. Americans take them less frequently than they should and for shorter periods of time than many in the rest of the world. That’s a shame.

Why?

As my friend George Boroski says ‘We spend too much time working in the business and not on the business’. Why vacation isn’t a planning activity with the team, it is a point for thought, and to some degree planning. The mind is not ---or shouldn’t be ---interrupted with meetings, phone calls, email, tweets and IM. It is a time to wake up late, head to the beach or on some historic walk, or look through a city we haven’t seen before, experiencing each in their own way. And that ‘outside of business’ experience is essential for when we return to work.

Tom Peters, the once well renown management consulting guru used to encourage business people to read fiction or  business books that had nothing to do with their business area or area of expertise. He particularly was encouraged by his partner to read more fiction---advice I could take myself. Why? To expand your mind and think about your problems and challenges differently.  In many cases we think our businesses are unique. Or that no one has ever had our challenges. To solve those challenges we often reflect on wins from our past trying to associate the current with the past and see what patterns are there, in an attempt to both overcome the challenges and have comfort with them. While that’s a good process, it’s not sufficient.  We can learn more from others ‘wins’ and ‘losses’ in other business situations than we ever can by in our own experience. As Tom Peters points out, reading outside the box is one way; I would suggest the vacation experience, besides just pure ‘downtime’ also allows us the opportunity to see things differently or more clearly.

Vacation  may not be all you ever wanted---but it maybe all you ever needed.

Thanks to all the recent readers of the ENTRA blog. We appreciate it.

As you may have noticed we recently added the the 2006-2008 blogs from Greg Coticchia's DreamTwister Blog that were publisjhed originally Microsoft Windows Live Spaces to this blog. They were all added with the 'June 22' date since that is how the posting mechanism on Network Solutions works.

We hope you enjoy these older posts; we believe they are still relevant and meaningful in todays world! 

I had a neighbor growing up that used to say 'after July 4th summer is over'. While I am sure can all beg to differ, summer does go fast, especially after July 4th. And now that it’s officially over, and we know that we can’t slow it down and we Q3 and Q4 right in front of us. So what will we do different to make a bigger impact on our business? What is going to change that will add to the value of our offering and directly to the value of our company? Even if you are doing incredibly well in this miserable economy, which from the conversations I have, I would say if you are doing well you are truly an exception, you have to be like many of us searching for how to get growth.

With Europe collapsing financially and the US stagnating its tough out there. But there are pockets of enormous success: The US Govt is still spending and there is no end to those lines at the Apple Store :). So it can be done.

Some thoughts on the road to success in tough times (or while we are discussing a double dip recession)

1.) INNOVATE! You can’t steal second with one foot on first. If you truly want to grow, just selling what's in the bag today, or what's 'always sold' isn't going to cut it. You don't see Apple crying about tough times and still selling the iPod with the click wheel do you? It wasn't that long ago Apple was going out of business---it was called the Wang of the 90s (for all those oldsters like me). But they jumped into the mobile business, the TV business (hobby?), and then the tablet computing business. They didn't just imitate---sure they could have brought out an Apple MacBook Netbook---and they did not! They created a new category with the iPad....Why don't others do this? They cry ' we don't have the money' or ' we don't know if there is a market'---I love that last one---how many people were screaming for a tablet computer before the iPad? Ah, none---and they sold 3M in 2 months. Amazing what FOCUS and ALIGNING THE BUSINESS resources for success can do. 

2.) NEXT BIG THING. Do you know where you are heading as a business? If it’s just to sell the company for whatever its worth, I wish you luck. Sometimes it is good to accept that you are road kill on the business highway; however sometimes it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. Sometimes folks look at the business strictly as an asset, like an investor, and manage it that way. Void of all energy, emotion, direction or dare i say LEADERSHIP. This month’s HBR has a great article called 'Stop the Innovation Wars'. It talks about what I call the '2nd product dilemma' whereby a company can never get past its first product and its current ---or even, believe it or not--former success. Like an alcoholic, the company needs to bottom out before it can fully accept it needs something else to sell. The culture and people in the company are so comfortable selling what they know; they can’t jump to the NEXT BIG THING. Why? They are afraid---it’s risky. What they don't realize is doing what they are doing now is taking that last dance on the titanic. Feels good in the moments before the boat hits the water.....

Also in HBR this month is another great article called 'The Effective Organization". It talks about the importance of linking strategy and execution and not treating them as separate activities. Couldn't agree more. A great strategy with poor execution is just that---nothing. And vice versa. However, lots of execution and no strategy sometimes makes those at the 'titanic dance' feel like they are going somewhere. They are. They just realize it too late. 

Summer still has two months---or is it over? You decide.

(This blog is excerpted from materials used in Greg Coticchia's B2B Marketing class (class session #3), taught since 2005 at the University of Pittsburgh, Katz School of Business. All rights reserved)

There used to be an ad on TV ---from Toys R Us-----with a jingle that contained the chant in the song' don’t want to grow up, never want to grow up' ---in the lyrics (refrain?). That song somewhat echoed in my mind as I thought about this blog. One of the things I can’t stand about software companies is their lack of discipline. The issue: understanding they are in the PRODUCT business. Admittedly they have an intangible product; I get it. But that doesn't mean you don’t need to build a product or sell a product.

It all starts with an ‘all revenue is good revenue’ mentality. WRONG. It never ceases to amaze me how many small software companies, or even ones at the sub $100M level-- look at all revenue as good. If they were building coffee cups and if 50% of the coffee cups had something special they had to build for several or many different customers, (or worse unlike coffee cups—maintain, update, support and service), in order to get the revenue, would they take on the reengineering, the production costs, the new lines and changes to the line to bold that 'one off'? Of course not. It would be unprofitable and it wouldn’t scale the business adding to the value of the company. But nonetheless in an effort to 'make the numbers' or 'please investors' software companies take these deals all the time. Who loses? The company and the customer. And we have this totally outdated idea that 'hey its software' so it’s just slinging some code and they will change it and it’s no big deal. Clearly someone who has never ever dealt with writing, maintaining and updating software.

If you are in the software product business and act like a services company, then you don’t have a product, so stop acting like it. Also accept that your valuation is going to be multiples of a services company with a tool, not a software company. That’s life. But you can’t take every deal that comes in , one’s way outside your sweet spot, one unaligned with your strategy, ones that don’t fit your core competence, or even go beyond it, and then pretend you are running a product company. Aint happening. You may think you are not paying a cost, and your ‘making your numbers’, but you are. And it will show up on exit and at valuation. Your buyer will understand the differences in your model. They will scoff at you ‘we have a thousand branches---one for each customer’ in your source code. Software product companies that can scale and repeat sales, even ones that are programming environments garner a 3x-5x exit. Services companies? .8X. Pretenders that say they are a product company and do anything the customer wants to book business any quarter? Ask Sanjay Kumar how that works.

Why not CHOOSE YOUR business, Understand your customer? Build and maintain a Product. And treat your software development process as a product? Deliver items you can support and maintain. Here’s an idea: FOCUS.

The push back you usually get on this, besides the sales pressure, is ‘we need to satisfy the customer’---bullshit. The customer wants you to do everything they want for free/lowest cost possible. If that means bastardizing your product to orient it to an outmoded, manual business process, versus them rethinking the process and automating it appropriately, then you are the loser for taking that business.

Anyways I could go on for hours. It’s a lack of discipline and those that take the money and think they are doing no harm are only aggregating a set of problems that they will not escape unless they are very, very lucky.

If money is all you’re after, sell some hoagies and coffee mugs with your software. They sell too. If you are looking to build a business, have a spine, understand your competitive differentiation, focus on your core competency and your value add, and deliver that to your customers.

Slowing down to speed up

In praise of teams

The best leaders are those most interested in surrounding themselves with assistants and associates smarter than they are. They are frank in admitting this and are willing to pay for such talents.

                                                                               Amos Parrish

 

No doubt about it. Teamwork. Work as a team. The best team wins. Beyond the individual and to the team.

 

So why does teamwork fail? Why dont we all just get along and do ti and become world beaters?

 

Rob Haynes has some suggestions:

 

1. Lack of alignment with company vision and misvision.

Leadership must understand that if employees do not understand how they personally fit into the vision, this statement is not worth the paper on which it was printed.

2. Team charter is unclear.

A charter is a document prepared by leadership that answers questions such as "What is the reason this team exists? What are the steps to be followed by this team?"

3. A cookbook approach was used

instead of a custom-tailored approach. The organization's unique team-based background must be taken into consideration when designing and refining its team-based process.

4. Middle management/supervisors' roles are not changed.

These are some of the best people in our companies and they will be moved into much more satisfying, relevant, value-added work where their talents may be more fully utilized.

5. Teams are improperly staffed.

People should only be placed on a team where they have personal knowledge about the topic the team is pursuing.

6. Team leader and/or team liason is not doing job.

Team recommendations should be handled in a timely fashion and, for the most part, should be accepted.

7. The steering team is not actively steering.

The steering team must actively, visibly, and consistently exhibit a support of the leadership team and clearly communicate that the team-based process is not a fad or "another program."

8. Teams are not allowed to work.

Team members should be given adequate time to participate in the teams; teams should not be prevented from obtaining the information they need to address their task.

9. Leadership team is not working.

The leadership team should provide the proper management for team evolution and/or development.

10. Communication team is not working.

It is the responsibility of the communication team to assure everyone in the organization has a clear understanding of the model of success, the status of teams, and the organization status.

OK. So follow me. Teams are good. We know why teams don't work.  Lets do Teams and be successful. Right?

Well thats what folks want. Then there is reality. Let's take Xerox ---please. Here is a corporate giant that couldn't make the change, stayed true to itself, and liteally, as the book says, fumbled the future. Now this isn;t a story of technologists inventing great stuff that isnt sold well. No. Much more interesting.

Thoman versus Allaire. Outsider versus Insider. Change versus Status Quo. And the others stand by and watch--nice teamwork:)

Here is the quote from the BW article that followed it:

"There seems little doubt that Thoman did lack feel for the human and political realities of ''the Xerox family'' he had only recently joined. And he shares responsibility for the crippling strategic error of spending heavily to belatedly challenge HP at a time when Xerox would have been better off husbanding its cash. On the other hand, digital markets wait for no old-line company. It is likely that the pace of change that Thoman tried to dictate was in fact the pace Xerox needed to play in the Digital Age. ''The lesson of Xerox is that halfway measures don't work,'' says a former executive. ''If you bring in a change agent, then let him make change--or don't even start.'' Xerox probably will survive. It might even return to solid profitability. But its hopes of becoming an important player in the ''office of the future'' probably have been dashed for good."

Kind like if you bring some in to do a job, you let them. You support them. Not Allaire. He wants things to remain the same with a different outcome because Thoman is there. How does that happen? TEAMWORK! Yes! If Thoman were just a team player and Allaire doenst have to get his hands dirty and people like Thoman they will drink his Kool -Aid----can you say naive?

Thoman may have been a bull in a china shop, but Alliare didn't give him air cover. Could you imagine Akers being in place when Gerstner was trying to change the company--NADA. Unless of course Akers let him. So Allaire, as the Chairman--should he have hired Thoman? Was Thoman just an asshole(''To be successful at Xerox, you have to be liked,'' he says. ''While everyone likes to be liked, for me it was more important to get things done.'' ) who couldn't get along? ( His previous work = Thoman boasted a gilt-edged resume. He had collected four advanced degrees from four different institutions of higher learning, including a PhD in international economics from Tufts University. In 1992, the French government had awarded Thoman, a devoted Francophile, the Legion of Honor for helping build American tourism in France as an executive of American Express. His breadth of business experience also set him apart at Xerox, which was filled with managers who had joined straight from college and never left. Thoman had been chief of corporate strategy at AmEx, president of Nabisco International, and the leader of IBM's restructuring of its personal-computer operation.).....

Maybe this states it all:

''Xerox is totally political, but it's hidden behind a patina of fake collegiality,''  Collegiality or teamwork? Hmmm....

OK a final thought for today--I have work to do!!! How about building a Dream Team? A best of the best for your specific situation?

Well, no, thats not a good idea..

Great artilce from Fortune

Why dream teams fail

It may be tempting to recruit all-stars and let 'em rip. Don't do it. Dream teams often become nightmares of dysfunction.

By Geoffrey Colvin, FORTUNE senior editor-at-large

June 1, 2006: 3:28 PM EDT

 

(FORTUNE Magazine) - In what universe is it even conceivable that the United States could fail to reach the semifinals of something called the World Baseball Classic? Not only fail to win, but could field a team that included Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Johnny Damon and then lose games to Mexico, South Korea, and - wait for it - Canada? Yet it happened this year.

How could a movie starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Julia Roberts, directed by Steven Soderbergh, get tepid reviews and gross less worldwide than the star-free My Big Fat Greek Wedding? That movie was Ocean's Twelve.

And how could a FORTUNE 500 company run by a brilliant former McKinsey consultant, paying fat salaries to graduates of America's elite business schools, dissolve into fraud and bankruptcy? It happened at Enron.

If someone tells you you're being recruited onto a dream team, maybe you should run. In our team-obsessed age, the concept of the dream team has become irresistible. But it's brutally clear that they often blow up. Why? Because they're not teams. They're just bunches of people.

A look at why so many dream teams fail, and why so many of the most successful teams consist of individuals you've never heard of, yields insight into the essential nature of winning organizations. As always when the subject is the real-world behavior of human beings, the takeaway includes things we always knew - even though we rarely behave as if we do.

The most important lesson about team performance is that the basic theory of the dream team is wrong. You cannot assemble a group of stars and then sit back to watch them conquer the world. You can't even count on them to avoid embarrassment. The 2004 U.S. Olympic basketball team consisted entirely of NBA stars; it finished third and lost to Lithuania.

By contrast, the 1980 hockey team that beat the Soviets at the Lake Placid Olympics was built explicitly on anti-dream-team principles. Coach Herb Brooks, who died in 2003, based his picks on personal chemistry. In the story's movie version, "Miracle," Brooks' assistant looks at the roster and objects that many of the country's greatest college players were left out (professionals were not eligible to play then). To which Brooks responds with this essential anti-dream-team philosophy: "I'm not lookin' for the best players, Craig. I'm lookin' for the right players."

To see why dream teams so often disappoint, let's consider the most common paths to failure.

• Signing too many all-stars  
• Failing to build a culture of trust   
• Tolerating competing agendas  
• Letting conflicts fester  
• Hiding from the real issues   

 Wow...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love B2B salespeople. They aren’t an interesting and even predictable lot. What is also interesting is the issues they find themselves faced with are so similar. Do we sell high? How do we get access? Are we a platform or a feature? How do we position our message versus the big players and other head on competitors? When’s lunch?

A brilliant presentation

Steps to Be Successful with Viral Marketing

We are being asked on a regular basis by clients at both large and small companies " what can be do to be successful with viral marketing campaigns?" 

While there are many viral marketing techniques and there is an abundance of reading material on viral marketing ¹, we wanted to focus on one tool, the use of YouTube videos. There are many B-C and B-B examples where using YouTube videos has raised customer awareness and improved companies credibility and revenue.  That said, to meet with success there are some simple steps that should be followed.

Step 1: Create an Article That Grabs Readers' Interest
Once you have uploaded your videos to YouTube, you must heavily promote your videos if you want to sell more books, products and services online. One of the most effective ways to broadcast your message is by writing articles related to your videos and submitting them to the top article directories, websites and electronic magazines (ezines) that accept articles.  While writing your articles keep in mind that the best result-producing articles are the ones that provide unique, high quality content that solves at least one piece of a problem puzzle. However, you must avoid a common mistake in converting readers to buyers, in not giving the reader all of the answers to the "HOW" to solve a particular problem.

Step 2: Suspects to Prospects With a Strong Call for Action and Make Them an Offer They Can't Refuse
At the end of your article, you can promote yourself and attract visitors to your YouTube video page with a bio box. This is where most article marketers make the fatal mistake of failing to effectively articulate the essence of what makes you and your offering unique. For example, they may write something like:

Joe Smith, is a keynote speaker, seminar leader and author. He has spoken in 26 countries on four continents. Check out his YouTube video at___________

While this is accurate it is also VERY BORING.

The offer must be compelling and exciting

Fitness Expert, Craig Pollon helps millions of busy moms lose fat while gaining muscle with just 3 short workouts a week. Watch his new YouTube Video at _________ and discover 3 new turbulence training exercises that will help you burn belly fat now! And as a special bonus, you'll receive a FREE special offer to receive Craig's Controversial Fat Loss Report revealing the most common exercise myths that are sabotaging your fat loss efforts.
Hummm?.makes you want to at least take a look

Step 3: Submit your articles to the top article directories to build links and improve your search engine optimization.
Just like your website, to increase your YouTube Video page's search ranking on Google, you must increase the number of inbound links to the page. The higher you climb in search results the more unique visitors you will get.  By submitting articles to the top article directories like EzineArticles.com, you will instantly receive a guaranteed link to your YouTube page as long as you follow each directory's specific editorial guidelines.

Step 4: Submit your articles to the top, targeted websites and ezines that accept article submissions in your niche.
For best results and to climb higher in search engine rankings you can't just have any link. You must have links on high-trafficked websites with high Google Page Rankings. Also by placing your articles on highly-competitive, targeted websites like About.com, instead of just second tier article directories that will publish anyone's articles, you will win trust in the hearts and minds of your targeted audience before they even see your YouTube video.
Follow these tips, and you will drive traffic to your YouTube video pages and turn suspects to prospects?.

1. Viral Marketing Links
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm
http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Branding/viral-marketing-tricks/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Viral_marketing