Chrysalis-Marketing-Mke: Facilitation: Mediation: Strategy Mapping

2018-10-01T12:19:00.001-07:00

Truth in Today's World.

Most all of us, as engaged humans, must be deeply concerned about what has transpired over the past several years as "Truth" has become less settled, seldom agreed upon, often dismissed as no longer having any meaning, and non-existent. The loss of "Truth" - if in fact that is what we now must face - together with the demise of the biota, will be among humanity's greatest losses of the 21st century.
Recently I have been reading several works on Truth which I urge readers to pick up for themselves.

In an American political and civic world where a sitting president and his personal lawyer can deny that Truth even exists or continue to say that facts no longer matter, the very foundations of our freedom and democratic republic are threatened.

The books:
Hector Macdonald's Truth: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape our Reality is an intelligent analysis of the difficulty of knowing how to investigate Truth. Macdonald is a marketing communicator, a creator of positioning campaigns for many of the world's well-known corporations. His taxonomy of truth-tellers begins by outlining the "four classes of computing truths" and reminds us that not only is reality complicated, complex, and often-times partially hidden from our view, but that "competing truths" shape our perspective of reality.
The 4 "truths" Macdonald identifies are:
1. Partial Truths
2. Subjective Truths
3. Artificial Truths
4. Unknown Truths
In summing them up, he reminds his readers that In George Orwell's 1984, Macdonald posits that we are well off if wee do and that we should be fearful, as was Orwell, that the integrity of Truth has been shockingly compromised: "it is not only that we are being lied to; the more insidious problem is that we are routinely misled by the truth."

The second book is Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed. Written by one of the world's greatest living comparative cultural historians, now teaching at Notre Dame, the Englishman Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. Professor F. F-A's book-length essay traces the idea of "truth" from ancient and primitive times up through today. The book is highly readable, not weighted down with scholarly details only the very few want to absorb, and I recommend it heartily.

F.F-a.'s work is brimming full of wisdom and I want to share just a few quotes in order, I hope, to entice the would-be reader to find a copy and read it again and again: For example:

"We live in a Mickey Mouse world in which images flicker with the speed of animation and confusion is treated as a good. The result is a crisis of values undermined, certainties discarded and fears excited."
or
"...when people stop believing in something, they do not believe in nothing; they believe in anything."

That certainly sounds as though it describes today's world to a tee. F.F-A goes on to say "truth is fundamental to everything else...there is no social order without trust and no trust without truth or, at least, without agreed truth-finding procedures." In today's America and in many other parts of the globe, that seems like a pipe-dream, doesn't it?!

While Professor Fernandez-Armesto acknowledges that underlying the notion of Truth lies the notion of the sacred, he recognizes that most people today live in a much more secular world and as a result often find themselves unanchored from Truth.
He adds later on in the book:
"The search for truth is a struggles: part of a war against champs, a strenuous ritual to wrest reality from doubt by naming its parts, or a spell to save it from being engulfed in nothingness. Relativism, subjectivism, and deconstruction could all break the spell. Truth could be relativized out of the lexicon, or left as just another name for falsehood..."

Isn't this the quandary of a world in which a narcissistic sociopath is now president ? But as Professor F.F-A reminds us with a quote from Roger Scrutton's Modern Philosophy, "The man who tells you truth does not exist is asking you not to believe him. So don't."

The Third book is perhaps will require more prompting for potential readers to pick it up and peruse it: Its author is perceived as a much more difficult thinker to embrace; the book is Martin Heidegger's What is called thinking? I urge you to give it a serious try!

Heidegger's argument posits that the argument that the meaning of truth has been lost to Westerners since the time of Plato and Aristotle. Rather than outline his sometimes dense and closely-argued message let me leave my readers with several ideas he lays before us in powerful maxims:
1. "What is most though-provoking in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking."
2. "Language creates world."
3. "Truth is unhiddeness" not merely conforming to facts
4. "Science does not think"
5. What Malcom Gladstone extols as "blinking", which I understand as first impression decision-making using some mental calculus, Heidegger calls "calculative -thinking", a poor alternative to deep contemplative thinking given that so-called "common sense" is nothing less than the "shallow product of the manner of forming ideas...these ideas are from the start incapable of holding themselves open to what is."

I know that this posting may not offer "the answer" as to the nature and or importance of Truths; but I hope that some reader will take up the banner and fight to demonstrate that Truth is vital to civil life and that Truth is Un-Hiddenness!

Longus' Daphnis and Chloe: First attempt at book ii

2017-12-06T10:02:00.001-08:00

“A Summary of the Second Book

The Vintage is kept, and solemnized. After that, Daphnis and Chloe return to the fields. Philetas the Herdsman, entertains them with a discourse of Cupid, and Love. Love increases betwixt them. In the mean time, the young men of Methymne, come into the fields of of Mitylene, to hawk and hunt. Their Pinnace having lost her Cable, hey fasten her to the shore with a With. A Goat gnawes the with in pieces. The Ship with the Money, and other riches, is blown off to Sea. The Methymnaeans madded at it, look about for him that did it: they light upon Daphnis and pay him soundly. The Countrey Lads come in to help him. {Philetas is constituted Judge. A Methymnaean is Plaintiffe; Daphnis Defendant. Daphnis carries the day. The Methymaeans fall to force, but are beaten off with Clubs. Getting home, they complain of injury and loss by the Mytelenians.The Methymnaeans presently command Bryaxis their Generall to move with 10 Ships against the Mytenlenians knowing nothing. They land at the fields, plunder all they can lay their hands on, and carry away Chloe. Daphnis knowing it, would dye; but the Nymphs comfort him. Pan sends a Terrour (which is rarely described) upon the Methymnaeans; and warns their Captain in his sleep, to bring back Chloe. The Captain obeyes, and she returns joyfull to Daphnis. They keep Holy-dayes to Pan, and Philetas is there. Lamo tells the story of the Pipe, Philetas gives Daphnis his most artificial Pipe. Daphnis and Chloe proceed to the binding of one another by amorous oaths.”Book II. i.

With the fruit in full bloom, the harvest was hard upon them [τρυγήτου<τρύγητος ; ἐπείγοντος<ἐπείγω] and everyone was working in the fields. . One prepared the winevats: [αἱμασιᾶς]; another cleaned out large storage jars[ἐξεκάθαιρεν< ἐκκαθαίρω]; while yet another wove [ἔπλεκεν] wicker-baskets [ἀρρίχους] .

[2] And yet another sharpened the small sickle used for cutting the grape clusters; another gave his attention to the wine-press: a stone table upon which the juiciest grapes were tread; still others tore dried-out [ξηρᾶς dry] willow branches into strips - for use at night - for light by which the sweet new wine [γλεῦκος: mustum] could be borne off.

κατεξασμένης: card, comb well; tear in pieces:

by blows πληγαῖς

[3] And in fact, Daphnis and Chloe neglected their sheep so they could lend a helping hand to the others [μετεδίδοσαν]. Daphnis’ job was to lift the grape clusters up [ἐβάσταζεν] and place them into the wicker-baskets; after which he would throw them into a tub [ληνοῖς] and then trample them ἐπάτει; and then finally, he would carry away the wine in large jars [πίθους]; while Chloe prepared [παρεσκεύαζε] meals for the workers. She poured [ἐνέχει< ἐγχέω] their drinks, serving a more well-aged wine>; and, she would collect the lowest-hanging fruit as well [ταπεινοτέρα].

[4] It’s a well-know fact, that all the vines [ἄμπελος] throughout Lesbos are low-lying[ταπεινή] - neither elevated [raised off the ground] nor strung across trellises. Instead the vines stretch out, down-and-out-wards, as if it were ivy ground-cover . Even an infant would be able to reach the grapes once his arms had been freed from his swaddling clothes.

II. ii.

As was appropriate for the festival of Dionysus and the birth-day [γενέσεως] of > wine, the women from the nearby fields had been summoned to help out [ἐπικουρίαν: aid]. Catching a glimpse of Daphnis they began to compliment [ἐπῄνουν] him, how like Dionysus and how handsome he was: one of them was so bold as to kiss him. The kiss excited [παρώξυνε] but annoyed [ἐλύπησεν: λυπέω] Chloe.

[2] The men, in the vats [tubs ληνοῖς] cast [ἔρριπτον] off-colored remarks [ποικίλας φωνάς] at Chloe: and, they started to jump about ἐπήδων like crazed satyrs [frenzied μανικώτερον] chasing one of Bacchus’ revelers [those worshippers of Dionysus]; and they began to beg the gods to turn them into sheep, so that they could be led to pasture under her: so with roles reversed, Chloe was delighted [ἥδετο] while Daphnis was annoyed [ἐλυπεῖτο] [ὥστε αὖ πάλιν ἡ μὲν ἥδετο, Δάφνις δὲ ἐλυπεῖτο. .

[3] They prayed that the harvest would end quickly so that they

could return to their customary surroundings and so that, instead of the rude [unmusical ἀμούσου] comments, they might listen to flute-playing and the bleating of their flocks.

[4] After a few days had passed, and when they had gathered the fruit off the vines [αἱ μὲν ἄμπελοι ἐτετρύγηντο], the wine-jars [πίθοι] held the new wine [must], and it appeared as though there was no need for the extra hands [πολυχειρίας], then Daphnis and Chloe drove their herds down to the plain. And very happily they prostrated themselves before the Nymphs [προσεκύνουν< προσκυνέω] and offered the first fruits of the harvest - grapes still on the vine [κλημάτων] -

CHECK REEVE TEXT

[5] Now in the past when they passed by the grotto they weren’t disrespectful [ἀμελῶς] [παρῆλθον <παρέρχομαι]. Instead - as they began to graze their flocks - they always sat nearby [προσήδρευον< προσεδρεύω] and on their return home [ἀνιόντες] they would pay their respects [προσεκύνουν]: and above all [καί πάντως] they would bring [ἐπέφερον] something: either a flower or some green foliage or a libation of goat’s-milk [ἢ φυλλάδα χλωρὰν ἢ γάλακτος σπονδήν]. And for doing so later on compensation was provided by the gods.

[6] Then like dogs - as the saying goes [φασίν] - freed from their chains and collars - they would leap about [ἐσκίρτων], play the flute, sing [ᾖδον]; and, rough-house with [συνεπάλαιον: παλαίω] their goats and sheep

II. iii.

As/ while they were <goofing around> [enjoying themselves; Τερπομένοις δὲ αὐτοῖς], an old man appeared [ἐφίσταται]: dressed in a rough outer garment of goat's hair, with untanned cow-hide bound to his feet [καρβατίνας ὑποδεδεμένος] and an ancient satchel hanging down from his neck. Sitting down near them, this is what he said:

[2] "Children, I am an elder, Philetas, who sang many songs to these Nymphs; I often piped songs to that Pan there. I led large herds of oxen out to pasture using only a melody. I have come to share the secrets [μηνύσων] of all that I have seen εἶδον, to announce all that I have heard.

[3] This is my garden, the work of my hands. I have worked on it [ἐξεπονησάμην< ἐκπονέω] since, because of my old age, I stopped pasturing my flock. Whatever the season produces [bears], my garden contains within it everything according to that season.

[4] In Spring there are roses [ῥόδα] and lilies [κρίνα] and hyacinths [ὑάκινθος] and both types of violets; in Summer there are poppies [μήκωνες] and wild pears [ἀχράδες] and every kind of apple; now, there are grape-vines [ἄμπελοι] and fig trees [συκαῖ], pomegranates [mulberries: ῥοιαί] and green myrtle-bushes .

[5] Flocks of birds gather here [συνέρχονται] in the garden early in the morning [ἑωθινόν]: some to eat, some just to sing. Since in fact the place is thickly shaded [συνηρεφής] and hidden [shaded; κατάσκιος] as well as well-watered [κατάρρυτος] by its three springs. Were someone to pull down [περιέλῃ< περιαιρέω] the brick wall [αἱμασιάν] he would imagine he was looking upon a sacred grove.

II. iv.

As I came into my garden today - about mid-day - a child appeared under the pomegranate trees and myrtles holding myrtle-berries and pomegranates : his complexion was as white as milk with fiery-blonde hair like that of a flame; and his body glistened as though he just had bathed. He was naked and alone.

[2] Playfully [With childlike moves [ἔπαιζεν] he pretended he was harvesting his own garden. I was worried that given his brazenness he would [ἀγερωχίας] snap-off [κατακλάσῃ] the myrtles and pomegranates, and so I didn’t rush at [ὥρμησα] him and attempt grab hold of [συλληψόμενος< συλλαμβάνω] him.

As I paused, nimbly he easily scampered off. He ran first under the roses and then, like a young partridge, he hid beneath the poppies [μήκωσιν].

[3] Now I admit I’ve often had occasions [μήκωσιν] such as this, pursuing young kids still nursing; and that I frequently grew exhausted running after new-born calves: but this matter [χρῆμα] was more complex [ποικίλον] and he wasn’t to be caught [ἀθήρατον]. And given that I’m old, I grew tired. So leaning on my staff, I kept watch lest he run off. I asked him which of the neighboring estates he was from and why he thought he could harvest from someone else’s garden.

[4] He said nothing, but standing nearby he laughed gently [ἁπαλόν] and pelted me with myrtle berries [threw myrtle berries]; and even though I don't know how, he had begun to enchant [ἔθελγε] me so that I no longer [μηκέτι] was angry [θυμοῦσθαι]. I wanted [ἐδεόμην <δέω] him to hug me and to stop being afraid; so swearing upon my myrtle-bushes, I promised -if only he would allow me one kiss - to let him go [ἀφήσειν: ἀφίημι] and generously to share my apples and pomegranates, as well as to give him permission to harvest the plants and to cut flowers,

II. v.

Then laughing loudly [καπυρὸν γελᾶν ], he spoke. His voice was unlike anything I knew: neither that of a nightingale [ἀηδών: songstress] nor of a swallow [χελιδών] nor like a swan [κύκνος] which sounds elderly like me. Finally he said:

"Oh, Philetas, I’d gladly kiss you, given that my desire to kiss is even greater than your desire to be young again. But come on: is this really a gift suitable for a man your age [ἡλικίαν].

[2] After that first kiss, old age wouldn’t prevent you from chasing me. What’s more, I’m really hard to catch [δυσθήρατος]! Even the swiftest birds can’t match my speed: neither a falcon [hawk, ἱέρακι] nor an eagle nor any of the very fastest. I have something to confess: even though I appear as a child, I’m not a boy - I am older than Cronus and of all that exists in this world.

[3] There’s one more thing you need to know as well:I knew you at your prime [πρωθήβην], in the days when you pastured your herd of cattle [βουκόλιον] on the plain near that marsh over there. I was there (present-at-hand; παρήμην] when you played your pipe in front of that oak tree[φηγοῖς], when [ἡνίκα] you loved [ἤρας] Amaryllis. But you did not see [ἑώρας< ὁράω] me, and yet [καίτοι] I stood very near to the girl [κόρῃ παρεστῶτα]. In fact, I gave her to you; and by now your children already are productive as cowherds and farmers.

[4] Now I am shepherd to Daphnis and Chloe; and early each morning [ἑωθινόν] when I bring them together as one [εἰς ἕν], that’s when I come into [ἔρχομαι] your garden and enjoy the flowers and the plants; and, I bathe [λούομαι] myself in these same streams. The water [ἀρδόμενα] from my bathing is the reason the flowers and the plants are beautiful.

[5] Now, take a look. See whether any of the plants have been snapped off [κατακέκλασται]; whether any of the fruit has been picked; whether the roots of any of the plants have been trampled [πεπάτηται]; whether the springs have been muddied [stirred up, disturbed τετάρακται]. And give thanks that you alone among mortals have seen this small boy during your old age."

II.vi.

When he finished, he hopped up [ἀνήλατο<ἀνάλλομαι ] - just like [καθάπερ] a nightingale chick - into a flowering myrtle. And creeping up to the top, he went moving from branch to branch through the leaves to the very top [ἀμείβων]. I noticed wings sprouting from his shoulders and in between his wings that grew out from his shoulders a quiver, small bow, and arrows; and after that I saw nothing further, nor did I see him again [any longer: οὐκέτι]. unless I have sprouted these gray hairs in vain and having grown old become even more thoughtless [ματαιοτέρας], I now understand that [τας φρένας ἐκτησάμην< κτάομαι] you kids have been consecrated to Eros,[κατέσπεισθε<κατασπένδω]; and Eros is looking out for you.

[You are a matter of concern to Eros].

II. vii

Daphnis and Chloe were totally delighted just as if [ὥσπερ] they had heard a fairy tale or myth and not facts. Next they then asked Philetas just what or who “this Eros” is exactly: is it a boy or a bird and what can it do. And so, Philetas answered them back [πάλιν]. "Eros, kids, is a god: young, handsome, and he’s got wings. He celebrates youth, chases after beauty; and, he furnishes the <a person’s> soul with wings [ἀναπτεροῖ]. .

[2] Eros is able to get things done that not even Zeus can. His power is immense. He controls [κρατεῖ] the elements [στοιχείων]; holds sway over the stars; and, holds power over the other gods who are his equal. Frankly, you two don’t have as much control over your goats and sheep as Eros has over Nature [everything]>.

[3] The flowers are totally the work of Eros; every plant is made by him : through his power the rivers flow and the winds blow.

[4] I’ve seen a bull that has fallen in love [ἐρασθέντα] that bellowed as though stung by a gadfly; a billy-goat trailing everywhere after a nanny-goat and nuzzling it. In fact I remember being young and in love with Amaryllis. And I forgot to eat; didn’t take a drink [ποτόν προσεφερόμην] nor could i [ᾑρούμην <αἱρέω] sleep.

[5] my soul felt pain [ἤλγουν <ἀλγέω]; my heart beat quickly [ἐπαλλόμην], my body grew cold [ἐψυχόμην]. I would shout out loud [ἐβόων] as though I had been beaten [παιόμενος]; I would grow silent ἐσιώπων as though I were dead; and when I was burning up, I would wade in the rivers.

[6] Given that he himself loved Pitys I called out to ἐκάλουν Pan for help. I celebrated [applaud; ἐπῄνουν< ἐπαινέω] Echo who called out [καλοῦσαν] the name of Amaryllis after me <after I spoke it>. I smashed [κατέκλων] my pan-pipes with which i had been able to charm my cattle but which could not bring Amaryllis back. There isn’t a remedy for love: nothing one can drink, nothing one can eat, nor can anything be taught in song: the only solution is to kiss; to hug each other; and to lie down naked with each other

[except for a kiss, to embrace and to lie down together with naked bodies.]

II. viii

Having taught them these things, Philetas left them there - <taking with him> some of their cheese and a kid with its budding horns. The teens left behind [καταλειφθέντες] were alone; but, for the first time they had heard the name of Eros.Their souls were dejected [cast down; drawn together συνεστάλη<σανσυστέλλω] under <by> their distress; [λύπης] and at night having returned to their country lean-tos [ἐπαύλεις], they compared [παρέβαλλον] what they had heard with their own situation.

[2] Lovers [ἐρῶντες] feel pain and so do we; they neglect their nourishment : we have neglected ἠμελήκαμεν in the same way. They are unable to sleep; and now we suffer the same thing. They think they are on fire [κάεσθαι] and that fire is ours as well. long to [set their hearts on [ἐπιθυμοῦσιν< ἐπιθυμέω] see each other [one another]; and so we pray for the day to arrive sooner.

[3] Love is <almost> [nearly; σχεδόν] all these things. And we love one another but do not know whether it is love or I am a lover [the beloved: ἐρώμενος]. But why do we suffer such pain? Why do we search for [ζητοῦμεν] each other? All that Philetas said is true.

[4] That little boy from the garden was seen [ὤφθη] by our fathers as well in the their shared vision and ordered us to pasture our flocks. <how are we supposed to catch him? >How then can we catch him? He is small and will run away [flee; φεύξεται]. How can we escape from him as well? He has wings and he will lay hold of us [καταλήψεται< καταλαμβάνω].

[5] We must flee to the Nymphs for refuge [καταφεύγειν< καταφεύγω]. Yet Pan could help Philetas when he was in love with Amaryllis.And so we must ,seek out> search for the remedy he spoke about: to kiss; to embrace; and to lie down together naked on the ground. Even though is icy cold [κρύος] we will brave the elements [bear it patiently: καρτερήσομεν], following Philetas's instructions.

II.ix.

This was their night-time schooling. And next morning, leading their goats to pasture, they kissed each other on sight - something they had never done before - and pulled each other into a tight embrace [περιέβαλον τὰς χεῖρας ἐπαλλάξαντε]. But they hesitated to try Philetas’ third remedy - getting undressed and lying down [ἀποδυθέντες κατακλιθῆναι]. This was much-too-daring not only for a chaste young maiden but for a teenaged shepherd as well.

[2] Having spent another sleepless night they thought about what had taken place [γεγενημένων] and they berated [κατάμεμψιν] what had been left undone [παραλελειμμένων]. We kissed and it didn’t help. We hugged, but got no further [καὶ οὐδὲν πλέον ἔσχομεν:]: and so the only remedy for love must be: to lie with one another. We must try it [it must be done: πειρατέον]! of all possibilities it has to be better than just kissing [πάντως ἐν αὐτῷ τι κρεῖττόν ἐστι φιλήματος]II.x

Amid these reflections [λογισμοῖς :considerations] - as was reasonable - they had dreams of Eros [Ἐπὶ τούτοις τοῖς λογισμοῖς οἷον εἰκὸς καὶ ὀνείρατα ἑώρων ἐρωτικά], with kisses and snuggles: and so - those things they didn’t do during [μεθ’ ] the daytime, they practiced in their dreams- they lay naked with one another.

[2] On the following day [καὶ ὅσα μεθ̓ ἡμέραν οὐκ ἔπραξαν, ταῦτα ὄναρ ἔπραξαν: γυμνοὶ μετ̓ ἀλλήλων ἔκειντο] - filled with the inspiration of the god of Love [ἐνθεώτεροι] -they leapt out of bed, and whistling they drove their flocks as fast as they could [ἐπειγόμενοι] to get those kisses [Ἐνθεώτεροι δὴ κατὰ τὴν ἐπιοῦσαν ἡμέραν ἀνέστησαν καὶ ῥοίζῳ τὰς ἀγέλας κατήλαυνον ἐπειγόμενοι πρὸς τὰ φιλήματα]: and seeing each other they laughed and ran at one another.

[3] And so they kissed, and that was followed with a warm hug, but when it came to the third remedy they slowed down [ἐβράδυνε< βραδύνω:].

Daphnis didn’t dare say anything; nor did Chloe wish to start anything [κατάρχεσθαι< κατάρχω]: until the time that [ἔστε] it happened by [by the grace of the gods] chance . [ἔστε τύχῃ καὶ τοῦτο ἔπραξαν].

II.xi

Sitting down next to one another beneath the oak stump [στελέχει ] - greedily tasting [ἀπλήστως γευσάμενοι] the enjoyment of their kisses -

they were carried away with this pleasure

Their full-body embraces increased the [applied: παρέχουσαι< παρέχω] pressure to their bodies.

[2] And Daphnis pulling [ἐπισπασαμένου] Chloe to himself rather impulsively [forcibly: βιαιότερον] in order to give her a hug [Κατὰ δὲ τὴν τῶν χειρῶν περιβολὴν βιαιότερόν τι τοῦ Δάφνιδος ἐπισπασαμένου κλίνεταιπως], somehow Chloe tipped onto her side and Daphnis - chasing his kiss [following after: τῷ φιλήματι ἀκολουθῶν] - lying next to her [συγκατακλίνεται]. Recognizing this image from their dreams they lay there for a long time as though glued-together [ὥσπερ συνδεδεμένοι].

[3] Not knowing what to do after that and believing that this was the limit of erotic enjoyment [release: ἀπολαύσεως < ἀπόλαυσις: act of enjoyment], they spent the majority of the day [τὸ πλεῖστον τῆς ἡμέρας δαπανήσαντες] in vain;

< later> they separated [διελύθησαν< διαλύω] and drove the goats [ἀπήλαυνον], dreading [μισοῦντες< μισέω ]the night. But perhaps they would have done the real thing, if a disturbance such as the following hadn’t seized the entire countryside.

[< ἐμφορέω] this pleasure [ἐνεφοροῦντο τῆς ἡδονῆς]

II.xii

Some young, wealthy Methymneans having arranged [διαθέσθαι] to experience harvest abroad hoping [θελήσαντες] in an enjoyable but strange location ; launching [καθελκύσαντες] a small ship with household slaves plying the oars [προσκώπους καθίσαντες], they sailed past the Mytilaenean country-estates which were close to the sea.

[2] Along the coastline there are great harbors and homesteads that are decorated lavishly [ ἠσκημένη πολυτελῶς] - complete with baths [λουτρά συνεχῆ< συνεχής], formal gardens, and sacred groves [ἄλση] . Some of the decorations were the work of Nature, others the work of man.

[3] the entire place was a child’s “garden of eden” [ἐνηβῆσαι< ἐνηβάω: spend one’s youth in]. They caused no damage sailing along and putting into shore [ἐνορμιζόμενοι< ἐνορμίζω]. They enjoyed a variety of

pleasures: sometimes they would fish, with a thin, linen fishing line running from a pole to its hook, while standing on rocks that formed a natural jetty;

at other times with their dogs pursuing [with the help of their dogs], they would catch rabbits [λαμβάνοντες< λαμβάνω: take hold of] as they tried to escape the commotion into the vineyards

[4]After that turn their attention to the hunting of birds [ἤδη δὲ καὶ ὀρνίθων ἄγρας ἐμέλησεν αὐτοῖς], catching wild geese with snares [βρόχοις: noose, slip-knot] and ducks [νήττας], and bustards with their long ear-feathers [ὠτίδας< ὠτίς], so that for their own enjoyment their tables presently would be filled [ὥστε ἡ τέρψις αὐτοῖς καὶ τραπέζης ὠφέλειαν παρεῖχεν]. If they needed something for themselves, they would get it from the country-folk, tossing them a huge premium in obols.

[5] Their only needs were wheat-bread [ἄρτου] and wine [οἴνου] and a roof [στέγης] It didn’t appear to be safe to keep their ship afloat during the autumnal season and so worried about the wintery night they beached [ἀνεῖλκον< ἀνέλκω] their boat on dry land.

fishing from an outcropping [natural jetty [ἁλιτενοῦς: projecting into the sea]

[ἠσκημένη < ἀσκέω: to work curiously, form by art, fashion, II.xiii

One of the local farmers - needing [ed] a rope with which to haul up the stone used to squeeze the juice from the small clusters of grapes, his having broken earlier [ἐς ἀνολκὴν λίθου θλίβοντος τὰ πατηθέντα βοτρύδια χρῄζων σχοίνου, τῆς πρότερον ῥαγείσης,]

secretly went down to the sea and approaching the unguarded boat. He released the mooring cable and

[2] he took it home and used it for what he needed. And so at dawn, the boys from Methymna [the Methymneans] began to search for the cable. And so when no one admitted to the theft, after briefly chastising [μεμψάμενοι :blaming] their hosts, the Methymneans sailed away. Sailing off - about 3 miles away - [about thirty (30) stades] - they came to anchor [προσορμίζονται] near the county-estate where Daphnis and Chloe lived: to them the plain appeared to be a gorgeous spot for hunting rabbits.

[3] Now since they now longer had a rope with which to tie their mooring cable, they twisted some long willow-shoots [withies] into a rope and stretched it from the tip of the boat’s prow to the land, . Next they released their hunting dogs so they could pick up the scent [ῥινηλατεῖν]; and laid traps [lay nets: ἐλινοστάτουν< λινοστατέω] in those spots that appeared to be the most opportune.

[4] Running around and barking, the dogs frightened the goats, which took off down to the sea-share leaving the hill-side behind. Finding nothing to eat on the sandy shore the more daring of the goats gnawed off and ate [ἀπέφαγον< ἀπεσθίω] the long willow-shoot rope which had secured [ἐδέδετο< δέω] their boat [ἔχρῃζεν< χρῄζω: want, lack, have need of],

II.xiv

Now, driven by a blast of wind from the hills, a small swell of waves kicked up on the water [Ἦν δέ τι καὶ κλυδώνιον ἐν τῇ θαλάττῃ, κινηθέντος ἀπὸ τῶν ὀρῶν πνεύματος]. in truth very quickly, the ship having been unmoored [λυθεῖσαν], the sea as it flowed back out [παλίρροια τοῦ κύματος] carried it off [ὑπήνεγκεν] to the middle of the ocean.

[2] When the Methymneans noticed this, some ran down to the water others rounded up the dogs. They all began to shout aloud [ἐβόων], so that - having heard the cries - all from the nearby fields gathered. But there was nothing to be done- for the wind had picked up and the ship was carried away by the ungovernable [ἀσχέτῳ] current [ῥοῦν< ῥόος: stream, flow of water]

[3] The Methymneans having lost [στερόμενοι< στέρομαι] not a little property, searched for the guy grazing his herd: finding Daphnis they beat him [ἔπαιον < παίω] and they stripped off his clothes [ἀπέδυον< ἀποδύω]. One of them snatched up a dog-leash [κυνόδεσμον] in order to bind his hands.

[4] As he was being beaten [παιόμενος], Daphnis shouted loudly and beseeched [ἱκέτευε] the rustics - he called out for help first and foremost to Lamon and Dryas. These tough old guys [σκληροί γέροντες] - having strong hands as a result of their farm-work - held out against [ἀντείχοντο< ἀντέχω]

and they demanded to have the opportunity to plead their case [δικαιολογήσασθαι ] concerning what had taken place

II.xv

Those on the opposing side [the Methymnean teenagers] made the same demand as well [ἀξιούντων]: and so they installed Philetas, the shepherd, to be seated as judge [Ταὐτὰ δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀξιούντων δικαστὴν καθίζουσι Φιλητᾶν τὸν βουκόλον]: since he was quite elderly, famous, and notable among all the locals for his sense of righteousness. To begin with the Methymneans [the Methymneans went first] - seeing that they had a herdsman as a the arbiter - made their allegations clearly [σαφῆ] and concisely [σύντομα] [κατηγόρουν : spoke against ].

[2] “We came [ἤλθομεν] to these here fields hoping to do some hunting. And while we left our ship , having secured its prow to the land with green-willow strands . From there we set out with our dogs to find wild game to hunt. In the meantime [Ἐν τούτῳ], this man’s goats [the goats of this man] ran down to the sea [κατελθοῦσαι< κατέρχομαι], ate the willow withies, and released the ship [ἀπολύουσιν].

[3] You yourself saw it carried off onto the ocean. Do you realize how full [μεστήν] of goods it was? Do you know how many clothes [ἐσθής ] have been lost? how much stuff belonging to the dogs? how much silver [money]?

Enough money so a person might purchase [ὠνήσαιτο< ὠνέομαι] this land.

In exchange [ Ἀνθ̓ ὧν] we demand to lead this guy away , because he is terrible goatherd: he pastures his flock at sea as though he were a sailor.II.xvi

The Methymneans made these allegations [κατηγόρησαν< κατηγορέω]. Now when Daphnis saw Chloe present-at-hand although he was badly hurt [affected: διέκειτο] from the beating, taking no account of his wounds, he disputed these allegations contemptuously [κατεφρόνει].

"I graze my goats just fine. Not once has any villager [κωμήτης] complained [ᾐτιάσατο< αἰτιάομαι]: blamed, censure, accuse]; not once has one of my goats fed upon [κατεβοσκήσατο] someone's garden plot nor trampled upon [κατέκλασεν] grapevines with fruit on their vines [βλαστάνουσαν: sprouts].

[2] As hunters [κυνηγέτης] these guys suck; and, the hounds they have are poorly trained: [, so that] they run around everywhere, howling harshly [ὑλακτοῦντες σκληρά] like wolves, chasing my goats from the hills and plains down to the sea.

[3] Fact #1 [ἀλλά]: Yes, they did eat the willow-shoot rope: , on the beach there was nothing to eat: no skunk-grass, no arbutus [strawberry trees], and no flowering thyme.

Fact # 2 [ἀλλά]: Yes, the boat was completely destroyed [ἀπώλετο] by the power of the wind and the ocean: But, the whole thing was the work of Winter not my goats.

Fact # 3 [ἀλλά]: Yes, clothes and silver were stored onboard [ἐνέκειτο <ἔγκειμαι]:

But, finally - who in their right mind would use a willow-shoot rope as a mooring cable?

II.xvii

At this Daphnis burst into tears [spilt a lot of tears: ἐπεδάκρυσεν < ἐπιδακρύω] and convinced - [as a result]- many of his rural neighbors [ἀγροίκους] to feel quite sorry for him -

[weeping over these things Daphnis induced [ὑπηγάγετο: persuaded] a great deal of pity in the country-folk [rustics ,

=========

and as a result Philetas, the arbiter [the judge], swore by Pan and the Nymphs that Daphnis had done no wrong and that neither had his goats but that it was the sea and the wind, for whom an Other would be the judge [δικαστάς].

[2] The things that Philetas had said, his decision, did not convince [persuade: ἔπειθε] the Methymneans. Instead, rushing angrily at Daphnis they started to lead him away again and wanted to put him in chains [συνδεῖν: bind]

[3] But, right then and there, the villagers [κωμῆται], who were really agitated [ταραχθέντες<ταράσσω: stir, stir up, trouble, disturb] assaulted [attacked, swarmed all over them; ἐπιπηδῶσιν < ἐπιπηδάω] them like starlings [ψᾶρες] and jackdaws [κολοιοί]. And, Daphnis having gotten away quickly [ἀφαιροῦνται< ἀφαιρέω] already was back in the fight. Beating them with sticks [ξύλοις] the soon turned around and fled; and they did not slow down until they were beyond the boundary line [ὅρων] and onto some other farm [plantation].II.xviii

While neighbors were pursuing the Methymneans, Chloe - in total silence [κατά πολλήν ἡσυχίαν] - led to the Nymphs, and she washed off [ἀπονίπτει < ἀπονίζω] his face bloodied [πρόσωπον ᾑμαγμένον< αἱμάσσω], from his nose broken [ῥαγεισῶν] by a blow; and from her rucksack she pulled out [produced: προκομίσασα] a piece of leavened-bread [ζυμίτου μέρος: portion, share] and a slice of cheese, which she gave him to eat. But that which most revived him was the kiss she kissed with her honey-sweet, tender lips [μελιτῶδες ἁπαλοῖς τοῖς χείλεσι].

========= ====== ======= ======

she affectionately gave .

[like honey: μελιτῶδες]

[ἀνακτησόμενον <ἀνακτάομαι: regain for oneself, recover]

[φιλέω: to love, regard with affection;

II.xix

That was how close [near] Daphnis came to a bad-end that day.

But the affair [πρᾶγμα] did not end there:

Rather, having just reached home - on foot rather than by boat - wounded [τραυματίαι] rather than giving themselves airs [

they called together an assembly [ἐκκλησίαν] of the citizens; and they approached as suppliants [ἱκέτευον] setting an olive branch [ἱκετηρίας] before the assembly, demanding righteous retribution [vengeance ; τιμωρίας ἀξιωθῆναι].

[2] Of the things that were said, not one thing was true, lest they also become a laughing stock for what took place and for what they had suffered: making accusations against [κατηγοροῦντες] the Mitylenaians - how their ship had been stolen [taken away: ἀφελομένων < ἀφαιρέω] and their property had been seized as plunder [διαρπασάντων < διαρπάζω: torn in pieces] - acts of war [πολέμου νόμῳ].

[3]

Trusting in their wounds [trauma] and the fact that these youths came from the homes of the town’s finest citizens, they voted to exact lawful retribution from the Mitylenaians and authorized an unannounced war; and they ordered their general to outfit ten ships and to ravage their coastal lands - believing that it was unsafe - it being winter -

to entrust more equipment to the seas.

========= ==================== =======

they dropped their pebbles into the voting jar and by consensus voted to exact revenge they voted for [a unannounced war against the Mitylenaians

++++++===== ===== ===========

without announcing it to them] an undeclared: [ἀκήρυκτον] war.

======== ===== ======= == ======= ===

II.xx

[Straightaway] Immediately the next morning - with his soldiers as oarsmen [αὐτερέταις στρατιώταις] - set sail [out to sea] along the coastline for the Mitylenaian pastures. They seized a great many sheep, a good deal of grain [σῖτον] as well as wine - harvest having come to an end [πεπαυμένου] just recently [ἄρτι]; and not a few men, most of whom had been doing that work [ὅσοι τούτων ἐργάται].

[2]

Next they raided [sailed against; put in at: ἐπέπλευσε] the farms where Chloe and Daphnis pastured their flocks. Ἐπέπλευσε καὶ τοῖς τῆς Χλόης ἀγροῖς καὶ τοῦ Δάφνιδος, καὶ ἀπόβασιν ὀξεῖαν θέμενος λείαν ἤλαυνε τὰ ἐν ποσίν.quickly [ὀξεῖαν]

Disembarking they quickly drove off whatever booty lay at their feet [plunder, booty: λείαν] [ὀξεῖαν θέμενος λείαν ἤλαυνε τά ἐν ποσίν].

======== ========== ============

[ἤλαυνε: stealing away with what lay in front of them> the things at their feet

landing spot ἀπόβασιν

sailed[ raided; ἐπέπλευσε in the direction of [on towards] the pastureland of Chloe and Daphnis’s as well.

======== ===== ====== ======= ========

But Daphnis did not drive his flock out to pasture at the same time; instead, going up into the woods [ἀνελθών < ἀνέρχομαι], he chopped up [ἔκοπτεν< κόπτω] some green leaves so that he might be able to provide [παρέχειν< παρέχω: hand over, supply] mulch for the kids during the winter months .

So that noticing the raid [καταδρομήν] high above [ἄνωθεν] he hid [ἐνέκρυψεν] inside a hollow, withered beech stump [ἐνέκρυψεν κοίλῳ ξηρᾶς ὀξύης]

[3] Chloe was with her flock and being pursued. She fled towards the Nymphs's as a supplicant and she begged [asked: ἐδεῖτο < δέω] to spare [φείσασθαι] both the flock she was tending and herself for the sake of the goddesses. But that was no help. In fact instead, hurling a great many insults [railing violently: κατακερτομήσαντες] at the statues, the Methymneans drove off both the herd and the girl, whipping [παίοντες] her with a willow shoots [λύγοις] as if she were a goat or a lamb. II.xxi

Now that they had already filled [μεστάς] their ships with every kind [παντοδαπῆς] of plunder [booty: ἁρπαγῆς], they decided to sail no further [περαιτέρω πλεῖν]; instead they made the voyage home [οἴκαδε πλοῦν ἐποιοῦντο] concerned about the winter weather [χειμῶνα] and their enemies[πολεμίους]. And so they sailed away - but since there was no wind - they continued by using their oars. [εἰρεσίᾳ προσταλαιπωροῦντες <προσταλαιπωρέω: to at their oars -]

[2]. Things having quieted [settled] down <ἡσυχίας γενομένης>, Daphnis proceeded down to the pasture [pasturage] where had been grazing [ἔνεμον]: and seeing neither goats nor his purloined sheep [μήτε τὰ πρόβατα καταλαβὼν] nor finding Chloe but seeing completely deserted [ἀλλ̓ ἐρημίαν πολλὴν] and discovering abandoned [ἐρριμμένην< ῥίπτω] syrinx -

[3] her habitual source of enjoyment [ᾗ συνήθως ἐτέρπετο] - he shouted aloud and a pitiful shriek [μέγα βοῶν καὶ ἐλεεινὸν κωκύων] he ran [ἔτρεχεν < τρέχω] first to the oak tree [φηγόν] where they used to sit; next down to the sea to try to spot her; and, finally to the Nymphs which is where she ran for refuge while being dragged away [ἐφ̓ ἃς ἑλκομένη κατέφυγεν].

When Daphnis arrived at the Nymphs’ cave he threw himself down on the ground and excoriated the Nymphs for their betrayal [καὶ ταῖς Νύμφαις ὡς προδούσαις κατεμέμφετο].

[the longest sentence in Longus occurs in this chapter: “ὁ δὲ Δάφνις ἡσυχίας γενομένης ἐλθὼν εἰς τὸ πεδίον ἔνθα ἔνεμον, καὶ μήτε τὰς αἶγας ἰδὼν μήτε τὰ πρόβατα καταλαβὼν μήτε Χλόην εὑρὼν ἀλλ̓ ἐρημίαν πολλὴν καὶ τὴν σύριγγα ἐρριμμένην, [3] ᾗ συνήθως ἐτέρπετο ἡ Χλόη, μέγα βοῶν καὶ ἐλεεινὸν κωκύων ποτὲ μὲν πρὸς τὴν φηγὸν ἔτρεχεν ἔνθα ἐκαθέζοντο, ποτὲ δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν θάλατταν [p. 274] ὡς ὀψόμενος αὐτήν, ποτὲ δὲ ἐπὶ τὰς Νύμφας, ἐφ̓ ἃς ἑλκομένη κατέφυγεν] -noted by ken Dowden in “A Lengthy Sentence” in the Greek and the Roman Novel Parallel Readings : p. 14.II.xxii

“Chloe was snatched out from under you and seeing this you didn't budge [did nothing]! She who wove coronals [wreaths, garlands: στεφάνους] for you; she who poured libations of the first milk; she whose syrinx is a votive offering?

[2]

A wolf never snatched one of my goats; but our enemies have seized the goats and my fellow-goatherd [she who tended the flocks with me]. They will flay [ἀποδεροῦσι] the goats and sacrifice [καταθύσουσι] the sheep; and from now on[λοιπόν], Chloe will live in town.

[3] How [lit., with what kind of steps [ποίοις ποσίν]] shall i go [return: ἄπειμι] to my father and my mother without the goats and without Chloe: will become [ἐσόμενος<εἰμί] impoverished [desolate: λιπερνής <λιπερνήτης: unemployed]? And I still will not have a flock to pasture. Here I will stay [remain] lying around either death or a second battle

[4]

Chloe, are you suffering this way too? is this the sort of thing you are suffering [experiencing: Ἆρα καὶ σύ, Χλόη, τοιαῦτα πάσχεις]; Do you remember our pasture-land? the Nymphs? Me? Or, are the sheep and goats - as your fellow prisoners-of-war [αἰχμάλωτοι μετὰ σοῦ γενόμεναι] able to console you;]?

[παραμυθοῦνται < παραμυθέομαι : encourage or exhort; advise, pacify, consoling you

II.xxiii

speaking to himself this way, a deep sleep put an end to [overcame: καταλαμβάνει] his tears and suffering [λύπης]. And to him there appeared [ἐφίστανται] three (3) Nymphs - tall and beautiful women, half-naked and wearing no sandals, their hair flowing loose- just like the statues [ἀγάλμασιν < ἄγαλμα].

[2] At first it seemed as though the Nymphs felt pity for Daphnis, and after a time the eldest spoke with a soothing voice [encouragingly: ἐπιρρωννύουσα]

“Don’t find fault with [μέμφου] us, Daphnis? Indeed Chloe is of more concern to us that are you.When she was a child we took pity on her and nourished her as she lay in the grotto.

[3] As for Chloe, she has nothing in common with pasture-land nor with Dryas’s little lambs. We now are deciding what to do for her [concerned ;πεφρόντισται< φροντίζω], let somehow she be carried to Methymna to be a slave-girl, and lest she not become a portion of this war’s plunder.

[4] That same Pan to whom the pine has been dedicated, to whom at no time did you-two ever pay reverence [ἐτιμήσατε] with flowers: we demanded that [ἐδεήθημεν< δέω] he [that one: τούτου] become Chloe’s guardian [ally: ἐπίκουρον]: for he is more familiar with [συνήθης] armies than are we and already he has left the countryside [ἀγροικίαν] many times to wage war [ἐπολέμησε< πολεμέω]. And when he does go to Methymna it will not be as a noble enemy.

[5] Don’t fret [κάμνε: tire yourself out]! But get up and show yourself to Lamon and Myrtale : they are laying [κεῖνται] on the ground believing [thinking} that you became a share of the take [booty]. Tomorrow Chloe will return [ἀφίξεται] to you together with the goats and along with the sheep and you two will pasture the flock together and play your syrinxes together as well : And the god of Love, Eros, will watch over you.

II.xxiv

Seeing these things and hearing Daphnis jumped out of bed, and shedding tears of both pleasure and pain, he fell down to worship the Nymphs

[προσεκύνει: to do Obeisance to] and promised that- if Chloe were to be saved - that he would sacrifice his finest goat

[2]. Then running towards pine-tree, where a statue to Pan - the horned [κερασφόρον] with goat-like-legs [τραγοσκελές] , holding a syrinx in one hand and a leaping goat in the other- had been erected.

Daphnis prostrated himself to Pan and prayed for Chloe’s safety and swore that he would sacrifice a goat .

[3] Just after the setting of the sun, Daphnis quit crying and praying and grabbing [ἀράμενος] some of the mulch he had chopped, he returned [ἐπανῆλθεν] to his farmstead delivering Lamon’s household

from [ἀπαλλάξας: removing] their sorrow, filling them with joy [merriment] [εὐφροσύνης ἐμπλήσας], and he ate some food and went [ὥρμησεν] to sleep - but his sleep was not without tears, praying rather to see the Nymphs again and praying for the day to arrive [come into being: γενέσθαι] quickly, the day on which Chloe had been promised to him.II.xxv

When the leader of the Methymneans had led his troops off about a mile, he decided to revive [ἀναλαβεῖν] his weary troops [στρατιώτας… κεκμηκότας] after their raid [καταδρομή]. Coming upon [λαβόμενος] a headland that stretches out [ἐπεκτεινομένης] into the ocean in the shape of a crescent μηνοειδῶς : they disembarked [ἐπεμβαινούσης].

[2] Within the harbor the sea was perfectly calm [γαληνότερον], they decided to drop anchor [ὅρμον εἰργάζετο], and right there in open water [μετεώρους] they dropped anchor [from their ship], so that none of the local farmhands could harass them [λυπῆσαι < λυπέω], and then he dismissed [ἀνῆκε< ἀνίημι] his Methymnean soldiers so they could enjoy some peace-filled [peaceful:εἰρηνικήν] R & R.

[3] Having an abundance [ἀφθονίαν] of everything from their plunder [raid: ἁρπαγῆς] , they drank and played - mimicking [ἐμιμοῦντο] a victory celebration.Just as the day was coming to a close and as night was coming on, the soldiers put aside [left off: ληγούσης] their enjoyment [τέρψεως], when suddenly αἰφνίδιον the entire earth seemed to be lit by a blaze and the crash of oar handles splashing [ῥόθιος] could be heard ῥόθιος as though a huge expedition was attacking them [it were an invasion by a huge expedition].

[4] Someone shouted aloud [ἐβόα] to the soldiers directing them to arm themselves [ὁπλίζεσθαι], one man called out one thing another man called out something else, someone was wounded τετρῶσθαι< τιτρώσκω], another lay as though dead. If someone saw ὁρᾶν this they would have guessed that this was a night-time battle [νυκτομαχίαν] but no soldiers present at hand.

shape, form: σχῆμαII.xxvi

Such was the night that came upon them [ἐπῆλθεν < ἐπέρχομαι] but the day that followed was much more terrifying. Daphnis's billy-, and nanny-, goats wore berry-laden, ivy wreaths in their horns; and Chloe's rams and ewes howling like wolves howled.

[2] Chloe, herself, was seen [personally] crowned with pine boughs. Many incredible [unexpected] things happened [ἐγίνετο... πολλά παράδοξα] when it came to the water itself [about the sea]. Their anchors [or, stuck fast [ἔμενον] when they attempted to raise them from the ocean floor, and

Their oars shattered [ἐθραύοντο<θραύω] when they dropped [καθιέντων] them in to row, and dolphins leaping out of the water struck the ships with their tails

loosening the side-boards [framework; γομφώματα].

[3] from the sheer [steep: ὀρθίου] rocks they heard [ἠκούετο] the sound of a syrinx [pipes] coming up from the headland, but it didn't gladden as a syrinx , it frightened [ἐφόβει] the soldiers who heard it, as though [or, thinking it was a war-trumpet: σάλπιγξ].

[4] Therefore they were thrown into confusion [ἐταράττοντο<ταράσσω] and ran for their weapons and called out to their enemies whom could not be seen, so that once again they prayed for night to come so they could forge[obtain: τευξόμενοι] a truce [σπονδῶν] .

[5] It was all intelligible [συνετά] to those able to think straight that the apparitions [phantasmata: φαντάσματα] and the sounds they heard [ἀκούσματα] were from Pan, who for some reason was angry with μηνίοντος the sailors, but they were unable to agree upon [συμβαλεῖν] the cause [αἰτίαν], for they had not despoiled [ἐσεσύλητο] anything dedicated [ἱερόν] to Pan: until [ἔστε] the middle of the day when the general fell asleep not without the aid of a god ἀθεεί and Pan was seen and said this:

II.xxvii

Oh! Of all men you are the most impious [ἀνοσιώτατοι] and sacrilegious[ἀσεβέστατοι]! why do you-all dare ἐτολμήσατε< τολμάω] do such things with minds driven mad by the gods [μαινομέναις φρεσίν]? You filled this countryside that I love with warfare. You drove away ἀπηλάσατε herds of cattle and of goats and sheep ποιμνίων that were under my care [τάς ἐμοί μελομένας].

[2] You dragged away [ἀπεσπάσατε] a young maiden from a shrine - a maiden about whom the god of Love, Eros, hopes to turn into a fable; nor did you pay respect [ᾐδέσθητε<αἰδέομαι] to the Nymphs who were watching nor to me, Pan. You will not see [ὄψεσθε] Methymna again after setting sail with your ship laden with plunder nor will you be able to escape this syrinx which throws you into confusion [ταράξασαν].

[3] Instead I will sink your ship making you food for the fish if you do not immediately release [restore: ἀποδώσεις] Chloe to the Nymphs and Chloe's herds - both the goats and the sheep. Wake up and make the girl Chloe disembark [ἐκβίβαζε <ἐκβιβάζω] along with those things I mentioned:

I will guide you across the water and her along the path.II.xxviii

Having been thrown into a state of total confusion by the dream [τεθορυβημένος] - Briaxus- for that was the general’s name - leapt up [ἀναπηδᾷ] and summoning the ships' captains, ordered them to locate Chloe among the prisoners as quickly as possible.

[2] They quickly discovered her - for she sat wearing a pine-bough tiara - and escorted [brought: ἐκόμισαν< κομίζω: take care of, provide for] her before his eyes. Taking this as a token of what he had seen in his dream[σύμβολον], he brought [κομίζει] her ashore on his flagship [ναυαρχίδος].

[3] Just as she had disembarked [ἀπεβεβήκει], the sound of a syrinx was heard again from the cliff - not this time warlike [πολεμικός] and terrifying [φοβερός] but pastoral [ποιμενικός] and like that of a shepherd leading his flocks to pasture. Then the sheep ran down the gangplank [ἀποβάθρας] slipping [ἐξολισθάνοντα< ἐξολισθάνω] on the horns of their hooves, and the goats being much more confident [θρασύτερον: bolder], inasmuch as [οἷα] they are accustomed [εἰθισμέναι< ἐθίζω] to frequenting precipices. [κρημνοβατεῖν].

======== ====== ====== ======== =====

they discovered ἀνεῦρον < ἀνευρίσκω] and brought into focus/his presence [εἰς ὀφθαλμούς ἐκόμισαν < κομίζω: take care of, provide for]

of appearance ὄψεως < ὄψις]

the commander’s ship [ναυαρχίδος = the ship of the ναύαρχος,]II.xxix

And their animals [The sheep and the goats] surrounded Chloe in a circle - a round dance - and they gamboled and bleated like [as though] rejoicing [ὅμοια χαίρουσιν]. But the goats which belonged to the other herdsmen, the sheep and the cattle, remained down in a space in the ship’s hold [the hollow of the ship], just as if [καθάπερ] the melody had not summoned them.

[2] Everyone was amazed [seized by astonishment] and sang the praises of [ανευφημουντων] Pan; even more astonishing things were seen both on land and on the sea [lit., in both elements [στοιχείοις]

[3] The Methymneans’ ships, even before the sailors raised [ἀνασπάσαι] the anchors, started to sail off [ἔπλεον] and a dolphin - leaping out of the ocean -guided their flagship [commander’s ship], the pleasing sound of a syrinx guided those goats and sheep , but no one saw the one playing the syrinx. And so the flocks of sheep and the goats together went ashore and they grazed enjoying [τερπόμεναι] the tune [melody].II.xxx

It was time for the afternoon grazing [Δευτέρας που νομῆς καιρὸς ἦν] Daphnis looking from the lookout place on high and seeing the goats and Chloe giving a tremendous cry said “Oh, Pan, Oh Nymphs,” ran down onto the plain κατέδραμεν and embracing [περιπλακείς < περιπλέκω : folding himself around] Chloe he fell down κατέπεσε in a faint [λιποθυμήσας< λιποθυμέω]

[2] th [ἔμβιος<: having="" life="" span=""> ἔ. γενέσθαι] scarcely had he recovered consciousness after fainting from Chloe’s kiss and, getting excited [melting : θαλπούσης; melting; becoming enflamed ]from their embrace [περιβολαῖς]

he ran under their usual oak and sitting alongside the stump he asked how she escaped the enemy.

[3] She laid everything out for him: the ivy on the goats, the howling [ὠρυγμόν] of the cattle, the pine sprouting flowers [ἐπανθήσασαν], the ground aflame [on fire; the burning ground], the pounding sea, both tunes of the flute’s: one for war, one for peace.; the night spent in terror [τὴν νύκτα τὴν φοβεράν]; and how when she couldn’t remember the way the melody guided her along the path.

[4] Recognizing [γνωρίσας] his dream of the Nymphs and the work of Pan, Daphnis proceeded and laid out in full the things he had seen, what he had heard, how intending to die [contemplating suicide; μέλλων ἀποθνήσκειν] at the hands of the Nymphs he came back to life ἔζησε [διὰ τὰς Νύμφας ἔζησε].

[5] He then sent her off to bring back those living with Dryas and Lamon

and such things as are [most suited] suitable for sacrifice [καὶ ὅσα πρέπει θυσίᾳ:], while personally he selected the finest of his billies and wreathed it with ivy, just as they had appeared to the enemy [ὤφθησαν< ὁράω τοῖς πολεμίοις], and he poured a libation of [κατασπείσας < κατασπένδω] milk over its horns, and he sacrificed it to the Nymphs and hanging it up he skinned the billy and dedicated the skin.

II.xxxi

When everyone had gathered around Chloe, he [Daphnis] lit a fire and prepared the meat: boiling [ἑψήσας] some, roasting [ὀπτήσας] other pieces and they offered the first fruits [ἀπήρξατο] to the Nymphs and poured out as a libation to the gods a bowl filled with sweet new wine [made a libation [ἐπέσπεισε].

Next he spread out beds of leaves [ὑποστορέσας] for all and thereafter with food and drink and games [amusement]. At the same time he keep watch over his herd lest a wolf attack [ἐμπεσών: fall upon] it, doing the work of an enemy.

[2] they also sang [ᾖσαν< ἀείδω] some hymns to the Nymphs - songs that had been made [ποιήματα] by shepherds of old. When night came upon them , they were lulled to sleep [κοιμηθέντες< κοιμάω] in the pasture [fields], and on the following day they remembered [ἐμνημόνευσαν] Pan, and crowned with a wreath of pine-boughs they led [προσήγαγον] the leader of the flock of goats [τῶν τράγων τόν ἀγελάρχην] to the pine tree [τῇ πίτυϊ] and poured a libation of wine and keeping a religious silence [εὐφημοῦντες< εὐφημέω: shout in triumph] they sacrificed the goat, hung it up [ἐκρέμασαν< κρεμάννυμι] and skinned it[ἀπέδειραν].

[3] Then having broiled [κρέα ὀπτήσαντες] and boiled [ἑψήσαντες< ἕψω] the meat they set the food out on the nearby [πλησίον] meadow atop the leaves; but the skin by means of its own horns [κέρασιν αὐτοῖς] they affixed [ἐνέπηξαν< ἐμπήγνυμι] to the pine tree near [in front of] the statue [ἀγάλματι] - a rustic [pastoral: ποιμενικόν] votive offering [ἀνάθημα] for a rustic [pastoral] god. They again offered the first fruits [ἀπήρξαντο] of their meat and [ἀπέσπεισαν καί κρατῆρος μείζονος] and they poured out wine as a libation from a larger mixing bowl [crater]

[ᾠδάς< ᾠδή, contraction for - ἀοιδή]II.xxxii

Following the sacrifice [after these things] and having reclined they ate [ἤσθιον], and the cowherd Philetas by chance showed up carrying some small wreaths [στεφανίσκους] for Pan and bunches of grapes still on their leafy vines [clusters: βότρυς] , and him the youngest of his kids, Tityrus, followed [εἵπετο] - a ginger [πυρρόν] child [with flaming red hair] and green-blue eyes [γλαυκόν], a [fair-] pale-skinned child and wise-acre [ἀγέρωχον: lordly, haughty, arrogant], and walking [βαδίζων] he leapt nimbly [ἥλλετο < ἅλλομαι nimbly [κοῦφα], just like a kid.

[2] Leaping up [ἀναπηδήσαντες], together with [συνεστεφάνουν] Philetas, they crowned Pan, and they hung [ἐξήρτων< ἐξαρτάω] the vine stems on the boughs of the pine, and they made Philetas recline close to them and joined their revelry.

[3] And as so often happens [οἷα] when old men are slightly drunk they told each other many things [stories]: how they grazed their flocks when young; how they managed to escape many pirate raids : one pompously boasted [ἐσεμνύνετο] how he had killed a wolf, another how he was second only to Pan in playing his syrinx - this was Philetas's boast [σεμνολόγημα: source of pride].

II.xxiii

Having heard this last boast, Daphnis and Chloe pestered Philetas incessantly [in every possible way], begging him to share some of his skill and to play the flute at a festival for the god who enjoys the syrinx. Philetas agreed to their request [ἐπαγγέλλεται], although he [offered as an excuse the short breath of old age] blamed old age for his shortness of breath, and he picked up Daphnis’s pipe,

[2] but it was too small for him to demonstrate his skill, having been sized for a child’s mouth. And so he sent Tityrus to get [retrieve] his syrinx, since his homestead ἀπεχούσης] was about a mile away.

[3] And so, Tityrus threw off his slave’s apron and, nude, took off at a run, like a young deer, while Lamon promised them that he would relate - in its entirety - a fable concerning the syrinx, which a Sicilian goatherd had sang [chanted] in exchange for a goat and a pipe.

========== ===== ====== ===== ======

[complained of shortness of breath of old age]

indeed [and further, and yet: καίτοι]

Therefore Daphnis and Chloe brought forth [προσέφερον: presented] every entreaty [δεήσεις] asking Philetas to share some of his techniques

breathless; without life ἄπνουνII.xxxiv

To begin with [το αρχαιον] the syrinx itself was not a pipe but a beautiful maiden with a musical voice as well: she grazed her goats, she frolicked with the Nymphs, and she sang to them as she still does now. Pan - while she was grazing her goats, frolicking, and singing - came up to her and began to persuade [ἔπειθεν] her to give him that which he desired [ἔχρῃζε] and he assured her that all her goats would throw twins [that he would bring it to pass that all….] [διδυματόκους] .

[2] She laughed at the idea of love with him, and said that she wouldn’t take [accept: δέξεσθαι< δέχομαι]as a lover someone who was not either a perfectly formed goat or man. Pan set out ὁρμᾷ in pursuit intending to use force. Syrinx started to run away [ἔφευγε] from Pan and his violence . As she was fleeing she grew weary and took cover [κρύπτεται] in a thicket of reeds [δόνακας] and disappeared [ἀφανίζεται] into the marshy ground [εἰς ἕλος]

[3] Pan angrily cut down the reeds, but couldn’t find the girl, and understanding what had happened [πάθος μαθών], he devised [νοεῖ] the instrument, binding together [συνδήσας] reeds [καλάμους], unequal in length] with wax. just as their love have been unequal.

and so today that beautiful young maiden now is a musical instrument.

neither a goat nor a perfectly-formed [ὁλόκληρον: complete, entire, perfect] man II.xxxv

Just as ἄρτι Lamon finished recounting the fable, Philetas praised him for telling his fable in such a very sweet song and Tityrus showed up [ἐφίσταται: stood nearby] bringing his father’s pan-pie : it was a big instrument made out of reeds that were quite large.

[2] and where [καί ἵνα] the reeds had been bound together with wax it was decorated with bronze. One might imagine that this one was the very syrinx first constructed by Pan. Philetas excitedly [διεγερθείς], sat upright [on a chair ] and to begin with [πρῶτον] he tested to find out whether the reeds’ air-ways were clear [were good to breathe through],

[3] and when he had demonstrated to his own satisfaction that his breath could pass through the reeds, from that moment on [ἐντεῦθεν] he blew [ἐνέπνει< ἐμπνέω] loudly and vigorously [πολύ καί νεανικόν]. One would have guessed [ᾠήθη < οἴομαι] that he was hearing many pipes playing in unison [Αὐλῶν τις ἂν ᾠήθη συναυλούντων ἀκούειν] - that’s what is sounded like [τοσοῦτον ἤχει τὸ σύριγμα]. Little by little Philetas eased the force of his breathing, modulating the melody very enjoyably [Κατ̓ ὀλίγον δὲ τῆς βίας ἀφαιρῶν εἰς τὸ τερπνότερον μετέβαλλε τὸ μέλος].

[4] Demonstrating every artifice [technique] proper to [εὐνομίας: good order] music [μουσικῆς] he played a melody ideal for a herd of [cattle] oxen, then he piped one that would work on [πρόσφορον : serviceable, appropriate for] goats [αἰπολίῳ], one pleasing to sheep [ποίμναις].Delightful for sheep, loud for cattle, shrill for goats. In short [ὅλως] - a single syrinx [flute] was able to imitate every syrinx sound possible [flute] [ὅλως πάσας σύριγγας μία σύριγξ ἐμιμήσατο].

played his flute [ἐσύριττεν] II.xxxvi

The others, who had reclined, were enjoying silently when Dryas stood up and requested [κελεύσας συρίττειν] a Dionysian melody; and he danced [ὠρχήσατο], <miming> the actions of the grape-harvest [ a wine-press [ἐπιλήνιον] -dance [ὄρχησιν ] for them [αὐτοῖς]: to begin with he imitated someone harvesting, next someone carrying wicker baskets [ἀρρίχους ],

[2] then someone stomping [πατοῦντι] upon the grapes, next he someone filling [πληροῦντι] large wine-jars [πίθους], and finally someone drinking the sweet new wine. All these elements Dryas danced gracefully [with elegance: εὐσχημόνως: with grace and dignity] and brilliantly [using, or, with] all the right moves [ἐναργῶς - ? -], so that what people saw seemed to be grapes [ἀμπέλους] and wine vats [ληνόν] and large wine-jars [πίθους] and Dryas actually drinking [πίνοντα].

II.xxxvii.

Philetas was the third old man who was applause [εὐδοκιμήσας] - for his dancing [ ὀρχήσει]. He kissed Daphnis and Chloe, who standing up very quickly acted out in dance Lamon’s fable : Daphnis played the part of Pan, Syrinx’s part by Chloe.He begged her to give in [ὁ μέν ἱκέτευε πείθων], she smiled and [disdainfully: ἀμελοῦσα ἐμειδία].

[2] He pretended to run on the tip of his toes, as though he had hooves; she appeared to be weary from fleeing in fright. Next Chloe into the woods as though disappearing into the marsh.

[3] Daphnis then grabbed Philetas’s syrinx and loudly piped a lover’s lament [imitating a nightingale: γοερόν ὡς ἐρῶν], a romantic appeal [ἐρωτικόν ὡς πείθων], a stalker’s call to return [ἀνακλητικόν ὡς ἐπιζητῶν]. Amazed, as a result, Philetas leapt up affectionately [φιλεῖ τε ἀναπηδήσας] and kissed Daphnis and gave him his syrinx in appreciation, praying that Daphnis would hand that very one on to a suitable successor . II.xxxviii.

He dedicated his own syrinx, the small one, to Pan and kissed Chloe as though she had been found [εὑρεθεῖσαν] after actually fleeing in fright [ὡς ἐκ φυγῆς ἀληθινῆς εὑρεθεῖσαν τὴν Χλόην]; next, he drove his flock while playing his syrinx, night having come already; and Chloe drove her flock accompanied by the melody of her [τῆς] syrinx.

[2] The goats trotted [went: ᾔεσαν] alongside the sheep, Daphnis walked along slowly [ἐβάδιζεν] next to Chloe, and so they enjoyed [had their fill of: ἐνέπλησαν] one another until nightfall and agreed to [συνέθεντο] to drive their flocks down to the pasture very early [θᾶττον] the next day and they did just that [καὶ οὕτως ἐποίησαν].

[3] Just as the day was beginning they arrived to the pasture greeting first the Nymphs and then Pan after which they sat beneath the oak and played their pipes. Then they started to kiss, hug, and lay down together [κατεκλίνοντο] -

and having done nothing more they stood up and turned their attention to [ἐμέλησεν] to food and drank wine mixed with milk.

[Just, then, exactly: ἄρτι: at least -γοῦν ] II.xxxix.

[As a result of all these things] they grew warmer [grew ever-more aroused] and became bolder and they began to vie with one another [compete [ἤριζον] in a contest of love [ἔριν ἐρωτικήν: brought on by love] and little by little [καὶ μετ̓ ὀλίγον] they progressed [advanced to: εἰς ὅρκων πίστιν προῆλθον] to making oaths swearing faithfulness. While Daphnis went to the pine tree and swore by Pan that he would not live alone without Chloe, not for even one day

[2] Chloe went into the grotto and swore to the Nymphs that all she wanted was to love Daphnis in death and in life: [εἰσελθοῦσα εἰς τὸ ἄντρον τὸν αὐτὸν Δάφνιδι ἕξειν καὶ θάνατον καὶ βίο -[she would be content to love Daphnis in death and in life] ] But, Chloe’s simplicity [naïveté: ἀφελές: simple, plain, blunt] was so great that, coming out from ἐξιοῦσα the grotto [cave], she thought it appropriate to ask for a second oath as a test from him.

[demanded [ἠξίου< ἀξιόω]

“Daphnis,” she said, Pan is the God of Love and can’t be trusted.

[3] He loved Pitys, he loved Syrinx; and he’s never stopped pestering [ἐνοχλῶν < ἐνοχλέω: trouble, annoy] the Dryads and causing trouble for the Nymphs who protect our flocks [ἐπιμηλίσι] . if you are careless [ἀμεληθείς: neglectful of] when it comes to oaths you swear to Pan [this one: οὗτος], he will be neglectful when it comes to correcting your behavior [κολάσαι: chastising you] even if were you to dally with [have intercourse with: ἔλθῃς< ἔρχομαι] more women than there are reeds in your syrinx.

[4] Swear to me by this herd of goats and by that nanny who nurtured you [ἀνέθρεψε] that you won’t desert Chloe as long as she remains faithful to you. Should she treat you or the Nymphs unjustly [ἄδικον] shun her [φεῦγε] and hate her [μίσει] and slay [ἀπόκτεινον] her as though she were a wolf.”

[5] Daphnis found some pleasure in [ἥδετο< ἥδομαι: took delight in] being mistrusted [ἀπιστούμενος] and standing in the midst of the flock with nanny [αἰγός] in one hand and a billy [τράγου] in the other swore he would love Chloe while she loved him [φιλήσειν φιλοῦσαν]. And were she to prefer [προκρίνῃ] another [ἕτερον] to Daphnis that she would kill himself rather than her[ἀντί ἐκείνης].

[6] She rejoiced and put her faith in him [believed him] because she was a shepherd girl considering goats and sheep to be the personal gods of shepherds and goatherds.

=========== ==== ======== ======= ====

[παρέχων πράγματα= causing trouble]

indeed Chloe had such naïveté [simplicity:

to accept an oath as a test: λ. ὅρκον to accept an oath as a test

Customer Equity Management

2014-11-21T21:23:00.000-08:00

A few thoughts on Customer Equity Nick Poulos The value of our business is the sum of the value of all our customer relationships The value of your company is equal to the sum of all the revenue from all of your customers. Not exactly the textbook definition. Your CFO, without much grumbling, will allow it, however. Most of us are aware of Paretto’s Law, which would suggest that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers. A more startling rule is what Kaplan and Cooper call “20/200 Rule.” 20% of our customers return 200% of our profits. While you recover from the shock this statement presents – and, it is verifiable! – it is more important that we realize that there are proven fact-based approaches that lay down a roadmap that allows you to optimize your customers and mitigate the rules. Like your other assets managed in your portfolio, your customers can be viewed as a portfolio of assets, which you can manage proactively. Successful management of your customer portfolio brings a series of cascading benefits to your firm. The primary benefits are your ability to maximize shareholder and stakeholder value; and your ability to optimize your “market coverage strategy.” The latter benefit is vital, since virtually every organization has limited resources. So it is critically important to invest those limited resource in direct proportion to the return we expect to receive from our investment in our primary assets - our customers. Market leaders Target, Segment and Grade their customers. Recognizing that they cannot be all things to all people, their goal is to maximize yield: they want to invest their limited marketing, sales, and service dollars in direct proportion to the return they expect and need. Starting from the point of Targeting and consciously defining a customer; we then work through Ideal Customer identification, Segmentation and Grading (or, valuation). The result allows us to analyze our total customer universe. We can take a further step: Customer equity analysis can be combined with (a modified) activity-based costing (to discover our cost-to-serve), which in turn allows us to optimize our investment in sales, customer service, marketing and with our channels/ channel partners. The models, analytics and tools of the data base, relationship marketer / eCRM practitioner provide a “dot-to-dot” template with which to assure coverage optimization and hence optimal use of the firm’s limited resources. This paper deals with a portion of the process issues and introduces an analytical framework. The technology infrastructure – data- warehouse, CTI for the contact center, the eCRM and/or SCM package are outside the scope of this discussion. Let’s take a look at how the simple pyramid, used to represent graphically our customer universe, can help us understand a little bit more about our own customers and their worth as assets. The Business Issue Since our portfolio of customers represents the primary asset that we must manage, we need to make the most informed investment decisions we can when it comes to investing our resources into this group of assets. Whether the resource is time, money, or people, the optimal allocation of resources is a critical issue, a critical challenge, for almost every business organization, since no enterprise has unlimited resources. The customer relationship marketing models, which have been refined during the past 25 years, provide a critical key to unlock the answer to this problem. In no functional area of business is this resource allocation problem more true than in sales, marketing, and servicing customers and/or prospects. In fact, the search for the optimal allocation of resources in these functional areas is something akin to the search for the Holy Grail. This resource allocation (and concomitant knowledge management) issue should be a Board Level issue. Several years ago Adrian Slywotzky used the pyramid reproduced below to illustrate the increasingly competitive challenges of today’s marketplace and to emphasize just how critical it is to move this conversation out of from the Sale and / or IT departments and to the Board Room.1 This first pyramid shows how, in most mature, competitive industries, the sales function (together with service and product marketing) is faced with: • Price and margin pressure at the top of the pyramid, where the size of the targeted accounts is the largest • Margin (cost-to-serve) pressures at the bottom of the pyramid, where the largest number of accounts exist • An eventual overabundance of competition – once all your competitors realize where you are making your money - in the middle, where the most profit is initially available • A shrinking middle layer The 3 take-aways from this diagram: A All of us focus our efforts on the Major accounts where the margins are the thinnest – so the competition heats up and… B. There are so many “minor accounts” that we don’t have the resources to serve them profitably, and so we under serve the select few that go up the pyramid to the top C. The “middle accounts” are the most profitable – that is until everyone notices that we make our money there or that those accounts are becoming “major accounts” and so everyone wants a piece of the action Faced with this competitive global scenario, is there a proven way to examine our customer universe with an eye to increasing the value of our customer portfolio? The answer is a resounding “yes!” The Thesis: an interlude The planning tools, operational models, feedback loops, and performance metrics of data-based, relationship marketing provide those templates with which we can create optimal resource allocation and coverage models. What follows is a guideline for optimizing the allocation of resources, together with the attendant analysis and one possible implementation roadmap. Background Supposition We live and work in a time in which each of us faces allocation constraints pertaining to use of money, time, and people. Furthermore, the competitive arena we operate in is wholly unlike that of just a few years ago. The marketer’s Holy Grail is to get the right message, product, and/or service to the right person, at the right time, in the format that customers have indicated they prefer: investing their limited resources (time, money and human) in direct proportion to the expected return. In fact, this is the primary goal of an optimal allocation model. An optimal coverage model would also: • Support a retention, and loyalty-, focused, customer-based business design • Make effective use of the organization’s limited resources • Make investment decisions based on reciprocal commitment or mutual interdependence of your Ideal, Best customers and channel partners • Establish integration and synergy across the three functional areas responsible for servicing the customers: i.e., product marketing, sales, and customer service. My contention is that there is a fairly well defined path the enterprise can take when analyzing and assessing its allocation challenges. This path is mapped out through the use of the tools, templates, and planning of the data-based, relationship marketer. Resource allocation must also bring to bear the relationship marketer’s theories about managing the point of contact, managing the customer across their lifecycle of interactions with the company, managing the value of the customer portfolio, and managing knowledge across the company and across the value chain. Specifically, there is a spectrum, or “continuum of relevant customer contact activities,” that needs to be mapped to create an optimal and effective resource allocation model. The major group of inter-related tasks that the organization is to undertake – in conjunction with the analysis of their customer equity – will be to conduct an assessment, or audit, of their marketing, sales, and customer service activities so as to surface the key interdependencies between them, as well as with site logistics. Implicit in this assessment will be the attempt to understand how to move from the “current state” to the “desired end-state”. In the audit the company will: • Make visible and apparent where integration between the functional areas is necessary • Make apparent where non-discretionary accountability must reside • Revisit the current account selection process • Revisit key account management practices • Objectively verify whether an account is relationship – or transaction-oriented • Assess the skills, training, and behavioral components of the relevant customer contact people in each of the functional areas • Assess degree of cooperative, cross-functional teamwork along with supporting account planning, communications, and contact management tools Even as times have become tougher it doesn’t appear that enough businesses have heeded Slywotzky’s and elevated sales to a strategic boardroom issue. My assertion, however, is that we can achieve the greatest return on our portfolio of assets combining this thinking and by applying the models of customer relationship marketing and knowledge management to the problem of resource allocation and by extension to customer equity management. The Customer Portfolio Pyramid “Sure, it makes sense “philosophically” but all this stuff fails to hit home.” I can hear you say this. So, let me suggest that you take the pyramid and use it differently in order to present the value of the firm’s customers. Once this exercise is finished, I guarantee you will feel vastly different about how your company spends its limited time, money and other resource – and about your customers. Take your financial results from the last several years and analyze the buying behavior of your customers. (if your segmentation schema is complete, do this analysis by segment). Simply stack rank your customers by sales volume. Then let us “grade” or “apply a valuation” to the customers’ past buying habits. While most of us have used simple grading techniques such as A-B-C, I suggest that we need to get greater granularity in order to make more informed, better decisions on how to invest our resources. The second pyramid I suggest you create and deploy makes use of a “sizing” metaphor to visually allow our managers and individual contributors to see exactly what each account is worth. (This discussion takes hints from all the practitioners who discuss account grading and especially from Curry & Curry’s Customer Marketing Method). Break the customer results using these percentages: 2%, 3%, 15%, 25 %, 25%, 25% and 5%. The top 2% and the bottom 5%% (could be 7 or 10% or more) should be excluded from the general customer inventory analysis because they represent accounts that we should serve in different ways. (For Example: Major account teams for the top 2%; in-bound customer service handled via the web for the smallest 5%). While the graphic is interesting in and of itself, the real insight comes to the forefront once you investigate the actual profitability of the customers in each of the grades. While most of us are aware of Paretto’s rule, a more startling finding will likely emerge from this analysis: 200% of the profits come from 20% of the customers. And therein is both the take-away nugget and the challenge to address in implementing market coverage and customer equity management. Once the pyramid has been created – it must become a living document. Not only can it be used at the Board level but, perhaps with more immediate and tangible impact, it can be used to guide decisions and actions at the level of the individual field sales representative, the field service rep and the contact center rep. The Determinants: Reprise of the Interlude Customer Equity Management is a strategy that requires a supporting business design. What the practitioner needs is a framework for determining how to allocate resources and then how to optimize the deployment of these resource to provide the optimal “market coverage” necessary to maximize the portfolio of our customer assets. There are a great many steps involved, yet, in some ways, creating this framework is much like the dot-to-dot games from our childhood. Below are some types of information that will be required, both to “connect the dots,” and to build an effective allocation model: • Company strategy and vision • Target market • Customer and market reach • Definition of customer • Go-to-market mechanism • Activity based costing (or economic value added) analysis of the marketing, sales, and service processes • Analysis of current and required customer knowledge, customer economics, and the technologies used to connect with customers • Map of current market coverage with number of accounts (targeted, actual, and potential) by territory • Understanding of account segment membership • An account contact matrix model • An account valuation/weighted potential model • A volume/margin/duration model (to manage customer equity) • Results from qualitative, directional research that includes marketing, sales, service, and the end-user customer (plus channels[s], if applicable) • Data about customers: e.g., customer cycles (buying, budgeting, forecasting), number of contacts per site, key influencers by site in the complex selling decision, etc. • Accurate time/responsibility mapping for field sales and service personnel • The right set of metrics Although the preceding list looks more like a laundry list than a practical approach, we can, in practice, proceed from the point of accumulating this knowledge to crafting an actionable coverage and resource allocation model for the company The Building Blocks The primary building block for moving forward will be the analysis of the current portfolio of your customers. Combining the knowledge acquired from the steps identified above together with the results of an analysis of the economics of sales, customer service, marketing and channel coverage, will take us to the point of crafting a final resource allocation model. Perhaps the most tangible and useful will be the customer pyramid because everyone can relate to it. Performing the marketing and sales cost-to-serve analysis (Modified Activity based costing) takes us directly to the next challenge: Customer Based costing. To complete this phase we will want to identify how we interface with our prospects and customers. More importantly, we will want to map our contact points, our contact frequency, content and a marketing calendar. During this series of interlinked tasks we will investigate certain specific data-based, relationship marketing concepts. These include: a. The multi-dimensional data cube b. The opportunity management funnel c. An activity based costing analysis of the cost-to-serve our customers d. An understanding of how often and by what means we do contact our customers or contact matrix e. Directed and very focused conversations (e.g., focus groups) in which we have our customers help us define what is of value to, and valued by, them f. A marketing and sales communications calendar and activity audit. Taken together, these concepts and you then can map the ideal “allocation model” for your organization. What happens to the strategist who follows this path is rewarding to say the least. S/he can build and deploy: • A centralized marketing database with a four level architecture necessary to conduct effective business-to-business relationship marketing in complex selling situations: individual functional group, application served, street address, and enterprise • A repository of your corporate memory that can be used to share knowledge across the company and the company’s value chain • A method to stimulate leads with a closed-loop system for tracking them and the economics around both generating leads and closing sales • An activity-based costing model with which to manage cost to serve and cost to communicate – and customer profitability • A method that discovers how their customers define, and prefer to receive, relevance and value in communications • A holistic way of viewing all corporate messaging that will build a single voice to customers • A detailed understanding of the respective roles, responsibilities, and concerns of the field sales and service employees Taking these steps and combining them with the ideal “allocation model” can and should be done inside your enterprise. The result will create a double win: the development of the critical competence for the next millennium, and judicial, optimal investment of your limited resources. The result will create three complementary skill sets: 1. An integrated, data-based, relationship marketing competence 2. An optimal resource allocation model that effectively matches your product, services, and messages to your target customers and prospects 3. A deliberate effort to manage both the profitability of individual customer relationships as well as the value of your portfolio of customer assets.

Are we Asking the Right Questions?

2012-05-22T13:38:00.001-07:00

Are we asking the right questions? Are we? As we throw insults and “insight”; data, contradicting data, and party-line rhetoric around, with, toward, and against one another, are we even asking the right questions? I don’t think so. I’ve been booed down, attacked, or whatever else for trying to explain why I advocate that Heidegger – for each and every one of us - is more relevant to our lives today than 99.+% believe possible. Not only are his ideas relevant and timely, but they are pathways along which we can move; they un-conceal a thought-process and present ideas by which we can live, ideas that can help us approach this election, the national one, the issues regarding sustainability, women’s rights, quite simply – how to live. I confess that I am a believer in his approach to the creative power of “the word” – just imagine: “Language is the house of Being. In this house man dwells.” A number of you can hear the echoes of St. John, in his Gnostic hymn: “The Word was made Flesh.” Heidegger’s renewal of St. John’s statement affirms that “Language creates world.” The phrase is not metaphoric; it is literal; and, as such, it IS. These gnomic statements quickly alert us, bring into focus the everyday Language in which we are immersed, in which we now abide. Yet we walk away from that-which-is-clear. How many of us consciously create the world we desire with the language of the day? Have we not the same again with the insistent question: “Was Heisst Denken?” what does it mean to think? Let alone what does H mean, what are his 4 levels of looking at the question? Or, is it any easier to wrestle with his straight-forward, allegational assertion: “what is most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.” Heidegger was able to see that language has been deadened metaphorically. As speakers we hear but no longer comprehend. Language no longer brings the thing into presence; today, language is code, simplified, nullified of its essence and insight. Instead it is a short-hand, especially in the world of politics and governing/power. We fail ourselves unless the code is deconstructed, unpacked, and revivified. Lewis Carol played with language to the amusement and edification of millions. We need a poet. For us language is being tending ineffectually and moving towards its own demise - at which point anything could mean everything and everything will mean anything; and, it all will mean nothing. Why am I trying to bring Heidegger or a poet or Lewis Carol into a patch conversation? It isn’t because I think I’m better or that I’m any smarter than anyone here; I don’t have THE answer to any one question. But I do think we are on a collision course with Freedom – with a capital ‘F’; and, that is why I am trying to answer a question recently asked in the writing of this piece. Now the question came from another patch contributor, one whom I believe holds rational and balanced attitudes as evidenced by his thoughtful (usually) posts. He asked me why I find myself so invested in how we look at this election. It’s easy, Jay. I don’t think we see what remains concealed, what is hidden and not brought into the clearing. In other words, something strikes me as just not right, certainly not kosher, cricket, nor allowable if we just pay closer attention. I admit: There certainly are those among this intended audience who don’t think so or don’t care seemingly because they believe that this doesn’t affect them - they stand above the rest, above you and me. Now me, I’m “kinda” typical in Patch-ville, USA: I’m a lifelong Republican. Grew up in the Bay. Believe in God. Received a good education. Done ok at times, other times not. Been a sinner and a saint. But this election really disturbs me at my core: something is rotten in Denmark! I think the spotlight has been shone on the wrong openings, the wrong clearings. In fact, I think we are looking at the wrong clearings altogether; and, I think we are not asking the right questions. Moreover, I think we’re selling ourselves short. One thing that worried Heidegger, one of his pet peeves with the whole of western European man, the educated masses in particular, is the placid, unthinking existence of those of us just carried along by the flow: “…we are still not thinking.” Why are we not asking the deeper questions, the ones that do need to be asked and answered; and, if we are, are we unreservedly attending to the answers; are we then listening authentically, openly to what is in front of us; or, are we already on to the next fleeting thought? Moving away from that which needs to be thought, a movement natural to all humans. Personally, I believe that we are not asking the right question(s). And, in not asking the right one, or set of questions, we are failing ourselves; and, and we are failing the generations to follow. I think the most “thought-provoking” elements of the current political situation are being shifted from view, sometimes hidden behind a veil that is embroidered using the vocabulary threads of the “words that work” weavers, who today embroider with the same thread sold by those hucksters, or ones identical to, those who brought ridicule to a certain hapless ruler, in the fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” In this case the puppeteer brushing and dyeing the wool is a Republican and Tea Party adviser, the social researcher, Dr. Frank I. Luntz. He’s their “words-smith,” the guy distorting the facts and tricking us with clever phrases. This election, the one here in Wisconsin as well as the National one, is not about “job creation.” It is about the nature of government. It is about ‘the Good’, about ‘Justice’ about ‘Truth’: the stuff that really matters: society, providing for one another. For me, this election - and, well, it really is the most important election of my life - it proposes to destroy our beloved democratic republic and the ideals upon which our country, our nation, was founded with a verbal misprision of ideas. Concept distortion is all around us and no one is seeing it. One party has become the party of only a few, only some of the people. That is not the American way. If we choose the side pretending to follow this Nation’s founding principles, we will like lemmings following a disembodied the Voice, fall off the cliff and drop into a world ruled by a plutocratic oligarchy, which will have won control of everyone’s life. For me today, I am trying to detoxify myself from the bitter ads being shot across our bows. But I did hear one statement that I believe should apply more liberally to both sides. Yes, it was made by the President. Mr Obama was quoted while speaking from the G-8 Summit: “My job is to take into account everyone not just some” – not just the elite few. Why would any one of us follow a path that excludes and only looks out for the few, for some? And why would, or are, we only looking out for the few, for some? By the way: are YOU one of “the some”? Are you comfortable with the underlying belief system that both parties have in fact? (Not what the patcher crowd pretends, by the way). Have you asked all the questions that need to be answered? What questions don’t you want answered for fear of what has been concealed? Sorry if this got a little too ethereal. I hope that it “touches ground” for more than a few careful readers. For me, though, I suppose my conclusion is simple: ask the next question and the one after that and… In other words, whether you like Heidegger’s phrase “Questioning is the piety of thought” or prefer the words of John Fowles’ Magus, “A Question is a form of life; every answer a form of death.” Let’s make sure we are asking the right questions before we sink the ship of state.

Thinking is not a highbrow sport. Change Managers know all about thinking

2011-12-23T15:20:00.000-08:00

Thinking is not a highbrow sport; not an activity for the intellectuals or the intelligentsia to practice and thus to lord over others, demonstrating some supposed sense of superiority. That is neither what thinking intends nor what I propose nor who I am. Thinking is, however, a vital part of being alive, a privilege that, for some reason, a seemingly, ever-increasing group of fellow-citizens have abdicated: to the Tube, or to “the crowd” or to anyone else except themselves. Again: or, so it seems. Thinking, rather, is a gift, is our Divine right as human beings: “cogito ergo sum”. We all, each of us, has learned that such is the essence of being human. We do not think well any longer. Is it that we have grown so unconscious of what we do daily? Do we not simply plug in and surrender to some force other than ourselves and find superiority in that commonality of approach to life and its issues?

Thinking is not a highbrow sport. Not an activity restricted to lawyers and doctors and politicos or to . Yet as a nation, we, without a second thought, without the uproar the decision deserves, have done nothing to overturn the worst decision our nation’s Supreme Court has ever made: unrestricted control of the airwaves and media channels to the monied. And so people have become lemmings, led by a talking-head who is already brainwashed of the truth. These talking heads and pundits no longer think themselves. They spout that which is approved and is PAID FOR; nor the truth that has been concealed, hidden, unquestioned, forgotten, displaced.

Thinking is not a highbrow sport. I am not talking from an ivory tower. I am talking from the trenches of 2011. While admittedly, I come from a Patrician background, I am not a Plute in thought or reality: unless They now be among the poorest and those beleaguered by life (and, we know that the Plutes are THAT oligarchy – that tiny ! group of the richest ½ of 1% at most, who want to tell all of us that because they are rich that they know best and that they are right). Yes, I am a Republican by birth. I was not, however, brought up to believe the lies that the Tea Party is foisting upon the unwitting: my contention is that “the unwitting have become all of us.” Stop drinking “the Kool Aid”. Please! That is all I ask. We need to think; and, thinking is not applying group common sense. We no longer ask authentic questions; we no longer seek the complete truth; we accept the good enough instead of the best; we accept lies from Tea Party “pledge”-takers and certain Republicans who care only for themselves and the very wealthy who now own America.

Do you remember reading Plato’s Republic and the Allegory of the Cave? Thinking, the role of teaching, the challenge of taking on a responsible role in the world is the touchstone for life that is presented to us during our encounter with the text of the Allegory of the Cave. We all know that text. Many of us have re-read Plato. As readers of the text of during this present-now, this-today, the challenge, now, is how do we become unfettered; and, how do we go back up into the world, aware that most has been hidden; aware, and struggling to change the fact, that we are 3 removes from the truth. More importantly, how can we demonstrate convincingly and straightforwardly, and with simplicity that we have and continue to be misled, lied to by these Plutes? The Allegory of the Cave is much about what lies concealed, what has been hidden, what is several removes from the truth. My “allegation” or charge against myself and you is that all too often we kick pebbles. Try this test for yourselves: Pick up one of those pebbles. Hold that rock in your hands in a dark room. Then, take your narrow beam flashlight and direct its beam towards that rock. How much is revealed? 7%? 1% ? Certainly not much more. The challenge that we face, then, is to learn how to shine the light upon the 99% (or 93%) that remains concealed by when that partial particularity of a mere 1% is revealed; it is to learn how to discover the greater proportion, and then all of, that 99%. From that point on our responsibility under a new civil and social contract would be to share it responsibly, authentically with one another.

Thinking is not a highbrow sport. I am no intellectual; just a guy who believes that we have become deceived and led far astray by the oligarchy - the few. Their message has become only and exclusively a message that says “no”; it is a message of fear, exclusiveness, deception, lies, and betrayal. Thinking is not a highbrow sport, but it does require one to unplug from Tubeville, from the talking heads, from the summarizations that only provide a distortion of truth, from the cave; and to emerge into the light so as to ask questions and to listen authentically. It does demand a great deal of constructive questioning, informed paranoia, and a willingness to uncover what has been concealed and hidden away from us. That is what I would offer, if I could, to those who want again to find a path to a sustainable future. Instead of kicking pebbles; pick them up: shine a light upon the 99% that the Plutes want to hide. Make thinking truly a participative sport at last.

Common Sense is not what is needed, Mr. President.

2011-12-15T19:22:00.000-08:00

Common Sense isn’t what’s needed, Mr. President

If you listened to Mr. Obama’s interview on 60 Minutes, did you hear the phrase? Yes, that phrase. Personally, I listened until I heard the phrase “common sense”, after which I turned the Tube off. What calls for thinking in this present-Time, Mr. President, is not common sense. At one time, I had a Chinese employee who loved to repeat “common sense isn’t so common is it?” when client discussions became mired in details that clouded the bigger picture. Clients loved it; it simplified life for them. That is not what we need from our leaders, our friends, family members, or ourselves! Mr. President, I want to share this little paragraph with you, because I was disappointed when you called for “common sense” in a time that calls for thinking.

“That sound common sense which is so often ‘cited’ in such attempts” ascertain facts, by appealing to particulars> “is not as sound and natural as it pretends. It is above all not as absolute as it acts, but rather the shallow product of that manner of forming ideas which is the final fruit of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century (emphasis mine). Sound common sense is always trimmed to fit a certain conception of what is and ought to be and may be. The power of this curious understanding extends into our own age; but it is no longer adequate.
The organizations of social life, rearmament in moral matters, the grease paint of the culture enterprise – none of them any longer reach what is. With all the good intentions and all the ceaseless effort, these attempts are no more than makeshift patchwork, expedients for the moment. And why? Because the ideas of aims, purposes, and means, of effects and causes, from which all those attempts arise – because these ideas are from the start incapable of holding themselves open to what is.”

Instead of common sense, Mr. President, we need to think and to think differently from those ways we have allowed ourselves, or been allowed, to think. Certainly - if we are honest with ourselves - each of us already has some sense that we no longer truly engage with life and think. Television, cable news, the internet, Facebook, Twitter, radio pundits pushing a message supportive of one platform or another: each of these “channels” through which we are bombarded daily, deliver messaging that merely distract us from, allowing us to avoid, thinking. There are, in all likelihood for most of you, actual human beings sitting next to or across from you right now from you; and yet, in many instances, you are not connected, you have not come together, no thought is taking place.

Several avenues of help are available. Psychiatry, Religion, gatherings, engaging with thought, engaging and building with Others: these all seem to be better for us and for our times than staying plugged in and not thinking. In other words, there are multiple “Tubal-detox programs” available to any one willing to unplug, to engage, to recognize, as well as to accept the fact of their own Being-in-the-world and the Being of others. Such engagement brings with it awesome responsibilities, responsibilities which if accepted can negate both “common sense” and the failure to think so prevalent at present. It is hoped that we thus could find a path along which we could co-create a sustainable future, inclusive in nature, characterized by it ability to allow all to flourish. We need to repair and to re-weave the world and local tapestries. Common sense will never achieve either of those two goals.

Was heist Denken? was written by Heidegger nearly 50 years ago; and yet, its message is more relevant to our present-Now than any earlier time. Thinking is not “common sense”! At our most Sacred time of the Year, what greater gift could we give our friends, families, partners, lovers, employees and employers than to engage as humans, as thinking humans? Thinking requires that we unconceal that which has been hidden; it requires, in Heideggerian-speak that we come together to gather; that we no longer accept the concealed as truth.

Let me leave you, Mr. President, with Heidegger’s conclusion to this portion of his lecture. It applies in today’s Flat World more than in 1954.

“There is the danger that the thought of man today will fall short of the decisions that are coming, decisions of whose specific historical shape we can know nothing – that the man of today will look for these decisions where they can never be made.”

Mr. President, you have demonstrated that you understand and have internalized Michael Porter’s admonition: “strategy is choice”. We need you to choose to lead us out from tubal-land’s morass of conflicting utterances of concealment. Currently it seems as though the Sybil of Cumae is allowing leaves to blow, leaves that portend disaster, leaves inspiring fear. Mr. President, make the concealment stop. We need you to eschew common sense and to set the standard for thinking in America. Help us see that “common sense” is not the way.

Thanksgiving reflections: Principled negotiations with no absolutisms

2011-11-28T08:12:00.000-08:00

Principled negotiations with no absolutisms

Was Heisst Denken? Thinking.

At Thanksgiving we all are wont to pause and give thanks. Turkey and Packers have, for decades, brought laughter, excitement, and joy along with calories galore to Wisconsin tables. This year, let us tie that thanks to a new thoughtfulness, a thoughtfulness that then extends outward into all that we do and are, both for this present Holiday season and into our everyday lives. What calls for thinking? What is thinking? About what are we to think? And, why might it be more essential to our future than ever in our lifetimes?

Heidegger, in addition to challenging us with this intensely profound question, is justly famous for two oft-quoted statements: “Language is the house of Being” and “Language creates world.” He often uses philology and etymology to search for ways by which to ascertain the meaning behind the meaning, that which is concealed. In honor of our Thanksgiving Day celebrations, let me offer a glimpse at his thinking about “thanks”.

“The Old English, thencan, to think, and thancian, to thank, are closely related; the Old English noun for thought is thanc or thonc – a thought, a grateful thought, and the expression of such a thought; today it survives in the plural thanks.”

Did you pause and take notice of the final words? There is truly a deep-seated connection in our native language, a connection that links thought-thanks-thinking-memory together. “Language creates world.” Can we find the time to hear what the assertion reveals? Does that simple statement mean something to us; or, are we so distracted by our always on, 24/7 whirlwind of activities, and thus prevented from reading deeply? Do we see these words in much the same way we internalize an internal memo via email? Thanksgiving Day. A day of re-remembering; a day when we can gather, and in that gathering recognize that we do have a commonality, an obligation to listen authentically to one another, an obligation to come together and create world, an obligation which must be honored in this present now, if we wish to co-create a sustainable future, inclusive of all, demanding that all might flourish.

Heidegger is asking us to re-remember the power of thought, the power of language. It is not a new, or novel, concept. Take the Gospel of John. The Gospels, in our age of inclusion and cultural diversity, remain one cultural touchstone that many of us still share. Grab your Bible; open to the Gospel according to John. Read the opening verses about creation. Holding in our thoughts the fact that when John wrote, the opening of John is a Gnostic hymn: Language is in the presence of Being [God], and Language is Being: world was made through the power of thought and naming. Heidegger’s assertions about language and its power are based upon John, our cultural “locus classicus” pertaining to the creation of world.

So too each of us can create world, construct that House of Being in which we most want to exist, through Language. We live in a passionate, divisive time. We need passions now, perhaps more than ever. Our nation is in decline; politically and culturally we seem paralyzed by our partisan divide and our several fears.
It is time to set aside our fears. It is time to participate in this new social revolution, embracing the change it portends, shaping the change through our language and openness.
Our governors, city officials, and national politicians have failed in there tasks. Now it is our turn to solve the problems of our present-, and future-, nows. Ken Chenault from AmEx offered this advice: we need principled negotiations with out any absolutism. So as you sit down to dinner this week with family and friends, please take time to give thanks, to think, and to begin the healing process of coming together.

Then, take a new look at Heidegger. Begin your day with a short thought from his work on language and thinking. Holding thought, revealing that which has been concealed and hidden, are two challenges we all face. Together, however, having gathered and listened authentically, we than will be able to move forward together. We still can co-create a world for our children and grandchildren.

“Is thinking a giving of thanks? What do thanks mean here? Or do thanks consist in thinking? What does thinking mean here? Is memory no more than a container for the thoughts of thinking, or does thinking itself reside in memory?”

What are we to do with this? For many of us, it is easy simply to either dismiss, or acknowledge, and then to “walk away” from the thinking. Let us stay in the clearing, out of the darkness of media pundits and talking heads: let us use language to create, to heal, to fabricate a new house of Being for all.

Diagnostics and Strategy: getting from Here to There

2011-10-24T07:12:00.000-07:00

Going from Here to There: using Diagnostics, Facilitation, and Coaching to lay out your roadmap.

As I walked in this morning, I saw a large horse fly resting on the sidewalk. Huge, not particularly attractive: it couldn’t possibly fly. When She (sic!) created flying creatures, people asked what God had been thinking to design the horse fly or the bumblebee. After all we know that God has a grand design and all creation fits into the plan according to Her design. In truth, however, God’s design of bumblebees and horse flies has come under question for centuries. As in: what was She thinking? Or, nothing designed that way can fly. Yet, we know that both creatures do fly and do so well. What works so easily for God does not work as well for humans when it comes to successful planning on how to get to there from here.

Getting from here-to-there is always on everybody’s minds; and, getting from here-to- there is always already a clearly visible destination. Truth is, however: often we get lost on the way. [And, no! I really do not just mean driving directions]. I’m thinking more along the lines of the transformation the US now faces as the Tea Party tries to hold the nation hostage and take its citizens back to the 1787-9 period; or, a lot more simple to solve, how to transform a business into a customer-centered, customer-based business.
The challenges are so immense as to risk hyperbole. The missteps made happen so frequently and predictably that there must be a better way.

We no longer can afford missteps in today’s hyper-competitive, always-on, flat world. No, what we need is a way to assure breakthrough performance and to assure creation of a roadmap that outlines our best chance to arrive at the destination, the desired end-state.
And it really is quite simple to effect best-planning and execution of these crucial transformations. The keys are diagnostics, facilitation, and coaching.

Plans, lucid, readable and comprehensible roadmaps are important, nay vital to success: whether it is a “simple” exercise, such as taking your family of 5 to [you fill-in-the-blanks] for a mini-summer vacation, or (more) complex such as planning for your 24 year old daughter’s dream wedding, or compound-complex as in establishing your firm’s new customer centered and customer focused strategy. (Thinking of plans as a type of sentence construction may be a helpful metaphor).

Distractions, unanticipated events, setbacks, life: all these “things” happen and so our best laid plans somehow end up producing horse flies rather than hummingbirds. Problem is our horse flies don’t fly. Our “success” at planning, unfortunately, does not translate into successful implementation and operational effectiveness.

And, so what?! What now? How can your B2B CRM & CEM strategy be implemented successfully, without a hitch? How do we plan for life to happen and keep on the path. As I began to write this paragraph these 2 phrases surfaced: “Seek first to understand.” “Start with the end in mind.” And, yes, both pieces of advice are apropos of this discussion. Do they give a way to find planning and implementation success? I think they do. And, I think they do because they un-conceal what has been hidden or that which may distract.

What is needed is diagnostics, facilitation, and coaching. The process will clearly define 3 critical areas: 1. Where you are starting from: the point of departure or your “Current State”; 2., Where you intend to end up: your destination or “Desired End-State”; and, 3., the stuff that has to be done, accomplished, solved, etc. so that you can, in fact, get from here to there: “the bridging tasks”.

Unterwegs zu…

Blink or Think: Be Here now

2011-10-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

Be Here Now: Blink or Think

A decade ago, while still consulting heavily, I entered the office of the President of a Billion $ business. The brass-plated desk-ornament in the middle of his desk gave one simple admonition: “Be Here Now!” This leader wanted everyone to be present. When I ask myself or you “Was heisst Denken?” I am, to begin with, asking myself to be here now, to be present. I am asking myself, and I am asking each of you as well, to locate that way, that path on the way to; and, to be here now, to be present and accounted for.

Our current situation is one that calls for thinking; it is one that calls for each of us to be fully present, to be engaged to be here now. If we believe Thomas Friedman’s presentation in That Used to be Us, we are a divided nation in decline, one that has brought itself to this precipitous predicament. We have failed our country, our citizen, our nation’s children - our own gift to the future - in that we have failed to invest in our future. We see it now in our dearth, in our unemployment; in our inability to generate meaningful, fully engaging work; in the homeless, the under-employed. We see it in this State’s decision to cut back on education; its decision not to invest in much-needed infrastructure and renewal efforts; in our ever-widening gap between those who have and those who have not. Rather than attend to the now, we turn away. We choose not to attend to what calls for thinking; instead we blink and we turn away.

It is not unexpected that we blink; that we turn our backs on what calls for thinking; that we turn back to our comfortable lives; turn on the Tube, and plug in un-thinkingly to what Thomas Pynchon referred to as “mindless pleasure”. In fact, a highly popular “pundit”, Malcolm Gladwell incites us to blink. His book Blink: the power of thinking without thinking admonishes us to “blink – don’t think”.

Whereas by contrast, in his 5th lecture, Heidegger begins: “What is called thinking? We must guard against the blind urge to snatch at a quick answer in the form of a formula. We must stay with the question. We must pay attention to the way in which the question asks: what is called thinking, what does call for thinking?” Our present now calls for thinking. We turn away, however. We blink.

“What does that mean? Blink is related to Middle English blenchen, which means deceive, and to blenken, blinken, which means gleam or glitter. To blink – that means to play up and set up a glittering deception which is then agreed upon as true and valid –with the mutual tacit understanding not to question…”(lecture VII).

While I see many of us trying to solve the issues of today, I see equal or greater numbers who turn away. Regardless of party affiliation, we no longer can turn away. We cannot, however, solve any of the current problems by blind adherence to party lines. Nor can we solve today’s issues neither through rancorous argument nor partisan paralysis. We cannot take Gladstone’s advice and decide what is important based on 2 seconds of ephemerality and what we knew to be true in that present-now, now long past. We must be present; we must be here now. We must understand and act knowing that “what is most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking age is that we are still not thinking.” We need to, we can and we must, get underway, unterwegs zu.

Language and Politics: TeaParty calls Dems Nazi's in Wisconsin

2011-09-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

“Language is the house of Being. In its home man dwells.”

“It is language that tells us about the nature of a thing, provided that we respect language’s own nature….

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.

… Among all the appeals that we human beings, on our part, can help to be voiced, language is the highest and everywhere the first.”
Martin Heidegger.

I want to stop the misuse and abuse of language. Especially the “words that work” of the Tea Party and Republicans who are trying only to throw out our President. They still are just a “party of no”: and lest you hate me and send me nasty notes: I am a life-long Republican. Now, recovering, I am a proud Obama republican.

Let me digress and offer a brief explanation, if I might. My love is and has been Literature, philosophy, the classics and structural analysis &criticism (my Comparative Literature background) and teaching. With only a few regrets, I spent 30 some years in “Business” & Consulting. While in my business career I both had a modicum of success in marketing, sales, and consulting, I was also afforded quite a bit of time delivering training or other seminars. In doing so, I confess that I was not always careful with language. I want to write about language and its use, and maybe whatever else strikes my fancy.

But again: Why the insistence that we attend to language? I can only reply with a question, or two, and a suggestion. Have you turned on the news? Have you heard the lies, the distortion of facts, coming out of Fox News? Whom can you trust? Haven’t we reached a time when it now is vital for us to silence the furor and to listen with authenticity?

If you read Thomas Pynchon, you might simply remind individuals that a cure is available: they merely need to enroll themselves in a Tubal-detox program: cure themselves of “Tubeitis” that illness that permeates American life. It isn’t just on TV and Cable; it’s everywhere They can buy the placement of Their fear-mongering, society-splintering, destructive messages: all “no!. You have Rush L., Glenn Beck, and of course, WTMJ’s very own Charlie Sykes, who believe that if they use “words that work” often enough you will gladly, lemming-like allow yourselves to become victims of a Plutocratic Oligarchy. But hey! Who cares? Right? If the talking heads create enough noise pollution backed by the Koch brothers and other fear-mongerers such as the current lot of TeaParty-ites and Republicans pool of candidates, it will be perfectly alright with you?

And, let me add that yesterday I noticed someone say that Democrats are the same as Nazi’s to be defeated by the Tea Party. OMG! (As my 15, 13, and 10 year might say, but probably not). I felt compelled to add some “local color” if I might and stir the pot, but without language that is so blatantly outrageous and maybe even add a few words, as an Obama Republican, for our current Commander in Chief.
As my continuation I want to add, and expand upon, a blog I wrote in part nearly 2 years ago concerning how language was destroying our ability to talk about food. The problems, as it relates to language tearing apart the fabric of our national tapestry, has become worse.

Language, that which has the power to “create worlds”, apparently has been purchased, by what now is called the Tea Party and the Republicans. A paid “pundit” for the past few years has been publicly creating verbal playbooks for politicians to manipulate, to distort, to instill fear and mistrust, and to conceal. A lifelong Republican I confess to cringing at the lies. I also quickly found myself a proud Obama Republican. I want to use this blog to talk about language and to examine with others this current phenomenon of media: noise pollution designed only to un-elect a sitting president.

Language is the most powerful and under utilized tool at our disposal, individually, severally, and collectively. Sadly, in business, politics, and virtually all walks of life, certain powers with greater reach are broadcasting rancor during a time when this nation needs healing, a coming together, and the stimulus of growth.

Originally what got me riled up was the realization that we need more conscious use of language. At the time Food and Agribusiness were in the news. in business was the finger-pointing and railing against the machine concerning food: genetics, modified seeds, chemicals, food production, food safety, food labeling, etc.

Nearly two years ago, I found myself becoming increasingly angry over the public debate, the “national palaver” to quote Carlyle. I was heavily involved with agribusiness. I had been blessed , or cursed – if you must – to have been able to work with the leaders of that field: Dow AgroSciences, Bayer, Monsanto, Case/IH, AGCO – and so on. The industry was under attack. The “blogosphere” was filled with anger, misinformation, and a lot of noise. The anger was over mistakes made by certain executives in the past; and, as so often happens in the world, one person’s errors become to some the entirety of the company.

Like many of us, I am deeply bothered by the current public debate about food, food production and safety. The traditional, and newer "social" medias have taken this very, very complex issue and lumped together factoids about "feeding the world", "clean air", "global warming", "genetically modified crops", and the very sustainability of our planet.

Doing so only made things worse and certainly more confusing for most listeners. A great deal of positioning; a good deal of shouting; not much listening and working together going on there, so far, in this public debate. Agribusiness cannot allow itself to be dragged into a public brawl such as the one we've recently watched - and still are watching - about Health Care Reform and The Public Option.

Now, 18 months later, we have suffered through months of partisan paralysis. "Debt ceiling" debates became fodder for TeaParty radicals to stop progress and civility. The issues surrounding agribusiness and farmers, are among the most important topics of today because we all are involved in food and clothing and environmental issues. Yet, journalists such as Michael Pollan, Paul Roberts, and notable world citizens, such as Vandana Shiva, are inciting their audiences and special interest groups, mostly through fear and "adjustment" of the facts.

In contrast to these divisive voices, Peter Senge, of Fifth Discipline fame, offers a much more tempered approach, deeper and more thoughtful and quite a bit more challenging to each of us in his newest book, The Necessary Revolution. Today, however, the debate about Food seems not to be among the top 10 topics on the World News Tonight (whichever of the networks you follow). Instead, that same rancorous discord, those same outrageous, divisive language has been turned to again divide our nation. Radical claims concerning the future of our nation are fueling fear; causing the paralysis of recovery; the death of job creation; and, shutting down much of our hope for recovery in the near term.

The United States has become a country of Haves and Have-not's. Jobs have been taken away, sent overseas, leaving Americans unable to be fully engaged – all for the sake of the Plutocrats now hoarding their cash and chanting “No!”. The problem is how quickly the widening of the gap is becoming; and, that widening is not slowing down. Instead of using language, political power, and spending power to recreate a stronger America, distinguished by its equality and sense of inclusion for all, our media and those political talking heads, paid for by the ultra-wealthy, the Plutocrats, is fracturing the nation even further. We need that to stop.

We need authentic listening. We need to silence the lies, distortion of facts, and to begin using Language in order to create the sustainable future world we all desire. Not a world that excludes those the TeaParty doesn’t understand and are being taught to fear. Certainly the majority of us do not want an America for just the few who have control of all the wealth. 1/2 of 1% controls 80% of the wealth.

They cannot control the Language and ideas, however, or our nation will suffer tragic consequences. The issues we face in government are more complex, more divisive, and at a quantum level greater than the battle over food. Crafting a sustainable solution - just to guide the public debate - can, and will, not result from singularly slanted, or otherwise distorted preaching. These interrelated problems can only be corrected through a creative learning process. Rather than creating an atmosphere in which a true long-lasting solution can be crafted, these activists see only one-way: their own.

Instead we need to work together. Education and communications will play a huge role in shaping the outcome for many of us. It will take hard work. We lose all chance to shape the future, however, if we allow ourselves to be controlled by the puppeteers speaking into the ear-pieces of the TeaParty backed candidates and their media talking heads (or in the case of agribusiness: those outside agribusiness) to shape the public debate. Certainly we do not want to engage them at their level and try to yell over them: god help us if we try to do that – it’s just a waste of more money that could have been put into the economy to add value and thus would have been relevant to all citizens.

We need to listen. We need to look for the clearing. We need to listen for what has been concealed to become un-concealed. We need to practice what Stephen Covey suggests: "seek first to understand, then to be understood". We also need to build a dictionary that guides this conversation and mutual learning. All of us need to shape the language and use words that work and metaphors that reach across the gap between sides, pulling them into our conversation.

Keep this truism on a Post-It: "...those who define the debate will determine the outcome" (c.f., Frank Luntz, What Americans really want ... really). It's time to re-tell, or to tell anew, the story of farming, of how the world is fed and clothed - and what it will require when there are 9 Billion people on earth. It is time for us to educate the rest of the world about farming, agriculture, tillage practices, land and water conservation, seeds and chemicals. If we shape the conversation, without rancor and with a complete and easy-to-comprehend story, which helps reveal the truth in its complexity, everyone will come out ahead. Then we can move ahead proud of our stewardship and assured of a sustainable future.

But remember, "It's not what you say; it's what they hear" that matters We need business leaders and politicians to stop paying for words that work, words that distort and hide the truth. Our agribusiness leaders have worked exceedingly hard to being to address these same sometimes-difficult-and-admittedly- complex subjects through education and communication - the ones the extremists have distortedly made visible - so that our fellow citizens of the planet can help better understand the reality, the rancorous, drama can subside; constructive conversation, dialogue and trust can be built; and, we can craft a sustainable future together. We need that self-same commitment to renewal of our nation, as one of inclusion. We need to stop the fear mongering. We need to use language to un-conceal and to make the world we all want. The few that want to be the few can afford to go buy their own island: I suggest that they do just that. For the rest of us, let us co-create a sustainable future for America. That future will renew the social contract. Then we can walk our talk proudly. - old consultant adage, however: easy to say, harder to accomplish.

Unterwegs zur: Diagnostics, Facilitation, and Coaching for the B2B CRM & CEM Strategists

2011-08-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

On the way to ....
As I walked in this morning, I saw a large horse fly resting on the sidewalk. Huge, not particularly attractive: it couldn’t possibly fly. When She (sic!) created flying creatures, people asked what God had been thinking to design the horse fly or the bumblebee. After all we know that God has a grand design and all creation fits into the plan according to Her design. In truth, however, God’s design of bumblebees and horse flies has come under question for centuries. As in: what was She thinking? Or, nothing designed that way can fly. Yet, we know that both creatures do fly and do so well. What works so easily for God does not work as well for humans when it comes to successful planning on how to get to there from here.

Getting from here-to-there is always on everybody’s minds; and, getting from here-to- there is always already a clearly visible destination. Truth is, however: often we get lost on the way. [And, no! I really do not just mean driving directions]. I’m thinking more along the lines of the transformation the US now faces as the Tea Party tries to hold the nation hostage and take its citizens back to the 1787-9 period; or, a lot more simple to solve, how to transform a business into a customer-centered, customer-based business.
The challenges are so immense as to risk hyperbole. The missteps made happen so frequently and predictably that there must be a better way.

We no longer can afford missteps in today’s hyper-competitive, always-on, flat world. No, what we need is a way to assure breakthrough performance and to assure creation of a roadmap that outlines our best chance to arrive at the destination, the desired end-state.
And it really is quite simple to effect best-planning and execution of these crucial transformations. The keys are diagnostics, facilitation, and coaching.

Plans, lucid, readable and comprehensible roadmaps are important, nay vital to success: whether it is a “simple” exercise, such as taking your family of 5 to [you fill-in-the-blanks] for a mini-summer vacation, or (more) complex such as planning for your 24 year old daughter’s dream wedding, or compound-complex as in establishing your firm’s new customer centered and customer focused strategy. (Thinking of plans as a type of sentence construction may be a helpful metaphor).

Distractions, unanticipated events, setbacks, life: all these “things” happen and so our best laid plans somehow end up producing horse flies rather than hummingbirds. Problem is our horse flies don’t fly. Our “success” at planning, unfortunately, does not translate into successful implementation and operational effectiveness.

And, so what?! What now? How can your B2B CRM & CEM strategy be implemented successfully, without a hitch? How do we plan for life to happen and keep on the path. As I began to write this paragraph these 2 phrases surfaced: “Seek first to understand.” “Start with the end in mind.” And, yes, both pieces of advice are apropos of this discussion. Do they give a way to find planning and implementation success? I think they do. And, I think they do because they un-conceal what has been hidden or that which may distract.

What is needed is diagnostics, facilitation, and coaching. The process will clearly define 3 critical areas: 1. Where you are starting from: the point of departure or your “Current State”; 2., Where you intend to end up: your destination or “Desired End-State”; and, 3., the stuff that has to be done, accomplished, solved, etc. so that you can, in fact, get from here to there: “the bridging tasks”.

Unterwegs zur…

Laying out the B2B CRM Roadmap , part III

2011-07-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

The Determinants
What is needed is a framework for determining how to allocate resources. There are a great many steps involved, yet, in some ways, creating this framework is much like connecting the dots. Below are some types of information that may be required to build an effective allocation model:
• Company strategy and vision
• Target market
• Customer and market reach
• Definition of customer
• Go-to-market mechanism
• Activity based costing (or economic value added) analysis of the marketing, sales, and service processes
• Analysis of current and required customer knowledge, customer economics, and the technologies used to connect with customers
• Map of current market coverage with number of accounts (targeted, actual, and potential) by territory
• Understanding of account segment membership
• An account contact matrix model
• An account valuation/weighted potential model
• A volume/margin/duration model (to manage customer equity)
• Results from qualitative, directional research that includes marketing, sales, service, and the end-user customer (plus channels[s], if applicable)
• Data about customers: e.g., customer cycles (buying, budgeting, forecasting), number of contacts per site, key influencers by site in the complex selling decision, etc.
• Accurate time/responsibility mapping for field sales and service personnel
• The right set of metrics
Although the preceding list looks more like a laundry list than a practical approach, we can, in practice, proceed from the point of accumulating this knowledge to crafting an actionable coverage and resource allocation model for the company

The Building Blocks
The primary building block for moving forward will be an analysis of the current portfolio of your customers. Combining the knowledge acquired from the steps identified above together with the results of an analysis of the economics of sales, customer service, marketing and channel coverage, takes us to the point of crafting a final resource allocation model. One practical tool is to create a customer pyramid which analyzes value. (see familiar Rubik’s cube, illustrates both the architecture of the marketing database and the model for account penetration and cross selling. In other words, it emphasizes that the single biggest win from data-based marketing comes from penetration of existing accounts. The marketing database needs to track individuals by buyer group or functional need at the site level within the enterprise. The x-axis represents the functional areas within your customer’s organization. The y-axis allows you to track the value of the relationship with your customer (from suspect to target to trial buyer to buyer to apostle). The z-axis portrays the locations or street addresses of your customer’s various site locations.
And, while the marketing databases can be used to acquire customers, a much more profitable use for the marketing database comes from account penetration. This is, selling more products to additional buyers and selling additional products and services to all buyers.
In order to have a holistic view of the sales and marketing system, a closed-loop feedback system must exist. It is well represented by the familiar household funnel. We can use it to discuss the flow of data in a direct response, opportunity/lead management environment. The top half of the diagram portrays the flow and accumulation of the information, while the lower half shows the interaction with your sales group and channel partners. We can visually map the transfer of knowledge that can take place in an effective process of managing leads and opportunities.
Metrics is an additional benefit of using this graphic. One set of metrics measures the effectiveness of the communications stream. The second set of metrics measures the field’s effectiveness.
Keep in mind what relationship marketing is not – it is not direct mail nor is it telemarketing. It is the integration of all contact media to effect a measurable response that simultaneously manages the point of contact with the value chain.
The contact matrix, then, is a simplistic, activity-based costing model that incorporates three variables:
1. Account valuation or grading
2. Cost per contact medium
3. Cost of doing business as a percentage of revenue (E:R) by grade level and in total
Several things are worth consideration. Previously, direct marketers have judged success on a responsive rate. But response rate alone is a destructive measure that belies the workings of your marketing system. The preferred, more constructive, and more holistic measure is to examine the effectiveness of sales leverage to generate a return, balanced across all contact media. In other words, the contact matrix allows management a simple framework for managing cost to serve.

B2B Resource Allocation: Optimizing your CRM investment and coverage effectiveness, prt 2

2011-07-22T06:54:00.000-07:00

If you watch the kids, they seem to be able to do everything simultaneously and to do so 24/7.
The rest of us have limitations. In business there are resource limitations - we can't do or be everything for everyone.
We live and work in a time in which each of us faces allocation constraints pertaining to use of money, time, and people. Furthermore, the competitive arena we operate in is wholly unlike that of just a few years ago.
Consider this quandary: If you have a million dollars, where do you invest it to maximize your return? How do you approach solving the problem and answering the question correctly.
[Personally, I always liked Len Schlesinger's 2 X 2 matrix he termed "the Marketing Optimization Model"].

The marketer’s Holy Grail is to get the right message, product, and/or service to the right person, at the right time, in the format that customers have indicated they prefer. In fact, this is the primary goal of an optimal allocation model.
An optimal coverage model would also:
• Support a retention – and loyalty-focused, customer-based business design
• Make effective use of the organization’s limited resources
• Make investment decisions based on reciprocal commitment or mutual interdependence of your Ideal, Best customer and channel partners
• Establish integration and synergy across the three functional areas responsible for servicing the customers: i.e., product marketing, sales, and customer service.
Stepping Back: there are two reasons that customer relationship Marketing is so powerful when implemented properly. First, the firm focuses on acquiring the Ideal, best customer, and, second, the company manages its customers as a portfolio of assets – investing its limited resources proportionately to the level of commitment that customers and prospects make to the organization.
My contention is that there is a fairly well-defined path the enterprise can take when analyzing and assessing its allocation challenges. This path is mapped out through the use of the tools, templates, and planning by the data-based, relationship marketer.
Resource allocation must also bring to bear the relationship marketer’s theories about managing the point of contact, managing the customer across their lifecycle of interactions with the company, managing the value of the customer portfolio, and managing knowledge across the company and across the value chain. Fred Reichheld called it “the customer corrridor, graphically illustrated above. In effect, this metaphor illuminates the challenge of resource allocation relative to your customers’ lifecycle relationship with your firm.
Specifically, there is a spectrum, or “continuum of relevant customer contact activities,” that needs to be mapped to create an optimal and effective resource allocation model.
The first step many organizations will need to undertake is to conduct an audit of their marketing, sales, and customer service activities so as to surface the key interdependencies between them, as well as with site logistics. Think of it as “the programming” phase of dealing with an architect. The Master Builder will want to know how you want to live and function in the new space. This is a reflective exercise. The goal is to be in a position to produce cooperation and coordination across and between all functional areas that deal with customers and their issues. We need to:
• Make visible and apparent where integration between the functional areas is necessary
• Make apparent where non-discretionary accountability must reside
• Revisit the current account selection process
• Revisit key account management practices
• Objectively verify whether an account is relationship – or transaction-oriented
• Assess the skills, training, and behavioral components of the relevant customer contact people in each of the functional areas
• Assess degree of cooperative, cross-functional teamwork along with supporting account planning, communications, and contact management tools

Resource Allocation for the B2B CRM Practitioner

2011-07-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

It’s no longer a secret. The evidence is compelling. It is well documented, both at the academic level and in practice. Enterprise-wide Customer Relationship Management (CRM and CEM) – when properly implemented - can achieve impressive results. The primary results:
• Increased sales Effectiveness and Efficiency
* Increased Profits
* Increase in customers served and products placed within customer accounts
• Increased Customer/Employee Satisfaction
• Decreased cost-to-serve
The second “secret” is that virtually every organization has limited resources: People, Money, Time.
Optimization of the respective coverage models - sales, customer service, marketing and channels - still has not been exhaustively studied. The models and tools of the eCRM practitioner provide almost a dot-to-dot like template with which to assure coverage optimization and hence optimal use of the firm’s limited resources.
The third “secret” is that our customers represent a portfolio of assets that we must proactively manage in order to maximize shareholder and stakeholder value.
Whether the resource is time, money, or people, the optimal allocation of resources is a critical issue, a critical challenge, for almost every business organization. Since no enterprise has unlimited resources, it is worth investigating how customer relationship marketing models can provide a critical key to unlock the answer to this problem.

In no functional area of business is this resource allocation problem more true than in sales, marketing, and servicing customers and/or prospects. In fact, the search for the optimal allocation of resources in these functional areas is something akin to the search for the Holy Grail.

In business-to-business marketing the characteristics of the target customer group can commonly be depicted visually as a pyramid, with the largest accounts at the top of the pyramid, and moving down through a group of middle accounts trying to grow larger and support the pyramid are "minor" accounts.
The pyramid graphically shows how, in most mature, competitive industries, the sales function (together with service and product marketing) is faced with:
• Price and margin pressure at the top of the pyramid, where the size of the targeted accounts is the largest
• Margin (cost-to-serve) pressures at the bottom of the pyramid, where the largest number of accounts exist
• An eventual overabundance of competition – once all your competitors realize where you are making your money - in the middle, where the most profit is initially available
• A shrinking middle layer

If, as has been suggested for the last 15 plus years, we elevate Customer Relationship Management, as core strategy, and Sales to a strategic boardroom issue, we can create the greatest synergy by applying the models of customer relationship marketing, customer insight, and knowledge management to the problem of resource allocation.
One Observation
In addition to the five key inevitable outcomes that result from a well-executed customer relationship marketing competence, other implicit problems are remedied:
• Increased sales
• Increased service levels
• Increased customer and employee satisfaction
• Increased customer and employee retention
• Decreased cost to serve
• Faster product introduction, i.e., speed to market
• More controlled management of product migration by targeted segment
• Decreased cost of doing business as a percentage of sales, i.e., sales expense to revenue ratio (E:R)
The Thesis
The planning tools, operational models, feedback loops, and performance metrics of relationship marketing
are templates that create optimal resource allocation and coverage models. What we have created and replicated across multiple firms in the B2B realm is a roadmap for optimizing the allocation of resources, together with the attendant analysis and implementation.

on the way to language

2011-05-02T09:17:00.000-07:00

When the salesman starts talking do your eyes glaze over; do your ears close a little; do you begin to daydream about your kids or... ? What happens when you listen, or watch, the news? Do you change channels; perhaps watch Veggie Tales with your kids, or even better: turn off the TV? Is Language alive. Do metaphors enhance our lives? Does Language reveal or hide? Persuade or do damage? Or , as always is the answer "It depends"?

My concern here, though, is the language of daily living.

I confess that I may have been pulling my own Rip Van Winkle. Driven to learn, to make money, to nurture my children, and to find balance, I find that i wasn't fully engaged with the world. Particularly the way in which we of the world communicate, use language to shape our world.

Never in my lifetime has the use of language emerged with such singular and dramatic force: a force for change; a force to bring about unification; a force for getting truth out to everyone; a force for lies, distortion, and manipulation.

Over the past two years, I've noticed that the level of disinformation and actual yelling has increased if one listens to cable and other news' outlets. The business of government has been forced to a sluggish, muddied, grimy cesspool more like paralyzed sewage rather than a fountain of living inspiration and truth.

I've gone back to school to work on a PhD - across a number of disciplines: literature, philosophy, and business (or, history & business). I wanted to build on my business acumen and successes while improving my own ability to create, think, learn, and lead. I have read quite a bit of Heidegger. There is so much more to read, digest, and absorb before I can begin to try to share it.

I have found out that Language is one part of what makes us human. I have learned that there is something called "Fixed English" another version called "Free English" and that there is a still newer version called "Words that Work".

I've tried to remain silent and listen over these last few months. I haven't wanted to pollute the public discussion by yelling, which in today's world seems to have emerged as the WAY by which communicators get their message across.

One thing I have come to realize is that Language is the key to unlock the potentiality of the world again. Language creates world. Language allows the unhiddenness of truth to become unconcealed. In order for Language to retain and have the full force of its power to create world, we must engage in authentic listening. Not something we American are good at.

Which takes me back to the salesman whose elevator speech has just made my eyes glaze over and my head to nod.

I really do wish I had answers. I know that I believe that I do - at least in the world of B2B CRM strategy, sales, marketing, and a few other areas try some authentic listening for myself and for all of us. We then can use Language to create world.

Metaphors to sell by

2010-10-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

Over the last 18 months have you stopped and noticed how often the news' media brings up how one party or the other has availed itself of an advisor, a word-smithing advisor, who can teach that Party's spokespeople how to achieve its ends through language, through choosing "words that work."

Now stop for a second and think back to all those "lessons" you've been given over the years telling you what to say under what circumstances in order to break down any possible existing or lingering resistance when it comes to your trying to sell something to a potential, existing, or former customer. In other words, how to sell.

Were the words you were taught to use in order to be a better salesman "words that work"? And, did they work long term allowing you to achieve loyal, raving customers, or were they transactional wins that left you having to start from scratch each time you dealt with this buyer? Is there even the possibility that such a difference might exist?

Now stop and think about it for a minute. Have you stopped recently; listened to the language of your sales force and its leaders? How do they frame the exchange of value - product, services, information, etc - that takes place between your company and your intended customers?

(Another complementary issue to contemplate is the fact that the language used by sales, by marketing, your call center personnel, and the other functional areas that are customer-facing may not be the same).

The evidence likely will point to the use of rational argument and battle metaphors. If that is the case, does the language we use when talking about customers, prospects, and our slice of the pie undermine our long-term effectiveness and hurt our ability to form long-term, loyal relationships?

Is the language , the metaphors we use when we sell, unwittingly obscuring a self-reinforcing attitude and set of behaviors that is hurting our long term customer retention efforts?

Are we phrasing our marketing efforts as "campaigns" - miniature battles? When we "penetrate" an account are we blasting through the ramparts in order to take prisoners? and so on.

If we are seeking loyal relationships with our best, core customers, what language should we use, what metaphors should we sell by?

Cognitive scientists such as George Lakoff argue strongly that our metaphors are embodied. Does such embodiment insist that the net new creation of metaphors is highly unlikely, nearly impossible? Let us know your thoughts and let's explore this together.

A 2010 Loyalty CRM Strategy Roadmap, prt 2

2010-05-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

A Strategist’s Business Issues

A strategy can only be executed with focus and choice. It must operate with , what Rich Horwath in Deep-Dive calls, “the discipline to intelligently allocate … resources.” Whether the resource is time, money, or people, the optimal allocation of resources is a critical issue, a critical challenge, for almost every business organization that wants to execute its strategy successfully. Since no enterprise has unlimited resources, it is worth investigating how customer relationship marketing models can provide a critical key to unlock the answer to this problem.

In no functional area of business is this resource allocation problem more true than in sales, marketing, and servicing customers and/or prospects – a market-coverage model, if you will. In fact, the search for the optimal allocation of resources in these functional areas is something akin to the search for the Holy Grail.

In business-to-business marketing (B2B) the characteristics of the target customer group can commonly be depicted visually as the familiar pyramid. Largest accounts on top, smallest on the bottom. The shared, common problem of a target universe, the pyramid graphically shows how, in most mature, competitive industries, the sales function (together with service and product marketing) is faced with:

· Price and margin pressure at the top of the pyramid, where the size of the targeted accounts is the largest

· Margin (cost-to-serve) pressures at the bottom of the pyramid, where the largest number of accounts exist

· An eventual overabundance of competition – once all your competitors realize where you are making your money - in the middle, where the most profit is initially available

· A shrinking middle layer

More than a decade ago Adrian Slywotzky suggested in an article that we elevate sales to a strategic boardroom issue. There never has been a more critical time for many businesses to recommit to elevate Loyalty and CRM to the boardroom level.

I do not presuppose a cookie-cutter approach. But, simplistically, I do believe that building a strategic roadmap for CRM in 2010 should be much like the childhood dot-to-dot challenges, which captivated our imaginations for hours. Especially if we guide our thoughts with the words of philosopher, Jacques Derrida, namely “that the answer is always already there.” In other words, through analysis, diagnosis, business intelligence, customer insight, we can uncover the “dots” that we need to connect in order to drive our Loyalty CRM Strategy towards success. Loyalty CRM: doing business with the right core customer. The roadmap requires discipline, focus, choice, and selectivity. Customer insight, business intelligence, process optimization, communications, and training are the primary ingredients the relationship marketing executive adds to the traditional 5 Forces analysis. Judicious use of these tools together with our marketing imaginations will allow us to uncover the roadmap for our particular company and target universe.

This approach requires cooperation and coordination across the entire company and your “value chain”. As a Loyalty focused CRM strategist you can create great synergy and operational effectiveness to your Loyalty CRM Strategy by applying the models of customer relationship marketing and knowledge management together with a modified activity-based look at resource allocation – your customers as a portfolio to be managed.

The Thesis for identifying the 2010 Loyalty CRM Strategist’s Roadmap

The planning tools, operational models, feedback loops, and performance metrics of relationship marketing are templates that create optimal resource allocation and coverage models. What follows is a guideline for optimizing the allocation of resources, together with the attendant analysis and implementation.

Why do we need a roadmap?

In order to “keep our eye on the ball”, in order to maintain focus on the desired end-state of our strategy, is the simple answer. The 3 primary results executives should expect from a well executed, loyalty-focused CRM Strategy are: Increased sales Effectiveness and Efficiency; Increased Customer/Employee Satisfaction; Decreased cost-to-serve

In addition to the three key very desirable outcomes that result from a well-executed customer relationship marketing competence, other implicit problems can be remedied:

· Increased sales, both volume, margin, and breadth of offerings

· Increased service levels

· Increased customer and employee knowledge sharing

· Increased customer and employee retention

· Customizable coverage

· Faster product introduction, i.e., speed to market

· More controlled management of product migration by targeted segment

· Decreased cost of doing business as a percentage of sales, i.e., sales expense to revenue ratio (E:R)

Customers as “a portfolio of assets”

We live and work in a time in which each of us faces allocation constraints pertaining to use of money, time, and people. Furthermore, the competitive arena we operate in is wholly unlike that of just a few years ago. We have a rare opportunity in today’s struggling economy if we are disciplined in our choices, focus, and resource investment/deployment.

Consider this quandary: If you have limited resources, where do you invest them, and how, in order to maximize your return? Professor Len Schlesinger – who brought “us” the Service-Profit Chain – used to lecture using a 3 X 3 matrix:

Across the top: LOYAL SWITCHER COMPETITIVE

Down the left side: LARGE MEDIUM SMALL

Using this simple framework, that he called “the Marketing Optimization Model”, Professor Schlesinger would challenge his audience and students to solve the problem all strategists face, the resource investment and allocation dilemma. While a 9-box matrix perhaps overly simplifies the coverage and investment challenge, it gets the CRM strategist thinking in the right general areas.

Our customers represent a portfolio of assets that we must proactively manage in order to maximize shareholder and stakeholder value. A complementary truth is that virtually every organization has limited resources. So it is vitally important to invest those limited resource in direct proportion to the return we expect to receive from our investment in our primary assets - our customers.

The marketer’s Holy Grail is to get the right message, product, and/or service to the right person, at the right time, in the format that customers have indicated they prefer. In fact, this is the primary goal of an optimal allocation model.

An optimal coverage model would also:

· Support a retention – and loyalty-focused, customer-based business design

· Make effective use of the organization’s limited resources

· Make investment decisions based on reciprocal commitment or mutual interdependence of your Ideal, Best customer and channel partners

· Establish integration and synergy across the three functional areas responsible for servicing the customers: i.e., product marketing, sales, and customer service.

Stepping Back: there are two reasons that customer relationship Marketing is so powerful when implemented properly. First, the firm focuses on acquiring the Ideal, best customer, and, second, the company manages its customers as a portfolio of assets – investing its limited resources proportionately to the level of commitment that customers and prospects make to the organization.

My contention is that there is a fairly well-defined path the enterprise can take when analyzing and assessing its allocation challenges. This path is mapped out through the use of the tools, templates, and planning by the insightful, analytical, data-based, relationship marketer.

Resource allocation must also bring to bear the relationship marketer’s theories about managing the point of contact, managing the customer across their lifecycle of interactions with the company, managing the value of the customer portfolio, and managing knowledge across the company and across the value chain. Fred Reichheld called it “the customer corridor^”: it is really mapping the touch-points between your firm, your target universe and customers, as well as your value chain members. In today’s 24/7, always-on, flat-world seemingly driven by social media, just mapping these touch points and then aligning your company for total cooperation and coordination across the value chain is an immense undertaking. Creating the graphic, however, will serve as a powerful icon inside your firm and will illuminate the challenge of resource allocation relative to your customers’ lifecycle relationship with your firm.

Specifically, there is a spectrum, or “continuum of relevant customer contact activities,” that needs to be mapped to create an optimal and effective resource allocation model.

The first step many organizations will need to undertake is to conduct an audit of their marketing, sales, and customer service activities so as to surface the key interdependencies between them, as well as with site logistics. Think of it as “the programming” phase of dealing with an architect. The Master Builder will want to know how you want to live and function in the new space. The audit seeks to:

· Make visible and apparent where integration between the functional areas is necessary

· Make apparent where non-discretionary accountability must reside

· Revisit the current account selection process

· Revisit key account management practices

· Objectively verify whether an account is relationship – or transaction-oriented

· Assess the skills, training, and behavioral components of the relevant customer contact people in each of the functional areas

· Assess degree of cooperative, cross-functional teamwork along with supporting account planning, communications, and contact management tools

The Determinants

What is needed is a framework for determining how to allocate resources. There are a great many steps involved, yet, in some ways, creating this framework is much like connecting the dots.

A 2010 Strategy Roadmap for CRM, prt. 1

2010-05-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000201 EndHTML:0000025000 StartFragment:0000004291 EndFragment:0000024964 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/admin/Desktop/2010%20Strategy%20Roadmap%20for%20CRM%20pt1.doc

2010 Strategy Roadmap for CRM, part 1.

Strategy is choice. Choice tied directly to Mission, Vision, Values, and Purpose. Choice, Selection, Focus and Differentiation are critical components to any successful strategy.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM), is a strategy based on customer focus, on customer knowledge, and on delighting the customer. CRM is real-time, actionable, customer knowledge management. The best CRM approaches are holistic, involving all facets of your business and demonstrating accountability for results. CRM becomes a guiding philosophy and framework for doing business and includes:

• differentiating and optimizing the customer experience
• building customer knowledge to provide value to both the customer and your business
• taking a portfolio management approach to customers –investing in direct proportion to the expected return from each customer, while realizing that not every customer is worth keeping!
• delivering “value “ as defined by the customer - at each point in the customer’s lifecycle and with all of your customer contacts

The single most important set of decisions any business-to-business enterprise can make are those involving selection - of the products and services you will provide, of the customers for whom you will provide them, and of the channels through which you will market them, of the strategy to differentiate your offerings from your competitors.

Sadly, “something like 90% of companies fail to execute strategies effectively.” Often, the failure to realize a strategy success results from taking your eye off the ball. (In other words, something came up and we paid more attention to that blip than to the strategy). Successful strategy execution will/should allow your business to create a sustainable competitive advantage, to optimize its market-coverage models, to optimize its customer portfolio, to anticipate the shifting nature of value, and to realize loyal customers.

One primary constraint to successful execution of your strategy is that virtually every organization has limited resources: time, people, and resources. Choice, focus, and selection are critical. With today’s business intelligence tools, your firm can easily achieve Optimization of the marketplace coverage models - sales, customer service, marketing and channels. The models and tools of the eCRM practitioner provide almost a dot-to-dot like template with which to assure coverage optimization and hence optimal use of the firm’s limited resources.

A second realization we must still embrace is that no company can be all things to all people. Your customers represent a portfolio of assets that must be proactively managed in order to maximize shareholder and stakeholder value. As strategists we believe that our best customer investment and market strategy would be to invest our limited resources in direct proportion to the expected return on investment

Again, choice, selection, focus, and purpose must serve as constant monitors. While CRM “implementations” still fail – at disappointing level - to achieve what executives expect, It’s no longer a secret, the evidence is compelling and is well documented, both at the academic level and in practice. A strategy of Enterprise-wide Customer Relationship Management – when successfully implemented , whether in the clouds or on-premise- can achieve impressive results.

The most easily measurable results include:

· Increased sales Effectiveness and Efficiency

· Increased Customer/Employee Satisfaction

· Decreased cost-to-serve

In fact, there are 8 benefits. The EIGHT BENEFITS of successful CRM implementations are well documented. With a well-executed strategic CRM program, you can experience and measure:

1. Increased sales
2. Increased profitability
3. Greater product penetration
4. Growth in customer satisfaction and loyalty
5. Increased employee satisfaction
6. Decreased cost-to-serve
7. Increased retention of the existing customer base during times of economic uncertainty.
8. Increased likelihood of new customer acquisition

These maxims are independent of the enabling technology. Successful strategy implementation has more to do with aligning people, processes, and information (yes, data) to the mission/vision/values/ & purpose of the business, to the strategy, than with what software package or cloud-computing platform chosen.

Help! how do you talk to your Waldorf 8th grader about "Food, Inc."?

2010-04-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

[As I sat and tried to collect a few thoughts before writing this posting, I began to wonder whether there is something of Horace's "The City Mouse and The Country Mouse" underlying the American debate about food and agriculture].

Last week my 8th grade Waldorf educated daughter, Isabella, and her class sat through Food, Inc. As it's viewing did for so many adult audiences, the movie hit a nerve with her and her classmates. And, as I try to sift through her questions and emotional reaction to the questions raised by the book, I am forced to re-examine certain questions and decisions I have made myself.

I had spent the last year researching the emotional fall-out, and rising criticism that has pummeled the GMO movement (Monsanto in particular), the poultry, cattle, and hog industries. I thought I could sit with my 13 year old and learn a lot from that conversation.

Her first 3 remarks were along the lines of "I'm never eating chicken again" and "why does Monsanto fight with farmers" and "what if Monsanto has it wrong"?

I have written about how destructive the rhetoric and "the noise of the special-interest groups", calling for a return to civility, for using "words that work", and for creating metaphors that move us towards civility once again. My personal library has grown to include numerous studies about seeds, the climate, soil use, tillage practices, and the future. Every author has an answer or a gripe, or some combination of both.

Sadly, I do not have "the answer".

Perhaps there is not one, single answer. In fact, how could there be just one answer!?

I have come to realize, however, that the underlying complexity of safe food production and of how American Agriculture feeds, clothes, and supplies the world is not as widely understood as we Americans need. Moreover, i've also come to realize that this subject matter: feeding and clothing the world safely - will only grow in importance as the planet races to embrace 9 Billion people by 2050. We need to talk about food production and future without all the rancor that controlled the health care debate.

To begin to grasp the complexity of the questions surrounding food production, safety, and availability, I encourage everyone to adopt Peter Senge's view of systems (c.f., Fifth Discipline) so as to begin to understand that whatever changes we make in one area necessarily have an impact on another area of the system.

Tonight is Jamie Oliver night at my house: my daughters' choice of programming!

So : what did you tell your teenager after s/he saw Food Inc. ?

Did, in fact, s/he see it? Did it cause a visceral reaction?

CRM: it still is not a package or cloud Solution!

2010-03-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

Effective CRM initiatives have yielded a gold-mine of profits, customer information, and competitive advantage. Yet, even a decade and 1/2 after CRM entered our business vocabulary, fewer companies succeed than fail. The artistry, the magic in successful CRM and Customer Experience Management comes from your company's ability to transform the data into relevant and valuable information, and then to again turn that information into actionable knowledge - again relevant, timely, and of value at each point across the customer corridor - a value that changes with each transaction or touch.

Sadly, many CRM & CEM initiatives have failed to achieve the "results" or the ROI that the sponsoring executives were told to expect. More alarming to me, however, is the fact that Customer Relationship and Customer Experience Management initiatives are believed to be technology plays: technology or package or cloud-computing solutions.

The failure to achieve ROI or to have "expectations" met could in fact be a result of failing to realize that CRM is not a package solution!

Loyalty-based, Customer Relationship Management is a strategy based on customer focus, on customer knowledge, and on delighting the customer. CRM is real-time, actionable, customer knowledge management. The best CRM approaches are holistic, involving all facets of your business and demonstrating accountability for results. CRM becomes a guiding philosophy and framework for doing business.

Successful CRM practitioners anchor the initiative in their strategy, as well as in their mission, vision and values not in the package, or point-, solution they choose.

Market-at-risk Analysis

2010-02-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

The Quality movement in the US came to the forefront in the mid-80's. Satisfaction and loyalty became the next banners brought into the battle. Today it appears as though satisfaction and loyalty have slipped to a lower focus of attention. Corporate social responsibility, corporate reputation, and customer experience management are more "top-of-mind" than at any time in my career.
Yes, customer satisfaction is still important. In fact a new "standard" for reporting satisfaction has emerged. Borne from Fred Reichheld's ground-breaking studies while at Harvard, Net Promoter can be a powerful tool and quite a number of firms have chosen Net Promoter as their scoring mechanism.

If you want to find out exactly where to concentrate your efforts to improve and or fix issues ready to your company's product, delivery, and service issues: Market-at-risk analysis is the way to go!
Developed by John Goodman and brought to the marketplace and placed under its scrutiny and spot-light by TARP (quality firm, not asset relief), Market-at-risk analysis allows your firm to stack rank the 10 or so top reasons why customers will not buy from you or why they won't refer or why they will DEFECT as soon as they can.
Stack ranking by economic impact caused to your business : fix it and win big!

Customer Selection: strategy as choice

2010-01-27T12:44:00.000-08:00

Selection, Not Tunnel Vision
Social media reinforces what B2B marketers have long known.
Targeted communications to select customers can create an
on-going dialogue, grow into deeper conversation, create bonds between
customer and dealer and company, and affect a conversation to loyalty.

It has been our experience that, by looking at proper customer
selection, effective data-based, loyalty-focused, business-to-business
marketers escape the kind of tunnel vision that results in
traditional mass-media attempts to send one watered-down
message to an entire, undifferentiated universe. Instead, they find
that they are able to invest more budget in highly targeted
communications to the segments most likely to become loyal
customers.
These companies have the tools to become more active relationship
managers with both dealers and end-users. They educate their
organizations about the needs of individual segments, continually
enhance the delivery of products and services, develop targeted
offers more likely to draw a response, and better allocate resources
in the design of sales territories.
And, since they’re talking to each customer’s specific concerns, a
dialog is established; relationships are formed; satisfaction, growth
and profits follow; and, with them employee performance and
morale are increased — reinforcing the feedback loop that leads to
a sustainable competitive advantage.

Mapping touch points: How complex is your B2B customer decision process?

2010-01-27T12:26:00.000-08:00

Your customer-buying decision: how complex is it?

The CFO of a multi-billion dollar, multi-national recently told me that his #1 objective was to simplify & reduce the complexity of his business. Another Chief Strategy Officer wonders how his customer, colleagues, and competitors can absorb and intelligently make use of the complex technology that now seems to control his marketspace. If our leaders feel some “pain” relative to complexity, does this complexity affect our customers’ experiences? And, how does this product/service/technology complexity affect buying decisions?

How does the complexity differ or change when we move from B2C to the B2B world? And, how does social media alter the decision making and the customer insight?

In the B2C world, Apple seems to have mastered the complexity / simplicity challenge in all that it does: computers, phones, iPods, and iTunes. Think about the last time you visited the iTunes store. Apple’s customer experience management process is the ne plus ultra of complexity made simple, made seamless, and made to create satisfied, loyal advocates of its customers. And, with today’s launch of the iPad, Apple seems to have done it again.

While automation or technology exists to assist with this exercise, we suggest an approach based upon mapping – actually identifying on paper – how, when, and why - a customer (or, prospect, etc.) comes in contact with your company, its products, services, and performance issues. It’s an approach that has been around for a while, and it also is one called out in the recent book Answering the Ultimate Question, (cf., pp. 97 ff.) from the founding partners of Satmetrics.

When was the last time that you mapped the various touch-points, and life-cycle progressions, that your company has with its customers? There are two famous articles that readily come to mind. “Staple yourself to an order” was perhaps the first to treat the subject. Fred Reichheld’s “customer corridor” (in The Loyalty Effect, pgs. 201-203) may have been the next significant, and the more famous, exposition. My sense is that “practitioners” have gotten better over the last 20 years in understanding their customers’ buying behaviors. But in today’s world of social media’s strong incursion seamlessly coupled with multiple buying and communications channels, companies must master mapping their customer experiences if they are to provide outstanding customer experience and relationship management solutions.

We’d love to hear back from those of you who have starting their customer mapping work. Once the mapping is done, however, there will be work to do! Cooperation and coordination across all functional areas will become even more vital for the company that wants to demonstrate that it truly is customer-focused and customer-based.

thought-starter # 3, loyalty versus frequency

2009-12-30T11:12:00.000-08:00

Thought-starter # 3: Loyalty versus frequency

“At the core of any successful enterprise, enabling its very existence is the value creation process. Value creation generates the energy which holds the business together… The forces of loyalty are measurable in cash flow terms

because of the linkages between loyalty, value and profits. Loyalty is inextricably linked to the creation of value.”

-Fred Reichheld, Bain

Examining the historical purchase behavior, captured in our marketing database, we can define the value our customers have had in prior years. We can also project out what these same customers might be worth over the next five to ten years. Most of us know this projection as lifetime value (LTV). As we examine

the value of our customers to make the decision to establish loyalty bonds, it’s essential that we recognize three things:

1. LTV is a projection based on historical behavior.

2. LTV has more to do with how we treat our customers after

we have acquired them than how we acquired them.

3. LTV is most effectively measured by measuring the re l a t i o n s h i p

we have with our customers, not with measuring transactions.

Frequency Programs vs. Loyalty Programs

This brings us to frequency programs. Frequency programs are usually transaction-focused, non-selective and often destructive. Most of us participate in a multitude of them. Initiated in the early 1980s by the airlines to entice business travelers, many companies have successfully replicated these once highly successful programs.

All too often, however, frequency programs are created as me-too administrative programs, programs that merely respond to competitive offerings, programs that shift-the-burden away from a true loyalty solution. Following this logic, a poorly conceived or executed frequency program will not help us select the best customers for our business. A frequency program may cause us to acquire customers we cannot service adequately or, even worse, diminish the perceived value of our product offering. In short, frequency programs and loyalty programs are two distinctly different animals.

Executed as relationship-welding, relationship-enhancing efforts, loyalty programs must be derived from the strategic corporate mission. The best loyalty programs aim to create value-based relationships with our best customers. The determinant variables in this equation are:

1. How well do your external service values align with your customers’ needs?

2. Do your external service values align with your core competencies?

3. Do your core competencies rest on a foundation of loyal employees?

Let us offer this simple comparative matrix to allow you to evaluate the purpose of your own loyalty effort.

Loyalty Focus Frequency Focus

Recognizes… • Heterogeneity • Homogeneity

• Employee contribution • Responses to mailings

• Value-added • Transaction-based

• Customer-focused • Competitive-focused

• Needs-based • Incentive-driven

• Relationship-focused • Payout-focused

• Two-way dialog • One-way communications

• One size fits one • One size fits all

• Needs-based • Mailing list bias

• Outside-in focus • Inside-out focus

• Focused targeting • Indiscriminate targeting

Measures… • Share of customer • Response rate

• Share of requirement • RFM

• Duration of relationship • Cost per response

• E:R for customer • E:R for mailing

Loyalty Management and Customer Experience Management at their foundation use the best tools and practices of the data-based, integrated, direct marketing practitioners to build, develop and foster relationships and loyalty where appropriate. Always based upon the delivery of value. Data-based relationship marketing affords you the opportunity to redefine the traditional “value chain.” Today’s loyalty-based marketer is more about building community: mutually interdependent alliances of stakeholders including employees, customers and vendors. All predicated on delivering value to the relationship and relevance in each and every individual contact. Fully recognizing that value changes with each new touch, or contact, between your customers and your company.

Customer Retention Strategies and Tactics

Thought-starter # 2, the calculus of loyalty

2009-12-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

Thought-starter # 2: the calculus of loyalty

There is a calculus of loyalty. Experience, coupled with the latest findings published by Bain and TARP, now demonstrate this. In business, as in our personal lives, loyalty (etymologically related to the Latin lex or “law, faithfulness”) has definite rewards. The single most compelling reason for a business to exist is to create value for its customer community. If your purpose in life (for your business) is to create value, you’ll prosper and grow and loyalty will be the single largest contributing factor. If not, you’ll be out of business in the next five to ten years.

Until recently, the rewards of business loyalty were understood only intuitively. It made sense to us as marketers that loyal customers bring with them greater profit over time. In fact, the original frequency programs were designed to capitalize on, and are direct evidence of, this intuitive knowledge.

Frequency programs and frequency measures may be destructive, however, unless the economics of loyalty are taken into account.

Loyalty reliably measures whether superior value has been delivered. Most of

us now recognize that “value” is completely customer-defined. The equation might look something like this:

your customers’ expectations for the experience – “the actual”

VALUE = ____________________________

Cost

When our customers experience continuous, reliable, and increasing value we know that they will be Loyal. Loyalty brings with it a series of second-order economic effects, which cascade through the business system:

1. Revenues and market share grow through repeat sales,

purchase of other products and referrals.

2. Costs to acquire and to serve existing customers shrink.

3. Profits go up.

4. The company culture change.

A self-renewing, continuous improvement process installs itself. Employees have increased job pride and satisfaction. Employees stay longer while customers come back.

In achieving customer loyalty, the single most important decision any company can make is selecting its customers. We can neither serve every customer well nor be all things to all customers. It’s a costly istake, a diminishing of our resources and skills, to try to retain each and every customer because, quite simply, not every customer is worth retaining. In fact, we need to learn how to identify and disengage with customers who are not profitable to serve.

To wrestle with the subject of loyalty, it’s vitally important that we define who a customer is and then define their lifetime value, expressed in net potential value (NPV) terms.

Then, we must understand how much of the customers’ “share of wallet” belongs to us today and how much of their wallet we can earn. We can then make intelligent decisions about how to invest in our current and potential customer audiences based upon their reciprocal commitment to us (as demonstrated by their pocketbooks).

What Variables Do We Me a s u re ?

We define a customer by at least two variables; e.g., a customer is someone who buys X number of dollars worth of my products over Z period of time. We can add dimension to this definition by expanding the definition;

e.g., someone who buys X number of dollars of Y number of products over Z period of time. Finally, we would want to add the contribution margin of that customer and/or net profit dollars.

Share of Customer and Lifetime Value

While this is an important step in all forms of marketing, in the business-to-business environment we further need to understand how much our customer spends on competitive products That is, the share of wallet (share of customer). For example, if Sue Ann buys $400 of our widgets and a total of $600 of widgets, her loyalty coefficient to us is much higher than if she buys a total of $7,500 worth of

widgets. (Note, however, that some buyers may have constraints on having a single source for any product family; the realization of this “truth” and including this variable in our understanding helps flesh out the calculus.)

In addition to understanding the value of our customer, it is essential that we define the rate at which we lose customers — the defection rate — as well as how many customers we acquire during a given year. Caution is called for here: a greatly skewed picture of the value of our customer community will result if we average the defection rate out, e.g., over 10 years. That’s because most companies report their defection rate is highest over the earlier years of a customer’s lifetime. Any loyalty valuation must recognize this.

I know that many of us see the admonition to “define who a customer is” and laugh or belittle the maker of the statement. But keep in mind the fate of IBM — while IBM touted the fact that everybody was their customer, millions of dollars of replacement parts and add-on business went elsewhere.

A customer, then, is someone who buys X-number of dollars of Y-product offerings in Z-period of time. That is, we define a customer by the dollar amount, the penetration or depth of products purchased, and the factor of pertinent recency.