We believe that at the heart of this issue is trust. Sales reps often worry that the reference program will potentially “mess up” the relationship, overuse them, or make it hard for them personally to access their own customers. All of these concerns/objections need to be addressed head on when communicating the value of participation and purpose of the request. Have a good plan to share, then execute on it as advertised. Those willing to step up and share with peers that their worst fears never materialized (and hopefully want to sing the program’s praises) will then be your best references.

Here’s a summary of some from the thread that we endorse because we’ve seen them have an impact:

• Face Time With Sales
  There’s something about face-to-face meetings that can lead to trust and cooperation more quickly and easily. So attend sales meetings and other events whenever possible to put a face on the program.

• Director-Level Buy-In
  Getting executive buy-in is important to be sure, but sometimes it’s the level below, closer to the action in the field, that can have a bigger impact. If directors understand the program’s value proposition it’ll be a more consistent part of sales conversations.

• Rep Recognition
  Competition and recognition are part of the sales reps’ DNA, so work those angles. Make their efforts to nominate customer references and their successful use of references highly public. If you can add a game element (a.k.a. gamification) to a nomination effort make the leader board public and prominent.

• Leverage Internal Communications
  Treat the reference program like any other marketing program and establish a cadence of touch points to reinforce the program benefits and share reference success stories and metrics with the sales force. Don’t expect the reference program to simply catch fire on its own.

• Alternate Lead Sources
  Remember that Sales isn’t the only source of leads for the reference program. Your consulting/professional services team, for example, is often closer to the customers after an implementation. They’re also more motivated by incentives.

For those of you with the opportunity—the right conditions—to not only influence revenue, but to be a change agent for the organization, here are a few, more ambitious goals:

• Referenceability as an incentive
  This is the carrot vs. the stick and could apply to not only sales, but also the team responsible for implementing and servicing the account. Philosophically, many executives believe this is part of the job and doesn’t merit an incentive. And whether it will work in your environment is very much dependent on the leadership and culture.

• Referenceability as a component of compensation
  It’s no small task to change a culture of “sell and run” to one where sales views a customer’s referenceability as a long-term responsibility. This one takes CEO support and sponsorship. Making it a part of the comp plan removes any possibility for mistaking the requested cultural change as lip service.

Hopefully these suggestions lead to a closer relationship with sales and a never ending supply of leads for your program

But distilled down to the root causes, the elements most often lacking are:

• Executive Support
• Sales Leadership Support
• Program Leadership
• A Robust/Reliable Reference Database

Here’s our Rx for overcoming the first of these obstacles:  Lack of Executive Support

It can’t be over emphasized how critical executive sponsorship is to a reference program. Simply put, executive-backed initiatives come with funding and are less likely to be slowed by interdepartmental politics, lack of urgency or apathy.

Gaining Support
If your executives are highly skeptical of a reference program than the first thing to do is find supporting evidence to gain their buy-in. The sources most likely to get attention for your case are:  1) executive peers, and 2) analysts.

Peer Influence
Through the customer reference professional community you will find examples of programs with full VP and CxO support. Network your VPs and CxOs with peers who have already made an investment and are seeing results. Peer-to-peer networking is nothing new to someone with an appreciation for customer reference programs, but sometimes the obvious is overlooked.

Analysts
Many executives rely on analysts for guidance and direction. The customer reference space is relatively niche, and therefore hasn’t received a lot of coverage. However, there are some statistics from Gartner and Sirius Decisions that can help build a foundation for a business case.

As a vendor we’re often asked for supporting studies, results and ROI calculators. We have some great resources, but it seems executives still favor peer and analyst perspectives as they are perceived to be un- (or at least less) biased.

Maintaining Support
Once you have initial executive support the emphasis should be on a) correlating program goals to marketing and sales executive annual goals, and b) establishing a reporting cadence that keeps the program’s impact front and center.

Support CxO Objectives
When budgets are squeezed those programs and personnel deemed nonessential are first to go. We often see that reference programs’ contributions to organizational goals aren’t clearly articulated and fall onto the nonessential list. For example, if the brand is being repositioned, the program should find ways to leverage customers to communicate the new messaging. If Sales has targeted growth in a specific product or market segment make sure your reference efforts address those needs head on.

Report Like Clockwork
Ensure there is a regular cadence of metrics quantifying the program’s impact. Knowing the executive team’s primary objectives will help you zero in on what’s important to report. Don’t neglect to use testimonials for the program from Sales. If the sales force is talking about the program’s impact on their deals, amplify this feedback. Be sure to deliver metrics in a format that is easily absorbed, which typically means keeping it concise and graphical.

That’s our prescription for gaining and maintaining executive support. Do you have additional thoughts?

The answer to this question will vary based on a number of factors, but we distilled our answer to the following primary areas.

• Executive Support
  This is critical for so many reasons, but here are perhaps the top 3:  1) exec vision permeates the entire organization, as should the program, 2) unwavering budget support, 3) obstacles to program success are more easily overcome
• Sales Leadership Support
  If there is executive support, then it should translate to sales leadership support, but not always. When sales leaders get behind a program then behavioral change happens. The desired changes include leveraging a central team and database for references vs. the “black market,” cultivation of references as a part of the sales job, and partnering with the reference team to lead customers to program membership.
• Program Leadership
  The individual chosen to lead the reference program will either inspire confidence from leadership and build trust within the sales force, or the program will be relegated to a reactive, tactical, transactional, low-impact function. The program manager needs not only sufficient bandwidth, but key personality traits. S/he must be:  nearly evangelical, persistent, relationship-centric, and know how to make things happen—how to execute on a vision.
• A Robust/Reliable Reference Database
  You can have all of the above, but if there isn’t an adequate supply of customer references or customer reference content for sales cycle needs, then the program will be useless to the sales force. Further, it must be easy to find these “assets” or they may just as well not exist. A database with a lot of unreliable information won’t do the trick. Quality and quantity of data cannot be stressed enough.

In the next post we’ll cover the antidote for each of these potential pitfalls. What’s your experience been? Any primary causes you’d add to the list?

There were a number of findings that we noted with interest:

Outsourcing is Up
Our take on this finding is that companies are still hesitant to hire F/T staff to do what it takes to fully enable a customer reference program (CRP) to do everything that’s required. Why not rely on specialists whose sole focus is the very thing that keeps getting back burnered by F/T staff? It’s hard to imagine converting this variable cost back to a fixed cost any time soon.

Top Performance Metrics
The fact that revenue influenced (a.k.a. total contract value) hasn’t increased in importance tells us that alignment with CMO priorities isn’t happening with more frequency. That’s surprising given that program budgets are nearly always scrutinized when cuts are made across an organization. The best protection against CRP cuts is showing how the program supports key C-Level objectives..and that isn’t too hard to do (revenue growth and brand optimization are usually tops). A “pink elephant” omission was user adoption. If new requests per month, collateral usage, and internal satisfaction are low (symptoms) it’s probably worth evaluating user adoption (illness). We still see far too little emphasis on internal promotion and evangelizing of CRPs.

Testimonials & Case Studies, Still #1?
I recall being at one of the first Customer Reference Forums and hearing a presenter say that written customer content, such as case studies, was going to be gone in a few years. We all assumed video would be the preferred medium, especially since YouTube style videos captured by HD phone and “Flip type” cameras cost virtually nothing to produce. Does this speak to basic human aversion to being on camera for reference purposes, or just a tendency to stay in the comfort zone? Either way, the bulk of content is great for early sales stages, but what about the mid- to late-stages?

Customer Participation & Satisfaction
What could be causing a drop in customers willing to participate in live reference activities and approval of customer content? I believe that at the heart of good customer reference management is good relationship management. From our experience conducting video interviews, most of the customers we interview have a very strong attachment to their salesperson. That often trumps the relationship they have with the “brand” and is the reason they make the time, get approvals tracked down and agree to other activities on an ongoing basis. I’ll bet if this data was sliced by those companies with a culture of referenceability versus those without, the percentages would be quite different. To get to this culture customer references need to be a C-Level priority. That is the savvy CRP leader’s mission.

That’s my 2 cents. What’s yours?

PS – Abby & Amir:  Thank you again, and we are looking forward to the upcoming study including an expanded sample!

Part 3 focuses on how the “social media-sphere” can be leveraged to engage customer advocates. Gina also offers advice for both peers in marketing leadership, and to non-executives in the organization who want to get a program started.

This is the fifth podcast in the Marketing Leadership podcast series. You can find all
posts related to this series by typing “CMO” into the search box on the right side of
this page.

Through our relationship with the CMO Club, we set out to gain insights into how CMOs view customer reference programs in the context of other initiatives and objectives. These podcasts are also available on The CMO Club website’s members only area.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and comments!

Part 2 includes the all-import topic of measurement. Gina and her team’s approach was to directly connect reference program efforts to sales. To do that they put a system in place to tie the use of both content and live activities to sales opportunities. She also discusses the valuation of reference programs in the context of different size organizations; and finally her view on a program’s impact on brand.

This is the fifth podcast in the Marketing Leadership podcast series. You can find all posts related to this series by typing “CMO” into the search box on the right side of this page.

Through our relationship with the CMO Club, we set out to gain insights into how CMOs view customer reference programs in the context of other initiatives and objectives. These podcasts are also available on The CMO Club website’s members only area.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Part 1 covers how the reference program worked at Initiate:  the catalyst for the program, the program’s reward system, the strategic goals of the advisory boards,  and unexpected sources of customer advocates.

This is the fifth podcast in the Marketing Leadership podcast series. You can find all posts related to this series by typing “CMO” into the search box on the right side of this page.

Through our relationship with the CMO Club, we set out to gain insights into how CMOs view customer reference programs in the context of other initiatives and objectives. These podcasts are also available on The CMO Club website’s members only area.

We look forward to your feedback.

Before getting to this question a gap analysis should be conducted to make sure that you know a) the segments that need coverage today, and b) those that are up-and-coming. The current demand is most easily identified by getting a sales pipeline report from your CRM system. Hopefully you can slice and dice that information by, for instance, industry, product/solution, and geography; as well as criteria combinations (e.g., product A and healthcare). Once your target segments are identified, then it’s time to think about your ideal customer reference profile, which should include:

• Tenure - A customer reference should have some experience with your products/solution to share with prospective customers. Results, especially measurable, are the bottom line. A customer that can say how your solution is changing their business is more compelling than the one that says the really like a certain feature, or their account manager.

• Level - Generally you want to provide references of equivalent level, or seniority, to the contacts at the prospective customer organization. That might include c-level, director-level, manager-level and even front line people who are influencers. Having a good mix of reference resources allows for peer matching and higher relevancy.

• Activity Threshold- At what point do you define a customer as a reference? Is it when they agree to a press release about selecting you as a partner? Is it when they agree to their first phone reference? Is it when you have a focused conversation with them and gain participation in a variety of activities such as speaking opportunities, guest blogging, or giving a video interview, etc.? Will their availability and responsiveness be adequate or will getting a hold of the Queen of England be easier? You need to decide what level commitment equates to program membership.

• Personality & Passion – We’ve always said that an energetic and passionate manager-level reference is more compelling than a tentative, dry c-level reference. But that’s not meant to be blanket statement. It depends a lot on how you intend to use a customer reference. For live events and for video the more personality and passion, the better. For written case studies, on the other hand, it’s not as important because the writer can take artistic license.

It’s common to fall into a “beggars can’t be choosers” mindset when embarking on your recruiting project. But if you take a moment to develop a more deliberate approach the end result will be a higher quality pool and a more efficient program.

Do you have other elements of an ideal customer reference you want to share?

That got me thinking about sales advisory boards. We coach each of our clients to establish such a board as soon as possible regardless of whether they’re just starting a program or have an established program. This group of, typically, 7-10 salespeople will be an invaluable guiding light for the program. After all, if the program isn’t working for them, then it isn’t helping to close new business. And that’s the whole point, right?

Here are the traits we advise our clients to consider when inviting (yes inviting) members of the sales team to be on the board:

1. Perceived Corporate Citizenship
   First, you want salespeople who work diligently to achieve his/her personal objectives, but who also work toward the greater good. That translates to a willingness to invest time and effort in making the company better. You know these people. They respond more regularly, and thoughtfully to any request you’ve ever made.
2. Time Management Skills
   You can have salespeople who have the best of intentions when it comes to contributing to the greater good, but if they are scattered and always behind the eight ball, they won’t have the time to attend monthly or quarterly board meetings and you’ll get continuous, last-minute “Declined” messages to your meeting invitations. They mean well, but in order to really make a contribution you need consistent attendance.
3. Reference Appreciation
   Surprisingly, not all salespeople place a high value on customer references when it comes to closing deals. It might be the segment they’re assigned to, which has a lock on the market. It might be because they are just *that* good and can close deals with minimal reference support. But this particular orientation will not further your program’s development if this type of salesperson is on the board. Why would they want to be on the board if they didn’t see the value? Who knows what motivates them, but you should begin with the salespeople who are regular users of the program as a litmus test.
4. Opinionated
   This can sometimes be a pejorative, and that’s not the intent here. You want people who have an opinion on the topics under discussion. Sometimes this is a matter of thoughtfulness. Is the individual someone who takes the time to really consider an issue, recall personal experiences, stay engaged during your meetings, and form some pros and cons for consideration? You want those who will so that you make informed decisions.
5. Vocal
   This relates to #4 in that you want people who have opinions and are willing to express them. If they don’t express them, it’s as though the opinions don’t exist. This might go with the “Lack of Self-Consciousness” trait in the HBR article. You want people who don’t fear looking silly when they speak up.

Earlier I noted that participation on the sales advisory board should be by invitation. This is worth expanding on. On our advice, many clients have sales leaders recommend members of their team for membership. This is really played up with the nominees, and it sets the right tone from the start. Having influence on and insight into the evolution of the program is a privilege. As the leader of the program you should keep that in mind versus thinking of it as a favor the salespeople are doing for you. The tone and expectations differ depending on how you think of it.

So be picky, choose wisely and get ready for some of the most useful feedback you’ll get about your program. Most salespeople already realize that your program success is tied to their sales success. Establishing a board ensures this connection is reinforced and endures.