Geehan Group | Geehan Group

Social Media’s Role in Identifying and Acquiring Customers

Karen Battist — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:33:40 +0000

If you are a B2B or a B2C organization, your next potential client is most likely searching on Google right now for information regarding your services. That might be a pretty scary statement to read if you don’t have an online presence other than a website. Getting found on the Internet is no longer limited to Google Ads or maintaining a website. In order to have a strong online presence, every business large or small must utilize social media.

The first step in Building Customer Advocacy through Social Media begins with both Marketing and Sales engaging with customers in Social Media Channels.

· Marketing Role: Identify and engage in discussions regarding product/application solutions to potential/target clients via LinkedIn discussion groups, online forums and Twitter# tags

· Sales Role: Networking among peers of target industries to identify potential/target clients

Social Media has quickly jumped to one of the top ways to identify, acquire new and keep existing clients. A recent survey by Dimensional Research reported that 90% of Customers said their buying decisions were influenced by online reviews from social media: Twitter, FaceBook, Yelp and Company Sites. This means Marketing and Sales need to work together on the 4 Functions of Social Media in order to identify new clients and Acquire new customers.

Don't Think You Have Enough Customers to Warrant a Customer Advisory Board? Think Again!

Karen Penney — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:58:32 +0000

A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) or Council, is made up of your top, most strategic customers – whether that equals 7, 12 or 20, they are the driving force of your success. Having a CAB program in place gives the leadership team the perfect forum to meet with these important decision makers.

How Many Many Customers Should You Have Before Forming a CAB?

We’ve delivered CAB meetings with as little as 5 customers to as many as 22 and found that the smaller groups are just as powerful as the larger ones. A good example is a $3B client of ours with 9-10 customers who account for 90% of their revenue. They typically have 5-8 members in attendance at their CAB meetings. Alternatively, another example would be a much larger $20B client with hundreds of top customers. Their CAB meetings typically have 20-25 attendees and we include breakout groups and roundtables, allowing all members an opportunity to provide feedback and share in smaller groups. These very different companies get the same benefits: robust discussions, collaboration, brainstorming and clarity on our client’s strategic direction.

Would a Customer Survey be as Effective as Holding a CAB Meeting?

Nothing really takes the place of face-to-face meetings for better understanding your customers and building relationships. So if you’re considering surveying customers as an alternative to a face-to-face meeting, just know that your results will be much different. Without a ‘live’ audience to provide context to, you’re more likely to get just a ‘snapshot’ on something more specific. You won’t benefit from the dialogue among customers that occurs at face-to-face meetings; there won’t be peer-to-peer sharing and learning; and last but not least, a survey doesn’t offer much in the way of relationship-building opportunities.

Building a CAB program and holding in-person meetings (once or twice a year) creates a “safe” environment for an open, interactive exchange of ideas. While surveys serve a purpose, don’t use them in lieu of a face-to-face meeting – use surveys for more quantitative feedback. Hold in-person CAB meetings to allow members to build on one another’s thoughts and work on solutions together. This peer exchange will also create an emotional commitment, strengthening relationships and improving retention.

Is the Revenue Decline at Oracle a Blip or a Sign of Major Industry Shift?

Sean Geehan — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:44:00 +0000

What’s happening at Oracle isn’t isolated. It is a symptom of what looms largely ahead for the information technology industry.

According to the Wall Street Journal's Don Clark and Steve D. Jones in WSJ's CIO Journal, Oracle blames its sales force for the decrease in sales…WOW! But, it’s true. Oracle, and the other technology companies who have been kicking everyone else around, have made their bread and butter selling to IT leaders. These IT leaders are also by definition, "leaders in IT." As buyers, they understand and can translate the bits and bytes of technology offerings. They make the final purchase decisions and oversee implementation and support. They also get to be their own judge and jury by defining their own success criteria, which are typically the factors most relevant to IT (uptime, response rates, etc.).

With technology solutions migrating from in-house applications which are purchased and managed by the IT department, to cloud and other delivery platforms outside the data center, purchase and evaluation decisions are being made by the business unit leaders the IT leaders have traditionally supported. And also by definition, "leaders in business" have a completely different way of analyzing, managing, and buying the services that support their business. My favorite quote so far which highlights the difference between IT and the new untraditional buyers of technology comes from Michael Hickins, the Editor of The Wall Street Journal's Morning Download, “Indeed, many of them are heads of marketing who used a credit card to pay for cloud based marketing automation or reputation management applications." According to Nucleus Research Inc. analyst Rebecca Wettemann, "Among that customer set, 'there’s some trepidation' about dealing with Oracle." Again, WOW!

Change of this magnitude and pace may rewrite the entire IT ecosystem and power structure. Oracle out, Workday in? Not yet sure where to place the bets, but the opportunity couldn’t be bigger for those who can translate the facts and figures of technology services into a vision that inspires the hearts, souls, and ROI targets of business (versus IT) buyers. As such, I will be sure to use my AMEX to pay for our new IT system and make sure I get all my Delta Frequent Flier miles too.

On-Line CABs Great for Users, Limited for Executives

Sean Geehan — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:26:00 +0000

Recently, a great question surfaced on LinkedIn about CABs: “Has anyone here implemented a successful online CAB group? If yes, how successful has it been?”

I find that online CABs can work well in certain areas, but have limited effectiveness in others. For instance, with user groups and focus groups where you’re seeking incremental insight, online collaboration can be a great tool for getting input on feature/functionality or refining a product/service.

On the other hand, if your CAB is more strategic in nature, and your members are the level of Senior Director or above, a face-to-face environment is more appropriate. When seeking advice on your strategic direction, the conversations progress into deeper discussions – about business challenges and understanding your customers’ priorities, industry trends and sharing of market insights. Face-to-face engagements build a certain degree of trust and provide a safe environment for sharing and networking, which we find results in a genuine “bonding” of the group. Members appreciate the professional accomplishments and relish the personal relationships they develop. Council meetings feel like “reunions” and customer members become advocates.

Having said this, once these types of relationships and trust are built in a face to face meeting, online meetings can be effective supplement for small working groups between the face-to-face engagements.

Should Your B2B Organization Consumerize Marketing Efforts?

Sean Geehan — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:23:00 +0000

I recently read an article over on the Software Advice website that discussed whether or not B2B Organizations should Consumerize their Marketing Efforts. While there are many practices that are transportable between B2B and B2C, (and some of these marketing tactics should be applied to the B2B world aggressively), the suggestions cited in this article are limited to simple and low price point offerings. For typical complex B2B offerings that require many stages of conversations and levels of signoff, these simply won’t work.

In addition, points and “gamification” may in fact represent a conflict of interest and forbidden by the purchasing organization. This is a strong case for why these two worlds must be approached so differently. All marketing isn’t the same. Some B2B marketing is similar to B2C especially when the user is the decision maker, but it can also be very different.

Business-to-business (B2B) companies are fundamentally different from business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. But far too often B2B leaders try to apply B2C strategies and tactics in their companies with disappointing, even disastrous results. B2B success requires a completely different playbook.

Why a Customer Advisory Board is NOT the Same as a Focus Group

Karen Penney — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:29:00 +0000

With the myriad customer engagement programs so popular today, Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) and Focus Groups often get “bucketed” together, yet they have clear and very different objectives.

Here's a "quick reference" chart detailing some of the key differences:

Participant Attributes

The diagram below shows the core attributes of participants for CABs and Focus Groups, and another reason why these two programs are so different.

Sample Discussion Topics

And finally, here are some sample topics most common among the two initiatives.

Customer Advisory Board

Strategy
Direction of industry
Organization's goals/objectives to develop alignment
Discussions on: what services or offerings are missing; pricing/business models; overall product roadmaps; go-to-market programs (sales, marketing); account management

Focus Group

Reaction to logo/tagline
Emotional state (look and feel)
Usability study
Behavioral patterns/processes
Product feature/functionality

As you plan your customer engagement programs for 2013, be sure to target the right program format for the input you are seeking. If you want to gain a deeper understanding of your customers' business, build closer executive relationships, and gain strategic mid- to long-term market insight, a Customer Advisory Board is the answer. If on the other hand, you need qualitative short-term feedback on a product or branding message; or opinions/perceptions on a concept, service, packaging, etc., then a Focus Group is the right program.

Top 3 B2B Marketing Challenges from 2012

Karen Battist — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 14:38:26 +0000

The end of the year always sparks a time of reflection, while the beginning of the year represents a new journey. The three articles below are my top picks for Marketing's biggest challenges faced in 2012 and a playbook that contains the best strategy to face these issues while providing the biggest opportunities for all B2B CMO's in 2013.

Marketing’s Broken Foundation Measurement

Data is the foundation for analytics. Analytics is the foundation for marketing driven by data and insights.

Think Like a CFO to Gain C-Suite Credibility

Information technology is about driving business results through revenue growth, leveraging economies of scale, and optimizing business decisions through analytics.

Have we Lost the C Suite by Measuring the Wrong Things?

If the latest surveys are to be believed, B2B marketing is on the verge of a “crisis of confidence” within the C suite.

The B2B Executive Playbook

The B2B Executive Playbook describes four steps that can simplify strategic planning, focus product development and sales and marketing efforts, and, most importantly, create a clear path to market leadership. When implemented properly, it will also add sustainability and predictability to a B2B company’s top and bottom lines.

How a Customer Advisory Board Can Help You Prepare for 2013

Karen Battist — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:31:32 +0000

A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) is a high-return, high-profile event that can heavily influence your company's competitive standing. A successful CAB provides a powerful format that turns customers into true advocates and provides executives with the information needed to align customer programs with company strategy. A formal Customer Advisory Board should be in your marketing and strategic arsenal for 2013.

A well structured Customer Advisory Board is a proven and dynamic program that helps executives and decision makers develop a deep understanding of market conditions while simultaneously building relationships with key customers. A CAB is the perfect avenue for B2B Companies that have more than 60% of their sales with their top customers to receive relevant feedback that can be used in strategic business planning. A Customer Advisory Board not only helps your organization retain your most profitable customers, a CAB will help increase revenue opportunities within your customer base.

A Customer Advisory Board creates a platform where you can leverage happy customers and drive innovation through customer co-design and collaboration. The end result is an overall market alignment in offerings, communications and strategy that will prepare your organization for profitability in 2013 and beyond.

What is a B2B Executive Summit?

Karen Battist — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:38:00 +0000

Just Listen: You Might Just Learn Something!

Misty Strawser — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:47:00 +0000

I spent some time earlier this week cleaning out some old files and came across an article by Matthew Swyers that was published nearly a year ago on Inc.com. It shares the story of when and how he learned to keep quiet, and advises that if you really want to learn something, listen more than you speak. In this week before our presidential election, it really resonated with me. I find myself wanting to say this to so many people throughout the day…. to the news anchors on television who constantly interrupt their guest commentators, to my friends and acquaintances (and perhaps even a few family members) who have a need to sway my opinions and debate everything that is said. And yes, I even find myself wanting to say it to our politicians…shut up and listen to what others have to say. You might just learn something!

I was reminded of this advice again this afternoon during a planning call with the leader of an upcoming advisory council session. He is already anticipating how his advisors might respond to some of his questions, so he is planning a lengthy presentation to pre-empt their thinking. He’s planning his rebuttal too! He wants to be sure they understand what he has already done, what solutions have already been tried without success, and why their anticipated suggestions won’t work. After all, he knows his business and industry better than anyone else. He knows what he’s doing. Doesn’t he?

Maybe…but maybe not as well as he would like, or he wouldn’t have formed a customer advisory council and invited his customers to help him! After all, that is the over-arching purpose of an advisory council… to develop a deeper understanding of the market from your top customers, while simultaneously strengthening your relationships with them. This market insight, when incorporated into your strategic planning, ultimately leads to sustainable, predictable, and profitable growth. And that cannot be done if you’re talking the whole time!

So shut up and listen! Ask questions. Let your customers answer. Ask for clarity if you don’t understand, but let them do most of the talking. You may or may not like what you hear and you may or may not take their advice. But listen to what they have to say. You might just learn something new, something important, or something that changes the game. But you won’t learn it if you’re not listening… so shut up and listen!

Strategic Planning with Marketing and Sales

Sean Geehan — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:00:00 +0000

In my book, B2B Executive Playbook, I describe four steps that can simplify strategic planning, focus product development and sales and marketing efforts, and, most importantly, create a clear path to market leadership. If implemented properly, it will also add sustainability and predictability to a B2B company’s top and bottom lines.

As with any corporate initiative, however, success can be sidetracked if problematic modes of operating and behavior creep in. Over my next four blogs, I’ll cover each of the top four common pitfalls that prevent B2B firms from succeeding; Inside-Only Thinking, Limiting Input to End-Users, Following a single Customer, Chasing the Competition. Be aware of them, and act quickly if they surface in your company.

Pitfall #1: Inside-Only Thinking

The first pitfall is a mindset among the leadership team that goes something like this: “Hey, we’re smart and we’ve been in this industry for many years. Let’s brainstorm among ourselves (internal off-site meetings) and come up with the next great solution that we can bring to market to change the game and win back our leadership position.” The leadership teams of B2B companies do have deep stores of knowledge and creativity, but when they choose to go it alone, what they are really saying is, “We know better than our customers of what they want and need.” And this is a prescription for failure or even disastrous results.

Far too often, the inside-only ideas and solutions that come out of these sessions are not created with current market conditions or even company resources, business models, and competencies in mind. In fact, they are usually based on legacy customer needs, structures, business models, current competitor offerings, or misguided ideas about a problem that may not even exist in the customer’s mind. This insular mindset and culture significantly contributes to the 60-70 percent product failure rate that continues to plague companies.

Case: The leaders of a $1 billion company invested over $100 million in developing a single solution that they were convinced would revolutionize their market. They did this without including of vetting the idea with a single customer. The result was disasterous. Virtually no customers wanted the solution because it couldn’t be integrated with their existing operations, and the few who did buy, demanded to return it for a full refund, plus damages. The stock tumbled, the leadership team was fired, and the company was sold off at a major discount to a company one-fifth its size.

Successful B2B companies avoid inside-only thinking. At Henny Penny, for example, all innovation and planning initiatives begin with the needs of customers and the market. “This is the backbone of our culture, strategic planning, and success,” explains Rob Connelly, CEO of $148 million Henny Penny Corporation, a family-owned manufacturer of food service equipment. “It has enabled us to hold on to and grow our biggest customers for decades, because our plans help them serve their customers more effectively. We work extremely closely with our top customers. Our design and engineering teams share ideas, collaborating to provide new solutions, solve problems, or change the game.”

One of the home runs at Henny Penny was the development of revolutionary low oil volume (LOV) fryer for McDonald’s Corporation. “We’d been studying innovative ways of improving and shortening usage in the frying process for quite awhile,” recalls Connelly. “Together with McDonald’s, we developed a breakthrough product, which not only yields significant cost savings, but is also easy to operate and minimizes environmental impact."

The LOV fryer earned Henny Penny the prestigious McDonald’s Global Innovation Award in 2008. In 2009, MacDonald’s named it Worldwide Equipment Supplier of the Year and in 2010, Worldwide Equipment Partner of the Year. That’s the kind of market clout and credibility that can’t be bought – and it led to even more sales. In addition to sales opportunities at McDonald’s 30,000 restaurants worldwide, Henny Penny applied these innovations to stock models that were successfully rolled out to the small and mid-sized restaurant marketplace.

Bottom Line: With so many strategic and development alternatives to chose from, you must tap your top customers to prioritize, justify, and focus on the opportunities that will deliver the most impact. Leveraging their industry knowledge through collaborative “outside-inside” thinking is the only way to secure true market alignment that drives Sustainable, Predictable and Profitable Growth.

Lead Innovation with a Customer Advisory Board

Karen Battist — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:00:25 +0000

I recently read an article by Harvard Business Review that stated that: “most companies are not good at game-changing innovation.” The article goes further to state that: “Operational goals like productivity, predictability and alignment are woven deeply into management systems and processes. Innovation, experimentation and risk-taking — not so much.”

Innovation can be the rise or fall of any organization because of the risk it involves. How can you minimize the risk involved with innovation in your organization? The B2B Ultimate Weapon: A Customer Advisory Board.

A Customer Advisory Board when designed and run correctly is the corner stone to successfully driving innovation in any organization. Customer Advisory Boards bring together top customers to provide a genuine market collective on key growth segments, while aligning the leadership team to the top priorities and market demands.

Why is Customer Advocacy Necessary for B2B Businesses?

Karen Battist — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 13:06:00 +0000

The need for customer advocacy and its tremendous potential in business success is only recently being realized by businesses across the globe. In a nut shell, by integrating Customer Advocacy into their long-term strategic goals, businesses can enjoy higher levels of customer satisfaction, customer retention, and profitability.

What is Customer Advocacy?

Customer advocacy is a process that has essentially originated from customer services. The aim of customer advocacy is to focus on the various things that customers are most interested in, or that the business thinks are of immense appeal to them. Customer advocacy essentially redirects the strategic focus of the underlying culture of the business so that it becomes more customer-oriented or customer friendly when devising its marketing techniques and customer service agenda.

The Role of Customer Advocates

A customer advocate essentially serves as a liaison between the business and the customer where they focus their efforts on facilitating both the sides. A successful and effective customer advocacy business model is usually one that covers all facets related to customer contact. This can include products, sales, services and complaints. As a result, customer advocates are trained in a myriad of cross-functional roles so that they are well-equipped to assist valuable customers in all areas of the business.

Evolving Satisfied Customers to Advocates

The B2B Executive Playbook is a tremendous resource that discusses case studies of several B2B organizations that have successfully evolved satisfied customers to advocates through customer programs such as: Customer Advisory Boards, Executive Sponsor Programs, and Executive Summits to achieve sustainable, predictable and profitable growth.

Want to Improve Customer Engagement? Get Personal!

Misty Strawser — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 11:32:00 +0000

Have you ever read something that rubbed you the wrong way, but you couldn’t quite figure out why? That happened to me earlier this week when I came across a blog post on the Forbes CIO Network, Written by John Dillon, CEO of Engine Yard, the premise is that “it’s time for business leaders to take a closer look at new opportunities for improving customer engagement…” and that “information technology is a great place to start.”

I read it four days ago and it has been gnawing at me ever since! I agree and I disagree. Something about it just didn’t sit right with me! My initial reaction was “what a bunch of bologna. You can’t improve customer “engagement” via the cloud!” Or could you?

So I did a little research. I explored the idea of customer engagement. I looked up the definition. I re-discovered a couple of articles I had previously read on the subject. I came to the conclusion that my struggle with this article was not so much the content, but the terminology Dillon uses. He uses the term “customer engagement” the way I use “customer experience.” In my mind, “customer engagement” implies a personal relationship, as in “engaged” to be married. In my mind, “personal” and “cloud” simply do not go together, which is why I struggled so much with his article. So I read the article again and replaced the word “engagement” with “experience” and “connection.” It made much more sense to me that way, and I now understand what Dillon was saying.

In my mind, the only way to improve customer engagement is to get personal! Why is that so hard to understand!? In a 2010 survey of how marketers view their customer engagement strategies, Forbes found the following:

97% of survey respondents said their companies viewed the issue of engagement as very (67%) or somewhat (30%) important.
86% said engagement is part of the ongoing conversation between marketing and top corporate leadership.
Marketers know that engagement is intrinsically linked to customer loyalty and retention.
72% want repeat purchase behavior
69% want customer advocates
95% want to optimize their engagement with customers

But… they are unclear about how to accomplish it. Many have no specific strategy. 33% rated their current efforts as just fair or poor. Surprising, when asked to assess their various marketing tactics in terms of how deeply they engage customers, 48% of the marketers surveyed indicated that in-person and permission-based methods had the highest engagement. But they still don’t know how to foster deeper engagement? I don’t get it. It seems like a no-brainer to me!

The issue of engagement is important! So, if you want to improve customer engagement, get personal! The cloud and social media are great ways to communicate with your customers and to improve the customer experience, but they are impersonal. To really “engage” with your customers, you need to develop a personal relationship. Reach out to them on a personal level. Get to know them. Get personal!

Mom’s Almond Sheet Cake and World-Class CABs

Sean Geehan — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:13:00 +0000

Every time my mom makes her famous Almond Sheet Cake, it wins the crowd over. Everyone loves it (especially me and my dad)…and everyone wants to know, “How can I get this recipe?”

Many people ask how their Customer Advisory Board (CAB) compares to others…or, how do they know if they are maximizing their CAB initiative. So here’s a quick litmus test I came up with for Executives and CAB leaders alike to see if their CABs have the right ingredients to blow people away, like my Moms sheet cake.

Ongoing vs. Event – many companies treat the CAB like a customer event. We did it – it was a valuable 2 days! The customers had a great time, etc. Ongoing means that issues discussed will be evaluated, explored, and tested, and results reported back. In addition the CAB members will be involved between meetings to assist, validate, test, etc. There are usually email updates, member team calls and even sub-committees which advance specific and important issues.
Strategic vs. Tactical – what areas of the business do the CAB discussions address? If it’s feature/function, short-term, tactical, Executives rarely stay committed or engaged and begin to question long-term benefits. If it’s viewed as part of the strategic planning process – identifying game changing acquisitions or transforming business models which provide the organization a competitive advantage – then you have something special.
P&L owner vs. sales or marketing sponsored – in order to achieve world-class, CABs must be sponsored and driven by a P&L leader (CEO, BU head, Geo President). These are the ones whose net is cast wide enough to drive cross-functional change. This makes integration into all go-to-market functions much more realistic.
Decision Makers vs. Users – this is the final and most important ingredient to a world-class CAB. They must have true decision makers (DMs) actively participating, engaging, and contributing. These in-depth discussions provide rich insight, context to how DMs think, act, evaluate, etc. Let’s face it, how many DMs take time to complete VOC surveys, satisfaction polls, etc.? Without this viewpoint and sounding board, organizations are left to extrapolate from the user viewpoint, plan in a vacuum or simply follow the competition.

These key ingredients are the recipe to a World-Class CAB. For the sprinkle, dashes and timing of these CAB ingredients, read the blogs my colleagues at Geehan Group have put together. As for my mom’s almond sheet cake recipe, send me an email and I’ll send it to you.