Shop Talk - Innovation, Marketing and Alliances

Slow learner

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:01:00 +0000

I was talking to my old college roommate today and he was explaining the challenges of raising a teenager. "I told my daughter pretty clearly she needed to do something. She listened silently and seemed to agree. Three days later she was doing 180 degrees different from what I asked. I said, 'I told you to do something different and yet you're doing this instead.' And she said, 'Yes, I thought about what you said, but decided that it wouldn't work for me.'"

This reminded me of my days as a programmer. When a manager looked over my shoulder and started to micromanage, for example, saying "try this," or "type this command now" or "don't forget to do this." I nodded politely, waited for him to leave and did it my own way.

The funny thing is that when I managed, I was often just like the ineffective manager who told me what code to write. In other words, I tried to work through my people, instead of letting them work. When I wrote the code, I had control. When someone else wrote the code, but worked for me, I thought I still had control. In retrospect, I treated management as an ordered rather than a complex system.

This is one of the problems with the promotion into management. The skills you need are so radically different that when pressed you revert back to what you know. Which is doing it yourself (or trying to do it yourself via another person). Can't be done. Staffers are not marionettes.

It took me years to realize the lack of control I had, and to trust the people more. But I'm not sure I ever learned that lesson completely.

Tags:
complexity, managing, management,

What in hell do stories have to do with innovation?

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:48:00 +0000

Regular readers may be tiring of the constant barrage of story-related posts, or at minimum be trying to figure out how they relate to the title of this blog. Here are some words that I hope tie it together.

More and more products are launched and evolve in an iterative fashion. Version 1 does this, version 2 does that, and version 3 finally hits the mark and becomes the standard (exhibit A: Windows). Those iteration windows are becoming tighter, so good information as a basis of planning product changes is invaluable. Google in particular has turned this approach into an art form.

There are more and more ways to get feedback directly from users. Forums, call centers, social networks, Twitter, etc., etc., allow users to communicate their likes and dislikes about a product.

Now, to storytelling. Most business applications of storytelling focus on communicating outward--developing a story that helps communicate the essence or benefits of your product or company. Steve Denning, in his recent book "The Secret Language of Leadership" calls these indirect stories--stories that inspire stories in the mind of the reader or listener. Indirect stories are necessarily incomplete--they are not meant to immerse the listener in an experience (like, say, Harry Potter does). They are meant to create empathy and consensus.

What I'm talking about (as are Shawn Callahan & Mark Schenck of Anecdote, Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge and others) is inverting that model.

In addition to crafting stories and sending them out toward customers, staff, etc., what if we listen to the indirect stories coming from them? They are also necessarily incomplete--mere anecdotes--but if you gather a few dozen, a few hundred, or a few thousand, common themes and threads will become evident. To invert Denning's language, there's the possibility of inspiring stories in the mind of the company.

These stories might say things like:

People find our product really hard to use.
Feature X of our product is proving more valuable than we expected.
A group of people are using our product in an interesting way that we didn't anticipate.

As a product manager, the above stories are very important to me. They help orient me toward things I should do to improve product packaging, add or delete features, alter its marketing message or improve its customer service or technical support. Also, the user stories are pre-hypothesis, meaning that they are free of bias that can come via hypothesis-based approaches such as surveys. They are not adulterated by groupthink, as can happen with focus groups. They are the voice of the customer.

None of the individual anecdotes may send clear messages about where innovation is working and where it isn't. But the accrual of them can do so.

Companies don't use this resource to improve innovation. They should.

And that's what I'm talking about.

(For a powerful example of the accrual of "indirect" stories to create a compelling, nuanced, overall story, please refer to this earlier post on Haruki Murakami's "Underground.")

Related Post:
Stories that people tell about products are invaluable

Tags:
complexity, narrative, product management, sensemaking, innovation, what in hell is, storytelling

Best CD of the half-year

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:14:00 +0000

My favorite album, by far, of 2008 is Nomo's Ghost Rock. A concoction of dance-funk, electronica and horns, it's strong from start to finish--from "Brainwave," where the lead instrument is a bleep-bleeping analog synthesizer and the other instruments provide weird backup, to "Nova," a plinky dance track. And in between, the title track and "All The Stars" are standouts.

Great rhythms, improvisation, funky beats that will make you move your body. They're all here. But don't look for vocals, because there aren't any.

The band, nine strong, is from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Their earlier albums, "Nomo" and "New Tones" are also excellent. I had a chance to see some of their live show when they were in Philadelphia last week, and they absolutely rocked.

The best way to check out some of their music and see tour dates is to go to their Myspace page.

From The Mistake Bank: a comic mistake story (it's funny, too)

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:05:00 +0000

Please click the picture to view in a larger size.

There are lots of ways to tell a story. One perhaps underappreciated way is via comics--a narrative combination of words and drawings.

Comics artist Josh Neufeld contributed to the Mistake Bank the great story pictured above, "Past Perfect Progressive in Prague." Perhaps you'll identify with the awkwardness of adapting to a new place and culture.

Josh's most recent work is the comic book "A.D."--taking on perhaps the greatest mistake of our time, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. "A.D." follows the stories of six actual New Orleans residents from different neighborhoods and walks of life, through the calamity and thereafter. A powerful narrative containing real dialogue and settings, with hyperlinks to supporting documentation, it's truly an epic work. "A.D." is accessible on the SMITH Magazine site, and will be forthcoming as a printed book in summer 2009, the fourth anniversary of the hurricane.

Related posts:
"Understanding Comics"

Tags:
Mistake Bank, mistakes, comix, travel, culture

Network when you don't need to

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:46:00 +0000

Act before there is a problem.
Bring order before there is disorder.
Tao te Ching, #27

I had coffee with a former colleague this week. He was looking for a new job, his company having closed its local office. My colleague was confessing his dread of networking. He knew he needed to do it, but it just wasn't pleasant for him.

Also this week, I got an email from another former colleague, who wrote, "Love to catch up. I am out on the street looking for my next position."

Both of these folks are senior people, corporate vice-presidents, who find themselves in the humbling position of contacting people in order to locate their next jobs. They have to network, because their next job depends on it. No wonder it's a burden.

I have been in their position. When I started out on my own, the timing was not planned. Suddenly, I no longer had my prior position, and I needed to find work. I called, I emailed. I touched base. Neediness oozed from my pores. No wonder it took a long while to get a paying gig.

A significant event was stumbling across the book "Never Eat Alone." Reading it helped at my mindset and my approach. It reinforced the importance of a network, why people work with people they know, and why people want to help others they know.

"Never Eat Alone" remains the best book on networking I've read. And the biggest lesson to me was to network because it's fun and exciting to keep in touch with people. Not because you need something. The stronger a network you have, the more you contribute to it, the more opportunities will come out of it.

And, paradoxically, the less you will have turn to it out of desperation.

Related posts:
On "Never Eat Alone"
Networking: burden or pleasure?
The power of "weak ties"
"Weak Ties" #2
A personal relationship makes all the difference

Tags:
relationships, networking, social networking, career

You know you are the design leader when...

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:12:00 +0000

I have a MacBook Pro. Since I got it I have realized how often the machine's image is used in ads promoting web sites, software, etc. Even if it's software that runs only on Windows! [Keep your eyes open when you're reading a magazine, and you'll see the MacBook Pro's distinctive features--silver case, elongated oval button, CD slot.]

Similarly, if you have a mobile web application, you include an iPhone in the advertisement, like this one here:

So this is the definition of design leadership. When your product is used as background to feature another product, you're it. And right now in consumer electronics and PCs, that's Apple.

Tags:
advertising, images, design, Apple

Minipodcast with Jill Konrath: "Mr. Prospect"

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:04:00 +0000

From The Mistake Bank:

As a young Xerox sales trainee, Jill Konrath learned her sales demonstration script perfectly... perhaps too perfectly.

"Mr. Prospect" - 2:56

You can learn more about Jill and her work at SellingToBigCompanies.com.

Related Post:
Jill Konrath Mistake Stories

Tags:
sales, narrative, podcast, presentation, Mistake Bank

"Once Upon a Nation" teaches history through storytelling

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:29:00 +0000

My family went to Philadelphia for the US Independence Day weekend. Among other activities, we visited thirteen storytelling benches arrayed around the historic district. At these locations, storytellers told us tales about Revolutionary War-era figures and other notable people and events from Philadelphia's history, including:

The first bank robbery in the US
A Philadelphia witch trial
The invention of bubble gum
The escape of one of President George Washington's house slaves
The hiking and camping adventures of a young boy who became a renowned artist and horticulturist.

Of all the cool things we did that weekend--visiting the Liberty Bell and touring Independence Hall (where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated), eating at a tavern where Jefferson ate--the stories were the most memorable part of the trip. Our five-year-old insisted that visiting all the benches was our highest priority for the weekend.

We attended several events featuring performers playing characters from the period--Ben Franklin, a Patriot soldier, a young aristocrat. You could hardly walk down the street without running into a printer, militia officer or milkmaid--in character always.

At night, we recounted the stories we'd heard that day. As we toured, we looked for references to story characters in the historic buildings.

All of the above are a product of Once Upon a Nation, a group charged with creating a "living history" of Philadelphia. And they've succeeded. The stagings and stories intertwined beautifully with the historic sites to create an fun, immersive, reiterated experience that "Brain Rules" author John Medina would approve of completely.

A real testament to the power of stories at work.

[P.S., The storytelling benches are open all summer till 4:30pm.]

Related post:
"Brain Rules" rules

Tags:
storytelling, history, narrative, travel

iPhone data price complaints off base

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:47:00 +0000

Now I'm not a fan of megalithic wireless operators. But the criticism of AT&T's pricing plan for the new iPhone 3G, especially the monthly cost for unlimited data, is missing the point.

The complaint, lodged by Walt Mossberg and others, goes something like this: "Yes, the new iPhone costs $200 less, but the unlimited data package costs $10 more per month. So after a contract of two years, you'll be out $40 compared to the first iPhone."

But the point is this. We are talking about the iPhone 3G. Its data rates are about three times faster than the old 2.5G EDGE technology on the first iPhone, according to Mossberg's tests.

Which means, minute-by-minute, you'll be getting more data (and thereby more value) from the iPhone 3G.

But there's more. When available bandwidth jumps, people use far more of the service. New applications become possible. Video, for example, is much more reasonable at 400kbps than at 56kps.

So perhaps the comment should be, "For pretty much the same total cost as the old phone, you get a new phone with three times the power and 10-15 times the application utility. Why not stop by an Apple store and pick one up?"

marketing, pricing, iPhone 3G, wireless, mobile, devices, apple, iPhone

User forums are state-of-the-art tech support

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:22:00 +0000

I wrote on this topic last year, but it is truer now than it was then.

Earlier today I had a question on something I was trying to do with Excel (exchange rows and columns on a spreadsheet). Several queries into the Excel help file did no good. So I went to the "Post a question or search for an answer in the user community" section and entered my question.

Within an hour I had the answer. (Turns out there's an easy way to do it, just not very well-publicized.) That simple.

It's remarkable that communities of users are providing support far superior to that provided by companies themselves (try getting answers to any email query to tech support in an hour). But as it turns out, for most hi-tech products, tapping (for free) the collective wisdom of the user base is the best technical support you'll find.

user-generated content technical support technology web2.0

How to treat prospects who visit you

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:39:00 +0000

From The Mistake Bank:

When prospects from Hong Kong visited us in the US, we did our normal thing and thought everything went fine. Soon thereafter we had all but lost the deal. Then we visited them, and learned another model for entertaining visitors.

Find more videos like this on The Mistake Bank

Tags:
Mistake Bank, narrative, learning, errors, failure, mistakes, sales, video, hospitality

Don't try to fail, just try

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:25:00 +0000

It's been worrying me a bit, with all my emphasis on learning from mistakes and removing the stigma from making mistakes, that I might be encouraging people to try to make mistakes.

Although making a deliberate mistake can be a very useful exercise and lead a company to discover insights it couldn't find out otherwise, it shouldn't be the focus of your approach.

The point is to try to succeed lots of different ways, make small bets, try "safe-fail" experiments. Follow those that appear to lead somewhere. Ditch the remainder quickly.

More and more people are thinking this way. My evidence? Today's Wall Street Journal Business Insight section, which talks about experimentation and learning from failure throughout. One example is "In Search of Growth Leaders," by Sean Carr, Jeanne Liedtka and others which asserts that managers who can foster growth have different mindsets than those who can't. [A nice graphic in the article compares people who see life as a journey of learning--i.e., potential growth leaders--to those who see it as a test--similar to the work of Carol Dweck referenced by Amy Edmondson in HBR, and discussed in a recent Mistake Bank post.]

There's also "Oops! Accidents lead to more innovations. So how do you create more accidents?" by Robert Austin, Lee Devin and Erin Sullivan--which says to "explore lots of approaches" and "make accidents cheaper" which is safe-fail by other words.

And "Follow the Leaders," by Craig Pearce, which encourages allowing team leadership to shift from member to member based on the needs of a particular part of a project, echoing ideas from the recent HBR article on management lessons from multiplayer online games.

If you do make a mistake, don't throw it away. Learn from it, and put it in the Mistake Bank. The public one, or one of your own.

Related posts:
Multiplayer games demonstrate a new model for leadership
Amy Edmondson in July/Aug HBR
To progress in complex environments, experiment
Make some mistakes, and profit from it

Tags:

Mistake Bank, experimentation, learning, errors, failure, mistakes, innovation, leadership, Wall Street Journal

Minipodcast with John Quelch: why is marketing seen as an unseemly profession?

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:36:00 +0000

During our earlier podcast with Harvard Business School Professor John Quelch, co-author with Katherine Jocz of "Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes For Better Democracy" (Harvard Business Press, 2008), we went took a brief aside to talk about how the profession of marketing is viewed by others, and by marketers themselves.

John's answer was fascinating, and can be found here (4:35) (right-click to download).

You can learn more about John Quelch's research and thinking on his blog.

Other resources:
Interview with John Quelch from Personal Branding Blog
My review of "Greater Good"

(Theme music: "Up the Coast," from West Indian Girl's latest album 4th and Wall.)

Tags:
marketing, esteem, podcast, ethics

Female guru alert: Amy Edmondson in July/Aug HBR

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:56:00 +0000

Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School appeared on our recent list of Overlooked Female Business Gurus, and she has also published an article in the July/August Harvard Business Review. Titled "The Competitive Imperative of Learning," it's a blockbuster that will cement her position on the guru list for some time to come.

Edmondson persuasively argues that a focus on efficiency in most companies chokes off resources for innovation and learning and creates an environment of harried, fearful employees rushing from task to task. Sound familiar?

In such an environment, given that the business, market and competitive playing field are changing continuously, the certainty is that the company will lack the learning, vision and insight to adapt itself to new realities. In essence, it will become a highly-efficient producer of last year's products and services. The market will have moved on.

Edmondson's work complements that of Dave Snowden and Mary Boone on the Cynefin Framework. Snowden & Boone describe simple and complex business contexts and the challenges these different contexts pose to managerial decisionmaking. In simple contexts, best practices and efficiency are the tools for success. But in complex contexts, learning, experimentation and adaptation are key.

As Edmondson points out, "the influx of knowledge in most fields makes it easy to fall behind." In other words, the space where competitiveness is created today is the complex space.

Three key inhibitors to learning environments are time, safety and review. Efficiency-based companies don't allow time to think and reflect--the emphasis is on processing and dispatching tasks quickly. (Gary Hamel discussed this issue nicely in "The Future of Management.")

And few companies provide the psychological safety required in a learning environment. Learning requires failure, failure is stigmatized, therefore people try to avoid it. Or if it's unavoidable, it is covered up or played down.

I can tell you based on my work to date on The Mistake Bank that psychological safety is a big issue. I have had numerous dialogues with colleagues, members, mentors, etc., which have involved the ramifications if someone were to discover the mistake the person has contributed to The Mistake Bank.

[My position on that matter is this: people who admit mistakes are more valuable to companies, customers and colleagues than those who don't--because we all know that everyone makes mistakes. No exceptions.]

Finally, Edmondson emphasizes the need for disciplined reflection and review. By evaluating, discussing and communicating the results of new ways of doing things, companies achieve the payoff of experimentation. My experience is that most companies don't like to look back.

There's a lot more to the article than I've discussed here. Read it when you have some time to think and reflect! (Better yet, talk about it with a colleague.)

Related posts:
Great innovation requires great teams
Leaders need to manage complexity
Toyota excels by revealing hidden problems
Stop studying the problem and just try something!
On Gary Hamel's "The Future of Management"
For consultants, adopting the "Google 20%" is vital

Tags:
complexity, decisionmaking, teamwork, collaboration, innovation, learning, Harvard Business Review

Requiem

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:10:00 +0000

A few days ago, a former colleague of mine drove from his home in Massachusetts to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, went on a hike, wrote an email to his wife, and took his own life. He was forty-nine, and the several quotes I read about him today were exactly correct: "He always did for other people, never for himself."

I learned the news today. As it was sinking in, the iPod, in shuffle mode, played Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt."

Now I'm drinking a glass of wine, listening to appropriately sad music, Sea Wolf. My colleague, I learned, suffered from depression.

My colleague's brother said this: "This wasn't my brother making these decisions. It was preventable. If people are not more pro-active about getting help for someone, you find yourself here, and all we have now are questions."

You were one of the nicest people I've ever met. Rest in peace, friend.

"Marketing Metaphoria"--the deep yearnings behind the products we buy

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:59:00 +0000

Father-and-son team Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman, authors of "Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers," assert that beneath our purchasing decisions lie deep, unconscious frames of how the world works. Companies who can understand these frames and connect their products with them can own key positions in their marketplace and build tremendous brand power.

Did you ever wonder why nearly every Budweiser campaign centers around guys drinking together? According to the Zaltmans, it is because they are reinforcing the brand's association to connection, one of the seven heavyweight "deep metaphors" that account for more than 70% of the metaphor usage found in their research. The other "giants" are:

Balance
Transformation
Journey
Container (keeping things in or out)
Connection
Resource
Control

An example of deep metaphor usage is the Michelin advertising image of a baby sitting in the tire. The deep metaphor of container is at work here--high-quality, well-designed tires provide a safe cocoon for the occupants of the car. And by extension Michelin owns the safety position with tires. Other brands must find other metaphors to occupy within our brains (say, journey or control).

As a way of showing how understanding deep metaphors can help companies create innovative products, the authors describe how the hearing-aid company Oticon redefined its product category. Oticon interviewed hearing-aid wearers about why they frequently didn't wear their devices. They learned that typical hearing aids were gawky-looking and prominent, thereby stoking users' deep fears of being broken, ugly containers. The company then created a new product that was smaller and sleeker, resembling a high-tech cellphone device more than an old-fashioned hearing aid, and combined it with an advertising campaign reinforcing the "escape" metaphor.

The authors urge readers to use this type of "workable wondering" to reimagine their innovation approaches, not just to find new ways to package or promote the same old products. I agree. When marketers use psychology to understand customers deeply, and respond to those unspoken needs, they're doing a service. (If they're just trying to get into my brain to sell me more peanut butter, well, that's just creepy.)

"Marketing Metaphoria" is a fascinating, fresh look at understanding how humans react to products beyond their functional attributes--a topic as old as advertising itself. But in connecting itself with the entire innovation process, it's more than just a book about communication.

A video interview with co-author Gerald Zaltman, where he elaborates on deep metaphors and how they can be discovered, can be found here.

Tags:
metaphor, marketing, market research, psychology, reading list

Mini-podcast: Listrak's Ross Kramer on not investing in sales and marketing

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:48:00 +0000

An audio story from The Mistake Bank.

When Ross Kramer started his first technology business, he focused on the technical side to the exclusion of sales and marketing. In retrospect, that was a mistake.

You can download the story here.

Biography:
Ross Kramer started his first company, a web hosting firm named Vertex Internet, in his Penn State dorm room in 1997. He quickly noticed the struggles his customers were having in communicating with their customers efficiently and effectively, so he started Listrak to help with their email marketing needs. Under Ross’ direction, both companies have grown into technologically-advanced companies that are leaders in their industries.

Listrak services clients such as Daimler Chrysler, Motorola, L’Oreal and the Islands of the Bahamas from its Lititz, PA headquarters. Listrak is a two-time winner of the Central Penn Business Journal’s Top Fifty Fastest Growing Companies and the 2005 Growth Company of the Year by the Technology Council of Central PA.

Tags:
learning, Mistake Bank, sales, marketing, technology, podcast, investment

Food doesn't only have to be fresh, it needs a story as well

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:18:00 +0000

This from today's New York Times ("Food-Shopping Tips Direct From the Manager," by Ron Leiber):

Not every grocery store bothers to highlight local products. So you may need to ask what comes from nearby and who grew or made it. “One of the things Whole Foods taught us is the need to tell stories” about our products, Mr. Heinen said. In fact, Heinen’s has 50 stories that it trains employees to tell customers about its meat, produce, baked goods and other items.

I guess it's not surprising, in the wake of salmonella scares on tomatoes and spinach, that the dominant narrative for food products is becoming, "where did this come from, and how did it get here?"

narrative, food, produce, New York Times

Roughnecks learn to learn from mistakes

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:39:00 +0000

"Unmasking Manly Men" in the July-August Harvard Business Review Forethought section had a grabby title and a thesis puncturing a resilient stereotype: one of the roughest, most macho, most dangerous industries in the world--offshore oil drilling--has developed a new work culture where workers support each other, where they are open and candid with their feelings, and...my favorite topic...where they admit mistakes and seek to learn from them.

The piece, written by professors Robin Ely of Harvard Business School and Debra Meyerson of Stanford University states that the culture change was led from above, primarily as a way to improve safety and reduce accidents. And that worked--on-the-job accidents declined 84% over a fifteen-year period. Efficiency and productivity improved as well.

This culture of candor had at least on beneficial side effect--the company developed a new assessment of leadership potential based on ability to listen and learn rather than excellence as a roughneck. [A lesson to the many many professions out there that still select new leaders based on skill in the old job vs. capability for the new one.]

I'm learning that developing a culture of destigmatizing mistakes, discussing them and learning from them makes the whole organization a lot more human, caring and fun. Oh, yeah, innovative, too.

learning, mistakes, culture, Harvard Business Review

Jill Konrath Mistake Story #3 - 5 minutes to engage a prospect, and nothing to say...plus losing your cool

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:49:00 +0000

From The Mistake Bank, our final sales mistake story from "Selling to Big Companies" author Jill Konrath.

When I walked in the front door of The Kaplan Company, there were at least 30 desks filled with women who were busy doing order entry and handling customer service issues.

I told the receptionist that I wanted to speak to the person who made copier decisions. After a quick check with the boss, she escorted me past all those working women into his office.
"Sit down," he said gruffly. "You've got 5 minutes. Talk."

"If you're busy, I'll come back later," I said, trying to be gracious.

"Nope," he stated. " 5 minutes. Tell me why I should buy your product. Your 5 minutes is starting now."

I mumbled. I stumbled. I tried to engage him in conversation. I tried to explain that I needed more time. He wasn't one bit interested. After 5 minutes, he arose and said, "Your time is up. You can leave now."

That ticked me off. I told him he was rude and obnoxious. Then I turned and stormed out of his office past all those women, shouting back at him, "I'll never sell you a Xerox machine. You don't deserve to work with Xerox."

I know it's hard to believe, but I really did lose my cool. And I'm also sure that guy never wanted to work with Xerox again. But he had a point. I couldn't concisely state why he should listen to me.

I wanted to build a relationship and warm up the call. That made me feel better. He was a busy man who chose to use his time judiciously. I didn't respect his needs. After that cold-calling disaster, I learned to net it out. That lesson is even more important today than it was years ago....

The hardest thing in the world is to look at your own complicity in the situation, yet that's where the maximum growth is for you and ultimately, the key to your long-term sales success.

Related Posts:
Jill Konrath Mistake Story #1
Jill Konrath Mistake Story #2

Tags:
Mistake Bank, narrative, time, time pressure, B2B, sales, cold calling, elevator pitch, B2B

Shop Talk Podcast #12 - Listrak's Ross Kramer on common mistakes made in email marketing

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:00:00 +0000

The latest edition of the podcast includes an interview with Listrak Founder and CEO Ross Kramer. Ross discusses the ins and outs of communicating customer via e-mail, including the definition of the term "house file." (I didn't know what it meant either.) It was a fun and frank discussion, and I learned a lot.

You can download the podcast here.

Disclosure: I use Listrak's email marketing platform.

Related links:
Ross Kramer's blog

(Theme music: "Up the Coast," from West Indian Girl's latest album 4th and Wall.)

Tags:
podcast, email marketing, marketing

M&T Bank - piling on the fees, it's a company easy to hate

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:42:00 +0000

A funny thing happened to me at the end of April. While I was on a business trip, our personal checking account with M&T Bank dipped below zero. I didn't get back from the trip till late Friday, then the weekend came. At any rate I didn't find out about the problem till Monday, when I checked the balance on line.

During the time we were below zero, Ten checks and auto withdrawals came in, totalling about $500. On my online statement were ten insufficient funds notifications (NSFs). The first charge was $18. The second through tenth NSFs were $32.

Each.

[I have a business account with Graystone Bank. When this same situation happened a few months ago, they called me immediately and alerted me that I didn't have enough in the account to cover a check that had come in. They offered to hold the check till I made a deposit. Which I did. That day. No NSF fee, and my undying gratitude.]

As soon as I learned that our M&T account had dipped below zero, I rushed to the bank with a check. I told the teller my situation, and she saw that it was a very unusual case for us. I asked if they ever forgive NSFs for customer goodwill purposes. She said I had to call the manager of the branch where I opened the account in order to discuss any credits.

It took me a while to think about which branch we opened the account at, since we have been customers of M&T for almost eight years and have visited many local branches in that time.

When I finally remembered which branch, I called and spoke to the manager. He told me company policy is to forgive the first NSF. The others would stay. I told him how displeased I was with this, especially since M&T hadn't bothered to give me any notification of the low balance (as Graystone had) so I could have made the deposit before more checks came in.

The manager said: we are a big company, and that is the policy.

Here's how that response sounded in my ears: "F--- you. Go somewhere else if you don't like it."

This episode reminded me of the great article in the June 2007 Harvard Business Review: "Companies and the Customers Who Hate Them," by Gail McGovern and Youngme Moon of Harvard Business School. The article begins:

One of the most influential propositions in marketing is that customer satisfaction begets loyalty, and loyalty begets profits. Why, then, do so many companies infuriate their customers by finding them with contracts, bleeding them with fees, confounding them with fine print, and otherwise penalizing them for their business? Because, unfortunately, it pays.

Regarding my experience with M&T, here's a most salient excerpt:

Companies can also profit from customers' bad decisions by overrelying on penalties and fees. Such charges may have been conceived as a way to deter undesirable customer behavior and offset the costs that businesses incur as a result of that behavior. Penalties for bouncing a check, for example, were originally designed to discourage banking customer from spending more than they had and to recoup adminstrative costs. The practice was thus fair to company and customer alike. But many firms have discovered just how profitable penalties can be; as a result, they have an incentive to encourage customers to incur them - or, at least, not to discourage them from doing so.

Which is my perspective in a nutshell. Shame on you, M&T. You have earned the hate of at least one customer.

Related posts:
Companies that profit from customers' mistakes--watch out
Things customers hate companies for

Tags:
narrative, pricing, penalties, marketing, customer relationships, Harvard Business Review

"Brain Rules" rules

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:05:00 +0000

I'm happy to use my sons' favorite expression to headline today's post. If something is really, really good, it "rules." I guess kids wish for monarchy (or feel as if they live under one). For example:

"Spongebob rules."
"Indiana Jones rules."
"Swim team rules."

And, similarly, John Medina's "Brain Rules" rules. (And I'm not the first to say so.) It performs an amazing trick--besides being informative and insightful...it's also a delight to read.

The book sets out twelve rules about how our brains work (#1: Exercise boosts brain power; #8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way), cites study after study to back up the rules, and demonstrates how our current lifestyles often aren't particularly good for our brains. Mixed in is advice for students, parents, presenters, executives, drivers--everybody--about how to act more in support of your brain rather than in opposition to its needs.

I gravitated to the section about attention (#4: We don't pay attention to boring things), especially his description of the 10-minute rule for his university lectures:

I decided that every lecture I'd ever give would come in discrete modules. Since the 10-minute rule had been known for many years, I decided the modules would last only 10 minutes. Each segment would cover a single core concept--always large, always general, always filled with "gist," and always explainable in one minute. Each class was 50 minutes, so I could easily burn through five large concepts in a single period. I would use the other 9 minutes in the segment to provide a detailed descrtiption of that single general concept. The trick was to ensure that each detail could be easily traced back to the general concept with minimum intellectual effort. I regularly took time out from content to explain the relationship betwen the detail and the core concept in clear and explicit terms. (p.89)

The book is full of stories, blessedly, and also demonstrates Medina's innate grasp of rule #4 by creating suspense in passage after passage, for example:

To explain how timing issues figure into memory formation, I want to stop for a moment and tell you about how I met my wife. (p.133)

How could anyone close the book there? Devices like these (used seamlessly and delivered in a deadpan voice) propel you through the book, so that at times it feels like you're reading a thriller, not a book about neurology.

Enough said. Great book. Read it. Do something nice for your brain.

Related posts:
The first great business book of 2008
A must-read for people who present

Tags:
storytelling, learning, neurology, presentation, reading list

Michael Dell on generating sales leads

noreply@blogger.com (John Caddell) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:57:00 +0000

I found this great Michael Dell story in "Lessons Learned: Starting a Business." In case you thought his success with Dell Computers was a complete accident, read this:

The first job I got when I could actually drive...was with the Houston Post newspaper. My job was to call people on the telephone and convince them to buy the newspaper. The first partial month I worked there, I figured out that when people wanted to buy the newspaper, either they were moving into a new house or an apartment, or they had just gotten married.

The way to find people who'd just gotten married was to go to the county courthouse. They have the applications for marriage licenses, which are a matter of public record in the state of Texas. And there is a place on the application form where you could request the license be sent. So that turned out to be a really good place to find people to whom I could send an offer to get the newspaper.

The other thing I found was that you could actually get lists of people who had applied for and received mortgages. And that was another great list of people. My first full month at the paper, I was the top salesperson of newspapers, and I had a great time. This was a summer job. I started hiring my friends and sending them out to all the surrounding counties to collect all these lists of people who had applied for marriage licenses and just had a blast. I was sixteen years old. I saved my money and bought a BMW.

Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Press. Excerpted from Lessons Learned: Straight Talk from the World’s Top Business Leaders--Starting a Business. Copyright (c) 2008 Fifty Lessons Limited; All Rights Reserved.

For more information about the "Lessons Learned" series, including a showcase of 50 Lessons video stories, please follow this link.

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The value of not caring in the workplace
A new midlife crisis story from Williams-Sonoma
Be careful using other people's money to make acquisitions
Bosses, choose your words carefully

Tags:
narrative, career, sales, resourcefulness, lead generation, reading list