No Revenue, No Problem?

by Paul Travis, Interim Management Executive

One decade ago, all over again

Is anyone else’s radar going off?

At the turn of the millennium, eyeballs were the metric that drove value — not dollars — which led to many companies to walk like zombies into the water, wishing upon a star, until they drown. Lots of money was made in the stock market, and then lots of money was lost.

Now we’re seeing Twitter, Facebook, along with a gaggle of would-be’s, with astronomical growth in subscribers/members/eyeballs and no clear path to profitability (ahem, one of my strong suits).

The latest to go down was www.tr.im, which like TinyURL and SnipURL, shortened long web addresses down to something easily typeable (also fit conveniently into Twitter Tweets where every character is almost 1% of your message!)

Lots of users but no revenue model…

Wake up, people — that’s an ingredient in your recipe not to forget!

[Contact me right away if you're experiencing this condition].

This post has been republished from Paul Travis’ blog, Marketing 2020.

Photo by playerx

Steve Balmer on the Future of Digital Advertising

Steve Balmer presented at Cannes Advertising Festival this past year and discussed what he envisions for the future of digital advertising. He makes some interesting predictions, like that all content will eventually be digital. You can see the full presentation at www.canneslions.com.

Interim Sales and Marketing VP: Richard Brune

I help transform companies and sales process and methodology and help with sales metrics and profit and loss. I have over 25 years of experience building and managing consumer brands and products selling to all retail channels: department stores, mass merchants, clubs, specialty stores internet and broadcast media. As a OneAccord partner I can fill a position for an emerging or SMB company as interim VP of sales or I can come along side the leadership on a project to develop the sales and revenue generating growth of an organization. The value that OneAccord brings is that we have the experience having walked in the shoes of the client. We’ve held the executive leadership positions and are willing to come into your organization to not only strategize but execute the deliverables. We are scaled nationwide so we have the resources and expertise that is needed and can work collaboratively providing our clients with a wide range of revenue focused expertise. In addition OneAccord partners tell the truth about where a company is and where it needs to go.

Richard Brune is a interim sales and marketing VP for OneAccord with a strong track record managing some of America’s most recognizable consumer brands. Mr. Brune has an unbroken record of substantial sales and market share increases with such brands as Stanley Tools, Hartmann Luggage, REI Inc., Swiss Army Brands and licensed products with Eddie Bauer and Disney. Richard has a proven ability to develop new markets and expand existing ones. He is an effective leader with the ability to build highly productive and motivated sales teams. A bottom line executive with the ability to reduce operating expenses while continuing to enjoy growth and profitability.

Richard Brune can be contacted at richard.brune@oneaccordpartners.com

Common Objections to Interim Management

Interim Management Question: What are common objections from clients to Interim Management and how do you overcome these objections?

Objection: I have to hire someone after you leave which means we’ll be starting over from scratch.

Response: OneAccord provides a ‘front-end’ Revenue Review that is completed by 2 or 3 CEO-pedigreed Principals with proven revenue growth history. This work, coupled with their subsequent Rapid Revenue Plan will ensure the initiatives they implement produce results. And, OneAccord will not ‘leave’ an engagement until the transition to new, capable leadership is complete.

Scott Philips
Interim Management Executive, OneAccord
scott.philips@oneaccordpartners.com
(503) 913-2705

Objection: AS CEO I’m concerned about the impact of OA on our culture…

Response: OneAccord is there to deliver impact on transforming the revenue culture of a company for a finite period… typically 6 to 9 months. It’s important for the CEO and his management team to acknowledge that CHANGE is needed and to commit w OA leadership to defined roles to affect the necessary change.

Cultural change is always challenging. BUT the breakthrough is realizing there’s opportunity and seeing results.

The purpose of OneAccord’s principals is to help a company’s organization get through the change cycle of their business and transition the benefits of our experience, talent and skills to the company’s stakeholders. Our seasoning has brought us much hard earned wisdom in evaluating difficult changes and the effect on people’s lives in and out of the business. We strive to bring that perspective to the relationships and work we create with our client companies.

Peter Klinge
Interim Management Executive, OneAccord
peter.klinge@oneaccordpartners.com
801.755.6820

Objection: We could never have an interim overseeing our overall game plan, because they’d leave with our entire customer list!

Response: As mentioned in Leadership on Demand (www.Leadership-On-Demand.com) which I co-authored with Charles Besondy, interims are professionals, just like your accountant and your lawyer. Just as you’d not expect them to keep your confidence among competitors, good interims provide that same discretion. An interim CMO or CRO is working at the strategy and process level, not on any particular account. In fact, you incur greater risk any time you face disgruntled/outgoing account executives who not only take their (electronic) black book but also muddy the water with their comments to the rest of the staff!

Paul Travis
Interim Management Executive, OneAccord
Paul.Travis@oneaccordpartners.com
www.60-Second-Marketing.com
Tel: 206.910.2222 | Skype: PaulTravis

Objection: It costs too much.

Response: It’s true – our work this is not inexpensive. But because our work is interim meaning short–term and the fact that we are focused on lasting trans-formation at the top and bottom lines, the returns we provide through our mutual effort during and after the engagement far out way the investment over time.

The advantage to you is a low risk controlled change that registers as sustained profits in a number of levels;
1. Leadership excellence
2. Process improvement
3. Sustained growth
4. Revenue acceleration & profits

The real advantage is the long-term growth and profit your company will gain due to our short-term engagement.

Objection: We’ve tried consultants before.

Response: Our real difference is we not only assess and develop a plan, but come align side, roll up our sleeves and work with you until sustainable change is owned by the leadership and employees across the company.

The advantage of this for you is; we are able to walk away and you receive the full benefit of lasting change.

Because the organization is 100% involved with the change process (top down) it (the company) now has the ability, through modeling, to produce ongoing needed change while continuing to grow and drive profit

Objection: Our company is different.

Response: We draw on our 40 plus stable of tenured leadership and C-level principals. Our first goal is to match your culture and needs to those of our OneAccord principals. This ensures the very best experience, needed tools and cultural fit for your engagement.

The advantage to this means we mesh quickly to your culture and business needs which allows us to move to solutions much quicker.

The real benefit of this is of course savings of time and money – at the very front end – which is exactly why we make sure the culture, experience and engagement fit is spot on.

Objection: I don’t have the leadership in place to support this.

Response: We believe people are your most valuable resource. We are always surprised at the talent we find inside the individuals on staff. One of our best values is to help you identify and grow.

Allowing the right people to rise as leaders sends a clear message through the organization – new energy is released, new ideas are born and leadership transformation begins.

To have a united, focused and energized leadership team takes the pressure off you! You in many ways will be freed to do strategic, visionary and key guidance activities.

Objection: These kind of initiatives never last.

Response: Our overall transformation goal (or specific project goal) is to build and install processes which have identified owners who carry authority, responsibility and show the desire to maintain and even improve the processes over time.

Top-down / bottom-up Ownership is key to the success of all of our engagements. The advantage of sustained change is that you can now shift your attention as a key leader to future growth and profits and rely on “employee ownership” to sustain your processes.

Letting go of the daily tactical challenges fees you to tap and release the leadership value which is called for from your position.

Lasting change is about buying-in from top to bottom. Our processes provides buy-in from leaders to teams and individuals. – There is nothing more powerful than a volunteer army! Can you imagine the success we’d have if this was true in your company today?

Eric Fry
Interim Management Executive, OneAccord
eric.fry@oneaccordpartners.com

Top Brands Staying Strong in Downturn

According to Millward Brown’s Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands of 2009 Report, the top 100 global brands have increased in value by 2% to $2 Trillion over the past year. Despite the global financial downturn, the top brands seem to be immune to the economic turmoil, if you trust Millward Brown’s analysis. Some top brands seem to be excelling in the downturn like Apple and Amazon, while others have tumbled like Disney and Starbucks.

One of the biggest surprises is Apple’s success despite the economic environment. Despite smaller wallets, consumers are still managing to pay for relatively expensive iPods and iPhones which sometimes require expensive AT&T data plans. This supports Millward Brown’s analysis that the top brands are striving. This may be because consumers are looking for the most value for their money. They may sacrifice going to Starbucks for a month and make their coffee at home so that they can afford a new iPhone.

According to the report:

“Customers are not holding their breath during this economic volatility. They are adjusting their coping strategies, while remaining determined to purchase brands that contribute to the pleasure, quality, purpose, and security of their lives.”

One of the biggest questions companies want to know, is whether the recession will cause a lasting change in the way consumers buy. One noticable change is the avoidance of conspicuous consumption as people try not to appear insensitive or greedy. Luxury brands still grew 10% in value, although this can be largely accounted for by growth in demand in China.

“Consumers are not in the mood for greed. And greed is not required for success. Once we are on the other side of the economic slowdown, consumer spending will pick up. But perhaps slowly, as people internalize the lessons of our recent boom and bust history. They will want quality, intelligently created, well-designed products. But they may not want one in every color.”

The study suggests that even when money is tight, consumers will still spend on the strongest brands. Consumers know what they can expect from strong brands and are still willing to pay premiums for this assurance. The exception are brands that are perceived as unnecessary luxuries like a trip to Disneyland or a 4 dollar coffee.

Overcoming Pains Organizations Inflict on Themeselves

by Michael Pearce, Interim Management Executive

There are a host of pains organizations inflict on themselves that present clear and present dangers to their very viability. Among those we often see are:

• Goals and objectives that are out of sync with job descriptions and employee expectations

• Compensation plans that don’t reflect the will of the organizations executive leadership

• Management who believes it is their prerogative to manipulate sales compensation plans, changing quotas, territories and commission schedules mid-stream

• Sales automation/CRM systems that are installed to provide management reporting with sales productivity as a by product

• Few understand the complicated nature of channels, how to avoid conflict, and how to motivate organizations they don’t own, yet many businesses just can’t grow organically fast enough. Effective committed channels are a necessity.

So what can companies do?

• They must learn to hire for a season. Recognize that a significant percentage of employees will move on within a few years. Call it out confront it and embrace by designing the job description accordingly, and eliminate confusion and contention. Hire the very best for the tasks at hand. It’ll require a bit more thought and planning, but it’ll be worth it.

• Dedicate themselves to serving their employees and to making them successful; not managing them for compliance, rather leading them for significance; leading them rather than directing them

• Embrace technology. Many managers are digital immigrants leading digital natives. They resist it and demean it with comments like “I’ll never text”. We must immerse ourselves in it, admit our fears and frustrations, and join the ranks of the next generation who takes all this technology as a matter of fact and can’t understand why their management doesn’t.

• When we employ systems we must think first of the impact on the employee. Implement a CRM to make the sales people more productive, and have management reports as a byproduct. It’s the only way they will embrace it and the data will be accurate and timely.

• Hire scientifically. Success at a previous company is no guarantee of success with the next. It can no longer be acceptable to give an employee 9 months or longer to see if they will succeed. Thai’s as much as 1/3 of their tenure. They must be positioned to contribute much quicker.

• Build support tools like the company web site that personalize the web experience, allowing the inquirer to truly understand how your products and services can met his unique needs, and build it a way that leaves a thumb print behind so more and more can be turned into customers. It’s not the number of web hits that counts, it’s the number of customers that are generated.

• Have a mission statement that is meaningful, measure ideas against it, reward innovation, and create the opportunities that demand transformation versus incremental improvement.

• A soft economy can be the best time to gain market share. It’ll take a non-traditional approach, but embracing a win/win mentality, a servants heart for employees success, an acceptance that each employee really wants to make the best decisions possible, combined with an ability to accept effort and failure will help turn a business, even where the economy is having a negative impact, into a consistent winner.

Michael Pearce is an experienced interim management executive and has worked with several leading companies such as Citicorp, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Singer and EMC. His expertise is in building high performance sales teams and generating revenue and margins with repeatable, dependable, and predictable results. You can contact Mr. Pearce at michael.pearce@oneaccordpartners.com or at 425.830.4156. He also blogs at http://michael-pearce.blogspot.com/.

Photo by papalars

Twitter as a Marketing Research Tool

by Charles Sipe

By now many are realizing the tremendous potential of Twitter as a marketing vehicle to communicate to a community that has given you their permission and attention. According to TechCrunch, Jason Calicanis just offered $250,000, just to be listed on the suggested Twitterers for 1 year, and thinks a spot on this prestigious list will be as valuable as a superbowl spot within 5 years. Even Facebook wants to be like Twitter as demonstrated by their new profile page. Twitter has appeared to have made it mainstream with Twittering celebrities like britneyspears, the_real_shaq, aplusk (Ashton Kutcher), jimmyfallon, just to name a few. The network effect means that as Twitter continues to grow it will become more valuable to each user, and thus more valuable to marketers.

One of the major applications of Twitter is in market research. Imagine having a test group of millions, that can provide real time consumer feedback at a unprecedented level. Companies will be able to release a new product and almost instantly find out what people think. Additionally they can get take the pulse of customer sentiment and then make changes to increase customer satisfaction. Twitter could also empower customers to get their complaints heard as unhappy customers will have a way to tell thousands of followers about their bad experience. All it takes is a short text message that gets retweeted and a brand’s reputation can be tarnished overnight. This could mean a stronger focus on improving customer experience to prevent a fiasco ten times worse than Jeff Jarvis’ infamous Dell Hell blog post. Optimistically, companies will be able to better understand the customer by listening more closely and using the data mined from the Twitersphere to create improved products and services that will increase customer satisfaction.

The Recession May Make CMOs More Numbers Driven

John Quelch wrote a thought provoking article (How CMOs Should Function in a Recession) which touches on how the recession can alter the role of the CMO in an organization. Not only do they have to come up with creative ways to stretch marketing spend further but they have to be more cognizant of the return on investment on marketing spend.

The recession will have two important, lasting results for CMOs: First, financial accountability of marketing is here to stay. Only in a few high-margin fashion-intensive categories will the shoot-from-the-hip right brain marketer survive. Second, improved accountability requires CMOs to be financially literate, to understand the balance sheet as well as the income statement impacts of marketing initiatives. The result will be a new generation of CMOs who command more respect in the C-suite and hold their jobs longer as a result.

If Quelch is right, successful CMOs in the future may require an analytical skillset that outweighs the creative skillset. In the classic debate of whether marketing is an art or science, this may give the science side the lead for now. The recent Stephen Baker book, The Numerati, describes how business is becoming more analytically driven as artificial computer intelligence is able to give marketers new insights into the behavior patterns of consumers, connecting the dots when human intuition comes up short. For example a computer sorting mountains of information from consumers online, found that Netflix users who rent romatic comedies are more likely to rent cars for the weekend. A data analysis also found that drinkers of hard liqour drinkers often buy Gatorade. These consumers likely wanted to prevent hang overs by drinking or mixing liqour with the electrolyte rich sports drink. This information could be valuable for Gatorade’s marketing department who could use this to target liqour buyers to increase sales.

Have you seen any examples of numbers becoming more important in the role of a CMO or marketing department?

Building Brand in Tough Economic Times

American Express Chief Marketing Officer John Hayes spoke at the 2009 American Marketing Association MPlanet conference. Here are his guidelines for building your brand during tough economic times by Greg Verdino.

• Establish “customer listening posts” and visit them daily. Not entirely sure whether John meant that companies should create places where their customers can voice their opinions (e.g., American Express’ Members Project community, OPEN Forum), that companies need to tune into online conversations wherever they take place, or (I’m guessing) both. He did talk about having personally sat down with top tier financial bloggers, which is obviously a sound first step, although the conversations Amex really needs to be listening to no doubt happen outside the personal finance blogosphere. Interestingly, a Black Cardmember stood up following John’s presentation and complained that, even as one of American Express’ highest tier customers, he was unable to get satisfactory customer service. John was very gracious and offered to help rectify this Cardmember’s issues.

• In tough times, resist the urge to hunker down and stick with the tried and true. Instead, seek out opportunity and take steps to keep moving forward.

• Innovate constantly. The marketer that stops innovating in tough times is “carving their brand’s own tombstone.” It strikes me that this point and the previous one are, more or less, the same thing — so maybe I missed something or took crappy notes (although it looks like other bloggers got more or less the same points.) Regardless, whether we’re talking about one point or two the message is an important one for marketers — don’t use the recession to justify inertia. Financial uncertainty doesn’t negate the fact that the world has changed and that the consumer behaves differently (and expects different things from brands) than they once did. If anything, financial uncertainty raises the bar. Consumers are more likely than ever to award their hard earned dollar to those brands that provide the greatest value, build the strongest relationship and connect in the most meaningful way. Be one of those brands — but don’t think you’ll get there by blowing your budget on Super Bowl spots (ummm – what’s the value proposition there, again?)

• Be equal parts consumer advocate and visionary. Understand where consumers are now, what their needs and concerns are today, but also be the voice of hope and deliver on the promise of a brighter future. Clearly, consumer advocacy is an outcome of taking the time to truly understand your customers and their needs. Companies that aren’t doing this already are heading for a world of hurt. But being a visionary is the difference-maker. During tough times, there is enough bad news — the consumer knows and lives that every day. As a brand marketer though, you can help the consumer see beyond the near term crunch, provide assurances, and demonstrate a real commitment to helping people survive, thrive and come out the other side. In other words, nobody knows better where we are today than the consumer; it is the brand’s obligation to help the consumer see where they can be tomorrow.

These concepts are hardly new and some (the last point, most of all) seemed more than a bit like empty marketing boosterism — but maybe that’s exactly what marketers need to hear during a recession. And I suspect that, when delivered by the CMO of one of the world’s preeminent brands, the points hit home for a lot of the people in the audience.

This article was originally posted on Greg Verdino’s Blog and is licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Photo via Flickr.

Interim Executive Question: Can the Costs of Poor Brand Performance be Measured?

Question:  Can the costs of poor brand performance be measured?

The cost of poor brand performance is real and it can be measured.  The elements of cost are tangible and often already measured by companies, including: rework, error correction, concessions, lost opportunities, and customer attrition.   Each one of these elements increases your cost of service, selling, support, and overhead as remedies are implemented to correct them.  These costs can have an exponential impact across the transmission systems:  that is, each element or system that fails, or any inconsistency between them or against the brand promise tends to compound the noise in the communication and impact the perception of the customer.  Why is there such a compounding effect?  Remember that for business to business customers, the sum of all of their experiences and all the communications with your entire firm over time serve to create their perception of your brand.  When one element disappoints the customer, it is automatically compounded by another element – even though they may seem totally unconnected from inside your company.  Left unchecked, the customer’s disappointment will grow and negative perceptions will expand beyond simply the issues at hand to become a general perception of your whole business.

While the cost of negative brand efficiency may be difficult to measure precisely, the direct impact of poor performance and quality on each of the communications systems can be measured.  Many businesses have sophisticated processes, software and even six sigma quality improvement programs designed to measure and improve that performance and increase profitability.  These initiatives do not often measure systems across the enterprise and rarely, if ever, do they measure the effectiveness and consistency of communication and performance of all of these systems with the intended brand strategy of the business.  Managing each one of those issues in isolation and not in a holistic manner aligned with the brand strategy will result in an exponential drain on energy and resources required to deliver sustained profitable growth.

Photo via flickr

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