Marketing Leadership Lessons From General Schwarzkopf
During the Gulf War, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf was tagged with many labels from Teddy Bear to the toughest soldier in the Gulf. In a recent interview, he discussed some of the principles that guided him. Many of these same principles of leadership have applicability for sales executives.
Below are “Stormin’ Norman’s” principles of leadership:
You must have clear goals.
You must be able to articulate the goals clearly. One of the advantages we had in Kuwait, said the general, was the clarity of the Mission: “Kick Saddam Hussein’s butt out of Kuwait. The goals was clear and simple, and something that every one of our troops understood.”
Give yourself a clear agenda.
Every morning write down the five most important things for you to accomplish that day. Whatever else you do, get those five things done. Insist that the people who report to you operate the same way.
Let people know where they stand.
Everyone knows you do a disservice to a B student when you give him or her an A+. That applies not just to schools. The grades you give the people who report to you must reflect reality.
What’s broken, fix now. Don’t put it off.
Problems that aren’t dealt with lead to other problems. Besides, something else will break and need fixing tomorrow.
No repainting the flagpole. Make sure all the work your people are doing is essential to the organization.
Set high standards.
Too often we don’t ask enough from people. At on point in Schwarzkopf’s career, he was placed in charge of helicopter maintenance. He asked how much of the fleet was able to fly on any given day. The answer was 75%. “People didn’t come in at 74 or 76, but always at 75, because that was the standard that had been set for them. I said, “I don’t know anything about helicopter maintenance, but I’m establishing a new standard: 85%” Sure enough, within a short time 85% of the fleet was available on any given day. The moral: people generally won’t perform above your expectations, so it’s important to expect a lot.
Lay the concept out, but let your people execute it.
Yes, you must have the right people in place, but then step back. Allow them to do own their work.
People come to work to succeed.
Nobody comes to work to fail. It seems obvious. So why do so many organizations operate on the principle that if people aren’t watching and supervised, they’ll bungle the job?
Never lie.
Ever. Schwarzkopf said there had been a big debate about whether to use disinformation to mislead the Iraqis during the Gulf War. “We knew they were watching CNN. Some people argued that we could save American lives by feeding incorrect information to our own media.” Schwarzkopf vetoed the idea because he felt it would undermine the military leadership’s credibility with the American public.
When in charge, take command.
Leaders are often called on to make decisions without adequate information. As a result, they may put off deciding to do anything at all. That’s a big mistake, said Schwarzkopf. Decisions themselves elicit new information. The best policy is to decide, monitor the results, and change course if necessary.
Do what’s right.
“The truth of the matter,”, said Schwarzkopf, “is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.”
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Finding the Way to Tap Consumer Desire
Filed under: Brand Leadership, Executive Marketing Strategy
Marketing advances product innovation by being the catalyst across an organization’s sales, operations, and product development functions to offer customers products that satisfy desires. In developed economies product marketing is not ‘need based’ but desire driven. For example, soap buyers want to know if it does more than just clean, they also want to know that it has deodorant, scents, etc.
Desire creates the opportunity for innovation and evolution of products and services. Today’s desires become tomorrow’s needs as the basic standard of living improves. The telephone evolved from the 19th century as a luxury-invention to become a basic household necessity in the 20th, and by the turn of the 21st became the mobile communications standard.
What’s the difference between companies that focus on selling units versus companies that sell value in customer relationships? For example, what’s different about Apple’s phenomenal success with the iPod and the MP3 players from Creative Labs, and numerous others that were first to market years earlier?
Companies like Apple link marketing to their business objectives in a way that leads and drives customers to shift from a need staple to must have cachet or brand consumers aspire to. There’s value that transcends the consumer’s rational view of an item to a more emotional state of demand for a branded product with consumer value and importance typically higher than the unit’s price point.
By contrast what value has the American automotive industry promoted with low employee pricing and rebates? They drive transactional unit sales at any cost and discount the value of their car brands so that the main reason to buy becomes price. This is a downward revenue and profitability sales spiral that subsidizes the industry in the short run but which in the long run destroys its economic value and consumer relevance.
Consistently successful companies e.g. Pepsi, P&G, Apple, Nike, Intel, BMW represent a group that understand how to deliver big ideas that build continuous selling relationships to promote value at higher margins. These companies typically stand apart and outperform their category because they are able to focus on two key in-balance factors: Vision balanced with Pragmatism (or mission), and Leadership balanced with Teamwork.
Vision shapes the relative merits and possibilities of a company’s products to the target consumer. Vision evaluates how the company’s product projects itself to the person who buys it; understands the elements of the product that tap into the consumer personality and response to motivate consumption.
The big idea communicates the clarity of the vision. The consumer sees it in the advertising and product experience. To move forward a vision must resonate with the team that creates the marketing if it’s to communicate well to external stakeholders. The vision is not realizable if not balanced with pragmatism.
Pragmatism is grounded in simplicity and rationalism so that the product makes sense to the consumer. While vision is the broad view of some future realization, pragmatism helps to define the product for the consumer in the here and now. If a consumer can be forward thinking in adopting a new product while avoiding the ‘bleeding edge’ moniker of experimentation and possible recklessness, then there’s a big idea to building sales velocity through the wider market.
Leadership guides across an organization to help it rise above the banal and uninspired. Leadership maintains the focus on the vision as the team develops their marketing concepts. Communication of what is possible is essential to create the buy-in among the team members so that their energies and creative talents will produce the big idea that consumers will care about.
Teamwork executes the big idea by understanding the combination of vision, pragmatism, and leadership. It’s in the team that the idea is given life and possibilities. The members are the sounding board for each other. They evaluate the original vision against their ideas to determine the difference between consumer aspiration and meaningless selling.
The team is where multi-disciplined talents combine to produce the marketing concept with salient and novel communications that sell.
When all four elements are in balance, then Big Ideas are realized to deliver customer satisfaction, personal reward, and company success.
Peter Klinge Jr. is a Principal with OneAccord & can be reached at Peter.Klinge@OneAccordPartners.com. This is an excerpt from the Big Idea Series from Peter Klinge. © MMV Peter Klinge. All Rights Reserved.
Photo by goodrob13
Market Innovation: When Constant Improvement Isn’t Enough
Many, if not most organizations have processes and mission commitments around routine improvement. Often they are formalized, and labeled with titles like Continuous Improvement Program, Total Quality Improvement (TQM), Zero Defects, Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) or perhaps variation of Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy espoused by Dr. W. Edwards Deming, under General MacArthur’s program to re-build Japan after World War ll. Kiazen, means “improvement”. Kaizen strategy calls for never-ending improvement involving everyone in the organization – managers and workers alike. While making small but continuous improvement is surely a laudable goal, much like always increasing revenue while reducing expenses is a philosophy that should be embraced universally, there is another profound aspect to thriving as a business.
Successful leadership will additionally focus on transformation/innovation. If Henry Ford had been merely trying to achieve incremental improvement, he would have tried to breed a faster horse.
I’m reminded of a breakfast meeting I attended recently with Carly Fiorona, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. While she took pride in being a good listener with all stakeholders, she knew her leadership group must be transformational in their thinking and lead the commitment to innovation. H-P has often commented publicly that a significant percentage of their revenue comes from products that simply didn’t exist 18 months earlier. A bit of Moore’s Law in practice!
She told a fascinating story of the development of the digital camera. It wasn’t demand from customers, who all seemed satisfied with the 100 year domination of the market by Kodak; and it wasn’t exotic research in some secret lab. It was transformational thinking that led to innovation at its best. In an H-P center scientists watched eight year olds learn to surf and master the web. Occasionally they would print a page. Each time they were asked why they printed a particular page they responded in way that made it quite clear the print function was a way of claiming ownership. Until they printed it, it was just information on the web, but once they printed it, it became theirs.
Next came brilliant leadership, fostering innovation and potential transformation. They needed to determine what the connection was between the web and the print function that H-P could leverage, creating a new product or service. They felt H-P possessed a clear advantage in digitizing data, and they were the leader in print technology. The concept of having images digitized, and then being able to deliver them anywhere on earth immediately after they were created, allowing the recipient to print, and thereby “own” them was the epiphany that conceptualized digital photography. Within just a few years, H-P had toppled the once mighty Kodak and was in the enviable position of being able to claim market leadership. And now, in just a few years, it is estimated that the vast majority, perhaps as many as 80% of all photos taken are taken with a cell phone, and are immediately ready to forward electronically.
But it’s not enough to invent something. The mere creation of a new product doesn’t really help anybody until it’s taken successfully into the market. You must produce! You must make the product and you must move it into the market effectively and efficiently.
While this may seem intuitive while thinking about products and markets, it is rarely practiced effectively when it comes to the sales arena where it is largely absent altogether. It’s a critically important part of a healthy sales process. Companies often tinker with quotas, assigned territories and commission/incentive plans, trying to make things just a bit better than they were the previous period. And yet we read in a recently published study that less than 10% of most company’s salespeople can effectively describe their core business. The ability to turn average sale people into a high performance team often requires transformation. It’s executive leadership that must recognize when small improvements are not the answer; rather the solution may very well be in recognizing when to pull the trigger on a transformation of the sale force. This is not to suggest a whole new staff. On the contrary, while occasionally some do need to replaced, the ability to think creatively and create a productive environment is what is called for in this case. I once thought of it as much like playing golf. If we ask a golfer who normally shoots in the nineties to shoot a par 72 and offer him a million dollars to do so, he’ll fail, so it’s not about the incentive. If we tell him we’ll fire him if he doesn’t shoot par, he’ll still fail, so it’s not about the threat. If we show him exactly what to do, and then tell him to go do exactly as demonstrated in order to shoot the desired par score, once again he’ll likely fail, so it s not about instruction. So what’s the answer? How do we get a 90’s golfer to shoot a par round? In golf the answer is a scramble. In scramble, all players work together to achieve the best possible score. Each contributes his best shot toward the goal of a lower score, and to be sure, when the round is over, the player who has never scored under 90, will have posted a par or better round. It happens every time. And it does in sales too. When we come together in an environment that allows the entire team to contribute their best effort, where all have a role and contribute to the victory that which they do best, the result will always be much better than the individual is able to accomplish by himself. We will have succeeded in transforming an average salesperson into a high performance, highly productive contributor.
The issue then is from whom we should expect the innovation and occasional transformation, such that we’re not relegated to the scrapheap of obsolescence. The answer is confident, skilled, visionary leadership. Employees can be empowered to recognize process deficiencies and recommend improvements; it’s a matter of the culture. But it’s the leadership that must find ways to pull themselves out of the trees and look candidly and critically at the forest, listening to all stakeholders, but relying on none exclusively. The role of transformation and the requirement for innovation are among the most important roles in managerial leadership today. Many leaders have come to rely on external interim skilled and experienced help to position them for success as these significant changes are sold to the employees, and embedded in the culture and processes. They realize that a fresh perspective based on years of experience removes the bias that often exists toward the status quo. And the ability to discern precisely when it needs to occur separates the well known successes from the mediocre. The desire and ability to predict, anticipate and foster a culture that craves innovation, and expects transformational creativity is the leadership we will be reading about in the chronicles of success.
Michael Pearce is a Los Angeles based principal at OneAccord Partners and author of the sales management book, “Don’t Shoot the Piano Player” that has been used by educational institutions and companies alike as a model for building and maintaining successful sales teams. His corporate tenure includes domestic and international sales leadership assignments for North America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific while he served several of America’s leading companies including Citicorp, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Singer and EMC. He can be contacted at 425.830.4156 and michael.pearce(at)oneaccordpartners.com.
Image by Matthew Haggerty
Seth Godin’s New Book Tribes Inspires a New Kind of Marketing Leadership
In Seth Godin’s latest book, Tribes, he makes his usual attack on traditional thinking, this time on leadership. He describes how the internet makes it it easier than ever to build a tribe, or a following, around your business or your personal brand. Tools such as blogs and Twitter make it easier to attract people who are interested in what you have to say.
I think when people follow you by reading your blog or following you on Twitter, it builds powerful relationships with individuals who are more likely to buy your product or hire you to work for them. One example of this is the Obama campaign, which used Twitter to communicate with over a hundred thousand loyal followers. Obama’s campaign was able to utilize this relationship to their passionate followers to spread a message and encourage action, such as getting people to register to vote.
Seth argues that real leaders create change by challenging the status quo. He points out that our society works hard to prevent change but a lot of the best growth occurs when you’re not like most people. One of the most interesting insights that Godin makes is that a company can have a religion, not in the spiritual sense but rather as it relates to a set of practices that are followed because that’s the way things have always been done. Heretics are those that challenge the religion of the company and push for a new religion. A good leader is able to fight the social forces to keep things the same and lead change that will lead to growth. The creator of the Big Mac, was a franchise owner who broke the rules and created one of the most successful products in the company’s history. Being a heretic is not easy, but Seth says that is exactly what we need right now.
The book was heavy on inspiration and pretty light on substance, but I think the message is an important one. This is especially true when technological advances, demographic shifts, and global issues are rapidly changing the business environment. Companies can no longer settle for what has worked in the past, but must change their “religion” in order to adapt to the the changing landscape.
Creating and Connecting Your Brand to the Customer
Published by OneAccord.
It’s important to connect your brand identity to your customers and what you can do for them. Therefore, your design style, look and feel, photography, and all other visual design elements that represent your company’s identity should start with your customer. Does your company’s visual identity make a meaningful and relevant connection with your customers? Does the style or font and color treatment reflect the industry or style of business and products and services you offer – including perhaps how they might be used by your customers?
Let’s say you run a business that specializes in artist supplies and tools. You might agree that to make a good connection with customers, your business identity should have a logotype style that appeals to and resembles artistic styles that are familiar to that audience. A creative, colorful, and artsy image would seem most appropriate. But imagine that your artist supply store had something like the big blue striped “IBM” symbol on it. The IBM logo is so well known, and its association with the computer industry so strong, that even if you added the words “Art Supply Store” in big bold type next to this logo your customers will be very confused. Most likely, you’ll not attract too many artists to your store. The style and color of the IBM logo is well suited to the big company corporate image that it represents.
Now let’s imagine what the IBM logo might look like if we were to intentionally adapt it for the purpose of promoting an artist supply store. What if the stripes in the IBM logo were each a different bright color representing all the colors in the rainbow? And what if the “M” was stylized and also served as an artist’s cup holding a few paint brushes, each with a dab of brightly colored paint sticking up out of the cup? Would this version of the IBM logo on an artist supply store be more appropriate and appear more relevant to customers who are artists? Even if the name was “IBM”, the image and color scheme and use of creative elements that match the customers’ purpose would make this a far more appropriate and attractive store front. The use of color is a very powerful tool for communicating and establishing a direct connection with your customers.
This example also illustrates that your brand identity and the connection that it can establish with your customers can transcend business customers into the consumer realm – as long as you stay true to your brand promise and reputation. In the computer services industry, IBM is one example of a brand that has recognition far beyond the large business customers that it primarily serves.
When designing an identity, care should be taken to examine all the ways in which that identity will be communicated to your customers and the market place in general. This includes sales and marketing collateral, promotional materials, advertising, business stationery, web sites, product designs and packaging, trade show displays, software user interfaces, business cards, and so on. A consistent design style should be applied and adapted to each one of these areas so that not only will the name and logo be recognizable, but the customer will become familiar with the look and feel of each of these elements and they will recognize them as part of the same company. In essence, the customer experience across all of the visible touch points and interfaces with your company should have a consistent style and familiarity that enhances the instant recognition of your business and simplifies the customer’s relationship with you.
Don’t make the mistake of designing very complex looking marketing collateral and web site designs that feature your products in great detail, including screen shots of software, detailed technical descriptions, design look and feel elements that are derived from your own internal business – labs, production, factory floor or executive offices. You would be missing the point of creating all of this communication in the first place: to effectively establish long term relationships with customers.
In the industry for your products and services, there may be many existing elements like symbols, colors, or other visual images that are very familiar to the people who buy and use the appropriate products and services. Every community has such elements that connect the people in that community together. Your mission is to find those elements, adopt them within your identity, and become an integral part of the community you to intend to serve. Your customers will not only want to include you in everything they do, they will have a hard time thinking of themselves without you when your competitors come knocking.
Wells Fargo’s counteroffer for Wachovia has spurred Citigroup to file a complaint today to the New York Supreme Court.
From The New York Times:
“The root of the conflict is the interruption of Citigroup’s plan, announced a week ago, to buy Wachovia’s banking operations for $2.2 billion, or $1 a share. That deal was brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, whose officials worried that Wachovia could collapse. Regulators agreed to pick up losses over $42 billion incurred by Citigroup after the transaction.”
