Shipley Asia Pacific

A great primer for those seeking to understand how the background and desired outcomes around a Multi-Stakeholder Initiative (MSI) can impact the type of MSI to be selected.

This is good! - maybe?  Info most can't use...

Gotcha with the headline "Wednesday at lunchtime"  but it's actually Tuesday to Thursday e.g. less success Mondays & Fridays - but any telemarketing company database for the last 50 years says this already. So buyers are pretty much the same, even with the newer digital channels. Check !

Next, this article, based on a vendors research, highlights something shopkeeper have known for several thousand years - helping people:

a/ when they really want to be helped, is best done

b/ really quickly and

c/ in person

On a website - which is what this study is based upon - these three factors are actually beyond the capability of most B2B lead nurturing systems.  Big claim? Maybe - let's look at them in turn.

a/ "ready to buy"? -  is easy to do in a real shop, or real sales call - body language helps us. Yet today, 9 out of 10 B2B websites I've survey call me if I fill out any form - repeat - any form, for any reason. If I give them my phone number I get a SPAM call. Ready? No! Hassling people is no more effective or nurturing online than in person. This is hard to do, Really really hard to do well. And the temptation to give in to over-eager sales people desperate for any leads at all means too many early researchers get burned by SPAM calls.

b/ This survey found a big difference FOR REALLY QUALIFIED BUYERS in quicker call backs Vs call backs later.  Just like a real store!  So not actually real news here on the principle - but for THEIR buyer types, the timing did make a big difference. Check yours!

When I was at IBM helping Small Medium Enterprises get started with websites, we had a similar statistic to Yellow Pages lead survey response data - over 70% of businesses failed to respond to an enquiry within 24 hours, and 12% never responded at all.  This must be automated, and then managed well.

c/ Followup by a person makes such a big difference. Just like in the 'real' world. But few in B2B lead generation have yet mastered the sophistication and nuanced behaviours of our B2C cousins around Inside Sales roles for early qualification of leads. See a/ above. Most web visitors are called by poorly trained telemarketers, or sales people. Design, recruit, train, monitor & manages this area stringently.

Customer Focus - the mantra of the greatest companies.

In every negotiation, or 'must-win' deal I've worked in or on for 40 years, problems occuring always start with companies losing sight of the world, through the eys of their customers.

Failure to understand and acknowledge the issues, pain & needs of the 'other party' - lie at the heart of every margin squeeze, surprise customer defection to competition; failed bid to win contracts from competitors or difficulties in getting suppliers to buy in to your requirements.

This - admittedly B2C - story highlights the similar risks of customer focus failures by B2B companies, and how lazy copying, without really understanding the real drivers for aspects of great products and services can be poor, risky business strategy.

Where was Samsung's understanding of consumer needs if their head of mobile, JK Shin, admitted the company was experiencing a “crisis of design” due to competition from the iPhone and that the difference between the companies’ phones was like “heaven and earth.”

The best creativity, innovation, science, engineering, design does not come from copying others. I believe great products & services, and great deal outcomes all arrive from the one place - deep insight into the world of your customers.

Ambiverts Rule!  

A great article reinforcing a number of themes. 

Firstly, in the ENS International negotiation framework, intentional style flexibility is critical to effectively work with the other parties In an influencing situation.

Second, the Shipley Capture Guide chapter on Persuasion reminds us that the ancient Greeks talked about the need to balance Logos and Pathos to avoid losing the audience in presenting an argument.

Coaching people in complex deals I often observe the point when the other party gets out off by being oversold. And it's especially painful to watch because it was me when I was younger too ( and to be  honest still even sometimes today when I get tired or drop my empathy sensors role in guiding a situation)

So, to what extent are your extroverted sales people or negotiators costing you  better outcomes?

And how to unlock the often overlooked value in your engineers and scientists and financial people as persuaders and influencers?

Ah - vendor driven 'research' - even with a pretty Infographic, still needs to be critically reviewed eh?

So a UK ad agency figures it's time to jump on the B2B marketign bandwagen, and launches their new service with research 'with' LinkedIn - which shows (surprise, surprise) that LinkedIn is the "most trusted and preferred network for B2B communications" - which is possibly true, depending who asked who, and in what context. eg there's also different research you can Google showing very different responses about Facebook for business than LinkedIn 'discovered'

Some useful reminders - but not new news as published previously - about best time of day to communicate with business people - but pointless in the context of social media as a 'draw down when I feel like it' medium.

The dodgy (to me) claims are that respondents wanted 'news about the company' - 86% and that an amazing (and unbelievable for  B2B) 79% wanted 'promotions'  - Seriously ?  A 20% off coupon via your LinkedIn company page off your next CRM upgrade or business consulting workshop.?  Sounds like B2C to me... Or what happens if a B2C agency writes a survey to go to B2B buyers perhaps.

This flies in the face of all the current trends in the B2B buyers journey about the decision making processes, and key seller involvements. eg CMI, Hubspot, RainToday, CSO, Math Marketing etc etc

And that video was 'only desired by 8% of respondants also contradicts a massive shift over the last few years about B2B buyer preferences in ongoing communication, and the most effective forms of communication to influence buyers. Couldn't be because LinkedIn is not very video friendly could it?

"Google in Jeopardy"?  A terrific provcation, up there with "Facebook will not exist in 5 years".  

This post is a powerful perspective on how trends, technology, tools - all come and go. Yahoo Answers is one of the reasons Yahoo still exists - people do not want data, they want insight, they want answers.

IBM's WATSON is piloting in many industries, answering questions beyond the ability of even the most experienced industry experts eg diagnosis in medicine of complex multi-symptom patients.

What might all this mean for you? Leaving aside the consequences for Google shareholders, and instead considering the benefits for the rest of us, WATSON has the potential to change - for the better - most areas of human endeavour.

Even, and perhaps especially complex areas of human interaction like negotiations, and people management.

Imagine a digital "manager" or coach that listened better than a human manager? That gave you better advice on how to handle an account, a sale, a deal, a proposal - than your manager today?  Not just possible, we're talking probable !

I'm comfortable - for now - with the integrity of IBM in not making WATSON available for warlords, drug cartels and arms dealers.

So,  just for fun - 'Google' WATSON by IBM. Started reading, and prepare to be amazed. Google will not go away overnight, but IBM have an incredible head start with WATSON that even Google are unlikely to be able to match.

And that's good news for all of us...

Know your buyers journey to grow revenue. Your buyers might not buy quite like this - yet. But the digitisation of ALL industries says this journey will be your buyers soon. How well aligned to a buyer journey like this is your thinking, comfort, and supporting processes? 

A great summary of how & why we make decisions - or rather 'emote' decisions. Great reading to save the planet, and win some business along the way

For any company to sell to other businesses (B2B sales) nurturing prospects is too late. You have to nurture 'suspects' - people who probably have the problem you solve, but often don't know it yet.

The new, populist term for this is Content Marketing. the provision of informative or educational material to build a relationship. Ideally, early on, the content is actually provocative and challenges established or conventional thinking to reframe buyer perceptions.

Content marketing for lead nurturing is really, really hard to do well. But there are five key building blocks, one of which is the Editorial Calendar - summarised here by Ardath Albee on her great blog 'Marketing Interactions'.

Ardath highlights another two key requirements, namely that 'The calendar is based on a selected persona + problem to solve'

1/ The buyer persona, or your Ideal Client Profile is the perfect customer for you, and the problem you best solve. Here's a good tool to help your thinking on this http://j.mp/1gpQQqL ;

2/ Why problem? Because buyer most readily change, act, buy to reduce pain, or a problem, not (ironically) become better. And your marketing must deliver leads who you want to do business with.

Describing the 'why' of your company in terms of the problem(s) you solve is much more powerful than telling people 'what' you do (and forcing them to think about 'how' that helps them. (See Simon Sineks video on TED.com http://j.mp/1f7MSPC ;)

Without these principles in place, no editorial calendar can help you. 

3/ Good lead nurturing strategy - executed using a simple Editorial Calendar is a powerful and effective way to produce qualified leads for your B2B salesforce.

PS - the other 2 x requirements? Well, in addition to 1/ a clear buyer persona; 2/ 'why' you - the problem you solve 3/ great delivery planning via an Editorial Calendar - you also need 4/ Marketing Automation tools and 5/ An overall revenue plan bought into by all levels of management. This is NOT just a marketing inititive.

Here's my question from this article. To what extent does this cheerful provocation about 'rank & yank' mean that the common  use of this for sales teams could be off the mark?

There are hundreds of books on sales management - most including advice on how to cull the team for strength and growth.

"Popularity isn't the issue, but honesty always is" - the power of leading and managing diversity is elusive, because outliers don't fit simple team ranking criteria

In 1973, as an impressionable teenager, I read 'Small is Beautiful' by EF Schumacher. Subtitled 'Economics as if people mattered', Schumacher's ideas set me up with a different perspective to many around me. In this cheerfully provocative piece (what else so easily catches my eye?) Stewart Friedman argues for a re-think on the need for a human scale to modern society and the views and values around the role of the family. While titled & focussed on America, to what extent do his questions & suggestions also apply in your country or society?.

As Friedman concludes in this article, we should be cautious about population growth for its own sake - our fragile planet may be about to shrug us off as protection against our selfish abuse - but his arguments for me are more about the quality of modern parenting - aside from the also critical thinking needed on quantity.

So while many create or involve themselves in  start-up businesses now for the lifestyle flexibility, the caution is the often excessive burn-out mentality - often driven by get-rich-quick rather than 'be with the kids' that can be very unhealthy.

I was incredibly lucky that the birth of my first child triggered a total re-think about why I was here, and my crazy work schedule was thrown out the window. For example, I went freelance and chose to walk my kids to school many days for 15 years - not everyone can re-organise to do this, but Freidman's arguing this re-evaluation across many areas of work/life balance is overdue.

Forty years later Schumacher might also agree

A Senior Leadership Team playing it safe is as big a risk to the future of a business as the more obvious risk of foolhardy or ill-conceived or execute stratgey.

Like this story, I often kick of Strategy Audits getting leadership teams to write a front page story of why their company failed - dated 12 months from now.

Fear of making the wrong decisions and/or failing to act quickly enough are normally the major, self-declared issues. 

Interestingly, staff interviews highlight most employees are also very aware of these fears in the Senior Leadership Team!

So, who is responsible for breaking the pattern in your organisation?