Six Sigma marketing, a formula for success

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

Today we have a guest blog from Andrew Ballard:

Six Sigma is no longer just for large manufacturers. Smaller service companies can benefit too. The term Six Sigma refers to a measure of quality within six standard deviations, which translates to a maximum of 3.4 defects (or errors) per million...near perfection.

Near perfection may sound intimidating; however, in terms of applying Six Sigma to your business, I’m referring to more of a mindset than a metric. A customary Six Sigma exercise, which translates well to the functions of marketing and sales, involves process mapping.

Michael J. Webb, president of Sales Performance Consulting, put it well (in an iSix Sigma Magazine article), “Effective sales process mapping focuses on the goals and problems of buyers and sellers.” 

The objective is to define the challenges and opportunities in the process of 1) identifying responsive segments, and making them aware of (and interested) in your product or service – the function of marketing; and 2) qualifying prospects’ needs and satisfying them – the function of sales.

We had a client that was unsatisfied with their sales numbers; their remedy was to increase the budget to pull more leads through the pipeline. Using process mapping we found that their weak link was conversion, and had nothing to do with quantity of leads. The real issue was sales training and tools. In essence, they were burning leads and would have thrown more good money after bad.

Begin the mapping process by defining and grouping your seller inputs (marketing and sales stimulus), and buyer outputs (prospects’ response). Using a flowchart format, map the linear progression from lead generation through customer service. Process maps differ by industry, business situation, objectives and resources. Customize your map by using MS Excel (it has an adequate flowchart tool).

Use Six Sigma as a philosophical and data driven approach toward improving your marketing and sales processes. It’s not just about generating more revenue; process improvement encompasses reducing costs, mistakes and time-to-market as well.

Near perfection may not be realistic for your business, but improving your marketing and sales process will likely lead to better customer experiences…which is the formula for success in any enterprise.

How do you detect your company’s strengths and weaknesses, with regard to marketing and selling processes? And, how would you use process mapping to identify opportunities that may improve your customers’ experience? Give process mapping a try…you won’t be disappointed. 

Andrew Ballard

Andrew Ballard is the president of Marketing Solutions, a Seattle area agency that develops research-based growth strategies for small to midsize businesses.  He has over 30 years experience specializing in marketing research, strategic planning, brand development and revenue generation.  Ballard has helped hundreds of organizations (from startups through Fortune 500 companies) realize significant growth.

Andrew is a graduate of the Ford Marketing Institute and Certified in Six Sigma.  He is also a respected author and educator.  His articles on marketing strategy have been published in business journals through all 50 States.  His first book, entitled Your Opinion Doesn’t Matter, recently released to rave reviews in both corporate and academic circles.  In addition, he is adjunct faculty at the University of Washington.

Short Byline used in my monthly marketing column:

Andrew Ballard is the president of Marketing Solution, specializing in research-based growth strategies. He can be reached at 425-337-1100 or www.mktg-solutions.com

What should you do when a plan doesn’t execute.

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

Recently, I watched some young men setting up a domino track.  You know, where a series of dominoes are set on end in a fashion that lets the first one fall in to the next and ultimately create an amazing pattern or jaw dropping avalanche.  These young men planned to make it in to the Guinness Book of Records.   

I gather they had planned the domino track carefully and had taken days to amass and set up the dominoes.  The plan was executed with one push of the first domino.  About thirty seconds in to a several minute process, something happened.  One of the dominoes moved sideways when struck and that began to cause problems down the line.  I watched five bright capable people freeze and a sixth person casually walk over to an area ahead of where the dominoes were tumbling.  Just as casually, he shoved his shoe at several dominoes, pushing them aside.  The domino cascade moved ahead to that point and stopped. 

One person with courage interrupted the plan and ended the faulty process.  Wish he had been on some of my management teams!  I am just as sure that their next attempt will succeed.  Where have you had a plan/process go wrong and let it keep going, possibly feeling helpless to correct it?  

How to run a marathon. What shows up for most of us

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

I have a couple of friends who are preparing to run marathons this year.  It is interesting to see how differently they are approaching the event.  Both have been very successful in their professional lives and their personal lives.  Both are pretty good athletes. 

MINDSET/COMITMENT: One is approaching the July event by saying she will run the race and each time she mentions the commitment she also says something about how large a commitment it is to run the race.  The other woman mentions what it will feel like to run and complete the race.  She is already describing the race as an accomplished fact. 

SKILLS:  The woman who is talking about the commitment in terms of its size is focusing on running technique, both reading about it and working with a running trainer to improve how she runs.  The one who has a clarity of vision and feels it is a done deal hasn’t missed a day of running or workout. 

I have always felt that culture trumps everything else.  Close second is the ability to create and live a vision as your reality.  A vision that is lived is a powerful tool.  Do you think that both will achieve their goal? Which would you bet on and why?

Top 10 Ways Not to Lead

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

Today we have a guest blog from Lauren Owen:

I like to read and occasionally write Top 10 Lists. These lists typically take a positive approach and list the Ten Best of “XYZ”. This month I’d like to present my own lighthearted take on leadership improvement, specifically the Top 10 Ways Not to Lead. (I also want to thank my wonderful clients, who are genuinely dedicated to improving their own leadership abilities and are continually setting examples of good leadership.)

My Top 10 Ways Not to Lead

Tip #1

Don’t ever ask the people you work with what they really think of you as a leader. You’d never learn anything useful and chances are they’d only say bad things about you out of spite. Besides, then you might feel like you had to do something to change. Too scary! Best to leave things a mystery.

Tip #2

Always try to be the smartest guy (or gal) in the room. After all, you didn’t get where you are by hiding your light under a bush, so why should you now that you’re the boss? Chances are your ideas are a lot better than anyone else’s anyway and you’ll just save a lot of time spent listening to others drone on and on about their ideas. B-O-R-I-N-G!

Tip #3

Be sure to always think out loud and never clarify whether you’re serious about whatever it is you’re talking about in meetings. That way, after you leave the room your people will scramble and spend a lot of time implementing something you were just musing about and didn’t really want to see happen. Imagine the look on their faces when you set them straight weeks or even months later!

Tip #4

Always have about 10 million balls in the air. Set impossible deadlines. Go off on tangents that have nothing to do with company missions or strategic plans. Life for you and your employees will be so much more exciting when everyone’s hair is continually on fire. Added benefit, you train them in crisis management. While you’re at it, why not create one or two crises a day just to “test things out”?

Tip #5

While we’re on that topic --Company mission? Written plan? Are you kidding? Life’s too short to tie yourself down like that. Besides, you’re a big thinker! You need to go where the spirit takes you on any particular day. This approach works particularly well in an economic downturn.

Tip #6

Don’t hold anyone accountable. Ever. First of all, it will make it harder for anyone to hold you accountable. Plus, it’s too hard to keep track of everyone’s commitments. That way you won’t have to have those tough conversations with your under performers. Your top performers won’t much like this, but they’ll eventually see the light and perform down to everyone else’s level, or just leave, saving you valuable salary dollars.  After all, it’s so easy to find those top performers these days. It’s not like anyone else is looking to hire them.

Tip #7

Don’t ever hire anyone smarter than you.  Why would you want to have a lot of high maintenance smarty pants who are always showing you up in meetings and plugging holes in your great ideas? (refer back to Tips #1 and #6)

Tip #8

Remember, your projects are always top priority. Commandeer all the available resources and people to ensure your stuff gets done right and on time. If your project wasn’t the most important thing in the world, why would you be leading it anyway? Also, best to wait for the last minute to get something done. No sense wasting valuable time planning, preparing, or prioritizing.

Tip #9

Never give people honest feedback. Keep ‘em guessing. You don’t want your over-achievers getting a big head with praise (they might just think they have some value to the organization). And you don’t want to insult or upset your underperformers as it tends to make for uncomfortable meetings. If you have negative feedback, best to wait for those annual reviews when you can really surprise people and put them on the defensive. Or, even more fun, do so in public when they can serve as a lesson to others and be less inclined to fight back.

Tip #10

Don’t ever have an organization chart or job descriptions. Keep everyone flexible and those job duties undefined. You don’t want to put people into one box, including yourself.

Bonus Tips:

Make sure the organization cannot run without you. Don’t spend any time hiring, developing and training quality people. Don’t delegate anything to anybody, ever. Or if you do, take it back and do it over your way. That way, if something happens to you, mass confusion will ensue and everyone will forced to realize what an asset you were  to the organization and feel bad about all the complaining they did behind your back.

Note: If you choose to ignore the above helpful tips and, like our great clients, truly want to improve your leadership abilities, we would be happy to talk to about our proven (and 100% guaranteed) coaching process and/or CEO peer group:).

Lauren Owen, Redpoint Succession and Leadership Coaching   

Lauren works with businesses leaders who want to develop and execute succession plans, sharpen their business practices, strengthen their leadership, and create long-lasting value in their businesses. She is a certified Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Leadership Coach. She is also a leader of the South Puget Sound Excell Group.

(206) 427-2856, (253) 245.3518

 [email protected]

www.redpointcoaching.com

A non-typical employee might be the best employee

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

Today we have a guest blog from Jim Hessler:

I recently visited my friend Leslie Schneider who’s co-owner of Office XPats on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Office XPats is a membership organization that offers co-officing space, mutual support, technical resources, and an engaging physical working environment for the growing number of people who have “non-typical” jobs and work from home.

Leslie told me that 30% of the work force is now working from home as contract employees or consultants, are self-employed, or work part-time or in some sort of flexible arrangement with their employers or clients.

There are many reasons for this trend, which I don’t have time to go into here. Obviously some of it is driven by the desire of employers to keep down permanent headcount and to maintain greater financial flexibility. But certainly one driving force behind the trend is also the desire of many workers to have a wholly different relationship with their work. Their approach to the employee-employer relationship stresses the value of the work performed as opposed to accumulating hours on the clock. It favors work-life balance and questions the time spent commuting to and from work. It reinforces the idea of the worker as a free agent, a worker with options, empowered to maintain a relationship that maintains a stronger boundary between management and the “managed.”  

As owners and managers of our businesses, having a non-typical worker certainly creates difficulties, but it’s a trend that’s not going away, and if approached with creativity and trust it can be a win-win. Creating a high-trust relationship where much of an employee’s work can be done off-site, at home, and on a flexible schedule, will open up a pool of talent that may be closed to companies that insist on having workers in their chair, on the clock, and working under direct supervision.

Take a look around your building and ask yourself these questions?

• Which jobs could be done effectively from a remote location or home office?

• What scares you about having off-site workers?

• How might your culture change for the better if the focus was on work accomplished rather than time spent on the job?

Most of us in ownership or executive positions grew up in a time when the boss looked at the cars in the parking lot to see who was still on the job when the whistle blew. This old thinking assumes that workers need to be controlled, and that a necessary part of that control is having them front and center where they can be closely observed. This is an incorrect assumption. American workers are proving they can and will produce impressively without their boss looking over their shoulder. Maybe you should give them a chance.

Jim Hessler

 Jim Hessler brings over 30 years of business management and executive leadership experience to his role as Group Leader for Excell.

Jim has been an award-winning salesman, sales manager, general manager and executive specializing in turning around underperforming operations. In the mid-90s he helped lead a massive reorganization of a Fortune 150 company.

In addition to his work with Excell, Jim is the Founder of Path Forward Leadership Development Services, a firm committed to growing leaders using approaches that produce real and lasting results. Jim’s hope is that someday everyone in America will work for a great boss. He strives to make that possible through his work with Excell and Path Forward.

Jim’s experience in general management has resulted in broad and deep knowledge of nearly all aspects of a well-run business. From building and managing a sales organization to managing complex inventories and delivery systems, from leading complex restructuring efforts to generating vision and trust in demoralized organizations, Jim has earned a depth of knowledge and insight that serves Excell members well, regardless of the leadership challenges they face.

Jim lives in Issaquah, Washington with his wife of 34 years, Paula, who is a teacher in the Issaquah School District.

A Few Good Books!

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

Looking for a good read over the holidays or need a fresh perspective in the new year?  Here are books that we at Excell Puget Sound feel make a great reading list for entrepreneurs and business owners: 

False Deadlines: Waiting vs. Delay (putting things off)

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

I am in the middle of reading Wait, the Art and Science of Delay by Frank Partnoy.  At first, the title through me.... I don’t believe that delay is a positive trait and coach clients to avoid delay.  What Partnoy is describing is how considered decisions (collecting data) improve results.

 The example he uses is the time one has to see a professional tennis serve and then return it.  Partnoy describes the time frame in this way:  A tennis serve from a professional is traveling across the court at 130-150 miles per hour.  This means that the returner has between 300-500 mili-seconds to strike/return the ball.  Almost everyone, within 200 mili-seconds, sees the ball being hit.  The difference between the best and me is what we do with the remaining 300 mili-seconds.  What has been researched is that the best hold off making their return for as long as they can. 

During this time, what they are doing is collecting data.  Then they act.  Now this period of time may not seem like waiting to you and I.  However, I would agree with Partnoy that it is waiting (not delaying making the return) and it separates professionals from amateurs. 

Here are two examples, one involving delay and the other waiting... 

DELAY: I have a client who has a non-performing employee.  The employee has been in their position for years and has actually refused offered classes to improve their skills and performance.  The decision, to keep the employee in a pretty important role,  is essentially a decision to be loyal to one person and jeopardize many more (the rest of the employees - I said that this was an important position). 

WAIT: Another client promoted a high performing employee to a first senior management role.  The first few months the employee kept coming to my client and reporting failures in their organization, without taking action.  My client’s nails were bitten down to the nub and yet he continued to coach and mentor (the coaching included some pretty tough actionable sessions).  The client had set a date by which performance had to be on target.  He had communicated the time frame to the manager.  Five months in to the six month period, my client started to observe changes.  It still took two more months to get on target (one month beyond the deadline).  In this case, I would suggest that my client was waiting (collecting data and even moving out his decision to the last possible moment). 

The difference between the two was acceptance of poor performance vs working a plan.

Where have you recently acted and then wished you could hit a replay button or delayed because you were living in hope?  What do you do to self-manage and provide yourself the value of waiting? 

Gratitude

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

This week Jews celebrate Chanukah.  In a couple of weeks Christians will celebrate Christmas.  Others will celebrate still more winter solstice holidays.  My experience says that, for most, the celebrations will be center stage and all too short.  What will take up most of our time will be the stress and depressive thoughts.  I tend not to experience the amount of stress I see around me at this time of year. 

The reason that I stress and the thoughts/feelings of isolation, and other self-critical judgments is pretty simple.  I live in gratitude.  Gratitude like all of our emotions is a choice and can be learned (there are a number of sources which you can mine in order to learn how to be grateful and are too many to list here... so write to Excell if you want resources on this).  What I have learned most recently is that feeling grateful can also be a tool used in leading and managing employees.  A number of my clients use this tool. 

When I choose to be grateful I am more likely to feel appreciative of the efforts and results of those with whom I work, live and interact.  Communicating those  feelings is a powerful employee motivator and retention tool.  It also works with strangers.  

Try it some time.  Feel grateful for something that someone has just done (whether or not you like the result).  You will likely find that your perspective about the person shifts and that you find it easier to comment positively on that persons actions.  A quick example: the next driver who cuts you off... feel grateful because they missed you... even more powerful... make up a positive story about why they are racing in traffic (they are getting to an emergency room to give blood). 

My experience is that you will feel better about yourself, about the other person and you will be inclined to act more positively and benevolently toward others. 

Happy Chanukah

Lesson from Hurricane Sandy

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

Today we have a guest blog from Dan Weedin:

“It will never happen to me. And if it does, we have insurance and will just deal with it.

 These are words I have heard often throughout my 25+ years in the insurance and risk management industry. I wonder how many New Yorkers and New Jersey business owners never thought a hurricane the force of Sandy would ever impact them and cause the chaos and crisis that it has.

All you have to do is open a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, or New York Times on a daily basis to read about fellow small business owners being devastated by disaster. Tune into CNN and watch it as it happens. And, I’m not just referring to natural disasters like hurricanes. Here is a short list of crises that have occurred to small businesses and could to yours. In each case, some sort of crisis response and damage control was required…

• A cyber crime compromises your database and threatens the identities of employees and clients.

• A cyber attack cripples your technology with a virus, leaving you unable to operate and out a lot of money to fix.

• One of your employees suffers a heart attack and dies in the office with dozens of employees watching and trying to help.

• You are sued by an employee for age discrimination after you terminated them for cause.

• Your server room suffers a broken water pipe and floods the room damaging your system.

• You suffer a devastating fire that will mean a complete rebuild. What do you do with 50 employees tomorrow? What do you tell them?

• One of your key executives’ poor behavior lands on the front page of the local paper. The reputation of your business is now on the line. What’s your first step?

• A massive windstorm causes a power outage and power may not be restored for 4-5 days.

• One of your drivers causes an accident that kills someone else, and then test positive for drugs. 

I can do this all day. My guess is, that if I put you in a room with your peers, you could do the same. The problem is that a small percentage of business owners actually do anything about it. Their method of managing and responding to risk is to call their insurance agent, hoping that it crisis is insured, and then respond in real time. As the CIA director on the Bourne Ultimatum quipped, “Decisions made in real time are most often very poor.”

The reason most business owners eschew proper planning is because he thought of doing it is daunting. They’ve been led to believe that it’s too time and energy consuming. The reality of it is that it’s not. You just need to know what you’re doing.

Here is my easy to use guide on how to quickly and painlessly develop a plan….

1. Allocate 2 hours of uninterrupted time with you and your key people. Close the doors, turn off the cell phones and require focus.

2. Create a plan for who is in charge in the event of any crisis. This person should have authority to make decisions and also have a backup in case they are unavailable.

3. Create a simple, yet effective communication plan to communicate with employees, clients, supply chain partners, and families. Take into consideration loss of power and connectivity.

4. Find someone who is able to deal with the media. It should be someone different than the person in charge. This person will deal with press releases, interviews, and other media requests.

5. Determine what are your most likely perils, and which ones would cause the most damage. Discuss appropriate responses.

6. Test/practice your plan. This one gets overlooked all the time!

7. Meet as a group at least quarterly to reassess and make changes as necessary.

This may seem oversimplified. If you just do this, you’re ahead of most of your peers. If you go beyond this and make effective crisis response part of your culture, then you dramatically improve your chances of avoiding a crisis to begin with; mitigate the ones you can’t control; and respond in a way that protects your business, employees, and reputation.

© 2012 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved

DAN WEEDIN 

Dan Weedin is a Poulsbo-based management consultant, speaker, and mentor. He leads an executive peer-to-peer group here in Kitsap County where he helps executives improve personally, professionally, and organizationally by enhancing leadership skills.  He is a 2012 inductee of the Million Dollar Consultant Hall of Fame. You can reach Dan at 360-697-1058; e-mail at [email protected] or visit his web site at www.DanWeedin.com.

3 Tips for More Effectively Setting Marketing Budgets

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

  

Today we have a guest blog from Elizabeth Andreini:

One of my favorite quotes comes from Peter Drucker. Considered the father of business consulting, he made an insightful observation:

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business."

For many CEOs though, marketing somehow seems like a cost, rather than an investment. They come to me seeking benchmarks and comparisons with competitors to know how much they have to spend. What no one wants to hear is the real answer to the question of how much should be spent in marketing, which is “it depends.” Since we are in budgeting and planning season right now, I thought I would give you some practical advice and guidelines to consider.

First, consider the type of business you are in, your target market and how you sell. The size of a marketing budget can vary based on a company’s industry, position in the industry, whether it is selling products, services or both, size, stage of development, the target market, etc. (In general B2B marketing spend is less than that for a B2C focused company.) Most companies allocate between 5 and 12% of revenue for marketing, but it can vary widely depending on a company’s business and marketing objectives. Having said that, if you need a ballpark, start with 8% and adjust from there.

Secondly, make sure your marketing strategy and budget support a clear, focused business strategy (grow market share, expand into new markets, launch new revenue-producing products/services, increase customer retention, etc.). To grow market share you may need to spend more. If you go into new markets, you’ll need to spend more or decrease spending on other initiatives or in other markets. Also, add a budget amount for “unexpected opportunities” which you won’t want to pass up when the time comes – even if you don’t know what it will be!

Lastly, consistently and accurately track the impact of marketing activities to determine what drives revenue (short & long term), customer retention and other metrics. Rank the marketing activities based on expected “bang for the buck” payback. Now build a marketing budget from the ground up. Those activities with the biggest payback go into the budget. Then execute, measure, adjust and repeat!

As the CEO, the questions you should ask about your marketing budget are:

1. Is our business strategy aligned across the company so initiatives in each department, especially in marketing, support the company’s goals? How does our marketing budget support those goals and the way we sell?

2. If we spent more could we significantly increase our market awareness or grow our customer base and market share? Can we afford or are we willing to make that investment now, and what are the implications or tradeoffs?

3. Do we have reliable (and consistently used) tracking systems in place to know whether we are spending our limited marketing dollars on the right things? How do we know our marketing dollars are being invested in the most productive way?

Additional Resources

One free resource about marketing budgets is an annual report summarizing an August survey of CMOs available at www.cmosurvey.org/results/. The survey results are broken out based on industry and company size. (Note: Marketing budgets as a percentage of revenue have been rising steadily since February 2011 according to the August 2012 survey of CMOs. www.cmosurvey.org/blog/marketing-spend-on-the-rise-%E2%80%93-three-trends-worth-watching/)

If you are interested in reading some more articles about the marketing during recessions, here are some links:

 “Marketing Your Way Through a Recession” from HBS Working Knowledge. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5878.html 

www.hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5878.html

www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Learning_to_love_recessions_1197

www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2009/04/20/090420ta_talk_surowiecki

www.oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2009/mar/advertising-during-recession-may-yield-increased-earnings-later

 Elizabeth Andreini

As the President of Accelerate Marketing, LLC, Elizabeth Andreini, is the “secret weapon” CEOs turn to at key growth points when they need to transform marketing and product management to grow their customer base, increase revenue & scale their business. In addition to providing experienced executive insight and guidance, Elizabeth often works as an interim CMO or VP to provide the hands-on leadership needed to rearchitect marketing and product management and improve execution from the inside.

Elizabeth Andreini, founder & president of Accelerate Marketing, LLC 

Accelerate Marketing, LLC

206-769-3420 or [email protected]

www.accelerate-marketing.com

Twitter: @acceler8mkting

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethandreini