By Jeffrey Hayzlett, from his book, The Mirror Test: Is Your Business Really Breathing?
“The 118 is my version of what some people still call “the elevator pitch” — an out-of-date name for the worthy idea that you need to see what your company offers (and you)_ in the span of an elevator ride.
The 118 comes from the 118 seconds you actually have to pitch: 8 seconds to hook me and up to 110 seconds to drive it home. The first eight seconds is the length of time the average human can concentrate on something and not lose some focus. It is also the length of time of one of the toughest rides in the world: a qualified ride in professional bull riding. In these first eight seconds, you must be compelling, strong, and focused to be successful. You must hold on as one of the meanest, toughest animals in the world tries to throw you off — just like any good prospect will. Make it those 8 seconds and I’ll give you 110 more to drive your message home with no bull. But if you have not sold me at the end of the 118, I will start to tune out. At that point, we are moving forward to a sale or not.
I speak at hundreds of meetings, conferences and events worldwide every year, and I am constantly amazed by the inability of entrepreneurs, business owners, their managers, or their sales and marketing representatives to deliver a great, relevant 118.
The 118, like the elevator pitch before it, sells much more than a business’s products or services and unique selling pro[position (USP). It is an essential piece in building your brand.“
Purchase replay: THE MIRROR TEST: A New Way To Look At Your Company’s Marketing and Sales Strategy. Presented by Jeffrey Hayzlett, bestselling author, celebrity CMO, digital thought leader and cowboy.
Other quotes from Jeffrey Hayzlett:
Your marketing will and should reflect the personality of your company, and if you are not genuine, you won’t last very long. Anyone who says otherwise is just trying to sell you something.
So it is with social media and will be again with the next “big thing” in marketing. Hard and fast, it too shall come again, startling us with its power and speed and forcing us to mistake it for something it can never be: the be all, end all.
You may not think customers are always right, but now they are always in charge.
Conversations are about talking and listening and then acting
The Holy Grail of Marketing is the one-to-one relationship.
Think “story” not “Placement.”
Scale is the new black. Leverage everything to make many out of one.
Make your business as transparent as possible.
Buzz is not sales.
itting in the board room, I’ve heard discussions focused on customer service, brand management and growing sales. Much less frequently have I heard discussions about associate relations surveys or concern for employees’ view of the company. Too often, such conversations only surfaced when there was an impending lay off or a plan to seek an “employer of the year” award.
Yet when you recognize that employees are brand ambassadors, you quickly realize that time dedicated to reviewing the organization’s reputation with this audience and investing in ensuring a positive image is produced is definitely time well spent:
Taking time to listen: Many businesses use tools such as employee engagement surveys and anonymous opinion polls. This research can help identify critical issues, such as productivity and retention. These tools even can help identify barriers to innovation, spot at-risk populations or uncover potential workplace violence issues.
It’s equally as important to train supervisors to listen to their teams to learn about issues of concern, the level of satisfaction and the degree of trust in leadership.
But to effectively use this methodology, you also must be prepared to listen.
Keep in mind that monitoring the Internet produces a picture of employee satisfaction. You can discern if there is a small percentage of unhappy employees or if the list of discontented associates is overwhelming. After all, people feel much safer sharing their views on the Web, so carefully listening to this chatter can provide excellent insight as to how much education needs to be done on a particular topic or which subjects are running rampant through the grapevine.
Now that you have the data: You may like what you’ve heard and are satisfied with your reputation as an employer. You may discover you have excellent communication and — even if your employees don’t always agree with you — they understand the corporate mission and strategy. They trust you are headed in the correct direction.
But you may have some revelations in regards to how you are viewed by those who represent you every day. And if those attitudes are not positive, the interaction your employees have with your customers, vendors, the community or government representatives could undermine the image these other groups have of your company. If this is the case, it’s time to develop plans to address the negativity.
Whether employees don’t think you care about their welfare, a single supervisor is creating problems within a department or individuals feel there is no future advancement opportunities, this knowledge is invaluable in helping you frame future communication, position modifications to policies, or introduce new ideas and methodologies.
In addition, by knowing the level of discontent and how your company’s reputation is being tarnished, you have a chance to correct misconceptions by providing additional information and perspective.
The key is, if you don’t like what your employees are saying about you, then you must take steps to address this.
Don’t forget the on boarding process: Because there are more applicants than jobs, it is easy to forget the necessity of making a positive impression on potential and new employees. This group is forming an opinion about the company based on the interaction that occurs during the hiring and early stages of employment.
Depending upon these feelings, your new team members will determine if your organization will be “a long-term commitment” or somewhere they can “get a paycheck as an interim gig.” Knowing how much it costs to search, hire and train an employee, you want to make a positive impression and know this “candidate turned employee” is ready to represent you positively and dedicated to the organization’s agenda.
Remember: You company is only as good as the employees. To ensure you are getting the highest quality of work, long-term commitment and excellent brand ambassadorship, you need to invest in your reputation as an employer.
Ruth Ellen Kinzey, The Kinzey Company is a corporate reputation strategist, consultant, and professional speaker. Want to hear more about a specific topic? She can be reached at (704) 763-0754 or http://www.kinzeycompany.com.
Everyone experiences pressure this time of year: completing year-end projects; projecting next year’s budget; finalizing the 2011 business plan. But before you place the finishing touches on next year’s strategy, ask yourself if you have communicated sufficiently about your anticipated work flow with your colleagues.
Rushing to complete the department’s business plan can mean it was developed using the “silo” approach. The result is that the plan may appear to make sense on paper but encounters multiple issues when it is time to execute the strategy and tactics. Why? Because an adequate exchange of information did not occur during the developmental stage.
I advocate taking time to confer with colleagues before finalizing your 2011 business plan. There are several benefits to communicating cross-functionally while designing your department’s upcoming activities. For example, by sharing your proposed plan with others, you may become aware of timing issues or barriers that could impact the success of your work. Learning what others anticipate doing can reveal opportunities your team can leverage and provide new ideas that inspire creativity, both of which could be integrated into your strategy before finalizing it.
Soliciting input during the formulation stage enables you to gain allies and to identify relationship issues that require improvement or problems that need to be solved. To gain such insight prior to introducing your strategy to the executive team or initiating a tactic is invaluable because you are able to refine your approach and make the necessary “course corrections” before experiencing major hurdles that would cause your plan to fall short or, worse yet, fail to produce the promised results.
Instead, you are able to implement your strategy and tactics smoothly and appear to be organized and in control of your functional area. Plus, if there is the likelihood that you will be asked to scale back your 2011 proposed budget, it can be extremely helpful to have “champions” who are aware of the benefits of your plan and would attest to the importance of your work.
Measurement component
Because measurement is critical to business, it is necessary you have a well-designed scorecard, which will help you report on the activities you intend to perform throughout the year. By conferring in advance with your colleagues, you may uncover critical areas where your course of action will impact these other areas.
Consequently, you may be able to develop methodology that incorporates supplemental information into your quarterly, monthly and weekly reports. Your ability to show how your work is inter-related to the goals and objectives of other departments demonstrates the further value of your efforts.
Positioning you as a leader
In addition to having a stronger business plan, this type of advance communication with your co-workers positions you as a collaborator and an effective manager willing to listen to multiple points of view and possessing the ability to understand how your area fits into the overall picture of the business. Such attributes help to brand you as a leader.
Once your 2011 plan is completed, including feedback from colleagues, don’t hesitate to showcase your efforts to other business partners when networking opportunities arise. This will permit you to “advertise” your plan, so others in the company become aware of the upcoming work of your department. This, in turn, will prepare them when you or members of your team call upon them to enlist help or to request information throughout the year.
Sharing your intentions and business targets also can open doors for you with members of the management team, as you are able to compliment the ideas suggested by their staff and prove your willingness to be a team player.
In fact, you may want to distribute highlights or an executive summary of your plan to key executive team members and share the relevancy or your goals and work to helping the company successfully achieve its 2011 business objectives.
Continue the communication flow
Once your department’s business plan has been approved, don’t stop communicating. Your business plan is a tool as well as a road map. You should share your plan with employees new to your area, so they have a clear understanding of the focus and anticipated performance of the department.
Be sure to introduce existing and new vendors to appropriate portions of the plan, so they can accompany you on your “journey to achievement” as you pursue your strategy and undertake key tactics in which they, too, have a vested interest in your success.
Finally, as you achieve your goals throughout the year, be sure to celebrate these accomplishments with your team, explain how these successes support the corporate mission and business goals as well as the department objectives. This educational endeavor can help employees better understand the role they play within the organization and the importance of their individual contribution to creating a winning team and a successful company.
Ruth Ellen Kinzey, The Kinzey Company is a corporate reputation strategist, consultant, and professional speaker. Want to hear more about a specific topic? She can be reached at (704) 763-0754 or http://www.kinzeycompany.com.
Traditional marketing — including advertising, public relations, branding and corporate communications — is dead. Many people in traditional marketing roles and organizations may not realize they’re operating within a dead paradigm. But they are. The evidence is clear.
First, buyers are no longer paying much attention. Several studies have confirmed that in the “buyer’s decision journey,” traditional marketing communications just aren’t relevant. Buyers are checking out product and service information in their own way, often through the Internet, and often from sources outside the firm such as word-of-mouth or customer reviews.
Second, CEOs have lost all patience. In a devastating 2011 study of 600 CEOs and decision makers by the London-based Fournaise Marketing Group, 73% of them said that CMOs lack business credibility and the ability to generate sufficient business growth, 72% are tired of being asked for money without explaining how it will generate increased business, and 77% have had it with all the talk about brand equity that can’t be linked to actual firm equity or any other recognized financial metric.
Third, in today’s increasingly social media-infused environment, traditional marketing and sales not only doesn’t work so well, it doesn’t make sense. Think about it: an organization hires people — employees, agencies, consultants, partners — who don’t come from the buyer’s world and whose interests aren’t necessarily aligned with his, and expects them to persuade the buyer to spend his hard-earned money on something. Huh? When you try to extend traditional marketing logic into the world of social media, it simply doesn’t work. Just ask Facebook, which finds itself mired in an ongoing debate about whether marketing on Facebook is effective.
Read full article via Harvard Business Review blog
Well worth a trip down the marketing timeline. It’s interesting to see that not only the channels have evolved, but customer’s preferences and expectations — from pushing advertising messages to distributing information value.
This week, I was leafing through Ad Age. Four stories grabbed me. There was enough content for me to pontificate on for a whole year. Beside the stories they told, the articles also revealed interesting themes. They all support the idea that our industry is in transition, and that ad agencies, PR agencies, marketing consulting firms and clients need a new way of thinking. Let me share with you some of what I read.
- Nike CEO William Perez (former CEO of SC Johnson) was fired after only thirteen months on the job. The headline read: “The CEO forgot: Ads Rule at Nike.” The subhead explained:”…behind the scenes: Perez viewed ads as expense, and it cost him his job.”
Here’s my translation of this event…culture is everything. Perez failed to understand that ads had built the aura and the brand which Nike stands for. Phil Knight was not about to allow someone to play with his passion. This wasn’t about money savings or efficiencies: At Nike it’s about “doing it”. Perez underestimated both the nature of the Nike culture and its power when he made his cost-cutting moves. At Nike, management is a team sport, and consensus, buy-in and enrollment are imperative if change is to happen.
The Second Story…
- “Ford Motor Company engaged the consulting firm Accenture to conduct a far reaching media optimization and media measurement program that could greatly influence its ad launches, spending and media mix. The program could potentially affect the type of work Ford’s agencies do.” (As it happens, I used to be the Director of Worldwide Marketing at Anderson Consulting, Accenture’s predecessor).
I can see it now…Ford’s ad agency staffers at Y&R, JWT and Ogilvy are probably panicking, running through their hallways shouting, “That isn’t fair…we should be doing that work!” The fact is, they are right. Perhaps the ad agencies should get the work. But there’s a good reason why they didn’t. They just don’t provide the same rigor and the same process methodology that a consulting firm does. Agencies should be asking themselves why they aren’t getting opportunities like this. WPP’s CEO, Martin Sorrell’s nightmare, of agencies losing ground to consulting firms, is coming true and picking up momentum. I think it can only get worse for the agencies–unless they rethink what they do, what type of talent they hire and where they add value beyond creating advertising.
Now for the next story…
- “Jim Heekin, newly installed CEO of Grey Advertising, is dismantling Grey’s old systems. He’s installing critical account planning to be on par with creative and account management. This represents a marked change for Grey.” Good for Jim! The article goes on to tell us how Grey’s strategy had little clarity, how they would often waste the time of creative teams hunting for a creative strategy insight. Guess who paid for that wasted time?
I have always endorsed the idea that creatives should be focused on creative ideas not on the message or the strategy. Creatives just don’t have the training for that; after all, they are art directors, writers and designers, not strategists, analysts or researchers. McDonald’s calls it a “Framework for Freedom.” They say, let the client management, researchers, and strategists come up with the key messages, target audiences and buyer motivators. Then let the creative teams get on with their job-creating the design, sound and motion around the idea. That way the creative output is more focused and compelling.
I would go one step further. I say that the agency should take the leadership role. Agencies need to become facilitators, working side by side with the client’s management, marketing and sales teams, together with the ad agency’s team of media, account management, creative, planning and production departments. Everyone should be collaborating, all together at one time at one table. This saves time, ensures buy-in and produces better ideas.
Nice going Jim. Keep stirring up the pot…change in the ad agency world is good. One caveat, one piece of advice…move the culture along with you…don’t let it bite you in the rear the way it did Bill Perez at Nike. Win over the clients, and win over the internal agency staff. If you don’t believe me just look what happened to your counterpart Ann Fudge at sister WPP agency Young & Rubicam. Internal politics, a strong insular culture, fear of change and being an agency outsider prevented her from being successful in the job.
- The last piece…”Ford is putting the consumer at the center of their rebirthing marketing program with hopes of turning around the company fortunes.” Ford had no choice, we’re told, but to change to meet the demands of the market rather than the other way around.
This is news? Where have they been for the last twenty years? The Ford Motor Company I knew and worked for from 1981-1991 (when I was a senior ad executive at Y&R) always put the customer first. It was about Quality is Job #1; Lincoln – What a Luxury Car Should Be; and Have You Driven a Ford Lately?Those were consumer insight campaigns. They answered consumer questions and they helped satisfy the buyers’ needs and wants with products that they wanted to drive. Remember the Mark VI, the XR4Ti Merkur from Germany and the Mercury Sable and Ford Escort? Wonderful cars, terrific insights and great market successes. I’m glad to hear Ford is finding its way back to the insights that contributed to its most recent glory days. But, as the company has said, Ford must also win over its own people in order to lead the market. Ford’s employees need to become educated, motivated, inspired, and enrolled to recognize what the pursuit of a consumer driven strategy can yield in the way of success and market leadership. I hope they get it straight. I want them to succeed.
So what’s the common thread to these stories?? What key messages can we learn from them? I see many lessons here.
Sharing Strategic Marketing Responsibilities. The ad industry (and some clients) still doesn’t recognize that marketing should not be centered just on the creative product. Focus should be the shared collective responsibility of the client, the agency, the sales channel and the customers. Together they can create products, marketing strategies and award winning advertising that will meet the needs and wants of the market and present the right message and image. No one group should abdicate its role to the other. This work needs to be done together.
Rigor, Process and Methodology. In a world of investment bankers, strategy consultants, and greater value accountability to shareholders, agencies have to step up to the plate and incorporate new rigor, methodology and process into their planning and accept their responsibility for results. The old way just doesn’t work, and neither will moaning about the loss of consulting assignments and revenue. Agencies must go way beyond planning the new ad campaign and refashion themselves to gain deep analytical understanding of their client’s business operations and challenges. They need to get themselves invited to the board room table out of respect for their strategic insights and counsel and the confidence they convey, not just to get approval for their new ad campaign.
Abundant Mentality. Marketing people on both sides of the table need to embrace the notion that a great idea can come from anywhere. What’s more, when everyone adds to an idea, it can only get better, brighter, more compelling. Every great idea is a shared responsibility based on an abundant mentality about solving consumer problems with compelling solutions that grab people’s imagination and attention.
Leadership. Current advertising models fashioned back in the sixties and seventies are not relevant today. The marketing industry needs fresh ideas, new approaches and leadership to recognize that. The industry needs leadership that recognizes a need for new, outside-the-box business models. Marketing people need to rethink old management structures–incorporate new media, the internet, buzz marketing and 1to1 marketing–and establish new metrics and accountabilities so clients will value what they do. Leadership should come from both the clients and their agencies, both immersed in freshness and innovation, not stuck on a single idea. Leadership needs to re-examine everything: compensation, accountability, media optimization, market research methods and integrated strategies and costs.
So. What I garnered from reading my four Ad Age articles can be summed up this way: Our business is changing. We can react and let it change us, or we can take the lead and we can change it.
Culture. Everyone involved in marketing has to recognize the power of culture and the power of the employees when it comes to embracing a new strategy or marketing initiative. Company culture does matter. Respect it, and make it work in your favor by helping the internal constituencies become educated and informed. Help them become motivated and inspired and–eventually–enrolled and engaged. This will take time, patience and process, and the knowledge to do it right. Don’t leave this important task to chance. Deploy change management experts who have methodologies and processes that can help.
In today’s terror-filled world, personal security ranks right up there with job security as workplace issues that matter the most to workers. Last week’s foiled terrorist plot provides another opportunity for employers to communicate with employees about emergency preparedness and response.
The plan to blow up U.S.-bound commercial flights from the United Kingdom caused immediate response by governments, world financial markets and businesses. In the frenzy to adjust, however, companies would do well to remember that the ability to carry on business as usual depends on people with varying levels of worry, fear and even anger about their lives being disrupted by events beyond their control.
This is a real business issue. Business travel takes more time due to increased security measures. People distracted by concern about world events – especially events that threaten their sense of well-being – are likely to be less productive. In some cases, people’s anxieties manifest themselves in physical illness and emotional disturbance.
Communication can’t make these problems go away, but it can help minimize their impact. Here are some things employers should do:
- If your organization has a crisis communication plan, review it with everyone who has a role in its implementation. This is not an overreaction. Remember, a crisis does not have to be a catastrophic event. A crisis is any circumstance – expected or unexpected – that has real or potential impact on the business.
- If your organization does not have a crisis communication plan, what are you waiting for? Last week’s news should convince business leaders that the time it takes to prepare a plan for communicating during a crisis is time well spent.
- If your organization was affected in any way by the fallout of the foiled terror plot, tell employees about it. Perhaps your company altered its travel policy. Maybe your business performance was, or will be, affected by the news. Employees need to know the facts. If they don’t get the facts from the company, they’ll draw their own conclusions.
- Remind employees of the company’s plans for dealing with disruptions of any kind. This is a good time to reiterate plans and policies for everything from business travel to customer response to building evacuation. Consider what is the most relevant and appropriate information to share based on the circumstances and then share it.
- Give employees an opportunity to ask questions, express concerns and share ideas. The simple act of communicating is a salve itself. The worst thing employers can do is to pretend nothing has happened.
We live in a different world that requires different actions from just five years ago. Do not be concerned about overreacting. What happened last week evokes all kinds of emotional responses, whether expressed or repressed. Communicate with calm reassurance, but communicate. The people who work for you deserve it.
Words and phrases including “blog,” “wiki” and even “chat room” make some business leaders nervous. They’re not sure what to make of these new social media. The technology seems mysterious and a bit scary to people who are still trying to find their way around the Internet or figuring out how their BlackBerry works.
If the wild world of online media makes you hyperventilate, relax. Take a deep breath. Despite the hype around Skype, behind the stress caused by RSS, it all comes down to a fundamental process as old as humanity: communication.
What really matters is how well you communicate with employees, customers, shareholders, the community and other important people. The methods you use, while important, are secondary to the quality of communication.
A recent illustration of this principle involves computer maker Dell. Unhappy customers took their complaints about Dell’s products and service to the “blogosphere” – that online place where everyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can share their opinions with the world. Despite the outcry over problems with Dell, which quickly reached hundreds of thousands of people thanks to blogs with names like “Dell Hell,” the company resisted joining the virtual discussion.
Apparently, however, the pressure became too much. A few months ago, Dell created “Direct2Dell,” a blog intended to improve communication with customers about issues ranging from the company’s battery recall to new products. The company’s critics considered the action too little, too late and charged Dell with paying lip service to open communication with customers. On the surface, bloggers said, Dell seemed to be improving communication, but in reality “Direct2Dell” represented more of the company line.
Last week, Dell posted a new “Online Communication Policy” and held a news conference to announce it. The policy, aimed at Dell employees, recognizes the value of online communication tools, lays out expectations of employees who use them and states the company’s commitment to “transparent, ethical and accurate” communication. Translation: no more company PR disguised as real, direct dialogue.
Time will tell if Dell’s policy makes a difference, but for now the bloggers are skeptical. “Dell Hell” creator Jeff Jarvis wrote, “Isn’t it always a company’s policy, in any interaction – by blog, telephone, or letter – to be open and honest?” He wondered if Dell’s 500-word policy might have been boiled down to three words: “Tell the truth.”
What can your company learn from all of this? It doesn’t matter if you choose to communicate through blogs, chat rooms, e-mail or good ol’ face-to-face interaction. What matters is that you communicate honestly and as completely as possible. The latest technology won’t save you if your stakeholders feel you’re not being truthful with them.
It’s the quality of communication that ultimately matters.
I just got back from a three-week business trip in India, where I helped a major Indian conglomerate re-brand itself for a global launch. Visits to exotic places are always full of intrigue and anticipation: But since I had been to the region before, I knew what to expect. Or so I thought.
But on this trip I was stunned by a dramatic integrated advertising campaign launched by the Times of India, called India vs. India. The Times kicked it off on New Year’s Day, on the front page. That’s right; no news appeared on that morning’s front page. This was followed by major, spectacular billboards and posters, which appeared everywhere, arriving overnight as if by magic. Next came a parade of Indian celebrities who endorsed the “Anthem” (as they called this) on TV advertisements. This was a highly orchestrated campaign that quickly became celebrated, espousing the idea that there are two India’s, working against one another and preventing India from being the global power that it ought to be. It was a call to arms to unite around the idea of one India, to be progressive, to heal the country’s divisions, and to look toward the future. The thought was summarized with a tagline: India poised-Our time is now.
The copy reads like poetry. Here are a few lines.
There are two India’s in this country. One India is straining at the leash, eager to spring forth and live up to all the adjectives that the world has been showering recently upon us. The other India is the leash. The other India says, give me a chance and I’ll prove myself. The other India says, Prove yourself first and then maybe I’ll give you a chance. One India lives in optimism of our hearts. The other India lurks in skepticism of our minds. One India wants. The other India hopes. One India leads. The other India follows.
It’s powerful copy.
As an American, after seeing this campaign unfold, I couldn’t keep myself from wondering whether this idea is just as relevant here. Do factions and discord within our political and business arenas hold us back from becoming even greater than we are now? Is it time for the marketing and media community to do something as dramatic as India vs. India to unite the country or its industry around a common purpose and a vision of the future?
My thoughts then wandered over to our marketing industry. Can we make an India vs. India comparison? Do we even have unity around the value of marketing? Are clients and agencies/PR firms on the same page? Who is the “leash” and who is “straining the leash” in our industry? Clients seem to concentrate on growth, attracting new customers and growing market share, while agencies and-yes–even consulting firms, frequently focus on creative ideas and new technologies. They often win awards, but do little to attract new clients. Some of them are fixed on the almighty 30-second TV commercial, while others on rely on interactive internet marketing. Are we suffering from Marketing vs. Marketing?
The answer, in my opinion, is marketing integration. Marketing should never be exclusively one thing or another. It should do whatever it takes to solve the client’s problems and unite around that solution. Use all available techniques, media, creativity and technology to help the client’s business grow and improve its market share. That does not mean simply doing what the client wants, but providing new ideas, insights and perspectives, no matter what creative medium might be used.
No more Marketing vs. Marketing. It’s time for Marketing AND Marketing.
Is it time to examine America vs. America? Or marketing vs. marketing? Please send me your thoughts. Let me know your opinions on this topic and let’s see if we can apply the same logic to our business and political culture.
If you are interested in learning more about the India Poised campaign currently underway and to see some of the creative marketing built around the mission themes and values, visit the Times of India’s India Poised Website by clicking here-Visit The Times of India Interactive Website .
Comments |
RE: Marketing vs. Marketing |
I am produ to know that my country is making giant strides…also the India Poised campaign is seen as a powerful message in uniting and spurring a nation ahead. While I agree about the need to brand/market a message, it sometimes goes downhill when the audience reads it differently or it is timed wrongly. What is essential is transparency and follow-ups. Keeping citizens informed on change and how they can make a difference. There was a similar campaign called India Rising – which portrayed India as the next superpower. It was a powerful message but many viewed it as a political gimmick..due to the timing ( around elections)… |
A recent Wall Street Journal article validated many of the tenets upon which I founded our firm nearly nine years ago. The article was entitled, “M&A Blind Spot. When negotiating a merger, leave a seat at the table for a marketing expert.” Unfortunately, this rarely happens.
The article talked about the integral role of marketing in securing and consummating a deal through internal acceptance by the organization. It reminded me of a statistic I heard nine years ago to explain M&A failures. Dr. Michael Hammer said “that 80% of mergers and acquisitions fail and that 50% of the reasons that they fail are due to personality and culture clashes between the companies and their leadership.” This is just as true today as it was a decade ago.
In my opinion, marketing and branding are lynchpins of a successful merger and acquisition. All too often, however, marketing is just an afterthought. Bankers, lawyers, and accountants have a place at the M&A table to ensure that the deal lives up to its potential in regards to risk minimization, asset evaluation, and legal due diligence. But where are the marketing experts? They should be at the table as well to ensure that the organization embraces the merger, positioning it with positive benefits inside and outside the company. Effective communications and messaging can win over all the critical stakeholders and ensure success.
Find me a lawyer, accountant, or banker who can manage all this:
1. Vision and direction
The company must have a clear sense of direction and vision after the M&A plan is laid out. The vision should be in simple language (with examples) so employees can relate to it and understand the benefits for themselves and their company. Marketing departments and their leadership are trained and experienced at creating this kind of messaging.
Creating a new, combined vision is clearly the role of marketing. Imposing one company’s vision on two merged entities often alienates half of the people the instant the merger is launched.
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Overcoming uncertainty through employee engagement
Without doubt, uncertainty is the number one issue after announcing a merger or acquisition. Overcome it by enrolling the staff through relevant messages and experiential communications programs.
Marketing professionals understand consumer insights and motivations that translate into actionable tactics and communications. With knowledge and understanding, employees gain motivation. After internalizing the merger value proposition, they finally gain inspiration. They will be engaged and enrolled. -
Understanding where your employees stand on issues
Companies should segment their employee audience the same way they segment and analyze their external audiences to measure their acceptance of change and learn the best ways to communicate with them.
These are the types of questions that marketing will answer:
– What motivates employees?
– What inspires them?
– What are their opinions of management and the corporation?
– How do employees relate to management and management communications?
– What forms of communication do the employees prefer?
Marketing professionals are analytical. They are in constant search of insights and buyer values that can be deployed toward an internal employee audience as well as an external one.
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Experiential communications
Particularly in an M&A situation, old forms of internal communications are no longer relevant or successful alone. New and more creative methods, with involving and entertaining communications, are more appropriate for adult learning.
Media should vary by audience: video games, gadgets, viral campaigns, role playing, one-on-one meetings with senior folks, skits, outings, company-wide challenges, events, internal trade shows, a staff radio station, a webcast-whatever draws them in. The key idea is to engage the employees to participate in the exchange and learning. -
Developing the message
Like any other marketing campaign, internal branding starts by understanding the change readiness of the organization, followed by developing messages that are relevant and meaningful at all levels-corporate, team and department, and individual. The company needs a clear positioning and sense of what it aspires to be.
The messages should be presented by the leaders of the organization who know their business and the marketplace best. -
Establishing brand ambassadors
Seek out the critical internal stakeholders and opinion leaders for their support and help first, then build consensus within the organization.
Involve the full spectrum of employees. Ask for their input into the program-they know the customers and the business from all angles. -
Project management, not ad hoc effort
Treat the plan like a program-management launch. Assign a great program manager and allocate the proper monetary and HR resources for the effort to succeed.
Reinforcement is critical. Your employees need to see the message all the time, in lots of different media via different channels. You can emblazon it on a lapel pin, a parking-lot sign, a redesigned uniform, or a lunchroom banner. Or anywhere else that it makes sense to remind people. -
Measurement and Feedback
Take measurements and make adjustments. The campaign will need fine tuning as it gains momentum. Gauge how the organization’s culture is receiving the message and reacting to it. Then modify your emphasis as needed.
Budget for post-campaign analysis and an audit of effectiveness. Conduct before-and-after employee surveys to measure business literacy, brand awareness, and awareness of M&A messages and corporate initiatives.
In the end, what matters is an educated and aligned workforce motivated to get behind the sale, acquisition, or merger. You want your people to be inspired to work for your firm. They should be proud of what it stands for and what they do. If they care about being part of the process, they will spread the word to your clients and to each other. By enrolling your employees, you will accelerate the changes you have planned and get down to business faster, with fewer internal squabbles, and with a steady stream of re-energizing successes that will sustain itself over time.
Is your company facing a merger or acquisition, or just going through major changes such as ERP implementation or reengineering? Don’t forget to reserve a place at the table for professional marketing counsel. With marketing present as an equal partner with the lawyers, bankers, and accountants, you will ensure success of the merger and win over your employees, who are ultimately responsible for making it all happen.
Robert Holland, writing in his Communication At Work column for Richmond.com, takes the CEOs of the big three American automakers to task for … insensitivity. He’s so on target:
“In the best of times, actions speak louder than words. In difficult times, actions practically scream. Just ask the CEOs of the big three American automakers.
“…these CEOs furrow their brows and talk to anyone who will listen about how their company must survive or there will be grave consequences, then they drive away in their luxury cars or fly to an executive retreat on a private jet – after depositing their latest bonuses, of course.
“How can business leaders avoid this problem? Here are some suggestions:
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Examine every word and action with the same scrutiny employees will give it. Are employees maybe a bit too sensitive these days? Yes, but for understandable reasons. Hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs, unable to make their house payments or facing personal challenges unseen in decades. Forgive them if they’re not in the mood to hear about another executive bonus.
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Offer specific plans and ideas. This is no time for vague generalities about what the company is doing to cope with difficult financial times. It’s time to bring employees – the engine that keeps companies going even when things are tough – into the fold. Treat them like grown-ups. Tell them the truth. Listen to them.
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Seek balance. Maybe this year’s company holiday party shouldn’t be as opulent as it was last year, but it’s probably OK to still have one. Employees need some sense of normalcy amid the chaos.”
And for another good take on communicating with employees during a downturn, read Holland’s article: Most business leaders aren’t talking with employees about financial crisis.
By Robert Holland
Communications people need to take a hard look in the mirror and give an honest answer to an important question – Are employees getting weary of the routine drill of management speeches that we’re trying to pass off as a “town hall meeting?”
If you go back a couple hundred years, you’ll find at least one striking difference between colonial days when town meetings were the real thing and the feeble attempts of companies today trying to duplicate the effect. When they opened the floor for discussion in the old days, it created true dialogue. Sure, employees are usually invited to ask questions at company meetings, but few people step up to the microphone to ask anything probing or provocative because they don’t feel comfortable talking in front of a crowd. It’s just not the same.
Here’s one way to make town hall meetings more energizing and meaningful for employees:
- Start with the goal to create substantive engagement, understanding that acceptance and behavior change occur more from conversations than presentations.
- Break everyone into groups of 8-10 people.
- Pose a question for small groups to discuss for 10-15 minutes, and ask them to come up with a list of responses; if you have multiple topics and limited time, assign different questions to different groups.
- Ask a spokesperson from each group to give a 90-second report on their top three ideas.
- Have the person facilitating the process give a brief response, acknowledging input from each group.
- If the group is too big for everyone to do a report, select a manageable number, and request that remaining groups submit their answers in writing for later review and response.
But that’s just the beginning. What happens next is just as important. Nothing worth talking about can be sustained from one quarterly meeting to another. Without a systematic follow-up processes to imbed the conversations deeper, the impact will quickly fade. So make sure that departments continue discussions on topics from the meeting to ensure they are assessed and addressed throughout the organization on an ongoing basis.
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
Employees are smart, aren’t we? We know a lot about our jobs, the people we work for and with, and have ideas about how things can be done differently or better.
We’re also really powerful: Our neighbors are asking us what our companies are like. We’re sharing information on our Facebook pages. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, ‘people like us’ are more respected than CEOs and VPs of communications.
In these difficult economic times, making our workplaces more efficient, cutting costs, and innovating can be keys to survival.
It all starts with LISTENING. What are employees saying? Have you asked them how they think you can save costs, or how they think things should be done differently?
- Build into every employee communication a means for employees to give input and share their views. Don’t judge — be appreciative of what they have to say. Respond appropriately. If there is difficulty with an idea, say so and ask them how it might be addressed.
- If you hear a great idea and decide to implement it, reward the person(s) who suggested it. Celebrate it!
- Get out and talk with your people more. We’re too digital these days, but we’re hard-wired as a species to look each other in the eye and communicate. Great — and better — ideas come from discussing.
A place to start listening is with an employee survey. We work with the Great Place to Work Institute, which does the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For list and a small and mid-sized company list as well. The FORTUNE nominations are free (and due March 31, 2009) at greatplacetowork-100best.com. It’s a great tool to hear what your employees think of your workplace, and you get to see how you compare to the 100 Best Companies.
Best of all, you’ll have an opportunity to RESPOND. To make changes to improve your workplace and business.
I’ve quoted my friend and mentor, David Berlo, numerous times in this column. Here’s one of his more curious gems. “The key to being effective is sincerity,” he said, “and if you can learn how to fake that, you’ve really got it made.” He was joking, of course. But like the old saying goes, there’s a bit of truth in every joke.
Key to Leadership
I was reminded of David’s quip recently when I attended a presentation on a report entitled “The Authentic Enterprise.” It was published two years ago by the Arthur W. Page Society from a study that examined the role of senior communicators in the 21st century.
Based on comments from numerous CEOs and chief communications officers, the report summed up the study’s pivotal finding like this – “In a word, authenticity will be the coin of the realm for successful corporations and for those who lead them.” The report goes on to say, “Demands for transparency are at an all-time high, and give no sign of ebbing.”
Reality is Fabulous
Perhaps it’s not surprising that businesses have struggled with the elemental need to be straight shooters. It’s certainly not new – just look at what Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden more than 150 years ago …
“Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, music and poetry would resound along the streets. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks, which we can call reality.”
Despite the apparent yearning for greater authenticity … or sincerity … or reality, some skeptics think it’s mostly a hoax. They argue that when stakeholders – inside or out – say they want more authenticity, all they’re really looking for is consistency. I guess they haven’t run into as many consistently inauthentic “spinners” as I have.
A Choice and a Voice
Still, the remark made me examine what I mean when I use the word authentic. It was easier to grasp its significance by describing what I mean by IN-authentic. Here are some words and phrases that come to mind – doubletalk … misdirection … sanitizing bad news … glamorizing good news … manipulating the truth … distorting the facts … empty jargon … phony platitudes. It’s rarely an outright lie – just an artful shading of reality. Sound familiar? From where I stand, that’s a whole lot more sinister and unsavory than merely being inconsistent.
Professional communicators have a choice and a voice. We can play along and help our organizations engage in “shams and delusions” that strain credibility – or we can be champions of authenticity. Promoting the latter, the Page report says, “If we choose this path, we can transform our profession, open up new and meaningful responsibility and learning, and create exciting new career paths for communications professionals.” Now that’s something to look forward to – sincerely.
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
No dispute there. They also all have customers. Call them consumers or taxpayers, students or patients, passengers or clients, patrons or donors … or whatever you want. In the end, their satisfaction largely dictates an organization’s destiny.
All organizations also have employees. Call them associates or co-workers or partners or colleagues … or whatever you want. In the end, their sense of trust and happiness in the workplace determines how they relate to customers – and how satisfied those customers will be.
Connect the dots, and the picture is clear.
Making employee well-being a top strategic priority is more than a nice thing to do. It’s just good business. That’s the central theme of a highly touted book that came out several years ago entitled The Customer Comes Second: Put Your People First and Watch ‘Em Kick Butt.
The principal author is Hal Rosenbluth, the fourth-generation head of Rosenbluth International, a family-owned corporate travel agency that grew in annual revenues from $20 million to more than $6 billion in a span of 25 years under his leadership. When he joined the business right out of college, he noticed that they put a lot of emphasis on making customers happy, but virtually none on the employees who served them. That didn’t make sense to Rosenbluth, and the disconnect showed on the unhappy faces and performance of disgruntled employees. So he set out to shift the company’s focus first and foremost on the attraction, retention and development of outstanding people.
Realizing that’s counterintuitive for many organizations, Rosenbluth explains, “Companies are only fooling themselves when they believe that ‘The Customer Comes First’ … Only when people know what it feels like to be first in someone else’s eyes can they sincerely share that feeling with others. We’re not saying choose your people over your customers. We’re saying focus on your people because of your customers. That way, everybody wins.” With industry-leading customer satisfaction rates of over 99%, how can you argue with him?
A Secret Weapon
It all adds up to a simple yet significant phrase from the book, which serves as a poetic and memorable motto: “People who feel cared for will care more.”
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
The other day, I was looking at different definitions for marketing. In a nutshell, it’s described mainly as a process for getting in front of prospective customers and enticing them to buy your product or service.
- The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Marketing practice tends to be seen as a creative industry, which includes advertising, distribution and selling.
- On Wikipedia, marketing is defined as an integrated communications-based process through which individuals and communities discover that existing and newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services of others.
- Webster’s dictionary describes marketing as the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.
As far as they go, those definitions are okay, but their main thrust can be summed up in one word – attraction. While that’s important, it doesn’t account for the other vital half of the business building equation – retention.
Invest in Keeping the Customers You Have
Depending on what sources you cite, it takes 2-20 times as much investment to attract a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. But look at where most of the business building dollars go. It’s mainly for advertising, sales and other promotional tools and techniques designed to acquire or attract new customers. For many marketing people, that’s essentially how they view their role.
When it comes to retention, that’s usually handled by customer relations or consumer affairs or some similar function – and only a fraction of what’s typically spent on marketing is dedicated to the work they do.
Define Marketing as Relationship-Building
Rectifying that imbalance starts with a more encompassing definition of marketing – to create, sustain and continuously improve relationships with the organization’s key stakeholders.
At a minimum, that definition begs for marketing and customer relations people to be joined at the hip in working on the company’s business building efforts. But the implications go farther than that – to the very heart of why marketing communication and employee engagement must go hand-in-hand. It’s pretty simple, really. If you define marketing as “relationship building,” then it’s no longer just a promotional activity for creative specialists. Instead, it becomes an integral part of each employee’s job. Everyone who has an impact on customer relations – directly or indirectly – ultimately shares responsibility for the company’s marketing success.
Live Up to Your Image
Loyalty programs like “frequent flyers” are designed as a retention device, but they’re usually in the form of promotional spiffs. While that can be effective, it still falls short of the personal relationship building that goes beyond loyalty and leads ultimately to customer advocacy.
In the end, attraction comes more from the image you project, while retention comes more from the performance you deliver. Both are vital, so don’t get suckered into putting disproportionate emphasis on getting customers in the front door – when keeping them is so much cheaper than replacing them after they slip out the back.
To learn more about our approach to Marketing Communications, visit http://www.landesassociates.com/index.php?/Marketing-Communications.html
Remember when organizations used to talk about the “internal customer?” You still hear it sometimes, but it’s mostly fallen on the trash heap of yesterday’s useless business jargon – another example of a cutesy idea turned into a misguided metaphor.
You could argue that the proponents of that idea had their hearts in the right in place – i.e., coworkers should treat one another with the same regard and cooperation they give to customers. But think about the flipside of that comparison. One defining characteristic of a true company-customer relationship is this – if a customer gets sufficiently unhappy with the product or service they’re getting, they’re outta’ here.
That Ain’t No Way to Build Relationships
We like to think we’re fostering the kind of customer loyalty that will give us some wiggle room to recover if we screw up. But anyone who believes the typical disgruntled customer is going to stick around for long while you “work things out” is sorely mistaken. In fact, according to research, for every customer complaint a company gets, 25 more people have a similar problem, but instead of saying anything, they just quietly walk away.
Now, is that really the kind of relationship we want co-workers to have with one another? When things get tough and tensions run high and solutions are hard to find, do we want colleagues to bail out and say c’est la vie? Hardly. Fact is, we got it ass-backwards in the “internal customer” days. Instead of thinking of employees as customers, we should be thinking about both employees AND customers as partners.
No One’s an Audience Anymore
Luckily, we’re moving in the right direction. In recent years, there’s been a conspicuous shifting tide in employee communications – moving away from creating messages for an employee audience to engaging employees in conversations as partners and stakeholders. As it should be. After all, isn’t it a bit weird to think of the people who make everything happen in an organization as an “audience?” They ARE the organization. They certainly are NOT a passive recipient of messages – or at least they shouldn’t be.
But what about customers – the people communicators subject to a constant barrage of sales and marketing messages? Surely, THEY are an audience, right?
Engage your Partners – Inside and Out
Not according to the authors of the book Grapevine, who advocate WITH versus AT marketing. “AT marketing is about targeting, capturing, and one-way communication,” they say. (I won’t quibble for now over the faux pas of “one-way communication,” which is sort of like clapping with one hand.) “WITH marketing means that companies and consumers work with each other. They (companies) cease to think of consumers as targets. They find ways to … partner with them. In WITH marketing you don’t talk about capturing. You talk about listening. Targeting is a concept from the old days. Now it’s about engaging.”
Different organizations will take different approaches to engagement, to be sure. But the underlying premise is the same – messages don’t build relationships, conversations do – whether your partners are inside or out.
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement