Archive for category Execution
Getting Voice of the Customer for Web design
If you only had a few questions to ask a client prior to making a recommendation for their website what would you ask?
I recently found myself in this situation. I am assisting a group of people in creating their new website by developing the design document. Their business has multiple divisions and each division in located in a different part of the Dallas Metroplex. Furthermore, while they have a commonality that brings them together (the company), each division owner has a certain autonomy that allows them to do what they want.
Given a short amount of time and a lot of people to interview, what questions would I ask? I hit upon just a few:
- What is the mission statement of the organization?
- What is your mission statement as it fits into this organization?
- Who is your audience?
- How do you use the web site, and how would you like to use it?
- What would you like to see on a web site?
- Who will maintain it?
Very simple questions. The first few questions puts me in the context and mindset of this particular person. Questions four and five get into the type of product they want to see. Finally, question six really tells me how interactive they will be with the web site. Combined, this tells me how they see the web site as an extension of themselves.
The answers were very surprising.
I could ask a lot more questions and will probably follow up with them. The point of this exercise is to get started and understand the customer and their fundamental approach. As any company developing a new product, you need to get into the mind of the customer get the voice of the customer in your design. This is one technique I am using now to hear their voice.
Facts or emotion
You can either go with facts or emotion. The problem with using too many facts is that people tend to get bored, forgetful, and unsure of how to digest all the data. As Seth Godin writes in his article, Too much data leads to not enough belief, too much data crowds out faith. Rather, too much data overwhelms and causes the listener to stray.
Going with emotion leads to the wrong choices being made because the facts are not really thought out.
If you are the persuader, then using facts or emotion does not matter as long as you get your idea across and people to your side. To the persuaded, emotion counts NOW but facts count later.
I think the best approach is a balance of the two. Carefully chosen facts that can lead to an emotional response: This choice feels right. However, if the person just chooses not to believe the facts, then you have to address the cause of the emotional need to not believe. In some cases, you just cannot win – with that person.
Move on and persuade other people.
Managing the Large Client List
100 clients is a lot to manage. If you worked only 40 hours per week, you could only spend 20 hours a year with each client (if you spread it out evenly). That is a bit better than 1 1/2 hours per month. That assumes you spend every moment with the client. This does not include all the other things you have to do in your job. Say you are very efficient and can spend 6 hours each day with clients. The other time is spent getting to the client, running your business/job, and dealing with everything else in support of those clients.
Now, you only have 15 hours per year for each client. That is just under two business days. You are not going to be able to do much for each client.
The answer is simple: get less clients or hire another person to split up the load. Or is it that simple? You do not want less clients, because that means less business. You cannot feasibly hire another person, because that is a huge cost.
Reality check: You have 100 clients to manage. They each would benefit from regular phone calls, visits, coaching, etc to grow their business on you. How do you manage them?
The answer is in prioritization. Identify the key metrics you need. In most businesses this is revenue. Most businesses have a metric to grow the revenue from level A to level B. In reality you really have three metrics: the level of revenue, the rate of change of revenue, and the greatest opportunity for change.
The level of revenue is important because clients typically follow the 80-20 rule. Those 20% of clients represent 80% of your business. There are a lot of reasons why this happens, but that is not for this discussion. It just does. Not only do these clients represent the bulk of your revenue, but any changes to them represent the bulk of the changes to your total revenue. Lose one of these, and a lot more of the others have to grow to make up your numbers. Therefore, the answer is to rank them in order of biggest revenue to lowest revenue. Those with the biggest revenue are at the top of the list. Identify the top 20% and put them on your list of regularly contacted customers. If you are new to the assignment, you contact them first.
The growth rate is actually more important when you consider that most businesses want to continue to grow. However, an interesting thing happens to many businesses when they reach a certain point. They stop growing. They might maintain their level of business: gaining customers as fast as they lose them; but they do not grow. You might find that a lot of your top clients fall into this range. Those top clients will maintain your level of revenue, but when you are given growth goals, where do you find them?
The answer is to try to rank your clients by growth over the previous year. You will probably find a big difference in the tables with that of your largest clients. Those at the top of this list, but at the middle or bottom of your total revenue list are those up-and-comers; those clients that are rising stars and will help you in the future. Identify the top group that represents either 80% of your total growth, or 100% of your targeted growth (whichever is more manageable).
Finally, there are always exceptions. You have a client that is very small with your company, but a large customer with a competitor. There may be an opportunity to take them away from that other company. You could have a small client that is made of people from another large company. They broke away to start their own business. They have contacts, knowledge (experience) and some cash. They just need time and some help and they will grow. This third list is hard to quantify and identify. The key thing is to go through every client in your list at least once and just understand a little history about them. What is their current situation and can you exploit it? Are there synergies with your previous two lists? If not, then add these clients as special projects. You evaluate them over time, and if they prove out, then you continue to follow them; otherwise you drop them and focus on your previous two lists.
In a nutshell you have three lists: biggest revenue, biggest growth, and biggest opportunities. These clients get most of your attention. Every now and then you evaluate the other clients to see if they fall into opportunity. Remember, they are already no in revenue or growth so they have to be opportunity.
Of course, every quarter you do a check to see if everyone stays in revenue and growth. Typically, you will not see much change over quarter by quarter, but year by year you might see some significant shifts. Since you are looking at which clients switch from low revenue to high revenue, or low growth to high growth, and only concerned with the crossover you will typically only see a small percentage of clients change in this list.
This way you can manage your priorities, maintain your revenue, and grow your company.
Secret to successful negotiations
Why do some people succeed at negotiations when others do not?
The most likely cause is that neither side seriously considers what the other side wants.? Instead they only think about what they want. They may only think about the surface but they never dive deep.
The next time you are negotiating a deal, after you decide on your points, take out a separate sheet of paper.? Put yourself in the other side
Distributed workers is a problem not an answer
Companies that have all their workers in one location have the primary advantage of being able to communicate in person faster with each other but the primary disadvantage of being too geographically confined in thought and not being able to meet broader world requirements. On the other hand companies that are too decentralized and distributed often fall prey to the problem of being unable to execute quickly within themselves for a variety of reasons.
In the last ten or twenty years there has been a big push for working from home. They point out the benefits of lower costs due to no office space, more productivity due to less time traveling between office and home, and happier workers. The advocates also point out those companies that are distributed that work well: companies with design centers in India, marketing in the US and production in China. They further point out that people in an office environment suffer too many distractions: too many emails, water cooler talk, physical interruptions, etc.
I think that a lot of these advocates have not really worked in both environments and do not understand how humans behave as social creatures. These companies that are distributed are distributed along lines of centers of excellence, factories, and other functional entities. Within those specific geographic locations an entire entity will exist that has common goals. When the job crosses boundaries, it is managed for that boundary crossing. Maybe it is at a higher level, has coordinators, or treated like internal customers with set expectations.
On Dec 28 I wrote about some MIT research that said that people with face-to-face networks were 30% more productive than those without. And those that were distributed that developed digital networks were only 7% more effective. This applies whether the people are working in a centralized office or are extremely distributed. Logic dictates though that those in a centralized office CAN develop those face-to-face networks a lot easier.
23% more effective.? Thats a lot of extra people. Or that is like having an extra day in the work week without you having to do any work.
All the problems that distributed advocates state about centralized companies can be solved except one: the ability to work in from home. Short of everyone moving in together this is not going to be solved. But I do not think that is a problem. My friends and colleagues that work from home say they actually have to work more hours to get things done. Why? Because everyone is so distributed they have to spend more time corralling everyone together. Too many formal meetings have to be set up that take too long.
Sales people have to be distributed to effectively serve clients and develop the face-to-face relationship with the client. Wait a minute. The advocates point out that sales people are distributed and they work well. True, but they are distributed so that they can physically meet with clients and form the face-to-face relationship.? A face-to-face IS needed, but the one with the client is more important for this job function. This never seems to be mentioned.
In the end, you have to put the priority on productivity and effectiveness. Face-to-face seems to be winning over distributed. However, the demands of face-to-face need to be addressed. It becomes a bigger challenge when you are dealing with a start-up which may not be able to afford an office or to have everyone in the same location.
Maybe we should spend some time discussing that in the future because now we are addressing how a startup can execute successfully?
Office versus Remote
Which is better for productivity? People working in an office or remotely? A lot of arguments for both sides, but I recently found actual metrics for the difference. In the book, The HBR List – Breakthrough Ideas for 2009, there is an article by Alex Pentland titled How Social Networks Network Best.
His article is about how organizations should manage discovery and then integration and decision making. His point is that organizations that alternate between a centralized structure and a richly connected network can optimize these processes.
His article really does not address the differences between working in an office versus remotely but there is an interesting metric. To quote:
A recent MIT study found that in one organization the employees with the most extensive personal digital networks were 7% more productive than their colleagues…In the same organization, however; employees with the most cohesive face-to-face networks were 30% more productive.
What does this mean? I will address that more in my next article but there is definite concerns when an organization is geographically broken up and how that organization can address challenges, overcome obstacles and then executive quickly
As for startups, they are very prone to wanting to work remotely because of the cost of office space and the need to find the right workers. Compromising on the need to physically be together could impare the startups effectiveness.
Enthusiasm does not make up for reality
Today I sat in on a student presentations for the English department at Southern Methodist University. Teams of approximately 12 to 16 students were given the assignment of presenting a proposal of putting a business into a foreign country. They were broken up by management, HR, public relations, logistics and operations. The point of the exercise was to teach a combination of presentation, marketing, and cultural sensitivity. My wife was reviewing their presentation skills and I was a there just as a surprise guest questioner.
I think my job was to ask irritating questions. I did a good job but I tried to be nice and ask them questions that would only demonstrate if they could think on their feet. Although they were not expected to present something that a VC would really be able to approve, they should be able to address out of the box questions.
One group was presenting the concept of a fast food burger joint in Australia that was organically certified. There are a lot of different regulations, purchasing requirements, and organizations they will have to manage. They pointed out that the government does scheduled and surprise inspections. I asked the management group how would they insure that they would pass these inspections and get the employees to comply (I intentionally left it vague). The response was perky (with the student bouncing happily): We think the employees will be enthusiastic to support an organic only vision.
I will tell my response in a moment… but for those of us that have experience in getting employees to comply all the time, what about all those myriad of regulations and organizations that will probably make it confusing and inconvenient? What about those employees that will not really understand how to do all this?
How do you get employees to comply with this? Simple, through training and reinforcement by someone whose duty is to do this. Complexity invites mistakes. Extreme complexity like all the organic laws and organizations they spouted tells me that mistakes are very very likely. Furthermore, for their main message to be that they are an ORGANIC burger place, they should be concerned about that one issue.
My answer was short: I think your enthusiasm is great, but you may want to consider having someone hired to focus on this task.
That person could even be call the second COO: Chief Organic Officer.
In any business where you have extreme complexity whether its just the quality assurance or its the key uniqueness (i.e. ORGANIC foods in a fast food place) you should consider having someone take a leadership position in that role. It does not have to be enforcement like a cop, but more like education and support. It will really help out the employees, improve the working environment and insure that the business stays on its marketing message.
Just because you are enthusiastic about something does mean it will translate 100% to your employees 100% of the time. Reality is that you need reinforcement and that someone takes responsbility.
They Why of Change
Yesterday I wrote about change and that you need to be prepared for it. The next question is why should you change; but more importantly, do you consider the whys?
Reading an article on Seth Godin’s page, “The Why Imperative”, you wonder if there are two reasons people are asked to change. One, it’s an extension of what they do and it is needed because of changing market conditions, and two, it’s a change for the sake of change.
In other words, “Change” can get out of hand. People change because it is something to do, as opposed to something that is the right thing to do. These changes then affect everyone in different ways and can cause people to be more reluctant to changes (because of the poor history of success).
So, when do you change and when do you not? The first step is to ask, “Why are we changing?” The second step is to have a way to properly evaluate that change and to evaluate with the proper objectivity that also takes into account the costs to overcome the challenges. Changes have to deal with three challenges: strategic, political and cultural.
Ideally, its purely strategic decisions: is it more economical? However, the reality is that change costs time, money, and political clout. Sometimes it does not make sense to do the change because of the other elements.
It never should hurt to ask why but it could hurt to do it. This could be an opportunity for someone else. Or, it could identify the selling points to get people to change.
Change Happens – Be Prepared
The difference between successful people in the US and unsuccessful people can be attributed to many different things but most of the time it comes down to how well they handle change.
Those that handle change better often do better because they know how to come out on top.
Rather than going into a lot of detail right now, I want you to think about the most likely change that could happen to you over the next six months. What are the likely outcomes? How will you prevent the bad outcomes? How will you take steps to insure the better outcomes? What if nothing happens?
When you get it in your mind that “change happens” you can often deal better with it. Be prepared is the Boy Scout Motto, for good reason, because change happens.
Social Media Engineer
Posted by Steve in Execution, For Job Seekers on November 5, 2009
I think this job is already out here but I am proposing it here. Twitter, Facebook, Dig. If you go to Namechk.com there are 132 social web sites you can use to reach people. I am sure there are a lot more, but these are the top ones. They range from eBay to Twitter, from 12seconds.tv to Zooomr (never heard of either). The problem is that there are too many social sites and methodologies out there. Then, even on those sites there are too many things to do.
If you are following 1000 people on Twitter, how do you make sense of the conversation. Its like standing on an street corner in rush hour in New York City. You can get attention by dropping your pants, but it’s the wrong kind of attention.
Sure, there are books out there. Thousands.
The answer is experts. They are already out there, called Social Media experts or gurus. I think it is time for something called a social media engineer. The job of this person is to properly place, grow and utilize the various social media websites for a specific purpose.
I googled it. Already some one is calling themselves that. Not a lot though.
I monstered it. The closets thing is a Social Media Manager for HP.
I whois’ed it. Someone has the site socialmediaengineer.com (Bill Deys), and they are doing nothing with it. It’s a wordpress site (same theme as mine!!!). He just got it June 8, posted something on Aug 18. Maybe he is trying to figure it out.
I googled for social media expert and number two is gallucci.net. Giovanni Gallucci is a local guy (Dallas, TX) and a great speaker. He gets it! Check out his site.
The bottom line here is that there is an opportunity out there. Some people are already jumping on it. Why not you? If you have a company hire someone like Giovanni to help you. Matter of fact, hire Giovanni, because, quite frankly, he is the only one doing it.
And then, you can help your business grow.