Books – Great by Choice and How Mighty Fall

These two books reflect on the same concept – instability of our fast-changing business environment. Surprisingly, the data challenges our traditional views of bold visionaries taking risks… and succeeding.

Great by Choice

Interesting: it is the discipline rather than innovation that allow companies to succeed in turbulent environment.  The authors point out that the innovation is necessary, but it is necessary up to a certain industry-specific level. As soon as the level is reached, more innovation would not help, and can even hurt if the discipline is scarified.

Evariant has a very interesting interview with one of the authors:

“20 miles march” – a steady progress with limitation on the bottom and on the top of the task to achieve. This approach allow the company to produce steady growth, rather than unsustainable expansions during good years and decline during bad years. Successful companies methodically progressed in most of the years comparing to unstable companies.

“Bullets first, and then cannon balls” – a strategy of inexpensive low-risk and low-impact “trials” in new opportunities before committing more resources to invest into empirically proven areas.

“Productive paranoia” – realization of possibility (and probability) of unknown adverse events and preparedness for them (cash reserves, etc.).

Do successful companies have to “act fast”?  Not necessarily. It is better to take time to investigate and evaluate the situation if delay will not significantly increase the risk. 

Consistent recipe of success - successful companies have a rather stable “recipe” of success and change it less than less successful companies, but do change it to some degree.  Successful companies in general more disciplined and consistent than unsuccessful companies.

Interesting perspective on luck (good and bad) and its role in company’s success: unless it it a catastrophic bad luck, company’s discipline helps to capitalize on the good luck and overcome the bad luck. However, the role of luck can not be denied.

How Mighty Fall

How Mighty fall is the book that preceded Great by Choice; the most surprising for me was the innovation component.  The company that is about to fall could “out-innovate” the market. After reading Great by Choice it is clear why – just certain level of innovation is needed; after this level is met, extraordinary innovation might hurt rather than help the company.

Stages of the fall:

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success
Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More
Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril
Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation
Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

Books: Simple Concepts that are Difficult to Implement

Another two great books that can be wonderful examples of rather simple, and very powerful concepts, that seem to be difficult to implement. I guess, I would love to read a book on why it is so difficult  However, there is something very human that compels us to jump into action without a boring little thing  such as a reasonable strategy or going through a simple checklist.  However, it looks like these un-glamorous approaches could save lives and fortunes.

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind – a wonderful marketing classic violated by so many organizations to their own peril, and The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right is an extensive research concluding that simple discipline system applied at any complex process dramatically increases the success of this process.

Positioning: recommend not to go “head 0n” into competition with the market leader because “our product is better,” but find a “hole” in the mind of the target audience and “position” it as unique.  For example, the resort X is rated as good as the well-known resort Y, but much closer to home.  Ha!  Why is it so easy for organizations to jump to “our product X is just like product Y, only better, when organization’s leaders can not explain what is the difference?  :-)

Checklist Manifesto: as complexity increases and the specialists’ expertise became more and more narrow, a simple check list can help pilots handle more complex airplane, a team of medical professionals to keep patients alive, and a financial genius to identify better future investments.

I guess, the most interesting point is our world and our human nature.  While our world is becoming increasingly complex, we seem to resits using simple disciplined tools to be more successful in our tasks….

Books: Cloud and IBM

It was interesting to listen to (thanks, Audible.com!) to these two books close in time.  Almost the same industry, the same technical developments, completely different companies, and so similar struggles.

Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry – the book about the birth, survival, and success of the SalesForse.com and Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround – a story about historic turnaround of a giant IBM.

Rather amazing was the same premise of the companies: SalesForse.com was founded on the idea of creating a CRM based on the needs of the users, and one of the first changes Gerstner made at his arrival to IBM was concentration on the customer needs.

Both companies were also changing and adjusting their pricing strategy based on changing environment. As IBM had to lower the price of its flagship product to keep competitive, SalesForse had to change its monthly pricing structure – its signature trait – to assure financial stability.

Probably the most interesting similarity is companies’ approach to competitive environment, its positions on the market, and taking advantage of changing technology.  White IMB took a position of an ultimate “integrator,” sometimes recommending competitor products as part of the best “solution” for the customer, SalesForse.com opened opportunity for other organizations to integrate and create extensions for the software.  Very successful moves.

Behind the Cloud is an excellent source of ideas for any company in the SaaS market, and Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? is a treasure of examples of transformation of established structures into a more customer-centric organization.

Great books – highly recommend!

MIMA – Community Management

Though marketers seem to be talking about community management for a few years, there are some changes in these conversations. Interesting – community management is now discussed seriously (good), but there is no dramatic distinction between b-to-c and b-to-b yet in the conversations (can be better  ).

As a b-to-b marketer, I see a very strong difference: in most cases a communicator who loves the product can be probably trained for b-to-c community management, but in b-to-b, the goal is to find an expert who wants (and can) communicate.

The speaker, Olivier Blanchard, gave a fun presentation on the topic at a wonderful campus of General Mills.  Some of points that I found interesting:

• There are still companies who perceive social media as “something we need to do” because everybody does… However, the reasonable approach of finding a way to benefit the business with this tactic starting to take hold.
•  The industry is starting to talk about a “community manager job” – this is very good.
• The community manager should be a “chief communications officer in training” – if the person does not fit this characteristic, he/she may not be the right person. Though I am questioning this though now for b-to-b… In some areas, the company would want to attract certain niche inhabited by narrow-focused experts. In this case the community manager would have to be the expert, or the community manager would not be perceived as credible…  In this case, would this expert need to be a “chief communications officer in training?”  Probably not…
• A new tool similar to Radian 6 that should be familiar to community managers is Spiral 16 ( I have not heard about it – what a shame  ).
• Speaker’s blog with a treasure of resources – The Brand Builder Blog

Eloqua Experience 11 – Embracing The Change (Day 3)

Chip Heath, co-author of the best selling book on change “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard” gave a wonderful presentation based on the concepts from the book (I read the book earlier and loved it!).

The main point for all of us who is trying to encourage change in our organizations is a common fallacy that change is a purely intellectual endeavor and should be treated with data. Not quite right – the change starts from the emotion and it is up to us to find a “story” to move people in the organization.

Chip suggests to use the analysis to find a story (rather than create a serious size PPT that consists of the analysis itself ).

One of the challenges of marketing automation is to encourage sales organization to use the tools.  Marketers don’t want to let any lead die   Eric Butterwick  has been successful in this task and became a hero for sales.

• Promoting of sales tools from the top of sales organization is helpful (VP of sales purchased ELMO and was promoting it)

• Eric’s organization do not “mandate” the use of the tools, but make them available.  Adoption of Eloqua also helped adoption of the Salesforce that had been used widely in the organization
• ELMO  main benefit: saving time for the sales reps. The more sales can concentrate on closing the deals (what they can do best) the better for the organization’s bottom line
• Recruiting the best reps to try new tools…  if the best reps find benefit from a tool, the rest of the field usually would like to follow
• Two approaches to adoption: upper management buy in and grass roots initiatives
• Tip: one organization added useful links into the templated emails reps have through ELMO; reps can delete irrelevant links and send only what makes sense.  The company saw a good CTR for the links
• Tip: sending emails to reps with explanation what new content recently became available
• Eric recommended the book “Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry” – I will check it out…

One of the marketing areas that in the constant flux is government email regulation. Canada recently accepted CASL, which requires explicit opt-in and includes not only email (anything electronic and commercial in nature IM, SMS, social media, voice, etc.).

• Canadian trade show attendees should not be considered “opt-in” because they dropped a card in the fish bowl for a chance to win an iPad…  (what seem to be reasonable for “free gift” loving Americans too  )
• “No-reply” email is generally should not be used – use any of marketing monitored mailboxes
• avoid pre-checked boxes as a subscription – it is not “hyper-transparent”
• Grande guide to email deliverability and privacy 

Comparison by country – European Union is still in a flux…

Oh…  Evolve or became extinct…  Do we need a better incentive?  ;-)

Eloqua Experience 11 – The Change (Day 2)

I guess my general perception of of Eloqua Experience day 2 was celebration of constant change… OK, maybe commiseration, or acknowledgement, or annoyance with the phenomenon :-)

Those who recognize the change and are willing to adapt (at least use Eloqua on a good level), seem to outperform the rest.  …what probably contributes to Eloqua growth at about 40% a year.

• Old way of SaaS is not enough anymore… SaaS 1.0 – tools and services in the cloud.  SaaS 2.0 – tools and services in the cloud, capable to connect with other vendors cloud tools and services
• Evolution of Benchmarking: industry surveys have been replaced by an aggregate data of cloud service providers
• Mobile traffic to the web sites doubled during last year (still, mobile strategy should exist – mobile should not be a reformatted copy of the regular site ~Vanessa)
• Eloqua launched App Cloud

• Eloqua is also changing (Eloqua 10 is HTML 5 tool).  Eloqua 10 will not retain all Eloqua 9 functionality – the company is attempting a fundamental shift to better usability and business effectiveness.  Some features would have to change.

Eloqua is the only company in the field with 11 full-time faculty members.

I was very happy to receive my own certificate and thanks to Heidi who took my picture, the excitement is preserved forever.  Now I am hoping to put the new knowledge to a good use.  :-)   And continue learning…

Eloqua’s approach to content

• The solution to noise is not more noise, but a differentiation
• Eloqua’s solution for a different content was visualization.  Eloqua has a content partner – jess3

Eloqua case study from the perspective of jess3

• Jess3 is a content partner, whose credentials are also present on the final “piece of content;” jess3 is on a retainer
• Eloqua’s  internal team supports creation of the content – everybody is responsible for creation of the content
• Recognize what people share – people do not read the entire article before sharing - sharing happens after a glance

• Eloqua created Social Media Playbook as an internal resource; later it was used for external purposes (the playbook has been used by other organizations for internal training also)
• Recommendation: think about a way the content itself can attract attention…  (Maybe a resource of all industry resources in a visually easy to navigate fashion? ~Vanessa)
• Content has limited shelf life – only 6% of tweets are re-tweeted
• Content can be re-packaged (individual posts can be combined, etc.
• Eloqua went from no blog to Ad Age Power 150 in 10 months (Joe attribute it to the uniqueness of the content).  Users were encouraged to comment on some info graphics; later the new versions of info graphics were sent to the those who commented directly – these people saw the result of their involvement and had a vested interest in promoting the content.
• Blog is the hub of content distribution strategy 
• Content must be interesting… even in PR, people do not cover new products – people cover interesting staff
• Content marketing is a force multiplier – we can measure only pieces… (visits to the site, etc.)
• Eloqua uses Slide Share…  and is a Slide Share’s example of proper use of a corporate accounts

Eloqua’s content plans:

• To be smarter about optimizing the content
• Evaluate the need and lack of attention by other brands (what other brands are not producing)
• Content inventory is overlaid by buying stage
• Let search influence the content Eloqua produces

From creative… to the nerds.  Marketing needs nerds!!  Change requires it!  (per Mike Hilton – EVP Marketing, Concur)

Marketing needs to take maximum control from IT; technical skill sets are critical for marketing.

Actually, the change is quite good for business… Great presentation!

Eloqua Experience – what is important?

Is it Cloud Connectors, or RPM, or marking sales force happy?  It is all good

Eloqua Experience 11 – Education (Day 1)

We chose two strategic educational sessions – sessions that did not require any technical exercises or application log in, but rather understanding of marketing and sales process.  The sessions Campaign Management Essentials and Lead Management Essentials were very insightful.

Yes, workbook and tests are still waiting to be completed before the class can count toward the certification, but a few interesting insights has to be noted:

• Companies are moving to quarterly marketing plans; our constantly changing environment makes yearly detailed plans unreasonably inflexible
• Before starting a campaign, it is important to estimate campaign performance (guess if no historical data exists) – marketers often overlook this step
• Recording and a document on how to complete a persona template is available on Topliners

• Welcome program can brunch out into topic-specific nurturing programs, which can continue as an accelerator programs (can come from sales rep’s name; be text only, etc.)
• Need to monitor non-responders to try re-engagement (different strategy is needed for different segments; if a segment does not react on regular communications, value of continuing to send them is questionable)
• Nurturing campaigns –  recommended 4 touches (per specific thought process)
• Time between touches is recommended to be 10 business days (for B-to-B)
• If number of unsubscribes increases on later stages of nurturing – over-marketing can be a possible reason
• Should legacy contacts be included into a brand-new welcome campaign?  Yes, it might be beneficial; just avoid ”welcome…”
• Foundational programs (welcome, nurturing, etc. – programs that run on the background of other marketing activities)
• Returning of the leads from sales to marketing for nurturing can be automated (based on the age of the lead, any indication set by sales, etc.)
• Recommendation to review scoring programs every 6 months
• No new sales initiatives should be attempted at the end of the quarter; sales will be the most receptive in the beginning of the quarter
• Questions that concern sales (and can get their attention):
• “How can I hit my number?”  (answer will get attention)
• “How can I hit my number faster?”  (answer will get attention)
• Recommendation to flowchart the lead process

• Do not be complacent!

The Homework (and workbooks are available at Eloqua University:

Eloqua Experience 11 – thank you Eloqua and Hilton!

The room was magnificent!  Fit for a king of Eloqua Experience  As a happy winner of Room Upgrade contest, I can just say “Thank you!” to Eloqua and Hilton!

The room service was also a nice surprise

Dear Drake, thank you very much for a fun contest and a wonderful prize!  What a great idea for a contest (at least from the winner’s perspective  ).

Everything was ready for the conference in time: all devices were charged, computer was set, and agenda was reviewed completely (OK, I might have lied about the agenda, I still have not decided on all tracks to attend  ).

Thank you!!

Books, Books, Books

Some of the books I enjoyed recently had a few ideas that absolutely need to be recorded

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Interesting: “if then” rewards can have negative effect on human performance in non-routine tasks. Intrinsic motivation gives humanity (and economy) more inventions than extrinsic motivation. Competition between team members does not improve performance of the creative tasks, but rather diminish it  (people spend more energy on worrying about competition than the solution of the problem).

Compensation, however, is very important for employees, but its importance is “to remove the question about the pay out of the table.”  The pay of employees should be fare in the team as in the market.  The interesting recommendation for companies is to pay employees above market – it would allow to attract interested employees, avoid tensions related to pay, and reduce turnover, what will reduce cost of human resources in general.

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

To my surprise, Zappos was “on the brink of disappearance” a few times, and was saved by personal investments by its CEO at the critical stage of its growth. Even famous Zappos culture was threatened by the conservative board and was saved by famous deal with Amazon.

Another interesting note was the origin of famous customer-centric culture – at one point, during its early days, Zappos did not have enough resources to invest into marketing and decided to concentrate on retention (what is always cheaper). The rest is history. The most interesting part is the flexibility of the company to try an approach, and change it if it does not work.

Approach to suppliers: Zappos was willing to treat its suppliers better than the market, and open its proprietary information to the suppliers, what benefited the company probably more than the suppliers.

Human resources: the company moved to the location where call-center employees were easier to hire, but some other employees, such as experienced buyers were not.  The company created a pipeline of entry-level employees who are hired based on culture fit and trained to do more advanced jobs. Very interesting: the satisfaction (happiness) of the employees increased when the process of one raise in 18 month and one promotion was changes into there raises and three promotions after every 6 months. The amount and titles stayed exactly the same. call center employees can take some courses and speedup of their raises. The employees are happier when they had control over parts of their jobs and could see a clear progress.  The company would not hire any “talent” without a culture fit.

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

Quite interesting…  Creativity is not opposite of knowledge (as popular culture implies), but its derivative. It does make complete sense from my educational background, but is often presented as opposites in the US.  The age of the Nobel prize winners in science was steadily increasing – people needed to learn more already discovered material before they could become “creative.”

Just “being in the field” and “having an experience” does not improve performance.  Only deliberate practice does – practicing and learning increasingly new and difficult parts of the field. Constantly increasing knowledge about the field is the only way to improve the performance…  in any field

Yes, yes, a book worm…   Though mostly electronic format books now