By Steve Schmidt, VP, Product Management, Flexera Software
Moving to the cloud can be a daunting initiative for Enterprises. What the numerous studies and statistics fail to provide are the reasons such enterprises are struggling with the overall migration of applications to either private or public cloud environments, and how to address those issues.
There is a normal evolutionary cycle that customers have to complete to cross the proverbial cloud chasm. Part of the evolutionary cycle will require key learning and enhancements across people, processes and technologies.
The lack of automation and process in other areas such as application migration, application readiness (application packaging and deployment), and Software License Optimization (licensed versus deployed) causes significant challenges for migrating to the cloud (private or public).
Furthermore, limited standards and visibility around licensing in the cloud is one of the biggest factors cited by customers prohibiting free migration to both public cloud and hybrid private/public cloud solutions.
Migrations of applications to a cloud based environment require the same care, planning, and consideration as other migration projects. One of the issues around application migrations is understanding the required skills and tests that need to happen. In a traditional application development or virtualization project, the packager works with experts that understand the infrastructure requirements for that given piece of software.
The cloud provides generic slices of compute resources that enable the application owner to configure and test on a more generic infrastructure environment. However, oftentimes knowledge around thresholds, network capabilities for links, hardware I/O or CPU limitations is lost in the process.
Developers may have a slice of compute power, but the hardware characteristics of that box may vary if the workload is migrated over to another server cluster or different hardware configurations are used. Part of the skill set ramp will be to gain the understanding of system limitations of not only the virtual machines, but also other supporting factors like network, storage, physical systems, and monitoring across solutions.
This will take time, but automating key steps in the process will alleviate the risks. In addition to automating the application compatibility testing and packaging phases of the migration process, it’s also critical to implement automated license optimization solutions that can manage the license complexity of hybrid ‘on-premise and cloud’ environments.
One key element would be to leverage workflow solutions to help automate the following steps :
1. Analyze Application Compatibility– leverage automated application compatibility tools that specialize in physical to virtual migration to determine what applications should be migrated and which ones should not.
2. Automating the Distribution Across Multiple Deployment Tools: Many large Enterprises have several different systems management tools in use. Having mitigation tools that can automate deployment and packaging without requiring different scripts or package types for each provider will save key time in the overall process. This is fundamental to continual application readiness.
3. Analyzing Usage – just because you can migrate an application doesn’t mean you should. For example if an application is just used once per year by accounting for an annual report – how much time and expense really should be spent on migrating the application? Particularly if it is resource intensive, the best approach may be to eliminate that application from the migration project. Part of the planning process is to see who actually is using what, why and if it is needed.
4. Assessing Deployed versus Purchased Software and Optimizing the Software Estate – part of the migration process is knowing what applications can be deployed in a Cloud environment per the terms of the vendor license agreement. What are the license restrictions (private vs public) and what are vendors’ support policies? Organizations must establish processes and procedures within the various levels of support and engineering for proper escalation resolution.
Given the complexity of software licensing terms and virtualized/cloud environments, automated enterprise license optimization solutions are critical to controlling software costs and maintaining license compliance. These tools provide the visibility and transparency into a company’s license position essential for migrating with confidence to the cloud. Without these tools, it will be difficult for enterprises to avoid greater cost and risk exposure due to over or under-purchasing of software. In the latter case, enterprises are faced with increased vendor audit risk and associated true-up costs due to license non-compliance.
Crossing the Cloud Chasm will be no easy task for any company. As the technology, people, and processes become more defined it will become far easier and adoption will accelerate. However, automating key tasks both in application readiness and Software Asset Management and license optimization processes will reduce the risks, challenges and more importantly the impact to the business as a whole. Planning is now more critical as is taking a step back to assess the overall approach for your journey to the cloud.
When we aren’t happy with a situation, we often rationalize why we maintain the status quo.
“I just need to gut it out for a year to see what happens.”
“That’s how they do things here.” “With all the stuff going on in my personal life, I can’t even think about changing things at work.”
Instead of exploring the possibilities, we take what we think is the easy way out but remain frustrated.
What else should I be?
All apologies
We make excuses and express regret to others, who might listen and even nod their heads. But can they really improve the situation?
What else could I say?
What else could I write?
I don’t have the right.
We think we aren’t good enough or don’t deserve the chance to change things.
I wish I was like you
Easily amused
We try to fit in or become envious of others who appear to handle their frustrations better.
Loss aversion
Psychologists call this mindset loss aversion. We are more afraid of what we might lose (our job, the status quo, our identity) than what we could gain (better responsibilities, a promotion, more value from our work, personal growth). We prefer avoiding losses at the expense of acquiring gains.
Multiple problems—big, small, short and long term—arise when the pain of losing is more powerful than the pleasure of gaining or moving ahead. On a macro level, organizational productivity suffers due to the lack of creativity and innovation. From a personal standpoint, your value to the company becomes less as your self esteem declines. Finally, others will take advantage of you once they realize you allow loss aversion to cloud your decision making.
Take stock of your situation by reviewing your thought process on your recent decisions. How often did you do what you thought others wanted? When was the last time you saw potential gains and took a risk? If the answers seem to indicate you are allowing loss aversion to hinder your performance, do something about it. You have more say in who you are and what you do than you think.
All in all is all we are.
All in all is all we are.
All in all is all we are.
If you have a song suggestion for Sounds of Marketing, please let us know by emailing SoundsOfMarketing@massolutions.biz
Delivering high quality applications has become imperative for enterprises if they have to win over competition and ensure success for their applications.
While on one hand budgets remain tight and enterprises are forced to produce more for less, on the other hand application development teams are under tremendous pressure to deliver quality apps in a shorter span of time.
Though enterprises have realized the importance of integrating testing right from the beginning of the software life cycle, they often fail in implementation with tighter delivery cycles forcing them to ‘just get it done mentality’.
But, compromising on testing and quality means that enterprises are risking their project success, increasing risk of non-functional aspects like security, putting more efforts in terms of rework, and finally not meeting business requirements.
Several advantages of the cloud have augmented interest among enterprises to look for “as-a-service” offerings, where the service will be hosted by a third party vendor and billed as a pay-per-use model. As testing can have significant peaks and troughs in capacity needs and new environments needed to be set up for each project, the cloud route will offer economies of scale.
The ability of the cloud to quickly provision test environments, cost savings, business flexibility, faster time-to-market, reduced maintenance requirements, rapid elasticity, and multi-tenant model is driving the demand for Testing as a Service in the cloud.
Cost reduction is one of the key factors that is driving most enterprises towards testing in the cloud. Leveraging TaaS will greatly reduce expense and capital outlays related to setting up of expensive and time consuming testing infrastructure and labs.
In today’s complex environment, many customer facing applications and complex systems must be tested across multiple operating systems and browsers. Creating a test environment that reflects the same complexities as the real world will require huge capital, time, and resources.
Helps meet end-to-end needs
Also as organizations’ handle a wide range of testing projects, most of them come across several ad hoc testing needs across different projects. An effective TaaS solution will help enterprises to meet end-to-end testing requirements and enables them to quickly set up test environments while providing all the benefits of cloud.
The cloud vendor will provide enterprises with access to scalable labs, test management tools, and infrastructure necessary for building a test environment. In addition, taking testing to the cloud will help enterprises to address the issues or defects identified through testing over the cloud itself. While there are several benefits of going in for TaaS, the ability of the vendor to provide effective testing and quality assurance will determine enterprises’ output on quality and return on investment.
Hence, it’s quite essential for enterprises to choose the right testing vendor with in-depth expertise in domain-specific and specialized testing services. Test-centric vendors with domain, technical and cloud expertise will help enterprises to formulate an overall testing strategy on what enterprises aim to achieve by moving testing to the cloud and suitable testing practices to be implemented to meet those requirements.
Saikrishna Kaparthy is a Senior Research Specialist at AppLabs, the world’s largest (software testing http://www.applabs.com) and quality management company. In the article, Sai explains in detail about the emergence of Testing-as-a-Service in the cloud, its key benefits, key drivers that push most enterprises towards TaaS, and the value proposition test-centric vendors will bring in.
Steve Jobs resigned from Apple Wednesday afternoon. Stories will focus on his turning Apple into a billion dollar company and innovations like the Mac, iPhone and iPad. Some will mention his famous temper and desire for control.
I wanted to make sure at least one talks about his commencement speech to Stanford’s 2005 graduating class that featured three stories from Jobs’ past that provide valuable life lessons:
Jobs tells the story of how he quit college but hung around on campus and snuck into classes he thought he’d enjoy. One class, calligraphy, taught him typefaces, spacing and the importance of contrast in design.
Ten years later, he used this knowledge when developing the Macintosh computer. Had Jobs skipped calligraphy class, computers might not have the visually appealing look and feel that they do. Jobs stressed that you can’t connect the dots looking forward but you can looking backward. That’s why you have to trust your instincts.
Love and loss—the second story focused on how Jobs spent his 20’s building Apple into a billion dollar company only to be fired at age 30. At the time he thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to him. In reality it was one of the best because it forced him to reevaluate his situation.
Jobs realized he loved the work he did with Apple and that he could have a fresh start as a beginner all over again. He developed Pixar which led to the Toy Story movie, founded a company called NeXT that was bought by Apple and created the technology at the heart of Apple’s rebirth.
He emphasized that the only way to do great things is to love what you do. Don’t settle.
Time is Limited, Don’t Waste It – Jobs talked about the day he was first diagnosed with cancer in 2005 and how doctors said he only had a couple of months to live.
Shortly thereafter, tests showed that the cancer could be staved off with surgery. The experience gave Jobs a new perspective on life that he shared with the graduates: Your time is limited. Don’t waste it. Don’t ignore your inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Trust your instincts.
Love what you do.
Value your time.
David M. Mastovich, MBA, is the president of Massolutions, a Pittsburgh based Strategic Marketing firm that focuses on improving the bottom line for client companies through creative marketing, selling, messaging and customer experience enhancement.
Google’s controversial move to ban the use pseudonyms on Google Plus has sparked debates and outrage in the online community, especially since a number of reports that came out stated that several accounts registered under fake names have been reinstated.
In a surprising statement earlier this month, Randi Zuckerberg, Marketing Director of Facebook and sister to the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, was quoted saying “I think anonymity on the internet has to go away” echoing statements made about a year ago by Google’s former CEO, Eric Schmidt.
“Completely taking away the right to speak anonymously could expose a lot of people to security risks and possibly to life-threatening situations. Information dissemination should remain on a need-to-know basis, and there are things that other people don’t need to know.”
As illustrated in a report on TNW, two separate Bahraini anti-government activists shared opposing views on anonymity: one choosing to reveal himself for credibility reasons – which came at a price, while the other chose anonymity as his ally for security reasons.
In a report yesterday on The Sydney Morning Herald, Cisco is facing a lawsuit filed by Chinese dissidents who were allegedly captured and tortured for several years by the Chinese government. The group of more than 10 plaintiffs claim that Cisco aided the CCP in developing technology that would help track and censor all internet traffic to and from China, suppressing the right to freedom of speech in favor of an oppressive regime.
“Imagine what oppressive governments could do had they access to everyone’s names online.” says Schramko
UK looter nabbed after taunting Facebook post
In a different story, a looter in Manchester who [is assumed to have] used his real name on Facebook was arrested by police after bragging on Facebook that he couldn’t be caught. A separate story showed a 16-year-old boy brought into custody for allegedly inciting riots on Facebook and several other people were arrested for inciting violence over Twitter.
“Lately, social media channels like Facebook and Twitter have become instrumental in bringing some criminals to justice, though this still does not justify sacrificing the safety of those fighting a good fight.” says Schramko.
In business matters, Schramko says that the absence of anonymity and the fear of legal ramifications may prevent the spread of malicious content over the web by shady competitors. He adds “Consumers, who sometimes may (or may not) have valid reasons to publicly voice their opinions about a brand or service, will in some cases be forced to think twice and choose their words more carefully under their real names – if they are smart that is.”
“I am stressing the words ‘in some cases’ because people do stupid things on the internet with their real names all the time. It gets them fired, or it gets them rejected during job applications. Businesses get ruined by slander more often than we know. Forcing the zero-anonymity policy, however, is not the solution and endangers other individuals needlessly.
“Ultimately, the choice to reveal one’s identity should be a personal one and not a decision forced upon us. For now, if you’ve done something regrettable and irreversible over internet, or your business is suffering from unfair and unwanted media exposure, turning to reputation managment companies like Reputation Management Authority is your best bet in cleaning up the mess.”
Online reputation management is one of the topics frequently covered at TechMedia’s Internet-focused conferences. The next is Digital East in Tysons Corner, VA in late September.
Cathy, a small business owner, spent a lot of money on the front end of a social media campaign for her bakery. She set out to incrementally build her following on Facebook, Twitter and her blog. She slowly built a following with her in-store business as well as her distribution nationally.
She carefully crafted flyers to put in boxes, an email campaign and newsletters. Her followers steadily grew until she hit a plateau. She wondered why it took so much effort to build her following, just for her drop out rate to steadily increase.
What Cathy didn’t realize is while it’s important to build a following on social media sites, it’s just as important to keep that following engaged.
Create an emotional bond
In order to keep your customers engaged, you must create an emotional bond in order to keep their attention. The average customer is exposed to hundreds of messages everyday on their computer, on their phones and on TV. They have become artificially attention deficit disordered, and that doesn’t help your advertising brand. In order to be successful in the social media market you must engage the customer. Cathy can do this by turning to the creative spirit of the company and think outside the box using the following strategies:
1) Create great content. If Cathy posted interesting antidotes about the history of certain desserts or the story behind a certain dessert, it is sure to create more buzz. If you have a consulting business, talk about some of the best ways to move a customer’s business forward in a down economy.
2) Consider adding video. The average consumer responds to video better than written content. If Cathy showed a video of the bakery making their new three layered rainbow colored cake, that is more engaging for her followers than the average post. Rick’s auto mechanic shop could post video on how to look for seals corroding. The options are endless.
3) Add humor to get the customers laughing. If an employee turns the mixer on high accidentally and splatters cake batter all over the place, snap a picture and post it across your social media network. If you are an accountant, you may post the top 10 funniest tax excuses. If you are an author, have some friends act out a funny scene in your book.
4) Look at your competition. Look for the top 10 competitors that you have in social media. Keep an eye on what they are posting and how many followers they have. Then develop your content in a more interesting and out of the box way from what they are doing. Do it faster, more cleaver and better.
5) Look for other companies that are a good fit to team up with. Make an agreement to swap content on each other sites so that you can take advantage of co-marketing. This could be another manufacturer or service that complements your business. Take advantage of the communities that have already been built and cross-pollinate them through your posts.
6) Look to younger employees in your company that may be on the pulse of social media. Put them in charge of reporting to you once a week about what the buzz is in the social media realm. Have them come up with different ideas, promotions or creative posts of interest and test them out in the market.
All of the content-rich aspects of social media will attract, but more importantly keep, your customers watching your brand grow. Standing out in the market place is becoming even more important as competition is always knocking at the social media door. Do it better, be more nimble and you will catch your customers sticking around to see what is next.
Genae Girard is a speaker, author and entrepreneur. She is the founder of www.BeyondtheBoobieTrap.com, an online social media tribe of over 23,000 breast cancer survivors and regularly speaks on the topics of women in leadership and building a tribe. She is also the author of “Off the Rack: Chronicles of a Thirty-Something, Single, Breast Cancer Survivor.” For inquiries, email: info@BeyondtheBoobieTrap.com
To say the least, the past few years haven’t been the best for business. We’ve weathered a brutal recession, and most of us aren’t out of the woods yet. What’s more, it’s not only finances that have taken a hit—morale is suffering, too. In the battle for survival, many organizations have developed perpetually stressful atmospheres in which employees are asked to do more with less—often with little thanks. In many cases, it’s not that employerswant to shaft their people; they simply can’t afford not to cut hours and positions, and theydefinitely don’t have the funds for raises and bonuses.
Fortunately, says Todd Patkin, you don’t need a single dime to make your people happy at work or to show them just how much you care about them and appreciate their efforts.
“People will never admit it, but money is not the thing they desire most from their work. Instead, showing appreciation, respect, and, yes, even love are the three most important ways to make your people feel great about their work,” points out Patkin, author of the new book Finding Happiness: One Man’s Quest to Beat Depression and Anxiety and—Finally—Let the Sunshine In (StepWise Press, 2011, ISBN: 978-0-9658261-9-8, $18.00,www.toddpatkin.com). “And happy, engaged employees are the single best way to impact your company’s bottom line.”
Patkin isn’t just a talking head—he speaks from experience. For nearly two decades, he was instrumental in leading his family’s auto parts business, Autopart International, to new heights until it was finally bought by Advance Auto Parts in 2006 for more money than he ever dreamed possible. During that time, Patkin made it his number-one priority to always put his people and their happiness first.
“As a leader, I quickly found that if my team was content and their work environment was a positive one, they would be more engaged and motivated, and they would truly care about our organization’s future,” he elaborates. “Plus, it was even more rewarding for me to see that my employees were happy—and often even ecstatic—than it was for me that we were making money.”
Patkin adds, “It’s more important now than ever before to show your employees love and appreciation, because we’re in the midst of an economic downturn, so you probably won’t have the money to give big raises and bonuses.”
Furthermore, Patkin adds that if your employees are perpetually stressed out, they’ll be less motivated and more disengaged. And when they’re unhappy, they’ll do only what they must to avoid chastisement…and you’ll lose money in the long term. Also, when the economy turns around, they’ll be more likely to look for a new job elsewhere.
“If there is one thing I would like to tell all leaders at all levels and in all industries, it’s that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain—including an improved bottom line—by making your organization as happy a place to work as possible.”
Read on for five of Patkin’s show-the-love strategies that you can use to say “thanks for a job well done!” to any employee, any time…without spending a cent:
Send “love” notes. Writing and sending a thank-you note is standard practice when you receive a gift. And what is great, thorough work other than a gift from your people to you? When you notice that an individual has done an excellent job or has achieved an important goal, send a specific handwritten (not typed!) note conveying your most sincere appreciation and admiration. This will take only one sheet of paper and five minutes out of your day…but it’ll make a lasting impression on your employee.
“When you’re a leader, you’re busy and often overwhelmed,” Patkin acknowledges. “It’s understandable that you might overlook saying the words ‘thank you,’ much less writing them. Remember, though, that positive reinforcement and sincere gratitude will increase the respect your team has for you and will improve their opinion of your entire organization. Also, it will encourage them to likewise say ‘thank you’ more often to their own subordinates within your company. Think of writing what I call ‘love notes’ as a way to invest in your company’s atmosphere and future!”
Distribute inspiration. Our society tends to think of work as a place of drudgery, obligation, and boredom, as exemplified in the now-iconic movie Office Space. People certainly don’t think of receiving inspiration and rejuvenation between nine and five. According to Patkin, though, buoying your team’s spirits should be one of your daily goals. If you help them to see the world as a sunnier place and to improve their attitudes and ways of thinking about their entire lives, their professional and personal productivity will increase too.
“If you run across a quotation or story that inspires you, don’t keep it to yourself—pass it along to an employee, and perhaps, if appropriate, also mention that the quote or anecdote reminded you of him and his great attitude,” suggests Patkin. “Alternatively, you might consider sending out a quote or lesson of the day. Yes, the idea might sound hokey at first, but I firmly believe that most people vastly underestimate the power of feeding their minds with inspirational and educational material.”
Tell success stories. Even if they brush off praise or downplay their achievements, everybodyloves to be recognized and complimented. When someone in your organization has done something great, tell her that you noticed her outstanding work, and tell the rest of the team, too! Whether correctly or incorrectly, many employees feel that their leaders take them for granted and only point out their mistakes, so make it your daily mission to prove that perception wrong.
“When I was at Autopart International and I saw that one of my people did something noteworthy, I made sure that everyone else knew about it by sending the story about her accomplishment around in an email to the entire chain,” Patkin recalls. “I could literally see the glow on the highlighted employee’s face for weeks, and I also noticed that many of the other team members now worked even harder too in order to earn a write-up themselves. Remember to always praise in public as ‘loudly as possible,’ and conversely, criticize only in private!”
Identify stars. According to Patkin, identifying stars is taking the concept behind telling success stories to the next level. Yes, recognize achievements whenever you see them, but also make celebrating your stars a regular event. Sure, some team members will roll their eyes at “Employee of the Week/Month” programs, but you can rest assured that no one is going to turn down this honor.
“Instead of singling out just one person, you might even consider recognizing multiple individuals every month,” Patkin suggests. “For example, I always wrote about several store managers in our ‘Managers of the Month’ newsletter. Later, I included assistant managers, store supervisors, store salespeople, and our drivers in this letter of champions as well. My profiles for each star would often be a full page in length, lauding both their professional achievements and wonderful personal qualities. The newsletters themselves were often thirty pages in length when finished. But I know many within the team loved to read these personalized recognitions each month, and they motivated lots of the employees to work even harder to earn a spot on the pages themselves.”
Make it a family affair. Whenever possible, engage your employees’ families when praising them. Having a leader validate all the hours each team member spends at work will be remembered far longer than a bonus (really!). Plus, when spouses and kids know what Mom or Dad does at work and are “on board” with it, your employee’s performance will be buoyed by support from the ones he or she loves the most.
“For example, if an employee did something really tremendous, I would call his home, generally trying to get the answering machine and not a person,” Patkin shares. “Then I’d leave a voicemail like this one:
“Hi, (name of spouse and kids), this is Todd Patkin from Autopart International where your husband and dad works. I just want to tell you that your husband and dad is the most incredible, wonderful, amazing person in the whole world. He just broke our Nashua, New Hampshire, store’s all-time sales record. Guys, that is incredible!! So, please, kids, do me a favor. When your dad comes home tonight, everyone run up and give him a huge hug and tell him how proud you are of him and how great he is. And, (name of spouse), I hope you too will give him a big hug and a wonderful kiss to make sure he knows how much you love him and how much he is appreciated for all he’s doing for our company. Thanks, guys.
“And in fact, years later, many employees whose families received these phone calls told me that although they didn’t remember how much their bonus checks were for that year, that extra-special homecoming was still clearly etched in their memories.”
“Trust me, showing people love, appreciation, and respect trump money just about every time when it comes to building long-term motivation and boosting employee morale and loyalty,” concludes Patkin. “When you take the time to make your employees feel valued, they’ll know that you care about them on a more personal level, and they’ll be much happier at work. And in the end, when you’ve achieved a really positive atmosphere at work and the improved bottom line that will surely come from it, you’ll feel amazing too.” Todd Patkin grew up in Needham, Massachusetts. After graduating from Tufts University, he joined the family business and spent the next eighteen years helping to grow it to new heights. After it was purchased by Advance Auto Parts in 2005, he was free to focus on his main passions: philanthropy and giving back to the community, spending time with family and friends, and helping more people learn how to be happy. Todd lives with his wonderful wife, Yadira, their amazing son, Josh, and two great dogs, Tucker and Hunter.
As markets spiral downward – quickly followed by consumer confidence – each CEO must ask hard questions about how to grow his business in this tumultuous economic environment.
Harvard Professor Bill George told CNBC after the S&P Downgrade of U.S. debt that CEOs should seek opportunity in the current crisis. Bill, a Three Ships Media client who was formerly Chairman & CEO of Medtronic, asserted that revenue growth will be harder to find in the U.S. in the years to come. As a result, companies need to initiate productivity improvements now.
I agree wholeheartedly. Lean operational teams with a focus on customers’ top priorities will win over less-focused teams in this tenuous environment. Companies must play tomorrow’s game today in order to satisfy increasing customer demands in an uncertain economic environment.
What is tomorrow’s game when it comes to marketing? It’s faster, more targeted, more data-driven, and less fluffy. Most importantly, it’s accountable. Here’s the playbook:
Tie Everything to Revenue
The great businesses gain market share during downturns. While advertising agencies claim that a recession is the time for aggressive marketing, in reality, a recession is the time for precision marketing. Reevaluate: Who are the buyers? How are they influenced? Why do they purchase?
Typical marketing statistics – from “brand awareness” to “impression count” – are considered noise compared to what matters most in a downturn: Revenue!
Next Action: Model each dollar invested in every advertising channel on a monthly basis and track a Return On Ad Spend metric. It doesn’t matter what data you have. It doesn’t matter whether you use very simple “last touch” models or highly sophisticated econometric models that show cross-channel influence. What matters is that you make high frequency adjustments to increase accountability, based on the best available data.
Reassess Your Salesforce
Customer decision-making, both for B2C and B2B, is evolving as quickly as the media landscape changes. The rise of social networking, the increasing importance of search to all generations, and the overall increase in online information consumption is changing the way every customer researches purchase decisions. Does your salesforce understand this? Have they adopted the way they sell?
Next Action: Use data to answer this question: “If I was starting today from scratch, would I be better off using targeted marketing to generate new prospects or would I rehire my bottom 20% of my sales performers?” Look at the cost-to-value ratio of every single sales rep. How many opportunities are they generating? How much business are they selling? A funnel-level snapshot of each rep should give you the confidence to answer whether their lead production and revenue production stack up against their targets.
De-risk Customer Decision-Making
In 2008 and 2009, liquidity concerns lessened business and consumer confidence. While corporate balance sheets have less leverage today than at the height of the credit crisis, myriad new questions have arisen that make buyers nervous. Government stimulus is unlikely. The mid-term outlook for inflation seems inevitable. Domestic growth prospects are dampened. Amid increased uncertainty, customers value options and want flexibility.
Next Action: Introduce free trials of your products and experiment with money-back guarantees, particularly if you have a high margin product. I recently spent some time with marketing and sales executives at a business unit of a large publicly-traded data company. They are finding it impossible to not offer a free trial of their product as more and more competitors promise customers results with no obligation. Many industries – particularly Software as a Service (SAAS) and other web-enabled service businesses are finding that it’s impossible to acquire the lead if you don’t entice the prospect with something of value.
EarnCustomer Attention
The cheapest (and best) customer is a referral. Krispy Kreme’s incoming Chief Marketing Officer, Dwayne Chambers, vowed to reduce advertising spend at the legendary doughnut-maker as one of his first actions. He’s freeing up resources to deepen the brand’s commitment to using social media and he’s working to harness the employee base and the most loyal customers as a “word of mouth” machine for the brand. Kraft Foods is now the largest publisher of recipes. BMW is a filmmaker. How are you engaging prospective and existing customers?
Next Action: Shift budget from “paid” media to “earned” media. Quality content is difficult to accurately value without extensive enterprise-level web analytics, yet it questionably provides the best cost-to-value returns of any marketing channel. Are you generating leads or customers through “earned” or “owned” media as cheaply as “paid” media? If so, double down.
Create a Frictionless Customer Experience
Steve Krug’s classic on web usability was titled, “Don’t Make Me Think.” Businesses that use technology to improve the customer experience (“Don’t Make Me Work”) will see higher close rates and less churn.
At Three Ships Media, we are using the summer as an opportunity to reinvent our operational model. We’re mapping every service we deliver to our customers in the earned media, paid media, and conversion areas. We’re using technology to automate these processes, which allow them to scale more seamlessly across different functional teams, and we’re also beginning to have conversations with clients about pulling their teams onto this technology platform.
Next Action: Ask how you’re doing, using the Net Promoter Score methodology. More importantly, watch how you’re doing by assessing falloff in your sales funnel and churn with your existing customers. While information technology might seem like the last investment to make in a downturn, it strikes us as the best investment possible – particularly if it’s about improving customer experience and loyalty.
Zach Clayton is CEO of Three Ships Media, aperformance marketing agency focused on increasing sales through online channels for its clients. He is also a Managing Director of the Emerging Media Research Council.
As if businesses didn’t already face a world of trouble, many are now fighting a costly civil war. It’s Boomers versus Millennials in conference room skirmishes everywhere, with Gen X and the so-called Silents firing at the flanks.Four generations now go to work — and war — with each other. The American office has seldom, if ever, seen such age diversity. And while generational differences aren’t trivial, the toll of battle is worse — like Seal Team Six squabbling en route to a raid. Fortunately, there are ways to pull the troops together, as we discovered recently when we ran a session on generations at a corporate retreat. But first, let’s inspect the Furious Four:
The Silents, born between ‘33 and ‘45, survived the Depression and World War II. Loyal and dutiful, the Silents make up about 15 percent of the work force.
Boomers, ’46-’64, 34 percent, the boundary-breaking makers of modern American — as they’d be the first to tell you.
Gen X, ’65-’76, 18 percent, shaped — or perhaps misshaped — by Watergate and the dawn of our Computer-in-Chief culture.
Millennials, ’77-’98, 33 percent, born with joy sticks instead of opposable thumbs and coddled by overzealous parents.
These warring camps lob volleys over technology, lifestyle preferences and career opportunities.
But technology is really the key flash point. Millennials march about with their heads down, hurrying to send another text. Boomers, meantime, shake their heads in disbelief. If values divided the generations during the ‘60s, technology is just as vexing today.
Silents and Boomers are rooted in face-to-face ways of getting things done, with a phone conversation taking a distant second. They go nuclear upon hearing a junior colleague report, “Yes, I talked to the client; I just emailed him.”
Millennials and X-ers, meanwhile, grew up so steeped in technology, it’s their primary tool for solving most problems. They wonder why the grey beards can’t make peace with a future that arrived a long time ago. Hey, half a billion Facebook-users have!
Technological tensions range from the minor — is ‘U’ for ‘you’ OK in a text? — to D-Day confrontations on work-life balance. Born multi-taskers, Millennials tend to manage several screens at work, from spreadsheets to Twitter. And if the Tweeting is sometimes more personal than professional, well, the occasional break is refreshing. After all, they fully expect to keep their work screens open and active after hours.
To older generations, much of this looks like disorder in the ranks — even mutiny. The office is the front lines, and they never stopped to play Tic Tac Toe in the trenches when they were young. If you’re not constantly surveilling your clients, foes and workload, you’re losing.
To many a Boomer boss, Millennials are unfocused slackers. And to many 20-somethings, their seniors are didactic workaholics — with all the seemingly mandatory divorces and estranged kids.
See how easy the conflict escalates? The tensions often come to a head during job reviews, with salaries and promotions at stake. The only common ground many find is an equal degree of alienation.
A truce depends on everyone’s willingness to punch past stereotypes. Research suggests that Boomers, X-ers and Millennials all logged about the same amount of work time in their 20s. “I don’t think this is a generation of slackers,” a Rutgers economist recently told The New York Times. “Today’s young people are very focused on trying to work hard and to get ahead.”
And while they may make use of different skills and tools, Boomers and Millennials share an impulse to do good. Boomers gave us the Age of Aquarius. Millennials are giving us a massive amount of community volunteerism and social entrepreneurship.
Detente depends on making the most of such commonalities and mutual interests. A little more work-life balance, for example, wouldn’t hurt anyone. And everyone wants to grow up to be a rainmaker. In both cases, learning how may depend on that alien army down the hall.
Billy Warden (Gen X) and Greg Behr (Gen Y) combined their generational mojos to create a Raleigh-based marketing firm, GBW Strategies. But they’ll never agree on who made up the best British Invasion: the Clash or Radiohead.
I’m all for creative problem solving and maximizing human resources. However, with those human resources being limited, we need to make sure the right person is doing the right work at the right time.
Far too often, when it comes to Marketing, PR, Communications and Selling, senior leaders, middle managers and entrepreneurs subscribe to the Do It Yourself (DIY) approach and their companies suffer because of it.
Some examples include:
Having “creative” work attempted by in house staff who are not creative professionals.
Failing to augment internal Sales Training & Coaching with outside expertise.
Thinking that writing and sending a press release is doing PR.
Lacking the confidence to have others involved in developing strategic goals and initiatives.
Ignoring market research by thinking they already know what they need to know.
It seems decision makers often forget there’s a price for their time and that of their team members.
Many also either fail to realize or admit that the end result is often inferior due to the lack of experience and expertise of the in house DIY’er.
Your analysis has to include more than just the cost side. Consider the opportunity cost of lost time spent working in areas you or your team members lack experience in and probably struggle to complete.
You also have to have the confidence to realize that utilizing a person or company with more experience and expertise in a particular area is not a sign of weakness on your part. The opposite is true. If you work with and guide others both inside and outside the organization, you are that much stronger as a leader.
Outcomes will typically be better and the actual cost won’t be what you might have originally thought after accounting for the opportunity cost of time spent by you and others on your team.
The DIY approach can work in certain instances. But prior to going that route, make sure you have done a true analysis of the situation and be confident enough to make the right call.
Editor’s Note: We still see at lot of poorly written, ill-constructed and almost counter-productive news releases from DIYers daily at the TechJournal. Some appear to be written by non-English speakers or translation programs. Particularly at start-ups, we also frequently encounter entrepreneurs who have not refined their story for public consumption.
Delivering high quality applications has become imperative for enterprises if they have to win over competition and ensure success for their applications.
By Billy Warden & Greg Behr
