Tannerisms on Tuesday

Performance is Job 1

2012-01-31T08:25:00.000-08:00

In all the discussions around CRM, the fancy technology, the predictive analytics, it’s important to keep in mind that the product still has to do its job. As my sister says, “I may not know **** from Shinola about CRM but—when something works as well as or better than expected, I will be a loyal customer.” I’ll let her take over and talk about some of her new purchases. “ A couple of things immediately come to mind—my new Dyson vacuum cleaner (refurbished and purchased for less than half the original price from Overstock.com) and Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner with Lime and Rust Remover. In the case of the vacuum cleaner, I did the test with my old, worn-out upright vs. the Dyson and the amount of dust the Dyson picked up from a rug AFTER I had first vacuumed it with the old vacuum was astonishing (and quite frankly disheartening, too, because of realizing how much dust I had been living with). With all the dirt brought in by the dogs, I have actually quit sweeping first and then vacuuming because all sweeping does is throw the dust into the air to land on every horizontal surface in the house so cleaning becomes dust, sweep, dust again, then vacuum. Seems to make more sense to dust and then vacuum.

As for the Lysol, I had a stain in my master bath shower courtesy of Boss (ed. note: one of her dogs) trying to dig to China (ed. note: a country on the other side of the world) after I would shower. No amount of scrubbing was successful in removing it. Squirted some of the Lysol on there and wiped it away after a few minutes—no more stain. The minty-fresh scent it leaves behind is just a bonus since I cannot stand the smell of bleach or Pinesol. This is the first lime and rust remover I have used that actually worked on hard water stains, too. My toilet bowls look brand new after I use it.

Obviously I won’t be buying another vacuum cleaner any time soon, but I WILL recommend Dyson to anyone who mentions needing a new vacuum. As long as Lysol doesn’t mess with the formula on this particular toilet bowl cleaner, they’ve got me for life.“

I’ve frequently extolled the virtues of doing business with Discount Tire. When you have, as we have had, 5 vehicles in the family at a given time, buying tires can be an expensive proposition. When those tires are driving on and off country roads, flats and slow leaks are a fairly common occurrence. Take your tire to Discount Tire and they fix it – for free. And they don’t try to sell you a new serpentine belt or master cylinder fluid box. When you do need a tire, they tell you, and they have a very simple and transparent selling process.

Twice in the past six months, I’ve been out of town and discovered a slow leak. Found a Discount Tire, had it fixed within minutes at no charge, and was on my way. Yesterday, though, surprised me. My son took his car in to have a slow leak fixed and they discovered not one, but two nails. They fixed them both, for free, even though we didn’t buy the tires there. This experience surprised me for two reasons. First, I didn’t know we purchased tires anywhere else but I guess we did as they, and we, don’t have a record of the transaction and after 108,000 miles, those aren’t original equipment tires. Second, free? Really? Wow.

I’m worried that someday they may decide that this free stuff isn’t worth it. It absolutely is. Their business model is so good, their execution so good (as I’ve observed by visiting 4 stores in 3 cities), and their customer base so strong that I hope they keep it going.

In fact, that brings to mind another issue. Manufacturers “fixing” things that ain’t broke. As my sister says, “It happens all the time with dog food—big corporation buys out small dog food manufacturer with loyal following and decides they need to increase the customer base by reducing the cost and thus introduce lower cost (and lower quality) ingredients into the food. Within a short period of time, they lose the loyal customers who start seeing a detrimental effect in their dogs. Have they really improved their bottom line? Dog people will gladly spend a few dollars more (or more) for quality dog food that works for their dogs. Those brands they buy out have loyal customers for a reason. I only pray that Diamond, who makes Taste of the Wild, doesn’t get bought out by Iams or Hill.”

Well, yeah, they probably have improved the bottom line but at the expense of the original set of customers. The good news is that there is always an entrepreneur ready to step into the breach.

Random Rants

Can Apple win the textbook market?

2012-01-24T03:57:00.000-08:00

Apple launched its digital textbook app, iBooks2, last week to typical Apple fanfare at the Guggenheim Museum. Apple, anxious to maintain its “change the world” position in the market, will now try to change textbooks. Early numbers point to success, with over 90,000 dowloads and 350,000 book sales in the first three days.

For K-12, the primary market Apple seems to address, costs are reasonable for a $75 unit used for at least 5 years. But Apple’s model is to charge $15 per student. Hmmm, that is no cost benefit price-wise at all, and an absolute loss if it is a book that gets used twice year (one class per semester).

Textbooks need changing. Given that their new book platform offers nothing over existing rivals and, like all of Apple’s products, utilizes a closed platform, I sincerely doubt that we’ll see the same kind of change in this market that Apple has had in others unless the Jobs Foundation buys everyone’s books. Yes, the Apple brings greater interactivity. So does Nook, and a host of others.

Change will come, but it won't be because of Apple. The kind of interactivity needed, though, is a lot more than a few YouTube videos and weblinks, to paraphrase publishing exec Jeff Shelstead. While Apple may not realize how different textbook publishing is from music publishing, they are faced with significant challenges.

From a strategy perspective, what Apple is trying to do is to leverage their market muscle in a new market. Sometimes this works, sometimes not.

Further, the best technology does not always win. Sony failed to leverage its Betamax video recording technology into market leadership, even though the technology was superior to VHS. Similarly, Sony failed to create any dominance with Blu-ray technology even though it was first to market.

Apple has been guilty in the past of Sony-like arrogance that inhibits winning the market. “Ours is so good, we can charge significant premiums for it. And because it is technologically superior, we can close the platform and require content providers to use only our licensed technology.” Ok, so this time they aren't charging a significant premium, but they did close the platform.

Yes, iPhones did dominate for a brief period with a closed platform. So did iPods. In the long run, however, dominance has proven to be very brief. And they are struggling to come up with the next big thing.

From Apple’s perspective, their iBooks2 is a play similar to the iPhone. Complex content developed by others distributed for free or cheap made the iPhone very attractive. The question that only the market will answer is whether authors and publishers will be willing to produce only for Apple’s format. Kindle faces the same issue and so far, the answer is mostly no in the textbook market. Why? Because it takes more work to develop a good textbook than a novel, and you can't make money at Kindle, or iBooks, prices.

Can Apple sell enough hardware fast enough to entice publishers to adopt the Apple format? There's no question in my mind that they can. It's already out there, and all we're talking about is an app. That makes Apple far more attractive than Kindle, Nook, or the other readers.

But what happens when faculty want to change the order of chapters? Use only a portion of the text? Combine portions of two or three books into one? Open source texts, such as provided by one of my publishers (Flat World Knowledge) already allow both of those options, as well as provide faculty with the option of inserting their own material. That's what faculty want, and if publishers like Flat World create the kind of interactivity that students want, books will be sold.

Will that kind of flexibility rule the day? I think so, at the college level but perhaps not at the K-12. There may be more room for something like iBooks 2 at K-12, but until Apple opens the platform and becomes open source, I think college will be different. And they've got to figure out a pricing model that makes sense.

There’s no doubt in my mind that we will see children with some form of digital platform for content delivery. But we’ll all be better off if it is an open platform. My prediction is that there will be a few schools lauded for landing big grants that allow for digital delivery. The real plus there is that there will be kids who will have access to the internet and all of its digital content, not just the iBooks. But without those big grants, it will simply be out of reach for most.

Random Rants:
Ally Bank continues to score big with its commercials comparing its service to the impersonal service of other major banks. Their live agent commercial does a great job of building on the scripts commercial covered earlier.

I also like Allstate’s Mayhem commercials. Their idea of integrating the Mayhem character (the guy in the suit that causes trouble) into commercials with their spokesperson ties both commercials together very well. Allstate is very specific about who they are and what they offer. State Farm should take note.

What is a Passat? Yeah, I know, it is a Volkswagen but if you didn’t know that, would you know what a Passat is? There’s no clue from their commercials. Ok, I like the front yard with all of the decorations in it because he cleaned out the garage but it doesn’t really tell me anything about the car. With a brand name that sounds like an illegal act committed by a drunk in public, I’d expect VW to do better in its commercials.

2012-01-17T04:40:00.000-08:00

Last semester, I guest-taught a Principles of Marketing class, introducing those students to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). As I shared with them, I began teaching CRM over ten years ago when it was something brand new, a combination of statistics, technology, and marketing. We even had an MBA in CRM in those heady early days. Companies would hire these students knowing they needed CRM but not really knowing what it was. I remember one student came back from internship describing how the CEO would pound the conference room table, exclaiming “That’s CRM!” yet be totally wrong.

The experience reminds me of when I interned at Rockwell-Collins. We were the company that invented the machine that puts you on hold when you call the airlines or customer service. If you said, “We sell automatic call distribution systems,” people looked at you funny. Similarly, if you said, “I teach (or do) CRM,” people looked at you funny and asked what it was.

Now, of course, no one in marketing asks what CRM is. But still, few of my students who study CRM will work for someone who knows more about it than they do.

The worst offenders are sports teams. If you ask about their CRM, they’ll reply with the brand of software they use. Unfortunately, all too often, it’s software that simply manages their ticket inventory and has an email function.

One student asked why sports teams are so far behind the curve. One reason is that they don’t need fancy marketing stuff because their buyers are fans. Unless, of course, the team is in the bottom half of the league. Then, though, what the team needs is salespeople, not CRM. The problem, of course, is that by the time you try to make it up with salespeople, it is too late.

CRM is both a philosophy and a strategy of creating and growing the right relationship with the customer in order to optimize customer lifetime value. In order to create and grow the right relationship, you have to provide the right experience.

In sports, too many think it is all about winning. Win and people come. Lose and they stay home. CRM, then, is just more overhead.

But effective CRM should do two things for sports teams. First, it should add fans when teams are not as strong on the field or the court, and second, it should add revenue per fan.

Ok, no fancy marketing will make up for lackluster effort. We attended a Stars game last year and the team gave such a poor effort that we won’t go back for a while. No amount of hot babes dancing at one end of the arena or scraping ice by the net will make up for what was truly the epitome of lackluster play. Nor could CRM - CRM will never make up for poor product.

On the other hand, the Mavs performance against the lowly Milwaukee Bucks was so good the other night that I’m going back. And taking the family. Far from the usual wait until the last five minutes before trying, the Mavs came out of the gate at full speed, trying to put this one away early. And when the subs came in for the fourth quarter, they didn’t let up. Maybe this compressed season makes the starters want to get so far ahead; they can take the rest of the game off. But here’s the sad thing – we had a great time and are coming back, but the Mavs don’t know it. And that’s another challenge to CRM in sports – how to overcome the anonymity of the fan.

Selling sports is either the easiest job in the world or the hardest, depending on the team. But ranking right near there is explaining what CRM is to a team exec. Either they get it (like Colin Faulkner, VP of the Cubs) or they don’t (that list is too long). So when people ask what I teach, I say “Sales and marketing.” At least that doesn’t require a long explanation.

Random Rants
I love the Ally Bank commercial where people are reading customer service scripts. I don’t know whether these are actors or real people, but they are the most real looking people on any commercial. And their reactions to statements such as, “I’m sorry, that department is closed,” looks pretty genuine.

On the other hand, Bank of America continues to underwhelm. After 7 months of trying to close on the sale of house (and after kicking a tenant out of the house the week before Christmas at Bank of America’s command), the owner was told by the bank that they’d have to start the process over. Why? Because the person handling the transaction had left the company and a new one had taken his place. It’s no wonder we had the mortgage crisis with that kind of idiocy.

People who haven’t had cats misunderstand them. At least, our cats are not the totally independent types cats are made out to be. I have one that will follow me like a dog when I take a walk through the woods of our farm. But they are the most brand loyal animals on the planet. Get the wrong cat food and they simply refuse to eat. I don’t know what my cats are eating, but I know it isn’t the HEB brand of cat food I bought Sunday. I’m sorry, Daisy, I’ll go back and get Meow Mix, and give the other stuff to some feral cats somewhere.

Am I the only one who started experiencing lots of trouble with Internet Explorer when I downloaded Google Chrome? I've mentioned this to a few people, and others claim the same experience. Hmmm....

Aaron, Aaron, Aaron - give it up. If State Farm wants your "my belly is bloated" TD dance, let them have it. The commercials are as bad as the dance. You are the best QB on the planet - please go on Dancing with the Stars and learn a new move.

Upcoming Events
Undercover Boss will feature Waco’s own Dina Dwyer-Owens, CEO of the Dwyer Group, on January 22nd. I’m going to a screening party this evening, but sight unseen I expect it will be an interesting show. She is known for extolling values as the foundation for excellence in her company. Are they living up to that in the field?

Deeper, Baby, Deeper! (Discounts)

2012-01-10T05:25:00.000-08:00

Another Christmas has come and gone, except for the bills. It was wonderful having all of the kids together, and knowing that there are likely to be few Christmases where the kids will all be home made this one more special. But they’ve dispersed to their homes and it’s back to the regular schedule of work and school.

Early indications are that this was a good Christmas season for retailers. But good varies depending on which retailer, particularly as more retail moved online. Best Buy, for example, had a good Black Friday but overall, consumer electronics sales were down. Also, traditional stores with a strong online presence were more likely to do well than those, like Barnes & Noble, that haven’t been able to get buyers to migrate online. What was odd was that pre-Christmas returns were up, meaning these were not just exchanges but returned gifts that were never given.

Why would buyers return gifts ungiven? Some speculate that shoppers, lured by deep discounts, made purchases on other items on impulse, then decided to return those other items. Perhaps they bought Suzy too many presents, perhaps they were struck with buyer’s remorse and realized Uncle Henry would never wear that argyle sweater, or perhaps they decided eating was also a good thing and they needed the money.

We may never really know why so much was returned. The “lured by deep discounts” and then acting on regretted impulse hypothesis, though, seems to hold up under scrutiny, as many of the returns were part of a ticket that included a deep discount item.

The never-ending spiral to have the most, be the most, and so forth has stores now doing door-buster sales at midnight Thanksgiving night. I predict that next year, someone will have their door-buster Black Friday sale on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Oh wait, a few online retailers already did.

The backlash to this retailing craziness is not that buyers want retailers to at least let Labor Day pass before they put up the Christmas decorations. Rather, it is that buyers have been trained to only value huge discounts. Discounts of ten, fifteen, even twenty percent off no longer bring in the buyers. Even if you don’t take part in the Wal-Mart midnight craziness, you see the sale prices and you know that this measly 25% off isn’t that big a deal. We become de-sensitized to discounts and it takes about six months for this lack of sensitivity to wear off.

Just as an experiment, monitor your own reactions to Sunday circulars with discounts. I know, right now it is all weight-loss ads as marketers try to make hay out of New Year resolutions (where are the methadone and cigarette patch ads?). Wait until Presidents' Day sales (Why don't we see MLK sales?) and you'll start to see discounts again. Metnally keep track of what you think is a good deal and see if you think six months is about right. Or are we forever now (thanks to LivingSocial and Groupon) only going to wait for 50% off?

Random Rants
Check this blog out: http://theatticbirds.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/11-of-17-not-bad-for-my-first-attempt-at-vintage-gift-shopping/. Here you can see how my daughter took care of Christmas on a grad student budget and in a meaningful way. Her next step is to convert this fashion blog into a fashion retailer, so watch for her progress here.

American Airlines has been released from their lease of ATR planes. Thank you bankruptcy judge! These prop-driven planes were loud, unreliable, a pain to board, etc. Now they’ve been replaced with ERJs, or small jets. These jets carry fewer passengers, which means that if AA wants to go back to the same number of passengers out of Waco, they have to add 1 flight. I’m all for that! Now we just have to get people flying out of Waco again.

Creative and smart guy Dave Schrader just launched another webisode of Teradata's BSI. This interesting series does a great job of explaining through case study (think CSI) how data gets used for making better business decisions. This particular episode illustrates the use of data (in this case, dropped call data for a mobile telephone company) to turn around defection problems. Watch it here: http://youtu.be/4WJR_Z3exw4. (In the interest of full disclosure, I just bought Teradata stock.)

Well, wasn't that just a swell game last night (yawn). I wanted a 9-6 Alabama win and really mess up the polls. Frankly, last night's game was just about that exciting. Thank you, Blackmailing College Sports (BCS) for bringing us another national (ahem) champion.

Upcoming Events
National Retail Federation (NRF) show is in a week – and I’ll be there. Well, not really, but Teradata will be releasing my latest white paper, Decoding Multi-Channel Profits, at the show. This white paper is a follow-up to the executive summary on Cabela’s multi-channel strategies released at the NRF a year ago.

I’ll be speaking on multi-channel retailing and dynamic strategy at RIS, or Retailers’ Information Systems. This show is in Orlando and I’m up on Friday, April 13. I hope that’s not an omen.

The New Social for 2012

2012-01-03T06:09:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I get several publications from M/A/R/C Research, the marketing research company with the annoying name to type. But I'm not complaining, as I really appreciate the stuff they send - it's a very helpful (to a marketing prof and consultant) and interesting.

One pub is Social Networking InView, a compilation of research findings on social media. The most recent issue had a number of interesting findings.

For example, recent brain research found that heavy users of Facebook are more likely to have larger sections of the brain that govern social interaction. So now I can blame my own personal disinterest in Facebook on genetics. I'm not sure that's comforting, but I am going to interpret this to NOT mean that I'm disinterested in people!

But there's a new Facebook in town, one that actually looks like it might appeal. Called Path, you are limited to 150 friends, and it is designed for those who want to interact only with real friends. In the first 3 weeks of their 2.0 version, they had nearly 2 million downloads, a pretty awesome adoption rate. Whether that will hold and mean real usage, I don't know. But this also has a big potential impact on marketers who are using Facebook heavily for promotion. We already know from research that people go to FB to socialize, not interact with marketers, so how easy will it be to reach those who aren't there?

This finding is no suprise: 80% of burglars surveyed in the UK said they used social media to determine where to break in. If you use Foursquare, or post your location on FB, you are making your home a target for thieves.

Do you like Groupon? Over 500 versions of daily deal sites were created - and 170 shut down or acquired last year. Yup, the shakeout is happening, and I expect we'll end up with only a few, probably Groupon and LivingSocial.

And the business side gets more interesting as FB, Groupon, and others plan public stock offerings (IPOs). What I find interesting about this phenomenon are several things. First, it will make their financials public, which means a lot of interesting info will have to be divulged, like real user rates. Second, it means a lot of executive attention will be focused on Wall Street, and given the history of the people running these organizations, I'm not sure they have the ability to do that and manage the business. Third, expectations will be ridiculous, setting the stage for another Krispy Kreme, Worldcom, Satyam, book-diddling scandal. If you can get in on the IPO, you may be able to make a lot of money but I don't see these as good long term deals.

Finally, FB is responsible for $12.9 billion in annual wages and benefits. No, that's not what they pay - that's what people earn who work on stuff that goes on FB, stuff like company sites, games, and so forth. One could argue that FB has created more jobs (182,000) than anything our politicians have done.

Random Rants:Best story from the Alama Bowl, the game between Baylor and the Washington Huskies (and it's true). A woman gets on the elevator with her hair dyed blueish-purple. "Oh, you're a Husky!" says another woman. "Madam, I may not be petite, but I am not a husky!"

Robinson Hams billboard advertises "Real Beef Jerky". Why do they advertise it in quotes? Is it because their jerky is really something else and they are quoting someone who said, "It's just like real beef jerky"? Or maybe they said, "It's nothing like real beef jerky" but the store edited it? And why does a ham store only advertise beef jerky?

Ok, I saw another one of those billboards with the big message E. Coli. In small print, the advertiser is Terminex, the pest control people. Perhaps they now offer a service where they will come spread E. Coli. Maybe that is Burger King's hope for beating McDonald's - hire Terminex for an E. Coli infection.

The Last of 2011!

2011-12-20T05:30:00.001-08:00

This will be my last post for 2011, a bit of a look ahead and contemplation on the year just about finished.

Predictions:
1. IBM will make a major acquisition. One rumor is it will be SAP, but I think it has to be someone of that ilk if IBM is really going to fulfill its promise on making a smarter planet. IBM has been touted as a company able to remake itself multiple times in order to change with the times. But if you ask, most people can't tell you what they sell or what they do. SAP would give them an identity. Isn't it odd that we have to suggest that IBM needs an identity?
2. Marketing gurus keep predicting mobile marketing will get hot. But in 2011, it was social that really sizzled. I think people will continue to predict mobile will get hot and it still won't. Too many are still trying to figure out social, daily deals, and the like.
3. The NBA lockout will end. Oh, it did? Are you sure? Wait, they don't really play until the 4th quarter anyway, and even then, only in the play-offs, so how can you tell?
4. Open-source textbooks will be adopted at the major institutions. Let me admit that I'm a Flat World Knowledge (an open-source publisher) shareholder and author, but I do think this will be the year that you'll see explosive growth in open source texts. We've already seen incredible adoption rates at community colleges, regional schools, and the like, but 2012 will be the year that adoption becomes widespread. Even so, the proportion of students who read textbooks is nearing 50% in business schools and I also think that trend will continue. It won't get south of the 50% mark overall until 2013, but that's where we're headed.
5. The BCS will add 2 more bowl games and still not have a play-off.
6. 2012 will be the year for dynamic strategy. Many have said that CRM is about micro-segmentation, the notion that it is 1:1 marketing. But that isn't efficient and really hasn't been widely put into practice. This year, though, will be the year when strategy becomes segmentation-driven and marketers will rush to understand how to segment based on behaviors and behavioral preferences, such as by understanding what it is that buyers really want when browsing a website and who will purchase there and who will go to the store.

Reflections
1. 2011 was the year we gave customers too much credit for being empowered. Everyone (me included) was writing that customers had greater power than ever through social media and we should kowtow to even the whiniest little snot-nose customer who tweeted that her hot dog was cold. Bah and humbug. While we as consumers do consider others' ratings of a store when we shop online, one tweeter isn't going to have much effect. United Breaks Guitars is a great case in point. Lots of viewers, no effect on United. You'll notice no prediction on this because I think it will take marketers a while to figure out that there really isn't much damage done by most verbal terrorism.
2. 2011 was the year of customer service. Listen, if you think how you do you're job may determine whether you have a job, you'll do something about it. And everyone understood this year that no job was safe. So I think many people approached it a bit differently. Was it harder to find disinterested service? I think so. Oh, I know, it was still there. But apathy spells unemployment and jobs are too scarce to remain apathetic.
3. Advertisers were sold a bill of goods and no more. They bought into the old saw that advertising is about brand-building, not about creating sales, and did so in a big way. So 2011 was the year of nonsense advertising. No call to action. No real brand promise. Just stupid storylines and stupid people. Yes, I want to be like that idiot who ate the kid's goldfish! NOT. Memorable advertising for forgotten brands.
4. Don't even get me started on college sports.

Random Rants:
"Did you find everything 'all right?'" Yes, it was just all right, but thanks for asking. I get the funniest looks when I respond to the store clerks that way. How else should you respond to that?

In Oklahoma, there are giant billboards that say "METH". That's pretty much all you see. I can't tell if they are trying to drum up demand in order to keep folks employed in the meth labs or what.

Unfortunate billboard location: at a highway intersection (again in Oklahoma, go figure) with a bunch of fast food joints is a billboard with a giant "E Coli" headline.

In California, a small Audi billboard says, "Your move, BMW." So a local BMW dealer bought the bigger billboard next to it and says, "Checkmate."

Merry Christmas to all and to all, a wonderful New Year!

It's Bowl Time and Nobody's Happy!

2011-12-13T03:51:00.003-08:00

If you saw any ESPN when bowl games were announced, you know that other than Alabama and LSU, everyone has reason to gripe. Frankly, I don’t consider a rematch much of a championship game and probably won’t watch it – I’d much rather see Oklahoma State play LSU. We already know LSU can beat Alabama. UConn beat Stanford last year 3 out of 4, Baylor beat Texas A&M 3 out of 4, but those 4th games were semi-finals and I don’t think the best team won. But at least we had a play-off system and Stanford and Texas A&M both got what they earned.

If you saw Kirk Herbstreit, college football guru, you know he went on a rant about how bowl games are supposed to be a reward for players after a good season. Now, he claims, bowl games are about the money! Really? Now?

Newsflash, Mr. H. – they were always about the money. I’ve heard Baylor people whining that we have to play Washington – why can’t we play someone better than that? Who cares? It’s a party in San Antonio wrapped around a game that doesn’t matter with opponents who will never be rivals. As long as Baylor sells its mandatory 12,000 tickets and brings another 30,000 fans, we’ll get invited back.

You know the Alamo Bowl people have to be really happy that RG3 won the Heisman. That alone will bring a million viewers to the TV when we play. And to everyone who said Baylor can’t compete in the Big XII, get out the Worcestershire sauce and eat those words.

So my question is, will any of this matter to the university? The commonly held belief is that college athletics benefit the university by bringing positive publicity and that generates donations and students. TCU has enjoyed annual growth in student population and giving, as well as improving student quality over the past 5 years as they’ve grown the stature of their football team. They would argue that football has had a positive impact. Penn State, as I mentioned before, was built by Joe Paterno and football.

But will Baylor benefit?

Baylor has the lowest alumni giving rate, at 14%, of any Big 12 school and of any Division I school in Texas. Yet, that rate is up from 9% when the Big 12 started. Hard to argue that football led to any increase in giving, especially since football sucked until RG3 got here. Enrollment is up over 15,000 and so is student quality, and we really don’t have room for more at the present. Those trends started 10 years ago, long before Briles came to coach.

Sports CRM gurus believe a winning team yields greater revenue, and of course it does. More people will go to a game, at least. (I’m still amazed that we didn’t sell out a single game this season.) I’m sure that Baylor apparel sales are higher, at least somewhere (the ladies who work at the on-campus bookstore say this Christmas is no better than any).

How long do great things have to happen in college sports before we see a halo effect; that is, before we see giving increase to academic programs and academic buildings? Yes, we’ll build a new stadium, but can we also build a new business school? Can we also increase our scholarships so that Baylor can be affordable? If we can’t do that, then we really have to ask if it is worth it.

Baylor fans, it’s up to you.

Random Rants:
I flew American shortly after they announced their bankruptcy. I’d say the mood among the employees was somber, the service more sincere. I just don’t see how they can compete, though, unless they restructure their overhead.

I love the smartphone commercial where the boss gives each employee a new phone and tells them to use the useless app to their heart’s content. Play games, listen to Pandora, work virtually, etc. But I bet when you watch that commercial, you think it’s an iPhone commercial. If you do, that’s an example of ASC Ehrenberg’s Double Jeopardy effect, where the dominant brand gets credit for all good advertising.

It's Bowl Time and Nobody

2011-12-13T03:51:00.001-08:00

Sales & Social Impact

2011-12-06T04:09:00.000-08:00

It’s dark, very dark, outside. Rain has been slowly falling for nearly three days, never much to make you wet but the constant drizzle of three days has made for deep puddles. It’s the kind of rain where, if it wasn’t so cold, you’d send the kids out to play in it, especially since they’ve seen so little rain this year.

Water is something we usually take for granted. Even in Texas, where annual restrictions on watering the lawn really don’t make us think about curtailing our showers, at least not until the drought this year.

On our farm, we had to pull water from the well to water the horses because the pond dried up. Along came a 6 inch rain, the only real rain from April through November, and the pond filled back up. But at our ranch only 40 miles away, no such rain has fallen. From 9 ponds, we’re down to 1. Maybe this rain will change that.

But at no time has Waco's drinking water been threatened. Waco has plenty of water, with a reservoir that can handle growth for decades to come.

In Nicaragua, the challenge isn’t getting water – it’s getting clean water. Infant mortality due to water-borne disease is the leading cause of death. In fact, every few seconds, a child dies somewhere in our world due simply to a lack of clean water.

This semester, I met two gentlemen who are trying to change that. Bob Nepper and Bill Stevenson, 81 and 86 years old, are both retired 3M engineers who haven’t stopped thinking. They invented a solar water pasteurizer that can make water safe to drink. Their problem is that they are engineers and they just couldn’t figure out how to get this technology into the hands of those who need it most.

Enter 3M, their former employer. This company sponsors a program, Sales for Social Impact (SSI), where they fund small grants so that people like me can teach college students how to create business plans with social objectives. My SSI class, along with classes at 5 other universities, developed business plans for the solar water pasteurizer (4 other universities worked on other issues). Thanks to the 3M grant and some additional fundraising, we were able to take 11 of our students to Nicaragua to do market research, from which 4 very different business plans emerged, any of which could work.

Each school then sent their top student group to 3M’s headquarters in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where they presented their plans. Three of my students got to meet Bill and Bob, along with 130+ 3M executives who took a full day out to hear these plans presented. Why would these incredibly busy executives take a full day during a time when they are trying to wrap up one year and get ready for the next?

Because these students not only energized all of us with their passion for social enterprise, they also wowed us with incredible creativity. They taught us what has worked, what has failed, and what will work in solving problems like clean water. Technology is part of the solution, but without a solid business plan that meets all of the needs of a market, we run the risk of creating new problems, some worse than the original challenge.

For example, let’s just give mosquito nets to prevent malaria. Except the recipients used the nets to fish, and they over-fished the waters, allowing a snail to over-populate the waters. This snail carried a disease. So now the people have both malaria and the snail-borne disease.

Candace Mailand, the 3M executive who sponsored and hosted us, and Mike Martinez, another 3M executive who co-sponsors the program, recognize the recruiting power of this event. The company has created incredible positive brand power on campuses where they can attract the best and brightest sales talent. But while recruiting may be the business justification, it’s clearly the value of solutions to real problems that gets everyone so jazzed.

Working with energetic, gifted, and passionate young people is inspiring. So is working with guys like Bob and Bill. Thanks, Candace and 3M, for making this happen.

In January, a group of students and I will begin trying to implement the plan the students created. The investment is $20,000, with breakeven on operating costs in 18 months and payback of investment in 36. In that 36 month period, Living Water International, our partner in Nicaragua, can provide clean water to approximately 6000 to 7000 households that would not have otherwise been reached. Along the way, new jobs will have been created for about 400 people. I’ll keep you posted.

Random Rants:
Domino’s continues its “Yes We Did” campaign with the claim that "America is under-cheesed." I’m not sure the execution of this ad matches the creativity and quality of the others. Yet the strategy they’ve taken of improving one product at a time, starting with the core of their product line, is brilliant. If they could successfully get you to try and like the pizza, now they can expand that trial to other products.

In reflecting on last week’s post about Penn State’s brand demise and Joe Paterno’s fall from grace, I wondered if there was anything JoPa could do about it. Is the best thing he could do for Penn State now is a full disclosure and apology? Or is it best to keep his mouth shut and avoid any legal consequences, if possible?

How to Take Down a Brand

2011-11-29T04:31:00.000-08:00

When Penn State loses a football game, sales of merchandise with the university logo plummet 20%, according to the owner of McLanahan’s, the largest such off-campus retailer in State College, PA. Since the sex abuse scandal broke, sales are down 40%. Unlike sales pegged to a win or a loss, I think these sales will take a long time to return – if ever.

Are logoed merchandise sales a good barometer of a university’s brand’s value? Certainly, they are an indicator of how the Penn State community is reacting to the news. More likely, sales are also a leading indicator of what will happen should Penn State not work its way out of this - that is, if Penn State cannot separate itself from the people involved and rebuild its image.

What about Syracuse, who faces a similar scandal? Likely not much effect.

History tells us that most major scandals involving athletics do not tarnish the university much. The most extreme is The University of Miami, which seems to relish a reputation of law-breaking football players. If the NCAA needed a face for “lack of institutional control,” it would be the orange and green Hurricane. Scandal after scandal just doesn't seem to stick and most are minor in the sense that the university itself is not involved. My problem with them and the NCAA, though, is that they seem to do so little to prevent problems.

But take Baylor’s men’s basketball program that, ten years ago, faced a horrible situation in which one player murdered another, and the coach tried to cover up the circumstances that led to the murder.

Why didn’t that scandal damage the Baylor brand in a similar way?

First, Baylor's incident was isolated to the basketball program. Like Syracuse, the university acted fairly quickly on its own, firing the coach. The athletic director also took responsibility for failing to monitor the coach closely (unfairly in my opinion) and resigned. These actions localized the problem to a rogue few who were quickly separated from the university at large. At Penn State, it appears that awareness of the abuse had reached the president’s office and that proper steps were not taken to report the incidents to the law. Rather, the university’s hand has been forced by publicity and actions taken only because they had to do something, not because integrity demanded it. Thus, the whole university became tarnished because of the breadth and depth of apparent involvement.

Second, like Syracuse, basketball was not central to Baylor’s university’s identity. Penn State has been built by football and by Joe Paterno. The library is named for him because he was the lead donor. There is a Paterno endowed chair. Football and JoePa (pronounced by Penn Staters as one word) are more central to Penn State’s identity than any program, school, or other characteristic.

Third, cover-up of the scandal, since first brought to Paterno’s attention (at least according to one assistant), strikes at the very heart of what the brand identity is. For Paterno to have known, as has been indicated by an assistant, and not to have acted appropriately has led to questions as to whether the integrity, a central component of the brand, really meant anything. Not only did this scandal strike at the heart of the university, it broke a key component of the brand. These three factors: a failure to act consistently with the brand once the scandal broke, the centrality of the agents involved, and the centrality of the violated dimension; combine to create the perfect storm for Penn State's image.

On Ira Glass’ NPR show This American Life Sunday evening, he noted that, even before the scandal, donors were nervous about Penn State post-Paterno. Would the university be able to maintain a high standard of integrity and performance? Now it seems as if the university’s actions were indefensible, and that will have a lasting effect on the Penn State brand.

Random Rants:
One thing I dislike about this time of year is the materialistic avarice ascribed to women by jewelry stores. Men, if you want women to love you, you have to buy them diamonds. Ok, I’ll admit to showering my bride with as many jewels as I can, simply because I don’t possess the cleverness to come up with something else. But really, she’s stuck with me the other 364 days and those diamonds will only glow so long. Half a kudo to Zales; at least their ad this year is not quite so blatant.

New York Life continues its campaign of life insurance as a gift. It must be working to their satisfaction, as they continue the campaign. Note that positioning insurance as a gift makes it an option, whereas most insurance companies seem to position life insurance as a necessity, just something responsible adults do.

My buddy and colleague, Jim Roberts, is enjoying his more than 15 minutes of fame. As author of the just released book, Shiny Objects: Why we spend money we don't have on happiness we can't buy, he is getting significant press attention. Last week, he appeared on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show (Jim's on a radio show three or four times a day, sometimes more) and this coming Monday, he'll be on CBS' Early Show. Congrats, Jim!

Introducing CRM to the Next Gen

2011-11-15T04:40:00.000-08:00

I got to guest-teach a Principles of Marketing class Friday, as the regular instructor was in New York with students competing in a sales competition, and my topic was CRM. Or to the students, my topic was Chapter 21. Preparing for this lecture, the only 50 minutes they’d have on CRM for the entire semester (and for some, their life), I dragged out some slide presentations that dated back almost a decade I used when I taught CRM to execs in Trinidad, through the University of West Indies.

I love these kinds of experiences, where you really have to think about what is CRM and what should someone need to know who may never have another formal lesson on the topic. So why start with decade-old slides? The basic definitions really haven’t changed so those slides are ok.

But oh so much else has.

Perhaps the biggest change is simply the perspective that CRM is a separate discipline, like branding, sales, and advertising. While I can academically define CRM, I’m not sure that I can really claim it to be a separate discipline or a pure set of activities independent of others. CRM is now at the heart of marketing strategy, and so intertwined with all of the other activities that it seems better to say that CRM is marketing is CRM.

This change is obvious when you compare the book that my colleague uses (originally written in the 1970s) with its separate chapter on CRM (chapter 21) and my book (co-authored with Mary Anne Raymond, and published by Flat World Knowledge in 2010). The other book is an example of what I call book bloat, or the growth in special chapters to accommodate change. There is a chapter on global marketing, another on ethics, etc. all nods to requirements by accreditation bodies to include more content on those areas. And since those topics got added to the curriculum after the book was written, there are separate chapters for each. What’s interesting is that these separate chapters are comforting to professors who know they need to cover these topics, but when time gets crunched, these get dropped. As far as anyone knows, we still teach ethics (yeah right).

The premise behind our book was to focus on how marketing gets done, and starting from scratch, ours ended up being 16 chapters (and about $150 cheaper). Our book integrates CRM throughout, as it does ethics, global, and a few other topics.

Remember the 4 Ps? Product, price, place, and promotion? That’s not really how marketing gets done, each P separate from the others, so while we do include them briefly, we spend much more time on CRM-based topics such as how you co-create offerings with consumers, the use of communities (such as Nike Plus and JC Penney’s Ambrielle communities), campaign management (such as Cabela’s cross-channel predictive modeling), and other CRM topics.

The challenge for us has been the perception that our book is light because it only has 16 chapters. In spite of covering all of the same topics but doing so more efficiently, the coverage isn’t always obvious to a potential adopter. And if there are only 16 chapters, you have to cut something out, right? And we did – all of the useless academic stuff that covered the history of marketing but doesn’t reflect the practice of marketing today. The good news is, though, that adoption rates are increasing. And, we’ve just about finished the second edition, so all of the bugs that always accompany a first edition are being worked out.

In Friday’s lecture, though, I had to cover CRM as a stand-alone topic. So I defined the types of relationships, discussed why might companies want deeper relationships with consumers, and introduced advocacy, which is the hottest topic in CRM right now what with the empowerment possible through social media. Still, it seemed odd to teach it as a standalone.

At the end of it, I did something I’ve not done before, but I’ll do it again. I’ve always tried to do a summary at the end of class – what are the key takeaways? What will be on the exam? This time, I also asked, “What would executives find interesting in today’s lecture?” Having delivered this lecture, or some version of it, for ten years to executives literally around the world (from Bogota’, Colombia to Hyderabad, India, to France and Mexico), it’s a question I can answer. You could see the kids in the first class perk up and find that interesting – not so much in the second. But, as you can expect, execs want the tools. The “aha” moments for them have changed over time, an interesting history lesson for another day. But the need for the tools (propensity to relate matrix, the four effects of effective loyalty programs, and the four creators of loyalty) are what drives them. They need these tools for their every day test of customer performance.

Random Rants

Some months back, I lamented Pepsi’s use of Coke’s icons – the polar bears and Santa Claus. Those commercials just made me feel sad. Coke didn’t fight back, at least not directly, and those commercials didn’t last long. But Coke has kicked off a fundraising campaign to save the polar bear habitat, drawing attention to it with a special Coke can. You can learn more about it at http://polarbears.thecoca-colacompany.com/polarbearsupportfund/index.jsp or at www.arctichome.com.

Solving the Question of Why?

2011-11-08T04:12:00.000-08:00

A friend asked me last week, "How do you write a blog?" This was not a flippant question, nor a small request, as he had tried and his own employees said, "No, don't post that, it's too pedantic." I was surprised to hear that, as I consider him to be one of the most engaging writers, at least in other domains. As I do whenever I'm asked the question of how to write a blog, I recommended he take a look at Paul Greenberg's, which is long and published irregularly, and Merrill Dubrow's, which is shorter than mine and published three times a week. Both are highly read award-winning blogs but couldn't be more different.

I think the question is the wrong one. These two examples illustrate that the right question is "Why write a blog?" If it is just for the sake of marketing, either yourself or your company, then the blog will fail.

Two years ago, shortly after I started this blog, a marketing pundit predicted that thought leadership would become a leading positioning tool. The idea is to position yourself or your company as a thought leader and you will win friends and influence people. I disagreed then and still do, though I understand the seductive power of thought leadership. But the reality is that having enough thoughts to lead based on those thoughts is pretty dang difficult and as any blogger knows, just having a thought to sustain a 600 word blog once a week is pretty dang difficult. So writing a blog to become recognized as a thought leader is a short road to failure.

Blogging as a marketing tool may be a bit over-rated. I do think my clients have gotten to know me better through my blogs, and I have gotten some business because of the blog. Not enough to justify blogging, but some. I also know that some of my blogs get read by people looking for information on a particular topic, or they'll read a few when we first get introduced and may not become regular readers. As a blogger, I have to be ok with the idea that the blog may not get read all that frequently but hope that each post will ultimately get read by many. And with an RSS feed to Facebook, I may have more reading it than I know, as the stats don't follow that place.

Yet, I have to admit, marketing myself was part of my reasoning for blogging, as was the thought that if I'm to effectively teach social media and digital marketing, I better do some. What I found, though, is that blogging is, at least for me, a form of intellectual catharsis. I can run a thought through my head, over and over, until I feel it is well-formed (ok, at least half-baked) and then I can dump it into the blog and forget about it. This frees my head for other things. And that stays a fairly constant motivator.

The trouble is that my mind doesn't move on a weekly schedule.

Random Rants
Is the jingle dead? I've got a song running through my head from a commercial - "come along, come along, baby baby come along..." and I have no idea what brand of car this promotes. Maybe just good marketing is dead.

Near Tuesday?

2011-11-02T13:07:00.001-07:00

Ok, I know, Tannerisms on Tuesday is becoming more like Tannerisms near Tuesday. But I slept through Monday, thanks to a minor medical procedure, and this feels more like Tuesday.

Last week was the kind of fun week that only an academic geek could enjoy. I had two professor friends, one from France and the other from Mexico, with whom I do research visit for the week. We spent the week talking of family, our hopes for our children, our parents, and all the things friends do, as well as worked on our next few rounds of research. Yeah, there was a lot of stuff I needed to do but nothing I wanted to do more than just gab about theories, findings, and hypotheses, at least nothing I wanted to do more for work.

One of the projects we're working on is how culture interacts with innovation adoption. Ok, it only sounds geeky because it is, but there's use to this, too. What if I told you that your company adopts CRM software because of innovation adoption factors but how the software is used is a function of culture? And that the competitive advantage gained (or lost) by the adoption is a function of that interaction?

Well, actually, I don't know that to be true but we suspect it is and we're working on the next study to understand it.

Why does this matter if we do this work? It matters in different ways. For one, what your kid gets taught in college is determined by what I learn in my research. For example, I was taught that fear appeals work up to a point, at which the person gets so scared that he wants to light up a smoke just to calm down, which is not a good thing if the fear appeal is a black, tarry lung caused by smoking. My research, published in 1991, found though that fear appeal can work if it contains certain components in a certain order. Fortutnately, while I can still go to certain textbooks and find the statement that fear appeals should never be used because they make smokers want to smoke, most college students now learn how to craft appeals to help people adopt healthier lifestyles. And a lot of folks have built on my work, expanding that of Ron Rogers, so that we know a whole more about what works and what doesn't.

So yes, it frustrates me when I see bad advertising where someone obviously didn't take a class in basic marketing.

Case in point: The NFL's Play60 campaign. What is the point? Ok, you can figure out the point of the ad from the slogan because you're smart and you put some effort into it. The mere fact you are reading this is an indication of just how smart you are. But most people watching that commercial, yourself included, haven't put this much effort into what it means, and even less in to what the NFL wants YOU to do about it. Yeah, I know, it isn't a fear appeal, but my point is, we know a lot more about how to make meaningful commercials and too many things get in the way of making them.

Yet my pals and I trudge on, engaging in research into things like "Just how many more job candidates are likely to lie on a psychological test in order to get a job when the economy sucks?" (The answer is about 6% more, when given the opportunity, and women are more likely to lie in bad times than good when compared to men, who are just more likely to lie period. As if that was a surprise to any woman.) Or, just what is the value of knowing how much and how often someone browses your website before buying? (Turns out, it varies...a lot.) All just so we can occupy a few lines in a textbook somewhere until the next generation comes along and proves us wrong.

Random Rants
Aaron, Aaron, Aaron,...,if that move that State Farm is calling the discount double check is your signature touchdown dance, be glad they stole it! It looks more like something from a Pepto Bismol commercial! Seriously, you should ask Emmitt how to get on Dancing with the Stars so you can get some serious professional help - choreography, I mean.

You know times are tough when Walmart brings back layaway. But I gotta keep telling ya, we are getting more and more calls for jobs for salespeople and that is always a good economic sign. Yeah, the economy may be moving sideways or bouncing up and down, I don't know. But some folks are doing ok and finding ways to grow, and that means they're knocking on our doors looking for a few good salespeople.

100 Blog Posts Later...

2011-10-25T03:57:00.000-07:00

This blog post marks the 100th entry for Tannerisms on Tuesday! Of course, I think one of those was merely an announcement that I was taking the week off. Whatever – this is a celebration!

The president of the University of Missouri has been given the power to explore new athletic conference affiliations and enter negotiations without board approval. As everyone is (yawn) waiting to see what Mizzou does, the season goes on. The balance of power on the gridiron shifts, as it always does, as teams get better or worse, and thousands of fans fill the seats every Saturday. Heck, Texas Tech may win the Big 12.

College sports are uniquely an American phenomenon. Yes, Britain has the rugby fields of Eton, where World Wars were supposed to have been won, but nobody watches the matches. Only in America have we millions of people paying to watch amateur competition.

From the beginning of college athletics, at least in the US, it has been this way. The reason a football field is 52 yards is because before rules had stabilized, Harvard built their stadium and that was as wide as the field could safely be. You only need a stadium when people are willing to pay to see the game.

In the 1925 silent film The Freshman, Harold Lloyd’s character seeks popularity by playing football. One line it describes his university thusly:”a large football stadium with a college attached.” How little things have changed.

Cheating has always been a problem. In the late 1800s, for example, both Georgia and Georgia Tech were accused in the Atlanta papers of hiring players to represent the schools. The accusations seem to be sour grapes, thrown up each year by the losing side but nonetheless, these schools were not unique in facing those charges. Forty years later, in the 1932, the Marx Brothers released Horse Feathers, a comedy centered on paying college players. The premise is that Huxley College needs a good football team in order to attract students. Unlike the real life Georgia/Georgia Tech game, these Huxley football players (Chico and Harpo) actually attend class, but that’s probably just to get in a few gags with Groucho as professor. Yet, we still have problems with boosters hiring athletes and an NCAA that rules on these infractions based on how good the team is and how much money it attracts.

Football, though, didn’t always rule the roost. In the 1920s, for example, baseball games between schools would draw thousands. Georgia/Georgia Tech played a four game series in 1920 that drew 25,000 fans to each game, 2 of which were in Atlanta and 2 in Athens! Those games doubled Athens' population.

So, while Missouri’s leadership is focused on the important aspects of running a university, such as deciding which athletic conference to join and how much student fees have to go up to cover the cost of athletics, no doubt ESPN is thrilled that college basketball is there to cover the losses on the NBA strike.

Random Rants
Watch the new Chrysler 300 ads carefully. Note how many images they use that say “money” to connect with their audience. This commercial is masterfully done. Contrast that with the VW Passat ad, where they try to suggest that only with their sound system can you make sense of Elton John’s Rocketman. That whole Passat campaign is a waste.

It is football season, in case you hadn’t figured that out already, which means we’re subjected once again to the commercials featuring the NFL’s largest ego, Jerry Jones. The radio commercial, in which Troy Aikman and Jones are arguing over who gets the last piece of food, ends with Jones saying that the brand is the official product of the Cowboys, so that makes it the official “brand of me.” I’m not even going to mention the product category lest they get any satisfaction out of this, but Jones can eat all of them he wants. I know that there is a halo effect on these sponsorship deals; my colleague, Kirk Wakefield can even document the ROI and has shown that it can be a lot. But that ad turns me off. There is no halo effect in anything that is the official brand of “me.”

This just in - you know those really fast disclaimers at the end of ads? Research shows that if you already know and trust the brand, you pay no attention to the disclaimers. Makes sense. But if you don't know the brand, you are more distrustful if they have a high-speed disclaimer. Research by Herbst et al., published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests lesser known brands should slow these disclaimers down.

They Did It Again!

2011-10-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

Wow - just when you thought things couldn't get goofier - American does it again.

Yup, once again, they cut back on flights in and out of Waco. And no, the goofy part isn't that the flights are full but they can't make money on them. I flew out this morning on the 6:25 a.m. flight and they had to beg people to take the voucher because it was oversold. Last week, I flew out on a later flight and it was full. So no, it's not that they aren't selling seats - maybe they're selling too many.

No, the goofy thing is you can still book flights on AA.com that have been cancelled. That makes it easier to understand why they can't make money on full flights.

I try, I really do, to be loyal. In fact, had they not cancelled my trip to Memphis in two weeks, I'd be so close to platinum, I'd fly extra just to get it. But there's just no point in it. I'm gold for life due to my million plus miles, but who cares.

Now I'm free to fly Jet Blue to Boston and get Direct TV on board. Or Southwest to Norfolk and pay half of what I paid to fly American last week. And now I can save $400 on Admirals Club memberships.

Yeah, I know, Continental flies out of Waco, too. But I don't see the value in staying loyal to any airline. I wish they'd get jets in to Waco so I could skip the Dramamine, though.

Sorry for the short blog. This was not what I intended to write but when you're handed something like this, you can't let it pass. (My keys are steaming - can you tell?)

Random Rants:
Like the new look? Neither do I and I can't figure out how to go back to the old. So I'm migrating to Wordpress soon. We've got a Baylor blog site we're setting up and I hope you'll like it a lot better.

Folks who went to the Texas A&M/Baylor game at Kyle Field say it's the best the Aggies have ever treated us. Well, the fans anyway. So long to the Battle of the Brazos; it was fun while it lasted.

Connected but not Connecting

2011-10-11T03:45:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had an argument by text? I have, once, and I felt so stupid for doing so. I felt like this argument jeopardized my relationshp with someone who is very important to me, and it was a stupid thing to do. The arugment itself was not stupid and needed to happen, but not that way.

I heard one psychologist's view recently that married couples argue to save the relationship. No, I didn't argue with my wife by text, though we've had our share of miscommunication by text or IM. The point, though, that the argument is to save or strengthen the relationship was a head-turner. Of course, I already knew that, or so I'd like to think, if I just sat down and thought about it, which I hadn't. But a good argument does allow you to understand how someone is feeling, not only about whatever it is you are arguing about, but also about the relationship.

No, I don't think customers complain in order to save a relationship. Few customers care about the relationship in that way. But there is some research that suggests that customers who do care about the relationship are less likely to complain and create conflict until the situation reaches a boiling point; then they defect.

Obviously, or perhaps not so obviously, this research was done in a B2B environment. But it raises the same question that gets raised in personal relationships, which is, "Why didn't you realize I would feel this way?" (Now all the women are thinking, "must have been sales men.")

Anticipating someone's needs, though and especially their emotional needs, is pretty dang hard to do and not just for men. This semester, my class is working on a business plan to take a clean water technology to Nicaragua. This will require a five-day trip to Nicaragua to collect market data, and the trip will occur during the semester.

One of my students just notified her faculty that she was going and that the absences should be excused. The faculty, rightly, didn't react well to this news, delivered, as it were, by email. It's like arguing by text. Understandably, a less-experienced student would not realize that all faculty consider their own class to be important and would like to have a face-to-face meeting to discuss the situation. Further, most faculty and certainly all good faculty do want a strong relationship with students and consider such a cavalier attitude toward their class as a threat to that relationship.

Is this a generational thing? Do digital natives view email and texting to be as valuable as face-to-face? Or do they simply lack the discretion needed due to inexperience to recognize when emotional needs must be met as well as practical needs?

From what I hear from sales managers, it is that lack of experience that creates an inability to recognize emotional needs. They focus on content, not context. Over time, they learn it, whereas us digital immigrants had no choice. We weren't any smarter, we just didn't have the choice to avoid face-to-face. As a result, we learned faster. Ok ladies, maybe we men didn't learn fast enough, but I, for one, am still working at it.

Random Rants
Why are all these people following me on Twitter? Why do I feel such pressure to tweet something interesting every time I get a new follower? Help, I've got twangst, or twitter-induced anxiety! (Ok, I am repeating one of my tweets, but not everyone follows me...yet.)

Have you noticed that the Rangers are always the day game? Ok, I get it, they're not the Yankees. But they keep winning. Too bad, TV execs. So sad, sports media moguls. But back to the World Series!

Teradata Partners' Rundown

2011-10-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, sunny San Diego was my home, where I presented the results of our experiments at Cabela’s. Corey Bergstrom, Director of Direct Marketing and lots of other stuff, was my co-presenter and he did a tremendous job. We got lots of great response to the presentation, even if the conference organizers failed to load the current slide deck that we gave them the previous day. And no one seemed to notice the missing slides (hmmm, maybe that says something about slides).

Some observations from the conference:
Everyone is saying social first, mobile second – that is, social media is more important now to marketers and mobile will follow. I disagree. I think a lot of people are worried that if they don’t do something in social, they’ll miss out so they are doing something, but mobile is so much closer to what marketers have known and done that mobile will take off and quickly pass social. (I still think we’re looking at a lawsuit when someone walks into a fountain in a mall while checking her Droid for a coupon – just like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPW8xmI4w6U).

I’m also hearing that marketing is the next big thing – at least for data, and that’s a good thing. One of the best lines I heard at the conference is “the future is now, it’s just happening at different rates to different people.” That one line sums up marketing and data – some folks, like financial services and telcos, are way ahead of this curve and others, like auto makers, are way behind. Companies that have an engineering mentality like data but they don’t get marketing data.

And finally, there was a lot of discussion around the whys behind the data. What this says to me is that, finally, the world may be ready for me to really push the concept of dynamic strategy. At least among the Teradata users (who are the hosts for this conference), data strategy is no longer the bugaboo. Identifying what data is important, acquiring it, analyzing it, etc., isn’t the challenge it once was. Even accounting for social media, data just isn’t the problem or at least, doesn’t have to be the problem.

Rather, two challenges are rising.

The first is simply making the data operational. I may be able to develop a stronger predictive model but if I can’t execute a dynamic campaign, it doesn’t matter. If I can’t take that model and create the 720 versions needed to fully utilize the model, then the model is of little value.

The second is like the first. If I can’t do 720, which ones should I do and why? Models are transactional – they are designed to create a greater likelihood that we’re matching an offer to a customer’s interest so that a purchase happens now. What models can’t do very well is help me understand longer term strategic issues, such as which segment is likely to influence future sales more. Nor can models fully appreciate such business issues as, “I’ve got a warehouse full of bell bottom jeans – we’ve got to run a sale to clear that stuff out!”

Yesterday, I had a meeting with the global data team for a large multi-brand consumer package goods company. They were talking about social media and how one of their brands’ video went viral on YouTube. The discussion centered for a moment on whether there was any business value achieved with the video, other than awareness. One question was assumed away – did awareness matter? In addition, without necessary controls, there's no real way to understand why it worked, how to repeat it, and whether it was worthwhile.

I'd like to say this was unusual. But we all get and see the stuff that just has us scratching our heads and wondering why they did that.

Random Rants
What is the deal with Hilton? Ok, I'm a silver points Honors, not a gold. But do you have to remind me when I check in ("Oh, maybe this will be the stay that gets you into gold!") and when I check out ("yes, I have your Silver Honors on file.")? It's like, "Here ya go, moderate loser, at least you're not a total waste of space on the planet but you're pretty darn close." Ok, I'm exaggerating - I didn't mind the first time; that was actually kinda encouraging. But as long as I've been an Honors cardholder, I've never really gotten much information on why I'd want to be Gold (and is there a Platinum?), violating one of my four rules for good loyalty programs - transparency of benefits.

San Diego's Admirals Club is the worst one in the world. Not the staff's fault - they are people who are working hard to overcome a crappy design. If you order a sandwich, they have to get it from a restaurant outside of security. If you order nachoes, that comes from a different restaurant outside of security. Neither are hot when it arrives. And while she's gone to get the sandwich and nachoes, no one is there to serve...My advice, if you want to eat at the San Diego airport, eat before you go through security.

A Week in the Wild West!

2011-09-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

I'm at the Admiral's Club at LaGuardia on a Monday afternoon waiting for a flight to DFW. I could jump an earlier one but I couldn't get to Waco any faster and I've got a first class seat to DFW so here I am. And since tomorrow is a disaster for scheduling, you may notice that this Tuesday is Monday.

I spent the earlier part of this morning with Melissa Korn of the Wall Street Journal. She's one of their up and coming journalists and covers business education. We talked about all the wonderful things (the 'r' on this keyboard is tempramental so please excuse me if one is missing) that Baylor Business is up to, trends in the market, and so forth.

This was no cheap visit. And time will tell whether it pays off. But it just couldn't have been done virtually. No matter how electronic we are now, we are not to the point where you can replace face-to-face all of the time. In fact, just spending the money it took to get me and our media VP there had communication value. And, there's value in just two people from the same office hanging out together at the airport. Ok, maybe not too much value when one sits at the computer and blogs about it.

We don't learn in a linear fashion, and face-to-face lets us learn in more natural ways.

This Saturday, I fly to San Diego for my tenth or eleventh Partners meeting, the annual Teradata users group conference. Sunday, Corey Bergstrom and I present the results of the experiment I conducted with the digital marketing team at Cabela's. This experiment was created, per-tested, launched, and analyzed through a series of phone conversations but it was the day and a half I spent in Sydney, NE at Cabela's world headquarters that really made it possible. Without an understanding of the culture and the people, and some trust built up through the interaction, this experiment wouldn't have come off.

The irony is that the experiment was all about digital media and digital communications. Similarly, the session where I'll present these findings is at conference devoted to data warehousing and data mining - again all digital. But I'll present in person...

Last week, I got to hear Barbara Glanz. If you haven't heard the Johnny the Bagger story, google it on YouTube. She did the original documentation of his story. One point of that story is the personal touch, not just putting your personal touch on your work, but also putting your touch as a person. I don't think I'm making this point very well, but just see if you can spot the difference when you visit Starbucks this morning between the person who looks at the barista and actually says something personal versus the self-centered impersonal customer who may just need a cup of coffee to become human.

Random Rants
My son turned on the football game yesterday and I heard him laugh out loud at a commercial. "Dad, you gotta watch this, this is just how it is..." What cracked him up was Bud Light's "Ultimate Fan Experience" where the guy tries to kick a field goal in a parking lot full of tailgaters. The commercial is a bit of a cliche', as far as commercials go, but in this one, the dweeb's performance is just too true. Too many commercials make me wonder if all of their customers are losers, they're so over the top in their loser-ness. But this one hits the notes just right. Kudos to Bud for the commercial.

Making a Tupperware Party

2011-09-20T04:01:00.000-07:00

What a week! The BPT Social Media Strategies for Business was an outstanding success. The sell-out audience was super, SAP was a wonderful host, and Teradata and Jive both offered up lively presentations of case studies that really hit the mark.

The consensus was clear: The Holy Grail of social media is advocacy. While the data possibilities of social media are exciting, the reality is that right now, what most moderately enlightened businesses are concerned with is how to identify and influence those who influence others. And the best possible outcome is to create those who advocate for you - those who go out of their way to find prospects, suggest your product to them, and bring those prospects to you.

At the same time, too many businesses over-value verbal terrorists. Let's face it, we have all had horrible customer service experiences. Can you imagine the one my mom shared? She walks up to a retailer's counter and says, "I want to buy this," and is told by the clerk, "I'm busy." After a few moments, Mom says, "I guess I don't want to buy this" and leaves. OMG! If my mom tweeted that and if it had been a national chain, you know someone would have been on that in a heartbeat to try to make it right.

But Estaban Kolsky made an interesting point at the BPT conference. Quick - who breaks guitars? Remember that music video of an airline breaking guitars? By all measures that we have, that video may have gotten the band some gigs and TV time but it had no measurable effect on the airline's performance. And in case you can't remember the airline, I'll have the answer below, but that proves my point. Or rather, Estaban's point. We over-worry about online complainers.

Yesterday, though, it all came together for me. I was visiting with Kevin and Paula Dial who have a really good business model for accounting services. Paula is a CPA and stay-at-home mom. She and Kevin created Soccer Mom Accounting Referral Services, which enables other moms like her to work part-time from home. We were talking about how to grow their business and she stressed how important word-of-mouth has been so far. In other words, what she needs are advocates.

So what she needs is a Tupperware party for accounting. Ok, stop with the jokes about how boring accountants are and what that party must be like! Seriously, she needs to figure out how to get her clients to invite others to the party.

And that's what advocacy marketing is about. How can you give them a platform to advocate for you? So instead of using your white papers as a lead generation tool, what if you used them as an advocacy platform? What would that look like? What about using events as a Tupperware party? After all, that's really what SAP, Teradata, and Jive used the BPT workshop for. It was a platform for advocates to advocate. How could you use a blog or Twitter as an advocacy platform?

When Nike created Nike Plus, the online community for serious runners, it wasn't about making a warm and fuzzy feeling about Nike. Rather, it was about giving advocates a platform. Women went to Tupperware parties because they were fun. Runners go to Nike Plus because it, by itself, fulfills a need. But while they are at the party...

Random Rants
Walmart has a lot to answer for, and now it is smarmy greetings at the bank. I can't speak for Walmart, but research says a greeting at the door with a look into the customer's eye reduces shoplifting. That's how the Walmart greeter pays for itself. But everyone else thinks it increases purchases. So now you walk into the bank and get a dozen saccharin greetings and that warm Walmart feeling.

So who breaks guitars? United. Did that affect your flying habits at all or did you just leave the guitar at home?

I'm going to be late

2011-09-13T16:05:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone - I'm sorry, I'm at BPT Partner's Social CRM Strategies conference and I'm so focused here that I'm behind. I'll get this week's up soon!

The Tragedy of the Commons & Social Media

2011-09-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

There is one topic we can’t discuss in our family without someone getting really ticked off. No, religion is ok, and political debates are acceptable. What I’m talking about is NCAA conference realignment.

What we are observing is what the social psychologists call the tragedy of the commons. This phenomenon dates back to when families could graze their livestock on the commons (such as the Boston commons). There were rules about how many could be grazed so that the pasture wouldn’t be overgrazed and everyone could be accommodated. But of course, everyone was only concerned with their own livestock and needs. As a consequence, the commons were always overgrazed and everyone suffered.

A&M’s mantra through this whole process of leaving the Big 12 has been, “We’re only doing what’s best for A&M.” As free market capitalists, we all think that is ok, even if it means reneging on an agreement to support the Big 12 and backing out of a contract. The Aggies don’t like it that UT got a sweet deal on a TV contract so off they go. UT is no better – their sweet TV deal is no different than overgrazing Bevo. What I hope happens is that the SEC takes OU and tells both Texas teams to go to the WAC. But I digress – the point is that one of the dangers of a completely free market is the tragedy of the commons. A resource gets over-used (for example, dead zones in the sea where there is no life because of the overfishing) and everyone suffers. The tragedy of the commons is not some quaint historical mistake, but a reality today and in realms far more important than football.

The question my nephew (the Aggie) raised, though, is what has been the role of social media in all of this. (Ah, bet you didn’t see this coming.) Twitter, chat, and all kinds of social media sites have been burning up with vitriol over the split. Taunts, rants, diatribes, and other forms of ungentlemanly conduct have blistered the Internet.

My answer, though, is that I don't see social media having much influence on any college's or conference's decision. Yes, social media has allowed fans to vent their emotions, good or bad. But we have to think about the questions: “What decision can be influenced?” and “Who can be influenced?” Will it matter to the SEC if Texas Tech fans are ok with A&M leaving? No, they’ll make their decision anyway, again using the same logic of “We’re only going to do what is best for us.” And that won’t be influenced by social media because what’s happening is it is all fans talking to fans.

Where social media might have an impact is on legislators. Legislators in Oklahoma and Texas will use social media to gauge the degree to which they should get involved. (I heard one wild tale that Perry’s lack of response to the issue is due to a desire to get A&M into the SEC so he can court votes in the southeast. If a lack of leadership is a way to court votes, he’s a shoo-in as our next Pres.) Keep in mind that it behooves the State of Texas for all state schools to fare well in this issue, and all privates. The economic benefits for the State because of TCU and Baylor, and even SMU, are too great to ignore. If you buy into the argument that football is good for universities (and I’m not sure I agree – Georgetown and Boston University seem to be doing just fine), then TCU, Baylor, SMU, and Rice will suffer in ALL ways if we end up with 4 super conferences and none of them are in. And that would damage the economy of the state in many ways. That’s the argument that will get the politicians involved.

The question, though, was great because there has been tremendous volume. The comments have been vitriolic and emotions are at fever pitch. Social media does give fans an outlet for expression that didn't exist before. Let's hope they leave it on the web and don't take it to the game.

Random Rants
Kudos to Southwest Airlines. Their anti-baggage fee ads continue to do well. But quick, what company is Alec Baldwin promoting?

Check out this website - really clever way to present products. It's in Dutch but you get the idea: http://producten.hema.nl/

It's SMarketing!

2011-08-30T03:48:00.001-07:00

Last week, I wrote about the influence measure, Klout, and how companies are using it to measure influence of individuals. But what about the direction of market sentiment? How can the mood of a market be captured?

If you recall, Whole Foods' Ramadan experience was an attempt to make sense of what the market was saying. In a sense, I guess I suggested check everyone's Klout score and then respond only to those with influence. That's not necessarily completely right.

Rather, what you want to do is to influence those with influence first.

But the social media world is also full of content that you can access. And if you can access that content, you can study it, analyze it, and draw some conclusions.

Teradata has come up with some really good short case studies, called BSI and modeled after the CSI TV shows. To watch one, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnYkQ9AE4G4. In this particular segment, they do a good job of showing how you can capture market reaction to new products and make better business decisions with the data.

Yes, there are caveats. Not all markets tweet equally, for example. (Am I the only one who feels a moment of angst when I get an email that someone is following me on Twitter? I try to think of something clever to tweet, to reward their faith in me, but it just doesn't happen...oh the pressure of the modern world!) But you can do content analysis with tools like Aprimo and others and get an idea of where the market is going.

Sound like a pipe dream?

Actually, the Centers for Disease Control did an early study of Twitter content to track the virulity and movement of the H1N1 (swine flu) virus during the 2009 outbreak. While this study was a retrospective, it was done to show how Twitter could be used in this country to follow a pandemic.

If I get swine flu, I'm not tweeting it and I pray that my caregivers don't either. You don't need to know. My next tweet: "Did not throw up yesterday - don't think I will today."

Still, social marketing is smart marketing, or as my pal Bruce Culbert says, "It's smarketing!"

Random Rants
If you have a chance to see the documentary, "Objects & Memories," grab it. This video study of how we humans tie meaning into objects is incredibly powerful, as the study is built around 9/11. With stories by family members, site workers, and others, it is both riveting and, at times, gut-wrenching. From the perspective of someone who observes consumers for a living, the documentary conveys better than any how we attach meaning to objects.

If you missed your chance to attend BPT's Social Media conference coming up in September because we sold out, you'll also miss a chance to meet Dave Schrader, creator of BSI - Teradata. But worry not - we'll be announcing our tour for 2012 shortly!

What's Your Klout?

2011-08-23T04:03:00.000-07:00

One of my students, Ben Becker, came up with an idea that sounded interesting but I couldn't see how to make money on it right away (and possibly at all). Ben's one of the smartest guys I know, one of those few who know not only what to do but how to get it done. His idea was to figure out a way to give everyone an influence score, like a credit score, and then you could figure out from that who was influential in your market.

And then along came Klout.

Klout is an independent influence measurment company that measures your web influence based on how much you tweet, how many followers you have on twitter and for your blog, how much you get re-tweeted, etc. Klout can even pinpoint who you "influence," or at least, who reads your stuff. Klout gives you a score, "like a credit score," in Ben's words. Mine is 27, thankfully a Klout score and not a credit score. I don't know what the scale is, but I do know that my Klout score has improved from 15 over the past two months.

But it isn't just raw influence that's important to marketers. Whole Foods recognized that during a recent web frenzy. Launching a campaign to promote foods that meet Muslim requirements during Ramadan, a period of limited fasting, the company was soundly criticized by right-wing bloggers. Then, an email was leaked to the Houston Press that suggested the company not promote these foods in-store. The response among Whole Foods customers ranged from disappointment to disgust, until the company pointed out that the email was from a regional manager who was incorrect and "set straight" by headquarters.

What Whole Foods did that was right was not just consider raw influence. Rather, they thought about who their market is and what their market is willing to accept and even prefers, and then acted accordingly.

One might say that my perspective on this is cynical or that Whole Foods was only self-interested - that if Whole Foods thought they would lose more by continuing the promotion than by withdrawing it, that they would have done so. I'm ok with those viewpoints. I'm also ok with someone drawing the conclusion that Whole Foods did what they did ONLY because they thought it the right thing to do, so long as it is recognized that they did so because they considered who (on the web) was trying to influence whom and what was the relative importance of that influence.

Did Whole Foods use Klout? I don't know. If I were Klout, I'd sure like to know and promote that.

As for Ben, I'm certain if he ever tires of making money for Continental, he'll have another great idea.

Random Rants
What do you think of Pepsi's commercials using Coca Cola icons? When I saw the polar bear version, I just felt BAD. My first thought was that was simply awful, stupid, unnecessarily antagonistic, etc. Then I saw the Santa ad. Ok, I get it, but as my son said, "Can they do that?" I realized he wasn't buying into it either. Time will tell if these work for Pepsi, but I'd say over the years that attack ads don't work and these won't either.

Dominos, on the other hand, continues to impress. The commercial with the franchisee complaining that Dominos is under-charging is excellent, as is their new system for personalizing pizza production and connecting it with the customer. Highly creative use of technology, I'm going to have to get a Dominos pizza just to try it out.

News
If you were thinking about joining me at BPT's Social Media Strategies for Business in Palo Alto Sept 13-14, it's too late. The event, sponsored by SAP, Teradata, and Jive, is sold out! However, plans are for a global tour in 2012! Keep your eyes here for the announcement, probably in early October, of locations and dates.

Sustainability

2011-08-16T04:03:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Wal-Mart's California operations has reduced what it sends to the landfill by 81%? Much of what it has done to achieve that has been to either reduce packaging (saving money, too) or selling what was originally thought of as waste (making money). Of course, packaging reductions and those types of efforts are then carried over to other retailers, saving everyone money and reducing landfill.

Yet, one attempt failed - taking tubes of toothpaste out of the boxes. You see, the tubes are physically stronger than the boxes. The boxes are useless as far as protection of the product is concerned. But we consumers, at least we American consumers, won't buy it that way (Europeans don't mind).

For Wal-Mart, the initial drive to reduce, re-use, and recycle was triggered by a desire to respond to criticism. Sustainability couldn't have come along at a better time. It made Wal-Mart look good and it made Wal-Mart money.

I've tried the sustainability ploy but no one's buying it. When I want to use an old feedsack as a trash bag, I'm called cheap. If I re-use lumber from the old treehouse when building a deer stand, I'm a tightwad.

Yet, somehow American Pickers has become one of the family's favorite shows - and isn't it all about recycling? Doesn't seem right.

So quit calling me cheap...I'm not cheap, I'm sustainable!

Random Rants
A friend of mine tried to fly standby on an earlier flight home. Assured there was plenty of room, American told him it would cost $125. He said no, he'd take the flight he was on. Of course, that flight was oversold and American had to pay a $300 voucher to get someone to get off. Let's see, piss off one customer, then give money away. Now that's a sustainable business strategy.

Coming Up
We are really close to being sold out for BPT's Social Media Strategies for Business, our 2 day workshop in Palo Alto, Sept 13-14. Would you come if we had one in Dallas? Let me know - we're working on the spring schedule now and may add a city to the fall route.

Teradata's Partners conference opens October 2nd in San Diego with yours truly and Corey Bergstrom of Cabela's. We'll highlight the lessons learned from our experiments on blending web data with data from other channels. Just my humble opinion, but these are 2 great companies to work with.

It's Scrap!

2011-08-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Are we getting a little out of control with social media here? For decades, marketers have been told to go where customers are. Lifesavers began life on the counter (or bar) next to the cash register. Store and bar owners were advised to always give a nickel back in change so that customers would then buy a roll of Lifesavers with that nickel. But the key to success for Lifesavers was to be on as many counters as possible.

That same type of thinking is permeating (and possibly ruining) social media. Yesterday, I’m driving down a major thoroughfare and spot a gas station with the sign “Like us on Facebook!” Oh please, is my social life so poor I have to be friends with a convenience store?

And the social crap, or as I like to call it, “scrap,” that is showing up. If Farmville wasn’t enough, now my LinkedIn is filled with sales pitches disguised as groupsourcing. Groupsourcing, for the uninitiated, is when someone asks a question on the web and is looking for help. So it might be, “Does anyone know a good exhibit builder in Germany?” to “I’m looking for a job and I’m over 50. What should I watch out for?” Scrap, though, is when someone posts a question like that and then answers it, saying, “Follow the steps in my new book and you’ll be making six figures!” Yeah, right, counting the decimal point and the pennies that follow as three of the figures. And the dollar sign.

Spam and scrap, scrap and spam. Nothing will kill Facebook and LinkedIn faster.

Why is it that the only reaction that means anything to sellers is a purchase? If I “like” you on Facebook, if I say I’m a fan, then let’s talk. Give me a way to respond to your spam and scrap that isn’t just yes or no.

That’s why I was a big fan of MyCokeRewards and their brief surveys. They would ask a few questions each time I logged in, questions that made sense. Unfortunately, that approach must have cost too much because I recently got a survey that asked questions like, “What Coke products do you drink most often?” Look, stupid, you have my drinking history because I’ve been putting points into your system for five years and telling you each time what product gave me the points. If you want me to talk to you, you have to listen and you have to listen the first time.

My wife had her hearing checked out at my request because she couldn’t hear me when I spoke. The doctor told her it wasn’t a physical problem, it was a motivational problem. And that’s what we have here. Companies just don’t want to listen.

There’s one innovation, though, that I do like, and that’s the daily deal. Whichever engine you use, don’t you find this fun and worthwhile? I use LivingSocial because that’s the only one in Waco, my hometown. LivingSocial doesn’t require a tipping point; that is, there are no minimum numbers to hit in sales for the discount to work. So far, I’ve only purchased restaurant deals, except a flying lesson as a gift for my son.

Now, similar engines like Bizy Deal are going after the B2B market. Some have tipping points, like Groupon in the consumer market, while others don’t. What’s great either way is you get a chance to try something new at a very low price. From the marketer’s perspective, it’s a great way to get trial, but I also think it is a great way to recognize loyal customers. When I find a favorite restaurant, store, or service on there, you know I’m going to grab the deal. What we need to do is figure out a way to leverage that kind of loyalty.

The tipping point does that – it gets the loyal person to find others so the deal makes. LivingSocial does it by trying to get you to get three friends to also buy it and your deal is free. What’s hard about that from the consumer perspective is that once you get three friends into the system, they’ll buy the deal direct and you don’t get credit. So what’s needed is some kind of system, but if you come up with that idea, tell me and we can both make money off it.

Random Rants
Let’s beat up MyCokeRewards some more. They had a co-promotion with Ritz – put in the Ritz UPC and get 3 extra points. I follow the directions – no points. This is the second time Coke has had a special deal and I’ve lost my points, so I complain. I get a form letter saying, essentially, follow the directions and you’ll get your points. But I just told you I followed the directions. So now you’re either saying I’m a liar or stupid. The answer is: stupid, because I still go on MyCokeRewards and post points.

Updates
As mentioned last week, had a great time at TSEA’s Red Diamond Congress. Next up: BPT Partner’s Social Media Strategies for Business in Palo Alto, September 13-14. Be the first to email me for a complimentary registration: jeff_tanner@baylor.edu.
Then in October, I’ll be opening Teradata’s Partners along with Corey Bergstrom, Cabela’s. More to follow!

Sales Bloopers again - but with feeling

2011-08-02T14:25:00.001-07:00

Ok, I’m beginning to get a better idea of who reads this blog, or at least who tells me they read it. Recent posts on planking and sales mistakes have drawn a number of comments to me personally, though this blog is read mostly by lurkers who don’t post their comments online. So this blog is read mostly by people who enjoy watching others be foolish – ok by me! By the way, in addition to planking and owling, I also learned that there is lamping, which is putting a lampshade on your head while you are in a public place and having your picture taken. Of all three, I think I prefer planking. Owling seems to be random squatting, which could be a function of a number of things and not all of them pleasant, while with planking, it is obvious in the photo what the person is doing or why the person is like that. As for lamping, who has a lampshade?

So on to more sales mistakes. An associate was approached by a possible client, a company whose spokesperson was the manager of a major league ball club. Any simple scan of their website would identify this guy as their spokesperson. Another associate on the consulting team happens to be a huge fan of that team. When the potential client mentioned that they had this major league manager as their spokesperson, the consultant said, “Really? That’s really cool!” Yes, he made it very obvious that he had done no homework whatsoever to prepare for the call. No, we did not get the business.

Keith Reznick, a sales trainer who owns the company Creative Training Solutions, was leading a session yesterday at the TSEA’s Red Diamond Congress. He mentioned a client that brought him in to help them prepare for a presentation and proposal to a major client that they were about to lose. Keith offered to read the client’s client’s annual report. In doing so, he picked up that consolidation is an important strategic objective – something the account exec didn’t know. The jury’s still out on whether his client will keep this business, but think this through. The information was publicly available but the account exec had done no homework other than his own sales calls.

I blame SPIN and all problem/solution selling models. Yeah, I know, that’s a bit extreme but what we’ve done is create a generation (or three) of salespeople who think that all they need to do is go in and ask questions and they’ll have all the information they need. Pre-call planning isn’t needed because the real need will come out in the questioning anyway.

When we ask C-level buyers what they want in salespeople, they want someone who knows their business (already) and has a solution. The higher you go in the buying organization, the less time they have to fool around answering a bunch of questions.
Further, a little pre-call planning can help you understand the “why” behind the need – why this fits into the big picture, why someone is pushing it, why the CEO will sign off on it, why, why, why!

Ok, I know I ranted on this a bit earlier when talking about the lack of planning in sales, but this time I coupled it with a few sales bloopers so it would be more fun.

On to another blooper:

One of my former students, who will remain nameless because his name is really unusual and anyone who saw it would know, was selling a sponsorship to a major telecom company – let’s say BlackBerry (I don’t really remember). Unfortunately, he pulled his iPhone out during the meeting. There was not a second meeting. I had a similar experience with Fossil, the fashion watch people. That was dumb.

Random Rants:

I’m driving down the road the other day and I see a person out walking her dog. Isn’t that nice? Except she was driving her Suburban with the window open and the dog was running along beside. Being a cynic, I just think she was lazy. Does anyone tie their dog up on the treadmill to walk the dog?

I’m back from Ocean Springs, MS and the Katrina repair trip. Awesome trip. Can’t wait to do it again. If a trip like this isn’t on your bucket list, it needs to be because you already did it.

Notes:

I’m at TSEA’s Red Diamond Congress and it’s going great. All my sessions were packed, and some folks even came to the same session twice. Today’s keynote was Gary Slack, of Slack and Company (formerly with the agency, Slack and Barshinger). Great talk about Groupon in the B2B space (I feel a blog coming on). Did you know eBay’s B2B sales are greater than $1billion? Or that over 50% of B2B searches start on YouTube?

Don’t forget if you are in the social media space, BPT’s Social CRM Strategies for Business is Sept. 13-14. And as of today, I’ve got one free VIP registration if you’ll be the first to email me.

What's a Tannerism?

2011-07-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

What's a tannerism? I thought it was a name given to slightly unusual examples, mnemonics, and other things I use to teach by my students at Baylor. Apparently, though, there was a couple of people named Tanner who wrote influential anti-Mormon articles, influential in the sense that it made a lot of Mormons mad. Their brand of anti-Mormonism is called Tannerism, and there is a pro-Mormon website, anti-Tannerisms.com. Odd.

Tannerisms are also phrases uttered by an adorable tyke who's father documented these on another website.

And a song by a musical group of an unknown (to me) genre.

What is also odd is a website called Connect In that copied my blog in order to "attract" visitors to a website with large-breasted women's photos. (Guys, google Tannerisms and you can find it). The blog they copied in is the one in which I used psychic in the title, which I think gives you a clue as to their market.

Ok, this internet thing can just be weird.

This is a short blog because I'm at Camp Victor, a mission house in Mississippi where we are working on Katrina repair. Lights out in a few minutes, so not much to this.

But many thanks to my friend, George Dudley, who pointed out that someone has an anti-Tannerism page. I think we should all band together and form an anti-anti-Tannerism page, as well as send hopeful pro-Tannerism chain letters.

Random Rants
There are so many billboards up for rent. The budget has shifted to other media, which is a shame. In research we did a couple of years back, billboards were the best way to reach parents if you wanted to encourage active parenting. Kudos to Lamar for using the unused billboards to promote family values and active parenting. But their billboards designed to sell billboards are terrible! Can't read them! At least, I think that is what they are doing. Could be something else entirely - after all, I couldn't read it!

A Two-fer Tuesday

2011-07-19T04:36:00.000-07:00

Today is a two-fer blog. A two-fer happens when I can't decide which blog to write - one that will interest the sales & marketing types and one that will interest general readers. So read on if you are interested in sales & marketing or skip down to Planking in America if you are not.

Sales in Not a Profession:
For the past twenty-five years, apologists in sales have tried to create the aura that sales is a profession. It isn't. A profession requires, among other things, special schooling, licensing, and regulation, according to the dictionary.

There are sales schools - Baylor was the first to offer a BBA in sales. There are sales licenses - if you want to sell, you have to have a retail license, or at least your company does. But that's not the same as a medical license. And there are regulations.

In the late 70s, rapid economic growth in highly technical industries created a need for highly educated salespeople. These salespeople needed to be educable in many things: technology, business processes, finance, and so forth. But the stigma of selling was such that demand seemed to outstrip supply.

At the same time, consumerism gained momentum and hard-sell tactics and techniques were disdained. So to attract qualified people to selling and to open customers' doors, we became territory marketing representatives (a title I actually held at Xerox). We pushed the notion of professional selling versus personal selling, and still do, to distinguish between customer-centered approaches and techniques designed to manipulate someone into buying.

But we went too far. George Dudley and I, in our book The Hard Truth about Soft Selling, noted a decline in sales productivity following wide-scale adoption of soft-selling techniques. Two years ago, a CSO Insights study reported that most sales executives believe more than half of their salespeople will fail to meet quota - again.

And still, the biggest barrier to growth for most b2b companies is a lack of good salespeople.

Three things are killing our productivity. Actually more than that, but I'm just going to focus on the salesperson.
1. Needs-satisfaction selling. How can that kill productivity? Because selling is growing more complicated and requiring more executive-level interaction. Simple (transactional) selling is a function best left to the internet and other low-cost channels. Selling complex solutions, though, is where a salesperson can add value. However, so many have been trained in Sales Magic 101 (needs-satisfaction selling) that they think they can simply show up, ask a few questions, learn what is needed, and presto-chango, a customer appears. Then, when the executive buyer tosses them out because she doesn't have time for that, they blame it on the customer. Planning? Who needs it! Not the salesperson who combines personality with questions and is a true professional! (note the sarcastic font)
2. Activity-focused management. Sales is a repeatable process. All I have to do is present X number of times and I'll sell Y customers. The seduction of this sin is that it is based in truth. But it leads to action without strategy, calls without clear objectives, and salespeople without a clue. As sales grow more complex, the one-call close is history, but the salesperson's behavior seems to be bound in a time warp or the lost hope that this might be the one where it works.
3. Relationship-based selling. Somehow, we opened the door again to the idea of salespeople as professional friends, with the result that they've become professional visitors, not salespeople. Somehow, pharmaceutical reps have devolved into becoming sandwich and donut delivery professionals. IT reps have the best birthday cards. Somebody, someday, has to ask for the order!

I know some will think this is a step backwards, but sales isn't a profession, it's a function. Lose sight of the fact that we are there to make a sale and we become irrelevant to our own company. Lose sight of the fact that we are allowed to be there by delivering value and we become irrelevant to the customer. Somewhere in there, there has to be a transaction.

Planking in America:
A new craze is sweeping the nation. No, really, not just Waco - I was in Minneapolis last week and heard someone talking about it. The craze? Planking!

Planking is lying flat as a plank and having your photo taken. Of course, it can't stop with just a photo. You also have to make sure everyone sees the photo. One way to do that is through Facebook, where there is a group, Planking in America.

For example, a recent post was a planker stretched out on a glass countertop at the Houston Astro's Minute Maid Park. It appears that he is floating on the seats of the stadium. Classic planking.

What's attractive about planking is that it is competitive and creative at the same time. Yes, it's public stupidity, but that's part of the allure as well.

While the appearance of floating in air can earn style points, that's not the objective of planking necessarily. Sometimes, such as the case with planking on top of a cow statue, the location must be obvious. One of the earliest examples of planking I saw was someone planking on a statue in Copenhagen - actually, it was the same guy planking in Minute Maid. Hmmm, I wonder if there are points for a complete body of work - a planking tour of the world, for example.

Please, try this at home. And just at home.

Random Rants:
Applebees, Chilis, and all the rest - BORING! Ok, it's dinner time so you show pictures of food. I guess it works. Perhaps it is an attempt to get us to subconsciously associate hunger with Applebees. Or perhaps its because the experience is so bland that there's no point in advertising around that.

Just in - Corey Bergstrom of Cabela's, the World's Foremost Outfitter, and I will present the results of Cabela's cross-channel experiments at Partners this fall. More details to follow, but we're on the opening day, Sunday, of the conference.

Don't forget, too, that I'll be at TSEA's Red Diamond Congress Aug 1-4. And there's still time to sign up for Social CRM Strategies for Business in Palo Alto in September. Just visit www.bptpartners.com for more details.

There's a new Hero in town

2011-07-12T03:40:00.000-07:00

If you are of my generation and you are a Cowboys fan, then the man in the hat was more than an icon, he was a hero in the everyday sense. Tom Landry, the first coach of the Dallas Cowboys, was a complex individual, seemingly cold because he lacked outward emotional displays on the sideline, a stark contrast to his counterpart, Vince Lombardi. Still, time showed Landry to be human, a caring leader who did more than win Super Bowls.

Landry and Lombardi shared similar roots. In 1957, the Giants won the National Championship with Lombardi as the Offensive Coordinator and Landry and the Defensive Coordinator. Ten years later,when these two coached in the infamous ice bowl, Lombardi won the NFL's championship, as he did several times.

Before you put this down, or rather, click on to something else because you are neither a sports fan nor a history buff, stop for a moment and think of the contrast between these two men. Landry, famous for his complicated offense, was the defensive coordinator on the Giants. Lombardi, famous for his stiff defense and simple offense, was the offensive coordinator. An historical oddity. But the real contrast wasn't in their approach to offense. It was their approach to the game.

Lombardi was an altar boy in church until the day he died. Yet, it was the lack of balance in his life that did him in. He might have made it to church on Sunday, but he rarely made it home.

Landry, to all outward appearance, was so cold and impersonal that he seemed to be focused on only winning. Yet it was Landry who's life was in balance, who's family stayed together and thrived. And it was Landry who lived long and fully, whose influence was well beyond the game.

Recent research by Baylor's own Dawn Carlson and her colleagues Meredith Ferguson and Cindy Wu shows that work-family balance is a key component to not only life satisfaction and other quality of life measures, but also to productivity. Imbalance, Lombardi being the exception perhaps that proves the rule, generally leads to less productivity.

But there's much more to this than simply knowing when to knock off work. The "Great Man" approach to understanding the great leaders in our history may be outdated and scorned by today's history professors. I'm certain that Tom Landry every now and then made a mistake. He had his foibles and his quirks, he had players he mistreated and he made mistakes in his choices. But he was a great man, and there's much more we can learn about how to build and lead an organization from studying him, in addition to learning that balance is important.

Recent events have raised another to Great status. Even before the tragic death of Shannon Stone, the young firefighter who fell to his death catching a foul ball at the Ballpark in Arlington, Nolan Ryan was achieving that status.

He's already a Hall of Fame pitcher. With 7 no-hit games, he was elected as soon as is allowed after retirement. He pitched well into his forties, unusual in that most arms last for only a few years. He did both - pitched a long time and did it very well - because of his approach to the game. Focus on health (including balance), be prepared for every opportunity, and some other important stuff for baseball but not important for this discussion.

No one wants to have to prepare for an opportunity to lead a family or an organization through the events of this past week. Nolan, though, has led the Rangers and the broader community through this tragedy in a way that, if you didn't know it already, made you aware that there is ever so much more to him than his ability to throw a fastball. He has done it so well that you assume it was easy - anyone could have done it. But not everyone would have.

In a way, I almost feel as though I somehow lessen the quality of the man if I point out what he did right. That this somehow becomes a lesson in how to manipulate the public in order to avoid a lawsuit or something crass like that. That's not the point, so I'm not going list all the things he did well.

What I would rather do is hope instead that we all have heroes like this around us, and maybe in us. And, God forbid, if the situation arises, because we are balanced and prepared, we will be ready.

Random Rants
Who owns the patriot brand? I don't mean the football team - I mean the beer. I ranted a while back about Bud's need to be viewed as an American brand and how they leaned on the returning soldier story to generate warm fuzzies for their brand. Now Miller's High Life guy is hosting a group of returning vets at the ballgame. Pardon me, I need to reach for a hanky, this is so moving. Ok, we need to thank our vets. But I'd like to see something more than these two beer giants battle it out with meaningless commercials. Guys, do something with the Wounded Warrior project or something meaningful. Quit leaning on the appeal of the returning soldier and DO SOMETHING.

Reminder: I will be speaking at TSEA's Red Diamond Congress in Orlando August 1-4. This is the premiere of the Red Diamond Congress, a business marketing event that is unlike any other. It may be organized by the Trade Show Exhibitor's Association but this is an event every business marketer should attend. I hope you can join me. Find it on FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=119590291452502.

I'll also be in San Francisco, at BPT's Social CRM Srategies for Business. This event promises to be a lot of fun, as well as great learning opportunities. http://www.bptpartners.com/

Check out Adam Blair's take on my cross-channel analytics research with Cabela's. He did a nice job of describing what we're doing with Teradata's Integrated Web Intelligence platform. http://www.risnews-digital.com/risnews/201107#pg12

Transformative Consumer Research

2011-06-28T03:47:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I was a track chair at the Transformative Consumer Research conference held at Baylor. This was the third such TCR conference, as the movement was begun in 2005.

TCR is not just a conference, it's a movement in the consumer research field. Followers of the TCR movement believe our research should be such that it has the power to transform consumers' lives and thereby improve the quality of life for consumers. To many outside of academia, the need for such a movement is probably a surprise - what else would consumer researchers do? The field of consumer behavior research, though, really lost its way, studying all 'interesting' questions as if they were of equal value. The TCR movement has not been embraced by all consumer behavior researchers, but it is having an impact.

That aside, the track I co-chaired was about youth and risky consumption - that is, the tendency to engage in what adults consider to be risky behavior. One of the topics discussed was that of rites of passage, along with rituals in general.

This is the season of weddings. A wedding is a rite of passage - it marks a transition from one stage to another. And there is a ritual, really a series of rituals, that marks the passage.

Did you know that if a person engages in significant binge drinking before age 25, the part of the brain that manages impulse control may fail to develop? This is the part of the brain that allows young men to sky-dive, drag race, etc., and by allows, I mean the part of the brain that stops older men from doing those things (at least, most of the time).

But binge drinking is a rite of passage. It serves a function.

What we've done as marketers is fail to replace binge drinking with another behavior that can serve the same function. Marketers, public policy makers, and the like have treated the big 4 risky behaviors (drinking, smoking, drug use, and premarital sex) as parents might. These behaviors have negative consequences, some serious, and so we just want the kids to not do them.

Educators believe in the power of education. All we have to do is to tell the kids why they shouldn't and allow them to make the right choice. If they make the wrong choice, it is because we didn't do a good job in teaching. Or so they think.

Marketers belive in the power of a campaign. This is your brain...this is your brain on drugs. That didn't work either.

But youth make the wrong choice for a reason and if we don't address the reason, then we won't prevent the risky behavior.

A recent study uncovered teens in one setting choosing to smoke marijuana because it was safer than crack. These teens were mitigating risk. Another study found teens in a particularly violent part of St. Louis who were intentionally getting pregnant because in that gang-driven society, gangsta moms were off-limits and safe.

We think that what they are doing is risky - they are simply taking less risky options. Their options are far more limited than we think.

The challenge is that for those teens in St. Louis, early sexual debut is a rite of passage. Having a child is a safe way out. Having ice cream socials isn't going to replace sex as a rite of passage.

But that's what TCR is all about. How we can understand their choices and their behaviors so that we can impact quality of life is what the TCR movement is about.

Random Rants:
I love the Sports Center commercial where the guy falls down with a fake injury - all because they've been watching a lot of soccer lately! If only it would have an impact on the game.

Coming Up
Registration is now open for this fall's Social CRM Strategies for Business seminar, September 13-14. Join me, Paul Greenberg, Estaban Kolsky, and Bruce Culbert at SAP's Palo Alto headquarters for this incredible event, co-sponsored by Teradata. Visit www.bptpartners.com to learn more.

Sales Bloopers

2011-06-21T04:12:00.000-07:00

What was your best first-year mistake? I mean, one with a customer that took you a few days to get over before you could laugh about it?

Mine was a sales call in Gainesville, Texas, a little town on the edge of an oil patch. Back then, independent oil men were wildcatters, able to drill wells with their teeth and they could start a slow well to pumping by sucking the oil out of the ground. I called on one of these guys, a big hulking man big enough to have played in the NFL, and tried to sell him a Xerox copier. He told me he bought a Toshiba from the local dealer, even though he knew he'd still have to go borrow a friend's copier if he needed a good copy. I said something like, "Are you an idiot? You bought a copier you knew made bad copies?" Maybe not those exact words, but it had that effect on him. I was also a little slow on the uptake, not really paying attention to the fact that he was about to bodily toss me from the second floor of the Gainesville State Bank building on to Locust Avenue. Fortunately, I had a friend with me, who pulled me out of that burning building in order to save my life.

Former students will tell me their best story when they come back to campus for a visit. One of my favorites was Katie S. - that is, a favorite student and a favorite story. She was in downtown Dallas and taking a client to lunch, when she accidentally turned onto a one-way street going the wrong way. When her client brought this to her attention, she noticed the SUV coming straight for her so she quickly turned right - right on to a DART rail line! Fortunately, no train was coming so she lived to tell the tale. The client, however, asked if she'd mind if he walked...

Another student, Jeff D., was selling for the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau and his territory was Chicago and Washington. So he'd call on organizations in those towns and try to get them to hold meetings in San Antonio. He sets up a week of meetings and flies up to Chicago, only then realizing that the lunch appointment he has tomorrow is with a client in DC, not Chicago. So he calls, apologizes, and reschedules for next week, moving it to dinner as part of the apology. Next week rolls around and he takes the client to dinner, to a wonderful restaurant perfect in every way - save one. They don't take American Express, Jeff's only credit card. Nor will they take a San Antonio check and he doesn't have enough cash. So he has to leave the client at the table, cab over to the hotel, cash a check, and return. At least the client thought it was funny.

Then there was the time when I made the pitch, thought I had the sale, and then they pulled the rug out from me at the last minute. Dejected, I walked out to my car, only to find I had locked the keys in it. There was no other building in sight. I had to slink back in and ask for a coat hanger so I could break into my own car. What a sorry sight I must have made!

Share your favorite customer story - and feel free to remain anonymous! Maybe there will be a prize to the best.

Random Rants
What do you think of Chrysler's commercial about the car that works? I'm surprised that the Town & Country is being aimed toward men in this fashion. I'd like to see the research used to support this positioning strategy. I suspect it will be every bit as good as Oldsmobile's attempt to reposition as "not your father's Olds." Memorable but unsuccessful. Still, I like the ad - it is appealing.

More "Lost at SEA"

2011-06-14T05:43:00.000-07:00

As promised last week, I intend this week to spend more time on some of the issues raised at SEA, the Sales Educator's Academy held in Orlando. Last week, I mentioned Neil Rackham's keynote addressed trends he's been talking about for ten years, noting that some trends move slowly and in the main, I think he's right. I took issue, though, with his comment that opportunity selection - that is, choosing among the many prospects a company has - to be the biggest challenge in sales.

I used to think the biggest barrier to sales growth is finding good salespeople. In sales, turnover is most likely to occur in the first 18 months and many of those who leave the company also leave the profession. I took that as evidence that the problem was a lack of fit between the job and the individual.

I still think that is a big barrier, but I'm wondering if poor sales management isn't the bigger problem.

For the past year, I've been working on a project designed to identify the factors that cause different success trajectories in new salespeople. Many studies identify why salespeople fail, and the relationship with the sales manager is a prime factor. But why do some salespeople skyrocket to success and others experience a steady sales growth rate?

Again, I think it is management. Start with the research on motivation. If Neil is right that the sales professioin is bifurcating into simple, transactional positions and complex, consultative positions, then what we know on motivation means that the traditional forms of incentive structures won't work (if you haven't seen Daniel Pink's talk on motivation, google Daniel Pink RSA - that's the best version). In fact, not only do these incentive plans fail to motivate, they actually lead to less creative behavior, and in complex sales, creativity is important.

Yet, even so, I'm struggling to find sales organizations willing to participate in the study. They all recognize the problem, they understand the thought process behind it, but when it comes to giving up one sales call (30 minutes per rep) to participate in the study, it fails to gain traction. Why? Because it will take much more than that of their own time.

Like a man without a map, determined to keep driving down the road thought to be wrong but sure this is the way, they keep on keeping on. With apologies to the Allman Brothers, the strategy of keeping on even when it was obviously not working was never really a good idea.

So back to SEA. The reality is we keep on keeping on - teaching the same sales management principles that aren't working. We teach Maslowe's Hierarchy when maybe we ought to be starting with Herzberg (remember, he's the one who said pay was a satisficer or hygiene factor). The good news is that there are 45 faculty who will teach the new stuff - even though we really don't know enough yet.

Random Rants
Co-branding seems to be growing really popular. There are at least two brands co-branding with ESPN's Sports Center (another popular co-promotion strategy is to use a movie's characters and settings to advertise a brand). I hope that one of these brands fail - the beer brand. The goal of this advertising seems to be to make Sports Center a trigger to have a beer. The appeal seems innocent - have a beer and watch Sports Center. But if that gets to be a habit, I'll have to switch to Oprah.

Spanish moss still grows in Florida

2011-06-07T04:13:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I was part of the faculty for the inaugural Sales Educator's Academy (SEA) in Winter Park, just outside Orlando. Under the Spanish moss in the oaks, SEA was created to teach teachers of college sales and sales management courses how to teach more effectively. The setting was Rollins College, an incredibly beautiful campus, and the conference itself was one of the most highly energtic, action-packed and value-packed meetings I've ever been to.

The opening keynoter was Neil Rackham, the inventor of SPIN and arguably the inventor of consultative approaches to selling. Well, he may not have invented consultative selling any more than Columbus discovered America, but like Columbus, no one really cared until he went there.

Neil's presentation (interestingly, copyrighted 2009) was, for the most part, the same presentation he made to our students at Baylor some ten years ago. The main point is that the sales profession has bifurcated into order-taking and complex, consultative selling. The expense of carrying salespeople has reduced the profession to either low-paid, high volume transactional salespeople (probably working in an inbound call center) or highly paid, large deal but few customers account managers, according to Neil.

While there is some truth to that, the mere fact that he's been able to make this presentation repeatedly over at least a ten year span suggests that perhaps this trend is not so rapid. Yet, like many business messiahs, in order to be saved by the messiah, you have to first be convinced you're going to Hell. So Neil plays on the worry that sales expenses are high and getting higher, low-cost transactional channels are gaining traction, and builds an effective case for making the transition.

But there were a few things that I had difficulty swallowing. One such statement was that opportunity selection was a major problem at companies today. Unless, of course, the major problem is simply finding an opportunity. What bothers me about presentations like Neil's is the implication that the example given represents everyone. So his one client who improves productivity by doing a better job of deciding which opportunities to chase and which to ignore is presented as an exemplar of the problem all businesses face, a slap in the face to those who are still struggling to find sufficient volume of opportunities.

I read an interesting blog the other day (I'm sorry, I don't recall whose it was) where the author said a speaker (unnamed in the blog) said this about marketing. "How does it feel to be in a profession where most of your output is failure?" The speaker's point was that most leads fail to turn into sales, and that the leads that salespeople create are far more likely to turn into sales than are the ones developed by marketing.

Just as in the 1890s, a major improvement in selling was the creation of accounts receivable departments, freeing up salespeople to prospect and sell, not just collect, a major improvement in selling in the 1990s was the creation of marketing automation. Yet it is only now that companies are really starting to strip away prospecting from salespeople in an effective way - meaning, that they are finally creating prospecting plans that work. And that they are starting to realize that some tried-and-true methods like trade shows should not have been discarded in favor of only electronic methods. These systems, though, free salespeople to do what they do best - find out what the buyer needs and marshall resources to fulfill those needs.

Howard Stevens, of Chally, said in his keynote that the top 20% of salespeople consumer almost 55% of a company's resources, according to one of the surveys his company did. Effective salespeople selling highly complex solutions, to support Neil's point, may be spending more time selling inside their own organization than outside.

So, perhaps Neil is right. I'm off to play golf now, but I will return to this topic next week, and perhaps the week after.

Random Rants
Since I was locked up in a conference from Thursday through Sunday, I really haven't got any. Actually, a marketing-free week was kinda nice.

LivingSocial or LivingCheap? And does it matter?

2011-05-31T04:33:00.000-07:00

Living in Waco has meant, at least until recently, that such Internet wonders as Groupon and Facebook deals were out of reach. Oh sure, you could get the daily deal in Dallas or Austin but let's face it, that would be money wasted.

Then LivingSocial came to Waco and I got to join in the fun. So far, I bought a round of golf (shot a 93 - best score in 10 years), dinner at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant, and a flying lesson for my son. Now I go to my Yahoo mail account every day (formerly once a week, if that) to see what today's deal is (it's half-price from Secret Chef, a take-out only place where the menu changes daily - awesome food).

Given the economy, couponing is back, and in a big way. LivingSocial and Groupon are just two of the daily deal engines that are taking advantage of the deal-prone consumer. While not all consumers are deal-prone, though, retailers can make their buyers deal-prone.

For example, Foley's had their "Red Apple" sales so often that buyers stopped shopping in-between sales. They knew to wait a week and whatever they wanted would likely be on sale.

It's not just consumers that get trained to wait for deals - so do business buyers. One IT company I work with would cut prices near the end of the quarter in order to meet Wall Street's expectations. Buyers soon learned to wait so the price would go down, leading the company into a vicious cycle that they struggle to break.

Of course, it isn't just about pricing strategies that we train our customers. We teach them our return policies, the best hours to go to get service, and how to search our websites efficiently. The problem is that we often unintentionally teach them very well, as they learn how to maximize their return to our detriment.

Our favorite Vietnamese restaurant's owner says that 80% who redeemed the LivingSocial deal were first-timers. How many of those go out only when there is a deal? What happens if that number of first-timers drops to 40%? That's the danger - that we create a population of extreme couponers who only come because of the deal and never come back - except when there's a deal.

Random Rants:
Great merchandising by Walgreens - next to the signs "A Golden Retriever Lives Here" were lint brushes.

Will Facebook go the way of the CB? I'm bored with FB, but maybe it's just me.

Commercial Language

2011-05-24T05:04:00.000-07:00

“Winston takes good like a cigarette should.” That slogan for a popular cigarette brand was used on television, billboards, magazine ads – that’s right, kiddies, we used to advertise cigarettes on TV. One version of their campaign focused on the word “like.” Should it be “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should,” or “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should”?

Whatever. Nowadays, the slogan would be, “Winston’s, like, good.”

One columnist defended the ubiquitous use of like as a tonal adjective. Though not in language so fancy (imagine that), she argued that the word is used in speech to convey the attitude of the person being described. Whatever.

We are a verbally lazy people. The Eskimos may have seven words for snow but why waste all that brainpower, when it’s, like, you know, snow.

We Americans, though, are also very imprecise. A colleague remarked that he hates country-western music. Really? Precisely? I suspect he disdains certain musical expressions, because to hate it seems a bit strong. You can hate brussel sprouts, Al Qaida, or your ninth grade algebra teacher, but to say you hate an entire genre of music seems a bit harsh. Does he hate “I’m proud to be an American,” by Lee Greenwood? “Amazing Grace” as sung by Johnny Cash? Yet, I suspect he doesn’t use the word disdain as that might sound pretentious, as if claiming to like only jazz and classical is not.

So the NBA now has a campaign to get kids to stop using the word “gay” to mean stupid or dumb, as in “that idea is so gay.” The commercial itself is lame (can I use that without offending the physically handicapped?), and so is the idea. The word “gay” was co-opted by a group that now wants to exclude other uses of the word. Good luck, NBA. I really wish you’d spend the commercial time for something much more important, like a campaign to reduce bullying. Calling their campaign gay is not the same as harassing a gay person in school. Kids have moved way past the idea that the word means homosexual when used in the context of something stupid, just like people have moved way past original meanings of words like “sucks” or “bites.” Just for the record, I’m quite ok with kids using jeff instead of stupid. “That idea is so jeff.” Really, it’s like, you know, ok.

Random RantsThe summer season of beer commercials has just started. I like the “Liteguards” idea by Miller Lite, but the execution is horrible. Blonde femmes in swimsuits are always good TV, I think. But when they rush the man holding a bad bottle of beer, they just look stupid. The basic idea is a re-hash of referees penalizing football watchers for bad beer, and friends don’t let friends drink bad beer, but instead of just changing the season from football to the beach in summer, the ad also makes the claim that Lite beer is manly. Hmmm, that explains why women drink Natural Light.

Heineken has introduced its new can, as well as commercials to announce it. As they say, there are no blue strips to tell you if the beer is cold – you have hands, you can touch the can. Nor is there an extra-wide hole to “help you” drink it. And they are honest in pointing out that the can has no grooves to give it “beerination” or something. I appreciate the sarcasm. But what is the point of the new can? Or of the ad?

Budweiser keeps using the patriotism ploy. This is a brand now owned by Europeans and afraid of losing its market as a consequence. Look Bud, lighten up. First, I’m not a fan of companies that borrow our emotions from those who really deserve it, without compensation. If Bud was telling us that they fund The Wounded Warrior Project, ok. But they aren’t. They just want us to think they are the beer of patriots. Second, it’s time Bud got over the fact that they aren’t an American brand anymore. I doubt if it matters to anyone.

Not too long ago (two weeks?), I wrote that the Progressive girl had been around too long. She’s still with us, but Progressive has added another theme, this time with a guy. Got one right!

High Expectations

2011-05-17T06:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I attended the funeral of a close friend's mother. I'm usually not a big fan of funerals where the dead is eulogized by any and everyone. In most instances, it seems the reminisces are either too personal to understand the significance or too rambly to make sense. In this instance, though, the only word to describe the experience is inspiring.

One theme that kept surfacing, as people described this former teacher and high school counselor, was expectation. She expected the best, and because she expected it, she actively looked for, and saw, the best, and as a result, lives were changed.

Lately, I've been reflecting a great deal about my career, and what I hope to accomplish in the time remaining. This reflection was started by a high school student who asked me what I hope to do with my life. I had asked her that question, so I guess turnabout is fair play. Her question, though, forced me to think about my expectations and ambitions.

What has struck me over the course of my life, both personally and professionally, is how someone's off-hand comment changed the course of so many lives. My professor said, "If you liked this project and you like to teach, you should become a professor. This is what we do." So I did. The older cousin of a then-high schooler expressed a an appreciation of her talent for insight, so she decided to be a judge. The high school principal told a student that he made the school a happier place, and that role gave him a reason to come back.

All of the comments had, at their root, the belief that the person was worthy. There was no intention of influencing someone's future - simply a reflection of an expectation, or a belief that someone has a gift and intends to use it.

I was in a housing project last week, interviewing high school students as part of a research project. They were frustrated by the low expectations placed upon them by their teachers and their school administrators. Many of them, I later found out, were second or third generation residents of the projects, meaning their mothers grew up in that housing project and couldn't get out. They saw no future for themselves, either, and with good reason. Most, not all but most, will never be able to overcome the low expectations with which others have limited them.

As a teacher, as a sales manager, as a coach, a parent, or friend, how we interact with someone is based on our expectations. Simply by having high expectations, we say and do things that reflect our belief in the value of the other person. And, as a result, we are rewarded at the level of our expectations.

Random Rants
Sports Illustrated said that the royal wedding followed by the Kentucky Derby means floppy hat overload. What were they watching? Someone wasn't paying attention...

Are you still active on FB? Me, not so much. And it's getting harder to be motivated to be LinkedIn. It seems that LinkedIn has become nothing but advertising. Isn't it funny how we consumers keep moving to new places, trying to stay one step ahead of advertisers?

Does Loyalty Require a Program?

2011-05-10T04:27:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite hotels for business travel is the Drury Inn. The Drury advertises receiving multiple consecutive JD Power & Associates awards as a top hotel in customer satisfaction, and I'm not surprised. This relatively small chain of about 75 properties brags that "The Extras aren't Extra!"

I've never understood why a $100 a night hotel can give free internet while a $250 a night hotel has to charge $25 a day for the same service. The Drury, though, also offers free long distance calls, a free full breakfast, a free happy hour with enough food to make a meal, pool, exercise room, and a free business lounge (computers with printers/faxes - something else that costs extra in the $250 a night hotel).

So it neither surprised me nor bothered me that they didn't have a loyalty program. I've often said to students that the four dimensions of loyalty can be met without a program. These dimensions - identity as a loyal customer, transparency of benefit of loyalty, a sense of community both with other customers and the company, and responsiveness to customer needs - don't require a program but a program has to deliver on these dimensions.

Yet at the same time, I've never had to test their responsiveness as I've never complained nor sent in an idea for improvement. The only benefit of loyalty was that they would put me in the same room each time, which seemed creepy. I was never welcomed back, though I stay at the same Drury Inn in Amarillo at least three times a year.

So while their product is really good, I guess they did need more to create loyalty. I've not joined their program yet - I really don't want to carry yet another card, remember another password, etc. If I make the reservation at Hotels.com, I can count each night toward a Hotels.com reward so I'm not sure of the benefits of joining (the transparency dimension). Maybe they need it. I'm not sure I do.

Random Rants:
The Derby this year was one of the best. They used the same parking scheme as last year, but with fewer cars coming and having had a year of experience with it, everything flowed much more easily. One thing we've noticed, though, is a distinct reduction in the number of older men bringing much younger women. Is that a sign of a poor economy? Looking at the fashion, I'd have to guess that the economy is stronger than recent years, but not robust. It was easier to tell this year's fashions from last year's. Attendance was also up, a record 164,858, another indication of a strengthening economy.

Three baseball movies with playing catch with dad as a theme: The Natural, The Sandlot, and Field of Dreams. Did you have any others?

It's So Easy, A Caveman Could Do It

2011-05-03T03:48:00.001-07:00

At the lakehouse, we have a TV but it isn't hooked up to anything but a DVD player. We don't go to the lake to watch TV, or at least, that's the idea behind leaving it unhooked. So last weekend, between the wind and rain, we did watch a Zach Efron movie, The Derby Stallion.

You've seen this movie, I promise you. Maybe not with Zach Efron, but you've seen this movie. Boy doesn't like X, though he does it to please his dad. But then he quits to chase his dream and ends up defeating the bully in the championship.

In this movie, Zach has 2 months to learn how to ride a horse and win a steeplechase. As is the case with real life, lesson 1 was mucking out a stall and grooming the horse. No riding. But real life ended there.

In real life, after two months, a teenager would be lucky to be stepping over logs, much less jumping five and six foot fences on a two mile course. I know, it's Hollywood.

As adults, we know that hard work has to accompany natural talent. Babe Ruth may have been the Sultan of Swat, but did you know he was also the Sultan of Sweat? Ruth was the first major player to develop an off-season exercise regimen. Of course, that may have been as much so he could continue to eat hot dogs and drink beer to excess as it was to play ball, but work he did.

I have students all the time tell me that they studied hard ("I stayed up all night!") but their expectations for results were dashed by my tests. But they grow frustrated knowing that other students were able to score well without as much effort. Somehow, innate intellectual ability enabled some students to excel without effort.

Yet, we're finding in research that innate intellectual ability is actually a poor predictor of performance. Measures, such as entrance exams, do a poor job of predicting how a student actually performs.

Further, we're also learning how malleable intellect is. One recent study, which included a review of nearly 50 other studies, concluded that simply believing that intellect is malleable is a factor in predicting whether one can improve one's score on standard IQ tests. If you believe that intellect is fixed, you are unable to improve.

One of my challenges now is convincing my son that his intellectual capacity isn't fixed. The secondary challenge is convincing him that the work it takes to improve it is worthwhile. I'm open to suggestions...

One of my students this term told me of a sales exec who will only hire people who share two dominant personality traits. Yet, the student and I both know of salespeople in that industry who are polar opposites of those two traits while producing record results year after year.

Salespeople are not born as salespeople. Those who have some gift for gab are as likely to talk their way out of a sale as into one. Sales management is more than finding the naturals and teaching them to jump fences in two months. After lots of hard work, it becomes so easy, a caveman can do it - providing he's willing to put in those months of hard work.

Random Rants
It's baseball season. Can you name three baseball movies that feature a game of catch with dad as an important resolution of conflict at or near the end?

The Weather Channel has a new Psychic

2011-04-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's Wednesday and yes, I'm late. No, this was not a test to see if anyone cared. Technical difficulties with the internet at home got me behind and I just couldn't catch up.

We got a great spring storm last night, complete with lots of thunder, the odd tornado, and nearly an inch of rain. This storm, though, wasn’t in the forecast the day before.

Which raises the question: What does a 40% chance of rain mean? Does it mean that the conditions are such that the probability for everyone to get rain is 40% or does it mean that it will rain on 40% of the area? Or is it some combination of the two?

Of course, forecasting the path of a storm is a different matter all together. At least you know that there is a storm and you can kinda figure out where it will go. What it will do seems to be another matter. Last night, the Weather Channel reported a tornado-inducing thunderstorm marching down Rock Creek Road. That prompted calls from children and in-laws wondering if we were ok. Fortunately, at least for us, Rock Creek Road is miles long and makes a 90 degree turn – the storm went straight and left the road, missing us by a couple of miles.

I got a marketing email the other day from Tara Medium Services, offering me a free psychic reading. Did they send that to me because they knew I’d respond? Does their forecasting method work better than statistics? (I'm sure I'll see something about this on the forecasting question on the final exam next week.) If you respond, it’s not spam, right?

Forecasting is one of those topics that students don’t really appreciate until they become salespeople and can’t deliver to their customer because the sale wasn’t in the forecast so the product was never built. Forecasting is also one of those skills that seems to be a function of experience. Last night, when I felt the wind blowing one way and a wall cloud 10,000 feet up moving the other way, I was pretty sure we were in for a storm.

So much of what we do is a function of forecasting. We are constantly guessing, I mean forecasting, other people’s reactions. Get enough people together and you can apply statistics. With fewer people, maybe a psychic would work. Hmm, let’s see, Tara said to try being nice. Yeah, that might work. Nah.

Random Rants:
Have you seen the new Geico “Does a dog chase cats?” commercial? A 1970s car chase scene, with Plymouth Roadrunners and Dodge Chargers flying through the air has a dog and a cat at the wheels of two cars. Try that today, and you’d leave the road covered with shards of plastic. Geico, btw, has passed Progressive up. It’s time to retire the discount girl.

By the way, Tara also said I'd write a blog about her. Wow, she is psychic!

Has LinkedIn lost its power as a marketing channel? I think so. It seems that all of the discussions are really marketing come-ons, starting with a phony question. “How can I get my teeth really white?” Even job postings are “How to get a job by buying my book.”

Catchphrases and Coaches' Phrases

2011-04-19T04:17:00.000-07:00

I don't care to watch golf all that often on tv, but I have to admit, the Masters this year was pretty exciting. Five guys vied for the green jacket in the final few hours of the tournament, making shots that seemed impossible, one right after the other. But there is one guy, not a player but a spectator, who is making tv golf really annoying. "Get in the hole!" he yells on every shot. Tiger tees off, "Get in the hole!" He's 425 yards away, for crying out loud - it's not going in the hole!

I imagine the poor guy has little control over anything in his life. He can't restrain himself from yelling at a tiny inanimate object, nor can he come up with anything appropriate or useful to say.

When I coached kids' sports, I was always trying to think of things to say that would make sense to them. Things like, "Run away!" instead of "Get open for a pass!" Six year olds don't understand get open but they understand run away. Then a pass comes to them and they figure it out. My favorite was "Make your own mistakes, but only make them once." In other words, learn from what others do, then be bold and make your own mistakes. But learn from your own, too. I never, ever got mad at a player who made what I call a hustle mistake - he tried hard but out-tried his ability or the laws of physics. That's ok. That's how you learn. But stupid mistakes were repeating those that someone else had made.

In sales management, you also have to put things into words in a way that reps understand. I was advising one young salesperson recently who tended to be overly optimistic and think something was sold when it wasn't, a common malady among salespeople. "Some people count their eggs before they hatch," I told him. "You're counting eggs every time the chicken squats and grunts. Unfortunately, sometimes when she grunts, she's not laying eggs." In other words, there's a long process still to go, if in fact she's laying an egg, before it hatches into a chick. And sometimes, she's leaving something else for you to find.

Have you got a favorite saying or pithy comment to offer? Send it to me or post. If you have trouble posting comments, send the comment to me at jeff_tanner@baylor.edu. It's easier to post as Anonymous, so try that if you're having problems.

Random Rants:
Ok, Kohler's new "Na na na na" ad for toilets is a bit over the top - at least the tv version. Dancing out of the stalls in public toilets is just odd at best. But the radio version does a much better job of presenting the benefit and helping the target audience recognize the need.

Southwest Airlines blew it. When the hole in the 737 caused the plane to land and subsequently led the airline to ground some of their fleet, hundreds of flights were cancelled and over a thousand delayed significantly in the first 24 hours, and the second 24 hours was only moderately better (only 990 signifcant delays, meaning over an hour). But it wasn't until late the second day that they told passengers what had happened and what caused the cancellations and delays. It's not enough to do the right thing - you also have to let your customers know and let them know right away.

The book, Three Cups of Tea, has been found to be full of exaggerations and outright lies. Does that mean they're going to issue a recall? If it was a car, they would. If it was peanut butter, they would. But in publishing, they just change the label from fact to fiction.

Boomerang Dogs

2011-04-12T03:42:00.001-07:00

Some folks have boomerang kids - I've got boomerang dogs. We own two dogs, one we got at the rescue center and the other a lab mix who just showed up. But we also have one son's doberman/lab mix (who fights the rescue dog so they have to always be separate) and another son's redbone coon hound named Jesse.

Jesse, as I write this at 5:30 a.m., is out barking at something near the barn. That's what she's best at - barking at something. I've listened to her bark for over an hour at a mouse that is hiding somewhere in the tractor. Recently, she discovered squirrels, so she'll bark for hours under a tree. You can see why she lives with us on the farm and not with my son in town. Jesse is my Job-like trial, according to my son, a gift from God, and my son, to teach me patience. Well, she's the gift that keeps on giving.

Jesse lost her collar the other day, so my wife asked her, in all sincerity, "Jesse, where's your collar?" Jesse failed to reply, "Well, I was chasing a squirrel and when I went through the fence, it got stuck so I pulled out and left it there." That failure, however, didn't stop my son from asking, "Jesse! What did you do with your collar?" Jesse just looked at him quizzically, then ran off to bark at a squirrel. Another son came home and noticed the missing collar. "Jesse! Where's your collar?" Suprisingly, she ignored him, too.

Why do we ask our dogs questions? We know they can't answer, but when one of the dogs shows up wet, we always ask, "Where have you been?"

A few weeks ago, Jesse went after a skunk under the shop. The skunk sprayed - at my car. In the event you don't have firsthand experience, let me just say that the spray is so strong at first that you might throw up. And when it gets inside your car, it can stay for weeks. Of course, as soon as I smelled the skunk, I had to ask Jesse, "What did you do?" She looked at me like the idiot I am - it was obvious what she had done.

(She's still barking in the barn, by the way.)

Jesse also refuses to do anything you ask, unless you ask her to do something she's already started. She won't even bark on command, unless you have a squirrel in your hand.

She will, however, eat all of the dog food in a forty-pound bag if you leave the door open to the pantry. She will also get up on the kitchen table (not entirely, just enough) to eat anything left there. She won't pull food onto the floor, so sometimes you're not really sure. "Jeff, did you three brownies or did Jesse get them?" See, Jesse is good for something - I can blame her for the brownies I ate.

If my son came home today and planned to take Jesse away, I'd have mixed emotions but on the balance, I think I'd celebrate. But the first thing I'd do when I saw her again would be to ask, "Jesse, did you miss me?"

Random Rants:
Congratulations to Luke Reichenstein, Outstanding Senior in this year's S3 class. I have Luke in class, and he is amazingly brilliant, hard working, and full of life. I have no doubt that we'll be hearing great things about his career. I'm so glad I have Luke in class this year.

Congratulations also to Will May, Outstanding Senior in this year's Professional Selling class. I had Will in two classes. He's another student who is incredibly brilliant and seems to effortlessly master the material. What is impressive about Will is his ability to put concepts together well ahead of the class. He's another that I'm looking forward to hearing about his exploits in business.

What is the deal with Ford's Mustang ad, where they have this incredible video and music that makes the car look fantastic, but the graphic is about 31 mpg? Oh yeah, I want the muscle car that saves gas! Really? Is there really a segment like that in the market?

Have you seen Geico's Deadliest Catch commercial aired during Deadliest Catch? Great concept, well executed, and to pair it with the show that spawned it - brilliant.

Britain just had its first product placement - a coffeemaker. American Idol has over 200 product placements per episode. I'm not sure what this means, except that for decades, American TV has been a weak copy of British TV. Oh yes, even The Office was first created in Britain. Maybe this spells doom for TV everywhere.

Flexible or Focused

2011-04-05T03:53:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest challenges facing small organizations that I work with is answering the question: "What do I want to be when I grow up?" Whether it is a non-profit who knows that they want to reduce teen pregnancy or a new business venture that has a cool new way to train for speed, the challenge is that they think they know the answer to that question.

And then, opportunities arise that look really cool and might have a nice pay-off. Before you know it, the organization is no longer who they thought they were, or, worst case, they fail to reach their goals and cease operations.

The same thing happens to salespeople, especially in situations where they have little supervision. In an attempt to "meet market demand" or "seize opportunities" and "close leads," they lose sight of a sustainable strategy.

When does it pay to be opportunistic and when does it pay to be strategic? When does it make sense to choose one-off deals that divert your attention from your strategy?

Some situations are so obvious - if I don't get some cash, I'll close; if I don't publish an article, I'll get denied tenure - and in desperate times, you will literally do just about anything. But these are not the situations that are so troublesome.

The ones that can get you into trouble are those that come in relatively good times. Every sales call made that doesn't align with the strategy hurts the strategy's effectiveness by taking away a sales call that could have supported it. (With faculty, every paper published that's not in your area doesn't help build your reputation. And in the long term, that's what you're trying to do - build your scholarly reputation.) Keep in mind Gettsyburg started out as an opportunity for Lee to get shoes for his men. There was no strategic objective there. And look what happened.

At the same time, most strategies started out as opportunities. We did that once (or could do it), let's do more.

How do you spot the difference?

In small organizations, analysis paralysis sets in. Everyone has an opinion and everyone argues about it until the cash is gone. Or worse, everyone does their own thing chasing every opportunity until the cash is gone.

That's why the leader has to lead. Keep the troops focused on the strategic objective. Sales managers have to keep salespeople focused and moving ahead. Targets of opportunity may arise, but only if they are strategically aligned, attack. Otherwise, move on. (Note that different rules apply when desperate.)

Spotting the difference then becomes making a reasoned effort to understand the opportunity. Is it a one-off or simply the first one of many that has appeared? Will other buyers operate the same way, with the same motivation? Or is this one unique? How does it fit my strategic objectives?

Even if it is simply opportunistics, there can be reasonably good reasons for pursuing it. Are there additional reasons to pursue this opportunity - reasons such as adding a well-known brand to my client list or gaining expertise in an area I need greater strength? But be careful; these other reasons are often just rationalizations for a bad decision.

I'm curious about your opportunity stories. Drop me an email about the opportunities that changed your life - the counterfactual stories to today's blog.

Random Rants
If hiring new salespeople is any sign of economic recovery (and I think it is, based on previous recessions), then we seem to be pulling out. Like all recoveries, some industries (like technology) seem to recover faster than others, and some may be gone for good. What I find laughable are the CEOs who have their assistants call me and say that "Mr. BigPants would like to share his experience with your students, and by the way, interview your best students for sales positions while he's there." Yeah right. Where have you been the past five years? Why would I send my best to you, when I have organizations that have supported us with speakers, research opportunities, internships, and sometimes even cash in good times and bad? I'll let students know you have a job open and allow them the opportunity to make the decision, but the kind of access you want is reserved for those who have earned it.

For a source of inspiration...

2011-03-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

As I write this, it is Monday afternoon. Tomorrow, our Lady Bears take on Texas A&M in the Elite Eight. This is the fourth meeting this season, with Baylor prevailing in the first three. Everyone here seems to think it is a near-impossible task to beat a team as good as A&M four times, while the A&M fans I spoke with seem to think they have no chance. If you are a basketball fan, whether you like the game above or below the rim, this is one matchup you won’t want to miss.

Along the way, though, several teams went down in defeat, their season over. For fans, there’s always next year. But for seniors, especially in women’s basketball, there will never be another crowd of 8,000+ watching and cheering.

When Baylor played West Virginia, I was in the concourse of Baylor’s Ferrell Center and overheard a man just ranting about the calls. It was clear he was a West Virginia fan, not just because of his salty language, but because of the calls he discussed. Since we were just above the family area behind the WV bench, I watched him the rest of the game and realized he was probably Liz Repella’s father. Liz was WV’s top scorer in the losing effort, as well as a senior leader on the team.

And I knew exactly how her dad felt.

You’re powerless. You know your daughter hurts, because something that means so much to her is ending. And you are powerless to stop it, to prevent it, to kiss it and make it all better. All you can really do is say thank you for letting me come along on the ride.

Most of these athletes won’t show the emotion they’re feeling, but a few do. Number 4, the scrappy little point guard for Green Bay, whose basketball career ended with a Brittany Griner back-in-your-face block of a lay-up, left the floor in tears when the final horn sounded. Not because of the loss of the game so much as the end of the dream, the end of a life, and the end of an identity. No more will she be #4. No more will she be a college basketball player. Her team lost only 4 conference games her entire career, but that’s yesterday’s news, filler in the sports obituary.

Some see it coming and they’re ready. Prairie View A&M, who brought a nice contingent of good fans only to lose 66-30, came out of the locker room as a team to say thank you to those same fans for coming to the game and for supporting them all season. They had given the game the old college try, but it was clear they were outmatched. So they enjoyed the experience by hustling and competing, stoically saving their feelings for when no one is looking. But you know the hurt is there nonetheless.

I spoke to Liz’s dad after the game, told him how much I thought of his daughter’s effort and skill, and wished him safe journey home. He was very complimentary of what Baylor has going, saying this was the largest crowd Liz had played in front of her entire career. I’m glad so many of us got to see her play and to play so well – she deserved bigger crowds. But then again, she wasn't really playing for us. Somehow, I get the feeling she'll be just as tough to defend in any pickup game as she was in college.

Thanks, Liz, for letting us come along.

Random Rants:The Department of Homeland Security has partnered with the NCAA. If you see anything suspicious, you are supposed to report it. How about the suspicious handling of Perry Jones’ suspension, on the first day of the Big 12 tournament when the NCAA knew of the violation in January? It’s no wonder that Mark Emmert, president of the NCAA, was booed every time his face appeared on one of the commercials at the Baylor games, both in Waco and Dallas.

Congratulations, Charley Cohon! Charley is one of those true professionals who not only upholds what it means to be professional in sales, he also works for the good of the profession. Charley was just appointed President and CEO of the Manufacturer’s Agent National Association (MANA). That is great news for MANA and for the profession of selling. Other activities Charley has engaged in include supporting Pi Sigma Epsilon (the collegiate sales organization) by serving as a judge in the national competition, and serving with the Manufacturers’ Representatives’ Educational Research Foundation. Thanks, Charley, for all you for the field and good luck with the new post.

On Innovation, or the Lack Of

2011-03-22T04:11:00.000-07:00

There may be plenty of ways to skin a cat but if you had to do it for a living, all cat skinners would soon settle on one efficient way to do it. There would be cat skinning classes, cat skinning degree programs, and a cat skinning union, except in Wisconsin.

This tendency for organizations to settle on similar processes is called isomorphism. Isomorphism is not, as one student thought, what happens to people when they are in the woods too long. Rather, it is a natural process of trial and error resulting in a uniform method.

Academia is an interesting industry. We prize the search for truth and understanding (in the scientific sense, not the "let's all light candles, hold hands, and sing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" sense). Yet, when faced with an actual problem that requires a decision, we place all of our marbles in isomorphism. In every faculty meeting I've ever been a part of (boy, that's time I wish I could get back) that concerned a "new" problem, someone says, "We need to find out what other schools have done or are doing." Conformity is valued - innovation feared.

Isomorphism has no place in the marketplace. It may serve well in the back-office processes designed to deliver customer service, but isomorphism is not how you build market share. And while simple contrarianism is not a perfect strategy either, it is often a great place to start when looking for a creative way to serve the market. When all of your competitors are offering X, try Y.

There is a well-documented first mover advantage when new technology is introduced. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a simpler idea of not accepting the status quo as the status permanent. Ok, I just showed a remarkable lack of Latin, but you get the point. When looking for market advantage, see what everyone else is doing and figure out what you can do that they're not.

Random Rants
According to the NY Times, Full House, a furniture retailer in Washington, now sends cease and desist letters to every person who posts a negative comment about the store on the web. If you buy furniture from them, you sign an agreement that acknowledges that you are aware that libel is a felony, and that you have to have documentable proof in writing of any transgression by Full House or you are subject to libel charges if you post a negative rating! Further, only a non-response from Full House after 72 hours can be considered the only basis for a complaint. Never mind, of course, that libel in Washington (state that is) is a civil, not a criminal issue and therefore not a felony. Seems to me like someone just needs to go into the woods and have a good screaming fit every now and then.

NCAA Does It Again

2011-03-15T04:49:00.000-07:00

If there was any doubt in anyone's mind that the NCAA is a capricious organization that is designed to serve big money while pretending to protect amateurism , that doubt was erased by the suspension of Perry Jones, Baylor's phenom freshman. Two loans, totalling under $1000, made to and repaid by his single mother without his knowledge and by a longtime family friend who also happened to be an AAU coach was the infraction for which he was officially suspended. The real reason, though, appears to be the termination of a Baylor employee who's father is an NCAA infractions investigator. At the very least, the timing (just a few hours before the first Big 12 tournament game) is suspect but given the highly publicized exoneration of Cam Newton, the light slap for Jim Tressel, and other such cases, it seems clear that the timing of this suspension was intended to do far more damage than simply deny Baylor the services of a player.

Yes, I'm a Baylor professor and a Baylor basketball fan. But the NY Times has run at least two editorials questioning the decision, as did ESPN, YahooSports, and a number of newspapers around the country. The timing, though, was also insidious as the excitement surrounding conference tournaments drove the news out of the paper.I'm not alone in wondering whether there is a money standard that drives everything the NCAAA does. Ok, that's not true. I don't wonder - I know that there is a money standard driving the NCAA.

Then follow that with the exclusion of Colorado from the NCAA tournament, while 11 Big East teams are included. As the St. John's coach noted (after his team came in 11the in the Big East and they still got in the tournament), and I'm paraphrasing this quote trying to recall it as exactly as I can, the NCAA recognized the money invested in basketball and the tradition of the Big East. Really? So it isn't wins and losses or who you beat. It's the money.

As much as I dislike the BCS, I long for a BCS-like computer formula that picks the 68 teams that go into the tournament.

At the same time, though, I long for the dissolution of the NCAA. To continue the sham that these are amateur athletics is to exploit the lives of young men and women for the sole purpose of making money - money for everyone but them. Let's not blame the media, because they would make money if the sport was professionalized. Let's not blame the sponsors, because they wouldn't change what they do if the sport was professionalized. Instead, point the finger at every college president. Every dollar that a booster doesn't pay an athlete gets paid to the university.

Random Rants
Sic 'Em Bear, a 3 year old gelding, is heading the track to start his racing career today. That's after waiting for well over a month for Equine Express to pick him up and deliver him. Yes, I'm a small-time customer. I've only got the one horse right now. Lose my business and it is no big deal. My trainer, though, isn't too happy about this and will no longer use Equine Express. Serves them right!

And while we're on the subject of horse racing, how did I pick my trainer, you ask? I called five trainers. One had changed her phone number and didn't tell the track, nor does she have a web page. I couldn't track her down at all. I spoke to another who was to call me back. Apparently, he is a graduate of the Equine Express School of Customer Service, as his return call was about 45 days after he said he would call. The others never called back at all.

Don't Sweat the Details?

2011-03-08T21:20:00.000-08:00

Do details matter? Of course they do if you're doing brain surgery, but if you're doing marketing, do they?

Ask Cavender's, the western clothing retailer and the answer is likely to be "No!" As official sponsor of the Texas Bowl last December, they created an activation strategy that involved a $10 gift card for each fan. Someone placed a $10 gift card on each seat that could be spent on a pair of Wrangler's jeans. Imagine, 70,000 fans could have redeemed that gift card.

Except that Cavender's decided March 1st that fans had had enough time. Less than 90 days (closer to 60, actually) after the event, they declared it finished. In spite of the fact that there was no expiration date on the card or the paper sleeve it came in.

Of course, I found out when I went into a Cavender's to buy a pair of Wranglers. Which I did not buy once I found out they were renegging on the gift card.

There's a new Baskins in town - a bigger western apparel store. It doesn't have the traffic yet but I'll give them a look. Same with the Atwoods, which is more like a Tractor Supply but has Wranglers.

But then again, maybe it was Wranglers who cancelled the deal. So I'll get Cinch jeans at Baskins or Atwoods - forget about Cavender's or Wranglers.

They say that loyal customers are willing to forgive transgressions. That's circular logic, I am coming to believe. I must not be loyal because I'm not willing to forgive this transgression. If I were loyal, I'd let them screw up like this and not change.

What was the point behind terminating the offer? Did someone say, "Well, I don't want to have to keep tracking this so let's kill it"? I can't imagine it took much to continue to allow it to run.

So, Cavender's, you'll get my business again when you are having a really great sale. Because you have convinced me that there is no virtue in being loyal to you.

Random Rants
Ok, I get the whole "I am second" campaign. But I think it is stupid. I much prefer the "Pass it on" campaign. Jim Thorpe, pursued excellence. Pass it on. That makes so much more sense to me than telling me that a guy pushing his muscular distrophied son in a double marathon of marathons (52 marathons) means that he came in second. No - he was victorious. Fighting for his son, conquering weakness, and coming up victorious together with his son. That's courage. Pass it on.

A College Education - A Broken Business Model?

2011-03-01T07:21:00.001-08:00

I'm a little late today in getting this posted because I was in San Antonio to do some focus group research and got home about 1 this morning. Usually, I write this on Monday in Word so that I have spell-checker but given the late hour and lack of time yesterday, you're getting the raw version.

The Gulf oil spill is becoming a distant memory unless, of course, you live on the coast. I went fishing in Pensacola in January and the locals were talking about how the redfish being caught had moved east because of the oil. You could tell the difference because they weren't as fat but were longer.

What's the long term damage done, and who's going to figure that out? Is that a question you want answered by BP? And if not BP, then by the government?

No, to both options. So who will they turn to? Marine biologists at universities like Texas A&M Galveston.

If you're a diabetic and worry about falling into a diabetic coma while sleeping and never waking up, wouldn't it be great if you had a glucose level monitor that could wake you up if you got into trouble? Non-invasive glucose monitors will soon hit the market to do just that. Who did the research? Faculty here at Baylor are among the ones working on the project.

Who invented the mutual fund? Fidelity? Vanguard? No, Professor of Finance Tom Potts here at Baylor.

Governor Perry thinks we can offer an undergraduate degree for $10,000. I don't know what he's using on his hair but I think it is sinking into his brain. I'll be happy to do that research to find out.

There's no doubt that tuition at universities has risen far too quickly - an average of nearly twice inflation. But faculty salaries have not - in fact, most faculty have had salary reductions over the past three years and it is likely to only get worse. So don't blame research for these cost increases.

One real culprit is the cost of compliance. Want internet access for your baby when she goes off to college? Then we have to make sure she's not violating copyright law. Want to know what her grades are? You can't - even if you pay her bills - unless she gives you written permission. We have to pay more every year to secure data due to federal laws and regulations safeguarding privacy. And even accreditation costs more. Twenty-five years ago, we were visited once every ten years for accreditation. You'd hire one temporary to pull everything together for the visit and that was that. Now it is an annual reporting process requiring a half-time faculty member and a full-time staffer - just for the business school. The university has its own office.

I know our business model is broken. I know students are graduating with too much debt.

But don't blame research. Research universities are major engines of our economy and a primary source of our competitive advantage.

Random RantsI'm a little peeved at our politicians. They act as if the budget is just financial. It's not. It's about how we want to accomplish our objectives. And since it is a government of people, we people should think of ways to accomplish our objectives in these tight budget times. So, if we're going to cut teachers, what are you going to do to help make up the shortfall? If we're going to jeopardize our children's future by enlarging class sizes, what can you do to help that classroom teacher in your local elementary do a better job? And why isn't anyone talking about this? We should be pulling together to find solutions, rather than dividing our house.

Ok, next week I'll get back to sports. But I do feel better now that I've got that off my chest.

Where you at?

2011-02-22T11:56:00.000-08:00

In my forecast blog back in December, I wrote “Look for arenas and stadiums to pay to have more cell bandwidth. Why? So they can broadcast replays directly on your iPhone to your seat. Along with a word from the sponsor. They would do this now but there's not enough bandwidth in the venue to make it cost effective. (Invest in a company that serves the cell biz.)” Jerry did just that for the Super Bowl when it was in his stadium in Dallas this year but it took over 800 miles of cable to make it happen. I didn’t have to wait long to get that one right, though his solution was temporary.

The app, though, for replay watching is still under development, not because it is technologically difficult, but because they’re still working out the agreements with broadcasters and trying to figure out the business side of it. Or possibly because the owners in the NFL and NBA don’t want to announce how much they’ll make so they can exclude it from the collective bargaining agreements. Of course, that makes the argument for top-line revenue sharing more relevant to players.

New technology, though, will make it much easier for stadium and coliseum owners to permanently increase the bandwidth. Instead of cell towers, a new cell cube has been announced that is small enough to reside on a light pole, for example in a street application, or in the arena and still cover a wide area, bringing the cost down. So an arena can keep adding cubes and building bandwidth.

One reason they will spend the money to add those cubes is location-based marketing. You check in using Facebook or an app designed specifically for location-based marketing. In exchange for checking in, which is like posting your location, the retailer or athletic venue gives you a coupon or code that you can use while you are there.

Given that we already know that people respond better to random rewards, the offer of a discount or freebie will probably be randomized. You'll get it sometimes, but not always, and without any seeming rhyme or reason.

The benefits to the retailer or site are at least two, even if the purchase of the discounted item doesn’t occur. First, you advertise for them because FB tells all your friends where you are. Second, there is the implicit endorsement you are giving by simply announcing your presence. That’s why this area of marketing is the fastest growing part of the budget. We aren’t sure, really, that it works yet but this is the next big thing.

Some of us, though, are creeped out by location-based marketing, and no, not all are baby boomers. I have a co-author in her early thirties who fears a stalking ex-husband. She is not on FB, nor LinkedIn or other social sites. I have a former student, still under 30, who was creeped out by FB while still an undergrad. He has a limited profile now, but I don’t ever see him checking in. Those with known stalkers will not use these sites, of course, but there are a lot of us that really don’t want marketers, or the general public, that tight into our business.

Posting travel using applications like TripIt has already led to home burglaries. Letting the world know you are out of town, checking into the Hilton in Belize, is a good way to make yourself a target, especially given the amount of information that is available to anyone on the net.

A little over a year ago, I predicted that there will be a lawsuit due to someone who gets injured because they weren’t paying attention to what they were doing while reading a coupon on their smart phone. Location marketing makes that even more likely. Haven’t seen the lawsuit happen yet, but I still think it is coming.

Random Rants:Have you noticed that product placement has hit the comics? Are they just using real products because they want to or are they getting paid, as the movies and TV shows do? Disclaimer: I do not get paid by any products for any endorsement, positive or otherwise, in this blog. However, I would like to.

Men are all up in arms all over the internet about the recent column in the Wall Street Journal stating that men don’t grow up and aren’t prepared for a career. Women, it was argued by the female writer, are more mature and therefore make better employees and managers. Was that news to anyone? Certainly not to my wife. (Once again, I was not paid by the Wall Street Journal for that mention. But I would like to be.)

Who gave you the right?

2011-02-15T05:28:00.001-08:00

What gives you the right to sell to me? Or better yet, when did I give you the right to sell to me?
That’s really the entire crux (can you have a partial crux?) of Seth Godin’s argument for permission-based marketing – that you have to have my permission in order to market or sell to me.

In the normal course of life, we do that. We watch TV, knowing there will be commercials. We read a magazine, knowing there are ads. And salespeople call, and we know that they are there to sell something.

Most of the time.

So imagine my chagrin to realize that the personal visit with a friend whom I’ve not seen for a few years was really a sales call about AdvoCare. Now, this is a good company with good products, products endorsed without pay by Drew Brees and Colt McCoy. Products I’m a little bit interested in.

But, do I really want to reward sugging?

Sugging is a term from the marketing research field. It means “selling under the guise” of doing research, or pretending to do research when you’re really there to sell. Current forms include surveys regarding your interests in certain activities or products, then questions like:
• Are you considering purchasing any of the following in the next six months? (So we can send a salesperson out now!)
• When will you replace your current model? (So we can send a salesperson out now!)
• How likely is it that you will be selecting this product in the next ninety days? (So we can send a salesperson out now!)
Well, you get the point.

In this instance, the pretense wasn’t research but friendship. Frankly, that makes it more despicable, I think. But also so unnecessary. After all, if the products are really that good, just tell me why you’re there.

In my book, The Hard Truth About Soft Selling, George Dudley and I demonstrate that pretending to something other than a salesperson can have real detrimental outcomes on performance. By real, I mean large enough to be observed. On the salesperson’s side of things, such pretense leads to job avoidance. The conflict between actually selling and befriending becomes real and difficult to manage internally, usually with the result that selling isn’t done. That’s probably ok, since the premise for the visit was friendship and not business.

Of course, it’s not ok to the sales manager who’s paying a salary to that professional visitor.

Don’t take away your prospect’s right to make an informed decision about where to spend time and effort. It might get you in the door, but it’ll get you right back out again.

Random Rants:
Remember Stuckey's? Stuckey's was the 1960s/70s version of Cracker Barrel, when America was less affluent but just as much in need of a place on the road to stop and eat when travelling. Greasy burgers, gasoline, schlocky souvenirs, and pecan logs were their mainstay - an interesting combination of products, especially for the time.

Well, one of my favorite places, only because it is interesting, is in the (very) little town of Powell, Texas, on Highway 31 between Corsicana and Athens. This town is the center of a thriving pecan and cotton agricultural area. The store, who's name escapes me but it starts with a B, offers all you can eat catfish every Friday until 7, pecan candies and other pecan products, and tools. That's right, tools.

Of course, we've all seen the tanning salon/pizza parlor/video rental places in small towns. I guess a small town needs a tool store but not enough to justify an Ace hardware. Or perhaps, a tool salesman came along and earned his quota in one stop. Who knows.

But the pecan pie is really good.

Eddie Bauer got it right

2011-02-08T04:26:00.000-08:00

Do you remember what it was like to register for college – before online registration? Many of you have no clue what I’m talking about. Lines that wrapped around the basketball arena, having to go to each department to get a class, and then going back to another department because the class you wanted conflicted with one you already had; hours of waiting in line after line, not just to get classes but parking stickers, an ID, and so on, and so on, and so on…

Can you imagine if it was still like that today? Students know better, and demand more. Or rather, demand more because they know better.

Want to get a tee time? Go online. Want to change your doctor’s appointment? Go online. Want to buy a new coat? Go online…or maybe not. After all, if you don’t look so good in that coat, it’s more hassle to send it back…

So you drive all across Austin, as my sister did the other day, only to get to the store and find that the coat you want is out of stock. But not to worry – the sales clerk helpfully assists you in calling the catalog store and you can order it – and to help out because you took the time to drive there and because there’s an in-store sale, they will take off a substantial sum – twice that of the in-store sale.

So, top that HEB! Top that, Zales! Wait a minute – HEB’s a grocery store and Zales is a diamond store. Ok, jewelry store – diamond store is part of their brand but I digress. Why should these stores top what Eddie Bauer does? Or even try to match it?
Because customers know better, and demand more.

At Cabela’s, there are kiosks that enable customers to automatically get in-store discounts or sale prices but order for home delivery, if a product is out of stock or simply just not carried at that store. That’s a better solution than Eddie Bauer’s because no salesperson is needed, or maybe a worse solution because if no salesperson is needed, one may not intervene and help secure the sale, but certainly better than HEB’s solution which is to do nothing.

As a result, HEB has no way of logging the fact that I’m not happy that they had mussels out of the shell last month and don’t have it this month (if you want a really easy “cheat” paella recipe, let me know). If they had a kiosk where I could order and have something shipped, how cool could that be!

And think about what else they could do with a really cool in-store kiosk. Like menu-planning, using suggestions of locally grown vegetables or weather conditions (chili because it’s freezing, grilling when it warms up). And I mean actual weather conditions, not just whether it’s spring or fall. If it’s 50 after a week of 30, I’m grilling, even if it is February. Pair wines with your menu. Relate it to Weight Watcher diets and give you the point count. There’s all kinds of cool things you could do. In fact, you can do a lot of these online now - why not at a kiosk in the store?

Customers benchmark against best-in-class but their class isn’t your class. If you want to know how to handle guest relations, ask Disney. You may be a university, but your students are comparing their experience for the process of getting their service to how they get treated at places like DisneyWorld. Good thing for us that mom and dad took care of the Disney processes because college students often don’t have real high expectations and are willing to settle for what we give them, even though I think we’re doing a lot better than the old lines at the coliseum.
But businesspeople are dealing with more experienced buyers who may have a much broader range of experiences. Therefore, they are benchmarking your shipping policies against someone you don’t consider a competitor; they’re comparing your return practices to Nordstrom’s, even if you are Tiffany’s and think you’re all that (and you know from last week that Tiffany’s isn’t all that).

You can benchmark your product against your direct competitors, but everything else better be benchmarked against your customers’ best experiences.

Random Rants:

Kenneth Cole has a small bag that says, “Be an accessory.” Oh really? Accessory to what? Is a woman only a man’s accessory, or an accessory to the shoes she’s wearing? What do they mean? Clearly I’m missing something here. More on this later.

Finally, the long awaited MyCokeRewards blog

2011-02-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

For quite some time, I’ve held MyCokeRewards out as an example of what a fast-moving consumer packaged good company can do with CRM technology and strategy. The basic premise is you enter codes from your Coke products and get points which are redeemable for products, as a contribution to a charity, or as the price for entry into contests. Some of the products they offer are magazines.

Now I realize that these are offered in order to sell magazines, but it also gives Coke a chance to gain some valuable insight about its consumers. If I choose Food, for example, then I’m probably into cooking, eating out, and watching food shows. If I choose Men’s Health, I’m probably male and active. These choices can be used to help shape offers that Coke could make, either through the MyCokeRewards website or through email.

In addition, some of the product choices may also signal lifestyle, activities, interests, and other important characteristics about their membership that could be useful data. Couple that with the knowledge of which Coke products they drink (based on the codes entered) and how often, and you may be able to start to piece together a fairly complete picture of your customer.

Coke also launched a long survey of its MyCokeRewards members but did so in a conversational and dynamic way. They would ask four to six questions at a time, and it appeared to me that these questions were dynamic in the sense that they were driven by previous answers, perhaps even combined with my behavior on the site.

So imagine my disappointment when I recently got a survey from Coke about the MyCokeRewards site. They wanted to know how often I visit (they know that already from my login data), what products I consumer (isn’t that why they ask that when I enter the points?), and what products I’m interested in on the site (can’t they track that with web browsing data?). Not only that, but the survey tool was clunky, requiring the use of drop-downs which adds time and effort as compared to other formats.

I love Coke. I love the Coke brand. But I dropped the survey pretty quickly. That survey was the antithesis of all that I teach when it comes to data strategy and intelligent dialog.

You see, consumers know what they know – they know what they’ve said to you in the past, they know what they’ve purchased, they know when they’ve shopped and when they’ve bought and when your offer was off-base and they went somewhere else. And in today’s high tech, data-driven era, they expect you to know that, or at least most of that. That’s the intelligent part of the intelligent dialog. At least have a clue as to who I am – not just a name (“Welcome, John”), but a person (“Hey, Jeff, who likes Coke Zero, and likes to redeem points for clean water in Africa or Coke-logo products”).

And dialog means a conversation. Listening as much as talking. Ok, a survey is a way to listen. But if you want to have a conversation with your spouse or roommate, isn’t it best to go into the same room? Or do you shout from one end of the apartment to the other because you’re too lazy? That’s what Coke was doing – making an effort to communicate but not much.

My friend, Bruce Culbert, suggests that companies use a progressive profiling strategy. This strategy means getting data in short bursts, minimizing the hassle but utilizing an overall strategy that helps you understand your customer. I’ve also argued that making offers and retaining responses is an important part of that strategy. We spend a lot of time on those who say yes, but very little effort on trying to understand those who say no. Just a question or two after a “no” could be very useful in improving our value proposition and their response.

Our customers will participate in a conversation – in fact, they want to. Conversations are enjoyable, social, and entertaining, not burdensome. But it has to be an intelligent dialog.

Random Rants:
Have you seen Julio’s tortilla chips? These are perhaps the best tortilla chips on the market. They are also 100% stone ground corn. So what would expect the ingredient list to be? I’d expect it to be corn. That’s it, just corn. But it’s not. The list includes MSG and some other stuff. Ok, I get the other stuff because it is a flavored chip. So what does “Made of 100% stone ground corn” mean? Well, either it means that all of the corn is stone ground, or the chip is 100% stone ground corn and then they put stuff on it, or something. I guess it doesn’t matter, though – it’s really good.

You get what you pay for? No, I didn't either.

2011-01-24T19:50:00.000-08:00

Does price mean higher quality? Better service? I remember an assignment when I was taking a marketing course at North Texas where we were tasked with calculating price per ounce. This assignment was, of course, during a time when retailers were not required to list price per ounce on the shelf price tag. I was amazed to find that the price of a large box of Tide was actually more expensive per ounce than the smaller box. According to our professor, the retailer was either taking advantage of our assumption that the bigger box would be less per ounce or charging a premium for the convenience of the larger quantity. This example, of course, was not an example of price justified by quality or service but it is an example of the everyday assumptions we make as consumers.

Take Tiffany’s, for example. One would expect that Tiffany’s would offer the ultimate in service and customer satisfaction. For a Tiffany’s price, product quality should be a given. Yet, contrast that “given” with the experience one reader of this blog had. She was given a Tiffany necklace as a gift by her company, but the way it lay on her neck left her choking after a short while. When she tried to return it to Tiffany’s in order to exchange it for something that fit her better, she was told she couldn’t exchange it because Tiffany’s no longer carried it, “probably for that reason,” said the Tiffany’s clerk. In other words, it choked everyone so they dropped the product. This same clerk then had the audacity to suggest that she re-gift it. Oh really? Give your problem product to someone else? Wouldn’t you expect a) a product that works and b) service from Tiffany’s? Well, don’t. You’ll be disappointed.

Just as you would if you visited an AT&T store looking for a hands-free option for your iPhone. My son and I visited a local store to buy one for my phone, one for his phone, and some other phone accessories. First problem, the lowest price was about $80 and that was for a product that really wasn’t what we were looking for. Second problem, they had a nice greeter - I guess they’ve been to Wal-Mart and thought that’s how retailing was done - but no one who could actually help us. Fortunately, it was a nice day and a Radio Shack was across the parking lot. There, we not only got both of our phones taken care of for about $30 (that’s total, compared to a minimum of $160), but I also got the receptacle cleaned out by the clerk so I could use ear buds. Now it’s a question as to which of those two retailers will go out of business first as they’re both struggling, but it won’t be because of Josh at the Radio Shack in Waco. He was terrific.

I went to Target to get a TV. I like Target. I like their ad on wanting to be there for life (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2QiupKXCbY). They seem to have a earned a reputation for reasonable business practices contrary to that earned by Wal-Mart. And they had a nice 26” on display at a price I thought was reasonable but I couldn’t find any in a box on the shelf. Thinking there might be some in the back or somewhere else, I looked for someone to help me. Ok, that was kinda dumb on my part. Giving up, I went to Wal-Mart, where I bought a 32” TV for the same price. No, I didn’t need to get anyone there to help me, so I can’t say their service was better. But sheesh, ya gotta at least have the product available, and failing that, have someone who can at least be present to say you don’t.

I’ve already documented in this blog before the would-be BMW buyer who couldn’t get anyone to talk to her, so she went over to the Lexus dealer and bought a new car there.

So what do we get out of this? From the consumer’s point of view, check your assumptions. Just because you pay more, you may not get more.Tiffany’s and AT&T each built a brand that is contrary to these experiences but I’ll be going to Radio Shack first for my electronic doo-dads and somewhere else for jewelry (sorry, Karen). And I’ll probably give Target another shot. Nah, probably not.

But as a marketer, all that careful work building those brands just got flushed into the sewer with each of these experiences.

Random Rants:
What is the deal with all of these Matrix knock-off ads? Get a least a little creative. It was fine when they did it with the car ads, but now it’s Freschetta pizza, Golden Corral (or Ryan’s or someone, who cares). Come up with something new.

Domino’s – Keep it up. The kids are still talking about whether Domino’s is better than Papa John’s and it’s all because of their advertising.

I am the best pitcher in the world!

2011-01-18T04:13:00.000-08:00

The old Kenny Rogers song about the little boy who tosses the ball up and swings the bat, missing every time, is a cute story of how confidence is often a function of looking at the same situation, but seeing it differently. The boy starts out saying, “I’m the greatest hitter!” and swings and misses three times but ends by saying, “Even I didn’t know I could pitch like that!” (Just an FYI – couldn’t find the lyrics with Google but could with Bing.)

Some self-deception is good. It gives us hope and breeds confidence.

Self-deception in students and salespeople, though, can lead to crushing failure.

For early ten years, I ran the undergraduate program and had the joy of working with students who were flunking out, had flunked out and wanted back in, or were back in and flunking out again. In every instance, if you asked them their grades three weeks before the term ended, their estimates were uniformly one grade level higher in each class than the actual grade. They had, unintentionally I’m sure, deceived themselves into thinking they were doing ok when in fact, they were often headed toward the same disaster that brought them to me in the first place.

I see the same thing happening to salespeople. If you ask how things are going, they’ll say things like “I’m doing great – I’ve got 20 prospects for this month!” But at the end of the month, only one or two have closed.

One of my students, Leigh Anne Pearson, did a study of 30 salespeople in the high tech industry. Half were top performers, half were marginal performers, but she had no idea which were which. She interviewed them all, categorized their answers, and was then told which were the top and which were not. What’s interesting is that the marginal performers had the same misunderstanding of their success level as did the students I worked with who were on academic probation. They all thought they were doing well.

Why?

In both instances, several things happen that lead to this professionally-deadly type of self-deception.

The first is not understanding the formula for success. In every business, there a formula that determines success. In class, there is a grading formula. Tests count 40%, term paper 40%, exercises 20%, or whatever the breakdown is. In sales, it’s that you need 10 leads to get 1 appointment, 5 appointments to get 1 prospect, and 2 prospects to get 1 sale. While that formula can vary, it’s a pretty good starting point if you are new and don’t know what your formula is. If you’re an engineer, there’s another formula, and while I don’t know what it is, you better.

The second factor is not unlike the first – misinterpreting the value of results as a function of misplaced optimism. At the root of this problem is not knowing the formula. The failing student says: “I’m doing great – I got a 100 on my homework exercise!” Really? Did you realize that you just added 1 full point to your final grade? So if you scored a 50 on the exam, you don’t have a 75 average, you have a 51.

The soon-to-be-job-hunting sales rep says, “I’m doing great – I made a sale!” Really? That’s great – you now need 4 more. You have now only covered your car payment – where’s the rent, the food, the entertainment?

The third is to focus on the wrong things. When the philosopher asked if the glass was half empty or half full, he didn’t mean “Did you save 25% or spend 75%?” But you can easily save yourself into bankruptcy if you aren’t careful. So where do you put your time? On the material that is only 25% of the test but you know it really well? Or the customers that you really like but can only afford low margin products?

Now I may be a cynic, but I’m an optimistic cynic. So I know I have to put things in place to remind of what reality is. For example, when I was a sales rep, I kept a sheet in front of me that had a blank line for each sale I needed to make. We once had a program where if you sold 30 products in 3 months, you got a big bonus so my sheet had 30 blank lines on it. When I made my first sale, I wrote in the customer’s name – at the bottom. This caused me to focus on the 29 I needed to get, not the 1 I had. And yes, I hit the target.

I don’t see myself as a very structured person. I’m not good at keeping the checkbook and maintaining my car – those kinds of things you have to do regularly or suffer the consequences. That’s why I create structures that keep me honest.
And that’s an important phrase. Keep yourself honest.

This year I’m going to try to do one contest a month. So what I’d like for you to do is to tell me what you do to keep yourself honest. It can be about how you keep a diet, maintain your exercise regimen, hit your sales quota, or make your grades. Next week, I’ll announce the winner. If you want to be anonymous, send it to me at jeff_tanner@baylor.edu and I’ll post it as anonymous but this will put you in the running for the prize. This month’s prize is a Baylor Business coffee mug, unless you’re Charlie Cohon and already won one, in which case I’ll do something else for you.

Random Rants:

I really like Apple’s iPad theme and advertising visuals. But I like the Kindle better for reading. The new Amazon ad does a great job of making the most of its points of difference – price and clarity in high light settings.

I get motion sick. There are some movies I’ve had to leave because they make me physically ill. Now I’m getting the same feeling from a number of magazines and print ads that are so messed up – and I mean that in the way kids today say “so messed up.” Layouts that don’t allow for linear reading, graphics that interfere with messaging, and similar physical tricks – it’s already hard enough for me to focus ever since I got a smart phone, but these tricks really interfere with the message. It may win awards among the PR folks but it doesn’t do me any good.

One reader sent his company’s marketing messaging and the problem there is similar in that they are visually interrupting the message. While in this instance, it’s using all lower case lettering rather than the visual interruptions mentioned earlier, I’m amazed at how interrupting such a small feature can be. ee cummings could get away with it in his poetry but then, those who read poetry read differently than those who read advertising or newsletters, even when they’re the same people.

On Pensacola, the minor leagues, and sports sponsorship

2011-01-11T03:48:00.000-08:00

I got in last night from a brief but too long a trip to Pensacola, too long because we were stuck an extra day due to the snowstorm. Pensacola weather was a crisp 40 degrees but there was no plane coming to take us home so we waited until the next day, then had to fly through Miami. (There were more than a few nervous Auburn fans trying to make the trip west whose flights were cancelled the day before, too.) The trip home took 14 hours - compared to 13 hours if we had driven! Hmmm, I'll think twice before flying to P-cola next time.

The Miami airport continues to be the worst major airport of all time. The train system is a nice improvement but if you're hungry and not a member of the Admirals' Club, forget it. $15 for a nasty tuna salad sandwich and $20 for chicken tenders. Makes even stadium prices seem reasonable.

Pensacola is a nice small-ish town. With the Naval Air Station the main employer, much of the business seems to be aimed at young men with little money or military retirees. But over the past ten years, especially post-Katrina though I'm not sure why, the city has evolved into a place with a much more cosmopolitan heart. Downtown, a cross between main-street old South and New Orleans architecturally, is now cool art galleries, interesting restaurants, and unusual shopping. Of course, there's always been the beach, the Naval Air Museum (worth the trip by itself), and great fishing.

Every time we go, we try to take in a minor league hockey game. This trip, we learned that the Ice Pilots had folded, along with their league, and now the team is the Ice Flyers. I don't think they're affiliated with the Philadelphia Flyers, but the hockey was pretty good nonetheless.

Minor league anything is fun to watch. Unlike college football, which exploits players and universities alike (only coaches and TV make money, with the exception of about six programs), there's no illusion. These guys are playing to make it to the next level and no one takes a play off. I was amazed that even when the score reached 6-2, they still hustled. I've seen Dallas Stars games that were 3-2 and the Stars were still coasting because they were out of the play-off hunt.

But I also find the atmosphere interesting, too. Pensacola has intense fans - the game wasn't sold out but the arena was at least 70% full. They have cheers and traditions. They have the absolute worst nachos of any place in America, but at least the prices for food are reasonable. Seriously cheaper than the Miami airport or even a college football game. The fans are amazingly knowledgeable and stayed even with the home team down by an insurmountable difference.

The game's sponsor, though, points out what seems to me to be a trend. The sponsor was "Bike Across America for Affordable Housing." One guy is riding his bike across the country to raise money for affordable housing (I'm not sure what happens to the money - if it goes to Habitat or something like that). After dropping the ceremonial puck to start the game, he rode a stationary bike the rest of the night.

As we walked in, we were handed coupons. Ordinarily, I'll turn that down, being from out of town, but I took one to be polite. But wait - these weren't coupons but a flyer. Turns out they were raising awareness of the need for clean water in Africa.

When I went to get a beer and nachos (bad choice), I passed by their booth. The girl says, "We're here to raise awareness of the need for clean water in Africa." "And then what?" was my reply. "My son is going to Africa next summer to work on the water supply as part of a program through Boston University," I said. "Oh that's nice," she replied. And then stared at me for a moment, before turning to someone else and handing them the same flyer given out at the door. "We're here to raise awareness of the need for clean water in Africa." Apparently, they had no plans for once awareness was raised.

But is there a trend in non-profits working with sporting events? We had the Fight Hunger Bowl a couple of nights back. Yes, it was sponsored by Kraft and I just assumed that it was a cause, not a slogan. After all, a Snickers bar is supposed to fight hunger and keep you from playing football like Betty White. If I recall correctly, "Fight Hunger" was the Snickers slogan. We also had a number of non-profits building Rose Parade to raise awareness for this or that.

So are we seeing a trend? If so, does it mean that sponsoring sports is now affordable, the best way to reach people, or simply part of any complete marketing communication strategy?

Random Rants:
No, I did not watch the game last night. It's just another meaningless bowl game and I was tired after the long trip so I went to bed. But then again, I can't remember the last BCS National Championship game I've watched. One thing needs to be clear - I did not become a BCS hater because of TCU, though that's reason enough. No, I started out a BCS hater. I wanted a play-off when I was a kid and we'd have teams like Notre Dame named national champs when there were teams like UT with unspoiled records and no respect because the Southwest Conference didn't include anybody. Congrats to Auburn, they have every right to be proud of their season. But it's not a national championship - it's a BCS championship.

Power bracelets and gluten-free - more evidence that PT Barnum was right, there's a sucker born every minute. Yes, I know, some people have gluten allergies. But it's funny how we respond to some advertising without thought. "Now contains all natural Hovno!" We'd buy it just because the Hovno is all-natural, with no idea what Hovno is. Don't buy their hovno.

I love a parade of products!

2011-01-04T05:27:00.000-08:00

Product placement, or the intentional placement of a product into a show, really began with E.T. (the movie, not Entertainment Tonight) when the extra-terrestrial ate Reeces Pieces. The story is that the "part" of the candy was offered to M&Ms but they turned it down, as it cost money and they didn't feel they should have to pay to be in the movie. Big mistake! That scene really launched the Reeses Pieces brand into prominence.

Nike has turned to product placement, sort of, with its radical uniform designs for Oregon and TCU. Starting last year, they produce special uniforms for special games using new fabric technology designed to show off their innovation leadership in both appearance and function. Things backfired a bit, though, in the Rose Bowl last Saturday when TCU receivers and defensive backs were slipping all over the field. A sideline report brought up the fact that Nike had designed those shoes specifically for the Rose Bowl turf but the shoes had been a problem all week long, emphasizing the fact that Nike had poorly designed the shoes. Hmmm, I'd check the alma mater of that designer.

Continental, my new bff, got a positive plug, though. One high school band was snowed in due to the blizzard that struck New England. On both networks carrying the Rose Parade (itself just one gigantic product placement vehicle), the story was told of how Continental worked for hours with parade officials to make sure that the band could make it to the parade. The story was a heartwarming tale of overcoming adversity. Ok, that's an exaggeration but it was a good plug for Continental nonetheless.

I'm surprised the parade officials even got through to Continental. News reports told of wait times of several hours when passengers tried to call to rebook flights. These reports blamed airlines, Continental especially, for having cut call center personnel by a third or more over the past year. Yet I think the blame is unfair. As passengers, we're not willing to pay to carry these people on the payroll for years in between blizzards. Yes, there could be some better emergency planning based on current staffing levels, but frankly, I'm calling BS on the news media.

Random Rants:
Coca Cola still has yet to provide transparency on donations to any charity other than schools through its MyCokeRewards website. You may recall that I personally spoke with the woman in charge of the Living Positively initiative at Coke and she "would look into it." Well, I guess that's all she's done. Which raises the question of what those donations really mean. Do they have a budget that they're going to give anyway and just use it as a marketing ploy or is there truly some fungible currency in play here?

Taking a Day Off?

2010-12-28T06:45:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd take a day off, or rather a week, without posting today. So enjoy your Christmas break - I'm going to! Happy New Year - may 2011 bring you prosperity and peace
JT

An Empowered Customer

2010-12-21T04:07:00.000-08:00

Last week’s blog seems to have set off a small firestorm. First, I’m going to discuss the official AA response. I wanted to give American a chance to respond to my concerns so I went to the AA.com site and entered my frustrations in their form. Here’s what I got back, cut and pasted so the typos are theirs.

Dear Dr. Tanner:
Thanks for your email to Customer Relations. We appreciate your taking the time to contact us about recent changes so the flight schedule from Waco.
We continually evaluate the profitability of each flight segment we operate and, where appropriate, we withdraw from serving a particular market when we find our resources could be better utilized elsewhere. Likewise, we add service -- either with new routes or greater frequency -- where it would be profitable to do so and we have the available equipment and personnel. Adjustments to flight departure times are usually made to better align with our competitors and our connecting service, based upon historic trends. We are very sorry that this specific adjustment will prove inconvenience for you and we have documented your perspective and shared it with our Manager of Capacity Planning.
Again, Dr. Tanner, thank you for sharing your opinion.
On behalf of all of us here at American Airlines, I'd like to wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season and the very best for the New Year.
Sincerely,
Shelli R. Gipson
Customer Relations
American Airlines
The letter is written in formal language and probably contains some cut and paste. There are two typos, though. So are those typos intentional to make me feel that they responded to me personally? Or did someone do a crappy job of proofreading their form letters? (I really shouldn't say too much about that, as I make a few typos myself in this blog.) Since I clearly was not as strong in my condemnation of the new schedule in the online form as I was in my blog post, I can’t complain too much about their response. Still, this response doesn’t really say much to me other than they’re sorry for the inconvenience.

I think a good response should start off with something like an apology at the start. “We’re sorry that the schedule change is creating inconvenience for you.” Then it needs to continue with an affirmation and a promise. “We really do value both your business and your input, and we will carefully monitor the situation to ensure that this decision reflects the best possible outcome for all of us.” Then they can say why they did what they did.

The official response leaves me cold. Very unlike the unofficial response, which was provided by someone at AA.com who read the blog. I immediately got an apology structured much the way I recommended earlier and a promise to look into the change.

The research on loyalty suggests that the best loyalty programs have 4 elements. First and foremost, the company must perform, satisfying an important need. No matter how much I like American, if they don’t fly where I need to go, I can’t use them. Second, they have to listen and respond. As I said last week, American has good people, mostly, and this is an example. The unofficial responder did an outstanding job of listening and probing as to why I was upset. She took the time, even though I did not expect it and it isn’t her job, to fully understand the situation and the concern. While she couldn’t fix it immediately, she elevated the concern to the right people. I know that American listened and while business conditions did not allow for a change back to what I want, at least they understand my plight.

The third and fourth elements, which are the ability to identify loyal customers (a la Platinum and the red carpet) and be transparent with value for loyalty (early boarding, free luggage, etc.), they do pretty well.

What’s also interesting is Continental’s response. Yes, Continental responded too, and the response contained some very nice offers to make the switch more palatable. Not only that, but when I raised some concerns about the transfer in Houston, etc., I was told that they had fixed those and I “really need to give them a try.” So I will.

This battle’s not over. Continental earned a shot with their efforts, but American’s unofficial response was good enough that it leaves me conflicted about trying Continental. Maybe I take this loyalty stuff too seriously.

Random Rants
The DVR feature on my satellite TV is making life difficult. I keep wanting to go back and rewind the radio, the stadium announcer, and other similar situations when I can't understand what they said.

My son asked why they have strobes in the Ferrell Center and other sports arenas when they don't allow flash photography. Good question. Flash cameras are aimed at players and it can momentarily blind them - strobes are aimed down and do not blind anyone. What strobes do, though, is create a physical response that is interpreted cognitively as excitement. Similar to a bakery wafting odors of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies throughout the mall to create feelings of hunger, stadiums attempt, through lights and noise, to create an environment of excitement. Some of us curmudgeons find the strobes annoying, other folks may not even realize that strobes are going off. Have you noticed them?

To all who read, merry Christmas or happy holidays. Don't get up early looking for a post next Tuesday - I'll probably do one but no telling when. So have a happy new year as well, and sic 'em Bears in the Texas Bowl, December 29!

Did American just fire a customer?

2010-12-14T07:32:00.000-08:00

The headline in the Waco paper a few days ago read, “American Cancels Evening Flight,” or something like that. Actually, the headline wasn’t quite accurate. American was moving the last DFW to Waco flight of the day from 8:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. They still have 4 flights to Waco a day, just squeezed between 7:45 a.m. and 4:45 p.m.

Now I imagine most folks first reaction is "Well, that's Waco - not much to put in the paper." Air travel, though, is important to a community in today's business environment, and this decision can have a major impact on business travel.

My first reaction, though, was personal. At first, I got angry. ‘Dangit, that makes travel all that much tougher,’ I thought. I can’t get back in the same day a meeting wraps up. I’m not even sure I can get out in time for meetings in the morning because 7:45 is actually a 45 minute delay, squeezing all the flights into one work shift for the ground crew I guess.

Then yesterday, I went to book my first trip for 2011 – a round trip to Reagan International in DC. To fly American, I either have to drive to DFW or spend an extra night in DC. After 3 nights on business, I’m not about to spend the night.

And I got sad.

Now, I’ve tried not to be negative about American this year in my blog. I like flying American. The people are friendly, mostly, and being Platinum makes life easy. But I’m not going to make Platinum in 2010 and the reason I’m not going to be Platinum is because of 2 factors: they cancelled or delayed 4 flights making me drive to DFW to fly out (these four flights alone would have made me Platinum) and because they had already squeezed the schedule such that I either flew out of DFW or flew another carrier.

I’m a million mile flyer. Lifetime Gold Advantage. Flying American and not making Platinum doesn’t do much for me.

So if I have to fly out of DFW, I can also choose to fly out of Austin (hey Jetblue, Southwest and Airtran!). I can also fly Continental through Houston. And guess what, Continental has a better schedule into Waco than American. I can even fly to my client in Norfolk, Virginia and back from Waco, something I could never get to fit into American’s schedule when they moved the 9:00 flight to 8:30 (the one that is now at 4:45).

So with sadness, I’m saying farewell to American. To a company that in 2008 and 2009, I spent more money with than any other company including my mortgage company. To a company that I am both attitudinally and behaviorally loyal to. To a company I genuinely like.

Yeah, I know, there are million milers that are lifetime Platinum, people that got there a lot faster than I did. And yes, 2010 was a down year for me. But I know that 2011 will top 2008, both in dollars and miles. And I’m giving Continental a try with this DC trip so if it goes well, my 10 upgrade credits, free exit row seats, and 55,000 miles on account will go bye bye.

Because no matter how much they say they know why I fly, American really doesn’t. When I’m on business, I fly to get home.

Random Rants
For the last five or six years, maybe even longer, I’ve been taking all of the junk faxes that we get and putting them into my colleague’s mailbox. Not any colleague – the same one each and every time. Jim never knew from whom or why he always got the junk fax. I even enlisted a few others to put them in when I was out of town so Jim would be unable to determine the source. Oh, the simple joys of office life. But when Jim’s wife got breast cancer, I stopped putting the health insurance and life insurance ones. He only got the vacation offers or other “happier” faxes. Yesterday, though, he caught me out and a good simple prank has come to an end. I offer this only so that you might take it to your workplace and get a few simple jollies – it can last for years…

Forecasting Customer Empowerment

2010-12-06T03:44:00.001-08:00

This blog marks the 53rd entry - one full year of blogging! So here's a bit of a forecast for what's likely to happen over the next year, not just with the blog, but in general. Breathe easy, though, as I am terrible at forecasting.

1. Facebook announced a new update Sunday, which is a bit ironic as I had already listed Facebook as the last big thing. I don't think it will quite go the way of Myspace, but Facebook will once again become the domain of the very young. The rest of us are bored with it and have moved on. We're still there - we just don't have it up all day every day.
2. TV and the internet will continue to integrate into one channel. For next Christmas, the big gift will be big screen computers that allow you to watch TV and surf the internet at the same time. Yeah, I know, you can get it now, but next year, it will be the big thing.
3. When that happens, subscribers will have to start paying for channels individually. Want HBO? Pay HBO. Cable TV companies will be channels of distribution only and we can stop these stupid feuds between ESPN or Fox Sports and Time Warner that cost me the opportunity to see several Baylor and Dallas Stars games. Forget ESPN and FOX. You'll get your sports from NFL.com and MLB.com. UT already has its own internet TV channel and owns the rights, thanks to the reshaping of the Big (we can't count) 12.
4. Look for arenas and stadiums to pay to have more cell bandwidth. Why? So they can broadcast replays directly on your iPhone to your seat. Along with a word from the sponsor. They would do this now but there's not enough bandwidth in the venue to make it cost effective. (Invest in a company that serves the cell biz.)
5. I will use the term "Customer Empowerment" in 10 titles and "Empower Customers" in 10 more. That's because the "Empowering Customers" blog drew three times as many readers as any other in 2010. (See today's title)
6. Facebook Chat will become the main medium of communicating. I know, I said FB would be obsolete. But if our TV becomes our internet portal, too, we'll probably want to chat with friends while watching games or shows and FB will be the medium.
7. Social media spending will surpass all other channels in growth, especially for retailers. Social media is already the dominant channel for the most successful small retailers. We're still figuring out what this channel is and how to use it, but the best ones are places like Spoons in College Station who tweet and FB every day with something of importance and fun. Like everything else, I don't want to hear from 50 small retailers, so we'll burn out on social media during 2011, too.
8. The Texas Rangers will repeat but win the Series in 2011. Nothing wrong with their pitching that another year with Nolan Ryan can't cure. (Sorry, Paul, but the Yankees spent way too much on an aging Jeter.)
9. The NFL will go through a lockout, expand the season to 18 games, and no one will care. They'll continue to draw fans, lose marquee players to injury, and end up with a product that is a parody of their former glory but fans won't notice. The BCS will seize on this opportunity by doing nothing. And I will, once again, not watch the national pseudo-championship game out of protest (that would mark the fourth year). I'm sure the BCS is disturbed by my lack of interest after 34 other meaningless bowl games. That's 34 meaningless bowl games each year. I'm worried, though, that the NCAA will shorten the season to 6 games but allow each team to play in 6 bowl games. It is, after all, about the money.
10. Cam Newton will be found guilty, Auburn's championship win over Oregon will NOT be vacated because they didn't pay Newton, and the BCS championship will remain with Auburn. None of that will be decided until after Newton has been awarded the Heisman, which he will have to give back but it won't matter because he'll already have a huge NFL contract, which also won't matter because they'll be locked out. Why not - this makes about as much sense as the current situation. Part of the logic in deciding Newton was eligible last week was that no one paid the father. At least, no evidence of that so far. So it's only robbery if the victim complies and gives the robber money? The gun and request don't mean anything? Anything to keep the BCS championship in the family.

That's my 10 for 11 - ten forecasts for 2011. What's yours?

Random Rants
This is an actual email, misspellings and all, from a student (not mine, obviously, as I'm not teaching this term): Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend class tomorrow (11/29). I have to tend to some court mandated community service because in my past I have made some unethical (immoral?) decisions. In my defense, I consider myself to be part of a vulnerable group in which alcohol is marketed towards. Therefore, I am not to blame. Nonetheless, I have completed assignment 6 and it is attach. I will also be leaving a copy at your office. Have a fantastic Tusday!

HEB still can't put out fresh yogurt. Check your dairy dates carefully!

Deserving of an entire blog, an online vendor was arrested for threatening customers. He allegedly cheated customers, and when they complained, allegedly threatened them with violence. Why? Because the complaints, when registered online, helped his company move up the Google rankings. Google says that they've changed the algorithm so that complaints won't be weighted positively.

Also deserving of an entire blog, I got a spam email yesterday from a placement company offering a holiday discount on employment services. Just what I want, the low-cost vendor in employees. I guess if I was desperate...but who is in this economy? Oh yeah, the placement companies.

The Key to Christmas Commercials

2010-11-30T04:05:00.000-08:00

‘Tis the season. Black Friday was last week and early reports are that retail sales were up slightly over last year, not accounting for online, which are also supposed to be up. That can only be due to the economy as there is no blockbuster gift that everyone has to have this year.

Unless, of course, it’s life insurance. Even New York Life has gotten into the holiday giving spirit, suggesting in advertising that the best gift you can give your loved ones is life insurance. Just imagine the looks on the faces of your teenagers when they open that gift! If this commercial runs through Christmas and then again next Christmas season, then someone got life insurance for Christmas.

For the heartless, mercenary on your list, the only choice, of course, is diamonds. No handmade gift from the heart, no! Women only want diamonds and judging by the look on their faces, they are bored with your presence (and your presents) until you show them the bling. Not all advertisers are as bad as Zales, but Zales makes women out to be focused totally on the rock. Forget the fact he just asked you to marry him – focus on the rock! Forget the fact that he searched for two years before he found the perfect diamond drop – how big is it? The message sent by that ad is so strong and negative, there are likely to be no diamonds under our tree this year – at least not from me. I sincerely hope that doesn't disappoint my wife too much!

What gift giving has become, or maybe it was always this way, is a form of competition, if not with others, then with yourself. Once you’ve given her the big diamond, how will you top that? If the price tag of the gift determines whether you win or lose, then it is a never-ending spiral of conspicuous consumption. Yet, when the recipient already has all that is required for living, then creating a gift that speaks from the heart or is remembered into January becomes so difficult that gifts become reduced to that lowest denominator.

Students sometimes give me gifts, most of which are from foriegn students and the gifts are from their home country. I appreciate these - like the small rug that Khurram brought to me. When they are home and think of their professor, whom they have no more class with and aren't buying off, I like to think it is because I touched them in some way. I also appreciate those that recognize that they know me - like the horse racing coasters from Ben or the antique brass horse from a harness off a buggy from Hannah.

At Christmas, what’s under the tree is far less important than what’s around it. The Christmases I remember are not because of the gifts but because of the stories. When I got the slot car racing set and thought it was a big boy gift so it must have been meant for my older cousin John. When Grandmother took me to buy my first pair of cowboy boots and I wasn’t allowed to wear them until I opened them up again on Christmas morning. When my cousin Stan came to visit for Christmas and we got to see the Cowboys win over Cleveland in a play-off game, 52-6. I was passing out gifts for the first time as a father and I read the tag: “To Emily, from Mom and Dad,” and then asked my wife, is this from your parents or mine? “No, stupid, we’re Emily’s Mom and Dad.” When Ted got a Red Ryder bb gun and went outside, bounced a bb off a tree and back into his face. “You’ll put your eye out!” Getting out the handmade Christmas ornament with John’s kindergarten picture on it. Travis as a toddler, breaking an ornament on a Christmas tree at a little Italian restaurant in Paris, so we bought another and took it to them when we went back there to eat again.

And the traditions. Thankfully, one of my sisters makes Grandpa’s cookies. My daughter takes an afternoon off work and we shop together. Christmas Eve dinner is a remembrance of our Christmas as a family in Paris when we had Chinese (though the little Italian place was better). A friend, Mark, who sends a rack of ribs from the Salt Lick every year(now I’m really excited about Christmas!).

Capturing those feelings of tradition, family and friends, and memories is what you shoot for in a commercial. These feelings and memories are what we try to accomplish when we give a gift – that special something that says, “Remember me, remember this moment, remember that I loved you.”

Random Rants:
According to my dad, today’s children don’t play “doctor,” they play “going through airport security.” All this noise about the full body scans and intimate pat-downs reminds me of Joan Rivers, who reported that she was once “viciously gang-dressed.” Perhaps her frequent flyer miles have sky-rocketed since the new security procedures took force.

What do you think of the “Everyone falls down” ad of GM? When I first saw it, I thought it was a thank you to care givers, as there is an ad out for that.

It's been a year since I started this blog. "Empowering Customers" has been viewed the most - about twice the nearest competitor. Which one is most memorable to you? Why is that? As you think ahead to next year, what are some topics you'd like to see covered? Feel free to email me: jeff_tanner@baylor.edu if you'd prefer not to comment here. Thanks for staying with me this year!

Sports Illustrated Jumps the Shark

2010-11-23T04:11:00.000-08:00

I think Sports Illustrated has some of the best writers of any magazine, not just the sports world. We first started taking SI just as a way to get the boys to read something. We also took ESPN the Magazine, but that’s like the People magazine of sports. Then again, sports is all too often more about the soap opera than the game.

But in the current issue of SI, I think they jumped the shark. In case you aren’t familiar with the phrase, it refers to a show at the end of the run of Happy Days. Having run out of reasonable plots, Fonzie is water skiing in a lake and jumps a shark.

When you become a parody of yourself, that’s jumping the shark, which is what Selena Roberts did in her column. In this column, she takes a high school coach, school (Southington High), athletic department, and school district to task because a player on the opposite team lost his wrist band of plays. A Southington player found the play list and in the second half, the coach used it to adjust defenses when the other team’s quarterback would audible. Roberts says, “A swift penalty for a tainted…victory would have seemed elementary…”

Elementary? I’m trying to figure out why the victory was so tainted that it deserved a swift penalty. I’ve thought about this in a number of different ways and still, I’m not so sure that this event is worthy of SI coverage, nor a swift penalty. In fact, Roberts further criticizes the coach because his apology began “upon reflection…” Frankly, I’ve reflected on this situation a lot and still don’t see the big deal.

Let’s look at it this way. Your customer, Wonderful Widget, has your competitor’s proposal, which is marked “Private: For the Use of Wonderful Widget Co. only.” He wants to share it with you so you can prepare a better proposal. Ethical? No. You are getting an advantage that your opponent is not able to get. Although, to be honest, your opponent is probably going to get your proposal and then be able to sharpen the pencil and cut the price.

But let’s say the sales rep drops a price list in the parking lot and you find it. That’s it – just the price list. If it said, “Private – for the use of customers only,” are you to throw it away without looking at it? Courts have ruled that you are not violating any trade secret law by doing so. But is it right?

Is it ok to steal an opponent’s signs during a baseball game? Not from center field with binoculars, but then, that’s actually a rule. Otherwise, it is ok – not just ok, but expected that you should try. If I had the signs on the line-up card and accidentally handed it over to the other dugout at the lineup exchange, should they throw it away or ignore it? I don’t think so.

In my sales text, I argue that ethics is about a fair playing field. Everyone has the same chance to win. I could argue that the list of plays was there to be found by anyone – all 22 players on the field had the same equal chance to find it and the opponent failed to do so. Finders keepers, losers weepers.

She likens it to a wrestling team that forfeits because the other team ran out of wrestlers. She considered that good sportsmanship. I’d say, I don’t have enough information based on that description. Why did they run out of wrestlers? If they don’t have enough to begin with, then why would they deserve to win as a team? Celebrate each individual match victory and take the team loss. Look for more wrestlers. I don’t get her point on that.

I do get the softball team that carried an opponent around the bases (not in her article). She had hit a home run but tripped over first base, tearing an ACL. Unable to get up, her own team couldn’t help her or she’d be called out. So the opponent picked her up and carried her. That’s a high level of sportsmanship I hope I would think of (and if not sportsmanship, then gallantry), if I ever had the chance. She earned the home run.

But part of football is learning the plays. If you have to carry a crib sheet during the game, then that sheet seems to me to be fair game. That's why we have huddles and signals. If they yelled the play out, am I supposed to cover my ears and sing nonsense so I can't hear it? Is that what helmets are for - directional hearing? Turn your head, we're calling the play.

I am, however, open to other views. Unlike Roberts, I think this situation calls for reflection. So what do you think – fair or cheating or marginally unethical?

Random Rants
In the category of really dumb, I offer the following:
A billboard in Temple, Texas, designed to sell billboard advertising says, “If you want Waco to know…”

Dick’s Sporting Goods email confirming shipping is titled: “Shippring confirmation.”

Laura Bush, ex-Pres George’s wife, sends me a request for a donation to the Bush Library. The Bush Library at SMU. Sends it to my Baylor address. That’s right, Baylor, where I was on the committee to bring the library to campus. SMU, in case you missed it, is where the library is going and is also her alma mater. Rub it in, Laura. And no, I'm not sending a check.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Customer Service: The New Media Channel

2010-11-16T04:25:00.000-08:00

This past week, Baylor hosted the fourth annual Dale P. Jones National Ethics Case Competition, a competition for MBA students. Ten teams from universities such as University of Texas, Texas A&M, University of Washington, University of Illinois, Pepperdine, and Baylor of course competed in a competition involving what to do at a company (www.BlueCava.com, a real company) whose primary product is consumer data. Because the case has marketing and consumer privacy implications, I was asked to serve as a judge. The experience was tremendous – a great competition that was fun to judge and challenging, I’m sure, for the students.

At the luncheon to announce the first round winners, Pete Blackshaw, the guy who founded PlanetFeedback (the first major online place to complain about companies and their products), was the keynote. He’s also the author of the book, Satisfied Customers Tell 3 Friends, Angry Customers tell 3000. Now, he is an EVP at Nielsen.

One of his comments really hit me: “Service is the new media channel.” His point was that companies will be and are making decisions about where to spend marketing dollars and choosing to improve service over advertising because the return on investment is better. To flesh this idea out a bit more fully, the idea is that you can advertise and say what you want to say or you can deliver great customer service and have customers say what you want to say.

Yeah, I know, it’s pretty basic. We’ve always known that if you screw up customer service, you’ll get nasty word-of-mouth. Now, in the digital world, that turns into what my friend Paul Greenberg calls “verbal terrorism.” Famous ones, like Dave Carroll’s United Breaks Guitars video, spiral into millions of views. In fact, Carroll’s video has over nine million views (his tribute to firefighters and other first responders has less than 45,000).

And while data from online sources like PlanetFeedback can tell you what is most likely to draw consumers’ ire (according to Blackshaw, it’s cleanliness at fast food places but rude clerks at other retail), it still seems to me to be preventive, not active “media.” I don’t see Dave Carroll making a video called American Doesn’t Break Guitars or Continental Loves Guitars.

Try this on your friends. Tell them about your most recent trip where customer service was what you expected (assuming you’re not a complete cynic and expect your guitar to be broken and no one to care). You’ll find them checking their phone, looking for a door, or saying they have to get back to work. Good customer service is boring. That’s why we don’t tell 3000 friends when we’re satisfied. If you did that regularly, you wouldn’t have 3000 friends.

Marketing budgets are not inexhaustible. Companies do have to make choices and allocating between media and service is one of those choices. But I don’t necessarily see them choosing to spend more on customer service because they want to get more referrals. Choosing to spend more on customer service is more likely to occur because it’s broken, needs maintenance or updating, and isn’t meeting basic needs. Choosing to spend more on customer service for most companies is preventive – aimed at preventing more videos like United Breaks Guitars.
Note that I said “for most companies.” In an article about Ritz Carlton in Marketing News, the story was told about a couple of little boys, about 3 and 5 years old, chatting at the counter as their parents checked in. They boys were excited about their first trip to New York City. The desk clerk overheard one boy say, “Maybe we’ll get to meet Spiderman!” Imagine the boys’ surprise when there’s a knock at the door that night, and it’s Spiderman with a plate of cookies for the boys.

Now that’s a really cool story about the Ritz, and it’s generating even more press. Yes, the opportunities to do something like that are relatively few but in reality, what Blackshaw and others like him are saying isn’t that those incredible stories are the new form of marketing. Rather, it’s the regular really good service that results in online rankings that matters.

The Drury Inn chain of moderately-priced business hotels (equivalent price-wise to a Hampton Inn) provides great service on a bigger scale. There’s a nightly happy hour with snacks heavy enough to be dinner, a hot breakfast that better than the Hampton’s, and staff that seem to enjoy what they do. It’s no wonder to me that they’ve won the JD Power top chain in satisfaction three years running. If you go to Hotels.com and see Drury, you’ll see great ratings from a lot of people. Further, the hotels that rate higher and are in the same price range are new this year.

Here’s an interesting one about the Holiday Inn (opened up this past summer):
"Needs a little improvement but nice place to stay."
Reviewed by a Hotels.com guest on Jun 2, 2010
Only a few complaints. One: the breakfast was not very good. The eggs were super salty and watery. Yuck. They should invest in a waffle maker as well. ;) Two: Both mornings we tried to leave our room to go eat breakfast and our door would not lock! First time, the housekeeper fixed it by inserting her card over and over again. The next morning when it happened again, my mother stayed behind in the room because we didn't have time to wait for it to be fixed. Kind of annoying. Had I been there alone with my toddler, it would have been a bigger deal. Last thing: they should invest in more bellhop carts so that you don't have to stalk other guests who are wheeling their possessions into their rooms and beg to have dibs on the cart when they are done. Other than that, I really enjoy this hotel and the staff is very kind and cheerful. :)

What I find interesting is that this person had little to say that was positive yet gave the hotel a 4 star rating. What was positive? “The staff is very kind and cheerful.” If you have really good people, you’ll get good ratings.

Changing subjects, if you’ve paid close attention to my bio over there on the left (though why you would do that, I have no idea), then you’ve noticed a new name: Sales Innovation (www.salesinnovation.com). I recently took on the role of academic advisor to this remarkable start-up.

There are lots of companies that do sales training. In fact, I’ve done quite a bit myself for companies like Prentice-Hall, IBM, and others. My frustration, though, has been that so often, I’m brought in for a one-day training session that is somehow supposed to act like a shot of penicillin and cure a disease.

To do training right, there has to be more than just the class. What are the objectives trying to be met? How will management ensure that real change has taken place? Will there be metrics put in place to monitor progress? Will salespeople get the follow-up coaching they need to hone the new skills?

All too often, the answer is no.

Now is the time of year that most companies are planning their annual sales meeting. And most of these meetings will have a motivational speaker who will, I’m sure, be very motivational. But few of us can carry major emotions around for long and those that do are probably in need of care. To make a real difference, any training needs to be part of a larger management plan.

That’s why I’m so thrilled to be a part of Sales Innovation. They won’t take on a job without such a commitment from a client. If all you want is a one-shot wonder – call someone else. If you want real productivity change, these are the folks to call.

Random Rants
Did you read about the University of Central Florida prof who discovered that 215 students in his class of 600 cheated on an exam? I’ve read comments that he brought it on himself by using the test bank of the book he uses and by not changing up his exam enough. Ok, maybe that’s a fair assessment. But to use that to justify cheating is inexcusable. What I don’t hear anyone complaining about is that he had 600 students in a class. I have 55 in a marketing principles class and it takes about 20 hours to grade a test that has a few short answer questions, plus the multiple choice and true/false. And no, I have no grader to help. To have 600 and expect anything more than test banks and re-using tests is ridiculous.

Twitter now recommends people to follow. I have no idea how they come up with their recommendations. Of the four they recommended to me, two are dentists. With 9 crowns and a bridge of 5 teeth, I think my lifetime customer value is just about spent. But what have I tweeted that makes them think a dentist is who I should follow? One dentist - ok, that's random. But 2 dentists?

Live Positively!

2010-11-09T04:27:00.000-08:00

In ten years, 80% of the world’s population will live in 40 megacities, of which 35 will be in countries other than the US, according to Coke executive, Abigail Rodgers. She opened her presentation to the SMA crowd in Atlanta last week, where she was named the association’s Marketer of the Year. Credited with creating Coca-Cola’s Live Positively sustainability initiative (www.livepositively.com), she focused her presentation on the environmental aspects of the initiative. Live Positively, though, is more than just environmental issues, however. The initiative is intended to focus on all aspects that influence the quality of life. Beginning with that startling factoid, she builds a compelling case for how we must consider the future.

For the full meal deal, you can visit her website. One particular aspect of the initiative I find interesting is that Coca-Cola employees were all encouraged to create their own Live Positively goals and post them on their cubicles or doors. One executive, who leads all of North American operations, included a goal of recycling everything from every meeting he attended. Now, when others see him staying behind to clean up a conference room, they all pitch in and recycle their Coke bottles. The important thing is finding the small act you can commit to, then doing it.

Yet this blog’s really about marketing, not social change. And on the marketing side, what Coke did with the I Lohas brand of bottled water is simply amazing. In six months last year, this brand went from non-existent to topping the charts in Japan. How they did it is a clever combination of promotional activities.

First, the company developed the lightest plastic bottle available. Then, they built a campaign around crushing it (http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/ourcompany/innovation_marketing.html). That’s right, crushing the bottle.

Now drinking water ended with a fun twist – crushing the bottle. Because of its light weight, the bottle can be twisted into a shape that takes one-third the volume of the original shape – like twisting a wet washrag but with one difference: The bottle retains the crushed shape.

For re-cycling purposes, this crushability triples the capacity of a storage bin and the truck taking the bottles to the recycling plant. A green appeal can be easily made. But that’s not all that popular and can't account for the rise in the brand's popularity.

What Coke did was focus on the act of crushing. They had various talk-show hosts laughing as they crushed bottles on their shows with pop culture guests joining in the fun.

An artist built a sculpture from the crushed bottles which was exhibited at the Tokyo Zoo, visited by 10,000 people per day. Other artists were commissioned to create sculptures that were installed in parks, on street corners, and other highly visible places. Oh yes, they also had a commercial that focused on the green appeal.

Many times, we think we have to have the new product to be successful, that the big idea is in basic product. However, the product, I Lohas water, is nothing but tap water. The big idea is in the experience.

And, oh by the way, they did it without much in the way of social media. Nothing unconventional.

Another area that Coke is working in is clean water. Obviously, the company is concerned about clean water because it is essential to the company’s products. At the same time that they would like you to drink soft drinks, they’ve committed to putting into the water supply an equivalent amount of clean water in the developing countries where they operate. And they operate in more countries than are members of the United Nations.

One of the ways you can help is to sign up on MyCokeRewards (www.mycokerewards.com), enter points off your Coke products, and then donate those points to RAIN, an organization that builds clean water supplies in Africa. But the problem with the point donation thing is that there is no transparency. Donate 140 points and RAIN gets…what? Points to buy Coke gear? Coke has committed $30 million to RAIN. Are they swapping my points for their contribution? I mentioned this to Abby after her presentation last week – I hope Coke provides greater transparency in what a donation does.

In the meantime, start saving your points.

Random Rants:
If you’re a long-time reader, you know I cleaned my pantry out and found items (like boxes of Jell-O mix) that dated back to the 1980s. Sunday, in HEB (a Texas-based grocery store), I tried to buy yogurt. Dates ranged from October 8 to October 26. Yup, two weeks minimum out of date. That’s great for live cultures!

Field & Stream reported in August (sorry, I misplaced my issue and only just now read it) that Scent-Lok has been found guilty of false advertising. Claiming that their products "eliminate" human odor for hunters, their own experts testified that very little odor was blocked. One Scent-Lok exec said it all depended on what you meant by the word eliminate and besides, they only said that in one commercial. Yet, a number of other ads claimed 100% effective. Scent-Lok was first sued in 2003, but earlier lawsuits were tossed out. Interestingly, Cabela's and Gander Mountain were also included. Why? Because they licensed the technology and made the same claims. Retailers, if you market the product under your brand, you better make sure it meets your claims! Frankly, I thought all along it was too good to be true.

A Tale of Two Teams

2010-11-02T04:45:00.000-07:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In our tale of two teams but one city, one enjoyed a magical ride to the World Series, the other a precipitous slide to the cellar of the NFL. Yes, the Series ended last night with the Rangers on the losing side but this team enjoyed a season of success in such a way that you have to hope it wasn’t temporary.

I’ve been pondering for weeks about how to write a blog on the culture of the team. With visible cultural rites like the antlers (if you run like a deer, the other players reward you with hands to their head, a sign of a deer) and claw (another reward from teammates, a hand sign of hitting with power), this team has a wonderful chemistry that thrived even when new players joined mid-season.

But it isn’t just the players. This incredible culture change started when Nolan Ryan joined the club as an executive. Then, Simpson and others out-bid Mark Cuban (thank goodness) to buy the club. Their first act was to lower prices on concessions and parking. If my math is right (and it probably isn’t), this act alone cost them about $10 million. But it was their way of extending the team culture to the fan base by saying you are important and this is your team, a theme they emphasized in their advertising.

Another thing Nolan and the execs did – they flew every front office employee to the play-off games, at least in the first round. I don’t know if every employee was able to attend all of the American League Championship Series or World Series, but I know that they did for the first round.

This team is built on a culture that people matter. Players, salespeople, and fans all matter as individuals and as members of the team. We are all in this together. Players and staff will not only work hard but have fun, celebrating the little successes that lead to overall victory.

(My theory on their demise in the Series is that they began to take things too seriously. Had they relaxed and enjoyed themselves the way they did all year long, they would have done much better.)

Contrast that to the script of a commercial involving former Cowboy great, Troy Aikman and Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones. Aikman announces that a new sandwich (or maybe it’s chicken, I don’t recall) is the new official brand of the Cowboys. Jones says he wants Aikman’s last one because “It’s the official (whatever) of the Dallas Cowboys and I own the Cowboys, therefore it is the official (whatever) of me.” That’s the Cowboy culture, the culture of “me,” Jerry Jones.

I’ve written before about the San Antonio Spurs, the only multiple winner of ESPN’s global Most Admired Franchise award. I’ve described how they have a set of values, hold players and personnel to those values, and why that has led to their success. I am so hopeful that the same will be said of the Rangers in years to come.

For me, though, some of the take-aways from this season are these:
• Everyone celebrates the little successes together
• There’s a clear strategy communicated well to everyone (Ryan’s strategy for pitchers was simple and old-fashioned: be in shape and pitch deep into the game by letting your defense work for you)
• If you buy in, you stay. If you don’t, you go (like Jim Collins’ get the right people on the bus).

In a blog, it’s hard to capture all that made this season so special for the Rangers. But as a fan of the Rangers for all 38 years they’ve been in existence as Rangers, I’m hoping this season was just the first of many special seasons.

Now, imagine you are the seasonal merchandising manager for HEB, the grocery chain, and you purchased pallets upon pallets of Dallas Cowboys charcoal. What do you do? Since the team has one victory and six defeats, do you hold a “flame-out” sale? “This season crashed and burned” sale?

Yes, I know, the mere fact that there is a Dallas Cowboys official charcoal sold in bags covered in the Cowboys logo shows just how popular the team is. I can’t fault Jones for his business acumen. I just wonder what he’s going to do with all of those sponsors who can’t be happy with the sudden lack of interest created by the lousy play.

Polish That Old Halo

2010-10-26T04:00:00.001-07:00

My dentist is one of the most CRM advanced small businesses I’ve ever seen. She confirms my appointments by text, emails regular newsletters, and even follows up appointments with a short satisfaction survey. In her office, I see the use of current technology - X-rays, for example, are immediately available on the computer. But is she a good dentist?

Toyota truck ads show the competitor’s half-ton truck frame and then show the Toyota frame. Clearly, the Toyota frame is heavier, much bigger and stronger. Then they show the competitor’s axle and the Toyota axle, both chained to a weight. The competitor’s axle, obviously much lighter, breaks under the strain of the weight. Which half-ton truck do you want – the light frame, light axle one or the heavy frame, bigger axle?

Wait a minute – have you ever broken a truck frame? Or an axle? I’m on my third or fourth GM truck, my sons have all driven GM or Dodge trucks, and none of us have ever broken either a frame or an axle. True, we don’t overload our trucks but we do take them through some tough Texas back country with full payloads.

In fact, I’ve not looked at the gas mileage, but if the Toyota truck is piling on a lot of excess weight in the name of unneeded strength, then gas mileage has to be lower. But I have to admit, my first reaction to the commercials was “Wow, how cool is that!” and “Gee, I should really look at Toyota next time.” And I probably will look at Toyota next time.

When I buy a truck, I do want something strong that can easily pull a horse trailer carrying two horses, weighing a total of 3000 pounds; I can load past the roof with 25+ square bales of hay; I can load down with railroad ties and a deer blind and drive through a dry creek bed and up the other side; and I can take to the Fair and Rodeo and look good doing it. Well, at least the truck can look good.

The question is, does a heavier frame and axle make that possible? I’ve done all of the above in apparently lighter-framed and lighter-axled trucks and never broken a frame or an axle. I guess it may be one of those things that until it happens to you, you don’t really know what it’s like.

What happened to me, as I watched the commercial, is a case of the halo effect. Toyota wants me to make a judgment about the whole truck on the basis of two features: axle and frame. I can’t really judge how reliable the engine will run or how dependable the air conditioning will be, but I’m going to draw the conclusion that it is a better vehicle overall – or so they hope.

Similarly, on the basis of no other information other than the technology I can see, I’d draw the conclusion that my dentist is terrific. Until she fills a cavity, replaces a cap, or builds a bridge, I really won’t know. But until then, she’s got awesome technology.

When I sold copiers for Xerox, I would pull out the service price sheet. The first product listed was the Xerox Model A Copyflow. I would say, in all honesty, “You see this product? It was introduced before I was born, yet we are stilling servicing it. Just like we will your copier. No other copier company can say that.” Did that mean that the one I sold was better than the competition? No, but the halo effect often worked. What made this version of the halo effect better, at least to me, than the Toyota version is that the benefit of such a history of service meant something to every customer. Every customer wants good service for the life of their copier.

There’s nothing wrong with the dentist’s halo or even the Toyota halo. These aren’t evil marketing plots. After all, my dentist is just trying to improve the level of service. Toyota is trying to build a stronger truck. Some buyers will need that, others may want it, and still others won’t think through what these marketing communications mean. But that’s not evidence of another plot by the evil marketing empire.

That’s why we’re so willing to go with the online recommendations from people we don’t know – we can’t be sure of the benefits of what we’re buying. When you book a hotel online, do you read the recommendations that others have put online? I do, especially if it is in an area I’m not familiar with or a brand I’ve never heard of before. And I only “listen” to them if there are several and the comments are detailed. If there is only one comment and it is glowing, then I figure the owner put it there. But if six people liked it and one complained of a squeaky elevator, then I’ll take the group’s word and stay there, even if the group is made up of people with screen names like “Partystupid” or “Rabiddawg.” We take their recommendations because we can’t see what we’re getting until it is too late to do anything about it.

So marketers, should we take the words of the Jerry Jeff Walker song and “polish up your old halo?” If the benefit really means something, then focusing on that point of difference is appropriate. If your competitor is creating a halo effect out of a nothing feature, then it’s your job to educate the buyer.

Random Rants:
Ok, so we are now moving to Round 3 with Merrill Lynch and those educational IRAs. I tried getting my broker to just move the accounts to his company but they don’t handle that type of account. So I called Merrill Lynch. Now, instead of having to talk to 3 people, you only have to talk to 2. So maybe they read my blog and put the right phone number on the quarterly statement.

But get this. When I told them to sell all of John’s account back in May, they sold Travis’ account instead. Brilliant. So they couldn’t send John his money because his account didn’t have any cash, it still had stock. I got his sold and then had to be transferred to Idiot #2 to get the check mailed. After 20 minutes on hold, I left for lunch.

This blog, including the rant, was written over a week ago but due to a computer glitch (that’s what I’m calling it – I left it on my computer at home, then flew to Sidney - Nebraska, that is) I ended up writing and posting another one. Since writing the rant as you see it above, I called Merrill back, was on hold about 12 minutes but finally spoke to someone. He gave me the option of having the forms emailed or faxed to me, and gave me a fax number to turn them in. I had them emailed, faxed the forms back, and I got the checks in about a week!

Wow – now if I’d only had that guy the first time.

Do I like Merrill now? Hey, that halo is not that bright.

Back from Sidney - Nebraska, that is

2010-10-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, it’s Thursday. No, the delay wasn't a test to see who was reading the blog (thanks, family, for asking where it was!). Rather, it was due to a combination of bad decisions, travel, and computer problems - the bad decisions being things like thinking I could save it on a flash drive, then leaving the flash drive at home. Good news is, next week’s blog is already done! Now on to this week’s.

Travel was to Sidney, Nebraska. I can now cross Nebraska off my life list. Some folks have clients in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, or Seattle. I’ve got clients in Sidney, Nebraska; Amarillo, Texas; Norfolk, Virginia, and San Angelo, Texas. Mind you, I think I may have the better end of the deal, as I have really good clients who are fun to work with, smart and creative, and pay on time. All great customer characteristics.

My trip was to visit the headquarters of Cabela’s, with the goal of documenting their implementation of Teradata’s Integrated Web Intelligence (IWI) application. This application allows companies to integrate customer data from across all channels. In Cabela’s case, that means catalog sales, online sales, in-store sales, and kiosk sales. Kiosks are in-store online ordering portals for products that may be out of stock in the store.

Sidney is a small village nestled in a valley on the plains. Interstate 80 runs just south of the village, and along the interstate are Cabela’s headquarters, their original retail outlet, and the typical interstate mix of a few hotels, restaurants, and truck stops. It seems like really a nice place, but as you can imagine, recruiting top talent to a small town like Sidney is difficult. They’ve managed to do so quite well, though, if the folks I met with are any indication.

Cabela’s is a prime example of something I’m seeing in the work place. When I graduated, it was ok to be either quantitative or creative, if you will. I’m not so sure that’s the case any longer. Data drive so many decisions, and the data are not so clear anymore. The real opportunities are those that combine the soft and hard skills.

Financial data are precise. We can calculate profit and loss to the penny. But forecasting that profit requires using data that are not so precise. More importantly, deciding what actions to take to ensure that the profit is realized means that managers have to rely on data that can be somewhat murky.

When I teach sales, I tell sales students that while they may hate accounting and finance, they sell to accounting and finance majors. Salespeople have to understand the language of business, which is based in accounting and finance, if they want to sell.

Similarly, we try to tell our marketing students that marketing is not all creative ad campaigns. In fact, I’m not so sure that creative execution is universally all important. Dilbert recently told someone who wanted to join marketing that marketing is “just liquor and guesses.” Well, guesses may represent the quality of data we have to work with and liquor may represent the events marketing has to put on, but there’s a lot more to it than that! But students still want to believe that marketing is no more than making a commercial with Cameron Diaz and rolling in dough.

Then, when these students graduate, they become marketing people at places like Cabela’s, and their disdain for data becomes someone else’s problem.

Cabela’s has addressed the challenge in what I think is a pretty good fashion. First, remember when everyone talked about tearing the silos down? Well, silos didn’t go away, did they – silos existed because there really is a unique set of skills and processes that are best executed when people specialize. So what some people are suggesting is to build windows and doors between silos. That’s one of the approaches Cabela’s has taken. Their statisticians and quant jocks liaise with the “liquor and guesses” crowd individually – like a salesperson who handles an account, each one has individual responsibilities.

Another aspect that helps is that they look for ways to display data that makes sense to the marketing people. For example, rather than giving raw data, they display it. Sounds obvious, but one side benefit has been the identification of trends not otherwise recognizable.

Finally, they don’t just throw data at the marketing people. They take the time to find out what the decisions are that have to be made and they build data acquisition and analytic strategies to serve those decisions.

One thing is clear. In Sidney, Nebraska, some really cool things are happening. It should make for a great case study – so look for that soon.

Random Rants:
I hate that billboard that says, “Do billboards work? Just did!” I always have the nagging feeling that somehow I just got tricked into buying something but I don’t know what.

Starbucks announced that they are going to make their baristas slow down, so that they can take more time with each customer. Didn’t the economy make that possible already?

See You at the Fair!

2010-10-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Columbus Day, a day that was a public school holiday for many kids. When I was a kid, Columbus Day was also Fair Day and we were given free admission tickets to the Great State Fair of Texas.

One year, I think it was fourth grade, my elementary school even took us to the fair on a school bus. I'm sure my parents thought we were under adult supervision but the reality is, they opened the doors of the bus, tossed us out, and probably went to straight to the Fletcher's corny dog stand for a corn dog and cold beer. We were left free to wander whereever we wanted and I went everywhere. Through the Food and Fiber Pavilion, where they promote Texas agriculture (I picked up all of the recipe cards, sorting through the ones I thought I'd like though if we ever cooked any, I don't recall), to the Women's Building (arts and crafts, along with Saladmaster cookware demonstrations and the ShamWow! guy's father selling chamois-like towels even then - I loved listening to the patter safe in the knowledge that they weren't going to ask a 9 year old boy to buy), to the Automobile Building. Ah, that was the place - shiny new cars, air conditioned building (that's important in Texas, even in October), and pretty girls. (Ok, I was 9, that was my priority order then. Now, of course, air conditioning would come first.)

And the Midway - that wonderful Midway! I loved everything about it - the fun houses, the vomit-inducing rides, the Comet (an old wooden roller coaster), and the games. I won a Pink Panther once but gave it to a girl.

This past Saturday, I got the chance to go back to the Fair. Baylor was playing Tech in the Cotton Bowl. What a great place to watch a game! I sat in the same seats where we watched the Cowboys beat Cleveland, 52-6, in a play-off game, and not too far from where I saw Bobby Hayes catch a pass from Don Meredith and run 95 yards for a touchdown against Pittsburgh (before the AFL/NFL merger). Baylor lost, but it was an exciting game. I liked hearing my young former students, though, say that how much they enjoyed seeing a game there too. The stadium, no matter where you sit, has an intimate feel that Jerryworld can't have. I'd rather go back to the Cotton Bowl than back to Jerryworld.

While we tend to think of fairs as an American thing, they aren't, of course. Fairs have been a part of man's existence anywhere there was trade. I've been to fairs in France and they look remarkably like ours - with one major exception.

Fried food on a stick.

I took a French professor friend, Christophe Fournier, to our local fair in Waco. His first culinary fair experience was pizza on a stick. I heard him later trying to describe it on the phone to his 6 year old son - a hard concept to grasp telephonically, pizza on a stick.

At the State Fair, the big quest is to see what can be fried. I had fried bacon, which is bacon that is battered and deep fried, and very tasty. But you can also get fried beer, fried butter, fried Snickers on a stick, fried club salad, and a fried frozen maragarita. The latter is served in a plastic martini glass with salt on the rim. Remember the need for air conditioning? Why is a fried frozen margarita better? Because - if it ain't fried, it ain't food! Next year, I'm hoping to see fried catsup, or ketchup, or whatever. I think it would sell.

Last Saturday was the busiest I've ever seen the fair. The Midway was literally wall to wall people. Some of the games were a bit scary, what with flying darts and baseballs and people dodging.

I overheard one guy say to his girlfriend or wife, "Your mom gave me some money. She knows I'm out of work, so she gave me some money for today." With the economy the way it is, maybe we all need a little magic. There's no better place for it than the fair.

Random Rants
We saw Shrek at the Music Hall Sunday. Great show - I highly recommend it. Then yesterday, I got a thank-you email, their standard practice, along with a discount for friends to see it. Somehow, this email didn't bother me as much as the one I got from the other theater offering to sell me half-price tickets to the show I was about to see for full price. The discount was about the same but I think the appearance of exclusivity of the offer (only to friends of people who had already seen it) and the chance to see it again or have friends see it made the offer more acceptable.

We saw Gypsy last Wednesday at Baylor - also a great show. The overture of Gypsy, like most musicals of its age (50+ years old), is a medly of tunes from the show. There is no overture to Shrek. A few chords and the show starts. I've noticed that about other new shows, too. I guess it is a sop to our collective attention deficit.

I heard on the radio yesterday that, according to a survey, grumpiness starts at an average age of 52. Once again, I'm an early developer.

It's all about the experience

2010-10-05T03:46:00.001-07:00

About four years ago, I did a seminar in Boston, part of the CRM at the Speed of Light tour that is still going on and will be in London next month (sadly, without me). It was spring break so I took my wife and son, and our daughter joined us as well. Spamalot was playing so we got online and bought tickets through TicketMaster.

That was the only time I ever bought anything directly from TicketMaster but I'm still getting their emails. In fact, I got one just this week titled, "Your Favorite Team," with an offer to see the Boston Bruins.

Boston Bruins? MY favorite team? Not quite. I have a soft spot for the Bruins because they represent the tradition of the NHL, just as I have a soft spot for the Green Bay Packers. That just means I'll cheer for them when they're not playing my favorite teams.

I grew up in Dallas. The Dallas Stars are my favorite team, followed by the Chicago Blackhawks. When I was young, the Blackhawks had their farm team in Dallas so I grew up watching future Blackhawk stars. Then, when my wife and I started dating, we would go to Blackhawk games, then to Marianos, a Mexican restaurant with live music and the original frozen margarita. From then, not only have I been a Blackhawk fan, I'm also a minor leagues fan. Games are played with passion, if not skill, and anything can, and does, happen.

But back to Boston.

I was a guest of the Bruins for their exhibition game with the Capitals last week. We had the pleasure of sitting in the Premium Seating area - right on the red (center) line about 20 rows from the ice. Premo seats. This game was my second in the TD Garden, the newer arena that replaced the original Boston Garden.

In CRM, we talk about the customer experience and managing that experience. In sports, it seems so easy. You have fans already, so are you trying to make them more loyal? The challenge isn't so much creating loyalty; rather, it is how to create spending. The San Antonio Spurs, for example, did a poll and found that 65% of the city's population consider themselves Spurs fans. But how many games do they attend? How many jerseys do they buy?

And when a team is losing, how many will attend? Baylor won its first two football games at home, and had over 42,000 fans attend. But they lost badly to TCU, so for the next home game, the first game in conference play so there should be good attendance, they had only 35,000 there. One really bad loss cost them 1/6 of their attendance.

The challenge, then, is how to build a positive experience when or if the team loses. Yes, new stadiums are built when the old are still functional because team owners can make more money, but it is the game day experience that gives the fan a reason to buy the ticket and that requires many new spaces in the stadium. Areas like Club levels, where you get to stand by the tunnel and watch players enter the arena (although that may be all you get - your view of the game may be on a big screen after that).

So back to Boston. Compared to the American Airlines Center, the glitzy newer arena where the Dallas Stars play, the Garden looks like a train station. Well, really, it is the North Station on the subway, so parts of it are not just like a train station, it is a station.

But Boston is the center of the US hockey universe, at least to me, just as Montreal is the center of the Canadian hockey universe. Edmonton may have had Gretzky, but les Habs are the old time Canadian team, just as Boston is the old time US team.

So going to the TD Garden is like going to Fenway - you expect to be dazzled in a totally different way than if you went to a Stars game. For a Texan who's a hockey fan, going to the Garden is almost like going to the Alamo. And the Garden doesn't disappoint. (For those who may not know, TD is a bank and the sponsor - it has nothing to do with football.)

Two floors of the concourse are devoted to a Boston sports Hall of Fame. Not just hockey, though hockey is prominently featured, the Hall includes equal space for the Celtics and for other sports. Not just pro - perhaps the greatest college hockey rivalries are between the universities in Boston as they play for the Beanpot. Dallas may have wide open concourses, but walking through those concourses is like walking through the midway at the fair - it seems to be about taking more of your money.

But Boston is about hockey. As you would expect, Boston fans are in Boston jerseys. In Dallas, it seems that many fans attend only because they love hockey. Their hearts are elsewhere. While Stars jerseys dominate, you are just as likely to see a Flames, Thrashers, Coyotes, Oilers, or Bruins jersey. The difference is that in Boston, everyone is a Bruins fan.

In Dallas, players enter the ice through a large star spitting fire that is lowered from the ceiling and raised during the game. Girls in skin-tight pants and midriffs clean the ice during breaks. Dancers perform on a platform at one end. Yet, I can tell you from personal experience that at the end of the season, when the team was out of the playoffs and didn't play with any passion or hustle, to this hockey fan all that glitz just got annoying.

In Boston, players enter the ice like players. In this intimate arena, you feel as though you are right on the ice. Old men clean the ice, not well-built women. There are no dancers. And in an exhibition game, when the outcome didn't matter and the Bruins were losing 4-1, fans sounded like hockey moms and dads, yelling instructions and encouragement. Nobody left early. This is their team and you don't do that to your players. In Dallas, the game would have ended with only the staff watching.

In this economy, premium seating areas have taken a hit. Companies can't lay out the cash for sporting events while they're laying off people. Yet premium seating can be the highest profit area, even greater than sponsorships, in some arenas. Maintaining sales in the premium arena requires making the benefits as personal as possible, in addition to the corporate benefits. Recently, for example, Boston hosted a hockey game for their premium seat holders - a game between the seat holders. Only they had so many takers, they had to hold two games. And from what I hear, it was pretty good hockey. My guess is next year, they'll have to do a tournament.

Boston seems to be doing it right. They understand that, for their fans, it's about the hockey. Dallas does it differently, but also right. For their fans, at least in the corporate seating area, it's about the entertainment.

Two very different experiences.

Random Rants:
It's Customer Service Week. I don't know how you'll celebrate, but I think I'll call the customer service hotline, wait on hold for twenty minutes, then just say thank you and hang up.

Coca Cola, IBM, American Airlines, and a number of other companies are creating a feature on their websites that will allow consumers to opt out of all advertising based on their browsing behavior. The industry is creating an icon that you can click on and from then on, all such advertising will be blocked. Prior to my trip to Boston, I was looking at the website for Shear Madness, a play that has a gay hairdresser as one of the characters. Google Ads posted ads for gay men's dating sites along side the play's website, giving me second thoughts as to whether to attend the play. We did see the play - I highly recommend it. I also think that few consumers will opt out of those ads, but it isn't clear to me what those ads will be replaced with. Nor is it clear how you can go back to receiving behavior-based ads if you don't like the replacement content.

Drake, where you get your D+ education? They finally changed their advertising campaign. So is bad publicity better than no publicity? Was it all just a ploy? Ok, that's cynical. But no better than they deserve.

Blogging Works: My Brain is Empty Now

2010-09-28T04:35:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest benefits to blogging, at least for me, is that it provides me with a chance to write on topics that buzz around in my brain. Blogging empties that buzzing, just as a to-do list eliminates the need to remember tasks or prayer removes worry. My brain is now remarkably empty, so the challenge becomes maintaining the blog.

Thankfully, I’ve got inspirations like the Journal of Consumer Research. Sometimes I’m amazed at what actually passes for research in our top academic journals. For example, the latest issue of the Journal of Marketing published a study that showed that people spend less near the end of the month as their paychecks run out. Whew – good to know!

Most of it is good stuff. But since my brain has been in need of refilling, I’ve gone back through the last ten years of the Journal of Marketing, mostly to review what our top journal has said about customer satisfaction. Virtually all of the work, first of all, has been solely on consumer satisfaction and little of it on satisfaction in business-to-business. That’s a huge gap. Second, whether consumer or business customers, customer satisfaction scores have been shown to influence financial performance, no matter how you calculate that performance.

We know that satisfaction has little to do with repurchase when the consumption cycle is long. Cars, for example, are usually not bought based on the satisfaction one had previously, because needs and features can change so much over the course of five years. We also know that satisfaction has less to do with the re-purchase of utilitarian products (e.g. tires) than hedonic products (e.g. fine liqueurs or chocolates). Finally, a couple of studies linked customer satisfaction scores to long term profits and other measures of financial performance. But like a lot of things in business, no matter how much the customer satisfaction messiahs would have us believe that their way to profits is the way we should all go, the degree to which customer satisfaction matters is a function of a number of factors, such as whether the product is utilitarian or hedonic. (You can substitute the messiah du jour and reach a similar conclusion.)

Ok, so back to JCR. The current issue tells us that hotels that change the appeal from “Re-use your towels and save the planet,” to “Most guests in this room re-use their towels to save the planet – you should, too” find a significant increase in guests who re-use their towels. And the phrase, “in this room,” is critical to the increase. What I find interesting is that guests would bother, at least after the first experience. I’ve tried to re-use towels – I’ve followed the instructions and NEVER had housekeeping leave the towels. Once I tried the “Do Not Disturb” sign, leaving it on the door all the day as I don’t care if the bed is remade by housekeeping or not if I’m only going to be there a couple of days. The front desk called to see if I really didn’t want to be disturbed. (And what if the answer had been yes? How high would customer satisfaction be then?) The point of the study is that normative appeals (e.g. most guests) are more effective in getting socially desirable responses and that the appeal works best if made as local as possible (e.g. in this room). I wonder if “Most shoppers in this store don’t shoplift” works as well as “Our shoplifters go to jail.”

Also in the latest JCR is a study that shows that those 100 calorie packs, brainchild of my friend Brian Wansink whose work I’ve featured in this blog before, don’t always work. Apparently, when we are given structural barriers to consumption (e.g. small packages), we turn responsibility for self-regulation over to the packaging and then ignore it. But when those barriers are taken away (e.g. large packages), we engage in more thoughtful eating, bringing into play those same self-regulation behaviors that cause us not to spend so much at the end of the month. So, does this work when we are eating and watching the football game? Apparently we have to engage the brain.

Random Rants
I just got back from Boston, one of my favorite cities. It is, to me, the most European city in the US, with its outdoor cafes, walkable streets, multiple languages, and Victorian-era architecture. I go back tomorrow for a few more days. It’s a great city. More on it next week – the difference between the Boston Bruins and the Dallas Stars customer experience.

Speaking of hotels, I just stayed four days in a Super 8. It was the only hotel near my son’s apartment, which is why we stayed there. Every day, we got a fresh bar of soap and the old one was taken away. Same with shampoo (and sometimes two or three new ones). Forget re-using the towels, sheesh! I know, it’s a little thing. But they add up.

Is it just me, or does it seem that potato chips (and other salty snacks) and soft drinks are rising in price faster than everything else? Chips Ahoy were actually cheaper than the store brand last night. But in the last six months or so, seems like soft drinks went from 5 for $10 to 4 for $12 and last night, 3 for $10. Singles have gone from $1.29 to $1.49. What justifies these increases?

Autonomy - Can we get too much?

2010-09-21T04:55:00.001-07:00

There is nothing that provides autonomy like tenure. Autonomy is one of the three factors needed for intrinsic motivation, according to Daniel Pink. Yet whenever we administrators want faculty to do something they are supposed to do anyway, we're supposed to come up with incentives.

The economists amongst us argue that if we want better research, then we should develop an incentive structure for it. According to Pink, we might get more publications but of lower quality research, and it is quite likely that we would actually get fewer publications. Research is exactly the type of creative endeavor, as are such activities as complex sales, financial management, and organizaitonal leadership, that require intrinsic motivation for high performance and also require the absence of extrinsic motivation, according to Pink. Hmmm...

Autonomy is supposed to lead to intrinsic motivation yet faculty are demanding incentives. If you survey (and I have) salespeople who sell complex solutions to executives as to what they want, they routinely say more money. They will tell you if you want them to change their behavior, you'll have to pay for it. So is Pink wrong? At least for the worlds in which managers live?

To be fair to Pink, he doesn't say you need only one of the factors: autonomy, mastery, or purpose. In fact, it is only implied that you need all three. So maybe the demands for more money or incentives are due to poor performance on our part in creating purpose, developing mastery, and allowing autonomy.

Over the past three years, we have seen a tremendous improvement in both the number and quality of scholarly output by our faculty. Faculty always had autonomy - that's why managing faculty has been likened to herding cats. What we did do was raise our standards for tenure. One could argue that such a change was a change in incentives and I'd agree. Other changes were subtle, such as allocation of summer release time. But what I'd also argue is that the value of these changes was not so much as incentives, but as a communication of purpose. These reinforced a message that for Baylor to be a great school, it had to have great scholars and great scholars publish great research.

So what about mastery? Pink argues that mastery is why we engage in things like practicing the piano when we know we'll never play Carnegie Hall. We still want to try to master The Last Date or Chopin's Nocturne. Like the happiness research of Seligman I've talked about before, this sense of accomplishment is satisfying.

I'm an amateur carpenter, emphasis on amateur. I remember telling my dad that, just once, I'd like to build something without learning something. In other words, I wanted a successful project, start to finish, that came out the way it was supposed to because I knew what I was doing, not because I went back and fixed the mistakes I made. That project is yet to come, and I've come to realize that a great portion of the fun is solving the problems of each project.

Lately, because of Pink, I've been asking people "When do you lose yourself at work? When you lose track of time, what are you doing?" For most, the answer is something like, "Solving a difficult problem for a customer," or "Trying to write a tricky theoretical part of an article."

I think my job, as an associate dean, is to find ways to remove the drudgery that beats down faculty or prevents them from engaging in those activities that are intrinsically motivating. If I can do that, and if we've hired the right people, then they'll do the high quality research that we all need. Similarly, to the extent that a sales organization can remove the drudgery, salespeople can be freed to excel.

I'd really like to hear from you. What are you doing, or is your organization doing, that you think adds to intrinsic motivation? What detracts from intrinsic motivation?

Random Rants:
Let's go get a D+ education! That's right - Drake University is advertising that they offer a D+! If that's a good thing, I've made a fair amount of my students very happy over the years. What amazes me is that even when the blunder was pointed out, they dug in their heels and refused to change.

We just wrapped up the 25th anniversary celebration of Baylor's Center for Professional Selling. Baylor was the first university to create such a center, as well as the first to offer a Bachelor of Business Administration in Professional Selling. There are now 14 Centers around the world, with more being developed. Progress!

Drive and Purpose

2010-09-14T05:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you read someone's work and you think, "Dang, I knew all that but I didn't understand it that way." For an academic, it's the equivalent of seeing your idea become someone else's product, only worse because you didn't actually have the idea, you only had the raw materials.

That's sort of how I feel about Daniel Pink's book, Drive. If you aren't familiar with it, there's a great video lecture by Pink, animated by RSA you can watch at http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/.

Essentially, Pink says that intrinsic motivation is a function of three factors: Purpose, Autonomy, and Mastery. He cites a great deal of academic research as evidence to support his theory, and to a large extent, many of you who may have read management books over the years will recognize not only some of the research but some of the thinking that leads to his conclusions.

For example, Purpose. I've long believed that we all want to be a part of something bigger and better than us individually, that we long to be a part of a winning group. It might be our employer, but for many of us, the group with whom we identify is something else: church, a sports team, or the volunteer fire department. We enjoy basking in the reflected glory when they win or do well, and we do so by wearing the shirts, putting the stickers on our car, and so forth.

A company's mission statement is its formal statement of purpose. That's why we have mission statements - so that those in the trenches can see that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves. A mission statement should give their work purpose.

A lot of cynics are quick to point out that many mission statements sound alike. Ours at the Baylor School of Business is to be a leader among schools that engage participants in both active learning and scholarly exploration in a community guided by Christian values. I'm certain you can find parts of that in other schools' missions. But all mission statements should have some common elements. We want to be the best at what we do. We want our work to have meaning. We want to lighten someone's burden, create a lasting memory, cure an ill, or solve a difficult problem. Ok, I can hear the curmudgeon copier sales manager saying, "If you want to bring joy to someone, go work for Disney!" But if we're not doing something with meaning, then being intrinsically motivated is very difficult - and that's why some people look to the Dallas Cowboys for the meaning in their life. (It's going to be a tough year, I suspect, for those people.)

For the past twenty years, I've told my graduate students that a company exists by special license given by society. If maximizing shareholder wealth is its sole purpose in existing, or even the dominant purpose, it will likely lose that license at some point, or find itself regulated by society to control for the negative consequences of that purpose. I'm now seeing other business faculty take up that call - not because I've done a great job in popularizing it but because they've reached the same conclusions that I have. As a purpose, maximizing shareholder wealth isn't very good. It leads to pollution, unsafe working conditions, and a host of other ills. My son just returned from ten weeks of working in China, where they have to install nets around the tall buildings so workers won't commit suicide by jumping. Why commit suicide? Because the working conditions are so inhumane. Why is that? Because it is all about maximizing shareholder wealth. Odd, isn't it, for a communist country.

Not every sale I make is going to solve great problems. As a copier sales rep, whether in downtown Dallas or rural north Texas, I quickly learned that most of my work was drudgery. Sometimes, what drove me was simply the purpose of being the best I could be. Yet, ultimately, even that is not enough because that purpose called me to do something different.

Why was it not enough? If I'm Xerox, I don't want to lose talented people. If I ever saw my former employer's mission statement, I couldn't say today. If there was any purpose other than making a sale, I don't know what it was.

When I left Xerox, though, I struggled with not so much purpose as identity. As a salesrep for Xerox, I knew my value in terms of sales revenue. My purpose was revenue, and I was responsible for bringing in $2million a year. That was my worth. Then I was a doctoral student and my value suddenly dropped. No longer was I bringing in any revenue. It took a while to get used to, this not being worth any specific amount.

How different would a sales manager's motivational message be if it focused on purpose? How different would today or tomorrow be if you thought about purpose?

RANDOM RANTS:
If you read last week's blog before Charley Cohon's comment, go back and look at his comment. LOL wasn't just three letters, I really did laugh out loud.

This year, for several reasons, I'm traveling a lot less. So far, I'm supposed to have taken 34 flights, but thanks to cancellations, I've taken 28. Sunday was no different. My flight from Waco to Dallas was delayed by two hourse, making the connection impossible so I called AA and asked them to cancel the first flight, and let them know I'd drive to Dallas. For the first time ever, I got early enough notification so I could do that. And, when I called them, they said I'd get a refund and they'd process it for me. I didn't expect or really want the refund, though it will cover parking that I wouldn't have had to pay in Waco. So good news is they did a great job of handling it. But the bad news is - 28 out of 34 flights?

I like the Northwestern Mutual ad - the one where various structures are built on words. But that's an execution that will only work once or twice - there is no real reason to pay attention once you've seen it. Now Geico's ads with the guy posing a question - that's different. Those are fun to watch over and over.

I'm Off!

2010-08-31T05:37:00.000-07:00

I’m not teaching this term, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it for several reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is that I don’t know any students. I don’t like walking through crowded halls without recognizing a single soul.

I teach a sales management course that is 9 weeks of traditional sales management (recruiting, selecting, training, motivating) and 6 weeks of CRM (really, customer strategy). All students taking this course graduate at the end of it in May, except for a few who finish in August. Since I now teach a full yearly load in just the spring semester, I “get fall semesters off" so all of my old students are graduated and gone.

Off, of course, is a relative term. It does mean I can fit in a golf game at least once a week, although I’m not too sure about this week. But it also means I have to do a year’s worth of research in 4 months, along with the administrative work that comes with serving as associate dean of faculty.

During the summer, I work just the same as in the academic term – up at 5:30 most days to get in some writing, then off to the office about 7:30 and leave for home about 5:30. Golf at least once a week, and other days off to work around the farm. But most days are just regular work days. During the summer, though, I can go an entire day without any significant human contact. The halls, and the offices, are empty. There’s few other faculty around so unless I plan ahead, it’s hard to even find anyone to have lunch with.

So when all these students return to campus, and the energy and excitement swells, I’m still stuck in my office, feverishly slaving away on brilliance like this. And I really miss teaching.

I’ve heard it said, thankfully only rarely and usually in jest, that this (Baylor) would be a great place but for the students. No, it would not. This would be a stale place, like a smoker’s home without air conditioning or a junior high boys’ locker room at the end of term. Students mean life, promise, intellectual challenge, and stimulation. And when you get it right, the end of term is something to dread because it is over, but also something to celebrate because you know for them it is the beginning.

Last spring, a student earned the first B of an otherwise stellar career, losing a 4.0 in my class. My son, also a graduating senior, said I should have given that student an A. To have done so, of course, would have been patently unfair to every other student I have ever taught. As I told the student, I don’t want to be remembered as “that guy that gave me a B,” but it did cause me to ask, what guy do I want to be remembered as?

Hard, but fair. Makes you think. Cares that you learn, cares about who you are. Can easily remember names (ok, that’s not going to happen). Funny, engaging, flexible but academically stimulating and challenging.

All of these descriptors are easier to accomplish in a senior-level class in a student’s major. The student’s already engaged in the material and ready to accept life and career advice, even seeking it out. That’s why I also regularly ask to teach Principles. If I can get an accounting major to pause and think, even if for a moment, that this stuff is cool and interesting, then the class will be remembered, even if I’m not.

If the cynics have read this far, then I hope that the following will be of some value to them. Here are a few teaching strategies I employ, and I also employ them as a manager.

1. Don’t lie to students by curving. Instead, grade hard but give them detailed feedback. If you do this once, you don’t have to do it twice, meaning they will learn and get it right.
2. Give them more than one opportunity at every task and discount the first attempt. For example, if the course involves writing cases, then the first case counts only half of what other cases count. This gives them an opportunity to learn how to write a case the way I want it written, as well as apply the material. The grades will take care of themselves and you’ll get better results from 90% of the students. I think that this is just sound management strategy, and is employed in the workplace. Give them a chance to practice in a safe environment first.
3. For semester-long projects, break it up into pieces. If it is group work, this gives you time to find dysfunctional groups and fix them. Grading pieces means you’ll give better feedback because you won’t be pressed for time, and they will learn more. In addition, they have other semester projects that all come due at the same time and each project gets less attention as a result – but not yours.
4. Find ways to tap in to all motivations. Not all students are motivated by grades but some are motivated by recognition, others by cash, still others by a chance to work on real projects or by the opportunity to chase something that is intellectually of interest to them. Yeah, I know, it is my job as an associate dean to find someone who will sponsor a competition or project with a cash prize. But you can figure out ways to do all of the above.

These are just a few of the strategies that I employ. I’d love to hear yours. Start, though, with a few descriptors. When alumni get together and the talk turns to professors, what will they say about you?

Freedom’s Just Another Word

2010-08-24T04:08:00.000-07:00

I had a friend in the insurance business say that if he tied an application on the tail of a puppy and walked it by enough people, he’d get that application back filled out. But I think, more than likely, he’d become an overnight sensation on the web, complete with a YouTube video, while everyone debated whether it was animal cruelty or just darn good marketing.

But are we over-thinking all this marketing stuff? Are we just making it too hard? After all, email is cheap. Just tie an offer on and send it out to everyone. It must work, or we wouldn’t keep getting those emails telling us we won $100 million in a lottery in Limpopo.

I love Janis Joplin’s cover of Me and Bobby McGee. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” is the phrase that resonates with me the most. There are just so many directions that one phrase can spark. At the risk of cheapening the phrase, it seems to be the approach of many companies to email marketing. The cost of an email campaign is so low, we don’t have to worry about getting it right. We’re free to do whatever and if we get a 1% lift, then we done good.

Well, you’re somebody’s customer. How many email campaigns are you clicking through? How many irrelevant emails from a company do you have to get before they all become junk? How many companies do you rate up there with the sender of “Deer Beloved in Christ”? (Yes, it’s misspelled. As it was when it was sent to me.)

Ok, maybe I am making things harder than they have to be by suggesting that you have to try understand your buyer’s needs and wants, and then think about your marketing as a conversation, not a campaign. It just seems to me that we’re probably better off not doing anything than turning people away by poor email marketing.

Remember, these are our friends. The Can-Spam act does not allow us to broadcast emails to people we don’t know. So when we send them, we’re sending these emails to people who have done business with us or who given us permission to send them. So why treat our friends this way?

Because our ability to handle or even think about data is so primitive. We can’t begin to think of a company like Coca Cola or Procter & Gamble having a conversation with customers. The best we can do is o create a campaign, something with a definite start and stop, and see if we make any sales. If we thought about having a conversation with customers, that would mean more data and we can’t handle the data we have now.

Sadly, it’s not just email, though. We do the same with our salespeople, our trade show campaigns, and everything else we do in marketing. We are so excited about a few percentage points that we fail to recognize all of those who said “no” and those who said “go away and leave me alone – forever.”

I’m still trying to get the Geico, though. A lizard. A caveman. And now an ex-Marine drill instructor. All 3 running at the same time. Why 3 very different campaigns? Are there 3 different segments that require these different approaches? Maybe. So simple a caveman could do it speaks to the tech-averse who don’t want to shop online. The ex-Marine is all about saving money. I don’t know what the gecko is about now. If you go to www.Geico.com, all you see is the Gecko.

Email may be cheap. But bad marketing isn’t free.

Random Rants:
Want to cancel your print version of the Wall Street Journal and get only the online version? Maybe you’re thinking it’s better for the environment or maybe you just don’t read the paper version, but it doesn’t matter – you can’t! At least, not without a fight. Want to know why? Because they only count the print version when calculating readership in order to create advertising rates. That’s why, if you try to cancel the print version, they chew you out and treat you like you’re a moron for even thinking about it. Dear reader, you are not the customer – at least not the one they care about.

ESPN is advertising on the radio that they are in negotiations with Time Warner Cable, but it looks like the negotiations won’t result in a renewal. They are advocating that you switch to satellite. You know what, I don’t want to hear any more about your inability to get along with your distributor. ESPN, you are outdated delivery now, or will be soon. The BIG 12, MLB, the NFL will all own their own distribution networks via the web and you’ll have to go back to broadcasting marble tournaments, competitive kite flying, and the George Foreman grilling contest. Figure it out or leave us alone.

I read an article recently about a woman who owns no more than 100 objects at any time. That does not include a TV and probably not a computer, though I don’t know for certain. There’s a certain appeal to that, especially for someone like me who really sucks at maintaining stuff. That’s why art is perfect for me – I can acquire it, use it, and it never needs repair. Keeping in mind that you’d need at least 30 items just to wear fresh clothes and do laundry once a week –what would you keep? Golf clubs? That’s 14 items, plus the bag. Tools? That’s a hundred items, not a hundred categories. Hmm, I know some women who would have trouble getting down to a 100 pairs of shoes.

Sex, causality, and rock n roll

2010-08-17T05:10:00.000-07:00

I had planned for several days to devote this blog to an analysis of the MyCokeRewards website but an article came out yesterday that caused me to change direction. For one thing, a blog on MyCokeRewards would have been a change of direction, while this blog continues along the same line that I started a couple of weeks ago. For another, I was afraid too many might not be that interested in an analysis of MyCokeRewards. It's hard to make that topic sexy. So instead, when I saw an article about sex, I thought, ok, that's probably more interesting.

The article I am referring to was headlined, "Teen sex won't always hurt grades." Many of you who know me for my research into sales and CRM might not be aware that I also do research regarding the application of marketing to the promotion of healthy lifestyles. My first paper, pulbished in 1986, on the subject was a study of a theory applied to the context of promoting condom use. Since 1998, I've had the privilege of evaluating a number of abstinence education programs and sat on several federal and state committees advising our government on the topic.

After 12 years and literally well over 100,000 surveys from teens ages 12 to 19, I think I have a pretty good idea of why they have sex. What I have difficulty in understanding is why they don't. I am - we are - still struggling to understand why they don't use condoms even when condoms are at hand, they know the consequences, and they have a life plan that didn't include Junior. And it's not because of abstinence education.

The article, though, was (as is so often the case) much more accurate than the headline. Teens who have sex in a relationship do not have lower grades, either as a consequence of the sex or the relationship. That accounts for about 70% of teen sex, according to my research. Teens who have casual sex have lower grades. The article drew the conclusion that poor grades were correlated, though not necessarily caused by, casual sex.

The reality is that the same causes of poor grades are the causes of casual sex. Correlation does not mean causality. Broken homes (and I don't just mean single parent, I mean truly broken homes), poor parent role models, poverty, and a host of other factors lead to a constellation of risky behaviors, of which casual sex is one.

Yet, oddly enough, casual sex is not the leading cause of teen pregnancy. Far more likely, teen pregnancy occurred within a relationship, especially if the mother is older than 14. Younger than 14, the relationship more likely to be casual, at least based on the focus groups I've done over the past two years with pregnant and parenting teen moms.

The challenges in reducing teen pregnancy are incredible. First, every one of us interprets the threat based on the lens of our own experience, filtered even more by our own mores and principles. I've always wondered how hard it must be for a rich Walmart executive to think like the average Walmart customer and make decisions about what to merchandise. It's a thousand times harder for a policy maker in Washington to understand why a 14 year old girl intentionally has a baby in urban St. Louis so that she no longer has to participate in gang activities. Or that a 16 year old girl in rural West Texas unintentionally has a baby by a boy who's just a friend because there was nothing else to do but have sex. The result is an inability to recognize certain causes and possible solutions because they are too foriegn to one's own experience and identity. We have to trust what the data tells us, even when what we hear is too foriegn to really understand.

Second, we want one solution to a problem with a million causes. That's one of the promises of CRM - that we can micro-segment our marketing conversations down to the one-on-one level. Each individual has only one or two of those million causes, so one solution would be to apply CRM principles to these kinds of problems. In Germany, they have done just that in the fight against juvenile smoking. But casual sex is just one of many risky behaviors that are engaged in simultaneously and addressing the symptoms or consequences of one fails to address the cause of all. No matter what you are selling, the closer you can get to the root cause of why people buy, the more successful you will be.

Third, we want a 100% solution. Abstinence is deemed a failure if one child becomes pregnant. Condoms are deemed a failure if one disease is communicated. Even though we all know it isn't "if" but "when." Fortunately, in business we don't have to be a 100%. We know that a sales process has a conversion ratio and it doesn't have to be 100%. Still, we want that 100% solution.

Yes, this blog ended up a bit different than the planned analysis of MyCokeRewards.com. I'll save that for another day - unless an article comes along that causes a change.

Faith is Strategy

2010-08-10T03:56:00.000-07:00

In my profession, one rarely moves through events in life without looking carefully, recording anything remotely useful. I'm always on the lookout for an example that will resonate in class, an idea that will spark a research question, or a name that will lead to a job for a student or a research study for me or a colleague. But I really didn't expect to get a full-blown lecture on Dynamic Strategy as a sermon last Sunday.

We were visiting my parents' parish. The priest, Father Bill Cavanaugh, began his sermon by describing how doctors were sure that stomach ulcers were caused by too much acid. Reduce the acid, heal the ulcer. One medical scientist, however, did not. His faith in his belief that something else was amiss was rewarded, as he was able to uncover the role of bacteria.

Yes, it's a tenuous leap of logic to equate the faith that forms the foundation for a research hypothesis and the faith that forms the foundation of one's life, but that's because we usually add the qualifier "blind" to faith. Faith in a supreme being is not based on blindness but on observation, just as a scientist forms an hypothesis based on an observation. Recall Newton's apple. Father Bill talked about God as the Creator, the one who sustains, and the one who rewards. Interestingly, the three versions of God to the Hindus are the creator, the one who maintains, and the one who destroys. Two out of three - and there is a god (or goddess) who rewards.

The differences in religion are, I think, due to our inability as humans to see clearly. We see the same things but interpret them differently. Since we don't have the ability to have sufficient control (see last week's blog) to determine causality, we reach different conclusions. Thus, the difficulty in determining if God is real and if God is what we each think he or she is.

In faith, we live our life according to what we believe to be true. If we repent, we are saved. If we sin, we go to hell. We don't know these things for certain, but we live according to these and other hypotheses.

In business, we also operate according to what we believe to be true. Treat a customer nicely, we will prosper. Be rude, we go out of business. Treat employees well and they will stay. They will also then treat customers nicely. We will all prosper.

Father Bill offered three hypotheses on which to build our lives of Christian faith, but he also challenged us to think beyond those three and to define the other hypotheses that shape our lives.

I offer three hypotheses above on which to build a business but there are more that guide yours. What are they? Does everyone in your organization know what they are? Agree on the underlying definitions? Accept the assumptions?

Faith is a form of strategy. Not blind faith. Not faith against all odds. Not the faith of Job. Faith, in the form of a belief based on an observation, tested and found to hold true becomes confident and assured action.

Closet cleaning:
Recall some months back that I blogged about mobile marketing, wondering who will be the first business sued for pushing an ad to someone's cell phone who then has an accident while reading the ad - I saw a news article that over 1000 people had to visit a hospital due to an accident caused by texting while WALKING. My friends in New York City say it is not unusual to see someone grabbed by the collar as she is about to walk into traffic while texting.

All of Baylor is abuzz with the downfall of Mark Hurd, prominent Baylor graduate, last week. It's a tragedy for the Hurd family and a gross misuse or loss of tremendous talent. Still, I suspect we'll see Mark as CEO of another company by the end of 2011.

Insanity?

2010-08-03T06:00:00.001-07:00

If insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, then my photograph at the golf course would illustrate the definition. At least, until yesterday. Everything, though, came together. Using my buddy Ram's King Cobra driver, I actually managed to hit some good tee shots. The end result was a 94 - ok, I know guys who would slit their wrists if they shot a 94 but for me, that is close to my personal best.

Just playing is one form of insanity, but get this: It was 106 degrees for the high and we didn't tee off until 2:30 in the afternoon. THAT is another form of insanity - something about the English, their dogs, and the sun, I think.

But when you play the way I do, which is to say, badly, you have to worry about controlling what you can control amd that does not include the ability to control where the ball goes. About all I can control is my approach to the game. Not take it (the game) or myself too seriously. Oh yes, and drink plenty of fluids.

Control in sales and marketing is a bit different. I'm working on a project to try to understand causal factors that lead to different success trajectories in sales. Among other things, I've been asking my former students for their thoughts on their early success.

Allison Ahlgrim, of the Phoenix Suns and someone who is destined to do great things in her career, reminded me of some advice that I've found really helpful throughout my life. Among other really good things, here is what she said:
"What made me most successful in my first year would be that I was able to do the “little things” that are in my control correctly. One thing that was in my control was my attitude at work every day. I was always positive so that I added energy to a room, instead of sucking it out. Another aspect of that that is so important is just executing any action steps effectively — turning in reports on time, sending whatever is asked of you during meetings or over email when they are asked of you, exceeding metrics (volume, duration, first touches, appointments set), following scripts, etc. There are so many things in the sports industry that are out of our control: team performance, quality of leads to a certain extent (unless prospecting), ownership, the economy, the natural up and down cycle of sales, etc. So if you master all the “little things” that are in your control, that will certainly go a long way with you managers."

Not only does focusing on what you can control make life easier, it's also a way to increase your success. Not just because managers like it, but because the right activity should drive results.

Broaden the perspective a little bit. What can you control in a marketing campaign? Control, in a dynamic strategy sense, is not just what you can manipulate (such as how many calls you make) but also what you can account for. For example, if you were the Phoenix Suns VP of sales, how much of the variance in ticket sales volume is due to the economy and how much to the team's performance? You can't maniuplate either. But if you can determine the answer to those questions, then you have "statistical control." You can then allocate whatever variance is left to how good your sales practices are.

To be able to control in a dynamic strategy sense requires the ability to both manipulate variables and account for variables. Accounting control requires data over time - you have to have a data strategy implemented over a long enough period of time so that you can create the models that allow for such control. Most of the data, though, you probably already have. Phoenix, for example, already has team performance data and economic data is not hard to come by.

Of course, then you need someone who can do the actual modeling. Chances are that you don't have the need for a full-time statistician but I bet a college prof somewhere would do it and charge a whole lot less than the cost of an FTE.

Or you can play golf like me. That is, keep doing what you are doing and hope for something better. Every now and then, you might shoot a 94 and be thrilled.

It's an Elephant's Butt!

2010-07-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

I'm on vacation this week, so I'm posting this early. But you may not even notice, if you are in the habit of only looking on Tuesday!

For a while now, I've been teaching about data traps - how too much of the same data creates the illusion of knowing. As I tell my students, if you have a million photos of an elephant's butt, you still have no idea that there's a trunk on the other end. You may know that butt very well, but that's all you know.

RFM, or recency/frequency/monetary value scoring of customers is doing the same thing to CRM pros. We have lots of transactional data but we don't know as much as we think we do. And it's causing some conundrums.

For example, a customer has a history of buying three of your product categories but not the other five. Then, all of sudden, she starts browsing one of those other categories.

Your RFM model would say she's a lousy prospect for the new category so you'd ignore her browsing activity, and send her an email offering something from her usual three. But what if her browsing was signalling a change in her life? For example, what if she just purchased her first home and now she's shopping for furnishings when she's only been a housewares customer before?

Another alternative could be that your buyer's needs in the first three categories are satiated and now she's looking for something different. Maybe she's not interested in buying what she has already bought because her budget for that is used up. But her RFM score will lead you down the same path you've always followed.

The question then becomes what to do? You could ask. "We noticed that you were browsing men's clothing and you never bought any before. Did you get married?" Yeah, that's a little creepy. Certainly you can ask more subtly, such as household composition. Asking directly is a good way to learn what you may need to know.

Another way to learn is to make an offer and see if she bites. As you make a series of offers and get a series of replies, you begin to move around that elephant.

It's almost August so it's back to school time. How many back-to-school ads will we see? Too many! If we're talking direct marketing, those ads will be emailed or posted to high RFM scores when a mis-match might be the better prospect. The person who never browsed children's clothing but did this July might be your better prospect because she likes your company but hasn't settled on a children's clothing store.

Marketers tend to think in terms of the calendar. These RFM mis-matches, though, occur at times that may not be related to the traditional seasons. Rather than think in linear terms of a campaign having a beginning and an end, what about thinking of some campaigns as Gerber campaigns? Think about it - Gerber can't sell baby food until you have a baby. They don't have to create new campaigns every week - they can send you the same one they sent me 15 years ago. Ok, maybe it's been updated but you get the picture.

Look beyond the elephant's butt - just because that's the biggest set of data you have, there's more to the beast than that tail.

Ok, time for this week's rant. We saw Beauty & the Beast last night at the ATT Performing Arts Center's Winspear Theatre. Great show - classic Disney quality. The audience was full of kids and I don't mind their enthusiastic whispering or questions (What's that? That's a gargoyle. What's a gargoyle?). That's our next generation of show fans, so I'm very cool with that.

But after I paid $85 for a seat, why does ATT PAC send me an email offering me $25 seats? I got this email the day before the show I already had tickets for. I know these seats aren't as good as the ones I bought, but really. The only way ATT PAC has my email is from my ticket purchase. If they bought my email from the Dallas Summer Musicals, for instance, then shame on them for not de-duping the list first. If they sent this to their list of ticket purchasers, then they are maximally stupid.

I really want to see Young Frankenstein and Billy Madison at the ATT PAC. Should I wait and see if I get a $25 offer for second balcony? Or buy orchestra seats now for $85 each?

This reminds me of the joke: "Do you know how to have a million dollars in horse racing?" "Yes, start with four million dollars." Do you know how to have a low value customer? Yes, start with a high value customer and offer him discounts.

Scissortails Cutting through the Sky

2010-07-20T04:36:00.000-07:00

I distinctly remember when I was young, probably about third grade, reading a book about a young boy on a farm. I can’t tell you any more about the story, other than it contained a passage describing a brook of cool water in a leafy glade overlooking the farm. If I could draw, I could probably reproduce the illustration of that marvelous hideaway. To a boy growing up in hot, hot Texas, a cool glade with clear water running through seemed like the perfect place to spend a summer.

At the end of our street, there was a brook – Cottonwood Creek. Not exactly babbling, nonetheless it was home to a healthy population of crawdads. I remember borrowing Mom’s brownie pan to hold my catch, snatched out of the water because they were too greedy to let go of the bacon I had tied to a piece of string.

That creek marked one end of my world. There was a big open field on the other side of it that I managed to cross one day but I felt like Columbus looking for America or Roosevelt trying to find the source of the Amazon. Well, ok, I was too little to know who they were but if I had known, I would have thought I was just like them. It seemed so far. Now I know it was only another block, but to my little legs, that field seemed huge.

When my parents announced that we were moving six blocks north, I resisted. “I don’t wanna go!” I must have sounded like Will Ferrell whining, “But there’s no 7-11! Where am I going to walk with Grandma if there’s no 7-ll?” I didn’t know that the 7-11 I spotted on the far side of that field was actually closer than the one Grandma and I would walk to. But I couldn’t comprehend that there was anything outside my little world that could be as good as what I knew and what was familiar.

Our frame of reference limits our ability to comprehend.

One of my clients is a well-known consumer products company serving customers directly through vertically integrated channels. They asked me if a lot of other companies were contemplating or implementing an action such as we were discussing. “No,” I replied. Of course, that could mean the kiss of death for the strategy I proposed. But in reality, the other companies were not capable of such action because their frame of reference, their history, their tradition, and their culture would not allow it. They are staying in their neighborhood, on their side of the creek.

My father-in-law and I were talking and at some point, the subject of birds came up. I mentioned how much I enjoy watching scissortails. “Scissortails? What are those?” he replied. I described them, and he laughingly ridiculed the idea of their existence, then somewhat sadly said, “You mean, I lived in Texas all those years and missed them?”

They were there – flying all around him but he never noticed. He was too focused on his tasks, whether it was driving or mowing the yard. His personal metrics did not allow for such observation – such data wasn’t needed.

The tendency to compete on analytics today is to think that our statistical models and predictive tools will tell us what we need to know. Yet, Blockbuster’s models failed to predict that customers wouldn’t be too happy about huge late fees. One customer’s unhappiness led to the creation of Netflix.

I wrote a month or so back about Billy Widner and the Frisco Roughriders. His practice of handling customer service from the customer’s side of the ticket window was lauded, by me, as a sound principle of making sure customers were treated right. But there’s another benefit to being out amongst the customers. He’s able to observe their experience and hear them complain or compliment. I’m sure there were Blockbuster employees who could have predicted the creation of something like Netflix, but while they had the “data,” they didn’t have the ability to act on it.

Most of us don’t know where our creeks, our boundaries, are. One of the interesting techniques I’ve seen to move past such boundaries came from a friend who works in a Snickers plant. He visits trade shows in industries other than candy to look at how other industries solve similar problems. Scientists, good scientists, do the same thing, reading journals and having conversations with scientists in other fields.

Scissortails cutting through the sky – that’s the opening of a poem that I could never get written. But we also have to engage in observation outside our tasks. It’s not enough just to cross the creek and wander through the hayfield – we have to observe.

And finally, reflect. A friend calls this front-porch time. Time is needed to reflect on what has been observed, and what was explored so that it can be understood, even though we know that our understanding is still limited by our frame of reference.

Whew!

2010-07-13T04:58:00.000-07:00

Clearly, no one heaved a sigh of relief longer or louder than that collectively offered up by the Baylor nation after the demise of the Big 12 was avoided. There are times, though, when I look at what’s happening and being said about BCS football and I just shake my head in wonderment. (Now, you may not care about football and certainly probably care less about the Big 12, but if you are a CRM person, hang with me; it will all come together.)

Texas is on top of the heap right now, and if they are smart, they will stay on top for a long, long time. They are the Notre Dame of our age, and I don’t care that A&M won more Big 12 titles or placed higher in overall standings. A&M and Tech are not in the same class as UT, and we Bears lag them both in football. But Tech moving to the super conference? I don’t get it.

They say this is all about money. Where does the money come from? If it comes from TV markets, what is Lubbock? UT brings in DFW, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston, with or without A&M (which is why UT to Pac 10, A&M to the SEC is so appealing – both get the markets they covet), with or without Tech.

If TV market isn’t just about where you are but the matchup, then quick - how crazy are you about a UT/Oregon matchup? Or Texas Tech/Wazzoo? Wouldn’t tradition matter to the quality of a matchup? Maybe not. Certainly not in today’s ESPN-hyped world because no one but the alumni really cares what the 100 year win/loss record is. No one outside the alumni understands the rivalry anyway, and TV market is not about the size of the alumni body.

Ok, others have pontificated on the subject of the future of the Big Cash Series (aka, BCS) with far greater eloquence than I ever will or care to. As a professor, I could not care less - Baylor football has never interfered with my class as much as Greek life. Baylor basketball – yes. All but 2 students skipped one of my classes last semester to watch a men’s game and if I’d had a TV in the classroom, I would have had the game on, too. (I’ve been known to have a TV on during class to watch my alma mater, Georgia, play an Elite Eight game.) As a fan who wants to see Texas, A&M, and Oklahoma (sorry, Tech, just about as big a deal as Rice or La Tech to me), it would have been a disaster to lose the Big 12.

Baylor has the same size alumni base as Clemson. Is Clemson in danger of losing its status in the ACC? Is Clemson’s status due to its on-field success or size of TV market, and is TV market driven by success? (yes) How about Vanderbilt? It has 40% of the undergraduates that Baylor has, though Vanderbilt is almost half graduate students bringing the total to about 75% the size of Baylor. The alumni base, though, is smaller. Vandy has clearly been a weak sister but is the SEC going to dump it? (no) What’s the difference between Baylor and Clemson, Baylor and Vandy, and Baylor and TCU?

Baylor and TCU? Nothing is different except Baylor has more politicians than TCU among its alumni, and that’s because Baylor has a law school. Neither team is well supported by its fan base. If TCU is serious about being a BCS team, it needs to acquire Texas Wesleyan’s law school (located in Ft. Worth) or start its own, then graduate a few generations of lawyers because their success on the field isn't putting fans in the stands. The point is that neither enjoys the type of alumni support of a Clemson or Vandy. Our alums don’t buy the merchandise, don’t attend home games, forget about travel to road games, and generally yawn in their support of their schools.

It’s hard to convince a TV exec that Baylor is a better game than Vandy and Mississippi State when BU can't fill a stadium when playing a top 10 team. TCU, to its credit, sold out its top matchup last year but also needs to sell out more frequently. I’m anxious to see the attendance at this year’s BU/TCU game in Ft. Worth. That’s a matchup that ought to have sold out long ago and perhaps it still will. But until they can consistently sell out, they won't be taken seriously.

Among the Baylor faithful, I hear, “Give away tickets – lower the price! Then you’ll fill the stadium!” Yeah, with the opponent’s fans and people looking for a cheap date. Baylor gave away tickets for years, and the lasting legacy of that strategy is a lack of perceived value and a local “fan” base that would rather watch mud dry than pay $5. I don’t think adding 10,000 free tickets to every game is going to overwhelm conference officials about what a great fan base Baylor brings. I’ve said it before, price is an indicator of quality and free ain’t quality.

But pricing is a huge problem. Baylor/TCU, arguably one of the best matchups of the season though TCU will probably run all over BU, is $35 at TCU. Baylor/Tech is $90. I’d rather see BU/TCU and I think most fans would. Tech is good and all that, but with no Leach, the game is kinda blah unless one of the teams is playing for the championship. BU prices every home game like it’s a sell-out.

Then again, everyone expects sports to be an easy sale. Customers are called fans, for crying out loud. How hard can that be? Pretty darn hard. Every student on campus can tell you the starting QB’s name (Robert Griffin III), but few will actually attend a game. They should be an easy sale – they already paid for the ticket! They actually paid for their ticket when they paid their student fees. But they don’t value attendance – precisely because it is free but also because it is easy. One thing that could be done is invoke the law of scarcity – require students to get tickets early and shut some out. But that’s not going to work in a stadium at 60% capacity on its best day.

Just as with any retailer, the game is all about the experience. From tailgating to the drive home, the things that can be controlled have to be all about creating a memorable experience, even if the things that can’t be controlled, like winning, aren’t so memorable. The challenge is that without a lot of people there (and the ones who do come are far too polite to do anything more than politely clap for a good play), the excitement rarely burns at a fever pitch.

Maybe all it takes is winning. But I’ve been around Baylor long enough to remember 7-4 or 8-3 and a bowl game season. Attendance wasn’t much different than it is now. Even if Baylor has a winning season, it’s going to take some darn good selling to get those fannies in the stands, to build a t-shirt nation, and to earn the right to stay in the BCS.

When You Wish Upon a Star

2010-07-06T03:39:00.000-07:00

When I hear the Disney theme, even the six-note trademark, I smile. I can't help it - the song sweeps me back to the Sunday evenings of my childhood. During the summer, Dad's barbecuing chicken and we're playing a game of catch before going in to watch the Wonderful World of Disney. As "When You Wish UPon a Star" plays, Tinkerbell washes the screen with her magic fireworks, raising my anticipation for what the show will bring.

That's a powerful brand for me. I don't think Disney has done all it could to monetize that brand either. But then, I'm not in a demographic that is attractive to the network and media moguls.

The common thinking is that by the time someone reaches say age 35, they are set in their brands. Advertising and media panders to the 18 to 35 (or birth to 35) age because they are still forming brand attachments. Ok, maybe it would be difficult for a brand to replace Disney in my constellation of brands, but you don't have to replace Disney in order to successfully build a brand, create a set of associations that have meaning, and result in purchases.

Did Apple have to replace Disney to sell me an iPhone? Maybe that's a bad example as it was a relatively new technology. How about cars? With four children, all of them driving, I've bought a lot of cars over the past ten years. Mostly GM, but also a Nissan, a Ford, a Mercedes...and I'm open to new brands. In fact, I'd like to buy an electric one where you change the battery at a "gas" station or you can plug in. I don't care who the maker is, just do it!

Recent research, in fact, suggests that we are far more malleable for much longer than once thought. You may have one or two brands for which you have incredibly strong associations, as I do with Disney. Most of the brands, though, with which you interact daily do not evoke such strong feelings nor do they need to. And you are always open to more.

Branding reduces hassle. I can't go into every MacDonald's in the world and expect everything to be exactly the same, but a Big Mac will be a Big Mac - two all beef patties, special sauce, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun. I know what I'm getting - and value is increased because pre-purchase worry is reduced.

Branding is more than a symbol or a name. With Disney, for me anyway, it's a six-note abbreviation of "When You Wish Upon a Star." With Coke, it's the color and the shape. Next time you see the judges' chairs on American Idol, what do you see? Coke red chairs shaped like Coke bottles. And viewers link one brand, Coke, with the other, American Idol.

The promises made by these brands (Disney, MacDonalds, Coke) are much more about evoking emotions than they are about products. Even, or maybe especially, in a B2B world, brands should be about evoking emotions.

Yes, brands also evoke values - values like family, fair play, and the like. And companies are generally pretty good about listing and describing the values they want to represent as it is part of the mission/vision process that so many go through.

Values, though, are expressed emotionally. You can't have just a cognitive reaction to values like family or fair play - you have affective responses as well. I might use those words - family, fair play, etc. - to describe the Disney brand but there are emotions that move deeply when I interact with the brand.

While our brands won't always evoke images of Sunday evenings and childhood, they should evoke emotional images. When you wish upon a star...makes no difference who you are...when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.*

When You Wish Upon a Star, by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington, copyright The Bourne Co.

Train Them Up Well

2010-06-29T04:00:00.000-07:00

You’re waiting at the gate for your flight to begin boarding when you see the gate agent take the microphone in hand. ‘Too early for the boarding announcement,’ you think, checking your watch. And you’re right, as the agent announces the cancellation of your flight. What do you do?

If you're like most platinum fliers, you call the platinum desk, where chances are the system has already booked your next flight. You know you can get faster service from someone who hasn't been yelled at by five inexperienced passengers who don't understand that bad weather out of sight can cancel a flight.

I learned this ploy from waching other travelers, and even the gate agents have learned it. They now give out the main 800 number with the cancellation announcement so any passenger can call.

The system works pretty well, but what's amazing, if you stop and think about it, is that it was designed by customers using the tools given them by the airline.

Amazon, for a very brief period of time, would offer you a 10% discount on an item if you put it in your shopping cart, then took it out. The idea was to get you to overcome whatever doubt you had and make the decision to buy. Customers rather quickly figured out how to get the discount and began taking everything out of the cart in order to get the discount.

Take a peek at a flight from Louisville to Grand Rapids on Travelocity, but don't buy it. For weeks, you'll be inundated with emails about the latest low fares to Grand Rapids. Do you really get a great deal? No, you get the same deal that's out there if you just searched. But the system does alert you if a price is lowered.

And that's an important difference. Amazon trained customers to get an unintended and negative (to Amazon) benefit. Amazon didn't mean to train customers to do that, but their system did it anyway. American Airlines didn't mean to train its customers, but the system did anyway. The benefit for all involved, including American, was positive so the company legitimized it. Travelocity may be training some buyers to wait in hopes of specials, but I doubt it. There just aren't that many specials, so the lack of rewards means that buyers aren't going to take advantage of the system.

One of my students, LeighAnne Pearson, did a study on salespeople at a major technology company. The salespeople complained that their own company would slash prices at the end of every quarter in order to close sales and make the numbers. Customers, they said, were wise to the practice and simply put off making a decision until the end of a quarter; as a result, commissions would suffer and some salespeople would go from above to below quota, simply because an executive couldn't wait until the next quarter for the deal to close.

Whether we mean to or not, we are training our customers. They learn our systems and our ways, and they use our ways for their benefit, without regard for the consequences on us. Nor should they have any regard for us, because these are our systems and our ways.

Recall the Personal Value Equation from a couple of weeks ago. Value, to the customer, is a function of the benefits received minus both the price and the hassle, or the effort it takes to achieve the desired benefits. Our systems either add value or add hassle. Not just how we sell but how we invoice, collect payment, fix problems, and even how we communicate. Customers are actively searching for ways to enhance the value they receive, and they are working the system.

What's the dumbest practice you've seen? What's the smartest customer workaround of a dumb system you've seen? Good answers deserve a prize so I'll come up with something (or make a suggestion).

Influencing the Influencers

2010-06-22T03:45:00.000-07:00

Social media is flustering business big and small. How much influence can a tweet have? Yeah, Dell claims they sell $3 million a year through Twitter, but that's clearing out remnants and refurbs, hardly a mainline strategy. And everyone has a Facebook page - but when was the last time you bought something off FB?

So the mantra has become influence the influencers. The idea is that bloggers and tweeters are influencing others, so if you can influence the right ones, you can influence your market. By searching the blogosphere, you can find those that are influential by how many readers they have. Once you identify them, you can market to them and, therefore, through them.

Marketing through influencers is not a new concept. In the high tech field, companies have long recognized the importance of analysts as influencers and marketed to them. Many have even identified professors as influencers, though few have successfully sustained any marketing effort to professors. The best, I think, is Teradata in the data warehousing space, with their Teradata University Network. This online teaching community was built before few knew of online communities and could serve as a case study itself into the best practices of social media.

The challenge for analysts and other influencers, though, is to remain objective. Their position in the community, whether online or otherwise, is based on their expertise and objectivity.

Then along comes Bambera. This company has contracted with major consumer marketers to push their wares through social media. The primary way to do this is to pay influentials to re-tweet or post blogs using content developed by Bambera. Bambera "pays all of its influencers for their participation in sharing assigned content" (source: Bambera.com).

To be fair, Bambera says "You have the right to decline any or all content..." Their website also says, "We believe in transparency...We follow full disclosure regulations according to Word of Mouth Marketing Association and the FTC. We find that audiences respond positively to sponsored messages as long as they are interesting and it’s clear that the message has been sponsored."

I'm not sure how it becomes clear that the message has been sponsored. If I tell you to watch this really funny video and you see a corporate logo in it, you'll realize it is a commercial, but that doesn't tell you that I got paid. So far, I'm not a fan.

Maybe my position is a bit of sour grapes. After all, they are likely to target those who blog about lifestyles, particularly since those bloggers tend to talk a lot about consumer products. In fact, that's part of the appeal of reading their blog. That ain't happening here.

In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I do have advertising on this site and yes, I get paid if you buy something through that advertising. I do that for a couple of reasons, the least of which is to make money. Part of the twisted life you lead as a marketing prof is you want to see what and how others are marketing. So a big motivator for me (and something that I think is funny sometimes) is to see what advertising Google puts on this site.

At the BPT conference in Atlanta last month, this issue of influencing influencers came up. What should you do when a customer tweets about a bad experience as the experience is happening? Most would answer take care of the problem. You may have an extra added sense of urgency as you are getting pelted with negative tweets, but you'd take care of any problem once it came to your attention anyway.

But what if the tweeter is Ashton Kucher, who has over a million followers? And what if what he's experiencing is normal? For example, what if he tweets that there's 20 people in line ahead of him and why should he wait that long? Do you move him to the front of the line? Would you do that just because he's Ashton Kucher and you didn't recognize him at first, or do you do that because of his tweet and the power it has?

In other words, do we treat tweeters differently? And do we consider different levels of tweeter-difference based on the number of followers they have?

Please forward this to everyone you know. Sign up to follow my tweets. Link in, please! Be my FB friend! I may not get paid for this blog, but if only I can get enough followers, maybe Dunkin Donuts will move me up to the front of the line.

PEABRAIN CLEANING: I was telling a friend yesterday that one of the benefits of writing this blog is that it clears my head of ideas that otherwise clutter up my peabrain for weeks. So here are some random thoughts in order that I can quit thinking about them.

I paid $60 a seat for 101 Dalmatians (the Broadway show) and $90 for Mary Poppins and for Wicked. The latter two shows did not last 50% longer. Thinking of the personal value equation (see last week's blog), did I get 50% more enjoyment (value) out of those shows? Yes, definitely. 101 is a good show and a great one to introduce kids to the theatre. But Mary Poppins and Wicked are amazing in every sense of the word. Don't miss these! (No, I did not get paid for that.)

I find it interestins that the government labeled two dozen programs as effective sex education programs, of which a few were abstinence-only and most were comprehensive (meaning condoms were promoted). But several weren't sex education programs and didn't teach any human anatomy or human sexuality. They taught about character and promoted character development. The result was significant delay of sexual activity, fewer non-virgins, and fewer pregnancies and STDs which raises two questions. Is this condom v. abstinence debate the wrong debate, and how do we market character?

Dominos is continuing their campaign that I blogged about some time back. And it's got the kids talking about it. I've heard backseat arguments about whether they're really any better now or not - exactly what you want if you're Dominos.