Image by Cristiano Betta via Flickr

The Now Revolution. 7 Shifts to make your business faster, smarter, and more social. Jay Baer & Amber Naslund.  2011. ISBN 9780470923276.  This book has been sitting waiting for me to get to it and I am glad I finally did.  It is a mix of an analysis of what the world is like now plus some serious do it now tips.  Some key takeaways:

• The transition from 50 to 100 employees has big impacts on holding onto the company culture
• If your company is not already “social” in its culture you will have a reduced chance of success in the social media space.
• There are quickly changing requirements for the talent you need in your company, what worked before will not work now in your hiring process.
• You need an army to use social media – starting with a heavy emphasis on customer service, and empowering many many employees to contribute to your social media initiatives.
• You need to use a new telephone to listen for buyer, customer, competitor  and employee “keywords” .
• How you respond to this challenge and how you measure results requires some serious analysis – its not  something you hand off to an intern.

Very cool use of QR/ tagging codes in the book, making it more interactive.  Check it out at nowrevolutionbook.com. As ever, some of the Microsoft stuff does not play nice with Android, ie when they send you to a document and not a webpage.

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• Wayfarers: Leading the Change to Social Business (prwarrior.typepad.com)
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After 10 years – I said goodbye to Blackberry last week.  I held on as long as I could, but I grew tired of waiting for  RIMM to bring out competitive products for the foreseeable future, I had to make a change, my data plan had run out four months ago.  I chose an Android phone (HTC Amaze), with the Samsung Galaxy my first (but not from Telus ) choice.  After 7 days.  I miss the following on my Blackberry:

• Data compression ( reduces the network charges)
• EZ controls where I expect them
• Being contact/email centric
• Simple battery control, and long life
• Good pocket sized form factor
• Out of the box focus on what I use daily.

I do enjoy now having:

• Very fast download speeds
• Incredible and diverse Android apps available – very easy to get and use, today  I just used one to store all the bar codes for all my loyalty cards. No more keyring.
• A 32GB easily swappable sd memory
• Two cameras – easy to use for Skype video and take very clear photos/movies.
• The five Android screens are smart and easy to customize.
• A big screen to read Kindle books.
• A free phone on my plan – RIMM was going to cost me.

I am surprised I do not miss

• Having a separate keyboard ( the virtual one gets smarter as I use it)
• Encrypted data  – who would want to read my stuff?
• BBMessanger – most of my contacts do not use it anymore .
• BES
• PIN communications (again few use it now)

Technically Blackberry has a better industrial design. If I was on their marketing team I could create some pretty compelling value statements for owning a Blackberry.  But this does not matter anymore. RIMM has missed the boat. The issues are legion:

• There were almost 18 months without significant new products, dissipating their market leadership
• Failure to nurture the app partner channel leaves them far far behind, getting further every day.
• Reduction of US channel pull, means retailers push other vendors, commoditizing Blackberry
• Increasing unit failure/returns means retail has a lower confidence in the hardware
• Incompetent management of system upgrades = huge loss of services, followed by bumbling public response by CEOs
• The CEOs and the Board who caused this have no idea how badly off they really are. A new Chair is deckchair rearrangement.

Its likely RIMM leadership has a similar problem to the US movie industry. Despite declining US revenue, the growth of new offshore markets skews the numbers to help balance the books.  This disappoints the local markets so they abandon products (like how many movie sequels do you really want to watch?)  In my early microcomputer days  companies like Commodore would have aggressive annual N American roll outs of new technologies, while still having tremendous cash cows in the emerging world through selling them last years (and earlier)  products at new product prices. But Commodore used the demands of the NA market to drive relentless innovation. When they missed that, the end was quite swift.

Compounding the foolishness, RIMM by not keeping ahead of competition, lost product (and gave up market) leadership . They let Apple claim it. Apple now through using a selective skim pricing strategy is able to generate very strong profits and revenues, while getting tremendous economic benefits through volume sales.  RIMM has to incur more cost to stand still, let alone create new products, incent retail to sell them and spend heavily to create marketplace pull through.  The answer lies partially now in a full bore marketplace war, someplace where RIMM is hopelessly inept.

As a friend of mine said, he sold his RIMM stock when he found out they were hiring ex Nortel employees. We are likely watching the death spiral of yet another Cdn company. Lets hope whomever buys the pieces lets us keep something in Canada.

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• Citi on RIMM: ‘It’s Worse Than You Think’ (blogs.wsj.com)
• Review Of The BlackBerry Bold 9900 (RIMM) (businessinsider.com)
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• Purdue University Says Goodbye to BlackBerries (q-ontech.blogspot.com)
• RIM still misses the point with BlackBerry 10 (zdnet.com)
• Why I Finally Decided To Ditch The BlackBerry And Run Off With An iPhone (AAPL, RIMM) (businessinsider.com)
• RIM reportedly agrees to license BlackBerry software to Samsung, HTC (unbrokennews.wordpress.com)
• RIM May Drop Two More BlackBerrys (pcworld.com)

Cover via Amazon

First impressions.  Lovely to look at, nice to hold and a bit heavier than earlier Kindles
Books etc all delivered flawlessly.Everything the other Kindles do this does.

Added pdf docs from my pc.  Worked well,  colour. Yeh!

Browser is an improvement.  Will not win speed awards.

Colour sucks more juice so you will need to charge it more often.

The early adopter penalty is that the “tablet” stuff is not available in Canada until they get legal stuff sorted out .
Eg.
I pushed music up to to the Amazon cloud for my pc  (Had to use Hotspot as they have not turned the cloud on for Canada).  Music was then pushed down to  the Kindle – works well

Getting new Android  apps is a can not do if you are not connected in the US.  Not cleared for anywhere else yet.  So Apple wins until that happens since their Cloud and store worked asap.
Hotspot to my pc would not work for apps as Amazon  checks where the device is connected and will not let you download.  I could root the unit…

The apps that come with the Kindle.

Mail app worked with Gmail – looks good.

Pandora,  not in Canada.Quickoffice app reads office attachments.
Pulse app aggregates lots of blog feeds.  Pretty good.  Add your magazine feeds here.

If you connect via wifi in the us, you can get everything. The app then works in Canada.

Ditto for streaming video.  Not in Canada.  I tried to add a video I had to the device from my pc.  Could not find it.

Magazines.  Only allowed to send B&W in Canada as yet.  This will come. Need a US  address for colour.

So no advantage to getting this early.  But I expect it will all get done.

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• Amazon to sell 12 million Kindle Fire units next year – analyst (intomobile.com)
• Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire: Best tablets in their price range (news.consumerreports.org)
• Kindle Fire vs iPad: How to decide (tuaw.com)
• Kindle Fire Review: 5 Things Amazon’s New Tablet Is Missing (dailyfinance.com)

Beauty in Red

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Sawyer the granddog

This weekend we have been babysitting Sawyer, the granddog.  Sawyer is my son’s 3 yr old Shiba.  This is an ancient breed from Japan, and it seems ideal for an apt.  Very laid back smaller dog, no bark to speak of and quite smart.  I have found Sawyer to be well trained to heel, responsive to attention ( and then when he has enough he just lays down and sleeps) and trainable.  He eats little, requires minimal exercise and does not appear to enjoy splashing in puddles = clean coat and dry feet.He is socialized with other dogs, but not a great fan of small breeds.

I learned at the pet store that he is called a grand-dog , and this may be all we get for quite awhile,  since only one of my sons (Joel and Sheena)  has been in any rush to get married and give us grand-kids ( the well traveled Tea’,  today in Ethiopia).   However this has been a fun visit and I hope we get to look after him again, especially when I am back into running (Having pulled the other Achilles a month ago – using the Vibram five finger shoes).

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Part 1 of these posts talked about how power in the market has shifted to the buyer. (Reference Voice of the Customer Marketing by Eaman).  Thus the focus in of marketing and sales  is to learn as much as possible about the buyer’s journey.

The marketing and sales departments must work together to extract value stories to help marketing build out:

• Agreement with sales on what is a sales ready lead (Reference: Brian Carroll)
• Knowledge of all the stages that a buyer goes through internally prior to and during a decision to purchase  ( Reference: Sharon Drew Morgen)
• The unique value(s) that they can demonstrate they bring to the buyer ( Reference: see how LeveragePoint can help)
• Knowledge of what buyers find valuable from dealing with your sales force. (Have salespeople earned the right to talk to buyers?)
• Campaigns that place the needed proof in front of the targeted buyers well before they engage with sales. (Lead your prospects to value, not a sale. Reference: Ardath Albee)
• The changing proof needed for each stage of the buyers journey.
• Segmented value proofs for the many different individuals participating on the buyer’s side (You deal with a committee).
• Compelling value stories that bolster the salesman’s efforts/confidence in using a value based, not pricing based approach.

This is an investment in time and effort that builds a long term sustainable sales funnel. Research has shown that at any one time only 5% of your “suspects” are in buying mode. This leaves 95% which need to be nurtured by marketing until they raise their hand.  As I said in the first post, the buyer decides when they will interact with you.

A recent LinkedIn Answer by Ian Dainty is relevant at this time on  Who is Responsible for Generating Leads, Sales or Marketing?

Ian Dainty • Here is my two cents worth.
Because I have been in the B2B tech space for over 35 years, as a sales rep, marketer, executive and owner, I have seen all kinds of scenarios. I came from the “dialing for dollars” days, when no SMB tech company had a marketing department. The sales rep did it all.
However, after all of this time, and through years of research, executive interviews, and being in the trenches, I have been able to make some good observations that work.
If you have a company, with under $100M in revenue, then marketing’s main function should be to generate leads. (or as we used to call them – suspects). This should be done through Direct Response Marketing (DRM). DRM includes emails, letters, Social Media, PPC, advertising, etc., anything that asks a suspect to put their hands up and ask for your free content, whether that be a white paper, a free download, etc

.
I have seen too many marketing VP’s spend their time designing logos (seriously) as if this is going to help build a company brand. Marketing needs to bring in and nurture leads, until they are qualified by sales.
Sales should qualify leads. Unfortunately, very few sales people know how to qualify properly, and end up chasing leads for months. Hence the long sales cycle in most B2B tech companies. Please go to my blog for more information, especially “How to Stop Chasing Dead Leads” http://bit.ly/mgCTGo But I digress from the topic here.

Once a lead has been qualified as far as timeframe and need, and this where most qualification processes fail, then sales should take over. If it is simply a tire kicker, then marketing needs to keep nurturing.

Too many sales people spend their time either cold calling, not needed if you have at least $1M in revenue, and/or not knowing how to qualify, and chasing dead leads.

Sales should also generate leads, through three main avenues. They should be asking for referrals from clients. They should be getting testimonials for use by marketing. And more importantly, they should be generating more business in each of their current clients.

Many sales people fail on all fronts. But marketing needs to take on the lead (suspect) generation for a company.

Thanks Ian, I could not say this any better. Next what does Sales have to do to implement a value based selling approach.

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• B2B Marketing: Time to Bring the Digital + Physical Worlds Together? (customerthink.com)
• 5 Ways Salespeople Can Use Social Media to Grow Leads (toprankblog.com)
• Sales Intelligence: How Reps Find Insight in Customer Data (Part 4) (customerthink.com)
• Treat Your Content with More Respect (marketinginteractions.typepad.com)
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• Time to Bring Outside Sales Inside – A Guide to Virtual Selling (customerthink.com)
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Sharon Drew Morgen recently authored a good article on the marketing automation guide on marketing automation.  It spurred some good comments, many of which I agree with.  As we develop more expertise in Content Marketing  I see a very strong correlation between great content marketing and increased momentum through the sales cycle.  As I read this weekend, “nurture your leads towards value, not the sale”.   What bothers me is that technology companies seem to want to reach first for a technology solution, before they identify their major impediments to sales.  Witness CRM systems that sales people still do not use.  If they do use it,  CRM does not improve the sales activities. Marketing Automation is now under that same cloud.

A long time ago I found that as a CEO you need to be in front of the customer to find out what they think of what you make and what you need to do to better serve their needs.  Of course marketing automation will handle lots of leads and provide support to a strong nurturing program. But to do this properly you need compelling content, written for the buyer to support their buying process, when they need it.  This is now  the time for the writer, not an automated tool.  The power is now in the hands of the buyer, not the seller. Buyers chose the field making the old push model, which never worked well, way past its best before date.  Sales must be beefed up with a strong inbound marketing program.  If you do not have the marketing chops already, buying a tool will not give them to you.

Related articles

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The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices. How the digital magicians of MIT Media Lab are creating the innovative technologies that will transform our lives. Frank Moss.  2011. ISBN 9780307589101.  If you ever needed a reason to go to Boston, this book will give you one. The author was the Director of the MIT Media Lab and compiled this book while there.  It is a walk through the halls to see and  hear about the upcoming technologies that Negroponte‘s vision has brought forth. I also enjoyed the stories about the many brilliant researchers and the sponsors who stand behind them.  I had not realized that some of the researchers are successful company founders who after cashing out, are now doing what they love – creating new things.  The facility seems to be a hot bed of serendipity, bringing so many interests to bear on each project. You never know where the technology will be applied.  Good read and it gives you a boost.

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I’m Feeling Lucky. The confessions of Google employee number 59. Douglas Edwards. 2011. ISBN 9780547416991.  The book is exactly as titled. An unvarnished description of 5 years with Google.  It is a testimony that in order to break through today a technology company needs to do something exceptional. Edwards was a fifty plus year old journalist who caught a ride on a rocket.  He is a good writer making this read like a novel. The characters, the culture and the chaos all ring true to anyone who has spent the time in a technology company.  Worthy book for your summer reading.

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In the Beginning …Was the Command Line. Neal Stephenson.1999.ISBN 0380815931. Stephenson, often called the Hacker Hemingway, is noteworthy for his well written science fiction these days. However this little book is a treasure.  ( I found it on a dusty shelf in the local Mexican library)  It relates to the computer industry in 1999, when Microsoft was bad, Apple was good and Linux was an upstart.  This was after the time of The Cathedral and the Bazaar . What sets the book apart is his gift for metaphor and analysis of how things came to be.   Just a few pearls that you can glean.Microsoft grew with out any real need to address `the user interface` because it made good financial sense to do so. Apple went for the walled garden because it had to remain a hardware company and this took on a certain mindset. MSoft as owning huge mindshare did not have to write drivers for all the peripherals ( the manufacturers did that for free) .  Both vendors were facing massive rewrites to their OS, which were tried in fits and starts, but users were met with lots of buggy software, but the two OS’s could not acknowledge how cludgy the OS’s were. Fascinating to see how things have played out in 11 years, and what residual thinking still prevails from that time.

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