The Rule of 99 to 1

February 12, 2016 //
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This seemingly innocuous post is, as it turns out, a very important post for me, perhaps the most important in a long time. And I don’t mean for me in an ‘in my opinion’ sense; I mean for me personally.

I have a theory. It goes like this. There are leaders. They’re leaders in their field. We see them on screen, we hear about them or listen to them, we read about them. They might be sports people, musicians, business people, artists, inventors politicians, not-for-profit innovators, entrepreneurs. They might be the best at something that we do for leisure. They’re 1 in a 100, maybe more.

Then there are us. The rest of us. We’re the other 99, or 999, making up the overwhelmingly huge majority of the seething mass of humankind. We’re not the best at any one thing, so we don’t get watched, written about or listened to.

Yet almost all the external stimuli in the world come from the 1%, are about the 1%, intended for the consumption of the 99%. It lets us into the world of the 1% and encourages us to strive to join that elite club and leave the world of the also rans behind. More importantly, it’s our consumption of the 1%’s activities that provide the economics for the rich and famous to be rich and famous. The model doesn’t work otherwise.

What are we to do about this? Should we do anything?

This topic has preoccupied me for a long time. Actually, a very long time. For some of that very long time I’ve been turning my thoughts into a book which explores the topic in detail. But for now, I think it’s a fascinating conundrum.

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Categories General

Complementary Compliments

February 10, 2016 //
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Here are two words that tend to be confused – not the words themselves, of course, I’m sure they know what they mean and how to spell themselves – in certain circumstances.

Take the old-fashioned compliments slip, used to add one’s good wishes or hello to an item sent to someone. And we know someone is being complimentary about us when they say nice things. All good so far.

Then there’s complement and complementary. I first came across the word complement in a Latin lesson where it was used to describe, for example, the word ‘good’ in a sentence like ‘the boy is good,’ where the adjective carried the same case as the noun, as though the phrase was actually ‘the good boy.’ With me so far?

The confusion arises when you consider the word complementary/complimentary. The former completes or supports something, the latter says something nice.

So imagine my consternation when I was invited to a complimentary webinar the other day. I was about to scoff in contempt, thinking, ‘I doubt this is a webinar where they’re going to say nice things about me.’ Surely they’re offering a complementary webinar, where the webinar supports the product I’ve just bought?

But then, I thought, maybe they did mean complimentary, in a sense that the webinar was free, gratis, for nothing. I had to grudgingly give them the benefit of the doubt. Coulda gone either way.

I know, I should get out more, it’s true…

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Categories Communication, Language

The Third B2B Product Launch Process Step

February 8, 2016 //
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In our second B2B product launch process step, we looked at the kick-off call and how the project team members shared their expectations and requirements. Now it’s time to do something with those requirements.

The third step is to gather those requirements.

What is your objective for this project? Sure, you want a successful launch, but you need to get more granular in terms of specific requirements that you can subsequently measure to get a sense of how you did when you come to the review stage. Also, these requirements need to work across your launch team. You’ve already heard a range of opinions in the kick-off call. Now you need to consolidate them into a set that works best for the business and get everyone behind them.

Here are some of the basics you need to think about:

  • What revenues are you looking to achieve from the project? This may already be stated in your business case document. Numbers of customers, partners, average attachment rate – number of products per customer – increase?
  • What kind of a launch do you need? A phased, ‘soft’ launch with an extended beta phase and a gradual expansion of availability across customers, prospect groups, regions and so on? Or perhaps a ‘hard, big bang’ launch, which carries more risk but gives you more awareness and a quicker hit?
  • What use cases or scenarios will your product cater to? What kind of customers or success stories will you use to best endorse the launch?
  • What will the product do? What is the scope of the product?
  • What are the specific requirements that each department or function involved in the product will have to deliver to? Development, testing, marketing, sales, product management, operations, professional services and implementation, support?

Once you’ve defined all your requirements for your product launch, you need to socialise them with the rest of the team, and be prepared for some toing and froing, before you have an agreed set. Then you can set about figuring out how you’re going to meet them, which is the topic of our fourth step.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

The Second B2B Product Launch Process Step

February 5, 2016 //
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In our first B2B product launch process step, I recommended you get the fundamental information together and check your facts. Once done, you’re ready for the second step.

This step is to have your kick-off meeting or call. If you’re well organised, it shouldn’t matter if you can’t get people to a physical meeting. A call should be fine.

In this call you need all the major players – or else their delegated representatives – in the product launch to be present. This is where you set your ground rules, make sure expectations are aligned and roles and responsibilities understood. The kick-off is a great opportunity for all those who don’t know each other to get acquainted and understand how their own contribution will butt up to or overlap with the contributions of others.

On this call it’s a good idea for people to share their expectations and their requirements for the project so that everyone is aligned towards the overall objective for the launch – whatever the project team decides that overall objective should be. You can’t do any decent planning without the over-arching objective agreed, so it’s important to agree this before proceeding. This is also an important time for establishing what any dependencies or interdependencies might be for elements in the project. What stages can run in parallel, what have to be sequential, what the rate-determining steps are.

From an interpersonal and cultural perspective, the kick-off is the chance for the project manager of the launch – which might be you – to set the tone for the meetings, how they should be run and what the protocols are for reporting, meeting attendance, escalation procedures and so on.

You can use software or design fancy spreadsheets to help you automate much of the operational stuff, especially with large or comprehensive launches. You still, however, have to get the basics right – the basics I’ve outlined above.

With a good kick-off call under your belt and your objective and requirements defined, you’re all the set for the next stage.

 

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

Finish Early

February 3, 2016 //
0

Some people have job roles where they’re in a lot of meetings. Typically managers of people have this issue. Back-to-back meetings, or worse still, meetings that over-run and put them behind all day.

I often find myself in a position where I need to create stuff. I need thinking time, planning time and writing time. Meetings are the enemy in this situation. Sure, they have their purpose, and a very useful one at that, when managed properly, but not if I need sustained ‘me time’ to get my work done.

My approach to meetings is under-promise, over-deliver. Ask someone for more time than you need – don’t go mad, it’s a balance between taking their time and taking liberties – and book that time in the calendar. Then, aim to finish the meeting early. 45 minutes is a good length of time to ask for a meeting. Even if you finish on time, in all probability they’ll have a precious quarter-hour before their next commitment.

There are few things better than a meeting finishing early and giving you some of your hour or day back. And you’re grateful to the person who organised or chaired the meeting for that. It shows you that the person values your time and doesn’t waste it.

Were you ever at a school that managed its timetable in 50-minute slots, and started each class at the top of the hour? Those little 10 minutes back every hour are great for getting fiddly stuff out of the way, running quick errands and getting your head right for the next meeting.

Aim to finish your meetings early. Control them so that they do. Tell the other people that you’re done and that you’re giving them back some of their day. They’ll respect you for it and will be more inclined to grant you their time again.

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Categories Communication, Marketing, Planning, Sales

Re-Work

February 1, 2016 //
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Very little in work is genuinely new and original. The huge majority of it is re-examined, revised, re-worked. A document used as a base for something else, a presentation template where you can borrow the formatting and graphics, a white paper where you can adapt the ideas: it makes sense to do this.

Working from a solid base that has already found acceptance is sensible, a productive use of your time and investment.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t strive for something that starts from a blank sheet of paper. Sometimes it’s the only way to come up with something that’s fresh, exciting, or game-changing.

But in the day-to-day passage of getting things done, re-work, re-use and recycling is a good thing.

It’s not plagiarism, where you’re passing somebody else’s work as your own and plagiarising their intellectual property. Properly acknowledged, cited or quoted, someone’s work you have built on is generally the better for it.

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Categories Communication, Customers, General, Marketing, Sales

The Blink of an Eye

January 29, 2016 //
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We all know that life is a terribly slender thread and things like a mis-timed jay-walk can change a life irrevocably.

So it is with business I think. It’s not as final but in a split-second it can turn things on their head for quite a while.

I was at a sales kick-off conference more than 10 years ago, and there were about 15 to 20 of us around a U-shaped arrangement of desks, with our laptops already in use, stealing a few moments before the sessions – and in between them no doubt – to get some day-to-day business done before knuckling down to the meeting.

The walkway between the delegates and the wall was a sea of cables. Walking back to my seat, I tripped on a power cable that was curving up from the floor, yanking off the laptop in the process. The laptop belonged to to a rep, a lady who was a super person and whom I respected a lot. The laptop landed on the floor edge-first. Inevitably it broke. The screen went completely blank.

If you’ve been in this situation you’ll know that if you can’t see what’s on screen, you can’t save your work, power down, restart, interrogate the machine, anything. So imagine you’re this person. You’ve a mountain of things to do, let alone the time you’re giving up for the SKO. You’re a thousand miles from home, with a pre-smartphone-era phone.

I was understandably extremely apologetic and the lady in question was obviously pretty distraught but took it in good spirit as the genuine accident that it was. But in the blink of an eye, I’d turned her day from a good one, to an awful few days.

So how can you legislate for these sudden bumps in the road? It’s the standard answer: you plan for them as far as is economical for you to do, and you hope for the best. The hotel venue could have been configured so that sockets, cables and plugs ran from the centre of the room or from under the tables. Everyone could, I suppose, carry 2 laptops around with them, both synched, which is a touch overkill for an eventuality that might occur once in your lifetime. Or you simply hope that the split-second slip-up won’t get you and simply get on with it if it does.

 

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Categories General, Strategy

The First B2B Product Launch Process Step

January 27, 2016 //
0

OK, so you’ve seen the signed-off roadmap, or heard about the launch, or perhaps you’re already involved in the earlier steps of the product management lifecycle. Regardless of your personal situation, the first step in the B2B product launch process is this – check your facts.

Sounds obvious doesn’t it? It is, but not everyone does it. Here are some facts you want to consider before anything else:

  • Who’s on the launch team? Who’s the executive sponsor? Who’ll work on the project day-to-day? Who’s project managing the launch? You need a good project manager with good communication skills to stay on track. If it’s you project managing it, great 🙂
  • What are the milestone dates? When will development be done? When will you alpha and / or beta the product? To whom? Work back from when you plan to GA (make the product Generally Available) and build in buffer at every stage
  • How much of the strategy is done? Have you sight of a business case document so you can understand the market analysis, objectives, pricing, positioning, features, benefits etc?
  • What other background documentation is there to help you build a picture? The more there is, the less you need to create, and the less time you need to make with people to interview them for the background, their insight and preferences
  • When’s the launch kick-off call? If one isn’t organised, apply pressure for it

Get armed with these facts and you’ve already won half the battle.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

The 7-Step B2B Product Launch Process

January 25, 2016 //
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The product lifecycle can be a complicated beast and varies significantly within industries and regions. Not only that, the roles of people in an organisation who either contribute to or manage the product launch can differ quite markedly too. So, with that preamble done, am I drowning a whole series of process-forming posts before I’ve even started?

Not really, no. While job titles and jobs may vary, there are still some generalities and best practices that work for companies selling stuff – products or services – to other companies.

I see 7 broad stages to the B2B product launch process, and I’ll devote my usual post length – long enough to get your attention but not so long as to distract you from other priorities – to each one of them.

People have written 250-page books on managing the product launch. Then again, they’ve done the same for the B2B marketing process, sales cycle, and customer buying cycle, which are other B2B topics that I have addressed before with a total series length that wouldn’t stretch to a chapter.

But these aren’t text books. They’re the distilled experiences of mistakes I’ve made, lessons I’ve learned and the wisdom of people greater than I. I hope you enjoy them.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

Personalisation vs Context

January 22, 2016 //
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True personalisation?

True personalisation?

I got this in my Facebook stream the other day. I can’t deny it’s eye-catching. It’s clearly a clever bit of code that allows an advertiser to drop each FB user name into their image.

It’s personalisation of a sort, but is it really personalisation, or is it simply clever code? I suspect the latter.

Context marketing has been around for a while, and is now getting some major attention as marketers get more sophisticated and better at deciding what content they can serve up to whom, when, rather than sending everyone everything.

But this isn’t context marketing, although it’s definitely targeted to me. FB is a hugely growing channel for B2C ecommerce, but as far as I’m concerned, although I’m the right person, it’s not the right content for me and it’s not delivered at the right time.

I still like it though :-).

 

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Strategy
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