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October 13, 2004
Todd is on #5 with the Business Blog Book Tour. These are a great way to get an angle on a book like you've never seen before. Details below
Author: Al and Laura Ries
Title: The Origin of Brands
Dates: October 11th - October 20th
Tour Stops
October 11th - 800-CEO-READ
October 12th - John Porcaro
October 13th- David Paull - Dial.Log
October 14th - BusinessPundit
October 15th - CrossRoads Dispatches
October 18th - Learned on Women
October 19th - What's Your Brand Mantra
October 20th - WonderBranding
April 30, 2004
The third round of the Businss Blog Book Tour rolls on! I unfortunately didn't have the time to commit to this one, but can't wait to see Seth commenting at everyone's sites during the tour.
Author: Seth Godin
Title: Free Prize Inside: The Next Big Marketing Idea
Dates: May 3rd - May 14th
To find out more about Seth and the book, you can visit Seth's website or his blog.
Tour Stops
March 22, 2004
Thanks to Ben & Jackie for stepping in and providing their insights on Creating Customer Evangelists! I love the BBBT because it gives the bloggers a chance to interact with world-class authors, get some great ideas, and forces me to add another book to my reading list for the month!
Thanks also to Todd for setting up the tour, this is a great idea, and I trust that it's been as valuable to the readers as well.
The tour wraps up this week with the following blogs:
3/23 - StartupSkills.com
3/24 - SBBlog
3/25 - A Penny For
Ben & Jackie keep their own blog as well: Creating Customer Evangelists
March 22, 2004
So many corporate marketing initiatives that I've seen are driven by ad agencies. That's become even more apparent now that I'm on that side of the fence and working more with agencies doing work for clients. In my experience, ad agencies are not the most "innovative" when it comes to new techniques, technologies, or methods that do not involve creating ads or print pieces.
How does a company's Customer Evangelism efforts fit into the client agency relationship? Have you encountered any agencies which adovcate customer evangelist principles and develop/support programs to build CE initiatives within client companies (besides yours)?
In a recent client meeting, I encountered a perfect opportunity to introduce some CE techniques, yet the agency would hear nothing of it. My fear is that they uptake of valuable programs like this will take exponentially longer if companies are using marketing and ad agencies as their filters for ideas or to set their frame of reference on what's "new, cool and effective" in the world of marketing. (Not that WOM is that new anyway, but to some it's a very new concept - evangelism is even edgier in some circles)
According to Ben, The ad agency model is optimized for mass-media purchases. Most of their profit arrives from commissions on purchased media, or the billable hourly rates of their people. This model incents agencies to dream up marketing strategies that optimize the model. Unfortunately for them, the effectiveness of traditional media are declining in effectiveness, especially network TV, and clients are demanding more accountability for their dollars.
Conversely, customer evangelism strategies are built atop authentic, grassroots tactics to stimulate word of mouth. Organizations focused on word of mouth are driven by customer-focused people who demonstrate their commitment to two-way customer relationships, not one-way broadcasts.
To our knowledge, very few traditional agencies focus on grassroots marketing. The Richards Group in Dallas tried last year with blogs for its client, Dr Pepper. Noticing that blogs are usually written by influencers and opinion leaders, Richards compiled a database of bloggers, their demographics and their audiences. They recruited and paid teenage bloggers to help market Dr Pepper's new milk drink, "Raging Cow." Very quickly a backlash against the campaign developed as the blogger community discovered the bloggers' endorsements were actually disguised advertorial content. Too often, agencies undermine the truth to accelerate results.
Agencies tend to dream up inauspicious grassroots strategies that stretch the truth or are outright deceptive. For instance, a disastrous Sony/Ericcson program in which actors roamed the streets of New York City pretending to be lost but would show off their new Sony/Ericcson cell phone won a scathing write-up in the Wall Street Journal and the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. Also shady: liquor companies paying attractive women to hit on unsuspecting men in bars by talking up a specific vodka.
Jackie Huba and I spend the majority of our time writing, speaking and evangelizing the tenets of customer evangelism. The rest of the time is spent training companies on how to do it themselves and facilitate the creation of a customer evangelism plan. In the end, the client must own a customer -focused strategy. Management and employees must live it.
You can't outsource your soul to an agency.
March 22, 2004
I've worked in companies where customer satisfaction data is collected, and passed on to market research for analysis, and maybe even passed on to product development for improvement. But that's it. Very little about the "customer experience was ever recorded let alone questioned and improved. What ever can be done quickly and impersonally is usually the road taken.
An article from the e-Prairie newsletter (from Chicago also I believe!) today highlights some of the great and inexpensive ways to get real-life, street level customer feedback, the kind that you speak of in your book. Yet, despite your efforts with the book, and knowing how much of the aforementioned article will fall on deaf ears, I continue to wonder what the big road block is to companies getting real data and using that real data to make marked improvements in their customer-facing experiences?
In your experience, why is it so hard for some companies to take that first step and engage the primary principal of creating customer evangelists, going out and getting real "customer plus-delta" feedback? Outside of what's written in Chapter 16 about getting started, are there any grass-roots (aka - mid-management level, not executive order) tactics that you've seen to get companies to take this first step to creating customer evangelists?
According to Ben, "The biggest obstacle to knowing what customers really think about us is fear. It's easy to fear customers will tell us you your product or service stinks, that you're horrible people and you should never have set foot on earth. That's the worst-case scenario.
Realize, though, that people are already talking about your product and services; they're telling colleagues, friends and family about product quality and service experience. They may be evangelizing you or discussing slipshod quality or defectiveness in online or offline forums. An organization focused on creating customer evangelists knows what people are saying by going after feedback before it goes too far out of bounds.
Some tactics for gathering customer plus-delta (the plus, meaning what do customers love, and the delta, meaning what would customers improve):
- Google your company name, products, and your name to see what people are saying on the web. Google makes it easy for you to receive an email alert when your name pops up on the web.
- Call at least one customer every week, just to chat. Ask a lot of questions and listen, listen, listen.
- Form a customer advisory board. The purpose of this group is to provide ongoing insight into improving current products and feedback on new products and strategies. An outside company that facilitates the board can be invaluable.
- Make it easy for customers to provide their feedback, such as on every page of your website, through point-of-sale displays, after every meeting with vendors, etc.
- Put pictures and email addresses of people in the company, even the CEO, on your website."
March 22, 2004
My first query deals with the concept of "corporate loyalty to customers". I know, not a new concept, but I have experienced a great deal of cynicism at companies I have worked with when I brought the concept of "corporate loyalty" when discussing "customer loyalty." How can we expect customers to be loyal to us, when we have shown very little in the way of being loyal to them?
The typical responses are:
"With the Internet, customers are just a click away from a lower price, so why bother?"
"Customer loyalty - there is no such thing as customer loyalty anymore!"
"We can't afford services like that for our customers. Let's just start a formal loyalty program with a frequent buyer card."
The most pertinent example of corporate-to-customer loyalty that I have seen is Southwest Airlines' approach to reaching out to customers and coddling their evangelists. But they are but an example, and few (at least that I have seen) have walked in their shoes.
How can companies even think of creating customer evangelists when there seems to be such a lack of corporate-to-customer loyalty? Why would customers even want to be become evangelists for most companies?
According to Ben, "There's compelling evidence why focusing on your most loyal customers makes good business sense:"
Do some customers purchase solely on price? Absolutely. But not all do. The objective of customer evangelism is seeking out and embracing customers who not only purchase from you but love you so much that they tell others. That love extends from something that's great, or remarkable, about your product and service. It stands out from a sea of sameness.
Customers who refer you are the ones to embrace. They lower sales cycles, acquisition costs and improve both top-line revenue and bottom-line revenue. The question back to the naysayers is: Why wouldn't you want the help of customers who volunteer to help?
March 22, 2004
Good Morning! Today the Business Blog Book Tour makes a stop here for some Q&A with Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, the authors of Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force. Please check back throughout the day for updates!
March 15, 2004
Business Pundit starts it off today with some questions on "Napsterizing" your knowledge and what you didn't you learn in B-School.
February 18, 2004
Our next BBBT will feature Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell and their book Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force
BBBT Round 2 starts March 15th!
Visit the offical BBBT website
Check out the BBBT Entries Here
February 9, 2004
Thanks to Todd at apennyfor.com for setting this whole thing up. I think we all enjoyed our interactions with Barry, and appreciated the opportunity to read his book and get inside the mind of the author.
Stay tuned to the official BBBT site. Todd will be announcing the next book soon!
For those of you who missed the other blogs in the tour, here’s a rundown:
February 9, 2004
Barry spends nearly an entire chapter on the value of networking and building a network of trusted agents to help you through your entrepreneurial journey. Barry goes on to say...
"Building a network of personal and business relationships is a life-long process. It really has no beginning and no end. In fact, some people do business because they went to kindergarten together! You only need to examine college alumni associations to understand how powerful these connections can be."
To Barry:
How has the Internet, and more specifically weblogs, altered the landscape of networking for the solo entrepreneur? More to the point, have business owners benefited from the concept of social-networking, such as using a site like LinkedIn to futher their network of trusted advisors? It would seem that weblogs and social networks would be a viable way for entrepreneurs to reach out both locally and globally, yet, I find that few business owner friends of mine actually use the Internet as the virtual support group it can be.
February 8, 2004
Every year, I work with a number of college students through the SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) organization, and inevitably, those students, along with countless others ask "What can I do to help me stand apart from other future graduates."
To Barry:
I know that you say that there's no better time than the present to start a business. Too much planning, and you miss the ball... Regarding that, what have you seen colleges and mentors do to open college students' eyes to entrepreurship and small business ownership? I can't think of anything better to do to set yourself apart, yet students typically seem 'unaware' of the possibilities that entrepreneurship provides.
February 8, 2004
When I started reading this book, I was working for a very large company, and had not run my own business for several years. Truth be told, I read through the first parts of the book thinking "this doesn't apply to me." In a wonderful turn of events, I am now at a firm of 5 people, and just in a "night and day" difference paradigm shift, EVERYTHING in the book makes sense and rings true!
That brings me to my first question for Barry:
What are the expectations of the entrepreneur on their employees, and what can employees do to "manage up" to ensure that they are on the right track with their entrepreneuer bosses? I recall your mentioning in the book that each new employee is a significant percentage of the firm. Which, for me, is startling to think that I'm now 20% of what makes up my current company!
The reason I ask this is because I feel that every business book I've ever read about management (I have 2 to manage under me, and 2 above) is teetering on irrelevant. Processes, politics, controls, and the like seem completely turned upside down when you go from a company of 5000 to a firm of 5!
Barry will be checking in from time to time today & tomorrow. I like the format used by Jeff Cornwall at The Entrepreneurial Mind -- a series of questions from Jeff and responses from Barry -- so we will continue in that fashion here here. If you have questions, feel free to post under any of the entries.
February 8, 2004
Barry Moltz, author of "You Need to Be a Little Crazy : The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business," is here starting today to answer some questions about the entrepreneurial lifestyle, discuss his book, and respond to some questions about being an entrepreneuer (or, in my case, how to handle your boss who is one!).
January 19, 2004
- Feb. 2 - A Penny For...
- Feb. 3 - Businesspundit
- Feb. 4 - Ensight.org
- Feb. 5 - The Entrepreneurial Mind
- Feb. 6 - Venturepreneur
- Feb. 9 - Dana's Blog
- Feb. 10 - TJ's Weblog
Check out the official BBBT Homepage.