Time to get into startup mode again: Part 2

Part 2 of 2. In case you missed it, read Part 1 now.

For those of you catching this post on a mobile device, don’t forget to check out today’s video. If it doesn’t load properly for you, feel free to go watch it here.

Caught up on yesterday’s post? Done with the moving pictures? Good. We can begin then.

Remember when you first started in the business world? When you were a hungry startup? When you couldn’t afford to compete against the big boys in your industry but you still went after them with guts and heart and smarts? This is the spirit you need to get back to if you want to make it out of this recession on your feet rather than on your knees… or on your back.

It’s the mindset you need to adopt if you want to ensure that you don’t become another victim, another statistic of this economic nosedive.

But before you can move forward, you have to accept that the economy is no more responsible for your success or failure than your competitors. Or who happens to be in the White House. Or whatever the excuse of the moment happens to be. The war in Iraq. The price of oil in Dubai. The butterfly beating its wings in Brazil. Fact: There will always be obstacles in your way. Small ones. Big ones. They’ll always be there. As soon as you figure out how to overcome one, another will appear to take its place. It’s just the nature of business: If it were easy to succeed, everyone would.

Yet not everyone does.

What you have to realize is that there is no middle-ground here. No gray area. No safe zone. This game either has winners and losers. That’s it. Those are the two outcomes, and that’s pretty much it. Those are your two choices. The two buckets calling your name. Whichever one you end up in is entirely up to you.

Incidentally, which bucket you end up in isn’t a result of fate. What obstacles the world throws at you may be harder to overcome than those it throws at everyone else. I’ll give you that. Maybe your mountain is taller, steeper, meaner than everyone else’s. Okay. So what? What does that have to do with anything? The obstacles are irrelevant. What matters is is choice you make: What bucket you want to end up in. The winning bucket or the losing bucket.

Yes, success is a choice. From start to finish, it’s a choice. Why? Because before success can become an outcome, it has to begin as a mindset.

(Even if it takes 40 years for the mindset to turn into outcome. Sometimes, that’s just how the pebble rolls.)

Fact: You either let excuses run your life or you kick them out of the way and press on. It’s that simple. It really is. Not easy, but simple.

And this “recession”, boys and girls, this “down economy”, whatever you want to call it is nothing but another excuse to blame failures on if your mindset isn’t right. Sales are down? Must be the economy. We have to lay off another 1,000 workers? It’s the economy. We need to slash bonuses? Yeah, the economy.

Bullshit.

How about this for truth: As a business leader, you didn’t have a Plan B. You weren’t ready. You were hoping the Titanic wouldn’t hit the iceberg, but you never stopped to ask yourself what you would do if it did.

To throw another analogy at you in mid-stream, when the grizzly came running out of its cave and made a bee-line for you, you froze in terror and then ran off.

Because you weren’t ready. Fight or flight: You picked flight.

That’s failure #1. And frankly, I won’t be the one to kick dirt in your face for having screwed that one up. A lot of people did. It happens. We all screw up from time to time. It’s okay. Brush yourself off and get back in the saddle none the wiser, right?

You would think. Unfortunately, something still isn’t clicking: 10 months into this economic slowdown, most are still hiding in the bushes, waiting for the big bad grizzly to go back into its cave, waiting for the coast to be clear, waiting for things to get back to normal before “doing” anything differently. Failure #2.

Well no. That’s no kind of strategy.

It’s been 10 months, people. If it isn’t clear to you yet, let me spell it out for you: The duck and cover model isn’t going to get you anywhere (we went over that yesterday).

It’s time to come out of hiding and face the bear.

If you don’t, you’re done.

The grizzly, the iceberg, the mountain, your competitors, the economic crisis, the recession, the price of rice in China… They’re all one and the same: Obstacles to overcome. Nothing more. Nothing less. They’re nothing new, and they’ll never stop coming. If you think that you’ll eventually get to a point in your career when obstacles will magically vanish, I have a bridge to sell you.

Fact: Right now, hundreds… no, thousands of companies are facing the bear. Taking it head-on. Wearing it down. Learning how to outsmart it, outmaneuver it, outfight it, and they’re taking the lead.  From you. While you are hiding, “waiting” for the bear to go away, they are taking the initiative and becoming the next decade’s market leaders. While you’re in a hiring freeze, shrinking budgets and hoping to avoid another round of layoffs by hopefully landing new clients (how is still unclear since you are not innovating), they are adapting, evolving and growing.

You aren’t growing. All you are doing is shrinking. Watching from the sidelines. Playing defense with what now amounts to a skeleton crew.

Take a quick 10,000ft view of the situation: Who do you think is winning? The companies rethinking, revamping and retooling, or the companies with a wait-and-see attitude?

Which one do you want to be?

So let me ask you again: How do you want to come out of this recession: On your feet, or on your knees?

Honestly, if you aren’t already looking at this recession as an opportunity to gain market share and crush your competition, if you aren’t at least in the process of rebuilding solid bridges between you and your customers, if you still don’t get that this is your moment to create something extraordinary, that this recession is actually the best thing that’s ever happened to your business, it’s time you asked yourself some pretty crucial questions, starting with… Are you sure you are cut out to be a business leader?

Because whether you like it or not, business is a fight. On a good day, it’s nothing short of a friggin’ grudge match. And this is a bad day. A very bad, very long, very punishing day that’s bound to get worse before it gets better. So my question to you is: what are you going to do about it?

'St. George Slaying The Dragon' by Hans Von Aachen

I have three simple questions for you. Write them down, take them home, and take your time answering them. They’re important. Very important. You’re basically stuck in business limbo until you answer them thruthfully, where you go from here is completely up to you. I can’t make you want to be successful. I can’t make you want to be a real leader. All I can do is help you find your way and let you do whatever it is you decide to do:

1. Fight or Flight: Either you want to be in this fight or you don’t.

Boiled down to its core, this is a simple fight or flight question: First things first: Do you want to be in this fight? It’s okay if you say no. It’s okay if your heart isn’t in it. If you don’t look forward to the blood, sweat and tears it’s going to take to win. The hard work. The really long days. The sleepless nights. The doubts. The blows. There’s nothing wrong with packing your bags and walking away. No shame in it. If that’s what you want to do, if your heart isn’t in this, then don’t lie to yourself: Do yourself a favor and go do something else. Go start another company. Go work for someone else. Go take a year off and be with your family. Go learn how to paint in Provence. It’s all good. Go live your life. Go do what makes you happy. Nobody needs you to pretend to be something you aren’t. Nobody is forcing you to fight someone else’s fight. Nobody is forcing you to fight the grizzly if you don’t want to.

But if you want to be in this fight, then BE in this fight. Jump in, heart and soul and all. Run into it swinging and land some good punches from the start. Don’t just hop into the ring to put in a valiant effort and get a pat on the back from your spouse or golf buddies for good measure. Get into the ring to win. There’s no A for effort here. In the real world, the worst team in the league doesn’t get a trophy. In the real world, it files for bankruptcy, shuts down, and sends families into financial upheaval. So don’t take up the challenge if your heart isn’t in it to win.

2. Why are you here? (No, really. Why are you here?)

Okay, so you’ve answered the first question. You want to be in the fight. Okay. Now tell me why.

Do you even know?

Is it pride? Is it fear? Is it desperation? Is it because you really want to be here or is it because you feel like you have to be here, that you owe it to the company founder or to the employees, that it’s either that or early retirement?

Why are you really here? Say it. Write it down. Turn your answer into a manifesto. I don’t are as long as you can actually explain to me or anyone what your purpose for being in business is. If you can’t figure it out, then maybe you’ve answered Question 1 (above) incorrectly. If you don’t know what you’re fighting for, if you don’t know what you want out of this, if you can’t articulate this, then what are you doing here?

What do you want out of this? In a perfect world, what would you be known for? What would be your legacy when it’s all said and done? Is that really what you want? (Back to question 1: Do you really want it?)

Why are you here? Tell me.

3. How do you define “winning?”

How do you define winning? Simple: How do you define success?

Does success manifest itself as hiring back all the people you had to lay off? Is it restoring your revenue stream to the pre-September 2008 bust? Is it capturing 50% market share again? Is it making the cover of Fast Company or Inc. or Rolling Stone? Is it becoming the leader in your industry? Is it selling x amount of widgets? Hell if I know. Don’t ask me. I’m not you. How do YOU define success? What do you want to accomplish in the next 3, 6, 12, 18 months? What are your specific goals?

Ask yourself. How do you want to beat the grizzly?  Be specific.

Do you know? If you don’t really know, don’t you think after 10 months of playing defense (whatever that means) you might want to put brain to light bulb and pencil to paper and figure it out?

If you’re in this fight, be in it. Be in it for the right reasons. And know what you’re fighting for. That’s it. Give it some thought. Write it down. Say the words outloud until they become part of you, then go kick this grizzly in the snout and become the leader you dreamed you would someday become.

Here’s your new mandate: You’re in startup mode again. Whatever you’ve accomplished so far, however successful your company may have been in the past, all of that is irrelevant. If you want to win, if you want to come out of this thing swinging and on top, you have to go back to the hunger, the adaptive drive, the can-do mindset that characterized the start of your career and the eraly days of your company’s history. Outsmart, don’t outspend. It’s back to the basics for you and your organization. It’s time to turn a brand new page.

And by the way, if you’re a CEO, CMO, business manager or entrepreneur and you still haven’t figured out that this recession, that the grizzly bear threatening to tear you apart is the best thing’s that’s ever happened to you professionally, that this is your moment, your Normandy, your Everest, your defining battle royale, you are hopelessly blind.

One last little thought for you today: You don’t have to win at everything, but you do have to win at this.

Consider the alternative if you don’t. Stop waiting for something to happen, and make something happen.

Have a great Tuesday, everyone. ;)

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Time to get into startup mode again – Part 1

The insanity of knowing what the problem is, and doing nothing to address it.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”   – Albert Einstein

Yet here we are: Marketing firms are offering the same exact services they were offering this time last year. Ad agencies: Same thing. Public Relations: No difference. Their clients, watching customer spending drop 10, 20, 30% are scaling back, laying off, stocking less, reducing their marketing spend, trying to stretch every business development dollar to the max, and what’s the answer been so far? What’s been the Marketing world’s reaction?

Nothing. Zip. Nada. In the middle of the worst recession in our lifetime, the answer being given by the most creative business people on the planet is either a) go ahead and shrink and/or b) let’s just keep doing more of the same old thing.

2-3 months into the stock market meltdown, I understood it: Many decision-makers were in a “wait and see” mode. But that was then. It’s been 10 months. The fog has lifted now. The wait-and-see, deer-in-the-headlights, “holy-crap-now-what-do-we-do” paralysis mode should be long gone.

At some point, businesses (and their marketing partners) need to stop wishing for the economy to magically return to normal and DO something.

Yes, actually put on their thinking caps (finally), and come up with better, smarter ways of getting results.

That whole discussion about the importance of ROI, it isn’t a Social Media discussion. It’s a business discussion. Heck, it’s a business imperative.

I get it: Consumer spending has shrunk 10, 20, 30%. Okay. So you’ve reacted. You laid off your staff. You cut your marketing budgets. You tightened your inventory. You’re being forced to do more with less now. You’ve adjusted to the giant kick in the nads that Wall Street delivered back in September. So you’re back to square one. Now what? (Wait… don’t answer that yet. That’s the topic of tomorrow’s post.)

Sneak Peak into Part 2 of this post tomorrow: Recapturing the startup spirit.

Remember when you first started in the business world? When you were a hungry startup? When you couldn’t afford to compete against the big boys in your industry but you still went after them with guts and heart and smarts?

Remember those days of outsmarting and outperforming the competition rather than outspending them? What happened to those days? What happened to the drive that got you through those days? What happened to how clever you used to be back then? Whatever happened to applying that attitude, drive and cleverness to your business problems now?

You’re a small coffee shop and Starbucks opens a new location across the street. What do you do?

You’re a fresh new ad agency looking to score a big consumer brand campaign in the next 12 months. What do you do?

You’re a major software distributor whose biggest vendor just filed for bankruptcy. What do you do?

Sometimes, solving other people’s problems gives you pretty solid insights into solving your own. When done right, it’s a great exercise in both strategic and tactical problem-solving. This is no brainstorm. This is problem-solving. There’s a huge difference.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about another type of example you need to put yourself through to get your business back on track, but for now, let’s get back to the topic at hand: The insanity (and stupidity) of doing the same thing over and over and over and over and expecting different results each time. Or rather, each quarter. And I guess it all starts with the importance of accepting (rather than rejecting) reality.

An example: What less spending but more of the same will get you.

Let’s look at the problem of doing the same thing year after year, yet expecting different results with a simple example: Company XYZ’s men’s watch sales tanked in Q4 2008 and analysts predict an even slower H1 2009. To keep the company in the black through H2 2009, production slows, 10% of the staff is laid off, and marketing/business development budgets get slashed by 30%. The marketing and biz-dev teams meet with their marketing partners look at the original marketing plan for 2009, and start trimming the fat. The end result is a marketing/advertising/PR plan that is basically the same as the original, though 30% leaner now. The full page national magazine ads get cut. Some TV spot concepts get shelved. Radio spots take a hit too. That new website redesign, it’ll have to wait.

What do you think will happen?

Let’s look at this graphically. Before belts started getting tightened:

And since the belts started getting tightened:

Bear in mind that nothing has changed in the way Company XYZ is going about trying to earn or buy business. It’s just paying for less of it, therefore it is doing less of it. Why? because the only variable in this emergency plan is the budget. (More on that in a sec.)

For the sake of clarity, let’s say that historically, Company XYZ knows that – using existing tools and tactics – it must spend $100 on marketing to sell each $1,000 watch. Let’s assume that we know this. That this is fact. And now let’s say that this company reduces its spending 30% without changing the way it does business. Without exploring new strategies. New tactics. Without trying new tools or methods. What do you think the impact will be?

That’s right: A 30% reduction in net sales.

Way to make all of your worst fears come true. Welcome to the business version of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

What’s the solution then?

When the only variable in the equation is spending, guess what: Less spending = less results.

So what’s the solution? Simple: Change the variables. (Don’t make spending the only variable.) Make the strategy, tactics and tools your variables: Rethink, revamp and retool. That goes for client companies AND for marketing firms and agencies.

This is not brain surgery. Holding on to the same model when it no longer produces the desired outcome is dumb. Doing it it quarter after quarter isn’t just dumb, it’s insane.

Yet this is exactly what is happening every day in the US. Even as customer engagement vehicles, business intelligence tools and technological platforms continue to evolve (and along with them both strategies and tactics), very few companies are looking to redefine the variables in their own business equations. Social Media, anyone? Customer engagement? Community management? Conversations? Handshakes? Hello? Let’s lay the cards on the table here:

If you’re a company whose marketing budget has taken a 30% hit, start thinking about new (and in some cases really old) ways of engaging with your customers again. Don’t just do the same crap you were doing five years ago, only less of it. That’s just moronic.

If you’re an agency or marketing firm whose billings have dropped 30%, don’t just sit there looking for bigger, better clients to fill that gap by offering the same old crap: Find new services to offer. Partner with other firms with specific specialties you can’t support in-house. Change your model. Adapt. Evolve. Grow into something better, stronger, more valuable.

The attitude of “don’t fix it if it isn’t broken” doesn’t apply anymore. If you’ve had to lay off more than 5% of your staff in the last year, trust me: It’s broken. If you haven’t been growing organically (acquisitions don’t count) by more than 15% annually in the last 5 years, guess what: It’s broken. If you don’t own a majority share of your market right now, it’s broken.

Facing reality isn’t admitting defeat. It’s just facing and accepting reality. That’s it. Nothing more. Incidentally, accepting reality is the first step towards saying no to insanity.

Moreover, being in touch with reality is simply called situational awareness, and without it, no solid decision (business or otherwise) can be made. Be honest about your business’ situation. That’s a pretty good start.

For every company exec who puts up a front and proclaims that s/he has it all under control, that it’s “the economy”, that their company will rebound as soon as the economy does, I have two words: Bull, and… well, the other.

What economy? What is that? Some magical entity that decides when businesses are able to make money? Seriously?  Is that the answer? Is that what they teach in business schools these days? Is that what 25 years on various boards and whatnot have taught you? The economy is responsible for my business still looking at a lousy H2 in 2009? :D

Here’s something to chew on: The economy won’t start getting better until businesses start doing better, and that my friends is not something that will be decided in Washington D.C., Wall Street or even CNN. It isn’t a chicken or egg question. Businesses ARE the economy. No one is going to magically make the economy fix itself. Not Jesus, not President Obama, not the Fed, not even Kanye West. It starts here. Right now. With you. Not with some vague distant fairy godmother of business called “the economy” but with you: The business leaders. The CEOs. The CMOs. The creative directors. The agency principals.  The Social Media directors. The community managers. The customer engagement managers. THAT‘s where it starts.

And let me tell you something: Doing the same old crap you have been doing for the last decade isn’t going to cut it. Don’t kid yourselves. It isn’t. Not in the advertising world, not in the PR world, not in the sales world, not in the lead generation world, not in the retail world, not in any world.

And now, to illustrate my point, let’s dispel a popular misconception about what Darwin really said about survival of the fittest:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”       – Charles Darwin

Tomorrow, in Part 2. We’ll see if you really have what it takes to come out of this recession as a winner… or as just another casualty with a bagful of excuses.

Have a great Monday, everyone.

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Embracing Obstacles: A Leadership and Project Management Manifesto

“Making it work” : Lessons from the real world of “do or die.”

Sometimes, even the best laid plans just go awry.

Call them cliche, but those sayings about finding the silver lining and making lemonade when life hands you lemons, they aren’t just hot air.

When I was in the French Fusiliers Marins, the unspoken motto, the underlying mission imperative was always “make it work.”

The intelligence is wrong? It doesn’t matter. Make it work.

The insertion routes are compromised? It doesn’t matter. Make it work.

You got dropped 15 miles off target? It doesn’t matter. Make it work.

Nobody ever had to say it. Nobody ever had to bark the order. From day one of training, it was pounded into us:

Make it work.

Make it happen.

Find a way.

(If you don’t, people will die.)

The first officer I served under, 1st Lieutenant Rannou, had a saying: “There are no problems. Only solutions.”

He was right.

Sometimes, everything just clicks and works perfectly the first time. You don’t have to do a thing. You might as well be on autopilot: From start to finish, your project, your law suit, your surgery, your product launch, your hostage rescue mission, your ad campaign, your theater production, it all goes well. The planets are aligned. The cosmos is on your side. Everything goes so smoothly that you wonder if you aren’t dreaming.

Most of the time though, things don’t go your way. The unexpected happens. Gremlins. Ghosts in the machine. Flies in the soup. Whatever. The cosmos has a way of throwing obstacles your way at the most inopportune times.

That’s just a given.

A butterfly beats its wings in Buenos Aires, and a week later, your stamp machines in Taiwan are down for a month.

A health crisis in East Africa forces the cargo ship carrying the first shipment of your brand new product to spend three extra weeks at sea.

Your new boss is an self-serving imbecile.

Or in the case of teammate Jay Hewitt (photo above), you lay your bike down going 30mph at mile 51 of a Half-Ironman distance triathlon.

What do you do?

No… really. What do you do?

Murphy’s law isn’t an anecdote. It’s an engine of predictability. Use it.

Let me take a quick break from the full list of mishaps and just say that – in case you hadn’t guessed – skin + gritty pavement + speed don’t feel great.

Imagine getting thrown out of a car moving at 30mph, wearing nothing but your underwear.

Not fun.

Now imagine brushing yourself off, getting back on your bike, finishing the ride as fast as you can, switching out the cartridge in your insulin pump, and then completing a very fast half marathon.

Why? Because no matter what happens, there’s still a finish line to cross. A reputation to preserve. A project to complete. A movie to finish shooting. A new product to launch. An essential part to manufacture.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a military officer, a product manager, a movie director, a chef, a fashion designer, a newspaper editor or a CMO. This is something you can be absolutely certain of: Though sometimes, everything will click and flow smoothly as if by divine intervention, most of the time, obstacle after obstacle will get between you and your goal.

Call it Murphy’s Law. Call it whatever you want. It’s just life.

And in real life, shit happens. No matter what you do, something almost always goes wrong.

The more complicated or ambitious your endeavor, the more likely it is that obstacles will find a way to get between you and that golden finish line. Expect that. Plan for it. Train for it.

Heck, embrace it.

You might as well.

Still, I notice that most people freak out when their plan goes awry. They panic. They lose their cool. They suddenly find themselves feeling… lost. They make everything come to a grinding halt while they regroup.

Why?

Poor planning. Lack of training. They didn’t take the time to plan for failure. They didn’t think to come up with contingency plans.

Most of the time though, it just comes down to one simple thing: Lack of experience.

So for those of you who don’t quite know how to manage cool, crazy, ambitious projects, here’s a little bit of advice:

The Ten Basic Rules of Project Management

Rule #1: Never expect things to work right the first time. (If they do, great.  Just don’t expect them to.)

Rule #2: Expect everything to take at least twice as long as you know they should.

Rule #3: Expect the unexpected.

Rule #4: When everything is going well, worry. (You probably missed something.)

Rule #5: Find out what doesn’t work before your customers do. (That’s what prototypes are for.)

Rule #6: You learn more from how and why a product fails than how and why it works the way you expect it to. (So push your prototypes to failure as often and in as many different ways as possible.)

Rule #7: “Design By Committee” never works.

Rule #8: Trust your instincts.

Rule #9: Listen to the people who will use your product. Their opinion matters more than anyone else’s.

Rule #10: Have fun.

Why experience matters: A simple list.

Back to Jay: Jay has crashed in races before. Jay knows how broken bones feel. Jay knows that even with no skin on his shoulder, he can keep racing. He’s been there. He’s done that. He has already faced and concquered pretty-much every obstacle in the book when it comes to endurance racing. As a result, when problems happen, his resolution time is almost instantaneous. He doesn’t have to spend thirty minutes wondering if he’s badly hurt or just in pain. He doesn’t have to seek professional advice. He doesn’t have to weigh the pros and cons of anything. Knowing where he stands allows him to make the right decision in the blink of an eye: Keep going.

Experience builds confidence. Experience breeds forethought and insight. Experience takes doubt, uncertainty, and fear out of the equation. Jay knows that if he crashes, he can probably still finish the race. He knows how to fix a flat. He knows how to repair a broken chain. He knows a dozen ways to fix problems on his bike or with his body, and the ones he doesn’t know how to fix, he can probably improvise if need be.

There are no problems. Only solutions.

Simple enough.

More often than not, projects that appear to have gone smoothly from the outside didn’t go smoothly at all. Every day brought a new hurdle. Hundreds of fires had to be put out. Thousands of split-second decisions had to be made. Course adjustments. Quick fixes. A folder-full of improvised solutions. Personel changes. Vendor replacements. Timeline adjustments. Budget attrition. Whatever. The list never stops growing.

That’s how it really works.

Perfect illustration: Below is Jay at the finish. From the right side, he looks fine. His injuries are out of sight. He looks like a guy who just breezed through a Half Ironman the way most of us breeze through a Taco bell drivethrough.

To an outsider, a bystander, he had a flawless, fun race.

To someone with inside knowledge, he finished despite a horrible bike accident that could have cost him a whole lot more than another medal.

He crashed. He got up. He quickly assessed the situation. He got back on his bike. He finished the race. He added the experience to his knowledge bank.

He made it happen.

If that doesn’t perfectly illustrate the way a project is driven forward, I don’t know what does.

Project manager. Triathlete. Adventure Racer. Creative Director. Platoon Leader. Customer Service Rep. Design Engineer. Toolmaker. Sous-Chef. Football Coach. It’s all the same.

Project/Program Managers are wired differently. Hire and promote with that in mind.

Great project managers aren’t just natural multi-taskers. They’re also natural strategic masterminds. Improvisation kings (and queens). Crisis jugglers. Fearless creative acrobats. Their job (their nature) is to constantly find and implement solutions to problems, foreseen and not. Their job is to embrace hurdles and obstacles, because each one brings them one step closer to their goal. They thrive on making things happen. The more untraveled the road, the better. The more complex the gameboard, the better.

It takes a special kind of person to be able to a) do that kind of work well, and b) love every minute of it.

It isn’t for everybody.

Excuses and blame don’t exist in our little world. Neither does bullshit. At the end of the day, there’s only what you did and what you didn’t do.

Sometimes, even the best laid plans just go awry.

For most people, that’s not a good thing…

…and for some of us, that’s when the real fun begins. (And we do like our fun.)

Have a great weekend, everyone. :)

(Hat tip to Tamsen McMahon/@tamadear at Sametz Blackstone for pointing out that this should be a manifesto and not a primer)

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My ode to Nutella – Part 1

While Marketing VPs and Brand Managers are spending millions of dollars trying to craft “on brand” messages that resonate with specific demographics, consumers – empowered by digital, creative and social tools are creating their own experiences around the brands and products they love. Case in point: Ferrero’s Nutella. If you aren’t familiar with the delicious European hazelnut and cocoa spread yet, I suggest you run to the nearest grocery store and get acquainted with this chocolate-flavored nectar of the gods. (Warning: Nutella may be as addictive as crack cocaine, if not more.)

Though Nutella has garnered a pretty solid following on its Facebook fan page (over 3 million fans at last count), it still remains a fringe, slightly underground product in the United States. Squeezed between a half dozen different brands of peanut butter and a bouquet garni of jams and preserves flavors, Nutella is kind of easy to miss. Which may actually be its biggest asset: Because it isn’t widely enjoyed by everyone, Nutella lovers tend to regard their Nutellaness as special. Exclusive, even. Fans of Nutella value their passion for the unctuous chocolaty spread the way they do their love for all premium, slightly off the radar brands. So when they run into fellow fans of Nutella, sparks fly.

I have no idea if Ferrero (Nutella’s parent company) has any idea what has started to happen on twitter recently, but it’s nothing short of genius. Unprompted, Nutella fans started to discuss their love of what many affectionately call “black gold” or “chocolate heroin,” and the discussions started to snowball. Prompted by the constant Nutella discussions on Twitter, I bought a jar while at the grocery store. Evidently, others did too. Yes, you heard it right: Conversations about a product on Twitter led to an increase in sales of that product. This was completely unprompted by the Nutella product management team. This all happened purely as a peer-to-peer movement.

Not only that, but people previously unacquainted with Nutella found themselves intrigued enough by the discussions that they went out and bought their very first jars. Some (like fellow bloggers Steve Woodruff and Sonny Gill) even shared their first impressions of Nutella via video. Personally, I think that Steve’s YouTube “Nutella Newfella” idea would make a fantastic social campaign for a product like Nutella, with some pretty solid viral potential. Check it out:

Fellow Marketing honcha and blogger Kristi Colvin created a twitterface page specifically devoted to Nutella and its community of fans: www.twitterface.com/nuts-for-nutella to capture all Twitter mentions of Nutella in context . The page is even featured on twitterface’s home page. Do a google or Bing search for Nutella, and you start to find all kinds of quirky consumer-created content. Popular photo-sharing site Flickr has an extensive Nutella gallery.  This year, in honor of International Nutella Day (you bet) the Ms. Adventures to Italy blog posted 50 ways for Nutella Virgins to enjoy their first taste of the nutty nectar. And then there’s stuff like this other video posted to youtube by a Nutella fan:

Crazy? You bet. Crazy good, that is.

Interestingly, no one is being rewarded by Ferrero or Nutella for producing this kind of content. There is no contest driving this. No prize money. No vacation sweepstakes. Not even the promise of free Nutella (though Nutella does have contests). People are creating this stuff for each other. To express, share and celebrate their passion for a quirky product they feel helps define them to some extent.

When you are lucky enough to manage a brand that people around the world are that passionate about, that has garnered such a vibrant community (which generates sales and recruits new customers all on its own) and promotes your product at every turn, wouldn’t it be nice to find ways to engage that community a little bit? Maybe help it in some way? Recognize it, even?Interestingly, Nutella’s product/brand management team doesn’t seem aware that any of this is going on. Nutella’s US website gives you the opportunity to share Nutella’s site via email, and evidently, Nutella prints T-shirts, muhs and spreading knives so you can show how much you dig the stuff, to your amigos and neighbors but that’s basically it. Really? In 2009? With the fan base behind the brand? That’s it? Hello?

When your fans are doing more all on their own to promote and share your brand (and contribute to sales), maybe it’s time to revamp your Marketing strategy a little bit. Or at least… update it. Not that any of our stuff is stellar or anything (heck, it’s actually pretty awful, though in a deliciously fun way), but you can’t beat passion, peer-to-peer recommendations, and the creative energy unleashed by the social tools at our disposal today. It all works pretty well in the end… but it would work so much better if you paid attention, realized that traditional marketing  could be amplified by inspired community engagement, and… well, joined in the fun.

So come on, Nutella! We’re all having fun out here in the real world, sharing your awesome chocolaty spread with everyone we come in contact with. Are you going to join us or what? We’re ready for you. ;)

Full Disclosure: This post was fueled by several mouthfuls of Nutella.

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Social Media R.O.I. – Part 9: From activity timelines to outcome timelines

Yesterday, we went over the need to create an activities timeline that basically plots every relevant action your company takes across all media. Press releases, product launches, blog posts, white papers, ad campaigns, Twitter engagement, etc. Today, we are going to look at creating outcome timelines. Same basic process, but actually easier based on what you choose to measure.

Here. Before I go any further, check out this video. It will hopefully be a good intro into some of the content of this post:

You can kind of see where this is going right? Once we have the activities and the outcomes timelines mapped out, we are going to overlay them. (That’s right: stack them on top of each other and look for commonalities.) That’s how the R.O.I. analysis will begin: By looking for obvious correlations between activities and outcomes, and then either proving or disproving causality.

So what types of outcomes should we map out along timelines? Well, that’s really up to you. Depending on your budget, capabilities and resources, you can create as many as you want. There is probably no limit to what you can measure and analyze. Every company is different. That said, here are two things to keep in mind:

1. Focus on measuring what matters. Ever heard the term “paralysis by analysis”? It starts when companies start getting bogged down with nonsensical measurement. When you measure everything, you end up measuring nothing. So my advice here is figure out what metrics actually matter to your business and start there.  (A piece of advice shared by Avinash Kaushik in this post –  Go straight to #5.)

Speaking of Avinash, let’s borrow some of his advice when it comes to figuring out what matters (what you should measure first):

“If you can’t get your management to identify goals for you, update your resume and apply for other jobs.

While you are waiting, focus really hard on only reporting metrics that will help 1. increase revenue 2. reduce cost and 3. increase satisfaction. Can’t go wrong with those three.”

Incidentally, although Avinash’s post on measurement focuses mostly on web analytics, it’s a great read and most of his lessons are adaptable to other types of metrics as well. Read the post, bookmark it, and revisit it often. (Hat tip to Christopher Penn for that link, by the way.)

So the lesson here is to focus first on metrics that truly matter, and then (assuming you want to assign additional resources to the measurement of secondary metrics) expanding your measurement repertoire.

2. Focus on what you can actually measure. Unless you have a quasi-unlimited budget, enormous resources and extremely sophisticated data management capabilities, you aren’t going to be able to capture and measure every bit of data that comes your way. Every company’s capabilities, expertise and toolkit is different. While some of you may be able to implement fairly impressive measurement practices over the next few weeks and months, most will find that much of the data you wish you could capture, plot and analyze will be beyond your reach. Don’t panic. Heck, don’t even sweat it. Measure what you can, make the most of it, and don’t worry too much about what you aren’t able to measure yet. Your ROI analysis will require a little more art than science, but that’s okay. As you will soon see, certain key metrics should give you a pretty good idea of the effectiveness of what you are doing.

Okay. The first step is to identify key metrics for your outcome timelines, right? For the sake of clarity, let’s divide them into two groups: Financial outcomes and Non-financial outcomes.

A. Financial Outcomes

Financial outcomes are among the most basic business metrics. Raw performance measurement. No interpretation or estimation required. The most obvious is of course sales performance. So go to your VP sales and get yourself some sales data. (Chances are that your company’s sales data is already plotted over time, so your sales $ timeline may only be an email or database query away.)

Along a timeline, your sales data will hopefully look a little something like this:

Simple enough, right? (Again, most of this data can be mapped out in Microsoft Excel, which ought to work well for most companies, but the platforms you use are entirely up to you.)

Another way to look at financial outcomes might be to look at the number of transactions along a timeline rather than  just looking at sales dollars. (Remember the F.R.Y. methodology that started this whole series a few weeks ago? Frequency, Reach and Yield? Looking at deltas in the number of transactions might help you figure out where some of the changes in sales revenue are coming from. (Hint: If the number of transactions stays flat but your sales revenue increases, you know that you have increased your Yield – the “Y” in F.R.Y.) When it comes to analyzing  the impact that your activities is having on your sales (the return or “R” in the R.O.I. equation), knowing whether revenue deltas are coming from Yield, Frequency or Reach is pretty important.

All this to say that tracking transaction numbers in addition to sales $ is a pretty good idea.

Also in keeping with the F.R.Y.methodology, consider tracking active (transacting) customer counts so you can see if your increase in sales is coming from existing customers or net new customers. (It would be nice if you could see how many new customers you have gained over the last six months, wouldn’t it?)

If you can, also try to track the frequency with which transacting customers do business with you. (Membership/Discount cards are pretty helpful with that last one.)

By the way, if your well paid measurement “expert” doesn’t understand this stuff, perhaps it’s time for a new expert. It’s okay if you don’t quite grasp this stuff, but if your expert is still stuck on Google Analytics and web conversions only,  or “impressions” as ways to “estimate” the value of media and potential returns, chances are that you aren’t any closer to calculating the R.O.I. of any of your activities than before you cut them a check. Remember: Measure REAL performance. Not eyeballs, not media, not what may happen in some magical marketing-friendly future. Measure what’s real. Measure what you can prove.

B. Non-Financial Outcomes

Now that we’ve covered financial outcomes, let’s get into the realm of broader metrics. (This is more fun but requires a lot more work.) Web measurement people will probably feel more at home in this section, as will Social Media measurement purists. As discussed in parts 6 and 7 of this series, non-financial outcomes (or forms of non-financial impact) typically influence financial outcomes. (At least that’s the goal.) They can be any number of things, from visitors to your website and followers on Twitter to (social) mentions of your companyand foot traffic to your stores. The best way to describe this category is this: Non-financial outcomes are all of the things your customers do as a reaction to your activities except transact (buy something). Any activity that is not a transaction falls into this category.

Warning: There are tons of things you can measure in this category, so remember the two precepts we covered earlier: Measure what matters, and measure what you can. (Don’t worry about measuring everything. Give it some thought, test things out, experiment, and see what works for you.) That said, a few key metrics should immediately come to mind: Web traffic, clickthroughs, non-financial conversions, (social) mentions, multi-channel engagement, foot traffic (yes, in the real world), postive WOM/recommendations, negative WOM, blog activity, retweets, linkbacks, etc. Some are web-based while others are not. Don’t get bogged down with media categories: Get out of the traditional media measurement mentality and instead, learn to measure customer behavior. That’s where real insights and valuable metrics are. What people do is usually the best indication of how they feel about your brand/company/product. So learn to observe and measure behavior.

Again, whatever you choose to measure has to be be plotted along a timeline.  We will be overlaying outcomes and activities next, so this is important. (We’re only skimming the surface at this point, but you should be able to see how this is starting to come together.)

Some of your non-financial outcome timelines might look a little something like this:

Note: Yes, I could be showing you screenshots of tools like Google Analytics, PeopleBrowsr, Techrigy and Radian6 reports, but I am trying to keep these posts as tool-neutral as I can. My own biases for certain tools shouldn’t get in the way of the principles conveyed in this post. (Just know that the number of tools out there is growing, so feel free to test them all out and see what works best for your needs, budgets and business culture.)

Okay. I could go on, but I’d better stop this post before your brains explode. Let this stuff sink in, digest it a little bit, and we’ll be back with more later: In Part 10 of this series, we will talk about the importance of deltas (changes) in patterns, as well as causality and correlation. (We’ll start putting all of these puzzle pieces together.) Think of it as detective work for measurement geeks. (Oh yeah. Exciting stuff to be sure.) Any of you starting to wish you hadn’t asked me to show you how to do this yet?

Let me know if this is making any sense yet. It doesn’t need to be 100% clear at this point, but as long as the fog is starting to lift a little, we’re all on the right track.

And remember: As I mentioned in the video, this series isn’t intended to be a detailed A-Z “how to” for every company. If I tried to be THAT specific, each post would be 30 pages long, and even I won’t put you through that. Think of this series as a methodology “how to”: Principles that you can then adapt to your own business measurement practice. These are guidelines. Bend them as much as you want to make them fit your needs. Once you understand these principles and feel comfortable with them, it’s up to you to either adapt them to your specific needs (based on your capabilities), or recruit the help of someone like me to help you build a measurement program that will actually work. Doing this right is pretty serious business, so feel free to experiment but also understand that the success of your company depends partly on the quality of the analysis that you extract from your measurement program. (Knowing what works and what doesn’t work – and why – is pretty vital stuff.)

One last thing: Feel free to share with me what non-financial metrics you think would be crucial to measure (whether you measure them already or not). I have listed a few here, but I would love to hear what you feel should be added to the A-list.

Thanks, everybody. :)

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Social Media R.O.I. – Part 8: An introduction to timelines

Okay. Last time, we covered what ROI is (financial outcomes) and what it isn’t (non-financial outcomes). We also went over where financial outcomes are measured vs. where non-financial outcomes are measured. In previous posts, we also established that the process involved in tying financial outcomes (the R/Return in ROI) to the initial investment (the I/Investment in ROI) takes more time and work than simply creating a spreadsheet or magical ROI Calculator. Now, let’s take our ROI methodology discussion to the next chapter: Timelines.

Today’s post won’t blow your mind or anything. It’s actually VERY simple. Almost too simple. And I hate to insult your intelligence, but bear with me. I don’t want to skip any steps, and this one is one of the most fundamental building blocks of the general methodology we are going to cover, so as simple as it may seem, it is crucial that everyone understand it clearly before we move on. (Look at the bright side: This post will be short and sweet for once.) And I am even going to share some pretty important notes that will save you LOTS of time and effort when you build a measurement practice. (If I didn’t share these with you, you would curse my name in about six months when you realize you should have done a few extra little things on the front end.) More on that in a few paragraphs.

Check out this quick video, and we’ll cover the meat of this chapter in about three minutes:

I know you guys are probably used to measuring outcomes based on calendar cycles, right? You have your start date, then you have your weekly reviews, then your monthly reviews, quarterly maybe, even by Half. I’ve seen programs and campaigns measure outcomes annually as well. Typically, these measurement milestones are scheduled to coincide with meetings and reports coming due for the client or the boss, right? Right.

If you’re used to that type of schedule, this won’t be too far of a stretch. It’s a little different, sure, and requires a little more diligence, but anyone can do this. (Heck, you can even assign the task of creating and managing action timelines to a team of interns. Bonus: It will teach them a lot about how businesses manage their resources and their time in a linear way.)

What you are going to start doing (assuming you don’t already do this – and my hunch is that you aren’t doing it) is simply this: You are going to create and manage a timeline of every significant activity visible to the public done by your company. Here’s how it works: First, create a blank timeline. (You can use any number of tools to do this. Excel works well for most, but feel free to use whatever works for you.) Figure 1:

Step 2: Divide your timeline into quarters, months, weeks and days. If you are planning on truly measuring real-time impact of your social media activities, go ahead and add hours to the mix. It’s okay if you don’t yet, but chances are that your timelines will become that specific at some point. (Even more so since some web and social media monitoring tools already give you the ability to monitor impact in web traffic, social mentions and other metrics into 10-minute increments.) For the sake of simplicity though, we’ll stick to months, weeks and days in our example. Figure 2:

Once you have your timeline neatly organized and divided into time packets, you can start adding your milestones. These are individual activities you want to plot along this timeline. Press releases going out. Trade shows. New product launches. Blog posts. Podcasts. Workshops. Presentations to business organizations. Employees launching twitter accounts or blogs. New blog posts. Ad campaigns. Publishing e-books or white papers. Anything that the public is going to see, go ahead and plot. (As you can see, your timeline is going to get crowdedvery fast, so make sure to make it extensible.)

This will require a pretty constant level of communication with PR, Marketing, advertising, sales, business development, investor relations, IT, sales, etc. What you are doing is creating a time-stamped inventory of a lot of activities touched by potentially dozens of people and departments throughout your organization, so it’s best to start getting organized.

Note 1: Each of these activities should come with its own little info packet. Depending on the tool(s) you are using to plot this timeline, you can make each activity searchable and easy to reference. Ideally, you want to keep a detailed file on every single activity. This file should include content, source, destination, channels, cost, notes, etc. You can tie the file to urls, CRM, project folders housed online or on a server, etc. Thorough is good. If one of these activities turns out to be a huge success, you will want to be able to go back and see what you did right, who was involved, etc. (Conversely, if the activity was a monumental flop, you will also want to know where you went wrong.)

Note 2: One of the elements of each info packet should be cost: How much did each activity cost? Why? Because that’s the “I” in R.O.I.: Investment. You want to be able to tie a cost (investment) to each activity. This information will come in handy when you start tying financial outcomes to activities that got you there. (Do it now, as you plot each activity. Don’t wait until the night before your R.O.I. review/report is due.) If you don’t know what a press release or blog post costs you, find out. (You can’t measure return on investment if you have no idea what your investment is.)

Note 3: Assign categories to each type of activity. Color-coding is nice, but if you are using Excel, think about adding a little line of code for specific categories. This will help you create macros for your ROI analysis later. (Instead of just looking at the ROI of specific activities, you will also be able to batch them. Examples: PR, Blog, Twitter, Trade show, John Smith, Advertising, YouTube videos, Podcast, etc. This will give you a richer analysis of what types of efforts are working well vs. not so well. You will also be able to identify and confirm seasonal cycles – assuming there are some. It would be unfortunate not to have access to that level of analysis, so make sure you don’t forget to do this.

Tomorrow, we start looking at how your activity timeline, overlaid with social media monitoring and other media measurement tools will help you connect the dots between activities and outcomes, and eventually tie financial return to individual investment in specific activities (and types of activities). Simple right? In theory yes. But it takes work and some tech savvy (remember the category tags and information packets?). I told you this would be a little bit more involved than plugging numbers into an ROI calculator, didn’t I.

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Either commit or stay home.

I realized a few days ago that every business problem/solution has a cycling analogy. For a guy who rides the line between the business world and the cycling world on a daily basis, that’s the sort of thing that can come in pretty handy. (And since the Tour De France is on right now, the whole concept is very a propos.)

If at first you don’t follow the whole cycling thing, hang on for a few paragraphs. There’s a point to this and it actually has nothing to do with the world of riding bikes.

Okay, so about bout a year ago, I finally snatched a little cycling goal that had been nagging at me for a while: After months of flirting with 50mph (48.5, 49, 49.5, 48, 49.5, 49, etc.), I finally hit that magic 50mph mark coming down Paris Mountain. (Paris Mountain is a popular little mountain near Greenville, SC with steep roads and plenty of treacherous switchbacks that keeps cyclists entertained but makes it hard to actually hit high speeds without launching off the side of the mountain like Evel Knievel.)

Anyway, as it turns out, to hit 50mph on that steep and twisty little stretch of road, you kind of have to commit. Especially if you only weight 165 odd pounds: My bike and I aren’t heavy enough to let gravity and momentum do the work. You have to tuck in, pedal fast, and carve your way in and out of each turn with razor-like precision. You have to be fully committed to this, or it won’t happen.

You have to make sure you don’t eat dirt by doing something stupid, like taking your eyes off the road for a second, or glancing down at your watch, or hitting a pothole. Those things would all be bad.

You have to be focused. Relaxed. Confident. You have to be in the moment, not 90%, not 98%, not even 99.9%, but 100%.

So anyway, about a year ago, on that fateful day when I finally broke 50 miles per hour, something happened: Moments before taking the plunge down the final and steepest section of the mountain for my personal land speed record, I almost bit it. Hard. I hit my brakes a little too late and a little too hard going into a tricky turn. I got distracted: I was too busy adjusting my sunglasses to truly commit to the turn and got myself into trouble. At 40mph, I squeezed my front brake a bit too hard, and felt my rear wheel come off the ground. I started to go over the handlebars.

In cycling terms, this is the start of what is called an endo. (endo: end over.)

The endo is part one of what some folks affectionately call a “superman.”

A Superman is simply a rider flying through the air head first… like Superman. Minus the cape and the unbreakable bones.

The part that usually follows a Superman is the landing. The crash landing. This is the part you want to avoid at all cost. This is the part that hurts a lot. It usually comes with serious injuries, like broken bones and road rash. If you’re lucky.

Making my rear wheel go airborne into a narrow 180 degree switchback turn at 40mph on an 16lb bicycle with 23mm wide tires, that is what you call an “oh shit” moment. Yes it is.

Fortunately, I haven’t used up my nine lives yet: I made a smooth and miraculous recovery. I rode my front wheel like a circus monkey long enough to shift my weight back, managed to keep my bike steady, got my rear wheel smoothly back on the pavement, and made the turn without even crossing over the double yellow line.

I committed to the recovery. I didn’t allow myself to think of anything else. I threw every bit of skill, balance, dexterity, calmness and agility into not crashing, and it worked. Had I made the error to dwell on the thought of a crash, had I wasted even 0.1% of my brain power on bracing myself for impact, I probably would have crashed.

Several minutes later during my acceleration down the steep portion of the mountain, had I wasted any brain power thinking about anything but hitting 50mph, I wouldn’t have broken 49.5mph.

Why am I telling you all of this? (Other than wanting to share my joy of being alive with everyone?) Because although cycling is fairly irrelevant to the topics covered in this blog, the concept of committing to something, of giving something your all is very relevant.

So my little bit of advice for this fine Monday is this: Commit. Your project. Your job. Your relationship. Your race. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well… and if it’s worth doing well, it’s worth doing exceptionally well.

Yeah, it might hurt and it might require a certain measure of sacrifice. Time. Pride. Fun. Sweat. Sleep. But that’s a choice you make.

The choice is to either commit, or… not. And I don’t mean just commit yourself to the effort. I also mean commit 100% to the outcome: If you give yourself the option to fail, if you give yourself odds of succeeding, you are already finding excuses or reasons to fail. Don’t. Commit to the only possible outcome: Success. If you don’t, you open up the door to alternatives, and they are never good.

If you aren’t willing and ready to commit, you might as well save yourself and your client the trouble and… stay home. Be honest with yourself and those around you. If your heart isn’t really in it, if you aren’t willing to hit the ball or turn the cranks like the pro you are, then maybe you ought to sit this one out.

Committing to something isn’t just about hard work, but also smarts, guts, and willpower. It’s about throwing yourself into the game body, mind, sould and all. Even if it’s for two hours a day, or five minutes every hour, that’s what it takes to do something exceptionally well. If you aren’t motivated to give it your all, then do yourself a favor and work on something else. Seriously. Turn it down. Delegate. Wait until your head gets clear and you can put your heart into it.

If you can’t turn it down, if your boss or client forces you to work on something you would rather not spend any time on, then take a breather. Go clear your head. Find that one thing in the project or task that you know you can throw yourself at wholeheartedly, and focus on that.

Don’t ever, ever, ever do anything half-assed. Ever.

Unless you like looking back on a completed project or campaign or achievement and wishing you had given it a little bit more effort. A little bit more heart. A little bit more juice.

Commitment is fun and painful and hard all at the same time… And that’s the way it should be.

Nothing worthwhile is ever easy to come by.

So make every word count. Every stroke of the mouse. Every release of the shutter. Every turn of the crank. Every interaction with a customer. Every design feature. Every promotional coupon. Every TV spot. Every meeting. Every element of your web page design. Every media purchase. Every tweet. Every conversation or handshake with a customer. Every minute. Every second. Every breath.

It all adds up in the end.

It all pays off.

As long as you give it your all.

Just get it done.

Have a great Monday, everyone. ;)

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