Let’s get constructive about the future of Social Media Certifications

Judging by the close to 200 pages of comments left by readers on my last post, I guess we’ve hit on a pretty hot topic this week: That of “social media certifications.” (Who knew?)

So okay, let’s talk about it.

1. Do we even need Social Media certification?

To be completely honest, I hadn’t really given the subject much thought until a few days ago. To me, it seemed far too early in the game, not just from an academic standpoint, but from a practical one: Even if we happened to need certifications or accreditation for social media practitioners, there are no standards as of yet. No agreed-upon best practices for every business function and specialty that touches Social Media. There are no PhDs in the subject. No twenty-year veterans to teach anyone the ropes. In other words, there exists today no mechanism through which a social media “practitioner” might find himself or herself truly “certified” by anyone in any truly legitimate fashion, like, say, a PR professional, attorney, nurse, or even a hairdresser are able to be certified.

Part of the problem at hand can be summed up in the following two questions:

A. A “social media certification” would certify you in what, exactly? Your ability to create a Facebook fan page? Basic blogging techniques? Twitter usage? Social media measurement? Optimizing a LinkedIn profile? I could go on and on. So the question again: Certified in what, exactly? Some kind of general “Social Media expertise?” What does that even mean? (We’ll get back to that in a bit.)

B. Who would offer these certifications/accreditation and how? Accredited universities? Business schools? Professional organizations? Guilds? Private certifying companies? State boards? Software vendors? Consulting firms? Anybody with the ability to sell an online webinar? And who would develop and teach these courses? Academics with no practical social media experience? Internet consultants? Superstar bloggers? Who decides?

Check out this video and we’ll get the conversation started afterward:

If the video doesn’t play or open for you, go here.

2. A training certificate and a certification are not the same thing.

So, first of all, it’s important to understand the distinction between a Social Media certification and Social Media training. While training is… well, just training, a certification tends to be more structured. Standards have to be applied. Testing administered. Certification is a little more complex than just sitting through training. More often than not, certification is synonymous with accreditation.

To keep things simple, I hopped over to wikipedia and find this about the word accreditation:

Accreditation is a process in which certification of competency, authority, or credibility is presented.

Organizations that issue credentials or certify third parties against official standards are themselves formally accredited by accreditation bodies (such as UKAS); hence they are sometimes known as “accredited certification bodies”.^[2] The accreditation process ensures that their certification practices are acceptable, typically meaning that they are competent to test and certify third parties, behave ethically, and employ suitable quality assurance.

One example of accreditation is the accreditation of testing laboratories and certification specialists that are permitted to issue official certificates of compliance with established standards, such as physical, chemical, forensic, quality, and security standards.^[3]

The whole purpose of certifications and accreditations isn’t for social media practitioners to learn how to be social media experts. (You aren’t going to learn that by sitting in a class.) Rather, accreditation/certification is a process by which you are tested against specific industry standard and either proven capable/qualified or not. It’s a weeding out process.

And kids, that process has nothing to do with self affirmation. What it has to do with is separating professionals (with experience that can be demonstrated through an accreditation process) from people with no experience, no skills, and lacking the necessary qualifications to take on a social media management job, no matter how many fans they have on Facebook.

In other words, if certification/accreditation truly is needed in the social media world, its purpose is solely to help companies with very little understanding of the space get some notion of whether a consultant or job applicant has a particular skill level required for the job.

If you want to distill this down to its simplest form, think of this simply as third-party testing: Having a reputable certifying body vouch for the fact that you actually know how to do something. Period. That’s it.

Note my emphasis on the word “reputable” because this is an important point we will revisit.

Note: A certification/accreditation is not a substitute for real experience, demonstrable results or professional references. But it can help validate a candidate’s skill-set, which isn’t all bad. And it can also help ensure that an individual has sat through x hours of best practices training and demonstrated an ability to apply their training to the experience they’ve already acquired in the real world.

3. Social Media Generalist Certifications vs. Professional Certifications: Rebooting the model.

Where things get a little iffy is with the structure of a social media certification. What exactly should it look like?

Currently, many “certifications” tend to look at the social media “profession” as a form of general mass of quasi-expertise ranging from how to manage a blog, start a facebook fan page and customize a twitter account to how to measure ROI and manage online communities. (Pretty big and dangerously amorphous range, from my perspective.)

What seems more logical is a slightly more operational approach to both social media training and social media certifications/accreditation: Instead of looking at Social Media as some sort of broad ranging field of study with an endless list of applications, look at Social Media as a skill-set that applies differently to each function within a business. In other words, give social media training and certs specific professional focus.

Consider that a Public Relations professional and a Customer Service professional will probably use social media (professionally) in radically different ways:

While the PR professional will probably want to be trained in online reputation management, digital brand management, online monitoring, digital crisis management and some assortment of publishing best practices, their customer service counterpart will want to be trained in online keyword monitoring, digital customer relationship management, crisis management and some light community management. Will there be some overlap? Sure. But what we are looking at here are very distinctive tracks, leading to very distinctive certifications. In other words, a social media certification for a PR professional shouldn’t look at all like a social media certification for a customer service professional, or an IT professional, or a business development professional.

The specific nature of the jobs dealing with social media requires both specific training, and specific certification/accreditation – both in specifically relevant sets of social media competencies.

No more over-arching cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all social media certifications, please. If we’re going to get serious about this (and we should), let’s get serious about it.

4. The difference between established, reputable certifying bodies and… well… the other kind.

Okay, so in light of the fact that a certification process could now be geared towards specific types of roles as opposed to some vague “social media specialist” notion, let’s look at certifying bodies that might (at some point) be able to offer these types of certification for professionals. Is it possible that perhaps an organization like PRSA might be better equipped to certify Public Relations professionals in something like digital public relations management, maybe? As opposed to, say, a newly assembled social media certifying body trying to adapt its general certification to the PR profession? Something to think about.

Something else to think about is the fact that a certification/accreditation from a reputable organization or institution is pretty crucial here. Organizations like PRSA, AMA, and others of their caliber can’t afford to do this poorly. They HAVE to take it seriously in order not to tarnish their reputations. In sharp contrast, the social media space is filled with opportunistic individuals who would have nothing to lose and a lot of potential cash to gain. All you need to start certifying unsuspecting marks is a website and a Paypal account. Just create a social media certifying body out of thin air, create a series of webinars about whatever you want, charge a registration fee, and you’re in business. These types of operations are rampant in the US already.

So the point I am trying to make is that it would be great if the AMA, PRSA and other established and respectable professional organizations that already offer certifications for their members started moving in this direction – if only to ensure a pattern of legitimacy and accountability in the social media certification/accreditation process.

We could go on and on and on with this, but this is a good place to pause and get some feedback from you guys. The comment section is officially open. Agree? Disagree? Somewhere in the middle? Let’s hear it.

Cheers.

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The importance of speaking your clients’ language.

Somewhere in the subtext of yesterday’s post about what R.O.I. is and isn’t lives the realization that business managers and marketing people speak different languages. A few of you touched on this in your comments, so great job zeroing-in on the fact that each side has its own unique vocabulary, its own nomenclature, it’s own lingo. Most of the time, that’s all fine and good, but when the two come together to discuss business objectives (and ROI), miscommunication ensues. One side says one thing and the other hears something else altogether. Before you know it, execution misses the mark, expectations from both sides are crushed, and everyone is shaking their heads wondering what happened.

“Did you hear them say the wanted X?”

“Yeah, I did! That’s what they said they wanted.”

Except what the agency folks thought they heard wasn’t X at all.

So now, a little bit of organizational psychobabble that might actually come in handy, for once:

The first step in eliminating a dysfunction is to recognize that there is dysfunction. (Situational Awareness)

The second step in eliminating dysfunction is to understand the dysfunction. (Discovery and Analysis)

The third step in eliminating dysfunction is to accept the nature of the dysfunction. (Reckoning and Confirmation)

The fourth step in eliminating dysfunction is to address the dysfunction. (Solution and Execution)

Start with step one and work your way up to step four. Once you get there, here’s what you need to do:

If you’re on the agency/service provider side of the fence, start hanging out with business people. (Yes, the ones wearing the suits and ties. The ones who speak in acronyms and talk about revenue, ROI, payroll, net new customers, disti channels and stuff you can’t wrap your mind around.) Pick their brains. Ask them to explain what matters to them the most. What they get goaled on. How they measure success in their organizations. Ask them to clarify what they are talking about, even if that means explaining it all to you like you are a five-year-old.You need to learn this stuff: The lingo, the culture, the priorities, the aspirations, etc. Learn their business, their culture and their lingo.

If you’re on the business/client side, start mentoring your agency reps and marketing folks. Immerse them into your company culture. Show them how your business makes money. Show them how you are structured and why. Teach them your own unique vernacular. Show them what data you capture and what you do with it. Frame for them what matters most to you as a business leader. Help them see your business from your point of view. Teach them how you think. Get them on the same wavelength as you.

If you can do this, if you follow these simple suggestions, I promise you that your agency-client relationship will radically improve in a matter of weeks. Six months from now, you will be functioning like a well-oiled machine.

Wouldn’t that be swell?

Could it be as simple as setting up a mentoring program between client and agency or business and marketing folks? Is that all it would take for this communication and cultural rift to go bye-bye?

You bet.

Have a great Thursday, everyone. (And um… we’re back on R.O.I. tomorrow. Andrew Mueller found a Social Media R.O.I. calculator I need to go over with you.)

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ROI vs. “Impact on X” – Understanding what Social Media ROI is and isn’t.

Don’t want to read the post? Watch the video. (It’s faster.) Note: That last little part got cut a little short, but you’ll get the point.

Okay, so it became obvious to me last week that the term R.O.I. has been seriously corrupted in Marketing and Social Media circles lately, and it might not hurt to bring some clarity to the Social Media R.O.I. discussion again.

(I swear I was going to talk about other things this week, but I keep getting pulled back in.) 😀

First things first: You have to understand the difference between Impact and Return On Investment.

Impact can be anything: Increased traffic on a website, more visitors to your store, increased participation on your blog, more mind share, being discovered by people who may become customers, a rise in positive social mention, and even increased sales. There are hundreds if not thousands of potential incidences of impact when it comes to your Social Media activities, and every single one can be easily measured using a variety of tools – from Google Analytics to Radian 6. As a matter of fact, every possible kind of impact you deem relevant should be measured and taken into account when it comes to gauging the effectiveness of a Social Media program. In this, we are all in agreement.

Impact can be measured in eyeballs. Impact can be measured in comments on a blog post. Impact may be measured in conversations. Impact can be measured in responses to a BOGO offer or discount offer. Impact can even be measured in smiles.  When it comes to impact metrics, the sky is the limit and every business has its own mapping to figure out and play with.

But then you have ROI, which is a completely different animal: ROI is a very specific subset of Impact in that it relates specifically to the business’ bottom-line. In other words, Return on Investment cannot be measured in eyeballs, unique visitors, conversations, mentions, impressions or smiles. ROI can only be measured in currency. (Think of ROI as the subset of impact that specifically addresses revenue and nothing else.)

There is no “Return on Impact”.

There is no “Return on awesomeness.”

For the sake of this discussion, there is no “Return on conversations” either.

These things are cool, they’re fun to tweet about, but they don’t exist in the world of revenue, payroll and pragmatic business decisions. “Return on investment” is simply that: A business commits a certain dollar amount to a program and expects to see that program produce just like any other investment. If it doesn’t, it gets cut and a program that will produce better R.O.I. will take its place faster than you can say “huh?”. It’s that simple.

Some businesses are okay with cost-neutral investments: If they put in $100K and get $100K back as a direct result, you’re fine. The program has paid for itself, and the collateral impact was worth it. (More visibility, more conversation, more word-of-mouth, etc.) But many don’t. When I was learning FRY from Microsoft, their R.O.I. expectations for any program they funded in their distribution channel was 10:1. In other words, for each dollar Microsoft invested, they expected to see $10 back.

Trust me: In that kind of environment, you learn how to define and calculate ROI pretty quickly. And while eyeballs, unique visitors and social mention are nice, they don’t fall into the realm of ROI. Nice try, but no dice.

All of this to say that no business will invest in a program that offers a negative return on investment. Conversations, transparency and positive WOM may be the currency of choice for many of us, but unless you can show that they generate dollars, you are not demonstrating ROI. You are only demonstrating impact, and that is not enough.

What everyone needs to start realizing right now is that the business world is not going to change in just a few months just because a few thousand of us evangelize the immense potential of the social web. Business managers are not going to change anything they are doing because you have introduced them to transparency or dialogue or the power of communities. PR directors are not going to suddenly going to stop crafting press releases or relinquish control of the “messaging” they get paid to create. CEOs aren’t going to drop what they are doing and start blogging because you tell them to. CMOs aren’t going to fire their copywriters and replace them with community managers. Customer Service managers are not going to cancel their call center contracts with India and the Philipines and hire US-based Tweeps to replace them. None of these things are going to happen UNTIL you show business owners that Social Media can actually improve their bottom-line, their balance sheet, their P&L, and how.

This starts with a basic understanding of what ROI is and isn’t: If you don’t understand what your client or boss is asking for when s/he brings up ROI, you cannot help them. If they repeatedly ask you for ROI and you keep giving them impact on X instead, how disconnected are you? Think about that.

If you can’t give them what they want, if they don’t get what they keep asking you for, before you know it, they will give up on your Social Media program. And all because you didn’t know how to connect the dots between activity, impact, and ROI.

Likewise, if you are a business manager and your resident Social Media consultant/expert doesn’t understand the difference between impact on X and ROI, it’s probaly time for a new expert.

One last thing:

Anyone who tells you that Social Media ROI cannot be calculated, that the tools don’t exist yet, or that Social Media is about conversations and not ROI is putting up a smoke screen. What they should be saying is “I don’t know how to do that yet,” but it’s a lot easier to perpetuate the myth that Social Media ROI cannot be calculated – for obvious reasons. It’s a terribly self serving and counterproductive thing to do, and “professionals” in the Social Media world need to stop hiding behind that argument before business leaders looking for real traction give up on Social Media altogether. At some point, all that hot air has to actually turn into something real.

The irony in all this is that the ROI calculation process is the same regardless of the medium: Old Media, New Media, Print media, Digital media – The medium doesn’t matter. ROI is ROI. Anyone who talks about Social Media ROI as being somehow radically different from other types of ROI is demonstrating a profound lack of understanding of ROI as a whole. Red flag. BIG red flag. Learn to spot it.

I hope this helped reframe the ROI vs. impact conversation a bit. If so, do me a big favor and pass this on to someone who will get some value out of it. The faster we help people use the right terminology when talking about this stuff (and dispel myths about ROI measurement), the more likely we are to see broad Social Media adoption for business actually happen (and be done well).

Thanks for hanging out with me, and have a great day. 🙂

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Real Social Media R.O.I. – Part 4: FRY Metrics

Before I wrap this Social Media ROI discussion together for you with a neat little bow, I have to give credit where credit is due: I didn’t come up with this stuff all on my own. I adapted this simple methodology over time to meet the needs of clients who needed real, actionable, simple metrics to determine whether or not their marketing activities were hitting the mark or not.

The real credit belongs to Microsoft for introducing me to these concepts back when I was working in the Distribution Channel. (Big shout-out to @robmoyer and Lisa Williams, by the way, without whom I would have never learned this stuff.)

Originally, F.R.Y. (Frequency/Reach/Yield) wasn’t meant to be applied to Social Media (or any media, for that matter). But as it turns out, it adapts super well to just about anything, so I kind of lucked out by being exposed to it in the first place. Pretty handy stuff, really, when you grasp just how portable it is.

Anyway, you guys have been very patient, so I won’t drag this out any longer. Here is the wrap-up of this week’s R.O.I. discussion with a basic overview of F.R.Y. (You’re going to love how easy this is):

So let’s recap:

Frequency Increasing sales revenue by shortening the interval between transactions.
Reach (breadth) Increasing sales revenue by increasing net new customer count.
Reach (Depth) Increasing sales revenue by helping customers buy deeper into the product line.
Yield Increasing sales revenue by driving customers to want to increase their average per transaction spending.

Getting comfortable with this effectively kills the argument that SM has no real ROI dead. As in: “Yeah? Well how about a mouthful of F.R.Y. there, Mr. social media skeptic?”

Bullet-in-the-head dead.

As in let’s move on and get back to work – at least those of us who know what we are doing.

Does any of this change the way you should engage with your customers? Not one bit. Does any of this make your engagement strategy any less honest, transparent or authentic? Absolutely not. All we are talking about here is giving skeptical (or even full-bore Social Media-agnostic) executives a real end-game ROI they can understand and get behind so you can get the okay to launch a kickass social media practice and blow everyone’s socks off. That’s it.

Oh… and make you accountable for results, which ought to weed out about 99% of so-called “social media experts” whose expertise in using Social Media is about on par with their expertise in eating sushi. (And just as valuable to their unfortunate clients.)

Aside from that last comment, the beauty of F.R.Y. is that it is simple, specific and highly adaptable. Social Media, PR, Advertising, Product releases, incentives campaigns… It plugs into everything. F.R.Y. is the ultimate app. for R.O.I. measurement. Once you understand how it works, you can apply it to just about anything.

One final note:

Do you know what’s really, really cool about this? You didn’t have to spend $400 to attend a Social Media e-seminar. You didn’t have to send a P.O. Box 3 payments of $39.99 plus S&H for a super top secret DVD filled with “Social Media Secrets the pros don’t want you to know”. You didn’t have to fly some overhyped blogger to your HQ to have them regurgitate some tired Social Media For Dummies presentation for a mere $15K per day. This stuff is WAY too basic to warrant that, and unlike many “consultants” jumping into Social Media these days, I wouldn’t feel right taking your money for sharing simple business advice without actually helping you implement it.

Yet, far too many companies get suckered into paying “social media gurus” substantial bank to essentially do little more than flap their mouths and state the obvious without ever delivering any actionable advice. Don’t become one of them. If all you want is a great motivational speaker, buy a set of Tony Robbins CDs. He’s good and you’ll get your money’s worth. But if you want to help your business – and I mean REALLY help your business – make sure you don’t fall into the Social Media “expert” trap: 99% of them are basically just motivational speakers with a Social Media theme. Find someone who knows how to a) measure real ROI and b) tie those metrics to engagement programs. Anything less than that is a waste of your time.

Thanks for hanging out this week. As always, feel free to comment or reach out to me. Have a great Memorial Day weekend. 🙂

Inquiries:
Tel – 864.630.7398
Inquiries@thebrandbuildermarketing.com
Twitter – @thebrandbuilder

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Account Execs: A few pointers

Part 1.0: Selling isn’t ideal, but it is necessary sometimes.

I need to address the subject of value today. More specifically, I need to address the role that value plays in presentations made by an agency to a client.

Now… I know, I know… I’m a pull (demand) guy, not a push (sales) guy, so I understand your dismay at finding a post about “selling” on this blog, but this post is way overdue. As much as I hate to admit it, some things in the B2B world need selling. Like, for example, really good ideas.

If you are an ad agency (big or small), it doesn’t really matter how smart you think your strategy is. It doesn’t matter if you have the coolest ad concept in the world. It doesn’t matter if your superpowers have created the ultimate idea. No, none of that matters…… unless you can sell it to the client.

Sometimes, the idea just sucks. (Let’s face it, not everyone brings their A-game to the table on a daily basis.) But when the idea is solid, it’s incredibly frustrating for creatives and strategic thinkers alike to bring to the table their ultimate plan for world domination only to watch it be ignored, misunderstood or trivialized in some way.

No, let’s just be honest, it sucks.

Now… Let’s be pragmatic for a sec. Did the idea get snubbed because it wasn’t as good as you thought it was? Maybe… But if you’re reading this blog, let’s assume that you rock and that your idea is indeed the shiz and the nit. So what happened? Why didn’t the client jump up and down at the thought of the success and ass-kickery it would shower upon them?

Because you didn’t sell it, that’s why. You expected it to be so good that it would just sell itself, and you were dead wrong. (Hint: If your clients all knew a good idea when it hit them, they probably wouldn’t need you.)

Truth: A great idea + your enthusiasm aren’t usually enough. The people sitting in those chairs across the conference table don’t necessarily have your marketing or design savvy. They may not even understand their own customers’s psychology and motivations the way you do.  More importantly, they probably can’t connect the dots between the key elements of your presentation and their many layers of positive outcomes. Not really.

Here’s the thing: You’re not giving any of this away. You’re selling it.

How do you know this? Because your clients are paying for it. Whether it is in the form of a check for your services or an investment on their part, it’s going to cost them. While you are standing there “presenting,” they are thinking about ROI. They’re thinking “do I really need to do this?” “Is there something else I could spend this money on?” “Should I spend this money at all?”

That’s how your client’s mind works. No matter how “into” your relationship they may have seemed yesterday, no matter how much you think they normally “get” what you have to offer… come pitch day, come “this is going to cost how much” day, you’re swimming against the current again.

Every single time.

If you don’t realize that every presentation is a sales pitch from start to finish, you have gravely misjudged the situation. So don’t assume that you already have your client’s buy-in when you walk into your presentation. Instead, make damn sure the client knows whatever it is that you are going to do for them is worth every red cent – and then some.

Part 1.1: The Pitch

Your first mistake is probably to broadside your client with an “unveiling” of what you’ve been working on. Classic. You’ve just asked them to completely switch gears at a moment’s notice. No matter how good of an intro you’ve put together, they’re automatically going to be disconnected from it.

See, the many crossroads that have led you down the road to your idea, plan or concept are completely and utterly foreign to them. You’ve connected the dots for yourself over time. Even you, as smart as you are didn’t put this whole thing together in ten minutes… Yet you expect them to be able to do just that. Though possible, it’s kind of unlikely. Remember that they aren’t looking at your work the way their customers will. They aren’t able to. That’s why they came to you in the first place.

To overcome “unveiling shock syndrome”, you have to involve key individuals within your clients’ organization in the process of connecting the dots long before you deliver your presentation. You have to help them help you come up with goals, identify obstacles, and come up with creative ways to get around them. While the cooperative environment you’re creating will help you a) narrow-down the best strategy possible and b) gain more insight into your client’s world, your main objective in terms of selling your solution is to prep them for the big day. By the time your presentation comes around, they will have helped their peers get ready for it, and they’ll be your champions/ambassadors inside their own organization.

Seriously. Let me say this again: You can’t just throw the whole thing at your clients all at once. They’ll go into shock. They just won’t be able to relate. The more brilliant and original your idea is, the harder it will be for them to digest it in one sitting.

This is the kind of thing that makes clients shy away from great, original ideas and adopt a more boring, less risky, and ultimately ineffective strategic position.

The proverbial shooting one’ own foot most often stems from this simple and common miscalculation. Don’t fall into that trap.

Okay, that was part 1, in a nutshell.

Part 2 is all about building value… because guess what: If you don’t build value before you tell them how much it’s going to cost, you’re done. Dead in the water. Kaput. Finito.

Part 2.0: Building Value – The difference between features and benefits

People know value. That’s what they’re after. That’s what justifies the investment. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on the client side of a presentation which completely failed to build value… to generate excitement… to touch core motivators with the decision-makers.

The plans, the strategies, the ideas were all great. Some of them were often fantastic. But you have to present them in such a way that everyone in the room relates to how great they are. You have to make people understand where they come from, how they will solve their problem(s) and what they will do for them. You have to make them want them. Crave them. You have to make people drool – not at the ideas themselves, but at the benefits they will shower upon them and their business.

Sales are emotional, boys and girls. You have to reach into every single chest in that room and make a connection with the beating hearts within. Some in your audience love revenue. Others love crushing the competition. Some just want to see you come up with something cool and inventive. Others don’t care as long as there’s no chance that your plan will backfire. You have to consider all of these things – expectations, motivations, fears (especially fears) – and then you have to find in your work the elements that will best address them.

What you have to come to terms with right now, right this second, is that selling isn’t about the product or the idea. You can sell a terrible idea. People do it every day. (Don’t get me started. It’s a pandemic.)

Selling isn’t about dissecting and explaining what you have to offer. It isn’t even about how cool or original something is. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be rational at all. (Think benefits, not features.) Selling is about making people see, feel, taste and relate to value in a way that makes sense to them. It’s about conveying the promise that your idea will achieve not only results, but the results that matter to your client. It’s that simple. (Well, easier said than done, but whatever.)

So before you get too far into your tried, true but haphazard process, take a few steps back from your plan, squint at it until you can barely see its edges, and focus on the effects it has on your client’s world. Mostly, focus on the results. That’s really what you’re selling in there: results.

Part 2.1: The client doesn’t care about your dancing chimps. Seriously. That isn’t what you are selling.

Look at it this way: People don’t buy cars. Cars are machines with axles and engine parts and undercarriages. What people buy are those elements of the car that will enrich their lives. They buy comfort, style, power, speed, safety, status, image, freedom. They buy the color red. This sale is no different.

It’s an art, this sales thing. It really is. So all of you frustrated geniuses out there, take my advice: Talk to sales professionals. Pick their brains. Learn their trade. Not the sleazy ones, mind you. Talk to the ones you trust. The ones who sell with confidence and insight, not clever little sales tricks. Watch people you consider great public speakers. Study folks in your circle(s) whom people listen to and seek advice from. Learn to sell and close, Jedi style. You’ll be doing yourselves, your clients and even the world a huge favor.

Why? Because the more good ideas you sell, the less bad ideas will make the cut this year. And next year. And the year after that.

And between you and me, they ought to give out medals for that. (And I don’t mean industry awards. I mean medals.)

😉

PS: Wanna read more on the topic? Check out Kevin Hoffberg’s piece “The First Rule of Selling“. His 11 lessons are as quick to flip through as they are dead-on.

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Saying “no” to corporate fossilization

Via OrangeYeti, from AdPulp, here is a little bit of an interview given by Maurice Levy (Publicis Groupe) to Scott Donaton (of Ad Age). If you’ve ever worked for a company that was so set in its ways that it had grown stale, you’ll understand what Levy is talking about:

“I have never stabilized an organization. Crystallizing an organization is freezing the energy. In chemistry, instability is very good because it creates some combinations you don’t expect.”

“Without change, there is fossilization,and that’s the worst thing that can happen.”

“Ideas,are so fragile, so tenuous, that managers must destroy layers that can obscure or damage them. If you have an organization that is too administrative, you are just killing the ideas. As we say in France, when you ask a committee to draw a horse, you get a camel.”

Read the full interview here.

So there you have it: As a business leader, look for flux. Look for tangents. Look for the unexpected. Recruit adventurously. Give your people the freedom and flexibility to contribute in the most personal, passionate of ways. Eliminate silos and procedures when it comes to the sharing of ideas. When it comes to dialogue. When it comes to cooperation. Decentralize “meetings”. Deconstruct the project ideation process. Empower your people to set the stage for extraordinary new products, business improvements, and creative work.

If you can’t trust your people enough to empower them, to literally give them the keys to the place, then you aren’t hiring the right people. Your job as a leader isn’t always to “lead”. Most of the time, because you aren’t there to bark orders or stand over everyone’s shoulder, it is simply to create an environment, an ecosystem, that allows your team, your army, to do the best possible work they can. It is to create a culture that makes them want to be a part of something greater than the sum of their job description. That makes them proud to be, even.

Ideas are fragile.

Without change, organizations die.

These are the two little mantras you should keep chanting every time you pick up the phone, or a magazine, or your TV remote. They should be in the back of your mind every time you shake someone’s hand or invite them to have a seat.

Embrace instability. Welcome change. Engage uncertainty. Welcome the unknown and love it for all of its infinite number of possibilities.

And they truly are infinite.

Chew on that. Have a great Friday. 😉

Technorati Tags: Maurice Levy, Publicis, AdAge, AdPulp, ideas, leadership, authenticity, branding

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Lessons in Leadership from HBO’s “Generation Kill”

I have to admit it, my latest guilty pleasure is watching HBO’s “Generation Kill” (the story of the 1st Marine Recon Batallion in the first few weeks of the 2003 invasion of Iraq) on Sunday nights. The 7-part miniseries is currently on episode 3, and so far so good. Think “The Wire” meets “3 Kings” with a “Band of Brothers” vibe. 

In terms of pure entertainment, it’s mostly a guy thing I guess, so it may miss the mark with broad audiences. But in terms of painting a pretty complex web of interactions between layers of hierarchy, leadership styles and gradients of professionalism, the show is pure gold. MBA students should be required to watch the show just to see what great leadership and bad leadership look like, and perhaps more importantly how they can work together hand in hand within a single, complex, diverse organization. Sure, the vernacular is more akin to military units and sports teams than the board room, but the principles of applied leadership are exactly the same.

Management Lessons from Generation Kill so far:

1. As a leader, being competent matters.
2. As a leader, being competent doesn’t always matter.
3. Leaders who cultivate cults of personality don’t have to explain themselves as much.
4. Expectations don’t have to be realistic. Instead, they should always be just shy of impossibly high and unwavering. (Shatter your people’s comfort zone early and consistently.)
5. Clarity of purpose is key.
6. Clarity of execution is key.
7. Use a map or a diagram. Point at something and tell your team where they are, where you want them to go, how you expect them to get there, how fast, etc..
8. If a process doesn’t exist, create one.
9. If a process needs to be improved, improve it.
10. Excuses have an effective range of exactly zero meters.
11. Train harder and more often than any reasonable person would, then train some more.
12. The mission is the mission. 99% completion = failure. 100% completion = success.
13. Success is the only currency you have when it comes to securing a better place on the food chain.
14. Not everyone in your organization is an A-lister. Too bad. Welcome to the real world. You still need to get the job done. (See #10)
15. Mistakes may happen, but there will be no screwups.
16. Every organization needs a ball buster somewhere towards the top of the hierarchy to keep everyone in line.
17. The grooming standard must be maintained. It is the foundation upon which everything else either clicks like a well oiled .50 cal or falters like a one-eyed, three legged dog.
18. Be the first to get the thing done. People don’t always notice the best, but they always notice the first.
19. Do what the other guys are too afraid to do.
20. Never let the enemy dictate the pace of your movements.
21. Keep the violence of initiative on your side.
22. Understand the rules of engagement.
23. Communicate the rules of engagement to your team in real time.
24. Let whatever you fear the most be the thing that drives you the most.
25. Do not dwell on mistakes. Learn from them quickly and move on.
26. Personal opinions are always irrelevant and unwelcome.
27. Respect for authority doesn’t have to come from the heart, but it has to come anyway.
28. Orders are orders. If they were optional, they would be called something else.
29. Your job description is subject to change at a moment’s notice. Accept this and move on.
30. If you want routine, you are in the wrong job.
31. Following the same road as everyone else is no way to get in the game.
32. How you phrase/present your report matters at least as much as what the report is actually about.
33. Look after your people but never hold their hand.
34. Hold your people to the highest standards.
35. Get the job done. Every time. Faster than anyone else. Be that guy.
36. Know how to sell your successes.
37. Action wins. Hesitation loses.
38. The shortest way between two points is exactly that: The shortest way. (See #18 and #35).
39. The shortest way is rarely the easiest way.
40. The easiest way is almost never the right way.
41. Once failure stops being an option, it effectively cease to exist as a potential outcome.
42. Nothing you do will ever work the way you expected it to. Embrace the elegant predictability of Murphy’s Law and get the job done anyway.
43. Blind ambition and gross incompetence often get you there just as well as the other option.
44. Know your place along the chain of command.
45. Treat others with respect.
46. Do not confuse treating people with respect with being polite.
47. Your environment does not dictate the success of your mission. You do.
48. Nobody cares about why something didn’t get done. They only care that it didn’t get done.
49. If you don’t get it done, you probably don’t belong here.
50. Your job isn’t to be cool or fun or popular. Your job is to kick ass.

And we’re only on the third episode. This is definitely a to be continued post.

 

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Tom Asacker on Clarity

Here’s another reason why Tom Asacker has been one of my favorite bloggers these last few years:

“I’ve never experienced so much noise and so little signal as I do in the present field of marketing. Marketing is a mess. Marketing is broken! Half of marketers are on autopilot creating award-winning, irrelevant media noise, web nonsense and events. The other half is paralyzed – measuring everything to death and covering their collective butts. Clarity: Marketing’s New Task.”

If the truth hurts, well… sorry.

Click here to read his 2-page mini-manifesto.

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Adding some clarity to your brand: A simple exercise.

So… How is your brand doing?

I don’t mean your company. I mean your brand.

Are people talking about you, or are you another name in the crowd? Do you find yourself having to cave to price pressures, or are you comfortably charging fair prices (or even a premium) for your products and services? Are your customers enthusiastic about your brand, or could they care less? Is anyone wearing your T-shirt… or your competitor’s? Are people proud to tell their peers that they do business with you, or are you not important enough for them to really waste their breaths?

Good questions all. If the first portion of each of these questions had you smiling and nodding in the affirmative, good! You’re on the right track. If not, perhaps it’s time for a little annual brand checkup.

No worries, you don’t need to go see a brand practitioner quite yet. A little private self-exam is all that’s required at this point. Here is an easy place to start:

Understand who you are, what you do… and clarify it.

Brands aren’t just logos and taglines. Brands, at their very core, have a very specific identity. Even if it isn’t easy to attach words or adjectives to a brand, everyone who comes in contact with a strong brand should have an immediate understanding of what that brand’s identity is.

If not, somebody is dropping the proverbial ball.

Here’s a little warm-up exercise for ya – Quick: Define McDonald’s. Define BMW. Define Calvin Klein. Define Nike. Define Ben & Jerry’s. Define the Wall Street Journal. Define AT&T.

In fifteen words or less.

Note: It’s okay to be subjective and biased, but be ready to back up your claim if someone calls you on it.

Examples: Cervelo makes the fastest time trial bicycles in the world. Garmin makes the most dependable personal GPS systems on the market. Volvo makes the safest production cars in the galaxy.

Okay. Your turn. McDonald’s. BMW. Etc.

One of the most grossly overlooked elements in most brand evaluation initiatives is the part that deals with clarity: The questions you want to ask here are “do people (inside the company and outside of it) understand the brand? Do they understand its identity? More importantly, can they define it?”

Do they understand the brand’s place in not only the world, but their world?

(In other words, are your branding efforts actually sticking, or are they floating away in the breeze?)

And by the way, we aren’t talking about clarity in advertising.

Try it on yourself. In fifteen words or less, explain who your company is. Define your brand.

Here are some examples:

We’re the hottest design studio in Paris.

We’re the largest manufacturer of spark plugs in the world.

We’re the guys who strength-train the US Olympic team.

Hopefully, your identity isn’t along the lines of…

We’re kind of like H&R Block, but with an orange for a logo.

We’re the electronics store on the corner of Broad Street.

We’re a consulting firm with a full portfolio of business services.

Your identity is more than just what type of work you do. It is specific to YOU.

Your identity isn’t defined by A. It’s defined by THE.

We are THE (fill in the blanks).

If you still have a hard time with the exercise, start with your job: I am the person who does XYZ. Then work your way up to your department or division: We do ABC for our company. NOW define what your company does. Start small, and work your way outward.

Now go ask ten of your employees and co-workers to define your company. Ask ten of your customers or clients to do the same. Ask ten people off the street as well.

For better or for worse, the results of your little experiment might surprise you… which is why it’s worth your time.

Have a great Thursday, everyone. 😉

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