http://www.biztechmagazine.com/article.asp?item_id=660

Every reptilian instinct in my body wanted to find a way to bad mouth the agency’s work. But their creative, positioning and the execution was brilliant. We couldn’t find fault in the agency’s work.

We dug deeper and asked to look at their new CRM – the foundation for the entire product launch and the basis for all of their prospecting efforts. It fueled their direct mail, email newsletters, catalog mailings and sales outreach.

The problem was immediately obvious. The turd in the proverbial punchbowl was data quality. The client had spared no expense building world class creative and but left the task of data hygiene to a group of marketing interns who would rather mop the floors than scrub data.

In the post mortem, we learned the interns received various Excel files containing old data, questionable lists, incomplete lists and exports from a variety of personal contact management applications. Then, with bubble gum and bailing wire, the master list was normalized, checked for obvious data format requirements and imported verbatim into the million dollar CRM.

In hindsight, the client was incredibly candid. No one wanted to own the data hygiene. It wasn’t sexy and it cost a lot of money to do right.  So, in the hopes of prevent future CRM data quality disasters, here are few tips you can use to get the biggest bang from your CRM dollar:

1)    Data quality is not a one-time event. Your data will get dirty and cleaning it is an ongoing set of activities so it helps to design processes that keep data clean. For example, after an email blast, a single individual should be responsible for removing or updating undeliverables. In addition, sales people should also be responsible for keeping data clean. They own the accounts and it is in their best interest to champion the data. Additional quality checks such automation of duplicate record checks also stops problems before they get out of hand.

2)    Duplicates cost you. A single company record should be tied to a set of addresses and contacts. Failure to tie together information about an account to a single company record dilutes the effectiveness of the data – especially in key account selling.

3)    Humans matter. While automation of data clean-up is useful, humans are essential to the process. Computers miss things that are usually obvious to a human such as a division’s relationship to a corporate entity.

4)    Protect your data from good intentions. With CRM, it is far too easy for individuals without an understanding of data hygiene practices to import data from external sources. An equal opportunity automated and a manual review process should always be applied to external data before it is imported.

5)    Find a balance. It is easy to be compulsive about data quality but it is not practical. Your data changes every day, making sure it is always accurate is not financially feasible. That is why it is important to strive for “good enough.”

Good data is the foundation for effective CRM. In B2B it is impossible to build strong marketing unless you know the names of the people most likely to buy from you. Maintaining a clean CRM punchbowl requires more than a summer intern.

NOTE: This article originally appeared on the ZoomInfo blog: http://zoominfoblogger.wordpress.com/tag/ben-bradley/

We’re rolling out a new website. It is in early beta right now.

The idea is simple – we ask IT managers 4 or 5 questions about their experiences with specific technology and we specifically ask them about implementation “gotchas.”

We conceal everyone’s identity and publish those answers and various gotchas in a document. That document is available for for anyone to download free of charge.

Our first document titled Before You Buy Microsoft Dynamics NAV was just released. We expect the people that download this document will be people who are contemplating a first time installation of Dynamics NAV. We have a few more documents in pipeline now on topics such as CRM, accounting software, various incarnations of SharePoint, Professional Services Automation and ERP.

I expect these documents will be updated regularly as new insight becomes available.

You can get a copy of the first draft of the first document here: http://beforeyoubuy.it/before-you-buy-microsoft-dynamics-nav/

I don’t know if this will work but it seems like a good idea. That’s where you come in…

What would you do differently? Is this report useful? Should we dive deeper? Are the questions the right questions?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Please email me ben@benbradley.net with comments. Thanks!

The first question…when and why do client engagements go wrong? We grouped our own experiences and also some of the experiences of a few of our clients into a collective bucket. Overwhelmingly, client engagements go south when expectations are not properly documented. This is true in marketing professional services, this is true in marketing widgets, this is true in a marriage.

Managing expectations is most difficult because often the buyer of professionl services does not have a clear idea of what they want and need.

Expectations are also way too optimistic, too complicated, poorly defined, and are impossible to measure.

So the sales process then becomes a process of definition. Sales engagements need to move clients forward in their own decision-making process.

Some of the take-aways from the Six Sigma consultant were quite simple — the biggest one boils down to people. Better project definition is attained by attention to very simplistic and what may seem like naïve rules that we have stolen from agile development:

Definition: as a starting point, what problem are we solving? Have we designed a project to solve the problem? How quickly can we solve the problem? Take one problem at a time. Start with discrete “blocks” of tightly defined projects framed with expected results, start/finish dates and clear ROI goals.

Ownership: Who owns the project? Is the success of the project tied to their compensation? What is the intended result? Starting with the sales force, where is the most friction? Involve the customer in a recurring evaluation of the accuracy and relevance of the current message, pitch and offer.

Measurement: How will this program make money? How will we measure it? Success equals sales.

Action: Are we making decisions quickly? A decision not to proceed is better than no decision.

Quick turn around: All projects are executed and completed in discrete timeframes not to exceed 4 weeks. Each time intervals represents a small iterative milestones. Large problems are broken into smaller pieces.

Demonstrate and communicate progress: After every project, there is something to see, touch, and evaluate. There is “stuff” that is useful and measureable and working (or not working). This happens during the project, not after the project. This helps keep the project on track, on target, and on budget.

Everything is a test: Test early and test often.

Everything changes. And changes again.

Mike Schaffner writes that…

It is generally accepted that CIOs need to “market” information technology inside a corporation to get other executives and employees to think of it as a strategic area of operations and not just a cost center.

What concerns me is that these marketing efforts may be undermined by efforts to “un-market” information technology. IT seems to be the only area of an organization that I can think of that actively discourages people from using its “product” even if they use it properly. Tobacco, liquor and gambling all have warnings to discourage use, but even they don’t seem to take it as far as IT. I don’t imagine any of us ever thought of IT as a “vice.” Some examples:

• We promote the use of e-mail but then limit the amount of inbox storage or the size of files that can be attached to e-mails.
• We tout the Internet as a data goldmine and then we block people from visiting so-called non-business sites. Sometimes it is human resources pushing this, but sometimes it is IT.
• We provide people with a PC as a tool to make their job easier but lock it down so they can’t add programs or even choose their own wallpaper.
• We warn people of the dire consequences of not using the application properly, threatening them with legal action every time they use the application or start their PC.

As with any change management effort, the behaviors we incent are the behaviors we see. Promoting a new technology inside the company is necessary to achieve utilization and ROI.

When we cut back on what we deliver, such as limiting mailbox size, it comes across as not making good on our promises. People are disappointed and feel misled. What can we do to mitigate the consequences? A few suggestions:

Do we explain why we have to limit the use of technology? People may not like the answer but they may be more accepting of it they understand the reason.

Do we train people in alternative ways to use IT? If, for example, we limit the size of everyone’s inbox, do we train people on how to best utilize the space they have?

Do we provide a responsive support structure? If a site is blocked as “non-business” and it turns out that it shouldn’t be blocked, do we have the support structure in place to unblock it quickly? Or do we handle it as a routine trouble ticket and get around to resolving it in a few days?

After all, part of our marketing should be to promote IT as a service organization.

So Mike Schaffner asks the tough question…how do you think we can avoid the un-marketing of IT?

It is a worthwhile read. This article quotes the Aberdeen Group – one of their latest research reports, called Sales 2.0 — Social Media for Knowledge Management and Sales Collaboration, discusses how social media solutions help improve knowledge management within an company and thus improves sales.

The research included surveys with over 210 companies during the August and September time period. The focus was on how these companies used social media solutions to shorten sales cycles and increase productivity among sales teams.

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.cmocouncil.org/programs/current/close/ejournal/november.html#feature

Change agents are those natural individuals who thrive on making change happen. Selected from within various levels of the organization, based on their individual skills and capabilities, the onus of guiding the organization forward rests on the shoulders of these individuals.

Considering the critical nature of this role, the careful selection and mentoring of change agents is vital to the success or failure of the change process. This article will focus on some practical tips for mentoring change — contributed by managers that have seen all sides of the change process.

1.            Selecting a change agent

Should the change agent be someone with considerable managerial experience i.e. from the top management or should individuals from the lower rungs be trained and equipped to induce change?

Staci H. Zake, program director in Northwestern University’s Master of Science in Communication (MSC) program (www.msc.northwestern.edu), an interdisciplinary one-year professional master’s program designed to address organizational and technological factors shaping managerial decision-making, understands the importance of bottom-up innovation where there is often greater ownership related to the success of the initiative.

“Only managers living with the organization change can truly understand how well innovation is working and where further adjustments need to be made. Forcing change from the top can have negative consequences when senior management doesn’t fully understand the nuances of change or the human impact,” Zake says.

Coley Perry, sales and marketing manager with Naperville, IL-based Solution Partners, a technology staff augmentation firm, and a student in the MSC program, points out leadership characteristics to watch for when evaluating the potential for good change leaders.

“If you are looking for a change agent or how to mentor them you need to look for the following: climbers within the organization, politically savvy individuals within your organization, charismatic individuals, and people who understand and embrace evolutionary (not revolutionary) change,” says Perry.

Change agents from within the organization are likely to posses a deeper understanding of internal issues, politics and challenges. This knowledge places them in a better position to garner support from across the ranks.

J.R. Samples, president of Accountability Partners,  a Chicago-based management consultancy dedicated to assisting technology businesses, urges organizations to identify “undercover” change agents.  “Find the grass root change agents. These are people on your staff working in a full-time role who are savvy enough to find a market opportunity or a method of improving a process to increase productivity and customer satisfaction,” Samples says.

2.            Educate them on the need for change

It is up to the organization to identify potential change agents, understand their capabilities and mentor them to achieve their full potential. Change agents have to influence organizational behavior. They have to challenge existing practices including the accepted culture and introduce changes in the process followed by the organization.

To ensure this, the manager/mentor needs to first provide them with a broad understanding of the need for change. The change agent has to understand the goal of the change process, and its short term and long term impact. The mentor should focus on aligning the change agent with the overall organizational goal before authorizing them to effect change in others.

Dana Sacks, Vice President of Human Resources for PepsiAmericas, emphasizes the importance of defining the desired change rationally.   According to Sacks, this helps put reasonable goals in place and ensures the change agent has the right tools to make the change happen.

“One of the most important things that change agents need to do up front is make sure that the nature and scope of the project is very clear so that expectations can be set,” said Sacks. “Some of the areas to focus on are whether the project involves strategy and design or just assistance with implementation.  Also, determining whether behavioral changes will be important – as changing behavior is very complicated.”

Lyn Bulman, EVP Global Human Resources at Fellowes, agrees with Sacks. She feels it is necessary to understand the critical success factors in order to effectively cultivate a change agent.

“Enthusiasm and support are easy to provide. The challenge is to ensure that the change is effective, by ensuring that the change-agent knows how their work fits with the overall direction of the company. It’s important to start with a vision of what success will look like and how it can be measured. That way, everyone can identify the benefits,” adds Bulman.

3.            Encourage a learning culture

To gain the necessary skills the change agent or the mentee should have a learning attitude. Change is a learning process and no one ever knows it all right from the start. In change, nothing ever goes exactly according to plan so change agents must be able to identify issues as they arise, learn new ways to cope and effectively implement new plans.

The most successful change agents will not only be open to new ideas but they will actively pursue them – within and outside of the organization.  

David Chun, CEO of Equilar, (www.equilar.com), an executive compensation benchmarking organization, believes the mentor should tap the mentees’ inherent desire to learn and succeed. Chun points out that analyzing success factors is not always complicated. It can be as simple as noting whether or not someone is built to be a change agent. According to Chun, in general, people will fall into one of two camps — ones that thrive on change and ones that don’t.  He feels there is no sense investing time and resources in the latter group. “Before you even begin to mentor someone, make sure change is wired in their DNA,” said Chun  

4.            Patiently walk in your target’s shoes

Patience and empathy are essential for implementing a change strategy, and especially important to setting expectations and project scope. 

Kelly Manthey, practice leader for Solstice Consulting’s (www.solstice-consulting.com) change management practice says “mentors shouldn’t expect to inspire a change with one conversation.  It can be a slow process and each individual absorbs things at different rates. Patience and looking for teachable moments are key success factors.”

Managers, continues Manthey should embrace being a change agent.  A manager needs to understand what makes his or her people “tick”.  It’s the manager’s responsibility to understand what drives his people so he can speak to them in a way that influences behavior. By understanding where the target is coming from and what the target is bringing to the table a change agent is able to speak them in a way that can influence behavior.   Influence over the behavior of others is ultimately what being a change agent is all about.

5.            Embrace resistance

It is a given that resistance to change will happen.  The mentor needs to gauge whether this resistance is the initial psychological reaction to question the need for change or whether there are other underlying issues. Human nature is selfish and it’s no different in change management. People will resist change when the benefits are not immediately visible. The mentor should overcome the initial resistance by outlining the likely benefits and the expected positive outcome.

Resistance is not an indication of the mentees failure to cooperate. Neither is it a reflection of a poor change strategy. On the contrary, resistance is an indication of the fact that the mentor is making progress.

John Aiello, CEO of The SAVO Group, says resistance should be embraced and viewed as a learning opportunity.  “When trying to be a catalyst for change, remember that it is human nature for people to hear about change and first ask ‘what is in it for me? Rather than take that as a push-back or obstacle, embrace that feeling and let it help you refine not only the ideas but how you communicate them and motivate toward them,” says Aiello.

6.            Have a great communication plan

PepsiAmerica’s Sacks emphasizes strong communication for keeping things and people on task. A well thought out communication plan is critical to the success of the change initiative. Any change initiative is fraught with myriad risks. A communication plan defines the roles and responsibilities of the mentor and the mentee, and provides a plan of action in the event of an emergency.

Regular communication is necessary to ensure the mentor and the mentee continue to remain on the same page. The message of change has to be constantly reiterated till it’s embedded in the DNA of the organization. “There’s nothing worse than pushing a boulder uphill,” says Sacks. “As with everything else, a great communication plan that addresses the different audiences with the right media and message is critical. It makes things go as smoothly as possible.”

7.            Encourage risk, reward results

The mentor should provide the mentee with a risk free environment to make mistakes. Psychological safety is an important factor in successful change management. It encourages the mentee to explore ideas and be creative and innovative. This approach encourages the mentee to look for opportunities for improvement and reward their results.

Accountability Partner’s J.R. Samples says “A simple way to implement suggestions is to make it a point to let your staff know operational recommendations are expected. Your role is to highlight the people bringing ideas to the front.  Make it a point to ask every week, ask different people and to publish the ideas prominently: Survey your people for broken processes – you will likely get a lot of suggestions.  Compile it into a list and ask the staff to force rank them. Take the top 3 and tell your staff over the next 10 days to note anything that supports this reason for this being a broken process. This will actually ferret out the emotional “I just don’t like abc” processes from real ones that need attention. In the second 10 days, ask for recommendations on improving the process. At the end of this process ask your staff to force rank the suggestions. Take the top idea and over the next 10 days implement on a pilot basis.”

8.            Build a support structure

The organization should set up a strong support structure in order to transform the mentees into an effective body of change agents. Even though you’ve carefully designed your communications and training, it’s implausible to expect everyone to understand your message right away.  Having the expectation that everyone will get it the first time around is setting up, not only for failure, but for resistance. Playing the blame game compounds an already murky situation.

Instead, Gerry Mann, Web Development Manager at Unitrin Business Insurance, encourages building a support structure within the change agent team.

Mann feels it requires a tremendous amount of emotional energy to effect change in an organization. “To sustain your elite cadre of change agents, there needs to be a structure for change agent peers to support each other, inside and outside of the organization. In my view, it is important to keep in touch with others doing the same work to share successes, issues and jointly look for answers to difficult problems,” Mann says.

9.            Induce trust

According Sandee Kastrul, founder of I.C.Stars, (www.icstars.org) a Chicago-based non-profit organization that uses full immersion teaching to help future leaders develop skills in business and technology, trust and follow-through go hand in hand when mentoring change leaders.

 “The beauty of mentoring a change agent is that you are walking through change together,” said Kastrul. “If you are mentoring someone to be a change agent and you yourself are not a change agent, they won’t trust your ability to drive change. Trust and follow-through are based in reciprocity – the mentor and the mentee are teaching and learning together. The mentor can only be trusted when he or she shares failure as well as success. The process of sharing and following-through is how trust is established.” 

Make it easy
Sam Mele, founder and managing director of Firm58 (www.firm58.com), a provider of on-demand post-trade management solutions sells by reducing the buyer’s purchasing risk.

“To understand how we reduce buyer risk,” said Mele, “it is important to understand the context of our business. In the capital markets, the vast majority of trades are now executed electronically – so the number of trades has gone up, but the profit on each trade has gone down. This has caused a strain on post-execution. Brokers, trading firms and exchanges need more efficient ways to bill their clients, calculate payouts, fees and commissions and require daily visibility to gross and net, realized and unrealized P&L. That’s where we come in.”

There are significant perceived risks in letting someone else provide software to manage the middle and back-office. Mele says overcoming these objections has become easier because Firm58 can demonstrate the scalability and reliability to manage all these critical functions as a hosted service.

“Our customers are in the “business” of managing risk,” said Mele. “They are initially reluctant to provide third parties access to their transaction data. We overcome this objection by demonstrating our how our software provides cost savings but also can increase revenues in an extremely safe and secure environment. Additionally, we’re obsessed with client service and we’ve based our business model from the perspective of our clients – we don’t require any upfront fees, we charge monthly, and we’re one of the few software companies not looking to lock people into long-term deals. Our feeling is that if we don’t satisfy a client’s business issues and add value to the organization on a daily basis, the client should have every right to terminate our contract and seek other services. All told we make every attempt to mitigate our client’s risk of doing business with us.”

Work with Trusted Parties

Michael Petitti, Chief Marketing Officer for Trustwave (www.trustwave.com), has had the greatest success in working through trusted parties such as banks and payment service providers to reach his end-user clients: retailers.
Despite the high profile security breaches of the past several years that have kept companies in the spotlight with less than flattering coverage, many businesses – especially small-to-medium sized businesses – are not motivated to ensure the security of their systems that handle sensitive consumer information such as credit card data. For these businesses, the relationship with their acquiring bank – their underwriter and principal service provider – tends to govern their behavior when it comes to securing information and complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

“Through our relationships with many of the top acquiring banks, we have been able to provide service to more than 40,000 businesses throughout the world,” said Petitti. “In a world in which scams, such as ‘phishing,’ continue to proliferate, trust matters more than ever to business. Not only does working with the banks eliminate the challenge of trying to market and sell to millions of businesses directly, it positions Trustwave as a “trusted” entity to the retailer.”

Demonstrate a clear market advantage…and deliver on it.

Lanworth’s director of sales, John Terzich, supplies hedge funds and large commodity trading firms with advance information on global grain supply. Terzich likes to keep things simple because Lanworth’s (www.lanworth.com) entire value proposition is time and accuracy.

“We provide key acres and yield data in advance of the USDA predictions and reports.,” said Terzich. “Our clients measure our service in a very defined way. It is our job to deliver to a very simple expectation … did our customers gain a competitive market advantage when placing their positions in the commodities we report and did they earn a greater return or minimize their risk?”

Make it worthwhile for your customers to give you referrals

Michael Kiefer, general manager of BrandProtect (www.brandprotect.com), a domain monitoring and anti-phishing service for financial institutions, has integrated referrals into the sales process.

“Our customers benefit by collectively sharing intelligence about phishing attacks. An attack on one bank generally shares unique characteristics with attacks on other banks. In some cases, the same criminals are responsible for both attacks. By encouraging our customers to refer other banks, our customers benefit by having access to better information and ultimately are made safer by banding together,” said Kiefer.

Kiefer believes each Internet ecosystem like insurance or banking or e-commerce, has their own specific Petri dish of problems/opportunities. “By facilitating referrals and community, and bringing together our customers and their eco-systems, we make everyone stronger.”

Stop selling

Coley Perry, sales and marketing manager with Solution Partners has seen no let-up in demand for talented technologists in the financial sector.

“In the technology staffing business, we’re seeing no shortage of demand from financial services,” said Perry. “Financial services is totally driven by the best and brightest. Banks, trading firms, exchanges, or whatever, they all want the best and the brightest. Our customers have a very low tolerance for stupidity and nonsense. So we lead with candidates and don’t try to sell. These days people are way too jaded to be sold.”

Even more important…stop selling the technology

According to Darren Schwartz, CEO and founder of SureSpeak, LLC, (www.surespeak.com) one secret to selling technology in a volatile economy is to stop selling the technology.

“We sell a training platform to call centers and trainers in the financial services industries. Our technology helps call center reps practice and model sales conversations and customer service scenarios they encounter on the job,” said Schwartz. “While the technology itself is important, what our customers are really buying is improved productivity – more time to manage, more time to capture, distribute and archive best practices, more time to coach and mentor the most promising employees. That’s where we focus our message.”

If possible, solve more than one problem

J. Schwan, senior partner of Solstice Consulting (www.solstice-consulting.com), sells by trying to solve multiple pain points with one solution.

“Financial services companies tend to be faced with three common problems; data throughput, data quality and regulatory compliance,” said Schwan. “If you can help solve any one of those issues while addressing the other two, you’re going to have an interested buyer.”

Beware of “simple implementations”
For Peter Tapling, CEO of Authentify (www.authentify.com), selling out of band authentication technology into financial services firms means you need to talk the talk and walk the walk.

“Financial services companies operate under a host of regulatory and compliance constraints. This means there is no such thing as a “simple implementation,” said Tapling who advises companies to be aware of these constraints and be ready to help address them on two fronts: 1) contracting (be prepared to be “vetted” as a 3rd party to these compliance efforts) and 2) project (review and testing cycles are greatly increase as everyone who needs to in their organization has their say).”

“There are no simple implementations. Build dealing with these complexities into your pricing and forecasting cycles. Otherwise, you will be frustrated with all of the extra effort that you will end up providing for free,” said Tapling.

Be trusted (and in the right place at the right time)

Mike Flannery, a VP of Sales for Business Only Broadband (www.bobbroadband.com), returned to selling after a ten year hiatus. “Back in the 90s, selling technology was a much different game than it is today. Back then it was easier to make a phone call into a company, and set a meeting with buyer provided you had a reasonable value proposition.”

Today, says Flannery, it is challenging just getting in touch with someone by phone. The phone is a difficult way to sell. Selling is becoming more about networking, joining associations, talking to others, leverage existing customers and ask them for referrals.

“What I have found is that there are so many different technology offerings being put in front of buyers, no one has time to manage all the information. It doesn’t matter how compelling your value proposition is,” said Flannery. “You need a trusted relationship to make any traction.”

Ben Bradley is the managing director of the Bradley Wiltjer Marketing Group — a B2B marketing, lead generation and PR agency for companies with complex sales cycles. Want to be featured in an upcoming article? Feel free to e-mail bbradley@bradleywiltjer.com with your suggestions.

So how does it work?

Think of it as mood art – you set the mood, they provide the art to match the mood. Getty does a great job showcasing their offerings – still, video and sound – by inspiring the creative process. Even if you aren’t a graphic designer, it is definitely worth a look.

http://moodstream.gettyimages.com/