Live.Smart.Today

Musings on strategy, digital, innovation & life in general

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New! Platform Product Development: A Layman's Guide

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Veronica Adamson on Twitter

“Inspired by @platrevolution to create an accessible, simple platform strategy canvas -thanks @InfoEcon @g2parker and team!”

Featuring the Platform Strategy Canvas

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B2B Go-To-Market Dirsruptor #1 Today: Survival requires influencing purchases through 3rd party online research vs. face-to-face sales

Best practice Go-to-Market strategy, the art of successfully designing and launching a product, has undergone significant change in the last two years. The most significant change B2B businesses are likely to face is evolving customer pathways. 

Specifically the decreasingly control companies have, and increasing influence 3rd parties wield, in driving active interest in their brand.  

As noted by Forrester research and Kapost, the factors driving this shift are

Self-conducted research: Average B2B buyer completes 50 and 90%of the buying journey by the time they make first contact with a business

Increased competition: Self-conducted research, buyers consume ten pieces of third-party content for every one piece created by your business

Earned content: During the buying process, the average buyer engages with three pieces of content about your business for every piece of content writtenby your business. 

In short, B2B businesses need to pro-actively manage their online product and brand information both directly and indirectly or risk letting others order their dinner!

[digmarnews]

via Social Media

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Yikes...and yet it comes back to the eternal question, does a lie detector justify the means? And how long until this can be easily gamed?

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Digital Transformation and the Changing of HR | Centric Digital

See on Scoop.it - Digital Transformation

HR used to be last in the technology line, but their role in the digital transformation framework puts them at th

See on centricdigital.com

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Couldn't agree more!

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What makes a good strategist?  There are many different flavors of consultants but there is one thing all new strategists have in common - the desire to learn and ability to get ahead of the curve.  How do they do it?  Below are a few trade secrets, the key tips & tricks if you will, any junior strategy consultant has ingrained.  For more senior strategists, creative problem solving and relationship building, worthy subjects of a separate post, are layered on top of these pillars. 

Elemental Content Creation:  Planning, Aligning, Preparing, Formatting

a.  Planning:

i.  Develop a work plan for each piece you own (objectives, daily to-do’s, meetings/input required etc.) and align upwards/downwards

ii.  If there are questions on the part of the business, topic etc., seek out answers independently using all resources at your disposition (strategy sharepoint, google, team members at same level etc.) before asking upwards for help

b. Aligning:  Drive your own piece of the analysis, ask for time in your manager’s / clients calendar and prepare your agenda / questions / needs for each meeting in advance based on your workplan 

i.  Give your managers/stakeholders a heads up for when a meeting will be required (at least 1-2 days in advance)

ii.  Define meeting objectives “must have outcomes” for the meeting, taking into account client expectations

iii.  Define roles and responsibilities in the meeting for each team member (presenting slide by slide, thoughtful questions, reading room/admin, time keeper…)

iv.  Define supporting materials required (format presentation/cards/placemat/none at all, projector, room size…)

v.  Conduct stakeholder assessment (priority level for them, real decision makers, hot buttons etc.)

c.  Preparation:  To prepare their supporting materials, follows presentation basics:

i.  Prepare documents/meeting agenda and roles and share with team in advance (~1 day prior to meeting or more if high stakes)

ii.  Define document objectives (agreement, discussion, feedback…) à hint use nouns not verbs

iii.  Based on the above, answers the key structural questions prior to creating the document (length, tone, level of detail/burden of proof, communication order, pre-read…)

iv.  Develop a presentation storyline (one page) and align with manager (or jump to step d)

v.  Develop a presentation wireframe (storyline titles on each slide and placeholder’s for content) with manager

d.  Formatting:  To create materials / analyses make sure to check the box on formatting basics 

i.  Run complete check for title alignment, double spaces, spelling, use of measures, footnotes/sources, units of measure etc.

ii.  Triple check numbers (calculation, logic if take a step back, others sense check) and ensure its aligned with client expectations

iii.  Respect template colors and style (ensure all sections are aligned, if not align)

iv.  Spell out acronyms (first time), avoid jargon

v. Prepare documents/meeting agenda and roles and share with team in advance (~1 day prior to meeting or more if high stakes)

Basics of Managing Up:  

a.  Targeted learning:  Think about what you want to learn (in terms of content, strategy toolkit, process etc.) and share it with your team regularly

b.  Working styles:  Learn how you and your team likes to receive feedback, be contacted (phone, email…), formatting preferences and act accordingly

c.  Work/life balance:  Define work life balance for you - you typically can’t “have it all” - so define and share what is key for you (specific days of the week, times during the day, regular breaks etc.)

d.  Autonomy:  Ensure you define and demonstrate that you can “own” your piece of the project (steps above) and help your manager/client manage their to do list

e.  Working in unison:  Pre-define which stakeholders to contact directly/indirectly (who to keep in “cc” and when), as well as how to flag risks and how to communicate on behalf of your team (we vs. me)

Note:  Image source - http://www.winningsem.com

[livesmarttoday]

Go to Market:  The Dying Art of Making Choices

Despite an omni presence of “Go to Market Strategies”, upwards of 80% of product launches still fail today (see study conducted by Catalina, "New Product Traction Through Targeted Shopper Interaction”).  So what’s the problem?  Throughout my time as a strategy consultant, advising and turning around some of the largest and best known global brands, the reason was always an inability to make the right, hard choices.    

So what are the right choices?  In short, there are five.  These five choices and the growth they delivered were analyzed and re-analyzed over 20+ years by Monitor Group, a now mostly extinct breed of opinionated braniac strategy consultants.  In addition they were endorsed by the CEOs/CMO’s of some of the largest global companies, and helped them deliver astounding growth, mostly secretly, but sometimes openly (ex: A.G. Lafley, CEO at Procter & Gamble).

As described in Playing to Win, these deceptively simple choices are:

What are your 1 quantifiable, qualitative and time scale objectives?  100 million dollars?  But when? Is it still a realistic goal? Most business people forget to look at both sides of the equation – the how much is meaningless without the when!

What specific, quantifiable opportunity (customer * need * product * …) will generate your 100 million?  

o   What are the unique pockets of opportunities that could generate your 100 million? (Tip: move beyond old school demographic that separates opportunities in an un-actionable way)

o   Is the customer segment and need you chose going to be fast enough to sustain the product / service growth you need?  (Tip: leverage your customer insights or get some!)

o   Is there an opportunity that will meet your objective above (high potential) and be feasible for your organization (accessibility)?  If you can’t afford to fund the investment required to meet your original objective, you will need to re-evaluate.  

What are the 1-2 factual, functional and emotional value points that will win over the customer/consumer/need selected above?  

o   What will differentiate you from the competition – not just today but in the medium and long term? (Tip: Again - leverage your customer insights or get some!)

o   How would you articulate the value you bring to the immediate, end customer and broader eco-system (ex: in healthcare the patient’s perspective is increasingly important but the payer and other players in the value chain can’t be ignored)?

What are the 2-3 key organizational changes you need to make to deliver this winning proposition?

o   How does the organization need to function to best bring the product to market (ex:  global vs. local)?

o   What capabilities do you have and which capabilities do you need to build/beg/buy (ex: digital)?

What are the 2-3 key KPIs to track your progress in achieving this value?

o   What is your definition of victory?  

o   What is your KPI tree that ultimately leads to 2-3 mega KPIs that signal victory? 

Next time you find yourself at the helm of a new Go to Market strategy, have the courage to ask the questions and demand answers to the hard choices.  While sometimes frustratingly complex, these choices have been shown to pay their way with superior product launch success rates and morale.  

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Building Systems for Staying Creative and Not Burning Out

Creative work happens between the birth of an idea and seeing the idea come to fruition. The result of the work is something useful, something to be experienced, something from nothing. Of course, your milage may vary.

To the general observer the creative process looks simple, even easy: idea, action, success. To those only seeing the end result, creative accomplishments appear to get done simply by magic. Just like in the movies.

Of course, this perception changes depending on who you ask too. An analytical, business-minded thinker might see the creative process as beginning with a goal, working through execution toward success. But it doesn’t always work that way either, as famed entrepreneur Derek Sivers once said:

“Notice how most business plans have this line pointing to the right that keeps going up? It doesn’t happen all the time.”

The reality is that the creative process is more wild and unpredictable: idea, draft version 1, experimenting, obstacles, learnings, adapting, back to the drawing board, version 2, another obstacle, experimenting, fine tuning, repeated until you can step back and call the work “good enough.”

There’s a lot of hard work involved in the creative process. Obstacles and failure cause frustrations, which is why at times creative work can be almost as exhausting as physical labor. Creative workers are exposed to analysis paralysis, depression, anxiety. These don’t always take a physical form, but they can be debilitating to experience.

The creative process is both beautiful and grimy at the same time. But mostly it’s just exhausting.

How do we, as creative thinkers and workers, develop habits to combat the inevitable feelings of exhaustion that come with creative play?

Scott Adams in his book, How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big, recommends focusing on systems instead of goals.

How does that work?

Many people have been conditioned to go after their goals with a low level of specificity. The advice might be familiar: dream big, be bold, be ambitious, “just do it.” This type of mentality often leaves us feeling confused or uncertain, prone to procrastinating or clumsily taking action then quitting after bumping into the most minute obstacle. Or, we run forward and when we face any uncertainty we persist, we must carry on, which causes us to eventually run out of willpower.

The key is to build a system of thinking that simplifies how we manage our time, energy, and willpower for our creative pursuits. What does a system look like?

Prioritize taking care of your body. You can’t dedicate energy toward doing creative work if all of your energy is reserved for instead staying awake, or fighting a sickness, or getting out of bed in the morning. Start with a healthy diet, get some level of exercise, sleep, and if possible: take walks, outside and without your smart phone. When in doubt, remind yourself that it’s ok to take a break.

Develop habits that enforce creative work and when to take breaks. If you know you wake up every day at the same time to write or doodle or tinker, there’s no guess work involved; the time is already set, you just have to show up. A simple creative to-do list, or list of experiments you want to try in your work, can help too.

Employ the help of a friend (or two). Most of histories greatest creative minds never worked alone. They may be famously framed as a lone genius, but the reality is they always had someone behind the scenes helping them work through problems, prototype ideas, and providing guidance on how to overcome obstacles. Whether that’s a partner or a close friend, never hesitate to pull in a friend who can get you out of a creative rut.

Whenever you’re stuck, or when you start feeling overwhelmed with your creativity, ask yourself what system you’ve developed to maintain your creativity?

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Business Planning & The Jungle

Creating #impact means #envisioning long term, planning medium term and acting short term. It's all to easy, but important not to confuse planning medium term with envisioning long term. Exponentials make long term planning all but meaningless. True strategy is defining the type of place you want to be and then feeling your way towards it. You can't plan your pit stops on your way through an unmapped jungle.

[livesmarttoday]

Marketers who fall behind customer insights today will be the victims of customer needs tomorrow. 

Sweeping rhetoric, apocalyptic or otherwise, on the power of customer insights is splashed across most business publications everyday – yet the impact of this race for insight on us as marketing professionals is rarely discussed. 

While it’s true that your neighbor could see each and every one of your credit card purchases because you happened to post once on Instagram while buying a hot dog (see here), is scary – it does not directly impact our day to day security yet.  The inability to harness consumer insights, however, will threaten many companies existence and by extension jobs in the very near future.  Marketers who fall behind customer insights today will be the victims of customer needs tomorrow. 

To successfully harness the power of insights, marketers will need to be apply their creativity to perform intellectual splits between design and data.  The traditional best performing marketers, those who were Jack of All Trades and “good” at everything, will no longer have a place.  How will marketers balance between design and data?  By asking the right “Why” and defining the right “How”. 

Tomorrow is about asking the right questions, the “Why” – because that’s what computers can’t do.  As Picasso said, “[Computers] are useless.  They can only give you answers”.  For example, knowing every detail of your teenage consumer segment will have not a single cent of impact if they have influence on what they end up purchasing.  Similarly, diving into every detail of who your competitors are will be exactly useless unless you have defined your competitive set in a way that makes sense for the growth that you want to see.  For example, if you want to grow aggressively, defining your competitor set as slow-growing products similar to yours would be less impactful than broadening your scope to include adjacent high growth products. 

To create impact, marketers need to ask the right questions first, not look for the right questions in 300pg generic market research agency.  Computers can figure out patterns in ways the naked eye cannot (example through cluster analysis), what they can’t do is understand which question is relevant to your business.

Similarly, computers think in one’s and zero’s – they don’t concern themselves with whether humans can decipher their insights.  Marketers will need to become fluent in “computer”, ask the right questions, and then translate these insights into something that mere CFO/CEO’s can understand.  Design thinking, all the rage in consulting circles today, is no longer optional for marketers.  After all, the best questions based on the deepest data is like a car without wheels until it is understood.  To get things rolling, marketers will need to be the mechanics that put the pieces together.  They will need to be experts in data visualization, the infographics of tomorrow and on helping others learn. 

Lastly, because most companies have no one for these marketers to learn these skills from – the best marketers tomorrow will need to be self-taught. 

Credit for picture:  New Philosopher Magazine, Volume #11 Spring 2016 

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Digital marketing is a horse not a unicorn

Do you remember the first time a retailer (creepily) pushed content to your phone at the very moment you passed by their store?

In that first experience with geo-location and digital customer engagement, it is tempting to believe that digital marketing has reached a glorious new level; that marketers have overcome the high obstacle of new digital tools and are surging ahead, crafting clever strategies to meet your unvoiced needs.  For those who find this "big-brother" reality concerning, fear not, we are still far from omni-potent marketers. In fact, most marketers consistently put the cart before the horse - placing their marketing bets on different digital tools at random and missing the opportunity to maximize their budget's impact in the process.  Indeed (1) 50% of marketers and (2) 43% of consumer product executives admit to having no digital strategy.  The implications of this, particularly given that 92% of the same executives expect digital spending to increase, are staggering.  

Despite its novel and alluring potential, digital marketing is like any other aspect of business, it needs to be driven strategy lest you risk throwing money at tools with little or even a negative impact on your top and bottom line.

My favorite example of this is the mobile app craze - companies are developing apps like they're hot-cakes and yet (3) 60% of consumers who use their mobile phones online have fewer than two retailer apps on their phone.  A quick back of the envelope calculation shows that if individual shop at a few different stores each day, the same each week, and that most peoples top two stores are the similar, 86% (12/14) of apps going completely unused.

  Retailers should ask themselves - do I have the pull to be one of the top two most critical apps my customer will download?  If not start running and don’t look back.   

If you don’t believe your app stands a chance as top (2) of mind then seek out higher potential, more accessible alternatives for your investment dollars such as, at the top of the list, partnerships with successful apps that reinforce your brand DNA.

Another example of low payoff, and in fact dangerous digital initiatives that has recently garnered a lot of press is the wave of e-commerce stores that have been shown to not only sell very little, but negatively impact their own Brick & Mortar sales (thus not only creating negative e-commerce ROI, but decreasing historical top line B&M revenues).  

In the end, digital is like any other area of the business.  It is not a unicorn - it's a horse and it needs to be directed like any other part of your business, through a coherent, actionable strategy.  

1.  SmartInsights survey Managing Digital Marketing in 2015; 2.   Deloitte Consumer product trends – Navigating 2020 Executive survey Aug-Sept 2013 with 205 US executives and senior managers (3) Forrester study of 511 US consumers 

[livesmarttoday]

End of Impulse Shopping = Rise of a Retail Revolution?

Who would have thought that the catalyst for the retail revolution would come from the gum aisle at the check out line?  

Yet that little aisle at the front of the store is making retailers stay in bed longer on Mondays afraid to wake to the week.  Why?  Because impulse shopping, at the heart of a long cherished retail model, has lost its shine and is thus forcing retailers to rethink the fundamentals of their business (as the Wall Street Journal clearly argues in their article here).  Afterall, what good is a 1 sq mile store to you or a retailer if 90% of the products you purchase take up 1% of the store?  

As WSJ describes, customers shopping behavior is increasingly impacted (as is their brain) by their "online lives".  Specifically, they increasingly visit retail shops to buy last minute essentials rather than purchase their weekly food or higher margin products (ex: electronics).  They now make a bee line for exactly what they need, ignoring the wealth of assorted shelf items they pass.  

So what is so special about impulse shopping?  In short, everything.  Facing increasing pressure on top & bottom line margins, retailers rely on impulse shopping to drive astronomical mark ups, attract new customers through loss-leaders and demonstrate their differentiation.

Now that this key value driver is under threat, manufacturers will soon start to question the premiums they currently pay for larger/better shelf space & their financial support of marketing spend (why not spend their tight budgets on digital advertising which has disproportionate impact on decision making).

Why is this an issue, can't they re-design their stores?  Yes and the trend is currently to move towards a "pick up" model.  Why is this bad?  In three words: lack of differentiation.

So what can distributors do?  Given the mountain of trouble they are already sitting on, it would appear they need to discreetly jump ship, potentially shifting vertically into another business related to their core "know how" (connecting people with the things they need).

For example why not use their unique knowledge of customer behavior & needs plus premium locations to offer customers access to services instead of products?  For example partnering with insurance companies, telephone operators....any service operators that need a place to talk to customers?  

Food for thought for the world's food providers.

(Image source WSJ)

[livesmarttoday]

The magnitude of change in the "2nd Machine Age" & how to stay a float

How often do you think that technology is moving too quickly these days to keep up with?  According to the authors of "The Second Machine Age" the pace of change due to technology is on par with the Industrial Revolution - a daunting thought.  

The authors unsurprisingly conclude that society needs to adapt to this phenomenon by updating education but what do normal Joes need to do to keep afloat?  

Skimming - basic but key:  Use the fruit of others labors sifting through innovations to save you time by reading the technology section of general press such as The WallStreet Journal, The Economist (unless you are in the industry you probably don't need to read WIRED or other specialized publications)

Understanding programming - no longer niche:  If you don't know how to program in any language you need to hunker down to learn at least one of the basics.   Programming languages teach you how computers "think" and will become the equivalent of being literate (C++ is best to understand any future language - a bit like latin, Python is more useful today) 

Build a website - everybody who is anybody has one:  Clichés aside, building a website (even using somewhat pre-designed services such as through a Mac or site like Godaddy) is actually very important to understand the underlying complexity of what you scroll through everyday & will give you some control back in terms of what you communicate to the world

While these three "must-do's" may seem complex they are in fact the very tip of the iceberg and truly the minimum to be able to get a finger-hold on technology as it hurtles forward (this article doesn't even touch on revolutionary hardware shifts such as the size of computing chips!).

_

[livesmarttoday]

One of a leaders worst sins is to set up a meeting in the guise of looking for a solution to a problem when in reality they are simply trying to appear as if they are “doing something”.

Sometimes this slip from action into non-action happens because the executive doesn’t know what approach to...

[livesmarttoday]

Differentiation is all the rage today…

Be innovative, emotional, unique - marketing language is all mixed up.

Time to get specific.

The renowned marketing guru Byron Sharp defines them as:

Differentiation (a benefit or “reason to buy” for the consumer

Distinctiveness (a brand looking...

[livesmarttoday]

Dr. Sharp's definition of brand value is becoming an increasing hot topic as companies struggle to define how much brands are worth & particularly what this worth is based on.  

The Economist this week picks up the debate, circling back to a pressing & yet unresolved question in marketing:  Is it better to have a brand that drives loyalty (customers willing to buy your brand / speak for it / give it a 2nd try) or awareness (increase the chance that when presented with two products they unconsciously chose your brand because they recognize it).

For big brands the question is a moot point "why choose"?  For smaller brands, however Dr. Sharp's argumentation loses its pomp as the reach he preaches is far fetched & building differentiation is much more defensible.    

[livesmarttoday]

Intermarché Case Study: How to hit a home run with emotional & social marketing

These days everybody from Dove to Fiat is trying to get you to cry.  Emotional marketing - you see it everywhere.  The car that finally creates a bond between you & your grandma or the soap that makes you feel good about your body...In the last ten years it has been perhaps the most profound transformation in the marketing landscape.

But it is no longer enough.

Most products are not credible making the link between your deepest emotions & their product.  Those that do often fail to move beyond the message to impact their sales.

One retailer, however, recently managed to (actually) increase not only sales (1.2 tons avg purchase per store) but also the other buzzword penetration (+24% more people in store)!  Their approach is worth studying...and sharing.

Unlikely as it may sound this retailer was Intermaché with their campaign titled "Les fruits et legumes Moches" (Ugly fruits & vegetables).

Let's take a look at what they did, they:

Identified a cause that their consumer base cared deeply about (food wastage)

Identified what their consumers needed (cheaper fruits & vegs)

Identified what wasn't as important to consumers (look of fruits & vegs)

Leveraged a powerful ally (French government)

Priced intelligently (pricing previously valueless vegs / fruits at the price customers were willing to pay)

Launched an attractive, targeted marketing campaign (in a sense humanizing the fruit/vegs)

To take the baseball metaphor a bit further - they had all their bases loaded & when they hit the ball out of the field they won a lot more than 1 run.

Watch the video here  

[livesmarttoday]

5 Steps for Designing Strategic Conversations

As a strategist, I daily find myself stiffing the urge to yell “but WHY, WHY are we in this meeting”...Indeed holding meetings without a clear objective, apart from appearing to "do something", is without a doubt the bane of our era. 

Sometimes this slip from action into non-action happens because the executive doesn't know what approach to take, other times because they are too busy to take it - in any case there is no excuse.  Ineffective meetings are lost opportunities that waste time & demotivate employees. 

Designing strategic conversations is an art with high payoffs when done well.  Executives don't need to have years of experience doing it, but they should have the foresight to hire people that do.

In one particularly well written book, Moments of Impact, Chris Ertel & Lisa Solomon structure a few of the key tricks of the trade that any good strategy consultant knows.  Below is a summary of the 5 key takeaways from their book:

Define what kind of challenge you need to solve:  Technical ("applying well honed skills & problems" or adaptive (messy, open-ended question with no known problem or clear set of solutions)

If its an adaptive challenge you have a lot more work to do drilling into what your real objective is...do you need your audience to digest information & identify potential issues?  Or from a set of potential issues suggest solutions to dig deeper into later?  Or do you need them to choose between a multitude of solutions?  The list goes on and on..

Now that you know who you need in the room, what is the information & sessions you need to get to an answer 

Once you know what it is that you want to achieve who do you need in the room not just to solve it but to make sure the solution will work (ex: might it imply the cooperation of the sales team even if they don't work for you & are not the source of the problem?)

The last step - and one that is often neglected, is defining a venue that creates the right "soft" environment for your objectives - if you want people to feel innovative and get out of their shell, no point running the meeting in your normal boardroom under a white board used to show your recently declining revenues...

Whether in your next meeting you choose to apply these tricks yourself, or hire a good strategy consultant that can help you think through them, your end of the year results & your team suffering from endless meeting fatigue will thank you for it.