Bloghound

I predict that marketers will have great fun but lose even more credibility with this new strategy: tuning in to business psychics. That’s right. All kinds of businesses seem to be turning to psychics, otherwise known as “intuitionists,” to make important decisions, according to a Newsweek article, “The 10,000-a-Month Psychic.”

Kevin Clancy, author of Your Gut is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head, has a good post on what this trend means to marketers over at The Marketing Fray.

“Aside from the utter lunacy of a business hiring a psychic for anything other than entertainment at the company Halloween party, we’re concerned that when business folk want to make sense of uncertainty in the present, they get completely preoccupied with the future as if they have no control over it. It’s understandable, but it can be dangerous if they forget that the past and future are not mutually exclusive. “

All that said I am looking forward to tuning into a webinar on July 11 over at Learn From My Life with psychic Ainslie MacLeod, author of The Instruction: Living the Life Your Soul Intended. Why? Maybe it’s summer and I just need a fresh point of view that has nothing to do with marketing, the recession, or presidential politics.

Forget conventional wisdom when it comes to managing corporate reputation. In fact, transparency matters the least in building stakeholder trust (employees, customers, suppliers, investors) and can actually erode trust, according to a fascinating new study by Harvard University’s Michael Pirson and Deepak Malhotra, published in the summer issue of MIT Sloan Management Review. (”Unconventional Insights for Managing Stakeholder Trust.”)

The authors studied four different organizations to find out what matters and to whom. Highlights:

• Transparency is over-rated. In fact, transparency can diminish trust depending on what is disclosed. Also, it has little relevance in terms of building trust.
• Integrity is important, but. Stakeholders close to a company (employees and customers) need to feel that the company genuinely cares for their personal well-being. Integrity alone doesn’t cut it if people feel the company is being fair but “callous.”
• Trust is built on different types of competencies. Employees and investors look for management competency. Customers and suppliers more concerned about technical and quality competency.
• Shared values is hugely important to all stakeholders: All stakeholders want to associate with organizations with values they identify with.

“We have found that that although value congruence matters most to employees, it is also an important factor for every other stakeholder group we studies. In other words, stakeholders of all types are interested in associated with organizations with whom they can identify — and with whom they perceive a match in values.”

This study has interesting implications for marketers and corporate communications professionals.

• Trust means different things to different stakeholders.
• Marketing needs to focus more on two key trust-building factors: the company’s genuine interest in their customers’ success and well being, and the company’s technical ability to deliver quality products and services.
• What beliefs? It’s essential to clearly articulate the company’s values and beliefs. (Maybe even help uncover them. ) In my experience few organizations — especially marketers — focus on these beliefs, or even know what they are. But as this study shows they are critically important to building affinity and trust with customers.

A big part of SOCIAL media is being more social as companies — online and in the real world. But many executives have asked me, “how do you measure sociability and friendliness?”

In a 48-hour experiment with blackjack dealers at Ameristar Casino J.D. Power & Associates found that a highly social, outgoing blackjack dealer collected 13 percent more money at his table than at the serious table where the blackjack dealer held to the standard, “don’t talk unless spoken to” rule.

In explaining the experiment Chris Denove of J.D. Power and author of “How Every Great Company Listens to the Voice of the Customer,” told a group this week that there’s no reason to believe that the same relationship doesn’t hold true in other business environments. Why? People like spending time with people who are likeable.

On Friday, June 27 at 1 p.m. EST, I’m going to be sharing what I’ve learned so far about marketing, social media and word of mouth marketing over at Learn From My Life. (And answering calls and email questions.)

There are some great interviews over at Learn From My Life from people like free-agent author Daniel Pink, former CNN reporter Daryn Kagan, legendary basketball coach Dale Brown, and Dan Ariely, author of the must-read new book, Predictably Irrational.

Hope you can make it!

Amid all the cool things in marketing today we often forget how influential a good or bad RFP response can be. I recently had to review 30+ RFPs for a client, and I was asked by another client to teach their sales people to write better RFP executive summaries. Here’s what I learned:

10 most common mistakes

1. About us vs. the prospect: Too often executive summaries are summaries of the selling company’s capabilities. Big mistake number one. Effective executive summaries are about the prospect– not you. How you’re going to solve their problem. Advice on how to burn down their obstacles. How much money they are going to save. New ways for them to be innovative in their industries.

2. Proposal summary vs. a business case: Despite is name an executive summary is not a summary of the proposal, but a succinct demonstration of the understanding of the prospect’s needs and the bottom line outcomes you can deliver against those needs.

3. Opening with blah blah platitudes vs. guts and convictions: Executives read just the first two paragraphs, yet the first two paragraphs of most executive summaries are filled with space-wasting platitudes like: “Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with our proposal in response to your RFP to support XYZ Company’s business needs. We are prepared to put this experience to work for XYZ Corporation with a dedicated support team. ” Blah. Blah Blah. While the RFP writers, usually procurement of purchasing managers, may read the entire document, decision makers generally only pay attention to the first two paragraphs. This means that the critical information should be in those paragraphs, and platitudes should be omitted.
4. Verbal runoff and information overload: One of the most common mistakes is including too much information that is irrelevant to the prospect and/or too much pat, bland information that every vendor cites. A good executive summary should focus only on that information that is relevant to this particular prospect.

5. What’s at stake? Many RFPs go nowhere, losing out to inertia or other business priorities. One of the purposes of the executive summary is to convey what’s at stake, and why acting will provide business value beyond simply reduced costs.

6. General to industry vs. personal to prospect: General remarks and capabilities information are boring to reader and make you sound bland. Answer right off, “What’s in it for the prospect company?” and avoid generalities. The prospect only cares about the specific value you’re bringing to his or her organization - not general trends, not about the exhaustive list of your company’s capabilities.

7. Educating vs. selling: The executive summary is not an education document or a relationship development tool; it is a sales closer. “Here’s the problem. Here’s the business value only we can provide.”

8. Bland writing inadvertently conveys lack of real interest: Researchers have proven that decision makers make more judgments about a company based on how it communicates than many of the actual messages. I’ve put several companies’ RFP summaries through the LIWC software analysis and found that the company comes across as detached from the recommendations (not passionate about the ideas) and not as completely honest as the company actually is.

To be viewed as a trusted, innovative, potential partner passionate about helping the prospect succeed, adopt a tone and style that is direct; focused on the most relevant information to the prospect; uses more active verbs, shorter sentences fewer adjectives, more bullets, more descriptive subheads, and a more liberal use of the first person - I, we, us.

9. Too many pages: We all fall into the trap of thinking that a summary needs to be at least two to three pages to really convey our value. Limiting an executive summary to one-page — two at the max — forces you to convey the meat of the matter in a succinct way. When Jack Welch was CEO of GE he required his direct reports to submit one-page management updates every month. That’s right, just one page. Being succinct makes you think and boil it down to what matters.

10. Where can I find more? Use hyperlinks in the executive summary, linking content and recommendations to descriptions in the detailed RFP document. Too often we make it hard for people to jump to what interests them. If people are interested in one of your ideas, make it easy for them to read more about that interest.

Is there value in Facebook for businesses? Or is it just a cool way to stay connected with friends? I have no answers but look forward to tuning in to a Webinar on Wed., June 25 at 3 p.m. EST over at The App Gap,
“Should Your Business Be Friends with Facebook?”

The Webinar is based on a research study led by Jenny Ambrozek that looked at the value of Facebook to six different types of business.

I’m hoping Jenny will cut through the social networking hype and hoopla and share some pragmatic advice about specific ways businesses can get value from Facebook — as well as Facebook limitations for business.

My friend and business partner Francois Gossieaux has a great post over at EmergenceMarketing that nails why social media is a big deal.  It’s not simply another new channel like email.  Social media has given power to the people, which has changed the rules of marketing.

” Social media is what transformed the rules of marketing. By providing a platform of participation to your employees, customers and prospects, social media has changed the fundamental pillars of the marketing game. Not only have the rules of game changed, so have the players, the scope, the tactics and the added values - to use the game theory elements of the game…The end goal of marketing has not changed - it still is to create a customer. It is everything in between to get to that goal that has changed!

In an age where people are tired of marketing hype and gimmicks, it seems odd that Verizon would decide to use a teddy bear as the spokesperson for its FiOs marketing campaign. What’s even odder is that the teddy Twitters, reaching an audience that is even more suspect of inauthentic marketing.

Jason Chupick of Campfire, the agency designing the campaign, explains in today’s PR Week:

“[We] needed a spokesperson, an ongoing voice that people will listen to because everyone is trying to come up with a novel Twitter campaign.”

If the teddy is really bizarre it just might become a viral hit. But sorry Verizon and Campfire, a teddy bear isn’t an a”voice” that this consumer is going to listen to, never mind take seriously.

Naming your organizations’ beliefs can guide decisions and inspire talent much more effectively than the traditional mission statement, which is usually pretty flat, descriptive and, well, boring.

Here are some examples of organizations’ beliefs.

Google

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There’s always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn’t good enough.

Zappos

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

And my firm, Beeline Labs:

1. Deliver the wow and the whoa
2. Activate change
3. Go fast
4. Try new things; OK to fail
5. See new possibilities early
6. Don’t compromise; the work needs to be meaningful
7. It’s all about delivering business value
8. Bee vs. me
9. Integrity rules

What are your organization’s beliefs? Please share!

I rarely notice billboard ads, but this one from financial firm UBS got my attention while I was driving up the Southeast Expressway in Boston early yesterday morning . It conveyed a compelling message in just 6 words:

Bank fees are like financial wedgies.