No additional words are necessary.

My Personal Tribute to Steve Jobs | Dave Harkins

I could tell you everything in this post that a top tier consulting firm would tell you to do, including, “get top management support,” if you want to create a change initiative. I’m not going to do this not because it doesn’t work—sometimes it does. My experience is real change and innovation within an organization doesn’t begin at the top because those at this level only see the symptoms, not the cause. Change and innovation is tactical, not strategic. Those closest to the cause are the ones who can best overcome the challenges and begin the change necessary for innovation. Unfortunately, these folks often don’t feel empowered to do so.

So, let this serve as empowerment to the individual: Be radical. Change and innovation in the organization begins with you, the individual, right now. Today. Here’s how to get the ball rolling:

> Start with things you can control. It’s easier to start small and change the things that are within your control. Look around. There are many, many things that are in you do every day that could benefit from improvements. Make those improvements. This kind of change and innovation is infectious and will flow throughout your organization faster than you might imagine.

> Look for things to “blow up“. Approach everything with the mindset that it needs to fixed. This doesn’t mean it really needs fixing, or that you need to be the one to fix it, but it forces you to look for the flaws. When the flaws outnumber the benefits, destroy it. The hard reality is that sometimes the only way make change is to blow it up and start over from scratch. Don’t be afraid to push the red button when you need to do so. This is often the origin of true innovation.

> Stretch the chain. Every day you should stretch “the chain” (people, processes, technology, etc.) until you find the weak links. Break them, put the chain back together, and stretch again tomorrow. When you find you are unable to break a link, take a break and look back on your accomplishment. These successes will help you build your credibility as change agent. However, don’t forget to come back and stretch the chain again later. No link is failsafe for very long.

> Cross the cultural minefield. Every organization has some approaches or things that are sacred. Before you start, know if the change you are attempting is going to put you at odds with the culture. You should know the dangers going in, but it’s likely you will still need to trip a few mines, purposefully. Trip the mines when it is the right thing to do without regard to fallout, but know that you may sustain injuries. Tripping the mines and slaughtering sacred cows is a messy job.

> Grow a thick skin. If you really want to be a successful change agent, you cannot worry about making friends while driving change and innovation. This is not to say you have to be mean or insensitive. Most people just hate change, not you, and will not hesitate to share their feelings. Some may even try to retaliate with a little political sabotage. Don’t take it personally. You’ll know you’re on the right track when people begin to complain about what you’re doing. Be prepared for the fall-out.

Please know that this is an individual approach and not a “team approach” to driving innovation. I have never believed that teams are successful leading change or innovation. “Innovation team” seems like an oxymoron to me. Even team of radicals will fail if they are forced to work too closely together. In my experience, the most successful innovation happens when individuals are motivated to make things better. An organization’s success with change and innovation is rooted in the personal initiatives of individual radicals who desire to make a difference.

To innovate and change an organization, find the radicals who strive to make a difference. Then turn them loose to do what they do best—stir things up.

A radical’s approach to change and innovation | Dave Harkins

I read today that more than 200,000 job cuts have been announced this month. Most announcements have been by big companies; we never hear about the smaller firms. In fact, many businesses have likely closed all together. We will not hear about those for a while.

These stories remind me of economic climate around the time of the dot-com bust. There was a lot of disruption then, too, but it led to great thinking and innovation in technology and in other sectors.

For those of us in the technology sector then, it was difficult time. Yet, those experiences changed technology. That disruption forced us out of our comfort zone and to the edges of our businesses where we discovered new opportunities to serve untapped markets. In some cases, we created markets where none had previously existed. We found things we never dreamt about or thought possible before someone “dropped the bomb,” forced us out, and made us look back on what had happened.

Without the dot-com disruption, we likely would not know about MP3 players, iPhones, social networks, blogs, or Twitter. Thanks to that disruption, technology makes it easier for us to keep in-touch, check our bank accounts from our mobile phones, and carry thousands of songs in our pocket.

I believe we need disruption in our lives, our businesses, and our worlds. We need to be forced outside of our comfort zone. We need to get to the edges, pull out the binoculars, and look at things a little differently. Like it or not, we need disruption to facilitate change and force us to the next level–whatever that may hold for us.

The good news is, we don’t have to wait for disruption from an external source.  Scary as it may be we can create it ourselves; and, we probably should in this economy. Finding and getting to the edges may well be the only way our businesses will survive.

Finding the edges | Dave Harkins

Please note that this presentation is Dave Harkins’ work created in other partnerships or organizations and the design templates have not been changed. Additionally, this content may now be dated but can still be used as an idea starter for your specific needs.

PRESENTATION: Marketing Out of the Box | Dave Harkins

Please note that this presentation is Dave Harkins’ work created in other partnerships or organizations and the design templates have not been changed. Additionally, this content may now be dated but can still be used as an idea starter for your specific needs.

PRESENTATION: Finance, Fundraising and Technology | Dave Harkins

The notion that “Marketing isn’t Sales” is an old, but somewhat untrue statement in the real world. We marketers have learned the hard way that marketing’s number one priority is to drive revenue for the organization. I think we now realize that long-gone are the days when marketing produced pretty pictures, glossy brochures, gimmicky promotions and brand advertising that don’t drive short-term sales. Those days are but a memory for marketers–up in smoke like many of the firms that promoted such frivolity and spending with reckless abandon.

Today’s environment requires marketing that’s effective. And to be effective, marketing must improve the top-line with new sales, and the bottom-line by improving efficiencies in marketing operation. If marketing can’t do both–deliver a large number of qualified customers, in a cost effective manner–then doesn’t deliver tangible value to the organization.

In most organizations these days–regardless of if you’re selling to consumers or businesses–marketing’s primary job is to support new sales in an anxious push for increased revenue. Certainly, driving new sales can generate new revenue. However, blindly focusing on acquisition can wreak havoc on an unprepared organization in terms of insufficient capacity to handle front-line sales or merchandising, sales fulfillment, customer service or technical support. Worst of all, with the organization concentrating on bringing in new customers in the front door, no one is watching the back door as existing customers stroll out. We would all agree, I think, that watching the back door is perhaps more important for long-term business success.

Balancing the organization’s desire for new customers with its desire for new revenue can be tricky. Somewhere, somehow, someone got the idea that new customers are better for producing revenue. While it may be true with some commodities, it’s largely an untrue generalization. The best source for new revenue is the existing customer…not the new ones. The challenge is that building business from existing customer is a relationship sell–something that’s longer term for the organization–and not something than usually can be leveraged to create an immediate impact on business revenue.

Relationship selling is what marketing is about, so changing a marketer’s mindset to focus on more immediate needs of sales can be a difficult thing to do–all marketers reading this raise your hand if you’ve ever said, “That’s a sales problem, not a marketing problem”. I’ll bet at least 75% of us raised our hand and of that number another 50% has at some point lost his or her job because our boss thought we weren’t demonstrating a tangible contribution to the sales efforts.

Marketers are generally good at relationship building efforts, but let’s examine a few other ways to improve marketing effectiveness (read: drive sales) in the near term:

1. Do what works not what is pretty: It doesn’t have to cost a lot, nor does it have to be pretty to generate sales. Creative-types always strive for a pretty ad or marketing collateral, but the most important thing to get across is benefits of the product or services that you’re selling. Some of the most effective marketing campaigns were four-page direct mail pieces filled with nothing but text. If it works, and doesn’t degrade the overall image of the company, who cares what it looks like. In direct response, it’s about the offer, the audience, and then creative. That’s not a bad approach to take for all marketing efforts.
   
2. Analyze and measure activities: Track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Are your programs driving people to your stores? What’s the increase in average daily sales volume during the promotion? Alternatively, are you successful in generating leads for the sales force? What’s the quality of those leads? How many of those leads have turned into sales? What was the duration of those leads in the sales pipeline?
   With the exception of those in database or direct marketing, most marketers don’t track the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. Doing so is critical to gaining ongoing corporate support for marketing. Figure out how you can track and measure every thing you do with your marketing dollars.

3. Create a dialog with sales, merchandising, and other departments: Communicate with sales, customer service, tech support and all other customer-facing departments. The people on the front lines deal with prospects and customers on a daily basis and can tell you more about a customer and market needs than any market research study or survey. Gain input from individuals in these areas to develop such things as message strategies, collateral pieces, promotional ideas, and mailing lists to ensure that your marketing efforts are truly in line with prospect and customer needs, values and expectations.
   
4. Listen to customers: Once in a while, pick up the phone and call a few customers. See what they like and what they don’t like about your advertising, marketing, services, sales and products. Do it randomly and periodically and you gain tremendous insights into the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
   
5. Create opportunities to generate sales: Figure out how to help the sales and merchandising teams gain immediate sales. Working with them, you may find a simple, easy-to-do promotion will fill an urgent need that will drive short-term sales. This will ensure additional cooperation from the front-line, and gain recognition with you management for driving revenue.

There are many other ways to improve marketing effectiveness, and while the points listed here may seem most obvious now, we often forget about these when going about our daily work. But above all, if you can remember that marketing is truly about sales–moving merchandise and making the cash register ring–you will be a more effective marketing and may never need to worry about job security.

How to keep your job in marketing | Dave Harkins

Please note that this presentation is Dave Harkins’ work created in other partnerships or organizations and the design templates have not been changed. Additionally, this content may now be dated but can still be used as an idea starter for your specific needs.

Delivered July 23, 2002, National Center for Database Marketing
Presented with Melissa Rehfus, Vice President, Marketing, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida

(Click the link below to access the PDF file)

Piloting a CRM Initiative

PRESENTATION: Piloting a CRM Initiative | Dave Harkins

I read an interesting article the other day about wireless advertising. The article featured a firm called Mobliss (now PressOK Entertainment) that is fast becoming what some industry experts believe to be one of the leaders in the delivery of wireless advertising. They may very well be on to something.

Mobliss founders have developed a pretty unique business model that delivers advertising, with permission, to those looking to “save time or to kill time.” Mobliss, which views itself as a media company, has bet on the “kill time” approach to engaging the consumer. Through the use of gaming and entertainment-oriented content, Mobliss can deliver promotional messages with to wireless devices. These promotions can also be targeted, relevant and location-based. The firm has partnered with gaming and entertainment providers-Group Lotto and Tribune Media Services, among them– for branded content.

It works by offering a variety of message opportunities-from contextual advertising to mobile alerts-to those accessing the Mobliss servers. One example is their recent partnership with 1-800 Contacts where users, after playing the word-unscramble game, Jumble, are presented with an opportunity to call 1-800 Contacts to order contact lenses. In this case, the campaign is even integrated into the game, with the word “vision” as one of the jumbled words. Like other web-based marketing programs, Mobliss promotions can be tracked and are measurable in a variety of ways.

As I read this article, I couldn’t imagine anyone sitting around playing games on their cell phones while killing time. I then remembered that the day prior I was sitting in the airport waiting to pick up a friend and found myself-for the first time-playing a game on my cell phone. The difference is that my game is loaded on the phone and doesn’t cost anything to play. To take advantage of these other games or entertainment, it requires a connection to a server and that means I’m paying for the call and the data transfer. Call me cheap-make that “frugal”-but, I’d never do it as long as the wireless pricing models are as they are today. That does not mean, however, that others won’t.

I understand that there are some 12 million wireless subscribers in the United States , with somewhere around 5.6 million who use their wireless devices for things other than phone calls. But are they using the devices for entertainment in this sense? Who really knows? If they are, and I had an appropriate product for those folks, I would definitely test the Mobliss approach.
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My thanks to Brian Levin, CEO at Mobliss for providing clarification and validation of his firm’s services, for this article.

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Playing Games with Wireless Advertising | Dave Harkins

I was thinking about this other day, when I read a blurb about a company call BlueLinx (www.bluelinx.com) in Charlotte, NC. BlueLinx has developed a product called “Q-Zone”, which allows people and organizations to control environmental disruptions of cell phones, pagers, and other types of noise-making portable electronic devices. Q-Zone uses the emerging Bluetooth (www.bluetooth.com) wireless technology to create “quiet zones” within churches, concert halls, conference centers, restaurants, hospitals, movie theaters, and other public places. Essentially, the technology turns the devices “off” when entering a quiet zone and “on” upon leaving. When I finished reading about BlueLinx, it occurred to me that this same or similar technology could be used bridge the delivery gap and get the message to the customer pretty close to the “right” time.

Let’s consider how this could work. I’m in the market for new shoes, so I decide to go the local mall to shop. Once there, I turn on my web-enabled phone (PDA or other device) and let the shoe sellers in the mall know that I’m interested in buying a pair of size 12, black wing-tips. Within seconds I’m made aware of the stores that have size 12 black wing tips in stock, and the pricing. I may even be offered discounts or other freebies for the purchasing the shoes with a particular merchant. I can then visit each merchant, examine the quality and comfort of the shoe, and determine the most appropriate fit for me.

This same concept could be applied to hotel rooms, restaurants, gas stations, and a host of other merchants. Best of all, the customer retains control of the process, telling the merchants when s/he is ready to buy. Unlike most of today’s customer-focused marketing programs, there’s no intrusion by the merchant. The idea of delivering at the customers purchase decision point-or very near it-at the customer’s request is what customer-focused marketing programs (call it CRM or whatever your like) should really be about.

There are dozens of potential applications of this technology in the CRM space–I have a growing list, myself–that will help us be more efficient and less intrusive in delivering messages, content or other offers to our customers. Are we up to the challenge of thinking, “out-of-the-box” for its use?

Reaching the Right Person at the Right Time | Dave Harkins