Servant of Chaos

Do You Monitor or Listen?

In social media, we are often told to “listen first”. But what does this really mean? For most people, the reality is that we “monitor” – brands, products, people and so on. But, for me, monitoring is only the first step. It’s the most basic thing that you can do to begin showing your customers some respect.

But monitoring is done in silence. It’s a form of brand voyeurism.

So, what does it take to go beyond “monitoring”? I took a lesson from one of my favourite musicians – Natalie Merchant. You can read my latest MarketingProfs article How Natalie Merchant Taught Me to Listen along with plenty of other thought provoking content at the always brilliant MarketingProfs site.

Oh and you can always follow my How to Listen chart. Enjoy.

Joining the Customer Collective Advisory Panel

The Customer Collective is an independent, moderated blogging community focused on sales and marketing executives. Its sister site, The Social Customer focuses on customer service practitioners. Both of these sites operate under the SocialMediaToday umbrella and take contributions from bloggers, writers, thought leaders and practitioners from all around the world. You can automatically share your blog posts via RSS or write exclusive articles directly for the community. It is a great way of sharing your knowledge with a broad, yet business focused audience.

I was recently invited to join the advisory board of The Customer Collective/ The Social Customer and am excited to be joining a respected group of marketing and sales practitioners. Be sure to check out their blogs and Twitter channels for razor sharp insight and quality conversation!

Ardath Albee	http://www.marketinginteractions.com @ardath421 on Twitter Ardath Albee is CEO and B2B Marketing Strategist for her firm Marketing Interactions. She is an expert at creating contagious content and e-marketing strategies that engage prospects-from initial attention until they're sales ready. She has a unique ability to develop content strategies that work hand-in-glove with overall corporate and product positioning to deliver hard hitting e-marketing programs and tools that compel customers to buy. Ardath is the author of the popular book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, recently released by McGraw-Hill. Connect with Ardath »
Dave Brock	http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com @davidabrock on Twitter Dave Brock is President and CEO of Partners In EXCELLENCE, a global consulting company focused on helping organizations achieve the highest levels of performance in sales, marketing, customer service and business strategy. He helps individuals and organizations develop and execute strategies to outPerform, outSell, and outCompete their competition. Dave is an internationally recognized speaker, writer, and thought leader in leadership, sales, value propositions, marketing, strategic alliances and partnering, business strategy and management. Connect with Dave »
Charles Green	http://www.trustedadvisor.com @charleshgreen on Twitter Author, speaker, teacher, blogger. Founder/CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates co-author The Trusted Advisor author Trust-based Selling MBA, ex-general management consultant Helping build trusted business advisors. Connect with Charles »
Paul Greenberg	http://the56group.typepad.com/ @pgreenbe on Twitter In addition to being the author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light, Paul Greenberg is President of The 56 Group, LLC, a customer strategy consulting firm, and BPT Partners, LLC, a training and consulting venture that has quickly become the certification authority for the CRM industry. His book, CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategy, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers, now in its fourth edition, is in 9 languages and been called "the bible of the CRM industry". Paul is also the co-chairman of Rutgers University’s CRM Research Center and the Executive Vice President of the CRM Association. He is a Board of Advisors member of the Baylor University MBA Program for CRM majors, a unique national program. He is a core member of the Board of Advisors for the Center for American Progress, the leading policy thinktank in Washington D.C. Connect with Paul »
Gavin Heaton	http://www.sap.com/communities/pcn @servantofchaos on Twitter Gavin is the author of Servant of Chaos, one of Australia’s leading marketing blogs and is the co-publisher (with Drew McLellan) of the ground-breaking collaborative marketing book series, Age of Conversation. Gavin has worked in agencies (leading the global digital strategy for McDonald’s), but is currently holed up on the client side where he is the Director of Social Media for the SAP Premier Customer Network, North America. In what little spare time is left to him, he works with young people as president of local non-profit organisation, Vibewire. Connect with Gavin »
Jill Konrath	http://sellingtobigcompanies.blogs.com @jillkonrath on Twitter Jill Konrath is an internationally recognized author and B2B sales strategist. She's a popular speaker at sales meetings, conferences and kick-off events where she shares fresh sales strategies that actually work in today's business environment. SNAP Selling, her newest book, soared to #1 Amazon sales book within hours of its release. Her 1st book, Selling to Big Companies, was named a “must read” by Fortune Magazine and has been an Amazon’s Top 20 Sales Books since 2006. Connect with Jill »
Mike Merriman	@MerrimanMzinga on Twitter Mike Merriman has a varied background in product development, product management, customer service, strategic consulting, and industry research with over 20 years of leadership experience. As Mzinga’s Director of Strategic Services, Mike applies this broad background to assist our clients in mapping their business goals to specific community and social media initiatives to maintain competitive advantage. Connect with Mike »
Natalie Petouhoff	http://www.drnatalienews.com/ @drnatalie on Twitter Dr. Natalie serves as the Chief Strategist for Social Media, Digital Communications and Measurement at Weber Shandwick, with a world-wide practice role spanning client work, practice development and thought leadership. Dr. Natalie’s focus is to consult with clients on their strategy for social media, marketing, PR, customer service and integrating them using organizational change management, new technology deployment and social media analytics, measurement and ROI. Connect with Natalie »
Anneke Seley	http://www.sales20book.com/wp @annekeseley on Twitter Anneke was the twelfth employee at Oracle, the designer of OracleDirect, the company’s revolutionary inside sales operation, and one of four people recognized as an early innovator in Oracle’s Innovation Showcase. She is currently the CEO and founder of Phone Works, a sales strategy and implementation consultancy that has helped over 350 large and small businesses across industries increase sales productivity and results. Anneke is the coauthor of the best-selling book on the new culture of selling, Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology. Connect with Anneke »

How Well Do You Listen and Engage With Your Customers?

Increasingly, businesses are turning to social media as part of their marketing mix. There is a smattering of Facebook, a Twitter account – and maybe even a YouTube channel. Some will have a social media monitoring solution in place, others a bunch of Google Alerts bombarding their inbox with messages and updates. But there is often a gulf between the listening and doing – between the monitoring and engaging.

And perhaps, more alarmingly, there are precious few businesses who have done the work to put social media into a framework or business context. That’s why I advocate continuous digital strategy. It’s why I think a social business maturity model is important – so that you can actively work to transform your business relationships, systems and processes in such a way as they deliver sustaining value over time.

Social Business Maturity Model

View more presentations from Gavin Heaton

Unfortunately, many of us only take on transformative challenges when we are forced to – often because our competitors beat us to the punch.

Wouldn’t it be nice to lead and set the agenda instead?

The Dell Social Listening questionnaire gives you valuable information from seven relatively simple questions. Based on Forrester industry data, it allows you to model your own business (or your competitors’ business) and have it visualised as an infographic. Here is one I did for a medium sized tech company. Makes for interesting reading … but it can also be a useful way of laying out your strategic challenges – especially if you are also working in a medium sized tech company.

How do you compare? Where are the gaps? And what are you going to do to close them?

You see, it is important to listen to and engage with your customers. But that’s not the end result. It’s the start. Get to it!

A Cup of Chaos #66: Emotional Storytelling

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece for MarketingProfs – Google Gets Emotional When Telling Stories … And So Can You. It showcases a video for Google’s Chrome web browser and talks not about the technology but about the emotional impact of that technology on our lives. It’s a great piece – check it out.

But can you apply the same storytelling approach to other sectors? Of course! Ann Handley shares this great brand story from the non profit sector.

A Love Story… In Milk from Catsnake on Vimeo.

Guest Post: It's Not About the Method, It's About the Message

Over the years, one particular question is starting to become the norm. "What's our message?" Ok, I would expect this question from a small business or a startup selling something like snail-flavoured crackers. They get an idea, they are passionate about the idea, and boom, they think the next step is for us to crank out a logo or website. Unfortunately they aren't the only ones tripping over this error.

Organizations pulling in 20 million in revenue have the same question. When we are brought in, as goal-oriented graphic designers, the goal should be presented. We should be the creative outlet to communicate the message for that goal, but so many times there is no message to communicate. These companies spend their time focusing on the platform they will use to deliver the message, but not the message itself. It's like choosing a method of transportation before knowing your destination. This may have been permissible when bigger marketing budgets meant more ads plastered everywhere and more revenue, but this doesn't fly anymore.

In a new global economy consumers are harder to attract, and naturally suspicious of your motives. In this market place, simply spewing out gorgeous designs won't do; I can pay anyone with Photoshop a few bucks and get that. We need to be more emotionally and culturally sensitive. Simply jumping on Twitter and Facebook, or creating a "viral" video won't do it, these were trendy at first, but they are quickly morphing into simple distribution channels like web sites, email or texting.

Companies need to press their marketing firms, design firms and other ad teams to focus on goals. As a designer, let me caution the Marketing VPs and Communication Directors out there: Your ad campaign message needs to be established independently of the method of communication. The design should be the very last step. It's not about the method, it's about the message.

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Justin Brady is the quick-witted founder of Test of Time Design in Des Moines, Iowa.  http://www.testoftimedesign.com/blog

How Denlo Changed My Volkswagen Experience

I knew it was the end when Brett, my mechanic knocked at the door. He explained that I had had six good years with my Alfa 156, but that was ending. Was about to end. And that from here on in, I was to experience a world of frustration, anxiety and financial burden. It was time for the beast to go.

To my surprise, I sold the car within days. Carsales.com.au had done its job and a young man came along to check the car out with his father.

Wow, I thought to myself, “some first car”! And despite being upfront about the high and ongoing maintenance costs and so on, a decision was made, prices agreed and keys exchanged.

Alfas are like that.

But this left me in a difficult situation. No car. And thanks to repeated backflips by the NSW Labor Government on extensions to the rail network, little to no public transport. I needed a car, and I needed it fast.

I had not seriously investigated the car options – thinking that I had weeks of selling time ahead. But a quick look around convinced me of one thing – there were few interesting options available. Having had a Volkswagen Golf previously (and loving it), I arrived at Denlo in Parramatta and checked out the Golf and also the Polo. There was a sale on (great)! For the money (and the go), the GTi seemed like a one-for-one replacement for the Alfa, but was lacking in the heart pounding emotion. So I opted for the baseline model. Nice. Reliable. It would do me for a couple of years.

Denlo –the first time

Having made that decision I thought it would be easy. But then the buying process was convoluted. The sales guy stepped me through options, variations and prices. It took hours. And in the end, I was ready to walk away – we could not agree what I considered to be a fair price. My sales guy would rush off to check with his sales manager, returning with little to no change. I was starting to feel ripped off. But realising that I would have to go through this process again with another dealer somewhere else, I finally agreed to an unflattering deal.

From there I was handed through various other people in the dealership who would each pitch me on options. Did I want the special paint protection? What about fabric protection? What about finance? The pressure continued.

But by now I was so dissatisfied I was determined not to spend any more time or money with these people.

This was two years ago.

Denlo – the second time

More recently I needed to upgrade my old station wagon. Again, Brett had knocked at my door and delivered the bad news. This time, however, Denlo and Volkswagen were at the bottom of my list. I visited dozens of dealerships. I looked, I test drove and I researched. And eventually I came back around to Volkswagen. The Passat models looked good – but were apparently as rare as hen’s teeth. I even made some preliminary inquiries via Twitter, chatting with car enthusiasts. A couple of dealers with stock contacted me and offered test drives and good deals.

I realised that I was making arrangements to test drive cars miles away from where I lived. My Volkswagen buying experience with Denlo had left such a sour taste in my mouth that I was willing to travel miles out of my way to spend thousands of dollars with someone else! I was really pushing this principle.

But the following weekend I happened to be in Parramatta. We reluctantly wandered in to Denlo and the “sale” flags were flying. There were people everywhere. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. I had already had a bad sale experience here before.

Our sales guy, Russell, seemed down to earth and knew the Passat well. As we chatted he organised a trade in valuation of our old car parked out on the street. He offered coffee – but he was also keen to press on. It was sale time and there were deals to be made. This suited me fine – I was more than ready to walk away at a moment’s notice.

The deal

We talked through the options. Russell checked on what we needed and listened to what we wanted. He didn’t appear to be interested in wasting our time and explained which options and colours were available and when we could get them. And then he gave us a trade in figure.

We had already had an acceptable trade in figure in mind. We thought that was a fair price. Something that a dealer could achieve without risking commission.

It was way too low.

Way.

Before I had a chance to even think that I had wasted more time here, he flicked his eyes across his computer screen and countered. A much better deal. Really, we couldn’t say no. And we didn’t.

From there, again, we were whisked through other parts of the building. Yes, we would need window tinting (oops totally forgot). No, we already have great finance thanks to CUA (really, check them out – astounding). At each handover, I would be expecting another hard sell – but unlike last time, the focus seemed to be on what I needed rather than on what they could sell me.

It still took hours to complete the sale, but second time around, this buying experience was completely different.

Gift wrapping

Oh, and when I came back a week later to pick up the car, all the staff on the floor stood up and applauded. I couldn’t help it, but I felt like I’d just won a car on a quiz show – even though I knew that I’d be paying this baby off for years. And for icing on the cake, they even emailed me a photo of me with my new car.

So would I buy another Volkswagen? Yep. Would I buy it from the Denlo folks? Yep. Should you? Check them out. Ask for Russell. But just remember that the buying process takes some time. It can wear you out and wear you down.

The only thing that did annoy me was the “media device” and the iPod dock. Buying the media device meant we could play songs off a USB drive or via an iPod or iPhone. But the device (one of the few optional extras we chose) doesn’t come with an iPod cable. Something I didn’t know until after delivery – and months later I still have not gotten around to getting one. It’s on my list for this week.