An article in The Wise Marketer, (free registration required), Top ten factors that make or break consumer trust, discusses research that was recently conducted in the UK by Corporate Culture. Here is a summary of the research findings:
Gender bias
Women in particular believe trust is an essential quality in the companies they buy from (56% of women cited this as important, compared to 47% of men).
Most trusted & untrusted
The most and least trusted business sectors are:
Rank Most Trusted Least Trusted
1 Entertainment and leisure Tobacco
2 Food companies; Supermarkets; Technology Fast food
3 Pharmaceutical Petrochemicals
4 Cosmetic/toiletries Gas/electricity; Construction
Source: Corporate Culture Customer Trust Index
Top ten trust/distrust factors
The index also identified the top ten factors that make customers trust or distrust a company:
Rank Most Trusted Least Trusted
1 Keeps promises (76%) Doesn't correct mistakes (80%)
2 Customer service (70%) Fails to protect privacy (77%)
3 Consistently high quality (64%) Doesn't do what it says (74%)
4 Deals effectively with complaints (64%) Inaccurate billing (70%)
5 Value for money (64%) Too many sales calls (65%)
6 Honest/admit mistakes (59%) Inconsistent quality (63%)
7 Product safety (59%) Ingredients may damage health (60%)
8 Meets individual needs (52%) Doesn't inform price/product changes (50%)
9 Listens to customers (51%) Outsources call centers/operations (55%)
10 Clear pricing (49%) Unclear pricing (52%)
Source: Corporate Culture Customer Trust Index
The research also noted that trust drives sales. If a company loses the trust of consumers, three out of four (76%) say they will simply stop buying from the company. Conversely, if a company earns consumer trust, 42% will buy more products, and over half (54%) will recommend the product to others.
Four keys to building trust
Corporate Culture has identified four steps to help companies to earn consumer trust:
1. Ensure your product or service meets the expectations of your customers;
2. Remember that you are only as good as your last personal contact with the customer;
3. Show consumers the difference your product makes in their life;
4. Be seen to act responsibly in everything you do.
According to John Drummond, chief executive for Corporate Culture, "There has been a massive increase in the amount of marketing money companies are spending to win customer trust. This can only make sense if it is based on a genuine understanding of why customers trust companies and what the most powerful form of communication is for them. One of the key points of this research is that the future of marketing is about belief in business. It suggests that what people believe is a more powerful influence on buying behaviour than price, quality or reputation. What people believe is also more powerful than the facts about your company or your product."
Here is an article from Sales & Marketing Management's Management Advisor Newsletter, Plan a Successful Sales Meeting:
No one said sales meetings were supposed to be fun—you have to prepare in advance and take time away from clients to attend. Besides, you usually spend the duration day-dreaming anyway. When research shows that professionals feel 50 percent of meetings are a waste of time, you really can't blame your sales team for not being enthusiastic about your next gathering. But how can you get your reps to attend sales meetings without having to resort to begging?
Here are six tips to help you lead an effective and energetic meeting:
1. Set the Tone
There's more to a theme than just a few catchy words. A theme not only establishes the expectations for a sales meeting, but sets the tone and goals for the entire year. Making that theme meaningful can be the most important part of planning a sales event. Decide what message you want to send and what you want the meeting to accomplish. Also, be sure to introduce the theme early on to ignite focus and anticipation.
2. Kick It Off Right
Salespeople are active employees. They take the initiative every day to go out and take risks. It only makes sense that your sales meeting kickoff should actively involve your reps. Turning attendees into participants creates excitement. Start off with some light ice-breakers, and try techniques such as role playing to build team interaction.
3. Prevent Boredom
Make sure to engage your audience or you'll be getting those infamous blank stares. You can't maintain attention if all you're doing is talking at people. Try brainstorming activities or presenting skits in small groups. Also be sure to get feedback and suggestions as you go—it'll let attendees know their opinions have a place.
4. Let Them Shine
If you really want to engage your reps, make sure to use the meeting as a way to recognize your team's achievements. Throughout the meeting, find ways to acknowledge those who have gone above and beyond. Make them stand up and don't be shy with your praise. Salespeople tend to be egocentric, so the chance for peer recognition is highly valued.
5. Keep 'em Guessing
The quickest way to zap people's interest is to make meetings boring and run longer than expected. Keep reps motivated and focused for the duration with elements of surprise sprinkled throughout the meeting. They'll be much less likely to zone out if they're eager to see what's coming next. Try breakout sessions and alternating speakers to keep the momentum flowing.
6. Over But Not Out
It's done. Attendance was high, participants were enthusiastic and involved, and a wealth of new selling strategies took center stage. But was it a successful sales meeting? Post-meeting followup is important to keep the meeting in your reps' minds and to prepare for next time. Use a combination of ratings and open-ended questions when soliciting audience feedback for the most accurate results. Also, salespeople often thrive on competition, so by utilizing some mini-incentives or contests you can increase the amount of feedback you receive.
Here are just a few excerpts from an interview USA TODAY's Del Jones conducted with Wynton Marsalis,the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center:
Leading a company is often compared to conducting an orchestra. But organizing a jazz band may be a more appropriate analogy. That's because business leaders increasingly want to set free the creative juices of individuality while maintaining the discipline to make music, not noise.
Q: Does a jazz stage really have anything in common with the typical workplace?
A: When you listen to great jazz musicians, you hear the respect they have for each other's abilities. During a performance, most of the musicians' time is spent listening to others. You see the trust they have for each other because they are always making adjustments and improvising based on what someone else does. I think (drummer) Elvin Jones articulated it best when he said, "In order to play with somebody on a profound level, you have to be willing to die with them." You might not like your colleagues that much, but that is jazz and that is feeling.
Q: What can ruin jazz or business?
A: Lack of integrity. Jazz music always stood as a fortress of integrity. The musicians' skills were so hard-earned that they did not easily sell out. Once the musicians decided to be less — for notoriety, publicity or money — our art began to face challenges: dearth of leadership, reducing human labor to a line item on a budget, and so on. We have control over how we choose to confront our challenges and reconcile contradictions.
Q: What is "swing," and how can a business get it?
A: Swing is a rhythm, an era in American history, and it is a world view. In this world view, there is a belief in the power of a collective ability to absorb mediocre and poor decisions. When a group of people working together trust that all are concerned for the common good, then they continue to be in sync no matter what happens. That is swing. It's the feeling that our way is more important than my way. This philosophy extends to how to treat audiences, consumers, staff or dysfunctional families. This may seem idealistic, but think about how church congregations recite, nearly together and completely unrehearsed. They proceed by feel. Swing is the single objective. It is the core that makes us all want to work together.
Q: How can we unleash creativity and spontaneity on the job?
A: When I was younger, just beginning to play jazz and getting publicity, almost every critic and older musician came out of the woodwork to say that my playing was inauthentic — lacking soul and feeling. They said it was too technical and young. I had not paid enough dues to play with meaning or feeling. The great jazz trumpeter Sweets Edison, who played in Count Basie's 1930s band, asked me "Where are you from?" I said, New Orleans. He said, "What did you grow up doing?" I responded, "Playing." Then he said, "Why are you trying to act like what you are? Be what you are." This was a profound lesson in creativity. It's about being yourself, valuing your own ideas, mining your own dreams. You can be creative inside or outside of tradition. Outside of tradition, you create a new world. Inside of tradition, you create a new way to do the old things much better. Both can be innovative, because in one you reinvigorate a tradition. In the other, you counter-state it.
Q: Every company longs for creative employees. How does a jazz band get swing without chaos?
A: Jazz is the collective aspirations of a group of musicians, shaped, given logic and organized under the extreme pressure of time. When we work together, the music is swinging, and when we don't, it's not. The perception of jazz is that we all get along. In actuality, we're always trying to get along, and it is the integrity of that process that determines the quality of the swing. A business that swings will definitely be successful.
Q: So, is there a boss in a jazz band who takes charge?
A: In jazz, hierarchy is determined by your ability to play, not your position in the band. The philosophy of jazz is antithetical to the commoditization of people. It is rooted in the elevation and enrichment of people. The reason that jazz is the most flexible art form in the history of the planet is because it believes in the good taste of individuals. It believes in the human power to create wonderful things, and it embraces that instead of attempting to administrate it away with senseless titles and useless hierarchies.
Here are Wynton Marsalis's Tips:
- Everything in jazz and business starts with integrity. Listen to others. Respect them. Build trust.
- Groups who work together "swing." They believe "we" is more important than "me," and by doing so, absorb mistakes.
- You can be creative inside or outside of tradition. Inside, you reinvigorate. Outside, you counter-state.
- Creative people dare to be laughed at. They don't act like what they are. They be what they are.
- Embrace opposites. They are, in fact, the same.
Here are several excerpts from an article by Jeff Thull, president and CEO of Prime Resource Group, Prevent 11th Hour Negotiations:
One of the enduring myths of negotiation is that it is back and forth struggle with your customer that occurs in the final stage of the sale, the "close." Negotiation, at its best, is comprised of open, honest and straight-forward communication based on mutual respect and mutual trust. When you recognize it in this form, it begins with the very first conversation and is continuous throughout the relationship. We refer to it as the "diagnostic process." When you are using this process, there is no need for high-pressure, last minute bargaining, there are few, if any, objections and there is no need for "arm-wrestling" in the 11th hour.
This is difficult for salespeople to grasp. "What? No objections?" "No negotiating?" "No closing?" Please note that I'm not saying "no negotiating." I'm saying no negotiating in the 11th hour.
Negotiation takes on a new definition in the diagnostic process, which centers on clear and precise communication and collaboration—a continual series of "mutual agreements and understanding." A collaborative approach eliminates the dependency on traditional closing and objection handling skills. By the time a customer receives your proposal, you and your customer have come to common conclusions and understanding of all the key elements that would otherwise be subject to objection or negotiation when there are surprises in the 11th hour. You will have agreed on the nature and financial impact of their problems, your mutual expectations, the financial value of that solution and the selection criteria for a high-quality solution. In short, the customer has agreed to each element of a quality decision process and is not seeing any new "terms" in the proposal with which to have a reason to object.
Let's take a deeper look at this quality decision process. The first decision element revolves around the customer recognizing that they are experiencing some consequences due to the absence of the value your solution could provide.
The next decision revolves around determining the financial impact of the problem. It is important to bring your customer a process that will guide them through measuring the financial impact of their problem, just as a doctor brings the capability of running tests to determine the extent of the symptoms. We refer to this as the "cost of the problem." If you don't have a cost of the problem, there isn't a problem. In other words, if you can't help your customer measure the financial impact of the problem your solution will address, they will be unable to measure the value of your solution, likely not want to buy your solution at all and very likely not want to pay the price you will ask.
When the cost of the problem is agreed on, the next decision for the customer is, "Is this bad enough to take action?" When the customer compares this problem and its costs to other problems they have or opportunities they have to invest in, where does this one stack up on the priority scale?
When these decisions are mutually agreed upon, we have "negotiated" away a high percentage of the objections we would traditionally hear and those that might lead to a "no sale." A large number of objections occur because the customer receives a presentation or proposal before these decisions are made, a "pre-mature proposal."
Think about it—how many times have we given a customer a proposal before they decided they really had a problem? They were only "interested" in the solution we had. How many times have we given a proposal to someone who said they had the kind of problem we solve, but they did not know how much that problem was costing them? Finally, how often have we given a proposal to someone who had the problem, but had not decided that it was a top priority to address?
The key to successful negotiations is that each party is well informed and understands their respective mutual interests. You are working towards an equitable exchange of value and a continuing relationship. When you reach agreement on each critical point of the exchange, as each emerges during the decision process, you have brought great clarity to the relationship. The foundation of the diagnostic approach is that it is easier to reach clarity and agreement on many small points, than a single summary of all those points.
If you pattern your sales approach after a quality decision process, rather than a sales process, you will be able to stay away from "pre-mature presentation," and most likely you will not be a victim of those 11th hour negotiations.
Check out the complete
source article for more.
Here are several excerpts from an excellent overview on Business Intelligence by Ryan Mulcahy, ABCs of Business Intelligence:
What is business intelligence?
Business intelligence, or BI, is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data. BI as a discipline is made up of several related activities, including data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting.
Companies use BI to improve decision making, cut costs and identify new business opportunities. BI is more than just corporate reporting and more than a set of tools to coax data out of enterprise systems. CIOs use BI to identify inefficient business processes that are ripe for re-engineering.
With today’s BI tools, business folks can jump in and start analyzing data themselves, rather than wait for IT to run complex reports. This democratization of information access helps users back up—with hard numbers—business decisions that would otherwise be based only on gut feelings and anecdotes.
Although BI holds great promise, implementations can be dogged by technical and cultural challenges. Executives have to ensure that the data feeding BI applications is clean and consistent so that users trust it.
Who should lead the way?
Sharing is vital to the success of BI projects, because everyone involved in the process must have full access to information to be able to change the ways that they work. BI projects should start with top executives, but the next group of users should be salespeople. Because their job is to increase sales and because they’re often compensated on their ability to do so, they’ll be more likely to embrace any tool that will help them do just that—provided, of course, the tool is easy to use and they trust the information.
With the help of BI systems, employees modify their individual and team work practices, which leads to improved performance among the sales teams. When sales executives see a big difference in performance from one team to another, they work to bring the laggard teams up to the level of the leaders.
Once you get salespeople on board, you can use them to help get the rest of your organization on the BI bandwagon. They’ll serve as evangelists, gushing about the power of the tools and how BI is improving their lives.
How should I implement a BI system?
When charting a course for BI, companies should first analyze the way they make decisions and consider the information that executives need to facilitate more confident and more rapid decision-making, as well as how they'd like that information presented to them (for example, as a report, a chart, online, hard copy). Discussions of decision making will drive what information companies need to collect, analyze and publish in their BI systems.
Like so many technology projects, BI won’t yield returns if users feel threatened by, or are skeptical of, the technology and refuse to use it as a result. And when it comes to something like BI, which, when implemented strategically, ought to fundamentally change how companies operate and how people make decisions, CIOs need to be extra attentive to users' feelings.
Seven steps to rolling out BI systems:
1. Make sure your data is clean.
2. Train users effectively.
3. Deploy quickly, then adjust as you go. Don't spend a huge amount of time up front developing the "perfect" reports because needs will evolve as the business evolves. Deliver reports that provide the most value quickly, and then tweak them.
4. Take an integrated approach to building your data warehouse from the beginning. Make sure you're not locking yourself into an unworkable data strategy further down the road.
5. Define ROI clearly before you start. Outline the specific benefits you expect to achieve, then do a reality check every quarter or six months.
6. Focus on business objectives.
7. Don't buy business intelligence software because you think you need it. Deploy BI with the idea that there are numbers out there that you need to find, and know roughly where they might be.
More tips for getting BI right
- Analyze how executives make decisions.
- Consider what information executives need in order to facilitate quick, accurate decisions.
- Pay attention to data quality.
- Devise performance metrics that are most relevant to the business.
- Provide the context that influences performance metrics.
And remember, BI is about more than decision support. Due to improvements in the technology and the way CIOs are implementing it, BI now has the potential to transform organizations. CIOs who successfully use BI to improve business processes contribute to their organizations in more far-reaching ways than by implementing basic reporting tools.
For much more on this subject, be sure to check out this
comprehensive article on Business Intelligence.
Here are a couple of excerpts from an article by Patrick Kampert of the Chicago Tribune, Time Manager Spurs Clients Into Action:
As people begin thinking about how to change their lives in the new year, getting a grip on procrastination is one way to find peace, said Marianna Swallow, a time management consultant and president of M. Runge and Associates.
"How important is it for you to save that time?" she asked. "How important is it for you to get things done and not have it hanging over your head when you go to bed at midnight tonight? "
Swallow says there is no onesize-fits-all approach for overcoming procrastination.
"I know one girlfriend who keeps all of her ‘to-do’s’ on her cell phone. She can’t stand desk planners, and she can’t stand the computer, but her cell phone works."
Swallow offers a few tips to prevent putting things off:
- Identify the thing that drives you nuts. What is the one thing that you constantly think about on and off the job?
- Ask what procrastination is costing you. One of Swallow’s seminar participants put off paying a traffic ticket — for the third time — and wound up with her license suspended.
- Find the tiniest step you need to take to get started on the project. If you’re planning to redecorate your living room, don’t try to do everything in one day.
- Make an easily achievable goal to give yourself a mental jump-start. "We set ourselves up for failure, especially around the new year," Swallow said. "We say, ‘OK, this is it. I’m not going to eat ice cream anymore, and I’m going to the gym three times a week.’ Don’t do that to yourself." Instead, commit to going to the gym once a week for five minutes. Five will turn into 10, and so on.
- Give yourself the freedom to delete minor, unfulfilled projects from your list. Maybe you’ve tried to arrange a lunch with an acquaintance, and it has been rescheduled several times. At some point, Swallow says, it’s OK to say, "This just isn’t going to happen."
For several examples of how Ms. Swallow has specifically helped several clients, check out the complete
source article.
Here is an article from Steve W. Martin, the author of Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom..., The Seven Deadly Sins of Salespeople:
In the late sixth century, Pope Gregory described the seven deadly sins from the least serious to the most, as superbia, invidia, ira, avaritia, tristia, gula, and luxuria. Translated from Latin, they are pride, envy, anger, avarice, sadness, gluttony and lust.
What do you think are the seven deadly sins of salespeople? Here's my list, in order of least to most severe.
Chattering. Salespeople talk too much on sales calls for a variety of reasons. Some are nervous chatterers who just can't keep their mouths shut. Others think they know more than the customer so they lecture the customer to death. Many salespeople feel compelled to recite their canned pitch regardless of the customer's actual interest. You have conducted a perfect sales call when the customer has been persuaded to buy even though you listened far more than you spoke.
Gourmandizing. Millionaire railroad tycoon Diamond Jim Brady was a legendary gourmand who lived at the turn of the twentieth century. For breakfast he ate eggs, pancakes, pork chops, cornbread, fried potatoes, hominy, muffins, and beefsteak and drank a gallon of orange juice. Lunch consisted of two lobsters, deviled crabs, clams, oysters, beef and several pies. A platter of seafood and carafes of lemon soda constituted his 4:30 snack. The evening meal began with three dozen oysters, six crabs, and turtle soup. The main course was two whole ducks, six or seven lobsters, a sirloin steak, and servings of vegetables. Dessert included a platter of pastries and often a two-pound box of candy. Does your sales organization include a "Diamond Jim Brady" who devours company resources to the point of gluttony?
Inactivity. Salespeople must be short-term thinkers and long-term planners. An inactive salesperson neglects the future and does not spend time on activities that build his future pipeline. Inactivity is not to be confused with laziness. Many hardworking salespeople are completely focused on the here and now. Unfortunately, they forget about next quarter and next year. Other salespeople place all their eggs in one basket, never really thinking about what will happen if their big deal collapses. They have been lulled into a state of inactivity and could be jolted into reality at any moment.
Obliviousness. Many salespeople don't take the time to understand how customers fit within their own organization. I am continually amazed at the lackadaisical attitude many salespeople have about understanding the organizational structure of the companies they call on. When they are asked what a person?s title is, they will answer, "manager," or something equally nebulous, when they should answer, "manager of application security who reports to the director of application development, who, in turn, reports to the CIO."
Shallowness. Salespeople who don?t know their product well enough to build customer credibility cannot be expected to drive account strategy. How can you determine your next course of action if you don't understand the customer's technical objections and how best to emphasize the product?s strengths? Worse, in this situation you are completely at the mercy of someone else because another member of your company has to explain how your product works.
Presumptuousness. Assuming information you really don't know is one of the worst sins for a salesperson. Salespeople who are not certain but make their best guess about who the ultimate and final decision maker is within an account are more than halfway to losing the deal.
Ignorance. Ignorance is the deadliest sin. If you do not have a spy within an account who is telling you what is happening in closed-door meetings, defending you when you are not around, and disseminating propaganda on your behalf, you will most certainly lose.
Your success is your responsibility. The road to the top is paved with hard work, diligence and self-discipline. The salesperson who avoids committing these seven deadly sins is well on his or her way to becoming a Heavy Hitter, a truly great salesperson.
Here are several excerpts form an article by Bob Conlin, CMO at Centive, Sales Compensation Best Practices:
Sales compensation plans are one of the most powerful tools organizations have to affect sales performance. Properly designed and deployed, sales compensation plans drive superior performance and result in achieving and exceeding sales and revenue targets--without exceeding compensation budgets.
Unfortunately, most companies fail to adequately test and model sales compensation plan variables and attainment scenarios. This failure is largely due to the inability of their current spreadsheet-based sales compensation management systems to easily create and effectively run models. Restricted by their inability to model plans and attainment scenarios, executives are often reluctant to make the significant plan changes needed to better align their sales team with corporate sales, revenue, and profit goals.
Best practice sales-compensation management calls for sales and finance executives to work with sales operations to build and model compensation plans, analyze and forecast related commission earnings at both a macro (plan) and micro (individual) level, and then choose those sets of plans that best fit corporate parameters for sales performance, revenue, and associated commission costs.
This best practice exercise begins with the requirement to leverage a sales compensation management system that supports the ability to easily build multiple compensation plan models. Spreadsheet-based systems typically do not meet this requirement; the complex macros and linked worksheets needed to support multifaceted sales compensation plans are too difficult and time-consuming to build within a desktop application. To be effective with this exercise, multiple models need to be analyzed. Spreadsheet-based systems do not easily support this best practice.
Multiple models are needed because executives need to evaluate a myriad of changes and options--for example changes to quotas, commission rates, territories, and organizational structures. Attainment levels also need to be modeled--for example, a company may expect sales and the revenues associated with those sales to increase in some areas or with certain product lines, and decrease in other areas or with other product lines. So not only do executives need to model multiple plans, they also need to run multiple attainment scenarios through each of the modeled plans. By modeling both plans and data, executives are empowered to evaluate results and implement the plans that best fit their organization's business model.
During the modeling phase, results should be analyzed at both the macro level (i.e., what are the total compensation costs associated with this modeled plan?) and the micro level (i.e., how will this plan affect the earnings for particular sales team member?). Good sales plans should result in attainment that follows a standard bell curve, with the majority of reps grouped near 100 percent quota attainment. However, bell curves don't reveal details, and you need to make sure that new plans won't negatively impact your top performers or unfairly reward poor performers.
After the right sales compensation plans are implemented, sales and finance executives should actively monitor actual attainment and commission costs and compare them to their modeled plans. Modeled versus actual analysis helps ensure that companies are in position to quickly react should unforeseen influences affect results. In fact, best practice sales compensation management calls for executives to run new models periodically during the year to reflect market influences that may not have been initially factored in.
By modeling commission plans and forecasting related costs, sales and finance executives gain confidence that their sales plans will drive superior performance at a reasonable cost. In many ways, a sales team is like a highly tuned race car; it can achieve amazing performance results, but can quickly skid out of control if not carefully monitored and tweaked when results don't meet expectations.
Here are several excerpts from a press release that references a recent study on sales recognition best practices:
Motivating sales people requires a mix of 60% tangible, 40% intangible incentives, according to data from research and consulting firm Best Practices, LLC.
Intangible rewards - that are clearly important to motivation - include special recognition by management at team meetings, praise in private and mails from direct managers. By contrast, tangible rewards are such items that can be touched or consumed such as gift certificates, trophies and plaques, and cash and dinner for two. A summary of the report "Best Practices in Sales Recognition Programs," can be found here.
The most frequently used tangible rewards are gift certificates, plaques and cash awards, followed by dinner for two. When asked if there was a ceiling on cash payouts, more than half (54%) of surveyed companies said there was.
This research (available as a fee download) profiles 84 companies across industries on the prevalence of intangible and tangible rewards as well as:
- Tax implication of programs
- Communication of programs, including website support
- Presence of formal measurement of program
- Lessons learned
"In this research, respondents strongly stated that a link exists between the motivation of staff, a system of rewards using tangible and intangible recognition and increased performance," said Jon Easter, director of Best Practices, LLC's Business Excellence Board.
Here's an interesting post from Atlanta's dBusinessNews Site:
Fiderion, a retained executive search firm with deep experience recruiting Chief Marketing Officers for financial services and technology companies, recently hosted a CMO roundtable event in Atlanta to discuss and debate the future of marketing. Many of the top marketing professionals in the city attended the dinner discussion, which was moderated by Echelon Marketing President Don Neal.
Fiderion Managing Directors Rob Gallagher and Todd Stratton highlight a few noteworthy comments that address why hiring qualified marketing professionals will remain a key challenge for global corporations in 2007.
Your next CMO will wear a pocket protector. “Year after year we’ve seen a 50 percent increase in marketing positions that require quantitative and research expertise. The most highly sought-after marketing professionals today started in one of the heavy mathematical disciplines, like engineering or finance, and moved into marketing later in their career.
Companies today are looking for marketing scientists who can research, build, test and prove their marketing ideas. It is all about achieving bottom line results,” said Fiderion Managing Director Rob Gallagher. In fact, many of the marketing executives at the event agreed that the title of Chief Marketing Officer is truly evolving to one of Chief Growth Officer.
B2C experience still trumps B2B, but B2B is gaining ground. “The increasingly blurred line between B2B and B2C marketing will get even more pronounced,” according to Todd Stratton, who noted that marketing standards in B2B are inching higher as marketing targets in B2B demand the same quality they see as consumers. “In the past, there was a gap in B2B marketing standards compared to B2C marketing, and a general feeling that B2B materials did not need to meet the same high standards. This is definitely no longer the case as B2B communications are on par with their B2C counterparts,” said Stratton.
Time is the ‘Currency of the 21st Century.’ “What used to be measured quarterly is now measured in hours or minutes, and the shorter gestation period requires hiring talented individuals who think and act quickly to achieve strong results,” Gallagher said. “My advice is to focus on finding people who work with the same technologies and resource levels to which you are accustomed. Think about the impact of hiring someone for your team that does not use a Blackberry, instant messaging or Microsoft Excel, for example. The candidate’s use (or non-use) of technology tools will greatly impact their effectiveness and therefore your team’s.” Bring your checkbook.
Hiring qualified marketing professionals with analytical backgrounds is a challenge that will get worse before it gets better. In addition, the marketing executives at the event also spoke at length about retaining and motivating the young, analytical professionals who are clearly from a new and independent generation. The competition for these individuals is fierce. “We are seeing hedge funds and other financial service firms woo top analytical marketing talent with lucrative compensation packages,” said Stratton.