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Keep it simple, stupid

April 19, 2022

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been settling into the reality that 2022 is going to bring a sea change for us as business leaders. Out of every crisis in history, moments of great reinvention and change were born.

Over the next several weeks, we’re going to examine some of the overarching themes of the emerging patterns and think through how we can anticipate and leverage these trends to our advantage as we work to continue to serve our clients and employees, grow our businesses, and set the stage for future opportunities.

Last week we dug into the need for urgency, but even more important, understanding what our consumer’s ultimate outcome was before we rushed to the wrong finish line. This week we’re going to focus on the hunger for simplification.

Just a reminder, the six shifts are:

No time to wait.
Simplification.
Creating the blend.
The inevitable cycle.
Hunger for experience and connection.
It’s all about me.

Of all six trends, this is the least startling, in my opinion. After the last two years of complexity, we crave simplicity. Fewer choices. Less noise. More definitive answers. We want direction and clarity. Our clients want us to help them curate their options, reduce the numbers of layers, hoops, and additional fluff, and – harking back to last week’s focus (no time to wait) – get it to us yesterday.

Building comparative charts or interactive tools on your site that help prospects narrow down to the perfect solution for their unique set of challenges will be welcomed. Training your salespeople to shift away from presenting all of the possibilities and instead asking better curating questions, so they can quickly reduce the options down to the best-fit choices would also be a wise move.

As consumers, we’ve had to get used to getting by with fewer and simpler choices. For many people, they discovered that this made life easier, they didn’t really miss out on anything, and they’re not ready to go back to having an overwhelming array of options.

Another way to look at the simplification need is that this is about hyper-specialization. Show me that you’re the right choice for me because you only serve other people who are a lot like me.

The subscription box phenomenon, which in fairness started before the pandemic, hit an all-time zenith during and after the lockdown. Prepackaged and pre-measured meals? Sign me up. Curated treats and toys for my heavy-chewing, “can rip through anything” dog? Sign me up. Three new outfits that show up every month in my exact size and curated based on my sense of style? Yes, please.

Wondering how this sentiment is being experienced by your own customers? This would be an excellent area to probe in a client survey or discussions with the top 20% of your customers. Learning what aspects of your business are the elements that they really care about will give you some clues as to where you could really double down on what you offer and where you should focus your simplification efforts.

This trend goes deeper than the need for fewer choices or ease of access, like the subscription model. At the heart of this shift is the fundamental acknowledgement that we’d rather pay a little more for something that is tailor-made for us and reduce the waste and churn of “not quite right” products and services.

This bodes well for specialists of all kinds. Find your tribe, learn as much as you can about exactly what they need and want, and help them create an affinity for both your brand and what your brand can do for them.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

How can we go any faster?

April 12, 2022

We have accepted the idea that 2022 is going to bring a sea change for us as business leaders. Out of every crisis in history, moments of great reinvention and change are born. It’s pretty easy to argue that a global crisis like the pandemic is bound to bring sizable shifts for all of us.

The six shifts are:

No time to wait.
Simplification.
Creating the blend.
The inevitable cycle.
Hunger for experience and connection.
It’s all about me.

The first of these shifts is no time to wait. This trend is all about pent-up demand, a feeling that we’re behind the eight ball, and a hunger for relief and change. It’s also about us needing the sense of completion.

We have, in essence, been waiting for 20-plus months. Waiting to have experiences, to travel, to have our freedoms back, and to advance and grow. We’ve been told to “be patient” with everyone from the grocery delivery service to access to health care to fulfilling any sort of personal or professional goals.

No wonder we’re so impatient! We have to anticipate that our clients expect us to rise to their level of impatience and to be committed to helping them get what they want as quickly as possible, without delays or complications.

One of the most interesting aspects of this shift is that it forces us to really look at our customers and ask, “What are they really trying to achieve?”

This is going to push us to think beyond features and benefits to get to an ultimate outcome. Once we determine what that ultimate outcome is, our job as marketers is to perfect that element of our offering and put the spotlight on it in our marketing. For those of you with a background in psychology, this is your moment to shine. Marketing has always been about understanding underlying needs and wants, but we can no longer afford to stop at a surface level. The fascinating and tricky thing is that our customers may not really understand what their actual ultimate goal is either.

But the one thing they absolutely know is that they don’t want to meander to the finish line. They want (and expect) us to help them get there faster and as efficiently as possible. We’re now going to be held not only to the deliverable, but to the speed at which we can deliver it.

What does that look like?

It may be about using technology to drive results and outcomes faster. If you have been avoiding learning about artificial intelligence, I believe your time for keeping your head in the sand is over. Leveraging AI for predictive modeling to anticipate the right course, data about the journey and proof of outcomes has moved from a talk topic to a very practical business application.

This trend is also about removing barriers to accelerate outcomes or experiences. Our clients expect us to help them get to whatever they’ve defined as the goal line faster. Lag times in our sales process, product delivery and customer service responses will be met with literal and figurative abandoned carts.

But ultimately, what it looks like is a lot of product and service tweaking both in what we offer and how we deliver it. It’s about understanding the root need, modifying our offerings to deliver that need at a deeper level, and then getting it done even faster!

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

Courage and conviction

April 5, 2022

We’ve spent the last two years living in fear. We’ve been afraid of COVID. We’ve been afraid of clients leaving because of COVID. We’ve been afraid to raise our prices even though our employee costs are going through the roof. We’ve been afraid to ask our team members to come back to work or to the office. We’ve been afraid that if we don’t bend to employees’ demands, they’ll leave, and we won’t be able to replace them.

On top of all that, we’ve feared the political unrest. The economy. Our ability to pivot.

That’s a whole lot of fear.

We’ve made so many decisions based on fear – and the worry that accompanies those choices add to the weight. The uncertainty swirling around us creates an environment of constant unease.

If you’re like most business owners and leaders, you came into 2022 feeling exhausted and worn down. Even if 2021 was a successful year for you by all measures, it still felt heavy.

The combination of two years of fear and worry, in my opinion, is the source of that exhaustion. Living in fear and carrying all that extra weight is exhausting. We’ve earned the weariness we are experiencing. As a business leader, it’s almost impossible not to be constantly second-guessing yourself. Constantly looking around to see what everyone else is doing. And constantly looking over your shoulder.

No wonder you’re so worn out.

If I had the opportunity to set a universal resolution for business owners and leaders, it would be that we all would choose to push aside that fear and go back to leading with courage and conviction.

I know it’s easier said than done. I know your fears are based on real risks. I know the challenges we’ve been facing since 2020 aren’t going away soon.

But I also know that you can’t lead from a place of fear and inspire anyone. Especially yourself. I know that you had the courage to start your business or take that leadership role. I know you wouldn’t be running the business you’re running today without having a bagful of courage. And I know that even over the past couple of years, that courage has seeped past the fear now and then to help you find the right path.

Here’s what we know. Uncertainty is part of owning or running a business. It always has been and always will be. Granted, no one ever expected COVID-level uncertainty, and hopefully we’ll never experience it again. But we are in a new season with COVID, with the employment situation and with clients.

Let’s not show up in 2022 the way we’ve had to show up over the past couple of years. We’ve survived that and it’s time to go back to our roots. Leading with courage and conviction.

What does that look like?

It looks like trusting that our instincts are usually right and that what we offer has value and our clients appreciate it and us. It looks like when we focus on how we can better serve our clientele and make their lives simpler and easier, it almost always pays off. It looks like a conviction to create an amazing environment for our team members but also recognizing that we’ve survived turnover in the past and we will in the future.

It looks like knowing that we win more than we lose when we step up with confidence and lead with conviction. Are you in?

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

Keep your eyes on the ball

March 29, 2022

Despite the craziness of the last 25 months, it’s so easy to allow complacency to sneak into our day-to-day thinking. You’d think after the pandemic and how every organization had to pivot in some way that we’d be on guard and ready to accelerate at the first sign of market erosion or disinterest.

But the truth is that we’re tired. We’ve been pushing nonstop for those 25 months. We’ve been in constant motion and most people are looking for a soft place to land. A place to slow down. It’s so tempting to look at the marketing and communications strategies that are going well and we think, “I can coast on that. We deserve to catch our breath.”

That’s exactly what your competitors want you to think. They want you to ease up. Especially where the work you’re doing is working. That’s actually the very spot where complacency can do the most damage. When we’re getting it right.

As marketers and business leaders, we’re always looking for the next fire to put out. When things are going well, we believe we can move onto the next fire and just be grateful that something is working the way it should. But that lack of attention and protection over what’s working means that it can begin to get tired or expected.

This is why we need to stay vigilant.

I just read a really insightful book called “Be Vigilant!” by Len Herstein. Herstein was a brand marketer for many years and then he launched Brand ManageCamp conferences across the U.S. In one of the most interesting career pivots I’ve ever seen, Len went on to become a reserve deputy sheriff in his hometown to round out his work. In his book, he explores the idea of how both police officers and business leaders must stay vigilant or else they put themselves in harm’s way.

One of the takeaways of the book for me was the realization that it’s where we are most successful that we’re also most at risk. It’s so easy to take our best-selling products or services for granted. When we have a waiting list or people are willing to pay a premium for something – it’s clearly working, so why rock the boat?

That’s the thinking that we’re at risk of giving into. The idea that we have the luxury of taking our foot off the gas is a fallacy. Especially for the products and services that are in high demand. We should be thinking about how we magnify that demand, not just ride the wave.

For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on areas where we simply, from a marketing and communications point of view, can’t afford to drop the ball. Where we must stay vigilant. Next week we’ll dig into this idea of how do we focus even more on our best performing offers and how do we add even more value so the demand skyrockets in the next year.

I’m not suggesting we don’t slow down and enjoy. But, we can do that and still keep our eye on the ball so we’re set up for a strong and profitable second quarter.

Your actions are speaking

March 22, 2022

Just like in personal relationships, actions speak louder than words. This is true for all of us as business owners and leaders. The choices we make and how we move our companies forward speak volumes to our customers, employees and prospective customers.

And, of course, those actions are not black and white. No matter what we do, it’s filtered through the lens of each consumer. That’s actually what makes branding work.

We declare who and what we are all about in our values, mission and vision statements. But we prove that it’s more than lip service (or not) by our policies, decisions and actions. Once we make it clear where we stand, each consumer is either drawn closer to us or something about who we are makes them take a step back.

Where we get into trouble is when our actions don’t align with who we say we are. Both before and after the pandemic, we saw study after study that clearly said our consumers believe we need to declare who we are and then prove it through our consistent actions. When we don’t deliver on that consistency, our words get dismissed and our actions become the de facto truth.

Sometimes that’s exactly how it should be. We all know of organizations who talk a good game but how they actually behave is not in alignment with how they talk about themselves. That red flag should not be ignored.

But more often than not, it’s not that the company is being duplicitous. It’s because the organization hasn’t done a good job of weaving those core values into decision-making at every level and that the rank-and-file employees either aren’t aware of the core values or haven’t been taught how to use them as guideposts for how they manage the company’s interactions with customers or employees on a day-to-day basis.

Mission, vision and values are often a lofty C-suite exercise that doesn’t trickle down in a meaningful way. How do you make sure your organization’s words match your actions?

In next week’s column, we’ll unpack some very practical ways for you to make sure that how you talk about your company aligns with the actions that your employees and clients see every day.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

How to leverage your client satisfaction survey

March 16, 2022

In the last couple of columns, we’ve been exploring how to actually launch a client satisfaction survey that will yield insights, client retention and love, and maybe even some new opportunities.

This week, I want to wrap up the topic by focusing on how to encourage your clients to participate in the research, what to do with the results once you’ve tallied the responses, and how use what you learned as not only a way to improve your business and your relationship with customers, but also as a sales and marketing tool.

When it comes to encouraging participation, the most important element is one covered in the first column on this topic. When you reassure your customers that you’re going to report on the results and how you’re going to make changes based on their feedback, they’re going to want to participate.

But you’re going to need to tell them more than once. Give yourself room to remind your clients two to three times about the opportunity to complete the survey. You should deploy multiple channels of communication. Don’t count on email alone. An actual letter or phone call will go far in getting their attention and making it clear that you’d really value their input.

Once you’ve persuaded your clients to make the time and you’ve closed down the survey, you’ll need to review the findings to get a sense of what everyone thinks. This isn’t always easy. But keep an open mind and dive in. You’ll be glad you did after the sting of the first bits of criticism dies down.

First — Listen. No matter how good your business is, there are going to be some painful truths revealed. You need to be open to hearing the feedback and, most important, deciding how to respond. Not responding isn’t really an option, if you’re going to honor the promise we talked about a few weeks ago.

Second — Implement change. Figure out how you are going to turn your learnings into action and make modifications based on what you learned. Sometimes the change is recognizing that a certain type of work or client isn’t a good fit. It’s not always about changing who or how you are. But know what you’re going to implement, so you can share it out.

Third — Communicate. To your team and your clients. Here’s what we heard. Here’s what we are changing/doing or here’s why something is going to stay the same. You want to reward your clients for taking the time to share their experiences by demonstrating that you not only heard it, but you took it to heart. That’s why they’ll do it again when you ask. And you’ll get full credit for being eager to get better. In some cases, this might save a relationship. In others, it just increases their confidence in their buying decision.

Fourth — Leverage. Here’s where the data can actually be a sales and marketing tool. Use what you learned to spotlight what your company does well and where you got high marks. This isn’t just about how to get better. It’s also about recognizing where you already are doing a killer job and merchandising that. It’s an opportunity to remind your clients of your full suite of services and how good you are.

You might consider using some of the input on your website, assuming you asked permission during the survey. Let your customers tell the world just how good you are.

Consider doing a client satisfaction survey once a year or every 18 months. Every time you do it, you’re going to learn and get better. And deepen your relationship with your clients.

There’s no downside to making the investment in doing a client satisfaction survey and doing it well.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

Client satisfaction can be measured

March 8, 2022

In last week’s column we started the conversation about how important it is to understand how our current customers are feeling about our work, our people and our value. And yet customer satisfaction surveys are rarely done well.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of bad customer surveys. They ask us too often. They ask us the same questions every time. And we never hear back or see any real reaction to what we shared.

No wonder the completion rate is so low, and the input is so tepid.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Customer satisfaction surveys, when done well, will give you a competitive advantage in terms of both client retention and new customer acquisition.

So how do we conduct our research in a way that ultimately serves both our organization and our clients?

Last week we covered:

Invite your customers to participate and tell them what you’re going do with what you learn.
Strongly consider getting both qualitative and quantitative input.

This week we’ll cover:

Determine the timing.
Be thoughtful about the questions.

Determine the timing: This is one of the aspects most organizations miscalculate. Most ask too often and risk fatiguing their customers. This is especially true if you keep asking the same questions repeatedly or the survey is too long.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the frequency question. If you want to stay on the surface and ask simpler, shorter questions, you can risk asking more often. But if you want to dig deeper and ask your customers for more information, you’ll need to ratchet back your frequency.

If you’re going to honor your commitment to report back on what you learned and how you’re going to make changes based on their feedback, you need to build in time for that as well.

There’s a happy medium between too often and too infrequent. This should not be a one-and-done effort. You do want to get regular feedback, but just what regular means in your specific case will be dependent on the depth of the questions, the length of time you expect your clients to invest in responding, and the products or services you sell. The more considered a purchase, the less often you should hit your clients with a request to give you feedback because odds are they don’t buy that often.

Be thoughtful about the questions: Engineering your questions may be one of the most difficult elements of creating an effective customer satisfaction survey. Rather than creating a list of the usual items, begin with understanding what you are hoping to discover.

Are you trying to identify problem areas that are eroding your market share? Are you looking for innovative new ways to delight your clients? Are you wondering why you aren’t getting more repeat business? Start with some specific information you’re looking to garner and construct the questions accordingly.

Beyond that, consider asking yourself questions that might lead to a more customized and unexpected line of questioning. Start with out-of-the box questions like these:

What problems are we aware of that we haven’t been able to solve on our own?
What product or service is unprofitable for us?
If we could stop doing or selling something, what would we want to stop doing or selling?
What do our top 20% of customers always buy?
What do our top 20% of customers never buy?
If I was selling against us, what would I say?

These are just samples to get you thinking a little differently about what you might ask – and more important, why.

In next week’s post we’ll talk about how to encourage participation and how to use your survey results to market your company.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

Getting a read on your customers

March 1, 2022

By default, we make a lot of assumptions in marketing. But where we can measure, we should. There may not be any area more critical for us to measure than how our current customers are feeling about our work, our people and our value.

Customer satisfaction surveys are nothing new and yet, they are often done poorly. The saddest part of when they’re done badly is that most companies are missing a huge marketing opportunity.

Yes, it’s wonderful to get the data points that you’ll glean from the survey, but there’s also an incredible amount of goodwill and soft marketing that can happen when the research is done well.

Your clients will appreciate that you care enough about their business to ask. But only if you also help them see how you are going to genuinely listen and react to what they tell you. We’ve all been on the receiving end of the same survey, over and over, from a business who asks the same questions after every interaction, but we never hear about the survey results or how they’re going to put their new insights into action.

In this week’s post and next, we’ll review the ingredients to a successful customer satisfaction survey.

Invite your customers to participate and tell them what you’re going to do with what you learn: Without a doubt, this first step is one of the most critical. And yet, there are elements of it that are often overlooked or purposefully skipped. Don’t miss a single nugget of this step if you want to maximize the value of the research.

Start by sending an email or letter to your customer base telling them that you’re going to be sending them a link for an online survey or that your research partner is going to be calling to schedule a phone/Zoom interview.

Give them the timeline of when you’re going to be gathering information, when you’re going to be crunching the numbers and when you are going to share what you learned and how you’re going to address their feedback.

A couple key takeaways from this section. First – you will get much richer, more candid answers if you do not self-administer the survey. Your clients like you and won’t be as candid as you want them to be.

Second – the key to all of this working the way you want it to and getting some marketing juice from it is the report back. When you tell your customers what you learned (good and bad) you can emphasize the elements of your work that everyone loves and appreciates. It’s a smart reminder to your clients that odds are, you do more than what they’re currently buying.

By also disclosing what needs tweaking and how you’re going to make those fixes, you reassure your clients that you’re open to continual improvement and feedback. And you also might be fixing the very issue that is becoming a deal breaker for them.

There’s a formula to how you report back the information, but we’ll get into the details of that in next week’s column.

Strongly consider getting both qualitative and quantitative input: By mixing an online survey with some in person interviews, you can get the best of both worlds. It allows you to survey more people, which will give you more reliable data, but by adding the qualitative interviews in, your research partner can probe into areas of interest and concern. They can follow a script of questions but ask for more detail, clarification and allow the conversation to evolve.

Yes, it’s more expensive and more time consuming, but the insights gained are well worth the effort.

In next week’s column we’ll talk about question construction, how long is too long and how to decide where to focus.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

Creating the promise for your prospects

February 22, 2022

Over the last couple of posts, we’ve been exploring some marketing ideas for delighting your team and your current customers.

In this final column of the series, we’re going to finally turn our attention to the group that most organizations start with: their prospects. Now that we’ve taken care of the employees who help us earn and re-earn our clients’ business and the people who are already giving us money, we can focus on new customers.

When it comes to marketing to prospects, the rules have changed. Instead of pitching our wares, now we earn trust and make promises based on our ability to be helpful and align with the potential customer’s current and future needs.

As I’ve said in many previous articles, we’re not driving the buying decision or timetable anymore. Even if you’re in an industry that is driven by discount offers or sales, the game has changed.

So what can we be doing to woo new clients?

Double down on being genuinely helpful: There’s a difference between actually trying to be helpful versus feigning helpfulness as a marketing ploy.

The difference? The depth in which you give. A blog post with some superficial information is a marketing ploy. A detailed white paper or YouTube video series that teaches everything you’ve got is genuine helpfulness.

Your audience will know the difference. Given how much anyone can find online these days, superficial doesn’t cut it anymore. If you don’t dig deep to truly be helpful, they simply keep moving.

Identify the three to five biggest pain points or blind spots that your customers have and address those with meaningful, practical information that your audience can put to use immediately without buying anything from you. You’ll not only earn their trust and confidence, but you’ll also have impact before you’ve even made a sale.

Show them the results: After the last 2 years, everyone is a little unsure. About just about everything. We’ve had the wind knocked out of our sails more than once since the pandemic started. If what you sell is a considered purchase, buckle in because your audience is skeptical about pretty much everything right now.

One of the most reassuring things you can offer them is proof that what you do works. Introducing them to current customers who look a lot like them and are struggling with the same issues is a smart way to earn their trust. Both the 2020 and 2021 editions of the Edelman Trust Barometer, which surveys over 30,000 consumers every year, make it clear that consumers trust people who look and sound like them.

Let your current clients provide testimony to the work you do, the products and services you offer, and what it’s like to work with you. Ideally, they’ll speak candidly about what they like and don’t like about working with you.

Resist the urge to edit out the less than ideal comments. That just makes their commentary even more believable. Think about your own experience with brands. Even when it comes to the brands we love, we typically don’t think they’re perfect. Odds are the customers who love you most might still have a tweak or two to suggest. Airing your own foibles is a smart way to earn a prospect’s interest and confidence.

Both of these tactics are all about brand and trust building. By focusing on the prospect’s needs and struggles as opposed to pushing or pitching what you have to sell, you can demonstrate how you approach working with a new customer. You are making it clear that your attention will be right where it belongs: serving your clients’ most pressing needs.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

How can you delight your clients in 2022?

February 15, 2022

In last week’s column, we focused on employee communication. Employees are an often overlooked audience that has a huge impact on your organization. I’m hoping you’re already putting some of those ideas into your 2022 plan.

This week, we’re going to focus on your existing customer base. Believe it or not, this is also an audience that is often underserved by your marketing. For most companies, the lion’s share of the marketing spend and focus is on the potential new customer. This can sometimes leave current clients feeling underappreciated or even feeling neglected.

How many times have you received something in the mail or by email from a company you do business with that is offering something better to new customers than what they’d give you, someone who is already giving them money?

Don’t kid yourself. Your customers probably have the same reaction. Or, worse, they feel like you just don’t care that much anymore. In doing customer satisfaction work for our clients, we sometimes hear things like, “When they were first pursuing our business, they couldn’t have been more attentive. But now, I haven’t heard from them in months.”

On top of all of that, it’s simply easier to get additional revenue from an existing client than it is to get a new customer. Every marketing dollar you spend on your current clients will go further because your dollar-for-dollar results will be better every time.

So how should you market to your existing customers in 2022?

Hand them the mic: I know it sounds counterintuitive to everything above, but invite your current clients to do a testimonial for you. This tactic checks multiple boxes. First, it’s a gut check to see which clients love you enough to do a testimonial. Second, it makes the customer feel good to be asked. Another benefit is that you’ll hear exactly what your clients appreciate about your work, and you’ll also notice what does not get mentioned.

It’s also a vehicle to subtly market to your customer. You could show them a list of the core services you offer and products you create, with brief descriptions or links to learn more. Ask them to choose any one, two or three topics for their testimonial.

The added bonus to this tactic is that it delivers against your potential client marketing need as well. Word of mouth is still one of the most effective tools we have.

Create an insider’s club: Everyone wants to feel special and appreciated. Your clients believe, whether they tell you or not, that they’ve earned some special privileges by being a loyal customer. Reward the behavior you want!

What might that look like? You can create exclusive content, offer holdbacks on research data, invite them to customer-only events, or give them early access to something spectacular. You can also grant them one-on-one conversations with your R&D team or a special sneak-peek breakfast with your CEO.

Another way to create this sense of exclusivity is to have your CEO send out a customer-only email or newsletter, filled with early releases, thoughts about what’s on your radar screen, and some trend data that would be very useful.

When it comes to marketing to your current clients, it goes far beyond just sending them your sales flier. Marketing to this audience should feel more like you’re whispering a secret in their ear or throwing them a special party. It’s a blend of appreciation and keeping them well informed about new ways you can be of service.

Find that right balance and deliver it consistently, and you’re going to be very pleased with the results.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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