citizen Evangelist

As usual, Seth Godin posts another great one. I highly encourage you to check out Before you buy your next ad… I won’t post the obvious spoiler here, but the point is incredibly valid.

On this topic, I would highly recommend picking Noise by Bart Kosko. The essence of the story is this: one person’s signal is another person’s noise. Let me see if I can make this a bit more clear. A pregnant woman is at the doctor’s office and the doctor needs to listen to the heartbeat of the mother. In this context, the baby’s heartbeat becomes noise that interferes with the doctor’s ability to determine the health of the mother. Inversely, if the doctor needs to listen to the heartbeat of the in utero child, then the mother’s heartbeat becomes noise.

If we aren’t ready to handle all of the information at our fingertips or don’t have the ability to filter out the information that is distracting (or noise) to the task at hand, it becomes very difficult to make use of any of the information. Thankfully, our brains are so well conditioned that we naturally filter out information that appears to be interference to our objective.

When we speak to customers and really listen to what they are saying, how they are speaking to us, and when they are speaking to us… how much are we really hearing? How much do we actually miss?

Make it a point to check yourself.

After all, the things you could miss could cost you that customer!

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Time and time again I’ve worked with organizations bringing new products to market and time and time again the expectations of the product are mis-aligned with what the realities of the product. The “blame” if you feel compelled to assign any blame can be assigned to the sales person or the marketing team for mis-representing the product, to the product development team for incomplete, missing, or broken features, or on the customer for not understanding the product.

At the end of the day, assigning blame is a foolish pursuit. At the end of the day, the fact remains that someone had hopes that were unfulfilled. The question now faced is: what are you going to do about it?

You have:

• a product (or service)
• a user or customer
• a revenue opportunity (or risk, depending how you want to look at it)

Seth Godin believes your customers are watching what you do over listening to what you say. Patrick Williams asserts that you need to spend more time listening and understanding what your customers and prospects want and need. Alliance Science adds that you should be the first place your customers go to find a solution.

As I stated yesterday, much of this comes down to trust and communication.

Isn’t it time to get a real dialog started? Provide something that someone wants or needs and you struggle selling it. Treat your customers like they matter and they won’t distrust you. Do the right thing for your customers and they will do the right thing for you.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Thanks to Seth Godin for pointing out Kevin Kelly’s post on 1000 true fans. I love it when others can eloquently put my thoughts into usable format. There are many companies, artists, and practitioners out in the world today that are looking for their opportunity to break through the noise and escape the perils of getting lost in the long-tail of competitive offerings.

In this evolving market place, the smartest thing a company or producer can do is to focus on a specific customer or customer segment and delight the hell out of them. If you can (as Godin would say) “be remarkable,” you’ll earn the opportunity to access their friends. With each new fan you build, become remarkable to them as well… the growth will start out slow, but with dedication to the process, the momentum will carry you.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

My company: Whisperlabs offers a hosted software which makes it easy for customers and prospects to submit product and feature ideas and then vote which are the best ideas. The primary benefit (other than making this process extremely easy to manage) is that it allows companies to see what they can focus their efforts on while managing customer expectations.

In the process of previewing the functionality, I’ve had a number of conversations where the principle point of concern comes down to trust: Is safe to provide transparency into development priorities and invite participation in voting on the priorities?

I can’t help but pose this question:

If you can’t trust to your customers, how can you expect your customers to trust you?

According to Merriam Webster’s online, trust evolved from my Scandinavian forefathers and essentially means “one in which confidence is placed.” Granted, there are a number of potential definitions which can be used, however, wikipedia does a decent job at expanding on this concept in their description of trust as a social science. The entry stars with the following:

Trust is a relationship of reliance. A trusted party is presumed to seek to fulfill policies, ethical codes, law and their previous promises.

It later continues with the following:

trust is essential as Social institutions (governments), economies, and communities require trust to function. Therefore trust and altruism are areas of study for economists, although these concepts go beyond strict rational economics.

Trust is essential for companies and customers to function. As a consumer of a product, I must trust that the maker of this product will not harm me. I must trust that the product lives up to the marketing claims that were made (at least, within a degree of expectation). If my trust falters, I will cease to use the product.

Additionally, I’ll go as far as saying that when it is obvious that I am not trusted as a customer, then my trust in the company starts to falter. When my trust starts to falter, it casts a halo (or in this case horns) around all of my other perceptions of that company and its products.

John Todor makes some decent points here:

Most CEOs are not viewed as trustworthy because customers suspect a one-sided agenda. Enron and other companies have not helped change this perception. Peers, on the hand, are peers or friends because there is in fact a demonstrated relationship. One reason they are perceived to be trustworthy is the earned trust reflected in the relationship.

I would go one step more and say that most Companies are not viewed as trustworthy because of this one-sided agenda. This one-sided agenda all melts away when those same customers are asked for their ideas, their insights, and their participation. No longer is the company some faceless enigma with an agenda, it becomes a distributed team working together on a common goal: making improvements.

Pay it forward… extend trust to your customers. They are the people who pay your salary and make your job possible. With as you build trust with them, you’ll see their loyalty and your profitability improve.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

I’ve worked on a little handout to help convey my convictions and illustrate the power of the Collaboration Revolution. I do owe credit to Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba for many of their thoughts over the years.  I’ve included a few of the points they made with some of my thoughts.

I also used photos from iStockphoto to pull off the appearance.  I’m certain that I probably need to attribute them in the document as well.

In any event, I hope that you find this useful.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password: