The Jordan Philips Marketing Blog - Internal Branding - Employee Engagement

More on Turnarounds

Recently I was channel surfing and came across a show on Bravo called "Tabatha's Salon Takeover". I mention this because, in many ways, it reminds me of an older TV show I used to love called "The Turnaround" which was on CNN and hosted by Ali Velshi. For someone like me, who loves business and especially turnaround projects these two shows are spot on.

In watching a couple episodes of "Tabatha's Salon Takeover" I noticed a few common threads between that show, what I often speak on and "The Turnaround".

1. Kick the leadership's ass: Almost always, without exception, the first thing that happens is the host or mentors have to have a heart to heart with the owners / leadership. This is the tough love part. In order for anything to happen, the leadership has to stomach someone from the outside, coming in and just shocking them into reality about what is really going on. It gets ugly sometimes. It hurts. It is gut wrenching. Nobody wants to hear about their short-comings, their failures, or in some cases a total smack down and complete "WTF are you doing here / maybe you should quit" moment. With that being said, however, I have yet to see one of these shows where the leadership didn't come around and acknowledge that change was actually a good thing and that they were better off for it in the long run. This gives me hope, but its a tough and dangerous road to go down. It takes guts and I applaud leaders who can stand up for that and demonstrate their personal strength and openness with everything on the line. They do this because they trust these folks; either that or they are desperate. Sometimes desperate is a good place to be; you do things you normally wouldn't and its the repetition to do the normal / safe thing that often gets leaders in trouble. 
2. Remodel the store: Environment is so important. I can't stress this enough. There are two types of environments. One that is mentally established by the leadership and the other is the actual physical environment. Both of these shows, always has a team of folks come in and completely remodel the entire facility. It's a bold thing to do, however, very few initiatives signal seriousness to your employees and customers like a major remodel. There is an extremely important connection between your facilities and your customers and your employees. It's where they interact. It's where the entire emotion of the very thing you do takes root. It's a secret weapon if you leverage it right.
3. Market your product / service: Usually, all of the companies who participated in these "turn around" projects, weren't doing much for marketing. Their image was mediocre at best and because employee morale was so low there wasn't much energy in anything they did. Believe me, energy is contagious and customers will respond quickly. The mentors, with lots of energy and passion, took these companies through a process of making the marketing obvious inside the stores and then took the team, the employees and the product outside...going to the public...with excitement and passion. This helped them acquire and jazz up new business. I will say it again...ENERGY IS CONTAGIOUS. Build it inside and then let it explode to the outside world.
4. Inspire the Employees (Hint...they love the change): With all change management issues, there were some who loved it at first and others who strongly resisted. In either case, the organization has to be committed to moving forward, and that means get on the vision or get on the bus. I will tell you this...you can see how people come to life when you BURN the RULE BOOK, when you lead them with servant leadership, and let them take control and leverage their strengths. Ruling with an iron fist just beats people down. I think this is my favorite part of both of these shows. Seeing how the transformation impacts the employees...I LOVE IT.

The Speed of Trust

Maybe it's me but this has been a really strange week: Paris Hilton completely put the smack-down on John McCain (who happens to be running for PRESIDENT) and the Packers traded Brett Favre to the Jets.

For many of you who frequent this blog, you probably know by now, that I am a die-hard Green Bay Packer fan...at least I was. I even lived in Green Bay for a number of years, and as of writing this I only live about 40 minutes from hallowed Lambeau Field. Personally, the thought of Brett Favre not running out of that tunnel opening day is upsetting. Thinking about how much he gave to the Packers and how he was treated is equally unsettling, but it's over and we all have to move forward.

Let me see...Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers...Hmmmmm...What is there to think about? There is no reason, at least any logical reason, you can honestly tell me that they believe that they have a better chance at winning with Rodgers. This issue is about something other than winning. I don't know what it is; maybe ego, but it sure isn't about winning games.

This is a professional blog so I will keep my personal feelings out of this. For those of you who want to imagine this for entertainment sake, Imagine my head exploding and then going off on some kind of Lewis Black inspired rant about how unbelievably stupid Ted Thompson is and the reasons I think he should be fired. This isn't his first bone headed move. But that wouldn't be professional so what I will do instead is compare these recent events with the latest book I am reading (which is pretty darn good) called The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey.

In Stephen Covey's latest book, he talks about the bank account of trust and how high trust environments create dividends / returns while low trust environments create a tax / cost.

If you have been following the Brett Favre circus, it's pretty obvious to see the short comings in most of all of these 13 areas. It's a big tax / cost and I am betting that the Green Bay Packer organization, which is a business, is going to realize a heavy penalty down the road at a later point (maybe already). After all if you are Arron Rodgers and you see them Run Brett Favre out of town and you haven't even won a game yet you have to be wondering how you are going to get treated. Sound a little like a tax...right?

Lets take a look at the 13 principles / behaviors of trust:

1. Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
3. Create Transparency
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectations
10. Practice Accountability
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
13. Extend Trust

Now...ask yourself how you think the Green Bay Packer organization handled this in the Media. I am not claiming to know what happened behind closed doors, however, as a long time fan and someone who was paying close attention, I don't think it's too hard to draw an opinion.

When organizations lose trust, it cost them a lot. I know this because as a consultant, I see it quite often. It's my job to get inside companies and understand what's really going on. On many occasions I have heard how executives believe they have an organization full with trust but when we get down to the front line or mid manager level, it's completely the opposite. Sometimes, the customers don't even trust you. Bottom line is many C-Level executives have no idea how distrusting their people are of them because they don't adhere to these simple 13 principles...and it's costing them dearly while they live in their own little worlds. I used to be a CEO, I still have a membership card to that little happy place.

Low trust organizations will find it harder to attract top tier talent (or lets say athletes), employees go about their work with less passion, less commitment, there is significantly higher turnover, lower sales, a lower level of customer service, lower profit margins, etc. and I could keep going.

Ask yourself this: have you ever worked for an organization you didn't trust...or perhaps a boss you didn't trust? How did that affect the way you went about your work? How did that affect the results you delivered? Did you notice that distrust spread through the organization like a wildfire? Yes...there is indeed a tax and a cost to low trust environments.

If you are a C-Level executive who "thinks" you have a high trust environment, all I am saying is you better double check.

UPDATE #1: Go out to YouTube and take a look at the difference in tone between The Packers and the Jets in their press conferences. They are very telling. One team thinks it's Christmas and the other...not so much.

UPDATE #2: I was reading in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal about the heckling of Aaron Rodgers and how it's really out of control. On and off the field folks are walking up to him saying F.U. and young kids are swearing at him. That's a horrible situation. He didn't create this situation, he didn't make any decisions about Brett Favre, so please take that into consideration.

Breaking down the Net Promoter Score

As organizations look for new ways to understand the impact of their marketing and influence in the market, they often need to rely on tools and research methods to break this information down into something we can all understand. This is where the Net Promoter Score comes in or NPS for short.

Heralded as the new "end all be all" of customer satisfaction indexes it works like this. You ask one, important question, "How likely are you to recommend Company X to a colleague or friend" and you rate this on a 10 point scale. Based upon the answers you break the data into three groups. Scores of 9-10 fall into Promoters. Scores of 7-8 fall into Passive and finally scores of 0-6 fall into the Detractors category.

Here is the formula that you use from that point.

% of Promoters - % of Detractors = Net Promoter Score

In case you were wondering, here are how some familiar companies rank (data taken from www.netpromoter.com)

• 66% - Apple
• 73% - Amazon
• 71% - Ebay
• 56% - Fed Ex

For anyone who reads my blog you know that I love metrics. For the most part I support the NPS and I think its generally a good practice for many companies. Is it the "most important" question...that I am not sold on and here is why. Wouldn't the real "most important question" be...HAVE you recommended Company X?

To me, there is a huge difference between what people say they will do and what they actually do. If you only measure the intent of whether or not they would recommend you, thats exactly what your metric will show you. If your customers REALLY do love you, at least enough to recommend you...then to me that is much more of a promoter then someone who would consider it.

Bottom line: if customers aren't recommending you but say they would...you still have a lot of work to do.

Evaluating the Branded Team

In the past couple of weeks I have ran across this philosophy in team building at least a couple of times. Most recently I came across it in a speech by Randy Pausch (definitely worth watching), a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, which BTW is absolutely amazing. One of the other times I came across it was watching a Franklin Covey leadership series where they documented the leadership secrets of the UNC's women's soccer team, which is probably the most winning of any sports team (ever).

As a Brandcentric leader and consultant, I am always concerned with building the brand from within. This means wining the war for talent, ensuring that employees are engaged and actively delivering on the brand promise. Having your internal team engaged and on-brand is critical for success.

So, here is the theory. On a set of at least 15 data points (in order to be truly scientific), you measure individual performance and then post the results publicly where other team members can view them. This does a couple of things. Nobody wants to see their name at the bottom of the list for starters. If you want to talk about the ultimate motivator, trust me...there is nothing like this. It also lets everyone on the team know who the superstars are. They are the example of what everyone should strive to be. Those superstars also have to keep up their game to stay there and this means continually raising the bar.

In the words of Jack Welch, "One of the most cruel things you can do as a leader is to not let bad performers know they stink". The other thing you do is try to get them up to speed with everyone else, if they don't share your values and can't meet the numbers then you simply get rid of them.

One quick side note: there was a recent study (I will find it), that took the top performers and isolated them in a team; away from the average and the poor performers. Do you know what happened? Their performance skyrocketed. Just some more food for thought. 

Finding 15 data points to track and measure should be easy. I would suggest using a peer evaluation system and then combining it with hard-line data. I think its important to match up values and numbers. Its also important to mention that you need to choose these carefully and do so in a way that they are directly tied into your companies KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

In one instance for a Credit Union client of mine, we used secret-shoppers as part of these data points and measured various parts of the teller transactions and shared these with the team. We were able to take individual scores from a low of 19 in some cases to an overall average in the 90's. Thats massive.

If the bulk of the scores comes from peer evaluation you will also create a sustaining culture of improvement. As a marketer, I would also say that you would be creating a culture that competes within itself to deliver the brand promise. Think for a second about what that means to the customer experience.

This philosophy also lets you identify the top performers, mediocre performers and those who are falling behind. Once you have that handy bit of information there is all kinds of useful things you can do with it. Like most everything, however, if you don't track and measure performance, you simply can't improve it. Are you measuring brand delivery performance in your company? In this market, if you aren't, thats a serious mistake. Developing the team and improving the customer experience is in short...everything.

Take a look at the following chart and tell me how you would approach this team if these were the monthly evaluation scores for brand delivery.

This is just a simple example, but once you have data like this you can do all kinds of things like track data points on an annual basis, on an individual basis for specific areas (remember you will have at least 15 to pick from), etc. You can also use it to identify top performers and use that in your hiring decisions...think of it as a building a superstar template.

   

How does mindset affect brand training?

Found this on Guy Kawasaki's blog today. There is an idea out there that successful business people are successful because they learn from their mistakes. They go through their day being curious and inquisitive while their counterparts are restricting themselves only to what they know and don't know. These counterparts only want to operate in a comfort zone of what they know and what they don't know because they are afraid of how they will come off looking to others. This is very dangerous if applied to brand delivery.

The reason I bring this up and post about it here is because this applies directly to brand training programs. I have seen a lot of internal brand training programs that are overly systemic...there is a manual and a How-To for every conceivable scenario. If "A" happens do "B". In my opinion, that is a recipe for disaster. It is much more important to train folks on the overll brand values and give them the power to think their way into a solution. No matter how hard you try to create a "every case scenario" handbook...you will never cover all of the bases and even if you could, do you really want employees walking around with the library of congress attached to their hip, having to refer to it in every situation because it's just too damn hard to memorize? It is the old adage it is much more valuable to learn how to think than what to think.

You can get a copy of the book at amazon and here is a great diagram as well.

Customer Action Hero in 10 Steps

On a recent trip around some of my favorite websites, I stopped by (Change This) and came across a presentation by Jeanne Bliss titled "How to become a customer action hero in 10 steps". If you are short on time I would suggest going right to page 10.

Costumes at Work

Lynxjet is apparently getting ready to relaunch their brand. I am not sure if this is what their daily attire is going to be, but if it is I have to give them credit. I have long been talking about delivering a WOW type experience and how critical it is to do so and do well in our experiential economy.

If the most important transaction you have with your customers is face to face then why don't companies do a better job at theming the experience. Costumes are great for this.

Now I am not saying every company has to go the whole Disney route but you can see in this image that clearly, this theme stands out. I love the whole future / retro thing going on. I says to me that this airline is cool.

I fly quite often and the other day I saw a flight attendant wearing a really bad Midwest Airlines uniform that couldn't have been less flattering to the company. I am not saying that all flight attendants need to look like sex-pots, such as this image, but a little flair and theater can go a long way in delivering some WOW.

If you just read this and thought about dawning employees with polo-shirts...you need to look at the picture again.

Thoughtless Acts

I read a lot of books. As a matter of fact I have a heaping pile of them. I read them, re-read them, mark them up and tote them around. There is nothing like a good dose of brain food.

Recently I came across a book written by Jane Fulton Suri and IDEO (a leading innovation company) that really has my attention titled Thoughtless Acts. The book is mostly pictures and small blurbs. The image to the left here is an example. Basically what this picture says is in social group settings, if one person would put a cup on the ledge, it gives a strong verbal clue to everyone else that it is acceptable to do so and then next thing you know there are a bunch of cups on the ledge. The book is full of these type of observations. Another one was a wide open space with a single straight line on the floor. People who walk through the space would instinctively follow the line. It talks about the subtle visual ques we give each other and how we manipulate our environment based on those ques.

Why is this important? Well...because as marketers in our experiential world, sometimes we need to leverage these types of ques and / or police them up. I often talk about the silent communicators our brands have and reading this book may give some of you a neat insight into silent conversations that will impact your brand.

If anyone else has read this book I would love to get your insight as well. Enjoy.

A Rare Opportunity

I seldom get blown away by anything, however, I just watched a speech from Sir Ken Robinson on education and creativity taken from the TED conference. It is simply the best speech I have ever seen. It is thoroughly entertaining and intelligent beyond words. If you at all, care about business, education, innovation, creativity, your children, or the future you owe it to yourself to watch this video. Watch it now and after you do, I would like you to think about how this relates to your business, your life, and what is really important. Then come back and post your comments.

If people fail...

I was recently in Chicago at the Nokia store in the miracle mile. The store is absolutely beautiful. The walls are made of translucent glass that change color and this is throughout the building. Along the walls are a single non-ending row of LCD screens with videos that are combined with great music. These aren't MTV type videos...they are clearly one off tripped out videos and they are so cool. The Nokia products are amazing as well. It is very obvious that Nokia is innovative.

There is one glaring flaw, however...the people. For as amazing as the store is and the product the entire experience fell very flat. It was a weird experience as a consumer. On one had the environment is wonderful and on the other it leaves you with the obvious feeling that there is something very wrong...something is very out of place and it is VERY obvious.

I watched as people came in and they all had the same look. WOW...WTF? People would walk through the store, touch some of the wares, look around then leave. It just goes to show how important the engagement element is. In this economy, you can't afford to screw anything up or you lose the sale.

It just seems like many companies are blowing the most obvious one...training. If you can't bridge the brand people gap, how are you ever going to truly connect to the customer.

What I want to know is have any of you ever experienced something similar?