It's All In the Small Changes

Companies spend thousands of dollars on marketing campaigns trying to get their internal and/or external customers to make a change. What if there was a simpler way? What if it was as easy as the company making a few small changes.

Yesterday I had the please of reading a short article on how to get kids to eat more veggies. All it took was to move the salad bar closer to the cash register. Veggie consumption went up significantly and the school didn't have to pay for a huge campaign.

The Secret of Getting Kids to Eat Their Veggies

So what would it take to get customers to change undesirable, unprofitable habits to ones that better benefit say a software company? Hmmm

Want to lower the number of incoming support calls, but still provide excellent customer service? What about automatically emailing any software errors to support and include in the error a message letting the customer know that the error has been sent. In addition the error should let the customer know what their next step is - whether it is safe to continue with their current work, or if they need to work on something else. The customer will be happy knowing that someone is working on their problem, the comprehensive error message also sends an assurance that this company knows what they are doing. End result? The customer is happy with the company, and the company has saved money through fewer incoming calls and better customer retention. And it all started with one small change.

What to increase employee retention? What if the company made a change in their policy of allowing employees to flex their hours? Depending upon the position, most employees can do their work anytime during the day, or even do their work from home. So instead of requiring employees to work 8 - 4:30 Monday through Friday, why not allow them to flex the time they need to be out of the office for appointments and sick children? The work is still getting done so the company is not losing out and the employee gets a benefit that helps them to better manage their personal and family life. No cost to the company, but a great way to retain employees and boost company moral.

How could you get potential customers to view the company as being technologically savvy? Social Media of course and it can be started with a small change. Even something like having a Facebook page and a company blog brings more awareness about the company to potential customers. This boosts the company's profile with potential customers and doesn't cost a thing except some time.

So small changes can make a BIG difference. You may be asking yourself why more companies are not following through? That my friend is another topic altogether. Until the next time, think about what small changes your company can make, and remember that it doesn't take a giant leap to reach the top, only several small steps.

Working in the Zone

I've been reading a self-help book that has a pretty cool exercise you can do to gauge where you are in your life, to determine if you are balanced. Thinking this over for the last few weeks, it suddenly dawned on me that this exercise is perfect to help a marketing department determine whether they are on track with their objectives.

First, make a list of your identities/roles within the company and within your customer’s lives. For me this would include two sets of identities as I deal with both internal and external customers. For both sets of customers I would list: trainer, consultant, documentation specialist, and public relations specialist.

Take these roles or identities and place them on the graph that you have created (example below), basing the placement upon how you feel that you or your department has met the expectations for each of these roles/identities.

The goal here is to be in ‘the zone’. The Zone is that place where inspiration, imagination, creativity, and over all drive and flow come together to make everything you do one of those ‘Yes!’ moments – those moments when you can say that THIS is why you do what you do. Outside of these zones are Learning Zones. These areas are where your skills are being challenged to expand. You are learning new ideas, new concepts, and working harder than normal to meet deadlines.

None of us are meant to stay in these Learning Zones forever, but as we conquer new skill sets, our Learning Zones get incorporated into The Zone, creating an ever widening point of job satisfaction. The areas were we don’t want to be is outside the Learning Zones. At the top is the Burned Out Zone – where the stress is so much that we can never hope to cope and we eventually burn out. At the bottom is the Rust Out Zone – where there is no challenge, no joy, and no anticipation of things to come – where skills become rusty with disuse. So the diagram we use looks something like this:

We perform at an optimal level while we are “in the zone”. When we are in one of the learning zones, we are working, but it is more stressful, takes us longer to get the job done – in effect we are trying to expand our “zone” to include the learning zone. Is this where you want to be?

What can you do to bring the specific role into the “zone”? It may sound basic, but having this laid out will help you to realize what specific areas of your marketing you to need to work on in order to bring it into alignment with where you want to be.

Here at my company our marketing department wears many hats. They are involved with sales, direct marketing, contracts, customer support, and many other areas of company life. Where on the graph do each of these reside? Break the areas out further to help determine specific aspects of each hat. With direct marketing, where are you in regards to social marketing? To more traditional, email and phone marketing? And let’s not forget the all important internal marketing – direct marketing can play a huge role in marketing to a company’s internal customers. Which hat, or aspects of the hat is falling behind? Which are too much to handle at this time until new job skills are learned? By using this exercise we can quickly become aware of whether we are on the road to success, or if we fell off somewhere along the way.

So where are you?