Best Regards,

Reach 1to1 Team

Microsoft is going to be working with Hadoop core contributors from Yahoo Hadoop spinoff Hortonworks. Microsoft and Hortonworks are readying  a CTP test build of their Hadoop-based service for Windows Azure for delivery before the end of calendar 2011 and a CTP of the Hadoop-based distribution for Windows Server some time in 2012. The new stacks will work with Microsoft’s business-intelligence tools, including Excel, PowerPivot and PowerView (the new data-analysis technology that is part of SQL Server 2012 and was formerly known by its codename “Crescent“).

Microsoft will make its contributions available to the Hadoop open-source community for possible inclusion in the core Hadoop platform to insure compatibility in the Apache codebase and trunk. Microsoft officials are not making any commitments as to when a final version of the Hadoop distributions for Windows Server or Windows Azure will be available.

 Enjoy the ride!

1400 attendees to Hadoop World… Object databases are entering mainstream enterprise applications. Having used object databases for over 10 years now, it is exciting to be involved in this high growth and exciting times for object databases.

Lead nurturing v0.21 – Presentation Transcript

1. lead nurturing – why – how – who – e.g.
2. lead nurturing – why
3. more leads < good leads
4. good leads > few leads
5. conflict! – maximize number of leads v/s maximize quality of leads
6. resolving the conflict!
7. more leads -> lead nurturing funnel -> good leads -> sales funnel
8. lead nurturing – how
9. process
10. lead nurturing funnel = unknown individuals -> identified leads -> qualified leads
11. activity
12. content marketing -> unknown individuals + conversation management -> identified leads + engagement tracking -> qualified leads
13. tools & analytics
14. 1. content marketing = web site + blog (cms), public content sites, search engine marketing, online events
    2. conversation management = social networking, email campaigns, blog comments, online registrations
    3. engagement tracking = web site analytics, social analytics, crm, lead management
15. loop
16. lead nurturing funnel -> qualified leads -> sales funnel ->  lost leads + won sales -> lead nurturing funnel
17. lead nurturing – who
18. 1. lead nurturing team = content team + tech team + design team => qualified leads + tracking reports
    2. sales team = business managers + product experts + sales persons => product info + won sales + lost leads
19. lead nurturing – e.g.
20. Image Consulting Business Institute – new industry segment- high value product (9 month course @ 225,000)- complex sales pitch- wide market spread
21. content marketing  - cms based web site – articles and blog – facebook, linkedin pages – youtube channel – google adwords
22. conversation management – facebook –> likes, comments- twitter –> tweets, re-tweets- blog –> comments, registrations- via sales => leads from other sources
23. engagement tracking – facebook => connections- twitter => followers- blog => registered users- via sales => signed up customers
24. loop = lead nurturing funnel -> registered users -> sales funnel -> not signed up + signed up customers -> lead nurturing funnel
25. results
26. web site metrics – overview
27. web site metrics – visitors
28. web site metrics – traffic sources
29. web site metrics – content overview
30. facebook metrics – users
31. facebook metrics – interactions
32. facebook metrics – activity
33. registration details
34. lead nurturing funnel = 3,500 unidentified visitors -> 1,000 identified leads -> 250 registrations (all average monthly figures)
35. sales funnel = 500 registrations -> 350 presentations -> 70 sign-ups (all average monthly figures)

A related post on his blog claims that “Money cant buy you performance”.

Some questions that he raised in my mind:

• When we try to implement scalable business processes, are we trying to “dumb-down” the work to a “mechanical” level?
• Do performance metrics measure only “mechanical” performance and do we run the risk that incentives based on such metrics could negatively impact creative performance?
• How can we ensure that we empower our employees with autonomy, mastery and purpose – that Dan proposes as the components of the new “business operating system” in a scalable model?

Especially in B2B sales, every sales manager we have interacted with has requested that our sales pipeline metrics be converted into an incentive scheme. We have been making plans to implement an incentive scheme, but based on the Theory of Constraints – which proposes to measure global performance metrics – that relate performance of individuals or roles to the overall throughput.

It would be interesting to see how Dan’s research ties into the theory of constraints methodology.

Product designers learned years ago that they’d save time and money if they consulted with their colleagues in manufacturing rather than just throwing new designs over the wall. The two functions realized it wasn’t enough to just coexist—not when they could work together to create value for the company and for customers. You’d think that marketing and sales teams, whose work is also deeply interconnected, would have discovered something similar. As a rule, though, they’re separate functions within an organization, and, when they do work together, they don’t always get along. When sales are disappointing, Marketing blames the sales force for its poor execution of an otherwise brilliant rollout plan. The sales team, in turn, claims that Marketing sets prices too high and uses too much of the budget, which instead should go toward hiring more salespeople or paying the sales reps higher commissions. More broadly, sales departments tend to believe that marketers are out of touch with what’s really going on with customers. Marketing believes the sales force is myopic—too focused on individual customer experiences, insufficiently aware of the larger market, and blind to the future. In short, each group often undervalues the other’s contributions. This lack of alignment ends up hurting corporate performance.

The quote is from the HBR paper titled “Ending the war between sales and marketing” by Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham, and Suj Krishnaswamy, that outlines findings based on a survey of a variety of companies. Among their findings, they claim that “Companies can take practical steps to move the two functions into a more productive relationship, once they’ve established where the groups are starting from”.

In this article, we try to analyze the current reality based on our experience with B2B sales teams and their conflicts with their respective marketing departments. Then we use the evaporating cloud methodology invented by Eli Goldratt as part of the Theory of Constraints, and try to resolve the conflict.

Biggest Sales Challenge – Generating high-quality leads

According to a recent report by MarketingSherpa, the biggest challenge for sales people is to generate high-quality leads.

To try and understand why it is such a big challenge, we must first answer the question – what exactly are “high quality” leads?

Universal Lead Definition

Lead generation guru, Brian Carrol says that most companies lack a clear definition of a sales lead – that is, their sales and marketing departments do not agree on a universal lead definition. He responds to the above survey results on his blog and advises sales and marketing teams to work together to create a Universal Lead Definition (ULD). If leads generated by marketing are transferred to sales without qualification, sales persons will assign a very low priority to following them up. By having a common definition, marketing can presumably ensure that leads passed on to sales are qualified as “high quality”, so as to address their concern.

But can sales and marketing really agree on a common definition of a qualified lead? To answer this question, we need to understand how we measure the performance of both these functions, and see if having a common definition is consistent with their individual objectives.

The Marketing Perspective on Leads

Marketing perspective on leads

From a marketing perspective, the ROI of marketing initiatives – campaigns, events etc. – are measured by the number of leads generated. Hence, they tend to keep minimal qualification criteria so as to get the maximum number of leads possible for the given marketing budget. For example, in case of a direct mailer, every response is considered as a lead. Or in case of a promotional event or exhibition, every person who drops a visiting card is considered as a lead. And rightly so, for however small the chance of success and however long the sales cycle, a lead is still a prospective sale!

Marketing ROI ~ Number of leads generated / Marketing Spend

To maximize the ROI of marketing initiatives, marketing requires lax lead qualification criteria, if any.

The Sales Perspective on Leads

Sales perspective on leads

From a sales team’s perspective, sales performance is measured by their ability to meet targets for a pre-defined period, such as a quarter. Follow-up of every lead requires sufficient time – more so when the buying process is complex and involves several decision variables. Available sales time is limited primarily by the size of the sales team. If each lead is to be given the necessary time and attention, there is a limit to how many leads the sales team can follow up.

The primary sales performance indicators are:

Conversion Ratio ~ Orders Won / Leads or opportunities
Value Converted ~ Sales Order Value / Sales Targets

Sales persons usually prefer to maintain conversion ratio at a healthy level depending on the market average. A higher than normal conversion ratio could imply inadequate number of leads or opportunities in the pipeline, while a lower conversion ratio could indicate lack of adequate closing skill.

Hence the main determinant of performance is the ability to achieve assigned targets. For this, sales persons will choose to follow-up on those leads or opportunities that:

• have the best chance of closing within the current evaluation period (e.g. current quarter) and
• have a high enough estimated sale value to cover the deficit in their assigned target.

As such, opportunities that are already in the pipeline will serve these objectives better than leads that have dubious value and unknown sales cycle. Hence leads are usually given a lower priority, or postponed indefinitely, unless they have a proven quality.

To maximize sales performance, sales requires strict lead qualification criteria.

The Sales and Marketing Process Disconnect

The Marketing and Sales processes are usually disconnected from each other. Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham and Suj Krishnaswamy write in an HBR article:

Sales departments tend to believe that marketers are out of touch with what’s really going on in the marketplace. Marketing people, in turn, believe the sales force is myopic–too focused on individual customer experiences, insufficiently aware of the larger market, and blind to the future. In short, each group undervalues the other’s contributions. Both stumble (and organizational performance suffers) when they are out of sync. Yet, few firms seem to make serious overtures toward analyzing and enhancing the relationship between these two critical functions.

They conclude that:

The strains between Sales and Marketing fall into two main categories: economic (a single budget is typically divided between Sales and Marketing, and not always evenly) and cultural (the two functions attract very different types of people who achieve success by spending their time in very different ways)

Further, the marketing and sales processes are also disconnected. The marketing funnel works with the target market and attempts to generate leads. The sales funnel starts with opportunities and attempts to generate sales orders.

Marketing and Sales Process Disconnect

A forced connection between these two processes will require a resolution of the conflicting definitions of a lead that both departments will have.

In case we try and implement the marketing perspective of a lead and have lax lead qualification criteria, every lead captured by marketing will need to be followed up by the sales team.

Forced implementation of marketing perspective - lax lead qualification criteria

This will result in overloading the sales team, resulting in lowering the conversion ratio and the sales value converted. On the other hand, forcing the implementation of the sales perspective of strict lead qualification criteria will result in reduction in the marketing ROI, and very likely lead to lost business.

Forced implementation of sales perspective - strict lead qualification criteria

As we can see, there is a conflict on hand. It seems impossible to arrive at a universal lead definition as suggested by Brian Carrol, and even if we manage to agree on a common definition, implementing it will result in either departments individual objectives to be compromised.

We shall use the Evaporating Cloud methodology to try and break this conflict.

The Sales and Marketing Evaporating Cloud of Conflict

The Sales and Marketing Evaporating Cloud of Conflict

1. Both departments are working towards a common objective – of ensuring high sales volume
2. The marketing departments tries to achieve this objective by maximizing the number of leads generated from marketing initiatives.
3. The prerequisite for this is that the lead qualification criteria should be as lax as possible
4. The sales department tries to achieve high sales volume by maintaining their conversion ratio and maximizing the sales value generated
5. To prerequisite for this is that they have a strict lead qualification criteria that ensures that the sparse sales resources are utlized well

To evaporate this cloud of conflict, one must examine the underlying assumptions behind each argument that lead us to the conflict.

The following are the two assumptions that lead us to the conflict:

1. Leads have to be qualified either by sales or by marketing
2. Leads that are not qualified are dropped out of the funnel

Both these assumptions are invalid, for:

1. Lead qualification can be done by an independant, low cost resource – such as a tele-marketing team or by using an online self-qualification system.
2. Leads that do not qualify can be nurtured in a low cost CRM initiative that helps develop the lead into a qualified lead

An independant, low-cost lead qualification and nurturing process

Lead Qualification and Nurturing Process

By having an independant lead qualification team that uses a low-cost telephonic or online qualification process, leads generated by marketing initiatives can be divided into two groups:

• Leads that satisfy the universal lead definition
• Leads that do not satisfy the universal lead definition

Lead Qualification Process

The leads that qualify the ULD can be immediately transferred to the sales team to follow-up and close. The leads that do not qualify can be put into a nurturing program that maintains the dialog with the lead till it converts into an opportunity that is worth following up by the sales team.

The objectives of the nurturing process are to:

• Maintain a continuing dialog with the lead by using nurture marketing initiatives, till it satisfies the universal lead definition
• Capture and track all responses and behaviour of the lead
• Develop an intelligent buyer profile that can assist the sales process to close the resulting opportunity

Lead Nurturing Process

There can be various types of low-cost nurturing initiatives, including email campaigns, online and offline events and webinars, articles and white paperts on the web site, blogs, etc. Each of these initiatives will result in some responses. All such responses can be tracked and recorded in the lead nurturing process. Every response, be it a click on a link in an email campaign, downloading a white paper, comments on a blog, etc. add to a valuable buyer profile that is useful when the lead converts into an opportunity for the sales team to follow up.

Conclusion

It is possible to resolve the conflict between sales and marketing by introducing an independant lead qualification process that utilizes a universal lead definition criteria for evaluating every lead generated by marketing initiatives and categorizes them into qualified and un-qualified leads. This strategy not only breaks the conflict, it can enhance the individual performance metrics of both departments.

This could be a good guideline for Reach1to1′s own policies.

[Found via Techcrunch]

Justin Roff-Marsh, proponent of his highly effective Sales Process Engineering methodology that incorporates the techniques from Theory of Constraints into the sales process – has written an excellent article on his Sales Process Engineering blog, where he explains “Why the term ‘communication problem’ insults your team members and retards the performance of your organization“.

Justin claims that humans are remarkably good communicators as compared to other creatures, and have proven their ability to communicate effectively in complex environments that have very small margins for errors, such as operating theatres or airport traffic control. Hence, justifying errors as communication problems prevents us from investigating and resolving the root cause.

Process design is the real problem

As he says,

In my experience, almost all the issues that are conveniently classified as communication problems are actually process design problems. And, in most cases, the problem is that a hand-off is necessitating the transfer of complex information from one person to another.

He gives the example of a sales process for a built-to-order product or service. Here, a sales person interacts with the customer initially to understand the requirements, and then hands-off the specifications to production. The errors resulting in such a situation is due to the need to transfer complex information between the sales person and production.

The proposed solution

In such cases, it’s important to recognize that complex information (almost by definition) cannot be transferred from one team member to another without information loss. Therefore, it is incumbent upon management to redesign the process so as to ensure that either:

1. These hand-offs are eliminated
2. The requirement to transfer complex information is eliminated

For the first approach, he suggests introducing a third person such as a project manager, who partners with the sales person and later provides the specifications to production, thereby providing continuity in the process and eliminating the hand-off.

For the second approach, he suggests that complex information should be converted in the form of easily quantifiable conditions which need to be satisfied. This implies that one can conver the complex information into a set of measurable parameters which can be evaluated to meet some prescribed conditions.

Milestones and Forms

In the On2Biz workflow model, the sales workflow is modelled as a sequence of milestones, where each milestone is a verifiable intermediate outcome in the process. The following diagram illustrates a sales workflow, with various individual projects at various stages of completion.

Sample Sales Workflow

Each milestone can be assigned to a different person in the team. The following workflow chart illustrates the role assignment and workflow rules:

Sales Workflow Chart

As illustrated above, On2Biz automatically generates alerts wherever there is a hand-off from one person to another. In addition, On2Biz has a provision to attach a customizable form to each milestone. The form can contain parameters that capture any complex information along with validation, ensuring that no important information gets lost during hand-offs.

The following screenshot shows milestones from an actual workflow implemented in On2Biz:

Milestones with customized forms to capture information

As seen above, each milestone has additional information captured in the format specific to that milestone. For example, the first three milestones are completed by Jacob and Sanjay, who are the tele-sales and field sales executives respectively. If converted, they hand-off the project to Misha, the accounts person. At the converted milestone, they fill in the form containing the required information for accounts to carry forward the project seamlessly. Further, Misha hands-off the project to Kavita, the creative team member, but ensures that all payment details are filled in the cheque banked milestone.

This illustrates how, by creating a properly documented workflow, the errors that can creep up due to hand-off of complex information can be avoided as per Justin’s recommendation.

For more information on the On2Biz Workflow Model, visit http://on2.biz

His presentation titled Web Content Strategy – How to Plan for, Create and Publish Online Content for Maximum ROI on slideshare contains concise and powerful hints on planning your web content strategy.

Some salient points from the presentation:

What is content strategy?

• Content strategy is planning for the creation of useful, usable content.
• Not just WHAT you’re going to publish and WHERE, but WHY.
• Content strategy isn’t just deciding what you’re going to include. It’s deciding what you’re going to leave out.

Website Foundation

• What are my business objectives?
• What are my users’ (customers’) goals?
• Any content that doesn’t meet these needs is just getting in the way.
• Avoid wasting money on designing, creating and maintaining unnecessary content.
• Keep project teams aligned throughout the process.

Website Content Strategy

• What content do we want to create, and why?
• How are we going to create it?
• What will happen to it once it goes up on the site?
• Plan strategically for required content, scope realistically, then scale according to time and budget.

Website Content Strategy: Content Audit

• Possibly the most important thing you can do to avoid scope creep and minimize risk
• Catalog web pages, print materials, all communications
• Conduct a gap analysis
• Don’t commit to content you can’t create or maintain

Content Specifications and Creation

• Get real-world content specifications as early as possible
• Identify who is responsible for providing, reviewing, and approving the content before writing begins
• Train or hire web writers … it’s a very, very different process and medium from print
• Keep the content audit up-to-date to eliminate redundant workflows among various communicators
• Ensure quality and quantity control, informed by clear recommendations and overseen by dedicated resources

Business Impact of a Content Strategy

• QUALITATIVE
  • Engages all stakeholders early in the website project process to ensure alignment, investment, and accountability around content creation and maintenance
  • Provides accessible documentation for all project team members to help judge proposed content effectiveness with regard to business objectives and user goals
  • Results in higher quality content, which improves customer satisfaction, sales leads, online service and support, trust in brand, and so on
  • Creates true content accountability for all project members early in the process
  • Facilitates future state content planning (editorial oversight, expansion, maintenance
• QUANTITATIVE (anecdotal)
  • Projects driven by web content strategies are completed in up to 25% less time than design-centered projects
  • Assuming stakeholders and business requirements remain the same, scope changes during content creation phase happen less than 10% of the time
  • Client satisfaction with final product is close to 100%
  • Measurable project objectives are realized within 3-6 months post-launch (with appropriate supporting communications)

Do not miss the opportunity to download his free eBook titled “Seven Content Strategies to Build Trust with Today’s Savvy Consumers”

This is no wonder, for one of the most innovative area of work that Towers Perrin specializes in is Employee Engagement.

Their Global Workforce Study (2007-2008) titled “Closing the Engagement Gap: A Road Map for Driving Superior Business Performance” is an insightful study into how businesses can leverage its people to their full potential and derive business results. It is based on a survey of over 90,000 employees in 18 countries.

The following extracts summarize the key points in the study:

Organizational Goals and Challenges

Increasingly, organizations face a daunting, and sometimes seemingly contradictory set of goals:

• Provide a differentiated customer experience while reducing the cost of delivering that experience.
• Generate significant growth while continuing to manage the bottom line.
• Use technology to drive efficiency without sacrificing the “personal” connection to customers, employees and other stakeholders.
• Standardize…and customize.

One common element grounds organizations’ ability to advance through this environment: People.

People are more than ever a source of critical skill and knowledge, as well as sustainable competitive advantage. And, based on views of close to 90,000 workers in 18 countries around the world, people want to invest their skills and knowledge on behalf of their employers. Yet few organizations are fully tapping that source and achieving the results that come through full investment of the workforce.

What Employees Want

• Employees want to give more, but they also want to see a clear and measurable return for their effort.
• Only 1 out of 5 workers today is giving full discretionary effort on the job – going well above and beyond what’s required because they’re caught up in the passion and purpose of creating a better product, service or customer experience
• Close to 4 out of 10 workers are disenchanted or disengaged. They are not performing anywhere near their true capability because they don’t have the necessary rational, emotional and motivational connections to the company

But the silver lining is that engaged employees are not born, but made. Organizations can create the right conditions to nurture engagement and drive better performance.

Top 10 Drivers of Employee Engagement

1. Senior management sincerely interested in employee well-being
2. Ability to improve skills and capabilities
3. Organization’s reputation for social responsibility
4. Employees inputs into decision making
5. Quick resolution of customer concerns
6. Setting of high personal standards
7. Excellent career advancement opportunities
8. Challenging work assignments that broaden skills
9. Good relationships with supervisors
10. Organization encourages innovative thinking

What can organizations do to close the engagement gap?

1. First and foremost, organizations must have effective — and engaged — leadership at the top.Closing the gap between the traditional leadership model of the last century and the characteristics required for engaging leadership has implications for management selection and training as well as leadership succession and development. Organizations need to review their leadership programs to ensure that leaders understand the enormous positive impact they can have on employee engagement, retention and performance. Organizations need to validate the following requirements:
   • Do existing leadership competencies and development programs focus on building the right “muscles” in the senior team?
   • Are high potential leaders assessed, developed and promoted based on the right leadership criteria?
   • Do performance management programs emphasize the right leadership activities and key touch points that leaders have with employees (e.g. coaching, sponsoring, recognizing, role modeling, communicating, involving)?
2. Second, organizations need to customize and shape the work environment and culture to match their unique basis for competitive advantage, tangibly aligning workforce strategies with business priorities.Organizations need to design workforce strategies and allocate their finite supplies of time, management attention and financial resources. The questions to address are:
   • What are the organization’s unique cultural differentiators, based on its specific priorities and strategies?
   • To what extent is the existing culture supporting and driving the behaviors required for success?
   • Are the organization’s human capital strategy and underlying programs and processes aligned to create a high performance culture?
   • What changes are required to reshape the culture for enhanced performance?
   • Is the HR function equipped to develop and execute new strategies and support for the change process?
3. Third, organizations need to put their workforce under the same microscope as they do their customers – to understand employees’ needs, issues, values and “buying” patterns, so as to give themselves a competitive edge in attracting, retaining and engaging employees, as well as in channeling employees’ energy and brain power most effectively.Top 5 drivers for attracting employes
   • Competitive base pay
   • Career advancement opportunities
   • Challenging work
   • Convenient work location
   • Flexible schedule

   Top 5 drivers for retaining employees:

   • Organization’s reputation as a great place to work
   • Satisfaction with the organization’s people decisions
   • Good relations with supervisor
   • Understanding potential career track within organization
   • Ability to balance work/personal life

   Top 5 drivers of employee engagement

   • Senior management sincerely interested in employee well-being
   • Ability to improve skills and capabilities
   • Organization’s reputation for social responsibility
   • Employee input into decision making
   • Organization’s ability to quickly resolve customer concerns

Conculsion

Engaged workers are not born – they are made. The organization is uniquely positioned to make a significant difference in the employee’s discretionary effort. The vast majority of employees today are looking to make a difference in an organization that makes a difference in the world. It is up to the organization to help make this happen.