Decker Marketing

Attention Austin Entrepreneurs: Geoffrey Moore Speaking June 18!

Geoffrey Moore is the best selling author of Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado. He will  be in Austin on June 18th speaking to Texchange on the topic of “Provocation-Based Selling: How to Break-and-Enter Established Markets….Even in a Downturn.” This is the first time he has spoken publicly in Austin.

Texchange meetings are normally for members only, however this event is open to the public. This event will surely sell out, and this blog posting (along with Austin Startup) is one of the first mentions of this event outside of Texchange.  Geoffrey Moore is one of the top speakers in the nation, and it’s pretty rare to get an A-list speaker in Austin. Take advantage of this rare opportunity, and sign up now before the event is sold out. [Update: already 1/3 sold out as of 5/12.]

When: June 18th, 6:30pm
Where: Austin Country Club
Cost: $60 for non-members

Register Here: http://tinyurl.com/4tch6c

Selling disruptive innovations requires a special approach as markets are self-organized to privileged incumbents and exclude challengers. The key is to win over the ever-elusive executive sponsor. Drawing on six years of experience as a venture partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, Moore explains how start-ups have learned to get past the gatekeepers and capture the attention and support of line-of-business executives.

Geoffrey Moore
Geoffrey Moore is a co-founder and managing director at TCG Advisors and founder of The Chasm Group. He is the author of Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game (with co-authors Tom Kippola and Paul Johnson), and most recently Living on the Fault Line, each of which deals with a set of management or investor challenges posed by fast-changing, technology-enabled markets. He is a frequent contributor to business periodicals and a speaker at industry conferences. Geoffrey is a venture partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, providing strategy advice and consulting services across MDV’s entire portfolio of early-stage investments.

...

p.s. and disclosure: I am President of Texchange, and this is my last event of the year!

Study: Proof that Less is More

I read Jacob Nielsen's AlertBox today titled "How Little Do Users Read?". He showed an interesting study and analysis of time spent on page vs. that showed users spend only 4.4 seconds on a page for each additional 100 words added to the page. If we assume people can read at 200 WPM, the big finding is that for every 100 words you add to a page, you can assume that customers will read 18% of it.

Choose words well, be concise...and I better stop writing to make the point!
Or use this blog entry to make the point.

81 One-Liner Marketing Ideas

Oh, I have another one for you. This is a quick scan if you're a startup, boostrapper, small business, or a college student business...which is what I was when I wrote and used many of these ideas! These one liners may just be useful to throw around in your head and see if something better comes out.

81 One Line Marketing Ideas - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: 81 One Line Marketing Ideas

193 Creative Marketing Ideas

A few weeks ago I added a small link in one of my posts to my unpublished beginning of a book of 193 Clever Marketing Ideas. John Moore linked to it and it got some interest, so I thought I'd give a more formal promotion here. Plus I want to see how Scribd works in my blog! BTW, Scribd and Slideshare are very cool!

193 Creative Marketing Ideas - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: 193 Creative Marketing Ideas

How to LIVE RICH

A good friend and ex-Dell colleague passed away on Friday, April 25, 2008, after a courageous and inspiring battle with brain cancer. I want to celebrate and share the piece of his life I knew, and the words of wisdom he left for all of us. 

Two months after I joined Dell in March 1999, a curly-haired Harvard grad moved into the cube next door. Over the next seven years Rich and I worked together to help build Dell’s consumer eBusiness to a $3.5B business, and then on Dell’s CRM and segmentation strategy (he worked on corporate strategy while I worked in Consumer division). But what he worked on is not as important as HOW he accomplished his goals.

Rich exemplified leadership. In fact, he had the rare quality of being a Level 5 Leader, as outlined by Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great. He excelled through confident humility amidst a (typical) corporate environment of politics, ego and alpha aggression. He always put decision in terms of what was right for the business, and helped others grow in the process. Everyone loved to work with Rich or for him.

So many of us were awestruck at Rich’s knowledge and wisdom. Rich often put up ‘observations’ on his small whiteboard in his cube. One time he made the observation that time and quality of mission statement are inversely related – graphed on the board, the more time spent on the mission statement the less it resonates. So true. And so funny.

Rich was a devoted father and husband. He excelled in this role as much as he excelled at work. We often played basketball together before work, but for a lot of the year, he also found time to teach children’s Bible study. Rich always left at 6pm to get home in time for dinner with his wife and growing family (now three children: David, Josh and James). Here you see pictures of him at my 30th birthday holding our new sons.

Occasionally we would joke in Spanish to each other, and I gave him the (inside joke) nickname of “El Bueno”, because in every way he was good. He was bound for greatness, and achieved it quickly at Dell accelerating his career to be Director for Global CRM and Customer Experience, reporting to Dell’s CMO.

Two months after I left Dell in early 2006 Rich called to seek advice about his decision to leave. He was interviewing to be President of Peruvian Connection in Kansas City. His Dell career was skyrocketing, and Rich could get a senior exec job at any other large company, but we agreed leading this growing multi-channel retailer (with much better margin than computers!) was his dream job.

In February the recruiter responded to my endorsement of Rich:

Thanks for your endorsement of Rich Lloyd.  We had him tested, and the management testing center said he's brilliant.  Rich seems to be a rare combination of raw intellect and leadership capability.  Off the charts in both categories.

They saw what I didn’t have to tell them. He got the job, and on March 28 he sent this email:

This is my final week here at Dell and I want to say thank you to all of the mentors, leaders, and colleagues, and truly, friends, that have meant a great deal to me in my nearly seven years here.  I am moving on to become President of Peruvian Connection, a private, direct-sales luxury apparel company based in the Kansas City area.

I came to Dell in 1999 seeking the world's best post-graduate business education -- and I got that, and then some. Along the way I met some truly remarkable people and was given some incredibly rewarding and enriching assignments.  I want to thank all of you for a great experience, and in particular, four great bosses/mentors in Mike George, Tom Vogl, Bobbi Dangerfield and Kurt Kirsch, who believed in me and in my potential...  People who were great business leaders, but even better people.

Many people would say the same good things about Rich; he was a great boss and mentor to many people I know. He impacted many others through the example he set at work and home.

Rich and I kept in touch sporadically as he thrived at Peruvian. I saw him at a couple conferences and he was in great spirits. He was very happy in Kansas City and at his job, making a bigger impact on a smaller scale. I had to bottle some of his wisdom, and interviewed him on my blog here.

In August 2007 Rich was diagnosed with Brain Cancer. He moved back to Utah with his family to seek treatment, and kept everyone who knew him up to date through his CaringBridge journal. Like hundreds of others, I read every alert. Over the last 8 months he shared his ups and downs, but ALWAYS with a sense of hope, optimism, strength and gratitude. I never read or sensed despair from Rich or Marianne (his wife). He inspired hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people through his battle. Even up to --  especially up to – the very end.

Rich is in a better place now, and he left us something that can put us in a better place on earth. In the midst of his battle with Cancer, Rich and his family came up with a phrase that captured Rich’s outlook on life. They called it “LIVE RICH”, yet it has nothing to do with money. As you’ll see, it has everything to do with living RICHLY. A week before he passed, Rich recorded his words on what it means to LIVE RICH (Thanks to Rob Sorensen for sharing). I will be thinking about Rich and the example he set for the rest of my life. I hope you (and everyone you pass this along to) do as well. Life is short. Live Rich.

Below are Rich’s own words from his recording…

1. SEIZE THE DAY: Every day is a precious gift from God

“You’ve got one life.  You’ve got a limited amount of it.  You don’t know how long it’s gonna be.”
 
2. LIFE IS ABOUT PEOPLE NOT THINGS: make memories with the people you love

“Living rich to me is like I always say life is about people and not about things.  And so living rich consists of spending time with family, friends and all the people you love.  Cause you never know how finite that time is.  Even more so, that’s what makes life rich.  It’s about people.  It’s about relationships.  It’s about loved ones.  It’s about friends. Make a memory.  Life is about people.  People get caught up with day to day errands and shopping and things that you won’t even remember them.  It won’t even register on your radar screen.  But if you set up an activity with your kids, or you take advantage of some vacation opportunity, you just make some sort of memory, you’ll never regret it.”

3. LIVE WELL ROUNDED: learn continuously and always challenge yourself

“It means trying to do things that really are enriching, where you’re learning, you’re growing, you’re challenging yourself. You know in my case it’s keeping up with old skills, like making sure I keep my piano up, making sure that I stay writing and doing the things that I love to do.  So when I Live Rich I don’t give up.  It means I still try to learn stuff, and I richly tackle new challenges and problems.”

4. MAKE CHOICES THAT ENABLE LIVING RICHLY: make good choices every single day no matter how hard

“I remember the old poem “two roads diverged in the yellow wood” – the Robert Frost poem – “and I chose the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference”.  And it goes without saying, no matter who you are or what stage you are in life, if you’re a teenage, or if you’re an 8 year old like my son, or a cancer-stricken 35 year old, you have choices every day…every single day.  And those choices will lead to other choices…they lead to some bad ends if they’re poor choices.  And to me I always think, “what’s it gonna mean down the road?”  If I decide to do XYZ what’s that gonna mean for ABC decisions?  The answers do mean a lot."

“And so I just think about every day we have to make choices, and their outcome might seem small but the significance of making that choice might seem teeny, it might be I go to my son’s soccer game or I drag myself out when I’m cold and tired go see my sister speak in church and all these choices get harder when you have a trial or this adversity like we’re experiencing.  But just because they’re hard doesn’t mean they’re not worth making. So just remember that your choices lead to other choices, and they need to be good choices. “
LIVE RICH. Live Richly.

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More...

• Hear Rich’s own words on How to LIVE RICH
• Read his inspiration journal of his battle with cancer on CaringBridge
• Read Rich's Obituary
• Donate to the Lloyd Children Missionary and Education Fund through any Wells Fargo Bank

The Gap in Customer Engagement

Late post from the Forrester Marketing Forum Conference I attended a couple weeks ago. The topic was “Customer Engagement”, which is heralded by many publications as the new marketing buzzword. I love buzzwords…they get buzz! Which gets people talking, which gets people trying things, which causes failures, which creates learning, which (hopefully) creates better companies. I digress.

The primary research and paper behind customer engagement was conducted by Brian Haven, who’s a great Forrester Analyst. I’ve known him for years and spoken in his workshops on Social networking and UGC. I’m a big believer in the idea of customer engagement. But I have 2 cents to add on where customer engagement comes from and where the gap is in achieving this goal in organizations.

The conference was a balance of ideas to measure customer engagement, with tools, principles and experiences that result in more engaged customers.  During the show I posted to Facebook “Customer Engagement is a more measured way of defining Customer Experience”. Said another way, Customer Engagement is an outcome…and outcomes (as well as inputs) are measurable. There are a lot of metrics that can point to engaged customers. I don’t think the absolute figures of these measures matter as much as trending to understand if you’re winning or losing customer engagement.

But what is a point of customer engagement worth in revenue, margin or saved costs?

Some of the metrics for customer engagement – such as time on site, Net Promoter, or Brand awareness -- could track to the P&L. But customer engagement (as an outcome) doesn’t directly map. And each of these measures that could lead you to your engagement performance are messily managed across multiple company functions (silos).

The  language of a company – especially executives -- is the P&L (revenue, margin, costs). I’m not saying that should be the only language – I think great companies are “multi-lingual” – but most companies are run by finances because their outcome is shareholder value. The closest measures to shareholder value is the P&L, and the measures closest to the P&L are what gets attention. Unfortunately, these aren’t typically aren’t customer engagement metrics. (Sales, by the way, is a lagging indicator and can be masked by promotions).

Most decisions in companies are largely influenced from the CFO office, from the forecast to the budget, which drives investments and actions. Right now the argument to invest in accretive engagement programs are not as crystallized enough to overcome corporate mono-lingualism. Let’s make up an example, take your web site. You could re-design your site could cost as little as $100,000, or you could create a compelling, memorable, word-of-mouth-worthy experience for $500,000. The CFO will ask you to take the revenue plan up to cover those costs…by next quarter!  That’s not a comfortable bet for you to make. However, Steve Jobs spent a billion to create the iPod.

Strategy is reflected in the allocation of resources. Is the foundation of your investment strategy based on customer engagement? And how much is enough? Typically, it’s the design-oriented CEO that steps in and drives the organization to pay attention to customer experience and develop process and metrics to keep it on track. Did Steve spend too much on designing the iPod?

Customer engagement, which can be indicated by a series of existing metrics, starts as a cultural value and principles. The ultimate unmeasurable measure is the the level of appreciation and action your organization will take to create a superior customer experiences in everything you do. That is determined by culture. And culture by the CEO and senior executives.

Then, it needs to be holistically managed across the functions. There need to be ‘beacons’ throughout the organization to identify gaps in customer experience, and drops in metrics that are tied to customer engagement. As Four Seasons does, the corporate culture needs to appreciate the ‘glitches’ in the experience and give the power and investment to rectify them.

Succeeding today does require customer engagement. Therefore the responsibility is actually on the board of directors to appreciate new things out of tomorrow’s CEOs. CEO should mean “Customer Executive Officer” because tomorrow’s CEOs will need to be masters of customer experience, customer management, customer service, and a customer-centric culture are required to attract their future customers (i.e. shareholder value!).

Therefore I couldn’t help but walk away from the conference thinking the companies that create great experiences -- and therefore great customer engagement -- are driven by their core.  Apple, Dyson, Harley Davidson, USAA, Ritz, Four Seasons, Costco, Disney…they all have (and had) intrinsic appreciation (and therefore execution) towards experience and design. And many of the above examples are multi-lingual, balancing operational and financial rigor with an appreciation (i.e. investment) in customer engagement strategies.

I write this as I sit on an American Airlines flight from London, looking at my poor neighbor’s arm rest that just fell off. We may have got off the gate in time, but my guess is the flight attendants didn’t track this glitch. Tsssk, Tsssk.

9 Guerrilla Marketing Answers

A few weeks ago I was on an Austin Technology Council panel for the topic of Guerilla Marketing (YouTube Videos here). I’ve always loved Guerrilla marketing, and wrote a book on Guerrilla and Word of Mouth Marketing in 1997 with foreword from Jay Conrad Levinson, the "father" of Guerilla Marketing. I also have this unpublished book of 193 Clever marketing ideas ... I’m not going to do anything with it, so I posted it to Scribd for people to read for free.

I  made a few notes to answer the questions the moderator was going to ask for the panel. I’m on a long flight back from London right now...a good time to expand these notes and publish them...

1. What criteria do you use to choose where to spend marketing dollars for new technology companies?

Start with sales first. You need very little marketing in the beginning. They are the most productive form of research and recon for the market, because they're selling at the same time, adapting the message and learning what works. From this intelligence you build your foundation for the marketing plan and priorities. The bulls eye spend is on establishing outside credibility, typically through press and case studies. Also identify the customer objections from the sales team and work on overcoming those first. Finally, build and leverage partnerships. Leverage their spend and be associated with brands that are larger and more credible than yours (for now!).

2. What is the most efficient way to get your name out in front of the press and analysts? Is it trade conferences, blogs or something else?    

Three principles: Clients, % and $$. Get clients to do the talking and share case studies. Share studies and releases that have some measureable result, usually in terms of percentages and dollars.

3. How do you determine the most appropriate marketing strategy when you have limited financial resources to invest?

There are three ways to make money…get more customers, more from customer transaction, or increase frequency. Consider if you are going to grow through product, vertical, or regions. Finally, figure out how you differentiate. Now, choose the most effective and efficient from all three categories.

4. What is “guerrilla marketing?” What would be the difference between, say, guerrilla marketing, buzz marketing, and viral marketing.

Guerilla marketing employs unconventional tactics to achieve a marketing objective. It’s usually less expensive than traditional marketing and MAY have stronger results for the dollar spent. It’s like those indie movies that cost $200k to make and made millions. Guerilla may not have a viral effect. It could be you send a prospect a radio controlled car without the remote control until he takes your call.

5. How important is it for guerrilla marketing to push the limits?    

It has to answer these three questions: Does it affect emotions? Does it look different? Does it tie to your product and brand? I once created a “Bazaarvoice Bull Ride” contest at a conference dinner, on the spot, and awarded winners. People ‘rated’ the winners. Lots of laughs, it was memorable, and perhaps the most unique sponsorship of my career. And the ratings tied back to our product.

In the late 90s, Power computing (through the marketing genius of Mike Rosenfelt) sponsored a bungee jump over Boston Harbor in front of the Macworld Conference Center. Only certain VIPs could do the jump, but everyone talked about the big Power Computing tower and it matched their brand image of being different than the Mac.

6. How does a traditional marketing plan work with guerrilla marketing?    

WOM helps traditional marketing be more effective. It also needs to fit together. The tone should match. At Bazaarvoice we try to make our web site copy conversational, which matches the ‘humanness’ and tone to our other marketing tactics.

7. Besides the obvious activity in setting up the marketing event, is there anything that needs to happen before the event, and then after the event? What sort of things should I be thinking about?

Aggressive pre-show sales planning (setting up meetings) and post-show follow up. Focus on nothing else until you get this right. All the guerilla marketing in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t get face to face and create action after the show.

8. Are there certain business models that guerrilla marketing works best with?      

It can work with all types of business, but typically it’s most common and sustainable in direct to consumer. That’s because the direct marketer can tie things these strategies to the results, which encourages them to continue and optimize them over time. Large manufacturers have a tougher time sustaining guerilla marketing due to turnover of creative marketers in the organization, and most B2B companies don’t believe they can be ‘guerilla’, but they can. Regardless, start with a great product and great service, because any ‘guerilla’ marketing (or any marketing) can’t mask a poor customer experience.

9. What have you seen to be the long-term cumulative effects of guerrilla marketing    

It creates a more human, casual and fun tone for the company. If successful, the ‘guerilla’ mentality infects other parts of the company, and changes the culture. You can have Guerilla customer service, Guerilla product development strategies, Guerilla research….etc.

Why only 9 questions? 10 wouldn't be very Guerrilla!

What a WOMMA Event Looks Like (Video)

Take a look at this new compilation video of the last WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) event in Las Vegas.

A Great Hook

Fortunately, I'm homebound with my new son for the next week, but I was able to get away tonight for a dinner at Salt Lick (best BBQ in TX!) with many bloggers who came to Austin for SXSW. Friends made it such as Charlene Li of Forrester and Groundswell, Shel Israel of Global Neighborhoods (Author of Naked Conversations), Bob Pearsons of Dell (runs Dell's community /conversation / social media team), Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester and Web Strategist, and others. I also met some new folks: Jim Long, an NBC cameraman (great stories !) and Twitter pro at newmediajam, and Hugh MacLeod of gapingvoid.

If you haven't heard of gapingvoid or Hugh, he is the "Web 2.0" cartoonist on business cards. He is most famous (I think) for this doodle:

Hugh explained that some Microsofters replace their standard cards and put this on the back. Microsoft actually hired Hugh to walk the halls of Microsoft and doodle on cards as a culture catalyst.

This is awesome on a couple levels:

1) Microsoft recognized that an 'on the edge' cartoonist was capturing the imagination of its employees and embraced it. That they embraced someone who inspired their employees through an emotive cartoon that described what they as a company want to do and what the employees want to do. Talented people work at Microsoft not because they enjoy a big company, but because their talents can make a big change occur.

2) What Hugh has created is an incredible hook for himself, one that is so simple to grasp and interesting that he has built a name for himself. But also a hook that can carry a message across boundaries. A business card that can be shown as a piece of art to others to that spreads word of mouth, not only of the message, but also for Hugh. Brilliant. (Suggestion: Read Made to Stick.)

So he did a doodle on my card, and in three words captured what we are trying to help companies embrace..."The user generation".

What's your hook? What's your company's hook?

My 1997 Home Page & Resume...still alive!

Maybe with the new baby I'm in a nostalgic mood to share this with you...

I was going through some old files on my computer tonight and found a local version of my personal home page I built in 1995 and abandoned in 1997. I clicked on one of the links and it went live! It's still at http://users.aol.com/samdecker. I have no idea why this is still live...I lost my free "SamDecker" AOL account in 2000.

My home page simply featured my online resume and list of links live, but it's an interesting trip back in history, with an animated gif and .gif photo of myself (everything was .gif back then!). You can see some early Internet links, many of which are not live anymore. I don't call out some of those college accomplishments on my resume any more, but you can see my entrepreneurial roots!

Also, as an aside, you can see my first corporate web site I built (with the technical skills of Raines Cohen). Here you can see the 1996 version of the User Group Connection web site.

And if you want to see what I looked like with hair in 1995, here you go:

Before:

And after...

If anyone tries to sell you something with these before and after pictures, don't buy it (as if I have to tell you)!

Announcing Jack Tyler Decker

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

MANAGEMENT SHAKEUP AT DECKER HOUSEHOLD
Jack Tyler Decker Appointed New CEO

AUSTIN, TX (MARCH 6, 2008) -- The Decker Household announced today the arrival of its new CEO, Jack Tyler Decker. A 9-month veteran of fast-growth environments, Jack took control of the family startup on Thursday, March 6 at 5:42PM CT.

In a management shakeup, the 21 inch, 8 lb. 11 oz tycoon appointed Shannon Decker to report directly to him as President of The Household. Shannon's promotion came after hard labor disputes for a few hours just prior to his appointment. Sam Decker, who had worked many years to gain peer status to the new President, has been demoted to special assistant to Shannon and her supporting staff, Kyle and Haley Decker.

Jack had started his 9 month rise to control since June 7…or maybe June 8 or 9, 2007-- analysts cannot confirm the date. Jack had an inside track to the position ever since.

The new CEO is expected to work around the clock. His duties will consist of sleeping, eating 8 meals a day, and making many daily deposits into plastic envelopes. Shannon and Sam, in their new roles, will act quickly on directions from their new boss to achieve his desired career growth. On the day of his arrival, the CEO wasted no time crying out instructions to her new staff, and was already making small deposits.

Jack Decker, with a simple coo and finger suck, immediately got his team to swing into action to support his growth. This hard-working CEO hopes to crawl, eat solid foods, and hold his head up within a few months. Shannon, President of The Decker Household, states, "It will be hard work adapting to the work schedule the boss will give us, but we’re ready. Failure is not an option. We were trained to do this.” Even Kasey, the black fur, four-legged floor cleaner, is expected to "kiss up" to the new boss with a few licks.

###

 

Learn Word of Mouth Marketing -- WOMM-U, May 8-9

This year the Word of Mouth Marketing Association is doing something completely different (disclosure: I'm on the board). It will be WOMM-U (Word of Mouth Marketing University), the first training-based conference full of case studies, operational cookbooks, and practical advice to make Word of Mouth Marketing work in your organization.

The tracks will include topics on

• Managing a blog program
• Activating WOM in Social Networks
• Building a Sustained WOM Program
• Measurement: The ROI of Fans
• Selling into the CEO
• ...and much more.

Keynote presenters includes my friend Joseph Jaffe (author of "Join the Conversation") and Jeffrey Graham, who leads research for NYTimes.

Join me at this unique conference, May 8, 9 in Miami. Register here.

The Beginning of the Facebook Revenue / Experience Squeeze?

History repeats itself. A social networking site begins pure and unique, entirely focused on what users find cool. In truth, they're building on the backs of VCs. Eventually they are pressured to grow revenue and it's a race against time. The revenue pressure starts to squeeze the original purity of the experience that brought the crowd in the first place. And then the crowd moves on to the next great experience. Remember Tripod and GeoCities? Remember Friendster and Orkut? Remember MySpace? When will we say "Remember Facebook?".

Ok, it's not that dire, yet. I'm a Facebook fan. But logging into my profile tonight I saw an ad like I never saw before. See that Car insurance ad?

If I start seeing more of these ads in my profile every time I log in, the profile won't feel like 'mine' anymore.

Moreover, the ad is crap. Cheesy picture. And I clicked through...sure enough, cheesy company.The difference with Google ads is they are all text, so cheesiness is more hidden from the expeirence. And Google is not my personal page. Which may make advertising on social networks more difficult, for the advertiser and the longevity of the social network.

What do I like? I like how people can join brands (see the Apple brand at the bottom), and how I invited in marketplace listings on the right. And I'm ok with ads on the left (not shown) because that seems like a place for ads, not in my news feed.

Anyway, they will continue to experiment, we'll see if we will stick around, and we all will see if history repeats itself.

VP of Marketing Responsible for Shipping & Logistics?

Harry Joiner, a marketing recruiter and good friend, asked me to comment on his blog regarding what a VP of eCommerce or VP Marketing candidate should be asked or should answer regarding shipping & delivery logistics. Here's what I said...

 

As you know, I believe word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing and sustainable growth. So, a VP of marketing candidate needs to have an appreciation for the overall customer experience.

Shipping logistics are a huge part of that experience. You can weight the satisfaction and loyalty impact of each part of the customer experience – researching products, buying, receiving and using a product (support). The weight of impact is correlated to the the emotional residual for that part of the experience.

Shopping and research is a relatively forgettable experience, unless there is severe frustration. The buying experience is overshadowed with the emotional weight of the receiving and the out of box experience, as well as resolving customer service and support issues (downstream activities). Amazon is consistent with shipping and logistics. Apple and Chumby have great out of the box experiences.

So, word of mouth and branding (and thus, top line revenue over the long term) are driven from upstream decisions (great products, packaging) and downstream logistics (shipping, service, support).

A great VP of marketing should realize they have to balance between immediate, short term tactics to drive revenue and the sustainable long-term activities that may even be out of his direct control. In this case, marketing is a "chief accountability officer" and has to champion improvements and investments in the overall customer experience. You can no longer mask logistical and service blemishes with good midstream activities (marketing/advertising).

One last point on logistics, as it relates to online. Nearly every customer utilizes tools to check status, manage returns, and resolve customer service issues. Amazon and Zappos do the best job I've seen of integrating their logistics with online content and functionality. A strong candidate will understand the need to look at things from a customer task / customer process perspective and make sure that they build it from there back to the logistics team. Technical and political savvy are very helpful assets to accomplish a great customer experience...and thus a great brand.

Top 10 Best and Worst Speakers of 2007

Every year Bert Decker (disclosure: my father), Chairman of  Decker Communications, publishes his Top 10 Best and Worst speakers of the year.

The top 3 speakers of 2007 are:

• Gov. Mike Huckabee
• Dr. Mehmet Oz
• Al Gore

Click here to see all Top 10 Best Speakers

The 2007 worst three speakers are:

• Attorney Alberto Gonzales
• Michael Vick
• Robert Eckert (Mattel Chairman)

Click here to see all Top 10 Worst Speakers

         

Bert Decker is a national communications expert, best selling author and entrepreneur, founding the communications training company Decker Communications, Inc. He has been featured in the NY Times, Business Week, 20/20, as well as being the communications commentator for the NBC TODAY Show for the Presidential Debates.               

• Coach to Charles Schwab, U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, former Mattel CEO's John Ammerman and Jill Barrad, Olympians Bonnie Blair and Tom Dolan, SF 49er All-Pro Brent Jones, and dozens of other executives
• Founder, Chairman and CEO of Decker Communications, Inc., a leader in communications training and executive coaching.
• Consultant to Siemens, State Farm, Schwab, Met Life, and many others
• Professional Speaker and best selling author of "You've Got to Be Believed To Be Heard" and "Speaking With Bold Assurance"
• Co-producer of an Academy Award documentary
• Entrepreneur, founder of four companies, Chairman of Bold Assurance             Ministries, NBC TODAY Communications Expert commentator, Advisory Board Salvation Army