The Golden Rule For Vendors

It takes a village to make a happy customer. Customer delight grows out of the entire collection of interactions the customer has with every member of your team. It is rare that just one interaction sends a customer over the edge, but one bad interaction can certainly deflate the relationship and move the customer from delight to satisfaction and then it doesn't take much to move to disappointment. 

One of the most common complaints is that a vendor shows a lack of urgency. Things just take too long. When customers and prospects are looking for an answer to a question or a quote or an estimate, or they have a product issue that is in their way, they are typically seeking an immediate response. Vendors have to deal with all sorts of requests, and it may seem nearly impossible to respond immediately to every issue. However, the vendor’s challenges don’t really matter to a customer or prospect that is seeking an immediate response. They want the vendor to match or exceed their level of urgency. 

The golden rule for vendors is “do unto customers as you would want a vendor to do unto you.” At a minimum, a vendor needs to be aware of when their team is taking too long to respond, and create mechanisms to escalate and accelerate their processes when they fall behind. The entire team has to act with urgency, and that means we don’t let issues languish, and we are vigilant following up every step of the way. It has to be baked into the culture of the company, and every team member needs to be onboard.

In sales, there are many studies that suggest when buyers reach out to multiple vendors, the first to meaningfully respond has the highest chance of winning the deal. There are tons of factors that influence the purchase, but quick response is near the top of the list because it sets a tone for the relationship, and a favorable bias. You snooze you lose.

In support, rapid initial response has to be wed to reliable and rapid follow up and resolution. When issues pass from one member of a team to another, we cannot let the customer fall through the cracks, and each team member in the chain needs to be aware of the total lapse time as perceived by the customer. It is not good enough for the first person to practice ‘fire and forget’ behavior. They have to own the relationship and practice ‘fire and follow-up’ instead. Like a relay race, vendors should track metrics on every passing of the baton. Measure the total journey, and all of the splits with the objective to achieve continuous improvement and accelerate each step. On the other side of the equation, the customer is expecting an immediate response, and the team’s objective is to delight them, not annoy them.

The easy, and often the default business communication method today is a digital response - email, chat, text, Slack, etc. The problem is that teams often lose sight of the number of back-and-forth messages, and asynchronous responses can feel slow and annoying to customers.  We have all attempted to interact with a vendor via a chat session. It usually takes a couple of back and forths to say hello, and ask your question (often more than once). Then the agent invariably disappears for what feels like ‘too long’ before coming back with an innocuous question that is clearly a stall tactic while they chat with another customer. Eventually, they get to the original question, and it takes a bunch of frustratingly slow back and forth messages to get a meaningful answer. I call this inside-out efficiency. It is efficient for the vendor (inside) because it enables agents to multi-task and touch several clients at once, but it is not efficient or desirable for the customer (outside). Inside out efficiency is never a good strategy to generate customer delight.

No matter what type of electronic communication, I am an advocate of a ‘three touch rule.’  Person A initiates a discussion (touch 1), person B responds with a question or comment about the request (touch 2), person A responds (touch 3). If the question or issue is not resolved at this point, if left to the normal course, the back and forth can go on forever.  We have all seen this in email, or text chains, both internal and external. Just think how frustrating it is for you and your teammates. Can you imagine how frustrating it is for a customer? My three touch rule requires a direct live contact after the third electronic response. Pick up the phone, or open a video call or start a huddle, and actually talk to each other. Short circuit the doom-loop of back and forth messaging. Think how much faster we can get to resolution if we let urgency dictate our interactions.  Think how much our clients will appreciate when we demonstrate a sense of urgency that matches or exceeds their own. Follow the Golden Rule for Vendors.

How Confident Are You?

How confident are you in your product, service, and business? Do you believe you have product market fit? Do you believe there are deals being done in your market, and are you confident that if you have the opportunity to compete, you will win? Now, look around you. Do all of the members of your team share your confidence? In particular, do your marketers and sellers share your confidence?

Confidence and attitude can make all the difference in a competitive market. It is said that dogs can sense fear. A corollary in business is that buyers and customers can sense confidence and commitment or lack of it, and it colors their behavior toward vendors. If you think you will lose, buyers sense it and chances are pretty high you will. On the positive side, if you have confidence and believe in yourself and your team, you can win over a skeptical buyer.

Think about your own personal experience. When you consider buying electronics like a TV, you probably do some research, and you may go to a big-box store to see the various models. If you have questions, you might ask a salesperson for help. Within seconds you can tell if they know what they are talking about or if they are just reading what is on the box. The ones that confidently differentiate models and explain features worth having versus features that don’t matter, become trusted advisors. The others are a waste of time and you will likely walk out without making a purchase. A lot of that is training and knowledge, but what really stands out is when a salesperson demonstrates confidence that they are the expert and you should listen to their opinions.

Magic happens when everyone on your team projects confidence in your product and makes it evident that your team knows its stuff and will provide buyers and customers with an unmatched level of service and expertise. Competitors come and competitors go, and on any given day, a competitor may have a feature or a function that stands out as different or better than your equivalent capability, but that never lasts for long. In the competitive market, you are running a marathon not a sprint, and customers and prospects need to sense your confidence and belief that you are their best choice for the long haul. Your team has to project confidence that the totality of what you bring to the table far exceeds the competitors’ offerings, and a feature here or there should not be determinant for a buyer that is taking the long view. 

Confidence is expressed in a lot of different ways.  A powerful message of confidence is the willingness to say ‘no.’  Deep down, buyers and customers know you can’t or won’t do everything they ask. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If your answer to every question or request is ‘yes,’ at some point you lose credibility - it is too good to be true.  Acknowledging a limit or a shortfall by saying ‘no’ not only shows confidence, it also makes the rest of what you say sound more believable and true. If you are willing to say ‘no’ to this, then your ‘yes’ to other items must be true. Don’t say ‘no’ just to make a point, but if you are confident in your strengths and believe that your offering is solid, then sometimes an honest ‘no’ communicates your confidence and conveys that you are trustworthy. 

Many enterprise software companies are dependent upon a small number of transactions each quarter to reach their goals. Unfortunately, when dealing with the law of small numbers, if a few deals don’t make it across the finish line by the end of the quarter, the company will fall short of target. Without a surplus of opportunities to work, each deal becomes critical, and everything needs to close. Like a dog that senses fear, when a team is desperate to drive in every possible deal, buyers perceive the desperation and interpret it as risk. Risk causes them to slow down, rather than speed up their decision process.

By contrast, when the team projects confidence, it lowers the perceived risk level for the buyer. Like the dog that starts wagging its tail after you speak calmly to it, prospects start thinking “if you are not worried, then why am I worried?” Confidence is calming, and calm creates a moment of zen for buyers to develop their own confidence and commit sooner rather than later.

Building confidence in your team is one of the most important roles for the CEO and executive leaders. It has to be real and honest, or the team will never embrace it. Employees are smart and they have a keen sense of skepticism and a terrific BS meter. The starting place is to build trust based on honest and open dialog.  Not everyone sees the whole picture of the business, and it is human nature for junior teammates to fill in the gaps with skepticism. The leader’s job is to hear their concerns and help them gain confidence and belief.  Back to the start, if you truly believe in your product, service, and business, then it is up to you to project that confidence to your team and help them reach the same conclusion. If your team is confident, then they will take that into the market. Confidence wins.

Recipe For A Productive Board Meeting

The easiest way to have a positive board meeting is to meet your financial and operational goals and do what you said you would do — simple. However, in the real world, something is always going on that has an impact on the business.

After a tough quarter, a board meeting can be negative and dark and unfriendly. It is important for everyone to recognize that we are all professionals, and the board meeting is a collaboration, not a confrontation. Management and the board are all striving for success, so let’s work together.

Based on a bunch of CEO and board positions in VC and PE backed tech companies, here is my CEO recipe for a productive board meeting (assuming quarterly meetings):

1. Between meetings, practice radical candor and transparency, and maintain a continuous dialog with the board. Board members hate being surprised. There is a bright line separating management’s operating role from the board’s role, but it is incumbent upon the CEO and management to keep the board informed and aware of what is going on.

2. A couple of weeks (or more) before the meeting, contact the board members and discuss potential agenda topics. I like an annual baseline cycle for board discussions: Q1—FY Plan, Q2—Sales/Marketing, Q3—Competition and Product, Q4—Planing for the next year, but there are always hot topics that need to be covered in addition to the base topic.

3. Deliver board materials in advance. That means with enough time for the board to study them. Send out materials on the prior Friday (or earlier), to provide at least the weekend for review. Preliminary materials should be entirely retrospective about what happened since the last meeting. This is the foundation for the discussion during the board meeting, and the purpose is to ensure everyone is on the same page. Speaking of page, I suggest one ‘page’ or slide per functional area of the business or topic, with no small fonts. Force managers to focus on the metrics and trends that matter, and do not allow this to be a self-promoting “what I did on my summer vacation” narrative. For every claim or number or metric, ask ‘SO WHAT?’  Why does the board care, and how will it inform them? This is not an opportunity to “show up and throw up” data.  A well crafted presentation will demonstrate that management has a fine-tuned grasp of the key metrics that drive the business. The best pages show trends and explain what matters and why. No extraneous data or noise.  Resist the temptation to look forward and talk about forecasts in the preliminary materials. This is background - nothing but the facts. The actual board meeting will be about the future, and the ‘now what’ discussion. Preliminary materials are facts and the history that led us to this point. It should not be a lengthy novel — for most companies it is under 20 pages. Send it out with the financial pack and any board resolutions and minutes, and include the meeting agenda, time, and place or video link.

4. Schedule two meetings: This may be a bit controversial, but trust me it works, particularly with PE and VC investor-led boards. If you present the financial results cold at the start of the board meeting, it can go one of two ways: if the numbers are good, numbers people tend to check out of the softer parts of the meeting. If the numbers are bad, it is all they focus on and the meeting goes downhill quickly. Schedule the actual board meeting for Wednesday or Thursday, and schedule a preliminary finance call on Monday or Tuesday for the CFO to present the results from the prior period and field questions. If you don’t have the answers, you can find them prior to the board meeting. Have the executive team participate, and use this meeting to answer clarifying questions about the preliminary management materials. Doing all of this in advance of the board meeting lets everyone get grounded in the facts and prepare to be productive during the actual meeting.

5. Board slides are separate from the preliminary materials. Their purpose is to support the board discussion. The board has already seen the preliminary materials, don’t waste board time rehashing them. Hold the board meeting slides until the meeting. Again, this is controversial, but it works. If you send the slides out in advance, everyone reads ahead without the benefit of the narrative. The worst pattern is to send slides in the middle of the night prior to the meeting — disaster!  My recommendation is hold them for the meeting and use them to ‘support’ your board discussion, not to ‘be’ your board discussion. You can send them around after the meeting.

6. In nearly every board meeting I have been a part of, the sales forecast is the opening act. The preliminary materials already delivered the facts about what happened during the quarter, but this is an opportunity for more color and discussion. The focus, however, should be on the forecast and what the company is doing to ensure success. Concentrate on moving forward, not hand-wringing about what happened in the last 90 days. Facts are facts, now let’s move on together.

7. Avoid letting the meeting turn into a stage performance by the management team - the classic dog and pony show.  Make the meeting a collaborative discussion. If the preliminary materials did their job, the board is prepared for discussion, so do not just rehash the facts. The CEO should lead the discussion, but not dominate it. Provide space for executives to own their domains. It is a style question about who participates from the exec team and for how much of the meeting, but everyone does not have to get equal airtime. Board presentations should be in service of the agenda topic, and not a stage to present what was already sent out in the preliminary materials.

8. Schedule a portion of the meeting for the CEO to meet with the board without other members of the executive team present. It is a time for candor without the management audience present. The CEO and the board can discuss the business, the team, and other sensitive topics that may not be appropriate for the rest of the execs.

9. Make time for the board to meet without the CEO present. This is called an executive session, and the purpose is for the board to gather its thoughts and feedback for the CEO so they can speak with one voice.  At the end of the executive session, the CEO should rejoin and one board member should speak for the board and provide feedback. Manage the clock throughout the meeting so there is time for this important step. Too often, meetings run long and board members are unable to stay for the executive session. Avoid this behavior, and call it out if necessary.

10. Lastly, the CEO needs to acknowledge conclusions, requests and action items coming out of the meeting, and confirm them in writing back to the board. This is the “I heard you, and we are on it” step. Invite board members to respond and comment on your summary. Boards tend toward amnesia from one meeting to the next. It is up to the CEO to be accountable and to help the board ‘remember.’

One of my favorite lines came from a fellow CEO, Flint Lane.  He said that boards should be a weapon, not a problem. Consider how each board member can assist the company, and ask for (demand?) meaningful participation. Some of the most productive meetings I ever had were the ones where I gave the board homework and asked them to come to the meeting with a point of view to discuss. It is up to the CEO to make sure the board has knowledge and background, but collaboration is a two way activity and a productive board meeting requires participation.

Shock Absorber or Amplifier

“If we could only do one thing, what would it be?”  I was asked this question by one of our senior leaders (I believe it came from Lencioni’s “5 Dysfunctions of a Team”), and it triggered a lot of thought and discussion. It’s a great question for every CEO. It makes you think about what is most important right now, and what we are currently trading off against it. What is our top priority and what are we working on that may be detracting from that priority.

About the same time, an interviewer asked me for a lesson I learned over the years that has helped me as a CEO.  My answer was the need to figure out the vision and the ultimate goal, and never lose sight of it or get distracted by the ‘tyranny of the urgent.’ Something is always going to demand immediate action, and while it is important to deal with the urgency, the key is to stay on course for the ultimate goal. 

Each area of the business has a different ‘urgency horizon.‘ In sales, urgency is driven by the next deal or the quarterly target. Competitive challenges immediately escalate to urgent. For marketing, the horizon is a little longer, and for product and engineering it is even a little longer. The cycle-time for each group to effect change is different, so their urgency horizon is different. In responding to the interviewer, I went on to say that I learned that a CEO has to have a measured response to what is presented as urgent. We need to figure out when to act as a shock absorber to buffer the urgency, or an amplifier to spur immediate action.   

The tyranny of the urgent and the ‘one thing’ question led me to thinking about how they shape our progress and direction toward our goals. Most companies are about to complete their first fiscal quarter. Some things are probably going well, and some not so much. CEOs and boards of directors are thinking about where they are on their plan for the year, and what they need to course correct. For many leaders, the focus will be on bookings and revenue, or profits and cash, and leaders will be looking for pivots and actions to ensure the business is on track for the remainder of the year.

Businesses are complex organisms, and course corrections are never easy. We may have to weigh bookings against customer satisfaction, or investing in innovation against profitability, or a host of other tradeoffs.  We also have to balance near-term urgency against staying true to our longer-term vision and goals.

The hardest tradeoff for me was balancing customer satisfaction against anything else — bookings, profits, employees, innovation, investors, etc.  A business will not survive very long (or at all), if the customers are unhappy. Customer goodwill affords us a tiny bit of room to address other urgent needs, but that only goes so far.  If there is a choice of what to do next, and we can only do one thing, then how do we prioritize which urgency to address? 

Here is a thought exercise: imagine you promised your customers you would deliver a high-demand feature in September, but your innovative team has come up with an idea to alternatively apply resources to complete a new premium feature that you can sell and grow your bookings. You are off of your bookings plan, and the new premium feature could save the year. Your choices are: fulfill the customer promise in September and raise customer satisfaction but miss bookings targets, or put the resources on the premium feature to sell in September and miss the customer promise but maybe make your bookings target.  You could try to do both, but will likely slip both beyond the end of the year. In the land of ‘one thing,’ do you opt to finish the premium feature and drive bookings, or do you stay true to your customer commitment? The question comes down to a choice between bookings and customer satisfaction.

The ‘one thing’ question forces a priorities decision. It brings clarity, and avoids the muddled decision of trying to do both options and likely failing on both. Making hard decisions well is a key strength leaders need to develop, and the ‘one thing’ test helps to build that muscle.

So, how does that relate to the second conversation about being calm and staying the course and having a measured approach to urgency? The key is in the word ‘measured.’  A measured approach to urgency says we don’t drop everything and just run around chasing the latest emergency.  A measured response may mean finding a way to act on customer commitments that might create a new premium offering to sell to others (two birds, one stone).  A measured response is recognizing when a short-term focus will create a long-term disaster, and not making a foolish decision intentionally. We should never lose sight of what great looks like as we acknowledge the present urgencies. We need to balance the mix of urgency horizons across the various functions of our business. Our role is to find the path between acting as a shock absorber to dampen the perceived urgency, or acting as an amplifier to spur the company into action.  Keeping the long-term north star in focus, and asking the ‘one-thing’ question will often illuminate the right choice.

Are We On The Same Page

In a typical hierarchical organization, information is passed up the line (escalated) to the top for decision making.  At each step along the way, the information is watered down or colored in some way. When it reaches the top it is less than perfect, which leads to imperfect decisions. Most companies have smart, skilled team members at all levels, and most of the unfiltered, hands-on knowledge and information exists closer to the front-line than it does to the top of the organization. As great companies mature, they build strength throughout the team, and move decision making down the org chart to harness the brilliance of the team to efficiently make better decisions.

The first key to moving decision making to the people with hands-on knowledge is to ensure that we have a shared understanding of the goals, objectives, strategies, and culture of the organization.  For way more years than I want to admit, at the companies I led we created an annual plan book to make sure everyone was on the same page. I think I first learned about the annual book from Colin Angle the brilliant founder/CEO of iRobot (apologies if it actually came from someone else — it was a hundred years ago and my memory is fuzzy).

Here is the idea: Every year we published a book that stated the mission, vision, and values of the company, and the overarching corporate and financial goals for the year. We included a page about our market and our ideal customers, and a statement of our unique value proposition.  It also included a statement about our ideal team member, and quotes from employees and customes. We produced it as an actual printed and bound 5”X8” book with a graphical theme that set the tone for the year ahead. This was not a long, wordy novel.  Each topic had one page with big fonts and just a few simple sentences that were easy to read and digest.

Even though it was a little old fashioned to print a book on paper in a digital world, I believe it was important to print the book and hand it out to every employee at our kickoff. The tangible card-stock pages made a statement.  Once we put the plan in place and printed the book, the die was cast. No moving the goal posts or editing the corporate direction. It kept us all focused on the same goals and outcomes for the entire year.

We restated our mission, vision, and values every year so that every team member was reminded of who we were and why we were in business.  When I met with new employees, I would hand out the book and walk them through each page as an introduction to the company.  We wanted a positive culture that was highly contagious and easily caught - the book was a means to transmit our core essence to everyone.

Once we have everyone on the same page, the second key to moving decision making closer to the hands-on knowledge is to build trust in the capabilities and judgement of team members.  We need to know that they have the skills, capabilities, experience, and judgement to make informed decisions.  In other words, we need to trust them, and building trust is not easy.

I think of it like giving the car keys to a new driver.  Before they go solo, they need to demonstrate that they have learned how to drive. We do that by riding along with them at the wheel. We ask them to narrate what they are seeing and doing, and what decisions they are making. We don’t grab the wheel or step on the peddles  (mostly), but we need to see them in action before we trust them to take the car.

In a business setting, this translates into constant communication and asking probing questions to understand why and how team members are reaching their conclusions.  A leader needs to resist the urge to tell them the answers or make the decisions for them, but we still need to see how they will drive the ‘car’ before we turn them loose. In other words, we want to retain the ability to influence the decision before it takes effect. The more we give team members the opportunity to make informed decisions and demonstrate their capabilities, the more we build trust and are willing to let decisions happen without prior approval. However, trust is a two way street. Team members also have to trust their leaders to create a safe space for them to succeed, and sometimes that includes the space to make bad decisions and learn from them.  Both parties have to be committed to growing the muscles that enable solid decision making.

With a solid grounding in the shared culture and core business model of the company (the ‘book’), and team members have earned managerial trust, then they are prepared to take on more decision making responsibilities.  When managers commit to the idea of moving decision making down the corporate hierarchy, they also have to commit to working with team members to build trust and confidence. All of this only happens if there is ongoing meaningful communication. If we stop talking, the whole process loses momentum. It is a process, but when it works, companies accelerate and job satisfaction skyrockets.

Are You On Top Of Your Ladder?

The concept of product positioning was described in a classic book by my marketing heroes Trout and Reis (Positioning: the battle for your mind). It is human nature to categorize competitive offerings. Buyers create mental ‘ladders’ and position competitors on those ladders from top to bottom as a way to segment and differentiate products. Marketing’s role is to give the buyer a path to categorize a brand at the top of a ladder with a unique offering. In other words, marketing differentiates and positions a brand or product to distinguish it from the pack and make it stand out in the mind of the buyer.

The more a vendor can differentiate from the competition, the easier it is for a potential buyer to make a choice. When all of the vendors and their products look alike, buyers have to dig deeper and deeper and work harder and harder to figure out which vendor meets their needs the best. If there is no difference, then any choice will do, but it is not human nature to randomly make a selection. If there is no clearly differentiated offering, then skeptical buyers are forced into endless evaluation. The more we can differentiate our offering, the shorter the sales cycle because buyers will not need to spend as much time trying to pry apart the competitors. 

However, the differentiation has to be with respect to something that matters to the buyer.  Sounds obvious, but often when buyers have to search for the differences between vendors, they start looking at the edges or corner cases and get all wrapped up in things that ultimately just don’t matter. They fixate on some tiny difference and end up making their purchase decision on criteria that will never impact their success.

Over time, in a competitive market, all products trend toward commodities.  Every new feature from one vendor is met by a covering feature from another.  Eventually, all of the basic customer needs are met by all of the products, and innovations are happening around the edges where it simply does not matter to the majority of buyers.  It is like word processors competing on who has a better footnote feature when hardly anyone uses that capability or cares. When buyers are confronted by a dizzying array of features, they can become overwhelmed by the possibilities and the complexity, which leads to analysis paralysis.  They may just choose to put the project on hold rather than make a murky decision. Sales people often say that the biggest competitor is ‘do nothing.’

As products become commoditized or indistinguishable, the differentiating elements shift toward price, services and market presence or brand.  This is when a vendor’s reputation and customer connections become critical.  A vendor’s messaging has to demonstrate that they truly know their ideal customer profile and critical use cases. They have to show a real connection with customers, and they have to remember that buyers trust their peers, so case studies and testimonials can win the day.

In the end, if buyers really cannot differentiate vendors on anything meaningful, then it often comes down to price — “If I can’t tell you apart, then I will buy the least expensive alternative.”  Unfortunately, some vendors start out with price as their primary differentiating factor. They make up for product/company deficiencies by offering a bargain price, or they focus on grabbing market share and not building a sustainable business. Bargain pricing is their ticket to adding lots of logos.  Buying or selling solely on price rarely ends well.

In a sea of all the same, marketing’s challenge is to stand out as the clear choice.  Positioning is the path to painting a stand out picture. I wrote about creating marketing messages with ‘edge’ in a prior post, and this is where it matters.  Marketers have to develop a deep understanding of their target customers so that their marketing messages connect with buyers in a way that differentiates and positions the vendor at the top of a buyers mental ladder. When it works, the marketing magic acts like a magnifying glass to propel a vendor to stand out. 

Will They Stay or Will They Go

I have been thinking a lot about a vendor’s view of the  two ends of the buyers’ journey - finding a lead and dealing with churn.  On the front end, we focus on marketing messaging, positioning, key differentiators, and Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP).  The goal is to find more great leads and increase our conversion rate from leads to customers. On the back end, we fret about churn and down-sell, and we perform churn analysis to determine why accounts fail to renew, or what went wrong.

I am a fan of both of these forms of analysis, and every organization should be all over this.  However, lately I have been exploring the connections between the two, and coming to the conclusion that we often miss the opportunity to learn from one and improve the other.

We always hear the same typical rationales from churn analysis:

• Bad service

• Bad product

• Bad product fit / competitive takeaway

• Death and marriage (bankruptcy and merger)

• Management / strategy change

All of these are legitimate and we have to understand how each plays a role in churn and down-sell.  Great - we need to do that analysis and figure out what we can do to improve the results on all fronts.  However, what I think is more interesting than churn analysis is ‘Stay Analysis.’  The reasons why customers are staying can tell us much more than the reasons why they are leaving.  Understanding customer retention can be the key to future growth.

In an earlier post, I wrote about churn and down-sell as a leaky bucket.  Revenue that we worked very hard to secure is leaking away as customer decide to leave. Churn analysis and acting on the findings helps to plug the holes and slow the leaks, but it will not do anything to drive growth. While it is imperative to stop the leaks, the real goal is to grow the business with increased sales.  To do that, we have to look at the other end of the journey and hone in on the quality and quantity of leads, and their conversion ratio into closed sales.

I see a ton of tech marketing messaging, and frankly most of it is pretty bad.  When I say that, I mean it is lacking clarity and ‘edge’, and it simply is not compelling.  On the continuum from hard-sell — ‘buy from me,’ to no-sell — ’thought leadership,’ a lot of marketing messaging leans too far in the direction of no-sell.  There is nothing wrong with thought leadership.  It has its place in the vendor’s arsenal and the buyer’s journey, but I am an advocate of thought leadership with a purpose - an ‘edge.’  A vendor’s thought leadership message ought to lead shoppers toward the solution that the vendor wants to sell.  We should educate the market to understand the ‘right’ way to do things, and, oh by the way, let them know that it is the way we do them.  Without edge, a lot of thought pieces just deliver generic, bland messages that could have come from anyone, and generally the most visible market leader reaps the most benefit.  We need to say something unique, or present a differentiated point of view if we want to stand out.  It does not need to be a hard sell ‘buy from me,’ but at least it ought to imply ‘buy like me.’

When we are fishing in the sea of prospects for a specific Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), we need to use ‘bait’ that will attract more of those prospects, and fewer leads for non-ICP shoppers.  A generic message is like casting a big net that does not differentiate what it catches. The result is it takes more sales effort to qualify and find the real ICP buyers. If the solution is easy to buy (low price, low impact), a bland message can entice less than ideal buyers to become customers who then quickly figure out the product was a bad fit and churn.

I suggest the issue starts with marketers that do not really have a deep understanding of their ICP and unique value proposition.  If you are unsure of who you are looking for and what they are interested in buying, then you just throw out generic thoughts and hope that something sticks.  There is also a sprinkling of marketers that are committed to avoiding being too ‘salesy.’  Their ‘thought leadership’ messages intentionally avoid any whiff of sales, and in the process avoid any competitive differentiation or biased point of view - no ‘edge.’

That takes me back to stay analysis.  To really understand our ICP, we have to look at the customers that stay with us.  Why are they happy?  What unique benefit caused them to buy, and what is contributing to their success with our product? Win analysis may tell us why they made the purchase, but the more interesting information is what is making them happy post-sale and driving their success. It may be completely different from their core reason for buying.  One company I work with discovered that companies that stay are nearly all using a module that the vendor thought of as a minor element of the sale.  It turned out to be the feature that delivered the stickiest value post-sale, but it rarely came up in win analysis and was not a big part of their marketing and sales messaging.

Stay analysis is a valuable tool for determining our ICP and our unique value proposition.  Directing marketers to interview the best customers and personally perform the stay analysis will be eye opening for them.  It will improve their understanding of the buyer and enable them to create thought leadership with informed ‘edge.’  It will help them to refine the bait so the quality of leads improves and sales can be more efficient at catching customers that will stay in the boat.  There is a virtuous cycle when we market a clear message to our ICP — we attract more ICP shoppers, close more ideal customers, and they stay with us longer without churning. When we start by listening to our customers, good things happen.

Lower Customer Effort = Higher Loyalty

A couple of years ago, I watched a Gartner webinar titled “How To Improve Customer Experience By Focusing On The Fundamentals.”  The basic guidance was to “Stop thinking about your customers and start thinking like your customers. Focus on the fundamentals.”  A key observations was that you can’t think ‘like’ your customers if you don’t know who they are. The recommendation was to do a detailed analysis of customer personas to understand the wants, needs, goals and mindset of each persona in order to design processes and products to be most valuable. It was a good reminder to get outside of our echo chamber and actually get to know our customers.

We need to understand what stressors make things worse for a customer—more effort, more pain, more questions, longer wait times, more errors. Then we can map out the things we can do to reduce or eliminate the stressors. If we really look through the eyes of our customers, we can change the trajectory of the customer journey.

It turns out that the less effort a customer has to invest, the more loyal they become. They spend more, stay longer, and speak more highly of solutions that require less effort.  Gartner suggested that the score we should consider is the Customer Effort Score (CES). Similar to the NPS question scored from 0-10 :

To what extent do you agree with the following statement: “The company made it easy for me to [achieve my goal].” 

We need to look at all aspects of our product, user experience, processes and procedures to see what we can do to reduce customer effort.

A lot of companies place a major emphasis on designing for customer self-service, but when we speak about self-service, we have to also consider effort. Is it less effort to ask the vendor to do something or to do it themself?  Customers don’t want to be required to ask their vendor to do the work. It frustrates them if they can’t do things themself.  Often, the vendor solution is to expose more knobs and levers and capabilities to customers so they can control everything, but how does that relate to increased complexity and effort?  If the vendor is doing the work for the customer, they can ‘hide’ the complexity from the customer.  The customer’s level of effort is to make the request, and behind the scenes, the vendor’s level of effort can be huge - it is just hidden.  However, if we move to a self-service model where we simply add more controls and transfer the effort to the customer, then we are likely failing on the Customer Effort Score (CES), and we will not enjoy the loyalty that comes with low effort.

One company I know is totally focused on self-service, but they take a unique approach to monitoring their success in maintaining a high CES.  If a customer has to contact the vendor for anything, they consider the contact to be the equivalent of a bug.  It goes into their tracking system and becomes a ticket to be addressed.  They aggressively work to eliminate the root cause of the contact so that no customer will ever have to face the issue again.  Sometimes the fix is in the documentation or the help system, or it can be in the product interface, or even the corporate website and sales and marketing materials.

Another way some vendors focus on self-service is through education and training. They assume that if they teach clients how to do things, then the client can be self-sufficient.  Once again, this concept has to be tested against the measure of effort.  If a task is hard and requires a lot of effort, simply training the user better will not result in a higher CES and will not produce the desired loyalty results.  Even taking a training course requires effort.  It could be said that if you have to train me, then it is too complicated (i.e. too much effort).  

The precursor goal to self-service is to go back to basic ease-of-use and meaningful automation. Customers should be able to be self-sufficient, but we need to do so in a manner that is predicated on ease of use and reduced effort. The benchmark should be to ask ourselves if it is less effort for a customer to ask us to do something or for them to do it themselves?  We don’t want the answer to be that they need to ask us to do the work for them.  However, if that is the answer, then we need to address the fundamentals before we try to transfer the effort to the customer.  Focus on minimizing effort, and loyalty will follow.

Get to the Point!

My good friend Jim Farrell suggested I write about the importance of brevity and clarity when creating a presentation, and answering the question “So What?” What is the point you are trying to drive home and for what purpose. Why is it important? If the audience does not immediately understand your point, then fix it or get rid of it. If you present a fact or a statement, you need to make sure the presentation answers the question “so what?”  The audience requires context, but they also require a filter to ensure the point is worth making, and is relevant or important?

Too often, presentations are loaded with data or features.  It either indicates that the presenter is not sure what is important, so they throw it all against the wall and hope that something sticks, or they think that if they present all of the minutia and data they will appear to have a deep command of their subject.  In either case, they leave it up to the audience to figure out what is important, and that rarely goes well.  We call this “show up and throw up.”

Answering the ‘so what’ question is particularly important when creating a board presentation because board members are not in the day-to-day operations, and need management to filter out the minutia and guide the board to focus on what matters.  The same is true in a sales presentation. The prospect needs a clear and concise understanding of your unique value proposition and competitive differentiation.  Whatever you present needs to answer the ‘so what’ question for the audience.

As I thought about this topic, it reminded me of what I have called the democratization of leadership and the importance of applying the same ‘so what’ filter to internal presentations.  As an organization grows, there are increasing layers of management and increasing specialization of roles.  The further we get from the source of the information, the more it loses context and becomes distorted and shaded by opinion.  If we reserve decision making to the top of the hierarchy, we are basing decisions on watered down information. Instead of flowing all of the data to the top of the organization and waiting for an answer or decision to come down from the mountain, it becomes increasingly important to move decision making closer to information and empower more people to take the lead and responsibility for decisions.  

When we move authority to make decisions closer to the source of the information, we can increase efficiency and leverage a deeper understanding of the data, but, as it is said, ‘with great power comes great responsibility.’  Leaders have to develop confidence and trust before they are willing to let go of decision making authority. To get there, we need concise communication and presentations that answer the ‘so what’ questions, and make senior leaders believe in the presenter’s grasp of the information.

The three underlying questions a presenter has to answer are: “What do you think?” “Why do you think that?” and “What would you like to do about it?” We want individuals to demonstrate that they have an understanding of the situation and an opinion, so the first question is “what do you think?”  It requires thinking, and observation, and an understanding of the goals and objectives so that we know your opinion is informed.  

The second question is “why do you think that?” The answer to this question will elicit the inputs and reasoning behind the answer to the first question. It should illuminate the presenter’s logic and understanding of the situation, and it can open the door to dialog and sharing differing perspectives.

Lastly, question 3 asks “what would you like to do about it?” This is really the meat of the ‘so what’ test. If there is no action or decision to be taken, then what was the reason for presenting the information in the first place?  Even if it is just a status update, there must be a reason for presenting it and a next step to be taken, otherwise ‘so what?'  

Answering the ‘so what’ question is a powerful communication tool.  At all levels and in all situations, we need to ask the question so that we test the relevance and importance of what we are communicating.  Nobody wants to sit through a lengthy presentation or detailed demo only to get to the end and be left with a feeling of ‘so what?’  The presenter owes it to the listener to filter the presentation content and guide the discussion by answering the question and eliminating superfluous content.

Customer Engagement = Customer Retention

In a recurring revenue business, one of the most important metrics is Net Revenue Retention (NRR) — a measure of preserving and growing revenue from the customer base.  Every company expects some level of churn (customers that do not renew their relationship), and some amount of down-sell (customers that reduce the amount of money they spend).  These two measures are both negative.  If we start with 100% of our revenue up for renewal, churn and down-sell are reductions in revenue.

On the positive side is upsell, when a customer spends more this year than last year.  There are a number of sources of upsell, including price increases, increased usage, add-on capabilities or modules, and new projects.  These sources and others increase the revenue from the customer base. Net Retention is the net of the negatives and the positives.  The minimum goal is to have upsell offset churn and down-sell so that the revenue we start with is at least preserved in the next year. That would be 100% Net Retention.  However, a good outcome is to have Net Retention above 100%, so that the base of revenue coming from existing customers grows year over year and contributes to overall growth.  A really good metric is Net Retention of 115% or more.  

If Net Retention is less than 100%, then we have a leaky bucket - revenue is dripping out of the bucket. We need to sell new customers just to maintain our revenue level and fill the bucket back up. To grow total revenue we need to preserve what we have (NRR) and add new revenue on top, but if a portion of new sales is just refilling the bucket, then even if we succeed in selling new, our growth is constrained by the rate at which revenue is leaking out of the bucket.

We could just double our efforts and sell more new to outrun the leak. It is certainly a good idea to sell more, but to maximize growth we really need to plug the leak.  I have read estimates that it costs five times as much to sell a new account as it costs to preserve an existing account. In other words, it is more cost efficient to plug the leak than it is to try to outrun it.

Companies often see churn and down-sell as inevitable and just accept it, but that is simply not good enough.  The first step to improving the situation is to do a deep dive into the reasons for churn and down-sell.  We often hear vague generalities and ‘guesses’ about why clients are leaving or scaling back. But, fixing the problem will take real analysis.

Death and marriage (bankruptcy and mergers) account for some of the leak, as will changes in management or strategy, but we need to go deeper.  We have to recognize that churn and down-sell are not just the purview of the customer success team. It is a companywide challenge. The product team needs to see how the product and their decisions are impacting churn. The sales team needs to recognize where they may have closed a deal for the wrong reasons. The implementation team has to acknowledge how they contributed to the problem, and even the marketing team needs to evaluate if the leads were actually a good fit for the solution being offered.

Once we have a clear, multi-faceted understanding of the causes, we can collaborate on strategies to turn things around. I believe that one of the biggest drivers is lack of customer engagement. We focus on selling and implementing, but too often we do not pay enough attention to ongoing engagement. If we follow the trends for some simple metrics, we can usually see if engagement is growing or shrinking, and engagement is the leading indicator of churn and down-sell:

• Is the number of users growing?

• Is the frequency of use growing?

• Is the time spent on the site, or the number of features being used growing?

• What is the frequency and tenor of support calls?

• Is there ongoing training and certification or did it stop when the system was first launched?

• How many contacts do we have in the customer organization and how many levels of management do we have relationships with?

• How often are we interacting with the customer contacts?

Think about engaging customers like we think about engaging employees.  We should provide continuous updates and encouragement. We should deliver performance reviews and strategy sessions about the customers vision and aspirations for our platform. We should communicate frequently and listen for feedback.  Too often we know when the relationship is not going well, but we are afraid to confront the situation. Our teams need to recognize that while churn is bad for us, it is also bad for the customer.  It is embarrassing to admit they made the wrong choice, or they failed to get value after spending money on our solution. They want it to work just like we do, so help them.  Establish a customer advisory board.  Hold frequent open forums with customers to share updates and get feedback. Launch an active customer marketing program.  Engage customers in new feature designs and decisions. Start a meaningful newsletter.  We need to guide customers to do the “right” things and follow best practices to drive their program success. Make them feel like part of the family.

Improving engagement will drive up retention, and it costs way less to preserve revenue than it does to find new revenue.  Stop the leak so that all of the new revenue goes to actual company growth.  The bottom line is that we have every opportunity to up our game on Net Retention and focus on mining the base for upsell, just like we focus on growing new-name revenue. 

Optimism Scales and Inspires - Pessimism Does Not

I try to go for a long walk every day, and while I walk I listen to a lot of news oriented podcasts.  I admit that most of it is politically oriented, and it is often infuriating or shocking.  Given our polarized society, it is easy to be consumed by strong opinions.  One piece really got my attention, and I translated it into how I feel about business leadership.

The pundit was comparing a dystopian view of the present and future with an upbeat positive view.  It was a comparison of “everything is terrible and those guys are going to make it worse” versus “things aren’t perfect, but they are getting better and the future is bright.”  The commentator’s opinion was that optimism “scales” and inspires believers, but pessimism does not.  They pointed to several great U.S. presidents who won their contests and inspired the country with optimism, even in bleak times. The most notable was FDR in the depths of the great depression with his famous speech that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  Another example was Ronald Reagan who expressed a similar optimism with “America is a beacon of hope” and “a shining city upon a hill.”  These great communicators knew that optimism inspires and scales. It brings people together, even in the face of adversity.

As I thought about how this relates to business, I kept coming back to the question of what leadership behaviors inspire scale, and what behaviors inhibit scale.  We often talk about CEO optimism, or sales ‘happy ears.’  Over-optimism and wildly aggressive plans can quickly become demoralizing when the team feels the goals are out of reach.  ‘Stretch’ goals can turn into ‘impossible’ goals, and when the team stops believing the optimism we do not get the benefit of a scaling effort.  Alternatively, If we project too much caution and pessimism we head down the dystopian path that translates into not believing there will be more opportunities tomorrow than today.  The result is we don’t invest in our future, and that is a guaranteed recipe not to scale.

Teams internalize the slightest whiff of a leader’s negativity and they often adopt a ‘sky is falling’ victim mentality - ‘no matter what we do we can’t succeed.’  Leaders need to make prudent decisions about how to operate their businesses, but if we project paranoia and negativity it will lead to a corkscrew of planning for less, investing less, delivering less, and planning for even less, etc. Without optimism, instead of pulling together we pull apart.

Leaders have to strike the Goldilocks balance between realistic optimism and healthy paranoia. Teams want to be confident that we honestly understand our current situation, but our role is to inspire and lead the team to come together - to scale.  Teams are resilient and can handle honest tough messages if they are delivered with a vision for the path forward to success.  Optimism has to be believable, and when the balance is right, teams rally.  When we wrap our plans in a healthy dose of confidence and optimism we create the environment for scale.  Optimism scales.

Commitments Are The Engine of Performance

‘Objectives and Key Results” (OKR) is a popular management tool. OKRs are a way to disseminate goals throughout the company and ensure that everyone understands their role and responsibilities.  We take the top-level corporate goal, divide it up into a series of objectives that cascade throughout the company in a manner that will add up to achieving the goal.  Each objective has key results that are measurable, so we can determine progress toward achieving the corporate goal.  

The process makes me think about the whole topic of commitments. Commitments are the engine of performance and execution.  Nearly everything we do requires individuals and teams to work together in a coordinated way, and to collaborate across functional areas of the company.  Great execution happens when each team member can rely upon their teammates to deliver their commitments.

Real commitments have a special language all to themselves. A well formed commitment requires an agreement to do something by a certain date – “I will do this by then.”  It must include the time for completion, or else it is just an intention – “I will do this…”  People are usually truthful, and we often can rely on their good intentions, but without a timeframe, or a ‘by when,’ we don’t have a commitment. 

There is a formal language of commitment, and it is something we need to practice and perfect.  In the language of commitment, one party asks for the commitment - “will you do this by then?” The other party can answer in only four ways:

• “yes, I will do this by then”

• “no, I will not do this by then, but I can commit to do it by another time”

• “I can commit to do something else by then”

• “no, I will not do this”

The distinction between commitments and intentions surfaces all the time in meetings and business interactions.  How many times have you participated in a meeting where you asked somebody to do something, and you received a positive response without a date-certain (in other words an intention), only to be disappointed later when whatever you asked for did not materialize?  All the time - right?  Unless there is an explicit timeframe in the response, a mismatch of your expectations and the other person’s intention for delivery is bound to happen.  You think it is immediate, but the other person intends to do it whenever they can get around to it.  A proper commitment is a contract between the parties.  It is clear, actionable, and measurable.

We expect people to be accountable for their commitments, and increasing the pace of performance is dependent upon being able to anticipate achievement of commitments.  For example, if we have a commitment for a feature to be available on a certain date, then we can start to gear up marketing and sales for the new feature in advance of that date so that when the feature ships, we are already moving forward.  Like a receiver sprinting forward anticipating a pass, or a player skating to where the puck will be, if we can anticipate then we can drive faster and harder toward the goal.  The alternative, if we cannot rely upon a commitment, is to hold off until we really, really see the result before we start the machinery to move forward.  If the whole machine is waiting to see if a commitment was real, then performance slows to a crawl.  

Making a commitment requires integrity, intention and truth.  The person making the commitment has to mean it and believe they will achieve the result as promised.  The person asking for the commitment has to trust the person making the commitment, and trust is earned by demonstrating integrity, intention and truth. Integrity requires that we mean what we say - be clear and precise in your commitment.  We also have to fully intend to do what we say. Lastly, truth is the bedrock of committing honestly - no hidden agendas.  Truth also requires honesty about capability and capacity to perform the commitment.  Don’t commit to something unless you believe you can truly do it.

If you are making a commitment, make sure you have integrity, intention, and truth, and expect to be accountable for your commitment.  If your success is dependent upon commitments made by others, make sure you have trust and you are really getting a commitment and not just an intention. Performance and execution depends upon driving true commitments from each other, and everyone being accountable for the commitments we make. When we do this well, we create an unstoppable machine!

True Time To Value

When you buy a cool new gadget, you can’t wait to bring it home and start using it. We all want instant gratification.  Business software buyers are no different.  Once they decide to buy, they want to see results ASAP.

The concept of time to value describes how long it takes for a technology buyer to actually get value from their purchase.  In the enterprise software world, it typically describes the lag from signing the purchase order until the initial launch of the new system. This is a pretty short-sighted view. Think about the broader customer journey, the clock really starts ticking during the early stages of the sales cycle – once a company decides they need to buy a new platform, and it extends beyond initial launch until the system is truly in production and delivering the benefits that spurred the purchase in the first place.

The typical view of a single measure for time to value is just too macro. There are multiple points along the journey where customers receive value and each one should be measured and celebrated. I recall a semi-fast-food restaurant where each step of the way was time-stamped and the staff was quota-driven for efficiency.  The clock started when you checked in with the hostess, and progress was measured from being seated, taking the order, delivering food, delivering the check, and completing the payment. If you wanted an efficient dining experience, it definitely fit the bill. The point is that this restaurant divided the value journey into micro steps and focused on each element of the experience.

There are similar micro steps in enterprise software deployment. Each step is an opportunity to measure and influence time to value, and drive efficiency into the process.  Remember, it is human nature to want instant gratification, so consider every delay as a disappointment. The faster a customer gets through all of the steps from the decision to buy, to ultimate production, the happier they will be.

Returning to the idea of expanding the definition of time to value, a typical approach is to measure only the implementation time from contract signing to initial launch. This is a vendor centric view, rather than a customer-centric view.  It drives implementation teams to focus on their own stats instead of the customer’s view of success.  Customers have a problem to solve, and in an enterprise setting, that usually involves deploying a platform for a range of constituents and departments.  Simply making the system work does not mean the problem has been solved or all of the potential users are satisfied.

Real customer value will not occur until there is a broad launch and the customer sees engagement and repeat usage of their new platform. “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it make a sound” is an apt analogy.  If we stand up a new system and only the project team is using it, did we really launch anything?  Did the customer get any value?  Should we expect them to be happy and renew?  The answers to these questions seem obvious. Engagement and usage are the measures of success, not completion of tasks and delivery of features.  Therefore, we need to expand the concept of time to value beyond simple implementation, and consider the entire journey from determining need to full deployment and broad engagement.

Command and Control or Collaborate

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a management training program at West Point (thank you Edison Partners).  I always thought the Army was a command and control environment where the command hierarchy made every decision and the soldiers just followed orders.  I was surprised to learn that the management principles they taught were quite different.  Instead of micro-management, they taught a version of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).  The generals determine the battle strategy and big goals - “we need to take that ridge…” The goals and strategy are communicated down the line, but the lower ranking officers and service people are given a surprising level of autonomy to decide ‘how’ to achieve the objectives. I think of it as leveraging the brain power and creativity of everyone, instead of forcing the narrow top-down ideas of a few and stifling initiative.

I also had the opportunity to hear David Marquet speak a few years ago (also, thank you Edison Partners).  David is a retired navy submarine captain who broke a lot of Navy norms and created a management model that led to extraordinary success.  His book ‘Turn the Ship Around’ had a profound impact on me and changed everything about my leadership style.  It is probably my favorite business book, and I have purchased numerous copies and given them to aspiring, as well as experienced leaders. I highly recommend reading it.  A key learning from the book aligns with what I saw at West Point, but goes further toward empowerment and collaboration as opposed to command and control.

We each have to develop our leadership style and decide if we are going to try to lead by being the ‘smartest person in the room,’ or as I refer to them ‘the spitter,’ or are we going to lead by fostering collaboration and leveraging collective brainpower.  The more autonomy we introduce into ‘how’ our team will achieve its objectives, the more freedom we provide for people to be creative, and the more they may surprise us with their brilliance.  I am a believer that just because someone has positional authority, they do not suddenly have a monopoly on knowledge, intelligence, or creativity.  The old saying ‘two heads are better than one’ is true, but think about how much better a collaborative organization can become.  When we do this well, we create an unstoppable machine!

Leaders have a clear role to play, and companies are generally not democracies.  Somebody is in charge, and the buck does stop somewhere.  The question is where on the continuum from command and control to anarchy will your leadership style land.  Delegating decision making authority can be scary, and requires confidence and trust that decisions will be made with full understanding of the alternatives and the consequences.  This level of understanding comes with experience, and trust is earned by demonstrating aptitude and competence.  Leaders cannot simply abdicate all responsibility for decisions, but they can open a space for their teams to grow and demonstrate their ability to take on greater responsibility.

Bold Innovation

I have been thinking a lot about innovation strategies.  I am reminded of two Albert Einstein quotes that seem appropriate:

"The same thinking that has led you to where you are is not going to lead you to where you want to go."

"Creativity is intelligence having fun."

The first quote has always been a favorite of mine.  I have usually relied upon it when people ask for career advice - if you want to advance your career, you have to go beyond what got you to this point.  However, when thinking about our innovation challenges, it really drives home the point that we can’t just think about small incremental improvements or product tweaks if we want to make dramatic changes in our business trajectory.  That would be relying on what got us here to define the innovation for what is next.  This is not to say we have to completely reinvent and start over - to use another quote, “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” (Edmund Burke).  I think about the innovation challenge as requiring us to be willing to break with the way things were done in the past, and focus on how they will - or could - operate in the future.  Instead of just improving how our customers do what they are doing today, think about how to lead them to a better way to achieve their goals.. “Play it safe and you will always end up with mediocrity” (Simon Sinek).  Taking bold actions can sometimes lead to failure, and sometimes lead to greatness.  It rarely leads to mediocrity.

Innovation requires creativity, experimentation, and a degree of risk taking.  It requires us to take bold steps, and maybe to tolerate some missteps. To be the  dominant force in our market, playing it safe is not a long-term strategy for success.  One of the guiding principles I have followed for years is “always question the status quo.”   Every time somebody says something like “that is the way it’s always done” or “this is how everybody does it,” I immediately question the premise.  Like a little child that just keeps asking ‘why,’ I want to know the root reason for the status quo, and usually that leads to an opportunity for innovation and change.  

At the turn of the 20th century, most transportation was by horse and carriage.  A few innovators created automobiles (or horseless carriages as they were originally called).  The first few cars were pretty inferior to the carriages, but early adopters shaped the industry and cars quickly displaced carriages.  Focusing our innovation on the ‘way things have always been done’ feels to me like focusing on making a better and better carriage.  If we want to innovate effectively, we have to move our industry and deliver different and better solutions. Let’s not become the best carriage maker in a time when the market is moving to autos.

That takes me to the second Einstein quote ‘Creativity is intelligence having fun.’  Every company has smart people with creative minds.  You may need to listen for them and strive to find them in your organization.  They may be hiding under the proverbial ‘rock’ of their current role.  Innovation will be fundamentally driven by creativity, find the creative souls and start having fun creating the next big thing.  Making a dent in our universe (Steve Jobs) is not going to be easy, so make the hard work fun.