Customer Communities

Workshop & Blog: The Customer Go-to-Market Imperative – Transforming Silos to Social Business and Community Building

Featured Blog: SAP Community Network

Announcement:
The following workshop took place as part of Drexel’s CEO LEAD (“Creating Experiential Opportunities for Leadership Education and Development”) on Drexel University’s campus.

Title: The Customer Go-to-Market Imperative – Transforming Silos to Social Business and Community Building

Date/Time: May 16, 2013 @ 6 PM, EST – Complete

Presenter: Rich Blumberg, President, World Sales Solutions, LLC (Alumni Board of Governors and Volunteer)

Summary: Increasing revenues, profits, value, and growth depends on collaboration with customers at the center of an organization’s support system. Silos impact performance when geographic, business unit, and functional boundaries impact sales and the delivery of products, solutions, and services.

For today’s students, who are the future business and technology leaders, it is critical to recognize the compelling business issues, priorities, and market conditions which impact CEOs and customers’ decisions.  Those who understand these trends have better job and career opportunities which ultimately results in more hiring or firing.

Learn about the best practices, case studies, tools, and resources required to help organizations go from ordinary to extraordinary. Understand the critical importance of equipping the sales team on a daily basis. Find out how executives, experts and content contributors provide the essential source of information which customers require one economic decision maker at a time.

Networking: How and Why Leaders Spread the Word!

Most network groups, associations, and clubs have initiatives which may take the form of an event, conference, fund raiser, resource development, webinar or meeting.

The difference between the “participants” and “leaders” is often a fine line of getting involved and helping “spreading the word” about the upcoming program or activity. Kinetic vs. passive energy goes a long way!

A few tips to consider when bringing together a group:

  • Identify a central theme that draws people in
  • Form a core team
  • Provide opportunities to network
  • Welcome current and new members
  • Build awareness of existing benefits and value-adds
  • Create a memorable experience for everyone to enjoy
  • Focus on what’s attainable vs. spreading too thin
  • Set quantifiable goals and measure success

Leaders (or those who are “connectors”) readily take the extra steps to encourage:

  1. Participation – Early commitments to attend, register or reply to the RSVP
  2. Recruitment – Set goals to get others involved (i.e. connect to 5+ or more friends or colleagues to participate)
  3. Socialize – Leverage social tools to spread the word such as Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter
  4. Personalize – Make personal connections by phone, e-mail and/or face-to-face

When joining forces with a group if each member does a small part then the sum of the parts will be greater then what one participant can deliver by themselves.

Consider this analogy: “From a small snow ball a big snow ball can be created; it just needs to be rolled over enough snow!:-)” Success is about building momentum around small steps, broken into small parts to ultimately make a big difference.

Growing a group. Increasing involvement. Having fun. The key is to create meaningful connections which ultimately benefits a person or group on a social and/or professional level.

When momentum is built. When teams help spread the word… Then groups, associations, or clubs have a better opportunity to reach short and longer-term goals.

As a result many win-wins take place on many levels!

 

Business Development: How a speed boat can help the big ship!

So what is business development?

If you were to equate it to a “big ship” or a “speed boat” which would it be?

While most organizations agree they want revenues, profits, growth, and value they have many views on how to achieve it.

Business development works hand-in-hand with top leaders to deliver results which address:

    • Compelling “business issues and market trends”
    • Strengthening relationships with “existing and new customers”
    • Gaining traction to ensure “short-term results”
    • Positioning towards “longer-term value” creation

By definition business development represents the ability to find strategic opportunities and deliver a path (or process) which takes ideas from incubation to delivery with clear accountability.

Successful business development requires “combined expertise” (and data points) in multiple disciplines including strategy, sales & marketing, communications, go-to-market, finance, legal, partnerships, entrepreneurship, social media, operations, technology, and client delivery.

Large and medium sized business often display the momentum of the “big ship” and need the help of business development to act in the role of a “speed boat” to help achieve top-line growth and bottom-line results.

Compelling “business issues and market trends”

When the leaders of an organization recognize new opportunities that are impacted from emerging trends, new products/solutions/services, technology innovations, regulations/compliance, and/or mergers & acquisitions there are frequently important challenges which need to be addressed.

When there are constraints around time, expertise, and/or capacity opportunities can be lost.

Business development can play the role of the “speed boat” to provide additional agility which enables powering ahead to provide the necessary focus to drive (and accelerate) important deliverables.

Strengthening relationships with “existing and new customers”

During challenging economic times the need to listen to customers and share insights is greater then ever. Building customer communities which foster an exchange of ideas is not just nice but a necessity. Using social business platforms (i.e. Jive Software, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) and onsite activities (i.e. events, forums, roundtables, workshops, conferences, etc.) leaders, experts, and their teams must build relationships based on building trust and two-way dialogue.

Business development can play the role of the speed boat to work outside the box to work with cross-teams to bring a unified, dedicated approach in working with customers, partners, and prospects.

Gaining traction to ensure “short-term results”

Every program benefits from proof points to gain acceptance. It’s critical to show early wins which address the goals, objectives, and priorities that can lead to additional investments.

Business development can work with internal teams to support strategy and help execute important board of directors and senior executive management priorities which are tied to emerging market opportunities.

While the big ship may want to make the move, the speed boat maybe in a better position to make the adjustments that can be incorporated at a later time by the big ship.

Positioning towards “longer-term value” creation

Often members of the big ship are working so hard on day-to-day activities and current or new organizational structures that it becomes difficult to identify and/or achieve new or rapidly changing longer term objectives.

Many distractions can take place including reorganizations, meetings, and multiple, well intentioned agendas, and as a result it becomes important to have business development initiative(s) to stay the course.

When short-term wins combines with longer-term value creation then an organization can achieve great things to support sales, management priorities, and most importantly requirements coming “from the outside in” centered around the customer.

Business development working as the speed boat can play an important role to help the big ship stay on course. Participants can move on or off each other’s vessel to gain perspective, but without the two entities working together huge opportunities can be lost.

Conclusion

When a board of directors or senior management sets their vision and roadmap they need help. Often the tools, resources, and procedures required to achieve success do not exist or are being used in other ways.

Collaborating in an integrated fashion with multiple groups helps an organization further it’s most essential requirement, “how we make money.” While the short-term approach represents part of the answer there must be a view on building longer-term, sustainable value.

On a given initiative a business development team or professional may need to make rapid switches between the following:

    • Strategic market development and sales
    • Partner development and channel sales
    • Marketing and communications strategy and execution including writing and editing copy
    • New product, solution, service offerings and go-to-market
    • Community building to bring buyers, sellers, and experts together
    • Technology including engineering and IT
    • Client delivery to assess streamling and bottlenecks which hold back further replication
    • Program and project manager to ensure that all of the above happens on time and within a budget

In the end is business development about revenues, profit, growth, and value? The answer is “yes!”

And like the smaller speed boat, it must operate with the flexibility to make quick turns —propel forward and backward— and as a result, help itself and the big ship take full advantage of the market trends, competitive threats, and support winning new deals based upon new opportunities.

Richard D. Blumberg, President, World Sales Solutions, writes this series of blogs to help senior executives and their teams, leaders, influencers, educators, and students develop effective strategies and tactical execution which results in more revenues, profits, growth, jobs, and value. More >>