The Dow Jones, Moneyball and Marketing

Do you follow the Down Jones average?  Many people do, believing that it is a good barometer of economic health.  The Dow Jones average is actually just a snap shot of 30 leading companies. Over time, it’s a reasonable approximation of the health of those companies – but nothing more, as explained recently by NPR’s Marketplace Report.   The day-to-day readings are meaningless; the hour-to -hour readings even more irrelevant.

But this is not an uncommon problem. Many of us, erroneously belief that certain metrics are ideal indicators of success.  Clearly, grades aren’t always s a predictor of success. Who hasn’t heard of high school drop-outs Peter Jennings, Mark Walhberg and George Bernard Shaw?

Or how about the movie Moneyball? The entire premise is that that Oakland A’s were using batting averages and other not-so-important metrics to determine a player’s value.  One of my favorite scenes is (spoiler alert) when Brad Pitt, as Billy Beane, asks his team of scouts, “What’s the problem?” Why are they in last place?  His experienced, gut-driven team replies, “We have to replace Giambi.”  Beane disagrees and says, “No that’s not it. What’s the problem?” he asks again.  It’s only after he introduces new metrics, like how often a player actually gets on base, that he is able to put together a truly winning team.

As a marketing executive, I always believed that the number of leads was the ideal leading indicator of closed business.  Last year we invested in tools to identify and count leads; we hit the mark every quarter.  But those leads didn’t always turn into sales.  I learned that the number of leads is not a valid predictor of success. There are too many other variables that play a role in the actual quality of the lead:

• Lead job title
• Lead source
• Lead urgency
• Lead score (gathered from electronic interactions)

So, like Billy Bean, we are revising our metrics, tracking these other variables and expanding our horizons to other, less obvious ones. And when they make a movie about us, Angelina can play me.

Are you managing your business with the right metrics?

The Joy of a Clean Slate

We are eyeball-deep in planning for 2012.

Marketing programs, campaigns, metrics, budgets and schedules are dancing in my head like visions of sugarplums.  It’s a process we go through every year, continually honing our go-to-market strategies, building upon what we’ve learned.   This year we have the added excitement of bringing a new product to market in 2012 (stay tuned for more on that!).

To me the best part of the planning is starting with a clean slate.  We get the benefit of experience, but none of the baggage.  Everything is up for grabs and as a result, strategies shift, metrics realign, tactics shuffle.  It’s the time of year when everything is possible and every wild idea that comes up gets a chance of making it into the mix.

It reminds me of my business school classes, where we’d debate case studies unencumbered by real world constraints.  The sky was the limit and the person who “won” the debate was the one who most passionately defended their position.

Back at the office, we have to be more realistic than that, but the excitement and passion is just as intense.

Once our slate is no longer clean, we’ll share some of the juicy ideas we developed.

Is your slate still clean? What’s going on yours?

CEOs & the Cloud

In a recent Harvard Business Review article entitled, “What Every CEO Needs to Know About the Cloud,” Andrew McAfee writes:

In 2010 an IBM survey of more than 1,500 CEOs worldwide revealed a troubling gap: Close to 80% of them believed their environment would grow much more complex in the coming years, but fewer than half thought their companies were well equipped to deal with this shift.

So much has been invested over the past two decades in IT infrastructure and software, yet over half the CEOs surveyed have little faith in their own company to keep up with the growing complexity of their business.

What caused this gap in confidence?

More importantly, what remedies exist to help companies move forward with confidence to tackle tomorrow’s complex issues?

One of the answers may be in the Clouds.

Cloud-based analytic solutions can help prepare your company for the future. A few of the advantages of these solutions are cost savings on hardware, software licenses, and the maintenance time involved in keeping system components up to date and operational.

Security is another reason to move to the Cloud. The initial worries that off-premise systems would be less secure are baseless.  The security of Cloud systems are centralized and can be updated much more easily than an enterprise-wide system with multiple installations.

Most importantly, by moving to the Cloud, you’ll profit from the flexibility of use. Your heretofore disparate data streams will now converge to create an information power base you could only have imagined just a few short years ago. You’ll gain more flexibility to develop applications, scale up or down with shifts in strategy and staff,  avoid reporting bottlenecks and  view your company in a fresh new light.

For your free copy of this HBR article, contact us at info@mariner-usa.com.

Having the Shoe (or Pump) on the Other Foot

As a marketing type, I never get involved with the delivery of our solutions.  The closest I get is meeting with customers after the solution is complete to learn about how their work lives have changed.

Recently however, we re-vamped our website (www.mariner-usa.com) and the experience gave me new insight. The proverbial shoe was indeed on the other foot.  I now have a better understanding of what customers expect of their business partners and more specifically, of my colleagues. We all want projects that are successful and not so stressful, right? So here’s my short list of expectations, wearing my customer shoes:

• Communicate. Constantly.  Make sure each interaction is informative and relevant to the project.
• Update. Incessantly. Establish a cadence on resource reporting that includes how long have it’s taken to reach this point, how many days until delivery, what’s left in the budget, and most importantly,  how the two are tracking.
• Be forthright.  If we’re heading for a train wreck or even a short detour, tell me nanoseconds after you have figured that out.  If you’re not sure what the corrective action should be, just say so. We can work it out together.
• Anticipate. Whether we make mid-course directions, or find ourselves at a decision point we didn’t anticipate, I want to know as much as you do. Tell me what will happen if we go with option a, b or c, and tell me how my life will be different for each option.
• Speak English. Devour The Cluetrain Manifesto and put it into practice. I’m not a techie and never will be (in fact, I sometimes feel like the village idiot around here).  Explain things like I’m only slightly more tech savvy than your grandmother but as driven as Donald Trump.
• Keep an audit trail and make it easy to find. Everyone is busy, managing several priorities at once. We can’t remember every decision, so if I forget, please have a place where I can go and retrace our steps.

It’s good to walk in someone else’s shoes.  It can be cramped and uncomfortable at times, but when you take them off, you’re ready to stretch and learn from the experience.

Twelve years and counting

Me in 1999 and now

This month marks my 12^th year at Mariner.  Yup! I’ve been working with this Guy and this Morris for more than a decade.  These days, 12 years seems less like a dozen and more like a lifetime.

Early in my career, I was a bit of a job-hopper. Heck, I even had my own company at one point, and only stuck with that for 3 years.  So what keeps me at Mariner after all of these years?

• The ethics of the company – When they started the firm, Joe and Phil set down specific ground rules about how they wanted to conduct business.  Rooted in fairness and appreciation for customers, partners and employees, there are no moral dilemmas here.  Our core values of Integrity, Honesty, Professionalism, Trust and Fun are rarely stated, but are always evident in action.

• What we do is cool – When you improve people’s lives at work, you change their entire lives.  Period.   So imagine the joy of one set of customers when they went from managing 1000s of reports, to managing just a couple of hundred that people actually used.  This meant that they got to go home at a reasonable hour and spend more time with their families. Cool.  Or imagine how another felt when they were able trim $100,000s from their transportation costs. No sleepless nights for them anymore. Way cool.  Or imagine how another group of customers felt when they were suddenly able to distinguish profitable customers from those that just sucked the life – and profits – right out of them.  For them, it meant their profitability went up while their blood pressure went down. Even cooler!

• A balanced life – For 12 years, I’ve been telecommuting 3 days a week. That’s right – I’m in the office just two days a week. I’ve rarely missed an event at my daughter’s school and I’ve never failed to take care of her when she was sick. Now, this means that I may be working at 10pm some nights, not because someone expects me to, but because I want to.  I enjoy what I do (refer back to reason #2) and the flexibility to alter my schedule. This is not unusual these days, but 12 years ago, I was one of the first true telecommuters.

• Free to be me – We are an odd lot, but our quirkiness is not just embraced at Mariner but encouraged.  We all work really hard, but our outside activities are just as important as what we do on the job.  Our crew includes musicians (lots of them), organic farmers, skiers, fishermen, (insert your favorite sport) moms, a yoga teacher (me), a home brewer of beer and a whole host of innovative,interesting individuals.  We are encouraged to bring our hobbies into the workplace.  I’ve been known to kick off customer meetings with a few yoga stretches and have lead yoga classes at our annual retreat.  Melinda Cole, our organic farmer, brought us homemade cheese from her goats to try. Phil Morris, our home beer brewer, brought some of his award-winning brew to one of our quarterly wine tastings. And several of us have met on a few occasions to listen to Wayne Snyder play in his retro rock-pop and.

It may not be glamorous, but it’s a great gig. And stay tuned for another post at the 2-dozen-year mark.  My list may be different then, but I plan to still be here.

You, Me and Social Media

I just got back from a 2-day conference presented by Social Crush. I have been Tweeted, LinkedIn and Hootsuited to death. But I’m also intrigued more than ever by the promise of social media.

I was an early adopter of LinkedIn because it seemed to be a productive use of my time and excellent tool for tracking colleagues, customers, and prospects as they moved from job to job or changed companies.

Since those early adoption years, things have changed so much that I find it hard to determine where my time should be spent. There’s no lack of research stating that social media is a great way for B2C companies to engage with their consumers and keep the conversations going.

When one ventures into the B2B waters, however, it gets murky.   Numerous sources, like Michael Brito’s book, Smart Business, Social Business, warns Chief Marketing Officers from getting bogged down in only using revenues as a metric for success.  He suggests that, “Positive publicity and sentiment, collaboration with customers and partners, and increased reach with potential new customers can also demonstrate value to the business.”

I agree that revenue is just one indicator of a healthy company.  So if my job is to listen and understand your data management issues and then convey how we can help you clearly and succinctly, then I have two questions for you:

1. Where are you venting your frustrations?
2. How would you like to hear from me?

Please let me know how you would like to communicate with us.  Our ears are wide open! Thanks!

The Inside Scoop: Why “Mariner”?

With the launch of our new website, we are turning over a new leaf of sorts.  While our technical experts have been blogging for years, contributing to conversations about business intelligence, analytics, performance management and visualization, those of us leading the firm have steered clear of the blogosphere.  But no more!

Watch this space for the inside scoop on what our leaders are thinking, problems they are solving and wins they are celebrating.   And we won’t waste your time with fluff. We pledge to keep our posts succinct, meaningful and occasionally entertaining.  We strive to spark conversations that
challenge and benefit all of us.

We’ll also answer any questions you have about the firm.  One of the questions we hear a lot is, “Why is the company called ‘Mariner’?” It goes back to the very beginning, when Joe and Phil were formulating the company.   While our solution development process is constantly evolving, the process remains the guiding force behind our solutions.  Tapping into the significance of the process, Joe and Phil thought, “Who uses processes to guide, navigate and reduce risk?”  Mariners, of course.  Then our dynamic duo mashed up the nautical metaphor with our NC roots and it all came together. Did you know that the Outer Banks
of NC are some of the most treacherous waters to circumvent?  They are and let’s face it, designing effective analytic solutions gets pretty dicey, too.  So when sailing around Pamlico Sound – or building solutions to improve efficiency and profitability – who do you want guiding you? A Mariner, or maybe even a whole crew of Mariners.

We still get the occasion request for pricing on boat motors, but the metaphor and name are as meaningful now as when they were conceived in 1998.

And to paraphrase Paul Harvey, now you know the rest of the story!