The ART of CONVERSATION

The Art of Conversation

As a marketer and market researcher, I often wonder about the effectiveness of various communications techniques. Obviously, the marketing and advertising world is going through very rapid changes these days. Many of us are struggling with measuring the effectiveness of social media advertising, finding the correct messaging for online media and similar issues. My training was "in the good old days" of telephone, mail and face-to-face customer contact. Are any of those techniques as effective today as they once were?

My specialty is "Voice of the Customer" techniques and executive interviews. I often ask myself, what happened to the art of conversation? Very little emphasis is given to this topic in major universities these days (I teach at a couple of local universities in San Diego). Is this a lost art? Does anyone care? I think not.

One of the highly-touted benefits of Blogging and online conversations is the interactive nature of the discussion. There is an ebb and flow, point and counterpoint. However, I lot of what I see and read seems impersonal, sometimes aggressive and downright nasty. Does the level of animosity expressed online translate into interpersonal conversations face-to-face? Sometimes I think the anonymity of "talking" online creates distance that enables people to express some thoughts much stronger than they might in person.

So, what about the Art of Conversation? There was a television commercial for an airline a few years ago that said the message of this piece well. The brokerage was losing clients. The CEO called all his executives into the board room and talked about losing a client that had been a client and friend for over 20 years. He said he was not going to call the client, but get on a plane a visit them, face-to-face. He handed out plane tickets to everyone else in the room and asked them to visit lost clients. Basically, their job was to listen...and learn! They were to be humble, to appear humble in their dress and body language. They were not to be "experts," but to listen to what the customers had to say about their dreams and how their expectations had not been met by the firm. I loved that commercial! Have we been teaching our market researchers how to listen well, with their whole bodies? Do marketers and ad men use customer language in their messaging, as if they were speaking to customers face-to-face?

Perhaps I am a bit old fashioned, but I strongly believe that face-to-face conversations will always have a valued place in the marketing world, despite the world of social media. What do you think?

Do You Come from the Land Down Under?

It is nice to be quoted. I was alerted today that someone in Australia has published one of my articles for Australian business people to read. It shares some thoughts that were first expressed at CustomerThink.com. (Be sure to check out that website. You may want to search for "Chris Stiehl" there and see some of what I have written in the past.)

One of the advantages of being published is that people can comment on your thoughts and your work. That enables an author to direct the discussion, to put a position out there and see what interest it sparks. I appreciate my thoughts about salespeople being shared in Australia. I cannot wait to read any responses from "The Land Down Under."

So, what was the point of the article? Salespeople are often blamed and measured, not often listened to or studied. I have seen salespeople being required to spend hours a week filling out reports and paperwork (OK, it was mostly computer "paperwork"). The salespeople were unhappy about this. They understood management's need to "measure" their activity, but wished that the measurement could be less intrusive. Instead of sitting at a computer desk, they felt they should be out selling!

The very best salespeople listen well. That is the key attribute. It can be shown that faster and easier tracking or reporting techniques not only make salespeople happier and more satisfied, but it also makes them more productive, in dollars and cents, their key measurement.

Management needs to listen to the salespeople just as if they were another segment of the marketplace. What I would recommend is that each company consider obtaining a "Voice of the Salesperson" in much the same way that customers are researched - collecting their needs in an open-ended research effort, possibly using an objective 3rd party to ask the questions and obtain their needs. Then, set about meeting those needs. The sales force is the voice and face of the company. Treat them as a valued resource.

What do you think?

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

Take Time to STOP ... and Listen!

You may have read about this. Joshua Bell, the world renowned violinist, played incognito as a "street musician" for an hour in the DC subway as an experiment for the Washington Post.

He played six challenging Bach pieces, as passersby hurried on their way to work. Over a thousand people rushed by. A few people gave him money, and about 6 stopped to listen. Only one person recognized him.

Various people, from time to time, would pause or slow down and admire his talent. One three year old boy didn't want to rush past. He kept stopping to listen. Finally, his mother pulled him away. He was turning his head the entire time. Bell collected $32.17 for an hour's performance. There was no applause or recognition of any kind. Just silence. He had played a violin valued at $3.5 million.

This was a performance by one of the world's best musicians, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made. Did anyone notice? Just days before, Joshua Bell had played to a sold-out theater in Boston, where pretty good seats went for $100 each to sit and listen to him play.

Is there beauty all around us if we stop, look and listen? How much are we missing by rushing through life? Are we in too much of a hurry to appreciate beauty and life? Are only innocent children open to this kind of experience?

The Washington Post won a Pulitzer for their feature article about this experiment.

Take a moment today, right now, and appreciate life and sounds around you. You are not here forever. You have an expiration date.

As we have argued in this blog before, are you truly listening to the world around you? Learn how to do that, and you will be successful in business, and in life!

Is it lack of jobs or lack of skills? + social networking question

Is there a lack of jobs out there, or a lack of skills and training to fill the jobs that are available? A new book co-written by my friend and co-author, Henry DeVries, claims there are plenty of jobs, if you have the right skills and training. The book is called Closing America's Job Gap. It is available for pre-sale next week; due to be published in January. I think the book is terrific. I provided a little data for the book from my experiences doing research on the Workforce Investment Act. The main premise of the book is that even though unemployment stands at or near 10%, there are jobs available. There is just a lack of skilled and trained workers. With math and science skills declining in America's workforce, the workers and the jobs just aren't matching up too well. To read more about the book, click HERE.

If you are a potential employer or a job seeker, you should read this book! Please add to the comments on Barnes&Noble.com or Amazon.com about the book, even if the comments are brief and merely about anticipation, as the pre-sale starts next week and I'd like to help Henry develop some "buzz" about the book.

Now, does your employer encourage or discourage social networking activity at work? We have all heard of companies that actually encourage it, and have experienced success. PetCo, for example, has become a preferred commentator in the world of social networking by contributing and hosting helpful conversations about pets. I'm sure that does not hurt their business. In the cartoon referenced here, Dogbert winds up giving a promotion to an employee who "wasted" all his time at work on social networking. He was given the job of being the new Marketing exec. Other companies punish employees for such activities.

What do you think? Is spending a little time building your presence on social networks at work worthwhile? What limitations should there be? How should this be monitored?

Are You Being Served? Are You Free?

Many of you may recognize the phrases in the title from the hilarious British sitcom about Grace Brothers Department Store in London in the 1970s and 1980s. When a customer came onto the floor needing attention, Captain Peacock would ask the customer, "Are you being served?" If the customer needed attention, he would address one of the staff with "Are you free?"

I have several friends who always ask if I am free when they call. Of course, they are being polite and hoping I can help them. They realize that I will take their call, even if it may not be convenient for me at the moment to do so. I rarely ignore the phone. After all, I am a consultant, always hoping for a client. I am also an engineer/psychologist, hoping for a problem to solve (whether I am paid to solve it or not!).

What is puzzling to me is how many people act like Wally in the Dilbert cartoon above. As a market researcher, I am often calling business people to conduct interviews for my clients. Of course, the business people have been contacted by email or telephone by my client, telling them that I would call, what the reason was and perhaps even offering them an honorarium for completing the interview with me. So, why don't business people answer the telephone?

I realize that they may be busy, on vacation or otherwise unable to talk at the moment. They may not share my anticipation about answering the telephone. But what should I think when they never answer their phone or email? ...even after repeated calls and emails asking for a time and date to speak with them? At times, I ask if someone else may be able to answer my questions, or I ask them to give some basic answers via email. If the sales staff or marketing staff of my client have properly prepared the respondent, what could the issue be? At times I feel like the fellow who is trying to trap Wally in the cartoon above. (I have a couple of friends who have just written Slaying the Email Monster, learn their techniques to never let an email languish without response or action).

The business people often are surprised at how easy it is to complete the call, once we are talking, and how often they find the interview enjoyable, not a pain. They often learn quite a bit by going through the process of being interviewed.

What do you think? Are one-on-one telephone interviews going the way of the dinosaur? Is this type of market research, with the personal connection, out of date in the era of social media?

I don't think so. The research process, as described in Pain Killer Marketing, is actually working quite well with customers, especially when they are well prepared as to what to expect and what the questions may be. The customers want to share their thoughts and feelings about the product or service, not just cold cryptic responses to an online survey. There may be a lot going on behind a rating on a survey. Will this fact change as the generations change? Will Gen X and Gen Y customers be tougher to get to talk on the telephone for 20 minutes?

What is your perception? For how long will the one-on-one interviewing techniques described in Pain Killer Marketing work? How should they be adapted for social media?

My Business Card is a Book?

I know this sounds like an expensive business card idea, but it works. Think of how easy it is to throw away a business card, but people never want to throw away a book. For some reason, we think books are valuable, to be treasured.

The best networker at any meeting is not the one who gives out the most business cards, but the one who collects the most. This lesson is gradually being learned by consultants and business people.

So how does it work to have a book as a business card? In our view, you don't want to give your card, or your book, to everyone. You need to size up each person who asks for your card at a conference or show and see if you can acquire theirs instead. If you begin an email conversation and they really are a prospect, the book is an easy way to document your competence and expertise, as well as a convenient item for them to pass on to others whom they may know. In that way, they become your advocate within their company, sharing your thoughts and ideas with others. The fact that books are so difficult to throw away works for you.

This past weekend was the "Marketing With A Book" seminar in La Jolla with Henry DeVries and friends. It was intimate (20 people) and great fun, as well as a very good experience for those who are learning how to market themselves and their books. We were somewhat surprised that there were seminar attendees who had not seen their book as a potential business card. If giving the book to someone can result in a $25,000 consulting gig, what is the problem with spending $10 on the book? As Henry and Liz Goodgold (one of the speakers) and others have said: the book should be just one piece of your overall marketing and branding strategy, not an end in itself. Making videos (DVDs) and CDs of chapters or ideas in the book is the logical next step. People have relationships with people. Use your book to promote YOU.

As one of my clients said when offering me a job, "When it came down to choosing between you and your competitors, we went with you. Afterall, you wrote the book on the subject!"

Feel free to visit either of our websites: www.stiehlworks.com and www.newclientmarketing.com for more information on us and where we will be appearing. By the way, Mr. DeVries has a new book being released in January Closing America's Job Gap. Watch for his book tour appearances.

Is Survey Data Always Relevant or Good?

Obviously, if you are fielding a customer satisfaction survey, you want to have good questions. However, some companies have stopped fielding surveys. They are flying blind. Why? Management claimed that they were spending a lot of money to find out that the numbers never changed! Of course, they had not executed the necessary improvements to change the numbers. More importantly, they had not used customer data to develop the questions!

If the questions were written by engineers and market researchers without consulting customers, how relevant are they? It could be that the company referenced in the previous paragraph would be getting more information, more actionable information, if they had good questions, relevant questions.

We talked in a previous posting about how many businesses that changed brands on a product, do so because of poor customer service, having nothing to do with the performance of the product. Does your survey ask about non-product performance? Shouldn't it?

As Dilbert says above, how relevant is your data? Are your questions important to customers?

If you need help developing a survey that reflects the Voice of the Customer for your customers, give us a call at StiehlWorks (619-516-2864).

What do you think, is the expense of executing customer satisfaction surveys a good investment? Is the data worth the cost?