To make a long story short, a toothpaste manufacturing plant had a quality issue where not every box that came off the line contained a tube of toothpaste.  This was a headache to the consumer, the seller and the company.

They hired an engineering firm to correct this problem, and 6 months (and $8MM) later they had a sophisticated system involving a high sensitivity scale which set off a loud alarm when an empty box passed over it.

It was, apparently, highly successful, as their defect rate fell to zero and everyone was thrilled.  Only one problem…anyone with 6 Sigma experience will tell you that a zero defect rate just doesn’t happen.  So they investigated.

During an inspection of the line, they found that a few feet before the scale was a $20 fan which blew any empty boxes into a recycle bin.  When they inquired further they were told: “One of the guys put it there because he was tired of walking over to the scale every time a bell went off.”

What’s the moral of the story…keep it simple, smarty!

If it’s your customer’s problem, find the simplest way to help them.  Don’t make them friend you on Facebook, or complete a multi-page survey unless that’s what they want to do.

If it’s an internal problem, involve the right people in developing the solution.  Don’t assume you know what “everybody” wants. And make sure the team members who are responsible for delivering are in the room – not just those who are experiencing the difficulty.

Our approach to simplicity is to find out what questions you need answered to determine who can best answer those questions, to figure out how we can best engage them; then… just do it (sorry Nike!).

Happy Mid-Winter!

Steve and Megann

Embattled tech company RIM has been facing just this sort of a decision. The company announced today that its co-CEOs were stepping down, to be replaced by insider Thorsten Heins. But so far the market hasn’t responded kindly. The problem may be that the change is simply too small. While RIM’s fall from grace has been dramatic, in fact, nothing short of meteoric, this change appears, to many, to be miniscule. Herein lays the key to knowing how much change is enough. The degree of change needs to be relative in scope to the level of impact that’s required. So if the problem your customers have been encountering is significant, then the change will likely come with a commensurate level of discomfort. If you want revolutionary change, be prepared for a revolution.

Some intrepid inventor usually says that, right before embarking on building said solution. But soon, he realizes there are a couple of small questions to be explored before solving the problem. Perhaps there’s a stakeholder who would like to “tack on” an additional question – or press a personal agenda. Then the inventor’s questions uncover an underlying issue or two. And there are root causes for those issues, as well. Pretty soon, he’s surrounded by ocean, with no land in sight. What can he do? Here are five tips that may help guide you past the rocky shoals.

1. Adapt objectives – in the course of seeking a solution, the inventor may find there is something more pressing that can be resolved, with less effort but greater impact.
2. Abandon perfection – there will never be a perfect answer to every question. Each piece of new information has the potential to throw the project for a loop. Set a reasonable time and scope limit on the investigation phase, and then stop trying to perfect it beyond that point.
3. Assess significance – if feedback or input doesn’t have direct bearing on building the lifeboat, tie it to a mooring for the time being. It can always be addressed as part of the next project.
4. Adopt solutions – while it’s true that the easiest solution isn’t always the right one, any ideas with potential should be considered. A motor might move the lifeboat faster than oars will, but oars may turn out to be more manageable for manoeuvring in tight spaces.
5. Accept success – once a solution has been adopted, be confident that it is the right one for now – refinements are always possible once the lifeboat has been launched.

Helping you keep your head above water,

Megann and Steve

Customer advisory boards are a great way to really get engaged in the customer conversation. They can work with the people who buy your products, but they can also work with internal team, like your salesforce. Here are some success tips we’ve learned and developed for a successful engagement:

1. Know what questions you’re trying to answer, before you start. Otherwise your discussion may be aimless (or worse, pointless).
2. Go into the discussion with a plan – and don’t consider the conversation finished until you have one. That doesn’t mean you have to make commitments to customers without adequate thought. Make sure your roadmap allows time for synthesis and action planning, so all your work will be worth it.
3. Some engagements are better with a matchmaker. A trained facilitator can help you step aside and see each other’s best qualities. Observers who are not active participants in the discussion can make connections that may not be obvious within the group.
4. Set some ground rules, like this one: ifs and ands are okay…but no “buts”. The word “but” is a real conversation stopper. It means, “I’m not listening, I’m just waiting for you to stop so I can re-state my position until you give in.”
5. Think carefully about who needs to be in the room. It’s easier to understand the impact of your decisions if you include the implementers in the discussion from the get-go.

Here’s hoping 2012 will bring a happy engagement for you and your team,

Megann and Steve

Brittingham has a new book, The SmartGirls Way. There’s also a SmartGirls Way website. But it was the last paragraph of her blog post that got us thinking. It said, “Women’s entrepreneurship isn’t a gender issue as much as it is a social and economic issue. If we women do our part, we can and should expect the same opportunities as our male counterparts to realize our dreams.”

The key for us two-fold: the “do our part” part, and the “can and should expect” part. Mostly, it’s about expectations. One obstacle we often observe our women colleagues in the entrepreneurial world experiencing is the confusion of “expectation” with “hope”. Expectation is insisting, demanding, or claiming that which we’ve earned by doing the work. Hope is just that – dreaming, wishing, or desiring – without necessarily either doing the work, or stepping up and asking for what we have rightfully earned.

So today, if you’re one of the many strong women we’ve worked with, we’d like to ask you to cast a critical eye on whether you have done your best, and if you have, please, step up and speak out for what you’re worth. Abandon hope, and focus on expectation.

Heads held high,

Megann & Steve

Cast your own memory to a different situation…one where the message, the impact, and the experience are so crystal clear that feel like you can’t forget a single detail. For us, we can remember exactly what we were doing when we heard about John Lennon. We remember the sound of the radio. The smell of the room. What we were doing. Who was there. What makes us recall a moment or event so vividly?

In 1977, Brown and Kulik studied what they called “flashbulb memory”. While subsequent research has shown that many flashbulb memories were more common in negative events, and that they were far from precise, the level of retention was much higher for the emotional components of the experience, and anything that served to reinforce those emotions and aid recall of the respondent’s experiential story. These are the key components:

1. Importance – The experience has to be important to the subject. If it is a routine activity that they typically completed with little thought, they aren’t likely to have good recall, or to build an emotional story around it. Conversely, an experience can be very important to a person, and have little importance to those around him or her. This is why your recall of your experience with the schoolyard bully may stay with you – it was important to you (even if it wasn’t important to her).
2. Intensity – How intensely the individual feels their reaction at the time (as opposed to the consequence of the experience), the more likely they are to develop a snapshot in time, in their minds. Shock and awe, fear, pain, elation…all of these are intense emotions. Acceptance, resignation, or even interest…are not.
3. Distinctiveness – The event has to be different – to stand out from the ongoing experience, or it won’t likely create a flashbulb memory. So the purchase of one can of soup in a long list of groceries is unlikely to stand out for a consumer as much as the experience of taking delivery of her first car.
4. Personal involvement or proximity – Situations your customer has heard about just aren’t as likely to stick with them as events they’ve been involved with personally. The more their five senses have been involved, the more likely they are to remember the details and emotions of their experience. That’s why, while our recall of where we were, what we were doing, and who we were with on December 8, 1980 seems as clear as yesterday, we’re sure it can’t come close to the memories of those who were there.

So likewise, if you want your customer’s brand experience to be truly memorable, it needs to be important, intense, unique, and deeply personal.

Fondly remembering John Lennon,

Megann & Steve

In today’s world of social networking, it seems that many people have forgotten how to be social the old-fashioned way, face-to-face. It occurs to us that while there may be more efficient ways to raise money and to do good, something’s been lost. Just writing a cheque or sending a credit card payment takes away the personal connection of filling a food basket, or buying a toy, or giving some new clothes to a Mom who is making her first tentative steps out of an abusive relationship, and into a safe, productive, and confident future.

So by all means, give. We can all find ways to do a little more. But this year we urge you to consider rolling up your sleeves and taking a concrete action to help someone else. We predict you’ll be glad you did.

Greetings of the season,

Megann and Steve

1. Customer understanding – have you listened to your customers lately? We’re not asking if you’ve asked them questions, we’re sure you have. But that’s your agenda. By 2012, plan to open up as many channels as possible for them to tell you what they want.
2. Clean house – lose any distractions or habits that are just that, habits, that aren’t adding value to your customer relationships.
3. Getting there – what were your objectives at the beginning of 2011? If you haven’t met them, and won’t, you need to make a gate change – re-assess your destination, and be specific.
4. Ask for help – reach out to business partners and colleagues who have steered you in the right direction in the past, and figure out how you’ll work together in the coming year.
5. Express yourself – be sure you’re outlining your needs clearly and succinctly, so you’ll get what you need. If you can’t do this alone, find someone who can help.

Getting ready, because 2012 is coming fast,

Megann and Steve

1. Encourage loyal, local customers who have strong relationships with their global marketing teams to advocate for your inclusion as subcontractors – global teams like global suppliers.
2. Use your local knowledge to make your global partners look good on the domestic portion of their project.
3. Add value to the local team by incorporating areas of discussion that are only relevant at home – but that would be too
   costly to field ad hoc.
4. Negotiate to provide customized local market reports in advance of the global report – while the information is still timely
   and relevant.
5. Build trust with your global partner by going the extra mile; provide qualitative observations that identify any areas where
   they may receive extra support or resistance in your home market.

Thinking globally, acting locally,

Megann and Steve