“In this new world of business, companies and leaders will have to show authenticity, fairness, transparency and good faith. If they don’t, customers and employees may come to distrust them, to potentially disastrous effect. Customers who don’t like a product can quickly broadcast their disapproval. Prospective employees don’t have to take your word for what life is like at your company—they can find out from people who already work there. And long time loyal employees now have more options to launch their own, more fleet-footed start ups, which could become your fiercest competitors in the future.” {Forbes Magazine, September, 2011}

Welcome to Social Power & The Corporate Revolution according to the recent cover story in Forbes Magazine.

The resistance is still powerful.  Legacy leaders struggle with the loss of control.  Fear a shift in the balance of power. Underestimate the impact and influence of the revolution.  Discount a new breed of competition. Resist the notion that the way we connect, communicate, collaborate and choose has changed.

Shift.

The days of command and control communication, leadership and operational strategy are over.  Welcome to an era where collaboration and connectedness flourish.  We are just getting started.

This isn’t a marketing conversation.  This is a business performance conversation where the outcome is about the impact on results.

What you do is increasingly a commodity.  What you do is easily replicated.   What you do is readily available elsewhere. What you do isn’t that special.

How you do it is the ever increasing opportunity to differentiate in the people economy.

A question worth considering:

What are you willing to do for people that the competition simply isn’t?

The onus is on companies to care more.  About customers.  About employees.

I illustrated this notion in the enclosed video excerpt during my keynote last week referencing my relationship with Delta Airlines.  This is one example of a company that embraced change, evolved communication and turned challenges into a real opportunity to care and connect customers to a better brand experience.

 

Posted in Brand, Communications, Leadership, Social Media, Uncategorized

Tags: Brand, Delta Airlines, Forbes, Revolution, Sales 2.0, Social Media

I live and love the iLife.  In making the transition from Blackberry I became an AT&T customer by default.

I have experienced dropped calls and hit dead zones over the last two years.  Just like I am sure everyone else on just about every other network has.  It certainly wasn’t enough of a disruption that moved me to explore other service providers.  However, had an alternative option been presented to me with incentive and ease of transition I certainly might have made the move.  I represent the vast majority of customers (yes, likely your customers and employees).  I was reasonably satisfied.  Not loyal.

That changed for me last week. AT&T has captured my heart and moved my spirit. I am now part of the Rethink Possible Tribe.

Why?  Simple. The human element. The essential, secret ingredient that can turn your customers into the most loyal, fanatical, brand evangelists on the planet. The essential, secret ingredient that can rock your workforce, elevate engagement, accelerate performance and turn culture into a competitive advantage.

It comes down to people and relationships.  Particularly people that are engaged and intuitive enough to create a compelling experience.

I spent an evening with AT&T last week.  I was hired to keynote a dinner event.  The people I met were special.  The way they treated me was extremely generous.  They were all Brand Ambassadors.  They were warm, welcoming, supportive, hospitable and extended themselves beyond measure to ensure I was able to succeed. It wasn’t necessary.  It was simply AT&T.

I know them now.  I like them now.  They have my support.  Any my business. I want to work with them again.  Whether I do or don’t doesn’t really matter.  This brand was humanized for me in a very positive and powerful way.  That drives loyalty.  It is that simple.

The people are the brand.

Often it isn’t what you do (plenty of other people/companies do what you do just as well as you do it and for just about the same price), but how you do it and who is doing it that makes the moment memorable enough to keep customers (and employees) coming back for more.

Put people first.

Performance and profitability are more likely to follow.

If your people strategy isn’t the #1 priority on the agenda today perhaps it is time to Rethink Possible?

Posted in Brand, Communications, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Sales, Uncategorized

Tags: AT&T, Brand, Brand Ambassador, Customer Loyalty, customer service, Engagement, Experience, Human Resources, Loyalty

Attending the Blogwell event at General Mills in Minneapolis this week provided some interesting insights into how big brands are leveraging social media.  While the big brands each had varying degress of entrance into leveraging new tools there were central themes throughout the day.  One of those being the strong desire and interest among each brands community to connect online.  Lee Aase of Mayo Clinic talked about Mayo’s digital footprint and provided insights into their Sharing Mayo Clinic Blog that serves as a destination for the many wonderful stories inside the clinic.  Walmart talked about their MyWalmart Assocaites web page that connects over 430,000 regular users in their employee population (although banning access at work seemed a bit contradictory to their desire to foster these connections – trust?).  McDonalds talked their efforts around motivating and connecting employees to leverage their own social networks as Brand Ambassadors for the Golden Arches through strategies like Station M, where approximately 40,000 crew members engage.   And my favorite presentation of the day, from Ford’s Scott Monty depicted Ford’s Social Media Strategy: “to humanize the company by connecting consumers with Ford employees and with each other when possible, providing value in the process.”  My sense is while his toolkit may change, his strategy won’t and it’s a big part of the reason that Ford is one of the top social brands in the US.  It’s completely clear that brands large and small need a strategy.  With a clearly defined objective, some commitment and the requisite tools to build and measure the effort a value proposition around the investment can be derived.

The other great lesson of the day was the importance of listening, learning and participating as an active voice with your community.  Scott described it as “setting his content free” and each presenter seemed to recognize the relinquishing of control in the new communications landscape.  Conference host Andy Sernovitz (author of Word of Mouth Marketing) commented in his session on ethics that the biggest risk for a big brand in social media is the failure to train your team.  It’s important to understand how to use the tools and that knowledge can certainly minimize risk and enhance reward. Coincidentally one of the large health care brands in my hometown now has a Twitter account devoted to Careers.  The brand is a follower of mine (and I follow back).  Recently the brand sent a tweet and link to a requisition of a key management opening in their organization.  I responded back with a DM offering to connect them with someone in my network who met all the requirements and would have been an ideal fit for the position.  I never heard back.  And my point for this brand is…what is the point?  They miss the voice.  The human element.  The participation.  The opportunity.  And are falling well short of the new communication expectations on the social web.  As Scott Monty included in his presentation:  90% of social media is just showing up.  It’s the other half that’s hard.

Posted in Brand, Communications, Employee Engagement

Tags: Brand, Social Media