How to Optimize Your CEO's Anointing of Your Marketing ... - meclabs
How to Optimize Your CEO's Anointing of Your Marketing ... - meclabs
How to Optimize Your CEO's Anointing of Your Marketing ... - meclabs
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<strong>How</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Optimize</strong> <strong>Your</strong><br />
CEO’s <strong>Anointing</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>Your</strong> <strong>Marketing</strong> Efforts<br />
Kristin Zhivago<br />
President<br />
Zhivago Management Partners, Inc.
Flow<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
<strong>Your</strong> Challenges<br />
<strong>Anointing</strong><br />
The Buyer Revolution<br />
The Solution
<strong>Your</strong> Challenges
Who are you?<br />
• Company Size:<br />
Small<br />
Medium<br />
Large<br />
• Business or consumer:<br />
B2B<br />
B2C<br />
• Working level:<br />
C-Level<br />
VP Level<br />
Manage<br />
Specialist<br />
4
What do you want from this?<br />
• New concepts<br />
• Actionable steps<br />
5
Biggest Challenges<br />
• Getting cus<strong>to</strong>mers <strong>to</strong><br />
respond [relevance!]<br />
• Getting internal<br />
approval – and respect<br />
• Mastering<br />
<strong>to</strong>ols/technologies<br />
<strong>How</strong> long have marketers had<br />
these problems? Forever. Just ask<br />
Tom.<br />
6
Fortunately, doing one<br />
thing differently can solve<br />
all <strong>of</strong> your problems.<br />
Yes.<br />
All <strong>of</strong> your problems.<br />
7
<strong>Anointing</strong>
Fact #1: You can’t sell successfully <strong>to</strong><br />
cus<strong>to</strong>mers until you have sold your<br />
approach and vision <strong>to</strong> your CEO (or<br />
other direct boss).<br />
Fact #2: You can use the same<br />
method <strong>to</strong> sell <strong>to</strong> cus<strong>to</strong>mers that you<br />
will use <strong>to</strong> sell <strong>to</strong> your CEO.<br />
9
<strong>How</strong> anointing works<br />
1) Personal Knowledge <strong>of</strong> your CEO &<br />
Cus<strong>to</strong>mers: You know who they are and<br />
how they think. You’re not guessing.<br />
2) Trust: Credibility and respect from <strong>to</strong>p<br />
management and working peers. FULL<br />
support for marketing from ALL in the<br />
company.<br />
3) <strong>Anointing</strong>: CEO listens, agrees, supports<br />
your decisions and actions.<br />
10
You will know you are<br />
truly anointed when<br />
you become your<br />
CEO’s trusted advisor.<br />
We are talking beyond<br />
“acceptance.”<br />
11
<strong>Your</strong> CEO’s “functional persona”<br />
• Sales<br />
• Technology<br />
• Finance<br />
• Legal<br />
• <strong>Marketing</strong><br />
• Operations<br />
• Serial entrepreneur<br />
12
Sales CEOs<br />
Reactive<br />
Visionary<br />
Stress<br />
Process<br />
Steve Ballmer, CEO <strong>of</strong> Micros<strong>of</strong>t<br />
Company-centric<br />
Stats<br />
Cus<strong>to</strong>mer-centric<br />
S<strong>to</strong>ries<br />
Key Characteristics:<br />
• Competitive<br />
• Controlling<br />
• Easily influenced<br />
Best <strong>to</strong>ols:<br />
• S<strong>to</strong>ries backed by stats<br />
• Keep him excited<br />
13
Technical CEOs<br />
Reactive<br />
Visionary<br />
Stress<br />
Company-centric<br />
Stats<br />
Process<br />
Cus<strong>to</strong>mer-centric<br />
S<strong>to</strong>ries<br />
Tony Hsieh, CEO <strong>of</strong> Zappos<br />
Key Characteristics:<br />
• Logical<br />
• Inclusive<br />
• Very process-oriented<br />
Best <strong>to</strong>ols:<br />
• Empirical evidence,<br />
supported by stats<br />
14
Finance CEOs<br />
Reactive<br />
Visionary<br />
Stress<br />
Process<br />
Company-centric<br />
Stats<br />
Cus<strong>to</strong>mer-centric<br />
S<strong>to</strong>ries<br />
Meg Whitman, CEO <strong>of</strong> HP<br />
Key Characteristics:<br />
• Can be<br />
elitist/exclusionary<br />
• Doesn’t excite easily<br />
Best <strong>to</strong>ols:<br />
• Gather as much<br />
statistical data as you<br />
can, at every <strong>to</strong>uch<br />
point<br />
15
Legal CEOs<br />
Reactive<br />
Visionary<br />
Stress<br />
Process<br />
Frank Blake, CEO <strong>of</strong> Home Depot<br />
Company-centric<br />
Stats<br />
Cus<strong>to</strong>mer-centric<br />
S<strong>to</strong>ries<br />
Key Characteristics:<br />
• Can see both sides<br />
• Weak on processes<br />
Best <strong>to</strong>ols:<br />
• Numbers, numbers,<br />
numbers<br />
• Empirical evidence<br />
16
<strong>Marketing</strong> CEOs<br />
Reactive<br />
Visionary<br />
Stress<br />
Process<br />
Company-centric<br />
Stats<br />
Cus<strong>to</strong>mer-centric<br />
S<strong>to</strong>ries<br />
Steve Jobs, CEO <strong>of</strong> Apple<br />
Key Characteristics:<br />
• Visionary<br />
• Cus<strong>to</strong>mer DRIVEN<br />
Best <strong>to</strong>ols:<br />
• Likes s<strong>to</strong>ries, but back<br />
with facts<br />
• Keep moving!<br />
17
Operations CEOs<br />
Reactive<br />
Visionary<br />
Stress<br />
Process<br />
Company-centric<br />
Stats<br />
Cus<strong>to</strong>mer-centric<br />
S<strong>to</strong>ries<br />
Jeff Bezos, CEO <strong>of</strong> Amazon<br />
Key Characteristics:<br />
• Always thinking<br />
“process first”<br />
Best <strong>to</strong>ols:<br />
• Systems that work<br />
• No movement<br />
without a method<br />
18
Serial Entrepreneur<br />
Reactive<br />
Visionary<br />
Stress<br />
Company-centric<br />
Stats<br />
Process<br />
Cus<strong>to</strong>mer-centric<br />
S<strong>to</strong>ries<br />
Reid H<strong>of</strong>fman, CEO <strong>of</strong> LinkedIn<br />
Key Characteristics:<br />
• Behavior will be<br />
influenced by<br />
background<br />
• Always moving<br />
Best <strong>to</strong>ols:<br />
• Aggressive proaction<br />
19
Interview your CEO<br />
• At least 2x a year, even 4x a year<br />
• Make a formal appointment<br />
• Ask open-ended questions:<br />
• <strong>How</strong>’s it going?<br />
• Goals<br />
• Challenges<br />
• Suggestions, questions, observations<br />
20
Start thinking:<br />
• <strong>How</strong> can I help the CEO meet his/her goals, while at<br />
the same time helping cus<strong>to</strong>mers meet their goals?<br />
• <strong>How</strong> should I be reporting on progress?<br />
• <strong>How</strong> can I make sure that we are relevant and<br />
attractive <strong>to</strong> cus<strong>to</strong>mers?<br />
• What can I do about the fact that buyers are ignoring<br />
marketing and sales?<br />
21
The Buyer Revolution
The Cus<strong>to</strong>mer Community<br />
23
Buyers are using these <strong>to</strong>ols <strong>to</strong> ignore marketing<br />
and avoid salespeople.<br />
24
Company-centric sales process<br />
Salespeople (and cus<strong>to</strong>mers) hunt, one at a time.<br />
Hit and miss, invasive, mostly unsatisfying for both parties.<br />
25
Company-centric marketing process<br />
<strong>Marketing</strong> sends out a lot <strong>of</strong> messages, hoping something will stick.<br />
Cus<strong>to</strong>mers do a lot <strong>of</strong> research, trying <strong>to</strong> get answers <strong>to</strong> questions.<br />
More hit and miss. Gambling on both sides.<br />
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The Solution
Cus<strong>to</strong>mer-centric selling/marketing<br />
Answers <strong>to</strong> Questions<br />
It’s not rocket science. They have questions. We need <strong>to</strong> be able <strong>to</strong><br />
answer them <strong>to</strong> their satisfaction – what, when, how.<br />
28
What ARE their questions?<br />
• Who are you? Specifically?<br />
• What can you do that no one else can do?<br />
• What have others thought <strong>of</strong> you?<br />
• What’s going <strong>to</strong> happen <strong>to</strong> me after I buy?<br />
29
Aren’t you answering their questions?<br />
• Nope.<br />
• That’s why they’re ignoring your content.<br />
• They get better answers from each other.<br />
• That’s also why you’re not anointed: You’re<br />
Guessing.<br />
30
<strong>How</strong> <strong>to</strong> answer their questions:<br />
Ask them questions.<br />
<strong>Your</strong> current cus<strong>to</strong>mers will teach you<br />
how <strong>to</strong> sell <strong>to</strong> new cus<strong>to</strong>mers,<br />
if you ask them the right questions<br />
in the right way,<br />
then act on what they tell you.<br />
31
What should you ask them?<br />
• <strong>How</strong> do you feel about our product/service?<br />
• What was your buying process?<br />
• Are our prices fair?<br />
• What is your biggest problem/challenge?<br />
• What trends do you see in your/our market?<br />
• If you were the CEO <strong>of</strong> our company <strong>to</strong>morrow, what<br />
would you fix?<br />
• What did you type in<strong>to</strong> Google when you first started<br />
searching? <strong>How</strong> would you refine?<br />
• Anything I should have asked?<br />
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What will you learn?<br />
• Why they bought*<br />
• <strong>How</strong> they bought, including who was involved<br />
• What their concerns and questions were<br />
• <strong>How</strong> you satisfied those concerns/answered their questions<br />
• What they now tell others<br />
• What they typed in<strong>to</strong> Google – FIRST (not what is in your web<br />
logs)<br />
• Trends and challenges (your opportunities)<br />
• Weaknesses <strong>of</strong> competi<strong>to</strong>rs<br />
• What you should be saying and where you should be saying it<br />
• What is broken, what should be fixed<br />
33
*<br />
34
What cus<strong>to</strong>mers AND CEOs want<br />
1. Education<br />
2. Protection<br />
Michael<br />
35
Thank You/Questions<br />
Kristin Zhivago<br />
Zhivago Management Partners, Inc.<br />
kristin@zhivago.com<br />
Blog: RevenueJournal.com<br />
Twitter: @KristinZhivago<br />
Book: RoadmapToRevenue.com<br />
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