Como ter ideias inovadoras
Publicado em 07 de dezembro de 2009 às 02h44
“Para inovar, é preciso observar as coisas. É a partir daí que se desenvolve um pensamento diferente, novo.” É o que diz o professor Luli Radfahrer, da Universidade de São Paulo (USP). O acadêmico ensina, em palestra, como ter ideias inovadoras e implementá-las, criar novos mercados a partir de ideias fortes e como dispersar esses projetos pelo mundo.
Assista aos vídeos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KjWH1UuInM&feature=player_embedded
domingo, 23 de maio de 2010
Gerenciando suas ideias
Managing Your Mindset
Apr 02, 2010 -
More and more people today rely on a deep level of knowledge in a narrow topic—aka subject matter expertise—for their livelihoods. I probably fall into that category, so I began wondering: can that kind of special knowledge actually get in the way when it comes to creativity and innovation? The short answer is yes, and reason is that special subject matter expertise is really the mother of all mindsets.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” And one of my favorite Dilbert cartoon strips depicts a meeting in which a problem is presented, and each attendee around the table suggests a solution that just happens to match their personal “hammer.” In the final panel, a porcupine sitting at the end of the meeting table declares, “We must stick them with quills! It’s the only way!!”
But how can knowledge be bad? Aren’t the experts in a given area the ones who are supposed to have all the sophisticated solutions?
Dr. Stellan Ohlsson, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, thinks that deep but narrow bands of knowledge can leave us blind to other options. According to Ohlsson, when we’re faced with a problem or challenge, we tend to view it through the lens of our special knowledge and create a mental image of it based on that. But that can block our ability to see the problem in a new or different way and prevent us from considering other alternatives. We go round and round the problem, locked into our old ways of thinking, getting nowhere.
At the University of Pittsburgh, Jennifer Wiley conducted an interesting experiment designed to point out how knowledge can get in the way of creative thinking. Wiley took a group of baseball experts and a group with no special knowledge of the game. She gave both groups three words: plate, rest, and broken. The goal was to find a common word that linked all three ideas together. Wiley was targeting the word home, and indeed the baseball experts came up with home plate, a baseball term, along with rest home, and broken home quicker than the nonexperts.
But then, in a second test, she changed one word in the trio, producing plate, shot, and broken. She was targeting the word glass, as in plate glass, shot glass, and broken glass. The baseball experts didn’t do nearly as well as the nonexperts. Wiley believed that their knowledge of baseball caused them to lock on to home plate, and made it much harder to break free of the concept.
Does this mean that the person with the least knowledge about the problem is the person most likely to solve it? No, that’s not the case either. It was physicist Albert Einstein who discovered relativity, not Mae West. In fact, Einstein experienced the very frustration Ohlsson describes. Subject matter expertise is required. On the one hand, it allows us to think productively, efficiently, and logically. On the other hand, it can limit our ability to think expansively and objectively, in turn handicapping our creative problem-solving capability.
How do we then move beyond the limitations of our mindset to improve that ability? Harvard University’s Chris Argyris set out to address this very issue, of what he and MIT’s Peter Senge called “mental models.” Argyris developed something he called “action science,” and used some simple tools to teach people to see the flaws in their mindsets. One of those tools is called the “Left-Hand Column.”
In the exercise, Argyris has you reconstruct a difficult conversation, one in which defensive feelings arose. (Email strings are GREAT for this exercise, because you don’t need to reconstruct anything.) A line is drawn down a sheet paper, with the right-hand side used to write down what was actually said by both parties. In the left-hand column, you write down what you were really thinking and feeling, but not saying. The left side is evidence of your unique perspective, and a means by which you can deconstruct your hidden mindset.
By doing this, Argyris says, you will become more conscious of the effects of your individual pattern of thinking; in turn, expanding your thought process. In other words, the Left-Hand Column can help you can manage your mindset. You know you’re it’s working when both columns match.
You may want to try this the next time you get into one of those heated email exchanges in which you are fairly certain the other person is an crazy alien from a distant galaxy, clearly off base, and just not getting it. What's interesting in these cases is when you show the email string to others, they generally shrug, unable to see why you’re so upset.
That’s because they don’t share your mindset...their minds are set differently. And that’s a good thing, because as General George Patton said, “ If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
Apr 02, 2010 -
More and more people today rely on a deep level of knowledge in a narrow topic—aka subject matter expertise—for their livelihoods. I probably fall into that category, so I began wondering: can that kind of special knowledge actually get in the way when it comes to creativity and innovation? The short answer is yes, and reason is that special subject matter expertise is really the mother of all mindsets.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” And one of my favorite Dilbert cartoon strips depicts a meeting in which a problem is presented, and each attendee around the table suggests a solution that just happens to match their personal “hammer.” In the final panel, a porcupine sitting at the end of the meeting table declares, “We must stick them with quills! It’s the only way!!”
But how can knowledge be bad? Aren’t the experts in a given area the ones who are supposed to have all the sophisticated solutions?
Dr. Stellan Ohlsson, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, thinks that deep but narrow bands of knowledge can leave us blind to other options. According to Ohlsson, when we’re faced with a problem or challenge, we tend to view it through the lens of our special knowledge and create a mental image of it based on that. But that can block our ability to see the problem in a new or different way and prevent us from considering other alternatives. We go round and round the problem, locked into our old ways of thinking, getting nowhere.
At the University of Pittsburgh, Jennifer Wiley conducted an interesting experiment designed to point out how knowledge can get in the way of creative thinking. Wiley took a group of baseball experts and a group with no special knowledge of the game. She gave both groups three words: plate, rest, and broken. The goal was to find a common word that linked all three ideas together. Wiley was targeting the word home, and indeed the baseball experts came up with home plate, a baseball term, along with rest home, and broken home quicker than the nonexperts.
But then, in a second test, she changed one word in the trio, producing plate, shot, and broken. She was targeting the word glass, as in plate glass, shot glass, and broken glass. The baseball experts didn’t do nearly as well as the nonexperts. Wiley believed that their knowledge of baseball caused them to lock on to home plate, and made it much harder to break free of the concept.
Does this mean that the person with the least knowledge about the problem is the person most likely to solve it? No, that’s not the case either. It was physicist Albert Einstein who discovered relativity, not Mae West. In fact, Einstein experienced the very frustration Ohlsson describes. Subject matter expertise is required. On the one hand, it allows us to think productively, efficiently, and logically. On the other hand, it can limit our ability to think expansively and objectively, in turn handicapping our creative problem-solving capability.
How do we then move beyond the limitations of our mindset to improve that ability? Harvard University’s Chris Argyris set out to address this very issue, of what he and MIT’s Peter Senge called “mental models.” Argyris developed something he called “action science,” and used some simple tools to teach people to see the flaws in their mindsets. One of those tools is called the “Left-Hand Column.”
In the exercise, Argyris has you reconstruct a difficult conversation, one in which defensive feelings arose. (Email strings are GREAT for this exercise, because you don’t need to reconstruct anything.) A line is drawn down a sheet paper, with the right-hand side used to write down what was actually said by both parties. In the left-hand column, you write down what you were really thinking and feeling, but not saying. The left side is evidence of your unique perspective, and a means by which you can deconstruct your hidden mindset.
By doing this, Argyris says, you will become more conscious of the effects of your individual pattern of thinking; in turn, expanding your thought process. In other words, the Left-Hand Column can help you can manage your mindset. You know you’re it’s working when both columns match.
You may want to try this the next time you get into one of those heated email exchanges in which you are fairly certain the other person is an crazy alien from a distant galaxy, clearly off base, and just not getting it. What's interesting in these cases is when you show the email string to others, they generally shrug, unable to see why you’re so upset.
That’s because they don’t share your mindset...their minds are set differently. And that’s a good thing, because as General George Patton said, “ If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
Futuro da gestão
Excluir comentário The new masters of management
Developing countries are competing on creativity as well as cost. That will change business everywhere
Apr 15th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
THIRTY years ago the bosses of America’s car industry were shocked to learn that Japan had overtaken America to become the world’s leading car producer. They were even more shocked when they visited Japan to find out what was going on. They found that the secret of Japan’s success did not lie in cheap labour or government subsidies (their preferred explanations) but in what was rapidly dubbed “lean manufacturing”. While Detroit slept, Japan had transformed itself from a low-wage economy into a hotbed of business innovation. Soon every factory around the world was lean—or a ruin.
Management gurus are always glibly proclaiming revolutions. What happened in Japan qualified, as did the advent of mass production in America a century ago. Now something comparable is taking place in the developing world.
It is hardly news that the world’s centre of economic gravity is shifting towards emerging markets. Buy a mobile phone and it will almost certainly have been made in China. Use it to phone a customer helpline and your call may well be answered by an Indian. Over the past five years China’s annual growth rate has been more than 10%, and India’s more than 8%. Yet even these figures understate the change that is taking place. Emerging countries are no longer content to be sources of cheap hands and low-cost brains. Instead they too are becoming hotbeds of innovation, producing breakthroughs in everything from telecoms to carmaking to health care. They are redesigning products to reduce costs not just by 10%, but by up to 90%. They are redesigning entire business processes to do things better and faster than their rivals in the West. Forget about flat—the world of business is turning upside down.
Competing for the future
As our special report argues, the rich world is losing its leadership in the sort of breakthrough ideas that transform industries. This is partly because rich-world companies are doing more research and development in emerging markets. Fortune 500 companies now have 98 R&D facilities in China and 63 in India. IBM employs more people in developing countries than in America. But it is also because emerging-market firms and consumers are both moving upmarket. Huawei, a Chinese telecoms giant, applied for more international patents than any other firm did in 2008. Chinese 20-somethings spend even more time on the internet than do their American peers.
Even more striking is the emerging world’s growing ability to make established products for dramatically lower costs: no-frills $3,000 cars and $300 laptops may not seem as exciting as a new iPad but they promise to change far more people’s lives. This sort of advance—dubbed “frugal innovation” by some—is not just a matter of exploiting cheap labour (though cheap labour helps). It is a matter of redesigning products and processes to cut out unnecessary costs. In India Tata created the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, by combining dozens of cost-saving tricks. Bharti Airtel has slashed the cost of providing mobile-phone services by radically rethinking its relationship with its competitors and suppliers. It shares radio towers with rivals and contracts out network construction, operations and support to specialists such as Ericsson and IBM.
Just as Henry Ford and Toyota both helped change other industries, entrepreneurs in the developing world are applying the classic principles of division of labour and economies of scale to surprising areas such as heart operations and cataract surgery, reducing costs without sacrificing quality. They are using new technologies such as mobile phones to bring sophisticated services, in everything from health care to banking, to rural communities. And they are combining technological and business-model innovation to produce entirely new categories of services: Kenya leads the world in money-transfer by mobile phone, for example.
Hope versus fear
All this is obviously good news for the billions of people who live in the BRICS (see article) and other developing countries. More consumers will have access to goods and services that were once confined to the elite. More than 90% of Indians and Chinese tell pollsters that they are optimistic about the future. Anand Mahindra, an Indian business leader, has described his dreams about the future as “not just colourful, but steroidal”.
What about the slow-growth rich world? Emerging firms are advancing on a greater number of fronts than the Japanese did 30 years ago and also advancing much faster, gobbling up Western rivals. Their charge will upset many established Western firms, which will face increasingly savage price competition, and also overturn many assumptions about the rich world’s competitive advantage. Many of globalisation’s most vocal supporters have justified the loss of manufacturing jobs in the West on the ground that the rich world will maintain an edge in innovation; the clever jobs will stay at home. Emerging economies are not merely challenging that lead in innovation. They are unleashing a wave of low-cost, disruptive innovations that will, as they spread to the rich world, shake many industries to their foundations. All sorts of chief executives will scream for protection.
Change will indeed be painful for incumbents, as disruptive innovation always is. But cheaper goods and services will be a blessing for Western consumers, who are likely to face years of slow income growth. It could also be good news for rich-world governments, which are plagued with deficits even before the baby-boomers begin to retire. Frugal innovation may well prevent America’s health-care system (which already consumes 17% of its GDP) from swamping the rest of the economy. Clever ways of applying economies of scale and scope in new ways could boost public-sector productivity.
Moreover, it is in the nature of innovation to feed upon itself. Innovation in the emerging world will encourage, rather than undermine, innovation in the rich world. Western carmakers learned the techniques of lean production from their Japanese rivals, just as the Japanese had earlier learned the techniques of mass production from the Americans. This great insurrection, like its predecessors, will make us all richer.
Developing countries are competing on creativity as well as cost. That will change business everywhere
Apr 15th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
THIRTY years ago the bosses of America’s car industry were shocked to learn that Japan had overtaken America to become the world’s leading car producer. They were even more shocked when they visited Japan to find out what was going on. They found that the secret of Japan’s success did not lie in cheap labour or government subsidies (their preferred explanations) but in what was rapidly dubbed “lean manufacturing”. While Detroit slept, Japan had transformed itself from a low-wage economy into a hotbed of business innovation. Soon every factory around the world was lean—or a ruin.
Management gurus are always glibly proclaiming revolutions. What happened in Japan qualified, as did the advent of mass production in America a century ago. Now something comparable is taking place in the developing world.
It is hardly news that the world’s centre of economic gravity is shifting towards emerging markets. Buy a mobile phone and it will almost certainly have been made in China. Use it to phone a customer helpline and your call may well be answered by an Indian. Over the past five years China’s annual growth rate has been more than 10%, and India’s more than 8%. Yet even these figures understate the change that is taking place. Emerging countries are no longer content to be sources of cheap hands and low-cost brains. Instead they too are becoming hotbeds of innovation, producing breakthroughs in everything from telecoms to carmaking to health care. They are redesigning products to reduce costs not just by 10%, but by up to 90%. They are redesigning entire business processes to do things better and faster than their rivals in the West. Forget about flat—the world of business is turning upside down.
Competing for the future
As our special report argues, the rich world is losing its leadership in the sort of breakthrough ideas that transform industries. This is partly because rich-world companies are doing more research and development in emerging markets. Fortune 500 companies now have 98 R&D facilities in China and 63 in India. IBM employs more people in developing countries than in America. But it is also because emerging-market firms and consumers are both moving upmarket. Huawei, a Chinese telecoms giant, applied for more international patents than any other firm did in 2008. Chinese 20-somethings spend even more time on the internet than do their American peers.
Even more striking is the emerging world’s growing ability to make established products for dramatically lower costs: no-frills $3,000 cars and $300 laptops may not seem as exciting as a new iPad but they promise to change far more people’s lives. This sort of advance—dubbed “frugal innovation” by some—is not just a matter of exploiting cheap labour (though cheap labour helps). It is a matter of redesigning products and processes to cut out unnecessary costs. In India Tata created the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, by combining dozens of cost-saving tricks. Bharti Airtel has slashed the cost of providing mobile-phone services by radically rethinking its relationship with its competitors and suppliers. It shares radio towers with rivals and contracts out network construction, operations and support to specialists such as Ericsson and IBM.
Just as Henry Ford and Toyota both helped change other industries, entrepreneurs in the developing world are applying the classic principles of division of labour and economies of scale to surprising areas such as heart operations and cataract surgery, reducing costs without sacrificing quality. They are using new technologies such as mobile phones to bring sophisticated services, in everything from health care to banking, to rural communities. And they are combining technological and business-model innovation to produce entirely new categories of services: Kenya leads the world in money-transfer by mobile phone, for example.
Hope versus fear
All this is obviously good news for the billions of people who live in the BRICS (see article) and other developing countries. More consumers will have access to goods and services that were once confined to the elite. More than 90% of Indians and Chinese tell pollsters that they are optimistic about the future. Anand Mahindra, an Indian business leader, has described his dreams about the future as “not just colourful, but steroidal”.
What about the slow-growth rich world? Emerging firms are advancing on a greater number of fronts than the Japanese did 30 years ago and also advancing much faster, gobbling up Western rivals. Their charge will upset many established Western firms, which will face increasingly savage price competition, and also overturn many assumptions about the rich world’s competitive advantage. Many of globalisation’s most vocal supporters have justified the loss of manufacturing jobs in the West on the ground that the rich world will maintain an edge in innovation; the clever jobs will stay at home. Emerging economies are not merely challenging that lead in innovation. They are unleashing a wave of low-cost, disruptive innovations that will, as they spread to the rich world, shake many industries to their foundations. All sorts of chief executives will scream for protection.
Change will indeed be painful for incumbents, as disruptive innovation always is. But cheaper goods and services will be a blessing for Western consumers, who are likely to face years of slow income growth. It could also be good news for rich-world governments, which are plagued with deficits even before the baby-boomers begin to retire. Frugal innovation may well prevent America’s health-care system (which already consumes 17% of its GDP) from swamping the rest of the economy. Clever ways of applying economies of scale and scope in new ways could boost public-sector productivity.
Moreover, it is in the nature of innovation to feed upon itself. Innovation in the emerging world will encourage, rather than undermine, innovation in the rich world. Western carmakers learned the techniques of lean production from their Japanese rivals, just as the Japanese had earlier learned the techniques of mass production from the Americans. This great insurrection, like its predecessors, will make us all richer.
Futuro da inovação
Futuro da inovação está nos países emergentes
Complacência e intransigência de nações líderes representam oportunidade de crescimento para países emergentes, diz pesquisadora
Carla Falcão, iG São Paulo | 03/05/2010 05:25
Egípcios, gregos e romanos têm algo em comum, diz a pesquisadora alemã Bettina von Stamm. De acordo com ela, foram grandes civilizações que, em determinados momentos de sua existência, agarraram-se a seus sistemas e processos e evitaram qualquer tipo de mudança significativa em sua forma de organizar a sociedade. A intransigência e a incapacidade de inovar, diz Bettina, foram certamente dois aspectos por trás da derrocada de tais civilizações.
“Empresas e governos de países líderes tendem a tornar-se complacentes, seguros de sua posição e pouco dispostos a mudar ou a acompanhar o restante do mundo. Quando percebem o erro de cálculo, já perderam espaço para concorrentes e outras nações mais modernas e bem preparadas”, afirma a pesquisadora. Sem citar nomes, ela lança um desafio: “Pense nos países e companhias que se encontram na liderança há um bom tempo e que não demonstram intenção de investir em mudanças e avalie quais são os próximos dessa lista”.
Foto: Divulgação Ampliar
Bettina von Stamm
Se a intransigência e complacência dos líderes desestimulam o uso da criatividade, a necessidade constante de superação dos que não estão no topo justifica a maior disposição para mudar o status quo. Regra que, segundo Bettina, vale para os países emergentes, apontados recentemente pela Revista The Economist como os novos “mestres da inovação”. “Cidadãos de países como Rússia, China e Brasil precisam lutar diariamente para garantir o que em outros lugares é considerado básico. E isso estimula nossa capacidade de pensar e encontrar maneiras criativas de vencer os obstáculos”, acrescenta a pesquisadora russa Anna Trifilova.
Anna e Bettina são autoras do livro The Future of Innovation (“O Futuro da Inovação, em tradução livre). A publicação, que ouviu mais de 250 pessoas em todo o mundo entre executivos, consultores e acadêmicos, traz uma série de reflexões sobre a forma como as empresas e a sociedade lidam com o tema inovação.
Entre as contribuições, há capítulos com nomes inusitados como “O papel do Big Brother e a educação”, “Seja emotivo” e “Trata-se de pessoas, idiota”.
De passagem pelo Brasil, onde participaram do X Congresso Nacional de Inovação Tecnológica, Bettina e Anna contaram ao iG que já preparam o segundo livro: "Global Market: from challenges to innovation opportunities" (Mercado global: dos desafios às oportunidades de inovação). A publicação, que seguirá a fórmula de contribuição utilizada em “O Futuro da Inovação”, deverá apresentar a visão de mais de 350 colaboradores de 60 países, incluindo o Brasil.
O objetivo, contam as escritoras, é mostrar na prática como é possível implementar inovações com resultados concretos em um mercado global. “Queremos desmistificar a percepção de que o restante do mundo tem sobre alguns países no que diz respeito a negócios e inovação. Antes de vir ao Brasil, por exemplo, ouvi histórias bizarras sobre o que poderia acontecer aqui e agora percebo o quanto eram falsas”, afirma Anna.
Leia a entrevista com Anna Trifilova e Bettina von Stamm.
iG – No livro que escreveram juntas – “The Future of Innovation” – vocês afirmam que a inovação é uma jornada. Como é possível trilhar esse caminho com resultados concretos?
Bettina von Stamm - Inovar é escolher o caminho certo para buscar mudanças que gerem valor. E não apenas para os acionistas ou donos de empresas, mas para as pessoas e a sociedade de forma geral. É o que chamamos de triple bottom line: capital, pessoas e meio ambiente. Outro ponto crucial para o sucesso é entender que não adianta inovar apenas uma vez. É preciso inovar sempre. O que é a melhor solução hoje, não é mais amanhã. Não se pode estimular a inovação em um dia e mudar de opinião logo depois. É uma questão de cultura e de planejamento.
iG – Em muitas empresas, as áreas de inovação e Pesquisa & Desenvolvimento ainda são vistas apenas como centros de custos. Ou seja, são as primeiras a passarem por cortes de orçamento diante de instabilidades econômicas. Diante disso, qual é o caminho para estabelecer planejamentos de médio e longo prazo?
Bettina – A crise econômica serviu para separar as empresas que realmente entendem o que é inovar daquelas que não tem a menor idéia do que estão fazendo. Minha experiência como consultora mostra que as companhias que realmente conhecem o significado de inovação não param de investir por conta da crise. Há pouco tempo, conversei com o CEO de uma multinacional da área de saúde sobre este assunto. No auge da crise, eles registraram perdas nas vendas da maior parte da carteira de produtos, com exceção dos mais modernos e inovadores, que venderam mais no mesmo período. Isso prova que, se estamos criando soluções que geram valor, as pessoas vão querer pagar por isso.
iG- O livro de vocês tem algumas citações inusitadas, como “O papel do Big Brother e a educação”...
Bettina – Basicamente, nós estamos nos referindo ao governo, que desempenha papel fundamental na educação, que é a base para inovar. Se houvesse maior preocupação em ensinar as crianças desde cedo a questionar o status quo e a não ter medo de fazer perguntas aparentemente bobas, talvez não tivéssemos hoje tantos problemas. O sistema educacional não estimula as crianças a manterem sua criatividade natural e sua capacidade de desafiar conceitos previamente estabelecidos.
Anna – Na Rússia, por exemplo, estou trabalhando em um projeto para aumentar a criatividade nas escolas. O objetivo é estimular as crianças a pensarem de forma diferente sem se sentirem envergonhadas. Meu país é conhecido pela criação de tecnologias na área espacial. Desenvolvemos, por exemplo, uma série de materiais leves e resistentes para usar no espaço. Mas, nunca pensamos em usar este material para outras funcionalidades, algo que a Inglaterra fez ao aplicá-lo na fabricação de macas para transportar pessoas doentes.
iG- Na última semana, a revista The Economist publicou um artigo apontando os países em desenvolvimento como os novos “mestres da inovação”. Esse é o futuro?
Anna - Cidadãos de países como Rússia, China e Brasil precisam lutar diariamente para garantir o que em outros lugares é considerado básico. E isso estimula nossa capacidade de pensar e encontrar maneiras criativas de vencer os obstáculos. Mas, infelizmente, ainda não temos recursos para levar todas essas ideias ao mercado.
Bettina - Empresas e governos de países líderes tendem a tornar-se complacentes, seguros de sua posição e pouco dispostos a mudar ou a acompanhar o restante do mundo. Quando percebem o erro de cálculo, já perderam espaço para concorrentes e outras nações mais modernas e bem preparadas. Esta é a oportunidade que países emergentes têm de dar um salto à frente. Quando você não tem que seguir sistemas rígidos, há mais espaço para inovar.
Complacência e intransigência de nações líderes representam oportunidade de crescimento para países emergentes, diz pesquisadora
Carla Falcão, iG São Paulo | 03/05/2010 05:25
Egípcios, gregos e romanos têm algo em comum, diz a pesquisadora alemã Bettina von Stamm. De acordo com ela, foram grandes civilizações que, em determinados momentos de sua existência, agarraram-se a seus sistemas e processos e evitaram qualquer tipo de mudança significativa em sua forma de organizar a sociedade. A intransigência e a incapacidade de inovar, diz Bettina, foram certamente dois aspectos por trás da derrocada de tais civilizações.
“Empresas e governos de países líderes tendem a tornar-se complacentes, seguros de sua posição e pouco dispostos a mudar ou a acompanhar o restante do mundo. Quando percebem o erro de cálculo, já perderam espaço para concorrentes e outras nações mais modernas e bem preparadas”, afirma a pesquisadora. Sem citar nomes, ela lança um desafio: “Pense nos países e companhias que se encontram na liderança há um bom tempo e que não demonstram intenção de investir em mudanças e avalie quais são os próximos dessa lista”.
Foto: Divulgação Ampliar
Bettina von Stamm
Se a intransigência e complacência dos líderes desestimulam o uso da criatividade, a necessidade constante de superação dos que não estão no topo justifica a maior disposição para mudar o status quo. Regra que, segundo Bettina, vale para os países emergentes, apontados recentemente pela Revista The Economist como os novos “mestres da inovação”. “Cidadãos de países como Rússia, China e Brasil precisam lutar diariamente para garantir o que em outros lugares é considerado básico. E isso estimula nossa capacidade de pensar e encontrar maneiras criativas de vencer os obstáculos”, acrescenta a pesquisadora russa Anna Trifilova.
Anna e Bettina são autoras do livro The Future of Innovation (“O Futuro da Inovação, em tradução livre). A publicação, que ouviu mais de 250 pessoas em todo o mundo entre executivos, consultores e acadêmicos, traz uma série de reflexões sobre a forma como as empresas e a sociedade lidam com o tema inovação.
Entre as contribuições, há capítulos com nomes inusitados como “O papel do Big Brother e a educação”, “Seja emotivo” e “Trata-se de pessoas, idiota”.
De passagem pelo Brasil, onde participaram do X Congresso Nacional de Inovação Tecnológica, Bettina e Anna contaram ao iG que já preparam o segundo livro: "Global Market: from challenges to innovation opportunities" (Mercado global: dos desafios às oportunidades de inovação). A publicação, que seguirá a fórmula de contribuição utilizada em “O Futuro da Inovação”, deverá apresentar a visão de mais de 350 colaboradores de 60 países, incluindo o Brasil.
O objetivo, contam as escritoras, é mostrar na prática como é possível implementar inovações com resultados concretos em um mercado global. “Queremos desmistificar a percepção de que o restante do mundo tem sobre alguns países no que diz respeito a negócios e inovação. Antes de vir ao Brasil, por exemplo, ouvi histórias bizarras sobre o que poderia acontecer aqui e agora percebo o quanto eram falsas”, afirma Anna.
Leia a entrevista com Anna Trifilova e Bettina von Stamm.
iG – No livro que escreveram juntas – “The Future of Innovation” – vocês afirmam que a inovação é uma jornada. Como é possível trilhar esse caminho com resultados concretos?
Bettina von Stamm - Inovar é escolher o caminho certo para buscar mudanças que gerem valor. E não apenas para os acionistas ou donos de empresas, mas para as pessoas e a sociedade de forma geral. É o que chamamos de triple bottom line: capital, pessoas e meio ambiente. Outro ponto crucial para o sucesso é entender que não adianta inovar apenas uma vez. É preciso inovar sempre. O que é a melhor solução hoje, não é mais amanhã. Não se pode estimular a inovação em um dia e mudar de opinião logo depois. É uma questão de cultura e de planejamento.
iG – Em muitas empresas, as áreas de inovação e Pesquisa & Desenvolvimento ainda são vistas apenas como centros de custos. Ou seja, são as primeiras a passarem por cortes de orçamento diante de instabilidades econômicas. Diante disso, qual é o caminho para estabelecer planejamentos de médio e longo prazo?
Bettina – A crise econômica serviu para separar as empresas que realmente entendem o que é inovar daquelas que não tem a menor idéia do que estão fazendo. Minha experiência como consultora mostra que as companhias que realmente conhecem o significado de inovação não param de investir por conta da crise. Há pouco tempo, conversei com o CEO de uma multinacional da área de saúde sobre este assunto. No auge da crise, eles registraram perdas nas vendas da maior parte da carteira de produtos, com exceção dos mais modernos e inovadores, que venderam mais no mesmo período. Isso prova que, se estamos criando soluções que geram valor, as pessoas vão querer pagar por isso.
iG- O livro de vocês tem algumas citações inusitadas, como “O papel do Big Brother e a educação”...
Bettina – Basicamente, nós estamos nos referindo ao governo, que desempenha papel fundamental na educação, que é a base para inovar. Se houvesse maior preocupação em ensinar as crianças desde cedo a questionar o status quo e a não ter medo de fazer perguntas aparentemente bobas, talvez não tivéssemos hoje tantos problemas. O sistema educacional não estimula as crianças a manterem sua criatividade natural e sua capacidade de desafiar conceitos previamente estabelecidos.
Anna – Na Rússia, por exemplo, estou trabalhando em um projeto para aumentar a criatividade nas escolas. O objetivo é estimular as crianças a pensarem de forma diferente sem se sentirem envergonhadas. Meu país é conhecido pela criação de tecnologias na área espacial. Desenvolvemos, por exemplo, uma série de materiais leves e resistentes para usar no espaço. Mas, nunca pensamos em usar este material para outras funcionalidades, algo que a Inglaterra fez ao aplicá-lo na fabricação de macas para transportar pessoas doentes.
iG- Na última semana, a revista The Economist publicou um artigo apontando os países em desenvolvimento como os novos “mestres da inovação”. Esse é o futuro?
Anna - Cidadãos de países como Rússia, China e Brasil precisam lutar diariamente para garantir o que em outros lugares é considerado básico. E isso estimula nossa capacidade de pensar e encontrar maneiras criativas de vencer os obstáculos. Mas, infelizmente, ainda não temos recursos para levar todas essas ideias ao mercado.
Bettina - Empresas e governos de países líderes tendem a tornar-se complacentes, seguros de sua posição e pouco dispostos a mudar ou a acompanhar o restante do mundo. Quando percebem o erro de cálculo, já perderam espaço para concorrentes e outras nações mais modernas e bem preparadas. Esta é a oportunidade que países emergentes têm de dar um salto à frente. Quando você não tem que seguir sistemas rígidos, há mais espaço para inovar.
Persuasão
The Powerful Persuasiveness of Introductions
Steve Martin
May 20, 2010 -
Shortly after boarding a flight the other day, the captain came on the PA to welcome passengers on board and remind us to pay attention to the safety demonstration that the flight attendants would be taking us through. We’ve all heard these words a thousand times before. Like many others I probably wasn’t paying that much attention to the words he used to persuade passengers to not only pay attention to the flight attendants, but to also keep their safety belts fastened at all times.
But towards the end of his remarks, he added six words that I have never heard before and I immediately became convinced that many more passengers than usual would be persuaded to pay attention and keep their seat belts fastened even if the seat belt sign was turned off.
The words he added were “like we do in the cockpit.”
These extra six words are not only a neat demonstration of how a pilot can influence his or her passengers but they also provide an example of how anyone in business – by understanding how people are influenced – can win more customers and clients.
For more than 65 years, social scientists have been studying the influence and persuasion process to determine what are the factors that cause people to say ‘Yes’ to the requests of others. My colleague Dr. Robert Cialdini, an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, has shown that there are only six universal principles of persuasion.
One of these principles is Authority. Simply put, the persuasiveness of a message, proposal or recommendation can be enhanced if it is seen to come from a legitimate expert. In business settings, for example, people will often be more persuaded by proposals or offers that come from someone who, in their eyes, has both expertise and trustworthiness, compared to similar proposals that don’t. So it’s generally a good idea to present your business credentials, your staffs’ training, and your business expertise to customers. But doing so can also present a problem.
How do you introduce your expertise and knowledge without being seen as a show-off?
Informing potential new customers that because of your greater knowledge and expertise, they should listen to and be persuaded by your proposal, will often result in them being turned-off rather than turned-on to you.
The answer, of course, is to have our expertise introduced by someone else. But what if such a person is unavailable? Or maybe you don’t want to keep harassing current customers for introductions? Research from Stanford Business School suggests that a business can use its own co-workers equally effectively and, provided that they do so honestly and ethically, a notable increase in referrals and profit can be realised.
Take by way of an example a small study we conducted in a real estate office. Typically customers who telephoned in with enquiries about rentals or sales would speak first with a receptionist who asked them the nature of their enquiry and would then route the call through to the most appropriate colleague.
We made one small addition to this interaction. Now, before putting the caller through to their colleague, the receptionist not only tells callers the name of the colleague she is putting them through to, but also mentions her colleagues’ credentials and expertise.
Customers interested in rental are told “Rental? I’ll connect you with Sandra who has over 15 years experience renting properties in this area.” Similarly, customers who want more information about selling their property are put through to Peter. “He is our head of sales and has 20 years of experience selling properties.”
The impact of this expert introduction had an almost immediate effect. The agency registered a 20.1 percent rise in the number of face to face meetings and a 16 percent increase in the number of customers who appointed the agency to market their property.
There are several attractive features of this simple intervention. Firstly, everything the receptionist tells her customers is true, but for Sandra or Peter to tell the customers would be seen as boastful and self promoting. Second, and consistent with the Stanford Business School research, it doesn’t seem to matter that the introduction comes from a colleague who will benefit from such an introduction, and thirdly, the intervention was both simple and costless to implement.
Proof perhaps that when it comes to influencing and persuading new customers, ensuring that we are introduced as experts could make for some big differences in our success.
*****
Steve Martin is co-author (along with Dr. Noah Goldstein and Dr. Robert Cialdini) of the New York Times bestseller Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive (Free Press). Take the free Yes! Test to see how persuasive you are at www.influenceatwork.com.
Steve Martin
May 20, 2010 -
Shortly after boarding a flight the other day, the captain came on the PA to welcome passengers on board and remind us to pay attention to the safety demonstration that the flight attendants would be taking us through. We’ve all heard these words a thousand times before. Like many others I probably wasn’t paying that much attention to the words he used to persuade passengers to not only pay attention to the flight attendants, but to also keep their safety belts fastened at all times.
But towards the end of his remarks, he added six words that I have never heard before and I immediately became convinced that many more passengers than usual would be persuaded to pay attention and keep their seat belts fastened even if the seat belt sign was turned off.
The words he added were “like we do in the cockpit.”
These extra six words are not only a neat demonstration of how a pilot can influence his or her passengers but they also provide an example of how anyone in business – by understanding how people are influenced – can win more customers and clients.
For more than 65 years, social scientists have been studying the influence and persuasion process to determine what are the factors that cause people to say ‘Yes’ to the requests of others. My colleague Dr. Robert Cialdini, an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, has shown that there are only six universal principles of persuasion.
One of these principles is Authority. Simply put, the persuasiveness of a message, proposal or recommendation can be enhanced if it is seen to come from a legitimate expert. In business settings, for example, people will often be more persuaded by proposals or offers that come from someone who, in their eyes, has both expertise and trustworthiness, compared to similar proposals that don’t. So it’s generally a good idea to present your business credentials, your staffs’ training, and your business expertise to customers. But doing so can also present a problem.
How do you introduce your expertise and knowledge without being seen as a show-off?
Informing potential new customers that because of your greater knowledge and expertise, they should listen to and be persuaded by your proposal, will often result in them being turned-off rather than turned-on to you.
The answer, of course, is to have our expertise introduced by someone else. But what if such a person is unavailable? Or maybe you don’t want to keep harassing current customers for introductions? Research from Stanford Business School suggests that a business can use its own co-workers equally effectively and, provided that they do so honestly and ethically, a notable increase in referrals and profit can be realised.
Take by way of an example a small study we conducted in a real estate office. Typically customers who telephoned in with enquiries about rentals or sales would speak first with a receptionist who asked them the nature of their enquiry and would then route the call through to the most appropriate colleague.
We made one small addition to this interaction. Now, before putting the caller through to their colleague, the receptionist not only tells callers the name of the colleague she is putting them through to, but also mentions her colleagues’ credentials and expertise.
Customers interested in rental are told “Rental? I’ll connect you with Sandra who has over 15 years experience renting properties in this area.” Similarly, customers who want more information about selling their property are put through to Peter. “He is our head of sales and has 20 years of experience selling properties.”
The impact of this expert introduction had an almost immediate effect. The agency registered a 20.1 percent rise in the number of face to face meetings and a 16 percent increase in the number of customers who appointed the agency to market their property.
There are several attractive features of this simple intervention. Firstly, everything the receptionist tells her customers is true, but for Sandra or Peter to tell the customers would be seen as boastful and self promoting. Second, and consistent with the Stanford Business School research, it doesn’t seem to matter that the introduction comes from a colleague who will benefit from such an introduction, and thirdly, the intervention was both simple and costless to implement.
Proof perhaps that when it comes to influencing and persuading new customers, ensuring that we are introduced as experts could make for some big differences in our success.
*****
Steve Martin is co-author (along with Dr. Noah Goldstein and Dr. Robert Cialdini) of the New York Times bestseller Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive (Free Press). Take the free Yes! Test to see how persuasive you are at www.influenceatwork.com.
Tendências de marketing
Marketing in 2008 became decidedly social — and 2009 will see the social elements of marketing accelerate. Social media went from being on the cutting edge, to approaching the mainstream. When I say “social” I mean marketing driven by word-of-mouth relationships.
As you go through each of the following small business marketing trends, you’ll see how powerful the social component is for getting and keeping your ideal customer. Just remember, your customers control your brand, so act accordingly.
1. AUTHENTICITY– In 2009, the focus is on “authenticity” and letting the real people behind your company be visible and show through — no more hiding behind a faceless website filled with the word “We.” Instead, it’s “I.” Consumers and B2B buyers expect to know who they are dealing with before hiring your company.
In the event of a problem with your products, consumers want a real person to reach out to, whether it’s AngelaAtHP or ComcastCares on Twitter, or the Web designer you want to hire who actively participates in Facebook and Plurk. Business people are connecting one-to-one through social media sites and this activity will continue.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Set up a social media presence in your real name on sites like Twitter.com, and interact with customers and prospects, mixing in personal information as well as business information. Examples: @ShaneGoldberg (Shane Goldberg, founder of Extreme Member), @TimBerry (Tim Berry, President of Palo Alto Software), and @pixily (Prasad Thammineni, CEO of Pixily).
• Set up profiles and groups on Facebook and start recruiting customers to join.
• Create at least one blog to keep customers educated either about your industry or your products and services.
2. DO IT YOURSELF MARKETING – A study by the Yellow Pages Association of America found that more than half of all small businesses say that getting and keeping customers is a challenge, yet nearly two-thirds say they will NOT get any outside help in marketing. The costs of traditional advertising is going up with newspaper ad rates growing 18%, while the effectiveness of traditional marketing is coming down with newspaper readership coming down. In 1992 it took three touches to reach your buyer — and today it takes more than eight!
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Do some market research. Use free online survey tools like SurveyMonkey or QuestionPro to find out what’s really important to your customers.
• Invest in direct marketing. Take the time to build your customer lists and start sending direct messages to your customers whenever possible. Use the information you learned from your surveys to target your message. If you can’t afford direct snail mail, then do email marketing, which is cheaper.
• Post videos and slide shows on your web site and/or blog. Video a demonstration or collect testimonials from customers. Google likes video content, increasing your chances of being found online. By posting slide shows on your site and on SlideShare, you can reach two audiences – those on social sites like Slideshare and those that come to your site directly. And you make your existing presentations and documents do double duty by posting them online.
3. TECH-DRIVEN WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING – 68% of your customers will leave you because they don’t see the difference between you and the other guy. This is why word-of-mouth-marketing will become even more popular in 2009. Loyal customers tell their friends and family WHY to choose you. With so much advertising around us. small businesses will have to penetrate deep “firewalls” of resistance to get to their ideal customers.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Put a forum section on your web site and run ongoing Q&As with your customers. This will give you the REAL reasons that they choose you.
• Start a referral or affiliate program. It’s as simple as approaching those businesses who serve your customers BEFORE they get to you. A good example is car dealers can refer insurance agents. Clothing retailers can recommend dry cleaners. Look ahead of you in the supply chain and behind you in the supply chain and start referring and collecting referrals.
• Measure your Net Promoter Score. Fred Reicheld wrote a book called “The Ultimate Question” that discovered that this single greatest predictor of profitability was the answer to the question “How likely are you to refer [this company] to friends and family?”
4. ECO AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY – “Green” has gone mainstream. It’s not just a trendy thing to say anymore. In 2009, letting your customers know that your product or service is eco-and socially responsible is literally a feature you want to communicate. A BBDO (Ad Agency) study recently showed that younger consumers made purchasing decisions based on how what “difference you made in the world.” Whether you’re into this trend or not — many consumers have put this on their criteria list.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Promote whatever community programs or ecologically friendly projects or practices that you have. Don’t think that any effort at environmental-friendly activity is too small. If you are replacing all your light bulbs in your offices to the new fluorescent — then say so. If you are recycling paper — say so.
• If you’re a local business that does business locally — show your customers how you re-cycle and grow the money they spend with you back into the community.
5. BOOTSTRAPPING AND SIMPLICITY – We’ve been moving away from excess for a few years now. But in 2009, being resourceful and bootstrapping is officially cool. This year brings a terrific opportunity to cut out products and services that have little value. Simplifying your offerings gives you the opportunity to differentiate yourself and maintain (if not increase) your price points for products or services that you do best.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Run a report of your products and services sold to each customer and check out the margins. Highlight the low-margin offerings and see if you can move your customers to a more profitable alternative.
• Look at your bills and statements and ask yourself the question ‘In what ways does this expense get and keep my ideal customers?’ If you don’t come up with a good answer — it may be time to cut that expense out.
6. MARKETING TO THE “BUY BUTTON” – Neuromarketing is the study of how our brains respond to messages. Neuromarketing is becoming the standard baseline for copywriting and advertising. Learning how your customers’ “buy button” works will save you time effort and money.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Read the books Buyology and Neuromarketing to understand exactly how your brain is influenced to choose one product over another.
• Find ways to attach positive emotions to your product or service.
• Show your customer that you trust THEM by making a trial period available or quickly approving credit.
7. PAID MEMBERSHIPS — Membership sites are a new trend that make the Internet a terrific money-making opportunity for all kinds of entrepreneurs. Combine the trend of creating a niche, and a membership site, and you will have yourself a winning formula in 2009.
Offering memberships is not restricted to the Internet alone. Restaurants have used memberships successfully to even out cash flow and consistently bring in customers. Financial service providers have used memberships to educate their clients and provide special events and services.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Think of ways to offer a regular benefit to members: product or service of the month, research, e-books, designs and templates. If you have a niche, you have the makings of a membership opportunity.
• Can you call your customers members? What could you offer them on a regular basis as a benefit of membership?
• Some examples of membership sites: Artella Words and Art, Artistic Thread Works, The Biz Web Coach.
8. MOBILITY — Accessing the Internet via mobile device or smart phone is a given. The sites that are mobile friendly will be the sites of choice for consumers looking for information on the go. Another common occurrence is receiving updates on your order or any information that you request via text message.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Check out these services for sending text messages to customers from the Web: ClearSMS.com, Group2Call.com
• Talk to your technical expert to see what it would take to convert your web site or blog to be viewed easily on the web.
9. WISDOM OF CROWDS — Your customers will want more say in how you improve your product or service. Internet tools like UserVoice, Get Satisfaction and IdeaScale will gain more popularity in 2009 and will be common platforms for gathering customer feedback and ideas on product improvements. Using these feedback tools helps to build customer community and loyalty.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Sign up for a free version of UserVoice, GetSatisfaction or IdeaScale and put a Feedback widget on your web site or blog. Tell your customers to contribute ideas.
• Be sure to monitor (or have your employees monitor) the feedback on such sites and participate in it. Then as you implement suggestions – communicate that to your customers.
10. PERSONAL BRANDING– Personal Branding will become more important than a killer resume or bio. Your personal brand is your public identity. It’s what you are known for within and outside your network. It has never been more important to differentiate yourself and focus on what sets you apart from the crowd.
Good personal brands give people an immediate sense of knowing you and the experience your business offers. What do these names conjure up for you? Donald Trump, Oprah, Richard Branson? Each of these individuals have focused on a defining idea or element of who they are that is immediately recognizable. For example “You’re Fired” would not be Oprah and “Live your best life” would not be Donald Trump
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Make sure you are using a photo on the web. It doesn’t need to be professional, in fact, a candid and authentically-you shot is best. Use the same pictures everywhere until your brand is established. @GuyKawasaki has his standard picture – but he also changes it around now and then. @JenniferLaycock from SearchEngine Guide uses her company’s puppy logo as her brand.
• Register your name as your domain name. Also register extensions of your name on popular social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Slideshare, and others. This serves a defensive purpose, too, as it prevent squatters from profiting off of your personal brand.
As you go through each of the following small business marketing trends, you’ll see how powerful the social component is for getting and keeping your ideal customer. Just remember, your customers control your brand, so act accordingly.
1. AUTHENTICITY– In 2009, the focus is on “authenticity” and letting the real people behind your company be visible and show through — no more hiding behind a faceless website filled with the word “We.” Instead, it’s “I.” Consumers and B2B buyers expect to know who they are dealing with before hiring your company.
In the event of a problem with your products, consumers want a real person to reach out to, whether it’s AngelaAtHP or ComcastCares on Twitter, or the Web designer you want to hire who actively participates in Facebook and Plurk. Business people are connecting one-to-one through social media sites and this activity will continue.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Set up a social media presence in your real name on sites like Twitter.com, and interact with customers and prospects, mixing in personal information as well as business information. Examples: @ShaneGoldberg (Shane Goldberg, founder of Extreme Member), @TimBerry (Tim Berry, President of Palo Alto Software), and @pixily (Prasad Thammineni, CEO of Pixily).
• Set up profiles and groups on Facebook and start recruiting customers to join.
• Create at least one blog to keep customers educated either about your industry or your products and services.
2. DO IT YOURSELF MARKETING – A study by the Yellow Pages Association of America found that more than half of all small businesses say that getting and keeping customers is a challenge, yet nearly two-thirds say they will NOT get any outside help in marketing. The costs of traditional advertising is going up with newspaper ad rates growing 18%, while the effectiveness of traditional marketing is coming down with newspaper readership coming down. In 1992 it took three touches to reach your buyer — and today it takes more than eight!
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Do some market research. Use free online survey tools like SurveyMonkey or QuestionPro to find out what’s really important to your customers.
• Invest in direct marketing. Take the time to build your customer lists and start sending direct messages to your customers whenever possible. Use the information you learned from your surveys to target your message. If you can’t afford direct snail mail, then do email marketing, which is cheaper.
• Post videos and slide shows on your web site and/or blog. Video a demonstration or collect testimonials from customers. Google likes video content, increasing your chances of being found online. By posting slide shows on your site and on SlideShare, you can reach two audiences – those on social sites like Slideshare and those that come to your site directly. And you make your existing presentations and documents do double duty by posting them online.
3. TECH-DRIVEN WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING – 68% of your customers will leave you because they don’t see the difference between you and the other guy. This is why word-of-mouth-marketing will become even more popular in 2009. Loyal customers tell their friends and family WHY to choose you. With so much advertising around us. small businesses will have to penetrate deep “firewalls” of resistance to get to their ideal customers.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Put a forum section on your web site and run ongoing Q&As with your customers. This will give you the REAL reasons that they choose you.
• Start a referral or affiliate program. It’s as simple as approaching those businesses who serve your customers BEFORE they get to you. A good example is car dealers can refer insurance agents. Clothing retailers can recommend dry cleaners. Look ahead of you in the supply chain and behind you in the supply chain and start referring and collecting referrals.
• Measure your Net Promoter Score. Fred Reicheld wrote a book called “The Ultimate Question” that discovered that this single greatest predictor of profitability was the answer to the question “How likely are you to refer [this company] to friends and family?”
4. ECO AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY – “Green” has gone mainstream. It’s not just a trendy thing to say anymore. In 2009, letting your customers know that your product or service is eco-and socially responsible is literally a feature you want to communicate. A BBDO (Ad Agency) study recently showed that younger consumers made purchasing decisions based on how what “difference you made in the world.” Whether you’re into this trend or not — many consumers have put this on their criteria list.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Promote whatever community programs or ecologically friendly projects or practices that you have. Don’t think that any effort at environmental-friendly activity is too small. If you are replacing all your light bulbs in your offices to the new fluorescent — then say so. If you are recycling paper — say so.
• If you’re a local business that does business locally — show your customers how you re-cycle and grow the money they spend with you back into the community.
5. BOOTSTRAPPING AND SIMPLICITY – We’ve been moving away from excess for a few years now. But in 2009, being resourceful and bootstrapping is officially cool. This year brings a terrific opportunity to cut out products and services that have little value. Simplifying your offerings gives you the opportunity to differentiate yourself and maintain (if not increase) your price points for products or services that you do best.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Run a report of your products and services sold to each customer and check out the margins. Highlight the low-margin offerings and see if you can move your customers to a more profitable alternative.
• Look at your bills and statements and ask yourself the question ‘In what ways does this expense get and keep my ideal customers?’ If you don’t come up with a good answer — it may be time to cut that expense out.
6. MARKETING TO THE “BUY BUTTON” – Neuromarketing is the study of how our brains respond to messages. Neuromarketing is becoming the standard baseline for copywriting and advertising. Learning how your customers’ “buy button” works will save you time effort and money.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Read the books Buyology and Neuromarketing to understand exactly how your brain is influenced to choose one product over another.
• Find ways to attach positive emotions to your product or service.
• Show your customer that you trust THEM by making a trial period available or quickly approving credit.
7. PAID MEMBERSHIPS — Membership sites are a new trend that make the Internet a terrific money-making opportunity for all kinds of entrepreneurs. Combine the trend of creating a niche, and a membership site, and you will have yourself a winning formula in 2009.
Offering memberships is not restricted to the Internet alone. Restaurants have used memberships successfully to even out cash flow and consistently bring in customers. Financial service providers have used memberships to educate their clients and provide special events and services.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Think of ways to offer a regular benefit to members: product or service of the month, research, e-books, designs and templates. If you have a niche, you have the makings of a membership opportunity.
• Can you call your customers members? What could you offer them on a regular basis as a benefit of membership?
• Some examples of membership sites: Artella Words and Art, Artistic Thread Works, The Biz Web Coach.
8. MOBILITY — Accessing the Internet via mobile device or smart phone is a given. The sites that are mobile friendly will be the sites of choice for consumers looking for information on the go. Another common occurrence is receiving updates on your order or any information that you request via text message.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Check out these services for sending text messages to customers from the Web: ClearSMS.com, Group2Call.com
• Talk to your technical expert to see what it would take to convert your web site or blog to be viewed easily on the web.
9. WISDOM OF CROWDS — Your customers will want more say in how you improve your product or service. Internet tools like UserVoice, Get Satisfaction and IdeaScale will gain more popularity in 2009 and will be common platforms for gathering customer feedback and ideas on product improvements. Using these feedback tools helps to build customer community and loyalty.
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Sign up for a free version of UserVoice, GetSatisfaction or IdeaScale and put a Feedback widget on your web site or blog. Tell your customers to contribute ideas.
• Be sure to monitor (or have your employees monitor) the feedback on such sites and participate in it. Then as you implement suggestions – communicate that to your customers.
10. PERSONAL BRANDING– Personal Branding will become more important than a killer resume or bio. Your personal brand is your public identity. It’s what you are known for within and outside your network. It has never been more important to differentiate yourself and focus on what sets you apart from the crowd.
Good personal brands give people an immediate sense of knowing you and the experience your business offers. What do these names conjure up for you? Donald Trump, Oprah, Richard Branson? Each of these individuals have focused on a defining idea or element of who they are that is immediately recognizable. For example “You’re Fired” would not be Oprah and “Live your best life” would not be Donald Trump
How to take advantage of this trend:
• Make sure you are using a photo on the web. It doesn’t need to be professional, in fact, a candid and authentically-you shot is best. Use the same pictures everywhere until your brand is established. @GuyKawasaki has his standard picture – but he also changes it around now and then. @JenniferLaycock from SearchEngine Guide uses her company’s puppy logo as her brand.
• Register your name as your domain name. Also register extensions of your name on popular social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Slideshare, and others. This serves a defensive purpose, too, as it prevent squatters from profiting off of your personal brand.
Criação de estratégia
The 4 Ps of Strategy Creation
Ron Price (May 18, 2009)
Many organizations rush to move their strategic planning efforts toward consensus, failing to realize that it should be a dynamic process that allows for adjustments and alternatives as conditions change. Here is a model for strategy creation that integrates perceptions, performance, purpose and process.
When it comes to creating a strategy for your business, it is rarely wise to move forward with just one carefully thought out course of action. Instead, it is wiser to encourage vigorous debate and develop several alternatives as part of the strategic discussion. The best scenario is to have three to five alternatives that are all so good that you experience a lot of angst over which one to choose. This process provides several benefits; among them are better critical thinking, increased creativity, and a number of alternatives to choose from as the future unfolds.
Unfortunately, many organizations don’t value this approach and they quickly move strategic discussions toward consensus. As a result, these organizations often end up caught by the marketplace when circumstances change. While their strategy may have been great at the time they created it, factors outside of their control can change the dynamics of their business and, without alternatives that were developed in their strategic planning process, they cannot respond quickly enough to leverage an opportunity or avoid a significant threat.
In order to remain relevant and effective, businesses need some way to monitor both the execution of their strategic plan and the changing environment in which they do business. With these management tools providing input in real time, organizations can quickly adjust course as circumstances present new opportunities or threats. A simple model made up of “Four Ps” can help companies create this advantage. These Ps are Perceptions, Performance, Purpose and Process.
Perceptions
There are six different stakeholder groups you should be listening to periodically to determine whether you’re moving in the right direction. These six groups are:
Customers: How your customers see you is critical to any organization. Since not all feedback systems work equally to uncover customer perceptions, you should use a variety of feedback systems. Some examples are suggestion cards, phone calls, emails, interviews, focus groups, and so on.
Employees: You should to track your employees’ level of engagement and satisfaction. Again, you should use a variety of feedback systems to gauge their perceptions. Your employees have a big impact on your long-term performance, especially when you’re trying to execute changes in strategy.
Vendors: In the old world, companies didn’t care what their vendors thought of them. But in the new world, everyone is connected and part of a greater whole. In developing flexibility with your strategy, all of your relationships are potential assets that you can draw upon to execute or change your strategy when it’s necessary. So understanding how your vendors perceive you is important. Do they view you as one of their prime customers, or as one of the troublesome ones?
Regulators: Depending on your industry, you have different guidelines to follow. Sometimes those guidelines play a significant role in strategy. Therefore, know how your industry’s regulators view you.
Owners or shareholders: Whether your company has one or several major investors, you need to fully understand how each perceives the organization. Since the person or people who hold the purse strings play a major role in the company, they have dynamic relevance in terms of strategy.
Community: This could include the Chambers of Commerce, the media, the other significant businesses in the area, or even the government. How these outside groups view your company can significantly impact your strategy.
Performance
Performance relates to the following four questions:
How are we doing implementing and executing on our strategy, including the goals and the timelines? Are we ahead? Are we behind? Are we performing according to plan or are we in some way out of sync with the plan?
What are the current economics of our business? Has anything changed from what we assumed when we created our strategic plan?
What are the operational results that we’re producing? If you break these down to business units or individual strategies or functions, figure out the actual operational results you’re getting. You may be doing a great job executing on your strategy, but it may not be producing the results you anticipated.
How are we performing relative to the performance agreements that we established in the organization? The performance agreements are the specifics of the operational plan that were created in the strategy. How are you lining up with the milestones for specific initiatives? Or what’s happening with the consequences? Are you getting greater or lesser results than expected?
Purpose
When you review your purpose as an organization, you need to ask the question, “What has changed?” or “What is or will be changing in the environment?” Your answer should impact the way you look at your vision or your long-term goals for the organization. The goal is to look for new opportunities or to identify what threats may be emerging because of changes in the environment.
Continually ask, “What has changed internally since we met last?” Do we have some new strength that we didn’t have before? Did we obtain some new equipment, technology, or intellectual property? Did we get some great talent that we didn’t have before that should be impacting our strategy? Has there been a new limitation that’s emerged since we last looked at this scorecard?”
Based on your answers, you should review whether you still have the right strategy, goals, or timelines. You also have to determine what you can redefine and adjust in your plan to improve in any of the areas you’ve analyzed. Finally, you need to ask yourself, “Where should we focus our improvement efforts to create new value in the future?”
Process
All work is a process. It’s a series of tasks combined to achieve a particular goal. Such is the case with strategy as well. There are steps you go through, there are people involved, and there are processes you have to look at to determine where you can improve your implementation and in what order of priority. Are you creating waste? Is there rework? Are there inefficiencies in your various processes? Are the processes really creating the results you’re looking for? How are you doing tactically? How are you improving your processes? How should you adjust your resources?
Finally, you should be asking how you can create the sense of urgency and the accountability to ensure superior execution of your plan. You may have a great plan, but if you don’t have the right sense of urgency or the right level of accountability in the execution of it, a great plan poorly executed still produces poor results.
Keep Score for Better Results
Good strategic thinking and monitoring takes the four Ps into consideration. It’s about constantly looking at your environment and adjusting your plan as necessary. Developing this kind of monitoring system, along with a more robust development of alternatives in strategy moves you away from rigid organizational charts toward more team-based environments. As a result, you’re better able to adapt your strategy to the environment while it’s changing. When you implement the four Ps into your organization, you keep your strategy fresh and don’t become stagnant or obsolete in the implementation of your plan…or in the marketplace.
Ron Price is the founder and CEO of Price Associates, a company dedicated to helping business leaders and entrepreneurs solve problems, identify solutions and implement change in strategy and performance. Ron is also the author of “Finding Hidden Treasures,” a series of essays with action steps to aid readers in mining their own inner talents. As the former president of the AIM Companies, Ron directed the strategic, marketing, compensation and incentive planning, as well as field training and operations.
Ron Price (May 18, 2009)
Many organizations rush to move their strategic planning efforts toward consensus, failing to realize that it should be a dynamic process that allows for adjustments and alternatives as conditions change. Here is a model for strategy creation that integrates perceptions, performance, purpose and process.
When it comes to creating a strategy for your business, it is rarely wise to move forward with just one carefully thought out course of action. Instead, it is wiser to encourage vigorous debate and develop several alternatives as part of the strategic discussion. The best scenario is to have three to five alternatives that are all so good that you experience a lot of angst over which one to choose. This process provides several benefits; among them are better critical thinking, increased creativity, and a number of alternatives to choose from as the future unfolds.
Unfortunately, many organizations don’t value this approach and they quickly move strategic discussions toward consensus. As a result, these organizations often end up caught by the marketplace when circumstances change. While their strategy may have been great at the time they created it, factors outside of their control can change the dynamics of their business and, without alternatives that were developed in their strategic planning process, they cannot respond quickly enough to leverage an opportunity or avoid a significant threat.
In order to remain relevant and effective, businesses need some way to monitor both the execution of their strategic plan and the changing environment in which they do business. With these management tools providing input in real time, organizations can quickly adjust course as circumstances present new opportunities or threats. A simple model made up of “Four Ps” can help companies create this advantage. These Ps are Perceptions, Performance, Purpose and Process.
Perceptions
There are six different stakeholder groups you should be listening to periodically to determine whether you’re moving in the right direction. These six groups are:
Customers: How your customers see you is critical to any organization. Since not all feedback systems work equally to uncover customer perceptions, you should use a variety of feedback systems. Some examples are suggestion cards, phone calls, emails, interviews, focus groups, and so on.
Employees: You should to track your employees’ level of engagement and satisfaction. Again, you should use a variety of feedback systems to gauge their perceptions. Your employees have a big impact on your long-term performance, especially when you’re trying to execute changes in strategy.
Vendors: In the old world, companies didn’t care what their vendors thought of them. But in the new world, everyone is connected and part of a greater whole. In developing flexibility with your strategy, all of your relationships are potential assets that you can draw upon to execute or change your strategy when it’s necessary. So understanding how your vendors perceive you is important. Do they view you as one of their prime customers, or as one of the troublesome ones?
Regulators: Depending on your industry, you have different guidelines to follow. Sometimes those guidelines play a significant role in strategy. Therefore, know how your industry’s regulators view you.
Owners or shareholders: Whether your company has one or several major investors, you need to fully understand how each perceives the organization. Since the person or people who hold the purse strings play a major role in the company, they have dynamic relevance in terms of strategy.
Community: This could include the Chambers of Commerce, the media, the other significant businesses in the area, or even the government. How these outside groups view your company can significantly impact your strategy.
Performance
Performance relates to the following four questions:
How are we doing implementing and executing on our strategy, including the goals and the timelines? Are we ahead? Are we behind? Are we performing according to plan or are we in some way out of sync with the plan?
What are the current economics of our business? Has anything changed from what we assumed when we created our strategic plan?
What are the operational results that we’re producing? If you break these down to business units or individual strategies or functions, figure out the actual operational results you’re getting. You may be doing a great job executing on your strategy, but it may not be producing the results you anticipated.
How are we performing relative to the performance agreements that we established in the organization? The performance agreements are the specifics of the operational plan that were created in the strategy. How are you lining up with the milestones for specific initiatives? Or what’s happening with the consequences? Are you getting greater or lesser results than expected?
Purpose
When you review your purpose as an organization, you need to ask the question, “What has changed?” or “What is or will be changing in the environment?” Your answer should impact the way you look at your vision or your long-term goals for the organization. The goal is to look for new opportunities or to identify what threats may be emerging because of changes in the environment.
Continually ask, “What has changed internally since we met last?” Do we have some new strength that we didn’t have before? Did we obtain some new equipment, technology, or intellectual property? Did we get some great talent that we didn’t have before that should be impacting our strategy? Has there been a new limitation that’s emerged since we last looked at this scorecard?”
Based on your answers, you should review whether you still have the right strategy, goals, or timelines. You also have to determine what you can redefine and adjust in your plan to improve in any of the areas you’ve analyzed. Finally, you need to ask yourself, “Where should we focus our improvement efforts to create new value in the future?”
Process
All work is a process. It’s a series of tasks combined to achieve a particular goal. Such is the case with strategy as well. There are steps you go through, there are people involved, and there are processes you have to look at to determine where you can improve your implementation and in what order of priority. Are you creating waste? Is there rework? Are there inefficiencies in your various processes? Are the processes really creating the results you’re looking for? How are you doing tactically? How are you improving your processes? How should you adjust your resources?
Finally, you should be asking how you can create the sense of urgency and the accountability to ensure superior execution of your plan. You may have a great plan, but if you don’t have the right sense of urgency or the right level of accountability in the execution of it, a great plan poorly executed still produces poor results.
Keep Score for Better Results
Good strategic thinking and monitoring takes the four Ps into consideration. It’s about constantly looking at your environment and adjusting your plan as necessary. Developing this kind of monitoring system, along with a more robust development of alternatives in strategy moves you away from rigid organizational charts toward more team-based environments. As a result, you’re better able to adapt your strategy to the environment while it’s changing. When you implement the four Ps into your organization, you keep your strategy fresh and don’t become stagnant or obsolete in the implementation of your plan…or in the marketplace.
Ron Price is the founder and CEO of Price Associates, a company dedicated to helping business leaders and entrepreneurs solve problems, identify solutions and implement change in strategy and performance. Ron is also the author of “Finding Hidden Treasures,” a series of essays with action steps to aid readers in mining their own inner talents. As the former president of the AIM Companies, Ron directed the strategic, marketing, compensation and incentive planning, as well as field training and operations.
Pensamento Shapiro
Precisamos de algo mais do que “pensar positivamente” ou outras saídas da auto-ajuda: em lugar de estruturar o pensamento sobre o que falta, podemos dar ênfase no que temos. Implica colocar o foco no que funciona, no que está certo, no potencial verdadeiro, e esquecer-se do que não serve, do que está errado, das lacunas. Uma simples, mas poderosa mudança de estratégia para entender o mundo, as pessoas e as situações. Analisando diferente, aumente o que já é melhor e concentre-se no passo seguinte. Use seus filtros positivos e acelere a marcha, amplie a lente – você enxergará melhor.
Deixe de concentrar-se nos problemas, nos pontos fracos, nas incapacidades. Enfatize as oportunidades, os pontos fortes e as habilidades. Esqueça o perfeccionismo. Perfeição não existe. Neutralize cada elemento negativo que se apresente com a seguinte fórmula positiva: aprenda a responder e deixe de reagir emocionalmente. A ansiedade é péssima conselheira.
Um sábio do Talmude – obra do pensamento Judaico – há dois mil anos, proferiu uma máxima que resume de forma sintética e prática. Ele disse: “Quem é rico? É aquele que se alegra com a sua porção!” Em outras palavras: encontre alegria em tudo o que você tem de bom, e você terá achado a verdadeira riqueza desta vida.
Deixe de concentrar-se nos problemas, nos pontos fracos, nas incapacidades. Enfatize as oportunidades, os pontos fortes e as habilidades. Esqueça o perfeccionismo. Perfeição não existe. Neutralize cada elemento negativo que se apresente com a seguinte fórmula positiva: aprenda a responder e deixe de reagir emocionalmente. A ansiedade é péssima conselheira.
Um sábio do Talmude – obra do pensamento Judaico – há dois mil anos, proferiu uma máxima que resume de forma sintética e prática. Ele disse: “Quem é rico? É aquele que se alegra com a sua porção!” Em outras palavras: encontre alegria em tudo o que você tem de bom, e você terá achado a verdadeira riqueza desta vida.
Franquia
O sucesso de uma empresa normalmente resulta em novos investimentos em Marketing para que se possa multiplicar a meta atingida. Novos pontos-de-venda da mesma companhia são inaugurados e estes requerem tempo e estratégia minuciosa para não comprometer o padrão estabelecido pela sua matriz. Porém, os brasileiros estão optando por franquear o seu negócio a fim de deixá-los sob a batuta de empreendedores e não de gerentes.
A facilidade de abrir uma franquia no mercado é maior do que uma nova empresa por conta da identidade e da expertise da franqueadora. Caso o empresário não tenha a experiência necessária para administrar um negócio, ele terá o auxílio de profissionais capacitados e com vivência na gestão do negócio. Mas nem sempre a franquia é garantia de sucesso. Principalmente se o franqueado estiver fora do perfil de empreendedor necessário para o negócio.
Dados da Franchise Store mostram que o Brasil é o sexto país em abertura de franquias e que aqui o principal foco dos franqueados é no setor de Alimentação, seguido por Saúde e Beleza e Acessórios e Calçados. A Empório Body Store, empresa do ramo de cosméticos artesanais, percebeu que a expansão por franquias, se for bem acompanhada, acelera o processo de crescimento.
Franquias facilitam expansão
A transformação de um negócio em franquia tem como principal vantagem a agilidade na expansão, já que não depende de gestão e nem capital próprio. Além disso, mesmo que o franqueado tenha que seguir o desejo do franqueador, ele tem o perfil de um empreendedor. “Os franqueados sugerem dicas e sugestões para aprimorar o negócio e isso agrega expertises diferentes. Grandes ideias para a empresa saem, muitas vezes, do franqueado”, diz Filomena Garcia, sócia diretora da Franchise Store, em entrevista ao Mundo do Marketing.
Prova de que o setor de franquias está em ascensão no país é que o mercado cresceu 14% de 2008 para 2009. De acordo com Filomena, este número deve permanecer o mesmo entre 2009 e 2010. “Se em ano de crise o mercado cresceu 14%, a perspectiva é de crescer mais 14 ou até 15%”, diz. Um dos principais desafios para uma empresa se transformar em franqueadora, segundo a executiva, é conhecer o mercado de atuação e ter uma perspectiva de crescimento.
Além disso, é necessário desenhar o plano de expansão de acordo com o potencial de cada região, assim como o mix de produtos, o tipo de consumidor e como será a logística. Pelo visto, engana-se quem acha que é simples abrir uma franquia. “Tem que adequar tudo isso e saber qual a necessidade dos franqueados. Outro ponto importante é estruturar uma equipe para visitar as lojas para saber se as metas estão sendo atingidas e se o Marketing feito no ponto-de-venda está de acordo com cada localização”, afirma Filomena.
Riscos para o franqueador
Para evitar problemas no processo de transformação de um negócio em franquia é aconselhável a contratação de uma empresa especializada para realizar o projeto, o que inclui estudos de viabilidade, formatação do sistema operacional e do treinamento. “A partir daí é que começa o processo em si. Depois é necessário identificar parceiros no mercado antes de selecioná-los, já que as características do seu perfil devem ser alinhadas ao perfil da franquia. Este é o grande desafio”, avalia Claudia Bittencourt (foto), sócia fundadora e diretora do Grupo Bittencourt, consultoria de expansão e desenvolvimento de negócios composta por quatros empresas com foco em redes de franquias coligado a consultoria de varejo GS&MD.
Segundo Claudia, os principais erros que alguns franqueadores cometem são baseados em garantias de que manuais e instrumentos jurídicos os fazem aptos a franquear um negócio, assim como não realizar um estudo de viabilidade com profissionais especializados. “Além disso, é perigoso conceder franquias para candidatos sem perfil para o negócio ou que não tenham um treinamento adequado”, aponta Claudia.
Apesar dos cuidados que precisam ser tomados para a abertura de uma empresa franqueadora, o risco de fechamento deste tipo de negócio é menor que as empresas tradicionais. “De todos os negócios independentes, 70% das empresas fecham antes dos cinco anos de vida no Brasil. Já nos negócios franqueados, menos de 15% fecha antes do mesmo período. O risco existe, mas é menor”, ressalta Eliane Bernardino, presidente da Amplia, empresa especializada em formatação de redes de franquia.
Equipe comercial alinhada ao negócio
A rede Empório Body Store está dando sequência ao seu processo de expansão de olho nos candidatos a franqueados. “Temos que entender que o franqueado tem que ter perfil de empreendedor e não de vendedor. Eles procuram um negócio para investir e nem sempre têm espírito empreendedor. O umbigo no balcão ainda faz a diferença”, conta Tobias Chanan (foto), presidente da Empório Body Store ao site.
De acordo com Chanan, ter uma estrutura de área comercial atuante, monitorando diariamente os franqueados, ajuda a preservar a marca. No plano de expansão da empresa, os desafios englobam desde o alinhamento e acompanhamento dos processos até o entendimento do franqueado sobre a importância da sua participação em todo o trabalho. Dar feedback sobre ações com clientes e motivar a equipe de vendas também devem fazer parte do planejamento.
A área comercial da Empório Body Store é um dos focos de Chanan para 2010, já que a dificuldade está nas diferenças de cada estado onde a empresa está presente. "Quem procura franquia tem que enxergar uma operação que tenha conceito porque isso é o que vende. Apesar de ser uma empresa que já existe, ele terá que operar o negócio”, completa Chanan.
A facilidade de abrir uma franquia no mercado é maior do que uma nova empresa por conta da identidade e da expertise da franqueadora. Caso o empresário não tenha a experiência necessária para administrar um negócio, ele terá o auxílio de profissionais capacitados e com vivência na gestão do negócio. Mas nem sempre a franquia é garantia de sucesso. Principalmente se o franqueado estiver fora do perfil de empreendedor necessário para o negócio.
Dados da Franchise Store mostram que o Brasil é o sexto país em abertura de franquias e que aqui o principal foco dos franqueados é no setor de Alimentação, seguido por Saúde e Beleza e Acessórios e Calçados. A Empório Body Store, empresa do ramo de cosméticos artesanais, percebeu que a expansão por franquias, se for bem acompanhada, acelera o processo de crescimento.
Franquias facilitam expansão
A transformação de um negócio em franquia tem como principal vantagem a agilidade na expansão, já que não depende de gestão e nem capital próprio. Além disso, mesmo que o franqueado tenha que seguir o desejo do franqueador, ele tem o perfil de um empreendedor. “Os franqueados sugerem dicas e sugestões para aprimorar o negócio e isso agrega expertises diferentes. Grandes ideias para a empresa saem, muitas vezes, do franqueado”, diz Filomena Garcia, sócia diretora da Franchise Store, em entrevista ao Mundo do Marketing.
Prova de que o setor de franquias está em ascensão no país é que o mercado cresceu 14% de 2008 para 2009. De acordo com Filomena, este número deve permanecer o mesmo entre 2009 e 2010. “Se em ano de crise o mercado cresceu 14%, a perspectiva é de crescer mais 14 ou até 15%”, diz. Um dos principais desafios para uma empresa se transformar em franqueadora, segundo a executiva, é conhecer o mercado de atuação e ter uma perspectiva de crescimento.
Além disso, é necessário desenhar o plano de expansão de acordo com o potencial de cada região, assim como o mix de produtos, o tipo de consumidor e como será a logística. Pelo visto, engana-se quem acha que é simples abrir uma franquia. “Tem que adequar tudo isso e saber qual a necessidade dos franqueados. Outro ponto importante é estruturar uma equipe para visitar as lojas para saber se as metas estão sendo atingidas e se o Marketing feito no ponto-de-venda está de acordo com cada localização”, afirma Filomena.
Riscos para o franqueador
Para evitar problemas no processo de transformação de um negócio em franquia é aconselhável a contratação de uma empresa especializada para realizar o projeto, o que inclui estudos de viabilidade, formatação do sistema operacional e do treinamento. “A partir daí é que começa o processo em si. Depois é necessário identificar parceiros no mercado antes de selecioná-los, já que as características do seu perfil devem ser alinhadas ao perfil da franquia. Este é o grande desafio”, avalia Claudia Bittencourt (foto), sócia fundadora e diretora do Grupo Bittencourt, consultoria de expansão e desenvolvimento de negócios composta por quatros empresas com foco em redes de franquias coligado a consultoria de varejo GS&MD.
Segundo Claudia, os principais erros que alguns franqueadores cometem são baseados em garantias de que manuais e instrumentos jurídicos os fazem aptos a franquear um negócio, assim como não realizar um estudo de viabilidade com profissionais especializados. “Além disso, é perigoso conceder franquias para candidatos sem perfil para o negócio ou que não tenham um treinamento adequado”, aponta Claudia.
Apesar dos cuidados que precisam ser tomados para a abertura de uma empresa franqueadora, o risco de fechamento deste tipo de negócio é menor que as empresas tradicionais. “De todos os negócios independentes, 70% das empresas fecham antes dos cinco anos de vida no Brasil. Já nos negócios franqueados, menos de 15% fecha antes do mesmo período. O risco existe, mas é menor”, ressalta Eliane Bernardino, presidente da Amplia, empresa especializada em formatação de redes de franquia.
Equipe comercial alinhada ao negócio
A rede Empório Body Store está dando sequência ao seu processo de expansão de olho nos candidatos a franqueados. “Temos que entender que o franqueado tem que ter perfil de empreendedor e não de vendedor. Eles procuram um negócio para investir e nem sempre têm espírito empreendedor. O umbigo no balcão ainda faz a diferença”, conta Tobias Chanan (foto), presidente da Empório Body Store ao site.
De acordo com Chanan, ter uma estrutura de área comercial atuante, monitorando diariamente os franqueados, ajuda a preservar a marca. No plano de expansão da empresa, os desafios englobam desde o alinhamento e acompanhamento dos processos até o entendimento do franqueado sobre a importância da sua participação em todo o trabalho. Dar feedback sobre ações com clientes e motivar a equipe de vendas também devem fazer parte do planejamento.
A área comercial da Empório Body Store é um dos focos de Chanan para 2010, já que a dificuldade está nas diferenças de cada estado onde a empresa está presente. "Quem procura franquia tem que enxergar uma operação que tenha conceito porque isso é o que vende. Apesar de ser uma empresa que já existe, ele terá que operar o negócio”, completa Chanan.
Segredo da Inovação
O Verdadeiro Segredo da Inovação.
Por Enrico Cardoso Leave a Comentário
A cobrança para a inovação dentro de micro, pequenas e grandes empresas têm sufocado, muitas vezes o que realmente importa.
Líderes e executivos tentam, a todo custo criar uma cultura de inovação dentro de uma empresa que, muitas vezes esquecem do básico, como entregar o que promete dentro do prazo. Isso, foi uma das grandes coisas que aconteceram nesse final de ano. Inúmeras empresas de e-commerce de sucesso, reconhecidas por sua inovação, por buscarem sempre novos processos, novas formas de distribuição acabaram esquecendo do principal e do primordial para toda empresa existir, o CLIENTE. Com isso, todo esse processo de inovação e bla, bla, bla, acabaram interferindo diretamente no feijão com arroz da empresa e, eu pude ver inúmeros protestos contra essas empresas que INVESTEM com tanta força na INOVAÇÃO que esquecem do resto.
A inovação tem que ser um recurso a mais dentro de uma empresa. Uma empresa não pode deixar nenhum detalhe de fora, apenas por que está investindo em inovação. Como esquecer dos clientes, esquecer de reabastecer os estoques, esquecer de liderar, esquecer da cultura da empresa, esquecer de quem realmente é em prol apenas de uma coisa chamada inovação?
A verdade é que, as pessoas têm ficado tão obcecadas com essa palavra, que muitas vezes esquecem o seu significado e, concentram forças demais para fazer o extraordinário e esquecem do básico.
E o básico, quando bem feito é o que faz a diferença. Inovação não é apenas criar um produto dos sonhos. Muitas vezes, é muito mais inovador entregar um produto antes do prazo, com uma carta de agradecimento da empresa, junto com selos para o caso de devoluções, ou problemas técnicos. É muito mais inovador entregar antes do prazo e facilitar a devolução, em caso de desistência ou problemas, do que investir alguns milhares de reais em um processo e, atrasar o produto de uma compra pra depois do natal.
Imagine comprar um produto antes do natal pra presentear uma pessoa e ele chegar apenas em janeiro do ano seguinte?
Fatos como este acontecem porque as prioridades estão invertidas. Por trás de todo programa de inovação, por trás de todo programa de contratação, por trás de toda campanha de vendas, por trás de toda campanha de marketing, por trás de toda campanha de lançamento deve estar apenas uma pessoa, o CLIENTE.
Quando as coisas se invertem, quando o cliente não está dentro do centro das atenções, quando as bolas se invertem e as pessoas começam a achar que é a inovação que vai levar aos clientes e não o contrário, tá tudo errado.
O que acontece com as empresas quando o foco de clientes muda para o mistério da inovação é que elas começam a perder clientes, perder vendas, entregar atrasado e, começa a ter menos fãs, menos clientes satisfeitos, menos pessoas promovendo a sua marca e, não há inovação que faça a coisa mudar, se executivos e empresas não perceberem que a inovação está nas pequenas coisas, nos detalhes, em fazer o básico com extrema competência e com extrema eficácia. O resto, é perfumaria. Sempre haverá uma maneira de aperfeiçoar o básico fazendo um pouco melhor e entregando mais para o cliente, sem perdê-lo de vista.
E quando isso acontecer, essa sim será a verdadeira e única inovação. Uma inovação que alia o cliente junto da empresa aumentando o valor percebido, aumentando os fãs, aumentando o valor da marca, aumentando o número de clientes, o faturamento e, entregando pontualmente.
A chave da inovação está nos detalhes do básico, e não nas coisas ilusionistas e extraordinárias. Cinco são as chaves para unir inovação, clientes e obter sucesso nessa brincadeira toda:
1. Associar. A capacidade de conectar-se à questões aparentemente não relacionadas, problemas ou ideias de campos diferentes;
2. Questionamento. Inovadores constantemente fazem perguntas que desafiam o senso comum. Eles perguntam “porquê?”, “porque não?” e “e se?”;
3. Observando. Descobertas muitas vezes surgem ao examinar fenômenos comum, o comportamento dos clientes em potencial, concorrência, e tudo o que acontece ao nosso redor;
4. Experiências. Empresários inovadores experimentam ativamente novas ideias, criando protótipos e lançamento de pilotos;
5. Networking. Inovadores saem de seu caminho para encontrar pessoas com idéias e perspectivas diferentes.
Essas devem ser as diretrizes de qualquer processo de inovação. Obviamente que, antes disso tudo, é imprescindível fazer o dever de casa e dar conta, incialmente do básico, pra depois nevagar pelas novidades.
Obviamente, que tudo ao mesmo tempo. O segredo está em inovar no básico, sem deixar o básico de lado. O resto, é tentativa e erro. Beber, cair e levantar. Ou seja, fazer, se der errado, refazer. O resto? O resto é perfumaria, romance e historinhas bonitas que todo mundo conta…
Por Enrico Cardoso Leave a Comentário
A cobrança para a inovação dentro de micro, pequenas e grandes empresas têm sufocado, muitas vezes o que realmente importa.
Líderes e executivos tentam, a todo custo criar uma cultura de inovação dentro de uma empresa que, muitas vezes esquecem do básico, como entregar o que promete dentro do prazo. Isso, foi uma das grandes coisas que aconteceram nesse final de ano. Inúmeras empresas de e-commerce de sucesso, reconhecidas por sua inovação, por buscarem sempre novos processos, novas formas de distribuição acabaram esquecendo do principal e do primordial para toda empresa existir, o CLIENTE. Com isso, todo esse processo de inovação e bla, bla, bla, acabaram interferindo diretamente no feijão com arroz da empresa e, eu pude ver inúmeros protestos contra essas empresas que INVESTEM com tanta força na INOVAÇÃO que esquecem do resto.
A inovação tem que ser um recurso a mais dentro de uma empresa. Uma empresa não pode deixar nenhum detalhe de fora, apenas por que está investindo em inovação. Como esquecer dos clientes, esquecer de reabastecer os estoques, esquecer de liderar, esquecer da cultura da empresa, esquecer de quem realmente é em prol apenas de uma coisa chamada inovação?
A verdade é que, as pessoas têm ficado tão obcecadas com essa palavra, que muitas vezes esquecem o seu significado e, concentram forças demais para fazer o extraordinário e esquecem do básico.
E o básico, quando bem feito é o que faz a diferença. Inovação não é apenas criar um produto dos sonhos. Muitas vezes, é muito mais inovador entregar um produto antes do prazo, com uma carta de agradecimento da empresa, junto com selos para o caso de devoluções, ou problemas técnicos. É muito mais inovador entregar antes do prazo e facilitar a devolução, em caso de desistência ou problemas, do que investir alguns milhares de reais em um processo e, atrasar o produto de uma compra pra depois do natal.
Imagine comprar um produto antes do natal pra presentear uma pessoa e ele chegar apenas em janeiro do ano seguinte?
Fatos como este acontecem porque as prioridades estão invertidas. Por trás de todo programa de inovação, por trás de todo programa de contratação, por trás de toda campanha de vendas, por trás de toda campanha de marketing, por trás de toda campanha de lançamento deve estar apenas uma pessoa, o CLIENTE.
Quando as coisas se invertem, quando o cliente não está dentro do centro das atenções, quando as bolas se invertem e as pessoas começam a achar que é a inovação que vai levar aos clientes e não o contrário, tá tudo errado.
O que acontece com as empresas quando o foco de clientes muda para o mistério da inovação é que elas começam a perder clientes, perder vendas, entregar atrasado e, começa a ter menos fãs, menos clientes satisfeitos, menos pessoas promovendo a sua marca e, não há inovação que faça a coisa mudar, se executivos e empresas não perceberem que a inovação está nas pequenas coisas, nos detalhes, em fazer o básico com extrema competência e com extrema eficácia. O resto, é perfumaria. Sempre haverá uma maneira de aperfeiçoar o básico fazendo um pouco melhor e entregando mais para o cliente, sem perdê-lo de vista.
E quando isso acontecer, essa sim será a verdadeira e única inovação. Uma inovação que alia o cliente junto da empresa aumentando o valor percebido, aumentando os fãs, aumentando o valor da marca, aumentando o número de clientes, o faturamento e, entregando pontualmente.
A chave da inovação está nos detalhes do básico, e não nas coisas ilusionistas e extraordinárias. Cinco são as chaves para unir inovação, clientes e obter sucesso nessa brincadeira toda:
1. Associar. A capacidade de conectar-se à questões aparentemente não relacionadas, problemas ou ideias de campos diferentes;
2. Questionamento. Inovadores constantemente fazem perguntas que desafiam o senso comum. Eles perguntam “porquê?”, “porque não?” e “e se?”;
3. Observando. Descobertas muitas vezes surgem ao examinar fenômenos comum, o comportamento dos clientes em potencial, concorrência, e tudo o que acontece ao nosso redor;
4. Experiências. Empresários inovadores experimentam ativamente novas ideias, criando protótipos e lançamento de pilotos;
5. Networking. Inovadores saem de seu caminho para encontrar pessoas com idéias e perspectivas diferentes.
Essas devem ser as diretrizes de qualquer processo de inovação. Obviamente que, antes disso tudo, é imprescindível fazer o dever de casa e dar conta, incialmente do básico, pra depois nevagar pelas novidades.
Obviamente, que tudo ao mesmo tempo. O segredo está em inovar no básico, sem deixar o básico de lado. O resto, é tentativa e erro. Beber, cair e levantar. Ou seja, fazer, se der errado, refazer. O resto? O resto é perfumaria, romance e historinhas bonitas que todo mundo conta…
Lei do Bem
Lei do Bem incentiva pesquisa e desenvolvimento
Publicado em 5 de 04 de fevereiro de 2010 às 11h19 por Fernanda Peregrino
A Lei do Bem se tornou, desde a sua criação em 2005, um mecanismo efetivo de incentivo para a indústria e para todo o País. Só em 2008, as empresas beneficiárias da legislação tiveram 35,4% (R$ 1,54 bilhão) dos dispêndios com Pesquisa, Desenvolvimento e Inovação (PD&I) subsidiados pelo governo por meio da redução do Imposto de Renda (IR), da Contribuição Social sobre o Lucro Líquido (CSLL) e de outros impostos a pagar.
Análise de dados do Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia (MCT) mostra que as 441 empresas beneficiárias investiram R$ 8,12 bilhões em PD&I, incentivados pela a renúncia fiscal governamental. A avaliação foi feita pela Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento das Empresas Inovadoras – Anpei.
Investimentos totais
Em 2008, a Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento (P&D) no Brasil recebeu R$ 32,6 bilhões (1,13% do Produto Interno Bruto – PIB). No ano anterior, o valor foi de R$ 28,6 bilhões. Apesar do crescimento de 14%, a contribuição das empresas ficou estagnada em 46%, com R$ 15,2 bilhões.
O Governo quer elevar, em 2010, esse percentual de participação dos investimentos de P&D de 1,13% para 1,50% do PIB. Para isso, segundo a Anpei, as companhias privadas teriam que ser responsáveis por 60% do total investido, percentual similar ao dos países desenvolvidos. Os valores passariam de R$ 15,2 bilhões para R$ 26,1 bilhões e o montante total chegaria a R$ 43,5 bilhões, o que representaria 1,5% do PIB nacional.
Publicado em 5 de 04 de fevereiro de 2010 às 11h19 por Fernanda Peregrino
A Lei do Bem se tornou, desde a sua criação em 2005, um mecanismo efetivo de incentivo para a indústria e para todo o País. Só em 2008, as empresas beneficiárias da legislação tiveram 35,4% (R$ 1,54 bilhão) dos dispêndios com Pesquisa, Desenvolvimento e Inovação (PD&I) subsidiados pelo governo por meio da redução do Imposto de Renda (IR), da Contribuição Social sobre o Lucro Líquido (CSLL) e de outros impostos a pagar.
Análise de dados do Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia (MCT) mostra que as 441 empresas beneficiárias investiram R$ 8,12 bilhões em PD&I, incentivados pela a renúncia fiscal governamental. A avaliação foi feita pela Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento das Empresas Inovadoras – Anpei.
Investimentos totais
Em 2008, a Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento (P&D) no Brasil recebeu R$ 32,6 bilhões (1,13% do Produto Interno Bruto – PIB). No ano anterior, o valor foi de R$ 28,6 bilhões. Apesar do crescimento de 14%, a contribuição das empresas ficou estagnada em 46%, com R$ 15,2 bilhões.
O Governo quer elevar, em 2010, esse percentual de participação dos investimentos de P&D de 1,13% para 1,50% do PIB. Para isso, segundo a Anpei, as companhias privadas teriam que ser responsáveis por 60% do total investido, percentual similar ao dos países desenvolvidos. Os valores passariam de R$ 15,2 bilhões para R$ 26,1 bilhões e o montante total chegaria a R$ 43,5 bilhões, o que representaria 1,5% do PIB nacional.
Dimensões da inovação
As novas dimensões da inovação
A inovação tem sido amplamente reconhecida como o principal fator de competitividade que move a relação entre indivíduos, associações, organizações empresariais e até mesmo países e blocos econômicos. No âmbito empresarial, ela ocorre por meio da sistematização de iniciativas visando a vinculação entre estratégias de negócio e oportunidades latentes ou explícitas, estruturadas em torno da concepção e implementação de novos serviços, produtos ou processos.
No Brasil, segundo o Ipea, apenas 1.199 empresas, em uma população de mais de 72 mil – ou seja, 1,7% – podem ser consideradas como inovadoras e que diferenciam seus produtos. Dessa forma, é possível afirmar que a grande maioria das empresas brasileiras não tem consciência do processo de inovação e de sua importância.
Em Santa Catarina, a inovação tem sido historicamente um dos pilares da competitividade, evidenciado no setor industrial de Joinville e região. No entanto, é necessário criar uma cultura de inovação que potencialize os esforços dessas empresas.
O desenvolvimento de produtos é a mola propulsora da gestão da inovação, pois se configura como catalisador da criação do conhecimento. O design é um dos eixos do desenvolvimento de produto e pode ser considerado o principal elemento nos mecanismos de inovação. Podemos definir dois campos de percepção que expressam o senso comum sobre a importância do design: como impacto visual e como usabilidade.
Podemos expandir a definição de design como um processo de pensamento que relaciona demandas de áreas distintas – muitas vezes conflitantes – em produtos e serviços que levam em conta as necessidades humanas, entre elas, a necessidade artística. Podemos também compreender o design a partir das influências do branding e da tecnologia.
Há no Brasil uma crescente inserção do design nos nível estratégicos, conforme estudo recente patrocinado pela Programa Brasileiro de Design, vinculado ao Ministério do Desenvilvumento. No setor automotivo, por exemplo, 54% das empresas participantes na pesquisa colocam o design como atividade que é função chave na estratégia de produtos e mercados. Por outro lado, no de máquinas e equipamentos, 50% das empresas participantes percebem o design como atividade operacional, responsável pela aparência do produto após a conclusão dos estudos de engenharia.
O modelo proposto a seguir pretende impulsionar a discussão sobre os fatores que influenciam a gestão de inovação nesse novo ambiente, por meio da construção de relações entre áreas de conhecimento distintas e onde o design contribui como forma de pensamento criativo e integrador dessas áreas de conhecimento.
O modelo possui dois eixos: um vertical que configura as áreas de conhecimento e um horizontal, com seis passos que estruturam no tempo a formatação de processos de inovação em uma organização.Eles são: aliança política, mapeamento do processo atual, benchmarking, mapa de benefícios, redesign e formação de rede.
O modelo 6D, portanto, combina seis áreas de conhecimento e seis passos de implantação de de um processo de inovação, utilizando o design thinking como eixo integrador e criador.
Podemos, então, afirmar que o design pode assumir a liderança como integrador e criador de relações entre áreas de conhecimento, garantindo, assim, para as organizações, um importante papel na busca incessante por diferenciais competitivos.
*Coordenador do Programa Inovação da Sustentare Escola de Negócios e especialista em inovação e design
MARCELO CASTILHO*
A inovação tem sido amplamente reconhecida como o principal fator de competitividade que move a relação entre indivíduos, associações, organizações empresariais e até mesmo países e blocos econômicos. No âmbito empresarial, ela ocorre por meio da sistematização de iniciativas visando a vinculação entre estratégias de negócio e oportunidades latentes ou explícitas, estruturadas em torno da concepção e implementação de novos serviços, produtos ou processos.
No Brasil, segundo o Ipea, apenas 1.199 empresas, em uma população de mais de 72 mil – ou seja, 1,7% – podem ser consideradas como inovadoras e que diferenciam seus produtos. Dessa forma, é possível afirmar que a grande maioria das empresas brasileiras não tem consciência do processo de inovação e de sua importância.
Em Santa Catarina, a inovação tem sido historicamente um dos pilares da competitividade, evidenciado no setor industrial de Joinville e região. No entanto, é necessário criar uma cultura de inovação que potencialize os esforços dessas empresas.
O desenvolvimento de produtos é a mola propulsora da gestão da inovação, pois se configura como catalisador da criação do conhecimento. O design é um dos eixos do desenvolvimento de produto e pode ser considerado o principal elemento nos mecanismos de inovação. Podemos definir dois campos de percepção que expressam o senso comum sobre a importância do design: como impacto visual e como usabilidade.
Podemos expandir a definição de design como um processo de pensamento que relaciona demandas de áreas distintas – muitas vezes conflitantes – em produtos e serviços que levam em conta as necessidades humanas, entre elas, a necessidade artística. Podemos também compreender o design a partir das influências do branding e da tecnologia.
Há no Brasil uma crescente inserção do design nos nível estratégicos, conforme estudo recente patrocinado pela Programa Brasileiro de Design, vinculado ao Ministério do Desenvilvumento. No setor automotivo, por exemplo, 54% das empresas participantes na pesquisa colocam o design como atividade que é função chave na estratégia de produtos e mercados. Por outro lado, no de máquinas e equipamentos, 50% das empresas participantes percebem o design como atividade operacional, responsável pela aparência do produto após a conclusão dos estudos de engenharia.
O modelo proposto a seguir pretende impulsionar a discussão sobre os fatores que influenciam a gestão de inovação nesse novo ambiente, por meio da construção de relações entre áreas de conhecimento distintas e onde o design contribui como forma de pensamento criativo e integrador dessas áreas de conhecimento.
O modelo possui dois eixos: um vertical que configura as áreas de conhecimento e um horizontal, com seis passos que estruturam no tempo a formatação de processos de inovação em uma organização.Eles são: aliança política, mapeamento do processo atual, benchmarking, mapa de benefícios, redesign e formação de rede.
O modelo 6D, portanto, combina seis áreas de conhecimento e seis passos de implantação de de um processo de inovação, utilizando o design thinking como eixo integrador e criador.
Podemos, então, afirmar que o design pode assumir a liderança como integrador e criador de relações entre áreas de conhecimento, garantindo, assim, para as organizações, um importante papel na busca incessante por diferenciais competitivos.
*Coordenador do Programa Inovação da Sustentare Escola de Negócios e especialista em inovação e design
MARCELO CASTILHO*
Inovação nas pequenas empresas
Innovation Teams Lack Data, Structure
February 2, 2010 by H. James Wilson
Of course, large companies make innovation decisions in a structured, data-driven way. But do smaller innovation teams do the same?
"I'm going to be blunt with you: The answer is no," says Paul, a product development staffer at a US medical device company. "Our team hasn't thought much about how it makes decisions. I don't know exactly what a team approach should look like; though for starters, we need a better way to communicate, to use the same language and data."
Paul was part of our recent Babson Executive Education study of innovation team leaders at 21 science and engineering-based companies (special thanks Dipali Desai at Kepner-Tregoe for her input during this study). Only six respondents report that their innovation teams make decisions in a structured and data-driven way, while 18 reported that their organization-wide innovation process — a stage gate or a drug pipeline, for example — tends to be much more disciplined and data-driven.
Why the gap in data orientation between organizations and their teams? Though our analysis is still preliminary, and our sample size small, interviewees report having at least one of three concerns:
The define-as-you-go problem. Teams don't establish a common process and metrics for making decisions up-front. Instead, they converge on a common approach in medias res. Eight of our interviewees corroborate this point. According to one application developer, "decisions were initially here and there, or something for a program manager to worry about. [But today] we are using a common process to help unify us. Now everyone says, 'here are the results,' 'here is what we're talking about.' Now we know what each of us is talking about, who's supposed to do what, when they're supposed to do it by, and when we'll make the go or no-go decision."
This is partly a trust problem. Newly assembled groups of knowledge workers, which may include a mix of lab scientists, material engineers, product designers, and others, need time to interact in unstructured ways to build trust. Some interviewees said they wanted this team-building to happen in concert with establishing a clear decision process. One product development VP told us about how his team has been together for years. However, it wasn't until a mandated off site training retreat "with exercises on how to do decision-making, with data and documentation" that his team adopted a more explicit approach to developing microprocessor chips. This retreat which both built trust and focused on decisions "improved his team's efficiency" in ways he hadn't initially considered.
The "Which metrics?" problem. Members lack certainty about what sort of data should predominate. Internal politics is one contributor to uncertainty. For example, in expressing why there is "a lack of rigor" within his team decision-making process, one electrical engineer at an aerospace firm described a turf war. "The technology leaders have a long term view when working with innovative ideas," while "on the other side, the business leaders have a short term view oriented to obtain a financial objective," causing his team's data orientation to flip-flop depending on which group had the upper hand.
In another case, firms report that fellow team members use a common set of analytical or quality control tools such as six sigma, risk/reward analysis, and failure mode and effects analysis. But, as five of our respondents confirm, teams are often internally inconsistent about which sorts of data to select to inform a decision, and which data is simply "white noise."
The "Which methods?" problem. Finally, organization-wide innovation processes do not transfer to the team setting. "We use a stage gate process at our firm, but our group's decision process seems much less standardized," says a senior chemical engineer, one of nine interviewees cited this problem. "Things are based more on our team leader."
Eleven of our interviewees reported that they frequently hand off data to inform decisions that will be made outside their team, often by senior management, a program leader, or a senior scientist. And yet, many of them openly wondered about whether the data they generate gets used by managers. Without feedback, teams can be left wondering whether their input to the organization-wide process was useful, whether it identified a new path to revenue or productivity, or whether they were just spinning their wheels. Betraying a sense of disconnection, a scientist in bio-pharma quipped that "I am not really involved in the higher level decision making process, so I cannot speak for the larger organization." Not an encouraging sign.
One cancer drug researcher believes her company has overcome this. She describes a highly interactive decision-making process, characterized by weekly meetings of teams from different functions and departments. Though key decisions are made by a project leader outside her immediate work group, these gatherings "provide a platform for open discussion, so everyone can see how they contribute, how their [opinions and data] are affecting the final decisions."
However, the transparency in decision-making at her firm is an exception, at least among our sample.
One method of overcoming a lack of data and structure on innovation teams that was mentioned piqued our interest. Several respondents report that they have started to use electronic voting to solve some of the problems described above. For example, one technology engineer told us that voting not only lets every one understand the groups' feeling about a project, but it also serves a gate keeping function. To reach milestones, the group must vote, but, "it's not possible for a group to reach a vote unless an appropriate amount of data has been collected." He acknowledges there's some flexibility in what 'appropriate' means.
Voting can also highlight a connection between a team's decision-making process and the organization-wide innovation process, making a team's input visible and documented. "People got to grade and vote on various criteria: What were the key issues? Which should weigh more heavily in decision-making to go forward?" said one engineer. "Each vote builds upon the next. We could show [all the teams involved] how the process was moving forward."
Any votes on how your team can improve its innovation decisions?
H. James Wilson is a Senior Researcher and Senior Writer at Babson Executive Education in Wellesley, MA. He is co-author of the HBR article, "Who's Bringing You Hot Ideas (And How Are You Responding)?"
February 2, 2010 by H. James Wilson
Of course, large companies make innovation decisions in a structured, data-driven way. But do smaller innovation teams do the same?
"I'm going to be blunt with you: The answer is no," says Paul, a product development staffer at a US medical device company. "Our team hasn't thought much about how it makes decisions. I don't know exactly what a team approach should look like; though for starters, we need a better way to communicate, to use the same language and data."
Paul was part of our recent Babson Executive Education study of innovation team leaders at 21 science and engineering-based companies (special thanks Dipali Desai at Kepner-Tregoe for her input during this study). Only six respondents report that their innovation teams make decisions in a structured and data-driven way, while 18 reported that their organization-wide innovation process — a stage gate or a drug pipeline, for example — tends to be much more disciplined and data-driven.
Why the gap in data orientation between organizations and their teams? Though our analysis is still preliminary, and our sample size small, interviewees report having at least one of three concerns:
The define-as-you-go problem. Teams don't establish a common process and metrics for making decisions up-front. Instead, they converge on a common approach in medias res. Eight of our interviewees corroborate this point. According to one application developer, "decisions were initially here and there, or something for a program manager to worry about. [But today] we are using a common process to help unify us. Now everyone says, 'here are the results,' 'here is what we're talking about.' Now we know what each of us is talking about, who's supposed to do what, when they're supposed to do it by, and when we'll make the go or no-go decision."
This is partly a trust problem. Newly assembled groups of knowledge workers, which may include a mix of lab scientists, material engineers, product designers, and others, need time to interact in unstructured ways to build trust. Some interviewees said they wanted this team-building to happen in concert with establishing a clear decision process. One product development VP told us about how his team has been together for years. However, it wasn't until a mandated off site training retreat "with exercises on how to do decision-making, with data and documentation" that his team adopted a more explicit approach to developing microprocessor chips. This retreat which both built trust and focused on decisions "improved his team's efficiency" in ways he hadn't initially considered.
The "Which metrics?" problem. Members lack certainty about what sort of data should predominate. Internal politics is one contributor to uncertainty. For example, in expressing why there is "a lack of rigor" within his team decision-making process, one electrical engineer at an aerospace firm described a turf war. "The technology leaders have a long term view when working with innovative ideas," while "on the other side, the business leaders have a short term view oriented to obtain a financial objective," causing his team's data orientation to flip-flop depending on which group had the upper hand.
In another case, firms report that fellow team members use a common set of analytical or quality control tools such as six sigma, risk/reward analysis, and failure mode and effects analysis. But, as five of our respondents confirm, teams are often internally inconsistent about which sorts of data to select to inform a decision, and which data is simply "white noise."
The "Which methods?" problem. Finally, organization-wide innovation processes do not transfer to the team setting. "We use a stage gate process at our firm, but our group's decision process seems much less standardized," says a senior chemical engineer, one of nine interviewees cited this problem. "Things are based more on our team leader."
Eleven of our interviewees reported that they frequently hand off data to inform decisions that will be made outside their team, often by senior management, a program leader, or a senior scientist. And yet, many of them openly wondered about whether the data they generate gets used by managers. Without feedback, teams can be left wondering whether their input to the organization-wide process was useful, whether it identified a new path to revenue or productivity, or whether they were just spinning their wheels. Betraying a sense of disconnection, a scientist in bio-pharma quipped that "I am not really involved in the higher level decision making process, so I cannot speak for the larger organization." Not an encouraging sign.
One cancer drug researcher believes her company has overcome this. She describes a highly interactive decision-making process, characterized by weekly meetings of teams from different functions and departments. Though key decisions are made by a project leader outside her immediate work group, these gatherings "provide a platform for open discussion, so everyone can see how they contribute, how their [opinions and data] are affecting the final decisions."
However, the transparency in decision-making at her firm is an exception, at least among our sample.
One method of overcoming a lack of data and structure on innovation teams that was mentioned piqued our interest. Several respondents report that they have started to use electronic voting to solve some of the problems described above. For example, one technology engineer told us that voting not only lets every one understand the groups' feeling about a project, but it also serves a gate keeping function. To reach milestones, the group must vote, but, "it's not possible for a group to reach a vote unless an appropriate amount of data has been collected." He acknowledges there's some flexibility in what 'appropriate' means.
Voting can also highlight a connection between a team's decision-making process and the organization-wide innovation process, making a team's input visible and documented. "People got to grade and vote on various criteria: What were the key issues? Which should weigh more heavily in decision-making to go forward?" said one engineer. "Each vote builds upon the next. We could show [all the teams involved] how the process was moving forward."
Any votes on how your team can improve its innovation decisions?
H. James Wilson is a Senior Researcher and Senior Writer at Babson Executive Education in Wellesley, MA. He is co-author of the HBR article, "Who's Bringing You Hot Ideas (And How Are You Responding)?"
Supere as resistências
Overcome Resistance With the Right Questions
January 22, 2010 by Kevin Daley
Managers meet resistance every day. The way they handle it often is counterproductive.
The resistance can come from a boss who won't approve a project, a management peer who refuses to provide resources, a customer who flatly rejects a proposal — anybody blocking you from meeting a goal.
The typical manager's default response when somebody keeps saying no is to keep selling the idea. The manager trots out more evidence to support the idea and describes the payoffs for the other person. And the person keeps saying no.
There's a better way.
Asking a series of easily answered questions will help the other person rethink his assumptions and open up possibilities for agreement. The idea was first proposed by Socrates in classical Athens some 2,400 years ago. The Socratic Method has helped opposing parties reach agreement ever since, though in today's more confrontational world it's greatly underused.
Asking a question like "Why do you say that?" can help you learn the reason why the other person isn't cooperating. The reason might surprise you.
Let's say that the financial officer is telling you the budget for your project is too high. Resist the impulse to list all the reasons why its benefits will outweigh its cost. Even worse, don't get into describing how the cost can be lowered. If, instead, you ask the officer why he said the budget's too high, you might learn it's too high for this quarter but that the project could be considered for the next quarter.
Or let's say an impatient boss says the meeting you led didn't accomplish anything. Ask what she means, instead of telling her about everything it did accomplish. Maybe she wanted it to resolve an issue — uppermost on her mind — that wasn't on the agenda.
You can easily dig a hole for yourself if you give a facile response to an objection without fully understanding what the other person means. A prospective customer asked a salesperson if his company provides customized products. The salesperson launched into a detailed description of the customized options the company offers. The customer was only making idle chatter, though. He was looking for a low-cost off-the-shelf solution. The salesperson's company could easily provide the wanted solution but the presentation got off track and never recovered.
Socrates put the case for using questioning rather than rapid-fire talking neatly: "Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue — to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak," he said. That's why we advise managers to give the other person most of the talk time whenever a discussion reaches an impasse.
Let's get more specific: what kinds of questions should you be asking?
You'll need different kinds of questions for different stages in the discussion. Here's a list of six categories of questions for a Socratic Dialogue, compiled by Richard Paul of the Center for Critical Studies:
• Questions that help clarify what the other person means.
• Questions that probe assumptions.
• Questions that look into the rationale, reasons and evidence the other person's using.
• Questions examining viewpoints and perspectives.
• Questions that probe implications and consequences.
• Questions get to the root of the other person's questions.
Asking the right questions is only the beginning of the process, however. You also have to listen carefully to the answers. Taking a cue from Socrates, you should listen with your eyes as well as your ears because the other person might be saying a lot with body language. Posture and movement can signal interest, openness and involvement — or their lack. If there's a disconnect between what you're hearing and what you're seeing, the other person's body language might have more meaning than the words being spoken.
Make it clear from your own body language that you're listening. It's not enough just to ask the question; you have to hear the answer. Lean forward, look closely at the other person, nod in agreement when appropriate. Paraphrase what you're hearing, to show you're listening — and to be certain that you heard it right.
Finally, as with any other dialogue, you must appeal to both the head and the heart of the other person. It isn't only the soundness of your argument that will determine the dialogue's outcome. Unless you also connect on an emotional level you can't be certain that the agreement you reach will be honored.
Kevin Daley is the founder of Communispond Inc., which has taught over 600,000 managers to communicate more effectively and is now celebrating its 40th anniversary. Now the lead executive coach for the company, Daley is the author of Talk Your Way to the Top and Socratic Selling, both published by McGraw-Hill.
January 22, 2010 by Kevin Daley
Managers meet resistance every day. The way they handle it often is counterproductive.
The resistance can come from a boss who won't approve a project, a management peer who refuses to provide resources, a customer who flatly rejects a proposal — anybody blocking you from meeting a goal.
The typical manager's default response when somebody keeps saying no is to keep selling the idea. The manager trots out more evidence to support the idea and describes the payoffs for the other person. And the person keeps saying no.
There's a better way.
Asking a series of easily answered questions will help the other person rethink his assumptions and open up possibilities for agreement. The idea was first proposed by Socrates in classical Athens some 2,400 years ago. The Socratic Method has helped opposing parties reach agreement ever since, though in today's more confrontational world it's greatly underused.
Asking a question like "Why do you say that?" can help you learn the reason why the other person isn't cooperating. The reason might surprise you.
Let's say that the financial officer is telling you the budget for your project is too high. Resist the impulse to list all the reasons why its benefits will outweigh its cost. Even worse, don't get into describing how the cost can be lowered. If, instead, you ask the officer why he said the budget's too high, you might learn it's too high for this quarter but that the project could be considered for the next quarter.
Or let's say an impatient boss says the meeting you led didn't accomplish anything. Ask what she means, instead of telling her about everything it did accomplish. Maybe she wanted it to resolve an issue — uppermost on her mind — that wasn't on the agenda.
You can easily dig a hole for yourself if you give a facile response to an objection without fully understanding what the other person means. A prospective customer asked a salesperson if his company provides customized products. The salesperson launched into a detailed description of the customized options the company offers. The customer was only making idle chatter, though. He was looking for a low-cost off-the-shelf solution. The salesperson's company could easily provide the wanted solution but the presentation got off track and never recovered.
Socrates put the case for using questioning rather than rapid-fire talking neatly: "Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue — to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak," he said. That's why we advise managers to give the other person most of the talk time whenever a discussion reaches an impasse.
Let's get more specific: what kinds of questions should you be asking?
You'll need different kinds of questions for different stages in the discussion. Here's a list of six categories of questions for a Socratic Dialogue, compiled by Richard Paul of the Center for Critical Studies:
• Questions that help clarify what the other person means.
• Questions that probe assumptions.
• Questions that look into the rationale, reasons and evidence the other person's using.
• Questions examining viewpoints and perspectives.
• Questions that probe implications and consequences.
• Questions get to the root of the other person's questions.
Asking the right questions is only the beginning of the process, however. You also have to listen carefully to the answers. Taking a cue from Socrates, you should listen with your eyes as well as your ears because the other person might be saying a lot with body language. Posture and movement can signal interest, openness and involvement — or their lack. If there's a disconnect between what you're hearing and what you're seeing, the other person's body language might have more meaning than the words being spoken.
Make it clear from your own body language that you're listening. It's not enough just to ask the question; you have to hear the answer. Lean forward, look closely at the other person, nod in agreement when appropriate. Paraphrase what you're hearing, to show you're listening — and to be certain that you heard it right.
Finally, as with any other dialogue, you must appeal to both the head and the heart of the other person. It isn't only the soundness of your argument that will determine the dialogue's outcome. Unless you also connect on an emotional level you can't be certain that the agreement you reach will be honored.
Kevin Daley is the founder of Communispond Inc., which has taught over 600,000 managers to communicate more effectively and is now celebrating its 40th anniversary. Now the lead executive coach for the company, Daley is the author of Talk Your Way to the Top and Socratic Selling, both published by McGraw-Hill.
Pensamento avançado
Design Thinking 201
May 14, 2010 -
Back in August when I first started contributing on a regular basis to The World, I wrote a column called Design Thinking 101. In that article, I introduced the general process IDEO used to design a more patient-friendly process for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. I called it Investigate, Design, Experiment, Adjust: I.D.E.A.
It's a handy acronym, but it's important to realize that these general phases are carried out in reiterating loops. And, even though the terms are fairly self-explanatory, a little explanation is in order. Each phase is focused on answering a few key questions.
Investigate is conducting the fact-finding needed to fully assess the current situation and analyze the problem/opportunity. It usually entails a good bit of immersing yourself in the customer's problem (see OPEN Forum article Customer-Centric Design: Got Empathy?).
• What does the current situation look like—what do we know, what don't we know?
• What is the problem the customer really wants solved?
• Why does the problem exist—what's the real or root cause?
Design is about painting a picture of what the world looks like if the problem is solved, and then generating and building up ideas that move us in that direction.
• What does the situation look like in the future if the problem is solved?
• What ideas exist for achieving that desired state?
• What is the best solution—what can we pilot quickly to test our thinking?
Experiment is selecting an option or solution that holds promise, and conducting a rapid pilot to quickly test a prototype, be it service, product, process or strategy.
• How will you rapidly test the solution?
• What do you expect will happen during that experiment?
• What is scope of impact, and what will it measure?
Adjust is the assess-and-tweek phase, where results are compared to the expected outcomes and measures, followed by a reiteration of the improved solution.
• What worked, what didn't, and why?
• What adjustments must be made?
• What is the plan for reiterating?
The beauty of I.D.E.A. Loops is that they can apply to all situations, thus opening up everyday innovation to the everyman through a design thinking focus. Investigation, Design, Experimentation and Adjustment are the universal common denominators to successful innovation.
Think about it: A physician in the emergency room; a customer service representative responding to a complaint; an inventor in his workshop; an artist at her easel; a scientist in the laboratory; an operator on a 911 call; a factory worker on the shop floor; a copywriter crafting a new advertisement; an engineer programming new software—what they all have in common is IDEA Loops.
They all perform the same basic activities. It’s just the subject matter varies. The timeframe they work under varies. How they do it varies. The environment in which they do it varies.
What we're really talking about is learning. Not the acquisition of existing knowledge kind of learning. Rather, the creation of new knowledge kind of learning, brought about by experimentation. And it's so simple a child can do it. In fact, I.D.E.A. Loops come naturally.
The next time you see an infant in a high chair throwing food on the floor, know that you’re watching an I.D.E.A. Loop in action. She’s wondering what will happen if she drops her strained carrots. The problem is how to get them on the ground. She could tip her dish over the tray, flick her spoon or grab a fistful and toss away. She tries the tip. It works. Great feedback from the dish as it crashes on the tile. She confirms her test by doing it again after mom picks it up. It works so well she adopts it as her current preferred method. Lesson learned, though: Mom doesn’t like it. So she launches another experiment.
The problem is that our natural born learning, our natural curiosity, gets replaced by the overemphasis on getting the right answer—the one the teacher, and then the boss, wants—as we move through the educational system and into the organizational one. I.D.E.A. Loops, if carried through the company as a consistent approach to solving problems, can get us back into that learning mindset, and are helpful in creating a design thinking culture in several ways.
One reason so many people find it hard to be creative and so many companies find it hard to innovate is that they lack a consistent approach to the problems they and their customers face. At the heart of all remarkable innovations in any realm lies a rigorous routine, a disciplined methodology, like an I.D.E.A. Loop. Everyone has a different name for it, but every problem-solving cycle has the key elements of proactive learning in common: questioning, hypothesizing, experimenting, reflecting.
And, a common approach leads to common terminology. That terminology, if matched well to the task and goal, begins to build a common language. And language is so very important to creating the systems and structures that drive success. Having a common method focuses thought and action. It unifies them into an accessible approach that’s easy for people to understand and follow. That’s important, because everyone wants a roadmap, especially for more challenging ventures.
Perhaps what's most important to realize, though, is that there is no failure in the learning cycle. If you’ve ever wondered why pilot projects don't fail while big, one-shot, one-off projects almost always do, it’s because the goal of any pilot is to learn. So you can’t help but succeed. It’s the difference between movies and TV. TV producers always pilot a new series with a few episodes to see the audience response. Movie producers develop the final product with a bet-it-all-gambit, relying on past experience as the key input. That’s risky, very risky.
Whether it's called an I.D.E.A. Loop or codified as something else, if you insist, and persist, on a common approach centered on a rapid learning cycle of testing, experimenting, piloting, and prototyping, you’ll have a good shot at becoming a company of design thinkers solving internal and external problems as a way of life.
Matthew E. May is a design and innovation strategist, and the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing. He blogs here. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Tags: adjust, design, design thinking, experiment, i.d.e.a. loops, in pursuit of elegance, investigate, matthew e. may, problem solving, solution
May 14, 2010 -
Back in August when I first started contributing on a regular basis to The World, I wrote a column called Design Thinking 101. In that article, I introduced the general process IDEO used to design a more patient-friendly process for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. I called it Investigate, Design, Experiment, Adjust: I.D.E.A.
It's a handy acronym, but it's important to realize that these general phases are carried out in reiterating loops. And, even though the terms are fairly self-explanatory, a little explanation is in order. Each phase is focused on answering a few key questions.
Investigate is conducting the fact-finding needed to fully assess the current situation and analyze the problem/opportunity. It usually entails a good bit of immersing yourself in the customer's problem (see OPEN Forum article Customer-Centric Design: Got Empathy?).
• What does the current situation look like—what do we know, what don't we know?
• What is the problem the customer really wants solved?
• Why does the problem exist—what's the real or root cause?
Design is about painting a picture of what the world looks like if the problem is solved, and then generating and building up ideas that move us in that direction.
• What does the situation look like in the future if the problem is solved?
• What ideas exist for achieving that desired state?
• What is the best solution—what can we pilot quickly to test our thinking?
Experiment is selecting an option or solution that holds promise, and conducting a rapid pilot to quickly test a prototype, be it service, product, process or strategy.
• How will you rapidly test the solution?
• What do you expect will happen during that experiment?
• What is scope of impact, and what will it measure?
Adjust is the assess-and-tweek phase, where results are compared to the expected outcomes and measures, followed by a reiteration of the improved solution.
• What worked, what didn't, and why?
• What adjustments must be made?
• What is the plan for reiterating?
The beauty of I.D.E.A. Loops is that they can apply to all situations, thus opening up everyday innovation to the everyman through a design thinking focus. Investigation, Design, Experimentation and Adjustment are the universal common denominators to successful innovation.
Think about it: A physician in the emergency room; a customer service representative responding to a complaint; an inventor in his workshop; an artist at her easel; a scientist in the laboratory; an operator on a 911 call; a factory worker on the shop floor; a copywriter crafting a new advertisement; an engineer programming new software—what they all have in common is IDEA Loops.
They all perform the same basic activities. It’s just the subject matter varies. The timeframe they work under varies. How they do it varies. The environment in which they do it varies.
What we're really talking about is learning. Not the acquisition of existing knowledge kind of learning. Rather, the creation of new knowledge kind of learning, brought about by experimentation. And it's so simple a child can do it. In fact, I.D.E.A. Loops come naturally.
The next time you see an infant in a high chair throwing food on the floor, know that you’re watching an I.D.E.A. Loop in action. She’s wondering what will happen if she drops her strained carrots. The problem is how to get them on the ground. She could tip her dish over the tray, flick her spoon or grab a fistful and toss away. She tries the tip. It works. Great feedback from the dish as it crashes on the tile. She confirms her test by doing it again after mom picks it up. It works so well she adopts it as her current preferred method. Lesson learned, though: Mom doesn’t like it. So she launches another experiment.
The problem is that our natural born learning, our natural curiosity, gets replaced by the overemphasis on getting the right answer—the one the teacher, and then the boss, wants—as we move through the educational system and into the organizational one. I.D.E.A. Loops, if carried through the company as a consistent approach to solving problems, can get us back into that learning mindset, and are helpful in creating a design thinking culture in several ways.
One reason so many people find it hard to be creative and so many companies find it hard to innovate is that they lack a consistent approach to the problems they and their customers face. At the heart of all remarkable innovations in any realm lies a rigorous routine, a disciplined methodology, like an I.D.E.A. Loop. Everyone has a different name for it, but every problem-solving cycle has the key elements of proactive learning in common: questioning, hypothesizing, experimenting, reflecting.
And, a common approach leads to common terminology. That terminology, if matched well to the task and goal, begins to build a common language. And language is so very important to creating the systems and structures that drive success. Having a common method focuses thought and action. It unifies them into an accessible approach that’s easy for people to understand and follow. That’s important, because everyone wants a roadmap, especially for more challenging ventures.
Perhaps what's most important to realize, though, is that there is no failure in the learning cycle. If you’ve ever wondered why pilot projects don't fail while big, one-shot, one-off projects almost always do, it’s because the goal of any pilot is to learn. So you can’t help but succeed. It’s the difference between movies and TV. TV producers always pilot a new series with a few episodes to see the audience response. Movie producers develop the final product with a bet-it-all-gambit, relying on past experience as the key input. That’s risky, very risky.
Whether it's called an I.D.E.A. Loop or codified as something else, if you insist, and persist, on a common approach centered on a rapid learning cycle of testing, experimenting, piloting, and prototyping, you’ll have a good shot at becoming a company of design thinkers solving internal and external problems as a way of life.
Matthew E. May is a design and innovation strategist, and the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing. He blogs here. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Tags: adjust, design, design thinking, experiment, i.d.e.a. loops, in pursuit of elegance, investigate, matthew e. may, problem solving, solution
Marketing digital
The Art of Referral Marketing
May 13, 2010 -
John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award-winning social media publisher, and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide and The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing System and Duct Tape Marketing Coach Network that trains and licenses small business marketing coaches around the world. In this interview, we dig into the strategy and tactics of getting referrals.
• Q: What’s the difference between a referral and a sales lead?
• A: A sales lead is someone that has responded to a sales message or call to action while a referral is generally someone that’s been introduced to your message by a trusted friend or colleague.
• Q: Why do people make referrals?
• A: People make them for a variety of reasons, and it’s important to understand each motivation. They make them because they want to help their friend. They make them because they want to see the business they are referring make it – they like them. They make them to be seen as a “go to” person for resources and they make them to store up goodwill for when they might need one.
• Q: Why do so few companies systematize referrals?
• A: It feels counterintuitive to create a system for referrals, but I also think that it stems from the fact that people tend to think referrals happen accidentally or least in a way that they are not in control of. In my experience, they happen because a company is worth talking about, but they can happen more if you create a system that makes that act easier to do.
• Q: What’s the best platform for referral marketing: website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn?
• A: It’s some combination of all of those and a healthy dose of hugs and handshakes. Social media tools can greatly enhance the speed and which in person engagement happens. An active blog is a tremendous trust builder because it allows a referred source to find you when they search and then find plenty of information that they can use to sell themselves on your expertise.
• Q: What place, if any, does monetary compensation play in referral marketing?
• A: In a low dollar transaction business, it can help someone choose to refer your products. Most businesses that rely on referrals, however, are going to get a much higher quality referral if the person making the referral is motivated for social rather than financial reasons. Having said that, appreciation is one form of payment that must go hand in hand with your referral system and every once in a while buy a dinner and some flowers.
• Q: How should you ask for a referral from your customers?
• A: By setting the expectation in the lead conversion process. Introduce the idea of passing value to friends and colleagues before a prospect ever becomes a client. Let a prospect know you intend to create a remarkable result, create a remarkable result, communicate that value achieved and then help them understand the value in introducing your organization to others who need that same result
• Q: How should one give a referral?
• A: The first order is to build a network of “best of class” resources for everything your clients may need. Then actively seek opportunities to create exposure for those partners through content and community. Get involved in the process of giving and follow-up to make sure a good shared result was achieved.
• Q: What are the elements of a good referral website page?
• A: A website is a great tool to use to educate those who want to refer your business. Tell them how to spot your ideal client, tell them how to best explain what you do best in simple terms, tell them the kinds of things your ideal clients say that would indicate they need what you do, and finally, tell them your entire marketing process once they refer someone to your business.
• Q: What if your product hasn’t launched yet—how do you tap referral marketing?
• A: Start by researching and finding the business partners that could, either by reputation or referral, be a part of your dream team platform. Look for ways to interview them, ask them to guest blog, and teach you the best way to introduce their business to your growing network of prospects. This group will prove invaluable when you do launch.
• Q: What do employees need to make referral marketing work?
• A: They need to know it’s okay to deviate from the system when trying to create a great customer experience, they need be taught how to spot opportunities to get people talking about the business and they need to be rewarded for generating testimonials, success stories and referrals.
To learn more about referral marketing, be sure to read The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself and follow John on Twitter at @Ducttape.
Tags: alltop, customers, duct tape marketing, guy kawasaki, how to change the world, john jantsch, referral marketing, referrals, social media, website
May 13, 2010 -
John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award-winning social media publisher, and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide and The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing System and Duct Tape Marketing Coach Network that trains and licenses small business marketing coaches around the world. In this interview, we dig into the strategy and tactics of getting referrals.
• Q: What’s the difference between a referral and a sales lead?
• A: A sales lead is someone that has responded to a sales message or call to action while a referral is generally someone that’s been introduced to your message by a trusted friend or colleague.
• Q: Why do people make referrals?
• A: People make them for a variety of reasons, and it’s important to understand each motivation. They make them because they want to help their friend. They make them because they want to see the business they are referring make it – they like them. They make them to be seen as a “go to” person for resources and they make them to store up goodwill for when they might need one.
• Q: Why do so few companies systematize referrals?
• A: It feels counterintuitive to create a system for referrals, but I also think that it stems from the fact that people tend to think referrals happen accidentally or least in a way that they are not in control of. In my experience, they happen because a company is worth talking about, but they can happen more if you create a system that makes that act easier to do.
• Q: What’s the best platform for referral marketing: website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn?
• A: It’s some combination of all of those and a healthy dose of hugs and handshakes. Social media tools can greatly enhance the speed and which in person engagement happens. An active blog is a tremendous trust builder because it allows a referred source to find you when they search and then find plenty of information that they can use to sell themselves on your expertise.
• Q: What place, if any, does monetary compensation play in referral marketing?
• A: In a low dollar transaction business, it can help someone choose to refer your products. Most businesses that rely on referrals, however, are going to get a much higher quality referral if the person making the referral is motivated for social rather than financial reasons. Having said that, appreciation is one form of payment that must go hand in hand with your referral system and every once in a while buy a dinner and some flowers.
• Q: How should you ask for a referral from your customers?
• A: By setting the expectation in the lead conversion process. Introduce the idea of passing value to friends and colleagues before a prospect ever becomes a client. Let a prospect know you intend to create a remarkable result, create a remarkable result, communicate that value achieved and then help them understand the value in introducing your organization to others who need that same result
• Q: How should one give a referral?
• A: The first order is to build a network of “best of class” resources for everything your clients may need. Then actively seek opportunities to create exposure for those partners through content and community. Get involved in the process of giving and follow-up to make sure a good shared result was achieved.
• Q: What are the elements of a good referral website page?
• A: A website is a great tool to use to educate those who want to refer your business. Tell them how to spot your ideal client, tell them how to best explain what you do best in simple terms, tell them the kinds of things your ideal clients say that would indicate they need what you do, and finally, tell them your entire marketing process once they refer someone to your business.
• Q: What if your product hasn’t launched yet—how do you tap referral marketing?
• A: Start by researching and finding the business partners that could, either by reputation or referral, be a part of your dream team platform. Look for ways to interview them, ask them to guest blog, and teach you the best way to introduce their business to your growing network of prospects. This group will prove invaluable when you do launch.
• Q: What do employees need to make referral marketing work?
• A: They need to know it’s okay to deviate from the system when trying to create a great customer experience, they need be taught how to spot opportunities to get people talking about the business and they need to be rewarded for generating testimonials, success stories and referrals.
To learn more about referral marketing, be sure to read The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself and follow John on Twitter at @Ducttape.
Tags: alltop, customers, duct tape marketing, guy kawasaki, how to change the world, john jantsch, referral marketing, referrals, social media, website
Reportagens da Open Forum
How to Solve an X Problem
May 21, 2010 -
I was familiar with “wicked” problems—intractable, multifarious, tough-to-solve challenges—as part of my livelihood derives from working with teams in companies trying to solve them, but until I read Innovation X: Why a Company’s Toughest Problems Are Its Greatest Asset, by Adam Richardson, a creative director at frog design, I had never heard of an “X” problem. And that, of course, made me curious to not just read the book, but ask Adam a few questions.
Q: What is Innovation X about, in a nutshell?
A: It’s about answering a single question: if so many companies have been focused on innovation, why are so few seeing the results they expected? Improving innovation capabilities has been a huge emphasis for companies in the last decade, especially focusing on organizational challenges—impermeable silos, slow decision-making, etc. But in working with a wide spectrum of clients, from startups to large corporations, I came to understand that a big obstacle to innovation effectiveness comes as much from the outside, and that the very complexity of problems that companies must deal with is what’s getting in the way. In other words, the problem is the problem! If you optimize your organization and processes but don’t have a good handle on the problem you’re trying to solve, all you’re doing is bringing the wrong products to market, faster.
I call these new, very complex challenges, X-problems. And I happen to believe that if you think about them in the right way, you can turn them into a competitive advantage.
Q: What are the key elements of an X problem?
A: First, customers are becoming more sophisticated and demanding, and understanding what they want is harder today. Second, many industries and categories are colliding, pitting companies against one another in unexpected and disruptive ways. Third, companies are realizing they need to create ecosystems of products, software and services in order to be competitive, and to satisfy those more demanding customers.
These three dynamics are often treated as separate symptoms, but I see them as inter-related and inseparable, and they work together to form a new breed of business challenge: the X-problem.
Q: Can you give me an example of an X problem and how a small business solved it?
A: Good question. Many look to companies like Apple and Google and want to emulate their success, but there are many other examples out there of companies, even smaller ones, successfully using X-problems to their advantage.
Consider the X-problem of the stagnant, unimaginative camcorder category. All the large established players were making their devices based on feature lists and tech specs, and had forgotten how and why people shoot videos in the first place. Pure Digital Technologies, a small startup, created Flip digital camcorders and in a few short years became the number two camcorder maker behind Sony. How? By focusing on simplicity, fun and spontaneity of use, and taking out all the expensive features to keep the price low. Pure Digital created a whole new category and got people using video again. It worked so well Cisco Systems recently acquired Pure Digital for nearly $600 million.
Q: Peter Drucker maintained that innovation is the specific tool of the entrepreneur...do you find that entrepreneurs and small businesses are better suited to handle X problems than large corporations? And if so, why might that be, in your view?
A: Smaller businesses and entrepreneurs absolutely have some significant advantages over large established companies in addressing X-problems. Solving X-problems is best done with an experimental, nimble approach. Small companies are well-suited for this as they are typically less encumbered by convention, have more fluid decision-making, and rely more on “hunch-ology“ than waiting until everything gets confirmed by masses of data. So they can be more adaptable to the unfolding problem.
Many entrepreneurs also have a more intimate understanding of their customers than large corporations which can give insights about changing needs.
Take Clif Bar, for example, the maker of energy snacks for athletes. They have stayed small and private, but do very well competing against international giants like Kraft and Nestle. They stay in very close, continuous conversation with customers, but always process the inputs through a filter that balances suggestions with a clear understanding of their brand, their production capabilities, new snack production technologies, and so on. They try to innovate on behalf of customers rather than just following trends. In fact their only significant failure came when they followed—reluctantly—the Atkins diet trend a few years ago. It was painful, but in fact it helped re-clarify what they stood for as a company.
Q: What’s the one thing you want your readers to do or take away from Innovation X?
A: I think it's that innovation is more important than ever in today’s environment of hyper-competition and demanding customers. X-problems make it harder to do innovate effectively, but if you can solve and tackle them well, they’ll open up new ways of engaging with your customers, and create long-term differentiation for your business. The message is, keep on innovating!
I recently had the opportunity to watch up-close how frog helped guide a company toward solving an X-problem, which for me validated the practical nature of what Adam advises in Innovation X. His discussion of how to map the entire “customer journey” is particularly insightful and helpful, and worth far more than the price of the book. In fact, it’s invaluable.
Adam blogs here, and you can follow him on Twitter here.
Matthew E. May is a design and innovation strategist, and the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing. He blogs here. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Tags: adam richardson, in pursuit of elegance, innovation, matthew e. may, problem solving, x problem
May 21, 2010 -
I was familiar with “wicked” problems—intractable, multifarious, tough-to-solve challenges—as part of my livelihood derives from working with teams in companies trying to solve them, but until I read Innovation X: Why a Company’s Toughest Problems Are Its Greatest Asset, by Adam Richardson, a creative director at frog design, I had never heard of an “X” problem. And that, of course, made me curious to not just read the book, but ask Adam a few questions.
Q: What is Innovation X about, in a nutshell?
A: It’s about answering a single question: if so many companies have been focused on innovation, why are so few seeing the results they expected? Improving innovation capabilities has been a huge emphasis for companies in the last decade, especially focusing on organizational challenges—impermeable silos, slow decision-making, etc. But in working with a wide spectrum of clients, from startups to large corporations, I came to understand that a big obstacle to innovation effectiveness comes as much from the outside, and that the very complexity of problems that companies must deal with is what’s getting in the way. In other words, the problem is the problem! If you optimize your organization and processes but don’t have a good handle on the problem you’re trying to solve, all you’re doing is bringing the wrong products to market, faster.
I call these new, very complex challenges, X-problems. And I happen to believe that if you think about them in the right way, you can turn them into a competitive advantage.
Q: What are the key elements of an X problem?
A: First, customers are becoming more sophisticated and demanding, and understanding what they want is harder today. Second, many industries and categories are colliding, pitting companies against one another in unexpected and disruptive ways. Third, companies are realizing they need to create ecosystems of products, software and services in order to be competitive, and to satisfy those more demanding customers.
These three dynamics are often treated as separate symptoms, but I see them as inter-related and inseparable, and they work together to form a new breed of business challenge: the X-problem.
Q: Can you give me an example of an X problem and how a small business solved it?
A: Good question. Many look to companies like Apple and Google and want to emulate their success, but there are many other examples out there of companies, even smaller ones, successfully using X-problems to their advantage.
Consider the X-problem of the stagnant, unimaginative camcorder category. All the large established players were making their devices based on feature lists and tech specs, and had forgotten how and why people shoot videos in the first place. Pure Digital Technologies, a small startup, created Flip digital camcorders and in a few short years became the number two camcorder maker behind Sony. How? By focusing on simplicity, fun and spontaneity of use, and taking out all the expensive features to keep the price low. Pure Digital created a whole new category and got people using video again. It worked so well Cisco Systems recently acquired Pure Digital for nearly $600 million.
Q: Peter Drucker maintained that innovation is the specific tool of the entrepreneur...do you find that entrepreneurs and small businesses are better suited to handle X problems than large corporations? And if so, why might that be, in your view?
A: Smaller businesses and entrepreneurs absolutely have some significant advantages over large established companies in addressing X-problems. Solving X-problems is best done with an experimental, nimble approach. Small companies are well-suited for this as they are typically less encumbered by convention, have more fluid decision-making, and rely more on “hunch-ology“ than waiting until everything gets confirmed by masses of data. So they can be more adaptable to the unfolding problem.
Many entrepreneurs also have a more intimate understanding of their customers than large corporations which can give insights about changing needs.
Take Clif Bar, for example, the maker of energy snacks for athletes. They have stayed small and private, but do very well competing against international giants like Kraft and Nestle. They stay in very close, continuous conversation with customers, but always process the inputs through a filter that balances suggestions with a clear understanding of their brand, their production capabilities, new snack production technologies, and so on. They try to innovate on behalf of customers rather than just following trends. In fact their only significant failure came when they followed—reluctantly—the Atkins diet trend a few years ago. It was painful, but in fact it helped re-clarify what they stood for as a company.
Q: What’s the one thing you want your readers to do or take away from Innovation X?
A: I think it's that innovation is more important than ever in today’s environment of hyper-competition and demanding customers. X-problems make it harder to do innovate effectively, but if you can solve and tackle them well, they’ll open up new ways of engaging with your customers, and create long-term differentiation for your business. The message is, keep on innovating!
I recently had the opportunity to watch up-close how frog helped guide a company toward solving an X-problem, which for me validated the practical nature of what Adam advises in Innovation X. His discussion of how to map the entire “customer journey” is particularly insightful and helpful, and worth far more than the price of the book. In fact, it’s invaluable.
Adam blogs here, and you can follow him on Twitter here.
Matthew E. May is a design and innovation strategist, and the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing. He blogs here. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Tags: adam richardson, in pursuit of elegance, innovation, matthew e. may, problem solving, x problem
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