threetree consulting

So - we've set up our new business. We at least have an existing client base from our parent company Strategic Systems Solutions to build on, which gives us a stronger starting position than many new startups, as well as a strong bed of individual and collective talent in our staff. We have a marketing budget - as much as can be expected in these difficult times - a sales team, we have flyers, service offerings, portfolios, we can take out ads etc etc... So why do we need to spend time each week writing individual blogs - surely we're busy enough already?

Simple - we need to start a conversation.

Traditional marketing is a one way process - essentially we stand on a rooftop or street corner and shout as loud as we can about how great we are to as many people as we can reach. There's a great deal more to it than that, but that's the essence. Go to any street food market and spend five minutes wandering around and you'll see most of what you need to know about straightforward marketing - everything's presented to it's best advantage, with the best produce at the front, on display. There are signs up advertising quality or bargains. And above all, there's the noise. Stall owners are shouting out their pitch or their best offers. On a busy day, you can hardly hear yourself think.

And there's the problem. With this approach, in a busy marketplace, the best you can manage is to shout louder than anyone else. There's not a lot of room for detail or subtlety - any message has to be delivered at top volume and short enough that someone walking quickly by will hear it. And the guys either side of you are doing exactly the same.

Granted - you're offering quality stuff. Your fruit and veg is shiny and fresh and tasty - you don't pull that trick where customers point at your fresh oranges and you pass them over a bag from the back of the stall that's more like lumpy soup. But really, so's everyone else. In any good marketplace the charlatans get weeded out pretty quickly - it's repeat business that earns you the money, after all. Your financial security relies on people coming back to you again and again - often walking past other stalls to get to you.

There's a decent food market in Newcastle - the Grainger Market. In this market, there are three fishmongers' stalls, all side by side. So far as I can tell, they all offer the same kind of stuff at the same prices, with a pretty consistent quality. And yet, whenever I buy fish, I always walk past the first two and go to the one at the bottom.

Why do I do this?

Because I like the guy that runs the stall. When I've bought things before, he's been friendly and chatty - he's given me advice about how to cook squid and scallops. He gets excited when he gets something new or in season on the stall and enjoys telling people about it. He's suggested I buy raw tiger prawns with the shell on as he reckons the flavour's better, even though he sells the shelled variety for more money.

He was particularly excited one afternoon when I was buying squid because he had some fresh razor clams (one of them was still moving on its bed of ice, so they were definitely fresh). He explained how they can be tricky to catch in bulk but you can catch them yourself by going to the right beaches at low tide armed only with a bag and a salt shaker. Supposedly you look for the little round holes in the sand. When you find them, sprinkle the salt into it and, after a minute or two, for whatever reason, the clam comes up to 'investigate', exposing the mollusc and the upper part of the shell. You grip that firmly and pull it up and into the bag. Job done. He was also very descriptive on how lovely they are grilled and smothered in butter (although, to be fair, most things are).

Although I hardly know him well, I felt completely comfortable to act on his recommendation, because I knew it wasn't because he had a job lot of them and they needed shifting. He wasn't shouting "Razor clams - two for a pound!" - he was talking to me and with me and I trusted his enthusiasm for what he was selling. I bought some and they were delicious, just as he said they would be.

That's why I go to him whenever I shop for fish. And that's why, as a business, you should be blogging.

Traditional marketing is a megaphone - a one way conversation. What you have to say and to sell has to be reduced to bite size chunks. Your blog is your chance to show people who you really are, to present an honest, personal face. To share your own thoughts and ideas. And above all, to have a conversation. The comments section on a blog is easily as, if not more, important than the entry itself. When people are having a conversation on your site and you can follow it and join in with it. You get to hear how people respond to what you have to say and chip in with ideas of their own. You are listening to your customers, to potential customers, discussing your ideas and theirs.

And, as you come to know each other, that's where trust is formed. People prefer to buy from someone they know and trust. It's not all about selling - people can spot a mile off when it's just a cynical marketing ploy. But when you make it a habit to write, once a week or a couple of times a month to kick off a conversation and to join in afterwards, that's where the real value is and the returns will follow.

It doesn't have to be anything earth-shattering. Just write about something interesting, useful or thought-provoking you saw this week. Once you have built an audience you can just link to something of interest and ask them what they think. Bounce ideas off them. If you're really stuck, just tell them how to catch clams. Worked on me.

Please Note: We're working to get our site set up and, at time of writing, a lot of the blogging features are not yet set up, including comments. This will change shortly.

Simon Knaggs is a Knowledge Management consultant with 5 years KM experience and several highly successful projects under his belt. He's run restructure and reconfiguration programs for companies in the private and public sector and is currently running a global knowledge management/SharePoint consultancy for Citigroup.

Now this may seem a touch obvious, like telling you that eating and breathing greatly increases your life expectancy, but the single, most insightful piece of advice I can give any consultant is this:
 
Listen to your client.
 
And that’s it, really. Job done, end of blog post, see you next time!
 
But seriously, really, really, REALLY listen to your client. But we all know this, right? It’s the first “C” in Mick Cope’s Seven Cs of Consulting (i.e. “Client”). It’s there in all of Alan Weiss’ books. It’s also a huge component of Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting, along with many other classic tomes. So why do so many consultants forget? Why do engagements go wrong? How come they often fall short of client’s expectations? And why are there tons of jokes typically amounting to consultants being the corporate equivalent of prostitutes but without much in the way of customer satisfaction?
 
I maintain that if you really listen to your client, you can’t go wrong. Sure, there’s some skill in actually carrying out the engagement, but my sure-fire recipe for success (which has yet to fail me) is to listen intently, stay close and build trust, and keep your client informed at all times.
 
Build your engagement process around these principles and you’re onto a winner.
 
Obviously you’ll need to gently probe your client (there’s the prostitution parallels again!) in order to elicit the info you need. You’ll need to understand the scope of the engagement, the reasons why the problems/challenges have surfaced, what’s been tried before, why they think you can help, the objectives you’re trying to achieve (measurable and time-bound), any concerns/risks they have, and so on.
 
Key to this “listening stage”, if you will, is the client’s picture of success. What deliverables are you expected to produce and why? Will they be presented or just mailed across? Who is their audience? Is this to be formal or informal? How should everyone feel once you’ve finished? Will there be any follow-on work?
 
In conclusion, my rationale here is that if you really listen to the client to find out why they want this piece of work and what the end-result should look like, and strengthen this through regular communication, letting them know exactly what you’re doing to achieve this every step of the way, then you can’t go wrong. Nothing’s a surprise, and any issues that do arise are course-corrected early without too much pain.
 
It’s what we’ve known all along, to be honest. The smart folks don’t waste their time telling everyone how great they are. They’re much more inclined to listen and learn.

Question:

What do companies and squids have in common?

Answer:

They both produce confusing clouds of ink when threatened.

Communication and collaboration - these are big buzzwords right now. Arguably they are two of the holy grails of modern business. But why do so many businesses fail at these simple things?

Because, in practice, they are actually very far from simple. Staff are busy, stressed and far too occupied with their own jobs to spend serious time and effort helping someone else do theirs. Domain knowledge is equated with job security - 'They can't sack me, I'm the only one who knows how xyz works" - so no-one wants share too much of it. People use jargon and buzzwords defensively - like the squid's ink. And they are cynically weary about the enthusiastic new projects to 'change everything for the better' that crop up every now and again, when someone in senior management has read an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review and reckons the generic template will fit just right...

It's true, there have been some significant technical advances in the last few years - new packages like Microsoft's SharePoint have opened up new worlds of possibilities for businesses. Collaboration and co-operation are suddenly real, tangible concepts. But these packages aren't magic wands. You can't just buy and install them and expect productivity to suddenly soar. It would be great if it was that simple, sure, but the world doesn't really work that way.

If you Build it, They Won't Come

The 'Field of Dreams' approach is probably the most common one adopted. You buy your shiny new product, and pass it across to the tech guys. They install it and build a generic system with as many of the new and exciting bells and whistles switched on as they can support. You then unveil your vision of the new, more efficient company to everyone, point proudly at your new system and say 'Look! Shiny!"

And everyone looks up briefly from what they are doing, grunts and goes back to working the way they always have.

"What happened?" you say. This should have fixed everything. It says so right on the box...

Why Bother at All?

If all this is true, then why bother with this at all? Because the rewards for success are enormous! Successful, properly run collaborations between different departments and locations can yield huge results - improvements in production, testing, usage... Better products, quicker, more targetted research, increased sales (what if your tech support teams were feeding targetted leads to your sales teams?), better customer relationships - a fitter, more agile company. And the proof is there. Leading companies have implemented successful knowledge management projects in the last few years and are reaping serious rewards for their efforts.

So What's the Key?

The new tech is important, no argument there. Collaboration spaces, wikis, SharePoint - none of this is really possible without these clever, massively useful new tools. But they don't do it for you. You wouldn't build a car by just dumping your toolkit out on the garage floor and just walking away.

The key is that you need to change the way you work, the way your business is configured, the way your staff approach their day-to-day work. Once this is done, once your new structure is in place, the tools are the capstone. SharePoint, for instance (if that's what you use), is the tool that holds it all together and lets the change stick and maintain itself for years afterward.

And this is by no means as hard as it sounds. If you are prepared to put the time in - sit down with staff and management alike and LISTEN - listen to what they want and incorporate that into your plan. Use existing efforts - people are already keeping their own notes and writing emails by the bucketload. Can you redirect that existing effort into something more useful?

Put the time and thought in, do it properly and the benefits will be there for all to see.

Or better yet - get somebody else to do it for you.

Simon Knaggs

Simon is a Knowledge Management consultant with 5 years KM experience and several highly successful projects under his belt. He's run restructure and reconfiguration programs for companies in the private and public sector and is currently running a global knowledge management/SharePoint consultancy for Citigroup.

Simon firmly believes in the proven value of what he does and is sad enough to be genuinely excited about his job. He's a Prince2 Practitioner and he runs a tight ship, project-wise.

I\'ve been reading Tara Hunt\'s The Whuffie Factor and one of the examples in the early chapters really got me thinking. She talks about an online venture called Eventful Demand. You can check it out for yourself, but it\'s a simple enough idea - it\'s essentially a workflowed forum where you can request that your favourite bands or musicians come and play a tour date near you. Artists sign up for it and get a widget for their own website and fans can request through that or direct on the ED website. They just collate and process the data and, when the band or artist plans their tour they just work off spikes of demand in the data to choose venues. There are testimonials of entire tours being very successfully planned using this simple tool.

In many ways this captures the essence of the whole commercial 2.0 thing - simple collaboration tools and approaches that directly involve your customer base/target audience, taps their opinion and gives it back to you in a format you can use in a meaningful (and profitable) way. It\'s simple, direct and opens a channel for communication between producer (in this case the band or artist) and customer/consumer (in this case the music fan). Not only do the artists get the advantage of reduced risk and increased profitability from assured ticket sales, by involving their fans directly they strengthen ties and loyalty and give them a real sense of involvement. Such a simple idea, but it\'s a real win-win for everyone involved, particularly for smaller or newer outfits that are just getting started and can\'t rely on the \'pull\' of bigger bands.

Now this is where it got me thinking. This simple idea could have a very wide application in the business world. Take the example of software design. Let\'s say you\'re a successful software company. You have a successful product range and a client base and a significant chunk of your yearly revenue is selling your existing client base regular upgrades.

This can be a juggling act. You have to give your client base enough to make it worth the expense and hassle of upgrading to each new version. But too much content spreads your development team pretty thin and of course there\'s always the risk that you are tinkering with an already successful brand, so each new upgrade could potentially change something that people rely on. You could load a new version with every new feature you can think of, but that leaves very little for subsequent releases, so you have to find the right balance. And of course, from a support point of view, each new feature is something that can go wrong, not to mention the impact on the existing application...

So each new feature has risks and costs attached to it and there can be considerable pressure to get the mix just right. So why not take a leaf out of Eventful Demand\'s book. Have a little widget on your website where users can request new features or changes. When you\'ve isolated the popular choices you can set a second stage where users vote for their favourites. Again, a really simple idea and one that gets floated every now and again - but now there are the tools to do it properly.

The trick with this kind of contact is to resist the urge to turn it into marketing during the process. This kind of contact is about building trust and social capital with your client base. You need to keep it as simple to use as possible - all you need from them is to know who they are and what their suggestion/vote is. Anything more than that is unnecessary to the immediate process and is a hassle for the people you\'re trying to reach. Remember - the more effort they have to put in to telling you what you need to know, the less of them will do it. There\'s a tremendous temptation to over-egg the pudding in these circumstances - \' While we have their attention, let\'s also ...\' DON\'T. Resist the urge. Fight the temptation.

The Eventful Design site above is a good example of how to do it right. It\'s simple and easy to use and only asked me to enter my gender, birth year and an email address along with my request. Done and dusted in under 30 seconds - completely painless and I\'ll happily use it again.

That\'s what you\'re aiming for - make it easy for your customers to tell you what you want to know with simple, carefully targeted contacts. If you do it right, they\'ll be open to other attempts and you get to really open a proper dialogue. If you do it wrong you just turn them off and you\'re back to playing guessing games.

Simon Knaggs is a Knowledge Management consultant with 5 years KM experience and several highly successful projects under his belt. He\'s run restructure and reconfiguration programs for companies in the private and public sector and is currently running a global knowledge management/SharePoint consultancy for Citigroup