by Fronetics | Apr 4, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy
A recent study shows the most successful companies had leaders with these four traits in common.
What executive leadership skills really matter in terms of a company’s growth and success? Are there distinguishing characteristics among executives whose organizations succeed versus those who fail?
One recent decade-long study of executive transitions, published in the Harvard Business Review, provides a closer look at why failure rates for companies remain high in spite of strong leadership. The authors’ goal was to determine if there are certain common traits among leaders which positively impact organizational performance.
After thousands of interviews, an in-depth statistical analysis, and a study of countless historical performance reviews, the authors identified four recurring traits of successful executives. Possession of two or three of the traits correlated to some success, while mastery of all four traits led to the greatest success for the leaders and their companies.
The Four Characteristics of Exceptional Executives
So, what made these executives achieve great success? Here is a breakdown of what matters most:
1. They understand all aspects of their business.
Exceptional executives possess in-depth knowledge of all the intricacies of their businesses and how each piece meshes together. Upon arrival into the C-suite, they push aside old cognitive biases in favor of leading with openness and a drive to learn more. These executives broaden their exposure to all parts of their organization and take on a variety of cross-company assignments to increase their understanding of the business. This helps them identify weaknesses in the organization’s seams, improve daily operations, limit fragmentation, and keep the company competitive.
2. They are solid decision-makers.
Successful executives know how to weigh the available information, gather additional knowledge when necessary, and use gut instinct to make good, educated decisions. Good decision-makers are hard to come by: A McKinsey survey of 2,207 executives showed that only 28% thought their company made generally good strategic decisions, and a whopping 60% thought that bad decisions occurred as often as good ones. Exceptional executives also have the ability to discuss their viewpoints, engage others to share their thoughts and ideas, analyze data for further insight, weigh the alternatives, own their decision, and communicate the decision clearly.
3. They have a thorough knowledge of their industry.
The most successful executives know every aspect of their company’s industry. The have a solid grasp of the ever-changing landscape of their business, including who their competitors are and why. They know what makes their business stand out above the crowd, how to remain competitive, and how their business answers customers’ needs. Top executives possess a contextual intelligence about their industry and their place in it.
4. They form meaningful relationships.
Top executives demonstrate concern beyond the company’s results by showing genuine care for their colleagues, from shareholders and superiors to direct reports and customers. They are able to communicate in compelling ways and form relationships beyond the superficial. Exceptional executives instinctually know how to form mutually beneficial, trusting relationships. One study that supports this theory found that poor relationships occur at a very high percentage within executive failures.
The good news is all of these traits, once identified, are easy to learn and address. Look at which of these four traits might be hindering your success the most and begin there. By taking the steps to educate yourself, change your habits, and perhaps refine your approach, you could increase your positive impact on your organization’s success.
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by Fronetics | Mar 31, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Employ a content and social marketing strategy to nurture leads you meet during MODEX.
Hundreds of potential customers will be heading to Atlanta next week for MODEX, and you’re gearing up to gain lots of new business. That is, you and over 800 other exhibitors are hoping to gain lots of new business. So how do you plan to stand out among the competition?
Using content and social marketing to nurture leads surrounding the event will help maximize the benefits of attendance. You can bring more attention to your presence, which will help you find more new potential customers, and then you can increase your chances of converting them if you use these tools properly.
Here are some tips for before, during, and after MODEX for using content and social media to gain new business.
Before the show
1) Define your goals.
A trade show represents an opportunity to spread brand awareness, find new leads, and, of course, make sales. Decide what is most important to your business, and strategize around those goals. For example, if one of your goals is to increase your social following, make sure every handout, landing page, and face-to-face interaction includes a request to like you on Facebook (or elsewhere).
2) Promote your attendance.
With the trade show hashtag (#MODEX2016), use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to let your followers know that you will be attending and when and where they can find you. Engage with other attendees who are using the event hashtag. Offer teasers — such as photos of the freebies you’re bringing — to entice visitors, and provide any longer-form information (e.g., an excerpt from a presentation you’ll be giving) in a blog post, distributing it through your social channels.
3) Set up a landing page/landing pages.
Create an event-specific landing page that includes a call to action (CTA), like reserving a time to speak with you at the conference or downloading a coupon to redeem a free sample. Make sure to ask for some information (such as a name, company, or contact information) in exchange. Monitor traffic and keep a running list of leads who visit and provide their information.
4) Research the attendees.
Perform prospect research using the list of attendees, paying special attention to those who have provided their information on your landing page or connected with you on social media about the event. Check out their social pages to see what they’re saying about the event, and like or follow them. Connect with high-value prospects on LinkedIn and try to arrange a time to meet up during the show.
5) Prepare to nurture.
Draft content that you can distribute during and after the show. Examples include lead-nurturing email templates, slides from presentations you are giving, and other offers you plan to provide visitors. Create another landing page, which includes a special offer or specific information you’ll be providing during the show, to drive attendees to during and after the event.
During the show
6) Keep chatting.
Reach out to the people you meet during the show on their social media handles. A nice-to-meet-you tweet and/or an invitation to connect on LinkedIn shows that you remember and appreciate the potential customer. Send the lead-nurturing emails you prepared in advance.
7) Monitor social media.
Continue using the show’s hashtag to monitor the conversations that are happening online, and see if anyone is talking about your company. Like or reply to anyone who does to show you’re listening.
8) Generate content.
Trade shows are a great place to generate content. Post photos of your booth and attendees from your company, and create videos of product demonstrations, presentations, or customer testimonials. Share your thoughts on the issues being discussed, and keep track of those themes, as well as any recurring questions that attendees ask, for future content.
After the show
9) Plan out your editorial calendar.
Develop posts for your company’s blog over the coming months around the questions and issues that were raised during the show.
10) Keep up the conversations.
Continue to engage the people you met on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Follow and like their pages, and invite them to connect.
11) Offer your leads something of value.
Make event presentation or speaking materials part of your lead nurturing activities by sharing them with prospects using Slideshare or email. Remind leads with whom you shared your special-offer landing page to visit. Make sure to segment your contacts based on their interests and send them only relevant offers.
How do you nurture leads around trade shows? Will you be attending MODEX this year?
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by Fronetics | Mar 30, 2016 | Blog, Marketing
Use these six metrics to communicate the success of your marketing efforts to your boss.
If you are responsible for marketing for your company, you may feel that your tireless efforts are sometimes difficult to quantify to your boss. Much of what we in marketing do is behind the scenes, measured by myriad metrics that demonstrate our strategies are at work. Oftentimes, those metrics do not necessarily speak the same language as our boss.
We are motivated by website visits, conversion rates, generated leads per channel, engagement on social media platforms, blog post shares, email click-through rates, and many other methods that can illustrate the success of today’s marketing campaign. But when you are trying to present the impact of your marketing strategies to your boss, it is hard to demonstrate all of this with measurable results.
You probably sense this, too — a sort of unspoken question mark hanging in the thought bubble over your boss’ head. You share that email click-through rates went up 40%, and there is a blank expression on his or her face. You suspect your boss may not fully appreciate the importance or the overall impact of your work.
And you are probably correct. Bosses theoretically understand that a solid marketing team can directly impact your company’s bottom line, but a whopping 73% of executives don’t believe that marketers are focused enough on results to truly drive incremental customer demand.
Your boss is looking for marketing metrics that matter to him or her, ones that they clearly see a result (or a connection) in customer acquisition or increased sales. This means you must be prepared to report on data that deals with the total cost of marketing, salaries, overhead, revenue, and actual new customer acquisitions.
Six Marketing Metrics Your Boss Wants To Know
There are basically six marketing metrics that your boss is interested in. Here is a brief overview:
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): This is a metric used to determine the average amount your company spends acquiring a new customer. Take what your company spends in marketing costs, divided by the number of new customers it produced. There you have the price of each new customer.
- Marketing Percentage of CAC: This is taking your marketing department costs and dividing it by the total cost of both sales and marketing to determine how much your company is spending on marketing as it relates to the what you spend to acquire new customers. A low marketing percentage of CAC shows that your marketing programs are relatively inexpensive for the results they are producing.
- Ratio of Customer Lifetime Value to CAC: This is an estimate of total value that your company derives from each customer, compared with what you spend to acquire that new customer.
- The Time to Payback CAC: This calculation demonstrates how many months it takes for your company to earn back the CAC it spent acquiring your new customers.
- Marketing-Originated Customer Percentage: This takes all of the new customers from a set time period and examines what percentage of them started with a lead generated by your marketing team.
- The Marketing-Influenced Customer Percentage: This is a metric that highlights all of the new customers that marketing interacted with while they were leads, anytime during the sales process.
When reporting to your boss about the most recent marketing results, it’s crucial to convey your performance in a way in which he or she can quantify the results in terms of impact to the company. Rather than focusing on “soft” metrics like per-post Facebook engagement, use the top six metrics that demonstrate how the marketing efforts led to new customers and what those customers are worth to the company’s growth and success.
For more tips on how to calculate and demonstrate theses metrics, download our cheat sheet on how to show your boss the measurable value of your marketing strategies.
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by Fronetics | Mar 29, 2016 | Blog, Strategy
Firing a client can help you make way for others who better suit your business.
Letting someone go can be hard to do. But when it comes to certain clients, it may be necessary to ease them out of your business portfolio.
Fire a client? Who does that? Well, successful companies committed to providing the best service possible and maximizing their energy for future growth do it whenever necessary.
Let’s face it: We all have had all-encompassing clients with whom the payoff does not correspond to the hours spent catering to their needs. These clients just may not be a good fit for your business. Essentially, if what you give far outweighs the return, or if you struggle to meet your client’s needs and expectations, it is probably time to fire that client. You are not doing what is best for them (or you) by keeping them in your portfolio.
This may seem counter-intuitive to growing your business, and the thought of giving up hard-earned clients may make you cringe, but, in fact, it better supports your success.
Why? If you have clients who are overly demanding, temperamental, or requiring skills or services you do not wish to provide — especially if they do not pay you what you’re worth — perhaps it is time to cut ties to make room for new clients.
According to the Forbes article “4 Reasons to Fire a Client,” sometimes a business will discover that focusing on a different set of services is far more profitable than some other services they offer. So, the business focus shifts, and the client portfolio should shift with it.
Firing those ill-fitting clients allows time to acquire new clients who align with your top skills and practices, and who will pay you what you’re worth for them. Essentially, you set yourself free to work with those that can fully benefit from your services. And focusing your time on clients that fit your business model will better support growth and happy clients who recommend your services to others.
How do you decide?
You may have a client that comes to mind as you read this. You are always making adjustments to provide them the best service. You second guess yourself and your quality of work. Quite simply, the relationship is exhausting.
First, you should do a thorough audit of your relationship with this client. Identify why the client doesn’t seem to fit your company’s business model. Essentially, try and identify why your client’s needs and your company’s services do not seem to align.
Perhaps your business and theirs were once a good fit, but now you have grown apart. According to the Harvard Business Review article “A Consultant’s Guide to Firing a Client,” business owners typically learn exactly where they excel, and where they’d like to focus their attention, over time, so perhaps your focus has changed or grown. Maybe this client has never been a good fit, and hindsight is 20/20. Examine the entire business relationship from the time you first acquired the client, and document everything.
How do you fire a client?
Once you determine that you will fire a client, the approach must be done either by phone conversation or in person. Never leave a message, send an email, or text a client to accomplish this. You need to do it with tact and professionalism.
Discuss and illustrate the basic reasons why the client and your services are no longer a great fit for either of you. Recommend another company to take your place if you can, and thank them for the time you worked together.
You need to keep your company’s strengths in the forefront of what you do and the services you provide. Some clients mesh with your particular expertise, interests, ethical practices, and work style. Other clients will make you feel like it is a constant struggle to provide them what they need and deserve. Sometimes firing a client is the best thing you could do for both your business and theirs.
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by Fronetics | Mar 28, 2016 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media
A recent collection of social media facts and stats offers an interesting look at B2B company and buyer behavior.
Last month, Webbiquity published a list of 49 social media facts and stats about user behavior on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+. These figures, collected from various studies, offer insight into how people and businesses are using social networking in recent times.
B2B companies may find several of the stats particularly interesting, and it may influence the way they think about social media marketing. I have pulled out some of the most applicable and offered some thoughts below.
Social media facts and stats from Webbiquity
88% of B2B companies use Facebook for marketing (and 96% of all B2C companies )
If you are not using Facebook in your marketing efforts, you are in a quickly growing minority. With 968 million active daily users, the largest social networking site offers a huge opportunity — actually, the most expansive opportunity available — for your business to attract, court, and convert potential customers. Here are some of our top tips for using Facebook to market your business.
93% of small business owners and marketers use Facebook.
Small businesses don’t have the time or budget to compete with large brands when it comes to marketing — but social media can level the playing field. Social media, and Facebook especially, is an ideal marketing platform for small businesses because it can be relatively inexpensive but have a high impact on growth. Your company can cultivate your brand, engage with customers, and form business relationships. Learn how two small companies saw enormous growth thanks to social media.
21% of consumers say they unfollow brands that post repetitive or boring content. 19% say they would unfollow a brand on Facebook if the brand posted too often — more than six times a day.
We know that creating good, original content is key to a successful inbound marketing strategy. But knowing how often to post to the various social channels can be one of the more intimidating obstacles to overcome. How do you know what’s too much and what’s too little? Learn how often you should post on social media.
74% B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to help make purchasing decisions.
Don’t let anyone convince you that social media channels are for personal use only: customers are online, and if you aren’t, you’re at a disadvantage. And since nearly three-quarters use LinkedIn for purchasing decisions, it’s critical that your business is strategic about your presence on the network. Check out this guide for creating the perfect LinkedIn company page to get started.
88% of B2B marketers in North America use Twitter for content distribution.
Twitter is one of the more effective channels for gaining business, and the numbers prove it. A Market Probe International survey found that 72% of those who follow a business on Twitter are more likely to make a purchase from that business, and that 82% of followers are more likely to recommend a product or service to friends and family. Additionally, 85% of respondents reported feeling a closer connection to a small business if they follow them on Twitter. Learn more about Twitter for business.
Pinterest has 47 million active monthly users worldwide, 80% of whom are women.
While Pinterest use is rapidly growing among B2C marketers, the B2B world still hasn’t quite figured it out yet. I pulled out the two above stats to show the enormous potential this channel has, particularly for businesses whose customer base is primarily women. Fronetics’ social prospecting workbook has some ideas on how to get started using Pinterest.
32% of U.S. companies with 100+ employees used Instagram for marketing activities in 2015. eMarketer predicts that number will jump to 70.7% by 2017.
The importance of Instagram for B2B companies will continue to grow. Here’s why: 90% of Instagram users are under age 35. A recent Google study showed an increasing number of Millennials on the B2B purchasing path — up to 46% of potential buyers were of this generation in 2014. Their preferences and behaviors are having a noticeable impact on B2B buyer behavior as a whole. So if your business wants to capitalize on the nearly 300 million active monthly users, Instagram should be on your radar.
64% of North American B2B marketers use Google+ to distribute content, but just 17% use it for new product launches (vs. 81% who use LinkedIn).
Americans may use Google+ less frequently than some of the other networks, but don’t count it out entirely. More people check the site than people realize, including die-hard fans of Google products and the many businesses who use the Google suite professionally.
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