Show Your Customers You Are Listening

• Support and buy-in from the team
• A plan and structure for addressing the issue(s), with associated timing and milestones
• Accountability from team members to make it happen

• Engage your most valuable customers in highly relevant and meaningful ways to capture market insight, align your senior executives and deliver a market driven strategy
• Differentiate you from other providers while systematically building deeper relationships and account penetration
  

The Geehan Group recently hosted a B2B Executive Roundtable in Palo Alto, California, where our Founder and CEO, Sean Geehan, moderated a discussion with special guests Brad Brooks, VP Enterprise Marketing, Juniper, and Greg Jorgensen, past-CMO of Verisign.  In characteristic Geehan Group fashion, an intimate group of about 20 executives enjoyed a convenient, casual and socially-appealing venue—Zibbibo Restaurant—while participating thought provoking panel discussion, executive networking and, of course, a California infused wine tasting experience.  

The Theme:  Sean’s pending book release “The B2B Executive Playbook” helped carve the theme of the meeting around advancing business relationships from transactional vendors to strategic partners/trusted advisors—while reaching decision makers.  Sean moderated a lively discussion in which the audience asked stimulating questions and openly discussed panel responses.  The top concepts that resonated with me included:

“C level executives don’t have a ‘like’ button for you.”
Brad Brooks, VP of Enterprise Marketing at Juniper responded to the question of social media hype when it comes to the C level.  As is the case with most B2B companies, and following Pareto’s 80/20 rule, Juniper earns a large percentage of revenue from a small percentage of customers.  Most importantly, though, is that the C level executives in these top accounts are conservative:  So they don’t use a “like” button to click and review for input, instead they call their “friends”—peers in this case—to seek advice and input when making decisions.  Understanding this level of customer advocacy, Juniper knows they must build a strong relationship with decision makers.  To do so, as Brad noted, first requires establishing a foundation of trust.  For Juniper, this means they are always open to discussing and resolving customer issues, faithfully earning that trust over time.
 
”Centralize to gain benefit:  Decentralize to execute.”  
One of the most important aspects for a CMO to address is determining when to centralize and when to decentralize, as Greg Jorgensen, past CMO of Verisign, pointed out.  Because B2B relationships and sales typically occur at a regional level, the execution of marketing and sales programs needs to be delivered on a local level.   Greg noted, “The corporate function is best left to delivering in areas where process, consistency and cost savings can be maximized to the benefit of both the corporate centralized function and the regional decentralized function.”  And then let the region manage the delivery aspect of the program with the customer.

“Beware the ‘Sins of Wealth.’” 
Brad also stated, “Successful organizations can enjoy the ‘Sins of Wealth’ where financial success allows for missteps in B2B marketing execution.”  Spending for PR can quickly grow as a bloated organization misinterprets marketing awareness campaigns as the only metric for success—while neglecting the nurturing and rewarding of decision maker relationships.  “Balance is important … and determining who to influence is the responsibility of the savvy B2B marketer.”   A day will come when the relationship with the decision maker is paramount to retaining and growing your business.

“What a great event! The targeted attendees (marketing leaders), level of dialogue, intimate setting and open interaction was an experience to repeat!  And I loved the wine tasting networking where I could identify the common connection points to others I met.” – Maeve Naughton, Fortinet

There were many more comments from our panelists and contributions from our attendees worth taking back to reflect on and implement, but not enough space to capture here today.  Thank you to our panelists and attendees for joining me, Sean and Karen Posey in this engaging executive experience!

I recently spoke with Sherry Smith, Program Manager of the Executive Sponsor Program (ESP) at Dell to learn about the launching of their ESP. 

Situation

·         Dell built their program in January of 2010 and officially launched the program in July 2010

·         Currently there are  80 accounts in the program and 35 executives

Like most organizations Dell has aspirations of what they want ESP to accomplish for the organization.   They want to enhance executive relationships, loyalty, retention and revenue. 

Through the launch phase their executives have been very supportive of the program and eager to participate. The executive matching process and the kick off calls with each Global Account Managers/Account Executives have gone well. 

As with any program launch there are always a few challenges encountered along the way. Dell faced some obstacles with solidifying an overall program sponsor, the program structure and monitoring their program. The Dell team has been working hard on these common challenges as they know it will help sustain their program long-term. 

I asked Sherry what she would have done differently when launching the ESP. She said “start with the basics first. Clearly defining what you want the program to look like and working backwards with the tools and reporting you are going to need.”

Sherry shared some advice she would have for any organization considering launching an ESP. She said there are four components that are critical to success. They are:

1.       Do it right the first time. Don’t try to do it on your own. There is an art and science to successfully launching a program.

2.       Focus on the basics – focus on setting up the proper structure so that the program can be measured and you are able to celebrate the successes along the way

3.       Program Manager – Having a Program Manager with good people and program management skills

4.       Program Sponsor – the CEO or a BU President that can play their small, but vital role to champion the effort