Wide Angle

Here’s a common thread that I’ve picked up from conversations recently with CMOs and some research we’ve done into innovation.  There’s an interesting connection between what some call “polycentric innovation”, what I’ll call innovation “crucibles”, and marketing talent development.

Starting with polycentric innovation, in a recent special report on innovation in emerging markets, The Economist described how companies like Cisco and IBM are building innovation centers in emerging markets.  These aren’t just laboratory outposts—these are major innovation centers on par with those in developed markets. These emerging market innovation centers act as a sort of crucible—an intensely pressured, constrained environment that accelerates innovation, and potentially leads to discontinuous solutions that you simply wouldn’t get in other contexts. Read More »

Social media enables any employee in any function to interact directly with consumers.  This makes employee engagement more important than ever – both to limit reputation risks and capture new opportunities for employee advocacy (i.e., employees promoting the brand online).

As a very first step, companies should limit downside risks by implementing a social media policy (MLC members, click here for tips and examples).  In addition to defensive guardrails, companies should also offer simple guidelines or training to help engaged employees make the best use of social media.

Beyond this, now is a good time to redouble efforts to measure and boost employee engagement. Indeed, 46% of executives agree that surveying employee satisfaction and acting on the results is the best way to protect online reputation. Read More »

We are deep into my favorite time of the year – the NCAA tournament – “March Madness.”  Every year we’re treated to the drama of David vs. Goliath matchups and the promise of an upset around every turn (sorry Kansas…).  While I’m eagerly awaiting my beloved Syracuse to steamroll their way to a championship – I also enjoy the egalitarian nature of the tournament that gives all of its entrants the chance to walk away with the trophy at the end.

What do these teams have in common?  Thousands of hours of practice and significant investments from many different sources that got them to the tournament in the first place.  Coaches, families, schools, and the drive of the athletes themselves, are all integral parts  of getting a team to the level needed to compete in the NCAA tournament.  Malcolm Gladwell puts the number of hours training to reach a level of mastery at 10,000.  In real terms, that’s about 10 years of practice. Read More »

Following up on The Five Profiles of Sales Reps, I promised to discuss the ramifications of these findings for B2B marketers.  But first, let me offer some clarity around that work as there seems to be a fair amount of interest from across the membership…

The work previously summarized is specifically designed to help senior sales executives prioritize investments in skill development broadly across the sales force assuming a finite amount of training dollars. In other words, what skill set improvement investments will give us the biggest bang for our buck?

Our guidance is to think about the five profiles like potential college majors – yes, everyone takes the core curriculum (science, math, etc), but everyone specializes as well. These profiles represent the different sales rep “majors” that exist. Read More »

If your company is like mine, the beginning of the fiscal year (now, for most of us) is when we’re thinking about project portfolios and operating plans – and, it’s the one time we managers have to focus on our direct reports’ development plans.  Setting development goals for staff while creating these “IDPs” (as we call them: “individual development plans”) is easy for some functions. Sales has revenue goals. Procurement has cost-cutting goals. But for marketing, setting development goals – and understanding the underlying functional competencies marketing staffers need to develop (and then creating action plans that line up to their current projects) – can be a little tricky. Why? Read More »

For those of us in the B2B marketing world, understanding what drives sales rep effectiveness can help define the role we play in supporting our sales team.  In a recent quantitative effort by the Sales Executive Council (SEC), rep characteristics—having to do with Attitudes, Skills/Behaviors, Activities and Knowledge—were studied.  They found that certain attributes tended to clump together into a few profiles.  More specifically, five distinct groups of sales reps were found, each containing a very different combination of attributes.  See if you can guess the clear winner and the clear loser as I summarize them here: Read More »