Keenan 411

Jim Keenan is a Senior Sales Executive, Enterprise 2.0/Web 2.0 Connector, an Entrepreneur still trying to get it right, and a PSIA Certified Ski Instructor for Vail Resorts. Husband to Big E and father to four great kids. In a nut shell, I'm a Sales Guy. Life is good!

Salesforce Chatter; Coming Soon

Many of you know I am a big fan of enterprise micro-blogging. Think Twitter for your company. It is by far the most efficient way to share information, exchange ideas, collaborate and engage people in your company. Enterprise micro-blogging tools make companies more agile and improve performance because they capture the invisible.

Salesforce.com is going to launch their own micro-blogging tool called Chatter (now in private beta.) Chatter will compete with Socialcast, Yammer, Socialtext and all the other microblogging tools out there today. It’s a crowded space, but they will have an advantage because of it’s integration into their Salesforce.com platform.

Chatter provides all the typical features you would expect from traditional micro-blogging tools. You can create groups, follow the people most interesting to you, filter feeds to easily find things that are important, respond to specific users directly, share documents and links and more.

But, Chatter also has a few unique features. The most interesting is, unlike Yammer, Socialcast and other pure play micro-blogging tools, Chatter gives you a home page where all of your Salesforce data and important information is laid out for you to monitor. Think of it like a business application dashboard. Another unique Chatter feature is the profile page. The Chatter profile page appears more informative than Yammer and Socialcast from what I can tell. It provides your experience, skills and other personal information so others in the organization know who you are and what you do. It has more of a Facebook profile feel.

Another unique feature Chatter has is its ability to allow you to follow a document. I like this feature a lot. You can follow a PowerPoint presentation, a spreadsheet, a word doc. anything. I like this feature because it makes updating, and managing versions super easy. It also allows you to see what others think of the information and make corrections on the fly. Beyond documents and people, Chatter allows you to follow other applications, including non-Salesforce.com applications.

Chatter also gives you the ability to bring information in from outside social networks like Twitter. The value here is you can create a Twitter search for a specific company or customer and anytime time that company or customer is mentioned on Twitter, everyone in your Chatter group can see it. This is a powerful way to manage a customer and stay ahead of the competition.

One question I do have about Chatter that concerns me is integrating an entire organization. Traditionally, only sales, and marketing and the executives use Salesforce.com If Salesforce wants it to be a ubiquitous tool for the entire company they will have to create licensing pricing that makes it worth it to have everyone in the company to use it; including those who normally don’t use Salesforce, like product, finance and HR. The real value in micro-blogging comes from connecting the entire organization. Not just a few functional groups.

If you are a Salesforce.com customer, Chatter is a compelling tool to bring your organization together. If used appropriately, it has the ability to create proposals faster, identify useful information faster, improve customers relationships, increase sales, accelerate product development and more.

Whether it’s Chatter, Socialcast, Yammer, Socialtext or any other micro-blogging tool, your organization will benefit from their use. Find one and use it. They are about more than chattering, yammering or twittering, they are about getting business done.

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February 20, 2010 | Filed under: Business Performance, Customer Service, Enterprise 2.0, What I Think! | Comments |

Content Is Useless: It Needs Context

My friend Paul Dunay had a great post the other day on the importance of content in today’s marketing world. He says B2B companies need to create a content creation engine.

“Building a solid content creation engine is critical to B2B marketers today. Why?

Its the content that gives you the opportunity to have a discussion with the Media, its the content that gives you the opportunity to create conversations socially, its the content that gives you the opportunity to re-engage with leads in your system that you may be nurturing on that sames topic, and its the content that allows your sales team to start a conversation with their accounts about that topic.”

Paul is right with this. Content creates the engagement. It’s what connects us to our customers and prospects. Content creates the conversations.

To do this I think B2B marketers and companies need to go a step further. Context needs to be provided.

Content has never been a problem for B2B marketers. Chucking case studies, creating collateral, static websites, etc. have all been part of B2B marketing’s bag of tricks. What they haven’t done well is create context for the content.

Creating context is about providing information in a manner that people can use it. Providing information in a way that creates value. Call it “free” information.

A while back I posted how my favorite ski resort, Vail was missing a huge opportunity with it’s ski school. They provide information, but it has little context for visitors.

Some context to think about:

Teach
Educate
Inform
Contradict
Challenge
Inquire
Expand
Incorporate

Dunay is right. Create a content creation engine. But, don’t stop there. Make it valuable. Give it utility. Create content people and companies can actually use and benefit from. That’s creating a content engine with context.

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February 16, 2010 | Filed under: Business Performance, Customer Service, Marketing | Comments |

Six More Weeks of Winter . . . I Think

Yesterday was Groundhog Day and the little guy saw his shadow. Therefore; it means we have 6 more weeks of winter. I think.

As a kid this made no sense to me. It was confusing as hell, actually. To me, the logic was backward. If the groundhog saw his shadow, it meant the sun was out. If the sun was out, it was warm. If it was warm, spring must be close.

From my point of view, being from Boston, it was cloudy and cold all winter and sunny and warm in the spring. Therefore, the idea that seeing his shadow (made possible by the sun) meant spring was further away was backward.

Selling is similar. Often what makes complete and logical sense to us, is the complete opposite of how the customer sees it. We need to make sure we understand how are customers are looking at the problem. Their point of view my draw very different conclusions.

Don’t be quick to assume your customer is following what you’re saying, they maybe just as confused as I am with Groundhogs Day.

Can anyone explain to me why if he sees his shadow, spring is further away? I still don’t get it.

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February 3, 2010 | Filed under: Customer Service, Random, What I Think! | Comments |

It’s Attitude and Acknowledgment

Customer service is an attitude not a check list. Just because we offer to help, say thank you, return the food, provide a refund or fix the problem doesn’t mean we’ve provided customer service.

People want to be acknowledged. People want to be heard. They want to believe you understand them and their situation. Customer services is the connection between you and your customer. It’s the emotional engagement. Check lists can’t create emotion.

Training your employees to say thank you, have a nice day, or how can I help you, isn’t customer service. Creating automatic return policies or having a good refund process isn’t good customer service either.

Taking back a broken toy with a bad attitude only makes the problem worse. Getting a customer who didn’t like their food a different meal with a sarcastic attitude just makes the customer more angry.

The problem is no response will solve the problem without genuine acknowledgment and a positive attitude. The problem created a negative emotional response. To fix you need to create a positive emotional response. A smile, acknowledgment, and a genuine connection to your customers is where your customer service starts.

Customer service is like any type of relationship. People want to be heard, they want to be validated.

To provide good customer service don’t create checklists. Don’t teach your employees what to say. Get them to emotionally connect and that starts with a genuine smile and acknowledgment of their feelings.

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January 21, 2010 | Filed under: Customer Service | Comments |

Ask the RIGHT Questions

Questions matter in sales. Questions give us insight. They lead us to solutions. They give customers confidence of our capabilities. Questions are a valuable tool of sales.

If a Dr. only asks how do you feel and how long have you been feeling that way, she can’t provide the proper diagnosis. A mechanic can’t fix your car with questions like; What’s wrong with the car? How long has it been going on? How loud is the sound? To diagnose a problem requires deep, relevant understanding of the subject. Questions aren’t enough, you have to know WHAT questions to ask.

Sales is like being a Dr. or a Mechanic, it diagnoses problems. Asking a few superfluous, high-level questions isn’t enough. You need to know what you’re looking for.

Questions are a tool in the sales bag. Knowing how to use the tool is critical. It’s not enough to have it in your bag or use it once in awhile. It needs to be used effectively. We need to be experts in using questions.

Wielding the questions tool requires subject matter expertise, an idea of what your looking for, and the flexibility to ask new questions if you can’t find what you looking for. It requires openness to unanticipated answers, and the ability to probe.

Sales is the ability to solve problems. Like a Dr. or a Mechanic, Sales must first know what is wrong. Knowing what’s wrong takes asking the right questions, not just any question.

Customers are too smart to accept a weak diagnosis. They know when someone can solve their problems. Just because we offer a solution doesn’t mean it will fix their problems. We need to know what their real problems are and that comes from asking the right questions.

Ask the RIGHT questions. You’ll get the RIGHT answers. Then, you’ll know the RIGHT solution.

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January 20, 2010 | Filed under: Customer Service, Sales Process, The Chase | Comments |

Growth Doesn’t Come From Sales, Part II

Five months ago I wrote a post arguing that a companies growth doesn’t come from sales. You can read it here. I read it again today and believe it just as much now as I did then. Sales isn’t responsible for growth. Sales is an accelerant. You can’t live without sales, but if you rely on sales to grow your business you’re toast.

The post has created a lot of conversation on LinkedIn back when I wrote it. For some reason, over the last two days the conversation has started up again and the folks have had some great thoughts on the idea of who is responsible for a companies growth. LinkedIn’s comments are closed, so I thought I’d bring them here. These are some of the best:

Great Post, and I agree, sales is not solely responsible for a company’s growth. There are many people who think sales people are that powerful. We’re not. In the same way no sales person (or sales team) should ever take full credit for a company’s success, they can’t bear the blame either for slow or declining growth. -Lilly Ferrick


Revenue generation is truly a company responsibility. -Walter Wise

I will take a great sales team with a mediocre product any day over a poor sales team with great product—any day. I have a team right now who complains “we don’t have anything unique to sell–our competition has the same stuff.” To which I reply–is there really a difference between the cell companies, or auto dealers selling the same brand, or RiteAid vs. CVS vs. Walgreens, or any printing company, or Dell vs. Compaq etc? In almost every market, true differentiation is in minutes, not degrees (go back to trigonometry). Sales is what finds those in the market who need or want that tiny difference and exploit it into significant profits and many times it is the sales person him or herself which is the only minute difference. -Jeffrey Bowe

The discussion appears to be quite interesting. But before moving forward the first question that should be addressed first is- What exactly do we mean when we say a “company’s growth”. So breaking up the question into two parts is required in my view. So we’ll have two questions now- What do we mean by Company’s growth and second what is Sales responsible for? Correct me if i am wrong but i feel this is a better way of addressing the topic. How? Here i go…When we talk about a company’s growth we normally mean an organization’s growth in terms of revenue and bottom line. Although i agree that growth means a lot of other things. So now, whom does an organization entrust the responsibility of bringing in revenues and bottom line growth? Thats Sales. And this also answers the second question i.e.,”what is Sales responsible for?” So when an organization decides on its growth strategies and fixes on a goal/objective for a year it does it in terms of X% growth figure to reach X figure of revenue & bottom line. So, these figures and percentage growth that does define an organization’s growth is driven through sales. Sales gives a true picture of an organization’s presence in the market, it takes a customer’s voice to boardrooms and its a real time test of an organization’s capability to understand and respond to market’s needs. So apart from being a catalyst for external growth it also ensures growth within. -Avinash M

Sales is the only process in an enterprise that creates revenue.

Sales provides the foundation for growth but that’s not enough – the rest of the enterprise must play their part to ensure that the products and services delivered are competitive and that the costs (of production, loans and sales etc) are kept down so that a healthy profit is turned – it is the profits that are earned which provide the collateral for growth and a talented management team will invest them wisely for sustainable growth. -Steve Dobson


This is my favorite. I agree with Yashwanth, sales is more responsible for growth when it comes to start-ups. Great insight.

During the initial stages of the company, sales is largely responsible for growth. A company might have the best product or might offer the best service, but the survival solely depends on how much and how fast they sell. This determines whether they move to the next stage of growth where processes play a key role.

But the biggest factor that is responsible for any company’s growth is innovation in all key areas – Creating products, marketing them, creating sales strategies, managing customers, etc.

But Sales is largely responsible for ensuring a startup moves on to the growth stage. -Yashwanth Madhusudan

What do you think? Is sales responsible for a companies growth?

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December 29, 2009 | Filed under: Business Performance, Customer Service, Sales Process, The Chase | Comments |

On The Slopes

I’m teaching skiing this week. I am booked in a private lesson with the same family all week.

I like these kind of bookings. You get to know the people you work with. When you spend 6 hours a day for 6 days with the same people they become more than just clients. They becone friends. A relationship is built.

I still talk to clients I had 3 years ago. (my first season teaching). We text, and email staying in touch throughout the year. It’s been great. I’ve made some great friends.

There aren’t any businesses that I can think of where you spend this much personal time with your customers as ski instruction. They are on vacation. They are paying to have me add to their vacation experience and this is what I love most about being a ski instructor.

Every year at this time, I spend a week a part of someone elses vacation. I take this very seriously. I do everything I can to ensure my clients walk away feeling there vacation in Vail was better because of me.

I’ll let you know if I succeed this year too. I hope so. This is one thing I don’t ever want to fail at.

December 26, 2009 | Filed under: Customer Service, Skiing | Comments |

Reward Your Best Customers, It’ll Pay Off

255_UnitedAirlinesMy friend Seth Levine of the Foundry Group is flying to DC today. He’s flying to DC, laying over for 47 min. then flying home. No work, no family visits, no vacation, no luggage, nothing. He’s flying to DC and back to get his 1K status on United.

He’s paying approximately $400 dollars and spending his day on a plane to get United rewards. If you travel, getting to 1K is absolutely worth it. I’d say this is a good investment on his part.

I fly United because of their frequent flier program. They are the main carrier in Denver. I travel 50K to 75K miles a year (haven’t hit 1K yet). I will pay a bit more to fly United to get my points. It takes a lot for me to go with another carrier. United’s frequent flier program is sticky.

I get inundated with special customer deals all the time. But, the truth is they rarely have substance. They are not compelling and do nothing to get me to alter my behavior.

If you have a rewards program, make it worth something. Don’t insult your best customers with an additional 5% off. Don’t create a program that looks like a state fair carnival game, where your “best customers” spend $10,000 bucks and get enough points for a free $250 I-Pod.

If they are your best customers, treat them that way. Create a program where they will spend money they don’t have to just to be a part of it.

Seth’s on a plane right now, the day after Christmas. He doesn’t have to be. He wants to be, that’s how good United’s 1K program is.

How good is your rewards program?

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December 26, 2009 | Filed under: Customer Service | Comments |

The Problem with ROI

vs-at-nightLast year Vail and Beaver Creek started using RF scanners to check lift tickets and passes in line. I like the idea because it improves the customer experience. The RF Scanners allows lift tickets and passes to be scanned through ski jackets and clothing. It’s convenient not having to dig through your clothes looking for your pass to be scanned. Faster lift lines and less hassle in the line improves the customer experience.

It’s a good differentiator. But does it have an ROI (Return on Investment?)

I found myself asking this question after being scanned through my big puffy jacket. I can’t imagine replacing the existing scanning system with RF scanners could produce a compelling ROI. Lift lines don’t create revenue, the tickets have been purchased. The time in line, may be shortened, but not enough so that skiers would notice. So, how does a decision like this get made without a compelling ROI?

I have been part more of than my share of new idea discussions. Almost every discussion turns to ROI. It’s a fair question. An investment requires a return on that investment. The problem is, in most cases, it’s how ROI is calculated that is the problem. Far too often, companies look to calculate an immediate return. If we invest in the scanners, how much money will we make on that investment. I think this is the wrong way to look at it. I’ve watched too many great customer experience, customer focused ideas go down the crapper because a measurable ROI can’t be calculated.

Companies need to consider calculating ROI differently when it comes to customer service, customer engagement and other types of experienced based investments. They should consider aggregating a number of customer experience projects into one ROI calculation. For example, rather than trying to calculate ROI on one investment, create a budget of a number of customer experience projects and calculate a ROI on the collection of efforts. Customer service is rarely experienced via one engagement but by the collective experience. It should be measured and invested in the same way.

Does Vail and Beaver Creeks RF Scanner system create a strong ROI all by itself? I doubt it. However, when combined with the skiable terrain, the abundance of high-speed lifts, the back bowls, the outstanding service, the world class ski school it absolutely does. Vail and Beaver Creek are two of the best and most prestigious ski resorts in the world. They got this way because of decisions like putting in RF scanners

When it comes to customer experience and engagement ROI isn’t always an easy calculation. But that shouldn’t keep you from doing it. Your customers don’t care about your ROI, they care about what they get for THEIR dollar and it’s more than being scanned through their ski clothes.

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December 23, 2009 | Filed under: Business Performance, Customer Service, What I Think! | Comments |

Vendor Service

It amazes me how often customers and clients treat their vendors like crap. I don't understand why people don't treat their vendors better. How often does the guy yelling at the flight attendant, when a flight is delayed, get a seat on the next one? Does the food come any faster if you abuse the waiter?

I see this often in sales. Customers beat up their vendors. I've seen flat out abuse. This is a problem. It's not a good strategy. I am sure it gets better pricing in the short term, but the damage to the relationship can be huge.

It's easy to forget we need our vendors as much as they need us. Yes, we have alternatives, and therefore we can expect certain things, but to think it's OK to treat vendors like shit to get what you want is not the right thinking.

The companies that beat up their vendors lose in the long run. Just as companies who treat their customers poorly, customers who treat their vendors poorly will lose out on their biggest supporters. Getting the best deal, preferential treatment, just released information, additional features, special support etc. doesn't come from kicking around your vendors and suppliers. It comes from having strong, mutually beneficial relationships.

Give what you expect to get. Every company that beats up its vendors and suppliers is a vendor to someone else. Would they want their vendors treating their sales team the same way?

Learning how to manage your vendors in a way that provides you the best deal is critical. Companies that develop good vendor management approaches will not only get better deals, but will get preferential treatment . . . and who doesn't like preferential treatment.

Everyone gets customer service, but few get vendor service. You don't think it matters? What do you think the obnoxious guy who got stuck in the airport overnight would say?

Getting fired from a vendor hurts, I promise you.

December 4, 2009 | Filed under: Business Performance, Customer Service | Comments |

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