Brains on Fire

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  Lesson 11: “Are your palms sweaty?”

  Posted on September 14th, 2010 by Justine and currently 2 commenting.

  

  Over the last ten years, I’ve had the privilege of talking to people in a lot of different kinds of organizations – from global consumer products companies to leading academic institutions, from c-suite executives to the long-tenured “keepers of the culture”, from marketing directors to plant foremen. I’ve asked about purpose, vision and guiding principles. Heard more than my share of employee frustration about bureaucracy, uniforms, and either lack of, or too much, direction from the top. I’ve listened as people have passionately spoken about the entrepreneurial spirit that founded their company. And as they have endlessly extolled the virtues of transparency, discipline, trust, loyalty…

  But there’s one thing that never seems to make it into the lexicon.

  One thing that is utterly critical to an organization’s ability to grow, to innovate, to develop the kind of relationships every brand says they want – but is all too often overlooked when organizations develop their vernacular around values, train employees to be leaders, or decide what kind of performance gets rewarded.

  Courage.

  Not the kind of daredevil courage it takes to jump out of a plane, or scale El Capitan.

  But the kind it takes to give up control. To say the unpopular thing. To open yourself up to criticism. Or push yourself or your organization to try new things. Recently someone told me they had asked the CEO of a multi-billion dollar construction company what was the one thing he wanted his employees to have. His answer? Sweaty palms. If his guys didn’t have sweaty palms, they weren’t pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone enough. And a company that’s stuck in their comfort zone is, by definition, not entrepreneurial, and more likely to be a “me too” than a pioneer.

  If you believe in the power of word of mouth and are looking to ignite an advocacy movement – your organization is going to need courage. And a lot of it.

  Is your organization courageous enough to:

  • Speak up. Would your employees be advocates for your fans and fight for them if the company was doing something that looked good for the brand on paper, but could seriously damage the relationship with its fans?
  • Give up control by letting your customers speak for the brand.
  • Listen and take in what they say about you – the good, the bad, and the ugly (yes indeed, listening takes a lot of courage – remember your last 360 review?)
  • Invest in quality not quantity and to think about the long-term return on inspiration, not just the near-term return on investment
  • Be disliked. Standing for something distinctive and meaningful means that some people are not going to like you. That’s okay. Better than okay. You can’t be everything to everybody and hope to ignite a movement.
  • Break down the silos. To EN-courage marketing, R&D, and customer service to ingetrate and, as the book says, nurture the passion for your brand wherever it exists. Because the people who can market your brand best don’t necessarily exist in the marketing department. And the people who have the best ideas don’t necessarily work in R&D
  • Not just tolerate, but embrace failure as part of growth. Building relationships is hard – and risky. You have to put yourself out there and there’s no guarantee that people will want to engage.
  • To spend real face to face time with your customers on their terms, or invite them to your hallowed halls, instead of looking at them behind a one-way mirror. Or through the facebook-lens.

  I could go on – but instead I’ll suggest that you open the book to just about any page. It’s full of ways that igniting a movement will require you to be courageous.

  One of my favorite quotes is from C.S. Lewis:

  Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

  Whatever your virtues when it comes to marketing and building meaningful brands, ask yourself whether your organization has the guts to live up to them when the going gets tough. Whether your leadership is brave enough to make the unpopular decision. Whether your employees are brave enough to take a risk and fail. Or whether “market research” has really become an exercise in “i’ve covered my bases in case this doesn’t work”.

  Ask yourself whether your palms are sweaty enough when it comes to reaching out to and embracing your customers. If they’re not, don’t be surprised if your customers aren’t willing to be loud and proud on your behalf.

  Tags: advocacy, Courage, Justine Foo, Lesson Eleven, Marketing, Movement
• 

  Brains on Fire’s Net Promoter Score – and a Thank You

  Posted on August 12th, 2009 by Justine and currently 2 commenting.

  Last month we reached out to all our clients, partners and friends to ask you all the ultimate question – would you recommend us and why or why not?

  Why that question? Well, because we – like Fred Reichheld and the crowd at Satmetrix – believe in the power of word of mouth to propel you or hold you back. It was also an opportunity to do what we preach to our clients – listen. Listen to your kind words, your suggestions for what we can do better. Even your comments about how sucky our survey looked visually. (yeah… we agree. Promise to bring it some Brains on Fire flair next year!)

  We’ve been tracking our Net Promoter Score for a few years now, but for the first time we thought we’d share the results. Surprised?  The simple truth is we’re proud of our successes. We’re energized by knowing that our work inspires. And we’re not afraid to admit that we have room for improvement.
  This year 70% of the people we reached out to told us that they would enthusiastically recommend us to a friend or colleague (9 or 10 on a scale from 0-10). And 9% said that they were either neutral or definitively less than enthusiastic about doing so (0 to 6). Subtract one from the other and you get our Net Promoter Score – 61%.

  The first question everybody wants to know is how does that rate with other companies like us?  Great question. No answers here. Though I will admit that we have a Net Promoter crush on USAA, our heroes of customer service, who have a NPS of almost 90%.  And we’re glad that, yet again, our promoters strongly and significantly outnumbered our detractors – unlike many of USAA’s counterparts in the financial industry. What we can say is our score this year is holding steady from last year, and respresents a small but significant improvement from when we first collected our NPS score a few years ago.

  The second question everybody wants to know is why do a Net Promoter Score? You guys are small. Can’t you just call your customers?  We can, and we do – talk to our customers regularly that is. But we value self-awareness. And we recognize that it’s sometimes easier for people to give feedback anonymously than in person.

  For that reason we’re not going to post anybody’s comments verbatim here. What we do want to do is thank everyone who took the time to give us feedback. From the person who was inspired by our Haka (but told us we were clearly not performers!) to the one who said we went together with their company like “bangers and mash” (you know who you are – and we love you). From the comments that told us we could come across as arrogant to those who cherish our blog for the fact that it’s “not the same old, rehashed, conventional wisdom.” And to the person who said we were a “darn good lookin’ group,” just know that your comment got the heartiest laugh in the room.

  Henry Wadsworh Longfellow  once wrote:
  “We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.”

  Thank you for reminding us of the impact of our work and for refueling our passion for changing the world, one movement at a time. We hope to hear from you all again next year – and in between!

  Tags: Brains on Fire, Net Promoter Score, NPS, USAA
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  Finding Inspiration

  Posted on July 23rd, 2009 by Justine and currently 6 commenting.

  Today I don’t feel like talking about marketing. Or customers. Or community. No pithy statements or meaningful insights to offer.

  Motivation is a funny thing. Some people can will it to happen. Some people will spend their whole lives waiting for it to strike. Some people find it in a $ figure. Some people are driven by a smile.

  When I was in grad school studying the brain, the Director of the center shared an observation with me that made a lasting impression. Parkinsons disease is a breakdown of the voluntary motor system. The result of the degeneration of a teeny tiny group of cells that produce our brain’s entire, precious supply of dopamine. By the time you see symptoms it’s too late to do stop the degeneration. Ask a Parkinsons patient to walk across the room and you’ll see evidence of their impaired ability to will the body to move.

  I knew that part. But what I didn’t know that my advisor shared with me that day was that he’d seen movies of Parkinsons patients getting up and dancing smoothly with their wives, as if nothing was wrong. An old piece of beloved music from their youth is played, and the man stands up, takes his wife by the hand and glides her around the room.

  In one situation the motivation is voluntary, and must be consciously willed. In the other it’s emotionally triggered, inspired by music and a memory. I will be the first to admit that I’m no expert on Parkinsons – and I do not know the research first hand. But I do believe that motivation comes from different places. And that being emotionally inspired is one of the most powerful motivators you can find. It’s what turns a campaign into a movement. A slogan into a battle cry. It’s what makes an online community bigger than the social media that connects them.

  There are many places to find emotional inspiration. But nothing does it for me like stories. Stories of people who are driven by a passion and, who through that passion, overcome the impossible. Rise above their circumstances. Think Dick Hoyt. Susan Boyle. You can let the cynic in you pick them all apart, or you can just enjoy getting swept up in watching a comeback 37-year old Lance Armstrong attack on the steepest part of the climb and leave world-class, much younger riders behind as he bridges the gap to the lead. (as I write this I am eagerly awaiting the Time Trial today!)

  For all those brands out there still stuck in marketing funnel think… trying to reach all those non-users, make them aware of you and drive them through the funnel…stop. What’s your story? What do you have to communicate that’s inspiring? Who is at the other end of your funnel, that can tell your story for you? With more passion and fire than could ever come out of your agency or corp comm department?

  I said I wasn’t going to talk about Marketing, but in the end I did. Because – and this is the reason why a neuroscientist feels pretty at home in marketing despite never having taken a single business class – marketing is way more than a communications strategy. It’s a motivational strategy. And the most powerful motivators – the ones that will turn your customers into fans – aren’t coupons. Or the ability to be your friend in Facebook (goodness).

  So ask yourself where you find inspiration? What makes your day more than a job. And whether ANY of that is visible to your customers.

  Tags: emotional connection, Motivation
• 

  That Blasted Survey Again?

  Posted on July 15th, 2009 by Justine and currently 2 commenting.

  Time to wrap up our Net Promoter survey for 2009. If we have had the good fortune to work with you or for you recently, and you haven’t had a chance to give us your feedback, we’d love for you to take 3 minutes to tell us whether you’d recommend us and why you would do so enthusiastically, or with pause.

  Here’s the link

  For those of you who have already taken the survey (Thank you!) or don’t feel that you know us well enough to answer the ultimate question (we’d love to get to know you better), I thought I’d offer some hopefully humorous musing on surveys to go with your cup of morning joe.

  Specifically telemarketing surveys.

  Remember this clip from Seinfeld (thanks to Spike for reminding me)

  
  
  

  That’s pretty good. But I think my husband can top Jerry on this one. I will admit that despite signing up for No call lists at least 5 times, AND having caller ID, I still answer the phone. Which I promptly then hand to my husband just to see what he comes up with off the top of his head. Here are some of my favorites from recent memory.

  # 5

  Can I please speak to the head of the household?

  (in a child’s voice) “Mommy… Mommy….”

  (Then he just puts the phone down and walks away until they hang up)

  # 4

  (in digital voice) I am a computer. Are you a computer?
  insert string of random computer-like noises here
  Does not compute.
  (click)

  # 3

  I will answer your survey if you first tell me whether you have
  A) Been working there for less than 2 months
  B) Between 2 and 6 months
  C) Between 6 months and a year
  D) Over a year
  (the guy actually answered his question before he hung up)

  #2 (This was actually in response to his alma mater which kept calling for donations)

  I would like to donate the amount that it costs to cover calling me long-distance 4x a week for about a whole year. Let’s total it up…

  That’s great. How would you like to pay for that?

  How about this? Don’t call me anymore.

  (silence….click.)

  #1

  Using the touch-tone pad, please enter the name of the survey company that you work for.
  Press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish.

  I could keep going…. If you have a good story. Please share!

  Tags: Jerry Seinfeld, Net Promoter Survey, Telemarketers
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  What’s Your Answer?

  Posted on June 30th, 2009 by Justine and currently 1 commenting.

  It’s time for our annual checkup. That time when we take Fred Reichheld’s advice to engage the people we touch to help us grow and continually improve. We are asking you (yes, YOU!) “The Ultimate Question.”

  So please take a moment to click on this link and take our very brief, anonymous survey. If you received this link in the email, then you won’t need to take the survey via the blog… it’s all the same survey.

  Thanks again to all of you who help keep the fire going. We love you all!