If I compare today’s location of my LinkedIn contacts with their situation a couple of years ago, it becomes obvious. Team Leader in The Netherlands and now Global Category Manager in Geneva. General Manager in Surinam and now in Nigeria. Marketing Manager in Russia and now Marketing Director in the USA.  Marketing Manager in Australia and now Marketing Director in Germany.

One of my traveling ex-P&G colleagues came with a great expression for this phenomenon. He called himself a Corporate Gypsy.

Now, of course there is nothing wrong with being a gypsy. The opportunity to travel to countries where you’ve never been. To learn new languages like Bulgarian, Russian, German or Spanish. To work with different cultures. And of course all well paid by the company, which distincts the Corporate Gypsy a little bit from the “real” gypsies.

However, every now and then I receive an email or a call from someone who moved to another country and find it more difficult than he thought. To integrate with locals appears more of a challenge than it seemed beforehand. Or in the middle of every heated meeting they start talking in their own language, so you never have the feeling you get it all. Or their partner is getting frustrated about living secluded in a big house.

At such times it can be relieving to have a sparring opportunity. To look again at the reasons you made the move in the first place and to have an honest look at your current situation and what the future will bring.

These conversations always lead to new energy. Either because you re-confirm the choice you made to move abroad and start improving the current situation. Or because you come to the conclusion that you’re tired of being a Corporate Gypsy and are ready for a new adventure. Like my ex-colleague.

To fully exploit this new concept, marketers have to change their Marketing Mindset. Market share is still the product of Awareness x Trial x Purchase x Re-Purchase, the way to get there changes.

People rely more and more on other people’s experiences to buy or not to buy something. Would you stay in a hotel with a poor rating at TripAdvisor? Or buy from an eBay seller with a negative score?

On the other hand, if your product gets a positive rating or testimonial, people are more likely to buy. Or if you ask them what they need from you that will help them, they feel different about your brand.

You get the picture.

Basically the 3 steps you need to master for the New Marketing Mindset are:

1. Turn Strangers into Friends
2. Turn Friends into Clients
3. Turn Clients into Ambassadors

© Actimpact – The 3-Step Marketing Platform

You cannot turn Strangers into Clients in one step. That’s why I would never buy a new Skoda for €27.000 if I have never driven a Skoda before. They first need to build some kind of “friendship” with me, which means that we start liking each other. If Skoda, or any other car manufacturer, would use the same bill board space (see previous post) to announce a free cup of coffee at the dealership and a day test drive in the latest Skoda, the investment in bill board space would be far more effective.

Now the 3^rd step is even more powerful from a Marketing perspective. Currently 1,000s of people ask advice about new shoes they want to buy on Twitter (#newshoes). A Skoda dealership could mail its current client base and ask if they are happy with their car and if they would be willing to share their positive experiences with their friends. If both the client and his or her friend would receive an interesting offer, you have turned Clients into Ambassadors, who will introduce your product to new Strangers which closes the circle.

Of course your product must be outstanding, but I don’t doubt it is. And it works! Two weeks ago, when I was on Madrid Airport, I got approached by a BMW sales lady, who asked me if I would be interested in a test drive in their latest model. I only had to give my contact data (:-)), and she would make sure that a dealership close by my home would contact me for a test drive. And they did! I didn’t buy it yet, but it was a great experience.

What would be opportunities for your products if you would adopt this New Marketing Mindset? How could you turn strangers into friends?

Over the years, the amount of TV channels doubled, quadrupled, centupled and people needed to get interrupted more often and more aggressive to get the desired effect of creating product awareness. Nowadays a 1,5 hour movie can take twice this time if you include all the commercial breaks.

Interruption marketing was as well taking place when driving around. In the beginning an occasional bill board was interrupting your views of the surroundings. However, if you now enter a city, you can’t see anything anymore behind the wall of MediaMarkt, Leroy Merlin, Ford and Nissan bill boards.

But times are changing. In this Age of Interruption, consumers become more and more creative in finding ways to deal with it. Commercial breaks are great for a sanitary stop, or to get something to drink. TiVO and Digital TV allow us to watch movies undisturbed. And there are not a lot of people who haven’t installed a pop-up blocker yet.

But most companies still focus their marketing efforts on interruption. And although using new technologies like pop-ups and banners, or ads in LinkedIn or Facebook, it’s still interruption.

The question is, when was the last time you bought a brand new Skoda (a brand you’ve never driven before) for €27.000 because you saw their bill board?

But why don’t managers do these things? According to Lencioni there are a number of reasons.

First, many managers think they are too busy. Of course, the real problem is that most of those managers see themselves primarily as individual contributors who happen to have direct reports. They fail to realize that the most important part of their jobs is providing their people with what they need to be productive and fulfilled (a.k.a. not miserable) in their jobs.

The second reason that managers don’t provide their employees with the three things they need is that they simply forget what is was like when they were a little lower on the food chain. They somehow forget how important it was to them when a supervisor took an interest in them, talked to them about why their work really mattered and gave them a means for evaluating their progress.

Finally, many managers don’t do this because they are embarrassed or afraid to try. They fear that their employees will see them as being disingenuous or manipulative, or that by taking an interest in their personal lives they will be stepping into inappropriate territory. It’s almost as though they fail to understand the difference between the interview process (no personal questions allowed!) and the actual work experience (treat people like a full human being).

However, if an employee comes to the conclusion that his or her manager is indeed completely disinterested in helping them find fulfillment in their work, it may well be time to start looking for a new job.

Does this lead to any insights?

She got recently promoted to Marketing Manager and now had to lead a team of 12 people. She was, let’s say, positively concerned and looking forward to this new challenge. However, you don’t learn this at University and there were unfortunately not a lot of inspiring examples in her close environment.

Her biggest concerns were how to manage her time, since she was still involved in her previous role and now had to add being a team leader, and how to manage a group of people towards achieving results.

I explained her that a team leader basically has to overcome three hurdles to enable an environment where his or her team members flourish, a wisdom I learned from Patrick Lencioni’s book “Three Signs of a Miserable Job”. He describes it as follows.

Anonymity

The first thing a manager has to deal with is “anonymity”, which is the feeling that employees get when they realize that their manager has little interest in them as a human being and that they know little about their lives, their aspirations and their interests.

If you look around, you see most people enter an office, turn on their computer and dive into their e-mail. A quick coffee is taken every now and then and lunch is either quick as well or taken behind the screen. This leaves not a lot of time to just talk with your people, leaving them more or less anonymous.

Irrelevance

The second thing to deal with is “irrelevance”, which takes root when employees cannot see how their job makes a difference in the lives of others. Every employee needs to know that the work they do impacts someone’s life – a customer, a co-worker, even a supervisor – in one way or another.

The feeling of switching off your computer and leaving the office with a feeling of “what have I done really in those 10 hours of work today?” is not a healthy one. At least not if you experience this feeling more than once.

Immeasurement

The third obstacle to remove is something he calls “immeasurement”, which is the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contribution or success. Employees, who have no means of measuring how well they are doing on a given day or in a given week, must rely on the subjective opinions of others, usually their managers’, to gauge their progress or contribution.

Sounds easy, not? But why do managers, at all levels, experience any of these indicators? Indeed, it doesn’t matter what level you are. If a General Manager doesn’t address these obstacles, his or her Marketing Director may feel as irrelevant as a Junior Brand Manager somewhere down the line.

Do you recognize any of these obstacles in your situation? What do you do to address these hurdles with your team members?

Why are Purchasing and Sales never combined in one department?

Are these truly two completely different expertise areas or are there huge profit opportunities if they start working together?

Let’s look at it from this perspective.

• Do you think your suppliers make good products they are proud of? Of course, just like you do (otherwise you would buy from another supplier).
• Do you think your suppliers hire competent sales people to sell their products and services to your company? Of course, just like you do (otherwise they would not be your supplier).
• Do you think your suppliers are interested in selling more to your company and have concepts, ideas and money available to achieve that? Of course, just like you do with your clients.

Now, why are the sales people from the supplier not communicating with your sales people?
Why don’t you use the resources available at your supplier to help you grow your bottom-line?

Seems like a no-brainer, not?

Well, maybe not, since it requires a shift in mindset which is one of the most challenging things to do. I think the most important reason that Sales and Purchasing are seen and treated as two opposites is purely based on historical grounds. We were already selling stuff, and at a certain point it became obvious that centralizing purchase decisions would make sense. So we installed a Purchase manager. What’s missing now is a visionary manager who puts the two together and looks for potential gains.

The concept exist already since ages, we only need to copy it

The industry where buying and selling is already combined since ages is the real-estate market (and the stock-market). Of course it is a little bit different than fmcg since the product in this case is the same, i.e. a house, but probably every real-estate agent will confirm that he or she gains a broader knowledge and business sense by mastering both sides of the medal.

How could a cross functional co-operation between Sales and Purchasing look like?

As suggested earlier, the knowledge and expertise of the suppliers that are in contact with your Purchasers, could be used to increase skills or knowledge of your Commercial department. Maybe the Xerox sales people could update your Sales or Marketing people on the latest technologies to be used for POS materials.

Another opportunity is to use the Purchasing skills of your own people to better train and prepare your own Sales people. In the end they will be confronted with the same behavior. Purchasing could even strengthen a Sales plot and bring in new elements from a different angle.

Or you could even bring the sales person for a specific ingredient with you to a sales call as an expert to support a price increase based on higher raw product costs. In the end it is serving both parties (supplier and manufacturer) that you will sell more of the product.

So, what are your ideas about this approach? What other gains could be obtained? And what obstacles need to be removed?

More and more companies however see the benefits of working with cross functional teams. Of course it is no rocket science that you can get to smarter, quicker solutions if you look at a problem from different angles. At least it should lead to less errors and rework when done well, but the upside is tremendous, with increased creativity and powerful plans as a result.

I remember my time at P&G about 13 years ago, when we introduced Customer Business Development Teams. We moved away from the single-minded “account manager meets buyer” approach by implementing a multifunctional account team where everyone was looking for ways to improve the business results from their specific angle, be it finance, logistics or marketing. A strategy that proved to be extremely successful, looking at today’s situation.

However, although it seems like a no-brainer and the most logical thing to do, working together with colleagues from different departments seems more difficult than it looks. “Those from Sales, Marketing or Finance”, is an often heard quote during our workshops. “We have to do everything ourselves here at Marketing, if just Demand Planning would do their job…”, is another example.

Why is this the case?

The most important reason for multifunctional teams not working well together is that in reality they are no team. They don’t have a common goal, they don’t have common objectives in their PDR and they don’t succeed or fail together when business thrives or plummets. In fact they are more like multifunctional committees, where each individual can succeed regardless the result of the team.

Of course this leads to suboptimal situations and can create even the opposite effect of the desired outcome. The commercial functions, like Marketing and Trade Marketing, probably will find each other given their common activities,. However, other functions will only be informed when there is a need, which is often urgent, and if not dealt with immediately, the fingers point quickly in each other’s direction.

Another reason is the “If-I-do-it-myself-I’ll-be-done-much-quicker” effect. Of course if you fill out a logistical sheet as marketer,  because the factory needs the information now and you know everything about the new launch, you will be quicker. But, as well you cannot spend the time you need for the form on consumer related activities. And the next time the factory needs something, they’ll come back to you. And the guys and girls at Supply think, and rightly so, that you’re the expert and since you know all the details, you should do it.

I know the same effect from my business perspective. The harder I work, the harder others will do nothing. If I talk a lot during a workshop, give examples, and explain everything 3 times, the group becomes “lazy”. Arms crossed, chair a bit backwards and they listen. And they right! The problem is, since they don’t act, I start working even harder to get them to understand, which results in them starting listening even harder, etcetera.

So, you just started a downward cycle, taking away more and more time from your core-activities. And you probably start several of these cycles. No wonder time is always scarce.

What about you?