David Harkins

When I relaunched my blog a few weeks ago, several people asked me to re-post some of my older writings. I’ve accommodated that request with a few that were still relevant. I’ve added them here, marking the date of the post as the date of the original writing. I will also add some of my public presentations and whitepapers from the past as soon as a can locate electronic copies.

My sincere thanks to all of you who have returned to reading my blog, especially after such a very long absence.

*With apologies to the late Hal Riney and his Bartles & James characters.

Growing up, I learned quickly how to determine when my dad wanted my attention. He could add a certain tonal quality, let’s say, to the delivery of a sentence that let me know I needed to focus on what he was saying. He never raised his voice, but I often heard him “yelling” when he used “the tone.” On the other hand, my mom’s voice often had a constant level of exasperation that allowed me to lose every word she shared to the white noise that surrounded us.

I thought about “the tone” as I watched President-elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last evening. His entire campaign was delivered with a different tone. It was a tone crafted for and deftly delivered to a generation–the Millennial Generation. CNN’s exit polls last evening noted that 68% of voters 18-24 and 69% of those 25-29 voted for Mr. Obama–a solid victory for the Millennial Generation. Conversely, the same exit polls placed the majority of McCain’s supporters over age 45 and a great number over the age of 65.

If you have been unable to see these change markers in your every-day life and work, it should be clear from this election that the Millennial Generation, more than other generations, responds as much to the tone of your voice, as they do to your message. This realization presents an interesting dilemma for marketers, I think. Most of us understand “the tone” concept in our gut, but do not put it into practice in our marketing or advertising campaigns. A good many of us are using a tone in our voice that is heard well by Baby Boomers, but is generating white noise to pretty much everyone else.

The November 4, 2008 election should be a wake-up call for marketers. It is time to adjust the tone of our voice if we hope to be heard by a new generation.

As Web 2.0 and social networking technologies gain a greater foothold on our culture, I often hear LinkedIn.com founder Reid Hoffman’s quote, “Privacy is an old man’s concern,” tossed about. There is some truth to that, I suppose. Although I suspect the real issue is “trust” and not “privacy.” Trust is certainly not an “old man’s concern.”

Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers view the increasing requirements of Web 2.0 for personal and private information with a wary eye. We are the children who came of age in a time that knew Vietnam, the concept of the Cold War, and Watergate firsthand. We are largely skeptical and don’t easily trust the “establishment,” whether it be the government, the corporations or unseen faces behind the wall of the Internet. To us, relationships are built one-on-one and face-to-face, and privacy is something protected until the deepest stages of the relationship.

The Millennial Generation, the generation fueling the development of Web 2.0, are children of technology. They have grown up with computers and technology, and their distrusting and skeptical parents (see above) were increasingly protective of them in their formative years. This generation’s social life was controlled by their parent’s ability (or inability) to take them where they could engage others (play dates, dance classes, baseball games, etc.) They saw little unstructured playtime in the neighborhood with their friends and their primary means of social interaction was (and is) online. Their online relationships are real and intimate because they are an extension of their daily interaction with their friends. To this generation, privacy is not something to be concerned about; it is simply the price paid for building trust.

Although the perceptions, behaviors, interactions are somewhat different between the generations, the act of sharing information and building relationships (face-to-face or online) is tied to one single factor: Trust. Trust is what makes the relationships work. Trust is the only thing that can make or break that relationship. It does not matter if it’s a personal, friendly relationship, or one build on expectations of your company or your brand.

Yet, companies violate our trust daily; and, we keep going back for more. Well, at least those of us who were skeptical and distrustful in the first place are returning. Our expectations were low at the outset, so we largely tolerate the violations of our trust. That’s about to change though. The Millennial Generation has higher expectations of our companies and our brands. Violate their trust, and we are history. We will not get a second chance.

Trust is still the currency for business success. It does not really matter how much private information is shared and kept by the company; it is what is done with the information to build trust that is important. As our culture continues to evolve, keeping the trust is going to be a lot harder than earning it in the first place.

Are you prepared for that?

Recently I had the privilege of proposing a couple of new product ideas to a small group of folks. Both ideas involved new media, never before used by the organization in this fashion.  Early in the conversation one member in the group said something like, “…in the 80’s we made a decision not to move away from our printed materials because we want to take a stand on literacy. We believe encouraging people to read the materials we provide is the best way to engage them and support our plan to support literacy.”

Wow.

Although I countered with the need to address alternative learning styles of the target audience and noted the cultural changes. What I left unsaid, but probably should not have, was in1985 the technology that we use today (especially today’s youth) did not exist. There were no iPod’s, and music was just beginning to be delivered on CDs. Cell phones were not prevalent except in the wealthiest households, and the Blackberry™ was not yet invented.  The Internet, as we know it today, was not available. VCRs were the norm. Text messaging—not even a glimmer in someone’s eye. So, how could anyone possibly believe that our 1980’s thinking about these things is still relevant today?

This outdated thinking makes these brands seem less relevant to today’s world.  Many of these organizations have become so rooted in their past that they have put their entire future at risk to preserve their own traditions and corporate cultures.  They persist in developing marketing and product plans based on what is now an outdated idea of what was prevailing thinking at some tiny point in their history. There is no faster way to kill a brand than to think about future opportunities looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Sadly, this is what many of America’s oldest companies and non-profit organizations do every day.

If you are still making product, program, or marketing decisions based on 80’s, 90’s or even 2007’s cultural norms or content delivery systems, you need to consider how you can reconnect to the world around you. Start by asking yourself how relevant your company or non-profit organization brands are in today’s world. You may simply find that your message is still sound, it is the messenger that needs refreshing.

When I was the CMO of a software engineering firm at the end of the dot com era, my boss would find a way to work, “If it’s a good idea, it’s worth doing poorly,” into every conversation.  When I got over the annoyance of it, I realized he was on to something.

“We can’t drive innovation through planning. It only comes in the doing.”

- Dave Harkins

This is the time of the year that most of us work on our budgets for the coming year.  Many of us are cutting back on marketing expenditures. Why?  We didn’t deliver, because we used history as our guide. Basically, we didn’t keep up with the change around us and planned our marketing programs by looking through a historical lens.

Successful marketers today understand that we must keep our eyes open and our ears tuned-in to all that happens around us today. Yesterday is irrelevant in today’s culture.  We must be bold enough to take action on what little we know, or think we know, and connect the seemingly-unconnected patterns in daily living to find opportunity for innovation.

As you think about next year’s marketing budget, open your eyes and ears to what’s really happening in our world. You will undoubtedly see opportunities that you could never have planned in your wildest dreams. You can’t plan innovation. You can only live it.

Take risks. Big risks. If it seems like a good idea, do it…poorly. Do whatever you do poorly, if it means you’ll get it done sooner rather than later. You can always improve upon it daily hourly.

What are you waiting for?

I like change. I like the excitement and energy of something new. I like the experience of interactions with new people, places and things. I’m invigorated by change and actively seek opportunities for change in my daily life. I live my life in search of opportunities for change. Yes, you could say I love change.  Except when it’s forced upon me. I was forced to make a major change several years ago, and my experiences gave me a few new insights on how to manage change.

I have a hereditary hearing loss that has caused me to loose the frequencies that make up the normal speaking range for most people. At first,  it wasn’t much of a problem at home except when watching TV–I could hear the music find (higher frequencies), but had a hard time with the dialog (lower frequencies). Yet, it was hell in a business environment, especially in a large room where the voices got lost to the room. One-on-one, could do well, but being in larger groups made my life difficult.

With strong encouragement and support from my dad, who also has this hearing loss, I got a pair of 4-channel digital hearing aids. Digital hearing aids primarily amplify only the frequencies for which the wearer has difficulty. The analog hearing aid amplifies all of the sound, not just the frequencies the wearer has trouble hearing.

I tried these, then state-of-the-art hearing aids, for about 30 days and I was greatly disappointed. Yes, I could here things that I couldn’t hear before. Unfortunately, the new sounds extended beyond the dialog I had been missing. I could hear everything more clearly, including conversations across the room that made me feel like I was eavesdropping. I was suddenly overwhelmed with sounds, most of which I classified as “noise” and I had a hard time distinguishing between what I needed to hear and what I was hearing. I hated it. At the end of 30-days, I was ready to give it up.

I talked with my doctor, who told me that Siemens had just released a new, 16-channel, digital hearing aid that would allow for a more finite programming of the hearing aid across the channels to better fit my loss. He also told me (again, actually for about the 4th time), that hearing aids won’t replace my natural hearing and that I would have to learn to “hear” all over again (i.e., learn what to tune out).

It occurred to me at that point, that I wasn’t fighting hearing aids, I was fighting change. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was being forced to change and adapt to a new situation. I laughed at the irony. Here I am, a guy who thrives on change and helping others change business models and processes, a guy who understands that 95% of change is about people and I’m fighting change. I was solidly rooted in the “Change Adoption Curve.” It took me months to work through the first four stages and several years to finally accept the change.

It’s been about five years since I started wearing hearing aids. The change has been overwhelming positive for me. Part of success was likely increasing the number of programmable channels, although I suspect the biggest reason for my adoption was retraining my ears to listen.

Perhaps most important to me in this experience was learning, first-hand, that people have to want to change and buy-in to the benefits the change will bring. Change can’t be forced upon them. Human beings like to have some sense of control and often change processes, in business particularly, are about mandating change. Forced change almost never works and now thanks to a little problem with my hearing, I understand why.

I’m sure you’ve all read the news about the few bad apples at one leading consulting firm who have cost the jobs and pensions hundreds, if not thousands of people. Both the consulting firm
and its client have lost large numbers of customers, again, because of the actions of these few individuals.

To read some the press reports, we apparently should be surprised by the customer defections,
but losing those customers isn’t unexpected is it? After all, a relationship with a customer is based on trust-trust that’s built on a series of promises that a company has kept. Break a big promise and you’re immediately history. Not unlike our consultant friends above, whose primary promise was to assure shareholders that their client was financially sound.

On the other hand, breaking a small promise usually doesn’t result in the immediate termination of a customer relationship. Rather, it takes breaking several small promises to erode the relationship to the point of no return. Why would anyone want to do business with a company that doesn’t keep it’s promises? As the television character Gomer Pyle says, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

All it takes is a “wrong” word or inconsiderate action by one individual to start the ball rolling. How many customers have you lost due to broken promises brought upon by the actions of one or two individuals? Do you know? I would suggest you will not know many of them if you’re breaking the small promises. These customers aren’t going to complain, they’re just going to gradually slip away to your competitors. You’ll likely never know what promises you’ve broken or how often you’ve broken them, so repairing the relationship will be difficult, if not impossible.

Fortunately,fixing this mess will be easier for you and your company than it will be those firms we mentioned earlier in this article. But, before we talk about how to “make things right”, let’s look at some of the biggest causes of broken promises:

1. External messages.

   What literal promises are you making in your advertising, marketing or customer service messages? Are you promising 24/7 service, or satisfaction guaranteed? Maybe your promises are more subjective, like one insurance company’s “Like a good neighbor…” tagline. Are you fulfilling these promises? Can you fulfill these promises?

   Next, look at how your messages can be perceived by your target audiences or the public at large. Can an implied promise be read into your message that would lead someone to believe that you’re not keeping your promises? This can be especially true if your promise results from the ambiguity of a great tagline that is so subjective there’s little chance you’ll be able to fulfill everyone’s expectations.

2. Actions of staff.

   More often than not, the reason for broken promises has more to do with the actions of people, rather than the message presented. In the case of the previously mentioned insurance company’s “good neighbor” tagline, it’s the subjective interpretation of “good neighbor” by the agent and the claims staff that play a large role in determining if the promise is kept…or not.

   Remember, neither messages nor taglines-implied nor literal-break promises. People break promises. Make sure your staff understands how their actions affect the fulfillment of your company’s promises.

3. Misunderstanding customer NVEs.

   As always, understanding the Needs, Values and Expectations (NVEs) of your prospects and customers is very important. In this case, however, values and expectations are paramount. A business is not built solely on the products and services that it sells to meet the tangible needs of customers. It is perhaps more important that the company demonstrates value (and values) and delivers on expectations with each and every action.

Successful businesses deliver on promises each and every day and have the loyal customers to prove it. Those who break promises regularly-intentional or not-may find themselves waging a constant battle for new customers. It’s easy to know which of these businesses you’d rather be, the more importantquestion is which business you are now.