Are You Seeing the Bigger Picture?

Guest Post by Brad Taylor, Principal

Taylor Built Brands

I took this photograph a few years ago during a family visit to the Okefenokee Swamp in South Georgia. The funny thing is, when I took the picture, I didn’t even see the frog on the alligator’s snout. I was too excited, and maybe a bit anxious, about capturing a great shot of the gator that I didn’t see what ended up being the bigger picture. It wasn’t until I stepped out of the moment and reviewed all of my photos from the trip that I saw the frog! This reminds me of the challenges many start-ups and small businesses face … being too focused on immediately jumping into selling and not taking the time to focus on the bigger picture - building a differentiated and sustainable brand.

Most start-ups and small businesses typically get one shot at launching a business, and it is understandable that they need to generate sales as quickly as possible. For a fortunate few this approach works, and they go on to achieve sustained success. However more often than not, entrepreneurs encounter soft or declining sales and don’t really understand why and what they need to do to turn the business around. This is where taking the time early on to build your “brand house” proves beneficial for the long term. Building your brand house first helps you understand and truly focus on your biggest opportunity.

Think of your brand house as the foundation for continued success. It starts with clearly defining your business ambition. What does success look like, and what is realistically achievable? To comprehend this, it is important to first focus on the MARKET by analyzing market trends and the competitive environment. Are you entering or attempting to compete in a growing category with few competitors, or a saturated and highly competitive environment? Will your sales come from organic category growth, or by taking market share from your competitors? These are critically important questions as the answers will compel you to focus on the real and, perhaps bigger opportunity.

Once you understand the market, you should then focus on your BRAND offering and what makes it unique, different, and special from your competition. What promise are you making, and is that promise believable and defendable? Does your brand have equity, and does it offer unique consumer benefits? Many “me-too” brands ultimately fail because they simply do not offer anything different, better, or special vs. competitive offerings. And, in the sea of sameness, low-cost providers typically win. Are you prepared to always be the low-cost provider? One of the greatest benefits of a truly differentiated brand offering is sustainable higher margins.

After understanding what is truly unique about your brand offering, it is critical to understand and define who specifically your core, or most important, target consumers are. Do you understand the needs and motivations of your most important customers? What do these PEOPLE look like, how do they think and feel about your category and your offering, what will be most important and motivating for them? Does your brand promise resonate with them, and is it believable?

Once you truly understand your market, your brand, and the people most important to your business, you can then move forward with developing your brand positioning, which can and should inform and influence your selling and marketing approach and content going forward. Stay tuned to this blog for more on developing an effective brand positioning.

In summary, in the rush to capture something great, we often miss seeing the bigger picture. Taking a step back to really understand and then focus on the bigger picture can lead to more success in the long run. Do you really see the full picture of success for your business?

 Brad Taylor is a foodservice and CPG marketing veteran with over 34 years of progressive experience in leadership roles at The Coca-Cola Company, Pizza Hut, Inc., and in the advertising agency industry. Brad has consistently led teams to achieve strong B2C results through a keen understanding of how to effectively position and activate brands directly with consumers and through deep collaboration with B2B partners including customers, franchisees, strategic alliances, and marketing services partners. Brad has direct experience solving marketing challenges with leading brands including Circle K, Coca-Cola, Disney, Domino’s Pizza, HMSHost, Pizza Hut, Sodexo, and others.  Additionally, Brad is a skilled orator and facilitator and currently serves as a part-time marketing faculty member at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and at the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

I hope you enjoyed my point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.

Jim Weber, Managing Partner

ITB PARTNERS

Jim.Weber@itbpartners.com

Current Assignments

1. COO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - New

2. CEO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - Offer Accepted

3. Corporate R&D Chef, Atlanta-based Home Meal Replacement Company - Complete

4. Area Supervisor - Legacy Pizza Chain, Carolinas - New

5. Operating Partners - Legacy Pizza Chain - New

6. Controller - Atlanta-based Consumer Products - Digital Company - Completed

7. Outplacement Assignment - Atlanta-based Manufacturer:  Complete

Author of: Fighting Alligators: Job Search Strategy For The New Normal

Beyond Delivery: A Guest Post by Eric Norman

By Eric Norman, Partner,  ITB Partners

Thinking back on both the successes and disappointments I’ve experienced in my career as a leader of organizational initiatives, the recollections that surface most often are not the successes... or even the difficult efforts I’ve led. The thoughts and underlying concerns that haunt me most frequently gather themselves around the discovery, after-the-fact, that some of the initiatives I believed were successfully delivered had actually been only a temporary fixes, or when viewed at a later date were revealed to be failures masquerading as success - to be discovered for what they really were only after the passage of time.

Let me briefly explain. The challenged initiatives (projects, programs, portfolios of work) I'm referring to were efforts that defied easy resolution - every step a difficult and exhaustive slog upstream.  These “successes” were initiatives that had effectively ticked all the traditional performance boxes… meeting project or program objectives, achieving initial acceptance criteria and benefits targets, delivered within budget, on schedule. On later review, however, the changes we understood to be successfully delivered and implemented were nowhere to be found.  New products, practices or systems sat idle - never to be used; new processes and guidance regularly circumvented or entirely ignored; new organizational structures reworked or fully replaced, no longer recognizable.  In these cases, what had initially been seen as resounding success was, in reality, complete and utter failure.

Fortunately, this did not happen often, but when it did, I found it particularly disturbing and difficult to accept.  I found myself asking “what had we, as the leadership team missed, what had we not done to ensure success – what had I overlooked as the initiative leader that enabled and led to this outcome?”

Answers to these questions have not come quickly. It’s taken more years than I care to admit to gain adequate perspective on the common thread that ties these failures together. Taking time to look more deeply into the initiatives I’ve led, I’ve focused specifically on the challenged initiatives and those initial successes I found later to be failures. I looked for common themes and conditions embodied in these efforts and what I found surprised me.  Here are three themes common to all of them that stand out:

·        Solutioning, not Solving Business Problems:  Common among nearly all of these challenged and failed initiatives was the notion that we were delivering “solutions”.  In many cases, they turned out to be fixes to symptoms that truly didn’t address underlying business issues and conditions. Examined more closely, these were often “pet” initiatives sponsored by influential leaders intent on changing something within the organizations they led, without much real concern for, or understanding of long-term organizational or business impact. Many times these came as mandates or pronouncements, such as: “we are going Agile… every project in the organization will now follow Agile principles”, or “Regardless of what the demand study says, we are going to deliver that product by September”. To help ensure we, as initiative leaders aren’t led down this dangerous path, perhaps we should inquire about the strategic significance of such initiatives, asking organizational decision-makers: specifically, what business problem are we trying to solve? Then follow that question with another: and how will this _______ (fill-in-the-blank initiative) help achieve that outcome?  In the end, it is our responsibility to ensure that the degree of clarity in the answers we receive actually guide our actions.

·        Delivering, not Generating Business Outcomes: Another striking similarity among this group of initiatives was the continual drumbeat of process and delivery – and we followed that drumbeat dutifully, attending to the management plans (process), and getting the job done (delivery) with mechanical precision. Whether the initiative was heralded as a model for success or one that struggled to cross the finish line, we celebrated at the conclusion and congratulated ourselves for a job well done. What becomes obvious now recalling these initiatives as a collection, was that in nearly every case the work wasn’t complete. We had prematurely declared success when we hadn’t actually achieved it. We had entirely ignored the need to measure progress against intended business outcomes. To put it simply, what we missed with our exclusive focus on process and delivery was the awareness that if we were delivering a new or changed product or service, delivery wasn’t the end of the process, it was the beginning. Measures and activities that would have served to focus the team, stakeholders, and sponsors during the initiative were entirely absent. How will we ensure adoption of the new ______ (fill-in-the-blank product or service) during and after the close of the effort?  What must we do now, during the initiative, to ensure the benefits we achieve can be sustained after the effort ends, and what must we put in place to make certain these benefits continue to accrue into the future? Who, specifically, will own sustainment of the changes we’ve implemented after the current champion, sponsor and team move on? I call these questions and others like them outcome-oriented thinking, and this approach now shapes and influences the methods, processes, tools, and systems I put in place for initiative leadership, benefits achievement and sustainment.

·        Maintaining Systems, not Sustaining Benefits: Finally, short-sighted or limited post-delivery planning characterized many of these failed efforts. Because we had focused so intently on delivery, our post-delivery plans emerged mostly as traditional, backward-facing maintenance activities. Warranty periods, call centers, support plans, problem/issue tracking, all targeted at correcting fallout from the delivery itself - and only for a relatively short period of time. On reflection, what I noticed common among these initiatives was the absence of a forward-looking sense of sustainment and continuous outcome improvement. During the initiatives, we hadn’t anticipated and planned for systemic issues that may have occurred. We viewed support as a passive, reactive activity, without planning-in the necessary components for acting on support information and feedback, employing this key information for ongoing outcome improvement. We spent little effort on defining post-delivery adoption, utilization or effectiveness measures, or the people and processes required for monitoring and acting on them. This reinforced our view of delivery as an endpoint, leaving the difficult follow-on work to others. Related to this – and most importantly in all these initiatives, we neglected to specifically identify the individuals responsible for carrying forward the new structures, products, services or benefits sustainment activities. This was a significant omission, leaving critically important considerations completely unaddressed. In effect, we had actually built short-lived success into these efforts, without a foundation for ongoing business value generation behind it.  Armed with this insight, I now regularly begin thinking of the post-implementation “who” and “how” during the planning stages of the initiatives I take on.  To summarize, in my view these three “Beyond Delivery” themes are inseparably linked, and to employ them as effective initiative leaders, we must:

·        Ensure alignment exists between the organization’s strategic objectives and the efforts we lead

·        Focus attention on post-delivery activities. Identify what must be put in place during initiatives to ensure durable and sustainable success after

·        Anticipate and plan for process ownership and sustainment activities, specifically identifying the individuals who will carry on the good work delivered by initiatives long after the original efforts have ended

Outcome-oriented thinking; it’s what results from considerations of things that occur in business...Beyond Delivery

Eric Norman

For more articles, presentations, books, and lectures by Eric Norman, check out his website: https://nncweb.net/publications/

Thank you for visiting my blog.

I hope you enjoyed my point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.

Jim Weber, Managing Partner

ITB PARTNERS

Jim.Weber@itbpartners.com

Current Assignments

1. COO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - New

2. CEO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - Offer Accepted

3. Corporate R&D Chef, Atlanta-based Home Meal Replacement Company - Complete

4. Area Supervisor - Legacy Pizza Chain, Carolinas - New

5. Operating Partners - Legacy Pizza Chain - New

6. Controller - Atlanta-based Consumer Products - Digital Company - Completed

7. Outplacement Assignment - Atlanta-based Manufacturer:  Complete

Author of: Fighting Alligators: Job Search Strategy For The New Normal

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How to Hire Top Talent Millennials into Commission-Only Jobs

Chris Butsch – Keynote Speaker, Author, Millennial Expert

Hiring Millennials into paid positions is difficult enough; so how on earth do you attract them to commission-only jobs? What’s the secret to selling a full-time position with deferred payment to a generation who places high importance on instant returns and gratification?

The solution is two-part; you must first address the unknown, then spice up the value proposition. Remember: you’re competing with the comforting psychology of a guaranteed paycheck. As a result, setting clear expectations and an attainable vision of success during the interview process will be critical in recruiting top Millennial talent to your commission-only positions.  You can do this in two stages during early conversations with candidates:

1. Clearly lay out expected earnings potential.

Laying out earnings expectations for 1, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months out is an excellent place to start. The word “expectations” will help assuage concerns over the commission-only model. Then, a segue into earnings potential becomes natural and powerful. Some sample language you can use:

“At a salaried position, you have to wait until the end of the year for a bonus. Here, you can earn a bonus anytime. Furthermore, at a salaried position, there are limits on what you can earn. Here, your hard work will directly translate into higher earnings.”

Language like this helps Millennials see the potential, as opposed to the limitations, of a commission-only model.

2.  Play the role of mentor. At this point in the conversation, even a confident, entrepreneurial-minded Millennial will wonder “but what if I fail?” You can address this fear head-on by assuring them that you won’t let them.

Millennials grow with guidance and place a high value on experiential learning. 79% of us want our boss to serve as a coach or mentor, and 88% of us prefer collaborative to competitive work cultures. Plus, strong mentorship is the #2 strongest retention tool for Millennials, behind alignment with the company’s purpose.[1]

Certain key phrases will eliminate culture concerns and paint you as someone they’d desire to work for. Positive, supportive language like this will augment every interview you conduct, but works especially well with a young person:

“I won’t let you fail.”

“We’ll create work plans together.”
“You’ll get some of the best sales training on the planet; training that you’ll have forever.”

“My office is always open for questions.”

“I’ll turn you into a rock star.”

“Commitment goes both ways; you make a commitment to me, and I’ll make a commitment to you.”

In summary, mention of pay and mentorship are critical while recruiting Millennials. Assure them that if they work hard, they’ll succeed; and you personally won’t let them fail. Many employers forget to make the latter point so you can use a promise of mentoring and coaching to gain a competitive edge over other recruiters: even those hiring into salaried positions.

What’s your company’s current “Millennial Problem?” Recruitment? Retention? Engagement? Message me on LinkedIn and I’ll do my best to help. 

About The Author

Chris Butsch is an expert on maximizing the Millennial generation in the workplace, Chris has directly advised Fortune 500 CEOs and delivered keynotes on three continents. Having built a reputation for offering managers free and immediate "quick wins" to maximize Millennial retention and productivity, Chris is organizing his latest findings in a new book called These Damn Millennials. 

His business website is:   www.chrisbutsch.com

Thank you for visiting my blog.

I hope you enjoyed my point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.

Jim Weber, Managing Partner

ITB PARTNERS

Jim.Weber@itbpartners.com

Current Assignments

1. COO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - New

2. CEO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - New

3. Corporate R&D Chef, Atlanta-based Home Meal Replacement Company - Complete

4. Area Supervisor - Legacy Pizza Chain, Carolinas - New

5. Operating Partners - Legacy Pizza Chain - New

6. Controller - Atlanta-based Consumer Products - Digital Company - Completed

7. Outplacement Assignment - Atlanta-based Manufacturer:  Complete

Author of: Fighting Alligators: Job Search Strategy For The New Normal

---

[1]Source: Intelligence Group (link) 

More On Changing Industry Segments.

You probably know that the economy has improved, and that unemployment is down to 4.1%.  That is great news!  Along with an improved economy, the labor market has tightened.  The unemployed and under-employed are going back to work.  Additionally, those people who held onto their jobs through the recession and the weak recovery are considering their options.  They are beginning to seek career advancement with another employer.

This week I talked with a lady who has experience in the restaurant industry but more recently has worked on the fringe of the industry, in another retail segment.  Let's call her Ann.  In fact, her current employer is classified as "non-traditional" by restaurant industry insiders.  This segment is not well understood or highly respected by the restaurant industry.  Even so, she has responsibility for a major line of business with a dominant regional brand. Her employer is well known in their part of the country but not so much outside the region.  

I have written about the difficulty of transitioning one's career into a different industry.  I have found that people have biases about those working in other segments even within the same industry. These biases are interesting as they are seldom fact-based. I advise that the best way to make a successful cross-industry move is to have an important contact networked into that segment.  However, there are other issues to consider.

Changing industries is more or less difficult depending on one’s job function and the hiring manager's personal biases.  Yes, hiring managers have biases that affect their decisions, and they aren't necessarily illegal.   Would you believe that a controller with experience in full-service hotels and resorts couldn't be a successful controller for a small restaurant chain?  Well, a few years ago I faced that bias which frustrated me.  Recently, I failed to get a candidate in front of a client because he has worked in non-food retail for the past two years. It did not matter that my candidate had a total of 15 years of leadership experience in the restaurant segment. Two years outside the restaurant industry knocked him out of contention. Seriously?

Moving into a different industry segment is also subject to the company's culture.  Some employers are open to hiring people with the right skill set even if their recent experience has not been in the same industry segment.  Other companies are more rigid in this requirement.  The target company's position in its life cycle is also relevant.  Typically, leaders and managers are best suited to one or two life cycle stages, but not all.  Entrepreneurial managers skilled in start-ups are usually gone by the time the brand reaches maturity.  Managers who are successful working with mature brands are probably not viable in a turnaround.  Making a career move to a different industry segment can be complicated.

Back to Ann.  She has a good job with a broad responsibility and a comfortable salary.  However, she sees no path to a viable long-term career. After five years, she has decided to explore other options.  She wants to make a transition on her terms, i.e., to keep her current job until she has landed the next.  Her ideal strategy would be to look for a situation in the QSR or Quick Casual segments with an equal or greater level of responsibility.  Her job search plan needs a public relations component to address segment bias.

My counsel is to craft a document that explains the business she manages in detail. She must help hiring-managers bridge the gap between their preconceptions and the facts for her industry segment.  A document that presents the size and scope of her responsibility could change some opinions.  This information can be incorporated into her resume and possibly into a cover letter. My thinking, however, is that the ideal product will read like a press release. The point is to address objections right up front.  

As much as the entire economy is changing and the employment dynamic is tightening, one would think that hiring managers would be "tuned into" the need to adapt.  One would think that employers would face additional pressure to check their biases and develop a more productive perspective.  Well, maybe not yet.  Some people will learn this lesson the hard way.  In the meantime, it is up to the job seeker to develop a strategy to overcome hiring biases.

Thank you for visiting my blog.
I hope you enjoyed my point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.

Jim Weber, President

NEW CENTURY DYNAMICS EXECUTIVE SEARCH

JimWeber@NewCenturyDynamics.com

Current Assignments

1. COO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - New

2. CEO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - New

3. Corporate R&D Chef, Atlanta-based Home Meal Replacement Company - Complete

4. Area Supervisor - Legacy Pizza Chain, Carolinas - New

5. Operating Partners - Legacy Pizza Chain - New

6. Controller - Atlanta-based Consumer Products - Digital Company - Completed

7. Outplacement Assignment - Atlanta-based Manufacturer:  Complete

Author of: Fighting Alligators: Job Search Strategy For The New Normal

Get Off The Bench And Into The Game!

I spend my days talking with people; a lot of people. Many are consultants with ITB Partners.  They are seeking my advice to become more successful as an independent contractor.  Mostly, I talk with people who need help with their job search. It is a significant part of my day.  These folks want to reconnect with another employer in a similar role. Some are ready to make a break from traditional employment to become their own boss. They are intrigued by the opportunity and want to better understand the risks and rewards. Every now and then I talk with someone who has been on her own but seeks greater stability as an employee.  Of course, becoming an employee offers little stability as companies are in a constant state of change.  One of our consultants took employment situation last year. It didn’t work out.  After a short tenure in that job, he returned to ITB Partners to pursue a freelance career.  This is a common phenomenon as job tenures become shorter and shorter.

My conversation with these folks begins with their goals and objectives. I want to understand their perspective on the market and the motivation for their intended course of action.  I want to learn how I can be helpful, even if it is limited to free advice.  Naturally, they want to know if I have a search assignment that fits their needs.  If I don't have an appropriate assignment they want to begin a relationship for future opportunities.  When they have completed their overview it is my turn to validate their strategy and to present alternatives they may not have considered.

As most of my work is with senior-level executives, my feedback is usually the same.  However, there are variations appropriate to the candidate's functional discipline and industry segment. Some job functions are experiencing great demand, like Chief Financial Officers. Some are experiencing rapid turn over, like Chief Marketing Officers. Some industry sectors are growing more rapidly than others.  Some are consolidating and even liquidating.

To a large extent, all industry segments are experiencing similar circumstances. They are trying to adapt to rapid change. Competition is fierce. There is a manic effort to stay relevant to the customer. The constant search to become better, faster and cheaper creates pressure to innovate. The push for cost reduction usually means ways to shrink the workforce.  Finding outsourced solutions has become commonplace.  The message to job seekers is to expect more job changes with shorter tenures. This reality leads many to strike out on their own, to become a freelancer.

The fundamentals of finding full-time employment or a contract engagement are basically the same.  One must talk with people, network. They must research the target company. They must get their resumes in front of hiring managers.  Ultimately, they must get interviews. The big difference is to advise the hiring manager or recruiter that you will consider a 1099 situation.   With no additional work, the job-seeker increases her employment opportunities, while reducing her time "in the market."

I find that a willingness to engage in project work is an effective way to find a new job. I call it a bridge strategy.  Employers are risk-averse, especially with regard to hiring decisions.  The cost of a bad hire is significant.  If given the alternative they would prefer a lower risk option, like a short-term contract.  A short-term contract allows the employer time to evaluate the candidate's viability without making a commitment.  If the candidate is a good fit an offer of full-time employment is likely.  If not, terminating the contract carries little risk.

If you are serious about finding work you must be open to alternatives that present a win-win solution.  Contract work that leads to a full-time situation is a proven job search strategy.  I believe that freelancing will continue to grow in importance as the economy transitions into the Digital Age.  So, get with the program!  It is better to be on the playing field as an independent contractor than to warm the bench.

Thank you for visiting my blog.
I hope you enjoyed my point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.

Jim Weber, President

Jim Weber, President

NEW CENTURY DYNAMICS EXECUTIVE SEARCH

JimWeber@NewCenturyDynamics.com

Current Assignments

1. COO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - New

2. CEO- Northeast-based Casual Dining Restaurant Company - New

3. Corporate R&D Chef, Atlanta-based Home Meal Replacement Company - Complete

4. Area Supervisor - Legacy Pizza Chain, Carolinas - New

5. Operating Partners - Legacy Pizza Chain - New

6. Controller - Atlanta-based Consumer Products - Digital Company - Completed

7. Outplacement Assignment - Atlanta-based Manufacturer:  Complete

Author of: Fighting Alligators: Job Search Strategy For The New Normal