Archives for June 2021

We’re looking at business use of social media. Last week, we decided that many companies which invest in online marketing plans for most social media are missing the boat.  Let’s back up and start by defining what we are talking about.

Business Marketing in general takes one of two forms. For Business-to-Consumer (B2C) your target is the individual buyer. For Business-to-Business (B2B), your target is the buying influencer – often a group of influencers for big-ticket items.

Social media comes in a thousand shapes but is similarly distinguishable. Most is group or community-based (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) bringing together in some cases hundreds of millions of people sharing the same interests. As we pointed out last week, hoping to attract these people with a business message is fishing in the wrong pool.

To direct a business campaign to a broad social audience you have to start by dropping the sell. Community-minded social media adherents can be very zealous and will damn-and-blast any commercial intent. So, marketing overly to the FB crowd is a no-no. Be more collegial. Think support, not sell. Grab the customer’s attention, not her wallet.

Thoughtful customer support programs in community media can be extremely successful. But that wasn’t your goal. You still haven’t found the answer to finding a way to access these gazillions of people in marketing terms that will bring them into your funnel. That way is with LinkedIn.

LI was created from the beginning for professional networking. It has 346 million male and 360 million female users worldwide. Security is stricter and your content therefore safer – FB reportedly has over 90 million fake user profiles.

LI was originally structured as a high-end job database and the powers of its algos are extraordinary. With Boolean Search – AND, OR, NOT – and some search experience, you probably can find the only left-handed shepherd in Patagonia under 30 and with a Yale degree.

The other big attraction of LI to business marketing campaigns is its own multiplicity of media tools. You can pin-point paid ad campaigns as narrowly or broadly as you wish. You can build your stature as an industry leader by sharing news and content on your company page.

There are four different sections (Company Pages, Showcase Pages, LinkedIn Groups, and LinkedIn Advertising), each of which are cornerstones to the successful use of LinkedIn for Business. I would suggest you start with HubSpot’s excellent intro LinkedIn for your Business.

If you are an STM demolition and construction company, in a local market, should your marketing investment include Facebook and Twitter? 

If you think that is a mismatch, join the group. Yet, MGI Construction Company sees sales out there in Twitter’s 24 million followers. Or they don’t really and it’s just an example of what might be called social media sprawl – a vast, amorphous blob of robotic posts hopefully spinning around out there in anonymity.

Re-thinking business social media is long overdue. Most businesses have misunderstood it for years. There ARE brilliant ways to use marketing and sales promotion on the Internet but most firms don’t wait to find out. They see only numbers.  Managers who once used to commit huge budgets on the basis of a few thousand paid subscribers, take one look at Facebook’s 2.8 billion monthly users and say “We’ve got to be there.”

Actually, you don’t.

Business is a massive user of online – nearly 80% of all companies share content on social media.  Most of it is labelled B2C or business-to-consumer. Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is another story. How many Twitter followers want to buy a Caterpillar earth-mover?

Funding B2B marketing campaigns on most social media is described by a (male) friend of mine as being like peeing down your pant leg. All it gives you is a warm feeling. (The big exception is LinkedIn which we’ll come back to.)

Despite this inability to identify potential buyers of business products in consumer social media, firms have poured billions into the attempt.  Finally, the light has gone on. Marketers, who exist for conversions, realize they are competing in a quite foreign market that values community.

This week, a series of articles by MarketingProfs describes social media investment as a triumph of hope over hard evidence.

• In the real world, what keeps marketing alive is data. Last year, 67% of B2B managers admitted they can’t quantitatively measure their social media impact (although they are planning to spend more next year…..!)
• Another survey shows that social media engagement is a consequence, not a cause, of brand affinity. They followed you because they already liked you.
• In one survey of companies which claimed excellent customer service, only 8% of their customers agreed with that assessment.

So, as it becomes increasingly clear that much B2B marketing is wasted on most social media, where should that money be spent? The answer has been there all the time: Customer service.

Using social media in customer care instead of social media marketing turns the photo from negative to positive. It is about community, not conversion. You are valuing the consumer, not the product. You are aligned with the community experience, not the sale.

Does that not sound a lot more promising than this admission from an SM marketer at Arby’s:

It’s difficult to tie what we’re doing in social with hard metrics around sales or store visits … However, when we take a deeper look into the quantitative results and look at the sentiment and passion intensity of the comments [on our Instagram posts], we’re driving significant positive conversations around our brand.”

“Positive conversations”? Try this metric at the next executive marketing meeting and see how excited the boss gets.

So, the focus switch to the customer experience shows the B2B world a real way how to profit intelligently from the vastness of consumer social media. But what about the original marketing  challenge? Is there a door to social media that will show ways not just to pat your customers on the back, but actually get them to the top of your funnel?

Yes indeed. I said we’d get back to LinkedIn. But it will have to be next week.

Happy Trails.

A friend of mine who writes an excellent financial newsletter always signs off with a quote from Warren Buffet:

Price is what you pay.  Value is what you get”.

Tony Tiberius came to mind as I read a recent article published by HuntScanlon, a North American publisher in the executive search and leadership niche. The article reviews the best value in executive recruiting and right there – Myth #2 of four Myths – is the old price shibboleth: 

Executive search firms are pricey and provide low return on investment

It is there in every discussion on recruiting. And it is both erroneous and irrelevant because, as Mr. Buffet points out, price is a false metric.

First, a little background.

If you engage a firm to fill a position, you choose between two dominant systems in managerial or executive recruiting. (i.e. excluding low-level, job-board “classifieds”). They are known as Contingency Search and Retained Search

Contingency Search firms work on the TIATWASIIS approach (throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks). They select candidates based on a review of available profiles and they only get paid when you accept one. There can be many contingency firms “helping” you on the same mandate.  You do a lot of reading and assuming.

The work of the Retained Search firm is exclusive to you. They get involved. They ask a lot of questions. They want to know exactly what kind of person you think you want and exactly what kind of person they think is most likely to be above average in your environment.

They do the reading and research and assessing. You get a list that only contains the names of people meeting the criteria.

Now, getting back to Mr. Buffett.

The price paid to the contingency recruiter that wins the Resume Lottery is usually – but not always – the lesser of the two.  Not really surprising. A lot less work has been done on your behalf at a considerably lower skill level.

But the differential in value of the work accomplished is huge for these reasons

• The retained search firm has worked exclusively to meet your specific requirement
• That obligation has remained until you are satisfied you have the best person
• You have accessed a much wider talent pool. Your recruiter has not been limited to those looking for work; they know who might consider switching to join you.
• Your regular workload has been, as a rule, not that greatly affected.

The relative value between the two types of recruiting is greatly affected by the talent need.  The more critical the sought-after contribution, the greater the value of the search process undertaken.

Having to replace someone hired as a line manager in a medium-sized company is money and time wasted but will not summon an emergency meeting of the Board.

Finding undiscovered limitations in a C-level hire can go all the way to the bottom line. At a minimum estimated cost of 2.5 times comp, you soon hit a million plus and we haven’t mentioned reputational risk.

In other words, justifying the selection of either a contingency or retained search for a senior position solely on the basis of cost is, to put it politely, looking through the wrong end of the telescope, Less politely, it is dumb.  

By the way, here are all four of the recruiting myths:

Myth No. 1: Anyone can execute an executive search by using a job board.

Myth No. 2: Executive search firms are pricey and provide low return on investment.

Myth No. 3: Internal talent acquisition teams can produce the same caliber candidates as an executive search firm

Myth No. 4: A contingent search firm offers the same value as a retained search firm.

And here, one last time, is Warren Buffet.

“Price is what you pay.  Value is what you get”.

Game, Set. Match.

It’s known as Miles Law, and it’s attributed to Rufus Edward Miles, a Federal administrator who served as an assistant secretary under three U.S. presidents. It states: “where you stand depends on where you sit.”

The phrase acknowledges that where we stand in the perspectives that affect our opinions or decisions, comes from where we have been sitting in life. Our upbringing, education, network of friends and life experiences shape the bias of where we stand at any given moment in time.

We are all subject to bias in our opinions and preferences.  It may be wishful thinking to believe you do not.   What is much more to the point is to accept that you are susceptible to bias and know where you may be biased. This awareness allows you to discount it in an honest assessment of your options.  Here’s how:

Gaining Objectivity

Own your bias. Be honest with where you have been sitting and why you stand where you do. 

Examine your bias rationally. List other perspectives than your current conclusions. 

Expand your network to include people with whom you disagree. Then engage in reasoned but not emotional conversation. 

Evaluate your perspective. What are the reasons to continue or change your presumptions? 

Adjust your presumptions. Shift where you stand in spite of where you have been sitting. 

Identify the criteria that are essential to an objective decision. What are the important factors in the outcome of your decision? 

Weight the criteria. Each criterion does not have the same importance. Use a simple 1 to 5 scale. 

Measure each option in light of your weighted criteria. Score each option according to your numbers for each criterion. 

Make your best decision. What helps the most people and hurts the least people? 

Leadership Debrief

It’s okay to have bias. We all do. Just acknowledge that where you stand influences opinions, conclusions, and decisions.

According to Gallup, “Organizations that are the best in engaging their employees achieve earnings-per-share growth that is more than four times that of their competitors. Compared with business units in the bottom quartile, those in the top quartile of engagement realize substantially better customer engagement, higher productivity, better retention, fewer accidents, and 21% higher profitability. Engaged workers also report better health outcomes.”

Those were the findings of a Gallup poll in 2018.  The advantages of the “engaged worker” were known long before that but perhaps not as boldly quantified. Since then, the competitive benefits of engagement, diversity and inclusion have become the bedrock of leadership teaching and practice.

The AESC (Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants) recently interviewed John Amaechi, OBE, an organizational psychologist, author, Board Director, and thought leader on the relationship between diversity and inclusion and organizational competitiveness. Amaechi identifies a direct link between engagement and leadership. 

“The social and political upheaval, upended supply chains and accelerating digital disruption in 2020 have left many organizations rethinking what they need in their leaders,” Amaechi says. “Before the craziness ensued, leaders were decent resource managers. They were decent at giving one appraisal a year, but they weren’t motivational.

“Now we’re in a scenario where workers have been humanized. Workplaces have had to realize that their people are human beings with fear, anxiety, worry. Now they realize that whatever gulf there was between the need for brilliant leadership and the quality of it has now doubled, and inclusion is a part of that picture.”

Building Inclusive Leaders

If diversity and inclusion can be taught, is it also possible to identify inclusive leaders? Amaechi points to several qualities that can signal if leaders are likely to be inclusive.

Socialized leadership motivation: “This is the idea that you want power, but you want power in order to utilize it on behalf of your team, as opposed to an individualized or personalized power motivation where you want power, because power is good.”

Self-confidence versus bravado: “Inclusive leaders are self-confident, but at the same time realize that they have to have a confidence that is exhibited in a way that doesn’t turn people away or make them think they are absolutely invulnerable.”

Emotional stability: “Inclusive leaders are the kind of leaders who have a predictable response, who don’t fly off the handle one day and then come in and schmooze the next day; are stoic one day and the next day, they are bubbly. Inclusion requires that people have a predictability.”

Coming Out On Top

COVID-19 forced leaders to pivot and organizations to adapt, and the disruption isn’t over. Even before the pandemic, digital transformation and the pace of change required a fresh look at leadership. Amaechi notes that one of the jobs of search and leadership consulting is to help clients think about talent differently.

As Peter Drucker has stated: “the greatest danger in time of turbulence is not the turbulence.  It is acting with yesterday’s logic.”

As Amaechi sees it, the role of an executive search and development consultant — AESC members such as Cornerstone – is to help leaders realize that what makes you comfortable is not what will make you win.

“People talk about wanting to win,” Amaechi says, “but really what they mean is they want to not lose whilst being as comfortable as possible. And that’s not the same thing.

“Emotionally literate, intellectually curious leaders will prevail. Leaders who aren’t bound by tradition. Leaders who are willing to be personally inconvenienced for the benefit, for the ease of passage of those junior to them will prevail. Leaders who act as heat shields for disruption and then take much of the pain rather than distribute it through, that leader is going to prevail.”

We are still in the midst of challenging times, and Amaechi cautions, “Organizations that are poorly led by homogenous groups of people, whether they be homogenous demographically, or just homogenous thinkers, will fail. And as a society, we can’t afford that. So, hiring diverse people, making sure that leaders with diverse skills find that opportunity and flourish is for the benefit of us all.”

For more insight into the challenges of leadership today, read more AESC articles here