Your Marketing Machine: May 2011

Thursday, May 26, 2011

PDCA, Kaizen & Culture in a Lean Enterprise

Lean technology has now evolved from the manufacturing floor to the whole enterprise. Many companies have found real value in applying the fundamental concepts of Lean throughout the organization. The lean concepts of Kaizen, PDCA and the tools such as Pareto Charts, 5 Why's and even Poka Yoke are commonplace.

As a result of discussing a Lean Enterprise with Dr. Michael Balle, I asked him about his thoughts on the culture of Lean.

Dr. Balle is also a Shingo Prize winner as an author of the The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager. His newest Shingo Prize was on the adaption of The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround to an audiobook that features performances by multiple readers who bring its realistic business story and characters to life.

Dr. Michael Balle is the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Wilson Training to introduce new iQuality Training Programs at SWIMAQ

Partnering with IWCC on customized Adult Learning programs

At the upcoming Southwest Iowa Manufacturers Alliance for Quality program Steven Wilson of WCTS, Inc. will be discussing how partnering with IWCC on customized programs for Quality and Six-Sigma can provide dramatic results for your business. The program will be held from 9:30AM to 2:30PM on Tuesday, May 24, 2011 and will be held at the Iowa Western Community College, Council Bluffs Campus.

Steve will address specific issues on why many people shy away from quality or continuous improvement programs and as a result, they are unable to see the direct benefits of it. He will also outline and introduce the latest adult learning training methods and how the training is adapted to the organization.

Steve commented on the training, “Too often, training programs are not utilized when employees get back to work. Based on my twenty years of assisting organizations and individuals improve quality through training, I have identified several components that will encourage employees and their organizations to change and use these new skills. Under the title of iQuality Academy, I have moved our training programs from tactical learning and acquiring new skills to providing the path from training to improved business performance.”

Southwest Iowa Manufacturers Alliance for Quality program will also include presentations on:

Non-Destructive Evaluation update/hands-on demo)
Iowa’s National Career Readiness Certificate
CIRAS update
Technology Commercialization
Plant Tour: SIRE Ethanol, LLC

The Iowa Western Community College College offers instruction in career education, adult and continuing education and the first two years of college and university study. Iowa Western exists to serve the needs of adults who can benefit from further education and guidance, whether by specially designed occupational programs, pre-professional college transfer programs or adult education. The Council Bluffs Campus, which includes the college administrative offices, is situated on a 282 acre site located 2 ½ miles northeast of the Council Bluffs business district.

Steven C. Wilson founded Wilson Consulting and Training Services, Inc (WCTS, Inc) as a process improvement consulting firm. Wilson has over 20 years of experience applying quality improvement tools, methodologies, and principles in a variety of industries that include automotive, healthcare, logistics, distribution, education, and numerous manufacturing venues. He has dedicated himself to the cause by training/coaching over 500 Six Sigma practitioners in over 70 companies with an emphasis on getting results. Wilson possesses a very engaging style of leadership, training and consulting, and provides an experienced eye for companies on the road to organizational improvement.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Lean Sales and Marketing Team Roles

In Lean Marketing, there are three primary roles for the development and management of Lean Sales and Marketing process. It is the Value Stream Manager, the Team and the Team Coordinator. The roles and responsibilities are similar to the three roles used in Scrum which are the Product Owner, the Team and The Scrum Master.

Quick overview of the Scrum roles:

The Product Owner represents the stakeholders and the business.
The Team is a cross-functional group of about 7 people who do the actual design, implementation, testing, etc.
The ScrumMaster maintains the processes in lieu of a project manager.

Quick overview of the Lean Sales and Marketing System:

The Value Stream Manager (VSM) represents the product/service markets and the business.
The Sales and Marketing Team (Team) is a cross-functional group whose number and expertise is derived from the decision making path of the customer. This Team does the actual sales; providing content, technical functions, trials, testing, etc.
The Team Coordinator maintains the integrity of the processes through coaching and predefined control points.

The Value Stream Manager is responsible for maximizing return on investment (ROI) through his particular Value Stream of Customer Identification, Customer Value, Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention and Customer Monitoring. (Value Stream Mapping Customer Value). He translates this Value Stream and assigns it in conjunction with the Team Coordinator to particular Teams similar to a typical Sales Manager would to his Salespeople. The VSM and the Team Coordinator will routinely evaluate the outcomes to determine best fit. The VSM may work with Multiple Teams for his Value Stream. The VSM has profit and loss responsibility for the product/service. The VSM represents the Voice of the Market which may be thousands of individual clients, distributors, brokers and agents. As with Scrum’s Product Owner, the VSM has the final authority.

The Sales and Marketing Team is first and foremost the listening post for the customer (prospect) that enables them to provide the customer with the information, technology, and support that is required. This is done through a PDCA/SDCA Cycle that depending on the complexity may constitute an entire sales cycle or just a certain portion of the customer’s decision making process. The team is cross-functional and includes the expertise required to fulfill the requirements of the customer through his decision making process. It may include but not limited to salespeople, marketing, IT, service, etc. It is self-managing with a very high degree of autonomy and accountability. The team decides what to do, what commitments to make and how best to accomplish it. Stable teams are important for internal productivity but also since they are in direct contact with the customer. When these teams only serve part of the decision making process of the customer, the Team Coordinator becomes directly involved during the handoffs form one team to another.

The Team Coordinator serves very similar to the ScrumMaster. The TC helps the Team learn and apply PDCA. The TC does whatever is in their power to help the team be successful. The TC is not the manager of the team but instead serves the team, minimizing distractions, educating them on the iterative process of PDCA, Knowledge Creation and Agile methods. The TC and the VSM must be different people. As the TC runs interference for the Team there may be some priority balancing that is required between the VSM and the TC. It is imperative that the TC creates and maintains a manageable flow inside the Team. If the Team runs into an impediment it is the TC job to find the resources needed to remove it. The TC will also monitor the Team flow through the use of established control points created within the cycle.

The confusing part for most organizations is in defining the role of the team. Look for an upcoming blog on that particular subject.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

PK Flow – What is it and Why Use It? eBook

This is a transcription of the Busienss901 Podcast, PK Flow – What is it and Why Use It? with co-authors Jim Benson & Tonianne DeMaria Barry of the book, Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life.

PK Flow - What is it & Why Use it?

Personal Kanban is neither a prescription nor a plan. The book provides a light, actionable, achievable framework for understanding our work and its context. This book describes why students, parents, business leaders, major corporations, and world governments all see immediate results with Personal Kanban.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Get Clients Now Answer Center

The Get Clients Now Answer Center is is a great resource that I use on a regular basis. It is included when you purchase my GCN 28-day Coaching Program or you can buy it separately. I have never found a comparable product.

New in the Answer Center Here are this month's new additions to the Get Clients Now Answer Center. (You need to have a password to log in.) Next Business901 GCN Program starts May 16th

How to Work Your Network - Article by Donna Feldman
Browse the Internet, read the newspaper, or thumb through a magazine, and you're bound to see an article advising you to use your network to help you grow your business. But how exactly do you do that?
Selling to the Bottom Line - Article by C.J. Hayden
If you've ever wondered why more people don't respond to your sales attempts and marketing messages, the first question to ask may be -- are you selling something that people are willing to spend money on?
Sample Speaking Topic and Bio - Tool by C.J. Hayden
In order to get booked as a speaker, an essential tool is a one-page description of your speaking topic, and a capsule bio describing your expertise. The example below will give you a model to follow.
Three Ways to Jump Start Your Marketing - Article by C.J. Hayden
We're an impatient society these days. The blazing speed of transmission we experience daily for news and communications has raised our expectations for how fast everything should happen. So when someone tells us our marketing will take time to pay off, we don't have a lot of patience for it.

If you would like to join: Get Clients Now Answer Center.

Find out more about Get Clients Now!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Lean Marketing House in Paperback

A few reasons to consider the Lean Marketing House book:

Is there a reason to use Lean in Sales and Marketing?
Do you have to be practicing Lean in the rest of the company?
Is Lean Marketing the same as Agile Marketing?
How does A3 problem solving relate to Marketing?
Why is Social Media so Lean?
Can your company ever complete a Lean Transformation without Sales on board?
What does Knowledge Creation have to do with Lean?
What are the Lean Marketing Tools?
How would you create a Lean Transformation?
Develop stronger partnerships with your customers?
Provide a methodology to become more precise in your sales and marketing?
Begin a continuous improvement program in your sales and marketing?

I have just received the shipment of Lean Marketing House book in perfect paperback form. That means I no longer have to create the ring-bound version. in celebration of this, the first 100 purchases will include the following:

Lean Marketing House Paperback Book
Lean Marketing House book on CD (Direct access to the Links Provided)
Marketing with A3 Book on CD ((Direct access to the Links Provided)
Best in Market by Dr. Eric Reidenbach on CD
Membership on the Marketing with A3 website
Related audio recordings and eBooks on subject.
10% Discount Code to the Lean Sales and Marketing Summit. (30 day limit)
50% Discount code to Driving Market Share Program (30 day limit).
30 minute free coaching session on Lean Implementation (must be scheduled).
All items will be shipped to you (No Downloads).

Book Description: When you first hear the terms Lean and Value Stream most of our minds think about manufacturing processes and waste. Putting the words marketing behind both of them is hardly creative. Whether Marketing meets Lean under this name or another it will be very close to the Lean methodologies develop in software primarily under the Agile connotation. This book is about bridging that gap. It may not bring all the pieces in place, but it is a starting point for creating true iterative marketing cycles based on not only Lean principles but more importantly Customer Value.

It is not about being in a cozy facility or going to Gemba on the factory floor. It is about starting with collaboration with your customer and not ending there. It is about creating Sales Teams that are made up of different departments not other sales people. It is about using PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) through-out the marketing cycle with constant feedback from customers that can only occur if they are part of the process. It is about creating value in your marketing that a customer needs to enable him to make a better decision.

It is about managing a Value Stream Process. This is going to require re-thinking about the way you do business and the way you think about your markets. More importantly the way you think about Value. Value in terms of how your market defines it. Stop thinking about product or even product benefits. Your marketing systems must support the delivery of value to your customer at a much higher rate than your competitor. Targeting that Value proposition through the methods described in this book will increase your ability to deliver quicker and more accurately than your competitor. It is a moving target and the principles of Lean and PDCA facilitates the journey to Customer Value.

This is the only Link that will be provided for this offer.

Lean Marketing House Perfect Paperback

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Lean Sales & Marketing the Final Frontier for the Lean Enterprise? – Free Webinar

Webinar Registration

Free Webinar...Lean Sales & Marketing:
Title: Lean Sales & Marketing: The Final Frontier for the Lean Enterprise?
Date: Friday, May 6, 2011
Time: 2:00 PM - 2:30 PM EDT
Cost: No fee.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/536606993

Why is Lean Sales & Marketing the Final Frontier for the Lean Enterprise?
Marketing activities such as developing promotion programs, branding, developing ads and writing copy are seen as creative processes that don’t lend themselves to systematization without losing the ability to think outside the box.

Most efforts to improve Sales and Marketing so far have come from Six Sigma or Lean Office programs that largely derive their practices from the production environment.
The personality style of a star salesperson or an innovative marketer clashes with the type of person who is going to embrace standardized processes and continuous, incremental improvement.

If these arguments sound familiar, they are the same ones used ten years ago to keep lean out of Research & Development: breakthrough innovation cannot be standardized, lean manufacturing practices don’t work and star technologists don’t appreciate process excellence. The solution is to recognize that like R & D, sales and marketing functions are knowledge creation processes.

Product developers add value when they deepen their knowledge about the product design and then convert that knowledge into a product that a customer can buy. Similarly, marketing and sales functions add value when they deepen the company’s knowledge about customers and market needs, and then support R & D as they make decisions that lead to products to meet those needs. They also add customer value when they deepen the customer’s knowledge about the product. In fact, the best sales people are those who take the time to deeply understand an individual customer’s needs so that they can recommend the products and services that will best meet those needs.

We will be able to conquer the final frontier for the lean enterprise when we recognize that when the value a process creates is knowledge, it must be managed as a Knowledge Creation Value Stream to maximize the value we get from the knowledge created, and minimize the wastes of knowledge loss, ineffective decision-making.

P.S. You want a fresh approach to marketing that is something other than just a new set of tools. Consider attending the Lean Sales and Marketing Summit. You will get them there. I have a limited amount of discounted tickets, please contact me to check availability.

Does the Juran Trilogy = PDCA?

Rarely, do I find researching a topic so easy as I did in researching Dr. Juran and the Juran Institute for my recent podcast, Business Improvement thru Quality, the Juran Way, with Juran Institute CEO Joe DeFeo. The research started reaching over to my bookcase and reviewing the Quality Control Handbook, 3^rd edition by Dr. Juran. In retrospect, the book has been there my entire adult life.

From what I understand, the greatest difference in Deming vs. Juran thinking is that Deming views are describing a transformation and Juran describes how to manage quality functions. Dr. Juran says quite frankly, that the way you talk quality to executives is through the language of money.

Dr. Juran provided a systematic and linear approach to managing for quality. He looked at improvement on a project by project basis with emphasis on the vital few and useful many (Pareto Principle). This project by project basis closely resembles continuous improvement and the PDCA cycle.

Dr. Juran concepts are explained in the well-known Juran Trilogy which is comprised of three stages: Quality planning, Quality control, and Quality improvement. I have taken the liberty to adjust them to a sales and marketing perspective and hope I did not do too much damage to the overall message. The part in bold is Dr. Juran’s heading.

Quality Planning

Identify the customers, both external and internal: Since this is about sales and marketing - customers should be segmented using the Pareto principle placing more of your emphasis on your most important customers.
Discover your customers’ needs: Determine not only what your customer values but your market values. But don’t stop there, identify the vital few and useful many that drive these markets.
Develop products features that respond to the customer needs: Understanding the vital few and useful many should drive each improvement and innovation.
Develop a process that can produce the product features: Be able to engage the sales team into meaningful collaboration with the customer to understand and express what they value.
Prove process capability: Determine metrics in achieving these standards.

Quality Control.

Choose and establish Measurement: Determine metrics in achieving these goals. These metrics should not be based only on closed sales but also on critical touch points. Use statistical tools for analysis.
Measure and interpret actual performance to operating goals: Using statistical tools, data and “tribal Knowledge” interpret the any differences between actual versus standard.
Take action on differences: Since you are working off of standards, you should find that differences can be attributed to identifiable causes or breakdowns.

Quality Improvement

Prove the need and identify specific projects for improvement: The projects should be identified that will provide the most financial gain (most profitable sale) and the amount of potential (customer evangelism) the project may have.
Organize to guide and diagnosis causes: In the Juran type of thinking this may lead to the formation of a Quality Council. In sales and marketing this may be a hierarchy that will look at these decisions from a broader perspective than an individual sales team.
Provide effective remedies: Remedies based on root cause and ones linked to the critical to quality issues discussed in the planning stage. This may also include training and additional resources.
Provide for control to hold the gains: In sales and marketing we want to prevent backsliding with a customer or prospect. We may institute additional or even a different type of support such as a sales team with a stronger service or product background at this stage.

This post was just an exercise for me to walk through the Juran Trilogy from a sales and marketing perspective. In my mind, I was creating a high level outline for an improvement project in the sales process. The purest of each methodology (Lean/Juran) may beat me up for this comment but the Juran approach does not seem that much different than the Lean/Toyota mindset of PDCA. It resembles a 3-step approach to PDCA. You could possible look at in a macro (1 overall PDCA) and a micro approach (3 individual PDCA cycles).

P.S. Did you Know: Juran is widely credited for adding the human dimension to quality management. He pushed for the education and training of managers. For Juran, human relations problems were the ones to isolate. Resistance to change—or, in his terms, cultural resistance—was the root cause of quality issues. Juran credits Margaret Mead's book Cultural Patterns and Technical Change for illuminating the core problem in reforming business quality. He wrote Managerial Breakthrough, which was published in 1964, outlining the issue. – From Wikipedia

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