Story Dialogue can improve your Sales Pitch

Developing Pull in the Lean Marketing Conversation

There has been countless books written on the power of storytelling and why that is needed. We are told that we all humans are wired to communicate best through stories. We are told that from the beginning of time that this was how we transferred information and wisdom to each other. We are told that stories help us capture and remember concepts. However, does any organization practice storytelling. Do they practice how to create meaningful dialogue from them?

In the book, Mapping Dialogue: Essential Tools for Social Change, the authors discuss The Story Dialogue technique developed by Ron Labonte and Joan Featherstone. Ron and Joan saw it as a way to use stories to detect important themes and issues for a community, moving from personalized experience to generalized knowledge. The book explained how:

In Story Dialogue, individuals are invited to write and tell their stories around a generative theme - a theme that holds energy and possibility for the group. As a person shares their story, others listen intently, sometimes taking notes. The storytelling is followed by a reflection circle where each person shares how the storyteller's story is also their story, and how it is different.

A structured dialogue ensues guided by the questions: "what" (what was the story), "why" (why did events in the story happen as they did), "now what" (what are our insights) and "so what" (what are we going to do about it). The group closes by creating "insight cards", writing down each insight on a colored card and grouping these into themes.

When transferring this concept to sales training, I find it remarkably useful. Typically when customer conversations are recorded or repeated in sales training, they are evaluated by a certain set of criteria. The most common being did you stay on the script and second, did you engage the customer. I , personally, could not see two more opposite statements. However, I have experienced conversations like this repeatedly.

Instead, use the Story Dialogue as a guideline for improving the sales conversation. Gather your salespeople together and have them listen to a recording, watch a video or listen to an enactment. Now, instead of critiquing, we go around the room and have our salespeople tell how what they heard is also their story, and how it is different. You would capture all the different ideas with the use of insight cards. Group them in themes and have a structured dialogue on improving your sales stories or as many of us might call them, our sales pitches. 

This type of dialogue training can have deeper consequences. Instead of defending our actions, we create a more reflective atmosphere where we start inquiring about viewpoints. This shift through it will take time to develop will also transfer in the dialogue that you will have with customers. Developing a reflective inquiry approach can become a key ingredient in your sales approach. It is where the Lean Marketing Conversation creates pull.

CHAT in Activity Theory Thinking

In my mailbox several weeks ago from the website Academia.edu, I came across an article, How Instructional Designers Solve Workplace Problems, co-authored by Dr. Lisa Yamagata-Lynch.  An abstract on the article:

The findings revealed differences between experts and novices with regards to tolerance of ambiguity, expectations about their own roles in finding solutions for their clients, adaptability, attention to appropriate details, and management of workplace stress. The contrast between instructional design processes taught in universities and actual workplace practice was noted by both expert and novice participants. Experienced participants demonstrated adaptability in processes and communications to efficiently arrive at viable solutions for their clients. Expectation setting and relationship building emerged as techniques for creating environments supportive of instructional designers' problem-solving activities.

Dr. Yamagata-Lynch authored the book Activity Systems Analysis Methods: Understanding Complex Learning Environments where she outlines Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). CHAT is one of several theoretical frameworks that are popular among educational researchers because it conceptualizes individuals and their environment as a holistic unit of analysis.  Activity systems analysis is one of the popular methods among CHAT researchers for mapping complex human interactions from qualitative data.

I found the area fascinating and applicability to sales and marketing. I had a great time in the podcast as we explored the world of Design and discussed her present work in Design Thinking and Theory.

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What Dr. Lisa Yamagata-Lynch says about herself:

Teaching Interests
In the classroom I encourage students to experience their own construction of understanding regarding the teaching-learning and design processes. I want my students to be aware of their beliefs regarding this process, and to be aware of what influences those beliefs have on their teaching and design practices. I encourage students to become involved in a dialogue with colleagues and mentors regarding their beliefs, and to become reflective practitioners. Through the activities I facilitate, I want students to pose questions that engage them in project-based problem solving activities. I do not want to promote the impression that there is one correct answer for issues related to teaching and design, but I want students to be able to find their own pedagogical solutions.

Research Interests
I identify myself as a Cultural Historical Activity Theorist (CHAT), and I believe that knowledge is not an isolated set of rules accessed only when necessary, but is a shared entity that is distributed among individuals, context, activity, artifacts, and in the interactions that take place among the above. I also believe that individuals belong in a community that enables them to share and negotiate their knowledge with other members. For the last several years I have focused my research in using activity theory, or more specifically activity systems analysis, for understanding the complex nature of human interactions within a community.

The Wisdom of Brian Joiner

In retrospect, I cannot honestly say why I ended up following Dr. Deming more so than Dr. Juran, or Philip Crosby, who I consider the other giants of the quality movement. I am not even sure in my first several readings of Dr, Deming that I even understood how it applied to me other than fix the process don’t blame the people. The work of Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes along with Eliyahu Goldratt influenced me the most at the time. I give them the majority of the credit for my process knowledge.

I was a manufacturer and had learned the trade from the ground up. I did not use these words at the time, but I had learned by doing. I found Lean to be fundamentally the same as what I had learned in The Team Handbook and The Leader’s Handbook along with a variety of Theory of Constraint books. Later, I read Brain Joiner’s Fourth Generation Management and the Plain and Simple Series Books. These were books that a simple practitioner could use, follow, implement and train. Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes body of work though at times gathered dust on my bookshelf, their work over the years have contributed the basis of what I now call Lean Marketing or Lean Service Design.

It is quite an honor for me to be able to introduce and have this conversation with Brian Joiner. We did discuss the quality side and Dr. Deming but that was not my intent of the podcast. Instead, we centered on his passion for the environment and sustainability along with his latest interest in health systems. Brian has touched my career, and I am sure many others. There is much wisdom in what he says, and I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did the interview.       

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Brian was a protege of W. Edwards Deming and has received the Deming Medal, the Shewhart Medal, the Hunter Award, the Ott Award, and the Wilcoxon Prize. In addition, he was one of the original nine judges of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and one of the originators of the Minitab statistical software system. Since 1997, Brian has contributed much of his time to the environment and sustainability working primarily through the Sustain Dane community. Brian is at this time is contributing to greater health care solutions through his work at Joiner Associates LLC.

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Is there a Fifth way to Grow a Business

We normally define four basic ways for a business to grow:

1. Market development: Taking current products into new markets.
2. Market penetration: Taking our current product lines and penetrating our current markets more deeply than we have in the past.
3. Innovation or Product Development: Introduce new products into our current markets.
4. Diversification Strategy with Innovation/Product Development: Introduce new products into new markets. This often is accomplished through acquisition and mergers with other companies.

I often like to look at these strategies and determine what I would call the speed of value. As Roger Martin says in the book, Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, you have to be able to win the two moments of truth. One is at the point of purchase and the other at the point of use.  From a marketing stand point, I might argue that there is another moment of truth, the awareness stage. If they are never aware of us, we never get the opportunity to play for anything.

Typically, in a product development process, people should be asking questions such as:

• Is value apparent?
• Is value substantial?
• What do you see as the value?

We are encouraged to do this so that the product/service can be engineered and designed into the product in such a way that when the product comes out, people can immediately determine and understand the value that's in it. That whole adoption process and customer due to the speed of value are imperative in choosing where to compete. Growth can come about through improved and innovative ways of supporting the product, innovative ways of warranting the product, innovative ways of selling the product, and so on and so forth, all of which are value adding within the existing value delivery system.

That brings us to the other key question that strategic planning should be focusing on. Where does the organization choose to compete? Because they have a bunch of different opportunities and different market segments, they can focus on any specific product/service market, but which one?

The above are all proper questions, and some excellent books on strategic planning have been written around. We can even bring into the discussion Red and Blue Oceans. However, my thoughts go back to the original question of this post, Is there a Fifth way to Grow a Business? One could argue that another growth strategy would be services, but for the sake of simplicity, we will consider services a product at this time. I believe this is where, Service Dominant Logic (SD-logic) may play a vital role. The basic concept is that customers are always co-creators of value.  It’s the way that the customer sees value, whether it’s in the physical good, or if it’s in a service or a combination of both of those and if they don’t see a benefit to them they’re not going to engage with you.

When I think of being co-creators with my customers, will I continue to look at the four components of growth the same way? Will all three moments of truth be already won? Will Playing to Win mean just becoming a role player on a bigger team? Will value already be apparent? Hmm! Is the fifth way to grow a business embedded in Service Dominant Logic  thinking?

P.S. My take on Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works is that it is very much a Hoshin Kanri approach. The structure of the process are amazingly similar. The book itself is an excellent read. Often times you hear me refer to  Franklin Covey’s, The 4 Disciplines of Execution as Lean Simplified. I believe Playing to Win could be called Hoshin Kanri simplified.

Related Blog Post: 4 Disciplines of Execution equals Lean Simplified

Lean more at this upcoming event: Grow your Small Business with Lean

What would Dr. Deming think of the new Lean Math?

When was the last time you had a discussion about designs with more than one blocking variable, such as a Latin Square Design? Or maybe, a midnight discussion on empirical modeling or factorial designs at two levels? Those were the days.

Recent publications, spurred by Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup, are Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience and Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster. They dive into the world of Lean Metrics or so they say. In all fairness, they do an excellent job presenting basic measurements that can be utilized by the modern day entrepreneur. I recommend both books and think they add good insight for the targeted audience.

Recently on the Business901 Podcast, The Wisdom of Brian Joiner, I had the please of interviewing Brian Joiner, a Dr. Deming protégé and a disciple of George Box. George Edward Pelham Box FRS is a statistician, who has worked in the areas of quality control, time-series analysis, design of experiments, and Bayesian inference.  His name is associated with results in statistics such as Box–Jenkins models, Box–Cox transformations, Box–Behnken designs, and others. Box wrote "essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful" in his book on response surface methodology with Norman R. Draper. George also schooled Bill Hunter another fabled statistician and father of John Hunter, a recent podcast guest and writer of the Deming Blog. These people understood metrics.

There seems to be a distance between what many of us may consider Lean Metrics and Lean Startup Metrics. They both have their place, and it does just depend on what you need at the moment. Neither can replace the other. However, a new blog, Lean Math has come to my attention that may provide the bridge between these two areas. The blog is authored by a group of Lean Practitioners to include another former podcast guest, Mark R. Hamel. Mark is a lean implementation consultant, Shingo Award-winning author Kaizen Event Fieldbook, and founder of the Gemba Tales blog.

An introductory video from Lean Math Blog co-founder Mark R. Hamel. The video briefly discusses the launch of LeanMath.com, the co-founders, forthcoming book to be published by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, site topics, and related social media.stages. Even though Dr. Deming preferred, you do not have to be a statistician to utilize Lean Metrics. However, you made need to learn a little Lean Math along the way.

Transcription of Mark’s podcast: Sustaining your Kaizen Event Ebook

Podcast: How to Implement your Kaizen Event Successfully

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Standard Work in Lean Marketing

Leader standard work is a concept in Lean Management, popularized by David Mann in his book “Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions, Second Edition”, that creates standard work for managers. For many in the Agile community, the notion of “standard work” brings a repellent idea of standardization and work standards, and the oppressive boot-jack command culture that comes with that. And yet, the way that Toyota implements standard work, it is much more akin to coding standards or working agreements, where you record the current best agreed upon way of the workers in the system for doing something, than an oppressive regime of Quality Checks.

David describes the principle nicely in his presentation on Creating a Lean Culture Process Focus and Leader Standard Work. The purpose of Leader Standard Work is to create behavioral change that drives Lean Leaders to visit the place where work is being done. This, along with Visual Management and a Daily Accountability process helps ensure the technical improvements in the Lean Transformation aren’t lost to the culture of firefighting and backsliding into what he calls the “pit of instability and despair” or what I like to call, “business as usual.” So, there are many organizational benefits to Leader Standard Work. And the good news is, it’s also a great way to drive some sanity into your day as a manager.

Since Lean is so intrinsically tied to standard work, many believe Lean cannot apply to their “Knowledge Based” occupation. In fact, it is often resisted in these circles. When met with resistance, I have found that typically there is a good reason why. As I review most Leader Standard Work for knowledge workers, I still find them heavily laden with specific instructions and very results based focus. In Sales and Marketing (I am considering Sales and Marketing to be knowledge work) , you will see instructions such as make 25 calls, send out 15 e-mails, 3 blog posts a week, etc. On the other hand, I do see slack time allowed under the disguise of daily or weekly Kaizen. So Leader Standard Work can apply to Sales and Marketing 9Knowledge Workers), or can it?

Leader Standard Work will fizzle out quickly if you simply try to practice Leader Standard Work through Lean Training, coupled with your experience and try to become more proficient through iteration after iteration. It doesn’t work that way. In fact, it may take years, certainly months, to acquire the skills needed. What stops you is that you not only have to learn new skills but these skills and learning are not stagnant. They are in constant turmoil; developing, adapting and evolving while obsoleting the existing structure.

Many companies may fall short as a result of not creating the internal collaboration structure needed for learning. The organization must develop as a whole and this can only be accomplished by developing their personnel by providing the necessary resources and opportunities. We also need to promote individual differences. Instead of teaching the way to do some things, we may need to step back and determine the key points that are required, as Simon Sinek says the “Why” while leaving the how alone (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action).

When developing your Leader Standard address these three items;

1. Clarification – Minimum standard is explicit
2. Commitment – Level of commitment is expected from the individual
3. Connection – A path for support through conversation is provided.

Can your Leader Standard Work pass the 3 C Test?

 

Grow your Small Business with Lean

Moving the CODP towards the Customers Point of Use.

Rob van Stekelenborg is the author of Dumontis blog and a recent article Pushing and Pulling in the Supply Chain was one that I enjoyed very much. In the blog, Rob discussed Customer Order Decoupling Point (CODP). A brief excerpt:

The (customer order) decoupling point (CODP) or order penetration point is one of the most well-known logistical concepts. It indicates the inventory location in the value stream up to which the customer order penetrates. The CODP is one of the key design decisions in structuring the value stream and its management. For instance, the CODP separates the part of the value stream that is order- driven (downstream of the CODP), from the part that is forecast-driven (upstream of the CODP). But is that necessarily true? Doesn't Kanban, in fact, represent a good example of managing the upstream part of the value stream based upon consumption rather than forecast? and aren’t a lot of companies still clustering their customer orders downstream of the CODP or working with lot sizes, resulting in products manufactured too early, too late or just too much? This blog post nuances the existing control dogma in relation to the CODP.

I encourage you to read the entire blog post in length, Pushing and Pulling in the Supply Chain.

If you think about the CODP being the fulcrum point of the supply chain or a seesaw, we are always trying to create a balance between supply and demand. However, there is typically some type of buffer stock or a customer willing to wait a certain period which I like to think of as a flat point on top of the fulcrum.  However, this causes another problem. When one side supply or demand, is in excess it tips dramatically in that direction. Our prevention for this is how accurately we forecast. Read what Eli Schragenheim said in a Business901 podcast about forecasting.

Forecasting tries to give me some information. Let us say partial information about the huge question about what will happen tomorrow. How much will I sell tomorrow? How much work will I be able to finish tomorrow? Which means we are not prophets, we do not know what will happen tomorrow, period.

We cannot really predict the future. We can predict some reasonable range of the future, and this is what we need to make any decision. Forecasting is an unbelievably important tool for managers, but again they need to understand what does it mean and what does it contain and how wrong could it be.

I don't know how wrong because they don't like to say how wrong about forecast, which was never intended to give you anything that precise. So what do you mean by wrong? It could tell you whether you can have a narrow, a range or quite a wide range, make up your mind what you are going to do with it. I think it is very valuable information that is really required for daily decision making and I am sorry to say that a vast majority of the people do not understand it.

We had quite a discussion about uncertainty:  Using Theory of Constraints to Handle Uncertainty in Decision Making.

In most markets, it is very difficult to keep a balance and when the safety stock in not replenished in time or the customer demands quickly dwindled, well let’s just say all forecasts are wrong. So, what to do? This is what makes Lean Marketing  for Service Dominant Thinkers (SD-Logic) so powerful. When these principles are applied it makes forecasting further upstream. We are not forecasting from a perspective of our markets rather we are forecasting from a perspective of our customers markets. We have effectively moved our Customer Order Decoupling Point (CODP) to the customers point of use.

Events go Viral, but there is No Instant Pudding

I am involved in several conferences each year, either in promotion, attending or speaking. I find many conference hosts are looking for that particular format, hot speaker or subject or a new venue to create a profitable event. Many of us look at our marketing the same way. Some of us call it a silver bullet, Dr. Deming called his version; "Instant pudding."

I use conferences or workshops as an example because they are the most recognized event style marketing efforts. I also used this thought process, event driven marketing, when I first start working with clients. This allows us to complete a launch cycle either using Explore-Do-Check-Act (EDCA) or CAP Do (a version of PDCA). During the process, we may choose to do interviews, podcast, blogs, PR releases all very typical marketing tactics. At first glance, there is not a silver bullet. However, the silver bullet is in the execution. As Dr. Deming said, there is no "Instant Pudding."

Many of these events are for trade organizations, and most of the work is done by volunteers. I am involved in one at the moment, The ASQ Charlotte Section Annual Conference 2013. Promoting the event and coordination is not easy as the committee members also have real jobs. This particular group has done a very good job and I look forward to participating in an outstanding conference. Review this blog post to get a taste of the process: Quality Conference of the Carolinas and a recent podcast, Is Influence your Path to the Leadership Table?.

What I have found about most events is the lack of building a path for information flow, and as a result, hindering the natural flow of marketing. Road blocks are put in place for people to access information and create flow. This mind map will give you a general idea. The mind map is not meant to be inclusive of all marketing efforts or distribution of content. Review PDF Version.

What I do for clients or what I believe a conference host should do is provide a bank of information resources that are very explicit on how they should be used. At a minimum,  you should have a press release for the event and a brochure. Often times, duplicate content for press releases that center on individual tracks can be useful. I like to do interviews with key people for the event through YouTube or just a normal podcast. These items should  be collected either in a Dropbox or a FTP account to share. At a minimum the links should be distributed.

How to make it viral? Your ability to provide a ready resource of information for the participants of the event is critical. It takes all stakeholders to include attendees to make an event successful. If you review the mindmap, you will see that each block contains online and offline branches. You must engage and set expectations for stakeholders to distribute through these channels. When you look at a list of speakers for your event do you provide them with a press release for their track? Sponsors often times provide the largest constituency of attendees. Do you create content directly aimed at that group? A deeper dive may be to provide attendees and sponsors ideas on how to get the most out of a conference. Such as the guidelines discussed in this blog post, Turning your Conference Learning into Action.

How does apply to regular marketing?  Using event style marketing allows me to capture what clients are presently doing and apply it to something tangible. It may be something as simple as a webinar or in a grander scheme, a product launch. In a Lean way, we capture present marketing tactics (identify value add) and stakeholders (map value stream). Solidifying both into an uninterrupted flow (create flow) to create a viral network (establish pull). We repeat the cycle improving (seek perfection) on the next event. As Dr. Deming said, there is no "Instant Pudding."

Grow your Small Business with Lean

Lean Scale Up

I am going to devote the week of April 22^nd on how to grow, or scale-up your small business. I will be scaling-up the entire week culminating in a webinar, The Lean Scale Up which will be followed by a period of Q & A on the afternoon of April 26^th. Only registered participants will be invited to webinar and Q & A.

Lean Startup^TM companies are welcomed, but this is not about finding product market fit or minimum viable product (MVP). It is not about starting a business. If you are looking for rapid growth with the purpose of being acquired, this may not be the fast-track investor-rich style of growth that may be needed. The organizations that will benefit most are small companies that want to establish a method for achieving and sustaining organic growth. To benefit the most, your organization should have a commercially viable product or service (CVP/CVS).

This will follow Lean practices and principles. The two pillars of Lean, respect for people and continuous improvement will provide the bedrock for establishing the culture of growth within your organization. Lean offers the best business model for the implementation of standardization, continuous improvement and innovation. I use the acronyms of SDCA, PDCA, EDCA, respectively, to describe these.

You will learn through the week:

• How to convert from the entrepreneurial stage to a viable small business
• How to take a stagnant small business and revitalize it for growth
• How, when and which products to standardize
• How to traverse the product/service gateways of SDCA/PDCA/EDCA
• How to embed the power of 3 in your organizational thinking.
• How to become customer-centered
• How to keep your start-up spirit intact
• How to Sustain Growth

Join us and register for this event. The material will be distributed, through a variety of media, to include Business901 blog, podcast, YouTube channels, Slideshare and the newsletter. At a later day, it will be accumulated and posted to the Training content on the Business901 website. By registering, you will receive this material as it is distributed. We will also furnish updates and lessons learned to the registered participants. Only registered participants will be invited to webinar and Q & A.

About: Joe Dager is president of Business901, a firm specializing in bringing the continuous improvement process to the sales and marketing arena.  He has taken his process thinking of over thirty years in small business within a wide variety of industries and applied it through Lean Marketing Concepts. Joe put himself through college utilizing the GI Bill, the result of being a member of the 82^nd Airborne Division, and as a welder at Asphalt Drum Mixers. This hands-on approach and an education in both in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering have served him well becoming president of that company and later leaving to own several other companies. Joe has participated in company revitalization efforts, start-ups, and turnarounds, in a variety of industries, to include professional services, retail, and manufacturing.