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Archives for June 2008

Flim Flam to Protect Your Brand, How Boar’s Head is Empowering Customers to Defend Their Reputation

June 23, 2008 By Glenn Gabe

Boar's Head Flim Flam, Empowering Customers to Defend a ReputationI heard a radio commercial today that made me wish there were DVR’s for radio. In the world of marketing, there has been a lot of talk about word of mouth marketing (WOM), empowering customer evangelists, harnessing the viral power of the web, etc. So, when I heard a Boar’s Head commercial about the old “flim flam”, I couldn’t resist visiting the website. Here’s a quick rundown. Boar’s Head is an industry leader, has top notch products, and has a long and proud history. About 20 years ago (according to their website), they started hearing about the old “flim flam”, where a deli owner would show Boar’s Head in the deli case, but then use some cheap deli meat when actually making your sandwich. How could they, right? Anyway, Boar’s Head is unfortunately seeing this trend again today…but they have decided not to sit back and let it happen. But are they fighting back? Are they sending their own Boar’s Head police to delis across the United States? No, they are relying on their loyal customers to defend their brand. I love it! Customers can call an 800 number and report any deli that pulls the old flim flam. In return for being such a loyal customer, Boar’s Head will reward you. With what? I have no idea, but I’m assuming they don’t want the program to be taken advantage of, so you’ll find out your reward after calling in. I think this is a brilliant program by Boar’s Head. Actually, I like it so much that I’m going to keep writing! ;-)

Empowering Customers to Defend Your Brand and Products

Now, if you’ve ever had someone misrepresent you or your products, then you know how icky of a feeling it is. I don’t blame Boar’s Head for trying to take control of this situation. Actually, I love that Boar’s Head can rely on loyal customers, I love that they’ve earned those loyal customers, and that they are providing a mechanism for their army of meat lovers to help defend the brand they’ve worked tirelessly to build. Yes, I said army of meat lovers. Think about it in terms of your own business. Let’s say that you suddenly heard that retailers were misrepresenting your brand, promising your product and then providing some cheaper version manufactured by a lesser company. Not good, right? You get angry, call your lawyers, and swear you’ll find each and every retailer doing this. Then it hits you…there’s no way you can. There is no way you can scale your small legion of in-house do-gooders. But what if you had a loyal following of customers? What if they cared enough about you and your product that they will call out those retailers? That’s right, Jane Saunders, age 78, calling out a retail owner for not providing the right product or brand. She walks up with her cane and tears into the owner, pulling out her Blackberry Pearl and calling up your customer service center to report the immoral business owner. How powerful is that? Now, that’s an army of do-gooders that can scale! There is a catch, though…you need to have made your customers very happy over the years to earn their duty. If you didn’t provide the best possible product, service, and understanding over the years, then you’d have no army. You would be giving your Patton-like speech to the sound of crickets. So now you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Do my customers like my products (and company) enough to defend them and did I earn their trust over the years?” Well Patton, now’s your moment of truth. :)

Be Like Boar’s Head and Empower Your Army of Customer Evangelists

Thinking about your specific business, can a program like this help you? Can it really help protect your brand, while empowering customers, all while ensuring the quality of your products? Pretty powerful stuff if you could, right? Start to think about how you can build a program like this. What’s the cost? What reward would you give to your loyal army of customer evangelists? Is it that easy? Is it ridiculously hard? Will it backfire? These are all good questions and I’m not sure I can answer them here. But, how beautiful would that be? How confident would you feel to know that thousands of customers have your back when someone tries to do you wrong. Do you stop at protecting your products or do you ask for help in protecting your reputation, too? Is it purely offline, online, or a mixture of both? Do you provide levels to your brand protection program? Can customers build up their profiles as customer evangelists? Can they earn your version of a black belt? Sensei? Master of your brand? How far will your customers go to help you and your brand?

Do You Believe in Fighting the Flim Flam?

I applaud Boar’s Head for taking these measures and empowering their loyal customers. They deserve a loyal following and they’ve worked hard to earn one over the years. I’d like to find out how the program is doing, is it working, have they found anyone taking advantage of the program, and does senior management really buy into customer evangelism? How can those answers help your business? Yes, Boar’s Head has built their army of deli meat loyalists, but I have to ask you…can you build yours? I’ve posed many questions in this post on purpose and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Is Flim Flam a crazy attempt by Boar’s Head or a brilliant move that will earn more customers?

The floor is yours.

GG

Filed Under: viral-marketing, wom

Joe Homan from Shire Pharmaceutical, How Leading by Example Can Win You a President’s Award

June 9, 2008 By Glenn Gabe

Joe Homan from Shire Pharmaceuticals wins CEO Award.This past weekend I learned that Joe Homan from Shire Pharmaceutical won the company’s prestigious CEO Award. I’m excited for Joe, but I’ll be honest, this didn’t shock me at all. I’ve known Joe for 14 years and I can tell you that he’s definitely someone that strikes you as “CEO Award Caliber”. As I listened to Joe’s top projects from last year, I started to think about the leadership qualities that enabled him to succeed. That list of qualities led to the creation of this blog post! So, I’ve included a list of things you can do in order to be a better leader in your organization (inspired by Joe Homan). So, if you’re in Corporate America and you want to win your company’s President’s Award or CEO Award, then read on!

Joe Homan’s Award at Shire and a Recurring Theme

I asked Joe about the projects he worked on that lead to his nomination. The three projects he explained to me were extremely impressive. For example, Joe designed, developed, and implemented Shire Training Camp, an award winning program that brought over 300 employees together for industry-related training. The Baltimore Business Development Authority presented the project its coveted Innovator Award. As I learned about each project, I saw a recurring theme. Joe’s expertise, work ethic, and leadership style enabled his team to generate excellent results. Let’s take a look at Joe’s combination of characteristics that helped him win a CEO Award. They might just help you win one too…

If you want to be nominated for your President’s Award, you should:

1. Know Your Area of Expertise and Work Hard

Joe is a passionate guy. He digs what he does for a living and it shows. No matter which part of the organization you focus on, you should know it inside and out. Educate yourself constantly, read the top books and blogs in the industry, test your knowledge frequently, and take classes when applicable. But education is not enough. You need to work hard, and I mean really hard. You need a strong work ethic in order to inspire people. When you inspire people, they talk about you. When they talk about you, your story goes viral. When your story goes viral, it ends up being heard by important people. Don’t underestimate the power of working hard…

2. Go Above and Beyond

In a nutshell, this relates to going above and beyond for your team and other teams in your organization (sometimes not related to what you do). Yes, you heard me correctly. If you can help other parts of the organization, do it. I’m a big believer in karma and helping others typically pays off in the end big time! Over the past 14 years, I’ve seen Joe bend over backwards to help people (both professionally and personally.) Think about the viral example I used earlier in this post. It absolutely applies here as well. Help others reach their goals and they won’t forget it. And, they will probably communicate your assistance to others in the organization.

3. Be a Great Listener

I know, some of you cringed when you heard this one. It’s not easy to do, right? Great leaders understand people, they know everyone is different, and each team member needs to be managed differently. Sometimes you need to sit back and just listen to what others have to say. It’s amazing what you’ll learn… Again, not easy to do, but is a consistent trait I’ve seen in great leaders. Joe is a great listener and I’m confident others in his organization feel the same way.

4. Empower Your People

One thing I learned quickly in my career is that you cannot do everything yourself. Great leaders delegate and empower their people. If you cannot do this effectively, then you’re probably going to have a hard time leading a high performing team. (More on generating results next.) Joe has a military background, which might explain his thorough understanding of how an effective team works. In the military, if your team doesn’t perform well, you can die. Sure, it’s not the same in Corporate America, but there are other consequences to not performing at a high level. There’s definitely a fine balance between micro managing and not being involved enough. Those leaders that strike the right balance reap great rewards. (And no, I didn’t mean for that to sound like a fortune cookie!) :-)

5. Generate Outstanding Results

This is a given. You need to execute at a high level and generate outstanding results. Anyone can take a budget and do something…but it really only matters if you meet and exceed your goals. You can have 4 of the 5 characteristics I listed down, but if you can’t generate results, you won’t impress anyone. It’s basically the viral killer, or worse…it can be negative viral. You don’t want that to happen. So, if you can exceed your goals with regard to revenue, profit, decreasing costs, by innovating, etc, then there’s a good chance you’ll get noticed. After which, let the viral effect I explained earlier take over. :)

So, you want to be a President’s Award winner?

So there you have it, a post inspired by the news I heard this weekend about Joe Homan from Shire Pharmaceutical. If you start working on the 5 items listed above, maybe you can get noticed and nominated for your company’s President’s Award or CEO Award. Actually, it just hit me that I can wrap this post into one line. Work hard, help others, listen, empower your people, and generate outstanding results. Now put that in your email signature! Just kidding. So even though I’m congratulating Joe in this post, maybe next year it will be you…

GG

Filed Under: professional development, viral-marketing

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