Tips On How To Clarify Expectations

According to Stephen R. Covey on his book Speed Of Trust, communicating with clarity of expectations most specially at work, lessens confusion and stress. It produces momentum and productivity. One way of checking to see if your communication  is clear is to check for clarity by asking the following questions.

– What have you understood from this conversation?

– As a result of your interaction, what do you see as your next steps? What do you see is mine?

– Do you feel that others are clear regarding expectations?

– What can we do to make things more clear?

So next time you have a project at work, create a clear project agreement in advance. If you’re in charge, suggest the idea to your team leader or write up an agreement on your own. Tell your team leader, “This is my understanding of what you expect and what I can do. Do you see it differently”, or simply ask- “Let me know if it’s clear or not”. Here’s the bottom line- Don’t assume that expectations are clear. Get into the habit of checking and validating.

Basic Product Positioning Strategies

During my brand management stint in the early 90’s, positioning was a marketing buzz word. Every time I would meet a fellow marketer during those days, a question like “What’s your product positioning?” usually would be part of the conversation. Jack Trout and Al Ries were the first marketing gurus who popularized positioning at least during my time.  It was also where I initially learned the basic concept of product positioning. They described it as the basic position in the consumer’s mind occupied by a brand. It is connected to the concept of “target market.” That is, a brand’s positioning defines the target audience.

But how is positioning used? According to Jerry Thomas of Decision Analyst, the positioning possibilities that exist for any given brand or service are almost infinite. Some commonly used positioning strategies are:

– Positioning against a broader market. For example, positioning a bicycle brand as a substitute for the automobile, rather than as a substitute for other brands of bicycles.
– Positioning against a price segment of the market. One example would be positioning a car brand against luxury imported cars.
– Positioning against a usage segment of the market. For example, positioning a brand of cooking oil as the very best brand of oil for frying chicken.
– Positioning against a psychographic segment of the market. For example, positioning Volvo as the best car for drivers who are primarily concerned about safety.
– Positioning against a channel of distribution, a season of the year, a particular type of weather, a human fear, etc.

Again, positioning possibilities are almost limitless for any given brand and can be defined in many different ways. The correct positioning of a brand is basic and fundamental to its success. An incorrect or positioning can doom a brand to underperformance or failure. So, how does one arrive at an optimal positioning for a given brand? The search for an optimal positioning begins in the mind of the consumer, and that’s when we must turn to marketing research for help.

How To Create and Sustain Extraordinary Results

Results matter to your credibility. Stephen M.R. Covey used a metaphor about a tree in his book Speed Of Trust– “Results are the fruits, the tangible, measurable end purpose and product of the roots, trunk and branches”. However, you can’t get a sustainable yield of good fruits if the results are severed from the character roots. A foundation of character and values yields good fruits! The most difficult people to deal with are those who have high results but are poor in living the values. You may want to call them double standard or inauthentic but these are the people who produce results at all cost, compromising their values and impacting their relationships and personal well being.

You really want to produce authentic and inspiring results? Something that’s vital to your personal and organizational credibility? Be honest and ask yourself the following.

1. Am I producing results that are expected of me? What kind of results are they? Does it increase or lessen my personal credibility?

2. How good is my track record? If I get interviewed for a new job, will they hire me based on it?

3. Does it inspire confidence and trust on others? 

We may have all the excuses or all good reasons but at the end of the day if the results aren’t there, neither credibility and trust can be established.

Be Responsible For Results In Order To Build Trust

It’s no use saying, “We are doing our best” You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.- Winston Churchill

We don’t just succeed in doing what we’re supposed to do, but in doing what’s necessary- Results! To establish credibility and trust we need to deliver the results that are expected from us. But how do we do that? The key to success is in taking responsibility for results, not activities. I myself get so overwhelmed sometimes with a lot of task and activities at work that I forget to account for the results. You want to succeed? Then take responsibility for results not just activities. If you didn’t get results the first time, try it another way. Just don’t sit there and whine, “I did exactly what you told me to do.” Sounds familiar isn’t it? For example you wan’t to loose 10 pounds. The activities would be to exercise daily and probably eat less carbs. If you missed the mark don’t kid yourself by saying you tried your best. A James Ingram song best describes it- “I did my best, but my best wasn’t good enough.” Gave your best? Just give me the results. Period!

A results focus is a way of thinking. It requires a different attitude and beingness than activities focused.That’s how leaders think! They accomplish extraordinary results that build credibility and trust. It’s amazing how the impact of taking responsibility for results plays out in business and our personal life. Instead of blaming or judging try saying “I accept responsibility for my part in this or the impact of (mention result).” There you go, just restore credibility and trust. Anything is possible after that.

When Do You Do A Focus Group?

To focus group or not to focus group, a prevalent question for marketers, whether you’re testing concepts for a new product or advertising or purely gathering inputs for a full blown consumer research. Some would ask me, “Do we do a quantitative or FGD?” It really depends on the purpose or the objectives of the study. 

FGDs are exploratory in nature and it can also stimulate discussion not included in the moderator’s agenda. A not so rigid out of the discussion guide free wheeling facilitator is required to accomplish that.  

Bruce Crandall’s of Decision Analyst suggested these pragmatic approach on focus groups. 

Conduct focus groups when:

1. Relatively little is known in a given product or service

2. You need to explore multiple concepts

3. You want to develop survey for a subsequent quantitative research

Download “To focus group or not to focus group” to find out why.

Research Your Way Through A Recession

The global financial crisis is weakening both consumer confidence and the consumer spending. I don’t know about you but I see the importance of researching the customers more when making marketing plans or whenever I make a strategic marketing move.

Instead of cutting the market research budget, you need to know more than ever how consumers are redefining value and responding to the recession. Price elasticity curves are changing. Consumers take more time searching for durable goods and negotiate harder at the point of sale. They are more willing to postpone purchases, trade down, or buy less. Must-have features of yesterday are today’s can-live-withouts. Trusted brands are especially valued and they can still launch new products successfully, but interest in new brands and new categories fades. Noticeable consumption becomes less prevalent.

Listen and get engaged with your customers.

Know When To Lead Change

If you’ve been managing or creating change lately like me, you and I know that there is no clear cut way of managing change. One can be ahead of it, but in a period of uncertainty, such as the one we are living in today, change is the norm. Yes, it’s risky and above all it requires a great deal of patience and hard work.

If leading change is not perceived as the main task today, your organization will not survive. Who survives then? Those who challenge the status quo, the fearless who put their butt on the line. Change leaders who put their career, health and relationships at stake. Those who know how to find the right changes and knows how to make them effective inside and out the organization. 

There’s a lot of risk, yes. It is less risky however than not to try or challenge the status quo.

Don’t get stuck by simply anticipating and analyzing the future. Be a change leader starting today.

Using Information As A Trust Builder

In business, they say that information is power. I certainly believe that. It’s like gaining competitive edge over your competitors. We see a lot of service oriented companies in fact use that in their communication strategy. It’s a semblance to information is knowledge. Yes, from a context of being a contribution to others but when you withhold it with a power agenda it becomes selfish.

People who hold information to gain power or superiority over others usually suffer the most obvious consequence – Mistrust from others. It’s lonely and depressing when that happens. Those who suffered the most during the recent financial crisis are the secretive ones who thought they had the right information. Information that were leaning towards greed. It’s winning or the need to win over others.

How else can you detect them?

– Those who exagerates anything without being asked. Most of the time they brag about what they know and make you feel out of touch or from another world. 

– We see most of them answering questions with another question, pretending to be smart. It puts them in a disadvantage if they reveal something. 

– It may be as subtle as not acknowledging emails, returning phone calls and text messages, specially when you have an idea or an information that could make a difference to the other person. Yup, Im guilty of that. My ego says, “Find it out for yourself.”

A lot of you may still be asking, so what? If you still don’t get that it annoys. Be honest. How do you feel when this things happen to you:

– You arrived at your office only to see that a lot of people are not there. You found out that they’re in a meeting and you were not informed about it.

– Important emails where you were not copy furnished or cc. I just experienced one recently with one of my managers who keeps sending updates to clients without including me in the loop.

Again, you’re not gaining power at all if you withhold. You’re only breeding mistrust and your ego. I really feel sorry for those people. Instead of inspiring others to trust and be open, they become suspicious and detached. 

Withholding information is nothing more than a misplaced need to win by yourself.  It’s the proverbial Sinatra line- I did it my way. 

Three things to win using information: transparency and the impulse to share anything out of gratitude and service. I guess timing too is important. What’s the end result – Trust.

How To Write a New Product Concept Statement That Works

Decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place. – David Ogilvy

One of the many types of focus groups I moderate are product and advertising concept tests. Usually the client’s advertising agency will provide  2 to 3 written concept statements for the respondents to comment based on several variables. These concepts from a portfolio of a dozen or so studies are supposedly finalize or on some cases refined further. The concept statements are usually written in an illustration board, whiteboard, Keynote slides (if you’re a Macbook user like me) or Powerpoint. I usually request my client to provide the boards and have it discussed at least a day before the session. I also had experiences when my client would just put it in a bond paper on the day itself. Yup, those pieces of paper coming from the other side of the one way mirror.

What I normally asked my client to produce has a simple visual and a verbal statement that contains the following points.

1. A statement of the problem that the product is meant to solve.

2. A definition of the type of solution that the product requires.

3. Supporting attributes (physical and communications) that adds credibility to product’s ability to solve the problem.

By this I mean that when writing a concept statement you should state the problem the product is proposing to solve. The first paragraph should set the stage for the subsequent solution by defining the customer’s problem. Then tell the customer that your product will solve the problem. Lastly give the necessary attributes to support the facts.

Feel free to email me at ric.cortez@asiaresearch.com.org if you need any assistance, or to just simply share your ideas.

A Simpler Way To Being A Nice Person

Not all behavior is good or bad. Some of it would be neutral, in-between, so-so or just simply being nice. Actually it’s either good nor bad, neither positive or negative. If for example you’re not regarded as someone who’s nice, to change that impression would be pretending to be a nicer person to yourself and others. We usually come with a long list of positive looking good actions and nice words to say.

There’s actually a simpler way to achieve the goal of “being nice” so to speak. All you have to do is to aknowledge your inauthenticity and  admit that you’re being an a-what or a jerk. It’s not that you’re a jerk, you are just “being” one. You don’t have to think of new ways to be nicer to people. You don’t have to do anything, just stop being a jerk, period.

So next time when someone offers a mediocre idea in a meeting, don’t criticize it. Just get it, acknowledge the person and say nothing after.

When someone challenges your decisions, don’t reason out or argue. Again, simply acknowledge and thank the person and say nothing else. 

Thank them and say nothing. That’s it!

Marshall Goldsmith, author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There points out choosing between becoming a nicer person and ceasing to be a jerk. Which would you choose? Which is easier to do? Being a nice person requires a concerted series of positive acts of commission. Being a jerk is nothing more than an act of omission.