Category Archives: Marketing Communication

Focused attention is today’s greatest commodity and brain science teaches us a brilliant way to harness it.

When you observe people watching a presentation, do you notice how some periodically check their cellphone? They might believe that they are master multi-taskers who can simultaneously listen and read, but this is a fallacy.

Why? The brain is a sequential processor, and can only fully focus on one thing at a time.*

In a world where everyone is expected to juggle each facet of their life simultaneously, our limited ability as people is overlooked. While technology has changed the way we handle almost every task in our daily lives, allowing us to do more, we are still human and must give our undivided attention to something in order to fully grasp the information.

Whether you’re on the executive management team sharing ideas that need to gain company-wide traction or a sales executive whose entire job rests on connecting with others to boost business, you rely on presentations to convey your message. Great presentations can inspire people to consider new ideas or your company’s product/solution. In the end, this is especially the goal of all salespeople; to move companies and people into action.

DON’T FOLLOW THE HERD

Many of us learned how to present from watching others. If you had great role models or training, chances are your presentations are good.

Or maybe you had the misfortune of learning by watching your colleagues use PowerPoint as a teleprompter so they could remember what to say next. If you fall into the latter group, this is for you.

Brain science reveals how to deliver compelling presentations that help your ideas, complex products, or services capture the attention of your audience. The best presenters make you forget that it’s a formal event. They have a conversational tone that effortlessly keeps you engaged. It makes you want to listen, not feel like you have to.

We gathered some brain facts from Dr. John Medina, Developmental Molecular Biologist, who authored a book back in 2008 called Brain Rules. Highlighted below are a few tips you can use right now to turn your next presentation into your best presentation.

“PEOPLE DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO BORING THINGS” *

Listening to an inventory of facts during a presentation is boring and does little to captivate people. No matter your topic, your goal should be to tell your audience a story. This is how the brain is hardwired to receive information, so if you can utilize this approach, your delivery will be far more impactful.

Until robots take over the world and sell to each other, we need to remember that humans are emotional beings. Combining the information with emotion is more moving and memorable than simply laying out the facts one by one.

One way we found to take dense, complicated content and make it more engaging is by using a storytelling matrix we created years ago to develop sales presentations for one of our healthcare clients. Now we use it all the time.

We place the audience at the center of the storyline, talk about the obstacles they’re grappling with, and show how our client’s products or services solve their particular challenges. This method forces you to create presentations that are all about your colleagues, clients or prospects.

If you want to learn more about the merits of storytelling, read Paul J. Zak’s article in the Harvard Business Review, Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling. 

THE SIMPLER THE BETTER

Keep the slides simple and free of clutter so the audience can visually grasp the concept in a just few seconds. Remember, people cannot read and listen to you at the same time.

When your slides display data, words, and images, it forces the brain to absorb and process lots of information at once. Force-feeding a ton of facts leads to mental fatigue and a desire to do something easier, like checking the cellphone.

A way to remediate this issue is by first reviewing or reading what you’re visually showing the audience and then emphasizing your point if needed.

YOUR TEN MINUTES ARE UP

Dr. Medina enlightened us about the importance of the 10-minute rule. Essentially, our attention span is short. At each ten-minute interval, you need to do something to buy the audience’s attention for another ten minutes.

Review your presentation to see if at the ten-minute mark you can switch things up by sharing a relevant story or video.

REHEARSE AND REPEAT

Skilled presenters speak so effortlessly that it is easy to forget how much work goes into presenting.

Think of Steve Jobs. It is rumored that he practiced upwards of 80 hours in advance of delivering his legendary presentations. To sound natural takes practice and lots of it.

However, if you struggle to memorize your presentation, you are not alone! You’ll be glad to learn about a memory enhancement technique called the Memory Palace (Simonides’ method of Loci).

The general premise of the Loci method is to convert what you need to remember into outrageous visual images and associate them with a space you are familiar with, like your home or office. When you mentally walk through your memory space, you will recall the images you need to remember.

If you hear a piece of information, you’ll remember 10% three days later. Add a picture, and you’ll remember 65% of it.   Brain Rules

An entire book, Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Jason Foer, is dedicated to teaching this method. It demonstrates how to memorize anything from a person’s name to a lengthy presentation.

If you use this technique, you will experience firsthand how visuals help cement your memories. This is the same reason why it is so helpful to include visuals in your presentations: they make your message and solution unforgettable.

Well, our ten minutes are almost up. If you find yourself needing assistance to convert a pile of facts into a powerful presentation, or coaching (1 to 100 people) to perfect the company’s corporate message, send us an email (TellMeMore@ConsultSBR.com).

HELPFUL RESOURCES:

1. * John J. Medina, Brain Rules
2.   Jason Foer’s TED Talk

Photo Credit: Alex Litvin on Unsplash

In conversation with Sharon Roberts, it is easy to be captivated by her story. The trajectory of her professional life and the impact made by each stop on her journey explains the basis for the specific methodology SBR uses to help clients tackle challenges in the way of their growth and profitability.

With SBR entering its 17^thyear, a look back at Sharon’s career gives insight into how those experiences provide a roadmap to anyone looking for advice on how to build an organization or confidently launch a project.

Foreshadowing began early in her career at Dun & Bradstreet’s (D&B) entrepreneurial, call center start-up division. They garnered an impressive client list: AT&T, Avis, IBM, and even the US Postal Service. D&B offered the perfect training ground to acquire foundational knowledge and experience in managing people, tracking data, streamlining processes, successfully selling, and techniques for consistently providing exceptional service to clients.

SPEED GIVE YOU A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

After working in a variety of roles with increasing responsibility, she was offered her dream job at Oxford Health Plans when the company was in its infancy. It was the ideal innovation incubator where thinking outside the box was de riguer. Sales leaders were pushed to uncover all the possible ways to meet aggressive sales goals while making sure to anticipate and satisfy customer needs.

“Speed gives you a competitive advantage,” was an oft-heard Oxford motto. The idea was to hire highly skilled individuals who could first plan on a “blank piece of paper”, and then swiftly implement.

This approach illustrates how real-time course correction allows for rapid, reality-based adjustments; the way a pilot navigates a plane. In other words, never waste precious time lamenting over every possible issue in advance. Instead, begin implementing as soon as possible and adjust accordingly.

Not only will you unveil innovative ideas while in action, but you can gain a tremendous competitive advantage. Take Amazon for example; they began by selling books out of a garage, but as popularity increased they didn’t think slow or small. Instead, they took advantage of their momentum and eventually grew into one of the most powerful companies on the planet because they didn’t wait to change. They saw opportunities and profited from them.

HOW TO LOSE $450,000

One specific experience that shaped the way SBR approaches consulting engagements came when Oxford had to acquire a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to manage inside and field sales data (and connect with the customer service system). Sharon was part of the team that would create the Request for Proposal (RFP), research the available options, and make final recommendations.

The search team sought out big-name consulting firms as a way to guarantee a successful implementation. When pitches were made to Oxford, they came from each firm’s elite team, implying it would be the seasoned veterans of the selected team who would take control of lead the project.

Sadly, the elite team that made the initial pitch was never to be seen again. After plunking down approximately $450K, the firm they contracted sent in a team of very smart, VERY green college graduates all hailing from well-known target schools. Once they reviewed the system requirements, they would devote hours to program what they thought would meet business needs. But, they never observed any of the sales teams in action.

Although the assigned team of twenty-somethings were very polite, well-groomed, and impeccably mannered, their charm did not translate into results. Months later, the first CRM investment (the equivalent of approximately $750K today) never got off the ground. Sunk costs. The next consulting engagement with another firm suffered a similar fate, and the company lost money again in both the consulting costs and forgone business that would have been retained had there been an adequate CRM system in place.

A FORMULA THAT GUARANTEES SUCCESS

Living through these events and hearing horror stories from colleagues and clients made us determined to create core guidelines and principles that guarantee SBR can always deliver on our promise. Adopt these methods and principles for your next project launch. They really work. Just ask our clients.

1. Observe and Ask. Instead of asking employees what they do and how they do it, use an observational method (SBR uses Rapid Ethnography) to help expose the root cause of growth stumbling blocks. Why? To quote Margaret Meade, a cultural anthropologist, “What people say, what people do, and what they say they do, are entirely different things.” Chalk this up to human nature.
2. Consider Company Culture. Appreciate the organization’s culture so that recommendations will work within the company’s real-world context, not some conceptual organization.
3. Respect Best Practices. Understand best practices, but make recommendations that will work for the organization, not an idealized version of the company. Sometimes best practices can be costly, time-consuming to implement, and not necessary for transformative results to occur.
4. Remember, Everything Looks Good On Paper. Create and document the plan. Share it with stakeholders. Start implementing and continue course-correcting as you move along (the iterative process). You will not only gain a competitive advantage but also come up with innovative solutions along the way.
5. Watch for Human Roadblocks. Work with employees throughout the organization to navigate through the various roadblocks that can be created often by well-meaning employees for a variety of reasons. Remember, everyone is doing the best they can- even when it does not appear that way.

If you run a sales operation, you know and love the challenge of devising plans to achieve a business goal in the midst of numerous competing factors. While some people shy away from being in the “hot seat”, exceptional sales leaders welcome it.

Those who work in healthcare know all too well the intensity of the Annual Enrollment Period (AEP). Close to 50% of the annual sales are obtained in about 8 weeks.

Many healthcare sales and marketing executives spend the better part of the 1st and 2nd quarter reviewing data, analyzing losses and gains. They pull together actuarial, underwriting, legal and other teams across departments to understand the market conditions and health of the products before building sales and marketing strategies. Plus, they need to develop retention plans to maintain their current membership.

To add to the pressure, products are approved by government agencies only a few weeks ahead of the selling window. So the company doesn’t know the competitive landscape until the last moment. Few industries grapple with this level of variable factors as the healthcare industry does.

Combating Declining Sales. 

Given these inherent complexities, it raises the question: how can we consistently boost sales results when consulting with our healthcare clients who face these challenges annually? Here is where course correction has made all the difference.

Some years back, a client engaged us to help their organization reverse a four-year trend of declining sales and repeatedly failing to meet their goal. Using rapid ethnography, we were able to identify the largest barriers and how to correct them.

We had less than 120 days until the start of AEP to make massive changes in practically every corner of the operation. Once AEP started, we vigilantly analyzed daily sales data. Midway through we knew that while the numbers were trending higher than in previous years, at the current rate we would not meet the sales goal. Unacceptable!

Consider Blowing Up Your Plans.

Enter the 11th-hour-course correction. We took a calculated chance that was inspired by how people shop. During the holidays when most supermarkets are closed, there is always one store that remains open. With no other available option, consumers will flock to that store. Applying this to healthcare, we recommended having the contact center remain open until Midnight for the last few days of AEP. During those hours the competitors would be sleeping. Literally!

The result? It worked. In the final three days of AEP, the phone lines were jammed well into 1:00 AM. The extended hours equaled one additional business day, allowing the client to exceed their sales goal for the first time in years. Years later, this technique is commonplace.

While companies may spend months planning for the future, if devised strategies and tactics are not heading in the right direction, you might need to blow up your well-conceived plan. Sure, taking a risk to course correct at the 11th takes some nerve, but in the end, it may be well worth it.

In a 2004 study, researchers assigned participants to consume a snack – either chocolate or prune juice. Half of the participants consumed the snack immediately, while the others had to wait 30 minutes before consuming. Those who ate chocolate enjoyed the product more when they had to wait 30 minutes before tasting it, while those who drank prune juice disliked it even more when they had to wait.

This teaches us an important lesson about emotion – for a positive experience, a delay will increase enjoyment. However, for more negative experiences it is better to, as Nike says “Just Do It” because a delay will intensify the negative emotions when you finally get around to doing it.

In health insurance, it is rare to find someone who equates the annual hunt for adequate health insurance coverage to eating a delicious piece of rich dark chocolate. We know that consumers frequently wait until the final days of AEP (Annual Enrollment Period) to select a health plan. Can health care professionals leverage this knowledge about delays to help members feel more satisfied with their decision at the end of AEP?

Health insurance carriers want prospects and members to have a positive AEP experience – increasing retention and satisfaction. Frequently viewed as a negative experience, putting off a healthcare purchase will surely guarantee an even more extreme response. Health carriers can remedy this by encouraging consumers to sign up early – get the process over with!

The key to successfully changing attitudes about AEP is communication. Reach out to prospects and members early on. Communicate that being an “early bird” will allow for a painless process, guaranteed to be satisfying because your team will support them along the way. While some of the regulations limit offering incentives, you can market the psychological benefit, a value in and of itself. Although members may not recognize the immediate advantages of avoiding delay, they are sure to look back on the selection process more favorably than they would have if they procrastinated.

Does your marketing and sales communication encourage prospects and members to complete the AEP plan selection process early, while emphasizing the ease of purchase? Use your next marketing campaign to inspire consumers to avoid delaying…another way to help boost member satisfaction.

All summer we’ve been geeking out on the latest season of HBO’s Silicon Valley. This week’s episode highlights a challenge companies face when looking to simplify their products, sales, and communications. For the unconverted and for the purposes of this conversation: Silicon Valley is about Pied Piper, a file compression algorithm that’s supposed to dramatically free-up storage space without compromising quality.

In this week’s episode, “Daily Active Users”, the guys at Pied Piper have tested their platform with a select group of betas and finally released the app to the public. Although it’s the talk of the town and gaining a high volume of downloads, users aren’t returning on a daily basis to actually use the app. That daily use metric is what determines corporate growth and profitability.

CEO Richard Hendricks has a focus group to figure out why people aren’t using Pied Piper. And the answer is clear. The platform is too complicated and ahead of its time for the average user to appreciate. Hendricks is enraged – he tested a beta version with his friends (other engineers) and got near universal praise. When asked why he only sent the beta to other engineers, Hendricks explains to his VC pal:

I wanted to give it to people who would understand what I’m trying to do, so I could get useful feedback. And with all due respect, I gave it to you – the one person without a computing background – and you said it felt ‘engineered’.

Then the lightbulb moment occurs when he realizes they wanted to market their product to Average Joe, but they never actually tested it with him. And herein lies the brilliance of Silicon Valley. Art imitating business.

We come to the very real question of consumer value during all points of the product development and distribution lifecycle. If you want a “normal” person to understand your product, or how your services work, or why their life will be dramatically improved, don’t just circulate feedback around the internal organization. The audience community can provide a better glimpse into actual market response.

For the most part, technology and CPG companies know this to be true. But others – like financial services, healthcare, and insurance – really struggle to bridge the gap between insider admiration and consumer approval.

Anyone who has spent time around kids knows that the incessant “Why” query is applied to just about everything. But asking “Why” isn’t just a way to annoy adults. It’s their natural inclination to better understand the world around them using storytelling, a form of communication hardwired in our brains.

Sanden Totten is co-creator of a new podcast, “Brains On!”, which has kids asking their most burning questions about culture, science, art and the like. Totten came upon the idea that kids can be the perfect journalistic tool by observing the way adults responded to them.

On WNYC’s “The Takeaway”, Totten mentioned that scientists spoke differently when talking to adults vs. kids. For example, when explaining El Niño to an adult, scientists might say,“Part of the ocean that we call ‘Niño 3.4’ heats up two degrees above average…”

But when kids asked the scientists the very same question, they turned up their storytelling mojo: “El Niño is basically a weather phenomenon that happens when part of the ocean gets really hot and it messes with all of the wind patterns and sends storms to places they normally wouldn’t be.” Bingo! By giving the microphone to kids, the great questions about the world were not only put within their storytelling context, adult comprehension was boosted as well.

For over a decade now, SBR has helped complex product organizations (like health insurance and financial services) create marketing communications that better reach their consumer audiences. During this time we have tested numerous communications against standard industry barometers like health literacy, which measures a person’s ability to read and understand health-related information. But simply writing communications at a certain grade level doesn’t mean that they are compelling.

When you’re selling something as banal as light fixtures or as complex as health insurance, creativity is often replaced with a product description. Instead of product dumping or feature selling (listing product features one by one), use stories to add both an emotive component to common products and help consumers understand how a product could support them. For example, instead of listing the features of a health insurance plan (deductibles, copays, premiums) create a story about how the consumer will use the product: “When you go to your local pharmacy, you’ll show your membership card to the pharmacist, pay the prescription copay of $10, and then you’ll be on your way.”

You can also use kids to test the relative persuasiveness of your marketing speak. If they can understand it and are maybe even intrigued by it, chances are your adult consumers will as well.

If you’ve been in the call center business for more than two minutes you know that the word “scripting” is about as detested as background noise. For the most part we understand why: leaders worry that their agents will sound like mindless, monotonous robots.

While this fear is real, it doesn’t mean that the problem is scripting itself. In fact, let’s just throw out the word scripting altogether and instead focus on crafting compelling communication guides. The latter equips agents with a clear path to engage callers and ultimately focus their attention on sales or customer service (or both). A successful call guide actually makes for a more natural conversation, especially when the product or service is complex. A powerful guide will allow for individual agent personalities to shine.

This is not just lip service. In call centers that lacked a call guide, we’ve been able to increase sales by 5% to 27% simply through streamlined communication guides and associated training.

So you want to make your agents better? Here are five things you can do right now to boost your call center communications. You can pick and choose from this list but instituting all five will give you the most bang for your buck.

1. Create a Callflow

Organization isn’t just relegated to your closets. When it comes to drafting call guides, creating a callflow and outline is
the first step. This will also help cut down on call time if that is your goal.

Brainstorming callflow for a complex service product

Let’s take the example of health insurance sales. A prospect calls the Health Insurer to get help selecting a health insurance plan. This is a high stakes decision and they want an expert to help. The agent needs to take charge and get from point A to B so that the caller’s needs are uncovered in a way that leads to the ideal plan for them. By deconstructing the flow of a call in advance, you can be sure that key topics are attended to in a logical fashion. Otherwise the agent can go on making extraneous comments or worse yet miss key information.

With pen and pencil, identify your callflow for a general sales opportunity. In the adjacent snapshot you can see our Communications Specialist brainstorming the big picture guide for a complex product sale.

A call guide can be written verbatim for more junior staff or when you are launching a new product. Bullet points will achieve the same goal for more expert and seasoned agents.

2. Design the Right Questions

Asking questions is a foundational sales method simply because it works. Frankly, most people like to talk about themselves and asking them questions will make them feel part of the process.

Big word of caution here: in a call center environment you want to ask closed-ended questions (as opposed to open-ended ones). For example, asking someone, “What are you looking for in a health insurance plan?” is far too general and can lead to responses like, “Free, 100% coverage” rather than a realistic fielding of the person’s needs. Closed-ended sales questions include:

• About how much are you comfortable spending on PRODUCT TYPE?
• Are you planning on using this PRODUCT TYPE mostly for home or the office?
• Thinking about the year ahead, about how often do you think you’ll be visiting your doctor? (Health insurance sales)

All of these questions will lead to a response that helps the agent vet the products available. We’ve built algorithms for our clients to automate this process and it makes the Q&A process that much easier for both agent and caller.

3. Slay the Opening, “How are you today?”

This is SBR’s biggest pet peeve. Asking, “How are you today?” is one of the first things agents say over the phone. Managers like to fight us on this one so if you’re a Doubting Thomas here’s why…

Asking “How are you today?” is perfectly fine during in-person exchanges and can work quite well in field sales when one can gauge the situation through body language, energy and the like. But over the phone this phrase often stifles the exchange. The caller feels the need to synthesize their day, or, even worse, complain. Either way, it impacts time.

Instead, acknowledge the caller and move to find out how the agent can assist. After all, that is the reason for the call. Don’t get us wrong; there is nothing better than a smart, kind, warm agent who is interested in helping the caller.  But asking, “How are you today?” lies flat when, “How can I assist you today?” is really what people want to hear.

4. Cope with Legalese

Sometimes your Legal team mandates certain clauses in order to meet adherence requirements. Fighting with lawyers is usually a lost cause so we typically concede. But when faced with long, complex legalese, break up the content with pauses to the caller:

• “Do you have any questions before I continue?”
• “Do you have any questions about the information that I’ve just covered?”

This prepares the caller for any clarifying points and the next phase of heavy content.

5. Test & Then Test Again

Expert agents are an invaluable resource. Involve some of your top agents in testing the call guide. Some are excellent at crafting the ideal communication. They can help work out the kinks and test the most natural sounding call guides.

We like to test calls with the top agents while the content is still in development. Once we feel pretty secure with the call guides, we then move to middle-level agents to be sure that the guides are scalable to the entire agent-force.

A final suggestion on lawyers: Because of our many years in the complex product arena we are accustomed to the requirement that the legal staff must approve the call guides. If this is the case in your organization, we find that engaging the legal team in the process and educating them on how call centers work either by having them sit with agents or monitor calls is worth the time and effort.

One Final Thought…

If you institute just one of these activities your call guides will invariably improve. Do all five and you should see a boost in productivity across the agent pool. Of course there will be those bellicose agents who will rant and rave about having to follow a call guide. When their call monitoring, quality and sales all improve, they will thank you.

As a company constantly on the move, SBR relishes every opportunity to visit San Francisco – and what trip to the Bay Area would be complete without wine tasting in Napa Valley? Boasting over 400 vineyards with onsite tasting, you need knowledgeable friends or Yelp to help sift through all the options. Flora Springs was recommended by an uber generous client who shipped us a bottle of his top pick, a pricey Rennie Reserve. He insisted we book their wine tour (in his estimation, the best in the Valley).

Lady Luck paired us up with Scott, Flora Spring’s expert host, for the two-hour tasting. Scott showed us that grapes often produce better wine during years of drought and struggle because they are forced to concentrate their flavors. Sure the grapes are smaller but the resulting concentrated flavor produces some exceptional wine. Who knew grapes were so smart!

That got us thinking. When faced with a significant challenge, we can recoil in fear and frustration or be the grape that struggles to produce something brilliant. In corporations, times of duress can often separate the consummate professionals from the rest of the pack. Consider the old adage, “Pressure makes diamonds”. The greatest work, ideas, and streams of creativity and innovation can come in the face of adversity and trial.

Moving about from one meeting to another leaves little to no time to put your next great idea into action. From a business prospective, our rigorous schedules make time for reflection and inspiration seem near impossible. Challenges like meeting sales goals or gaining market share, improving customer service ratings or engaging new audiences with minimal marketing dollars abound and must be solved.

SBR uses various methods to help cultivate this healthy tension and focused attention without the risk of bringing the operation to its knees. Interested in learning more about our strategic approach? Contact us and we can discuss the steps the SBR team takes to embrace a challenge and create exceptional results.