A Case for Behavior Change

"Randy has an extraordinary talent … his work has been spectacular."

--Mitchell Shames, Partner, Harrison Fiduciary Group

You think your product is hard to explain? Consider the case of my recent client, a financial services startup that wants to change how large corporations manage their employees’ pension plans. The client not only has to make the usual sell -- that it is faster, more efficient, easier and safer than alternatives. It also asks would-be customers to change their behavior -- most of whom just happen to be among the most senior, highly-compensated and risk-averse executives out there.

The problem with selling most innovation is not the price. It’s asking people to change their behavior (which is always hard) based on abstract logic (which makes it even harder).

That’s a familiar problem to technology marketers, which is why this financial services firm selected one to write its website. The firm understood that whether the deployed assets are virtual or financial -- what matters is showing the clear connection between the seller’s and buyer’s business strategies. We make that connection all the time in technology marketing, and it’s a skill that becomes even more relevant beyond technology as businesses of all types become innovators to thrive.

Click here for more about the case.

Open the SAP Talent Bottleneck

"The resume looks FANTASTIC!! Great job!"
-- Greg Futrelle, EntryPoint Consulting

Okay, so let’s suppose you’re a large U.S.-based multinational looking to integrate your trading partners in China and across South Asia. You make robotic controls integrating hardware produced in Singapore and Vietnam with software made in California and India. Your goal: to increase market share among the rapidly growing numbers of Chinese small manufacturers.

So you need to add three key people to your SAP team. First, you need an import-export guru as your SAP project manager. Second, you need a couple of SAP technical experts fluent in Chinese and English. One should be a CRM specialist and the other a manufacturing specialist, preferably with lots of experience with small Chinese companies.

Here, then, are three candidates:

• For the project manager: www.SCXprofile.com/futrelle
• For the CRM specialist: www.SCXprofile.com/ang
• For the manufacturing specialist: www.SCXprofile.com/chen

I just referred three excellent candidates. Notice anything special about how I did it? First, I didn’t send you their resumes. In fact I may not even have their resumes, just their names. (People referring people without a resume — now, there’s an innovation!)

Second, if you look at their profiles, you’ll notice they are all easily scanable and comparable based on your selection criteria. It only takes seconds to see whether someone belongs on your short list. And if you do want their resumes, either a PDF or Word version is available.
Until there is a master database of SAP talent that is searchable by skill, industry and other key criteria, this is the next best thing. (Yes, I know that content-based resume search engines exist. They’re just not that helpful when it comes to finding people with, say, six years SD experience, three of which were in the auto industry and who also speak Chinese.)

A standard open profile makes career information like this much more transparent. Both parties benefit. The candidate benefits because he or she can get information into people’s hands (and heads) with a simple phone call or text message. The company benefits because when they do get that phone call or text message, the information is actionable — no translation needed — and no recruiter needed to translate.

That doesn’t just open a talent bottleneck. It opens a career bottleneck.

For more information on these and other SAP career services, check out the SAP Consulting Exchange (http://www.sapconsultingexchange.com).

SCX Appeal

"We help SAP consultants enhance their professional skills, reputations and business opportunities."
--The SAP Consulting Exchange

No, I haven’t gone out of business or stopped blogging. I’ve been temporarily absent here because an old friend called to ask if I would help him launch a new business — one that’s creating quite a buzz in the world of enterprise resource planning.

The business is called the SAP Consulting Exchange (SCX for short). I’ve been involved with the project since its inception, consulting on site architecture and branding materials, and writing virtually 100% of the web copy. I’m also helping my friend — his name is Herbert Goertz — launch several “endorsed services” the site will offer, including sales training and resume writing. (Guess who’s writing the resumes.)



Back in the day, Herbert launched the first SAP consulting practices in North and South America. He and I met when I wrote the original KPMG (now BearingPoint) SAP practice brochure.

SCX is two things. One is a sort of online support group for SAP consultants, providing things like SAP software access and the above-mentioned endorsed services — pretty much whatever will help consultants move forward faster in their careers. But SCX is also the foundation of something bigger — a sort of virtual consultancy — modeled very much like a peer-to-peer task-sharing network computing architecture. Rather than rely on large centralized hiring bureaucracies, the SCX will give consultants and clients the tools they need to connect with each other. In SAP parlance, every consultant moves up to “tier-1” — meaning they get to keep a lot more of what they make.

It’s interesting how challenging economic times inspire people to become highly creative. I’m currently working with some other interesting “behind the scenes” initiatives as well and I look forward to blogging about those soon too.

Mind Candy

My February marketing postcard went into the mail today. Click here for a preview along with some other samples from the campaign. There's also a two-minute audio of me talking about postcard campaigns in general.

Retail Hell

Last year was the worst in decades for retailers and this year looks to be even worse. So consider how hard it is to convince retailers to spend money on technology right now.

Selling tech products to the IT manager of an industrial enterprise is one thing. Selling IT to people who would rather be out on the sales floor checking merchandise or greeting customers is another. They have little money and less patience -- especially for well-worn lines like “data is your most valuable asset.”

That is an actual headline from a brochure draft a software company CEO showed me last week. The vendor -- the first and largest ERP supplier to restaurant chains -- needed his 12-page brochure rewritten within 72 hours so that it could be printed in time for a trade show. He asked a lot of questions about whether I understood ERP and whether I could write to an audience that is not necessarily enamored with computers.

I got the project based partly on a brochure I’d written in 2008 for a supplier of retail point of sale and back office systems. He liked the theme of the brochure and the fact that there was a theme: Technology is more than a solution. It’s an answer.

(Anyone who sells tech products knows that prospects get tired of hearing about “solutions” all the time.)

The CEO also liked how that theme leads naturally into the key issues retailers care about -- and the relevant technology payoffs. Issues like:

• How much stock should I buy?
• What should I buy?
• Which employees perform, and which don’t.

The presentation could not be more direct. Above all, it is not technology evangelism. The way you know if you have a good theme is if the text almost writes itself, and is also an easy read for the audience.

By the way, do you want to see the new tagline I created for the CEO who sells restaurant chain ERP?

Turn food into money faster.