Tuned In: Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs.

Memories for a lifetime ... priceless

We cleaned out our storage unit this weekend and found lots of old memories stored in boxes. Pictures of the birth of our children, VHS cassettes of my daughter's school plays and gymnastics competitions, some old camcorder tapes of our son's early lessons in golf and even old reel tapes that captured vacations and scenes from my wife's childhood including footage of her father talking about some of his WWII experiences.

Ever wondered if you could get all of this digitized and online? 

Mark Rukavina did and he created a fantastic new business called iMemories http://www.imemories.com.  I visited his offices here in Phoenix last week and found a company and a team that is completely tuned in to this market problem and building a complete experience to solve it. Mark wants to create a one-stop service that will convert all of your families memories into a digital studio that can serve your needs to capture, aggregate and produce digital films from your pre-1990's media up to and including everything you captured last month at Junior's soccer game. And maybe even that clever YouTube video you shot and posted. 

Want to create a custom film to celebrate an event like your parent's 50th wedding anniversary? Or your daughters graduation?  Perhaps a special gathering of friends to roast someone's promotion or retirement?  iMemories can serve as your hub. Simply collect all of the footage you have wasting away in basements, garage's or closets and bring it into iMemories offices (or ship in the spiffy packages they provide for out-of-state customers). They'll take care of the rest, converting the film into online vidoe that you can breakdown into frames that are custom labeled in storybook format and provide access for you (or through their service) to put the pieces of your movie together online. 

With more than 3.2 trillion artifacts sitting in peoples attics, iMemories has tuned in to an urgent and pervasive problem. Turns out most film only last 30-40 years and VHS is even worse with a lifespan of 15 years. How much is it worth to preserve these memories and bring them online into the digital age? Hard to put a cost on these kinds of things but iMemories provides services that start for as low as $20 a tape.  If you want a professionally produced and enhanced DVD of each, it's provided in that price. For approximately $20 more a month, you can store these memories online and use iMemories digital tools to create new packages yourself. 

Targeted at the consumer, the service has already supported the conversion of historical movies as well. Al Mengert owned a home movie he made of Don Larsen's 'perfect game' in the 1956 World Series, capturing from the national anthem through the final out. This timeframe likely pushed the upper end of the companies ability to recreate an upgraded offering but it also points to the power of being able to bridge the generation gaps in memories and preserve priceless moments. 

Our home movies are all at iMemories as I write this being captured and digitized. In a week or two, we'll be dangerous. Look for the results of our work in a theatre near you!

Mark and his team at iMemories are tuned in!

Why do some vendors refuse to listen to the market?

I received an offer today from Pinnacle Systems via email to pre-order their new Video Transfer product. It looked worth trying so I clicked through to their shopping cart. The price was good but the free shipping, upon investigation, was described as 7 to 10 working days. That’s upwards of two calendar weeks! If I upgraded to UPS shipping (5 working days max), it would cost another $10.

Given that UPS ground is the slowest shipping that I am aware of, I abandoned the shopping cart and tried to send them an email to explain why I decided not to order. There was no email address so the first obstacle I had to cross was a series of dropdowns to define the nature of my correspondence. I played along until I discovered that there was no dropdown for “Why do you apparently ship via some guy on a bicycle?” Since they didn’t have a generic category, I was forced to choose the closest scenario I could find, “How do I change my shipping choice?”

They gave me 2,000 characters to vent my discontent. I explained that I could buy their product after it is released from Amazon and get free two-day shipping which would probably arrive before their guy on the bike.

Insult on to injury came when I get an email, about 30 minutes later, saying that this is an automated message and, no, you cannot change you method of shipping. Lots of expletives here! Have we finally arrived at 1984? Or is it 2000 and I must I ask Hal for permission to speak? Aren’t there any humans out there anymore? I hope their computer enjoyed my pithy and somewhat sarcastic 2,000 characters. At this point, “Billy” in India is looking pretty good.

Pinnacle doesn’t have a lock on this practice. A colleague just yesterday expressed his frustration in dealing with Amazon. He was trying to get some questions answered regarding their B2B drop shipping services. For several days he struggled via email, the only offered method of communicating, without getting a complete set of answers. Finally, in desperation, he sent an email saying, “We could resolve this in 15 minutes if you would just call me.”  The phone rang minutes later and the issue was promptly resolved.

When a client goes out of their way to proactively communicate, you shouldn’t build moats around your ability to listen. Otherwise, you are just Tuned Out.

Size Me Up

Did you know that more than one-third of holiday gifts are returned each year? Turns out that according to surveys conducted by the National Federation of Retailers that the biggest reason is -- wrong fit. 

If you've been following our Tuned In stories you know that we're convinced that the concept of finding unresolved problems that can be quantified by specific personas and turned into experiences that resonate in the market is something we believe anyone can do in any industry ... if you start with a real problem. A collegue of ours introduced me to one this week ... Size Me Up http://www.sizemeuponline.com/. 

Launched by 22 year-old Melissa Adelman, the company is based on a single premise and value proposition. For a variety of good and not so good reasons, the retail industry has evolved to produce lots of products that seem similar but in reality aren't even close to being the same thing. We've probably known for some time that a size 10 can be anything from a size 10 to a couuple of sizes bigger or smaller in another store. Yet, the question we've overlooked is what if anything can be done about this to eliminate a pretty big retail industry and consumer experience problem. 

Buying clothes for others is hard enough. Add the complexity of getting a good read on their size to begin with to the myriad of permutations that retailers have created and you've got an issue that is beyond frustrating. Are you one of those folks who now pins the receopt inside the box when you give a gift so the recipient can take it back ... or even mention it when you hand the gift over?  You're not alone. Tom Van Riper at Forbes.com recently posted that they found examples where things like a pair of Gap size 8 petite 'Long and Lean' jeans are equivalent to a size 10 short 'Straight 77 Stretch' jeans from American Eagle Outfitters. How were we to know that?   

Size Me Up does all the 'leg work' for you on this (sorry, couldn't resist). They maintain a database that allows you to quickly enter your size and brands into their analyzer. Their patent-pending sizing algorithm does the rest, converting this information into specific shopping lists for any number of retail outlets. Provided online, this enables anyone shopping to quickly access a link real-time in stores to make those pesky last minute choices on exactly what to buy. 

The business outlook for Adelman is pretty promising. She's already secured two awards for best-in-class start-up that enabled her to launch her business. All based on a simple problem that she observed herself and turned into a business that has the attention of all of the 40 major retailers.

Adelman and Size Me Up are Tuned In. 

Will your company be around in 200 years?

I visited our publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. this week to discuss our new book, Tuned In: Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs.

Amazingly, Wiley has been publishing books for 200 years. Founded in New York City when Thomas Jefferson was president, Wiley has been a significant player in the publishing industry for two centuries.

Wow. How can a company be around for that long? Simple, the only way is to be tuned in.

Wiley has just published a terrific coffee table book to mark the occasion Knowledge for Generations: Wiley and the Global Publishing Industry.

We’re thrilled to be working with Wiley on our publishing project.

Think about your business. Are you tuned in now? Can you get tuned in? Will your company be around in the year 2208?

Low price doesn't excuse poor experiences

Ask almost any consumer what factor price plays in their decision to purchase and they'll almost always prioritize it highly. In more cases than not, at the top of the list. So, is it any wonder that in every category someone eventually steps in to claim 'lowest price' as their distinctive competence.

For those where that choice is the end of the experience, failure is just around the corner. 

A collegue and good friend of mine proved this point last week. We just held our annual President's Club gathering in the Grand Caymans. Great way to celebrate a banner year for the business. Since we were all coming from different parts of the world, we made our own reservations. My friend chose Spirit Airlines to save the company some money on the trip there. Awesome fare from the an airline that offers them as low as $9 a leg for frequent travelers. Of course, nothing is included. You pay to check baggage, buy a beverage or some peanunts, even to pick a big comfortable seat. You don't expect much, but you do expect the basics.

When he and his wife arrived in the Caymans, they were told that their bags hadn't made it on the flight. Usually a minor inconvenience right? In our experience, they come in a couple of hours later and someone from the airline brings them to your hotel. No worries. Unless you fly Spirit! Unbelievably, they were told that their bags wouldn't be sent to the island until 5 days later ... the day we were leaving! Why?  Because they only flew to the Caymans once a week and that was the next time they could send the bags. 

Could they forward them on another airline?  No. 

Could someone Fed Ex them at our expense to the hotel?  No. 

Would they cover their expenses to buy some clothes for the week?  No. 

Did they know where the bags actually were?  Well, no but here is an 800 # you can call to find out and maybe they'll know how to help you.

Except that noone ever answered the 800 #.  All you got was a message that noone was available to take your call, please call back later. After a dozen or so of these at $4 a connection, my collegue gave up. Then in rummaging through the website, he found a really funny thing ... turns out the 800 # was actually the only one they had and it was for reservations. So, not only were they turning away service requests, they pretty much ignored buyers as well!

It get's better.

When the time for our return actually came, we all went to the airport early to help greet the plane with the missing luggage (sort of an obscure island ritual we thought we'd make up and follow).  Only to find out the bags weren't on that plane. No, they would be coming on a later flight on another airline ... the one they refused to send it on all week and a plane that was arriving one hour before the return! 

Would they re-check them for him back onto the airline?  No. 

Would they hold his seat while he manually gathered the luggage from baggage and then race back through checking them and security?  No.  He and his wife were pretty much left to handle it themselves. Amazing. 

The point of this story isn't to create a pity party. We were in the Caymans after all. They bought clothes for the week and we all enjoyed a great trip together. Today, everyone is home safe and sound and very refreshed for the New Year. The real point is guess who'll they'll never fly again. Worse than the loss of one customer though, guess how many times we'll all tell this story in our seminars, keynotes, blogs and othere mediums this year. And how many people we'll reach with free negative PR for Spirit? 

Selling something for a low price is never an excuse to deliver low quality and lousy experiences. All buyers have an expectation that they'll be treated with respect and serviced as if their business actually means something to the vendor providing it. In Spirit's case, they've missed the boat completely. Right idea on the novelty of ala carte pricing of their service, horrible execution. At this point, free wouldn't help. In fact, paying me to fly them wouldn't help. There are many other better alternatives including low-cost carriers like Southwest who actually provide superior service.

Uncovering business breakthroughs doesn't start with price. It's always only a component of the total customer experience. Making it all work is what creates the real winners. Spirit Airlines has more than a little work to do in our opinion if they want to survive, let alone get to the winners circle.   

 

Are your bills tuned in?

One of the things that we look for when deciding if a company has a tuned in approach is the company's back-end processes. Are the simple things like phone support designed for the convenience of the company? Or the convenience of the customer?

Bills and invoices are always an interesting clue to a company's overall behavior. Is the bill easy to understand? Or is it a bunch of stuff that doesn’t make sense and is difficult to read? 

Often when a company's bills are difficult to read it is because the company systems are set up for the convenience of the company, not the customer. You can imagine a company CFO directing his finance and IT department to develop a billing system that makes it easy to manage the numbers, all the while forgetting that the company’s customers all need to read and pay the bills.

With all my telecommunications services—landlines, mobile phones, cable Internet access, and the like, I’ve got a bunch of bills from Earthlink, AT&T, Verizon, and others. Most of them are so damn complicated that I just pay them even if they are wrong (maybe some unscrupulous companies count on this behavior?).

 

Recently I purchased an EVDO datacard and signed up for the Sprint data service at $60 per month. When the first bill arrived, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy to understand the bill is. It tells me what I’ve purchased, the government fees, and other things.

Click the images to see a full size version of two pages of the bill.

Simple and smart. A tuned in bill.

New Year's Resolutions

My 'professional' New Year's resolution is the same this year as it has been almost every year for the past fifteen ... become a better leader. Like the losing weight ones that seem to come and go for many folks, this is fast becoming a lifelong quest for me that is difficult to stay on track with.   

This year, I think at least I have an awesome model to guide me ... getting Tuned In.

One of the great benefits of writing the Tuned In book is that we've had the opportunity to interview and observe so many great leaders in action. We've identified the common characteristics in the book in our six-step process. What also struck us though that we didn't write as much about is the culture and style that these leaders embrace. As is so often the case, success isn't so much defined by 'what' you do but 'how' you do it.

I'm going to focus more of my time this year on a core set of the 'hows'.  Specifically:

1. More 'walkabouts' -- which is a simple way of saying get out of the office and get engaged with what really matters. The best leaders practice what they preach. Sam Walton and Lou Gerstner didn't ask their teams to go talk to customers, they themselves spent an average a day a week walking the front lines ... in their stores or with their customers. 20% isn't too much to ask for staying tuned in to the most important part of the business. Is it?   
2. Hiring to profile, not to time -- how often have you defined a timeline to hire someone and then picked the best of the lot when the clock ran out?  How often did you have to re-hire for the position within a year?  Going fast on the hire side is the biggest mistake great leaders avoid. It's much easier to hit your results with an understaffed, high impact team than it is with a full team with a handful of 80% peformers.   
3. Fact-based decision making -- make your decisions fast and your mistakes faster is a mantra one of my bosses drilled in to me. Wrong! The whip-saw effect of that model takes its toll pretty quickly on all but the most committed of teams. What's funny about it is how easily avoidable the whole scenario is by just insisting on making sure the data (qualititative and quantitative) supports the recommended action.   
4. Encourage more thought leadership -- long-term vs. short-term is always the leaders main management dilemna. Do we spend our time ensuring that the results of today are met or building the foundation for sustained success tomorrow? Of course, both require focus but one long-term area that pays consistent dividends is related to your businesses distinctive competence. And that requires constant attention to ensure that you remain a thought leader.
5. Routine strategic checkpoints -- empowerment is an essential ingredient to success. The best leaders distribute authority liberally. But, they don't let go completely because they know that empowerment without inspection is a fool's paradise. Our organizations all have goals and objectives for the coming year. Monthly and/or quarterly isn't too often to discuss whether or not the strategic direction 'winds' are at our back or in our face. 

There are more attributes to perfect but strangely the ones we're told to spend lots of time on -- vision, strategy, charisma, likeability, and the strength of conviction to make tough calls -- turn out to be less important than the basics. Great leaders, like great coaches in sports aren't necessarily the 'best' at any of these things. They just know how to build and manage teams to achieve greatness better.

Well, at least I wrote them down! I feel better now and hopefully some of these things will provide some value for you as well. Let's all check back at year-end and see how we did. 

Crowne Plaza tunes into a peaceful sleep

I recently traveled to one of our seminars near the San Francisco International Airport.  I was warned that I should be sure to ask for the side of the Crowne Plaza that faces away from the highway as it can get quite noisy on the "wrong side." 

I guess I forgot to ask. When I checked into my room, I noted the highway outside my window but didn't think much of it as I am usually a sound sleeper.  I then noticed a collection of items on my bed that I initially assumed was the usual chocolates or other such items.  Turns out that they had provided a comprehensive set of sleep inducing items including a set of earplugs, an eye mask, a spray bottle of "Lavender Linen Spray" and a nicely produced CD with a CD playing clock radio on the nightstand.  The CD package has 10 Sleep Tips and the audio CD includes music and spoken words to provide "physical and emotional relaxation" that lulls you into sleep.

Pretty cool!  Maybe all Crowne Plaza properties offer this package but I found this as a distinctive resonator for this especially noisy property.