The feedback cycle in action

Anyone who has heard me rant before, knows a theme is: you need to explore the views of your tribe; uncover the strengths and areas to improve; then drive change by putting the strengths into your marketing and focus business planning with their ideas.

I recently attended the Huntington Estate Music Festival in Mudgee with the music organised by Musica Viva Australia. It was the 3rd time I’ve been and now see myself as part of their tribe.

Last year they had a paper based feedback survey that festival goers were asked to complete before leaving. I was happy! I naturally looked at ways the survey could be improved, but was happy the initiative was taken.

What really made me excited was that at the start of the festival, Tim Stevens (Huntington Estate owner & winemaker) said in the introduction, how they’d listened and changed as a result of the feedback.

They completed the research cycle and I wanted to describe what I saw of the process and how the crowd talked about it.

Firstly, they listened. They asked for feedback. At events there are two times to do this: at the end of the event and after they have gone home.

1. At the event: has higher response as participants are there and engaged. They are giving feedback on a recent experience, still in their memory. The down side is that it doesn’t give a considered response. In the case of training, this is an important consideration. At an event like Huntington this is a great time.
2. After the event: generally gets lower response rates as participants have returned to their normal lives. If you want to know their considered response, such as in training, then it can be better to gain feedback at this time even with lower response rates.

Secondly, they looked at the feedback. They considered ways to improve from the ideas they were given and had information for marketing.

Thirdly, they changed. A range of initiatives to make the festival even better were implemented. I hear from buyers of research or people who do research in-house, that it isn’t value for money. My response is: what did you do when you got the results? And often hear: we didn’t have time or resources to act on them. Of course, you then didn’t find it value for money!

Fourthly, they communicated the changes as a result of the feedback. They kept communicating how they were seeing ways to improve. This is a great event already, with growing audiences. They have raving fans, who talked about being heard.

They said it was great they improved X, now it would be great if they improved it this way. That would make it even better.

They commented that they saw feedback forms for 2009 and would complete them so the organisers would know their views again. This is an important distinction because declining response rates is a problem. The fact they knew they were listened to, encouraged them to participate again.

The full cycle benefits in building the tribe. That makes the event greater. That makes their business greater.

Do you complete the cycle or just ask for the feedback?

Launching CloudMaker: the 1st Tribal Tool-Kit tool

After years of development we’re very excited about sharing our software with you.

Tribal Tool-Kit is being filled with tools to help you get to know your tribe. The first tool is CloudMaker.

Visualise the language your tribe uses. Easily.

Uncover language for your marketing and develop business planning priorities.

Idea 1: Words your tribe uses to describe you.

Send an email, or ask in a survey, When you think of us, what are the first 3 words that come to mind?

Tribe Research did this recently. We put the words together and imported them into CloudMaker and developed our cloud.

Idea 2: Words your tribe uses to describe an aspect to your business.

Recently we asked on various social media: When you think of the skills needed in business, what first 3 words come to mind?

We put the words together and imported them into CloudMaker and developed our cloud.

Idea 3: Use existing data about your tribe.

Understand the spatial distribution of your tribe by exporting your contacts and importing into CloudMaker. You might have a hidden group that could use your services that CloudMaker would highlight for you.

CloudMaker allows you to edit your data once you have imported it, allowing you to easily: merge, delete, and edit words. You can export your revised dataset. Your cloud can be saved as an image to be placed in your documents, or HTML code so you can put the cloud on your website. The website option allows you to link the words to relevant pages on your website.

Now you can do the same. Tribal Tool-Kit is at: https://www.tribaltoolkit.com/

To have an account of your own, complete our enquiry form and we will set one up for you. The first 50 accounts we set up will be given 25 CloudMaker credits, valued at almost $100.

Happy exploring!

The power of statistics in your PR

Last week I went to one of my favourite networking events, Last Thursday Club, and heard Valerie Khoo talk about getting a journalist’s attention in your media release. Valerie reinforced the value of doing your own research well. Here are three key quotes from the night:

“Statistics are your friend”

“Use quotes from your customers”

“Use your own database”

She provided an example for getting the press’ attention, where an accounting firm calculated the proportion of their clients that needed adjustments to their tax return – adjustments that the firm were able to make to maximise their client’s return. Because the media release included a statistic, the media were drawn to the release and able to create a news story from it. Even though the firm didn’t mention how many people they included in their research and didn’t hide that it was their database that they were reporting on.

Conducting a well designed survey on your own database can give you powerful statistics that you can then use in your own media release to gain exposure for your business.

Why not start now?!

Peace offering: published pieces

To compensate for a blog silence in June and early this month, I’d like to make a peace offering – my video appearance on Kochie’s Business Builders and a number of articles I’ve recently published on small business development.

Each piece focuses on a different aspect of developing your small business via your relationships with each of your important tribal groups; suppliers, yourself, mentors, customers and stakeholders. I welcome your comments and feedback and trust they’ll provide you with some useful tips for your organisation. 

• Supplier Relationships: Supporting your brand, Tribe K, (2008) Flying Solo
• Solo business growth strategies, Tribe K, (2008) Flying Solo
• What I have learnt from my mentor, Tribe K, (2008) Flying Solo
• Seeking feedback from stakeholders to remain competitive and grow your business, Tribe K, (2007) Kochie’s Business Builders video:

 

 

Celebrating success

Welcome back to regular blogs from me and welcome to the new financial year.

It has been a crazy and eventful first half to 2008 with a turnover 3 times the same period in 2007, new team roles at Tribe Research and new products being developed and enhanced.

Small business owners often forget to celebrate their successes or say they don’t have time to celebrate. It is a big mistake, as the celebrations can carry you through the lows or hectic times and raises the energy of your team (whether they are staff, family or friends). Plus they are fun!

At Tribe Research we celebrate the end of the year at our annual dinner, every 6 months at our Planning Expeditions, weekly in our Explorer Update and Friday 4pm meeting.

We also send small business owners birthday cards for the birthday of their business and remind them to celebrate.

I have spent the weekend preparing our next Planning Expedition for our team. It will be starting with the following celebratiions:

• We just started our 7th year as an incorporated company
• We will be having our 6th Planning Expedition
• The first half of 2008 had turnover 3 times the same period last year
• The last financial year had turnover 1.6 times the previous financial year
• We introduced having a Mapper to the Tribe Research team
• We started TRX, a club for previous staff
• New products are almost ready to be released

So, share, what are you celebrating?

Opponents – a new Tribal group

Another great article in the February 2008 edition of the Harvard Business Review (p21) is Understanding Opposition.

One of our Planning Expeditions was based on Blue Ocean Strategy (W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Harvard Business School Press, 2005) and we discussed its relevance for us. We identified that we are a Blue Ocean in Market and Social research, like Cirque du Soleil is a Blue Ocean in relation to circuses, because we are focused on raising awareness of our purpose too – understanding your tribe as a key business strategy for small business.

Why don’t SMEs value doing quantitative research to know their tribe? I think one reason is a perceived price barrier. I think another is a lack of resources (time and money). I think it may also involve a lack of understanding of the benefits of research for small business growth and improving this understanding is our focus.

Our competition largely isn’t Market and Social research companies, but coaches, workshops and consultants in other sectors who SMEs already know to be involved in small business growth. What about Market Research though? SMEs are notorious for not doing Market Research once they have done the initial research to get their business going. They are opponents because they don’t understand its ongoing value for growing businesses.

The HBR article uses the example of two soft drink companies competing to put a vending machine into a school. The opponent to installing the vending machine isn’t the decision on what is a better soft drink, but the opposition from parents who don’t want soft drink in their school. It is this opponent group that the soft drink company should be addressing.

Once you’ve recognised your opponent, the next step is deciding the best way to approach opponents. The HBR article goes on to say that observing political behaviour is a better way to adopt skills for approaching opponents:

1. Who is on the other side of the table, and why?

2. What is that side’s ultimate goal?

3. How can it be met with your help?

These are interesting insights for dealing with oppositions, but also for developing a business in a Blue Ocean.

I’ve thought about coaches, workshops and consultants as competitors but I haven’t defined SMEs as opponents until now. It is a great way to define a new Tribal Group and focus attention on real opponents to growth in our industry – the way people think about research – and an interesting perspective on interacting with opponents to a Blue Ocean business’ core philosophy.

Managing feedback

I am not a regular watcher of Today Tonight but was on Monday because Geraldine Cox, the founder of Sunrise Children’s Foundation, was scheduled to be on. But today I wanted to write about another story they aired. The story was about a restaurant that responded poorly to negative customer feedback that was delivered by email. It is a great example of the power of word-of-mouth marketing.

The feedback was an uninvited email citing a recent poor experience. The response by the restaurant owner used poor English and rejected the feedback. On receipt of the email the customer forwarded the email to a few friends and the forward kept going until it came to the attention of Today Tonight. The restaurant is now closed.

The lesson to be learned is how to deal with feedback whether it is positive or negative. Providing a channel for customers to provide feedback and then dealing with the feedback properly improves customer satisfaction and loyalty whether it is a formal or informal process.

If people who provide negative feedback are thanked for raising an issue, changes implemented, and then those who provided the feedback are made aware of the changes, these initial critics are more likely to feel valued, might try your product/service again, and tell their friends about the positive experience.

I’m not saying that you have to jump on every word of negative feedback and make changes exactly as suggested, sometimes the solution is to educate your customers on why you do things the way you do.Let me give you an example. Your business is based on high quality products. Your prices are high to reflect this. You receive feedback that your prices are too high. But, your prices aren’t the problem, the perception of value for money is the problem. So, your solution is to educate your customers on the value they receive from your products, not to reduce the prices.

Positive feedback creates great testimonials and collateral to guide your marketing.

So have a look at your feedback procedures. Do you ask your customers regularly about their views? If yes, do you then act on the information you receive, whether it is good or bad? If you answered no to one of these actions then you need to change this, so your business doesn’t fall victim to poor word-of-mouth and close like the restaurant in the Today Tonight segment.

Tribes

What tribes are you part of? Or which tribal groups? You might be part of the tribe of a sport by being part of the tribal group of a player, spectator, or supplier of equipment. You are part of the supplier tribal group to your customers and part of the client supplier group for your suppliers.

Understanding these tribal groups is essential for the development of raving fans.

You can read more about our thoughts on raving fans and understanding each of these tribal groups in our Tribal Voice feature article for Spring 2007.