The Drift from Upstream

Once More, With Feeling.

by Doug Weaver on May 8, 2013 at 7:47AM

In discussions with several sellers over the past weeks, I’ve ended up talking with them about the very real strategic value of empathy — of crossing the line and working in the customer’s best interests.  Seemed like the time to re-post these words from June 2010.

During the strategic media sales workshops I often conduct, we always start with a core foundational principle:  Aristotle’s model of persuasion.  To completely over-simplify the idea, Ari believed that three qualities had to be present — and flow in a specific sequence — in order for one human being to persuade another of anything important.  They are Ethos (the sense of empathy and understanding), Pathos (the sense of shared struggle or collaborative journey) and Logos (supporting logic or facts).  Get them out of sequence — say, start with the numbers or logic — and you fail to persuade.  Good stuff, yeah?

This week’s Drift is proudly underwritten by OpenX.  “Optimize Content to Grow Revenue 90%.”  By analyzing two vital elements – digital content value and ad monetization – OpenX Revenue Intelligence helps publishers understand the total revenue potential of every page. Register for the webinar May 16 at 11am PDT to learn how major newspapers are increasing revenue as high as 90%.

Today I want to spend a minute on the first quality of persuasion:  empathy.  It’s occurred to me as we’ve explored this concept over years of workshops that many sales people see it as a tactic.  How can I demonstrate just enough empathy to get them on my side?  To get them to open up to being persuaded? When I sensed question in the air during a recent group session, the answer just seemed jump out all by itself:

Don’t struggle to demonstrate empathy:  Actually empathize.  The easiest way to look like you care is to actually care.

How many of us when we go into a sales situation can honestly say we’re really out to improve the customer’s business?  That we’re out to do right by them?  How often do we set out to truly make a difference?  By my count, only the really great ones do this.   And many more of us need to.  So the  sales message of today’s Drift post is a pretty simple one:

Stop worrying about making the plan.  Obsess instead about making a difference.   Because if you make a difference, you’ll not only make the plan… you’ll be the plan.

Six + 140.

by Doug Weaver on May 1, 2013 at 8:41AM

Last week in this space, I posted a series of ‘Six Word Internet Business Stories’ to illustrate how a few clear, well selected words could have more impact than the longer, denser explanations and opinions we’re assaulted with every day.  That post struck a nerve with many readers, and one non-written comment really stuck with me.  “Telling a story in six words makes a lot of sense,” I was told.  “Our buyers scan the subject lines of emails to see if they’ll even read them, and even then will only read something shorter than a tweet.”

This comment gave me not one but TWO great ideas for helping sellers. (1) Come up with a “six word story” that identifies the business or marketing problem you’ll help solve.  This can serve not only as a powerful subject line for your emails, but also the driver of action in your subsequent phone call or meeting.  (2) Then see if you can communicate the essence of your idea or agenda in 140 characters or less. (The composition box on Twitter or any Twitter client app can be used in your creative process.) It’s not only an eye opening exercise; it’s an addictive new approach to strategy.

This week’s Drift is proudly underwritten by OpenX. 

Optimize Content to Grow Revenue 90%

By analyzing two vital elements – digital content value and ad monetization – OpenX Revenue Intelligence helps publishers understand the total revenue potential of every page. Register for the webinar May 16 at 11am PDT to learn how major newspapers are increasing revenue as high as 90%.

What might your “six word story” to an advertiser or agency sound like?  If you‘ve got a great analytics or retargeting capability, “The best prospects you’re not seeing” will do a great job of provoking a conversation or – at least – getting a customer to read on.  The rest of the story?  Perhaps it sounds something like this:

Your best online prospects will spend $30 million in the next 6 weeks. They’re invisible to you, not to us. Let’s activate and drive sales.

In just 139 characters, we conveyed the size and immediacy of the opportunity, a marketing problem, our capability and a call to action.  Let’s try another example, using a native advertising concept.  The six word story:  “No More Ad Ghetto for You.”  Follow that with…

Brand value & results can thrive within the user experience.  It’s measurable & surprisingly simple. You deserve the advantage. Let’s talk.

You could dismiss this as a gimmick if you like.  But I’d suggest you table your disbelief for a minute and look at the underlying logic. Six word stories and 140 character “pitches” force the seller to distill ideas down to their most powerful essence.  We stop wasting time with flowery, elaborate paragraphs.  We give our emails and our meetings a sharp, piercing quality;  an agenda that says “This will be worth my time.”

Challenge your team – and yourself – to try this approach today.  What have you got to lose besides a bunch of words nobody’s reading anyway?

Six Words About Digital Marketing.

by Doug Weaver on April 22, 2013 at 6:28PM

In workshops I often challenge digital sellers to distill their ideas, selling points and customer challenges into as few words as possible.  In one very trying exercise, the goal is to boil down your sales e-mail to 140 characters.  It’s amazing how powerful and incisive written words can be when they’re carefully rationed. 

These exercises inevitably make me think of the “Six Word Stories” website, a concept so clean and simple it needs no explanation.  Submissions range from tragic (“Man cries holding his dog’s leash”) to streetwise (“Tanline on his ring finger?  Goodbye!”) to whimsical (“Apathetic prophet makes a pathetic profit”.) 

This week’s Drift is proudly underwritten by NextMark, which helps you boost your direct ad sales by giving you a steady flow of qualified, actionable sales leads without the hassle of RFPs! To learn more, visit www.NextMark.com/compass.

Since I normally enjoy a generous word count every week (the average Drift comes in around 500 words), I thought I’d challenge myself to write a series of “Six-Word Business Stories” about familiar themes in our industry.  Enjoy, and please share your own in the comments section.

Programmatic Buying:  Hysteria about RTB.  Now look deeper.

Native Advertising:   Fluoride in Digital Water Supply. Drink!

Clickthrough: Freddy Krueger in our accountability nightmare

Mobile:  Your mobile strategy?   You’re asking NOW?

Viewability:  Can’t ignore what you can’t see.

Google:  George Orwell spinning in his grave.

The Conference Circuit:  15 minute celebrity, 300 times annually.

Trading Desks:  Exhausted Wizard behind curtain. Don’t look!

Banner Ads:   Distribution system. Just needs some imagination.

Integrated Marketing:  It happens. For better, or worse.

Digital Sales:  After gold rush…. learning to dig.

Social Media:  Human Growth Hormone for Worthy Campaigns.

The Drift:   Back to 500 words next week!

Do you lead a digital sales organization?  Want to compare notes and ideas with your peers in a structured, collegial environment?  Save a seat at the Upstream Seller Forum on Thursday June 27th in New York.  Networking dinner on Wednesday June 26th is included.  For more information call Tamara Clarke at 802.985.2500 or visit www.thesellerforum.com.

Don’t!

by Doug Weaver on April 17, 2013 at 10:52AM

In recent weeks I’ve encountered a number of sellers who seem to be thinking a lot about damage control.  Instead of focusing on breaking through with the customer – on creating a great sales environment – they seem stuck on avoiding mistakes in the sales process.  Obviously we all want to get to the good stuff, and sometimes that means making sure the bad stuff isn’t dragging you down.  So I thought I’d re-purpose a post from 2011:   My list of the “7 Really Damaging Things That are Said and Done Every Day on Sales Calls.”  Enjoy.

This week’s Drift is proudly underwritten by NextMark, which helps you boost your direct ad sales by giving you a steady flow of qualified, actionable sales leads without the hassle of RFPs! To learn more, visit www.NextMark.com/compass.

1. You consider it — or God forbid actually refer to it – as “a pitch.” There is no more devaluing term imaginable.  “Pitch” smacks of hucksterism, slickness, lack of sincerity.
2. You start with an extended introduction of your own site. The customer was not lying awake last night because he just had to know more about what your company does.  Better start with their stuff.  They don’t care about what you do until it’s attached to one of their problems.
3. You don’t bring a brand into the room. I’m amazed that reps still show up at agencies and ask “so what accounts are you guys working on?”  Equally bad is the rep who sets out to break “Unilever” or “P&G.”  If you’re not being brand and product specific then you’re not truly prepared.
4. You sleepwalk through the first three minutes. So much happens in the first 180 seconds that really defines the meeting.  Yet so many reps squander that time with meaningless small talk and paper shuffling.  Use this time to ask a provocative, agenda-setting question….give the customer a point-of-view to react to.  Do something.
5. You get the laptop out first. No customer has really looked forward to a PowerPoint presentation since the Clinton Administration, but we keep on doing them….and worse, leading with them.  As soon as you pop that hinge, you say “I’M talking now, so you just sit back.”
6. You expect a second call. If you’ve never heard failure, it sounds like this:  “Well, let me go back to the office and put together a proposal and send it to you.”  If you haven’t really engaged your customer and collaborated with her on this call, then there won’t be a second one.  Too many reps still believe they get a fact-finding, introductory call and then the real stuff will happen later.  In truth, you just had your shot.
7. You’re not trying to make a difference. If you’re just trying to say or do enough to “make the plan” then you’re just another hungry bird in the ad budget nest.  The best reps aim higher:  they work to truly “make a difference” in the customer’s business.  Nobody’s looking for one more advertising outlet to consider.  Be more important than that.

Mediocrity doesn’t always boldly announce itself through grand, tragic mistakes.  More often it tiptoes in on little cat feet.  It’s the small things we do – and don’t do – that really matter.

Hacking Your To-Do List.

by Doug Weaver on April 8, 2013 at 4:32PM

This week our Twitter feed included a Tweet about consultant Etienne Garbugli’s slideshare, “26 Time Management Hacks I Wish I’d Known at 20.”  Beyond the cheeky conceit of translating “Tips” into “Hacks,” (just have to start doing that!) the presentation is loaded with great advice to save your calendar, your productivity and ultimately your sanity.  I thought it deserved more attention so I’ve pulled out a handful of my favorites from the list.  But first, a short detour to a completely different piece.

On LinkedIn (of course) I read an article by LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner called “The Importance of Scheduling Nothing.”  It’s a manifesto on the critical value of keeping unscheduled blocks of time (30-, 60- or 90-minutes) on your calendar.  Weiner rightly argues that managing your time and organizing your life simply to fit a few more meetings and tasks onto your calendar is a fool’s errand.  Without open time to think, coach, share and consider, managers can’t manage, leaders can’t lead and professionals never grow.  So read Weiner’s article so you know what you should be doing with all that time you save.

This week’s Drift is proudly underwritten by NextMark, which helps you boost your direct ad sales by giving you a steady flow of qualified, actionable sales leads without the hassle of RFPs! To learn more, visit www.NextMark.com/compass.

#11:  Separate Thinking and Execution to Execute Faster and Think Better.  How often we find ourselves hammering nails while also revising the blueprint.  This is a classic case of slowing down some so you can ultimately go faster.  To stick with the carpentry metaphor, “Measure twice.  Cut once.”

#2: Only Plan 4-5 Hours of Real Work per Day.  Over-estimating how much you’ll be able to get done in a workday is a sure fire buzz kill.  Days fill up with the unplanned and unanticipated.  This one fits really nicely with Jeff Weiner’s advice to maintain open blocks.  Some of the best stuff can happen when you’re not chained to an impossibly long bullet list.

#12: Organize Important Meetings Early During the Day.  Time Leading Up to an Event is Often Wasted.  Not only that, but eliminating those 5 or 6 hours of second-guessing and performance anxiety just might bring out the best in your team…and give you the back half of the day to execute on the brilliant ideas and breakthroughs you hatched over bagels and coffee.

#20:  If Something Can Be Done 80% as Well by Someone Else, Delegate.  This one hit me right between the eyes.  If there was a patron saint for micro-managers and control freaks, I’d build a shrine.  I see it in myself and in others:  the only way our industry, our companies and our teams grow is by letting go.  But the “80%” in this sentence puts the onus on you to brief, train and communicate clear goals and directions to your people.  Vital.

Being more effective and efficient with your time doesn’t just mean getting more stuff done.  What you discovered, who you empowered, how you decided an important question…this is the stuff of true success.

Going Native.

by Doug Weaver on April 2, 2013 at 7:41AM

Last month in this space I suggested that the term “programmatic” had outlived its usefulness — if it was ever really useful in the first place.  As an intellectual construct it’s become little more than a dumping ground for unrelated terms — sort of a “village of lost toys” for ad technology.  I proposed that publishers and sales leaders break it all down to two distinct issues:  automated process reform (APR) and dynamic pricing policy (DPP).

To be fair, “native advertising” has got to go too.

This week’s Drift is proudly underwritten by NextMark, which helps you boost your direct ad sales by giving you a steady flow of qualified, actionable sales leads without the hassle of RFPs! To learn more, visit www.NextMark.com/compass.

Digiday recently did some on-camera interviews with a half-dozen publishers and asked them for their definitions of “Native.”  Predictably, they got six pretty different answers.  Everything from “product placement” to sponsored tweets to “anything that’s not a banner” has been unceremoniously dumped in the Native Advertising hopper.  Some even argue that it should include “sponsorship” — which I think was an advertising buzzword back in the Taft administration.  Yes, it’s definitely time to click on “Empty Native Advertising Bin” and start over.

As with our dissection of “Programmatic,” the post-mortem on “Native” includes viable concepts that are not necessarily related to one another.  I count three:

User Action Integration.   This is perhaps the one phenomenon that marketers should be rightly jacked up about.  Digital is most compelling when it’s about action — the consumer doing something — and in this model, the marketer or brand becomes an actor by using the same tools and protocols available to consumers.

Yielding the Floor.  If the web is a marketplace of ideas, the marketer no longer wants to sit on the margins and scream for attention.  My journalism teacher Mr. Roberge would turn over in his grave to hear it, but we’ve dumped the term editorial in favor of the much more malleable content.  And marketers are being empowered and abetted by digital publishers to generate their share of that content.

Social Acceleration.  We can not divorce the interest in Native Advertising from its most principal motivator:  social relevance.  The social genie is out of the bottle and marketers see in it a proxy for attention, focus, impact — all they hold most dear.  “Make people talk about us, with us, for us.”   Dismiss the social arms race at your own peril.

Ending the now vacuous and fleeting “Native” conversation allows us to begin a new dialogue with marketers about what digital can do — well, actually three conversations.

The Big Tent, Revisited.

by Doug Weaver on March 25, 2013 at 2:56PM

I love the Interactive Advertising Bureau.  And I love Randall Rothenberg.  As someone who was among the early board members back in the mid-90s, I’m gratified and more than a little amazed at the scale and effectiveness of the organization on Randall’s watch.  Lobbyists, standards, tests, thousand-attendee conferences….the IAB is in every way a big-time trade organization.  But for whom, exactly?

Like 16^th century Christianity, the IAB has reached an existential moment where it must account for the diverging visions and interests of internal factions if it’s to avoid a schism. The Anne Boleyn issue of today is the decision by Mozilla to block third party cookies by default in upcoming releases of the Firefox browser.  The IAB’s full throated defense of third party cookies –  IAB General Counsel Mike Zaneis called it a “nuclear first strike,” — has now evoked a mini-firestorm with some publishers, a flame that is being stoked by the publisher-only OPA.

You see, rightly or wrongly, some publishers believe that a world of only first-party cookies – those set by (or in direct coordination with) sites – would help them counteract the dominance of networks, resellers, exchanges and ad-tech companies.  Meanwhile, the networks and other third parties credibly argue that they are a vital accelerant and lubricant in the flow of marketer dollars onto the web and into the hands of small-medium sized websites.  And just in case the situation wasn’t complex enough, layer on the fact that publishers — the ones who would ostensibly benefit from third party cookies going away – have come to rely on those same networks and third parties for a big chunk of their monthly revenue.  “The IAB represents the sellers of interactive advertising inventory — publishers, in the parlance — plainly and simply, with no nuances attached,” according to a recent post by Rothenberg on the issue.  But every seller is not, in fact, a publisher.  So nuance still abounds.   The problem – a thorny one– is that every company who pays dues to the IAB thinks it’s their IAB.

So what’s a trade organization to do?

Perhaps  the answer – and the bulwark against further fraying of the coalition – is for the IAB to claim a more neutral mantra.   I personally have no dog in this fight.  My clients run the gamut from the biggest, most data-protective publishers to the most cookie-dependent third-party networks.  My business is about helping them sell more effectively regardless of their data position, customer base or competitive set.  I only care about the continued flow of more and more marketing dollars into digital media; I want it to keep raining so that things will grow.  I know that’s what the IAB cares most about too.  Supporting the growth of all digital spending means not having to take a hardline position on something as specific as third party cookies.  And that may ultimately be the only way to keep all the partisans fighting under the same banner.

Programmatic? Problematic.

by Doug Weaver on March 12, 2013 at 8:22AM

At the recent IAB Annual Leadership Meeting I took part in a town-hall style discussion called “Programmatic Buying from the Perspective of Premium Publishers: Value Creator or Advertising’s Borg?”  A topic like that can go one of three ways.  (1) It can turn into a festival of buzzwords and received wisdom; (2) it can quickly become a shouting match; or (3) you might just get a few little Easter eggs of clarity.  I, for one, was really delighted with the eggs.

There was some of the usual smarty pants technology stuff and more than a little bombast.  Each of four “provocateurs” (I was one) gave an opinion to which those in the room could react and respond.  And react they did.  There were strongly held positions, fear, misconceptions and strongly held positions based on fear and misconception.  Then a funny thing happened along the way.  The big point jumped out and revealed itself.  The only real problem with “programmatic” in the eyes of the premium publisher (aside from all the alliteration) is that we keep calling it “programmatic.”

The issue, you see, is the name itself.  In our efforts to slap a simple label on very complex set of topics, we’ve created a scary-sounding catch-all and larded it down with about a half-dozen unrelated and incompatible concepts.  It’s time to bury the term “programmatic” once and for all.  It’s become emotionally radioactive, it’s not instructive, and it’s not moving premium publishers and advertisers any closer to the automated nirvana we are supposed to crave.

In our discussion, there are really two issues here for the publisher:  automated process reform and dynamic pricing policy.

APR.   A huge part of what “programmatic” trading accomplishes is not controversial at all. It’s simply about automating the ‘send and receive’ part of what we do.  Why in the world would I not want to have my finely tuned, automated system receive the ads that your finely-tuned, automated system sends?  At its essence, automated process reform is simply about bringing machine-based precision to the act of trading ads for money.  Period.  Those who choose to geek out and conflate APR with RTB – real time bidding – are overreaching and doing a huge disservice to the industry.

DPP.  Once publishers have embraced APR – which eventually all will –they are then faced with addressing dynamic pricing policy.  Essentially, now that I’ve got the automated process in place to trade ads with precision, what business decisions will I make about pricing those transactions?  One legitimate decision may be to open up certain classes of inventory to RTB – or never to do so.  You may decide to withhold most or all of your inventory from second party sales channels – networks, exchanges.  You may use pricing policy or the blacklisting of certain advertisers to achieve your sales goals.  The point is, it’s up to you.  APR is not a slippery slope into RTB.  Never was.

For too long now, “programmatic” has been an intellectually lazy term; a sloppy construct that’s caused more problems than it’s solved.  Only by tossing it overboard and addressing its two central pillars do we move the development of the publisher’s automated future onto the fast track it deserves.