Tag: #customer

Innovation: Looking To The Future & Learning From the Past

March 17, 2020 / / 0 Comments

On Episode 113 of The Edge of Innovation, we’re talking with executive advisor Scott Monty about looking to the future of innovation and learning from the past!

Sections

Introduction
Dealing With Skeptics
How to Approach Innovation In Your Business
Henry Ford: A Business Historical Perspective
Start With The Basics
Looking To The Future & Changing With The Times
Conclusion: “Stay Curious”
More Episodes
Show Notes

Innovation: Looking To The Future & Learning From the Past

Introduction

Paul: Good afternoon, everyone. Today we’re talking with Scott Monty of Scott Monty Strategies in Canton, Michigan. Welcome, Scott.

Scott: Good to be with you, Paul.

Dealing With Skeptics

Paul: So do you find that the people who engage you are because you have a track record in their mind?I know there’s probably a lot of repeat business, but then there’s this sort of subset, I would imagine, that are skeptical. It’s like, okay, I don’t know. You know, “I can see everything. I know everything about this. You know, what’s he going to add? He doesn’t even know this business.”

Scott: Yeah.

Paul: And how do you deal with that because… First of all, have you had that challenge? And then how did you deal with that?

Scott: So, the types of clients that I have right now, it’s largely referral and word of mouth. I’ve been writing a blog for,I guess, going on fifteen years now. So I’ve got a track record of what I guess you could call thought leadership. I won’t claim the mantle, but, you know, that’s what other people have said.

I certainly made a reputation for myself at Ford. And largely the people that approach me are people that are already believers. Like that dealer, you know. Here’s a guy who I didn’t have to convince him that something needed changing. He knew a change needed to happen. He just didn’t know how to get there. Right? And I find those are the leaders that I enjoy working with the most, is those who are naturally curious and those who are constantly pushing for something different, something better.

However, I will say that in my career, I have come across plenty of skeptics, and I actually had an opportunity to convert one of them, or so I thought, at a meeting of the entire C-suite at Ford Motor Company. This was back in 2011, I think. I was asked to give a presentation on the state of social media, more broadly and specifically what it meant for the company.

And I went into this room. And, remember this is late ’10, early ’11. So, oil and gas prices were still high. Every executive around the room had fuel prices on their mind as Ford was thinking about its way forward. And I acknowledged that, and I said, “Before I begin this presentation – And by the way, I happened to be seated directly in between the CFO and the COO. I was in the seat that normally the CEO held at these meetings. And I looked around the room, and I said, “Everybody has this at the back of their mind, so let’s see if we can get a little consumer research.”

So I went onto the Ford corporate Twitter account, and I asked the audience, “When you buy your next car, what’s the minimum MPG you’d like to see — miles per gallon — you’d like to see from it?”

And I, I hit “send,” and I gave my presentation, and about 20 minutes later, I opened up the Twitter feed, and all of these responses were in there — about a hundred or so responses. And it ranged from “Don’t matter the MPG as long as it got a V8 engine in it” all the way up to “300 miles per gallon.”

But most of the answers were in the 30s and 40s, which is exactly where Ford had been targeted over that two to three period range. So it validated the strategy. And the CFO, the guy who was the most skeptical of digital and social, who wondered whether people were wasting their time, whether this was productive for the company, he pushed back from the table and he put his reading glasses up on his forehead and he looked over at me and he said, “Do you know, if I had insights like this every day, I would find it invaluable.”

So, in that very moment, I made a believer out of a skeptic. And it was all about speaking his language, putting it in a frame of reference where he could work with it. Now, this isn’t a guy who’s going to be creating his own Instagram feed or you know, you name it. This is a guy who thinks about it from a utilitarian point of view. But until we actually packaged it in a way that was useful to him, he didn’t see the value in it.

Paul: Of course, yeah. How would he know? How could he perceive it?

Scott: Right.

Paul: It’s as good as not existing.

Scott: Exactly.

Paul: Fascinating, fascinating. Now, you said… Did he continue to, to believe? Or did he wane on that?

Scott: Well, he did because he was the guy we had to go to when we wanted funding. So, yeah. Obviously, we had to prove our case each time, but we didn’t have to prove the fundamentals to him. So, it became a less frustrating exercise and more of an exercise in creativity.

Paul: Okay, alright. That’s fascinating.

How to Approach Innovation In Your Business

Paul: So now, a lot of our listeners are small to medium-sized businesses. They’d love to be Ford, which was once a small business. But it took them a little while to get there. What would be your counsel to a… So, let me think about just different businesses we’ve talked to here in New England that… Let me think.

There’s a CPA firm. Typical. It’s tax season. They do taxes. That’s where they make most of their money. They do some advisory work, etc. You’ve got two typical partners and they’re busy. They do the work themselves. They’ve got a few people working for them. How would you help them navigate? And I know this is out of the norm. We’re taking a thousand horsepower person with you and putting them in a little two-seater here. So, it’s way oversubscribed.

But how would they approach innovating in their business in a way? And I’ve been asked this question before, and you don’t want to come up with this just real leap of faith. Well, you know, you can do… there’s one of the banks out there that now, it’s a restaurant and a bank. I forget which one it is. But, you can go and get coffee at the bank. And it’s like, okay, you know. It sounds like they’re reaching. So, I’ll let you sort of pontificate on that. What do you think about that?

Scott: Well, first, Paul, what I would say is that I don’t presume to know as much about their business as they do. That will always be the case. And I will defer to business owners for their level of expertise. But I do start by asking a lot of questions. So I’m at a little bit of a disadvantage here since we’re just creating this hypothetical.

But first I would start with kind of the Socratic Method, as it were and, and try to get more information out of them through a series of questions or observations. About a flow through or whatnot, I would observe what’s going on in the place of business.

Henry Ford: A Business Historical Perspective

Scott: But here’s the thing. Let me approach this from a business historical perspective as Henry Ford did when the Model T came about. His whole idea was… You know, he created the quadricycle, and that was his first opportunity to experiment with the combustion engine. Ford Motor Company came along in 1903 and the Model T debuted in 1908. So, there were years where this was in development. And his idea eventually was to create a car that could be used by virtually any American and would have a variety of utilities to it.

So, a couple of things happened. One, he began to produce enough cars that the cost per unit was driven down. In 1908 it cost, I think, $850, which was pretty expensive back then. But by the late teens the cost was $250 per car. So, by scale, he brought the price down. Again, simple math. In this process — and you probably are familiar with this phrase, he said, “You can have any color you want as long as it’s black.” Right? And people thought that was because he was not innovating. Well, the opposite was true. He was innovating so much, the car was in such high demand, he knew that black paint was the fastest drying paint.

Paul: Oh, interesting.

Scott: So it was the paint that allowed him to produce the more of vehicles. But when it comes down to innovation, he created his product in such a way that it could be used, it could be converted into a tractor; it could be easily adapted as a pickup. You could even put snow tracks on it and use it on the snow. Right?

So, he was already designing something with a better customer experience in mind. And it started small, and it got big, and I think the same thing applies to whether you’re a CPA or a real estate agent or what have you. It’s about making these observations at the minute level.

Start With The Basics

Scott: So, for example, you’re a CPA. Where does most of your business come from? Is it online? Are you competing with the TurboTaxes of the world? Or is it local business that you’re serving? And if so, how are you actually transmitting business to them? Are you meeting them at their place of business? Are you making them come to your office? Could you do sessions where you borrow a gymnasium for an afternoon and get a line of people queued up and run them right through? Are you associated with a collective of other similar businesses or related businesses where you can each feed off of each other? I mean, these are all very basic things. I’m kind of grasping at straws here. But again, it’s starting with the very basic.

It may not sound sexy. It may not seem like it’s completely scalable, but you’ve got to start somewhere because from those, from those initial tweaks, then you may see a bigger one, a bigger opportunity come by. Or you may run into something that you never expected. If you’re the bank that has opened the coffee shop, okay, I don’t know why people want to spend so much time in a bank. I’ve seen auto dealers with coffee shops. Well, people are getting their oil changed, and they want a more premium experience rather than the stale donuts and crappy coffee on the sideboard there. Okay, I get that.

But what reason are you retaining people in the bank? And, if you’ve got them in the bank, then what other opportunities are you making available to them? Would you have other small business owners available to do an open house with them one day per week at that coffee shop or a seminar or something to help them grow their business that’s a value add that doesn’t feel like it’s some kind of awkward square peg in a round hole?

Paul: That’s interesting.

Looking To The Future & Changing With The Times

Paul: So, I want to go back to something you mentioned about the initial years of the car with Henry Ford. So, there was a whole ecosystem pre-car that was taking care of the feeding the animals, the horses, cleaning up after them. Now, this is ultimate hindsight, but what would you have counseled the horse manure cleanup people to do? I mean, thinking about it from now, it’s like, okay, I go around. I’ve got some low-paid people, low-skilled, and I pick up horse manure. And that’s my job, and that’s my business. And I can’t imagine a world in which there are not horses on the street of New York. How am I going to pivot? Let’s go back. And what would you have counseled them? I’m even just thinking myself. What would I have counseled them? I know the rest of the story.

Scott: Yeah. We certainly have the benefit of hindsight now. What I like to help executives do is to think in terms of analogies. And I’ll give you an example.

Back when social media was first rearing its ugly head in business — and there were a lot of skeptics back then. I mean, again, something we take for granted now. But you think about the advent of Twitter and of Facebook and even email at a certain point. Somebody shared an article with me from a business journal. And it was kind of like a case study that all these employees were petitioning the boss to allow them to have access to this new technology. And again, the boss, very skeptical, was concerned that it would be a drain on productivity. But in order to assuage his employees, in order to, to get them off of his back, he said, “Well, let’s, let’s run an experiment. Let’s set up kind of a central kiosk out in the middle of everyone’s desks where we can keep an eye on this so we know that people won’t be wasting their time, and they won’t be giving away corporate secrets or anything like that. It will be kind of a publicly available thing.”

And do you know that that business journal was from the 1920s, and the technology was the telephone? Now, again, you think about how closely we use all of these utilities from telephone to email to, to digital and social. It’s just taken for granted. So, put yourself in the situation of the horse manure guy. The question is what kind of analogy could you present to him to help him understand that there will be change coming. We not know exactly what it’s going to look like, but you need to be ready to adapt.

It could be that, with the advent of street cars, let’s say, that began to reduce the the number of, or at least the routes of horses and carriages in the city. Alright, well, we’re only operating, on the side of the road now. You know, we’re not operating in the center. Or now we’ve actually seen more of our business driven out to the suburbs rather than the city center. Right? So, we can already begin to see some of these things. So, you know, my recommendation would be, if I were more farsighted than some folks… This is the interesting thing, Paul. I tend to pride myself on my knowledge of history and literature and the things that have already happened, but at the same time, I kind of think of myself as a futurist. Right? “What’s past is prologue.” It’s quite simple as that. Shakespeare knew what he was talking about.

So to say to the manure guy, “You might think about focusing on places where we know horses are going to be needed regardless of how this car thing works out.” Farms, zoos, circuses, wherever. Equestrian shoes. You know, wherever we see horse concentrations now get them to start thinking about alternative markets and how they can actually continue to be part of that niche rather than fighting what we all know is coming, even though we’re not be able to see clearly what it is.

Paul: Right. It’s very much like innovation. It’s like that’s not obvious, but once it happens, it was very obvious.

Scott: Exactly.

Paul: I think it’s the core of the issue here is how do you get people to take the leap to understand or even take the leap to consider understanding what might be.

Conclusion

As you’re aware we’ve been talking with Scott Monty of Scott Monty Strategies. There’s gonna be a whole bunch of show notes based on what we’ve talked about and we’ll have his contact information there as well.

So, Scott, thank you very much for coming on the show. We appreciate it.

Scott: It’s my great pleasure Paul, thank you.

More Episodes:

This is Part 2 of 3 our interview with Scott Monty. Stay tuned for Parts 3 coming soon! If you missed Part 1, you can listen to it here: https://saviorlabs.com/innovation-marketing-strategies-with-scott-monty/

Show Notes:

Innovation & Marketing Strategies With Scott Monty

March 3, 2020 / / 0 Comments

On Episode 112 of The Edge of Innovation, we’re talking with executive advisor Scott Monty about innovation and marketing strategies!

Sections

Introduction
Connection to Innovation
New All Over Again
Influencer Marketing
The Common Thread of Marketing
Customer Experience Is Important!
Make Life More Convenient For Your Customer
Results of Focusing on Customer Convenience
The Obvious is Not Always So Obvious
Conclusion: “Stay Curious”
More Episodes
Show Notes

Innovation & Marketing Strategies With Scott Monty

Introduction

Paul: Good afternoon, everyone. Today we’re talking with Scott Monty of Scott Monty Strategies in Canton, Michigan. Welcome, Scott. Are you there?

Scott: I am here. Good to be with you, Paul.

Connection to Innovation

Paul: So. Tell me. Where are we talking to you? What is your connection with innovation?

Scott: Wow. Uh…

Paul: It’s a big question, I know. We’ve gotta just put some handles on it.

Scott: Nothing like jumping right in. I like that. Well, I think there’s a few different ways to look at innovation. And I think innovation in its more common form is thought of in terms of what new wiz-bang thing are you inventing or creating. And, I think that’s perfectly valid.

My take on things actually comes by looking backward, if that makes any sense. I am a classics major from a long time ago. Communications and marketing professional. And what I’ve realized over the course of two decades in the business is that human nature remains the same. You know, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. We keep reacting the same way to things.

And my message to executives when I work with them and their teams is to not think about the latest trend or technology per se, but to focus on the throughput, that line that we see that, that takes us through humanity for all time and then to decide how you’re going to interact with someone based on knowing that about them. And, you may end up on various platforms. You may end up with different ways of speaking to people. But in a lot of ways, we’re going back to the basics, the things that we knew from 40, 50, 60 years ago that worked in business that somehow we’ve thrown aside. And it seems like they’re new all over again.

New All Over Again

Paul: Interesting. Do you find that the people you’re working with think they’re new?

Scott: In some cases, but in other cases, people just kind of slap their forehead and go, “Oh, that’s so… It’s so obvious. Why didn’t I think of that?” And I think this is, again, human nature. We get so focused on what’s right in front of us and on the things that are most important to us that sometimes we neglect to pick our heads up and see the forest through the trees, as it were.

Paul: Right, absolutely. It’s a very obvious statement when you say it, but yet it’s something that everybody needs to be reminded of. Can you give us some anecdotes of where that’s happened just in your recent experience? Not necessarily naming names or products or thing but just sort of some context… Because I think there’s a lot of people who look at the landscape around them and think, “Everybody else has it more together than I do.”

Influencer Marketing

Scott: Yeah, that’s the common thing. And guess what — nobody has a playbook. You know, when we led digital and social at Ford from 2008 to 2014, we were doing things that had never been done before. We were the first car company to reveal a vehicle on Facebook. We were the first ones to really embrace influencers, right? And here’s a topic that’s really relevant now.

We hear all about influencers, influencer marketing, etc. Well, in 2009, Ford put together a program called the Fiesta Movement. And the idea was this. Ford was in the midst of reinventing itself of becoming one company all around the world instead of a bunch of different siloed organizations. And they wanted to share the same engineering expertise, the same marketing expertise, and really begin to work at scale.

And the idea was, well, if we’re going to create a car — let’s say the Ford Focus — it’s going to be the same all the way around the world. And the Fiesta had just snuck in under cycle but somebody looked at this small car and they said, “Hey, you know what? What is coming out in Europe this year. We’re going to bring it out in America the following year. Why don’t we bring 100 of these vehicles over from Europe and put them in the hands of 100 people who have Twitter accounts, YouTube channels, Flickr accounts, blogs, etc. — and again, this is 11 years ago — and give these cars to a hundred people for six months. And all the requirement was they had to make one video a month. And there was a common theme that everybody stuck to each month.

But the genius here is what Ford did was take all of those people’s feeds — their Twitter feeds, their blog, RSS feeds, etc. and aggregated them on a Ford-owned website and allowed that content to be viewed, unfiltered, unedited, in real time, which did a couple of things.

One, it showed how confident Ford was in its product design, that, people weren’t going to find anything inherently wrong with the car. But number two, it also showed that Ford is willing to take the word of third-party individuals —not only its marketing team — and that’s who people connect with. People like themselves. Right?

So, I recently talked about this as a case study when I was giving a strategic communications speech, and, again, this stuff is 11 years old, and yet it still works today because the principles are inherently the same.

Paul: Right. Right. It’s sort of like physics and mathematics. It really doesn’t change all that much. It’s really how we apply it.

Scott: Yeah, I like that.

The Common Thread of Marketing

Paul: So, that’s fascinating. What do you see as you’re dealing with different people? Is there a common thread of… I’ll just say it. Is there a common thread? I’ll go deeper on that as we go, of reaction or action or lack of action by your consultees, I guess? Is that the word? The people you consult with.

Scott: Why it’s interesting because whether you’re talking about the content that they’re producing online or the experience that they’re creating in real life at a store or a… wherever they’ve got customers coming in, they’re focused on getting attention. And, I’ve worked with a number of auto dealers, and there’s a group that continues to pay for new customer acquisition. You know, that’s where most of their budget goes — into lead generation. I think that’s the case of a lot of B2B companies. They focus on lead generation.

And at the same time, they’re not putting a lot of effort into the actual customer experience. What are you doing to retain your customers? What are you doing to make them feel like they’re part of a community, like you are bringing them value every day rather than they’ve just signed the contract with you?

And, and I think if people can get in the mindset of retention rather than attention that will start to turn the bow of this big aircraft carrier that we’re trying to swing around.

Customer Experience Is Important!

Paul: Okay. So, are you seeing that with the people that you’re working with, that they don’t, comprehend customer experience as the goal? They’re so focused on lead generation?

Scott: Well, I think they certainly want to do what’s right for the customer, but, again, it’s kind of lifting your head up and understanding outside of your own sphere. So many executives, brand managers, they get up first thing in the morning, and that’s all they’re thinking about is their company, their brand. And you can’t blame them. Again, human nature.

But I like to remind them that unless your brand is Dunkin’ or Starbucks, other people aren’t waking up first thing in the morning thinking about you. They have other priorities. They’re getting the kids off for school. They’re planning for 15 conference calls. They’re trying to put a PowerPoint together and on and on and on. So when people do have an opportunity to interact with your brand, what are you doing to bring them value? What are you doing to make things more convenient for them? What are you doing to make their lives a little bit easier through that busy day?

Make Life More Convenient For Your Customer

Scott: So, I’ll give you an example of how this actually came to life with an auto client. I got a call from a gentleman I’ve known for years, certainly from when I was at Ford. He’s the number one Honda dealer in the country. Number one used Honda dealer in the country. Number three, new.

And he called me up and he said, “We gotta work together.”

And I said, “Well, I don’t know how much more I can help you. It seems like you’re doing pretty well already.”

Well, this is a guy who’s never satisfied with the status quo. And he said to me, “Scott, dealers are dinosaurs. We’re dead, and we don’t even know it. The dealership model is broken.” And first of all, this was just music to my ears.

And I said, “Okay, well, how would you like to start?” Right? So, I went to his dealership, and it’s a little lot in Queens, New York. And I walked into the showroom, and cars are crammed into that showroom. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in an auto showroom in a city. They make use of every square foot of floor space that they can so that you’re turning sideways to get between the cars in some cases. So already the, the experience felt like it was, it was difficult.

Paul: Suboptimal.

Scott: There you go. Suboptimal. I love that, Paul.

So he explained to me that he had 180,000 people in his customer email database, which is impressive in and of itself. And he said sales are going pretty well.

And I said, “Well, tell me about your service offering.”

And he said, “Well, our service base…” I can’t remember how many he said. Maybe 12 service bases. He said, “We are booked out six weeks in advance. We’re 100% full.”

I said, “Okay, tell me more. When are you open?”

He said, “We’re open seven days a week, 7 AM to 7 PM.”

And first of all, I thought that was impressive because not every dealer is open on weekends. In fact, in Michigan, they can’t be open on Sundays. It’s one of the blue laws. But I looked at that. I said, “Seven days a week, 7 to 7. Okay, you’re operating at 50%.”

And he said, “What?”

I said, “Yeah, what about the other 12 hours of the day?”

And he said, “Well, who’s going to want to bring their car in at 10:00 at night?”

And I said, “No one. That’s why you’re going to go and pick their car up from them.” And you could have seen his head explode, you know, right in front of me.

And by selecting a couple of vendors and designing a process whereby it was completely transparent to the customer, almost like the Domino’s pizza tracker, when your car gets into the oven, so to speak. They’re updating you. They’re sending pictures of what’s wrong with your car, because so many people have a distrust with dealerships and wondering if they’re getting screwed. They’ll say, “Okay, here’s your old brake pads. Here’s what new ones look like. Would you like us to change them?”

And guess what? You’re comfy at home on your couch watching sports or the latest reality show or The Crown or whatever you’re watching. And this text comes through, and it’s as simple as pressing a button to say “approve” and signing off on it and then you know your car’s going to be delivered to you in your driveway the next morning before you even need to take it to work. That’s a level of convenience and customer design that didn’t take rocket science, and it really didn’t take a lot of comprehensive or complicated technology. It was just about changing your frame of reference to think like the customer rather than to think like a traditional dealer.

Results of Focusing on Customer Convenience

Paul: Right. What were their results so far?

Scott: There have been incredible results. The first six months saw a 36% lift in not only the volume but in the amount of each repair order which dropped directly to the bottom line, because there were very few overhead expenses. They had to put on an additional shift of mechanics, but that was minor.

But there was an added side benefit that no one saw coming. As they were open in the middle of the night and as Uber and Lyft drivers were finishing their shifts and driving by, guess what. These guys need an oil change just about every week, and they just found somebody that’s open their hours. And they’ve become the new best friends of this dealership. And when these guys put 10,000 miles on their cars each week, they’re going to need new cars or used cars in short order. So, guess where they’re going to go to start doing that?

So, not only have you created a sense of loyalty and convenience from your existing customer base, but you’re actually reaching new customers that would have never thought about walking in your doors before.

The Obvious is Not Always So Obvious

Paul: You know, it’s funny. When innovators talk about an innovation, before they say it, it’s not obvious. The minute they say it, it’s completely obvious.

Scott: Right.

Paul: And, you have to arbitrate that because the minute you say it, “Well, that’s obvious, Scott.” Well, it wasn’t before you said it.

Scott: Yeah, if it was so obvious, why didn’t you figure it out? Right?

Paul: Exactly.

Scott: Yeah.

Paul: And that’s a sign of a good innovation. It’s like that’s the night and day difference.

Scott: Well, you know, it’s interesting because, I’ve worked with a number of executives who will dismissively say, “Well, I need a solution for such and such, and I’ll know it when I see it.” Well, no you won’t because if you did, you would have already… You know, you would have mortgaged your house to get opening day shares of Netflix or of Amazon. It’s that kind of thing.

Paul: That’s a great point. I mean, I’ve understood that, but that’s a great point. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Well, why didn’t you buy Apple?”

Scott: Yeah, exactly.

Paul: Yeah. That’s a really good point.

Conclusion

As you’re aware we’ve been talking with Scott Monty of Scott Monty Strategies. There’s gonna be a whole bunch of show notes based on what we’ve talked about and we’ll have his contact information there as well.

So, Scott, thank you very much for coming on the show. We appreciate it.

Scott: It’s my great pleasure Paul, thank you.

More Episodes:

This is Part 1 of 3 our interview with Scott Monty. Stay tuned for Parts 2 & 3 coming soon!

Show Notes:

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