Category Archives: Uncategorized

• Motivating employee performance without financial incentives

  Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 by Wes Ball

  In case you don’t already know this, financial incentives are the least effective motivators of desired employee behavior… especially for creating loyalty. That’s really good news at a time when money is tight and companies are desperately trying to keep good employees.  Here are some facts about how to better motivate employees that could really help right now…

  Financial incentives are the best motivator for behavior you want the least, such as self-serving attitudes, destructive greed, and internal competition that demotivates other employees. If you want an employee who has low loyalty, makes other employees distrust each other (and the company), and will try to leverage you continually for more money for doing less work, then financial incentives are great.  The truth is that employees who work for you despite a lack of special financial incentives that are designed to motivate specific behavior are more loyal, more focused upon the good of the company overall, and more supportive of other employees.  In short, they are great team players… something that almost every company says they want to hire.

  So, what motivates the type of employee you want better than money?  Sadly, they are the very things that most companies are loath to give: trust, empowerment, and appreciation.

  Ask almost any corporate employee what they hate the most about their job (and would desperately like to change jobs to get), and they will most often answer with things like, “trust, personal empowerment, and appreciation for work well done.”  Interestingly, despite this overwhelming unmet need, if asked what they want the most, they will most often answer, “more money.”

  Why the disconnect between what they say they want and what they would change jobs to get?  It’s something I have seen in market research thousands of times.  People will say they want something that is far different from what they would give almost anything to get, because they don’t think they can get it or they don’t believe the person asking would give it to them.  So they answer with something they believe the questioner will understand and accept.

  As an employer, I have always been amazed to discover that the employees that have provided the lowest return on investment have typically been those demanding the most money and the most financial incentives for things that will grow the company.  The best employees have typically been ones who want a chance to prove themselves and who are less concerned about short-term financial incentives than long-term growth potential.

  My advice:  Forget the financial incentives except as “appreciation.”  Focus upon making employees feel more trusted by including top performing ones in strategic planning and other long-range planning activities or problem-solving.  Invest in employees who show potential or who demonstrate the “right” attitudes” with training and by giving them special opportunities to prove themselves.

  You will find that everyone on your team is more motivated and more more focused upon the things you really need from employees.

  If you have examples of this at work in your company, I would love to hear about them.  It’s about time that corporate managers realize that negative motivation and weak financial incentives won’t work, but showing more respect, trust, and appreciation to employees will.

  Wes Ball is the author of The Alpha Factor.  Although he spent the last 20+ years growing companies ranging from the Fortune 100 to small local companies, he is focusing almost exclusively upon medium-sized businesses who he believes have the most potential to rejuvenate our economy and to become tomorrow’s market leaders.  You can reach Wes at 717.799.3395 or w.ball@ballgroup.com.
  

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• An Alpha’s New Year’s Resolution

  Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 by Wes Ball

  While most company owners/managers are resolving to increase their business next year by increasing “value” and/or “quality,” an Alpha is resolving to banish those two words from its vocabulary.

  You can bet that Steve Jobs is not whipping his team at Apple to create more value or quality.  No, he is entreating them to discover what people really want to buy and how they can provide that in a way that will make new customers pay almost anything to get it.

  What’s wrong with “Value” or “Quality?”  Just about everything that makes a company capable of dominating its markets and becoming an Alpha (or even gaining some of the benefits of being an aspiring Alpha).

  “Value” is undefinable in useful terms.  It is fine in concept as a final outcome that can be recognized in a product’s sales. But do you or your employees know what it really means to customers in your industry who are evaluating your products?  Can you or your employees define “value” from your customers’ perspective that doesn’t include the word “price?”  The problem is that “value” in its traditional definition means far too many different things to far too many people.  And the rule is: If you can’t precisely define what it is, you can’t hope to create it.

  “Quality” on the other hand means nothing, if it is not what a customer wants to buy; and in most industries quality has not proven itself to be the critical factor people wish to buy.  Even more devastating is the fact that the pursuit of quality is a process that limits variance or change.  Typically this is applied in the manufacturing process, but it is all too often carried over into the “value-creation” process, as well.  The result is that predictability and efficiency become more important than the flexibility and creation of greater potential that has to be at the core of every Alpha company (or company that desires to become an Alpha).

  So, what’s the alternative to using the word “value?” Start focusing upon discovering and defining what people wish they could be buying.  The best way to discover that is by understanding what experience people wish they could have, when they buy and use products sold in your category.  People don’t buy products for the product’s sake, except in survival situations.  And they REALLY don’t buy “price” (no matter what you have heard throughout your life).  They buy an anticipated experience and a set of internalized feelings about themselves.  The product is only the functional conduit that can deliver that experience or set of feelings.  (If you are new to the Alpha model concept, then you need to read The Alpha Factor in order to understand how these are the core elements of innovation that drive predictable, self-sustaining growth.)

  Turning “quality” into “growth potential” also requires changing your perception of how customers buy.  Limiting variance is fine in manufacturing, but customers don’t like limitations or lack of change.  The marketplace thrives and feeds itself upon change… in products, attitudes, perceived needs, and behaviors.  The company that locks itself into limiting change in its approach to the marketplace is dead before its starts.

  The Alpha company (or the aspiring Alpha) focuses upon understanding the core experiences and feelings customers desire and then drives change that constantly focuses potential customers on the next change.  When Apple introduces a new product, it only feeds the desire to know what the next new product might be.  When MacDonald’s introduces a new menu item, customers try to guess what the new trend being set is and what might be next.  What makes these work is that customers recognize a logic behind each new introduction that is a continuance of the constant striving toward delivering better and better experiences and self-feelings.  The Alpha “owns” this process, while competitors can only copy or try weakly to compete against it.

  Make your New Year’s resolution now.

  Drop the word “value” from your company’s vocabulary. Instead, start discovering what people wish they could be buying (in terms of experience and feelings about themselves).  Then discover how you can fulfill those desires with the “things” you offer in the marketplace.  The result will be far greater “value” perception that can demand much higher prices for longer periods of time with greater control over competitors.

  Drop the word “quality” from your concept of innovation. Focus upon driving change.  Create a process for constantly delivering the next logical step in fulfilling the experiences and self-feelings your potential customers want.  The result will be an increase in your control over the market and greater profit than you could ever have expected before.

  My wish for you is that 2010 will be the most profitable year you have ever had.

  Want to learn more about how you can apply the Alpha model to your company, so you can create more profitable, more dominating innovation?  You can get in touch with me either through the website at www.thealphafactor.com or by emailing me directly at w.ball@ballgroup.com.  I would be happy to talk with you further about how you can make yourself into an Alpha and sustainably grow your profits and sales.

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• Is there hope to grow right now? You bet. So get growing!

  Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 by Wes Ball

  One company I am working with is in the midst of their best sales month ever.  It’s in an industry that is hurting badly.  Many of its competitors are closing their doors.  The difference is that this company is using Alpha innovation to drive growth.

  What is Alpha innovation?  It is the process of discovering what people really want to buy both in function and in ego-satisfaction, how they want to buy that, and then providing that to them.

  Truth is, almost any company in almost any industry could be growing right now, no matter what the economy seems to be doing or what prospective customers believe about their futures.  There are real needs among all customer groups.  You just need to understand better how to discover what they want to buy and how they want to have it presented to them.

  I’m not going to take you through the entire Alpha Factor model, which provides you with the template for finding such growth opportunities.  But I will share the core tool that will determine whether or not you even have a chance to become an Alpha.  I will also share three steps to making yourself more capable of becoming an Alpha.

  The #1 secret to creating sustainable growth in any economy at any time is to create a “culture of research” in your organization. All Alpha companies use market research to define growth opportunities.  So do many non-Alpha companies. Understanding the difference between effective research that leads to (and sustains) Alpha dominance and typical non-effective research is key to making your organization self-sustainingly successful.

  • Step #1:  Start by recognizing and believing that you don’t have all the answers… no matter how long you’ve been in the business.

  The biggest barrier to becoming an effective “learning” organization is the self-delusion that you know how your market works.  Here is the truth:  you may know how it has worked in the past; but you have little or no idea what tomorrow is going to look like.  I know, that’s hard to hear.  But here’s why it is true: tomorrow will be created by someone you don’t know, using information and insights you don’t know.  That is how industries are revolutionized and real sustainable, disruptive innovation comes about.

  If you can recognize and admit your own inability to think beyond what you currently know, then you have a chance to really find new answers.  I have been doing innovation-focused research for more than two and a half decades, and I still am surprised at what I discover in our research that neither I nor my clients knew or, in many cases, even guessed.  Customer needs and expectations are constantly changing, adapting, and being transferred from one part of their lives to another.  What was a critical driving factor last year may have little impact after new expectations are created.  Those new expectations could have come from the efforts of a competitor or from a completely unrelated area of the customer’s life.

  You will only discover these new insights by constantly listening to people who may someday buy what you wish to sell.  You won’t discover these insights from within your company’s walls.  They aren’t going to be found in a conference room.  Your employees don’t know.  Your suppliers don’t know.  Your distributors don’t know.  The answers are outside.

  The next time you have a meeting to figure out what to do, call off the meeting and go outside.  Talk to prospective customers.

  • Step #2:  Learn how to really listen

  I don’t just mean to stop talking; rather you also need to eliminate the self-talk that convinces you that you understand what prospective customers are saying or meaning.  Most market researchers (and their clients) hear through their own filter of how they believe decisions are made, which is often far different than how their target customers actually make decisions.  I am continually amazed that most research into drivers of buying decisions still comes up with function or price factors rather than the self-image factors that truly drive decisions.

  When you think you understand what prospective customers are saying and why they say it, make them explain it to you so clearly that you can repeat it back to them in different words and they agree that you understand. Then go further and prove that both you and these potential customers understand how they make decisions by suggesting different ways someone could address the things they described until you hear them agreeing that you really have it.

  But don’t stop even there.  Go beyond that to understand what the next step might be in the continuum of needs and expectations.  No one ever stops at the current needs or expectations described.  They will always change those needs and expectations over time.  While you can’t always define what will change as a result of another marketer’s efforts or changes in the economy, you can better understand where these customers think they are going with their expectations and what the logical end result might be.  Understanding this can provide far greater insights into longer-term strategic considerations.

  • Step #3:  Stop ignoring your greatest source for more profitable new growth

  This is one that always amazes me.  Most companies spend far too much money talking to current customers.  The real growth opportunity is among those persons who currently won’t buy from you.

  Non-customers who are either buying from a competitor or who don’t buy at all (but have the potential to buy) are the fastest way to create dramatic new growth.  In fact, the most spectacular growth I’ve ever seen always comes from attracting completely new customers.  And when using the Alpha model to drive higher expectations that in turn drives higher price leverage, profit also skyrockets.

  The huge trend toward driving “organic” growth by major marketers has even further blinded most companies to the opportunity avaialbe by talking to non-customers.  Even a company with 30% share of customers has a pool of 70% of the market as potential.  Even eliminating the 10% (approximate) of people who say they are committed to buying low price (even though I have proven many times that most of them are lying), there is obviously a monstrous potential for almost any company to grow.

  I am always surprised that I have to convince a marketer who wants to grow to include non-customers in our market research. Yet, it is typically from those non-customers that we discover the biggest opportunities for creating new growth strategies.

  So, can you grow now?  Absolutely.  Can you do it by sitting in your offices? No.  Can you do it by listening to your self-talk.  No.  Can you do it “organically?”  Probably not.  Use the Alpha model to understand what people really want to buy, how they want to buy it, and how you can address those opportunities.  You will find yourself leading the way out of this recession… no matter what the rest of the economy is doing.

  Get your copy of The Alpha Factor at www.thealphafactor.com. Visit www.ballgroup.com and discover research toold you can use to apply the Alpha model to your business to grow right now.

  GO AHEAD… DOMINATE YOUR WORLD!

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