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Most recently, my business partners at Aventi Group and I helped a progressive and fast-growing SaaS company evaluate a potential market expansion opportunity and strategies for market entry. I spoke with a number of leading-edge companies in various industries globally about their key objectives, challenges, culture, current solutions, what works and what doesn’t work, their buying preferences, and more, to help inform market expansion decisions for the SaaS solution. It was easy to get swept up in the cool ideas and the awesome stories. So it was important for me to remind myself not to take customer input at face value or act upon it without applying critical thinking and good judgment. I’m sharing with you five reasons to gut check customers and what to do about it:

1. Customers tend to project linearly.

Many customers come from a starting point of what they have or what they have experience using. Then they look for ways to make it better in a step-function or sequential manner. They might say something like, “It would be ideal if our solution has features like enhanced analytics, a better dashboard and reports, integration with more workflow applications, etc. so that we can take action on key issues effectively.”

Although their feedback is good, we may end up developing incremental improvements for the product–a better mousetrap–and miss out on the opportunity to solve the problem in new or different ways.

As an example, the product may look totally different with the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics. Instead of taking action after the fact, the product may be able to extract data from new data sources and mitigate the occurrence of issues in the first place. The better question to ask the customer may be around the problem they’re attempting to solve rather than how they would want to solve it or what it would take to make their current solution better. Or, help them understand the new way and test the idea and hypotheses.

As with anyone, customers don’t know what they don’t know. Some rely on vendors for technology innovation. This is how we can provide an order of magnitude of improvement, help rewrite old rules, create new categories, disrupt traditional ways, and build a more sustainable and differentiated product. Innovations like virtualization, cloud, software-defined platforms, cognitive computing, hyperconvergence, and more are the result of non-linear thinking. Likewise, there are disruptive business models like freemium, on-demand, subscription, and digital marketplaces in computer software, IT and services, public transportation, retail, marketing and advertising, and other industries that have pushed traditional models aside.

2.    Customers think free is a good idea.

There’s an art in asking customers questions and we need to be aware of the human tendency of asking in a way that gets a response that we want to hear. There are a lot of examples but I’ll pick on testing the notion of freemiums (an offer that provides a limited product for free but charges for enhanced features, more comprehensive scope, or higher usage) which are prevalent in the software and SaaS worlds. Freemiums are generally used to build brand awareness, lower barriers to entry, reduce customer acquisition costs, and more quickly grow revenues as customers convert or upgrade to subscription-based offerings.

Unless there’s a significant downside, most customers will respond positively to a free offering when asked if they’d be open to it. This could lead us to the conclusion that freemiums work all the time. Additionally, with well known and highly publicized freemium successes from Dropbox, Spotify, MailChimp, Evernote, Trello and others, the freemium route becomes more tantalizing. However, for every successful freemium story, that are many unsuccessful ones.

We need to consider what we want to achieve, the competitive environment, types of customers we want to attract, the customers’ challenges and where they place value, what we’re offering for free, and the value of the enhanced offering when evaluating a freemium business model. For example, if our goal is conversion from free to subscription, we run the risk of attracting the wrong types of customers if our free offering is basic and not unique. These free users may not lead us any closer to the actual buyer who will value and pay premium.

Remember that customers will generally pay for what they value. If the potential customer doesn’t find value in a basic offering, the offer won’t get any traction even if it’s free. It provides no way for the customer to experience the value they want. Worse yet, we may end up attracting customers who don’t need the premium, fee-based solution and would be happy using the free service long term. This can consume an enormous amount of support resources and compromise the company’s brand creating the perception of being a low-cost, basic product vendor. Perhaps a trial of the enhanced, high-value product in key target segments may be a better approach.

This Databox blog offers insights on when to use freemiums vs trials. Also take a peek at Hubspot’s blog on freemium best practices and successful implementations.

3. Customers say it won’t work and point out every single problem with it.

As we innovate, we will get feedback from skeptics and perfectionists that could potentially derail our plans or even discourage us from pursuing an idea. Some may even seem to have a problem with almost every aspect of the product. But let’s not abandon or redirect efforts too quickly when we get not-so-rosy feedback. We need to balance the feedback from both naysayers and supporters to make decisions or inform minimum viable product capabilities, product development, or roadmaps. However, naysayer opinions can be valuable in developing positioning and messaging.

The customers’ skepticism and pushback should drive us to create compelling messaging designed to defend our position, turn weaknesses into strengths, as well as anticipate and overcome objections that we may encounter in the market.

Tough feedback will better prepare us and help us be more effective in persuading potential customers, even the most reluctant ones.

Sometimes, their feedback may seem more discouraging when they point out challenges over which we feel we have very little control. I recall a potential customer saying that they’ve never done business with an unproven vendor and would never deploy a new solution that could jeopardize their production environment.

The words never, unproven, and jeopardize may be bullets for the faint of heart but shots of adrenalin for persevering and don’t-take-no-for-an-answer innovators.

So what came out of that experience was a free trial offer in a non-production environment with a satisfaction guarantee—if for any reason the customer is unsatisfied with the trial, we would pay for the first three months of monthly charges for the alternate solution they choose to deploy. We believed and we had something to prove. I’m grateful for that customer feedback because we gained an advocate and true partner with that customer, lowered barriers to entry, achieved market traction with the offer, and never had to invoke the satisfaction guarantee.

Also note that negative feedback may provide much more line of sight of adoption/deployment issues where trialware may be a dead end. So the value of this nay saying may actually be critical input in ensuring that the product is easier and faster to deploy.

4. Customers look more attractive than they are.

More than likely, we’ve been in the middle of a decision to serve or a concerted effort at serving “awesome” customers that turned out not to be as awesome as we originally thought. It may be a big global customer, a well-known brand, an early adopter and fast mover, a firm with significant budget, a thought leader, etc. The customer conversations were highly collaborative, inspiring, and promising.

However, serving these customers and attempting to deliver what they want required us to step way outside of what we do best, caused friction internally, and did not align with the company’s strategy and vision. In some cases, it negatively impacted product delivery timeframes, customer satisfaction, and revenue for the mainstream business. In a highly competitive growth market, discipline in knowing who we can serve well and not well, staying in our lane, and resisting the temptation of shiny objects that are not a fit typically bode well longer term.

Knowing when to say ‘no’ is equally as important as knowing when to say ‘yes.’ It’s easier said than done. When the market is nascent with high competitive intensity, as an example, we can easily get caught up in the massive land grab opportunity and momentum. Also recall from Clayton Christensen’s Crossing the Chasm that early adopters have very different expectations than the early majority (where the real revenue oppty is). So focusing on early adopters for whom good enough isn’t good enough could direct our precious R&D resources on the wrong features.

This is why it’s important to do the segmentation, targeting, and positioning work and continue to use it as our beacon to make decisions and execute accordingly along the way. Please feel free to refer to the section on GTM strategy and approaches to segmentation and targeting in this article.

5. Customers ask for everything but the kitchen sink.

Many of us have found ourselves listening to a customer rattle off a bunch of ideas that all seem so important right there and then. To add to our stress level, the customer even points out, with ease, what competitors have that we don’t. This is the point in the conversation where we take a deep breath and be grateful for all the insights being shared. And then, remind ourselves that this isn’t a big to-do list for today. When something seems too big and complex to make heads or tails of it, breaking it down into consumable bite-sized chunks helps. Here are some follow-on questions and things to consider to make decision making easier:

• Prioritization, Value, and Timing. Get a sense from the customers of the importance of various features and timing. Asking the customers to tell us what requirements are mandatory, preferred, and nice-to-have, in conjunction with conjoint analysis is a good method to force prioritization and tradeoffs. Level of impact on the customer’s business, team, and career is a good indicator of value. Timing is also important as, oftentimes, timing constraints are not just on the vendor’s side but also the customer’s. We all know about being a bit ahead of the market or having something for which the customer is not quite ready.
• Journey Story. Listen for awareness of the problem, motivation to change, commitment to take action, and action plans. These insights provide us a basis for creating a journey narrative to tell the market, in addition to informing our product roadmaps. For example, the journey might have several phases like 1) Evaluation and Assessment, 2) Virtualization, 3) Automation, 4) Intelligence, and 5) Ongoing Optimization. We can then map the various capabilities and features in those phases and align them with our roadmap. I love journey models as companies can position to help customers wherever they are in the journey and as they go through it.
• Fit with the Business. Having a good sample size and evaluating the ideas against key criteria such as market opportunity, strategic value, ability to differentiate, fit with core competency, alignment with goals, etc. will help with prioritization.

Yes, we should always listen to customers and potential customers. Their insights are truly invaluable and powerful. However, just as they can point us in the right direction, they can also lead us astray. It’s important for us to apply our goals-and-strategy filter to gut check what we hear so that we can decide which ones we act upon and how we action them.

If you found this article helpful, please feel free to share it with others or click the thumbs up icon below and let me know! Also share in the comments section your thoughts, experiences, and other reasons and tips to gut check customer feedback.

I’ve always enjoyed building teams in my career—small and big, local and global, permanent and transient, functional and cross-functional, strategy and execution, and more. What I love about building teams is the challenge of putting together the ideal mix of expertise to achieve the best possible outcome. The journey along the way presents many learning opportunities for all and the results, if done right, can exceed goals as well as be career and life changing.

I don’t believe that there is a bulletproof formula that all must follow to a T in assembling teams. In fact, despite years of experience, coaching from my mentors, and understanding people’s strengths, I continue to learn and tweak on a daily basis. For me, the dynamic process is a unique combination of art and science. It requires a vision, strategic thinking, a thoughtful yet agile approach, self awareness, and open-mindedness. The big payoff is when the vision and possibilities turn into reality, recognizing the team for what they’ve accomplished for their company and customers as well as seeing how people have progressed in their careers and in their personal lives. In the business world, not too many things are more energizing than this!

This reminds me of the Justice League, a movie where six superheroes work together to protect Earth from being terraformed into the enemy’s underworld. Batman worked methodically and diligently, overcoming many obstacles (including bringing Superman back to life) and rejection, to put the right team together to fight a powerful evil force. He recruited Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, Flash, and Superman one at a time. He used each superhero to help recruit the next, ensured good teamwork and dynamics, empowered them, and drove them to combine their superpowers to save the world! Interestingly, Batman’s approach has parallels to what has worked for me (and maybe for you as well). I’ll share some insights on the following:

• Understanding the mission
• Assessing what we need
• Embracing diversity and inclusion
• Overcoming unconscious bias

Understanding the Mission

Before we can build or optimize teams, it all starts with understanding the mission and envisioning what success looks like.

Is the mission to enter new markets and the measurement of success is acquisition of key beachhead accounts? Maybe it’s developing and launching a new innovative product to improve the company’s competitiveness and strategic position in the industry? Or it may be improving the company’s overall reputation by ensuring better customer experience and providing more comprehensive support? Of course, these are simply examples. The main point here is that with this foundational information, it sets us up to assess what resources and expertise we need on the team to be successful.

Assessing What We Need

We will most likely need a variety of expertise or superpowers to accomplish the mission. In some situations, we’ll be deadlifting something off the ground and starting from scratch in building a team. Or, we may have a few resources in place but still have gaps to fill. It’s important to understand the superpowers of the people we currently have on the team and our own superpowers as leaders to determine what expertise we need to bring in to complement what we already have.

Be prepared to constantly assess along the way. People’s personal situations, behaviors, motivations, and career aspirations change. Upwardly mobile employees continually reinvent themselves. We have to be cognizant of these changes.

Furthermore, the market and customers, the business model, the functions, and the goals and strategies may also be evolving, like in digital transformation. Building and leading teams through digital transformation require us to turn traditional beliefs on its head, keep a consistent pulse on the mission, and adjust accordingly. On top of that, this level of agility needs to persist as we evaluate and integrate new talent into the team, from within and/or outside the company.

Embracing Diversity and Inclusion

Find complementing superpowers to get the job done. It’s rare to need a team of people with all the same superpowers. The Justice League is more of the norm.

If we believe that we each have unique superpowers, then it makes a lot of sense to look for people who aren’t just like us.

Batman recruited someone who can communicate with marine life and manipulate water, someone whose golden lasso compels others to tell the truth, someone whose fast movements are undetectable to the human eye, someone who can launch missiles out of his robotic arm, and someone who flies and has superhuman strength! Batman didn’t want or need five Supermen or five Wonder Women. He knew exactly what he needed, masters of their domains that in combination created the ideal complement to his superpowers to accomplish the mission successfully.

Interestingly, one can argue that Batman doesn’t have superpowers unless being extraordinarily rich with a lot of amazingly cool toys counts. I think it’s a superpower. Funding is a must and it has to come from somewhere. But in all seriousness, in my opinion, Batman’s main superpower is leadership.

This is a perfect illustration of the power of diversity and inclusion in building high functioning teams. There have been many studies about the positive impact of diverse teams on financial performance, innovation, employee loyalty, corporate culture, morale and productivity, career advancement, and so much more. The people who conducted these studies are better equipped to backup these claims with data moreso than me. (Here are some prominent studies from LinkedIn, Harvard Business Review, McKinsey, PwC, and Deloitte.) But I’ve experienced first-hand the profound impacts that diversity and inclusion have had on companies, my teams, and on me. Likewise, I’ve also experienced the downside of lack of diversity.

At Pure, we continue to work hard on diversity and inclusion. We have six Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that are led and operated by employees with passion for the cause.

1. Women. Inspires the success, advancement and sponsorship of women. March 8, 2019 is International Women’s Day. Let’s celebrate women’s achievements and call for a gender-balanced world. #BalanceforBetter
2. Pride. Strives to raise the visibility and inclusion of Pure’s LGBTQ+ employees, as well as connects them and their allies to support LGBTQ+ and human rights initiatives.
3. Coalition. Advances Pure’s efforts to become a more diverse and inclusive employer by creating programs and partnerships that lead to attainment, development, and retention of the most talented minority employees in enterprise technology.
4. Rise. Aims to provide a platform and voice for those early in their careers in the company.
5. Veterans. Builds an inclusive community of veterans at Pure and promotes community outreach.
6. Able. I’m incredibly proud to be the executive sponsor for Able. Able instills confidence in people with differing abilities, visible and invisible, and inspires inclusion and advancement of these employees.

Overcoming Unconscious Bias

Who would’ve thought that the mild-mannered and introverted Clark Kent with the nerdy black-rimmed glasses, combed-back hair, and a slight slouch possesses the power of flight, x-ray vision, and supersonic speed? It’s also hard to imagine that the naïve and innocent Diana Prince is the omnilingual, super healing, and telepathic Wonder Woman who pilots an invisible jet. Barry Allen is an unassuming police chemist with a reputation for being very slow and frequently late. That’s quite the opposite of the Flash we all know. I suppose Bruce Wayne has successfully trained himself to overcome unconscious bias, allowing him to spot the extraordinary out of the ordinary.

However, for most of us, being open-minded and overcoming unconscious bias doesn’t come as easily mainly because it’s unconscious and ingrained based on years of experience. In fact, because we have a functional brain, we all have unconscious bias. It helps us protect ourselves, find our tribe, and make decisions quickly. Unconscious bias is our reflexive reaction to some basic inputs and we don’t realize that we’re doing it. It’s one thing to be aware of unconscious bias – from others as well as our own – but it’s a whole other dimension to think proactively, plan, and execute to overcome that bias. Here’s an article that I wrote that highlights some ways to overcome unconscious bias.

When we allow ourselves to not fear and look at people as equals with complementing superpowers to us, we free ourselves to consider differing points of view, debate openly, collaborate and solve problems together, and innovate better than we ever had before. Moreover, it allows us to lead generously–abundantly giving ourselves so that others may be and do their best.

The Justice League’s tagline is: You can’t save the world alone. However, I would also say: You can’t save the world with people with the same superpowers. Let’s build our teams with these key insights in mind. Expect rather than be surprised by the outcomes. Learn and enjoy the journey.

If you found this article helpful, please feel free to share it with others or click the thumbs up icon below and let me know! Share in the comments section your thoughts, your approach in building teams, key learnings, and results.

I love planning family vacations and maximizing experiences. Go big or go home! So, naturally, when we decided to go on our first Disney cruise to the Bahamas, I turned into one of those Disney cruise fanatic moms who live to spread Disney magic. I joined fish extender and magnet exchange groups on Disboards and Facebook.

I created customized gifts for the exchanges. I had a whole plan for decorating our metal stateroom door with custom, lighted LED magnets. On top of that, we had a pin trading station and a white board on the door. It turned out to be a full, interactive experience courtesy of our door. Our little guy enjoyed delivering gifts and putting magnets on other people’s doors. The kids loved seeing the surprise gifts, new magnets and pins, and notes from other cruisers about their favorite Disney and Star Wars characters every time we returned to our stateroom. For two to three months before the cruise, I felt like I was living more of a double life—Silicon Valley, high-tech marketing executive by weekday and Disney craft mom by weekend. Believe me, not an easy feat!

Taking a Little Break

Selfishly, I was looking for a bit of a mental break and quality time with the family since I had been traveling almost every week for six months straight. And what a great way to get off the grid for a little bit. Honestly, I also thought about being around people who choose to be happy, share the magic with children, and put differences aside, especially in our increasingly divided world.

On top of that, I just had a big birthday and I missed my daughter’s 12th birthday. So yes, there was some degree of guilt that I was trying to allay with this cruise. So I’m sure that many working moms and dads who travel a bit for their jobs can relate to this. I originally thought about writing an article about living a double life and the guilt that working parents feel, but I stopped short of that because of what surprised me on this cruise.

It’s All About the Experience — Love the Marketing Machine!

Although this was our first ever Disney cruise, I knew it was going to be amazing. Our family has been on four Disney World trips, a couple to Disneyland, and now a Disney cruise in a span of eight years. With a Halloween on the High Seas theme, that was also a big bonus for us since Halloween is one of our favorite family holidays. So we knew what to expect from Disney—exceptional customer experience, first-rate logistics, a brilliant marketing machine, and an emotional brand. For us, Disney equals fun, time with family and friends, experiencing the magic through the children’s eyes, being good to ourselves and taking a mental break, being a kid again, making new friends, diet buster, overcoming fears, creating memories, first experiences, being grateful, and simply enjoying life’s special moments.

I’m sure the Disney marketing machine loves it when they hear all this stuff. (As a marketing person, I consider Disney a true marketing Jedi Grand Master while the rest of us are mere Padawans.) There are so many parents willing to pay $25 for a plastic lightsaber or pay 1.5-3x more for a Disney cruise vs other cruise lines. We’re paying for much more than a lighted sword or trip on a ship. As I looked around, I saw all the families wearing personalized, matching Disney shirts. I even got my husband to wear matching shirts with me and our kids despite him saying, “Are we going to be one of those people?” Yes, lots of grown men wearing Mickey Mouse shirts with Dad or Daddy printed on them. Now, where else would you see that? And he even agreed to wear a pirate costume on pirate night! Best of all, he swam in the ocean for the first time (in over 40 years) with his prosthetic leg because Disney made it so easy, relaxing, and non-judgmental. As they say, it’s hard to put a price tag on experiences.

Work and Personal Sacrifices

But here’s what surprised me the most on the cruise. No doubt that it truly brought families and extended families together. Lots of happiness all the way around. But I also thought about the many Disney crew and cast members who sail for five months straight and then get seven weeks off. These include servers and hostesses, spa therapists, cruise security, actors and actresses, etc. They were from all over the world but many were from the Philippines and Indonesia. I know this nomadic Southeast Asian contingent because I was born and raised in the Philippines. Disney has given these people opportunities for a career and better paying livelihood than what some of them can possibly obtain in their third-world, home countries.

The irony was that while we enjoyed our families, they were away from theirs, working to help us enjoy ours. They do this day in and day out, seven days a week, cruise after cruise, for five months straight before getting seven weeks off. And they do it all with a smile, enthusiasm, and energy as if it’s their first day on the job. They go that extra mile–cutting the kids’ steaks, doing magic tricks, catering to special requests, etc. My introspective self felt saddened by this irony. But put into perspective, these crew members are able to feed their families, put their children through school, create better work opportunities for themselves, and live a better life as a result.

We all make sacrifices in our work and personal lives. We might sometimes feel bitter, but it’s energizing and invigorating to think about why we’re making these sacrifices and be grateful for what they’ve allowed us to do for ourselves and others.

From the Adams family to yours, have a safe and happy Halloween!

If you enjoyed this article, please feel free to share it with others or click the thumbs up icon below and let me know! Share in the section below your comments and experiences.

As a petite woman of Asian descent named Liza Adams, living in Denver, working as a marketing executive in Silicon Valley, with an Electrical Engineering background, a mother of two, an immigrant with an American accent, I’ve seen my share of unconscious bias throughout my career.

My list of examples is long, as many of yours likely are as well. Regardless of our gender, skin color, name, age, disability, physical stature, schools attended, country of birth, marital and parental status, etc., we all encounter unconscious bias. In fact, we all have unconscious bias because we have a functional brain. It helps us protect ourselves, find our tribe, and make decisions quickly. It’s our reflexive reaction to some basic inputs and we don’t realize that we’re doing it.

It’s one thing to be aware of unconscious bias – from others as well as our own – but it’s a whole other dimension to think proactively, plan, and execute to overcome that bias.

We have to be deliberate to show/believe something contrary to the initial evidence or leverage a bias to achieve what we want. It’s important to manage unconscious bias as it can have dramatic impacts on diversity and inclusion, employee recruiting and retention, career path and growth, innovation, brand, customer relations, morale and culture, financial performance, and so much more. Many articles, like these CIPHR and Forbes articles, discuss these benefits and what companies can do to minimize unconscious bias.

I’ve written this article to share examples of unconscious bias I’ve encountered and tidbits for how we, as individuals and employees, can recognize and proactively address them to minimize the impact or reinforce the bias.

Comedic, Surprising, and Run-of-the-Mill Examples

It’s been quite comical at times as I’ve navigated the range of unconscious bias, from “You must not be technical because you’re in Marketing” to “You’re Asian, so you must be technical.” Go figure.

Some people who have not met me but know my name, have said, “Oh, I envisioned a tall, Caucasian woman before I met you.” Even in my country of birth, the Philippines, when I conducted a workshop (in the late 90s) for a group of product managers and marketers, I heard whispers in Filipino (which I understand and speak) as I entered the room: “I thought Ms. Adams is American with US-based knowledge and experience. I didn’t realize we were getting a local.” The implication was that the workshop would not be as valuable to them because the goal was to learn from what worked and what didn’t work in the US.

Then there’s the physical bias. One of my former colleagues, who is well over a foot taller than me, and I were speaking with a client at a tradeshow (standing, not sitting). The client made eye contact with my colleague most of the time, even though I was the one answering his questions. There’s also the classic, “You’re so little.” Not exactly the presence I want to project going into a challenging alignment meeting or tense negotiation process.

And of course, I’ve experienced the unconscious gender bias that is all too familiar to so many women, particularly in male dominated industries like technology: automatically assumed to be the executive assistant, a junior employee, or not as knowledgeable or credible.

Ways to Overcome and Harness Unconscious Bias

I’ve outlined five ways to overcome or harness unconscious bias below.

The great news for us is that we live in a digital world with a lot of ways to build our personal brand. It’s not just in how we’re seen and perceived in person. It’s also how we portray ourselves digitally.

In today’s digital world, we can better control our brand and minimize the bias.

Also remember that we can’t underestimate the power of our human network—the people who know us beyond the superficial—in managing bias.

Our reputation precedes us. It is the result of what we do, what we say, and what other people say about us on and offline. If we take care of our human network, it will take care of us.

1. Be Aware of Our Own Biases and Choose to be Kind

One of my favorite quotes is Mahatma Gandhi’s “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Change starts with you and me, us. When we’re meeting people for the first time, let’s try letting our guard down when we sense unconscious bias creeping in, feeling the need to protect ourselves from someone who has a certain “look” or “demeanor.”

Although we can’t control the filters that others choose when they look at us, we can control the filters that we use on others. When we break down our biases, we have a better shot at helping others break down theirs.

When we allow ourselves to not fear and look at people as equals, we free ourselves to consider differing points of view, debate openly, collaborate and solve problems together, and innovate better than we ever had before. Moreover, it allows us to lead generously–abundantly giving ourselves so that others may be and do their best.

2. Give Voice to Who We Are and Our Passions

In the business world, when someone asks, “Tell me about yourself,” I bet many, including myself, are guilty of sounding like a resume or a traditional LinkedIn profile. On rare occasions, we might divulge our hometown, how many kids we have, and a couple of hobbies. We almost feel uncomfortable telling people something personal about us, fearing that they might not be interested or that we might have to contend with a different set of biases.

All valid concerns. But ironically, the most successful teams in which I’ve been blessed to be a part are those where we had insights into what each other was all about, beyond what could be seen. We knew a little bit about each other’s life story and journey, families, hobbies, and passions that influence who we are today. We learned to leverage each other’s perspectives, experience, strengths, and differences in our work. And we figured out how to best work (and have fun) together. Note, while this strategy can be effective in places like the US, use it with caution in cultures where the long-seeded norm is to keep business and personal lives separate.

It’s a process. I’m not suggesting that we be an open book. It’s a fine line between sharing enough and too much. Why not start with our LinkedIn profiles? I don’t have the best LinkedIn profile by any stretch of the imagination but you’ll see facets of Liza Adams’ personal side in the summary, volunteer experience, and articles I’ve written. In the office, personalize our workspaces with photos and things that energize us.

The things we do and are passionate about in our personal lives depict competitiveness, drive, fun, balance, courage, generosity, strength, and more. They create conversation starters and common threads to build relationships. Let it be known and get in front of the bias.

3. Share Our Knowledge and Engage with Others

Have you ever had a job title that didn’t exactly reflect what you do and what you do best? Marketing Manager? Business Analyst? Director of Strategy? Chief of Staff? Project Manager? The list of all-encompassing and ambiguous job titles goes on. Everyone has their own bias about roles and titles. People may unintentionally box us into a role that isn’t right for us. So we end up with a mismatch in expectations, not an ideal situation in our careers.

We have an opportunity to proactively change the perception and build credibility in our areas of interest. Pick key topics then write articles and blogs, create a podcast, do a webcast, etc. with the intent to share and be helpful. Then post and tweet. Include in our LinkedIn profiles and other sites work that we’ve done that showcases our expertise (e.g., SlideShare, thought leadership white papers, video testimonials, etc.)

Actively engage with others as they consume our content. Consume other people’s content. Like, comment, share, retweet, and follow. Build and engage regularly with the network. In a meeting or on a call, say something. Then walk the talk.

4. Build Initial Credibility Non-Visually

Have you ever watched the singing contest on TV called The Voice? The show is known for its blind auditions where the judges have their backs turned to the contestant singing. It’s a perfect example of minimizing unconscious bias. The contestants are being judged primarily based on their voice and singing ability. Also take a look at this article on how blind auditions help orchestras to eliminate gender bias.

Increasingly, we will make our first impressions digitally. Prior to meetings and events, people often search online about the person they will be meeting. If we do a good job with our brand digitally (like using some of the approaches mentioned above), then that helps manage the bias. Furthermore, if we know that there might be an unconscious bias based on how we look, then a face-to-face meeting may not be the best way to make an initial impression.

Instead, meet initially via an audio call. When we meet with them next time in person, the impact of any unconscious bias would be much less because of the credibility built from the call. Although it may seem counter-intuitive to prefer an audio call over an in-person meeting, sometimes, it actually works in our favor to save face-to-face for later in the process.

5. Harness the Bias to Support Our Cause

While unconscious bias might be annoying at times, we can learn to embrace it when it accurately reflects who we are and/or helps advance our cause. Unconscious bias isn’t always bad. There are inherent strengths and goodness in bias. Even the element of shock or pleasant surprises in reversing a traditional belief can be goodness and, occasionally, entertaining.

Imagine being the only woman or person of color in a room full of executives. Bias abounds in peoples’ heads, words, and actions. Own this opportunity to stand out even more with provocative insights, probing questions, and resolve to align towards a new way of thinking among traditionalists. Use the bias as a platform.

Some people purposely use their initials or gender-neutral nicknames like Pat, Chris, Alex, Val, Drew, and Sam to minimize gender bias. We’d like to believe that it’s a meritocracy from Day 1 but, sometimes, it is what it takes to get in the door and get a fair shot. As an example, anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, J. K. Rowling’s publishers asked that she use two initials rather than her full name. Similarly, my husband who’s a published author of science fiction novels for young adults (YA) uses M. L. Adams because the majority of YA science fiction authors were female when he started writing. Plus he feels that Mike Adams is the most boring name for an author. I agree.

On the other hand, making the gender obvious might bode well in situations like in companies highlighting the hiring of a female C-level executive. Welcome Patricia Reyes, not Pat Reyes. In communicating how her experience and expertise create advantages for the business, it also shows diversity at the C level, inspires other women and minorities, and promotes a culture of diversity and inclusion.

There’s pride and joy in reinforcing certain biases like the cultural traits of countries and companies, as well as academic reputation of schools. For example, Germany is known for engineering, Japan is known for quality, and Italy is known for craftsmanship. Some companies are recognized for great corporate cultures and some universities are known for being skilled at preparing students for the workplace. If and when appropriate, let’s use these to our advantage.

Lastly, our human network of relationships should be a source of pride. Our networks of people with proven track records, valued expertise, and amazing character are a gem. There’s natural bias from sheer association. As they say, birds of the same feather, flock together.

The human network with its expansive and powerful tentacles can break down or support biases about us, oftentimes, better than we can! We need to constantly build, nurture, and protect it.

Unconscious bias is everywhere and everyone has it. We can seek to be aware of it in ourselves and others. We can minimize, overcome, reinforce, or embrace it. But we cannot remove it. In fact, we will create new biases. Managing bias is not about deceiving others. It’s about being thoughtful and proactive about minimizing things that introduce bias or highlighting important parts of who we are that people might not readily see and infer.

What matters are how we manage our own bias in engaging with others to bring out the best in everyone and how we proactively plan, build, and project our personal brand to overcome or harness the bias to achieve what we desire.

If you found this article helpful, please feel free to share it with others or click the thumbs up icon below and let me know! Share in the comments section your thoughts, your experiences with unconscious bias, how you overcame or reinforced it, and any advice you might have.

Customers are empowered more than ever with information at their fingertips, literally, with access to content online on various devices plus traditional offline means (e.g., tradeshows, peer networking, print, etc.) It’s different sorts of information from many sources, available any time they want. In parallel, they may talk with sales people about their problems, what they’re trying to achieve, and ideas for how to solve them. There are many research results that suggest that the customer’s own research process starts well before they engage with Sales. But what’s important to note is that there are two parallel, non-linear processes that Sales and Marketing need to intercept to influence decision making.

Empowered customers create an environment where marketing technology and data science coupled with the content creation designed to evoke human emotions and strengthen relationships needs to co-exist harmoniously throughout the customer lifecycle.

Given this customer-empowered, parallel processing dynamic, as marketers, we need to plan and execute demand generation campaigns with intentionality—intent to align with the company’s go-to-market (GTM) strategy, intent to engage with customers and potential customers, and intent to drive and influence revenues. These translate into three parts of an effective demand generation strategy and execution, as discussed below.

1. Demand Generation Strategy Aligned to GTM Strategy

The foundation for a solid demand generation strategy has always been the alignment to a well-thought out GTM (Go-To-Market) strategy. For illustration purposes, the classic pyramid depicts the GTM strategy with GTM organizations aligned with the goals for each segment and what each group needs to do to help achieve those goals. On the marketing front, this will give us insight into knowing what kind of fish we want, where we need to fish, why we want to fish there, how we need to fish, and how much fish we need to catch.

For more information about this GTM alignment model, refer to my article on Grids, Quads, and Pyramids: Saving Your Organization from Strategic Misalignment.

2. Demand Generation – Engagement

Today’s empowered customers are driving many of us marketers to think about demand generation in a non-linear way. Remember when the funnel formula was: build awareness and credibility with some ads and thought leadership content, offer case studies and competitive comparisons in the consideration phase, serve up demos and data sheets in the purchase phase, and deliver good/hot leads to Sales.

No one engages this way anymore. It’s a much more complex, multi-faceted, multi-channel, and fluid process. Instead of a linear funnel, as many have suggested, the process looks more like an infinity loop. There are various infinity loop models. IDC’s Customer Experience Loop is just one and shown below, as an example.

Awareness starts as a result of a search which is reinforced with brand identity and customer reviews. The research phase is non-linear and multichannel, and sales influence must complement information found on-line. And advocacy starts before the buying process begins, goes through the buying and implementation phases, and is amplified by social media, positively and negatively. 

As it has been, we need to deeply understand buyers and influencers, their problems and challenges, different ways to address them, and various topics of interest. However, on top of these, we now need to consider the following:

No Beginning or End

Think about the process not just from research to buy, but the entire lifecycle journey customers go through–research, buy, use, and advocate. There could be other steps in between but that’s the general flow. Then the process repeats itself. There is no beginning or end, as in an infinity loop. There’s a constant opportunity to engage, help, add value, and impact the customer’s business while we reap the benefit of increasing share of wallet as well as customer testimonials and references.

Be There, Be Useful

We need to engage to build a relationship and continue to deepen that relationship throughout the cycle. We need to offer up insights and content that address the customer’s need at any point during the process, even before they think they have something to buy from us or after they have bought. Being helpful might mean articulating a clear vision for an end goal with actionable steps for how to get there, talking about provocative insights, sharing potential use cases and best practices, discussing case studies that highlight pitfalls to avoid and key successes, communicating key considerations and evaluation criteria, defining an ecosystem of partners and their roles, providing access to deployment guides, as well as imparting product-related information. It is also at these times when companies can stand out from competitors more easily because they are seen as being helpful and useful, rather than simply selling. Furthermore, less companies engage with potential customers so there are better opportunities to capture attention and strengthen the relationship.

Engaging and Snackable Content

It’s all about small pieces of content that people can consume to change and shape their thinking about a problem, about their options, and about the best ways and partners to solve them. Content needs to go beyond providing information and educating. Content nowadays also needs to be shareable, interactive, engaging, and entertaining with the ultimate goal to amaze and inspire people to action (e.g., consider us, buy from us, advocate for us, etc.)

Level of engagement is the leading indicator of interest, buyer intent, and future revenue.

So marketers need to get used to mapping and creating snackable content along the infinity loop. As examples: market trends, research/analyst reports, and thought leadership content to build awareness; white papers, solutions kits, and case studies in the buy phase; deployment guides, best practices, and optimization approaches for the use phase; and customer testimonials, peer networking, and user reviews for advocacy. We need to become good content publishers. Generic content doesn’t cut it, we have to understand the audience and the context. All of this takes time, but time is the last thing anyone has, and the industry is moving quickly. Processes, tools, and the content itself has to be redesigned.

Quite interestingly, many companies tend to focus on the left side of the infinity loop designed to create new opportunities vs the right side which is designed to improve loyalty. Ironically, the right side often offers the lowest hanging fruit with lower acquisition cost, best opportunities to create stickiness, as well as potential beachhead and viral effect with advocacy. Let’s ensure we execute a balanced approached as each half of the infinity loops feeds off and builds on each other.

Multiple Touch Points, Conversation, and Personalization

Having multiple touch points and delivering personalized content further reinforces the notions of “be there, be useful” and “engaging and snackable content.” Think about digitally surrounding customers from search, to website and microsites, to social media, to re-targeting, to email campaigns, to online events, etc. and offering personalized or customized content, leveraging various marketing technologies available today.

Give customers and potential customers the ability to have a conversation with us and get answers from us whenever and however they want using the messaging apps and channels that they already use every day to communicate with friends and family including SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple Messages and more. These can be powered by artificial intelligence (e.g., with chatbots) and/or humans. This conversational marketing approach helps further pique the potential customer’s interest, build a relationship, better qualify the prospect, and lead them further into the sales cycle more elegantly and efficiently. In some situations, this can be an ideal solution to less effective form-fill tactics to set up meetings and nurturing.

Additionally, we need to ensure a consistent and integrated customer experience across digital and traditional touchpoints (e.g. print, live events, phone calls, etc.)

Encourage Advocacy

Encouraging advocacy now extends beyond existing customers, into influencers and potential customers. Customer stories, recommendations, social media posts, comments, and shares that advocate for companies, thought-leading insights, products, leadership teams, and more can come from anyone. Step 1 is building/evolving a company, a team, and products for which people want to truly advocate. Step 2 is encouraging and providing the mechanisms for people to openly provide feedback and voice their advocacy (or even opposition). And Step 3 is consistently engaging with others authentically throughout this process, particularly in social media.

But most importantly, especially with how customers engage digitally, engagement becomes a leading indicator for revenue. The primary measurement for marketing success is customer engagement all along the infinity loop. In the case of a complex sale, as an example, highly integrated and synchronized account-based or segment-based sales and marketing is the best way to get maximum impact from limited resources. This means the metric for success is:

# of Target Accounts x # of Contacts per Account x Number of Engagements per Contact per Year = # of Chances per Year to Influence and Drive Revenue

An engagement is defined as any time a customer interacts with content that we produced, or attends an event or activity that we designed or sponsored (e.g., downloads, shares and reshares on social media, use of ROI calculators, participation in webinars, chats and messages, schedule a meeting or demo, sign up for trial or try-and-buy, etc.)

Here are a two of examples for how to measure success and engagement, one at the account level at the top tier of the GTM pyramid and one at the segment or vertical level in the middle tier:

At Company ABC, the company identified 250 top named accounts, combination of existing and potential customers. The goal was to build a database of contacts desired to engage and influence, with not less than 5 per account, and in some cases it could be hundreds. For each of the top 250 accounts, the company wrote and agreed upon engagement plans that include: Sales, Channel, Product Management, Marketing, and Operations. And then, topic-oriented engagement and content flows that both Sales and Marketing could use to engage in conversation were created.

The company achieved better engagement with personalization and by digitally surrounding the contacts at these top accounts. So for the top 200 accounts, success was:

250 customers x 20 contacts x 20 engagements per person per year = 100,000 chances per year to influence and drive revenue

Similarly, the approach applies to the middle section of the pyramid. The biggest difference is that personalization of the content and outreach/engagement tactics can be leveraged across targets customers in the same verticals. At company XYZ, the mid-tier represents about 1000 customers. Success was measured as such:

1000 customers x 4 contacts x 15 engagements per person per year = 60,000 chances per year to influence and drive revenue

The mid-tier had three verticals with each vertical having roughly 1/3 of the 1000 customers in the tier. The company had weekly demand generation calls with the Sales and Marketing leadership teams to inspect leads and lead quality. In these meetings, they spent time looking at what marketing tactics and assets were being consumed by whom and the level of interaction with those. This process gave them invaluable insights into preference and purchase behaviors (e.g., having support issues with current provider, willingness to consider alternate vendors, investing in new technologies, forward thinking in deployments, etc.) that could not be directly correlated to or inferred from demographic profiles.

3. Demand Generation – Leads and Revenue

Leads, as traditionally defined, are a natural by-product of marketing. Level of engagement allows us to determine lead quality. The higher the engagement, the better the lead score, the higher quality the lead. Marketing and Sales need to jointly create effective and efficient process for dispositioning any high quality leads that came out of this process. There needs to be an ongoing and closed-loop feedback mechanism to continuously optimize the process.

At ACME company, there was complete alignment and support across the leadership team about the importance of generating good leads and lead followup. The Sales and Marketing teams jointly dispositioned each and every lead generated on a weekly basis. They discussed each high quality marketing lead and why they were high quality (based on the customer’s engagement quantity and quality, lead scoring, plus inside sales pre-qualification results). Then Sales accepted or rejected the lead.

This interaction allowed Marketing to modify the criteria for high quality leads as they got feedback and learned. Similarly, the teams also inspected how Sales followed up on the previous week’s sales accepted leads and identified next steps in the process. Some of those leads progressed into the sales process and some returned to Marketing for further nurturing.

Lastly, the teams reviewed the pipeline of opportunities and discussed how the various groups can help improve the overall size and quality of the pipeline, as well as accelerate, expand, or jumpstart individual opportunities in the pipeline. It was a total closed-loop feedback mechanism where both Sales and Marketing were truly accountable for the customer lifecycle outcomes and ultimately revenue.

As buyers and influencers evolve, so must Sales and Marketing. For the most part, the empowered buyers and influencers have forced us to go back to the basics of human emotion and relationships: deeply understand them and their needs; personalize accordingly; be there where ever they are and be useful throughout their lifecycle with engaging and snackable content; engage to build an ongoing relationship, not just sell; be authentic and encourage advocacy, even from those who are not (yet) customers; and lastly, educate, amaze, and inspire them to action.

As with life, when we invest time and effort to help others, as they say, it comes back to us tenfold (sometimes in unexpected ways). It’s time to put this life lesson into practice with demand generation.

If you found this article helpful, please feel free to share it with others or click the thumbs up icon below and let me know! Share in the comments section your thoughts, examples of how your demand generation efforts have evolved, challenges you’ve encountered, how you overcame them, and results. We’re all in it together. We can all learn from failures and successes.