AN
OVERVIEW/MANUAL FOR MY YOUTUBE VIDEO CLIPS: “1.0”
As of 11/5/12, I have
recorded 338 clips averaging about 4 minutes a clip for total programming of
over 22 hours. There are 8 playlists, which
you will find at this link: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCilcj45mb9P86ch9pA-zIpA/videos?view=1
There is some rationale
for skimming through them in their 1 to 8 order. But, 338 is a lot! Which ones
are most important (top 10%), good (40%) and least important (bottom 50%)?
Although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, this document is an attempt to
zero in on what might be most valuable to you.
A pesky problem is that
most clips will have two numbers: a big one in the upper left hand corner of
the video (use that one); and numbers that you will see on my slides on the
right-hand side (ignore those). If I refer to 5:10, then I’m referring to the
10th slide in Playlist #5.
Playlist One :
“GETTING PAID FOR SERVICE VALUE”
(1:1-30)
Generally, the first 1 to 3 clips in most playlists are
introductory info which will help all viewers. Clips (1:1-2)
also introduce this entire project which is meant to support two main groups of
consumers:
a. Attendees
of an all-day seminar entitled, “Getting Paid for Service Value”, which I do
annually at the University of Industrial Distribution (next scheduled session on
3/12/13 in Indianapolis; sign up for it at:
http://www.univid.org/aws/AEA/pt/sp/uid_home).
b. AND,
all of the clients of Waypoint Analytics’ line-item, net-profit analytics
service. The tools from Waypoint (www.waypointanalytics.info)
reveal such powerful, new, strategic insights that most clients (and prospects)
have trouble understanding the potential of what they are seeing. New world
view changes aren’t easy. Most reps do
not, for example, easily transform from product-pushing, price-quoting agendas
into service-value-chain math sellers and demand-replenishment-system consultants.
Rethinking selling
objectives and skills is, in fact, the bulk of this first playlist. After
introductory stuff, Module clips 1:10-30
are all meant to be watched and discussed as many times as necessary to help
sales reps sell total supply-chain economics rather than quote prices for
commodities. If you have ever:
a. Lost
business at a big account that switched to an “integrated supply contract”
b. Had
accounts in which the “VP of Purchasing” is now called “VP/Supply Chain”
c. Or,
generally wondered if the 24-year old life cycle of “supply chain buying” is
real and might affect your need to do some “supply-chain selling”,
Then, going forward, if a
customer asks for a price quote, you should fantasize that any of your reps
might turn the opportunity into a: “why stop there conversation about
partnering for even better total economics for both parties!” But, all customer facing folks must be fluent
with term/concepts like: TPC; up-time economics; on-time economics;
next-value-chain step/customer satisfaction/retention economics; and healthy
average order sizes for both parties as a byproduct of a well-designed,
demand-replenishment system.
Clip 1:29 is a case study solution for a
contractor who sends many vans to a distributors counter every day to get
job-specific purchases. This “no inventory” guided practice is actually killing
both parties on a total economic basis. To get better fluency with “service-value-chain”
concepts, I will, in the near future, be posting many more case stories
for taking three types of customers – core, targets and super-losers – to a
bigger and more profitable level.
PLAYLIST TWO: LIFE-CYCLE THINKING (2:1-22)
Distributors have hugely
profitable customers and items that cross-subsidize hugely unprofitable
customers and items hiding within the financial averaged numbers: TRUE OF
FALSE? Always TRUE, but why do many managers and reps have trouble believing
and then acting upon this big insight? What
are the unspoken assumptions that underlie our historical, general, data-free,
belief systems? Until these belief assumptions are specifically named,
carefully examined and consciously modified our minds can’t be open to accepting
new, more effective paradigms. PLAYLIST
TWO is dedicated to helping distributors and all of their employees overhaul their “mental models”.
2: 1-8 are dedicated to helping distributors
free themselves of the paradigms of: “sales agency” and “push-product to any
and all customers” for volume to keep suppliers happy and get (non-existent) “economies of scale”.
2: 9 Introduces 6 common objections to
confronting small customers and big customers who order way too many small-orders
for either parties holistic health. 2:10-14 answers each of
the six objections one at a time including the historically most popular one: “the sales force won’t stand for it”.
2:15-22 Review the facts that most
distribution channels are quite mature and consolidating. 90% of the sales
volume is for commodities that customers want to buy on the lowest, total,
supply-chain cost. So, distributors have to: push products less and start (90%
of the time) to listen to customers “supply chain buying needs”. And/or, start
proactively offering to provide “service-value-chain solutions” to co-create mutually
beneficial “demand replenishment systems”.
PLAYLIST THREE: THE NEED FOR “LINE ITEM
PROFIT ANALYTICS” (LIPA)- 3:1-39
3:1 is an important clip that explains why most
distributor investments in “analytics solutions” have gotten, heretofore, such
poor returns.
3:2 Pitches a book (Islands
of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink) that explains why product-pushing,
volume-seeking businesses –of all kinds – now have big (net-profit and loss)
cross-subsidies amongst both customers and products/services and then how to
solve the problem.
3:3-5 explain why distributors – using LIPA
– will start using much more fruitful “power laws” than the overused and
misunderstood 80/20 rule. What is the “root cause”, for example, of why only 5%
of your active inventory items generate 500%+ of your peak-internal, net
profits?
3: 6-9 cover customer profitability rankings
depicted as “whale curve graphs”. We learn that two identical customers with
the same sales, margin dollars and margin percentage rates can vary widely in
profitability based on their very different buying practices and related “costs-to-serve”
(CTS).
3: 10-11 help to deal with the inevitable objections
that will arise when you discover that some of your “biggest, best customers” are
actually big losers.
3: 12-14 look at item and supplier
profitability ranking reports and whale curves.
3:15 is a key clip that discusses the
inter-dependency of most (un)profitable customers and
items.
3:16-17 explain why a branch turnaround is
highly dependent on taking three sets of big customers – core/most-profitable,
best targets and biggest losers – to the “next level”. 3:17 introduces the 5-5-5 customer strategy.
3:18 is an important overview clip on
the nine steps of a “LIPA-enabled,
net-profit improvement JOURNEY”. The next 18 clips then detail the nine steps
of the journey.
3: 19-23 explain why it is smart to at least
initially outsource cost-to-serve modeling to a firm like Waypoint. It doesn’t
have to be an either/or, in-house reinvention/knock-off OR an outsource
decision, but an and/both
opportunity is so desired.
3:24 is a key clip, because too many
distributors have created their own in-house customer profitability ranking
reports and then stopped there for lack of a journey: vision, understanding, conviction
and re-educational skills (all of which
these YT clips are trying to help).
3:25-27 are also key clips. The fact that an
item or customer is a super winner or loser is a “symptom”. We don’t yet know
the underlying root-cause for the extreme profit results. How do you find the
root-cause, then what do you do? Watch these clips!
3: 28-29 are key clips too. The root-causes
for extreme profits or losses are also “insights” that are the kernels for new
guidelines and tactics that will give big returns. BUT, can we re-educate, re-informate and re-compensate managers, reps and eventually
all employees to then execute the plays?
3: 30-33 are clips on how to re-educate all
employees to be part of the net-profit improvement journey.
3: 34-37 are key clips that deal with the
highly emotional subject of both open-book selling and operational management.
With new – insights, plays, tracking reports and compensation – capabilities it
makes sense to go open-book with both losing customers and all employees in
order to dramatically improve the economics of all stakeholder groups. Then, you
can go aggressively together after newly-revealed, low-hanging fruit. The
results snowball. The company then becomes a strategically profitable wealth
machine that provides great benefits to all stakeholder groups.
3:38-39…a summary clip and a final one
promising another playlist of specific, how-to LIPA case studies.
PLAYLIST FOUR: CUSTOMER NICHONOMICS (4:1-57)
4:1 Definitely watch
this clip. Most distributors think they are customer-centric, but actually are
(on a scale from 1-10) about a 2. Clips 4:2-3 expand on #1.
4:4 Provides an
overview of the nichonomics journey which is then
detailed in clips 4: 5-26.
4:5-13 are mostly conceptual clip/concepts
on how to get into specifically niching your customers by going down the
overall customer profitability report and putting the top 50+ in different niche
piles, etc.
4:14-26 are steps in a personal, turnaround,
distribution case story in which I identified 8 internal service metrics that
added up to a “service value equation” for the #1 historical most
profitable/important niche. We made “service
excellence” happen and double sales and improved ROS by 7% points in one year
as we dominated the target niche.
4:16 is a key process clip for finding
competitive service advantages that will beat product-volume focused
competitors.
4:24-26 are key clips on “fill-rate economics” and
the importance of tuning fill-rates higher for the most popular, profitable
items bought by a target niche of customers.
4:27-32 are conceptual building blocks for
understanding the invisible power of “customer retention economics”
within mature, commodity distribution channels.
4:33-36 are guidelines for finding,
developing and allocating “extra services” for target niche customers.
Whether they are then bundled into (or unbundled for a fee) a “service
model” depends on the strata of customer within a niche.
4:37-38 Explain why the role of the outside rep within mature distribution channels is both
shrinking (only accounts that generate a minimum of about $20K in sales can support
outside reps) AND changing. Reps
must start selling service-value-chain solutions to customers to partner them
and capture much bigger share of each customer. No more sharing accounts with
competitors and “getting our fair share”. Customers must get best total
supply-chain economics with one partner or another.
4:39-43 covers concepts about target
account cracking. How to pick them? Who can crack them? How they do the
cracking with dome selling and a 9-step selling process? And, what it
takes to be a “10”. Every rep who
wants to remain relevant within their distribution channel over the next few
years must watch all of these!
4:44 Very important clip on “downsizing,
upgrading, re-educating, re-directly and re-compensating” (DURRR) your sales
force. Also, detailed in article 4.11 at our web site.
4:46-49 Very important, summary-concept clips
on why/how to achieve economies of scale
within a niche and maximum the value exchange (or profit) margin.
4:50-51 If you can
achieve what is covered in 4:46-49, then you can grow all stakeholders’ wealth
and be a magnet for best talent and effort from all groups. It’s the ultimate mission dream in business.
4:53-57 are summary slides
for nichonomics….a vital way of thinking and operating for
all distributors.
PLAYLIST FIVE: ACHIEVING SERVICE VALUE (5:1-86)
5:1-3 Cover introductory concepts about how
to build “boundaries” that maximize:
autonomy; engagement; learning; total-team alignment; AND, peer-team-based,
measurable control and discipline.
5:4-5 Explain “self-organizing” communities
of people that maximize motivation and bottom-up, fast, pragmatic problem
solving. Have faith and inject it into
your company!
5:6-7 Start explaining the “six boundaries” of my
high-performance model with the top or “side one” which is (strategic)
“service value concepts”. #7 provides an overview of my “8 elements of service
excellence”. The detailed how-to’s for each element
are covered in modules 4.1-14 of my DVD training program that is free with a
subscription to Waypoint’s service. Or, those modules can be rented for $1.00
each at www.opensesame.com
5:8-11 explain how to co-create balanced scorecards
for every individual and team function in the company.
5:12-19 is an insert section from working
around my hexagon on “PRAISING STATEMENTS”. What, when,
how, and why publishing praising
statements are the oxygen for successful continuous learning and change.
Very important if you want to turnaround a business or take a company from good
to high-performance great.
5:20 is the “financial reporting” boundary
which is the most-used in most companies and the least important of my hexagon
model. Financial numbers are all ultimate symptoms. They only will get
significantly better for all stakeholder groups IF the other 5 boundaries are
up and operating.
5:21 is the “what’s in it for me” (WIIM)
boundary. This news station has to be playing all of the time with the bigger
emphasis on “what’s in it for WE” (WIIW), because we either are all going
to make perfect, niche-focused service happen (starting for the 5-5-5 accounts)
together and benefit or not.
5:22-73…these 51 clips are all dedicated to the
“mastery” boundary.
5:22-27 defines levels of mastery in a
general sense and points out (PARENT ALERT) that all of our kids and
(front-line service providers) have to “learn-how-to-learn continuously, on their
own” if they want the “good jobs” that will exist in the US 5-10 years
from now. The schools and Universities
are not teaching “learn-how-learn, change and innovate” skills.
5:28 Covers two key learning how learn
concepts: the wheel of learning; and making small, smart experiments/bets
to “fail forward” (towards some bigger vision/objective).
5:29 Explains why there are NO DEAD END JOBS, JUST DEAD-HEAD
MANAGERS.
5:30-37 covers the basic path of mastery and
the dysfunctional non-mastery scenarios with an insert on learning through the
four stages from “unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence”.
5:38-39 reminds us that we must ground our
mastery-by-all expectations in corporate philosophy and strategy.
5:40-52 dives deep into the how-to mechanics
of pushing the wheel of learning and
designing, smart, small experiments/bets.
5:53 Steps back from the details of “failing
forward fast frugally flexibly etc.” to look at 13 guidelines for
“Improvisational Wisdom” which must be known, believed, and role
modeled IF you want to boost your corporate capacity to change and innovate.
5:54-58 covers the key concept of designing
and executing change initiatives with “psychological flow” or “optimum
creative tension”.
5:59-60 Remind (PARENT ALERT) us that in all
formal learning environments “mastery” should be insisted upon versus one-size,
speed, teaching-style serves all curved to a grade of “C” where 10% of the
class may have achieved “mastery” while the rest are pushed along without it.
5:61-62 remind us to make every employee a first-time teacher,
because they will pass the rules of 5-7 and 1-10 and learn more than the first
time student(s) they are in charge of.
5:63-70 cover why distributors have
historically been, on average, very poor educators of their employees and how
they might bootstrap their way (via a case study of a “learn-n-earn game”)
to being a high-performance educator.
5:71-72 describes two personnel systems to replace dysfunctional top-down, annual job
evaluations with bottom-up, monthly, how-are-you-growing-yourself reports and
not-enough PRICE intervention system that will weed bad apples with “due
process justice” for all to see.
5:73 is a case study on the wonderful
side-effects of a top-down public speaking training experiment.
5:74-78 explains how boss-subordinate role
playing must be replace with we are all adult partners in this game.
5:79-82 show how the hexagon model does a
better job than the “balanced scorecard” and “mission, values, vision,
strategy, etc.” pyramid template.
5:83, 84 and 86 explain how formal “corporate
culture management” is a key, huge missing topic in the learning and
innovating organization. Most firms have a “can’t-do-that-here-or-now”
culture.
PLAYLIST SIX: CHANGE MANAGEMENT (CONCEPTS): 6:1-53
This section is the first
of three, inter-related ones, for upgrading
the innovative change capacity of your company. Playlist #6 covers memes
that will help everyone think about “change” in a big picture way. Playlist #7
gets into specific tools to apply to specific change initiatives. And, #8 looks
at the re-tuning the “corporate culture” to make it a more can-do environment.
Because:
1. Most
distributors are in mature channels using same, industry-think strategies.
2. And,
they are being run by professional, non-founder management teams.
It is easy for such a
company to get into a reactive,
fine-tuning management mode, and not really think about how to do bigger,
better changes for innovative breakthrough advantages. Playlists 6-8 will help to boost
innovation capability.
6:1-6 are important introductory clips. A
management team can discuss each one of my assumptions and decide on a scale
from 1 to 10 how well the team buys into these assumptions and the company
actually tries to live by those assumptions.
6:7 is a key clip. I think all companies
should do an annual strategic planning discipline. A best book to guide this
discipline which is totally scaled for and tuned to distributors is Brent
Grover’s, “The Little Black Book of Strategic Planning for Distributors”
(more at www.mdm.com). But, strategic
processes don’t yield either the “initial insights” or the ability to execute
on any subsequent strategic experimental path that you will need for big
results. The insights will emerge from
diving deep into the most profitable and unprofitable extremes of your
portfolios of customers and products.
6:8-10 ask you to measure your
“innovation gap” and your past track record at implementing what type
of changes from easy, incremental, reactive ones to ambitious, proactive,
forward-looking ones.
6:11-18 cover more abstract ideas of how do we define our current “mental models”
or mindsets and then first change them to be able to see best new insight
opportunities. Many viewers will find these mentally straining, but what is the
alternative? To follow the herd, eat dust and eventually die?
6:19-21 are models that turn “different
types of change” into more concrete examples and charts for you to plot
both past and planned changes. Well worth viewing.
6:22 is a simple, but powerful clip on expanding
the economic pie for all stakeholders. Most humans struggle getting
past zero-sum negotiations to get a bigger share of a static economic pie at
the expense of someone else. Buy low; sell high; hire cheap-work hard; tax you,
give it to me – none of these are synergistically creating 1 + 1 = 3, 4 or more
scenarios. Apply this clip to improving
the win-win benefits of re-tuning buy-sell process inefficiencies between your
company and your biggest volume customers.
6:23 is an insert, concept slide on why it may
seem difficult to lead from the middleman position in a channel. Most
distributors are not “channel masters”, but if you think you can or you can’t
you are right.
6:24-28 These clips
inform distributors on why and how to shift from being product promoters to being
customer-centric, service-value chain solution providers. Retune those
demand replenishment systems that have grown up unmanaged between you and your
biggest (potential) volume customers.
6:29 An insert concept.
Stop thinking about getting into new areas for growing sales (new: lines,
items, customer niches, territories). Instead, get brilliant at your core business, than consider “adjacencies”.
6:30-39 cover concepts about the psychological,
neurological resistance to change and how to minimize the pain of change.
6:40 is an insert clip on thinking about a
bottom-up, non-threatening “wellness is the first, best habit” program
at your company.
6:41-53 are clips about orchestrating the
actual change/transition process itself.
PLAYLIST #7 -LATEST “TOOLS” FOR CHANGE
MGT.
7:1-22
Playlist #6 was mostly
high-concept clips, #7 is: “change
mgt. for dummies” tools. The latest, best book on improving your
success at change management initiatives is entitled “Switch” by Heath and Heath.
7:1-8 cover what’s new in business
literature on change management and the key concept tools from “Switch”
including: “rider; elephant; the path; bright spots; scripts; and rallying the
herd”.
7:9 “Scripts” from “Switch” are also very
specific plays aimed at leverage “insights” within “bright spots”. Line item profit analytics reveals many
“bright spots” and allows for deep-dive investigation to find “insights” that
lead to new “scripts”. The Net-Profit Journey has 9 chronological stages
to it with “scripts” coming in step 5. This clip covers all 9 stages referring
to “Switch” tools.
7:10 Think Big, Act Small (TBAS) is the
best of 4 permutations within that phrase. For 51 annotated slides on, see
slideshow #22 at www.merrifield.com
(along with the 9F’s (failing forward fast…) covered in playlist 5. This clip
is a quick overview of TBAS to remove enough fear of change to get traction.
7:11 A review slide on
the change management tools that have already been covered earlier in Playlist #5
including:
signing
everyone up to be responsible in proportion to the privileges they desire;
the wheel
of learning;
smart
bets/experiments x 9F’s for designing;
and
published praisings.
7:12-19 cover more than most people will want
to know about IDEATION: how to generate a lot of good change ideas to then
evolve them down to one best, greatest idea for a given branch.
7:20-22 are summary slides. Is your company
doing all of these points on a “!0” basis?
PLAYLIST 8: CORPORATE CULTURE MANAGEMENT 8:1-29
This topic is the most
important opportunity that most managers have never thought of before. Culture
is like the water that fish are in and don’t even know it. You need a strong,
healthy, agile culture to execute on any new insights and get any kind of
breakout results.
8:1-6 will introduce you to why now is the time to
define and retune your corporate culture.
8:7 Reviews my “kinetic chain of profit power”
with a highlight on “culture management”.
8:8-11 Reviews why “execution” isn’t going
to happen without improving four, inter-related factors: leadership; net-profit
analytics; core strategy focus; and can-do culture retuning.
8:12 summarizes truisms about culture in a
general sense, before we get specific and concrete.
8:13-20 cover some specific suggestions on
how to (re)define the key elements of your existing culture.
8:21-22 cover what you want every employee to
know about the firm’s culture. If everyone
can answer all of these questions well, then you will: have a high-performing
company; be adored by all; be having fun; and, getting rich as a by-product.
8:23-28 cover specific culture management
topics you and the management team need to address.
8:29 is a summary slide. Start continuously
improving and managing your corporate culture NOW.
