#referencequeen

The following is a true conversation with my friend before our lecture starts:

My friend: I’m so busy, I don’t have anything that resembles time.

Me: Why don’t you try parsley, sage, or rosemary?

My friend: Why don’t you just leave?

Me: Well then fine, I’m going to Scarborough Fair.

I've just come back from our Corporate HQ in the US, where I had the luxury of spending time with colleagues from the Global Reference Team as well as the wider marketing organisation. It was a good time to reflect on progress made over the past year, and also plan for future success.

A year passes by quickly, so looking at the deliverables we've brought to market is satisfying but only a part of the story. When I joined Juniper, I took time to listen and find out more about the company and its reference needs. From this I was able to:

build a picture of the goals we needed to attain

pin down the overall objectives

demonstrate the strategy and tactics we needed to deploy to accomplish these objectives

The reference numbers at the end of the year will go a long way to show the success we've had in designing a program that adds tangible value to our customers, and leads us to create reference assets that not only support our sales teams, but supports our thought-leadership and marketing standpoint.

Next for me is to look to measure impact of the reference program on the sales teams:

are the references we're delivering making a difference to our sales bottom line?

how are the assets we're creating being used/consumed?

Are we as effective for our external customers as well as our internal customers?

Thinking beyond asset creation, and taking an active interest in the above, takes your program from a ‘nice-to-have’ to commercial imperative. Think about how you report success, and learn to speak the language the business connects with.

As much as customer referencing is about looking forward, it's also important to look back to check your results and consider the effectiveness of your overall program. After four months at my new company this is what I am doing now.

I am not only checking the references I have generated, but also evaluating the overall impact. This helps me sanity check that the strategy I have in place for referencing is meeting the business' needs, and that it is also scalable as demands for references increase or focus changes.

Here are three things I would encourage you to think about as you continue to evaluate your own reference programs:

What is the split between strategic vs tactical references. Do you have visibility into your organisation's five year plan, and are your references geared to support corporate strategy?

Do you have a clearly defined reference program with processes for customer recruitment and engagement. Is there one customer touchpoint, or are multiple areas of your business reaching out for references (risking putting too many demands on your customer)?

I'm still a fairly new addition to my current employer's workforce, and it's a great excuse to ask lots of questions and really delve into the fabric of the company. This helps me understand what is needed from customer references now and helps me gear the reference program to deliver against that need.

That's a no-brainer, right? That's the minumum we reference professionals should be achieving. What I encourage you to do, if you've not already done so, is to look at your company's strategy over the next 3-5 years. In doing this, you can gear your reference program to help drive business growth and work more strategically in supporting your salesforce get to where they need to be.

So, top 3 tips:

1) Ask questions. Lots. Get a copy of your company's 5 year plan, and work out how your program will scale to help drive business growth

2) Get in front of your execs. Find out how they are communicating business strategy and plan to underpin key messaging with customer proof-points

More of a question today, than a blog....

This is the time of year most employees are working on their MBOs, and discussing the subject of career development with their managers. This got me thinking; what's the natural career path of someone in customer referencing (who wants to stay in this area)?

Customer Referencing as a dedicated profession is still in its infancy - even though some of us have been doing this for years! - and though a lot of companies now understand the need for it and are prepared to invest in some headcount, the natural career path seems a little uncertain. It's my impression that companies don't know what to do with their customer reference programs in the longer-term. As long as their current reference needs are being met, they aren't necessarily thinking about how to further develop their customer reference professionals (my current employer is perhaps the exception).

It seems to be more cut and dried for other marketing disciplines, moving from manager to senior manager to director, but is there a need for this approach for customer referencing. Is customer referencing still too new to be thought of in this way? Do companies really *get* the value or are we as a discipline seen as infants who are better seen but not heard?!

I don't have the answers and am curious to hear of others thoughts, feelings and experiences.....

1) Get on the road and meet as many customers face-to-face as I can - This is the best part of my job and helps build lasting working relationships.

2) Make the most of systems and technology - By automating many processes such as tracking and reporting, I'll free up more time to continue thinking of the overall customer reference strategy and help my company stay ahead of the competition.

3) Communicate, communicate, communicate! - Make sure that my colleagues in sales and marketing are aware of what references are available to support them, plus that they have visibility into pipeline, strategic focus and deliverables.

4) Track consumption - Look indepth at how prospects and customers consume reference information. If it's not working, fix-it and if it is working, continue to refine for maximum impact.

5) Network - Meet other customer reference professionals, share best practice and use learnings to continue to be ahead of the curve.

What are the New Year resolutions you are making in your professional life?

Today's blog has absolutely nothing to do with Customer Referencing, but I'm a sucker for a good news story so bear with me! I like good news at any time of the year, but especially during the Christmas period I love hearing things to remind me that, fundamentally, there is a kindness, decency and humanity in our society not often talked about.

I'm not quite at the stage of sentimentality that requires you to watch 'It's a Wonderful Life', but thought I'd share a story I read on the BBC News website about a modern-day Good Samaritan:

One act of kindness that befell British writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Then a student living just north of London, he tells the story to inspire troubled young people to help deal with their disrupted lives.

This spawned another page on the BBC News website, highlighting more random acts of kindness; read them here.

I hope you'll forgive my self-indulgent post, but I thought I'd share what I thought was a really heart-warming story. Acts of kindness don't have to be about the big gestures, pay it forward peeps!

As a mum to a child whose learning is affected by dyslexia, I was really fascinated to be forwarded a link to an RSA Animate video called Changing Education Paradigms.

I have an obvious interest in the subject matter and judging from the 6 million views and counting, I'm not the only one. The innovative way RSA's message is presentated must have had a major impact on engaging people's attention - I can't imagine this volume of traffic for many 12 minute presentations on YouTube.

So what's this got to do with customer referencing? In it's present package, not a great deal, but imagine if you took this approach with one of your key customers. What a great way to educate a market on your unique offerings! Your offerings may not even be unique but I guarantee in B2B if you got your messaging right, something like this would capture interest and help elevate your position with prospects and customers.

I love seeing how companies present their offerings to get heard above the white noise. I remain firmly convinced B2B organisations can take advantage of the investments and testing B2C companies have already made, and adopt these approaches to get ahead of the competition.