The characteristics and philosophy of ‘Helping Clients Succeed’, and not just buy.

1.      They are invariably led by a visionary leader

a.      Think Steven Jobs of APPLE.

2.      They continuously nurture their internal nurturers.

                                                    i.      Think “Best Places to Work” companies

3.      They intentionally cultivate and personify the internal culture of authentic caring.

a.      Think GOOGLE, MICROSOFT, INTEL

4.      They always automate the processes to ensure continuity and sustainability.

a.      Think Microsoft or Intel

5.      They continually monitor feedback and respond promptly and appropriately.

6.      They foster “A Love-Affair with their customers, employees and supporters” attitude and practice.

a.      Think Cancer Treatment Centers of America.

7.      They invest in training their teams on the actual philosophy, methodology and technology of nurturing.

8.      They live the credo “When your heart is in your dreams, no request seems too extreme”.

a.      Think NOKIA

9.      They routinely manage, monitor, measure and reward  the actual results of their wisdom.
a. Think Accenture, Avanade

10.   They follow the mandate of legendary retailer, Marshall Field.
“When affluent clients spend their own money, they almost invariably go back to that place or person who has intentionally 
and consistently made them feel special” 1891

a.      Think Neiman-Marcus, Nordstrom, Four Seasons Hotels

Good Nurturing

Jim

Further thoughts from the Atlanta experience on 3,19,2010

1.      Nurturing is a natural, albeit, uncommon instinct and behavior in most humans.

a.      The lesson was learned from over 500 nurture presentations and nearly 100 company invitations to introduce the philosophy and actual methodology of becoming or being a truly nurturing company to their home-teams.

b.      I believe the amazing velocity of shifts from our, still fresh,  agricultural/industrial-age heritage into the digital-cyclone age of today has driven the mandates of the natural laws of nature that ultimately influence all life on earth, to the archives of the past.
Laws, by the way, NOT exempting business relationships into some easy to ignore and ancient -instructions to new farmers that were surely yet to come.

c.      In this multi-million air mile this journey exploring and evangelizing the very philosophy, merits and logic of nurturing customer relationships, the global organization VISTAGE archived the dates and details of every presentation I have made for member-groups in North America from the first in 1988 and make it available to resource speakers on-line.
With the dazzling array of metrics-search capabilities in the digital cloud now at my fingertips, I was able capture and to calculate from my own database, the number of natural-nurturers present at each presentation.  In 1997, I conducted an analysis.

Pareto was proven right again.

d.      21% avowed a personal commitment to actually and proactively nurturing all their constituencies. They openly acknowledged their personal ownership of the initiatives.
38% were aware of the concept but admitted reluctance to initiate the practice.
61% openly scoffed at the idea and expressed that sustained and explicit aggression against competition was the only answer.

By 2007, the numbers had shifted dramatically by now:
35% now say they are actively nurturing.

32% saw no change in attitude or efforts.

17% astonishingly declared a new awareness and initial attempts to implement
16% still scoffed or ignored completely. I’d call that a significant and meaningful shift.

e.      I made clear offers of my first book, ‘A Cure for the COMMON COLD-Call’, 101 Best Nurturing Tips, completely free, as a method of assessing the actual interest in Nurture within this business segment.

                                                    i.     The requests for the eBook were disappointingly small yet still encouraging. I always held as my real intention for each presentation anyway was to plant a seed deeply into their fertile and awake brain and nourish those who actually get the metaphor rather than to just pitch nurture as a service. It was a good intention, one that showed me that the laws of the harvest were achingly accurate still. “As ye sow” and “Ye always harvest in a different season than ye sow” comes to mind.

f.       The meetings last Friday were like fresh reminders of the spring. To see a renewed resurgence of the rightness of the concept of Nurturing Customer Relationships was for me like watching the sun rise over Haleakala Crater on Maui.

Good Nurturing

Jim

I woke up really early today feeling rested, refreshed and virtually discomfort free. last evening I caught a very early Delta, big,
jam packed Boeing, scored a near-front aisle seat.  Even had a surprisingly large and equally delicious Caesar salad, with a
Latino-flavored, crusted chicken breast, cut into four perfect slices, lengthwise on top and a can of club soda. ($8)

Finished reading a gripping novel all six hours home and then slept like a baby.
I woke up with the most amazing feeling of satisfaction from this trip.
 

I’ll explain. As is the habit of most random events, this single, two-day down and back to Atlanta turned out to be the most unique and fulfilling speaking trip since I started this journey 22 years ago.

 
It began with a presentation to a November, Atlanta, Vistage CEO group last year that consisted of a normal and seemingly routine group of around 16 business leaders, event to learn more about Nurture Marketing. Having told this message over 500 times, worldwide, to just Vistage groups alone and nearly as many to Microsoft and it’s Certified Partners, I have discovered that my brain seems to have an unconscious ability to evaluate those seeing and hearing me as I illustrate the story and  weave my rationale of nature and nurture and the sometimes awesome impact it invariable makes on both the business and soon nurturing migrates to their personal lives as well.
 

Most audiences have been owners and CEO’s. Probably the most eager yet skeptical  of any unknown messages or presenters that they have committed 3 to 4 hours of their time to, while big fires may be burning back at work. So I somehow just know how to shift the volume/velocity,
the sequence of presentation and amount of time required to both keep my mind interested but it also seems to sense the mood, tempo and style every group seems to assume from their, often career long, association with their each other, their own private and very unique ‘master-mind’ group.

It is interesting to see how quickly my mind shifted to the natural speaking styles of each participant as they interacted with each other, their chairman and me.

Completely missed in this visit were two CEOs/founders/friends of two substantial, Atlanta organizations sitting quietly in their places at the horseshoe shaped table, selected for its face to face interactions,  albeit attentively, took notes and watched the morning evolve. Not a clue I could detect that I had hit a nerve and there was more to come. Not surprisingly, they were in many ways alike, very similar in drive, respectful outspokenness and fierce tenacity but each were awake, engaged and alert. And both  were succeeding very well in two very different ventures.

One is  essentially a large and exceedingly market focused organization at that is, a pharmacy as its raison d'etra. A vastly different one at that as you’ll explore at… www.hog.org

 It’s name alone tells the story. HoG; Hemoglobin of Georgia.

More than presenting, it felt much more like introducing a new piece of music to a great orchestra and watching the nods and grins of acceptance and agreement round the table as the melody unfolded. The was so much to share with  such an, eager to hear the story, team and with so much yet to learn. My admiration, inspiration and affection for the HoG team is huge.

The second half day was a different yet similar in the interest level in the concept.

For the afternoon I had the opportunity to explore the concept of Nurturing-as-Rainmaking with what I believe to be an aggressive, proactive, expansion based, highly focused and, high integrity and very innovative Law firm team.

The morning event at HoG was a love fest. A room full of about 40 natural nurturers, crowded in that long conference room, totally appropriate for such a not for profit, they seemed all prepped and  eager to explore new twists and perspectives on a subject that they practice and live, as a natural habit, and have done so long before hearing of the Nurture Institute. All primed and eager to learn more ways.

Imagine the utter contrast with a 1 hour break to flex my brain from an environment of total giving and helping into an environment of successful lawyers who are where they are and what they are often because of their very highly refined, lawyerly skills of investigative skepticism.

By mid-session I felt there were some true signs of interest in the strategy of automated and very carefully designed messaging and personal, individual contact strategy campaigns as a method of  injecting a true. go-to-market process rather than constantly entreating lawyers to become nurturers on-demand, and best of all one that does not require a personality transplant or a major advertising budget.

What a trip!

My gratitude to all those I met this week for the honor of knowing you and sowing and nurturing the ideas as  seeds in your teams’ gardens.

Good Nurturing

Jim

May neighbors respect you,
Trouble neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And heaven accept you. - Irish Blessing

May the pluck of the Irish inspire good nurturing in us all.

Have a Happy and Safe Saint Patrick’s Day.

Jim

“Should I write blog posts that increase my traffic or that help shift the way (a few) people think”? My HERO, Seth Godin opened his daily blog today asking this question. It helped clarify my purpose in sub-titling  my blog, Jim Cecil’s Journal. Nearly every day I read or hear some true wisdom and clear insights into this phenomenon of Nurture Marketing. I find it a way to discipline myself to capture, archive and share my as well as your thoughts and feelings about nurturing.
Naturally, your comments and other tips you have seen is a very important piece of the direction this blog will take going forward.

I recently read a story in CRMAdvocate, published Gary Lemke, it was written by Kevin Stirtz relating to the current nurturing theme of giving a little something extra to customers. He writes:
"As I gave my cabbie his fare and a tip he did something that surprised me. He gave me my tip back. It's called "tipping back." London cabbies often do it when they've enjoyed having someone as a customer. It's not about offering a discount. It's about making a statement in a tangible and memorable way. Tipping back a customer means finding a way to let them know you appreciate them. You've enjoyed working with them. It's your way of telling a customer they are special."
 I had never heard of the practice before but I think it is clever. Many customer experiences do not involve an actual gratuity but that doesn't mean you can't "tip back." However, the example can be translated to many customer experiences beyond simply giving back a gratuity.
How can you "tip back" to your best customers? Share your clever suggestions on how to tell customers they are appreciated and special.
Gary Lemke, Publisher

Good Nurturing

Jim

The science of gaining access to and influence with others lies deeply lodged in the mysteries of our brain. In the pursuit of better understanding the algorithms of Nurturing. I have long wondered at the different reactions that must be encountered by the vast array of personal learning preference and style that are the recipients filters. Since my early learning about individual styles and values, have always attempted to skew my communications to the personality styles as closely as possible. In my mailings, both eMail and Postal, for the Driver-Style, CEO level reader, I always included a dimensional metaphor both to add the intrigue of a ‘lumpy’ envelope, or an illustration of the metaphor that helps the recipient gain a flash of unique new understanding about the point you are trying to make. The lynchpin used as the metaphor said in a glance what might take columns of text. To make the point of our position in their production line or marketing or whatever; that we in fact are the missing piece of their overall process. Lynchpin: A common industrial tool dating back as far as the invention of the wheel and axle, a first wooden then metal device originally crafted to link the wheel to the axle in such a way as to make a broken-wheel replacement easier. As the industrial revolution unfolded the word lynchpin became the favored word use to describe anything or anyone who was a lynch pin. They/it lynched all the other components to work together as designed. The challenge is to articulate and visualize ways you are the lynchpin in whose mis-functioning process?

Since we are discussing ways to use nurturing as a means of dimensionalizing your persona and unique value we must begin to consciously work with our brain and all its multiple tools. A highly respected marketer,  Doug Tangwall [dougtangwall@endresultmarketing.com] has begun a fascinating, 10 part series of blog posts with a commentary on this most critical nurturing tool of all, both our brains and
grey-matter of others. Here are links to the first five posts. If you want more as I did, just subscribe. It’s free.

·   

·    Doug’s Most Recent Posts

o   What motivates us?: new marketing and brain research (part 5 of 10)

o   What motivates us?: new marketing and brain research (part 4 of 10)

o   What motivates us?: new marketing and brain research (part 3 of 10)

o   What motivates us?: new marketing and brain research (part 2 of 10)

o   What motivates us?: new marketing and brain research (part 1 of 10)

Good Nurturing and Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

Jim

Seth Godin wrote the first manifesto on the word Permission a decade ago. He woke us up with the sudden shift in power from seller to buyer. Few could have predicted the vital importance that the simple courtesy of requesting explicit permission before launching any truly nurturing campaign.
The customer or prospect is firmly in control of the content, velocity or even any contact at all without their explicit permission to get in.

It has been a long and difficult shift to absorb, least of all adopt, but if it is not clear by now, your access to influentials must be dwindling.

Article:    Challenge Your “Market Permission”

Pay close attention to the seeds you’ve sown.

Good Nurturing

Jim

an·tith·e·sis    (ān-tĭth'ĭ-sĭs)    
n.   pl. an·tith·e·ses (-sēz')

The direct or exact opposite: Hope is the antithesis of despair.

And SPAM is the antithesis of nurturing customer relationships. Spam can be handled by most recipients rather easily
by good spam filters but the most vile purveyors are the ones like  Dick Morris [newsmax@reply.newsmax.com]. (don’t touch that link)
unless you want to be overwhelmed by pure hate-mail in disguise as a journalistic news publication.
I was intrigued by an article forwarded to me by a trusted friend and by merely clicking on the link, I soon discovered
my name and email address to every one of their hundreds of tentacles going under various assortments of names. All totally focused on ‘hater’,
far right wing propaganda I began to react respectfully by clicking on their unsubscribe button and found the link to be disconnected. I carefully
responded to each sender with an ‘unsubscribe’ on the subject line. After ten days of futility and no answer or unsubscribe their virus has spread
and new eMails come in a flood from their follower, pseudo-journalists. It seems I am relegated to forever hitting the ‘block-sender’ key with vengeance.

As technology and the internet continue to allow such relentless attacks, eMail marketing and digital Nurture-Marketing will progressively become
more difficult to execute let alone getting seen.

Good Nurturing

Jim

“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
Antithesis in Howards End by E.M. Forster

“Every one of us, unconsciously, works out a personal philosophy of life, by which we are

guided, inspired, and corrected, as time goes on. It is this philosophy by which we measure

out our days, and by which we advertise to all about us the man, or woman, that we are. . . .

It takes but a brief time to scent the life philosophy of anyone. It is defined in the conversation,

in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It’s like the

perfume of the flower—unseen, but known almost instantly. It is the possession of the

successful, and the happy.
And it can be greatly embellished by the absorption of ideas and experiences of the useful of this earth.”
-- George Matthew Adams

I often revisit my ardently-kept personal journals on unique analogies between modern-day farming and

21^st century marketing. Being born on a struggling patch of earth that my dad simply called the Cecil place; not being
nearly large enough to be called a FARM. From age 5, I watched my older siblings truly toil from sun-up till moon-rise

to winnow every possible bit of harvest they could influence. That meant a whole lot of digging, carrying water, hoeing weeds,

trapping critter thieves, and picking bugs off plants, and yes, done bare-handed.  Speaking at a recent Farm Equipment trade show and convention at McCormack Place in Chicago, I was stunned at the juxtaposition I saw at the John-Deere lavish display. There in the glaring spotlight was a tractor straight out of Star-Wars.

Try to imagine a farm tractor that housed a driver in an air-conditioned command box with the technology of a space launch at his/her finger tips. I visualized the gasp my Dad, now happily farming a different field somewhere in the universe, would have uttered at the amazing sight beheld. Can you see a gigantic, bright green, surprisingly silent and zero emissions tractor.
Front-equipped with a yard long series of sensors and probes conducting a serious set of facts about each square foot of ground. Calculating any variable from plan and automating the exact nutrients each spot needed on a bright color screen spotlighting questionable data for the driver.

Now from the rear of this behemoth you are seeing a perhaps 3 yard wide set of razor sharp blades plowing and forming for yet another device called a ‘disc-harrow, that pulverizes the huge chunks into a precision bed of perfect readiness for simultaneous delivery of its own unique feeding and the oh so carefully nurtured seed.

It would be unbelievable had I not both seen it with my own eyes.

I realized how combining the best thinking from the industrial age with the wizardly world of the internet age

had much to teach us all.

Imagine what would happen to the bottom line of our company, the productivity and satisfaction of employees, customers, prospects and centers of-influence.

Can you imagine what will happen when we adopt that same level of precision to the nurturing of our own customer relationship-seeds?  

Oh, it’s now called CRM, it brings to mind the immortal words of Obi Wan Kino be in Star Wars; “Use the FORCE, Luke!”.

It would seem obvious but the analogy is crystal-clear, I would think, to natural-nurturers.

Pay attention to those seeds and be useful to this earth.

Good Nurturing

Jim

A natural-nurturer: Bill Gates not #1 -- at least for now, Mexican Carlos Slim is Forbes "World's Richest" worth $53.5 billion. But Forbes noted that without Gates extensive philanthropy, Gates would be worth $80 billion. And a mere dollar rise in Microsoft stock will catapult him ahead of Slim as well. Mark Zuckerburg, founder of Facebook, was again the youngest (25) on the list worth $4 billion. Notable was the significant jump in billionaires in Turkey from 13 to 28 (Istanbul is a hotbed of activity) and the overall jump in Asia. And half the world's self-made women billionaires are from China!

Here's a great summary article so you're informed for the weekend cocktail party circuit.

With Thanks to Verne Harnish, Founder of GAZELLES