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July 29, 2020

Coronavirus COVID-19PodcastStrategy

Four Questions Your Business Needs to Ask Right Now (Thinks Out Loud Episode 297)

July 29, 2020 | By | No Comments

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Four Questions Your Business Needs to Ask Right Now (Thinks Out Loud Episode 297) — Headlines and Show Notes

How long do you think the current downturn is going to last? How ready are you if you if it lasts for another 6 months? Another year? Longer?

While there’s no guarantee how long this recession will last, there are actions you can take to make it shorter, at least for your business. And those actions start with four questions your business needs to ask right now.

What are those questions? The latest episode of Thinks Out Loud outlines the four questions your business needs to ask right now — and offers some insights on possible answers too.

Want to learn more? Here are the show notes for you:

Thinks Out Loud is sponsored by SoloSegment: SoloSegment increases large-enterprise, B2B website conversion with easy-to-install software that automatically connects website visitors to the content they need to see to achieve their goals. SoloSegment does this using anonymous data and machine learning ensuring privacy compliance, addressing the many anonymous visitors, and improving the efficiency of marketing teams. Visit SoloSegment.com.

Subscribe to Thinks Out Loud

Contact information for the podcast: podcast@timpeter.com

Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks

You might also want to check out these slides I had the pleasure of presenting recently about the key trends shaping marketing in the next year. Here are the slides for your reference:

Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud

Recorded using a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Mic and a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface into Logic Pro X for the Mac.

Running time: 17m 43s

You can subscribe to Thinks Out Loud in iTunes, the Google Play Store, via our dedicated podcast RSS feed (or sign up for our free newsletter). You can also download/listen to the podcast here on Thinks using the player at the top of this page.

Four Questions Your Business Needs to Ask Right Now (Thinks Out Loud Episode 297) — Transcript

Well, hello again, everyone. And welcome back to Thinks Out Loud, your source for all the digital marketing expertise your business needs. My name is Tim Peter. This is episode 297 of the big show. And thank you so much for tuning in. I know I say it every week, but I really appreciate it. I just wouldn’t do the show without you.

And I think we’ve got a really cool show for you today. There’s some interesting news that is very much worth examining for what it might mean to you as the year goes on. So there was a news story today, originally reported in the Wall Street Journal, and since then has been picked up by a lot of folks, but basically it is that Google announced today that they are going work from home until July of 2021. They’re going work from home. They’re having all their employees work from home for the next year.

Now, this is after people have already been working from home for the last, you know, three or four months here in the States, and they’re doing this globally. And I think there’s a lot to unpack in terms of what this could mean.

You know, the first thing is, does Google know something we don’t. And yeah, the easy answer is, well, probably yeah. I mean, who are we kidding? You know, Google always knows something we don’t. aAnd I have no interest in starting any kind of conspiracy theory. I mean, they probably don’t know anything specifically about what’s gonna happen with COVID and work from home, but they have immense amounts of data. I’m sure there are people searching right now, whether they are healthcare researchers, whether they are office managers, you know, executives or folks tasked with, by executives, with understanding when they can bring people back to the office. And Google is probably using that data to make the best decision they can for their company, given the situation.

And even if Google doesn’t know anything we don’t know — even if Google is not making any decision based on any data — but just based on what they think, their action leads to a number of questions that are worth taking a few minutes to think about.

And the first of these is: Have you thought about how long this situation will go on? How long this will last for your business?

The second question, which I think is equally important is have you thought about how long this will go on for your customers?

And the third question, which is the most important and probably the one that brings those two questions together is have you thought about what your customers needs are for however long this lasts and how you can help fill those needs?

And it’s that last question that I really want to focus on, though I guarantee you, I will circle back to the other two before we’re done.

As we’ve been through this last three or four month period where the world has kind of gone to hell. Well, let me rephrase that. I mean, the world is starting to recover, but here in the States, we’re still kind of struggling through this right now.
And as this has occurred, some businesses have done a masterful job, a really extraordinary job of adapting to the changes we’ve seen to date in customer behavior. Restaurants and retailers who launched curbside pickup or delivery immediately after the quarantine went into effect, small startups and retooled companies who introduced products like masks and the hand sanitizer.

Now are those sustainable actions? That’s a really good question. But I’d argue that any company who pivoted quickly and who continues to pivot quickly, undoubtedly puts themselves in a better position to succeed. Not because the action they took was perfect or the action they took was absolutely the best of all possible actions, but because they demonstrated in that pivot to their customers — and equally important to themselves — that they can adapt, that they can adapt on the fly to the needs of the moment.

There’s this myth in business and one that I subscribed to for a lot longer than I wish I had, but there’s this myth about the perfect strategy, about this ability to predict the future with such precision, that you are — I’m going to borrow hockey legend Wayne Gretzky’s analogy — always going to skate to where the puck is going, not where it is. But if we can borrow from another sports legend, boxer Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. And let’s face it, no pun intended there, we all just got punched in the face. All of us. Me too. You know, I typically prefer to talk about my clients and their successes, and the lessons that we learned together. But I’m a business owner too.

My business depends on the success of my clients and when they’re hurting, my company does too. About half of the business that we generate out of Tim Peter & Associates each year comes from the travel industry. Some years a little more, some years a little less. But given what’s going on with the travel industry, that means that about half of our business dropped by a ton. And one of my clients outside of travel ran into some pretty significant challenges as well. We all got punched in the face together at the same time.

So we, the company here, had a few options available to us. You know, we could have fired existing clients who couldn’t afford our services. I could have been a hard ass about payment from folks who were in trouble. I could have, I dunno, tried to ignore the problem. But as the last couple of months have demonstrated, that doesn’t work.

So, you know, we did a few things instead of that. And to be really clear, none of this, not one single part of what I’m going to tell you is to make me or the folks at my company the hero of this story. Because everything we did was inspired by our clients and how hard they were working and how creative they were in finding ways to help their customers, to help their employees and to help their communities.

And in pretty much every case that creativity all started with the same question. And that question was, how can I help?

And so those were the conversations I had with my clients. And that’s the conversations people on the team had with our clients. To listen to them and to find solutions that worked for them and for us. And it seems to be helping them. We only lost one client through the process. And yes, I’m doing this because I’m a nice guy. Sure. Okay. Fine. But also it’s really a poor strategy, you know, if you’re the reason your customers go out of business. Particularly as a consultant, right? But if you work with businesses and you’re the reason they go out of business, that my friends is the definition of a losing strategy. You know what I mean? That’s not a thing you want to do. I want to make sure that any check that any client ever writes to my company is not the last check they ever write. I would rather act like Jack and the Beanstalk. We take that and we plant that to, you know, build a Beanstalk and go find some giants. That’s just a far more interesting thing to me.

We also found some new clients through content marketing. You know, the team has done a really great job of putting together content that answers key questions that customers have, and that helps customers help themselves. And a couple of folks have reached out to us and said, “Hey, can you help us do this for our customers?”

And all of that comes down to listening. There’s this old saying about you have two ears and one mouth and use them in the same ratio. Says me unironically, the guy who hosts a podcast where I talk to you all the time. You’d think I know better. Maybe that’s why I hear the expression, so often. <aybe people are saying to me, “Hey Tim: Two ears.”

Now, I don’t know. But that’s, that’s something where particularly at a time like this, you’ve got to listen to your customers. And there are some very practical and some very pragmatic and some very tactical, functional things you can do right now.

You need to be listening to your customers. And what I mean by that is there is data from search and social listening, you know, there’s some great options here that are free, low cost, and paid. It can be as simple as going to Google, doing a search for keywords that you want to rank for, or that your competitors rank for, seeing what are the questions that people are asking around those keywords, and then creating some content around those questions.

And here’s the thing you’re not necessarily trying to rank in search for that. It’d be great if you did. But that can be challenging, right? What you want to do is create some content that you can use to then promote on social and on other channels, that you can send in an email to people maybe you haven’t heard from for some time. Send them a note that says, “Hey, we just put this together. And I was thinking of you, and maybe this would be helpful to you right now.”

Now if you rank in search? Even better, because you might get some people who, you know, will see you who you might not have reached before. But you’re responding to the questions that you know are relevant.

Obviously you don’t even have to use Google for that. You can talk to some of your customers and say,

“What are the problems you’re having right now? What are the problems you expect to have three months from now? What are the problems you expect to have six months from now? What are the problems you expect to have a year from now? If you were to look back a year from now on where you are right now, what would you have done to get where you want to be?”

Obviously, there’s a ton of great tools out there. You know, a BuzzSumo or Google or Facebook or LinkedIn or Bing or Salesforce.com or MailChimp, plenty of others have done some tremendous work in putting together resources to help businesses of all sizes, figure out how they do what’s right for their business and for their, for their customers.

Salesforce, by the way, I want to give them a huge shout out. I have no relationship to the company, but I think they’ve done a tremendous job with a model that they’ve used that’s very straightforward. They have a three step process:

  • Stabilize
  • Reopen
  • Grow.
  • And for each of those, what do you need to do in each of four areas to make sure you’re doing what’s right for your customers and for your company?

Recap: The Four Questions Your Business Needs to Ask Right Now

And obviously I’m going to link to all of this in the show notes, but all of this comes back to four questions, the three questions from the beginning of the show and the one that I gave you part way through, which is:

  • Have you thought about how long this is going to go on for your business? Where do you need to be three months from now?Where do you need to be six months from now? Where do you need to be nine months from now? Where do you need to be a year from now?
  • Have you thought about how long this is going to go on for your customers and the same timeframes, where are they going to be three months down the road? Where are they going to be nine months down the road?
  • The third question of course is, have you thought about what their needs are and how you can help fill those needs?
  • And the fourth question is how can I help? Not, not, this is not me asking you. This is what you need to ask your customers and listen to what they say. And it’s something you’re going to need to keep asking until we’re through this situation, because how you can help is probably going to change over the coming days and weeks and months.

It’s why listening is so important. It’s why asking is so important because your customers may answer that or may have different questions in September and in November and in January and in April then they’re asking right now, And you have to be prepared to help them as they go. You know, when we talk about the folks who transitioned quickly to delivery or in store pickup, and we talk about the folks who transitioned to making hand sanitizer and making face masks, they were thinking about where their customers were in the moment. And where the moment is, is going to change. Where people are in the moment is going to change.

So I would encourage you to think about how long you think this is going to go on for your business. Think about how long you think this is going to go on for your customers. Think about what their needs are. And think about how you can help fill those needs. And just remember to keep asking them, “how can I help?”

And if you do those four things and react to the answers appropriately, you’re going to put yourself in a good position to be around for a long time. To be able to stabilize. To be able to reopen. And when the time is right — when the market is ready — to be able to grow. And that’s the really exciting thing. You can do this, just do what you gotta do to make it through the crisis. Make sure you’re doing the right thing. Listen to your customers. Respond to what their needs are. And you’re going to be okay.

Thinks Out Loud Outro and Credits

Now looking at the clock on the wall, we are out of time for this week. I want to remind you that you can find the show notes for today’s episode, as well as an archive of all past episodes by going to TimPeter.com/podcast. Again, that’s TimPeter.com/podcast. Just look for episode 297. While you’re there. You can click on the subscribe link in any of the episodes. You find there to have Thinks Out Loud delivered to your favorite podcatcher every single week.

You can also find Thinks Out Loud on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, wherever fine podcasts are found. Just do a search for Tim Peter Thinks, Tim Peter Thinks Out Loud or Thinks Out Loud. We should show up for any of those. I would also very much appreciate it while you’re there if you could provide us a positive rating or review. It helps new listeners find us, it helps us show up better in search on those various podcast hosting services, and it helps new listeners understand what the show is all about. It really makes a huge difference to the podcast overall. I very much appreciate it.

You can also find Thinks Out Loud on Facebook by going to facebook.com/TimPeterAssociates. You can find me on Twitter using the Twitter handle @TCPeter. And of course you can email me by sending an email to podcast@TimPeter.com.
Again, that’s podcast@TimPeter.com.

I’d like to thank our sponsor. Thinks Out Loud is brought to you by SoloSegment. SoloSegment helps large enterprise B2B companies convert more customers with easy to deploy software as a service that automatically connects website visitors to the content they need to achieve their goals. SoloSegment does this using anonymous data and machine learning to ensure privacy compliance, address the needs of your visitors and improve the efficiency of your marketing team. You can learn more by going to SoloSegment.com. Again, that’s SoloSegment.com

With that, I want to say thanks so much for tuning in. I very much appreciate your listening week after week. It means so much to me. I hope you have a great rest of the week. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And I’ll look forward to speaking with you here on Thinks Out Loud next time. Until then please be well, be safe and, as ever take care, everybody.

Tim Peter
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June 24, 2020

Artificial Intelligence (AI)Digital TransformationE-commerce

The Five Drivers of E-commerce and Digital Transformation for Your Business (Thinks Out Loud Episode 293)

June 24, 2020 | By | No Comments

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Drivers of digital transformation and e-commerce: Woman interacting with mobile deviceLooking to drive results for your business? Click here to learn more.

The Five Drivers of E-commerce and Digital Transformation for Your Business (Thinks Out Loud Episode 293) — Headlines and Shownotes

We’re seeing an enormous shift to digital during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the pandemic is only accelerating that shift. The fact is, we’ve been moving this way for some time. And regardless of what’s most important to your business right now, there are five drivers of e-commerce and digital transformation that will shape your business even once the pandemic is gone — whenever that happens to be.

What are the five drivers of e-commerce and digital transformation for your business? How can you put those drivers to work? And how can you build a plan that sets you up for success now and in the longer term? This episode of Thinks Out Loud takes a look at the five drivers of e-commerce and digital transformation and offers answers to your key questions.

Want to learn more? Here are the show notes for you.:

Relevant Links — The Five Drivers of E-commerce and Digital Transformation for Your Business (Thinks Out Loud Episode 293)

Thinks Out Loud is sponsored by SoloSegment: SoloSegment increases large-enterprise, B2B website conversion with easy-to-install software that automatically connects website visitors to the content they need to see to achieve their goals. SoloSegment does this using anonymous data and machine learning ensuring privacy compliance, addressing the many anonymous visitors, and improving the efficiency of marketing teams. Visit SoloSegment.com.

Subscribe to Thinks Out Loud

Contact information for the podcast: podcast@timpeter.com

Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks

You might also want to check out these slides I had the pleasure of presenting recently about the key trends shaping marketing in the next year. Here are the slides for your reference:

Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud

Recorded using a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Mic and a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface into Logic Pro X for the Mac.

Running time: 25m 06s

You can subscribe to Thinks Out Loud in iTunes, the Google Play Store, via our dedicated podcast RSS feed (or sign up for our free newsletter). You can also download/listen to the podcast here on Thinks using the player at the top of this page.

Transcript — The Five Drivers of E-commerce and Digital Transformation for Your Business (Thinks Out Loud Episode 293)

Well, hello again, everyone and welcome back to Thinks Out Loud, your source for all the digital marketing expertise your business needs. My name is Tim Peter, this is episode 293 of the big show, and thank you so much for tuning in. I very, very much appreciate it.

Introduction to the Five Drivers of E-commerce and Digital Transformation

So I was having a discussion the other day with a client about their digital transformation project and we got into pretty lengthy discussion about the similarities and differences between e-commerce, the shift towards e-commerce, and digital transformation efforts more broadly. And to be fair, both e-commerce and digital transformation share the same five key drivers.

There are differences between them and those differences are meaningful. And I want to talk about those a little bit in just a minute or two. But I also want to talk about what connects them and what's driving them in all cases, in both cases.

Economic Challenges Facing Companies

The big reason that both are so important is because of the changes in the way that you need to operate your business and how critical those changes are right now with the number of people struggling with reduced incomes because they've been laid off, and the lack of business, travel and conferences to drive sales. And the decline in customers that result from those realities. You know, there's data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) , the United States Congressional Budget Office that expects that U.S. consumers will spend on average about $340 billion less each quarter through the end of 2021 than the Congressional Budget Office was projecting just this past January. The same CBO projections — and I will as ever link to these in the show notes — suggest that businesses will invest about $160 billion less each quarter during that same period. So we're talking, you know, a decline of about a half a trillion dollars per quarter for the next 18 months. That's a huge deal.

So whether your business is selling to consumers directly or to other businesses, whether you're B2C or B2B, there's clearly less opportunity than there used to be. And that means you have to find more effective and much more efficient ways to reach whatever customer demand does exist in your market or markets.

Why Digital Matters Right Now for Your Business

And that's why lots of businesses are putting more emphasis on their digital channels: to generate sales and to generate revenues. That's why we're seeing an explosion of e-commerce efforts. That's why we're seeing, as you know, Microsoft said a couple of months back, "two years of digital transformation in just two months."

I know a marketing director from a Fortune 500 company who told me recently that they're spending as much money on their website and on their digital experience this summer as they spent all of last year. Because they need to. A small business owner who I know just hired a full time digital marketer for his team for the first time in this company's history, because they need to be more effective at driving revenues online if they're going to be around, you know, six months from now, 12 months from now.

So I'll get into the distinctions between digital transformation and e-commerce in just a second. But it's important that you realize they share the same five drivers in both cases.

The Five Drivers Explained

Customer Centricity

First and most importantly, they are driven by customer centricity. If digital has created one massive change more than any other, it is that the customer is in the driver's seat today in a way that they never were 30 years ago, 40 years ago. It is all about the customer. Everything you do must be all about the customer. You have to be fast. You have to let people accomplish what they want to accomplish and get back to the rest of their lives. Because if you don't, their ability to check out a competitor of yours is literally and figuratively one click away, right? One tap on the screen away. So customer centricity matters most of all. And companies that understand, these are the ones who are doing well. They're the ones who are saying, "We must listen to our customer. We must learn from our customer. And we must support our customer at every stage of their journey if we're going to survive, thrive and succeed in the long run."

Mobile

The second big driver, and this is one I've talked about a lot — I actually referred to it as Trend Zero — is that "mobile is not a trend." This is really about the continuum of connectivity that customers now have available to them, you know, from mobile phones and tablets and smartwatches to sensors that are embedded in the devices that we interact with and carry with us and ride around in all day every day, whether it's, you know, fitness, trackers or cars or TVs, or other less visible tech. That simple reality of constant connectivity and carrying the internet in our pockets, wherever we go, or on our wrists, wherever we go or in our cars, wherever we go is a massive, massive change that makes a digital focus for your company necessary. And that's especially true of customers who've grown up with mobile and grown up with digital all around them, millennials — or as I call them adults under 40. They take this for granted because it's literally the way the world has worked all of their lives.

Radical Transparency

After mobile, the third driver is the rise of radical transparency. It is a simple fact that customers can find the information they want about your products and services or your competitors' products and services everywhere. All the time, whenever they want wherever they want. It has created a reality — and I've said this many times on the show — where your customers know more about your products and services and prices and features and benefits than most of your employees do — because it matters more to them. This radical transparency cuts in the opposite direction too, because we now have more data about customers than at any other time in history. We know more about their behaviors and their preferences and their actions. Then any marketer in history ever could have known, 50 years ago, a hundred years ago. And this has created complete insight into what our customers want and need just as they get complete insight into what we offer to fill those needs.

Data-Driven Decision Making

The fourth key driver is data driven decision making. If we are collecting all this data and not using it to actually make better decisions, we're wasting one of the most valuable resources we have available to us as marketers and as business professionals overall. It's a huge, huge difference because again, the data exists and the tools exist to interpret that data in an effective way in a useful way. I talked about this on the show a couple of weeks ago about the number of marketers who do not use data in their decision making, or do not always use data in their decision making and why that's such a huge mistake. You know, 10 years ago, I used to order food from a local brew pub and would always want to talk to this one bartender who knew me really well and knew what I liked to order and would ask the right questions because they'd always get the order right. But I had to talk to that one person to be sure I'd get what I wanted. Today, you know, when I call this local restaurant near to me and get takeout, they know who I am, the moment that they answer the phone, because they recognize the phone number in their system. You know, it's screen pops on their POS and says, "This is Tim and we know what he's ordered in the past." And they get my order right every single time. They're using the data to make decisions about how to serve the customer.

Using Data to Enable Business Process Automation

What I just described is really the fifth driver to a certain degree, which is using that data to enable automation. When we think about AI and machine learning and big data and all the other buzz words that go around a lot they're really about letting machines do the heavy lifting on your data to make decisions that can be automated. We're not outsourcing thinking. We're not outsourcing asking the critical questions that drive our businesses. But we are outsourcing answering those questions. You know, I call this show Thinks Out Loud, and I think of you all as "Big Thinkers." And the fact of the matter is you think big thoughts, you think smart questions. And, you know, as recently as six months ago or a year ago or two years ago, to get the answers to those questions could require incredibly, incredibly heavy lifting from your team and from the people who worked for your company. And frequently today because of more intelligent systems, you can essentially get the answer to your question at the press of a button. And obviously when you scale up to really good sized data sets and data science and the like you can get deeper, richer answers to those questions because you're automating the process of getting the answer.

So those are the big drivers, regardless of whether we're talking e-commerce or whether we're talking digital transformation, it's the same five drivers:

  1. Customer centricity
  2. Mobile
  3. Radical transparency
  4. Data driven decision making, and
  5. Using that data to enable automation.

Difference Between E-commerce and Digital Transformation

Now I started at the beginning by saying how e-commerce and digital transformation are different. So where do they differ and why is this difference important? Well, when we talk about e-commerce, you're really talking about how do you improve the customer experience through your sales channels, through your online sales channels. You're really thinking only about one or maybe a handful of touch points for the consumer and mostly during the purchasing process. Whereas digital transformation is really about re-envisioning your business from the ground up.

You know, e-commerce doesn't necessarily drive changes in, for instance, your HR policy. By contrast, digital transformation really cuts across the people, your processes, your platforms, and your products. It's not just a technical thing. It's not just a one channel thing. It's using digital to improve all the areas of your business and addressing all of the financial and legal and cultural and human aspects associated with those.

Now, why does this distinction matter? Because it's important that you recognize whether you're transforming sales and marketing or whether you're transforming your business as a whole.

Definition of Digital Transformation

I'm generally fond of saying that companies like Google and Facebook and Amazon and Netflix and Uber and Airbnb and all their other digitally native brethren don't have a digital transformation problem because they all came into being at the same time that digital became a way of life for companies and customers alike they are, as I just said a moment ago, digitally native. And most legacy companies — actually by definition — legacy companies are not. And so digital transformation is the process of envisioning and enabling what your company would look like if you were just starting business today, if you were the proverbial couple of folks in a garage. What would your company look like if you were starting from the ground up right now?

And that's really the difference that we're talking about. Now to be totally fair. I'm guilty of, of conflating the two terms myself. Episode 13 of this humble, this very podcast from Oh God, seven and a half years ago (!) was called "It's All. E-commerce," which has long been my mantra for explaining the fundamental shifts that digital has caused over the last 20 years or so. Because when customers are interacting with all kinds of elements of your business, using whatever tool is available to them, whatever digital tool is available to them, your facilitating a deeper, richer customer experience that meets their needs when and where they are. Which leads to more loyalty, which leads to more sales, which is why it's kind of all e-commerce right.

And certainly when we talk about, you know, offline sales, we know today that they're heavily digitally influenced. So "it's all e-commerce." And let's be really fair, many digital transformation efforts have started within companies because of e-commerce experiences exposing holes in your system or in your processes or in your overall customer experience. And that means you have to improve back office stuff or fulfillment or supply chain or products or HR, or the people processes that support those so that you can actually fulfill on what your customers want.

Why You Must Respond to the Five Drivers of Digital Transformation and E-commerce

Of course, at this point, it's fair to ask. Why do you need to respond to these drivers, to these five drivers, whether it's e-commerce or whether it's digital transformation, why is it important you respond?

And the simple answer is because your customers expect you to. As I said a few minutes ago, your competition is simply one click away or one screen tap away. The reason the big guys are winning or a big reason the big guys are winning — and by the big guys, I mean the Apples and Googles and Facebooks and Amazons and Microsofts and Netflix's and Uber's and Airbnb's and the like — are winning is because they understand these trends and have adapted to them, or have built themselves from the ground up to do well. They're investing heavily and they've set themselves up to reap the rewards. Now I've talked about it all the different ways they do that in the past. And I will link to them all in the show notes. But the most important thing for you to take away is that you can do the same thing.

Those of you who have listened to the show or read the blog regularly over the years, probably you're thinking, well, you're probably going to say "Content is King. Customer Experience is Queen. And Data is the Crown Jewels." And, yes, those are incredibly important. They come later though. They're a set of guiding principles you can use to respond to those five drivers. You know, they're kind of key to your response to the five drivers.

How to Respond to the Five Drivers of Digital Transformation and E-commerce

But I think for many people and really the crux of the conversation I was having with a client the other day is how do you get started? Yes, we know content is king. Yeah, we know customer experience is queen and yeah, we know data is the crown jewels, but where do you begin? And like any good strategic initiative, there's really a very simple process for how you deal with this.

Define Your Objectives

First, you have to define your objectives. Whether you're talking a commerce or whether you're talking digital transformation, what are you trying to accomplish? What does success look like for your business? Are you trying to simply survive or you trying to thrive? And let me be abundantly clear. Given the current state of the economy that I talked about at the beginning of this episode, there is nothing wrong with simply surviving right now. As my friend Mark Schaefer says, if you don't get to the other side by definition, you cannot thrive.

You also need to be thinking about the longterm to what are your longterm objectives? Where do you want to be in 10 years time? Do you want to be in three years time? What is success over an extended period, look like in addition to what does success look like for the next six months? How do you ensure you're still in business? So first again, you have to define your objectives.

Assess Your Current State

The second is you have to do an honest assessment of where you are right now. You know, start with where are you so good that customers would be foolish to choose your competitors? And then ask, where are your people and your products and your processes and your platforms lacking. You know, where are you weak enough that customers would be foolish not to choose your competitors? If you can't do that honest assessment — if you don't do that honest assessment — you won't be able to understand the gap between what those objectives are and where you are at the moment.

Identify Obstacles Preventing Your Digital Success

And then once you understand those two things, take a good look at what's preventing you from moving forward. Just like the second one, you need to be really honest with yourself. And in that honesty, be aware that, you know, time and money aren't really true limitations. I've done work with six current members of the Fortune 100 in my career, half of whom are in the Fortune 50. And I can tell you that none of these massive organizations ever once said to me, "Oh no, we have all the budget and all the time and all the people we could possibly need to accomplish everything we want to do." Everyone has that problem. Look first at the things that truly stop you. Are your competitors winning the war for talent? Do you lack skills in certain key areas? Have you under invested in new technologies or capabilities? Be clear on what's actually hurting you, what's actually preventing you from reaching your objectives so that you can actually develop a plan that will get you ahead.

Define Your Plan to Close the Gap

And then once you've defined those objectives, once you've assessed where you are, once you've taken a good look at what's stopping you from moving forward, that's when you can put together the successful plan. You can say, "What are the things that get in the way of where we are? And what will help us close the gap between where we are and where we want to be?"

Start with your priorities. What can you do in the next 90 days to fix what's hurting you, what's most important to your business and to go back to one of our drivers, what's most important to your customers?

Summary — The Five Drivers of E-commerce and Digital Transformation for Your Business

So as you think about digital transformation, as you think about e-commerce for your business, you know, recognize that there are these five key drivers customer centricity, mobile, the rise of radical transparency, data-driven decision making and using data to enable automation. Take a good long look at where you're trying to get to where you are today, what prevents you from getting from where you are to where you want to be, and putting together the plan to close that gap. And whether your objectives are to get through the next three to six months or whether it gets through the next three to six years or whether to get through the next three to six decades, e-commerce and digital transformation together are going to help you get there. And they're going to help you get there as long as you do the work to address the reality of those key drivers and create the kind of business that your customers expect. And more importantly given the kind of challenges that people are facing right now, to create the kind of company that your customers need.

Conclusion — The Five Drivers of E-commerce and Digital Transformation for Your Business

Now, looking at the clock on the wall, we are out of time for this week. And before I tell you all the things you need to know about how you can find Thinks Out Loud and subscribe to Thinks Out Loud and all the stuff we talk about week after week, I do want to let you know that I won't have an episode for you next week. It is the July 4th holiday weekend here in America on next Friday. It's a short week. I suspect lots of folks in lots of places will not be listening to podcasts much. So we're going to go on sabbatical for a week. I will be back the first full week in July.

But with that, I do want to remind you that you can find the show notes for today's episode and as well as an archive of all our past episodes by going to TimPeter.com/podcast. Again, that's TimPeter.com/podcast. Just look for episode 293. While you're there, you can click on the subscribe link in any of the episodes you find there to have Thinks Out Loud delivered to your favorite podcatcher every single week. You can also find Thinks Out Loud on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, again, whatever your favorite pod catcher happens to be, you should be able to find us there. Just do a search for Tim Peter Thinks, Tim Peter Thinks Out Loud, or Thinks Out Loud. We should show up for any of those.

I would also really appreciate it while you're there if you could provide us a positive rating or review. It helps new listeners find us, helps them understand what the show is all about and makes a huge difference to the podcast overall.

You can find Thinks Out Loud on Facebook by going to facebook.com/TimPeterAssociates. You can find me on Twitter using the Twitter handle @tcpeter. And of course you can email me by sending an email to podcast@timpeter.com. Again, that's podcast@timpeter.com.

As ever, I'd like to thank our sponsor. Thinks Out Loud is brought to you by SoloSegment, SoloSegment increases large enterprise B2B website conversion with easy to install software as a service that automatically connects website visitors to the content they need to achieve their goals. So those segment does this using anonymous data and machine learning to ensure privacy compliance, address the needs of your anonymous visitors and improve the efficiency of your marketing team. You can learn more by going to SoloSegment.com. Again, that is SoloSegment.com.

With that I want to say, thanks so much for tuning in. I really appreciate you listening. I know I say this a lot, but I would not do this show if you weren't listening. I enjoy getting a chance to speak with you every week. And I really appreciate that you take the time to listen.

So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week. I hope you have a great weekend and I'm looking forward to speaking with here on Thinks Out Loud next time. Until then, please, especially in these trying times, be well, be safe and as ever, take care everybody.

Tim Peter
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June 16, 2020

PodcastStrategy

There is Never a “New Normal” In Digital (Thinks Out Loud Episode 292)

June 16, 2020 | By | No Comments

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There is never a new normal in digital: Woman reading on her mobile phoneLooking to drive results for your business? Click here to learn more.

There is Never a “New Normal” In Digital — Headlines and Show Notes

If you’re anything like me, you’re getting tired of everyone talking about the “new normal” of the post-COVID world. We’re a long way from “normal” and aren’t likely to get there soon. However, the current state of dynamic change, rapidly evolving customer behaviors, and competing priorities isn’t a “new normal” for digital professionals. It’s how we’ve worked for years. We were made for this moment. That’s a good thing — and one you want to use to your advantage.

The latest episode of Thinks Out Loud looks at why there’s never a new normal in digital and how you can use that fact to benefit you and your business.

Want to learn more? Here are the show notes for you:

Relevant Links — There is Never a “New Normal” in Digital (Episode 292)

Yep. It’s a Recession (AKA It’s Always Darkest Before It’s Pitch Black)

  • We’re in a Recession. What Should Your Marketing Team Do? (Thinks Out Loud Episode 291)

    • Rapid Pace of Change (AKA There is Never a “New Normal”)

    The Frightful Five (AKA AGFAM) are Taking Advantage

    Millennials (AKA Adults Under 40)

    How You Can — And Should — Respond

    Thinks Out Loud is sponsored by SoloSegment: SoloSegment increases large-enterprise, B2B website conversion with easy-to-install software that automatically connects website visitors to the content they need to see to achieve their goals. SoloSegment does this using anonymous data and machine learning ensuring privacy compliance, addressing the many anonymous visitors, and improving the efficiency of marketing teams. Visit SoloSegment.com.

    Subscribe to Thinks Out Loud

    Contact information for the podcast: podcast@timpeter.com

    Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks

    You might also want to check out these slides I had the pleasure of presenting recently about the key trends shaping marketing in the next year. Here are the slides for your reference:

    Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud

    Recorded using a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Mic and a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface into Logic Pro X for the Mac.

    Running time: 14m 43s

    You can subscribe to Thinks Out Loud in iTunes, the Google Play Store, via our dedicated podcast RSS feed (or sign up for our free newsletter). You can also download/listen to the podcast here on Thinks using the player at the top of this page.

    Tim Peter
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    June 9, 2020

    Artificial Intelligence (AI)Coronavirus COVID-19Digital Transformation

    We’re in a Recession. What Should Your Marketing Team Do? (Thinks Out Loud Episode 291)

    June 9, 2020 | By | No Comments

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download

    Subscribe: Android | RSS

    What should your marketing team do in a recession: Woman shopping on tabletLooking to drive results for your business? Click here to learn more.

    We’re in a Recession. What Should Your Marketing Team Do? (Thinks Out Loud Episode 291) — Headlines and Show Notes

    Well, the news we’re all been looking for is finally here: We’re officially in a recession. That of course is on top of the existing bad news about the global pandemic, social unrest, and a contentious political environment in the US — as well as many other places around the world. So, what should your marketing team do?

    The good news is that there are a number of things you and your team can do. And they all start with the simplest of tasks: listening. This episode of Thinks Out Loud looks at how you and your team can listen to your customers more effectively, why that’s so important when we’re in a recession, and what will happen if you don’t do the right things with that information.

    Want to learn more? Here are the show notes for you:

    Relevant Links — We’re in a Recession. What Should Your Marketing Team Do? (Thinks Out Loud Episode 291)

    Thinks Out Loud is sponsored by SoloSegment: SoloSegment increases large-enterprise, B2B website conversion with easy-to-install software that automatically connects website visitors to the content they need to see to achieve their goals. SoloSegment does this using anonymous data and machine learning ensuring privacy compliance, addressing the many anonymous visitors, and improving the efficiency of marketing teams. Visit SoloSegment.com.

    Subscribe to Thinks Out Loud

    Contact information for the podcast: podcast@timpeter.com

    Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks

    You might also want to check out these slides I had the pleasure of presenting recently about the key trends shaping marketing in the next year. Here are the slides for your reference:

    Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud

    Recorded using a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Mic and a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface into Logic Pro X for the Mac.

    Running time: 17m 22s

    You can subscribe to Thinks Out Loud in iTunes, the Google Play Store, via our dedicated podcast RSS feed (or sign up for our free newsletter). You can also download/listen to the podcast here on Thinks using the player at the top of this page.

    Tim Peter
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    May 19, 2020

    Digital TransformationPodcastStrategy

    We Live Online Now (Thinks Out Loud Episode 288)

    May 19, 2020 | By | No Comments

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download

    Subscribe: Android | RSS

    We live online now: Young woman video chatting onlineLooking to drive results for your business? Click here to learn more.

    We Live Online Now (Thinks Out Loud Episode 288) — Headlines and Show Notes

    Last week we showed that we’ve seen “two years of digital transformation in two months.” This week we’re starting to get a sense of what that means — and why. And, at its core, it’s because we live online now. You, your customers, your community, spend their days living and communicating and connecting through digital. Overall? They like what they see. While it’s undoubtedly true that some things will go back to normal whenever we can go back outside again, it’s also true that some of this shifts are here to stay.

    What does it mean for your business that we live online now? Who will win? And who will be left by the wayside? The latest episode of Thinks Out Loud breaks it down for you and talks about how you can connect with customers since we live online now.

    Want to learn more? Here are the show notes for you.

    Relevant Links — We Live Online Now (Thinks Out Loud Episode 288)

    Thinks Out Loud is sponsored by SoloSegment: SoloSegment increases large-enterprise, B2B website conversion with easy-to-install software that automatically connects website visitors to the content they need to see to achieve their goals. SoloSegment does this using anonymous data and machine learning ensuring privacy compliance, addressing the many anonymous visitors, and improving the efficiency of marketing teams. Visit SoloSegment.com.

    Subscribe to Thinks Out Loud

    Contact information for the podcast: podcast@timpeter.com

    Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks

    You might also want to check out these slides I had the pleasure of presenting recently about the key trends shaping marketing in the next year. Here are the slides for your reference:

    Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud

    Recorded using a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Mic and a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface into Logic Pro X for the Mac.

    Running time: 17m 05s

    You can subscribe to Thinks Out Loud in iTunes, the Google Play Store, via our dedicated podcast RSS feed (or sign up for our free newsletter). You can also download/listen to the podcast here on Thinks using the player at the top of this page.

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