The Customer Mission Podcast with Andrea Belk Olson

Today's consumers are bombarded with choices. Brand differentiation is no longer optional—it’s a survival strategy. But the question is how. Instead of focusing on product promotions, enable your customers to experience your brand.

Ever notice how some conversations leave you with more questions than answers? That’s often the result of a reply instead of a response. While the two may sound similar, the difference is critical, especially in problem-solving, leadership, or collaborative work.

It's so frustrating when you've got a problem you need to solve, and nothing's coming to you. No ideas that will help move things forward. Maybe you talk with others to try and gather perspectives. Or you dive into the Google rabbit hole to look at how others have solved the problem. But there's nothing. You want something new, something innovative. Not just the same old approach everyone else use...

Here’s a line in a corporate strategy document from a multi-billion-dollar client I was working with a few years ago: "We need to focus on better understanding the evolving needs of our current and future customers, and tailor solutions to meet those needs." What the hell? Isn’t that what the company should do as just a basic, daily, operating principle? That’s not a strategy, it’s a proclamation.

Think back to when you were under the gun to come up with a ground-breaking idea or solution to a complex problem. How many of those instances produced something revolutionary ? Likely very few . However, too many companies expect employees to spend more time looking productive than being productive. So, with limited time, those appointed to develop a strategy often spend more time on business the...

Leaders tend to strive for unanimous agreement – especially for large strategic decisions and situations where there’s a lot of uncertainty. If we have full commitment from our team, we must be making the right decision! Who wouldn’t want everyone to be on board? But unanimous agreement doesn’t mean there’s true agreement, no matter how many head nods you get in your meeting.

Your sales are down. You need an influx of new customers. Great! Often the first step is segmenting your prospects into groups, whether by industry, product type, service type, or some other categorization. Then the marketing blitz begins. Maybe you create a special offer on a product. Or a discount for new customers. Or just put up some billboards to build general brand awareness. But the needle...

Every industry has shrinkage in its way. Those without inventory have shrinkage in the form of innovation atrophy . This occurs when an employee is asked for their ideas and input, and invests time and effort working through them, only to learn it’s all for naught.

Success is the result of choices -- choosing to do one thing over another. This means consciously not spending time, effort, or resources on certain things. A goal is simply a target. For example, say your goal is to double revenue growth in three years. Is that a clear goal? Will that goal create success? No, because there are no clear choices .

When strategy development is complete, most executives start the rollout process. But communicating the strategy isn’t activating the strategy. Activation requires establishing guidance on how to shed old mindsets and embrace new ways of thinking. This necessitates shifting from telling to illustrating .

As a marketing leader, you want your messaging to resonate with your audience, be memorable, increase awareness, and build brand recognition. But you can't approach your team with that abstract request. You also can't simply share your 140-page corporate strategy and assume they'll glean some magic out of it. Crafting effective messaging requires specificity.

I'm not one for big projects. Especially those that I dread. Cleaning out a closet that's been languishing overstuffed for too long. Or reorganizing a file cabinet. It sucks. So I don't. Whether at home or work, big projects don't have to be big. They can be small if you approach them right.

Company leaders want measurable results, naturally. So they establish goals for the organization, whether a revenue growth objective or a target net promoter score. However, teams often fall short of those goals because instead of measuring outcomes, we measure the number of outputs accomplished, and in turn, overlook their connection to bigger organizational goals.

Making better decisions requires understanding the rationale behind previous decisions. If you don’t understand how you got here, you run the risk of making things not better, but worse.

Most organizations struggle with employee turnover. There are multiple reasons why this occurs, ranging from internal culture issues to simply a hot job market. But instead of being in reactionary mode when employees decide to leave, why not have an intentional attrition strategy?

Over the last few years, retailers have invested a lot in self-checkout lanes. This was initially seen as a great way to reduce labor costs and challenges with hiring. They were touted to reduce waits in line, eliminate the need to interact with a checker, and get you out in no time. But it hasn't done any of that.

Many companies are pulling back on customer service, reducing resources, training, and automating support. It's understandable to an extent. Hiring and retaining customer service staff is incredibly hard. The cost of training people is high. Customers are increasingly doing their research before they enter a store, and they don't even want to talk to anyone at all - just find their item an...

There's been a recent push (most likely by the bean counters) to establish a direct ROI for marketing efforts. I can understand this thinking. Advertising and marketing are expensive. The adage of "half of all marketing spend is wasted, we just don't know which half" makes sense, if you're looking at waste in an immediate return sense. You spend $X on advertising and marketin...

Who invented the light bulb? Of course, you'd say Thomas Edison. But what you may not realize is that Edison did not invent the light bulb. It was actually invented by Joseph Wilson Swan and Henry Woodward. What Edison did really well was commercialize the invention. But why do we always think of Thomas Edison first? Of course, he was a prolific inventor, but more importantly, he built a recog...

We ask questions all the time. At work, at home, amongst friends. Often, we ask questions that we already know the answer to, and other times, we ask questions that validate our existing perceptions. But in business, when we're trying to find answers to complex, layered, multi-faceted problems, we need excellent questions to get the answers and insights we need to make the best decision possib...

There's a lot of advice out there for designing employee incentive programs. Most of it focuses on common tactics including additional vacation days, public recognition, health/wellness reimbursements, referral bonuses, tuition reimbursement, professional development, and monetary bonuses. Aside from the economic considerations, the bigger question to answer first is always the why and what.

Why don't companies take more time to truly understand customer needs? In short, because it's hard, it takes time, and sometimes, we don't want to hear what they have to say. Customer feedback isn't simply about capturing data from questionnaires, reporting the top three frustrations customers have, and then deciding which one is the least costly and painful to implement. It's...

Say the company is having trouble with widget quality and missed deadlines. Should leadership focus on fixing the operational problems or on the strategy? Most executives would prioritize the former. They would say, “Let’s first patch the holes and then modernize the ship.” And most CEOs would say, “Ok.“ This is a big mistake.

We've all heard the term "Chronos" often regarding expensive watches, and the measure of time. But there's another term for time that's even more important - Kairos. In Greek, kairos represents a kind of “qualitative” time, as in “the right time”; Chronos represents a different kind of “quantitative” time, as in, “What time is it?” and “Will we have enough time?”.

Everyone likes a good rivalry story. They inspire, build emotional connections, and create a deep level of authenticity with the characters involved. Your brand has rivals too, and capitalizing on those rivals can help you position your identity in a way that differentiates you from the herd.