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James Welch, President and CEO, Yellow Transportation

Yellow Transportation employees recently had the opportunity to submit questions to James Welch, president and CEO of Yellow Transportation about its motor sports program - Team Yellow Racing.  Below are Welch’s answers for two of those questions which complement on-track performance with off-track goals of the sponsorship.

Q: How would you assess the performance of Team Yellow Racing this year?

Welch: Team Yellow Racing has been very competitive this season, considering the large number of NASCAR Nextel Cup Series drivers competing in NASCAR Busch Series events. Johnny Sauter is in contention to finish the season in the top 10 of the points standings, which would be a first for Yellow. Together we are creating tremendous possibilities for success on the track, not only for this year, but well into the future. Off the track, our relationship building events are delivering positive business results, through both increased revenue and brand awareness. Consistency has been the key and that certainly is an important factor in both racing and in business.

Q: How did the company benefit from being the title sponsor of the Yellow Transportation 300 in September?

Welch: This was the first time we have been a title sponsor of the NASCAR Busch Series race in our hometown and I’m very pleased with the results. The three primary reasons we are involved in racing are to strengthen customer relationships, to build pride in the company among employees, and to enhance awareness of the Yellow brand. We benefit from every race we participate in, but being title sponsor definitely heightens the entire experience. We were involved in a variety of promotional events prior to the race, we had extensive media coverage before, during and after the race and our brand at the track was hard to miss. All in all, it was a great experience that certainly furthers the business-building goals of our motor sports program.To learn more about Team Yellow Racing, visit http://www.teamyellowracing.com

November, 2006

Jill Schmieg, Supply Chain Solutions Marketing, Ryder

Transportation industry reports point out that our industry is highly fragmented. Between trucking carriers, ocean carriers, 3PL’s, ports, railway providers, expeditors, and forwarders, it’s safe to say that logistics professionals are inundated with choices. With so many fish in the sea, how do buyers differentiate between providers? And more importantly, how do we providers reach the buyers in this sea of choices?

Here are a few tips for your next fishing expedition:

What’s in season - Trout or Bass? Take the time to define and refine the fish you’re looking for. Create an “ideal buyer profile” before you start building a prospect list. Some criteria may include prospect company size, geographical location, industry and market share. The more you refine the type of prospect you are going after, it is more likely to be a good match with your company’s offerings.

How do they swim - Loner or Schools? Keep in mind that buyers and decision makers come in all shapes and sizes. For example, in a decentralized prospect company, buyers tend to be “loners” with autonomy to make the final purchase decision. Loners are found at multiple levels – including manager level and lower. In a centralized environment, however, the “school” is typically led by a more senior person (such as a VP or “C” level executive) who is likely the final decision maker. Understanding a prospect’s structure minimizes the amount of time your line is in the water – you’ll get the right bite from the right fish sooner.

The Right Bait – Don’t feed minnows to sharks! Capture attention by feeding the fish the bait they like! Gone are the days of generic “fold, label and send” direct mail. With the advent of customized print-on-demand, you will up your odds of getting your correspondence read by personalizing the message for each individual prospect. If you’re faced with budget constraints and can’t tailor each individual piece, consider segmenting your prospects into 2 or more groups. For example, consider a company who targets small and medium size prospects. In the case of an e-Newsletter campaign, the small business prospects would receive small business topics and medium size companies would receive a separate topic set. 

Back in the water or into the bucket? Despite your best efforts in the above, not all leads are good leads. Once you’ve determined that a lead is not qualified, be sure you have a sound alternative for them. Perhaps they are referred to a partner company.  If they’re not “ready to buy”, they may be a candidate for ongoing passive communication.  Remember, a prospect’s status as a viable lead can change in the future.

Is it worth it? “Fishy” ROI. Measure, measure, measure.  Most companies have mechanisms in place to determine the hit ratio from direct marketing efforts. These include 800# customization, URL tracking and many others. Where a lot of companies are missing the boat, though, is tracking that lead throughout the entire sales process. For example, how long does it take the lead to enter the pipeline as a concrete sales opportunity? Once closed, how much revenue did the lead generate? Long term, were you able to “upsell” and thereby expand your business with the lead? If you’re not answering these questions, you’re not measuring the full ROI.

Having an accurate picture of ROI will allow you to 1) identify weak spots in your marketing efforts and 2) prove the cost-benefit to your organization, especially come budget time.

Here’s to hoping you catch the “big one!”

September, 2006 • > Back to top

Michelle McManus is a Marketing Specialist for Ozburn-Hessey Logistics.

Advances in technology and the widely spread access to the internet have helped close the information gap in today’s society. There’s so much information that it is easy to become overwhelmed or distracted. So, how do I stay focused and informed on topics that matter most to me? Let’s begin by talking RSS feeds. 

RSS stands for really simple syndication. You can tell that a website has syndicated content by looking for an XML or RSS icon. Most browsers use autodiscovery which triggers an orange or sometimes green icon show up in the URL or on the menu bar for those sites. I use RSS feeds to subscribe to content from various sources and am alerted at various intervals, depending on the technology I am using, when new content is available.  I even create searches and subscribe to the results using an aggregator.

An aggregator is a tool that will allow you to subscribe to content. With SharpReader, my tool of choice, I simply copy and paste the URL into the aggregator’s address field and subscribe. By setting certain options, I can be sure to stay informed and to be made aware with a frequency of my choice. If at any time in the future I find I wish to no longer subscribe I simply remove that feed from my aggregator.

There are many aggregators including SharpReader and Blog Lines. The next release of the new Windows operating system will include a new version of Internet Explorer which has a built in aggregator.

Podcasts operate under the same principal. For podcasts I use a program called Juice as my subscription tool. Want to learn French? Mandarin Chinese? Have time to listen to ten or fifteen minute programs?  Get an mp3 player, go online to www.podcastalley.com, and start subscribing to news and educational programs or look for a podcast icon on your favorite website.  There’s plenty of opportunity for you to incorporate podcasts into your marketing mix as well. Why not podcast press releases or job opportunities?  It is all about reach.

RSS seems like it is firmly rooted and here to stay.  By subscribing to content, podcasts, searches and news regarding my industry and occupation I am able to stay on the cutting edge every day.

July 2006 • > Back to top

Mike Brown is Vice President-Strategic Market Planning & Research, YRC Worldwide

Understanding the creative strengths of your team and getting a fresh perspective are critical to innovation, according to Mike Brown of YRC Worldwide. “A lot of times, we have to remove ‘no’ from business processes to be more innovative,” he says. To do that, Brown recommends a variety of creative tactics:

• Introspective – Understand where you’re most and least creative.
• Diverse – Identify the strengths of individuals on your creative team and work accordingly.
• Forgetful – Refresh your perspective. Try some fast, furious brainstorming. Pull out the toys!
• Possibilities – Find new ways to look at things. Imagine how Gilligan (or another favorite TV character) would solve the problem or look at magazines outside your typical library.
• Inquisitive – Collect great questions. One to consider: Suppose we’re out of business three years from now. What happened?
• Thievery – Take existing ideas and add your own twist.
• Creator – Prioritize concepts and ideas by determining if they are
  evolutionary or revolutionary, simple or complex.
• Persistent – Pursue lots of possibilities. When things aren’t going well, find something “fascinating” about your foibles.

Brown reminds us that success depends on serving others – figuring out how to make them successful. Back by popular demand, Mike Brown presented at TMCA’s recent annual conference in Keystone, CO.

June 2006 • > Back to top

Dick Metzler, DLP, is Chief Commercial Officer for Greatwide Logistics Services, Inc.; 2005 TMCA Marketing Executive of the Year and 2004 B-to-B Top Marketer of the Year

My beliefs related to market research are based in large part on my own 25 years of experience in transportation and logistics marketing.  It is also based on my observation that most C-level individuals within our industry would have a real hard time listing the four P’s.  As a result, the power of marketing is often discounted to the detriment of those companies’ shareholders.

Why is that?  It is real simple.  Having been a CEO, CMO and e-i-e-i-o, the executive suite lives in a world of black and white (e.g. P&L, balance sheet, share value, service level, etc.).  We on the other hand as marketers, tend to gravitate to what C guys view as the “hairy-fairy” gray world of awareness, brand value and response rates.  So when it comes time to consider an additional investment for a new market-driven product, ad campaign or pricing proposal that has some risk, is it any wonder we get blank stares from across the board room table? 

OK, it is what it is, but there is no way we can win for our customers and our company if we can not market internally.  So how do we change the way our world works?  We simply must merchandise what the customer wants and structure a message that does not sound like it is Swahili to your policymakers.  The critical success factor of any marketing plan is a good situation analysis.  (If you don’t know what that that is, go to the library or the internet and find out. With all due respect, if you don’t know how to do this as naturally as breathing, you have no right to have a marketing title on your business card.) 

The key to any good situation analysis is a good fact base.  The best facts come from the voice of the customer.  The voice of the customer can only come from marketing through the magic of market research.  Sales can’t do it.  Customer Service can’t do it.  And God forbid, the Finance (a.k.a. Sales Prevention Department) can’t do it.

However, not all research is created equal.  There are different flavors that you have to adapt to the situation – e.g. primary, secondary, qualitative, quantitative, syndicated, conjoint, ya da, ya da, ya da.  But why is market research so inescapably essential to your success?  This is pretty simple too.  The next time you go into the Board room with unassailable research in hand, you now speak on behalf of your customers, not just yourself.  More importantly though, you get to say the magic phrases: “You aren’t arguing with me.  You are arguing with our customers.”  Those are words that will usually stop even the toughest penny-pincher dead in their tracks.  If it doesn’t, you may want to ask yourself if you are working for the right company.

The bottom line is that as a C guy myself and as a marketer, I would never spend one plug nickel on sales or marketing without knowing what my target market loves and hates about me and my competition at a bare minimum.  If you are really good, you can put words like “market share” and “customer satisfaction” in my lexicon.  Achieving that level is one important dimension of being a world class marketer.  If you can’t convince people internally, how in the world are you going to get human beings who don’t know you to buy your product.

Need more details on research?  Too bad.  I already ran over on my word count for this article.  As they say in the UK, “Watch this Space”.  TMCA does a tremendous job of providing just that type of thought leadership on just these types of career changing issues.

April, 2006 • > Back to top

Mike Brown is Vice President-Strategic Market Planning & Research,
YRC Worldwide.

Feel like beating your head against the wall trying to balance work wih the rest of life? Forget “balance.” Here are seven lessons that help align it all.

1. State Your Purpose

Define your core purpose — the reason you get up every morning. Couple that with a focus on the unique talents that bring you energy and creativity. Now, you have a direction to consistently head.

2. Be Genuine
Follow that direction. Set high standards for yourself and be true to them.

3. Live with Simplicity
Living more simply reduces the distractions that knock you out of alignment. Don’t take yourself so seriously, take responsibility for mistakes, surrender on things you can’t control, and have a mental “restart” key.

4. Look for the Long Line
The world’s smarter than you. Ask questions, seek knowledge, listen. But give yourself credit for your own experience and knowledge — the “world” also came up with Mood Rings.

5. Experiment
Try lots of things — no one thing works in every situation. After you’ve experimented, evaluate what was interesting, along with “plusses” and “minuses.” Then make clear recommendations.

6. Serve Others
Leadership is about serving others. Be a better leader by being friendly, smiling, helping others succeed. Be a great teammate and make teammates of everyone you meet.

7. Go Full Out
Bring intensity to what you do. And passion. Work your rear off in pursuit of your core purpose and priorities. Celebrate successes!

> Download the full presentation of Mike Brown's "Aligning Your Life's Work" in PDF format. > Back to top

Ryan Garton is former Manager, Brand and Marketing Strategy at United Airlines. He’s now General Mgr. Alliances, Americas, Europe, Africa and Middle East.

TMCA: Brands? What are they and how do you describe a successful brand?

Garton: The best definition for a brand that I have ever heard was by Michael Bierut, Partner Pentagram who wrote: “A brand is defined as
the sum of all impressions, good or bad, that have an influence on the customer’s experience. Every product, program, or piece of communication that is generated serves to build or break the brand.”

This definition really helps to illustrate that everything an organization produces or sometimes more importantly, does not produce, will impact your brand’s growth or decline. Every customer touchpoint, communication, employee interaction and delivery matters due to the cumulative effect each of these data points has on the customer’s purchase decisions. Just remember everything in your brand space leaves an impression.

TMCA: What brands do you follow and why?

Garton: We studied a lot of brands. I’m really interested in the brand evolution FedEx has undergone over the last 2-3 years. It has allowed them to expand their portfolio of products while maintaining their core. What will be interesting going forward is the integration of the Kinko’s properties. Nascar is another organization with a wonderful study in customer loyalty, merchandising and amazing growth in the last 5 years. Lastly, there are the brands we all follow: GAP, Apple, Disney, Microsoft, Bud and McDonalds. Following these brands is a study in excellence and sometimes a rare glimpse with what happens when a mistake is made.

TMCA: What are common mistakes a brand marketer can make?

Garton: In my opinion there are three cardinal sins that must be avoided.

#1 Letting your own personal opinion formulate the brand.

While you might have the right concept, not testing against customer expectations or previous successes is a recipe for failure. There are many offerings within the United brand space which were against my personal opinion: colors, product offerings or changes. However, customer research and a solid understanding of United Airlines’ brand permissions and limitations easily highlighted the right course of action.

#2 Thinking that only advertising can build the brand.

Advertising is a very effective means of communicating the brand’s message and promise, quickly and broadly. By only focusing on advertising though, many organizations create false expectations for customers and do not deliver what the advertising promises. That leads to fast declines in brand ratings minimally or a significant loss of customers at the worst.

#3 Not thinking about employees while building or renewing the brand.

This is fatal, especially in a service industry where the customer- employee interaction is often 60-80% of the service experience. Many organizations train and train in technical expertise and never invest in customer interaction. The bottom line is, we all want do business with people we like or who appreciate our business. Brand leaders need to highlight to customer facing employees that they are always “on” and customers are always watching and judging. > Back to top

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