98 Career Tips

Tip #1 = Create your own methodology, a system entirely unique to you, and make your company money by using it.  Better to have your own system than to compete with others.

Tip #2 = Don't mock your Executive team if you want to eventually become an Executive.

Tip #3 = Understand that Executives get fired, regardless of performance.  This will happen to you, too, if you become an Executive.

Tip #4 = Executives earn bonuses for sales increases and profit increases.  Focus analytics on sales and profit, not engagement.

Tip #5 = If you want people to adopt your ideas, ask questions that require the person across the table from you to say "yes".

Tip #6 = Take a class that teaches you how to sell.  Directors and Vice Presidents spend most of the day selling ideas or strategies.

Tip #7 = Listen to people.

Tip #8 = Understand that the worst job in the Analyst / Manager / Director / Vice President ladder is "Director". If you can survive that, being a Vice President is easy.

Tip #9 = Have three goals for your team for the year.  Make sure two of the goals are tied to profit and customer file development.

Tip #10 = Those who can predict what is likely to happen next year tend to be listened to.

Tip #11 = Those who are listened to tend to be promoted.

Tip #12 = Do what your boss asks you to do.

Tip #13 = In your spare time, do research that proves you should do the exact opposite of what your boss asks you to do.

Tip #14 = Get enough sleep.

Tip #15 = Don't fall asleep in meetings.

Tip #16 = Start all of your meetings on time, regardless who is not yet in the room.

Tip #17 = End all of your meetings five minutes early.

Tip #18 = Team chemistry is possibly the most important component of getting things done.  Foster team chemistry.  Hint - there are no best practices for doing this.

Tip #19 = Those who do not buy into your plan are a cancer.  Get them on your side, or get them out of the company, or you will be fired.

Tip #20 = Assess whether somebody who is not meeting objectives is not meeting them because of a skills deficiency.  If so, give the person the benefit of the doubt.

Tip #21 = Find a mentor outside of your company, and bounce ideas off of this person.

Tip #22 = Learn to say "NO" to most of what comes across your desk, once you become a Manager, Director, or Vice President.

Tip #23 = Say "YES" with a smile if you are an Analyst ... it's a fast path to becoming a Manager.

Tip #23 = Do not let small distractions divert attention from achieving long-term goals.  Long-term goals yield business success that advances your career.

Tip #24 = Being Respected > Being Large and Intimidating.

Tip #25 = Cause co-workers to laugh.

Tip #26 = Feed people.  Many employees are pleasantly surprised when you bring cupcakes to work.  Some employees are truly hungry, too.

Tip #27 = Most people are really, really good people who sometimes act badly.  Separate a bad action from the overall essence of the person.

Tip #28 = Not everybody thinks the way you think.  In fact, almost nobody thinks the way you think.  This will make it hard for you to implement your ideas.

Tip #29 = Set goals and objectives for next year in November.  Share your goals and objectives. You'll find that you will shape other people's goals/objectives by doing this.

Tip #30 = Set up a grease board in your office.  Tally sales and profit, on an annual basis, generated by you and your team.  Point to the board when people are in your office.

Tip #31 = Understand that if customers don't like your merchandise, nothing else matters. Make sure your efforts are aligned with merchandising excellence.

Tip #32 = Sparingly yell and scream.

Tip #33 = If you are an Analyst / Manager, understand that your co-workers hate being measured by your metrics. Find other ways to convince these folks to change.

Tip #34 = You're more likely to get partnership from co-workers by doing something for them instead of telling them what to do.

Tip #35 = If you are a Director or Vice President, be present. It's tempting to "hang out" with Executives. It's important to "hang out" with your Analysts / Managers.

Tip #36 = Do not tolerate errors that can be avoided by simple audits of information.

Tip #37 = If your company won't do what you want your company to do, either double down on your efforts, or find a company that will do exactly what you want to do.

Tip #38 = Know when to roll over, to stop fighting over a topic you're not making progress on.

Tip #39 = Realize that a third of your employees won't be on your side when you become a Manager, Director, or Vice President.  Neutralize their negative energy, immediately.

Tip #40 = Avoid projects that involve inventing "the next big thing". By the time you invent it, the rest of the world is on to "the next big thing". You can't win this battle.

Tip #41 = Set deadlines.  Not much gets done without deadlines.

Tip #42 = If you are an Analyst, complete work prior to assigned deadlines.  If you are a Manager / Director / Vice President, demand project completion prior to a deadline.

Tip #43 = Create incentive structures that don't require money.

Tip #44 = Send employees home early in the afternoon of a day prior to a major Holiday.

Tip #45 = Resist the temptation to have favorite employees.

Tip #46 = Realize that everybody else has a favorite employee, causing considerable tension between employees.

Tip #47 = Send employees to conferences.

Tip #48 = Require employees who go to conferences to perform a thirty-minute presentation on what the employee learned at the conference.

Tip #49 = If you are an Analyst or Manager, demand the opportunity to present your work in department meetings.

Tip #50 = Practice. In sports, people practice more than they play. In business, practice is not part of the culture.  Practice new skills, even if you have to do it on your own time.

Tip #51 = Become good at speaking in public.

Tip #52 = Take your findings "on the road". Create a 30 minute presentation about customer behavior that you can share with other departments.

Tip #53 = Get to know your Chief Financial Officer.

Tip #54 = Learn how to calculate profit.

Tip #55 = Promote ideas that increase company profitability. Most Executives have bonus structures that, in part, pay out $$ when company profitability increases significantly.

Tip #56 = Fight for bonus structures for all employees.  A 10% cash bonus payout on December 23 feels very different than a 10% salary increase.

Tip #57 = Fight for a compensation structure that rewards non-management employees for technical excellence, as long as technical excellence increases company profit.

Tip #58 = Realize that new customer acquisition is much more important to long-term company health than anything other than having great merchandise.

Tip #59 = Realize that nearly all employees and outsiders have been trained to believe that customer retention is the most important component of long-term company health.

Tip #60 = Set goals that allow employees to achieve success while you secretly fuel the health of the business via low-cost customer acquisition programs.

Tip #61 = Instead of constantly battling a co-worker who disagrees with you, learn to work around that person.

Tip #62 = Always have facts about the way your customers behave. Keep the argument on actual customer behavior.  Avoid theories, hypotheses, and buzzwords.

Tip #63 = Executives are not HiPPOs (highest paid person's opinion). Too often, Execs are avoiding your strategy for a very good reason that they cannot tell you about.

Tip #64 = All magic comes with a price.

Tip #65 = Make your employees do the work of hourly wage earners at least one day a year.

Tip #66 = Most employees would rather do something familiar and comfortable instead of something new and challenging. Make a bridge to connect the two concepts.

Tip #67 = Point out the future before anybody sees it.  If you have analytical skills, you should be able to project what things will look like 1 year from now.  Do it.

Tip #68 = Forecast.  Those who forecast sales have the ear of the Executive team.

Tip #69 = Appreciate art.  Too many of us (hint - me) are too scientific, requiring proof for everything.  Art and merchandise fuel customer demand.  Science simply measures art.

Tip #70 = Foster structure.  You can allow for great amounts of creativity while having a solid weekly structure that employees know and trust.

Tip #71 = Prevent having more than 5 hours of meetings a day.  Start declining meetings if your calendar fills up.

Tip #72 = Friday Afternoon Freedom.  Clearly communicate that you and your staff will only work on personal projects on Friday afternoon. Work longer hours if necessary.

Tip #73 = Document.  When you have problems with employees, document the problems, so you have a solid argument when it comes time to make decisions about employees.

Tip #74 = Equipment. Make sure your employees have great equipment and good software, and they will produce better work, which makes you look better.

Tip #75 = Give Credit.  When you are a Manager / Director / Vice President, evangelize the work of your employees. Other Executives will notice your selflessness.

Tip #76 = Let Others Take Credit.  When an Executive takes credit for your work, let 'em! At least your work is being utilized, and that's better than having folks ignore your work.

Tip #77 = Be Public.  Have a Twitter or LinkedIn presence, where you grow your professional brand without giving away company secrets.

Tip #78 = Don't Lie.  When you aren't truthful, co-workers will lose trust, quickly.

Tip #79 = Don't Gossip.  When you talk about other employees (outside of factual work-related situations), word gets around, and co-workers lose trust, quickly.

Tip #80 = Have Compassion.  Your co-workers go through crap in their professional and personal life.  

Tip #81 = Have a 3 Year Plan.  Each year, publish a three year plan for where you want to take your department in the future.  Measure performance, and adjust the plan each year.

Tip #82 = Know When To Leave.  Most of us reach a point where we've taken a company as far as we can take it.  Leave before you get to that point.

Tip #83 = Capitalize on Strengths.  You can't make an employee do what s/he isn't good at doing.  Put the employee in spots where s/he will succeed, de-emphasize weaknesses.

Tip #84 = Set up New Employees. Assign a project where the new employee is guaranteed to have success, it gets everybody off to a good start.

Tip #85 = Create a Hiring Quiz.  Make all who interview for a job complete a quiz, and allow the answers to the quiz to be open-ended and essay-based.  It's quite revealing!

Tip #86 = Be Probabalistically Accurate.  You're always going to be wrong ... but be wrong on the high end 50% of the time, and be wrong on the low end 50% of the time.

Tip #87 = Don't Beat a Dead Horse.  Even if your idea is right, your company will probably move in a different direction.  Let your idea go.

Tip #88 = Create Teams.  Five people on a team generate more value than five individuals working alone.  But be smart about who you put on the team.

Tip #89 = Deal With Success Publicly, Deal With Problems Privately.

Tip #90 = What works for other companies may not be what works for your company.  Listen to those on the outside, execute based on internal customer knowledge.

Tip #91 = Communicate to your boss what you want your next job to look like.  It can be very revealing to hear how your boss responds.

Tip #92 = When taking over a new department, immediately find people you believe you can trust, or hire folks you can trust.

Tip #93 = Pay attention, and read the tea leaves.  Listen for the hidden words and for words not said by Executives.

Tip #94 = If your company is publicly traded, read every press release, 10-K, and 10-Q statement issued by your company.  Prepare to be surprised.

Tip #95 = Know monthly sales performance vs. plan and vs. last year, regardless of job title.

Tip #96 = Know your top ten best selling items, regardless of job title.

Tip #97 = Know how many customers purchased in the past year, and know how many new customers purchased last year, regardless of job title.

Tip #98 = Do not overwork or burn out your team.

Bonus Tip #99 = Do not be too far out in front of the curve.  It may not good to advocate for a new channel before you know where the trends are headed.

Use the comments section to add your tips!

Email Marketing and Jasmine: Curate! And Low Prices, Too

Jasmine is customer who likes email marketing. Sure, she's younger (average age = 19 - 35), and is "engaged" with social media.

But email marketing represents a way for the marketer to push information to Jasmine.  And Jasmine wants, in some ways, to be told what to do.  This concept, of course, is called "curation".

In my projects, I routinely notice several things about Jasmine.

1. She's less loyal than Jennifer, and much less loyal than Jasmine.
2. She isn't a huge catalog fan, and as a result, email marketing represents one of the few (inexpensive) ways for you, the marketer, to share information with Jasmine.
3. She can't afford high prices.  She wants a $400 handbag, but she can afford $100.  Oh, and, she wants the $100 handbag to be 95% as good as the $400 handbag.
4. Newness isn't that important to Jasmine --- presenting a compelling assortment is important to Jasmine.

Therefore, make life simple for Jasmine.  Your email marketing program can speak to her needs.

1. Judy wants a $400 handbag on sale.  Jennifer wants a $400 handbag with 30% off and free shipping, and wants the $400 handbag to be the cheapest price online.  Jasmine wants a $100 handbag.  Give it to her!!
2. Tell Jasmine a story.  It's not about the product, it's about how the product fits in with Jasmine's life and your assortment.
3. Make everything shareable for Jasmine ... she's willing to be your customer acquisition partner (whereas Judy isn't going to go to the effort to help you, digitally).

Want to learn more?  Purchase Hillstrom's Email Marketing Excellence today (click here).

Email Marketing and Jennifer: It Was All About The Hunt!

When I present Jennifer at catalog-related conferences, I hear groans!  Catalog folks tend to not like Jennifer.

Email marketers, however, love Jennifer, and for good reason.

1. In email marketing, Jennifer tends to have the best conversion rates of the three personas.
2. Jennifer demands free shipping.  Email marketers love to offer free shipping!
3. Jennifer likes getting 20% or 30% off.  Email marketers love to give discounts to email subscribers, as verified by email subject line testing.
4. Jennifer loves to hunt.  She wants to make sure that whatever is offered in an email marketing campaign is offered at the best price.  Jennifer will go to great lengths (Google, affiliates, comparison shopping engines) to hunt for the best products at the best prices.
5. Jennifer loves newness.

The email marketer is aligned with Jennifer.  In fact, email marketers have largely trained Jennifer how to behave.  Email marketers have, in so many cases, trained Jennifer to not trust the discounts/promotions offered to her ... Jennifer knows the email marketer will offer 10% off plus free shipping this week, then 30% off next week.

From a tactical standpoint, the email marketer can serve Jennifer well, and rebuilt trust.

1. Product assortments should feature new products ... Jennifer gets bored easily.
2. If you must have promotions, always give Jennifer the best promotions, so that she trusts you in the future.
3. Eliminate hunting.  By giving Jennifer the best prices and best promotions, Jennifer doesn't have to hunt.  She hunts because she doesn't trust.  Change her behavior, via trust.

Want to learn more?  Purchase Hillstrom's Email Marketing Excellence (click here).

Email Marketing, Judy, and Sale Events

Remember Judy?

On average, she is between 51 and 67 years old.  She is, literally, a catalog marketing professional, having spent the past 30 years purchasing via paper.

When I analyze Judy, I notice that she likes consistency.

1. She likes "winners", products that have always performed well, products she knows and trusts.
2. She likes sale events.  Whereas some customers respond to personalized promotions, Judy seems to trust the fact that you always have a sale event from January 3 - January 10, and that you offer her 20% off during that promotion.  In this way, Judy can plan her life, she can prepare for this event.

When you code personas (like Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine), pay close attention to the merchandise each persona purchases.

Then, within your email marketing campaigns, you can have various events, but you feature winning product for customers in Judy's persona.  You're likely to experience increases in opens/clicks/conversions if you do this!

Want to learn more?  Purchase Hillstrom's Email Marketing Excellence (click here).

Dear Catalog CEOs: Optimizing The Performance Of Your Website

Dear Catalog CEOs:

No, I am not writing about Cyber Monday.  That's a topic that keeps trade journalists and the mainstream media in business, not you.  Why even worry about making changes to discount/promo levels that impacts +/- 20% of 1.2% of annual sales?  Seriously.  Think about it for a moment.  You give away gross margin dollars so that the press has something to talk about, earning them advertising dollars.  Fun!

Here's a true story about retail brand.  This brand decided to completely revamp their website, top to bottom.  A totally different look and feel.  Social plug-ins.  User comments.  A big deal.  Months of in-house labor.

The new site rolls out on a Monday morning.  Sales are a catastrophe (i.e. -20%).  Users are commenting, but they're saying negative things!  "Best customers" are complaining that they can't find anything.

What would a conversion optimization expert / digital marketing expert do?

They'd run an A/B test, wait until statistical significance was achieved, and then they'd inform all of the employees who spent all of this energy that their efforts were fruitless.  They'd recommend going go back to the old design ... "you've got to listen to the customer".  They'd demand that the company adhere to a data driven approach to managing the business.

What did Management do?

Management stayed the course, not making any changes.

At this point, folks would say that Management were big, dumb "HiPPOs" (Highest Paid Person's Opinion).  We'd hear the digital marketing community complain that a "data driven" approach, coupled with facts acquired in actual A/B tests, clearly paint the right path to profitability, but Management "went with gut feel".  Twitter would be filled with both anguish and laughter over this story of feckless Management ineptitude.  Somebody would produce an infographic, outlining the "right" way to manage a business.

How did the story turn out?  Well, within a few weeks, the performance of the new website was equal to the performance of the old website.  And the new website had improved functionality.  Had Management not exhibited patience, the company would never have found out that the new website would perform as well as the old website.

If you combine art, analytics, business experience, customer development, and fantastic merchandise, you've got something!  The secret, of course, is identifying the right combination of art, analytics, business experience, customer development, and fantastic merchandise.  

That's what we're all trying to figure out.

Gross Margin and Repurchase Rates

We seldom talk about Gross Margin.

We should talk about Gross Margin.

Gross Margin is what is left after subtracting the cost of goods sold.  If you sell an A/V Receiver for $300 and it cost you $240 to purchase the item from a vendor, then you earned $60 Gross Margin (60/300 = 20% Gross Margin).

Conversely, if you create your own products, you have an opportunity to earn more Gross Margin dollars.  Companies that create their own products frequently enjoy high Gross Margin rates.  For instance, if you sell a handbag for $300, you might earn $180 in Gross Margin after subtracting the cost of creating the item.

To achieve the same amount of Gross Margin dollars, the first company has to sell three A/V Receivers ($60 * 3 = $180).  The first company has to sell one handbag ($180 * 1 = $180).

Needless to say, the second company has an advantage.

If you have a low Gross Margin, you can generate a lot of profit via a high annual repurchase rate.  If 70% of last year's customers purchase again, you obtain downstream Gross Margin dollars that compensate for marketing expenses.

If you have a high Gross Margin, you can generate more profit via infrequent buyers.  Catalog brands have been around forever, managing 60% Gross Margins with 40% Annual Repurchase Rates.

If you have a low Gross Margin and a low Annual Repurchase Rate, you must achieve, as the online pundits like to say, "scale".  In other words, you need a highly viral product that causes numerous customers to purchase.

Now think about the Kindle.  Amazon states that they make no profit on the sale of a Kindle, zero Gross Margin dollars.  Amazon, however, has a high Annual Repurchase Rate (i.e. you're going to have to buy books to use your Kindle), and Amazon has "scale".  This causes the numbers to work out, over time.

Notice that all of the excitement starts with merchandise ... opposite of where most discussions start these days (social, mobile, omnichannel).  

Merchandise and Gross Margin, however, dictate everything that follows.

Email Marketing Conversion Rates

Folks like to tout the importance of "engagement", don't they?

The hypothesis offered to us is that if we can get a customer to pay attention to us, the customer will spend more money with us.

Might be true.

Might not be true.

Of course, we have the data available to measure engagement, don't we?

This image shows the average conversion rate for customers who click on email campaigns "x" times per year.  The image illustrates an interesting finding ... those who clicked on an email campaign the most have decreasing conversion rates.

Interesting, huh?  Those who are most engage have lower conversion rates than those who are moderately engaged.

If we multiply the clicks by conversion rates, we find that those who clicked the most actually purchased the most.

So, in one graph, we are able to both prove that engagement matters, and prove that engagement is highly overrated!

Most important, I want for you to start looking at your marketing channels on an annual basis, not on a campaign basis.  You can't learn the information in this chart by analyzing campaign metrics, can you?

Click here to purchase Hillstrom's Email Marketing Excellence!