Travel Tips from the Gelb Road Warriors
February 28th, 2011Over the course of years, we’ve accumulated some useful tips (at least we think) regarding traveling for business.
We’ve organized these into categories and will continue to build on the list as we learn more. We’ve organized this into the frequent traveler experience map. Please feel free to add your own!
Booking:
- Go online to your preferred carrier and hotel first. Then compare rates on Orbitz or Expedia. Generally, the better rates are on the originators website.
- It’s usually better to have flexible hotel arrangements than pre-paid. Flights are cheaper if they’re non-refundable and you can always use the credit later.
- PageOnce is a useful tool (they have iPhone and Blackberry apps).
- Also preload and bookmark your carrier’s website – most have mobile websites. Continental, for example, will show you flight status, upgrade list, etc…sometimes you’ll know about delays or upgrades before the gate responds.
- Seat selection – use Seatguru.com, especially on international trips, to find those with power outlets and extra leg room.
- Keep tabs on the weather by setting up bookmarks on Weather.com.
Checking in:
- Whenever possible, do not check bags. It actually saves you about 30 minutes for each leg of a flight to run everything through security. It also improves your ability to change flights when delays occur.
- Use the online check-in feature. It will improve your ability for upgrades (it pays to be loyal!).
- Remember to check the equipment. The Embraer’s that Continental Express uses have limited overhead. The good news is that they check and return your bags at the door. Knowing this in advance helps to optimize your luggage between the computer bag and the suiter.
- Always bring your jacket on board with you.
Packing:
- Bring a photocopy of your passport and driver’s license (color is better). Save the same on your home computer and send it to your personal email account.
- Pack essential meds – Advil, prescriptions, Advil PM (for sleep), etc…
Boarding:
- If one Elite person is traveling, the others can board with him/her -you’re flying together after all.
- Be sure to tightly seal your toiletries and water bottles that go on the plane. The pressure sometimes causes them to leak.
- Take out your computer before the plane takes off as you’re putting away your bag.
Inflight:
- If you check the equipment in advance, you’ll know whether the airline is playing a movie and can plan accordingly. Generally speaking, we’ve found that each activity is good for 2 hours: read a book, watch a movie, play a game, do some work, sleep.
- Water is your friend on the plane; it’s also good to bring extra.
- Come with your laptop charged!
- iPads are also a great distraction.
- Dress appropriately even if traveling on weekend – you might lose your luggage or run into someone on the plane.
- Have your own headphones – we like Bose noise cancelling.
Arrival:
- If you haven’t checked luggage, you don’t need to wait!
- Gold Club (Hertz) and other loyalty programs treat their members right. Having those programs saves a lot of time.
- At Gelb, our Gold Club membership allows anyone to return the car, which is helpful if you need to make a side trip alone.
Hotel:
- Double check to be sure the water in your shower runs hot once your arrive.
- If you plug in things, make sure the surge protector or outlet is working.
- Hang laundry in the bathroom to avoid ironing.
- Stock up on free water from housekeeping.
- Wake up with alarm PLUS a wake up call – the hotel will make sure you get up (and sometimes send security).
- Know the alerts – fire versus tornado versus earthquake sirens.
Best Practices from Successful B2B Launches
January 31st, 2011Understanding your target market is a critical stepping stone towards successfully meeting their needs. The Energy Marketing seminar hosted by AMA Houston on January 21st, reinforced this and other pertinent lessons about launching a new product or service. Here’s a selection of thoughts from the discussion I found interesting:
• Seek out the “nay sayers” – not with bat in hand but rather with open ears and mind. Unlike passionate advocates of a new technology or initiative, nay sayers often better illuminate the road blocks ahead. Identifying their concerns and barriers to adoption early on in the development cycle can vastly improve your launch offering and rollout strategy. Engaging nay sayers also affords an opportunity to change their point of view. Bill Tipton from Weir Oil & Gas punctuated this point when sharing a recent case study of a hydraulic fracturing pump. Canvassing a variety of customers in this instance resulted in sharply focusing the team’s efforts on critical success factors such as product durability and safety.
• Identify the true approvers – distinguishing between evaluators and the true approvers can sometimes feel like peeling the layers of an onion. Tom Sawyer from Greene’s Energy Group touched upon this lesson learned when recounting his experiences entering the Brazilian energy market. Tom highlighted the fact that new technology introduction can take a long time and shared an example where his group felt they eventually had sold a Brazilian client on a new technology, only to discover that as a subcontractor to Petrobras, their buyer needed Petrobras’ CENEPES research center to first approve the technology.
• Experiment on willing parties – test runs should be a non-negotiable element of your launch plans. Kym Butler from Cameron discussed how multiple dry runs with company executives, employees, and even past employees, helped iron out the kinks for the launch of Cameron’s new Process Systems Technology Center in Houston. From ensuring functioning equipment to developing a consistent story line, practice makes perfect while premature launch carries grave risks. Bill Tipton further reinforced this lesson when discussing the various forces in play driving and resisting the launch decision. He shared an example where Weir was able to “passively launch” and still meet engineering beta-testing requirements, but only after a clear risk mitigation plan was put in place.
• Be specific in your sales pitch – while marketing collateral can be general, new client introductions and sales pitches need to be targeted and specific to the individual. Tom Sawyer felt this was especially true when at trade shows and exhibitions in Brazil, with events there being more sales focused and lead generators than those in the US.
• Start simple – especially when launching in a new environment with different sensitivities.
• It ain’t over till it’s over – your launch plan doesn’t end with the release of marketing communications but when all links in the chain, for e.g., customer service representatives, have been trained on the new product or service.
To learn more about effective commercialization strategies, Click Here
Gelb affiliate Lisa Lashaway shares her exciting news
September 7th, 2010
At Gelb, our affiliates include specialists in a variety of areas who often play vital roles in helping us best meet client needs. Lisa Lashaway is one of our trusted affiliates and has over 20 years of experience in strategic research and marketing. We typically reserve our blogs and articles for strategy-related content, but sometimes also like to share professional achievements, which is why we want to give Lisa and her family a special “congratulations” today. Lisa’s son Nick has been involved in acting since he was young (he convinced her to take him to his first audition after hearing a radio advertisement for a casting call) and has played small roles in some well-recognized movies and shows, such as “The X-Files,” “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “The Office,” and “The Last Song.” His most current movie, “My Soul to Take” was directed by Wes Craven and is going to be released in October. His diligence and talent as an actor is paying off, as he has a prominent role in the movie and is being featured in movie trailers and billboards. Congratulations to Lisa, Nick and all of your friends and family who have supported you throughout your career!
See a full summary of Nick here http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1731478/
Gelb’s own, Alleen Mitchener recognized by the Houston AMA Chapter for AMA Volunteer of the Month
August 18th, 2010The NFL has Peyton Manning
The NBA has Lebron James
the MLB has Derek Jeter
and Gelb Consulting has Alleen Mitchener!
Strategic Marketing Analyst, Alleen Mitchener was recognized by the American Marketing Associations Houston chapter for AMA Volunteer of the Month. Alleen has been involved with the Houston Chapter for the past two years and has been actively serving on the committee for the Healthcare Special Interest Group (SIG) for the past year. . Her role as a Healthcare SIG volunteer involves many responsibilities including assisting the committee co-chairs and other committee volunteers in developing ideas for speakers and topics, and planning each event as well as fulfilling duties during event proceedings .
In addition, Alleen has also volunteered her time at the monthly AMA luncheon assisting with greeting guests and working the registration table.
Gelb congratulates Alleen and is very proud of all her achievements!
John McKeever Recognized in HBJ's "40 Under 40" List
April 19th, 2010One of Gelb’s own has been recognized in the Houston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40″ list. It is our pleasure to announce that John McKeever, president of Gelb Consulting Group, is one of 40 Houston leaders in this year’s list.
Leaders will be formally recognized on Thursday, May 20, 2010 from 4:00 pm – 6:00pm at the House of Blues,
1204 Caroline Street. The event is sponsored by Sterling Bank, PKF Texas and the House of Blues – Houston.
2010 marks the second year the Houston Business Journal compiles a list of Houston’s leaders under the age of 40. The list is made up of individuals who have excelled in their respective industries and leadership in the community. Honorees are nominated by their peers, colleagues and so forth.
To read the complete article, visit the Houston Business Journal 40 Under 40 Honorees Named.
A Lesson from One of the World’s Great Real Estate Developers by Gabriel Gelb
April 6th, 2010We don’t normally boast about who we work for, but Continental Airlines recently saluted our client, Hines, in its March 2010 in-flight magazine. So let us at Gelb join Continental in appreciating Gerald D. Hines, whose firm—very quietly—controls real estate assets valued at more than $25 billion from Moscow to Beijing and 100 cities in between
You might say that the 45-year-old Gelb firm and the 53-year-old Hines firm grew up together. Over the years, Hines has called on Gelb for a variety of market research studies—from feasibility of real estate projects in unusual locations to interviews with the pension funds that are investors in Hines’ far-flung skyscrapers and mixed-used projects.
But of course it’s the quality of Hines’ buildings that are a hallmark of its success. Gerald Hines and now his son, Jeffrey C. Hines, have made their buildings stand out by hiring the best architects, from I.M. Pei and Cesar Pelli to Robert A.M. Stern and Philip Johnson. They understand that high-quality office tenants seek striking, sustainable edifices rather than plain-Jane boxy towers.
The lesson as Gelb sees it—A great product coupled with market feedback is an unbeatable combination!
To learn more about Gelb, visit www.gelbconsulting.com.
The Neglected Strategic Marketing Question
February 9th, 2010After going through several strategic marketing plans recently, it became clear that the hardest question to answer is also the most frequently overlooked. Strategic marketing planning often begins with a rigorous review of capabilities, market trends, and perhaps even market share data. But while the best segmentation scheme can enable incremental and/or accidental growth, it’s most important to determine from whom you will take market share.
Through the use of competitive intelligence and customer value analysis, organizations can identify the competitors’ weaknesses against their customers’ buying behavior. A deliberate focus on the marriage between customer needs and the supplier’s strengths in meeting them calls for increased attention in strategy development.
At the most simplistic levels, being “better, faster, cheaper” requires a target (i.e., better than x, faster than x, cheaper than x) to be effective. This isn’t to suggest there can be more than one competitor from which you take share, but it does emphasize the need for competitive positioning. This positioning is then utilized in developing pricing strategy, shaping product development and commercialization stage-gate criteria, brand management and communications, and sales process/delivery.
From whom will we take market share? This is an important, but often neglected question to answer when developing strategic marketing plans.
For more information about Gelb’s process for strategic marketing success, please see this article on our Growth PlayBook.
Ana Mena Rodarte, AMA Board Member of the Month
January 22nd, 2010Everyone at Gelb congratulates Ana in recognition for her hard work at AMA Houston! As the Chair of Lunch Program services, Ana is responsible to make sure the luncheon registration process is efficient. Luncheons, often attended by over 200 people, are a key touchpoint in managing the AMA member experience and recruiting new members.
In this role, her efficient project management skills are put to the test each month. So at the January luncheon, the AMA Houston chapter recognized her willingness to jump into her new role and make the leadership transition seamless.
We’re proud of you Ana!
Sales intelligence and business intelligence… (by Gabriel Gelb)
November 9th, 2009…need to be viewed separately for many reasons. Yes, the sales force should be the pre-eminent source for sales intelligence, but the question of how business intelligence is developed is much more complicated. It’s the basis for a broader, strategic set of issues regarding a company’s future.
To shed more light, let’s examine a summary from a 2009 Gartner report:
“Because of lack of information, processes, and tools, through 2012, more than 35 percent of the top 5,000 global companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets.”
This blog is prompted by a recent talk by a marketing executive in an industrial firm who praised the market data compiled by his sales staff. Of course, we’re not cognizant of what type of data he was referring to.
But the broader idea of business intelligence suggests that discussions based mainly on sales results obviously lack the foundational data that is necessary to guide a company’s future: its decisions about markets, products and services necessary to maintain healthy growth.
Let’s suppose that your sales force says that they are having difficulty selling one of your basic products and that the reason is that it’s “too high priced.” In these recessionary times, that may be a logical conclusion, so a price cut is the answer.
However, another reason for declining sales is that a competitor has introduced a competitive product and is selling it on the basis of providing useful consulting services as to its usefulness for your application. “Too high-priced” may be the customers’ quick and ready comment to your sales force but it’s hardly the full story.
That’s where business intelligence, sometimes called competitive intelligence, should be an integral part of your market surveillance. And there are many other examples of the necessity of a completely objective reading of what’s happening with your customers and prospects.
For more information, visit www.gelbconsulting.com or contact Gabriel Gelb at ggelb@gelbconsulting.com, 281.759.3600 x1014.
All About Expectations
September 21st, 2009Health care is often compared to hospitality, so I paid particular attention to my recent hotel stay at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia. When I think of first-class service, Ritz Carlton comes to mind as they are known by their credo and careful management of touchpoints. This is in mind, my expectations of the Ritz were quite high.
So imagine my disappointment when:
1) It took several queries of the lobby staff to find someone who knew the location of the local FedEx Office/Kinko’s.
2) The room service staff did not address me by name.
3) There was no one to get a cab for me upon my return.
4) Our conference room did not have Internet access as planned (and the price was outrageous).
Even though everything in my guest room was appointed to perfection, the level of service I received was not what I expected. As a result, I remain less than satisfied.
The implications to health care marketers is this: if you set expectations on delivering high-touch, patient-centered care, you will disappoint those patients and caregivers if you cannot devote the time and genuine interest necessary to do so. Those academic medical centers who are attempting to cross the chasm between high-tech and high-touch should understand what that merger means to patients and caregivers. If you cannot bridge the gap, then don’t make the promise. Otherwise, you will likely disappoint at higher levels.
For more information, visit www.gelbconsulting.com or contact John McKeever at jmckeever@gelbconsulting.com, 281.759.3600 x1022.