 Yeah, I've got some notes here because I've actually changed slightly based on what people were talking about this morning So I don't normally have notes, but What I'm going to talk about here is just a few areas that people don't really think about and I think those areas are Critical and the reason frankly that so many projects. Thank you fail and it's really Always a tough one. I mean, I've been talking about failed projects for like 20 years. So I'm amazed I've still got a job because nobody actually wants to hear about fail projects But in the world of it there are statistics that say 60 to 70 percent of projects fail or fall short of expectations In the world of marketing martech. Well, I guess we could argue it's a little bit too early to know And we can all be incredibly optimistic, but I think they're probably going to be around the same And you know the thing is Carlos said it this morning. He said technology seldom fails When I started out in this industry Technology did fail. Some of it stunk. I mean, it was really really bad Today most of it actually works pretty well What fails Is really two things and I think some of it's been covered off quite well this morning already So I'm not going to keep going back to that that you really need to plan You really need to get out all your ducks in order before you do this that and the other But there's two areas really going to try and focus on in the time I have today So one is almost a sort of personal Um gripe so I've been to india many times And I used to work for whip pro which for some of you is like Really? Um, but yeah, I did. I used to work for whip around a consulting division at whip pro So I would be incredibly presumptuous and arrogant if I were to say I really understood indian culture I have a connection because it's nonsense. I don't I happen to like it here and I love indian food But you know, I'm not going to go that far But think about it this way I won't go down the indian path too far because you're all going to hate me But you know think about it this way. Here's a tall White english privately educated man coming here. There's a lot of cultural significance there, right? Well, think about it for me as an englishman living in boston. I've lived in the u.s for 20 years I kid you not it feels like every other week. It's not every other week, but it feels like it There's somebody some american wants to say to me Oh, you're english. Oh, you must like to drink tea and play cricketing or something like that They think they're making a connection with me Do you know the only connection they're making is between this and this it really drives me crazy Right. I mean, I'm very nice to them Most of the time But whatever right and and you're gonna experience the same things. Well That's personalization That's what data does when you personalize things. He says oh, he's english. Therefore. He must like to drink tea Yeah, okay Yeah, we've irritated me now. It was supposed to getting had something going here But I spend a lot of my time in silicon valley. In fact, most of our clients are in silicon valley or have been historically And I love it. I mean, I absolutely love it. I used to have an office in mountain view I mean if you want to know where to go to eat and hang out there, I can tell you But is the big bang theory the tv program popular here in india? Yeah, okay. Well, imagine a massive city filled with dr. Sheldon coopers That is silicon valley And they're gonna teach us how to market and connect with people. They can't connect with one another I mean, that's the reality. We're facing here, right? So we've got marketing. We got tech coming together. Yes, absolutely Is a lot of that to do with data and AI and machine learning absolutely I have a book coming out on that by the way, etc. Etc. All right, all of that's true But fundamentally we have to understand That connecting with a another human being Can never be brought down to bits and bytes. It's not as simple as that, right? So be very very careful when you go down that route I mean one of the ways of doing it is to reframe the entire conversation One of the ways of doing it is to say Okay, what really annoys my customers? Because if I fix that at least I won't really annoy them I mean it sounds like really a basic place to start Actually, it's a really good place to start Yeah, really good place to start So there's an airline. I won't name them because it's not fair and they're a perfectly good airline I won't fly with them anymore And do you know why? Because I've got a hyphen in my name And their website really doesn't like hyphens And every time it's just like I want to cancel this It's a stupid thing that annoys me Now are there enough people with hyphens in their name that you really want to fix that? I don't know, but silly things really annoy people Figure out, we're going to look a bit more at that as we move forward But think about your customers And really try and come from their perspective And like all of us The one thing we'll remember at the end of each day is the thing that really annoyed us Because we're humans So don't be the thing that really annoyed your customer Set the bar pretty low But here's the thing As I said, I've been doing this a long time And I work with a lot of companies And I've been pushing this idea for a long long long long time And some people like it and some people don't whatever But I'm going to share with you something I haven't really shared before I've been doing these kind of 360 degree analysis And do you know what that's just fancy talk? Hey, it's a marketing conference 360 degree analysis sounds a lot better than something simple But I've been pushing this idea for a long time That when you as a company think you'll know your customer Let me or somebody on my team actually speak to your customers In confidence, no names will ever come back Let me do this And in 20 years, I have never yet found a company Where its customers said the same things About the company as its employees thought they would Not once Literally not once And we did one just about a year ago And I won't name the company But the thing is, this is a really nice company I like these people They've got a good product They seem to be doing everything well They actually have a really good CMO I mean they check all the boxes But here's the thing They told me, I mean there's more to it than this But they told me essentially Their customers come to them because they are the market leader Their technology is the best It is better than everybody else's And here's the thing It probably is actually I mean they do have a really really good product So I spoke to a bunch of their customers Not one of them had a clue that this technology was market leading You know what they all said? Everyone without exception They are the nicest people to work with They actually call me back I really like these people And when I even brought into the conversation somehow or other About the technology They would basically say, oh really I didn't know that So they didn't even know this company is competitors So I have this product company telling me We beat out X, Y, Z And yet when I talked to the customer Who apparently threw out this other company They said, oh yeah yeah yeah Well we've been using that for years We're never going to use that anyway There was never even a competitive situation The disconnect was huge And that's normal That's normal Never assume you actually know What your customers think of you Just don't, don't make the assumption I mean sure you can hire a company like ours But you can do this yourself Right? Just get somebody independent To give a few calls I mean it's not rocket science But like common sense It's really not that common People just don't really do it Right? Similarly If you're going to have to readjust To the real world of your customers needs Never ever ever underestimate The change within your organization You can bring in And I do a lot in technology I'm really more of a technologist right But you can bring in Adobe experience management You can bring in HubSpot You can do whatever you want You change one person's job by that much And they will not like it They will not like it People do not like change And if you think you can steamroller it through I have worked with multi-billion-dollar companies Who have had pretty much the lowest paid person In their company completely ruin a project Because I'm not doing it So never underestimate change within your organization Is it challenging? Is it time consuming? Well, yeah But at the same time If you address it early enough And you're open and honest By the way Hardly anybody's ever open and honest with their employees If you're open and honest with them You might be surprised So who is actually informing your customer journey So customer journey mapping It's been around a long time But it just suddenly seems to have got really trendy So whatever Right We'll pretend it's a new idea But customer journey mapping Everybody should do it Seriously, everybody should do it It's very important But never do it by sitting down with your employees And asking them what the customer's journey is They have as much idea as I do Talk to actual customers Get that feedback And again It seems like common sense And I sound like a really patronizing Privately educated Englishman who should shut up But I'm trying to share with you Experiences that just frankly Everybody's sort of struggling with And you don't need to Right These are the stupid things That can ruin your project Don't make the same mistakes Change management is hard And it can be really hard if you want it to be Or you can just be opening up front And say to people, guess what? In this coming year We're going to be doing this, this and this And yeah, it is going to change some things But I'd really like your input I mean, you know, it's not that hard It's really not that hard Yeah If you're going to do customer journey mapping Talk to actual customers There's a great idea That's not that hard You'd be surprised Most customers actually want to talk to you Most customers actually They'd love to hear from you Talk to them Right And I don't mean Go and have a look and see what problems And things that the help deslogged I mean, just go and have an open conversation with them So first, you know, again Statement of the obvious here I know But start with an understanding Of your customers in your own organization Right So when I worked for Wipro New guy in the Boston office Didn't know a soul Came out straight away to Bangalore Met a lot of people It was great And it just stuck in my head That so many American people had said to me What's the difference between a baseball and a cricket ball? I don't know why But anyway, they did Okay And so when I was in Bangalore I bought a cricket ball And I put it on my desk So the next time an American comes around and asks me I can say, well, that's actually a cricket ball So there we go Conversation starter That's not actually what happened Do you know what happened? I went from being the guy in the office And nobody knew To everybody, no matter how senior CEOs, etc. Would walk over to my Indian senior people Right And CEOs would walk over to my desk Pick the cricket ball up And show me how to spin it I would pick it up And show them how to spin a cricket ball Thank you very much And we actually Suddenly, it was the best marketing tool That had ever been I mean, nobody's ever thought of anything except brilliant Except for Alan Who didn't think of it at all It was a sheer accident Right The point is I made a connection We had a connection point That's all you're trying to do with your customers Have a connection You don't need to know all about That doesn't mean you don't want to use AI and machine learning and analytics and everything I'm not saying that But be open Be honest And make a connection Right Sometimes when your When your website fails Sometimes when your mobile app doesn't work properly Do you know what That's actually an opportunity To engage with your customer and go Wow, you're right This is a real mess We're really working on it We're going to try and sort this out for you You do that with them Rather than leave them in the blank for two days And they might actually come and go Yeah, these are a good bunch of people these Because guess what In the real world stuff happens Happens to everybody So how often does your organization Hopefully share the challenges it faces Well, guess what hardly ever If we're going to really move forward with Martek If we're really going to move forward with customer experiences If we're going to have genuine proper journey maps That actually have some kind of empathy and connection With our customer We have to change that Yeah, we have to really change that The other thing we have to change Although this is far easier said than done I'll give you that Is that if we think about transformation It means something different to everybody Right So if you take the senior Most senior level CEO, the COO Oh, they buy into this You know, Accenture, PWC Whoever that week has come in And McKinsey or whoever And they bought Oh my god We're going to digitally transform our organization Good for you Okay You take that down a level To say a department Well, I'm not going to digitally transform the organization I might transform this process Because it stinks Here's where we get into the important bit Right And you know how this works It all comes down Everybody's got their own plan here Here's something that we have come across That is just I think amazing And it's amazingly daft But we found that One of the reasons Both internally and externally Things don't go well in the customer journey Documents Backend documents Basic something like that Right So I'm going to click to this This is a I mean we would get sued If we actually gave you a name to this one Okay Real life example I'm not going to go through every step But the bottom line is Some patient was called up Because they had sleep problems They were going to do a sleep study This is the US Right You pay a fortune For health care And guess what You expect great experience in response This person great health care Bottom line is You know breaks down Somebody didn't feel in a form properly This website Didn't work very well Blah blah blah blah blah Something that should have taken A week A week and a half Ended up taking 16 weeks And a threat to an attorney Right If you don't saw this I'm going to sue you All it was Was a document Handoff The system The website The mobile app Beautiful Great job But at some point A human had to step in And that human typed in Some incorrect data And it completely ruined everything Now that might just sound like one example But that is common We just finished a study for a software vendor And it was about Citizen services Developing citizen services Customer onboarding Right Guess what Found exactly the same thing The same thing Why did this take four weeks You know why Because three and a half weeks of it Was a piece of paper Sat on somebody's desk And couldn't get round to dealing with it Okay So back end Document centric handoffs Not sexy In any way, shape or form Not something your average marketer Would really want to get involved in But that Is the kind of thing That can ruin it all So what does that bring you back to Change management within the organization How does this process really, really work How are you going to address it You have to be holistic It's great to have the best designers It's great to I mean you know On another day we can talk about the value of customer data We can also talk about the fact that you probably don't have good data You don't have access to it And even if you do somebody doesn't want to share it with you And all of those challenges right But these are all important things But customer intimacy and insight Is really sort of what we've been talking about a lot today And to me It's not about how much you know about the customer Okay It's about making a connection Right Just like the silly cricket ball Right I made a connection Just like not waiting for three weeks for somebody to sort out a form Just like not getting back to them on time today I'm really sorry we've got a problem Those may seem like boring silly things But you don't do those And I don't care how much money you spend That healthcare example I just gave you That was around 50 million they spent on a new system Okay And it came down to one person messing the whole thing up But was it really their fault Or was it the people who spent 15 million dollars Who never bothered to understand the process in the first place Yeah So that's really what it's all about So first understand your customer and your organization And I'm running out of time I'm going to actually pretty much run out of time But I'd love to continue the conversation as it says there I mean my job my goal here today was A to keep you awake after lunch Because it was a really good lunch So I wouldn't blame you But B to get you thinking about things which you normally wouldn't Right And to me if you don't think about those critical elements The document handoffs Just actually what is going to really annoy a customer As opposed to what's going to really excite them Those are the things I just said to somebody prior to this I spend a lot of money too much You might not guess it But I spend too much money on Converse and Adidas sneakers Okay It's a bit of an addiction actually I'm going to be honest with you I don't care about their social media presence I don't want to be part of their team Right I don't want any of that I just want sneakers That's all I'm after Make them easy Fair price That's all I want Yeah Set the bar a little bit lower AI, machine learning, data analysis, etc Yes That is the future I'm not going to disagree with anybody here But don't think we're living in the future now There's a lot of work to do before we get there And some of that is really basic And with that I'm going to shut up Unless anybody's got any questions But I'll be around the rest of the day anyway if you do So thank you very much