Reload Consulting was selected as one of Anthill’s top Cool Company’s under the ‘Savvy Service Provider’ category and received an honourable mention at the 14th annual Cool Company Awards on Thursday 21 February 2019.

This great honour wouldn’t have been possible without our incredible team, who are constantly looking for ways to innovate our approach to service delivery so that we can provide real and meaningful value to every client we work with.

Also thank you to all the incredible businesses we have worked with, that enable us the opportunities to do pretty cool things!

The post Reload Consulting named in Anthill’s Cool Company Top 100 for 2018 appeared first on Reload Consulting.

Across all the career highlights and business stories, when she was asked, “what is the headline of your life?”  Julieanne replied, “To make my bit of the world a better place.” With this kind of perspective, the event energised me so greatly that I knew I had to share my top takeaways.

5 Innovation Tips Gleaned from Julieanne

I’ve compiled my long list of notes down into some actionable Innovation-related tips, combining Julieanne’s wisdom with some practical cross-industry application.

#1 Execute your core business offering well.

Find out whether your market thinks you’re doing exceptionally well, rather decently, or abysmally – and find out why through market research or customer journey mapping. People expect what you’re supposed to be doing to work effectively, no matter what industry or sector. For Brisbane Airport, ultimately the foundational airport attributes ought to be done very well. For Brisbane Airport: safety, security, cleanliness and good value must be present (or else).

Sometimes we assume that it’s all the add-ons (i.e. augmented brand differentiators) which we create in marketing strategies which will delight customers. Julieanne highlighted that we should invest surplus time in those areas after the basics are achieved.

You need to be getting the fundamentals right otherwise you’ll be extinguishing fires in areas where you shouldn’t have to be. Make the core product/service right. Then conquer upwards and outwards!

#2 Develop authentic relationships with your shareholders and balance being customer-led.

Don’t underestimate how valuable these stakeholders are – for inspiration, understanding organisational priority, and for internal support when you’re chasing a vision of ‘making the business better’.

Community engagement helps you regain perspective and makes projects more thorough. Allocate time to creating an effective long-term stakeholder engagement program.

#3 Conquer project management risk.

In any internal project there are key elements. Make sure you’re having conversations as a team around risks, mitigation, who the right team is for the project and for which areas, and how the project should be initiated.

How the project starts off can set the tone for how the team kicks off and how the phases progress.

#4 Leadership is best described in one word: vision.

There’s something powerful about harnessing collaboration and getting others on board with an idea. Even as a leader, you’re part of the team.

This certainly isn’t limited to a formal leadership or management position. Sometimes the best teams have been fueled by members who inject purposeful innovation. So even as a team member, you can enact leadership qualities in support your leader.

Having vision is one thing but develop your skills in creating change in the organisation, helping teams to understand what you’re trying to achieve through them.

#5 Chase resilience.

There are sometimes (and quite often) barriers which may pop up in your execution of projects and that vision. Chase resilience in this area and grow in it. Over time you’ll gain perspective and not panic so easily!

Thanks for all the amazing nuggets of truth and wisdom, Julieanne! For more detail and insight watch the free webcast post at SLQ’s Facebook Page.

This was a Game Changers event. Game Changers is a Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame initiative presented by State Library of Queensland, QUT Business School and the Queensland Library Foundation.

The post Making your business more innovative: with Julieanne Alroe appeared first on Reload Consulting.

There were so many great points and insights, between the panel discussion and the many conversations we had throughout the evening. But, we have done our best to compile our key takeaways to consider when looking forward into the new year.

First, let’s reflect on 2018…

There was a consensus amongst the panellists that customer-centric marketing has come a long way over the past 12 months and a lot of brands have been doing this really well. However, where marketers have struggled and fallen short is in consolidating their data and getting on top of data privacy, which leads nicely into our first key takeout from the evening…

#1 Marketers need to learn ethics and sort out their data

In our Something Digital Highlights, we recalled Caroline Sinders’ point about how “to design with machine learning, we have to come first from an ethical place and a transparent place”. Nigel Dalton reiterated the importance of ethics and transparency for modern marketers. He highlighted that Australian’s are interested in time, trust and transparency, and this is how REA have structured their strategy to support innovation for the Australian consumer. In fact, Nigel’s main point for the night was that all marketers need to learn about and understand ethics. “Trust comes in like a tortoise and goes out like a racehorse”, therefore businesses need to be taking an ethical approach to data management and marketing, or they just won’t survive.

We need to be building AI on an understanding of the humans we are engaging with… How else can we deliver a rewarding experience?
????Let’s tall dialogue flow; conversational architecture; user intent…????@JB_Cosgrove is speaking our language!#nxbris

— Sahlia Painter (@Sahlia) November 27, 2018

Part of being ethical means getting on top of ethical data management, security and privacy, but as Jenny Williams highlighted, you can’t solve privacy and security unless you get your data sorted out! Jenny discussed how getting privacy right is not just about the technical side of things, but also understanding your customers’ attitudes towards privacy. Some people think advertising tailored to their behaviours is useful, others find it creepy, and the ‘creepy grey line that marketers shouldn’t cross’ is different for different people – so tailor your approach and segment your database accordingly!

#2 Australia used to be 7 years behind the UK…

… But John Cosgrove states that we have now reduced that gap to 2 years! But, we are now at the beginning of the next industrial revolution and the untouchables are becoming touchable in Australia (think, the property market, Big 4, etc). But what did we learn from the last industrial revolution? It took 60 years for mass adoption of the new manufacturing technologies and looking back, we can see that the tipping point of innovation is when the manufacturer refuses to create the ‘old’ technology and only services/produces the ‘new’ technology. However, no matter the developments in new technology, the core marketing principles are still the same:

1. Understanding your customers
2. Understanding your customers’ purchase/ decision journey
3. Know what your customers need to hear and when the right time is to tell them this

1. Who is your market
2. What do they need to hear?
3. How do you say it to them when they need to hear it?
Get these basics right before chasing shiny new technology. Tech is just a tool. Get your strategy right. #NXBris

— Luke Chapman (@DigitalPeddler) November 27, 2018

#3 A great brand asset is only valuable if…

…it’s telling a story that helps customers understand what your brand does. Jenny Williams discussed how well known and loved the Compare the Market Meerkats are, yet so many people still don’t understand what the company really does. The challenge that Jenny has been helping address since joining the Compare the Market team is revising their approach to how they use those brand assets to tell a better story that helps people understand what they do. What does this look like? The Meerkats are emigrating to Aus and have moved to Melbourne!

We need to be building AI on an understanding of the humans we are engaging with… How else can we deliver a rewarding experience?
????Let’s tall dialogue flow; conversational architecture; user intent…????@JB_Cosgrove is speaking our language!#nxbris

— Sahlia Painter (@Sahlia) November 27, 2018

#4 Conversational AI is the future!

Chat and audio interfaces are trends that customers do and will expect when they interact with brands and businesses (think around-the-clock, instant access). To deliver on these expectations, brands need to build their AI on an understanding of what their customers want and expect, and how conversational AI can add value to them, in order to deliver a truly rewarding experience. John Cosgrove discussed how this requires understanding their persona and intents and crafting a conversational architecture with dialogue and content, that lends itself to the chat interface and/or audio (which has no interface at all). Ultimately, the only way businesses can feasibly deliver on customers’ expectations for instant 24/7 access, is by integrating conversational AI technology. If you’re looking to better understand Conversational AI, you can check out our page on the topic here.

We need to be building AI on an understanding of the humans we are engaging with… How else can we deliver a rewarding experience?
????Let’s tall dialogue flow; conversational architecture; user intent…????@JB_Cosgrove is speaking our language!#nxbris

— Sahlia Painter (@Sahlia) November 27, 2018

My personal note on this topic: AI isn’t coming, it’s already here! The tech is already available and accessible, and conversational AI is something that any size business can implement to varying extents. However, it seems that too many businesses are waiting for someone else to make a move!

A big thank you to Networx Brisbane for a great lineup of events this year! 2018 has been a big one and looking back on all the success it has brought, we can’t help but be excited for all there is to look forward to in 2019. Here’s to becoming even more customer-centric, educating ourselves on the critical matters of ethics, embracing AI and conversational interfaces, and becoming smarter with technologies that will make our work bigger, faster, stronger and better!

The post Networx Highlights – Strategy & Innovation for 2019 appeared first on Reload Consulting.

Day 1 – Keynotes, Local Speakers, and Plenty of Coffee!

Takeaway #1: Brisbane is truly leading in digital!

Our team were truly inspired by the incredible speakers and topics presented. It was a non-stop, action-packed day that really highlighted the strength and calibre of Brisbane’s thriving digital community. It was encouraging to not only witness how well Brisbane is doing in the digital space, but also have that confirmed by the international keynotes.

.@justinhendrix knows how to win over an Aussie audience – tell us how great we’re doing ????????????#SomethingDigital #AussieRules pic.twitter.com/X3z6kr8Rey

— Sahlia Painter (@Sahlia) November 1, 2018

Takeaway #2: Business intelligence MUST come before Artificial Intelligence.

The event kicked off with a talk from Adam Bonnifield of Airbus, who highlighted how AI has been completely reinvented in the past decade and that we’re now at a point where new technology is not just a way of catching up, but a way of driving new possibilities for the future.

But first, you need to build business intelligence and unify your data ecosystem. ???? Then look at AI. ???? #SomethingDigital @adamsfallen @SD_BNE pic.twitter.com/ahUX3zRShI

— Sahlia Painter (@Sahlia) October 31, 2018

However, in order to be very purpose-driven about extending the benefits of AI to everyone, we must focus on the stuff that makes a difference.

Takeaway #3: Technology is a double-edged sword. It can be used for good, as much as it can be used for evil.

While a lot of the speakers were truly inspiring, we got literal goosebumps hearing from Mariana Dahan of World Identity Network (WIN). Mariana addressed how technology can be used to fundamentally solve many of the world’s biggest challenges. Her work with WIN is as a shining example of this.

Such inspiring work that @marianadahan is doing with WIN!
A good reminder that tech is a double edged sword – can be used for good as much as evil.
Don’t get too comfortable!#SomethingDigital @SD_BNE pic.twitter.com/dEard31DDU

— Sahlia Painter (@Sahlia) November 1, 2018

The World Identity Network uses blockchain technology to help give the ~ 1 billion individuals who don’t have a formal way of proving their identity, a data-backed way of doing just that! This, in turn, is alleviating the number of people lured into modern slavery circles and down sex trafficking paths. Blockchain – as a technological solution integrated into systems and processes – can genuinely make a difference to curb the identity challenge. As Cat Matson neatly exclaimed, “the core of being a digital city is to use digital to make peoples’ lives better”.

Takeaway #4: We need to capitalise on innovation, let it work for good, capture data, and understand all the journeys involved. If we don’t, we’ll be left behind.

Deon Liebenberg from Optus Business presented an enthralling talk that highlighted that our future is “a connected one” and that we need to be reflecting on how this will genuinely affect us and our organisations. He discussed how executives recognise the disruption around us with the uptake of digital innovation and emerging technologies. It’s not hard to see the rise of this digital world when our personal lives (let alone our working environments) are becoming littered with technological integration and intuitive connections.

90% of data out there was created in the last 2 years alone, shares Deon Liebenberg from @optusbusiness. ????

How does this affect you? Our world is rapidly changing at warp speed, and so must our organisations. ????@SD_BNE #somethingdigital pic.twitter.com/7By4EYYAgH

— Hayley Vale (@hayleyvale1) November 1, 2018

However, so many of these executives who recognise the disruption are not capitalising on it, putting everything at risk!

Takeaway #5: Humanizing a brand is something that just has to be done, but we must deliver consistently on every single channel.

The talk by Vanessa Brennan from Michael Hill was a good reminder of how we can all benefit by spending time planning out and understanding who our customers are; understanding the journey these individuals and groups experience; and realising what right we have as brands and marketers to connect with those customers at different stages of their journeys.

Marketing IRL at #SomethingDigital
Humanizing a brand is something that just has to be done.
But, you must deliver consistently on every. single. channel.????@michaelhill @reloada @SD_BNE pic.twitter.com/ifv4Q0193u

— Sahlia Painter (@Sahlia) November 1, 2018

Let’s reflect: are we using xyz channels the ways which customers would appreciate and even like? How can we make the customer journey more focused on what customers want and need, not just on what we as brands assume they’d want and need?

Takeaway #6: Trust is a byproduct of transparency.

Caroline Sinders from Convocation Design+Research addressed the incredibly important topic of approaching machine learning from an ethical place, and a transparent place.

A great talk from @carolinesinders delving into the need for transparency with data, and the need for a conversation about the diversity of data sets. ????????????@SD_BNE #SomethingDigital #brisbane pic.twitter.com/VErxRaCsTC

— Sahlia Painter (@Sahlia) November 1, 2018

Using recent examples of both intentional and unintentional adversarial algorithms, Caroline emphasised the need to have a conversation about the diversity of data sets. While algorithms activate the data, the data itself is human outputs. Trust can be gained, but a key to this is how that trust is communicated – both explicitly (i.e. showing and describing how data is used) and implicitly (i.e. not stated, but implied). To do this, there is a level of transparency needed – to be transparently opaque and give enough information to try to build implicit trust.

Takeaway #7: The future has some knowns in tech, but also many unknowns, and we need to be conscious about how we create, adopt, and apply new digital technologies.

The event was capped off nicely with a talk by Justin Hendrix of NYC Media Lab, addressing the 2030 vision and what the decade ahead has in store. This left a sense of excitement, with a touch of fear and apprehension. He talked about how the entire world’s population is set to be online by 2030 and posed the uncertainty of what that ‘information explosion’ will look like. Justin talked about a number of advancing technologies, including but not limited to:

• Media becoming environmental
• AI-generated characters (and the difficulty in distinguishing whether they are real)
• The AR cloud that ties data and information to a location
• Robots learning to see
• Contact lenses that will bring digital information onto our retinas.

He also talked about synthetic media such as full-head reenactment, and how this creates an increased ability to publish fake news.

Day 2 – Open Studios, Breakfasts, Beers, and Digital Conversations

Day two of the Something Digital Festival saw industry leaders across Brisbane open their doors to the public, to share their expertise through workshops and presentations.

We headed over to Orange Digital in the morning, to participate in a conversation they hosted around building a powerful company culture. It was wonderful to see others in the industry taking such a proactive approach to culture – it’s something we focus very strongly on ourselves at Reload!

Reload was then proud to open our doors in the afternoon when we hosted a casual discussion on Behavioural Marketing across Digital. With beers on offer, it was a great opportunity for many to conclude the two-day event and head into the weekend.

Our own Hayley Vale co-presented with Emily Forrest of Reload Media, the discussion focused on how digital marketing works best when businesses focus on marketing to their customers’ behaviours, rather than building it around channels.

Hayley kicked things off by explaining the importance of understanding your customer and your own business, and how they both interact online. Through the use of pixels, tracking, and data capture, we can better interpret the way that customers are interacting with our brand. By mapping out the customer journey and understanding the questions and pain points raised at each stage, businesses are able to make more informed decisions when it comes creating and implementing a digital strategy.

Emily carried on from this point and gave insight into some of the tactics that implemented once a business has a greater understanding of their customer journey. While there are countless tactics that can be considered, Emily chose to focus on five in particular:

1. Email Marketing
2. Remarketing
3. Social Media Marketing
4. Programmatic Advertising
5. Geo-Fencing

For more in-depth look at what Hayley and Emily discussed, you can access the slide deck from the presentation below.

And that’s a wrap!

It’s fair to say Something Digital was a massive success and we could have added a lot more takeaways to this list! We would like to give a massive thank you to the Bright Conferences team for hosting such an incredible event.

We can’t wait until next year! In the meantime, you can follow @ReloadConsult and @Reload_Media on Twitter, for all your digital updates and news.

The post Something Digital 2018 Highlights appeared first on Reload Consulting.

Llew and Sahlia talk through some great examples of chatbots being used across different industries, but brands such as Shop Spring, UBank, and Spikes Asia.

They also talk you through the key steps that need to be taken to plan and build a powerful, automated customer service assistant that customers actually love to use and that provides great value to your business.

A key point here is that chatbots need to be customer-led – driven by a deep understanding of your customers, what they need and expect, and how a chatbot can add value to their experience. Then, you can find the best technology solution to deliver on those needs.

If you’d like to read more about chatbots and AI for customer service, check out this blog article that talks through the capabilities and possibilities that chatbots and AI technology have to offer.

The post Video – How to build Customer Service Chatbots that actually help your customers appeared first on Reload Consulting.

What was that experience like?

Chatbots have been around for some time now and to date, the experience they have offered has been less than optimal. Following the lines of ‘monkey see, monkey do’, they have been fairly primitive, spitting out whichever answer they are programmed to based on a predefined rule that allows them to recognise what you’re asking. But if they don’t recognise your query, well things can go south pretty quickly! This leads to customers becoming frustrated and that resentment is often directed towards the brand, not the tech!

But! Times are changing and there are new developments in chatbots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) happening almost every week!

While this technology has undoubtedly been around in some capacity for years now, the advancements in capabilities and functionalities means enormous opportunities are being created to shake up customer service delivery. Bots are smart enough now that they can deliver more human-like experiences incorporating natural language. Customers can get the answers they want and need, and customer service teams can spend their time on more meaningful tasks (rather than answering basic questions over and over again).

What do I mean? Well, let’s have a look at some of the ways that a ‘bot’ can interact with customers now…

• Fun Fact #1 – Using the right platform, your ‘bot’ can actually use sentiment analysis to identify if a customer is becoming frustrated or angry, and can initiate handover to a human consultant as soon as this is flagged. Forget talking to a bot and getting absolutely nowhere… if the bot can’t help, it won’t be long before it passes the customer on to someone who can. But what about when the office is closed you ask? Well, the bot can be smart enough to know what time of day it is and have a select protocol (i.e. a call back system) for when a human is not immediately available.
• Fun Fact #2 – Smart bots learn. You can have a bot that if it doesn’t get the answer right the first time, it will take note and learn for next time. If a customer asks that question again later on, the bot will have the correct answer sorted this time around!
• Fun Fact #3 – If a customer digresses from the current logic flow, a modern chatbot can handle this seamlessly. For example, if the customer is having a conversation with a bot to book a table for 2 on Wednesday night, then just before the booking is made they say, ‘actually, are you open on Thursdays?’, the bot can respond with, ‘Yes we are. Would you like me to change the booking to Thursday?’.
• Fun Fact #4 – Chatbots can recognise when a customer asks questions which contain multiple trains of thought and can address both in a way that appears natural and seamless. For example, if I was to ask a bot, ‘I want to know the store opening hours and can you please let me know if the monkey socks are in stock?’, then the bot would be able to recognise the two different requests and address both without missing a beat!
• Fun Fact #5 – Chatbots can draw in information and data from multiple data sources. For example, it might draw from your CMS, your CRM, and Google My Business, to be able to present accurate and relevant responses to customer queries.
• Fun Fact #6 – Chatbots can recognise natural language identifiers (i.e. one we were playing with recently recognised that ‘Sahlia’ was a name, now that’s impressive!). They will have preset identifiers but in no way does that limit you! You can teach the bot to identify any entities you want! Have a bunch of obscure product codes that people will be asking for? You can teach them to the bot so it will recognise which type of product customers are asking about.

Are you as excited about this as we are yet?

A quick word to the wise, however… not all bots are created equal and having good tech doesn’t automatically mean you’ll have a good bot!

Some Key Things to Consider Before Building a Bot!

There are a lot of tech options out there, many with similar capabilities, some a cut above the rest… but it depends on what you need the bot to do!

We see time and time again that a tech solution is chosen first, and then the business tries to make that fit its needs and the needs of its customers. This almost never works!

Before you even look at the tech you’ll use to build your bot, you need to consider the use case:

• Who is the bot for/who will be interacting with it?
• What will they want and expect from the bot?
• What value will this bot offer our audience?
• Can internal processes be optimised or streamlined using the bot?
• What functionalities and capabilities are needed to deliver an optimal customer experience?

Our number one tip for delivering an outstanding customer experience using AI? Plan first! Ask your stakeholders, ask your customers, and take the time to plan out the strategy behind the bot. After all, artificial intelligence is only as intelligent as you make it.

One Final Note

I have referred to chatbots a lot in this post. However, I actually am not a big fan of the term. Why? Because it hints at the primitive experiences that we have all encountered and doesn’t really embody all the possibilities that are now open to us through recent and ongoing advancements.

So what term do we use then, you ask? Well, we like to refer to them as Customer Service Assistants. When done properly, it really is assisting – specifically, a) your customers as they progress along the customer journey – and b) your staff, freeing them to work on more meaningful work.

Want to read more about leveraging AI for customer service? Sahlia Painter contributed some great insights for this article by Telco Solutions.

The post AI, Chatbots, and the Future of Customer Service Assistants appeared first on Reload Consulting.

One idea of many struck home with our Reload Consulting team. It was to do with creating content that matters most to the target market. The question was raised: how does an organisation generate content that is meaningful and represents resources well-spent? Kurt Sanders answered with our team clapping. Kurt emphasised that the power is in nailing the customer journey at each point of that journey with relevant and value-adding content. I think it’s important to add that what is considered ‘value-adding’ may look different at various stages of the journey, from one organisation/brand to another. The trick is to create poignant content for each part of the customer’s experience. In other words, do your best to understand the journey that your customers (or stakeholders) are taking with your brand. Dig into their journey and see if you can spot any opportunities to outwork content better. Revel in knowing that content can have a purpose at all those different points. Then and there, is where you can strike powerful content.

???? this from @sanderlands at #nxbris

TO DO: Nail the customer journey at each point with content! Create relevant and poignant content for each part of their experience… what’s their conversion experience like? Their post purchase? Match content! ???? @NetworxEvents

— Reload Consulting (@ReloadConsult) July 24, 2018

We understand that the idea of ‘digging deep into a customer journey’ may seem a bit complex and time-consuming, this is because customer journeys are rarely linear and rarely super simple. We subscribe to the notion that there’s not always a one-journey-fits-all approach to most brands. Although this means that customer journeys can get complicated and timely to unpack, it makes customer journeys also incredibly exciting and nuanced.

Off the back of this core takeaway, we’ve sewn together 5 steps for you to follow to craft meaningful and stand-out content for your own social media success.

1. Know your customer’s journey. By that, we mean whipping up a journey grid on a whiteboard and using your insights and customer-intel to fill it in. Try analysing your customers’ behaviours, thoughts, feelings, touchpoints with the brand, barriers to them moving to the next stage of interaction and common influences they have – at each stage. Stages may follow a journey like awareness of need, initial research, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, post-purchase, satisfaction/dissatisfaction, loyalty and then advocacy.

You may like to start simple with asking questions like, ‘what content should we be serving up prior to conversion? Or after purchase?’ but the art of meaningful content management is with being hyper-aware of your market’s needs and desires, and what would help them reach a certain goal state (greater awareness, engagement, and conversion etc.). Break down a customer journey map into stages to tackle one at a time, but try to not sacrifice depth and specificity for the convenience of doing a quick and easy journey map. You may also like to rename your journey stages to align with the customer experience. For example, a boutique art gallery might have stages such as ‘arrive at the art square in the city, arrive at the boutique building, experience the exhibition, exit location’.

2. Select areas of the customer journey most in need of content, or the ‘lower hanging fruit’. If this is a new way of strategic content planning for you and the team, start easy and start by breaking up the journey into chunks. For example, what would make for an easy landing page or eBook download?
3. Design content around the customer journey. At Networx, one of the points tackled by the panel was how do you even begin to tackle content creation? We get it, sometimes creating content in-house (or even mapping out an action plan for outsourced content) is sometimes (quite honestly) overwhelming. The key as highlighted by the panellists however, is to just knuckle down and start simply. Ashton Rigg says to grab out a whiteboard, pull out some post-it notes and simply go at it with your ideas and with what could work in line with the customer journey. Put all your creative ideas as a team within the scope of possibility. Try not to overthink it at this point.
4. Post content to meet the market right where they’re at. Here, begin to integrate the appropriate content ideas within the stages of the customer journey. In this, you might like to be thinking about how to integrate content pieces with one another, or with the next stages of that customer’s experience with the brand.
5. Evaluate the effects of the content you’ve woven into the customer’s journey. Don’t stop at the execution of content, about your users. Perhaps your data sources will reveal a new need or behaviour of users on your website or out at your location. How can you adapt your content to meet this new need?

What I appreciate most about brand content is that it can achieve several purposes and conversion goals. Meaningfully-crafted content has the power to alter behaviour and mindsets; subsequently, it can cut through the crazy noise of social media and aid in achieving your social media success.

The post A Customer Journey Solution to Crafting Content appeared first on Reload Consulting.

We are constantly coming across businesses that are struggling to compete as more digitally savvy competitors disrupt the market. We are on a mission to help these businesses, regardless of their size or capacity, to step into the digital age, leverage digital technology, and build competitive advantage.

This eBook has been carefully packed full of relevant content that will help you better understand what Digital Transformation means and the role that Digital Strategy plays in that. You will also gain insight into how well your business is currently performing from a digital standpoint, and understand some steps that you may need to undertake to start moving towards meaningful Digital Transformation for your business.

What’s inside? Take a deep dive into:

• Who’s doing digital well?
• Highlight the 7 areas of business operations that are key to leveraging digital technology.
• Educate the necessity of a digital strategy in today’s age of digital economies.
• Teach you the general framework of jumpstarting a digital strategy.
• Explore the digital ecosystem of tools available for multiple business operations such as customer management, marketing optimisation, productivity, etc.
• Metrics for measuring the success of a digital strategy, so you gain a sense of accomplishment as the digital gears start to turn.

The post The Ultimate Starter Guide to Digital Transformation appeared first on Reload Consulting.

A big issue we see in the traditional consulting industry is how the consultants work with their clients. I personally have heard many horror stories where either the consultants took on themselves all responsibility and initiative and left the client out of the process, or the consultant left all the responsibility in the hands of the client, simply agreeing to whatever the client wanted without bringing their own experience and expertise to the table.

In order for a consultant/strategist and business/client relationship to truly flourish, it needs to be a relationship built on collaboration and open communication.

To ensure this is the case for your next consulting project, there are a number of things you can do to determine which consultancy firm will be best suited to partner with you and your business, and then maximise that relationship ongoing.

1. Ask the right questions before choosing a consultant

Before you choose who to work with, ensure you take the time to meet with the prospective consultants and ask them questions about how they would work with you and your team on the project. Ask them how they have worked with other clients on similar projects. What are their processes like? How do they communicate with their clients and how frequently? How do they engage their clients throughout the project? You also want to know that the consultants will be focused on achieving the best outcomes for your business, not just on getting another sale across the line.

Things to look out for during these initial stages include:

• Are the consultants asking a lot of questions about your business, its background, and your goals and objectives? This will indicate that they are trying to understand your business and what it is you are truly looking to achieve.
• Are the consultants open to collaborating with you from the very beginning? Are they happy to consult and refine the service proposal until you are happy? Are they flexible in adapting their service approach to match what you and your team need? If they are demonstrating that now, that is a good indication of what’s to come.
• Does the proposal show an understanding of your brief and your objectives? The proposed approach should be based on a deep understanding of what you need, drawn from the collaboration and discussion they have had with you.

2. Be available and accessible during the project

If you have chosen the right consultants, they will be engaging you and others within your business to draw an understanding of your business, market, objectives, and more. This may be in the form of consulting workshops and meetings, via phone or email, or even over Slack or other communication channels. To ensure that the consultants have all the information they need and to keep the project’s momentum, it is important that as the client you:

• Make yourself available for any workshops or meetings, and also ensure others within your business are available as needed.
• Keep across any communication channels being used and respond in a timely manner. Responsive communication both ways will build more effective collaboration and keep up momentum.
• Provide timely and detailed feedback. You should be seeing drafts of any deliverables and have the opportunity to be working with your consultants to refine any strategies or processes. Any delays in feedback can hold up progress and lead to project delays.
• Keep your consultant/s informed of any changes or updates to your business. If there are changes that may impact the project, now or in the future, it is in your best interest to keep your consultant/s informed. They should be flexible and willing to adapt the approach or deliverable if needed.

3. Be proactive in your engagement

A collaborative relationship goes two ways so to ensure you’re really getting the most out of your engagement with the consultant, it’s important to take a seat at the table. Although your consultant is expected to drive the project and probe with questions, you know what you need and want from the project and need to be contributing along the way.

• Come to any workshops or meetings prepared. Your consultant should provide you with an agenda prior to the workshop. If you’re not sure how best to prepare, don’t be afraid to ask.
• Feel free to ask any questions which may be a little ‘left of field’. There may be things which haven’t been considered or areas where you may need assistance outside of the scope of the project being worked on. Asking questions and raising these can help identify new opportunities or avenues to explore.

4. Maintain an open line of communication after the project has finished

If you have spent months working closely with a consultant on a big project, they will have developed a thorough understanding of your business. This can be an invaluable resource to call back on as you implement any strategies, or come across any challenges or changes in the business. Keeping an open line of communication means that if ever needed, you can go back to your consultant to seek advice or input, or event assistance with implementation or further strategic work.

A good consultant will value this relationship as well, and be willing to provide ongoing support and assistance.

Choosing a consultant can be overwhelming, but working with the wrong consultant can be detrimental. It is important to take some time and talk with the consultants, to find the relationship that will be better for the long term.

The post How to get the best value from your consultants appeared first on Reload Consulting.

As you may already know, competitor analyses are useful as benchmarks, but we really shouldn’t rely solely on them, especially when developing a business and brand. Your desire to simply outdo the competition shouldn’t drive your strategy. As business leaders, our aim is to be proactive in our strategy creation, not reactive; and to be customer-focused, and not competitor-focused. There is one major draw-card with having your focus on customers, not competitors.

The #1 drawcard with having a customer-focus is: not getting held back

Conversely (and to illustrate my point), the problem with a competitor-focus is getting held back. I remember running a 100m race back at my Grade 2 athletics carnival. An eager little sprinter back then, I knew I had the chance to take out that first place ribbon. Despite kicking off to a fantastic start and leading in first place for the first 90 or so metres, I suddenly realised I couldn’t glimpse another runner. Curiously, I turned my head to see how much I was leading by, when my friend Bethan swiftly darted past for the next 10m, unexpectedly winning first-place.

As business leaders, we can’t afford to make the mistake I did in the running race. We can’t fix our gazes behind us or to the side to see where our competitors are, what they’re doing or how they’re going with the race. If we do, we lose momentum, we slow down, we can get overconfident, and then end up discouraged as they leave us in the dust. ‘This sounds easy,’ you might scoff, ‘of course, I wouldn’t get too fixated on what other people are doing,’ yet, unfortunately, we see dozens of businesses of various sizes falling into the habit of hyper-focusing on competitor strategies.

Do you relate?

Let’s say you own a hairdressing salon and you hear that your main competitor is offering a ‘deluxe’ new experience. Google reviews reveal that the billing system of your main competitor is slow though, and repeatedly leads to confused staff and time delays of over 10 minutes. You conduct an informal competitor analysis and decide to combine the opportunity to improve your business, with their weakness.

Inspired, you create campaigns around how quick – yet luxurious – your salon is. You invest in an efficient point-of-sale system to ensure billing is seamless. You also decide to improve your first-class feel by offering extra treats, hot towels, and a complimentary hair product during treatment; all of which is ordered within days.

Two weeks later, you hear that your main competitor has now implemented a brand-new point-of-sale system, other efficiencies, hot towels, complementary offerings and sweet treats. New Google reviews prove that they are delivering an amazing experience for clients now. You’re competing on similar ground; overwhelmed, you decide to push more advertising and tell staff to emphasise how quick everything is becoming.

A few days later, you get feedback from a loyal customer saying they don’t feel like they should be paying ‘luxury’ prices for how quick your service is becoming, with less attentive staff. Your updated first-class branding hasn’t been effectively communicated; although they appreciate the hot towels. They don’t return, opting to try out your main competitor instead. Disappointed, you realise that although your competitor analysis provided a guide, you probably shouldn’t have based your new strategy on it alone.

So how should I analyse my competitors?

Competitor analyses are effective for benchmarking and gaining broad awareness of what your market is drawn towards. They are great to do as you’re setting up a brand, new business, launching a new product/service or if you want to simply revisit how you’re tracking in the marketplace to make improvements to your strategy.

Analyse your competitors by asking some key questions.

Given that a goal of ours as business people is to offer the market something that’s more competitive than other brands while meeting customer needs; we should be asking questions like:

• What do our target markets desire?
• If I was my target market, what would I prefer about my competitor’s brand, service, and offering than my own business’?
• How can we best serve the market needs and exceed their expectations throughout their customer journey /experience with our brand?
• Are we providing something that will offer more value in the long-run?
• Does our offering align with our value proposition? Even if they may not see it written down, would our customers know what our value proposition is through their experience with our brand?

If you remember one thing

While competitor analyses reveal ‘easy wins’ to overcome competitor offerings, it remains insufficient to base your marketing and business strategies on what you notice and know about competitors. Business and marketing strategies are usually composed of a myriad of major aspects, such as a revenue model, a human resources strategy, operational processes and procedures to align with your value proposition, goals and objectives, and your messaging strategy – to name but a few. The most overwhelming part facing strategy leaders and teams is often that these elements (and all the other ones!) must be integrated tightly and strategically for them to work. (Hey, don’t worry, my team can work with you if you’re in need of a hand!) Whatever industry you work in, you’re running a race, but whether you’re first or not; just keep on sprinting and improving your technique as you go. Know where those other runners are, but just don’t let them hold you back, don’t overly fix your gaze on them, and you might just take out the first-place ribbon.

What are your thoughts on basing strategies on customers instead of what competitors are doing? 

The post Our top reason why your strategy should be based on customers appeared first on Reload Consulting.