CEO – CONVERSICA
Jim is known in private equity circles as a change agent who’s brought into emerging businesses with one goal: to accelerate growth.
Kaskade's CEO peers and company staff also know him as a “cultural CEO” --someone who drives growth and competitive advantage by creating high-performing teams.
Interesting fun fact: Jim loves extreme sports, including big wave surfing, off-trail skiing, and jungle trekking.
Being a GenX-er, I feel lucky to have personally straddled the Baby Boomer and upcoming GenY/Z generations, and I like to reflect on the ‘old’ vs. ‘new’ through a slightly different lens –a cultural lens.
Over the last decade, the buying power has predominantly been in the hands of “Generation X”, who came of age right when the World Wide Web launched in the ‘90s.
GenX has strong experience with both online and offline brand engagement. In fact, their preferred buyer’s journey involves a mix. For B2B marketers and sellers, this has meant turning to the physical world of trade shows and face-to-face sales meetings, as well as the digital world of paid search, digital ads, paid social, online reviews, and virtual events. Today's generation of buyers like to experience their brands both online and offline.
Or so we thought.
Powered by 72% Millennials/GenY employees, I'm proud that Conversica's workforce mirrors the new buyer generation.
We are in an era where B2B marketers and sellers are under increasingly more pressure to service the exponential growth in digital engagement between businesses and their customers, which is driven by a big shift in buying power and buyer expectations vis-à-vis the GenY population.
Let’s be honest, do you think GenY truly missed attending trade shows during 2020? The after-parties and meetings at the bar, maybe.
In the past, you created a web presence that mirrored your bricks and mortar. Today, I believe brands have to switch to a 100% online focus; the offline as a reflection of the online.
GenY buyers don't start in the store first. At best, they go into the store to finalize their thinking (and probably still complete the purchase online). Businesses have to shift to thinking about their digital presence first, and then use physical in-store presence merely as an extension of that.
B2B marketers and sellers adopting a digital-first approach will:
I believe the ‘old’ methods worked well for the ‘older’ generations, but they won’t work with the upcoming ones. It's going to be even more challenging to get ready for the future era of GenZ buyers.
Everything you hear about GenZ buyers has been accelerated and amplified by COVID-19. What was going to be a smooth and more gradual transition to a 100% online buyer generation (GenZ) became a sudden reality for all of us in 2020.
B2B marketers who are properly servicing their digital-natives appreciate that the numerous digital touchpoints are challenging to service with their existing workforce.
For example, you cannot simply expand your contact centers with agents to service your increased online chat volume. It’s too expensive. You need to provide automated digital experiences that allow digital natives to complete their buyer journeys without – and in many (if not most) cases – ANY human interaction.
I believe that companies who think they can continue to simply “throw bodies” at the problem will fail. It’s Netflix vs. Blockbuster all over again.
The technology is here to augment our workforce in a way that future-proofs our business. It's just a question of whether you are ready to adopt augmented workforces or not. Maybe you are asking:
What is an augmented workforce?
An augmented workforce is one that comprises humans, automation, and AI in a way that can more effectively deliver on the experiences that current and future digital-first generations expect.
Ok, I’m biased. Obviously. I’m a CEO of a company that produces AI-based intelligent virtual assistants.
I have Evie, my AI-powered EA; Liza, my digital assistant providing me live statistics on how my sales are performing; and a whole AI-based digital team working alongside my marketing, sales, and customer success teams.
Each one helps us scale revenue activities that a human-only workforce would normally struggle to manage.
For B2B marketers and sales teams, you want your employees to exhibit the following traits, at scale:
Let me be as bold to say that NO ONE has the marketing & sales capacity they actually need to properly service their customers.
If you’re researching the size of your outsourced sales development team or planning your investments for your inside sales team(s), ask yourself this:
Would you rather be Netflix or Blockbuster?
I’ve enjoyed my past experience of wandering the halls of the video rental aisles. In my pre-COVID B2B sales world, I’ve enjoyed my trips flying first class to Australia to meet a large customer prospect for 3 hours and then immediately flying back. Sadly, however, neither of these scale in an all-digital world, and they won’t serve GenY/Z.
Now, if you’re a revenue-facing team that has already bought into automation, congrats! Let me just leave you with one bit of cultural insight:
If your organization is like mine (majority GenY), an augmented workforce will be welcomed. If you’re a more traditional organization, you will need leadership that sponsors a cultural shift.
Marketing and sales teams will need to change their mindsets, leveraging a combination of digital team members and their human counterparts.
At Conversica, my digital team allows my human team to focus on more high-quality tasks. In fact, our digital team is working hard around the clock while the rest of my staff enjoys more Netflix time with their families!
Bring on the augmented workforce.
