Expand and Amplify

I have had the fortunate opportunity to dive into the deep end, of the Social communications space by meeting what some call a Twitter Guru. I first met Rich Simmonds at my brother in-laws 50th Birthday bash, an event where I certainly did not expect to meet such an influential person.

During our conversation I learned that Rich, had written several books and was a lead influencer in the digital leadership space.

Not self-proclaimed and rather humble about it, but being one of the Forbes Africa top social influencers and on a recently published list of the Top 60 social influencers worldwide. Here is the link http://Hereklou.tt/19d3gzslt0owj 

Long story short. I enrolled on his course studied his book "Mug and Tweet" - Social Communication in the Digital Age, engaged with him on several executive coaching sessions and really developed a good friendship within a short space of time. Through our engagements, it became apparent that there are a lot of synergy between the value added by Richard and Uwin Iwin’s business approach. One thing led to another and before we knew it,we decided to venture into a new business relationship together, that will enhance his personal objectives but also add great value to the Uwin Iwin stable of services to help customers accelerate their own growth objectives.

Innovation in our offerings is essential to keep relevant and we achieve this by adapting quickly to the needs of customers within the tumultuous and turbulent market place. Within the digital performance space I believe many brands, have made the move successfully into embracing the new frontiers that social media has created. However a big challenge in this space is identifying a truly powerful way to amplify the digital messaging and reach in terms of relevant audiences for the brand. Expand offers our customers a real solution.

As the digital world evolves, so do amplification opportunities.

If you would like find out more about Expand, feel free to contact Richard on 0824131604 or email him at rich@uwiniwin.co.za or visit http://richsimmonds.wordpress.com/expand-amplification/

Growth in the Hot Zone

I recently spoke at the ThinkSales annual event in South Africa along with an impressive lineup of influential business speakers. As I listened to the presentations from speakers from a diverse range of disciplines, the importance of Sales leadership surfaced as being even more important in today’s dynamic business climate than ever before.

In the developing world context where so much growth potential that exists in seeking out productive markets and developing sales channels that are productive. Business leaders acknowledged the power of having focused and motivated sales people, channels and partners to deliver on the growth objectives of organizations.

Developing energized people who are well equipped to help customers win by providing products, services and solution that deliver results will be a key success factor in business today. At the very heart of the entrepreneurial spirit is the desire to serve up solutions that will make our world a better place, help introduce innovation and creative ideas that will transform society, business, culture and or our planet.

Adoption of these ideas are very much dependent on the consumer testing, trying and understanding the concepts, services and products. This is the domain of today’s sales leader, understanding the needs, the people and the business solutions that add value. They dynamically shift in and out of the hot zone between organizations with the desire to grow and the customer world where the reality of customer needs and challenges are taken care of, or not.

The business that are thriving in the hot zone pay much attention to developing this high performance, professional sales culture that transcends the traditional sales organizations and permeates through the entire business. Producing a winning team that is highly client centered, client attentive and continuously innovative in its approach to growth. 

Keep Winning

A call for Peace, Love and Care

Peace through Tourism

 

Having had a 20 year entrepreneurial career where I have owned and operated several business in the global tourism industry I have come to appreciate how central the industry is to so many key issues that really matter in today’s world. More definitively the business tourism sector that services the growth of multi nationals companies, create the platforms for industry knowledge share and education, facilitate trade and nation to nation exchange, entertains the world through the mega festivals, sporting events, houses, fly’s, feed’s and transports the worlds ebb and flow of business and political travelers. 

All very vulnerable to the ravages of war and hate. It is our place no doubt to also promote Peace, to stand up for what is right, tolerance, non-racialism, democracy and human rights.

I have been astounded recently on all forms of social media about the rise of the radicalized views from people who I would never have expected. Tourism leaders have in my view to embrace and be part of the global call for Peace in our world.

There is no place for planes filled with civilians, educator’s scientists and researchers to be shot out of the sky, no place for hate speech to show up in our dialogue. No space for religious intolerance or racial profiling in our industry.

But a global voice that stands for peace, love and good will.

Born to Win

“You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win and expect to win” - Zig Ziglar

Traveling to Rome for the first time you can’t help being confronted by the powerful drives that exist in the hearts of men and women to win. The Empire that lasted over 500 years and was the first of its kind to globalize its ambitions is immortalized in its art, architecture and legendary superiority. Shown up only by the magnificence and power of the Roman church that is still winning hearts 2000 years later.

Planning to win was the way of the gladiator forced into mortal combat. For those who wanted freedom had to plan and prepare to stay alive for 5 years travel and fight all around the empire. These men were put on show as the ultimate symbol of status, owning and sponsoring a top gladiator was the equivalent to owning a Ferrari or a Bentley today.

Gladiators schooled, trained and expected to win, no chance of survival with self-doubt and a half effort. Talk about focus attention to form and the dream to be free. Today with all the freedoms in our egalitarian fast and free society many lack the ambition to do more than wake up and watch TV.

Make your plan, know what it is you want and go at it like a gladiator, prepare hard, practice as if your life depended on it, and in the moment have the confidence of an expectant winner.

And a final modern twist in this winning tail – if you can win and take people with you, win for mankind or win for the planet. What a glorious victory we can achieve.

Incentives in the main stream

Change is inevitable and it seems like the start of a tipping point has arrived within the cluttered Loyalty scheme space. There has been much good work done in the quest to embrace and build a customer community around adding a values based basket, clustered around a brand. However these typical “me to” loyalty schemes are seemingly losing the plot. Brands are failing in their ability to innovate and bring a fresh dynamic product of their own to the customer community and failing to deliver an enhanced customer experience.

Buried under providing more and more so called benefits, of gym memberships, discounted flights, and so called cheap and easy access to other people’s products, brands get deeper into the mist of believing that what they are doing that is good for their customer base.

It’s time to challenge this thinking. 

Costs for administrating this foggy cloud of benefits to customers are spiraling into the hundreds of millions and not producing the results key stakeholders are expecting to see.

So do we propose throwing it all in or is it time to innovate and evolve?

I believe it’s time to evolve and innovate, get back to the core and slim down on the heavy weight admin bills that are only borne by the customer in the end. Let’s ask questions like, what can be done to help businesses and brands leverage the customer experiences to keep innovating, redesigning and revolutionizing in order to keep serving and engaging the customer in a dynamic and sustainable way.

The customer experience is alive in the brand’s products and services itself but also delivered by people in various outlets, channels and business units. This is where more dynamic, motivated and engaged sales and service teams can make a world of difference in delivery and experiential performance to the customer.

In today’s digital incentive world there are ways of not only inspiring channel sales to connect with customer needs at a totally higher level. But also the opportunity at the moment of truth to develop ongoing customer centric relationships that are not dripped in the sweet syrupy BS offers of free stuff and discounts, but in genuine care based dialogue with customers that will help in the cross sell of other products, repeat purchase desires and the acid test referral customer development.

These are the outcomes that brand leaders most aspire to:

• ·       Other products or services in the value chain being considered and purchased
• ·       Repetitive consumption
• ·       Positive referrals of products and services to other potential customers
• ·     Feedback that will assist business innovate and develop additional products and services to meet an evolving customer need.

Motivate your customer to stay connected, engaged and loyal to your brand, not someone else’s gym or low cost airline. Enter the incentive professionals please. 

From the Heart

The incentive industry is alive with people who are passionate about delivering with excellence. Over the years I have noticed that one of the overriding traits that people who are successful in this space have, is a great heart for others.

Seeing people win, seeing people enjoy the sunshine of qualifying for an amazing experience, helping people step up their game and designing a rule structure that energizes and engages people throughout a long competitive time frame. These are some of the things that Incentive professional can say they make a difference to in our world. We disrupt the average day and ask people to be exceptional, to live up to their full potential. We sometimes bring balance back into the game and make sure those that are doing the hard yards get more of a significant share, the recognition they deserve and the praise for jobs well done.

Its people who drive great brands forward, its individuals who wake up every day and give of their best or sometimes not. For me and many others in my line of work our purpose in life is to see the change in the commercial work place that we believe is essential for long term sustainable success. When it comes from the heart and it touches the human heart an incentive program will deliver results time and again.

Today’s digital age has had many professionals locked up in the understanding of what the tech can do for business and processed. I however have always believed that tech in our industry should serve the heart needs and help to inspire. Tech can be cold and grey but it does not have to be. We honing our skills and tech savvy minds to ensure that every person has a custom experience, delivered with creativity and heart. 

It’s amazing what can be achieved.

Keep Winning!

20 years young

20 years as an entrepreneur is quite a journey. A privileged life that I must say that I am totally grateful for and a road that has grown me in ways that I could never imagine. The first company I started in 1994, as a young 28 year old graduate with some corporate experience, Uwin Iwin Incentives is still my core business. The consistent focus, passion and perseverance has produced so much value for me personally beyond just the bank balance and value for many people, customer businesses and partners along the way. It's now a 20 year old business, with lots of stories to tell and many more to look forward to. I feel like we just starting to produce the real high quality and valued fruit that will multiplying in exceptional ways.

I hope that this blog will become a space where I share some of the great stories that as I pen them will remind me of the lessons learned. It will be as space that I can creatively think about the future and impact the people who read this in a positive way. A place where industry leaders will engage with me to design the future of our niche industry and collaborate to impact an ever bigger realm.

I'm learning so much more now than I have in the past 10 years about the power of the digital age, its tools and strengths. The opportunities it presents and the tremendous reach that it can have.

In 1999 I started experimenting with the power of internet technology and designed one of the very first systems to digitize the incentive industry. Many followed and great innovation and competition drove the growth of the online incentive and loyalty service providers. Today we still breaking new ground and delivering commercial value for customers and participants.

Digital leadership is in its teenage years where the energy and creative power is explosively fast. I look forward to every new day with optimism and enthusiasm.

Keep Winning

David Sand