YOU Can Be A Breakthrough Innovator - Interview with Ken Tencer

Can you slice a melon? Can you make a right-hand turn? If so, then you've got what it takes to be a breakthrough innovator in your industry, according to today's guest. And that's the key to staying competitive while the rate of change in the marketplace continues to accelerate. If you're a CEO, entrepreneur, or other business leader, you don't want to miss this one. Welcome to the Better Life, Better Business podcast, where we have conversations to help you live a better life and build a better business. I'm your host, Shawn Ellis, founder of The Speakers Group, and joining me today is Ken Tenzer, co-author of a new Amazon bestseller titled Cause a Disturbance. Ken is a thought leader on branding and innovation, and through his firm SpiderWorks, he's been helping companies build creative, engaging brands since 1992. Today you'll discover why innovation deserves as much attention as marketing and sales when it comes to growing your business. And you'll also learn how to weed through an often overwhelming number of ideas to focus on the ones that have the most potential for your business. Most importantly, you'll learn that you already have everything you need to get started on your next breakthrough innovation. Get out your pen and notepad, here we go. Thank you, Ken, for being here and for sharing your expertise. I'm excited to talk to you today. And, and you know, one thing starting out, something I find very refreshing about your book is really just your approach to innovation in general. Because as a small business owner myself, I feel like the word innovation can be intimidating sometimes or overwhelming. We think of, you know, maybe it's somebody like Steve Jobs or, or Apple or companies like Facebook, Google, and of course Amazon just launched their first smartphone. Seems like these are, these are the, the people and the companies that are heralded as, as great innovators. But you remind us that you don't have to be a Steve Jobs, or you don't have to hire a Steve Jobs. So starting out, maybe if you can help us kind of simplify innovation a little bit, talking about maybe what, what exactly is innovation in your words? And, and let's, let's just go from there.

Sure, I, you know, Shawn, just like you, I've been an entrepreneur for many years and as an entrepreneur, you're forced to be pragmatic. I mean, you don't have these incredible budgets to come up with new ideas and bring them to market. So you have to think your way through different solutions. And for me, that's why I always start out, whether the company or the people I'm working with are Fortune 500 or they're smaller entrepreneurs, I wanna break the myth that innovation is monolithic, that it's large, that it necessarily takes a lot of time or money because it truly doesn't. All innovation is, is about having an idea, having an idea and bringing it to market, commercializing it. And that can be a small idea or that can be a very large revolutionary one, but it starts with the simple.

That's such an important point there, again, that I think we, we miss sometimes. What you write in your book about the 3 types of innovation: process, product, service. Can you talk more about those? Because again, I think maybe sometimes we don't think of the different areas of innovation that you could, you know, innovate in a service or a process. I think the product seems to be, you know, again, with the Amazon announcement here, that's what always gets the big news.

Sure, and I think that's dead on, and I think that one of the reasons that people think that innovation is monolithic, because they think of the large product announcements. So I actually start— I focus on process innovation, and that's really the way you make things, you deliver them to your customers, and it creates a lot of delight or satisfaction if you do it properly. It can also save you an incredible amount of money. I think of American Airlines, I think of their, their Fuel Smart program. And about 10 years ago, as the cost of fuel started to skyrocket, they said to their employees, we need to find simple ways to save money on our fuel. And some of the ideas that came back, pure process innovation. When our jets are taxiing, we're gonna do it on one engine instead of two. Another idea that they came back with was when we're moving our jets, you know, out of the hangars to the gates, let's use the tow motors. Let's not fire up the engines earlier. Now over 10 years, they've saved over $1 billion. They've saved over $1 billion by, you know, things like shutting down an engine and using a tow motor. And they did it, you know, to me, the best way possible by engaging their employees, the people who know what's going on in the company who can help you come up with these incredible ideas. So yeah, innovation can be simple. It can be as simple as shutting down an engine, and it can generate cash or cash flow for your company. It doesn't have to cost you money.

And inside that, wrapped up in that, I think is an important point that is this empowers your employees. The innovation is not limited to, to R&D or to the top executives. Really Everybody can play a role in it, right?

Well, everybody should play a role in it, and I speak to that quite often, the whole notion of intrapreneurship, which is people within your company becoming engaged and you empowering them to come up with ideas. And we do that because, you know, between the C-suite and the customer can be 5 employees, it can be a quarter of a million employees, but they have incredible ideas, they have incredible insights, and ultimately, you know, a delighted employee means a delighted customer. And the Disney Institute, along with McKinsey, just, they came out with a study just recently that said very that, just, that said that very thing. And they showed a direct line between happy employees or engaged employees, happy customers, and revenue growth. And Disney, I mean, they are the best people to talk to it because again, simple innovation, process innovation, Engaging your employees. Look what happens at a theme park. You know, you're there, we've all been there with our small kids and they have a meltdown. One of them, let's say, drops their ice cream on the ground. Well, somebody at a Disney park runs up and they don't say, "Oh, sucks to be you, kid. You lose your ice cream." They take the child over to the ice cream vendor and they replace it with an upside-down ice cream cone fashioned as a smiley face. So they turn a very negative situation into a really positive one, and they do that by engaging and training and working with their employees.

That's a great example, a great story. And, you know, we don't usually think of innovation as being part of the employee engagement conversation. And I'm guessing then that that would also help you, of course, help you retain your people, but even attracting better talent if they know that they can really contribute to something like this, right?

Oh, absolutely. And I think even more so with the younger generation coming in. I mean, you know, there's, let's say, the middle-agers, we were taught to, you know, keep our noses down and keep, you know, one foot in front of the other. The younger generation, they want to be heard. They've been raised on social media. They've been raised on sharing. They've been raised on coming up with and discussing ideas. Now, a great company today is going to give them an outlet. To be creative, to discuss, to be part of the conversation. And, and if you do that, I mean, A, you obviously have more opportunity for innovation and ideas, but B, yes, you are going to attract better people and you're going to retain them because they're going to feel good about what they're doing. You know, if you look at LinkedIn, they actually run, you know, contests and they teach their employees how to come up with ideas and how to present them. And if those ideas are chosen, you actually have the opportunity to step back from your day-to-day job and champion the new opportunity. So sure, you know, I get to think, I get to talk, I get to contribute, and I get to watch it grow to market. I mean, what a great feeling as an individual.

Yeah, and you know, of course, in addition to being an author and a consultant, you speak. What role does intrapreneurship, how does that fit into your speaking engagements? Because that's a, you alluded to it earlier, I think that's a very interesting topic. How much do you speak about that?

It's become a very popular part of what I speak to. And I think that today, when I first started speaking innovation conferences, a lot of them were about stage gates. Do we need 5 steps to market or 7 or 12? And the truth is that if you've got 50 or 100,000 people in your company, you're going to know whether you need 5 or 12 steps to market. You're also gonna have finance specialists who know how to do innovation through acquisition. What I like to do as an entrepreneur is teach people how to open their eyes, how to be creative, how to get things to market, the simple things to market for less money. And when I first brought this up a couple of years ago, a chief innovation officer came up to me and he said, What a great part of the speech, Ken, because, you know, it now costs us a quarter of a million dollars to come up with a proposal, and you're gonna teach us again how to come up with ideas that cost less than that to actually get to market. And it helps them rediscover, you know, the entrepreneurial model that probably, you know, that gave birth to the Facebooks or the Amazons. So very important, very engaging, great source of innovative ideas. Great source of people retention and, and just a super important part of what I do today.

Great. And I would say, to state the obvious, you're a, a very valuable speaker to that organization. You're saving them, uh, you know, a lot of money.

Well, absolutely. And again, I mean, they made the point, you know, for me, it was costing them more to write a proposal than the founders actually had 15, 20 years ago in creating which you know, what's become a multi-billion dollar company. Look at 3M. I mean, you know, people talk about the Post-it note, you know, for forever, and they should. They still sell, I believe, in the range of 50 billion of those a year. It just, it doesn't have to be that hard. And that again came from somebody's idea within a lab.

Yeah, amazing. That leads us to, uh, to another point. In your book, you write about the innovation continuum going from simple to disruptive, and you've kind of alluded to that. You've talked about how innovations don't have to be, you know, these huge things, but can you talk a little bit about that continuum?

Well, sure. I mean, we've talked about simple, we've talked a bit about the larger disruptive when you mention the Facebooks and Amazons and whatnot. I think the most important thing to do though is to step back and understand what drives that continuum. And to me, the great companies, the great innovative companies, I don't care if they're small or large, they have a purpose or they have a platform. And what I mean by that is when you ask them what they do, they don't define it by the commodity, like I make chairs, I make coffee. I mean, look at Starbucks. They don't talk to, you know, being in the coffee shop business. They've always been the meeting place. And Howard Schultz always said, you know, I want to be the third meeting place, and that comes after home, office, then there's Starbucks. So when you sit down and you say, what differentiates a Starbucks from all, you know, with its thousands of outlets around the world, um, from the single mom-and-pop coffee shop? It's the platform. Because when they go into ideation sessions, they're not thinking about a cup of coffee, they're thinking about How do I enhance the meeting experience for the individual, for the business person, for the student? And that allows them to do the simple things, the simple innovations such as a different type of coffee, a different type of treat, the right menu choice to, well, Tazo tea. And that's amazing that one of the big brand drivers for Starbucks, for, you know, a coffee shop is tea. And what that's led to is because of the success of tea within their stores, they moved to more disruptive innovation by buying and growing Teavana. So again, if you know what you're about, if you know your purpose, the simple things like an additional menu item or the large things which can grow out of the simple like buying and growing a huge related chain, it all becomes that much more natural.

Great. So you can start small and then move forward from there.

Well, absolutely. And I think by starting small, you're just— it's like a snowball. You just come up with ideas, you understand your market better, you understand your consumer, and you're your own laboratory to see what's working best.

Right. Great. Well, you know, innovation, you mentioned that it's about ideas. One thing though that I think you emphasize in your book, you talk about, to quote you, you say, "Sooner or later you have to sell something," and I'd like to help you make the register ring sooner and more frequently. So in other words, it's not just about coming up with ideas, or not just about coming up with cool ideas, but ideas that are really going to drive business growth. And you say that you lump innovation, you put it right alongside marketing and sales on the foundational continuum of business growth, you call it. We don't always see innovation right next to marketing and sales. Could you elaborate on that?

Yeah, I mean, just to get to your first point, I've been in business, in my own business for 22 years, and boy, you really do have to sell things. And so everything that I do, everything I speak to is about growth and building sales. And in my world, innovation drives marketing, which drives sales. And simply put, innovation is the new, it's the better, it's the improved that you bring to your customer. It's the things that you do to engage your customer. You bring them to market, and an engaged customer is going to sell as excuse me, an engaged customer is going to buy more. And if you stop bringing things to market that are new or better, what happens to your customer? They become disengaged, they become bored. I mean, one of the things you got to realize today is that customers have very short attention spans. They want to be delighted and re-delighted and spoken to and educated and entertained and informed every day. And that's what innovation does. So it keeps your customer engaged. It keeps them your customer, not your competitors. And ultimately, that's what drives your growth.

Well said. So now we've established innovation ties into employee engagement, ties into business growth, customer retention. I think to me, these are important observations or realizations to see exactly where innovation fits into the business. You know, sometimes I think we have, again, as an entrepreneur, creative type, as you well know, sometimes we have too many ideas. We can be overwhelmed. And once we start down that path, then it's, you know, where do I, where do I begin? And you've developed what you call the 90% rule, which was your previous book, that gives you a formula for identifying the highest potential opportunities. Could you walk us through that a bit here?

Sure, and first I'll say it's a little bit more of a philosophy than an absolute formula. And what I mean by that is I always get up in the morning and look for that next 10%. I ask myself what that next natural opportunity for growth is, whether it's product, service, or process. And the reason I focus on the 90% is that it makes me realize that a lot of the things that I'm doing or most of the things that I'm doing are actually very good. And that makes, you know, just in my, in my mind or my employee's mind or my customer's mind, it makes the whole process simpler because now we're saying, hey, we're a good company, we've got a great foundation, but we can always be a little bit better. I mean, no matter who you are, how large or small you are, you can always be a little bit better. So what we've done though to make that easier, to more natural, is come up with a 6-step process. And the important thing I'd like to say is that coming up with ideas, coming up with innovative ideas doesn't happen until step 4. Now the first 3, and it goes to how do you make an idea relevant? The first 3 go to one, stopping, you know, stop thinking about yourself as a commodity provider. And as I said before with Starbucks, Understand your platform. Understand the true value of your business to your customer. Once you know that, you actually go to your customers and you say, "Here's the value that I think I'm offering to you. What do you think? Is it relevant? Is it important? Is it going to be relevant in 6, 12, 18 months down the road?" Because by talking to your customers, they'll tell you what you should be doing. They'll tell you what's keeping you— excuse me, what's keeping them up at night.. And as a business owner, if you can solve their problems, you will keep them engaged as your customers. So now that I know a little bit more about myself and my customers and what's important to them, I take a look at the competitive environment and I say, who else is doing things out there? Who else is speaking? And it's only then when I have, you know, what I think is the most important thing in business Context, understanding myself, my customer, what's important to them, who else is selling to them. Now I come up with ideas. Now I go through the innovation or ideation process because now I know that, you know, whether or not my idea is actually relevant to the people who are buying from me. And within that, I also introduce a ranking system because it's amazing how, you know, we have metrics or we have ways to rank and look at and measure everything else we do in business, but with innovation or new ideas or opportunities, we don't. So I make that quite systemic. I look at 3 different areas. I look at global ranking, which is things like your, you know, vision, mission, values, anything strategic which talks to where I want to be as a business, you know, 1 to 2 years down the road. I go to sales and marketing. Criteria. And then I go to financial, and within financial I actually make people look at top line, middle, like margin and contribution, and bottom line to make sure the opportunities or ideas are profitable. And I think that if you measure your opportunities against where you want to be as a business, the market and the customers you're going after, and your ability to generate profit, you're going to have a much better idea whether or not that's the right opportunity, that 1 or 2 or 3 in 10 are the right opportunities for you to pursue. And afterwards, um, steps 5 and 6 go to how to build out that plan and how to put it in place. Because again, I, I think a lot of people think that great innovative ideas will walk themselves to market. Well, we get so excited about them, we think they have to work, but the truth is they don't have to work. You have to make them work, and you have to do it with the same systematic rigor that you do everything else in your business.

Great point there. And I think if being overwhelmed by too many ideas, if that's one of the great challenges, then another challenge is, you know, how do I make the ideas work? You know, how do we bring it to life after the brainstorming session? So, well said. Well, this has been great, Ken, and I appreciate you being here sharing your wisdom and expertise with us. Hopefully by now we've got our listeners fired up and thinking, you know, yes, we need more innovation, and yes, we can innovate. As we go here, where does someone start? They, they, they get off this podcast interview, they're ready to, to put a new emphasis on innovation. Where do they begin?

Well, I, I like to say use your eyes, your ears, and your feet. It's really about opening yourself up to new opportunities, to start learning how to recognize what's going on around you and bringing new ideas to the table. And what I say to business leaders is, you know, you're not in it alone. Even if you're a solopreneur, there are people who help you out. So, you know, make your sales and marketing meetings, business development meetings, include the notion of innovation. In between, you know, every month, every 2 months, task your team to go out and Attend seminars, workshops, conventions, speaking tours, whatever it is that may not even relate directly to your business. Get them thinking like other people. Get them to understand what's going on in other industries and their best practices and bring them back to the table. And tell them that when you travel for pleasure or business, don't always go underground in the subway. Take a walk along the street and see what's going on, what's on the billboards, what's in the storefronts. It tells you so much. And when you start opening yourself up to ideas and your team brings them back and you discuss them, every month or two, new opportunities for your business are just— they're just going to start coming up.

Great. So it starts with paying attention, and that's something, of course, we can all do. That doesn't require any any monetary investment.

Yeah, absolutely.

Great, well thank you again, Ken. And if you, those of you who are listening, if you'd like more help from Ken, of course we have more information about his work as a speaker and workshop leader here at thespeakersgroup.com. And on his profile page you'll also find my interview with Ken where he talks more about his speaking work. We've also got a link to his Spiderwork Design branding and innovation firm there. And you can pick up a copy of his new book, Cause a Disturbance, at Amazon.com or at CauseADisturbance.com. So definitely consider engaging Ken to help you on this, this innovation path. Thank you again, Ken. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, and thank you for listening to the Better Life Better Business podcast. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Better Life Better Business podcast. Make sure you get our next episode by subscribing for free at betterlifebetterbusiness.com/subscribe. When you sign up, you'll also get a free copy of our Good Advice ebook compilation with contributions from over 25 top thought leaders like Jack Canfield, Marcus Buckingham, Chris Brogan, and more. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.