Don’t Create; Re-use! How to Repurpose a Common Business Metric for Your Team’s Success

@mary_grace Why “Qualified Leads”? #DevRelCon ➔ It’s an accepted term in the business world. However… most business people know what you mean when you say “qualified leads.” And while they might initially only think of sales as the resulting success, you can add on top of that foundational knowledge that marketing passes along information which sales is then responsible for rather than trying to introduce a completely new business concept and metric that people aren’t familiar with. Tweaking something slightly is always easier than completely rebranding, and in an industry where we struggle to be accepted for the value we provide, we need to start adopting some of the known business terms in order to gain the respect and understanding of our colleagues. By asking people to adopt the new definition of “leads” to include “folks who can contribute value to the company in some way” rather than just potential customers, we can expand the meaning of the word and therefore insert ourselves into the business conversations in a way that’s not only understood, because we’re speaking the same language, but is also respected by stakeholders and executives throughout the industry.

@mary_grace #DevRelCon DevRel Qualified Leads I came up with this term after meeting with yet another one of my clients, whose team had metrics that were traditionally given to another department, such as sales (how many people signed up for an account this month?), recruitment (how many applicants did we get this quarter?), or marketing (how many leads did you get at that conference?). These are all things that DevRel and Community Professionals have zero control over. Who knows whether the person you met at the most recent conference will even apply for the job, let alone whether the hiring manager will hire them. Maybe their application won’t make it through the system because of the one quirky thing about their education, or perhaps they don’t click with the hiring manager. Whatever the case may be, you can’t be held responsible for whether or not that individual got hired… you have no say as far as salary, compensation, or any number of other negotiating factors go, or whether they’ll be a good fit with all of the other team members once they are onboard. But you ARE capable of passing along those connections to the right team in hopes that together, they will be able to accomplish a task that furthers the overarching company goals. So what does this look like? Here’s a few examples.

@mary_grace #DevRelCon DevRel Qualified Leads = Business Value These DevRel Qualified Leads are incredibly important to keep track of for a number of reasons, the most obvious reason being, of course, that it’s a definitive way to attribute value to the activities that the DevRel team is involved in. Additionally, in aggregate, it’s a valuable way to see which activities overall are more effective than others in the long run as well as track themes throughout the industry. For instance, if you run across three front-end developers who are really interested in your product, which is traditionally focused on the ops or security professionals, you’ll want to make a note of that. Or perhaps you start to see more interest from a non-technical group of folks. Keeping track of these outliers and reviewing your notes once per month, quarter, or year, will help you determine new patterns in your audience, which can help inform the personas that the marketing and products teams work on.

@mary_grace #DevRelCon DevRel Qualified Leads = Community Value Those people who all mentioned the new topic that they were pursuing? I, as the community cruise director, am responsible to introduce them… to foster that relationship… to make sure that they’re not only pursuing that topic and reporting back to me with interesting tidbits, but that they’re enjoying doing so. Part of what we can do to ensure this is build a community around that topic, which, of course, requires other people. So Marie, let me just introduce you to Bob over here, and the two of you can chat about the latest doodads and thingamabobs that you’re looking into, and let me just fade into the background while the two of you get more and more excited about this fascinating topic.

This means understanding what they are trying to do, pointing them to tools and training, and generally helping them be successful. -Twilio’s Developer Evangelism Team Mission @mary_grace #DevRelCon Our job is to inspire and equip developers to build the next generation of amazing applications. Twilio’s Developer Evangelism team puts it this way: Our job is to inspire and equip developers to build the next generation of amazing applications. This means understanding what they are trying to do, pointing them to tools and training, and generally helping them be successful. Is this an inexpensive endeavor? No! But is it worthwhile? Signs point to yes! Twilio has invested a significant amount of money into something that they were told would never make them successful, because they understood the true value of community building: if you can prove to your community unequivocally that you not only want, but will listen to and implement their feedback, you will gain their loyalty. Part of inspiring, equipping, enabling, and empowering our communities is connecting them with each other as well as with our coworkers. These connections are things that we’re doing already, instinctively! We build relationships, make introductions, connect people in ways that make them more successful. Now it’s time to take that thing that we already do without thinking about it — dare I say, one of the things that we are uniquely qualified to do — and turn it into a metric that can not only benefit the company, but the community as well, and at the same time, give us a tangible way to prove our value.

@mary_grace Why “Qualified Leads”? ➔ It highlights our unique value. ➔ We need a single metric that can be used across the industry. #DevRelCon ➔ It’s an accepted term in the business world. And this leads me to my final point. We need a single metric of success that can be used across the industry. Far too often, our answer to the question “what are your metrics of success?” is “well… it depends!” and let me be clear — that’s not a BAD or WRONG answer. What success metrics you use really does depend on the company! I even tell my clients, “Your goals for the community need to be aligned with goals for the company,” which means, realistically speaking, that your community initiative is not going to look exactly the same in every company. But having a single metric across the industry that everyone can point to and understand is an important part of moving our industry forward, because it helps executives and stakeholders hold onto something. Even if they know they won’t be able to understand all of the nuances and that it will take time to pull all of the correct levers and figure out all of the good practices specific to their company, they’ll be able to point to the connections that the team is making in and through the community they’re serving. They’ll be able to point to a known value, which, as we all know, is an important piece of maintaining a sustainable community team.