Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Are you evolving?

If you haven’t noticed, we’re living in a time of accelerated evolution.

You remember evolution. Darwin goes sailing and ends up rocking the establishment by proposing “only the strong survive” (made into a popular song by Jerry Butler in 1968).

EVOLVING TECHNOLOGY
Physical evolutionary changes still take millennia. But technological evolution has gone from taking centuries to decades to years to months. Mobile phones are replacing laptops which replaced desktops which replaced mainframes. 3D movies are succeeding 2D movies, digital recording has made film extinct, email has almost replaced snail mail, and so on. New technology can be outmoded before it is even introduced.

Since the pace of technology is unlikely to slow at our request, it behooves us to learn how to surf the technology wave. Those who succeed will “evolve” and prosper. Those who do not will join the Neanderthals.

EVOLVING MARKETERS
Evolving marketers don’t need to master every new tool or technique. They just need to know enough about it to fit it into their marketing toolkits. Is Twitter appropriate for every business? No. But marketers need to know enough about Twitter, or Search Engine Advertising, or Foursquare, or whatever, to understand when it is appropriate.

The evolving marketer is the proverbial “jack of all trades, master of none.” Instead of mastering specific tools or techniques, this marketer concentrates on building a network of experts who can be called on to execute programs. This marketer taps opportunities to stay abreast of change, and learn the pros and cons of the options it provides. And this marketer develop the ability to analyze problems so that he or she can select the right options to provide a profitable solution.

If you feel like your marketing is living in the past, remember Your CMO has the analytic ability, up-to-date knowledge, and expert network to provide evolutionary marketing for any of your needs.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

“80% of Success is Showing Up…”

…is a famous Woody Allen quote. You can apply it in several ways.

During a recent sales brainstorming session, two of these applications jumped out at me.

1. You need a presence. Like the lottery commercials say, if you don’t play, you can’t win.

2. You can’t just “phone it in.” You have to give it your best effort.

Staying in touch with prospects is hard, and requires a disciplined partnership between sales and marketing. Once the seller has identified the right person for the right product, MARKETING can provide the automated touches to maintain awareness and build credibility until the right time occurs and the prospect (hopefully) raises their hand. Meanwhile, through periodic face-to-face meetings, SALES refines the seller’s understanding of the prospect’s needs and wants, and closes the sale when the time is right.

Back to Woody’s quote, and the two applications identified above. You have to stay in touch with the prospect. You need an ongoing presence--mailings, calls, and occasional face-to-face meetings.

And your presence has to be meaningful. I’m talking about tailoring my communications to the prospect’s needs and stressing your product’s benefits at every opportunity. Sending someone a generic ‘newsletter’ once a quarter doesn’t cut it. Neither does a phone call or lunch to “see how things are going.”

We’re all pressed for time and we’re all being pushed for results. But developing a customer relationship is something you cannot rush. You have to “show up” regularly in a meaningful way. Remember, that’s 80% of success!

Start with the easiest or hardest problems first?

You’ve probably heard the saying: “When you’ve got a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

Each of us has developed a toolkit of tools and processes which have worked for us in the past. And those are what we use to solve new problems as we encounter them. In fact, we tend to prioritize problems based on how easily we think they can be solved using this toolkit. Problems that don’t “fit” our toolkit tend to get pushed to the bottom of the list. And why not? Subconsciously, we’re prioritizing from “most likely to solve” to “least likely to solve.”

I’d like to suggest that if you want to be successful--both personally and corporately--you need to reverse those priorities. Anyone can use common tools to solve common problems. What you want to specialize in is finding new tools to solve uncommon problems.

Apple faced the seemingly insoluble challenge of trying to survive as a very weak #2 in a PC world. Instead of going head-to-head using conventional tools, they began redefining computers by use--creating the I-POD, the I-PHONE, and the I-PAD. Wouldn’t you like those successes on your resume?

Dealing with the little, common problems can be very satisfying. We all like to ACCOMPLISH. But solving little problems isn’t going help you build a competitive advantage. And solving little problems isn’t going to give your career that quantum leap you dream about.

So when you’re prioritizing, move the “insoluble” problems up the list. You won’t solve all of them; but then, it only takes one to turn you into a hero. Warning: These problems probably won’t respond to a “hammer.” So you’ll need to discover or design new tools. But then you’ll have a bigger toolkit than the rest of the pack, and isn’t that a good thing?

Looking for some help with your “insoluble” problems? Give me a call. I may have something in my toolkit that can help. And if not, we’ll invent something!