Word Marketing Blog

Communicate Your Strategy

Research has shown that less than 25% of employees actually understand their organization's strategy.

Many do not believe there are goals for their company at all and most don't feel that they are prepared for the challenges we'll face in business in the next decade. If business leaders don't communicate (and remember communication is made up of two parts: transmission and reception) how can people be motivated or even know how they are supposed to contribute?

Some questions and thought-starters:

• Does everyone understand the mission, values and vision for the organization?
• Are there Vital Few Objectives that are clearly communicated and does everyone understand their part to play in achieving them?
• Are these items communicated multiple times and in multiple ways frequently?
• Do you have your resources aligned to support these plans?
• Does everyone understand the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) associated with each VFO?
• Is your training aligned with the results you are trying to achieve?

Creating The Future

Peter Drucker said "the only way to predict the future is to create it".

Anxiety, worry and fear are all caused by nervousness over the unknown. Predictability creates confidence. If you are driving in traffic in a major city and you grew up there, you probably have a lot of confidence about your destination. Conversely, if you've never been to that city, your palms may be sweaty, your voice terse and your actions a little erratic. Why? Because, you've never been there before and confidence is low about the outcome.

The way to more confidence is clarity and predictability. Take ownership of your future and your ideas. Know what you want to achieve in the next year, the coming quarters, weeks and days. Know what you want TODAY.

Couple of suggestions:

• Brainstorm: Get quiet, write down all your thoughts and ideas. Clarify them on paper. Let your mind go free, brainstorming is a time to let yourself totally go. Only have one rule with yourself, don't judge your ideas or thoughts, just try to let the ideas flow as freely as possible.

• Prioritize: Put your thoughts together in the order they are important to you. Trimming your vine can keep your fruit plentiful.

• Eliminate: The beginning of strategy is what NOT to do. As soon as you realize there are more reasons not to do something, you will no longer want it. Think each item through and prioritize.

• Visualize: Begin to take your priorities one by one and think them through to completion. Reverse-engineer your way to success. All goal setting begins at the end. Play this "movie" as often as your can in your daily thought-life. Create your own future.

Details Delineate Demise

My husband was recently notified that he was refunded the monthly service charge and an overdraft fee made to his account last month. Really? Well that's good - because he closed the account three months ago.

I recently re-activated a credit card and asked them to change my name and address, which they appeared to do in store while I waited. The next month, I never received my statement. I went online and signed up to view my account, which listed my previous name and previous address, along with a $20.00 late fee. They have since gotten the address change made, and have refunded the late fee. My name, however, is still incorrect.

Perhaps these errors are the result of something minor, like clicking the wrong box or not properly scrubbing the mailing list files. But what do these errors say to consumers? That if you can't even handle the minuscule details of my account, how can I trust you to handle the really important things?

Banks and credit card companies - two industries that have suffered their share of negative press and are surely waning in consumer confidence. But botched details like these can be detrimental to any business, and right now ensuring consumer confidence is imperative to your business's survival.

I urge you to hire the best employees, provide exceptional training and instill in them ownership of your company. Anything less will cost far more in the end.

The Whole World's Gone (not Crazy) Digital!

The digitizing of the world continues.

It's a process by which all things we used to be very familiar with (check my blog on Sounds) has now changed. In that "Sounds" blog entry, I said that one of the sounds I miss is the sound of a needle dropping onto a record. I will have to say, while shopping on Black Friday, I did see a stereo combo which included a turntable! I was stunned.

Digitizing is the representation of a object, image, sound, document or an analog signal by a discrete set of it's points or samples. Simple capturing an analog feed in it's digital form.

You know what is amazing? Nearly all recorded music is now digitized. Yes, all the music purists who always preached about The Beatles original analog stereo sound, which has now been lost through digitizing, are rolling over.

Even more amazing, only 12% of movies (500,000 listed at IMDB) are now digital. Movies are slowly moving (very slowly) that way. Even when you visit the multi-aisle of your favorite DVD provider, realize that is less than 12% of all movies, since no one carries all that are available and some are already out of print.

If you really want to get sound purists going, talk about the limitations of MP3.

What does this all mean? We really don't know, but we do know that a convergence for mass media is coming. A lesser need for traditional channels of communication. Digitization means crunch time.

You Are Media

Over a 20-plus year period, I made a very nice living programming media.

I was the one guy who programmed many media outlets for thousands to listen or watch. The entire communications process was one-way. I set up rules, parameters and content in software programs which then scheduled the content to be broadcast through the media distribution systems.

New media and social media has changed this completely. The process is no longer one-way.

Now, through YouTube, Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, etc, the programming of content can be executed by each manager of this media. Which, by the way, is you.

The content and conversation is no longer one way (i.e. mass media) but now it can be viral or a continual loop of participation.

Yes, YOU are now media.

Product Clutter

The world's first Department Store opened in 1838 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. So, that gives us 171 years of Department Store history.

Why are they called Department Stores? Because of the various departments of products they stock, market and sell. Have you ever stopped to consider how many different kinds, shapes, sizes and packages of random products there are?

In 1965, the average supermarket carried 20,000 products. Now, we have over 40,000 available.

Guess how many product-jammed catalogs are published per man, woman and child in the United States? 134. total number? 40 billion catalogs.

Just look down a shampoo aisle.

• How many deodorants?
• How many clothing products?
• How many furniture?
• How many cars?
• How many universities?
• How many medical?

See what I mean. There are departments outside the department stores, which we call product categories. Sometimes, we even say the furniture market or the car market which we are trying to draw a geography around. Actually, globalization has changed all that. Those boundaries no longer exist.

There is no book market. If someone in Nebraska wants a copy of my book and someone in Belgium wants a copy of my book, they are essentially in the same market. The problem is, there is just so much of everything now, it's all so cluttered.

In the next couple of years, there will need to be a major mind-shift. Actually, it should happen now, but because we've become so re-active, rather than pro-active, most of us will learn the hard way. Here's the paradigm shift. We will have to move from a provider mindset to a consumer mindset.

The provider mindset goes like this: "How do we profitably sell what we know how to provide?"

The consumer mindset has go this way: "How will we profitably provide what we know our consumer will want?"

Catch the change?

The question that begs answering:

How do we satisfy customer needs profitably?

Follow The Leader

There's an old children's game called "follow the leader" that goes something like this: first, a leader is chosen, then everyone else lines up behind the leader. The leader then moves around and all the children have to mimic the leader's actions. Any players who mess up or do not do what the leader does are out of the game.The last person standing other than the leader is now the new leader.

This same paradigm goes on all the time in business as well as in kid's games.

Someone establishes themselves as the leader in a marketplace category, everyone lines up behind them and tries to mimic what they do, afraid if they do not, they will be eliminated from the game or category. A person I was talking to the other day said "if everyone is over there and I'm over here, I figure they know something I don't and I'm wrong somewhere."

Actually, the opposite is true.

If everyone else in your category is "over there", then you are in a unique position.

Of course, there are no absolutes and there are nuances to every situation, but it's amazing how many people try to just mimic the leader.

As my Partner says, "you will never out-Wal-mart, Wal-mart."

Now, those are words of wisdom. Who can take on Wal-Mart head to head? No one, you have to find another way. Another unique way.

If someone in your product category is on television yelling at the buyer that they have something for $1.50. It's amazing how many counter-strategies are to go on television and yell that you have it for $1.35. You can't out Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart. Someone will in fact be the cheapest the most amount of time and will yell it the loudest on television. There can only be one who can do this. In order to make headway, everyone else should be trying something else. Namely, a brand strategy that solidifies another position rather than the leader. It's a different game than "follow the leader".

If you can't win the game, change games. Sounds simple, right? Not many do it.

Some ways you might change the game:

• What rules has the game always been played by that you can change?
• What rules has the game never had that you can create?
• What standards in the game can you raise well above what has always been considered standard?
• What standards in the game can you completely eliminate that have been taken for granted?

Creating a new value game, based on something other than the low-cost provider might give you something to talk (not yell) about.

Connect

Diminutive, nuzzle-able and softer than air... this Thanksgiving I met, for the first time, my new nephew.

Only a week old, he spent little time awake. Typically when he was awake, it was only long enough to enjoy a bottle or get his diaper changed. But there were these moments... these serene, exceptional and intermittent moments, when he lied in my arms and looked up at me. And it felt like he actually even saw me.

Making a connection with another human being is an astounding feeling. Think about those people in your life whom you meet and instantly can't stop talking with. Connection has a powerful grip, and a whole heap of staying power.

So how can you connect more with your customers?

• Listen - not only to what they say but the passion behind their words
• Watch - for the things they do not say that only their body language can tell you
• Empathize - with the reasons they are seeking your product or service so that you can offer a solution
• Mirror - their frustration/excitement/nervousness/exhilaration
• Demonstrate - a true respect for, and appreciation of, them

By connecting with customers, you form a bond that is hard for your competitors to break. And the residual feelings are pretty remarkable, too.

Accessible Marketing

When's the last time you saw an encyclopedia?

A recent article in "Wired" magazine focuses on a company called Demand Media, who pumps out about 4,000 video clips and articles each day. More importantly, people are seeking the information they're producing.

It all starts with an algorithm that determines what articles people are looking for. The algorithm considers an abundance of data from three sources: search terms, the ad market and the competition.

All in all, it's a pretty ingenious system that capitalizes on possibly the biggest change in marketing today - that consumers want what they want, when they want it, in the way they want it. Advertisers who haven't figured this out yet are turning off an entire audience of potential customers.

"A senior executive at a major media company" said, according to the article, that "To customers, advertising may not look that different, but the systems to deliver the right ads to the right consumer at the right time have changed dramatically."

So how accessible is your company? Do you deliver your advertising in traditional push fashion, hoping your potential consumers are in the mood for what you have to say, when you say it and in the way you say it? Or have you explored on demand media for your messages that allows potential consumers to find what they want about you on their own terms?

The rules have been changing for some time now. How much longer will you wait?

Sounds

Sounds are powerful tools.

Radio was king from the 1920's through the 1950's, and part of what made it so dominant was sounds. Radio theater, dramas and plays were big draws through the period, because the sounds coming from the radio painted vivid imaginative pictures in our minds.

Technically speaking, sound is a traveling wave which is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong enough to be heard.

Emotionally speaking, sound is just wonderful. I know this is kind of a goofy blog entry, but bear with me.

What are some of your favorite sounds?

Here are some of mine:

• The sound of a hammock rocking back and forth mixed with the sound of the ocean waves hitting the beach
• The sound of the tide at the beach (no hammock)
• The sound of my wife's voice waking me from a nap
• The "talking sounds" my dog makes when it's time to go to sleep at night
• The sound of rain on the roof
• The quiet sound of wind and snow in the winter
• The sound of a needle when you put it down on a record
• The sound of bullfrogs out on a lake when you are parked out in the countryside talking with someone
• The owl that has decided to move into the woods behind our house
• The coffee pot peculating
• The quiet turn of a page on the book I am reading
• The snap and crackle of a fire
• The sound of one of our associates playing their favorite jam over the intercom system at the office when they bring in a new client

Sounds I haven't heard in a long time:

• My Grandmother singing in church
• The sound of the video game PONG
• Connecting to the internet on dial-up
• A commercial cart tape breaking
• An 8-Track tape switching tracks
• Typewriters

What's your favorite sound and what sound have you not heard in a long time?