Aug 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
Narcissism and the web just appear to go together.
People seem compelled to post “selfies”, even the pollies are now doing it, perhaps in an effort to appear “hip” in this crashingly boring and shallow election campaign.
Most web sites just talk about themselves, almost all have an “about us” page, photos of the factory, artistically arranged product shots, silly slogans dreamt up by a junior in the ad agency, or worse, the MD’s wife, but is that narcissism, or just a complete misunderstanding of the role of a website?
I think that the silly, self-indulgent behavior of teenagers and “selfies” is less about themselves than it is about fitting in, whilst the “Ruddster” is just a narcissist of the first order, Tony by contrast is too self conscious, so he just rates as a dill with an ego.
Why don’t we all get serious and use the tools we have as they should be used. Social media tools to communicate, albeit in an unnatural manner, websites to deliver information, frame debates, ask questions and deliver answers, blogs to seek alternative views and explore ideas.
Narcissism is ugly, pointless, and repelling, the opposite of engaging, which is what the web tools of various types can do when used well.
Aug 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
In any B2B sales situation of a complex product, the prospect is usually shopping for a solution to a problem, rather than shopping for a product, although most conversations I see still seem to be about a product.
This idea that a potential customer is product shopping rather than problem solving leads to the conclusion that alternative products are commodities, and all that differentiates is the applicability of your commodity to the solution of the problem.
It holds then that the more information you have about the problem faced, the more likely you are to be successful at building the case for your solution.
Clearly, customers do not see all purchases as solutions to problems. Often buyers just repurchase product X because it worked in the past, quick, and saves the risk of being wrong.
Therefore, it is incumbent on the seller to understand the context of use sufficiently well to be able to point out where your option will not just solvethe problem, but do so better than any alternatives. The pitch then has the chance of being persuasive, as the problem has been articulated, rather than just having the buyer leaping to a solution.
In most cases these days, the early part of the sales job has been replaced by the search capability of the net, in most cases a buyer believes they have most of the information they need to make a decision, with just a few details outstanding, predominantly price.
The sales job therefore is to make that last little bit really compelling, differentiating the pitch from all the rest.
This challenge of articulating the problem, rather than competing on product specifications holds true for the SME around the corner, as much as it does for multination enterprises.
Jul 1, 2013 | Uncategorized
Hugh MacLeod. Gapingvoid art.
Bob Mankoff is the cartoon editor, or as they probably call it, “Editor of Idea Drawings” of the New Yorker magazine. His TED talk while being about the humour of the New Yorker, is more widely about what makes us laugh, and sometimes cringe at a cartoon, and more importantly, why. Indirectly he also touches on how the New Yorker has managed to increase circulation and profits in an environment where every other magazine I can think of is going to the wall in the face of digital competition.
The old adage, a picture tells a thousand words is right only when the picture captures in some way the essence of a subject, has a context that resonates, but also challenges us to see things differently, and often confronts beliefs in some way.
I am a strategy and marketing consultant, a wonderful part of my intellectual diet is the few cartoons, or” idea drawings” that I see regularly.
Tom Fishburne is a weekly treat, poking fun at marketing , marketers, and the silly things they do, always constructively, thoughtfully, and with a laugh.
Hugh Macleod’s Gapingvoid cartoons are a staple of my daily diet, just an idea about life, expressed in a business card sized drawing that is often profound.
Then there is XKCD, which comes with the warning “This comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)”. Often I do not get the humor, I am not a nerd, but when I do, it tickles something deep.
Then there is David Rowe, the cartoonist for the Financial Review in Australia, and his often disturbing take on politics, its characters and their foibles is a delight to an old cynic like me.
If being creative is seeing things from a different perspective, and being able to simplify the complex, then cartoonists are the Alpha of the creative species.
Jun 24, 2013 | Uncategorized
The old adage of a picture replacing a thousand words is being writ large as the social media ecosystem mutates at astonishing speed to accommodate that old truism.
Millions of photos are uploaded every day, and marketers have recognised the value of visuals in posts, weather on personal blogs, platforms like facebook, and increasingly by corporates who are using social media to engage, like GE’s Tumblr blog.
The infographic, yesterdays hero, is becoming a bit tattered around the edges, even as they become commercialised by sites like Visual.ly, and services like slideshare and Pinterest continue to grow exponentially.
In January, there was a new kid on the block, when Twitters Vine app, a 6 second video bite was launched and is growing like a weed. Huge growth rates are compounding opening a new space in the social ecosystem. It will come as no surprise that Facebook responded, last week with the launch of an Instagram video app which has a 15 second duration.
Whoa, 15 seconds, suddenly the light dawns.
Facebook paid a billion for Instagram, and has not to date found a revenue model to justify that price, and Facebooks share price has reflected the problem. Now however, it seems likely to me that with a 15 second video capability they can start to charge for video ads, supported by the analytic capabilities they have.
SME’s who have hesitated in social media run both the risk of being left behind again by the big blokes who can afford the infrastructure to leverage this stuff. The flip side is facing the opportunity of mobile video marketing and engaging with it to leverage their competitive advantage, their agility, particularly in local and niche markets.
May 22, 2013 | Uncategorized
Marketing used to be about brands, customers, channels, pricing, advertising and the other stuff we came to terms with up to about 2004.
Then it changed, and became really confusing.
We progressively discovered digital devices, social media, Apps, an exploding range of communication channels, and the pace of change is still accelerating.
In this digitally driven environment, where does the art and craft of marketing fit in, and how does the person directing the application of marketing funds make the trade-offs required to be both accountable for the expenditure, and taking the creative risks that have always been the “secret sauce” of success.?
The role of the head of marketing is now far more complex than just a decade ago, requiring an ambidexterity rarely found, a clear understanding of the technical tools and platforms, as well as the more traditional right brain skills. There is also now a political dimension to the marketing role, at least in larger companies not faced before. On one hand, you have a “bring your own device” environment that requires sensitive handling, from a personnel perspective as well as the obvious security and compatibility challenges, then you have the product platforms, everything from Salesforce to facebook requiring attention and understanding, while the C-Suite and board is being sold on enterprise solutions by IBM, SAP and Oracle.
What a mess.
Then you have Social touching everything, but nobody is really controlling it, partly because nobody knows how, and partly because in reality you can’t. Adequately calculating the ROI across the spectrum of influence that social is having is a huge challenge not seen before.
It is data driven marketing with a human face.
In the past, I have raved about the richness of the data derived by UK research firm Dunhumby using Tesco loyalty card data, and predicted that they will be making an impact in Australia before long. In the US, they have just hosted a “Hackathon” in Boston, effectively crowdsourcing ideas for analysis of consumer data.
This is the future people, and the only way to prevent being killed in the tsunami of change is to be in there kicking!
May 14, 2013 | Governance, Management, Operations, Uncategorized
I found myself in a heated debate last week with a headhunter about the value, and challenges of SME’s outsourcing the hiring of employees, particularly salespeople.
Her view: SME owners are so time constrained that anything not “core” to success should be outsourced, and left to professionals.
My view: If sales, or as I like to call it, Revenue generation, is not core to every SME, I do not know what is. Whilst it may be the product offering, that delivers the value, it is sales that delivers the opportunity to deliver that value, and therefore is the key role, and should warrant substantial attention. Picking those who will represent you with current and potential customers is much too important to be outsourced to “professionals” who get paid by delivering a body to a seat.
While there are exceptions at either end of the employee scale, casual factory workers are perhaps best outsourced, and it is probably sensible to have a headhunter exercise their skills and networks to find a group of people who fill demanding profile when seeking a new CEO, from which a board can make a choice.
However, this is not how it usually evolves. The usual is a harried, busy executive whose KPI’s have little to do with the quality of the team, and the individuals who make it up does not give adequate thought to the personal dynamics and capability requirements of the role, they just want a warm body that appears able to do the job in the seat ASAP.
Good salespeople make or break a business, the challenges in finding, keeping, and maximising their productivity are substantial, but are central to the success of the enterprise.
