Anticipate … Don’t Wait To Be Asked

by Julie Primrose

Today’s post from Seth Godin, “Do the (extra) work,” focuses on doing more work than is expected just for the sake of doing it.  Godin contends that the benefits of going above-and-beyond far outweigh the extra effort, and not just for the sake of credit or reward, but for the work itself.

The post reminded me of one of Curley & Pynn’s Five Steps to Professional Success, “Anticipate … don’t wait to be asked.”  To me, this means focusing on ways we can anticipate opportunities with the ultimate goal of over-delivering for our clients.  The reward for doing so is a bonus, but as Godin suggested, the extra effort is worth it in and of itself.  I would take his point a step further though to say it’s not just a privilege, but a responsibility.  If you’re doing just the bare minimum or what’s expected for your clients, you’re not doing nearly enough.

Who is your competition?

by Roger Pynn

 

 

From time-to-time someone will ask “who is your competition?”  They want to know what firms we consider competitors.  Our reply has always been that all firms are competitors, but that we believe we compete for business based on who we are … not who else a prospect may be interviewing.

We also firmly believe that we compete against ourselves … against the bar we set … against the obstacles of achieving new goals for ourselves in mastering the art and science of what we do.

So I was inspired by Seth Godin’s evaluation of “competition as a crutch.”  He’s right in saying “competing with yourself is more difficult, requires more bravery and leads to more insight.”

Knowing and respecting your competitors is important.  It enables you to capitalize on what you do when talking to prospects.  But you should never sell “against” them.  If you do it only wastes time you should devote to selling your own strengths … and smart prospects know that when they ask.

Why Didn’t I Think of That?

by Kim Taylor

Allow me to trail off the general theme of “Taking Aim” for a moment to discuss my passion for business, and more specifically, great business ideas.

Great business ideas like eBay or 1-800-Got-Junk take simple ideas – concepts that we can easily understand – and turn them into highly profitable ventures.

The latest “idea” to cross my path is a new neighborhood business called iStudioSalons, which initially sounded like a cross between an iPhone, recording studio and hair salon.  Turns out, it’s a genius concept created by entrepreneurs, Mark Abbett and James Schregardus, which allows independent stylists to own and operate their own salon.

iStudioSalon’s spaces are laid out with 20 or so individual (or double) fully equipped “studios” which allow the stylist to basically run their studio as their own business … setting their own hours, making their own rules, etc.  A concept that is a true blend of full ownership and typical chair rental … offering the benefits of the former without the headaches of the latter.

What they did isn’t mind-blowingly brilliant, but they did something that Seth Godin recently talked about in his blog post, Unbetterable.

“Find things that others have accepted as the status quo and make them significantly, noticeably and remarkably better.”

How do you break through the ruts in your business and find ways to make an impact, or is everything around you simply “unbetterable”?

iPad Fascination

by Roger Pynn

I’m absolutely resisting the urge to buy a first generation iPad despite the incredible magnetism of this little wonder, but this post from Seth Godin set me to thinking whether one day that amazing interface will become as disposable as flash drives.

Godin suggests putting an iPad at every place in your conference room and turning any meeting into an incredibly interactive activity.

A client of mine who chases great big contracts worth millions of dollars is thinking seriously that he’ll start putting his presentation decks on iPads and then leave them behind as gifts.

Kind of reminds me of that icon of the 90s … the AOL CD.

The Power of FREE

by Roger Pynn

It has been a long time since I’ve written about Seth Godin. He’s prolific and I could write about his musings all day long, but this one differentiating between a bonus and what’s free reminded me of the power of a single word.

Free is perhaps the most powerful word in our language. We found that out 25 years ago when helping a cataract surgeon build his practice. Physicians were just beginning to market themselves (it was a brave new world for doctors who had been educated to believe that self-promotion was unprofessional behavior) and no one quite knew what to do.

Cataracts are part of the aging process. People who have them find it hard to read your collateral, and yet some ad agency had convinced our client to produce a costly four-color brochure … with 10-point type. Cost of the brochures: $2.75 (remember, this was in 1985).

Our advice was to take the cart load of brochures in his storeroom straight to the dumpster.

In their stead, we placed large-type ads in the local newspaper’s Sunday magazine (average age of readers 50+) offering FREE INFORMATION FOR CATARACT SUFFERERS and listed a toll FREE phone number to call. It rang off the hook and in those low-tech days 80 percent of the callers left their names and phone numbers on an answering device after listening to a 60-second message telling them we would call back to invite them to a FREE SEMINAR ON CATARACT SURGERY with FREE REFRESHMENTS (and FREE TRANSPORTATION if they needed it).

Sixty percent of those who left their names attended the seminars … a simple gathering in the surgeon’s lobby after hours with cookies, punch and coffee. The conversion rate to surgery was almost 100 percent. Bingo!

Next up was the most powerful tool … one that the surgeon’s practice continues to use today, even though he has retired from active surgery and simply oversees what has become one of the largest cataract practices in the country.

We produced “The Book on Cataracts” … a large-type paperback book, ghostwritten in partnership by the surgeon and a 70-year-old retired journalist who had himself gone through cataract surgery. Then we offered “The Book on Cataracts” FREE in those Sunday newspaper ads, did away with the seminars and converted an even greater percentage of callers. Cost of the books: fifty cents.

In times like these, FREE doesn’t just speak to the early bird dinner crowd. What do you have that you can give away? “I’ve got this: Four Questions White Paper“. If you’d like help with the answers, drop me a line.

Kokomo?

by Roger Pynn

I usually think that marketing types are a bit smarter than the average bear because it seems so many of the solutions they bring to their clients are simply common sense. Seth Godin’s Island Marketing post proves the point.

But it makes me wonder what evil lurks in the hearts of those who have thought for so long that they could throw customers away like they used to toss soda cans until it became environmentally insensitive and unfashionable.

Just as the Beach Boys’ fabled Kokomo never existed, neither has that little island where marketers ripped off the next naive native to come around the corner. The coconut telegraph has always worked. Today we call it the Internet. People talk, so use your head and do right by them so what they say makes you like what you see in the mirror.

Tsunami?

by Roger Pynn

I wrote the other day about the speed of our digital world and wondered what might be next to fall off our radar as the next great thing is invented. I’ve seen it, I think in Google Wave which was just demoed at a Google developer conference. You’ll need to spend 5 or more minutes watching what is a 40-minute presentation to see just how important Wave can be to your world.

If you’re like me, you’ve often wondered why Microsoft makes us go all the way back to the beginning of a thread to understand a conversation in e-mail. It works counter-intuitively. We don’t read up any more than we read right to left … we read down. It can be maddening.

Seth Godin noted the folks at Google are previewing Wave just as Microsoft is announcing a $100 million marketing play for a search engine it calls Bing (“a better way to search from Microsoft”). They might as well have called it Jase (“Just another search engine”).

Godin is right to chide Microsoft for trying to be better than Google. Wave demonstrates that Google is trying to be better than itself … that’s how companies become great – never resting, never being satisfied, always anticipating and always looking over the horizon so they are always the next great thing.

Could it be? Could Microsoft become the next AOL?

Will we Afford Internet 3?

by Roger Pynn

What impact the economic downturn will have on marketing communications seems inextricably linked, in my mind, to the public’s willingness or ability to continue investing in the toys that many are predicting will drive the future of the Internet.

A just-released study by Pew Internet suggests that the telephone will become the primary access to the Internet … no, not your landline but that little thing in your pocket or purse.

Pew said the experts who made up their panel agree on the use of the phone, but not necessarily on “whether this will lead to more social tolerance, more forgiving human relations, or better home lives.

The glaring question really seems to be whether we will continue to buy what the manufacturers and carriers are tempting us with every day, not because we believe they will improve our lives but whether, in fact, we are convinced they have already … and whether our increasingly limited resources ought to be spent on one more tech toy that brings one more bell, one additional whistle, one more amazing application we never knew we needed, but which will certainly steal more of our precious time.

Wireless devices could be the most powerful form of targeted communication. Instead, however, they seem in many ways to have become a roadblock to the new kind of personal communications the Internet promises. Heads buried in a 3.5” screen, a Bluetooth headset dangling from our ear, many of us are isolating ourselves to the point that we are no longer available to see or hear what else surrounds us … certainly not the Internet.

Add to this the incessant dance of marketers to any new form of Internet communication they perceive will get them in their target markets’ wallet. Whether it is Twitter or Facebook or some yet-to-be-invented social network, as Seth Godin points out advertisers always seem to get there just in time to screw it up.

Communications theorists must be numb as they watch us set up roadblock after roadblock to the messages we so desperately need to send and receive … not the ones that sell us something but instead the ones that make us more complete: completely informed, completely aware of our surroundings, completely comfortable with who we are.

Something I wish I’d said

by Roger Pynn

Talking to a group of very smart students last week at the Burnett Honors College at the University of Central Florida required preparing a list of “life tips.” So what could I say that would be meaningful to young people from majors as diverse as anthropology, music, engineering, computer science and communication?

Well, for starters, I wish Seth Godin, one of my favorite bloggers, had written his latest post a week ago because it would have been easy to pass out a printed copy and be done with my assignment to “share thoughts that will help them through their lives.”

What I did tell them was that there are six important things they won’t be taught in college that they ought to strive to master:
1. The art of listening
2. The importance of asking “why?”
3. Everything about consequential thinking
4. Being “outcomes” based
5. Getting to know cool people
6. Being passionate about something

I can only hope some of them might find Taking Aim now and redirect themselves to Seth’s blog because “standing for something” is #7. Seth’s a brand master. A brand is a promise. You can’t promise anything if you don’t stand for something.

Now Here’s a Guy who Takes Aim …

by Roger Pynn

Reading Seth Godin’s blog is always a reminder to “keep it simple stupid.” He has a way of smacking you in the face with the obvious without leaving a bruise. The titles of some of his books tell you a lot: “All Marketers are Liars” and “Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing Out of Sync?” Of course, he also wrote “Permission Marketing: turning Strangers Into Friends and Friends Into Customers,” so he isn’t always so in your face.

A recent post reminds us that we sometimes get all caught up in our fishing line when trying to cast our bait. We layer on all kinds of “program elements” and “strategic initiatives” in hopes of justifying ourselves as we help our companies and clients pursue a target audience.

Godin built on a suggestion by blogger Dave Cortright in suggesting simple ways to connect yourself to like-minded prospects. Cortright’s suggestion was aimed at eBay marketers, but as Godin points out, you can connect with prospects very easily if you play a simple game of connect the dots.

Following Cortright’s logic, if you’re selling amazing new microwave popcorn that rivals theater popcorn, you might consider a coupon partnership with movie theaters. Or, if you’re a guerilla marketer, pass out samples and coupons outside the movie house.

Simple … and it Trumps the cost of a full-page ad in your local newspaper (if, in fact, your local paper is still being published), but more importantly it achieves some of Godin’s advice in a later post titled “Your Competitive Advantage.” Here’s what he says the customer thinks:

“When the factors that matter to me are processed through my worldview and compared against the options I’m aware of, I will choose you when your advantages are greater than the competition, provided I believe that you’re worth the cost of switching.”

In other words, “if you hand me killer popcorn that’s cheaper than the price I just paid at the theater, I may just stay home and watch that new DVD on my new monster flat screen TV and nuke some of your kernels instead.”