Oct 29, 2009 | Branding, Marketing, Strategy
Politicians on both sides of Australian politics are calling for a “narrative” to describe the values that the electorate should hold dear, particularly advocating a set of values that happen to be consistent with theirs, and their particular brand of politics.
What they appear to mean is that their political “brand” has run out of petrol, and they need something to give it some substance, now!.
Unfortunately, they do not understand that a brand is an expression of values, behaviors, and performance over a long period, and however hard they might try, putting lipstick on a bulldog does not give you a poodle, just a bulldog with lipstick, unlikely to be a pretty sight.
Much better to define what they stand for, take the knocks that will come from those who disagree, but consistently articulate a set of values through which they see the world and its vagaries. Only by that means, over a reasonable time, will they stand for something that the voting punters feel they can rely on. That then becomes their “narrative”, no different to building a commercial brand, and just as hard, except that they are not using their own money to do it, which perhaps is the reason they are so poor at it.
Oct 28, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Management
In a world of disruptive change, the perhaps usual path to the CEO’s office needs to be rethought.
Over the last 50 years, CEO’s have largely come from accounting and business management backgrounds, more latterly, marketing & strategy have had their shot, but in a world changing at such a huge rate, it makes sense to source the CEO from the ranks of the product and design people.
Would the US car industry be in such a mess if the top blokes came from the engineering and innovation streams, instead of from the financial side that crushed innovation under the cruel hand of spreadsheets that assumed more of the same, only better?
Elon Musk, creator of Paypal, where he took on the banks, and Tesla, the first fully electric car, is an entrepreneur with an engineering background and a profoundly restless mind, who just believes, and who has created 3 hugely innovative businesses that destroyed the status quo. What could such a person have done at General Motors with the resources of that former giant at his disposal.
Oct 27, 2009 | Leadership, Management
Yesterday I received a number of communications, by various means that broke all the accepted rules of grammar, spelling, and what an old fogey like me considers common courtesy, and it got me thinking.
Email, phone text, and now twitter and its ilk have had an adverse impact on our more traditional skill of communicating via the (pen and paper) written word. The substitute is a shorthand that breaks the basic rules of grammar, construction of sentences and paragraphs that evolved to clearly and unambiguously convey a thought.
And why is it that courtesy that we would normally be extend in a face to face encounter is ignored in an “e-exchange”?. The “e-shorthand” may work in the group where the jargon is understood, but often not in a wider context.
The use of electronic communication and its potential for misunderstanding due to the use of e-shorthand is now central to the way our communication works, so rather than trying to buck the trend, I concocted a few rules that may make email more receiver friendly, unambiguous, and easy to read for the non speakers of any particular jargon.
- Ensure the subject line states what the email is about.
- Never use the subject line to convey the message.
- Only communicate one thing in an email, anything more complicated requires a different form.
- Remember that the receiver needs to understand the context of the message, so ensure it is clearly expressed.
- Use numbers rather than words to convey quantitative issues (sales are up 35%, not sales are up substantially) to ensure understanding
- Keep it as short as possible
- Never send an email with emotional content immediately, leave it in draft form until tomorrow, to prevent regrets.
Oct 26, 2009 | Leadership, Management, Marketing, Strategy
Remember your history teachers, one who just had you remembering the dates of events, hard work remembering, and why bother anyway, but what about the one who told you about the people, and engaged you with the stories around the dates and events? It became easy to remember the details because you had the human stuff that went with it.
Building brands is the same thing, don’t just give out the facts, provide the stories that go with the facts, the human dimension.
Businesses have the same challenge when they set out to build a culture, it does not happen overnight, but when the stories that reinforce the culture are told, and celebrated, the behavior becomes embedded over time.
Building a brand, or a corporate culture takes persistence and consistency, and is a task that is never completed, just a work in progress.
Oct 25, 2009 | Management, Sales
Generating and qualifying leads is a key function that rarely receives the attention it deserve, and is rarely measured for effectiveness other than looking at sales results.
Like any process, if it can be measured against performance standards, improvements can be made, and in these interesting times, enhancing the productivity of the lead generation and qualification process can only lead to greatly enhanced outcomes.
Most leads emerge as knowledge that a firm is “in the market” that is, they already buy something that you could supply, from somebody else, but if that is all you have, price is the only lever.
Before trying to sell them on your price, set out to understand why they buy, what problem does the product/service offer, how does it make their life easier? Once you know that, the selling becomes a different process, and price is less of a factor.
A sales lead is only of real value when you know why they buy, so why not set about building information on the conversion rates y0u get with differeing levels of knowledge about the “why”, ie, measure the effectivenes of the lead at the first point where you ask for the order, and relate that to how much you know about the “Why”.
