Feb 5, 2013 | Governance, Management, Marketing
This is definitely not referring to the pallet of old brochures gathering dust in the warehouse, although most businesses still seem to accumulate them.
I am referring to the sales leads, data bases, prospects, active conversations, existing customers and relationships, that together constitute the marketing inventory. When you think about these things as “Inventory”, an asset, you instinctively consider the means by which you generate a return, as that is what you do with assets.
The similarity of marketing inventory to physical inventory is that you can use the same sorts of measures for marketing inventory that you use for physical inventory, pretty much broken into the sorts of categories that Lean inventory management would require:
- “Flow” and Balance through the system of leads, prospects, active prospect, execute the sale, they are essentially “how many” questions.
- Conversion rates from one part of the system to another. Conversion trends are valuable pointers to both tactical success and emerging problems.
- Velocity through the system. As in physical inventory, the quicker the better, whilst maintaining flow and balance.
Considering the sales and marketing effort in this way encourages a sensible demarcation between the functions, and generally removes the argy-bargy that often happens. Importantly, it focuses attention on the cost and return analyses that enables resources to be used where they generate the best return. Having your expensive sales force out doing cold calls with a 1% hit rate now makes no sense, as the process has been completely disrupted by technology.
Feb 4, 2013 | Marketing, Strategy
LAB, Lemming Avoidance Behaviour, or simply, avoid being like everyone else.
Whilst we are in the age of the “wisdom of the crowd” there is a profound difference between that wisdom and simple herd behavior.
We are not lemmings, but so often we exhibit their behavior, following the crowd, just because being a part of the herd is more comfortable than being an outlier, unless of course, we find the proverbial cliff. Standing out from the crowd, turning left when the rest turn right, making ourselves a target, is unnatural, because it is dangerous, and deep in our brains there are the evolutionary barriers to being different. They served a real purpose when there were sabre-toothed tigers outside the cave, but as the tigers are gone, the dangers are elsewhere.
Today, the danger is in conformity, blandness, commodity, to day, you need to stand for something that others value, something remarkable, something that makes a difference to others. The absence of difference, implies lemming behavior, and I believe to be successful, LAB is mandatory.
Try it, get the adrenaline pumping, feel the buzz, and have a chance to succeed.
Jan 31, 2013 | Change, Personal Rant
The good news is that at least part of the nasty, smelly, political wind coming our way in 2013 will be avoided by the Prime Ministers announcement yesterday of the September election date. The context of the statement, that she wanted to remove the uncertainty that accompanies an election date announcement, and allow people to plan for the year is nonsense. The only people whose lives are run by election cycles are the pollies and the befuddled bureaucrats supposed to do their bidding. The truth is that the loss of political initiative and flexibility afforded by being able to call the election at short notice, is outweighed by the costs of continual leadership speculation, the ugly spectre of by-elections labor would certainly lose, and the value of being seen as trying to be positive about the long term, and sensible policy development.
The bad news. This current shambles of a government will probably be replaced by the largely invisible, talentless, non entities of preening self indulgence that currently inhabits the opposition benches. The only one of them who appears to be able to make an intelligent argument, supported by facts, logic, and wit is Malcolm Turnbull, who it seems will struggle to keep his vitriol in check in the face of the rampant “ordinaryness” of his party and coalition colleagues.
Where are the John Buttons, Fred Dalys, Peter Walshs, Paul Keatings, Tim Fischers, Lindsay Tanners, and Jim Killens of past Parliaments when you need them. (most of these examples from my memory seem to be Labor???) Like them or not, agree with them or not, at least you knew they stood for something, what it was, and they were prepared to openly debate the merits with facts, listen to divergent views, and set out to turn them around through adult conversation and debate, albeit laced with humor, sarcasm and irony.
It is going to be a very long year!
Jan 30, 2013 | Change, Marketing, Small business
I wonder how anybody could be in the slightest bit surprised that Coles and Woollies are raking in the profits from petrol retailing, as has been reported recently.
We have allowed a virtual duopoly to emerge and duopolies behave in pretty predictable ways, for the benefit of shareholders, that is the way the system works. Oh, you will not be able to nail collusion, or any of the other nasty anti competitive behaviours on them, probability is they will not be happening, as they are not necessary with a duopoly, simple self interest will drive profitable behaviour. The opportunities to cross merchandise, cross promote, and leverage operational logistics costs that exist just enhance the attraction of it all.
The scale of the major enterprises makes competition from local businesses a huge challenge. Pundits like me can wax on about the opportunities the small agile enterprises have, how the net has given them the flexibility and transparency to take on the big guys, but when it truly is David Vs Goliath in a local market, the little guy will rarely win. He will be swamped by the “man” who can simply ignore as a short term irritation the slower traffic, lower basket value, squeezed margins, and any resident reaction that occurs, that would mean death to the smaller operation.
I feel for the small guys who have made a huge effort to compete, but being in a commodity market means that scale counts, and in the petrol market, Coles and Woolies now own it, as they do groceries and hardware, with office supplies evolving down the same path. I bet they cannot wait to get their hands on the still regulated pharmacies and newsagents, where the regulation has enabled a cosy club for small businesses to exist.
Jan 29, 2013 | Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Groups, networks, friends, and even loose 2nd and 3rd party connections via social media all have similar characteristics when viewed from a distance. Groups of people interconnected in some way.
However, the real value of a group is its density, how close they are, and how mutual are all the links, how much they share, and of crucial importance, how much they contribute rather than just being conduits.
A small group is able to self regulate easily, there is little tolerance of free-riders, there is a high degree of “density” among the members. However, a large group is poor at identifying and excluding free-riders. The number and strength of connections between individuals in the larger group are much less, and weaker, there are those in the group who have no connection with each other beyond membership of the group: the density of the group is much lower.
A high density enables stuff to get done, the group can co-ordinate the actions of its members. But there is a paradox here, a large group can also co-ordinate, and in a short time, but only in the negative, it can be somewhere to stop something, to protest, a very simple, single purpose, but it cannot map a course of action and follow it. A dense group can map a course, follow it, and if dense enough, accommodate changes in direction.
Consider how easy it is for a group of three friends to agree to go to the pictures next week.
They agree a time and film to see that suits them all.
Now consider the added complications of adding an extra three friends to the party, all that extra schedule matching, as well as the varying tastes in film. How much more difficult this would all be if the added three are just acquaintances of one of the original three, unknown to the others.
Density, not numbers is the key to social success, in media, as well as in life.
