Apr 26, 2013 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Small business
The most powerful way to get someone to agree with your idea is to ask them the leading question, and have them tell you.
Ronald Regan used this technique a lot. He did not tell the American people “your economic situation has deteriorated over the last 48 months”, instead he asked the famous question during his election campaign: “Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?”. The answer was a resounding “NO” and he was elected.
Asking the right question can prompt a favourable, almost pre-deternmined response, but the formulation of the words to convey that response provokes a deeper, more intensive processing of the question. This leaves less room for ambiguity and uncertainty in the way the receiver responds to the question, and considerable committment to the answer.
I have also found it a great way to generate engagement at the opening of a presentation.
Apr 23, 2013 | Communication, Small business
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) famously said “I do not have time to write you a short letter, so I have written you a long one”.
This statement is a pitch for twitter 100 years before it was conceived, as the sentiment of clarity through brevity is the same. Writing to convey an idea is a challenge, writing to convey an idea in a few words requires a discipline of thought that can be extremely hard.
The restriction of Twitter to 140 characters does seem to encourage a written shorthand that I find excruciating, but at its best, also adds a discipline to constructing an idea that squeezes out the superfluous, the hyperbole, the distractions, and forces clarity by brevity.
It seems that the “Twitter Pitch” is replacing the “Elevator Pitch” first made popular by Dale Carnegie, but the idea is the same.
Apr 15, 2013 | Management, Small business, Social Media
Over the weekend just gone, I was a part of a strategy group setting out to build the marketing plan for an occasional client. There were several guest speakers, one an articulate and persuasive purveyor of what I regarded to be social media snake oil, and so a vigorous debate ensued.
His contention was that every business, particularly SME’s needed to be active on every major SM platform, and that a part of every employees job was to represent the interests of their employer on the various platforms.
Superficially that argument has some attraction, as an advocate of SM for SME’s, it is hard to argue against a proposition that SM is more available than traditional media, and that employees should be engaged and committed, or they ceased to be useful employees.
However, there are three very real arguments against the proposition, all of which I used.
- Not all social media platforms are equal, and they play vastly different roles, attracting users for different reasons, and in different situations. Individually, each platform is just a small piece of the SM pie, but if you try and consume the whole pie, all you get is indigestion. Much better to understand the pie, and go to where the goodies are hidden.
- Then I thought about the senior maintenance engineer who had worked in the business for many years. An enormously competent and committed bloke, and great in a group at the pub, but the owner of a left field sense of what is funny, sometimes even acceptable, and what is not. Encouraging him to be anywhere near the 140 characters of Twitter sends shivers down the spine, but I desperately want him to continue running maintenance
- The clincher, SM is not free, it consumes lots of the most valuable resource an SME has, time. The invoices may be lower than with traditional and paid media, but the commitment of time to do a good job is significant, and most often will attract consulting fees of some sort as SME’s fill the capability gap, which then offers the opportunity to be paying for snake oil, unless you are good at identifying the snakes.
The real management task is to have a very clear business purpose, supported by a few strategies that have evolved from understanding the business, its value proposition, customers, competitors, and operating environment, and making the choices that drive the priorities and resource allocation decisions. Social Media is a part of the mix, an important part, but you need to be putting round pegs in round holes of the right size, and not getting confused about which is what.
Mar 28, 2013 | Governance, Innovation, Leadership, Operations, Small business
Manufacturing is not just an amalgam of industries, far more importantly, it is a capability, a way to capture imagination in a physical form.
In discussions about manufacturing, its slow demise in Australia, the level and type of support it should receive, its importance to long term prosperity, and the links between manufacturing and innovation, we leave one really important factor aside, one I suspect it is just not generally recognised. We define “industry” with the assumptions and words that came with the explosion of manufacturing in the last 100 years, the “food” industry, the “Auto” industry, the “Airline” industry, and so on. We do not seem to recognise that the capabilities are “cross industry” that the definitions we use no longer hold, if they ever did , beyond adding a bit of convenience to the language.
The lines are blurring further, rapidly and irrevocably.
Is Apple an electronics designer and manufacturer (Mac computers), a service provider (itunes) , or a product marketer (ipad)? My answer: They are all, and none of the above. Rather, Apple is a marketer that delivers its value proposition via a range of operational and sales channels that have nothing to do with the generally accepted definitions of industries. Certainly Apple has been able to leverage their collective imagination better than any other enterprise I can think of.
The next step is a truly scary one for many, the advent of 3-D printing.
Within a very short time, 3-D printers will be as available and cheap as desktop computers, all you need is a digital design file and a printer. We will be able to produce everything from simple household items to highly specified parts for our cars, produced in our kitchen.
The marvelous wind powered devices of designer Theo Jansen have been printed in miniature, and work just like the full sized ones, and dramatically make the point. If you can imagine it, you can now print it!
Manufacturing is about to go through a change as profound as that brought on by the steam engine.
20th century notions and boundaries to “manufacturing” are as outdated as a bow and arrow in a gunfight, so we must change the language and intellectual boundaries of the conversation if we are ever to make any sense of the dynamics at play.
Mar 27, 2013 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Small business, Social Media
Things move on petty quickly.
It is just a few years ago that even ordinary websites had a reasonable chance of being noticed, and communicate something worthwhile. Not now, a site that just offers static information is as relevant as last weeks chip wrapper.
“Content” suddenly became the next big thing, useful information in graphic and video formats, links to other sites, and research reports to the wazoo, all offered in the interests of “engagement” of the reader. Still pretty useful, but the production of content has become so easy, that most of it around is just crap, and it takes effort to sort through it. Research comes from unknown, unqualified sources, video is largely of the result of a kid with a mobile, there is simply so much of it, that no longer does it easily fit the bill.
Social media of various types now fills the role of information, and engagement. Websites are rapidly becoming the business end of the sales process, and as such must be transactional, their relevance as purveyors of information, is rapidly eroding to that of relevance only in the sence of confirming terms of trade.
A website without a capacity to transact is like a fancy car without an engine, nice for enthusiasts to look at, but no good for getting the shopping.
Mar 25, 2013 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, retail, Small business, Social Media
One of the foundations of mass marketing was to be able to segment your market, geographically, demographically, behaviorally, brand preferences, and so on.
In the old days of mass media, it was really the only way to target messages at those most likely to be receptive, match the media selection to the characteristics of your target market.
But what has happened in the social world of networked consumers and crowd sourced comment and content?
An acquaintance runs a wonderful patisserie in a rejuvenated inner city location. It is pricey, but the value is there, reflected in the range, artistic presentation, great service, and above all, pastries to die for. However, some of the comments on the review sites would lead to a conclusion that the products were overpriced, too fancy, and lacked character.
Standing in the queue on a Saturday morning just before Christmas, observing others, and listening to the comments, the penny dropped. Those in the queue were older, clearly successful, were regulars, and loved the place, whereas the casual buyer, the ones far more likely to leave a comment on a review site were most probably Uni students, on their way between the train station and the campus just down the road. These buyers were more liklely to want a cheap, filling, snack rather than a tasty work of art.
The lesson: Do not believe all your read on social media review sites, any more than you believe all you read in a politicians press release.
