Oct 20, 2014 | Customers, Marketing, Small business, Social Media, Strategy
Most Aussies will probably recognise the diagram above, the London Underground.
The first time anyone arrives in London, an underground map is a vital piece of paper, even in these days of mobile phone enabled GPS tools.
The underground system in London is pretty complex until you figure out how it works, and when you take into account the interchanges with London buses and British rail, it is not something you approach without a clear understanding of the details of your intended journey. To get anywhere, you need to know just two things:
Where you are
Where you need to go.
After that, with the map, you can figure out the best way to get there ,what the route options may be, what it will cost, and how long it should take to get to the destination.
Why is it that people understand this instinctively for a sojourn on the underground, but fail to do it for their business?
Social Media is the shiny new toy around at the moment, everyone knows it is there, some dabble in it without a map, and get lost, have their pockets picked, and decide that from now on they will catch a taxi, if they really have to get somewhere. Other wise they will just stay in their hotel.
“Social Media” used as a noun, has some similarity to the underground, in that it is complex, but navigable with a map, where it differs is that it changes, evolves, even mutates, every single day, in some meaningful way. However, if you understand the structure, where and how it all fits together, navigation can become relatively easy, relatively risk free, and open up the opportunities of a wonderful tool.
Need a map?
Oct 17, 2014 | Branding, Marketing, Strategy
Majors Bay Rd Concord, Sydney.
No business can do everything, so the easy way to start is to do the thing you can do well, as long as it is at least partly the thing that also makes you different.
In a suburb not far from me in Sydney, there is a street that over the last 5 years or so has evolved into an eclectic mix of cafes and restaurants, occasionally separated by some other hang-over shop from a previous age. There must be 25 or 30 of them down both sides of the street, each vying for a share of the dollars the punters bring in from all over Sydney.
One of the cafes, on a corner, not only has plenty of outside room on the footpath, friendly service, and a good range of only mildly over priced cafe meals, and treats, they also roast their own coffee beans. This just reinforces that they have the best and freshest coffee experience in the area, supported by a blend of service, location and that aroma as they roast.
Intoxicating.
It also confirms them as “knowing their coffee” an important cache in an environment where coffee-wankery is reaching disturbing proportions, and cafe’s are springing up like mushrooms after rain.
It cannot be too hard to set up a roasting operation, it delivers a great marketing advantage to the cafe, offers an added income stream from bagged coffee sales, and, oh, did I mention the aroma?
Differentiating yourself is a must in this homogenising world, and doing it in a way that reinforces the marketing story in the way this cafe has done merits competitive success, which by my observation every time I go there is substantial.
Oct 15, 2014 | Change, Management, Strategy
There is no such thing as “equalibrium”, just constant change.
I have a mate who is an academic economist, a really smart guy used to arguing a point of view, and with a box of stats on call to support any contention he makes, alternatively to pull down anything that runs contrary to his argument.
He is very convincing.
An ongoing debate has been around the nature of management, and particularly marketing in the face of the changes that have been wrought by the digital revolution. His view, if I can summarise, is that the forces that have emerged will find a new point of equilibrium, and it is our task as managers to identify that point, minimise costs on the path towards it, then be in a position to leverage for the maximum outcome when it is reached.
Economics 101.
My contention is that the assumption that an equilibrium will be found is flawed, and that the better analogy is the ecosystem, constantly evolving and changing in response to the adjustment of the forces that interact on the inhabitants, and the better strategy is to assume that everything will change, some things over night, some with a bit more lead time, and the forces that are interacting to drive the changes are not necessarily evident from wherever it is you sit.
My evidence, in contrast to his is all anecdotal and perspective, challenging for an econometrician.
Often I refer him to the antitrust suit brought by the US government against the “monopoly” that Microsoft had, an action that was finally binned by President Clinton. The equilibrium argument suggested that the Microsoft empire would endure and continue to crush competitors, and that the brakes had to be imposed externally, when the reality is that Linux came along, followed by the rise and rise of Apple, emergence of Android, and within a very few years Microsoft was relegated to the role of an also-ran, albeit one with a mountain of cash.
Enterprises of any type and size that fail to accommodate the ecosystem metaphor, preferring to rely on an emerging equilibrium that they can leverage is in for a long wait, and ultimately a visit to the insolvency practitioner, unless of course they are a public body in which case the just continue to cry poor, and suck at the teat of the taxpayer.
My conclusion therefore is that there is no new equilibrium on the horizon, continuous and pervasive change is with us and the only thing that will change is the speed of the changes themselves, and our ability to respond.
Planning to disrupt your apparent equilibrium, the existing business model that has served well is a confronting undertaking, but a necessary one for commercial survival. A depth of experience an understanding of the traps can save much heartache, so I would be happy to apply my experience to help navigate a path.
Oct 6, 2014 | Communication, Governance, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Seeking a simple metaphor to explain how SEO fits into a digital strategy to a “digitally challenged” client running a successful small business, I struck upon the map of the London Underground.
If you look at the map, there are stations on single lines, stations with several lines running through, and stations with multiple intersections, some to other networks outside the underground, busses and British rail.
At any time, there are people in various stages of a journey. Some are waiting on a platform, some travelling towards the underground entry and exit points, and some on a train going to some predetermined end point of their journey.
Imagine now that every person had a descriptive tag attached, which was stored waiting for a request about that person, that could be read, and communicated to anyone asking.
SEO calls this process of asking for a location and description as “Crawling” and “Indexing”.
Each piece of information, if it has been appropriately tagged, or described by the person putting it onto a site, is “indexed” by the search engines, and when someone types a search request into a box, the engine crawls through the indexed material and returns a link to the location and description of the item to the searcher.
Back too the metaphor.
Each person with the tag on the underground, can be found, and returns the requested information to the enquirer. Location, what they are wearing, who they are, what they look like, with links to others who may be with them, and where they are going.
There are just two dimensions to having an effective SEO strategy.
- Get the technical stuff right, and this can be really complicated, and to the novice, even many professionals, is challenging. Find someone you trust to get it done for you.
- Have a strategy and action plan, without which you will be lost irrespective of the quality of the SEO.
Back to the underground metaphor. You never (perhaps rarely, a late night can make a difference) climb onto an underground train without knowing where you are going, and what the best route is under the circumstances that prevail.
Why should it be any different for an SEO strategy?
Sep 10, 2014 | Change, Governance, Management, Sales, Strategy
Courtesy Hugh McLeod
http://gapingvoid.com/2014/02/26/how-to-be-successful/
In life, and all its aspects, business, social , relationships, there are no shortcuts, just easier and simpler ways of doing things. It is just that it takes time and effort to find the easier, more productive, and value additional way.
The rules for success are the same in every context.
- Understand the selling process. Business, pleasure, social, you are always selling, a point of view, activity, feeling, yourself. Always selling!.
- See through the eyes of the other person. Again, customer, partner, casual acquaintance, it does not matter, it simply is better to see yourself as others see you, rather than just as you see yourself.
- Have a deeper understanding of whatever it is you are talking about than those to whom you are talking. If listeners are to get any value from listening, they need to think that there may be something of value for them, and that you know something they don’t, otherwise, why would they spend their valuable time on listening. Another of my old dads pearls of wisdom: “If you can’t say anything useful or sensible, keep your trap shut.”
- Seek ways to simplify. Our world is increasing complicated, finding ways to simplify even small bits of it are enormously valuable. Finding a way to reduce the friction to get a better, more valuable to someone outcome is the competitive advantage of the 21st century. Most things are done the way they are done because that is the way they have always been done. Not a good idea for the future.
- Start anything you do with the end in mind. This enables you to manage by compass, rather than by a map, which enables flexibility, agility, and room for the unexpected, serendipitous, and wonderful to emerge.
- Be nice. Nobody likes being around jerks, so be nice.
Sounds easy, but in fact it is very hard, that is why so few people are able to find the success they would like, and in many cases, deserve.
Call me for a confidential discussion about how to best leverage your opportunities.
Sep 4, 2014 | Governance, Innovation, Leadership, Small business, Strategy
The post on the 2 tools SME’s need in early August led to a comment that, whilst the headlines of focus and discipline made sense, the challenge is in implementation.
Fair comment.
So, how do you build the needed focus and discipline in the face of increasing complexity and competition?
Over 40 years of doing this stuff with SME;s, there have been 6 common factors that lead to successful implementation that have emerged.
- Ownership leads to commitment. In an increasingly complicated world, the hierarchical organisations that worked for us to date now fail, they are too rigid and process driven to be responsive to the chaotic input from a connected world. Leveraging what Clay Shirky calls “Cognitive surplus” becomes the competitive challenge to be won.
- Prioritisation and planning. There is a fine line between prioritising and planning a set of activities, and procrastination and doing the easy stuff that does not really matter. Two rules of thumb: 1. if it is easy, it probably does not matter, and 2. An extra minute spend planning will save an hour later on in the project.
- Accountability. It is one thing to “make” someone accountable in a top down organisation, it is easy for some boss to just say “you are accountable” but that does not make it so. It is really only when the person takes on the accountability as their own that the motivation kicks in, that they really care beyond the protection of an income or position.
- Outcome measurement. Do not measure the activities, just the outcomes. It is good to have the activities visible, so you can see what is being done, but only the outcomes really matter, activities do not contribute to success in any way other than they are just the means to the end, so measure for the end.
- Failure tolerance. The “scientific method” applies to management as well as science, it spawns a fact based decision making culture, rather than one based on ego, status and hubris.The story of the most successful inventor in history, Thomas Edison, on failing for the 999th time to create light from a bulb saying: “Now I know 999 things that do not work” is a lesson for us all. The 1,000th experiment was successful, and the world was changed.
- Persistence. Never giving up is crucial, with the proviso that you learn from your mistakes, and apply the learning.
These 6 are a great start, to which I would add “Sweat”. My dad used to reckon nothing worthwhile was achieved without some of it being shed, and I think he was right.
