This, via my brother-in-law.
Apparently, he heard a dinner speaker point out that Americans and Aussies use the word "momentarily" to mean different things.
In Australia, it means "for a moment." In the US, it means "in a moment."
This led to some moments of fear for some Aussies when an American airline pilot announced "We will be taking off momentarily."
In the old days, a professional business was a special kind of organisation, one that was designed to bring into balance the demands of the client marketplace and the marketplace for talent.
The way firms or companies attracted young talent was to offer an apprenticeship -- the expectation that people would join the firm and would be helped to progress along a reasonable well-defined career path until they either became one of the senior officers of the firm (partners, for example) or moved on. People joined the firm for careers, not jobs.
This didn't necessarily mean that people planned to stay with one company for life. It did mean that, if the system was not exactly "up or out", then it was at least "grow or go." Talented people didn't expect to stay at a given "level" for extended periods of time, and firms did not want them to.
Senior people, in the past, understood the aspirations of young professionals, their ambitions, their fears and their needs. After all, they had come up in the same system. And it was a system. Explicitly or implicitly, everyone knew what the "deal" was -- what was being exchanged for what.
All that's gone now, of course. Companies did a number of things to abandon the apprenticeship model:
a) Lengthened the time and odds of making it to "partner-level" positions
b) Started hiring experienced people at advanced levels, thereby "blocking" the path for those who were coming up the old way
c) Established permanent non-partner positions, also "blocking the path" and signalling that not everyone was expected to have career advancement
d) Made partners lives so stressful and unattractive that many junior people increasingly question whether the benefits of partnership are worth the efforts that an apprenticeship would require
e) Placed greater pressure on partners to generate work and serve clients, thereby reducing the amount of partner time available for mentoring, coaching and development of juniors
f) Shifted responsibility for developing people away from senior professionals and reassigned it to trainers and HR departments (!)
g) Started holding back crucial feedback on whether or not people were going to "make it": ostensibly this was to avoid making misleading promises for future promotions, but increasingly gave the impression that the firm wanted people to hang around "one more year" without the firm having to give any reciprocal undertaking
h) Stopped viewing their employees as future partners, and started treating them like REAL employees -- resources to be consumed, not assets to be grown
The problem with shift from an "apprenticeship" model to an "employee" model is that it couldn't have been done at a worse time -- right when there was a scarcity of talent, and when a new generation of people came along who could not conceive of investing seven or ten or twelve years of their lives to "make it."
This is not just a minor change, but a major revolution. Every assumption on which the professional business model was built has gone out the window. Firms don't offer apprenticeships, and younger people don't want to serve one. (See the June 11 blogpost at Adam Smith, Esq.)
Firms that abandoned the apprenticeship model now bemoan the fact that turnover among the junior ranks is extraordinarily high and juniors are not "loyal." Well, duh!
Apprenticeship is dead, but no-one is quite sure what has taken its place. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to me to be a well thought-out, internally consistent set of policies and practices. It's a patchwork quilt covering up the gaps in an old fabric that has been forever torn.
Today I posted a new article on my website entitled Why (Most) Training is Useless.
If training is viewed as an integral part of making change -- and not as a stand-alone activity -- it can be very powerful. However, the sad truth is that the majority of business training, by me and by everyone else, is a tragic waste of time and money.
Regular readers will note that the article is an expansion of what began as a series of posts on this blog, including Why Training Is Useless, Saving the Training Baby and The Keynote Speaker Charade.
By turning the blog discussion into an article, I hope to make it easier to download and circulate the thoughts to people who might benefit from them but not otherwise encounter them. Do pass on the article to someone who could usefully consider the issues it raises.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to those original discussions (and to my thinking) -- in particular, those I quote in the article: Bill Peper, Ted Harro, Cem Kaner, and David G.
If you would like to be emailed automatically when I add future full-length articles to the site, (or know of anyone else that would benefit) I invite you (or them) to sign up for my (free) article email list.
Finally, the training conversation is far from over. Please join in by adding your thoughts and experiences to this blogpost.
Companies are most successful when they are built on -- and live up to -- a solid, clearly articulated ideology (also known as a mission or values.) Only when these are absolutely known and shared can firms offer large degrees of autonomy to different geographical and service-line groups, while simultaneously assuring that firm cohesion, trust, excellence and focus are all achieved.
Without REAL shared values, top management can easily slip into being both controlling and dictatorial, and as a result, the company becomes less flexible, adaptive and innovative.
In any but the smallest firms, it is necessary to decentralise decisions as to what to preserve, what to adapt and what to innovate. If there is any ambiguity in the ideology, then it will be hard for people within the organisation to know what is expected of them when there are opportunities that might fall into any of the three categories. -- And such choices appear every day, week and month!
While most firms have clearly articulated mission and values expressed as high-level principles, it is not always clear what, precisely, these translate into when it comes to senior day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month or year-to-year behaviour.
Few firms have an unambiguous constitution: a clear, explicit understanding of what people in the firm have a right to expect from each other; what the rules of membership are; what the true "non-negotiable minimum standards" are and what is a matter for personal preference or personal strengths.
Companies and the people within them often understand their performance criteria and key values (different things, of course) in broad terms, but not all firms have achieved clarity in reality. Some values are truly "religious" -- firms are prepared to be intolerant about them if coaching cannot restore performance. Others values turn out to be aspirational -- encouraged but not necessarily enforced. The ambiguity both inhibits performance and makes performance counselling difficult (if not impossible.)
In my experience, the key differentiating factor between "excellent" and "good" firms is NOT a difference in the mission or values that they advocate, but in their ability to achieve diligent execution of their mission and values (to high levels) by introducing a culture of accountability.
The concept of accountability for living up to the firm's ideology is not a trivial one. In many firms, there is no practical mechanism -- hard or soft -- to ensure that senior officers (or groups of senior officers in different locales or different disciplines) are achieving -- accountable for -- living the values of the firm.
To "assume" that senior officers are all doing the right things is almost certainly an insufficient organisational approach. Excellence is only achieved, in any field of endeavour, when an artist or athlete volunteers to discuss his or her performance with a caring, supportive, trusted coach who is charged with the task of helping the performer cross the gap between good performance and true excellence. An athlete or artist who is never coached will accomplish less.
Most companies have procedures in place for ensuring accountability for financial measures. The next challenge they will face is whether their senior officers are prepared to be held truly accountable for the ideologies and value systems they espouse.
What's your company's approach for ensuring that everyone actually does live up to the espoused ideology? Or does you company and its senior officers shy away from real accountability on these things?
When I was in college, and had to prepare for exams, I found that I could make things stick in my memory if I actually copied them out from the textbooks or otherwise wrote them down. If I didn't actually go through the manual task of writing things down, it was rare that I remembered them well.
I think there has been some recent research proving all this -- I'm sure each generation of students rediscovers the principle at exam time.
So what's the lesson for the rest of us? Keep a journal! Keep a diary! Sit at your computer late at night or early in the morning and transcribe what people said you to that previous day.
Transcribing and recollecting the day's events will help you understand your experiences better -- just like it used to help me understand my math or english studies. It forces you to slow down the mental processs and reflect on what you are writing or typing, not just pretend you understand it.
And people -- clients, subordinates, colleagues, spouses -- will be very flattered that you later remembered (and thought about) what they said. They won't mind if referring to notes is what helped you do it -- they will just be grateful and impressed that you can do it at all.
A lesson I learned early and still apply to my advantage (and, of course, in the service of others.)
Always volunteer to take the minutes of meetings, and to do the first drafts of proposed initiatives or reports. Not only will you get credit for volunteering to do things on behalf of others, but you get control of what's recorded. You are now part of the decision-making process. He or she who writes the history gets to make history.
In the 14th episode of my videocast and podcast series, we will discuss how the standard marketing practice of proposals and assertions often fails in respect to building relationships. We will focus on one of many tactics aimed at earning and deserving existing and new client business through demonstration of excellence rather than assertion of it.
Audio Timeline
00:40 -- Introduction
01:05 -- Earning and deserving business by demonstrating not asserting
05:03 -- No selling required: demonstrating excellence in your field
06:35 -- Using the same tactics for new client business
08:12 -- Conclusion
You can download Where Should Marketing Time Go? or sign up to receive new videos automatically with iTunes or other video players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.
On September 29, 2006, I will be making a presentation in Berlin, Germany to the 14th CEEMAN annual conference on "Creating synergy between business schools and business."
(CEEMAN is the Central and Eastern European Management Development Association.)
In anticipation of my presentation, CEEMAN news published an interview with me (available on my website), in which I am pessimistic both about the ability of business school professors to act in unison to develop strategies for their institutions, and about their true desires to engage with real-world business.
In addition, Business Review Weekly, the leading Australian business magazine, interviewed me recently about my 10-years of experience in working in Australia. That interview, entitled "Some Good Advice," can be found here.
Peter Gwizdalla writes:
I love your Strategy and the Fat Smoker article. It helps me, as an organisational psychologist, in my conversations with my clients about change in individuals and organisations. The only area I still feel needs more "tools" for me is "how do we remind ourselves (and others) on a daily basis, why we're going thru the discipline and discomfort of doing things differently in such a way that the resolve is renewed and refreshed and consistent? Richard, do you have any thoughts in this area?
Peter, I don't have one magic formula for "renewing resolve", but here are some possibilities, mostly drawn from personal life, that could be applied to organisational life:
What's the business equivalent of putting the "fat picture" on the refrigerator?
I shouldn't leave this topic without referring you to Gerry Riskin's blog post The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management.
OK, everyone. Your turn. What are the tools and techniques and tricks that help you stay the course when you're really trying to change yourself and your organisation?
Brad Farris writes in to ask:
The Reliability and Credibility factors you talk about there have always seemed like "table stakes" to me. The third component, A Low Self-interest, is sometimes less obvious, but once considered is equally non-controversial. The fourth factor, Intimacy, is always the one that gets people hung up. "Why intimacy?" they ask, "Why do we need that?"
What things would you recommend that companies of any size can do to be more intimate with their customers, employees and community? If you are a company who needs scale to survive, is it a given that you have to leave intimacy and trust behind?
For me, the secret to the "intimacy" aspect of trust, whether dealing inside or outside an organisation, is the simple act of getting out of role-to-role interactions, and making them encounters between real people. In other words, treat me like a person, not an "employee" or a "customer."
Viewed this way, the issue of creating intimacy is less one of systems, procedures and processes, than it is one of attitude and style. The famous examples are the cabin attendants and pilots of Southwest Airlines, who (according to their reputation) can make announcements conveying serious information but with humour, personality and individualism, proving that you don't have to be robotic, bureaucratic or rule-driven to get something done. And Southwest is one of the largest airlines out there. It's all about attitudes, mentality, empowerment, self image, and keeping things in proportion.
As I've written many times (and never tire of preaching) it's the RULES that grind us all down, and they tend to accumulate and take over when organisations grow. If managers only focused on WHAT needs to be done (superbly), and WHY it needs to be done (superbly), then they could empower and trust the front-line staff to figure out for themselves HOW to do it. And if, as a staff memeber, I can then do it MY way, I'm going to make it more real, more human and more intimate for both the customers and for myself.
What about the effects of scale? I studied 139 businesses analysing the relationship between attitudes and financial results. While there were examples of great intimacy ("human scale") the overall trends were a clear decline with scale. In larger offices in general, people did, indeed, give lower scores to such things as:These all declined with larger offices, even though I was able to prove that doing well on these things was a significant predictor of better financial results.
In addition to my statistics, portraits of nine of the highest-performing businesses are contained in my database. I interviewed not only the managers, but many other people who worked in these nine office.
One of the absolutely fascinating outcomes was that, in line with your question, everyone was worried that they could only achieve their level of excellence because they were "small" and had a strong sense of community and purpose -- or, if you prefer, intimacy. But this reaction was expressed by offices that had over 300 people!
This convinced me that creating a sense of intimacy is a managerial phenomenon, not one simply determined by scale. It can be achieved by managers who know how to manage.
So what did the "great" managers do to overcome the effect of size? None of it was very dramatic. Most of the (hundreds) of specific messages could be summed up as "Be human and never forget that we are, too."
Some specific advice to managers?
At the risk of repetitiousness, I must stress that these lessons are NOT that these are "nice-to-have" behaviours, but that they are EXACTLY what the managers of the financially highest performing businesses in my database do.
Well team, we're famous.
The discussion last week on the blog, which started with my posts on Creating Awareness and Marketing Complexity, spread out through the blogosphere with posts by Joseph Thornely of ProPR, Scott Baradelle of Media Orchard, Dave Lorenzo of Career Intensity, and Sean-Paul Kelly of The Agonist, and generated a huge conversation in the comments here.
Now, our conversation has been picked up ... by the Times of London:
Websites transform minnows into whales
By Richard SusskindIN A RECENT blog, Richard Wood asks readers to advise him on how to market his website (www.vistageconsulting.com). Wood is a world authority on the financial management of professional firms and he wants online gravitational pull that draws users irresistibly to his site.
He should not worry. His site is plentiful in content, his reputation is strong and today's ripple of interest will be magnified by the network into a large wave of regular visitors.
Interestingly, Wood is a sole practitioner, not an IT specialist, yet his website puts to shame most leading law firms. Where Wood's site includes blogs, podcasts, videos, updates and articles, the typical law firm website is an online glossy brochure.
Is it the internet's democratising effect that allows a one-man band to have a richer online presence than multinational professional firms?
No. The truth is that most law firms underinvest in their websites. They do not regard them as strategic and, so long as the competition is modest, the incentives to spend are minimal.
This is short-sighted because websites increasingly play a pivotal role in recruitment, in winning work and in shaping the market's perception of their providers.
While I'm not sure how to take being called a minnow, it is certainly true that smart use of Internet tools can make any professional or organisation look like a whale.
Thank you to everyone who so generously shared your suggestions and experience in the original conversation on creating awareness. If the proof is in the pudding, then your advice must be absolutely right -- look at this publicity. Keep the great ideas coming!
And thank you also to Richard Susskind, a longstanding friend, for his very kind words about my site.
Of course, I hope you will continue to encourage colleagues, clients, subordinates, managers and friends to register on my website to receive my future articles, podcasts and blog posts. Because at the end of the day, generosity, reciprocity and building relationships are still what even Internet marketing is all about.
Eileen O'Hara writes:
Last week I attended a local professional networking event here in Kansas City. The speakers kept talking about how they focus on relationship management ("the romance"). The real estate guy has built a $40 million business of 8 agents mainly on referrals. He said he sends out postcards twice a month, then letters at day 52 and 75, etc. and continues to follow up, and up, and up relentlessly. It seems to work for him. (Personally I'd be quite annoyed to get all that stuff when I didn't need it.)
The financial services guy boasted that he "focuses on the relationship" and then turns the account over to the "technical staff." He says he has a staff of 3 and can focus more on his own networking goals -- for example, aiming to get on at least 3 non-profit boards this year -- mainly to expand his client base. He challenged the rest of us to leverage our own value this way -- the old "delegate everything you can".
But why on earth would I think I have a "relationship" with a financial services professional who defers the technical expertise to someone else? To me, this isn't a relationship, this is sales. I want to think that I am getting the value directly from the person I interact with -- my lawyer, accountant share their expertise with me.
So why does this approach seem to work so well for those in real estate and financial services who are so sales-driven? Do you think people feel the "relationship" they provide (the face time, if you will) is as good as actual expertise?
Eileen, I think both sides are correct. The speakers are correct in saying that their approach can be made to "work" to build a business. You are correct in saying that what they describe can hardly be described as "relationship-building."
There's nothing morally wrong with "sales" and nothing morally wrong with making money through generating and serving a large number of transactions. As I was at pains to argue in my article, many clients are looking for transactions and are not shopping for a professional with whom they can build a long-term relationship. For such clients, the old, familiar "sales by volume of activity" approach works remarkably well, as your speakers illustrated and claimed -- you get turned down often, but the numbers work out.
What IS misleading is to call this relationship building and romance. And, it is dangerous to take this approach if you want to have a repuation for being nurturing, caring, focused, customised and in it for the long haul.
As you reported, anyone who tried that approach on you would leave a distinct impression of a KIND of professional provider. Maybe one you want, maybe not. But the core message is this: none of us can have it both ways: we can't credibly expect to obtain a reputation of being interested in romance if we visibly engage in "love em and leave em" tactics.
Either approach can be made to work. The hypocrisy of the middle path will be exposed.
One of my past clients wrote to me as follows:
I'm planning a lecture to my staff and selected clients on the issue of e-mail versus personal contact (phone or face to face). Clearly the generations -- boomers, xers and y's relate quite differently to e-mail. Are we hiding behind our e-mails both internally and externally? I advocate we are increasingly.
I love being paradoxical, controversial and counter-intuitive, so even though it's traditional to bemoan the increasing use of email, let me (just for the heck of it) take the other side and try to make the case (my points are serious here) why using email is INCREASING our abilities to connect:
Seriously, folks, beyond the clichés that we have all heard, what do you think the strengths and weaknesses of email have been. How is it really changing us for the better AND for the worse?
There are only a few days left to register for the Wednesday, June 21, Webcast "Ongoing Mysteries of Lawyer Marketing" presented by Larry Bodine, management guru, book author and lecturer, and myself. Join us as we identify and solve the most intractable problems and perennial mysteries of business development in professional firms. This is chance for you to ask the questions that keep you up at night.
Join two of the industry's marketing and management thought-leaders as they delve into questions that keep you up at night:
Registration fee: $300.
Registrants are free to make unlimited copies of the handout materials for their own internal use.
This is your chance to ask questions about eternal mysteries like:
Steve Loepfe writes:
Why should you put your money on romance in a one night stand world? I read you loud and clear when you say in your article "Do You Really Want Relationships?" that one can tap into the riches by caring and sharing and by nurturing long term relationships
But most of the projects I do (I do communication consulting in the context of strategic change initiatives) are of a milestone character. I get to do work for a client maybe just once in a lifetime. A private company only goes public once. Corporations don't discontinue a unit every day. My clients don't make a living just by acquiring and merging entities a hundred times a year (unless they're GE).
Consultants like me live in a disruptive project world characterised by constant discontinuity. Context, scope, people -- the times they are a changing.
Could you share some good reasons why one should believe in romance?
Reason 1: The first thing any new prospect is going to do when he or she has a new need is to ask the people he or she knows who they have use and whether they would recommend them. That's when you win or lose your next client. Word of mouth reputation wins the gold, silver and bronze for the best marketing techniques to get new clients.
Reason 2: Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, if someone does recommend you it will be because of the experience you provided in working with them, rather than the results you obtained for them. (No-one says ''He was a great electrician, look at the quality of the wiring!'')
Reason 3: Even if they don't have another job for you immediately, your current clients might need you again some day.
Reason 4: Even if reasons 1 through 3 don't apply, romance the client anyway. We can all use the practice in interpersonal relations so that we are good at it when we do need it!
The 13th episode in this series puts fourth that in order for the employees of an organisation to raise their performance, the managers must first improve in their role. In order to accomplish this, however, managers must be willing to be held accountable to the standards of the organisations. We will discuss one way that this accountability could be installed inside an organisation.
Audio Timeline
00:39 -- Introduction
00:12 -- Over-investing in training, under-investing in accountability
02:07 -- Managerial accountability
02:59 -- Standards and the goals of an organisation
06:25 -- Conclusion
You can download Accountability or sign up to receive new videos automatically with iTunes or other video players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.
Scott Nicholls, of CourtClerk.net wrote in with the following question:
You argue in your article Strategy Means Saying ''No'' that companies should choose a positioning, a point of differentiation, and beware of diffusing their focus. However, there is a phenomenon I call "collapsing service placement". As an example, FedEx innovated and differentiated with tracking services in the early1990s, but by the late 1990s many companies offered it and it was no longer a differentiator.
We sell data. The data is public information regarding individuals who have received a speeding ticket or face other legal action. As new competitors, who lack any new differentiators of their own, enter the marketplace, there is increasing price competition.
So, it seems to me that constant service line innovation is required if my company is to be "the premier provider of direct mail marketing services for attorneys." The question becomes: how many/ which ancillary services do you need to develop to support your position as the market leader?
For example, are the following logical service line extensions in support of an overall strategy or are they the wanderings of a vagabond company?
Provide graphic services to help customer differentiate their direct mail product;
Provide on-site training for customers to use the services;
Provide CRM software for real-time campaign tracking;
Provide Call-Centre to help customer handle the volume of calls generated from the direct mail letters
It's possible that, in the extreme case, we end up giving the core data away and people pay for our ancillary services! Not that I'm advocating this, but I think the progression is certainly possible.
Here's my question: What processes should a company implement to determine if the creation of an ancillary service in support of its strategy is appropriate?
Scott, you have helped me clarify an important point. When I said we have to learn to say "No" that absolutely does not mean that we can stay where we are and never change.
Other business writers (especially Hagel and Brown, with their book on "Dynamic Specialisation") have taught us that without innovations, organisations die, but without a focus they are uncompetitive.
What's needed is both a solid, focused core, with, at the fringes, much studied, entrepreneurial experimentation. (Yes, I know "studied" and "entrepreneurial" sound like two different things, but you need both.)
But that still doesn't mean you say "Yes" to every opportunity that comes along. Some of the opportunities will be milking your asset, not building it. There's a difference between uncontrolled pursuit of all new business, and the thoughtful examination of new opportunities.
The key to successful innovation is allocating a sufficiently large percentage of your time and resources in well-planned experiments. This doesn't mean try a lot of things with a little effort. Just as your question suggests, it means having a mentality that asks -- given my strengths and enthusiasms, and given the clients' possibly unmet needs -- what's the next thing to try, and how can we invest in a small scale experiment that tells us if there's a real opportunity there?
The mentality I am describing still requires discipline and focus - saying "no" to things that serve only as distractions.
So, how do you decide which are the right diversifications? I would apply the three tests that I included in my article It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Much You Want It. The three tests are:
a) Does this stuff turn us on sufficiently -- could we get really excited about it?
b) Can we do something new and special with this -- can we make a contribution?
c) Will customers and clients really pay for this?
Find something that meets all three tests and you have a winner!
OK, everybody else. Let's help Scott. What do YOU think should be the criteria and process by which he decides how to extend his business?
Advertising Age has just run a survey of readers asking them if they were concerned at the moves of major consulting firms (IBM, Accenture, McKinsey) into the kinds of marketing work that could influence both choice and control of agencies. Most readers concluded that the ad agencies had every reason to be nervous.
For decades, ad agencies have defended their territory as special. In the latest survey, Rick Pike, senior VP-media director of Inter/Media Advertising said: ''Consultants who are not experienced advertising professionals cannot remotely understand the nuances and intricacies of an art form such as marketing and advertising -- which ultimately is all about human behaviour.'' (It is, however, unclear, what it is the backgrounds of advertising agency people that make them peculiarly qualified to understand the nuances and intricacies of human behaviour).
Everyone knows advertising is becoming a shrinking percentage of marketing, and was never ALL of it to begin with. As the holding conglomerate movement showed (WPP, Ominom, IPG, Paribas) the game for years has been to try and convince clients that a full, cross-disciplinary approach to marketing communications could be achieved.
There has been only one problem with this: the promise has never has been delivered. From as long ago as Y&R's infamous ''Whole Egg'' approach through many other slogans, all the marketing conglomerates have proved is that they are incapable of designing and executing fully integrated marketing plans to their clients.
Apart from the problems of cross-boundary co-ordinations (each of these agencies within the comglomerates tend to be separate firms and profit centers) the larger problem has been that while the mega-agencies or agency networks have occasionally (VERY occasionally) been able to deliver a sensible, comprehensive package of marketing communications tools and approaches, they still lack a critical missing ingredient -- an ability to understand the full picture of what is involved in marketing a product or a service. Marketing communications is not all of marketing.
The networks have tried to rectify this over the past decade with experiments in hiring MBAs from prestigious schools, and giving them fast-track positions to take on managerial and client relationship roles. Most of these experiments have failed, not least because the MBAs culture, attitudes and salary expectations have been hard to integrate into an agency culture.
For decades, there has been a huge hole in the advisory market. No major consulting firm built its reputation and the bulk of its practice on giving marketing advice. The likes of McKinsey, BCG and Bain did Strategy; the accounting-based firms did IT, the actuarially-based firms did Human Resources, and many Wall-Street firms built major institutions out of giving financial advice. Even the lowly topic of Operations was used to build major institutions like AT Kearney and other firms that focused on productivity, quality and supply chain management.
But where were the marketers? Who was giving corporations, anywhere in the world, their top marketing advice? Basically, no-one -- except for a few small if respected firms.
The move of IBM, McKinsey and Accenture is dangerous not because they are going to know more about advertising than the advertisers. What they represent (in very different ways) is the theory that having tired of paying for unexecuted strategy and 30-second ads that accomplish little, corporations might be ready for a totally new approach to service -- a group of people who hold themselves out as knowing something about how you actually market and sell products and services.
It's not clear where the people who know those things are housed today, and whether or not the big-3 consulting firms can hire them.
But battle has been joined, and I don't think things are ever going to be the same.
I hope other people are getting as much benefit from the advice contained in the reactions and comments to my blog on Creating Awareness. I also hope people will continue to joint that conversation.
However, I suspect that other people, as well as me, are rapidly beginning to realise the intertwined complexity of marketing. It's not just complicated, it's truly complex. Everything influences everything else, and it's completely unclear where to start.
When I wanted to promote my consultancy, everyone said "write a book". So I did that, and then asked -- but how do I promote a book?
I treasure the responses that came back from publishers and publicists alike: "Well, there are no guarantees. There are some things we can try. Every book is different. We'll give it our best efforts, act with good faith and good intentions. It's really up to what you do. Maybe you should start a website."
So, I did that. But then I asked, how do I make my website popular? Start a blog, they said.
Then, when I said how to I promote my blog, good friends said "People will get driven to your blogs if they hear about you in their trade press -- get quoted or print your articles in print media. Do more seminars and invite the press. But how do I entice the press? Write more articles."
Whoops! Back where we started!
If you read the commenters on the last blogpost (and you should -- it's GREAT stuff!) you'll see things like "use your podcasts to promote your blog". Well, yes, but forgive me being petulant if I ask "But how the heck do I promote my podcats?"
I've been just as guilty over the years of trying to make things linear. I have argued that among the top tactics to create awareness in a professional business were speeches and seminars, and I was dismissive of things like direct mail. "But how," people would write in for years to come, "do we get people to come into our seminars? Don't we need direct mail to get them to attend?" Ouch! Good point!
The same topic came up when I was discussing the possibility of building a "Wikipedia" about professional businesses. "The key" he said "Is that it's easier to pull that off if -- like you Richard (he's a charmer) -- you have a strong existing brand to build it on."
This was flattering, but ultimately frustrating. He's saying that I can make the new things (and the new marketing media) work better if I've already succeeded (and am plugged in.) Actually, that's not bad for me because I'm 34 years old, I've published numerous books, I've built the website, so I'm ahead of the game -- I have something to build on.
But, boy, that must be immensely annoying for those just starting out, trying to get their market's attention. "Get famous, kid, and all the tactics for getting famous will be available to you!"
It's like the pop music that's my hobby. If you're already famous, you get press coverage, invited to interviews, they review your latest album in the music magazines and they display your latest release at the front of the store. If you're a band just starting out, none of these things are accomplished easily -- if at all!
And in some small way, I have that challenge. Part of what I'm trying to do is to reach NEW audiences (outside the traditional professions where I have spent most of my time.) In that situation, my marketing challenge is as tough as any new "band": we've got this killer record recorded, but no one will stock it, play it, display it. And the advice on where to START is all over the map! (And yes, I have read the books on Buzzmarketing!)
I'm luckier than most -- I've got something to build on, and I have a little money to invest in this (hard-to-understand, incomprehensibly complex) process. I feel bad for others just starting out trying to think their way through this minefield.
That's why I hope everyone out there will keep contributing to this blogpost (and the last one). I'm determined to write an article (or some articles) shedding a little more light on all this. I see pieces of an answer, but at the moment they are only tantalising glimpses!
Can I ask your advice, for a change?
Along with every enterprise, I face the challenge of creating awareness of my activities. I often describe my reputation as being like the measles -- spots of great inflammation, surrounded by vast areas of untouched territory.
I don't have much difficulty meeting the financial targets of my business. That's not where my challenge lies.
Rather, I am trying to think through how to bring my website and blog to the attention of a broader audience in order to serve them -- make my free materials (articles, podcasts, videos, blog, etc.) available to more people who might find them useful.
Since I'm not selling anything, and I'm supposed to be some kind of consultant who gives marketing advice anyway, it should all be obvious and easy, right?
Not necessarily.
As my experience in past years with published books proved, you can know a lot about how to get hired as a consultant for many thousands of dollars, and still know absolutely zero about how to get people to part with $20 for a hardbound book. Being good at one doesn't automatically make you good at the other.
Even though I've had some big sellers, I still don't know how to market books. Only one of my books ever hit the weekly best-seller lists, and it went on to sell the least number of total books compared to those that grew solely by word of mouth.
I used to be frustrated that people who could have derived benefit from them didn't read my books, until it dawned on me that most businesspeople don't read books. Even though content is king, effective marketing is unavoidable. The trouble is, no-one really knows what effective marketing IS! No-one knows what works (reliably.)
I'm finding the same is true in hyperspace. I have put a lot of effort into creating the content of my website and must now I have to learn how to "market" a free website!
I have spent the past six months trying to build a resource-rich, helpful (I hope) website with lots of accessible, free resources. The next task is to "drive traffic to the site" (as they say.)
Many of you reading this "discovered" my work somehow. The question now is how to make it easier for others (many, many others?) to do so.
My primary goal is to get people to register their email addresses on my site, and I do offer a free subscription to my future articles to people who do this.
However, I am VERY reluctant to engage in anything that gives even the appearance of a hard sell ("Register now and receive these special gifts.") I also don't want to spam anyone.
I do already participate in blog carnivals and I'm reasonably active in the blogosphere. I give lots of interviews.
I'm thinking of doing a broad range of things. Should I do any "click-through advertising?" Should I attempt to get e-mailing lists from somewhere? Are there things I can do to encourage people -- and make it easier -- to tell more of their (your?) friends about my materials?
Advice, please. What's an effective, but classy, way to do this?
Educated in Toowoomba, Richard Wood commenced his career establishing his own practice in March 1996. With an entrepreneurial spirit and vision as Managing Partner, he has developed and guided Vistage Corporate Advisory to where it is today.
Unlike traditional accountants, Richard (pictured above) does not position himself as external to his clients' businesses. Where possible, he becomes a part of the client -- knowing as much about their operations and corporate and marketing challenges as possible.
This provides a sound foundation from which to develop financial and accountancy strategies which are tailored to meet their individual requirements. Importantly, it also allows Richard to identify business opportunities for his clients on a progressive basis, and combat any commercial threats before they take effect.
Richard has extensive financing and joint venture experience. As a majority shareholder and director of a number of private companies, he is keenly aware of the need to monitor unit-based profitability and to implement sophisticated financial management systems.
A deep thinker, passionate about the potential that lies within individuals and their businesses, Richard has been instrumental in creating opportunities that have inspired success for his clients, colleagues and peers.
A proven entrepreneur now focused on working with other entrepreneurs, Richard's commercial experience and business nous has led him to develop a distinctive suite of financial management solutions and products; including Optimist. He is driven to generate positive growth and wealth for his clients by focusing on activity based financial information, shareholder value and the true story behind the finance information that is generated. He has been influential in achieving significant results for his clients and their businesses, using strategic vision, big picture analysis, consistent monitoring and mentoring systems.
Richard believes that when business owners start to fear growth it is due to uncertainty. Unlocking these uncertainties and providing a clear platform for change recreates hope and the confidence to grow. Clear vision helps clear thinking. By relating activity to financial outcomes, he has the ability to provide a whole new way of thinking about strategy to drive financial performance.
Richard is a connected and valued strategic advisor to his clients and is driven to ensure he can empower them with peace of mind, confidence to grow and banker confidence.
Qualifications & Memberships
> Bachelor of Business (Accounting)
> Bachelor of Laws (Banking & Finance)
> Member, Institute of Chartered Accountants
> Member, Institute of Management
> Member, Institute of Corporate Managers, Secretaries and Administrators
> Member, Australian Institute of Certified Practising Accountants
> Member, Institute of Company Directors
