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Blended

All the cues we use to figure out who’s real and who’s not appear to be fading away.

Years ago, there were “real” books and self-published books. The real books were worth buying and reading, the self-published were from vanity presses. Today, of course, some of the best stuff is self-published, whether as a book or a blog.

The Republican Party just announced that it’s paying a 30% commission to anyone with a website who collects money on their behalf. That sort of tactic used to be reserved for fledgling startups or small grassroots organizations.

Multi Level Marketing used to feel just a little creepy. Vitamins or cosmetics got sold by MLM. Today, of course, it’s not surprising to hear about car companies or even doctors rewarding people with cash or services for referrals.

Wearing a fine suit that fits you right was a great cue to others that you were successful and powerful and about to make something happen. Today, it’s just as likely that your potential partner is going to show up in a turtleneck and jeans.

Hotmail accounts used to indicate anonymity and a little fly-by-night aura about someone. You wanted the email addresses of people you interacted with to have permanence… stuff like ford.com. Today, of course, gmail is the flavor du jour.

Having your headquarters in Manhattan used to be a sign of real success. People even made a business out of selling PO boxes at the Empire State Building. Today, you’re more likely to find aggressive, responsible companies sprouting up in Colorado, Dubai and Singapore.

The best websites (belonging to the best organizations) used to be designed by Razorfish or Organic or Scient. They were big and fancy and expensive and complex. Today, it’s not surprising to find a successful business with a one-page site that cost $300 to build. Even more surprising are the sites filled with direct marketing copy that aren’t scams… just effective tools to make sales.

Advertising used to be about expensive spreads in the New York Times magazine. Today, text-only Adwords ads on Google are the most likely to be paying for themselves.

Used to be that being public and traded on the NYSE was a sign of permanence and ethics. Today, after Enron and United and Xerox, it’s the previously unknown (and private) companies that just might be the best to do business with.

So, how do we tell the good from the bad? In a connected world where people don’t have letterhead, don’t wear suits (don’t even own suits) work out of tiny rented office suites (or their living room) have a simple website and buy only Adwords, have an answering machine not a PBX, don’t have a receptionist or a sculpture out front… in that world, how do we tell?

As we’ve stripped away a lot of the extraneous expenses and signaling mechanisms, are we in a race to the bottom (if “bottom” means raw, not bad)? I can no longer count on the best books coming from a major publisher, on the best articles being in the biggest magazines (in fact, I can assume that if it’s the cover story of a major magazine, it’s insipid). I can no longer assume that someone with a sketchy resume or a simple website isn’t serious about what they’re up to…

Ten years ago, there was a neat and orderly line for companies that wanted to go public and cash out. It started at Stanford and included lunch with the right venture capital guys. There was also a line for authors and salespeople and non-profit administrators and teachers and just about everyone else. Today, cutting the line appears to be the best way to get what you want.

[at this point in my riff, I’m supposed to insert a breathtaking insight, something that will turn your head around and make it all make sense. I’m not sure I can. I think maybe the insight is that puzzling times lie ahead].

Welcome to the blended times. The moment when the big and small, the impermanent and the permanent, the accepted and the ‘scammy’ meet. For a while, it’s going to be awfully confusing. We’ll get ripped off, waste time, become even more skeptical than ever before.

But soon, I think, we’ll walk out to the other side.

I have no certainty as to what the other side looks like, but I’m pretty sure the winners are those that treated their customers and their constituents with respect and did it with honesty. Trust and respect are the two things we haven’t figured out a shortcut for.

July 12, 2004

Thank You.

Thanks to the ecstatic enthusiasm and over-the-top interest from readers of this blog, Free Prize Inside (my new book) hit the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Business Week bestseller lists. And it only came out in May.

I just found out the publisher has gone back to press for more copies. We’re not making any more cereal boxes, though, so you’ll need to get one from the first printing if you want the collector’s edition (some online and traditional stores still have cereal boxes left.)

Thanks again for your support and your kind reviews (Free Prize reviews). I hope you enjoy the book.

July 5, 2004

Better living through hyperbole

“Do you really think that all Search Engine Optimization is useless?”
“Surely you don’t think that advertising is dead!”
“PR works for some people. How come you say we can’t count on it?”
“All music labels aren’t dead… just some of them.”

Exactly.

I spend my days trying to make a point (or two). Trying to change minds. Sometimes, people are motivated by carefully shaded differences, delivered with reams of data by dispassionate observers. And sometimes it snows in Florida.

In my experience, many people get a concept stuck in their head and it grows to a size inappropriate to the original idea. I’ve met countless entrepreneurs and marketers who believe that one national TV ad, or one appearance on Oprah, or one lucky link in Google is the answer to their prayers.

Whether you’re running for President, running a non-profit or trying to go public, there is no shortcut. No obvious, easy, predictable solution that will get you the success you want. Instead, I’m pretty sure, you’re going to have to do a lot of work and build a measurable, predictable, improvable system that keeps getting better over time. And the miracles (that great link on Yahoo, that appearance on Air America) is just a bonus.

So, if I go a little overboard (as I did, intentionally, in my SEO post below) please cut me a little slack. All other things being equal, is an optimized website better than one that’s not? Sure. All other things being equal, is a check from Fred Wilson’s venture fund better than bootstrapping with no cash? Yep.

But first, you’ve got to make all other things equal. First, you and your colleagues have to do the hot, dusty and dreary work of building a permission asset one person at a time. You’ve got to create a remarkable product or service. You need to include that free prize that people want to talk about. Then, once all other things are equal, go wild!

Jeff Cerny’s insight

Did you ever notice that people tend toward two ways of thinking in the area of interacting with groups? 

Whether it’s driving, cleaning up a common kitchen area, or the internet, people have an idea that being in a group either gives them greater freedom or greater responsibility.  Driving down the road, one thinks, “I don’t know that guy and what are the chances I’ll meet him anywhere?” in the kitchen, “this mess doesn’t have my name on it — someone else will clean it up,”  and on the internet, “if I get one person to respond, it will be worth all the irritation to the rest for whom it is noise.” 

The other group of course, says to one degree or another, “I am a member of this group, and I have an obligation to treat others as I would like to be treated — I’ll let the guy go before me, clean up the mess, and not waste people’s time for my own minimal gains.” 

Thanks, Jeff.

I wonder if human nature has changed, or if we’re just in groups more often than we used to be…

July 2, 2004

The problem with search engine optimization

SEO is the purported science of optimizing your webpage so that you rise to the top of the listings in Google and Yahoo!

The theory is that a huge number of people find what they’re looking for via search, that virtually all of these people only look at the first page of the results and that if you don’t tweak your page, you’re doomed.

I just got a note from someone asking me for a recommendation, and when I said I didn’t think that most SEO was worth the money, he asked me why. So here goes:

1. Because it’s a black art, it’s really hard to tell who’s good and who’s not. Andrew Goodman is good, there are people who are less reputable… no matter what, it’s hard to guarantee you’ll get your money’s worth.

2. my real problem, though, starts with an analogy. Imagine your retail store was on a road that no one ever drove down unless they found it on a map. And then imagine that they redid the maps every week and the mapmakers refused to tell you exactly how they went about deciding which roads to draw and in which hierarchy to place them.

Could you imagine finding investors for that sort of store? Could you imagine being confident enough in your ability to grow that business that you’d want to work there?

Lucking into (and it is luck) the top slot of a great word on Google is not a business plan. It’s superstition. It’s blind faith.

If you want to grow your business, you need a reliable and scalable and dependable way to spend time and money and have it turn into traffic and revenue. In the real world, companies do that with real estate and with advertising. Online, it’s about adwords and site design.

If you can figure out how to BUY (not luck into) keyword searches that bring you X number of visitors, and then you can figure out how to design your site so that Y% of those visits turn into customers, you win. And nobody can stop you from growing all you care to grow.

Take a look at

July 1, 2004

The $400 model car

greencarYou can get a perfectly good cell phone for free. So why are people paying $400 or more for fancy bluetooth phones?

For the free car.

Of course, it’s not really free.

People (yes, even rational adults) buy things because of the way they make us feel, not because of what they do. Think about that the next time you try to add a new product feature or choose a vice presidential candidate.

June 29, 2004

Very Pressurising

If you still believe that tomorrow will be just like yesterday, but with cooler cars, think again:

Ananova – Student smashes SMS record

Tradition!

Last week, the family went to see a Broadway musical.

As occasionally happens, the star didn’t show up. An understudy took his place, and there was a slip of paper in the Playbill informing the audience that the second string star would be appearing.

The lights went down, the orchestra started, the curtain went up. A few extras wandered onto the stage. Then the main character appeared.

The audience applauded.

Why?

Why was the audience applauding for the understudy? Virtually everyone in the audience knew that the big star wasn’t there.

I’m sure that in the old days, when Gene Kelly or Audrey Hepburn appeared on stage, there was the gasp of recognition and the gratitude the audience felt that a big star had chosen to spend his or her valuable time with us, the audience. So the applause is a natural byproduct of that emotion.

Here, though, was an actor we hadn’t paid to see, an actor who was sure to do his best, but he hadn’t done a thing for us.

So why applaud?

Tradition!

There are too many choices in our lives. Too many brands of soft drink, too many kinds of cell phones, too many ways to fly from New York to LA. There are too many social choices as well–when to clap, how to say hello, what sort of message to leave on your cell phone.

As a result, more often than not, we resort to tradition. We do what we’ve always done because it’s safer and easier.

You should care about this.

You should care if you’re marketing an idea or a product that requires people to upset an existing tradition. Changing the way we do things (whether it’s the design of a bicycle or the structure of the Electoral College) is hard indeed. Realizing that being better is not NEARLY enough helps you understand the magnitude of your marketing challenge. In fact, traditions rarely change quickly just because the alternatives are better. (true story: Walking down Newbury Street in Boston on Friday, less than a block from no less than 20 great and cheap restaurants, I heard one tourist say to another tourist: “Well, we could have lunch at Burger King.” Why? Tradition!)

You should also care if you’re trying to build something big and important. Because big and important things often come from changing the tradition. And if you can invent a new tradition, a new tradition around your innovation, that’s when you win big time.

L’chaim.

June 28, 2004

The Provincetown Helmet Insight

Yesterday, I had a minor epiphany. More of an insight, actually.

Biking in Provincetown (a beautiful day, capping a Yoyodyne wedding weekend, which is more than you wanted to know), I mentioned to my wife that every couple we passed (straight, gay, lesbian, didn’t matter) had synchronized their helmet habits.

Either both wore helmets or neither did.

At first, I attributed the PHI to some sort of subtle evolutionary cue. People must be attracted to people with a similar sensibility about helmets. If you were a foolish daredevil, perhaps you could sense that in a potential mate. When you both got to the bike store, voila, you’d see that you both made the same choice regarding a helmet.

Further research at the store (including some surveillance and an interview with the manager) demonstrated that this was a bogus theory.

It turns out that what actually happens is this: a couple stands at the rental desk and the counter-person says, “do you want helmets… they’re a dollar each.” One person starts to answer, but glances at the other. Then a subtle form of bullying starts.

Usually, one person says, “no, I don’t think so,” and the other, who was about to say yes is intimidated enough to say, “me neither.” Sometimes, it works the other way, “Oh, we’d never ride without helmets,” says one, and the other agrees.

So?

So this is actually what happens to your product and to your service every single day. THIS is the moment of truth whether you sell securities or consulting or yoyos or motel rooms. One person hesitates, the other leads and the decision is made. In a nanosecond, all your marketing and all your advertising and all your sales work is over.

What can you do about it?

Well, for a cheap and simple product like bike helmets, the answer is pretty simple. I’d create a momentum of peer pressure. Salesman: “Here are two helmets,” he says, as he hands the helmets to the two renters. “They only cost a dollar each and almost everyone wears them. It’s the smart thing to do.”

Now, since BOTH riders are holding the helmets, it’s easy for the helmet-inclined to take the lead. All she has to do is try it on (a natural thing to do) and the discussion is over. The salesperson is using the PHI to his advantage.

I think the same thinking works when selling a two million dollar consulting contract, though. The idea of working with individuals on the buying committee before the meeting, of getting each one to give you the benefit of the doubt, of discovering their favorite features or tesimonials, person by person, and then organizing that information for the committee is just like handing over the helmets. If it’s easier for each person to say, “sure, why not” than it is to say, “I don’t think so,” then you’ve got the PHI on your side. Just one little tiny push at this very high leverage moment can have a huge impact.

Cheaters (part 2)

So, I’ve gotten three letters (from three different continents) in the last week about Really Bad Powerpoint (see below).

They all say the same thing,

“I really enjoyed your ebook Really Bad Powerpoint, and I understand how the advice could be effective for [insert your own profession here, but something soft, like politics or the arts]. However, my work is quite technical. My peers [in the medical profession, at the university, at the VC firm] would laugh me out of the room if I tried to make my presentations have less than six words per slide.”

This, of course, is nonsense. In the paleolithic era–before PowerPoint–of course, there were NO slides. So if we start from the beginning and realize that whatever is on your slide is a BONUS, something that complements your words and your handouts, it gets a lot easier to see how this might help you.

The bigger issue, the one I can’t let go of, is this: If what you are doing isn’t working, why is it so easy to reject alternative advice? If a peer or a writer or a competitor can show you something that is working for others in different circumstances, why does human nature make it so easy to say, “sure, that’ll work for YOU, but my situation is totally different…”

The number of times you’ll find yourself in a completely unique situation at work is pretty limited. Unless you work on a nuclear submarine, it’s pretty easy to imagine that there are more commonalities than differences when it comes to communication, marketing and management. Time to loosen up a bit, say I, and give the alternative way of thinking a try.

PS I challenged one of the writers to send me a few slides. It was pretty easy to show him how straightforward it would be to rip out the bullets and most of the text… but you’re on your own, please don’t send me any more powerpoints!

June 27, 2004