A few readers have pinged me, asking how I can post to other blogs that write stuff similar to mine. "Aren’t you promoting the competition?"
Two part answer. First, I don’t think most authors have competition (except television). The more you read, the better we do. That’s why bookstores are great places to sell books… even though all the competition is right there.
More relevant to you, the web works when you link out. Hoarding attention (like CNET did for a long time and about.com does like crazy) is a no-win strategy. Shared attention doesn’t dissipate, it grows.
Here’s some more competition to contemplate:
Bill Taylor on Zappos’ amazing buyout offer.
Kevin Kelly on FAQs and NAQs.
Andrew Chen on Metcalfe’s Law.
Jeff Widman on wallable.
and, competing with myself, a long Q&A session I did at the Chronicle of Philanthropy today.
May 20, 2008
The closer you are to the point of need, the more you can charge.
Pizza at the airport costs five times more than pizza on the way to the airport.
Tax audit services in the middle of an SEC investigation cost triple what they cost before one.
Scalped tickets cost more than ones bought in advance, by mail.
Emergency towing in a strange town costs more too.
The single easiest way to increase your fees is to get closer to the
pain. It’s interesting to note that no large-scale advertising ventures
are closer to the pain than the Yellow Pages or Google. Both of which
are insanely successful.
If oil is $130 a barrel and if security adds two or three hours to a trip and if people are doing more and more business with those far afield…
and if we need to bring together more people from more places when we get together…
and if the alternatives, like video conferencing or threaded online conversations continue to get better and better, then…
I think the standard for a great meeting or a terrific conference has changed.
In other words, "I flew all the way here for this?" is going to be far more common than it used to be.
If you think a great conference is one where the presenters read a script while showing the audience bullet points, you’re wrong. Or if you leave little time for attendees to engage with others, or worse, if you don’t provide the levers to make it more likely that others will engage with each other, you’re wrong as well.
Here’s what someone expects if they come to see you on an in-person sales call: that you’ll be prepared, focused, enthusiastic and willing to engage honestly about the next steps. If you can’t do that, don’t have the meeting.
Here’s what a speaker owes an audience that travels to engage in person: more than they could get by just reading the transcript.
And here’s what a conference organizer owes the attendees: surprise, juxtaposition, drama, engagement, souvenirs and just possibly, excitement.
I’m on a roll here, so let me add one more new standard:
If you’re a knowledge worker, your boss shouldn’t make you come to the (expensive) office every day unless there’s something there that makes it worth your trip. She needs to provide you with resources or interactions or energy you can’t find at home or at Starbucks. And if she does invite you in, don’t bother showing up if you’re just going to sit quietly.
I’ve worked in three companies that had lots of people and lots of cubes, and I spent the entire day walking around. I figured that was my job. The days where I sat down and did what looked like work were my least effective days. It’s hard for me to see why you’d bother having someone come all the way to an office just to sit in a cube and type.
The new rule seems to be that if you’re going to spend the time and the money to see someone face to face, be in their face. Interact or stay home!
May 19, 2008
Sometimes, what you do is done as well as it can be done. It’s a service that people truly love, or a product they can’t live without. You’re doing everything right, but it’s not remarkable, at least not in the sense of "worth making a remark about."
What’s up with that?
Here’s a smörgåsbord of reasons:
- It’s embarrassing to talk about. That’s why VD screening, no matter how well done, rarely turns into a viral [ahem] success.
- There’s no easy way to bring it up. This is similar to number 1, but involves opportunity. It’s easy to bring up, "hey, where’d you get that ring tone?" because the ring tone just interrupted everyone. It’s a lot harder to bring up the fact that you just got a massage.
- It might not feel cutting edge enough for your crowd. So, it’s not the thing that’s embarrassing, it’s the fact they you just found out about it. Don’t bring up your brand new Tivo with your friends from MIT. They’ll sneer at you.
- On a related front, it might feel too popular to profitably sneeze about. Sometimes bloggers hesitate to post on a popular source or topic because they worry they’ll seem lazy.
- You might like the exclusivity. If you have no trouble getting into a great restaurant or a wonderful club, perhaps you won’t tell the masses because you’re selfish…
- You might want to keep worlds from colliding. Some kids, for example, like the idea of being the only kid from their school at the summer camp they go to. They get to have two personalities, be two people, keep things separate.
- You might feel manipulated. Plenty of hip kids were happy to talk about Converse, but once big, bad Nike got involved, it felt different. Almost like they were being used.
- You might worry about your taste. Recommending a wine really strongly takes guts, because maybe, just maybe, your friends will hate the wine and think you tasteless.
- There are probably ten other big reasons, but they all lead to the same conclusions:
First, understand that people talk about you (or not talk about you) because of how it makes them feel, not how it makes you feel.
Second, if you’re going to build a business around word of mouth, better not have these things working against you.
Third, if you do, it may be a smart strategy to work directly to overcome them. That probably means changing the fundamental DNA of your experience and the story you tell to your users. "If you like us, tell your friends," might feel like a fine start, but it’s certainly not going to get you there.
What will change the game is actually changing the game. Changing the experience of talking about you so fundamentally that people will choose to do it.
May 16, 2008
Item 1: My Logitech cordless remote
(which I like a lot) came in plastic, non-recyclable packaging that
weighed twice as much as the remote itself.* The plastic was so well
sealed and so thick that I actually broke a kitchen knife trying to
open it. (*this is not hyperbole. I weighed it).
This is expensive, time-consuming and positions the product as extremely ungreen.
This packaging is the result of a paranoid retail buyer (the person who orders in bulk for the store, not the buyer at retail) demanding
pilfer-proof packaging combined with a lazy brand manager choosing a
lousy solution to the challenge presented by getting it into a retailer. "Make it pilfer-proof or we won’t carry it," he says. The brand manager doesn’t want to take a risk, so she packages it the way they packaged it when the device cost $1,000. Impregnable.
When you buy it from Amazon, of course, a cardboard
sleeve would be sufficient. The manufacturer, though, only wants to have one sku, so Amazon sells the wasteful one as well.
So, why not compromise and shrink wrap it to a cardboard backad? A simple piece of cardboard, 8 x 10, impossible to fit under your jacket, much lighter, easy to recycle, cheaper and easier to ship.
Item 2: Those stickers on digital cameras that say things like "8
megapixels". Why is there a sticker on the camera that you don’t even
see until you’ve already purchased it?
Because one out of 100 boxes are opened by the store to put on
display. By stickering ALL the cameras, they can be sure to get that
sticker on the one that gets in the case… I am just fascinated by
this. It seems so clever. The mystery is why the digital photos that
they provide to Amazon et. al. don’t have the stickers affixed.
Lessons: Package your stuff so that it works at retail. Put stickers on things that are going to get unboxed. Create sample kits. Consider
offering a second package to Amazon. Think about cutting down weight
and customer angst by making pilfer-proof packaging that is lighter,
easier to open and recyclable. You save money and you sell more stuff. Oh, and don’t ship stuff with styrofoam peanuts. We can do better.
May 15, 2008
[Intentionally posted on a day that’s not Mother’s Day].
My mom always disliked Mother’s Day. She had a few good reasons.
First, she pointed out that anytime you do something because you’re
supposed to, or because everyone else is doing it, it’s not worth as much.
Flowers the week before or a nice poem the day after were priceless
compared to the trudge to the restaurant on the appointed day.
I think this is true of all marketing. Nice words to a customer the
day they say they’re quitting, or to an employee during an annual
review aren’t worth much at all, imho.
Second, she didn’t understand why it was necessary to commercialize
something that worked even better when it was free. Just because you
can market something for a profit doesn’t mean you should.
As for me, I’m amazed at all the folks who would talk about the
lessons they learned from their mom and would act that way, at least
for a few hours… but then would spend the rest of the year as if
they’d been raised by wolves.
At the CMA conference yesterday, someone asked me about marketing ethics. I said that marketers have to act as if their mom is watching… because even if she isn’t, someone else is.
Every day (except for maybe Mother’s Day), I try to act like my mom’s son. I’m not as good at it as I’d like to be, but it’s worth the effort. I miss you, mom.
May 14, 2008
If the world is really bigger, if you can find the best in the world to do what you want, no matter what it is you want, does that change things?
If I need an animator, I can find the world’s best animator. If I need a bond to insure my movie, I can find the best broker at selling completion bonds. If I need SEO help, get me the world’s best SEO person. If I need braces, I can find the best orthodontist in my area. Not the second-best or someone who will try really hard or someone who is pretty good at that and also good at other things. Sure, there are occasional tasks where a diagnostician with wide-ranging experience is important (but I’d argue that that’s a specialty in and of itself).
When choice is limited, I want a generalist. When selection is difficult, a jack of all trades is just fine.
But whenever possible, please bring me a brilliant specialist.
If you’re shaking your head in agreement with this obvious point, then the question is: tell me again why you’re a generalist?
[Forgive me, dear reader, for not being clear enough in the post above. I got a lot of mail, much of it mentioning Leonardo, etc. Here’s what I failed to say,
"It’s okay to specialize in being a generalist, of course. By that, I mean that there are many problems (like the diagnostic one mentioned above), where someone who can see wide and doesn’t have an allegiance to a particular solution is exactly the right person to call. I rely on generalists all the time, and so do you. My point is that you never call on these people when there’s a better specialist available. And in the old days, a little town could only support one generalist, so it wasn’t an issue. Today, especially in high-value situations, that’s just not the case. So, yes, generalize. And specialize in it!"]
May 13, 2008
Torley points us to brand tags.
It’s a simple game where you pick one-word associations to go with major brands. The result pages are actually pretty inane, but the magical way each and every one of these brands compels you to think is fascinating.
I saw the Harley logo and I immediately typed "macho". But it’s just a motorcycle. A vehicle, no more macho than any other. Yet the word just popped into my head.
And the same thing happened for the next brand and the next one as well.
Superbrands have a mystical connection with people. Odds are, you can’t own one, but there’s no reason you can’t build a micro one, a local one, a brand that’s magical for a smaller group of people.
May 12, 2008
Sixteen tips for getting your Mac or iPhone fixed:
- The contact number is (800) 275 2273
- While you’re on hold, go to Google and type: Troubleshoot Mac xxx, where xxx represents the error message you got or the sparsest description of what won’t work.
- If those links don’t help you, visit the Apple site and choose your product. Under each product is a discussion forum. Search for your problem.
- By now, someone has answered your call. Don’t tell them your entire
problem. Instead, politely identify yourself, give them the short
version and then say, "would you please escalate this call to a yyy
specialist?" where yyy is the type of problem you have: wireless or
backup or imovie or whatever. Persist.
- When you get a specialist on the line, ask politely for her direct
phone number in case you get disconnected. After you describe your
problem, ask for a case number. If the person isn’t being helpful,
politely excuse yourself and start over with a new call.
- Apple gets lots and lots of calls. As a result, don’t expect the
person you’re working with to immediately be willing to skip over all
the troubleshooting steps you tried before you called. They have a protocol. It’s easier to
just take five minutes to follow that protocol.
- If the specialist you’re working with is having trouble figuring
out what to do next, politely say, "I hope you don’t mind, but can you
escalate this case to a specialist?" And then wait, patiently, until
they do.
- If your product is less than thirty days old, and you’ve gone
through the protocol with no success, say, "I’d like an RMA for this
product so I can return it and start with one that works. It’s under
the return warranty, right?"
- If you found lots of examples of the same problem in Google, tell
them. Point out that this "is not an isolated problem" and suggest that
others have solved it by getting a new machine sent to them. Be ready
with links, because the rep has Google too.
- Engaging in friendly banter doesn’t just help you get what you
want. It makes the call better for you too. These guys aren’t your
enemy. In fact, right now, they’re the best friend you have in the
whole world.
- This is the one I should have listed first: go to the Genius bar at your local store.
The guys at the Genius bar are much more likely to just swap out your
broken hardware and give you a new machine. It might seem
time-consuming, but it’s probably faster than waiting them out on the
phone. Spending $99 on a One to One card is a brilliant investment.
- At least once a minute, say ‘thank you.’ If you thought about it,
you’d realize that yes, you do mean it. They’re being quiet and calm
and trying to help.
- If you own a computer, back it up. If you don’t, all bad things are your fault.
- I have no personal experience in begging or sobbing, but I’m told that in some cases, this is effective.
- If you use an email program, clean it out. Regularly. One friend of
mine had 27,000 emails in her outbound mail folder, including some from
2002.
- Trust me, it doesn’t matter how big the readership of your blog is, the folks on the phone are unlikely to care.
Your interaction is a marketing event. Apple is marketing to you.
The rep is marketing to you (that’s a feature, not a bug). And you’re
marketing yourself and the problem to them. Clarity and cooperation
combined with determination and persistence appear to be the best
combination.
