Earlier this year, I launched two ongoing classes on Skillshare:
One is on the thinking necessary to invent and launch a new business
and the other is for marketers of all kinds.
I'm grateful to everyone who has posted a kind review, launched a useful new project or shared the course so far…
But mostly, I want to thank the people at Skillshare: the software does exactly what they promised, and they're kind and a delight to work with.
Yesterday, Typepad was assaulted by a DDOS attack that brought the service to its knees. The team there really rose to the occasion, communicated clearly and honestly and got this blog up and running quickly. I've had this blog hosted by them for a decade or so, and despite the cool kids telling me I have to move it, I like the fact that the software does just what they say and that they're kind and a delight to work with.
And finally, did you know that you can subscribe to this blog, for free, by email and RSS? The email is handled daily and flawlessly by Feedblitz. It does what it's supposed to, and Phil is kind and a pleasure to work with.
Sometimes, the biggest, flashiest, most annoying services aren't the best way to build something that works. I'm grateful to these organizations and those like them that show up regularly and make things work. Thanks.
April 19, 2014
You've seen the signs:
ABSOLUTELY NO CREDIT CARDS.
NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST OR STOLEN ITEMS.
BATHROOMS FOR PATRONS ONLY.
Guess what? There's no legal requirement that signs have to make you sound like a harsh jerk in order to carry weight or to inform the public.
To keep our prices as low as possible, we only accept cash. The good news is that there's an ATM next door.
Careful! We'd like to watch your stuff for you, but we're busy making coffee.
Our spotlessly clean restrooms are for our beloved customers only, so come on in and buy something! Also, there's a public bathroom in the library down the street.
In fact, you might find that when you speak clearly and with respect, you not only communicate more effectively, but people are less likely to blame you when something goes wrong.
It's forty degrees out and there's a guy standing in front of the office building, shivering, indulging in his nicotine addiction. I can't possibly empathize with what he's thinking or feeling.
As I walk down the street, I pass an elderly woman in an electric wheelchair. Again, I have no idea what it is to be her.
And there, whipping around the corner in a fancy car, is an industrialist I recognize, someone with more employees, power and money than most of us would know what to do with.
It's easy to lump people together into categories, easier still to say, "I know how you feel." But we don't, we can't, and given the choice, people will choose to be the people they wish to be.
Mass markets were a shorthand forced on marketers who had too little time or information or leverage to treat different people differently. They are the result of the mass merchant, the mass media and mass production. But humans aren't a homogeneous mass, we are individuals, as individual as we dare to be.
Marketing and governance and teaching and coaching and writing are built on a foundation of 'everyone', but in fact, we'd rather be someone.
Treat different people differently. Anything else is a compromise.
April 18, 2014
You will never, ever run out of strangers.
And so, the goal of perfectly pleasing an infinite number of passersby is a fool's errand. They come with their own worldview, their own issues, their own biases.
Since they don't know you or trust you and don't get you, they're not inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt or invest what it takes to understand you.
Sure, some of them will applaud or smile or buy. And if that's your mission, have fun.
But perfection in stranger-pleasing? Not going to happen, not worth the journey.
For some people, some of the time, the only response is, "it's not for you."
April 17, 2014
The most underrated scene in the Wizard of Oz is the hallway leading up to the audience with the great and powerful one.
One of the reasons that Oz is seen as being particularly great and powerful is that it's just so much trouble to get to see him–and that hallway is the perfect metaphor.
I still remember visiting a talent agency in Hollywood a decade ago. The lobby was far bigger than most people's homes, and it was totally empty, a long, long walk from the automatically opened door to the Centurion at the desk.
Contrast this with a doctor's office I recently visited. He was sharing space with a chiropractor, and the office was in the back of a grade B strip mall. Inside the waiting room were dozens of mimeographed signs (I didn't even think you could mimeograph stuff any more) offering weight loss schemes and warnings about what sorts of payment weren't accepted, and how it needed to be proffered immediately.
By all means, your work better be good, not a fraud, something worth paying for. But if the (metaphorical) hallway is a let down, it's an uphill battle to gain the confidence, trust and enthusiasm of your customers.
April 16, 2014
Without a doubt, the ability to connect the dots is rare, prized and valuable. Connecting dots, solving the problem that hasn't been solved before, seeing the pattern before it is made obvious, is more essential than ever before.
Why then, do we spend so much time collecting dots instead? More facts, more tests, more need for data, even when we have no clue (and no practice) in doing anything with it.
Their big bag of dots isn't worth nearly as much as your handful of insight, is it?
April 15, 2014
The two scarce elements of our economy are trust and attention.
Trust is scarce because it's not a simple instinct and it's incredibly fragile, disappearing often in the face of greed, shortcuts or ignorance.
And attention is scarce because it doesn't scale. We can't do more than one thing at a time, and the number of organizations and ideas that are competing for our attention grows daily.
The dance happens because often, it seems as though we need to trade trust in exchange for attention. We have to rely on gimmicks, or overpromise and hype in order to get people to, "look at me!" And of course, the dance happens because once attention is attained, asking for trust merely slows things down. The most viral ideas ask for nothing more than a click from your mouse, a share, more attention gained.
And so we find trusted brands and individuals rarely on the top of the attention list. And those that pay the price to grab some momentary attention almost always do it at the cost of trust.
[You don't have to vote for him to believe that this man is trustworthy. Persistence and consistency over a career count for something.]
April 14, 2014
You might be waiting for things to settle down. For the kids to be old enough, for work to calm down, for the economy to recover, for the weather to cooperate, for your bad back to let up just a little…
The thing is, people who make a difference never wait for just the right time. They know that it will never arrive.
Instead, they make their ruckus when they are short of sleep, out of money, hungry, in the middle of a domestic mess and during a blizzard. Whenever.
As long as whenever is now.
April 13, 2014
Steal your business model. We don't have a shortage of business models, it's okay if you pick one that's already working for someone else.
Steal your web design. There will always be enough people brave enough to invent whole new ways of interacting online. But unless you're an interaction designer or your business model depends on something new, do us all a favor and use something that already works.
Steal your tools. You probably don't need to build a new email delivery engine, a new overnight shipping method or a new way to run payroll. Once someone has a reliable, cost-effective building block, feel free to use it.
When it comes down to the thing you will be known for, your uniqueness, your gift, your thing worth talking about–don't steal that. Writers shouldn't steal words from other writers, and chemists have no need to steal the research of other chemists. Sure, go ahead and invent.
For the rest, honor those that came before and use their work as a building block for yours.
April 12, 2014
The traveling salesman, the carnival barker and the old-time businessman can hit and run. Make the sale, cut your costs, move on.
Today, though, in the connection economy, two huge factors are at work:
1. Subscription. The lifetime value of a customer is high and getting higher. You might buy $50,000 from one grocery store over time. If you own an inkjet printer, it might come to a thousand dollars a year in toner expenses, with a profit margin approaching 90%…
2. Spreading the word. Every customer is also a media outlet and a publisher if she chooses to be. That means that unhappy news spreads far and fast (and that remarkable products and services need lower ad budgets).
But this seems to be almost impossibly difficult for companies to embrace. A simple example:
HP offers inkjet printers at a slight loss, knowing that over time, they'll more than make it back in high-priced toner. When a customer shows up at their website then, searching for a new feature like eprinting or getting their wireless to work, it's both an opportunity and warning sign. Drop this ball and it costs thousands of dollars in lost profit.
At every step along the journey, HP drops the ball. The website, knowing my model and serial number, shows me pictures with instructions that don't match my printer. The site won't let me into the chat support window, because my printer is out of warranty. And when I call, they put me on hold and then route me to an overseas call center. After fifteen minutes, I'm told, "your printer is obsolete, you should buy a new one."
The thing is, a customer is never out of warranty, even if his product is.
Twenty minutes ago, HP knew everything they needed to know to tell me that I needed to buy a new printer. Think of all the ways they could have used this as an opportunity to make it more likely that the new printer would be an HP printer. Instead, they punished me for a quarter of an hour and then demanded I buy something new. They broke the chain.
Sure, I had to buy something, so I bought a Canon.
Of course, it's entirely possible that Canon's support is no better, but that's not the point. Every time the chain is broken, value is lost. I lose value, they lose value.
Think of the interaction at the deli counter or the pump or the bursar's office or the alumni office or on the website from the point of view of the customer and the chain. Where are the moments where you might lose her forever? What are the key places where you need to intervene and invest in the relationship instead of milk it, or drag it through the mud? Assuming that your competitors are just as selfish and metric-driven as you are isn't a great strategy, because you're still losing when you break the chain.
Support is not a cost center, it's a profit center. Treating customers with urgency and clarity and respect (maintaining the chain) is more urgent than ever. But companies are busy measuring time on the phone or cost per hour of support people instead of even trying to measure customer churn.
Think lifetime, all the time.
April 11, 2014
