One of my grand theories is that, fundamentally, there’s only one source of innovation, and that’s pissed off people.
–Tom Peters
Management consultant and author of “In Search of Excellence”
“Conspicuous Conservation”
Perusing the Sunday paper, I found an article in Parade magazine by Lee Eisenberg titled “Your Money or Your Life.” The article adds food for thought to the topic of how our economic crisis and lingering non-recovery may have changed the way consumers shop and how their definitions of value are different than they were just a couple years ago.
The current debate centers around whether or not consumers will revert to shopping as a leisure activity once a recovery takes hold, or whether we’ve all had a true wake-up call, shifted our core beliefs and will not consume the way we’ve done in the past.
Eisenberg quotes the consulting firm Strategic Business Insights referring to this sobering (and possibly long-overdue) trend in behavior as “conspicuous conservation.” Eisenberg predicts the change indicates that “we focus less on net worth and more on self-worth.”
As marketers, this trend–if in fact it gains traction and entrenches itself in our economy–will affect the way we market and brand our products and services. Here’s a quick checklist to see if your brand is ready for the new economy:
1. Quality I blogged on this topic (No One Wants a Better Mousetrap) some months ago. If your product is incrementally better than the competition you still might be on thin ice. No one wants a better mousetrap; they want rodent control. Think about how to improve or reinvent your product or brand so that no competitor can take away your points-of-difference. Even for commodity products, customer service or brand value can give your customers strong reasons to remain loyal.
2. Positioning Where does your product fall in the spectrum of alternatives? Is it better than.. cheaper than… different than Brand X? Kmart learned this lesson a few years ago when it’s position as the middle choice held no value for the consumer. Walmart was cheaper, Target better quality and Kmart was what again? Don’t get caught in the middle.
3. Trust Do you rationalize your brand behavior because it makes sense for your company, not your consumer? My former brand, Silk Soymilk, substituted natural soybeans for organic beans to keep costs down and source soybeans domestically. But they decided not to tell their retail customers nor their consumers. Instead, they introduced Organic Silk with glorious fanfare. When the new, more expensive flanker brand appeared in green packaging on grocery shelves, people scratched their heads and said “isn’t Silk organic already?” Breaking trust with customers and consumers precipitated a lawsuit by Target. Currently, they are being thrown off the shelves at Whole Foods Markets. Was it worth it, or has the brand team broken people’s trust irrevocably?
4. Retail Squeeze Retailers are feeling the decline in sales and reducing their inventories by carrying fewer brands for each category. If a product or brand isn’t turning fast enough, it’s getting de-listed. Only the top 1-2 selling brands and a private label or house brand remain on most shelves. Give your retailers or distributors reasons to keep carrying–and promoting–your brand.
5. Brand Advocates What are you doing to turn your buyers into brand advocates? Are you using new media? Are you engaging with your customers to find out why they use your products and what will encourage them to tell others? If not, read the next bullet point…
6. Marketing Traditionally, companies cut their marketing budgets during a downturn. But how are consumers to know what your value proposition is? With reduced competitive spending, a savvy brand can increase it’s share of voice to let its consumers know what it stands for, why consumers should trust the brand and why a retailer must carry your product line. Without an aggressive, continuous marketing campaign, a brand can fall into the brand valley of death: out of sight, out of mind.
If the recovery comes in the form of free-for-all spending caused by a release of pent-up demand, then all brands will win. Instead, if consumers have redefined value and continue practicing “Conspicuous Conservation,” will you be ready?
Sage Marketing Quote
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
–Douglas Adams
British Comedy Writer
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Deadlines–Not Just for Procrastinators Anymore
Whether you’re on the client side or the partner (consultant, vendor, supplier) side of business, you know that you need a contract before any work is started in order to set expectations, scope of work, timelines and cost. But what happens during the process of getting that work done?
Last week a business coach friend of mine had a twist on the work phase of projects. She stated categorically that without an agreed-upon deadline, there is no agreement. Commitment on both sides can only be achieved when a date for the next step is fixed on both calendars.
After thinking about this, I was sure that she was right. Even though a contract or letter of agreement may have been signed, it can’t be executed without input from both sides. A contractor can’t stay on schedule if information and approvals are somewhere on the client’s to-do list, but keep getting knocked off the daily list by more urgent matters. On the other side, a contractor juggling other business won’t deliver if there isn’t a deadline. The undecided client’s work can be pushed out further and further by clients who do have deadlines.
The interesting twist on contracts is that each deadline in the project is a sub-contract. Both parties agree to negotiate to the next step. Getting the initial signed contract becomes only the umbrella under which the work progresses step by step. Looking at a project in these terms, I understand how so many activities in my own business interactions have gone awry. If both sides aren’t committing to mutual action each step of the way, then there’s no agreement on how to proceed to a common goal. Action (by definition) implies an end point, which in turn necessitates a date for that end point– otherwise we’d call the activity contemplation.
In the past, I’ve always tried to issue reports that indicate next steps, who is responsible for each of those next steps and a deadline. The missing piece for me was getting a sub-contract in either written or oral form, from the party on the other side of the table. This promise should indicate that the person agreed with not only the steps, but mutually committed to a deadline.
From now on, instead of dreading the stress of deadlines, I’m going to try and use them as a check-in and feedback tool to see if each step of my project actions are valued as highly by my counterpart as they are by me. What do you do when your partner nods then enters the vortex of non-commitment on your projects?
Sage Marketing Quote
There is more similarity in the marketing challenge of selling a precious painting by Degas and a frosted mug of root beer than you ever thought possible.
–A. Alfred Taubman, American real estate developer and philanthropist
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Would You Change Your Name to Expunge Youthful Indescretions?
This past weekend, the Wall Street Journal ran an interview with Google’s CEO, who suggested that teenagers should be allowed to change their names when they become adults to expunge their records of juvenile indiscretions and start over–at least as far as their searchable public files are concerned. Here’s the blog post that got me thinking about the topic: Google CEO Suggests You Change Your Name to Avoid His Permanent Record.
One of the people commenting on the post asked if it’s okay “to make all the transgressions you want in life. Because apparently changing your name is like waving a magic wand that makes your past disappear. How utterly convenient!”
Or is it? Having just returned from my high school reunion, I realized that leaving behind youthful indiscretions is really difficult, because people (as well as Google) also have very long memories.
Many at the reunion had dramatic changes in their lives. The cheerleader who had been married five times, the quiet, unassumming guy in the corner who had just completed his parole for having 626 guns in his house, the buck-toothed shrinking-violet who had transformed himself into a Vegas lounge singer all mustered the courage to show up and explain to the rest of us how they had changed from the people they had been since we last saw each other decades ago.
If each of us had the option–and even obligation–to change our names when we became adults, would we have acted differently in high school? Would we have taken more risks or said and done things if we had known we wouldn’t be held accountable? Or did our previous lives give us the platform to morph into the people we became, simply because we were internalizing the lessons learned from juvenile peccadilloes?
If we can wave a magic wand and erase our past lives, how will we prove to anyone that we’ve matured? How will we decide what values we’re invested in, if we can change them like a new set of clothes? And who is the real Jane Doe: a teenager, a young adult, a middle aged-person or the person each of us becomes as the culmination of a life well-lived–without pages from our biographies ripped out to protect the guilty?
There was one person at our reunion who had already embraced this concept of changing names between high school and adulthood. Alison, whom no one recognized, was the subject of a yearbook search after the gathering. There was no Alison in our senior yearbook, but there she was in our junior yearbook–except that her name was Al. Only she/he knew the true implications of privacy vs a fully searchable public record and the personal cost and bravery it took to embrace her juvenile and adult personas. Despite dramatically starting her life over as an adult, Alison carried her past with her unabashedly–regardless of Google (or old yearbook) search.
Sage Marketing Quote
We’re obviously going to spend a lot in marketng because we think the product sells itself.
–Jim Allchin, former Microsoft executive
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Random Acts of Greenness
At the recent LOHAS Forum (Lifestyles of Health & Sustainability) in Boulder, CO last month, Joel Makower, Chairman & Executive Editor of Greener World Media warned us that “Random Acts of Greenness” aren’t going to be enough for a sustainable future. As I was traveling this past week, I came out of my Colorado green cocoon and realized how right Joel really is.
I flew on an airline that I used to work for a couple decades ago, when my job included reviewing ideas received in a contest that emulated a suggestion box. Employees were not only asked to make suggestions, but put together a short business plan on the operational, marketing and financial implications of each suggestion. There were some terrific home runs that improved customer service and saved oodles of money. There were also some ideas that hit my desk–like taking the number two pencils out of the flight attendant kits and not rolling the planes forward before pushing back from the gate–that were totally impractical. We did remove the olives from the side salads (do you remember meals on airplanes?) and no one seemed to miss them but me.
The one suggestion that was demonstrated over and over again to be the right thing to do and was very cost effective, was recycling aluminum cans from the drink service. I’m glad to see that this idea, after many years, has finally been implemented. But then I started taking notice of what else went on during the drink service.
I ordered water. I received a plastic cup and a handful of napkins because the drink can being passed over me dripped on my book. When I asked for more water and proffered my cup, it was exchanged for a new one. This was happening around me over and over again. It wasn’t as if I was giving my “dirty” cup to other people. Nor were the flight attendants stopping communicable diseases, because they handled the service-ware just as much as if they had refilled the original cups.
On the other hand, American Airlines asked all of us to turn on our air vents, turn off our reading lights and close all window shades as we deplaned, to help keep the aircraft cool in between flights. Of course the temperature was 101 degrees outside in Dallas, but someone is on the right track here conserving fuel.
Then my mantra of “reduce, reuse, recycle” plummeted toward earth. On a layover, my husband and I ran out of snacks and decided to get some healthy food in the terminal. The food was nutritious and fresh (Urban Taco at DFW), but the entrees were wrapped in aluminum foil, placed in a styrofoam clam-shell container, then put in plastic bags with plastic silverware and loads of napkins–before we knew what was happening. I couldn’t believe all the landfill waste that I was responsible for, not to mention the carbon footprint we were creating on our trip.
I began to realize that becoming a sustainable culture is a long way from reality. I also realized that it’s a two-way street. American Airlines is reducing fuel consumption due to economics, but it taught me that I should apply similar practices to my personal spaces and not waste natural cooling or air conditioning. Likewise we, as concerned consumers, also need to ask and keep asking for practices like recycling cans onboard an airplane that force all people onboard to participate. Whether a company institutes the change or whether we petition for sustainable change until it’s institutionalized, sustainability will become less and less random and more and more achievable.
What environmental practices have you seen a company institute that inspired you or vice versa?
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Sage Marketing Quote
Business has only two functions: marketing and innovation
–Milan Kundera, Czech Novelist, Playwritght and Poet
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Board of Empathizers
In those days, there wasn’t even a hint that the internet would provide community nor common ground for pioneering business owners. Each group of 8-12 members (Inner Circle) was a mix a people with diversified businesses. While our peers didn’t know the nuances of each other’s business type, we all shared many of the same organizational, financial, staffing and marketing problems.
For me, The Entrepreneur’s Network served as a quasi-Board of Directors. My peers were my advisers, my confidants, my harshest critics and my staunchest supporters. I could share with them the business and emotional problems that came from being an entrepreneur, and knew that they would treat my comments with confidentiality and concern. I couldn’t get nearly the same response from my banker or investors and we were too small to have an executive team.
As I was thinking of this group the other day, it occurred to me that I could re-create the same atmosphere in cyberspace. Not only could I have virtual meetings with an substitute Board of Directors, I could pick people for this group that I know only from online interactions. There are many marketing people whose tweets I follow and admire. There are also many whose blogs offer interesting insights on small business. One of the first people I chatted with online was a sharp woman working at a brand agency. I wonder if she would join my reinvented Inner Circle?
What about face time? There’s so much credit given to being in the same room with people to create rapport. Isn’t that what social media is all about? Aren’t we conversing and creating connections, on big things and small–140 characters at a time?
A business coach friend of mine does all her work by phone. She insists that seeing her clients is actually distracting to working on business problems. My friend pulls up research to show that coaching is far more effective by phone (without the web cam) than it is done with on-site visits.
Has anyone tried getting together what I’m calling a Board of Empathizers? How would you entice people you’ve never met to join your business circle and how would you make this successful for your business?