Marketing Wisdom

Something to always remember – leadership means “to lead”. Lead by example. Lead by excellence. Lead by what you say. Lead by what you don’t say.

Just remember, if you are out front, every time, you will no longer be the leader, because you will be shot and killed. A leader also let’s others lead. By letting others lead, you, the leader, can step back and see the forest and plan and strategize.

Leading is tactical by nature, strategic by choice. Make the right choice as soon as possible and lead from the rear.

It doesn’t take much to be successful in the marketplace – really. If you have the product that everyone wants, you will be a success, no matter how many walls and hurdles are in front of you.

Sadly, most of us are in the position where we don’t have a product that will cure cancer or be an iPhone – we have a product that most people don’t know that they want or even need.

What does it take for a product to be a success? Credibility!

Would you buy from a company that no one trusts?
Would you buy from a company that makes a product that kills your pet?
Would you buy from a company that kills all the fish in the ocean?

Of course not – to purchase a product from a company, they must be and have credibility.

What’s it take to build your credibility? It takes time, effort, and understanding from many many different divisions within your company (from money from accounting to contracts from your lawyers to creative from your agencies).

ONE: It takes a strong management team, a marketing heritage, a great spokesperson – all of these are required to get the foundation started on building your credibility.

TWO: Produce a product that has a strong ROI, proposition, and value to your customer.

THREE: Have marquee customers – customers with a name.

FOUR: Have partners that are recognized by their brands. Having Microsoft behind you versus Joe’s Garage Computers goes a long way in building your credibility and success.

FIVE (lastly): Change the market – slightly or incredibly. You have read my article on companies being speedboats or oil tankers -it doesn’t matter in this case; if you can change the direction of the market, then, you have brought credibility to your company, your brand, and your product.

If you skip/ignore one of these, the path to success is extremely difficult if not impossible. They truly are not difficult to accomplish.

As your company grows, so does the marketing required to keep that expansion growing.

Management, particularly your C-level management, most likely thinks that they know what is required and needed for the growth to continue (even though they probably have only done sales for 30 years or been an engineer).

Usually, they call you into the office and say “we need to do a press release” or “we need to go to this trade show next week” and sometimes, in fact, it makes no sense to do this. In fact, that “press release” will confuse the message of the company or dilute your brand. Putting out a news release about your address changing or the movement of your office from one location to another will cause much more damage then you can possible think of.

Why would an editor or analyst want to be “spammed” with an email about your company opening up a new office in Moscow (of course, if you are Cisco or Microsoft, then, yes, you would want to do this, but, 99% of companies should not do this (and I hope 99% of those wouldn’t do this))? Emails that waste an editors/analysts time are remembered and your company is flagged as a non-entity.

To the point – you, as the experienced marketer in your company, must stand up to your management and inform them of the pro’s and con’s of doing something that they ask for. Of course, if only good things come of it, you wouldn’t need to do this (like announcing a new product); but, if you are putting out a news release about your headquarters moving from one location to another, you must stop it before it goes on the wires. Put the “release” on your website and leave it at that.

Think about what the benefit is when you are approached by upper management to do “some marketing”. Usually it is wanted because of some other reason (like wanting to tell investors the move of HQ, for example) – get to that reason and “reason” with the boss before damage occurs.

As you start your marketing career, remember what you are doing, right now! Learn from your activities today. Understand what you are doing and why you are doing it – i.e. your activities in the grand scheme of things.

As you get older and move into bigger and bigger things, your experience as an assistant manager WILL come back to help you. You will understand why a tri-fold brochure is needed, when you need to ship something same day vs. overnight, or even how you will have a complete 20′x20′ booth built in less then a week for the largest trade show in the world.

What’s my point? My point is that your boss or boss’s boss won’t know or have any inkling. You may be the VP of Marketing and your CMO may have NEVER had to work a trade show in their life (I mean WORK a trade show, putting it up and tearing it down AND working the 10 hour daily shifts). Your experience will enable you to be a better manager of your staff. Of being able to talk to the CEO from experience.

So many times throughout your career you will have a boss that has not done half of the things you have. This does NOT make him stronger, nor does it make you stronger – it makes you WISER.

Being wise saves time, effort, and money – three things that are becoming more and more relevant in today’s economy.

Don’t disregard your past too easily or quickly – it has value more then you or anyone else could ever measure.

It matters what you offer.

Was meeting with a client the other day – a start-up. Very young but with many clients throughout the United States.

This company is getting ready to hit it big and they are concerned – once they get the next three clients, they will be recognized as a nationwide company and a force to be recognized with. What this means to them, they THINK, is that everyone (their competitors who are already huge and well-established) will copy them and steal all of their clients.

Here’s why I disagreed by using the following analogy:

There are hundreds of Analyst companies throughout the world, right? Jupiter? Gartner? etc. From firms that are thousands of analysts to firms that are just one.

Just one? Yes, just one.

Why? How? Because they specialize. They focus on a niche market. They become so knowledgeable about a single product line that a large analyst firm can’t come close to having the breadth of knowledge that the single individual has.

This is the same as my client. They will have knowledge and focus that their large competitors can’t come close to having, now or even in the far distant future.

The DANGER is to themselves, where they may start believing that they are so large that they no longer have to be so concerned, worried, or detailed oriented towards their clients – that is where they will lose their client base and go out of business.

As long as they keep focused on what they currently offer and keep offering that, they will last far into the next decade before they will have to start worrying about competition and hopefully, by then, they will be onto the next field of expertise.

When I was young and working at a company (my first big company), I really believed that I was going to stay at the company for 30 or 40 years and retire out of it.

I know, funny. No one stays at a company for too long. Comon, let’s be honest, two – three years is pretty long in the market today – enough to learn the next step or “area” of expertise and move on.

When you get to be a more “valuable” asset to a company, and in fact, are aware of its future products, markets, profits, etc., you hold secrets (or information) that your employer does NOT want out on the streets.

So, when you say goodbye, that you are moving on,  they will usually come back with a form for you to sign. A non-compete, an NDA (non-Disclosure Agreement), or some form that says that you cannot go to a company that competes directly with them or let out (tell or publish) any of the confidential secret information that you may have.

Good for the employer, but, not good for you and your future – you can’t go to a company and USE the skill sets that you learned.

IT IS OKAY that this happens.

If your previous company does not want you to compete, then, have them PAY you not to compete. You won’t go into the office anymore so, as time passes you and your secrets become less and less valuable, but, you are being paid the same as if you were there.

DO NOT SIGN any NDA’s, or non-competes until this is finalized – it is WELL WORTH the $500.00 to hire a lawyer to negotiate this – believe me. Six months or one year of pay for not entering into their market is well worth it (if you have the confidence that you can get a job a year later).

Yes, you lose the valuable information you have and even become “out of date”, but, you make money.  The question will be for you to answer. Do you take the money and insurance and possibly go into a new market? Or do you not sign, walk out, and hope that they don’t file suit against you if you let anything out.

Over the years, I have tried to give you direction and advice to make you successful, as an employee or as an entrepreneur. Let’s talk about confidence again.

Some of you, I know, who read this, are consultants and business owners. We are hired by other companies to produce something; that something could be a plan, a document, a budget, or even advice.

The issue is when you are hired by a company that is not in your locality.

I have lived in Israel and had agencies in Las Angeles and Boston. I’ve lived in Seattle and had agencies in London and Chicago. I’ve lived in New York and been hired by companies in Taipai and Tel Aviv.

You are hired to produce a plan by the VP of Marketing (example). The VP tells you to work with one of their managers and get direction as needed. You produce the plan. You send it to your “contact” at the company. You never hear another word.

Until much later when the VP sends you a check and says thank you.

Or, the VP calls you and says you will get paid but the Manager did a better plan and doesn’t need your help.

Or the VP calls and says the plan was bad.

The point is, how can you trust the “contact” (manager)  to pass on the information/plan that you sent to the “contact”.  You worked hard and spent many many hours on the plan (or whatever). You want the credit. You want to have your contract renewed or extended or be considered for future projects.

How can you insure your future with the company if you can’t control the message?

Of course, you can always send weekly updates to the VP to insure that they know that you are working and where you stand.

Or, you can trust the VP and hope that the manager conveys your thoughts and issues.

You can NOT fire and forget – you must follow-up. If the VP doesn’t send an email about the plan, you must send an email about the plan (“did you see it? what did you think? etc.”)

But, you must also “let go” during the process and trust (hope) that the manager will present the plan the way that both of you practiced. That you will get the recognition when the items that you worked on are presented. You must trust that what needs to be done will be done.

There are times that this won’t occur and will turnout exactly as I stated – that your idea’s, comments, suggestions will be “taken” by the manager and no recognitiion will come your way. But, those times are rare.

If you do a good job and believe in your capabilities, then, trust and hope that everything will be presented as you want. Of course, if no word comes back, then, send the email to the VP to verify that they had received your information.

As many of you know, I am not the type of individual who wants recognition for work done; I want appreciation. I want my mind and hard-work appreciated. A simple “thank you” is all I need (and of course, being paid on-time).

So many of the start-ups and sole proprieters that I work with come to a junction where they are ready to:

• stay on course with a little money coming in and believe they can continue to survive until something big happens;
• throw everything in and fold the company;
• or throw everything in and go for it.

I want to talk about the 2nd and 3rd point.

It all comes down to how you look at the future.  

It can be easy or tough.  Was talking with one of my favorite clients today and I need to put what she is going through and junction that she is at in some sort of perspective.

“You are halfway up a mountain. Looking back down the path you came up, looks so easy, so relaxing, so inviting. It would be so easy to discard everything that you have and run back down. Go back where you came from.

Or, you can look up the mountain. At the path ahead. At the hard trek that you still have to do. But, the view – the reward – the ultimate. Halfway there.  ”

It is a tough decision. Every individual, in every stage of life, goes through it.

Go to college? Go to this new job? Date this girl? Continue with a relationship? Stay married? Get married?

But, your own business is a much bigger mountain (or so we perceive it to be).

I am not here to tell you that it is a bigger mountain or not, but, I am here to say to you, keep it in perspective. You made it this far, you can continue; [of course, there is reality and logic that plays a part - if you have no money or a lawsuit against your product just occured - then, you have to do what's right].

Make sure that you step back, talk with a mentor, think. DO NOT only think. You must talk. It is your business.

If no mentor, then a friend. You are not looking for feedback, you are looking to lay out all the thoughts in your head on paper and on another individual. It will clear your mind to look through non-rosey glasses – do you go up? or down?

Good luck - I know, this one was a bit rambling, but, I want people to start looking at life correctly and not making rash decisions.

Am involved in setting up a “start-up” (that doesn’t sound right, does it?) and was discussing an aspect of marketing with the other founder (I am the other founder) about who is going to buy our product from us. In that discussion, I used the term “Gatekeeper” numerous times, and eventually, she asked (the other founder) “what is a gatekeeper?”.

I guess, through the years, that I have come up with my own descriptions of words that I heard used throughout my years of marketing.

Originally, the word “gatekeeper” was introduced to me at Nintendo – we used the term to describe the PARENTS of the children that wanted a game.  The child didn’t have the money to purchase the game (what 8 year old has $50?) – but, the parent did. So, our marketing efforts were two-fold: one to attack the child, the other to attack the parent.

There were and are a few ways to attack the gatekeeper to get them to spend the money.

One is to drive a message at the non-gatekeeper (with Nintendo, the child) so that they constantly are asking the gatekeeper “can i have it, can i have it, can i have it…), eventually driving the gatekeeper insane and giving in.

This is a very common practice – look at WWE, where they drive the message to the younger crowd to purchase a $49.00 pay-per-view so they can see their favorite wrestler. They are selling a service, a product, and entertainment.  Unlike Nintendo, which is only selling a product, that gets used after the initial purchase, with pay-per-view, it’s a one-shot deal. (And yes, I understand that you can record the viewing – but, that’s not the substance of what I’m talking about.)

What I’m talking about is getting your market to open their wallet and spend money – and sometimes, your market does not have the money.

So, the other way, is to get the parents (in the case of Nintendo and other manufacturers) to see the inevitability of spending the money and doing so (or, getting them to see the value and purchasing it on their own).

Today, there is a TV advertisement about a video game system that “teaches” math, spelling, etc. This company does NOT market to the child (what kid wants to have a learning game?), but, they go after the parents. And the parents are eating it up.

What I am saying is KNOW your market/audience. You may be making a product that makes a husband thin. But, you market to the husband, and they will either a) say they are thin or b) be too embarrassed to purchase it, or some other reason. But, if you market it to the wife, saying “don’t you want the trophy husband that you married back then? get this product and he will return”, and the wife will purchase. The wife is the gatekeeper.  Of course, so is the husband, because there are husbands that will try it, but, probably the majority of the market (gatekeepers) is the wife.

But, don’t sell your marketing plans short – as with any marketing 101 class – look at your target market, and then look at those individuals who interact with that market and how they influence it.  If this is done properly, you may discover that the person who USES your product may be different then the person who PURCHASES the product.

Good luck – hope this helps….

I think I spoke about this before in a previous entry, but, am not sure.

My business is based on this line, phrase, and even issue.

Is reality real? I great question, one that you can have answered (or not), by watching The Matrix (and the rest of the series).

But, you look at today’s media (which is ALL about marketing), and you get the spin – and you can see the control,  that the media has on the masses.

I do hope that you look at what you do and realize that you have the same influence as well as the same power. Of course, with this, comes the issue of abuse, but, I don’t want to speak of that here.  I want to talk about how, if you can get people to believe that the perception that people “think” is possibly real to ”it is” real, you can change a complete marketplace.

For example, at a web company I worked for, we were just moving along, no great increase in revenue, no decrease, just, status quo – even though the mandate was to grow by 200% in one year.

Everyone tried everything to grow. We didn’t do to well. So, we switched everything we had to Hispanic language, put out marketing materials saying “The Hispanic market is scooping this up as fast as we can make it available”, even though it really wasn’t true, because we had just started one week before. But, my point is, we immediately started telling everyone that the “reality” was that the Hispanic market already accepted this and was using it, and you better get on the boat, or you are going to be left behind.

Another is a product I launched. A new product, that NO one had ever conceived of, let alone knew what use it was for. I couldn’t do it like I did the web service, as no one had ever heard of this new product (again, so new, everyone asked “what do i use it for” – compared to, let’s say, an internet service provider, everyone knows what they do, it comes down to what you get for the dollar).

So, couldn’t put out a press release or do an advertising campaign saying “Look, everyone is using it, because everyone wants it” – when, again, everyone would ask, “what the h**l am I going to do with that?”.

So, it really had to be a grass roots thing. Pretty much do a “red herring” – give the product away (we wrapped every one of our products in a $20 bill (this is how I say it, because we discounted the product by 80%).  This allowed a few huge companies to take a “risk” (we even agreed to buy the product back if they didn’t sell it) and “see” what would happen.

Once we had the companies lined up (okay, it was really only one company – but, hey, the name IBM is a nice name to have stand behind your product), I then moved to the next level of my marketing strategy. Where people started to talk about it, analysts endorsed it, and a few more companies got into it (because they saw IBM get into it).  And this was with VERY FEW SALES occurring.

It went on from there – so many companies wanted to “see” it and take a “risk”, that everyone wanted a piece – now, many people have it and many people use it (but, more have it then use it, lol – that’s what’s great about a commodity).

Okay, you want to know the product?  It is one of my proudest achievements – to take a company and product that no one knew, had gross revenue of $20M, and leave them five years later, with a $600M revenue stream (and now are being bought by another company) …it is a USB Flash Drive, or thumbdrive, or diskonkey, or whatever – you know, the little 128Mb USB thingy that you store files on.

I remember presenting the strategy on how I was going to make this product a world wide commodity to the CEO and CFO of the company. I ended my presentation with the statement “I am going to do this by making peoples perception about this product into reality”.

The CFO asked, “What do you mean?”

I replied “I am going to put this product everywhere, so that everyone believes (perceives) that this product is the hottest thing, that they must have it, that everyone wants (reality) this item, that is why it is everywhere”.

They both replied, that there is no such thing as “perception is reality” and that my strategy will never work.

 Thank G*D for my BU’s GM – (for those of us that don’t and can’t keep up with all of the acronyms out there – that is) Business Units General Manager – who stood behind me for almost two years and told the CEO and CFO to get out of the way and let me do the job – thank you!!! In that time, we topped $100M in sales.

Today, I ask the CEO if he believes in Perception is Reality – and he always replies “Never had a doubt”.

By the way, I’m not bragging – if you have been following me long enough, not that…just very very proud on what I did – the only marketing person for this company for five years (and yes, I DID have one agency help me – a boutique agency – because my budget was less then $100K per year).