Astonish Your Customer(s)

Create an event

Baseball has the World Series, Golf has The Masters, Hockey has the (Lord) Stanley Cup, the NFL has the Super Bowl, Tennis has Wimbledon and, ta-da, the NBA has the NBA Playoffs - thunk!

Talk about a branding opportunity. (I think the NBA also has a major product problem but that is another issue for another time.)

Why would a multi-billion dollar, multi-national entertainment business allow the supposed marque event to have no identity? I often hear people say I love the World Series or I love the Super Bowl but I never hear anyone say, I love the NBA Playoffs. In part, I think people are saying they love an "Event" and the other sports have made their major game sound like an event. NBA Playoffs is not an event, it is a thing.   

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

(TY: Chrisie Concannon)   

Wizard or Wunderkind

Look back on your body of marketing work, namely product development/introduction, and look forward at what you are planning for the next year.

Would an objective observer declare you the Wizard of the Line Extension or The Marketing Wunderkind who births relevant and remarkable products?

What would you say as an unobjective observer? What do you want people to say about your work? What do you want to work on? What will your marketing legacy be?

O.D.O.o.O.D.B. 

Keeping the big audacious promise

GM triumphantly relaunched the company a couple months ago with a big promise ... if you decide that you don't like your GM car within 60 days of purchase, we'll give you your money back. 

If GM is really intent on igniting a new, different, authentic and better brand story that will prove to people that they are serious about pleasing their customers, they will make sure that every dealer - every dealer - makes it super-easy for customers to reclaim their money within those 60 days. And, if GM wants to super-charge this new brand narrative they will make it super-easy to return the car on the 61st, 70th and 80th day after purchase - they need to exceed expectation in a way that will both surprise and please the market.

It's only becomes a promise if your live it, when everyone and no one is watching.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Get personal, Get results

Reprint from Martin Kartin's blog, executive recruiter & blogger 

Somebody took me out to lunch today!  No one ever treats a HEADHUNTER to lunch!  I will never forget that person, they are unique!  The $11.45 tuna sandwich and black coffee did more than a fabulous resume printed on fancy stationary could ever do!  It solidified a relationship; it made it personal, it made me want to reciprocate.  Do something NICE for a HEADHUNTER and stop sending all of those silly resume and cover letters…the returns will be enormous!

Get personal…Get results!

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Is the boss broken

Danny Cox  made this challenge - How would you manage differently if you could not replace anyone on your team for at least one year? 365 days is a long time to hope they'll quit or wait until you can pass them on to the next manager. You'd have to make the working realtionship more productive, wouldn't you? 

Marcus Buckingham  provides the "how":  What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently

1. The best managers reject conventional wisdom.
2. The best managers treat every employee as an individual.
3. The best managers never try to fix weaknesses; instead they focus on strengths
and talent.
4. The best managers know they are on stage everyday. They know their people are
watching every move they make.
5. Measuring employee satisfaction is vital information for your investors.
6. People leave their immediate managers, not the companies they work for.
7. The best managers are those that build a work environment where the employees
answer positively to these 12 Questions:

a. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
b. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
c. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday?
d. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
e. Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care about me as a person?
f. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
g. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
h. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
i. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
j. Do I have a best friend at work?
k. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
l. This last year, have I had the opportunity at work to learn and grow?

Ask your people these seven questions, see what they say and decide what you must do differently. It goes back to the old adage - if there is a problem, look in the mirror first.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Non-what

When the new age, crunchy, politically-correct and Hollywood types use the term "Non-Judgmental" - as in "I love working with him because he is completely non-judgmental" - what exactly do they mean?

Does that mean that the person has no opinion or better said, shares no opinion or feedback? If he is completely non-judgmental, it would stand to reason that he never gives any positive reinforcement either.

Or, does it just mean that he never dares to speak up when I have screwed up because doing so might deepen my pain, embarrassment, lack of confidence or shame and make me face reality?

If a person is completely non-judgmental, how exactly do they help you get better?

Give me a critic every time.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Better

"Are you better at what you do than you were a month or two ago?"

"A lot better?"

"How did you get better? What did you read or try? Did you fail at something and learn from it? Does the mindless stuff you do at work when the boss isn't looking (or all those meetings you go to and all those emails you answer) make you better or just pass the time?"

"If you got better faster, would that be a good thing? How could you make that happen?" 

"A lot of questions for early in the morning, but the truth is that marketing rewards improvement. It didn't use to. It used to reward stability."

Scintillating and challenging questions and thoughts from Seth Godin. I write them to remind myself that I need to act, daily.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Designing for women

Tom Peters says that women don't buy brands, they join them.

The Femme Den offers five tenets of designing for women.

1. Emphasize benefits over features: Rather than touting features and specs (how fast or big or slick something is), make the product benefits clear. Who can it connect her to? How does it make her life easier? How will it save her time?
2. Learn her body: Women have different bone and muscle structures. Simply shrinking products leads to injury and frustration.
3. Craft a cohesive story: Women consider more than just the product itself. Design the whole experience with them in mind, from advertising and packaging to the retail environment and customer service.
4. Identify a spot on the spectrum: For some tasks women want to feel girly; for others, not at all. Nix the hyper-feminized stereotype and consider where on the spectrum this product should land.
5. Remember her life stages: Are you designing for a 25-year-old or a 65-year-old.

Additional thoughts from the Femme Den.

1. Avoid the lazy and mindless impulse to simply shrink it and pink it.
2. Men will walk into an electronics shop and look at the white card listing the features. Women will pick up the camera, flip it around, and look at the buttons. They want to know it is intuitive.
3. Women are more tuned in to the entire message of a product, from the store environment to the social causes it supports, how it fits into the home, and which family members will use it.
4. Physically, women are not miniature men.
5. Good products are not male products masquerading as unisex or - worse - hiding under a coat of pink paint.  

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

(TY: Fast Company 10/09)

Whole Ignoramus

Do you know what a Whole Food is - not the chain of food stores, the concept whole food? I just finally learned what it is and I am a 49 year old physically fit male, who doesn't exercise or diet much because my metabolism guards my weight, who is very aware of current events and trends. Recently I began to put on some weight and looked for healthy-eating advise. 

I finally settled on one of the zillion eating habit experts. He said that I should eat mostly whole foods. Huh? I did not know that whole foods was actually a definition rather than just a trade name or a colloquialism. He said that a whole food is a natural (mostly) unprocessed and unaltered food - apple, egg, lettuce, nut and such and that it is much better to eat foods that nature has provided than processed foods. Now that is a concept that is easy to understand and keep in your mind.

Someone else explained it to me this way - Before you eat something, say like Cheese Doodles, ask this question - Would my great grandparents have considered this item food?

Am I the only one that doesn't understand what a whole food is or are there hundreds or thousands or millions? Are you being cavalier or overconfident about what your customers understand about your product? 

O.D.O.o.O.D.B. 

   

Be like Branson

How did he get his start and how did Sir Richard stay started?

"Many of the company's most propitious ideas, small and large, have sprung from Branson's wants and needs as a customer himself. The reason I went into business originally, was not because I thought that I could make a lot of money, but because the experiences I had personally with businesses were dire and I wanted to create an experience that I and my friends could enjoy."

"He takes on intransigent industries that treat customers inexplicably badly and shows that he can offer not only a better deal but a truly entertaining experience."

He had to start somewhere and now you know how he started and what the underlying mantra is at Virgin. He focused on things that were relevant in his life and most people's life.

So, what gives you heartache, angst and utter frustration in your life? What is the sortcoming of your product? At your business, when was the last time that you met with the outliers - you know, those mean and cranky men and women that always seems to be critical of everything and asked for their ideas?

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

(TY: Fast Company & Byaian Deutschman)