Here at the White Plains airport, I’m noticing all these people doing things to me. Enforcing irrational rules. Intentionally putting the seats far from the electrical outlets so people like me won’t steal electricity. Yelling over the PA system. Scolding people for not standing in the right place.
The key difference between marketing for growth and acting like a monopolistic utility is one of posture. Do you spend time doing things to your customers or for your customers? When someone calls tech support, are you viewing it as a chance to do something for them, or to get rid of them to cut costs?
One of the reasons small is so much more important than big is that people who think small have the power and flexibility to do things for their customers.
October 11, 2006
Very. Brian Wansink, a professor at Cornell, has discovered that changing the size of a serving container for food increases consumption as much as 74 percent. A bigger bowl of stale popcorn: 53%. Want to double the number of potato chips someone eats? Make it hard for them to count how many they’ve had.
We still misunderestimate how irrational people are. Even students who had just been taught the facts in the paragraph above ate more than 50% more Chex mix when it was served from a bigger bowl.
I almost always want to link to Scott, but I resist, figuring you must have already read what he’s written. This time, I can’t resist. He fails 9 times out of 10, he says. That’s a great average if your goals are high! The Dilbert Blog: In Over My Head.
October 10, 2006
I wonder whether people realize that they are crossing the line.
I mean, when I’m driving at 72 miles an hour, I don’t feel like a criminal. But what do the spammers feel? When they hit a button and send out 6,000,000 emails to sell a drug that doesn’t work to people who didn’t ask for it… and they’re violating a host of laws. Do they think of themselves as criminals?
What about the accountants at Worldcom or Enron who were ‘just doing their job’ at the same time they knew they were defrauding thousands of investors?
I just got this phishing note from a con artist. It’s a new tactic, a little more sophisticated. Is the person doing this any different from someone robbing a bank? Just wondering.
I just got an angry note from Anna in the Midwest. She read one of my books, got the coupon for unlimited free consulting by email and decided to cash it in. She sent me a note asking me to persuade her bosses that the best way to grow their resort was to lower prices.
When I responded that perhaps she ought to consider raising prices and using the extra money to create a remarkable experience, she got really angry with me. Of course, I refunded her consulting fee. Actually gave her three times back what she paid…
Here’s what I think: Cheaper is the last refuge of the person who’s not a very good marketer. Cheaper is easy and cheaper is fast and cheaper is linear and cheaper is easy to do properly, at least at first. But cheaper doesn’t spread the word (unless you are much cheaper, but to be much cheaper, you need to be organized from the ground up, like Walmart or JetBlue, to be cheaper). They are, you’re not.
Cheaper is a short term hit, not a long term advantage. Cheaper doesn’t create loyalty, because the other guy can always figure out how to be cheaper still, at least in the short run.
Even free isn’t cheap enough to win in the long run. Not if other people can figure out how to match what you’ve got.
So, if you can’t be cheaper, be better.
October 9, 2006
Cristóbal Colón, marketer.
Columbus failed early and often. He failed when he joined in the attempt to conqure the Kingdom of Naples. Later, he was captured by Portuguese ships as he escorted an armed convoy. He was wounded. And he never did get to India. The fact that he didn’t give up and become a shopkeeper after this rough start was critical to his success.
Columbus was a thief. He didn’t invent the idea that the world was round. In fact, Ertosthenes, Aristotle and Ptolemy pretty much made it an established fact among educated people long before Columbus was born. Just because he didn’t invent the idea doesn’t mean he couldn’t use it.
Columbus didn’t do his research carefully, reinforcing his optimism. He thought that calculations of the size of the Earth were in Italian miles, not in the longer Arabic miles. The correct calculations would have ‘proven’ he should never have left.
Columbus took advantage of human nature. The rulers of Spain were desperate to find an edge and Columbus offered them a quest that could address their state of emergency.
Columbus was persistent. It took him seven years at court in order to get funding.
No one really believed that Columbus would change everything. His contract with the king included huge bonuses for success, largely because they were pretty sure that he would fail.
Columbus didn’t consider side affects until it was too late. In order to help repay his investors, Columbus took slaves (the first person to do so in the New World) and in one notorious case, arranged to cut the hands off of each Haitian adult male who failed to bring a minimum amount of gold to his ships.
Ultimately, in death, Columbus became a brand, a story bigger than his own facts. Buried in Spain, moved to Santo Domingo, then to Havana and then back to Spain. Namesake of the Knights of Columbus. Honored by statues and streets and even cities. In many ways considered the "first American," demonstrating vision, persistence, insight, brilliance, bravery and world changing paradigm shifting… almost none of it true, of course.
I think the lesson of Columbus Day is a marketing lesson. Successful marketers allow people to tell themselves a story they want to hear. Columbus did that his entire life, and especially in death. Great marketers then do work that they’re proud of, using their leverage to create things that people might not want in the short run, but are delighted in later on. I think Columbus was certainly successful. I wonder what would have happened if he had been great.
October 8, 2006
This is a great post about risk and anxiety and what happens when you ignore the second and take the first: User Conferences Worth the Risk.
October 7, 2006
Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks “mass layoffs.” That’s the term for more than 50 people losing their jobs at once. In August of this year, the total number of people hit by a mass layoff was 127,944. The number has been more than 100,000 every month except for one in the last decade.
And that doesn’t count small companies, smaller lay offs, non-profits and other ventures that don’t show up on the radar. The actual number has to be at least ten times as big–at least a million a month is my guess .
Compare that to the tiny number of people who get fired for attempting to do something great.
Sure, the CEO got fired. But thousands at the company got laid off. She lost her job for challenging the status quo. They got canned for embracing it.
Sure, that crazy copywriter on the 11th floor got fired for attempting a viral blog-based campaign that backfired, but it’s nothing compared to the entire department that lost their jobs because there just wasn’t enough business.
At least once a day, I get mail from people worrying that if they are too remarkable, too edgy, too willing to cause change and growth… they’re risking getting fired. I almost never get mail from people who figure that if they keep doing the same boring thing day in and day out at their fading company that they’re going to lose their jobs in a layoff.
50 ad agencies lose accounts for being boring, static and unprofitable for every one that gets fired for being remarkable.
50 churchgoers switch to a new congregation because of a boring or uncaring leader for every one that leaves because she was offended by a new way of thinking.
50 employees lose their jobs because the business just faded away for every one who is singled out and fired for violating a silly policy and taking care of a customer first.
50 readers stop visiting your blog (or your site or your magazine or your TV show) because you’re stuck in a rut and scared for every one who leaves because you have the guts to change the format or challenge the conventional wisdom.
50:1.
October 6, 2006
Alin points us to the DVD Rewinder.
Think of the time you’ll save. I bet the guys at YouTube need a bunch of these, so they can rewind all those clips people watch online.
October 5, 2006
