Every element of the organization has a spec, a minimum required performance. Accounting has standards, so does the department that measures the air quality.
Everything beyond spec is marketing.
That’s an interesting definition, but I think it’s true: All the money, effort and time that an organization puts into making anything better than it has to be is a marketing expense.
Because the extra is there to help change minds, to spread the word, to earn trust and loyalty.
The head of marketing is the person in charge of what’s extra. Because if you want to grow, nothing is actually extra. It’s simply an investment.
October 11, 2019
The only way to get initiative is to take it. It’s never given.
And some people hesitate to take it, perhaps because they’re worried that we’ll somehow run out.
We’re not going to run out. It’s a self-renewing resource.
From an early age, most of us were taught to avoid it. Do your homework. Take out the trash. Wait to get picked. Wait to get called on. Become popular. Fit in. Maybe stand out, but just a little bit. Failure is far worse than not trying.
The alternative is to take some initiative. On behalf of those you seek to serve.
Go ahead, there’s plenty to go around.
October 10, 2019
Your job might be a series of tasks. Tasks are work where money is traded for time and effort. You put in a fixed amount of time, expending effort along the way, and you get paid. In the end, tasks are completed and it’s up to the boss to weave those tasks together into something useful.
The person at the front desk of a hotel is probably doing a task. So is the lineman working on a high power line. The easier a job is to get, the more likely it involves doing tasks.
The alternative is projects.
The way a project gets done is up to you. Your goal is to create an extraordinary outcome, not to perform the tasks. The work done is simply a means to an end. If you can figure out how to do less work or different work and still create project magic, that’s exactly what you should do.
The challenge is in owning the project. To say, “I’m going to engage with this customer in a way that changes them from frustrated to loyal,” as opposed to saying, “I’m going to move this paper from here to there.”
Claim the project before you start the work.
October 9, 2019
I called the front desk early in the morning. “Where’s the gym located?”
It’s a big hotel. They have a thousand rooms, and they’re part of a chain. Still, I was surprised to hear typing. The person who answered was typing the question into their database and then proceeded to read me the answer.
It’s reasonable to assume that the hotel decided to save some money by consolidating all of their front desk work into one central location. And reasonable again to assume that instead of training people to give clear and helpful answers, simply instructed them in what to read.
Still…
I can’t imagine that’s a job you’d want to do. A job that would use any of your skills or care. A job you would look forward to doing.
The next step is to have voice recognition replace this pesky worker. After all, the best cog is no cog at all.
Our choice is profound, and more urgent every day: either do a job where your best judgment is required, or do a job where management will work hard to replace you with someone cheaper.
Race to the top, race to the bottom.
Either way, you might win. Up to you.
PS today’s the last day of the year to sign up for The Marketing Seminar, our industry-leading workshop for people who have an idea, a project or a business they need to grow.
October 8, 2019
In all markets, the market leader gets an unfair advantage. That’s because casual and unsophisticated customers choose the leader because it feels easier and safer.
The strategy, then, is not to wish and dream of becoming a big fish.
The strategy is to pick a small enough pond.
By engaging with the smallest viable audience, you gain the reputation and trust you need to move to ever bigger audiences.
October 7, 2019
If we give an isolated community access to the internet, very quickly, the quality of life will improve. Time will be saved, research into proven solutions will produce value, and people will become connected to a larger population. Those connections will lead to productivity and learning.
And, then, soon thereafter, they will become less happy.
Not because they’re worse off, but because the dominant media narratives that arrive exist to make them feel insufficient, inadequate or simply jealous at how green the grass is over there.
Our narrative defeats our surroundings, every time.
October 6, 2019
Security theater is a rule requiring you to take off your shoes when you get to the airport. It doesn’t actually catch anyone, it simply makes people feel more secure, and it allows those in charge to feel like they’re doing something. Mostly, it’s a demonstration of power and authority, not a practical measure.
And security superstition involves putting security measures in place on a hunch, or because others are doing it.
This alert from a website run by Thomson Reuters manages to do both:
This is malpractice. No, it’s not a doctor giving you the wrong medicine, but it’s definitely someone who should know better making an error that will cost countless users a lot of time and money.
Long passwords work better than short ones. But impossible-to-remember passwords get written on post-its by people who haven’t yet realized that they need a password manager. Having people change their passwords often simply creates more post-its. Insisting on arcane rules is nothing but theater plus superstition.
The theater and the superstition compounds, creating mountains of cruft, layers and layers of misunderstood but accepted practices that waste our time and make our systems less secure, precisely the opposite of what’s intended.
Software runs our world. Building insecure, difficult to use and frustrating software and then forcing people to use it is easily avoided. But it requires leadership and insight, not mindless superstition.
October 5, 2019
Four years at MIT cost about $250,000 all in. Or, you could engage in more than 2,000 of their courses on their site, for free.
What’s the difference?
When you do education, you pay tuition, plus you pay with a focus on compliance. Traditional education requires that students trade in freedom of choice, coerced by tests and exams. And what do you get? You get an ‘A’ and you get a certificate.
The power of that certificate is extraordinary. Students (and their families) will go a lifetime in debt to get that paper. They’ll make choices about time and focus and geography for that paper, ignoring what’s ostensibly possible in exchange for the certainty of acquiring it.
Learning, on the other hand, is self-directed. Learning isn’t about changing our grade, it’s about changing the way we see the world. Learning is voluntary. Learning is always available, and it compounds, because once we’ve acquired it, we can use it again and again.
Many adults in the US read no more than a book a year. That’s because books aren’t assigned after you’ve got your paperwork done.
We’re surrounded by chances to learn, and yet, unless it’s sugarcoated or sold in the guise of earning a scarce credential, most of us would rather click on another link and swipe on another video instead.
The exception: People who have chosen to be high performers. Doctors, athletes, programmers and leaders who choose to make a ruckus understand that continuous learning is at the heart of what they’ll need to do.
“Will this be on the test?” is a question we learn from a young age. If you need to ask that before you encounter useful ideas, you’ve been trapped. It’s never been easier to level up, but the paper isn’t as important as we’ve been led to believe.
October 4, 2019
Your anecdote isn’t true.
I know it happened. I know that your experience, your feelings, your outcomes are real. And they’re yours.
Statistics suffer when compared to anecdotes. Because your mileage may vary. Your interaction with the randomness of the world will never match up to what the statisticians tell us to expect. Because averages and correlations are never what we actually experience. We experience a tiny slice of it.
But, at the same time that the larger truth can’t be experienced, your anecdote can never represent the larger truth, because it’s yours. What happened to you will never happen to anyone else, not in quite the same way.
By relying on well-told stories, we ignore the real truth, the universal truth of how the world actually is.
Yes, our mileage varies. But please let me know what the reality of the world is.
October 3, 2019
That’s unlikely.
If I’m lucky, I can glance at them.
But just for a second or two.
Our fears burn so bright that if we truly face them, we think we might be blinded.
Of course, we may think we’re looking at our fears, dead on, but it’s more likely we’re just seeing a distraction, a shadow of what’s actually holding us back.
Because once we’re truly clear about the fear, it fades. It might even disappear.
October 2, 2019
