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The Mother of all Advice.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’ve been doing business development for over 30 years; trying to help grow organic business from existing clients and add new business by identifying, earning favor and wining new clients. It’s an art, like hitting a baseball. It’s hard to be successful a majority of time.

My mom is a wonderful women but she likes to give advice. Some might say if her gums are moving, the advice is coming.  Advice suggests that someone is doing something wrong.  One school of thought in business development is advice-focused.  Point out things that are fixable, get credit for seeing them, and ask for the solution order. Bad idea. Nobody wants to talk about their flaws, especially with strangers, not unless they are close to fatal. So the better biz/dev approach is to have prospects ask you for advice. And how does that happen?  

First the prospect needs to be aware of you. There needs to be some top-of-mind awareness. Second they need to consider you as a good source of advice. “What have you done for me that makes me believe you can help?”  Third, they need to trust your advice will be sound. And lastly, you need to be easy to reach and available.  Sound like the marketing “steps to a sale” model?  Sure does.

Business development done well is a long term brand build, not a short term direct response transaction.  Most of my clients have come from development over time.  I have shown interest in them and their business over time, offered up insights not advice over time, and become familiar enough so that when the time was right, they called me.

So two nuggets: Do not be an advice-giver and take a long term approach to biz/dev. It is a craft not a transaction. Peace.

Selecting a consultant.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There are two reasons for the proliferation of single shingle consultants. One, a market is changing drastically and the people who truly understand the change are outnumbered by the number of companies needing answers. It’s a supply and demand thing. My first appreciation of this was in the 90s, prior to mainstream usage of the web, when the lack of open computing protocols created disparate systems bogging down business.  I walked about a trade show called InterOp and every 3rd badge said consultant. Pent up demand, disruption and chaos breed consultants.  This was an environment not unlike today’s digital marketing world.

The other reason for a proliferation of consultants is an excessing of employees.  Consultancies can be face-saving, while one looks for a full-time job.

Technology has impacted both sides of consultant growth. (It always does.) On the one hand, it had caused business disruption… in good exciting ways. It continues to open business, commercial and marketing doors. Many companies want to jump on the bandwagon and participate and need experts for hire. On the bad side, it had replaced lots of jobs.  Many people have been replaced by software and the cloud. If the algo can do your job, it will. Program media buying, for instance, has replaced people buying and selling media for a living.

One way to find out if your consultant is from the disruption school or the excessed school is to look at their client list. And their rate. Also, try to understand what value they bring to an engagement. What do they do for a living — in a few concrete words?  Depending on the stage of business: grow, hold or harvest, that value may differ. But always seek consultants who understand market discontinuities, change and disruption. Peace.

Extracting Gold.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

A friend has a great business idea. It is intended to help businesses sell more, to more, more often at higher prices (thanks Sergio Zyman for the “more” nugget). The fact-finding rigor is wide and deep but also thorough and quite brilliant.  A small component of the business idea — “how” fact-finding occurs — is also really smart. It is agile, contemporary and befitting of today’s social business. More importantly, it may be a potential business unto itself. A huge potential business. All it needs is to be productized, branded and packaged.  We’ll see how it all plays out.

A mentor of mine named Dick Kerr, the world’s first million dollar a year copywriter, once said “The idea to have an idea is sometimes more important than the idea itself.” Yes, he was a tippler. Anyway, his entrepreneurial point was to “do something” and good things will happen. In today’s craft economy one might say “make something” and good things will happen.

Brand planners are sometimes accused of overthink, head-in-the-clouds pattern recognition, and inoperable observations.  But without all of that up front work, the big extraction can’t take place. Call it what you will – I often refer to it as the boil down – the big chucks of gold are there. They are gleaming and waiting to be found. You just have to start doing and making.  Peace.

Getting Credit.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

A couple of years ago I wrote a strategic white pager for Accenture Interactive, having previously met with a planner at Deutsch New York about a bank assignment.  I came to the conclusion that not much intellectual or marketing capital is being spent by banks promoting savings.  Savings, for banks doesn’t put biscuits in the oven. Lending is where banks make da monies. So as contrarian as it was, I suggested taking advantage of low, low consumer trust of banks and a climate in which 7 of every 10 dollars in political ads were banging banks, to recommend telling consumers that finances are best when saved. Not when borrowed.

No one was doing this. No bank was encouraging consumers to save their money. The idea was to become the “savings bank” in a sea of lending banks. Build a story, claim and proof, build a new banking brand position.  And where would people go when they wanted to borrow some cash?  Because we know there will always borrowers be. To the one bank that really cares about its customer finances, the savings bank.  In strategic planning, sometimes by doing one thing you get credit for another. Tink about it (as my Norwegian aunt would have said.)

Peace.

Story Vs. Advice

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The last two evenings I attended events that reminded me of a lesson worth repeating.  Two nights ago I was on a panel before a number of Hofstra masters students. Our answers to many of the instructor’s questions were served up as advice. “Do this.” “I learned that.” “If you__, you can ___.”  This is what you’d expect in a teaching and learning environment.

In the second event, entitled “The Role of Planning Through the Ages” Panel Discussion with Jane Newman, there was a good deal of the same. It was awesome – trust me — but a lot of the knowledge dropped was in the form of teaching.  What I found most fascinating and instructive, however, were the stories. Everyone can remember a story.  Stories that are meaningful to the listener and the teller are best. There are many shitty story-tellers, but few make it far in brand planning.

In my months studying the K12 education space, I learned that broadcasting knowledge is not particularly effective. This applies outside the classroom as well. Embed your advice in a story and watch the cerebral cortex light up.

Peace.

The Marketing Commons

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I wrote a biz/dev letter to a software company owner last week explaining what a pain in the ass RFPs are for most companies. My suggestion was to extend his product in such a way that it replaces RFPs.  Pent up demand in marketing is a great thing.

As big data engulfs us, there’s a mad rush toward replication and standards that save time. So in K12 education we have Common Core. In college applications we have the Common Application. In business the RFP. But as were search for common, what becomes of the uncommon? I fear it is often lost.

I sat through an online phone demo yesterday for an amazing platform product, conducted by a really smart tele-sales guy. A brit. He didn’t fall into that trap of repeating my name ad nauseam, but you could tell he was scripted. He even made fun of the script to be a bit uncommon.

In the marketing field, there are lots of tool makers trying to streamline selling. To make selling common. The reason the ad business is stronger than ever is because of the hunt for the common. The best ad shops are repelled by the word.  Sadly, uncommon by itself doesn’t always sell. Uncommon with a purpose — with a brand strategy — does. 

That’s why when I sell brand ideas in the C-suite, decision maker invariably buy, but with a pang of discomfort. (Do we have to use that one word?)  That’s when I know I’ve got them. Uncommon.

Peace.  

How’re your Apps and Them?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I was on a panel last night at Hofstra University talking to Masters level students about technology, PR and marketing and a mobile question came up. “Is it better to build a mobile app or use responsive design on your website and send the mobile traffic there?” The answer lies in what the marketer is trying to do or sell – an app is not a website – but this got me thinking about apps. And here’s where I net out. Apps are downloadable tools easily accessed on smarties. But do they need to be downloaded at all?

One of the panelists got lost while parking on the Hofstra campus and suggested it would have been nice to have had an app that led him to McEwen Hall. Frankly, that app could be sold to any school. But why an app? Why not go to Hofstra, click directions and click a “guide me in” button?

I just think the functionality of all of these apps will eventually be in the cloud and accessible in real time. Why load up our endpoint devices?  Is it a wireless bandwidth issue? A security issue? A developer remuneration issue?

Just as we are coming around to not having to distinguish between marketing and digital marketing, I think the proliferation of apps as downloadables will wane and we’ll just have web-based functionality.   What do you think?

Peace. And thanks Hilary Topper for allowing me into your class.

 

Ever Feel Cornered?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Kathryn Ruemmler, the current white house counsel, is leaving her post in May. A long running presidential advisor, one of her more highly rated skills is her “uncanny ability to see around the corners that nobody else anticipates.”  

Lots of marketers, myself including, tell stories about Steve Jobs and how he didn’t listen to research on what consumers wanted next. Jobs would tell consumers what they wanted next.  The oft heard “we don’t skate where the puck is, we skate to where the puck will be,” a Wayne Gretsky-ism also supports this forward looking approach. Seeing around the corner is more than a skill.  Tainted Tylenol.  Spittle-covered pizzas. Ignition keys that fall out of the steering columns. All examples of corners that couldn’t be seen around.  Business needs to be prepared for the corners. Those are on the negative side of the ledger; there will be many positives around the corner as well.

Brand strategy is built upon what customers want and what a brand is good at. One idea, three proof planks is the organizing principle which yields business success. The planks look backward and forward. Coca-Cola is about refreshment and refreshment is way more than high fructose corn syrup, for instance. Forward looking. 

When you evaluate your brand plan ask yourself if it is built to see around corners. Peace. 

 

Websites That Don’t.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

A lot of money is exchanging hands today in the design and manufacture of websites. People get the “Is” of the website.  It’s a thing. Every company needs a site. But the vast majority of websites are all about the Is not the “Does.” And if there is a sense of Does, it’s about offering information. Contact. About. Products.  Some conduct ecommerce on their websites, but very few.

The best websites start with the “Does.” What is the role of the website in moving a customer closer to a sale?  I think it was Ford’s James Farley who first said “Good advertising makes you feel something, then do something.” 

We might call this approach doability. Doability before usability.

As ad agencies wean themselves from making just ads and move toward selling applications and selling buildables, they will transform what the modern website looks like. And I can’t wait.  Brain Solis of the Altimeter Group said last year “It’s 2013, why do websites still suck?”  Because they are overlooking the Does.

Brand planning starts upstream, pairing what a company is good at with what customers want.  Great websites do the same. They start upstream. Call it customer journey or whatever you like, but websites are about predisposing customers toward a sale at the very least and about placing an order at the very most. So please don’t share this post. Write or call me and let’s do.

Peace.

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