business value Archives by Mark Murnahan

Business Tip: People Think Better When They Are Paid Well

Think about your worst times in your career. You were probably stressed by a lot of little things that seemed bigger than they really were, and perhaps some really big challenges, too. Deadlines, coworkers, health, family, finances, and other stressful issues can make it feel like everything is spiraling out of control. Some challenges can be used to build a company stronger, but it is far more common that they become destructive.

I am going to give you a bit of information that you can email to your boss with confidence, tweet on Twitter, “Like” on Facebook, and best of all … you can blame me for being the one who gave your boss this uncommon piece of common sense.

Is there a solution? I have found through more than two decades in business for myself, and from consulting with many businesses, the majority of business challenges can be improved with more money. That could mean hiring a better accountant, bringing in a strategist, improved inventory and purchasing capability, or having the right equipment to do the job at hand. The list of enhancements is long, but let’s just say that money can bring about a lot of improvements in a company.

One of the greatest improvements to a business comes from the quality of life of the people who make the business what it is. You cannot separate the people from the business, and if you try, you will fail!

Think of it like this for a moment: About half of all marriages in America end in a divorce. The two biggest causes that people claim are infidelity and finances. I suspect that much of that infidelity is because they don’t have enough money to have sex with their spouse! Come on, really, how sexy is an unproductive or frustrated spouse, after all?

Yes, sex and money break people down and make them less productive, even in their marriages. So how could it even be possible that this does not affect their business life, too? It is not possible, because businesses are made up of their people. Fragile or strong, focused or fragmented, those people are what make a company whatever it becomes. This is why, as a consultant, I have always suggested investing wisely in the people, and I have recommended as many pay raises as job terminations.

Money Can Help Most Business Challenges

Money does not fix everything, but in a business, it can facilitate a lot of things which are not otherwise possible. If more money can help a business, and I think this is very true for most if not all companies, then how do you make that happen? It generally requires doing more of the business that pays the company profits. That means marketing, and marketing well!

I have been in business long enough to know just about every conceivable cause of stress. Fortunately, I have been in business long enough to heal from a good number of those stresses, too. I am not spying on you and looking over your shoulder, but I really do know more about your challenges than you may give me credit. That is because I have been there, and I have consulted a squillion companies with troubles just like yours.

Most of the people around you have encountered some sort of stress in their business lives, too. If they say they have not, they are either lying, or their brain just blocked it out in order to preserve their sanity. The biggest challenge that most people in business shudder to discuss is money. In most business owners’ minds, a lack of money means they did not do their job as well as the next person. It gives them a feeling of shame. The truth is that it often just means they did not market their business as well.

If you don’t believe me about the importance of marketing, just consider all of those things like a Snuggie or a Slap Chop which had phenomenal success, against all odds. Without marketing, they would still be “stupid” ideas in some inventors mind. Instead, they were stupid ideas that turned into millions of dollars in somebody’s bank account.

If you are really not sure what these items are, check out this video about the Snuggie. It has received over 16 million views on YouTube, and it is just a parody of an actual Snuggie commercial.

Are you still not convinced about marketing? Consider the Slap Chop. This thing made millions of dollars! Are you kidding me? It is a cheap hunk of plastic with a spokesman who was arrested for beating up a hooker.

It is easy to criticize these and say they are not good marketing, but they achieved their goals. I prefer something less sleazy for my clients, but the important message here is that marketing makes the difference between success and failure in nearly any company of any size.

I realize that it is a tough cycle to break, because in order to do more business, it usually requires an investment. It may take a big and scary investment, but it should not be any more scary than being in business, itself. With the right mindset, and the right facts, it should be like a huge beam of sunshine breaking through the clouds.

Why Marketing Feels Expensive

There is a common perception that marketing is expensive, rather than the reality that not marketing is where the really huge cost comes from. Keeping the doors open on a business without reaching the right customers with the right message they will respond to … now that is expensive!

I see it all the time where a company will send out a flurry of requests for proposals from companies like mine. Companies who think like a Fortune 500 company will focus on the value proposition, and what the cost represents. Smaller or less secure companies will often try to focus on the price, instead of hiring it out to the right people with the right plan. This is why my engagement letter will often include something similar to the statement as follows:

Creative marketing based on solid research is what makes the difference between Pepsi Cola and the one you never heard of. This is the area where the majority of efforts should be focused.

The most effective marketing strategies involve more than price comparisons between a handful of off the cuff proposals, and we know this to be true. This is why I am confident in saying that the best marketing decisions you will make do not center on ill-considered boilerplate proposals designed to wow you.

Instead, those decisions should be based on solid data and confidence that your marketing dollars are spent with somebody who can effectively build your brand and build your profits. That means a lot more than the person with a fast pitch and a price sheet in hand. This engagement is not based on hours worked, but rather on experience and know-how. It will include my focused attention on building your brand and producing long-term equity in your market.

Breaking a Cycle of Destruction

If you want to learn how to break a cycle of destruction in your business and have more money, you must address your marketing. It is what builds your business and provides the additional money that can help most business problems. If any of this rings a bell to you, and if you want more business, I sincerely recommend reading the articles listed below.

In conclusion: None of us are immune to the benefits of peace of mind, nor the frustration of being underpaid. No different from you, your marketing people do the best thinking when they are paid well for it. Fortunately, when marketing is done well, everybody gets paid better!

Here are some articles that I have written regarding the cost of marketing and the mistake of placing cost above value. This is your reading assignment, and I hope you will enjoy them.

Photo Credit: Einstein photo courtesy of hetemeel.com.

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Do You Know What You Are Worth? Your Critics Seem to Know!

Do you ever impress yourself? Maybe you should!

A question came up today while I was talking with my wife as she created a masterpiece before my eyes. I asked her “do you ever impress yourself?” The natural answer that most people will give is “No, that sounds too arrogant.” She was not too off the mark from the popular answer, but based on her level of mastery, it puzzled me. It made me think deeper about a conversation that has taken place between myself and many clients in their boardrooms.

I want to explain that my wife is indeed a master at the work she does. She has many years of experience as an artist, and she deserves all of the kudos she receives for her work. In the instance of my question to her today, it involved her work in our cakes and confections business. She was creating flowers from scratch. She took sugar and turned it into flowers. I do not mean flowers like the average iron worker or Internet geek would make from sugar. She was creating lifelike flowers with petals, pistols, stamen, sepal, and other parts that many of us do not even realize flowers have. They are really delicate … like a flower.

I had to ponder why she would ever feel like she was not doing something spectacular. I mean, how many people do you know who can make a flower petal from sugar? Can they put it together with a whole bunch of other sugar petals and all of those other hard to pronounce flower parts and make them look like a real flower, and then sell them to people for the cake served on their wedding day?

This got me to thinking about the many times I have witnessed clients from my standpoint in my field of marketing who just don’t have a good handle on their value proposition. Their fear is often not so unlike Peggy’s concerns that she would seem arrogant, cocky, conceited, too confident, or whatever strangely negative twist you can put on doing something amazing that other people can see so clearly.

I think a lot of people have felt a bit kneecapped by the fine line between confidence and the point where it is distasteful to others. In the case of Peggy, just like so many others, they draw back so far from that line that modesty comes to take away their hopes and dreams. Modesty, when taken too far, can be devastating in a marketing campaign. I see it all the time that out of some deep-seated sense of modesty, a company culture will make it seem nearly impossible to reflect the true quality of their product.

In the course of this lengthy inner conversation, I had to confront myself. I am a race car driver, and in racing, I have always felt a bit shy with the flattering things people say when I come off the track. I know that other drivers are trying very hard to drive fast, and I want them to feel great about themselves. I don’t want to be the jerk to take away their glory, so I kind of hunker away and forget how well I drive.

YourNew.com Racing Corvette Z06: Driver Mark Aaron Murnahan

Confidence Perceived and Confidence Worth Stealing

I am a wickedly badass search engine optimizer and marketer … I can let that fly freely here on my marketing blog. I can whip the best of them, and I can quantify it in real numbers. Yes, I can back it up! What is profound to me is how the things where we seek the greatest gain in life is where we feel the most doubt. I love my work as a search engine optimizer and marketing consultant, so don’t get me wrong. I have done it for many years, and earned a handsome living following that passion. However, in my inner thoughts, I still feel that my big accomplishment will come from racing cars. I feel a confidence by driving fast, just as much as I do in the business which makes me money. In fact, before I lost millions of dollars in contracts during 2009 (and most of my ass with them), I was planning to retire next year and create a racing school to follow my passion.

How Money Changes Perception

It seems confusing and downright wrong how business endeavors make people more self-conscious than something perceived as a hobby. Noting that I am considering driving as my ultimate business endeavor, it really only makes sense when you examine how our modern society will criticize you more by things they perceive will matter to you or benefit you. What I mean is that I can tell you I am a badass race car driver and you do not feel threatened, because I am not trying to sell you a ticket to my next race or recruit you to my racing school. Racing does not pay me at this point. It actually has a cost to me of about $250,000 per race season, and a scheduled squillion-bazillion dollars to open a race school if I am done with this wicked-badass marketing gig before I am 300 years old.

You have no perception of loss just because I am fast, and I can even tell you I am fast. I am not a bad guy for being fast. Now if I told you that I am a badass at something which pays me money and feeds my family, you will be far more likely to take me to the ropes and beat me until I beg for mercy. How screwy does that sound, really?

Passion + Profit = Critics

This has all forced me to question how the things we feel the most passionate about are the easiest things to become modest about, and it is magnified if we actually receive a perceived benefit. I love racing. If I had to put this in terms for the average race fan without showing my modesty, I am one of the fastest men around a track you will ever meet in your lifetime. I have driven at speeds you will never comprehend and pulled off split-second saves, just inches from disaster that would have killed 99.9999 percent of people behind that wheel when the brakes got weak at 170 miles per hour. Now, if I tell you I have done the same thing and it helped me to buy a bag of groceries to feed my kids, it is strangely easier to criticize. OK, leaving the groceries and the kids out, if I said it makes me money, I am just a bit more of a bad guy. Don’t deny it … you see what a bastard I am if I charge money for my talents compared to doing something equally as passionate, but doing it for free.

Now then, why should Peggy feel awkward to express confidence about work done exceptionally well? Why is it easier for you to accept confidence about her work when the message comes from me rather than from her? Why is it even more exciting and acceptable to enjoy her mastery if you are far outside of her market area and you know she cannot sell you a cake? By the way, cakes are very hard to ship!

Why should I be so modest about the fact that I can own, manage, and drive for a race team that can take a track record on the first visit to a track? Why should I be so modest about the fact that I wrote three really good books in just three months during 2009? One of them (“Living in the Storm“) was written as my ass was falling off in business, but I completed it because I sincerely believed it would benefit others. Why should I be modest about the fact that more people read my work each month than reside in the city of Topeka, Kansas, where I live? Why should I be modest about the fact that I can rank my clients at the top of search engines for things which 99.9999 percent of the world’s competitors cannot achieve?

Well, I suppose that our reasons are not so unlike yours. Sometimes we just have to accept the talents we have developed and stop downgrading ourselves with the fear of the few jealous antagonists who will call us wrong for it while our fans are still waving our checkered flag and reveling in our winning the race.

I asked a few questions here, but what I really want to know is what you propose to do to stop acting like a Mark or Peggy? Maybe I can help. If this is the case, I will admire you for being uncommonly able to see beyond the perception of somebody having to lose just because somebody else gains.

If you like what I have to say here, please share it with others, regardless of whether I gain or do not gain. Your sharing of this line of thought with others may make a difference in not only the bag of groceries I bring home for my kids, but perhaps it could really help somebody else to gain a better view of their marketplace as well. Besides, if it helps you feel better, the vast majority of people it can help cannot afford to hire my services … marketing, racing, or shipping a four tier wedding cake. Oh, and I did not even mention the cost to have me write a book, but if I mentioned buying one for ten bucks, it would be even easier to see me as a bad guy. You see, that sounds kind of silly to not recognize your own contributions, right?

Corvette Z06 Photo Courtesy Pixx By Tango Photography