My grandmother is intelligent. She can grasp a complex concept if you communicate it nicely. If you insult her intelligence, she may turn into a vicious ninja.
My grandmother will turn 95 years old in a few weeks. In honor of my dear Grandma and other real-world people like her, I’m here to deliver a valuable reminder about effective marketing communications.
Let’s consider Grandma for a moment, and imagine how she communicates. She talks like a real person. She thinks and communicates in logical phrases. Grandma uses plain and simple language to make herself clear to others. Most people are a lot like Grandma in this respect. Most of them will also find themselves indifferent and even insulted if you try to talk over their heads.
I want to give you some yummy food for thought. That’s because “yummy food for thought” is more appetizing than “palatable incentive for continued exercitation of intellect”. Got it? Great … let’s dine!
What really got me thinking about this is my long and tedious research in the hunt for my next employer. It seems popular for companies to drone on with wordy hyperbole in their job descriptions. I suppose many people do that in their résumé, too. It is just one of those awkward formalities that has not adapted to the modern world quite yet.
Wordiness is like a dance to see who can sound smarter. Just read an average job description to understand why unemployment is so high. According to most job descriptions I’ve seen, it seems that companies can barely write a paragraph without floating in an extra 30 words of fluff to throw people off the real meaning. Here is an actual example of a job posting bullet point that I just found without looking very hard.
Organization and Efficiency – must have natural and impeccable organizational skills as well as the ability to multitask at a highly efficient level. Has proven experience working in a fast paced environment where quick and rational thinking was a daily requirement. Is nimble by nature and has proven experience systematically organizing their work and managing their time to maximize efficiency.
It seems that all they said was “We want an organized person who can keep up with a lot of things at once. They need to think fast, work fast, and prove a history of it.” Does it actually say anything more than that? If so, please explain it to me. They said it in 62 words and 399 characters, but my “less intelligent” version trimmed it down to 29 words and 136 characters.
Are you ready for the irony? This particular job listing is for a Marketing Director at a marketing company. This kind of language reminds me how often I see similar diarrhea-like communication in marketing.
Stop Abusing Grandmas!
Grandma and all those many people like her do not like it when you try to baffle them with frivolous words and phrases to try and seem smarter. If you want Grandma to like you, it is better to make her feel smart because she clearly understands and can relate to your ideas.
If you cannot make it easy and comfortable, Grandma is not going to become your biggest fan and brand advocate. It is also very unlikely that she is going to speak up and let you know what you’re doing wrong. After all, you have already done your best to show that you know it all.
I think the reason bad marketing communication makes grandma want to turn ninja is that while you may sincerely believe you are “proficiently communicating in a manner that is consistent with sound business practices and expected protocols”, you are actually talking down to her. If you keep it up, you will grate on her last nerve and the outcome is bleak.
Don't Speak to Grandma Like That!
Bridle Your Verbose Hyperbole and Expedite Your Simplicity
Let me give it to you straight. If you are “excessively verbose and embellish your communications with gratuitous hyperbole”, you will ignore and alienate the majority of any market.
It is even true in the most intelligent circles that if you make it easier to read, more people will pay attention. If you communicate with people as if they are idiots and you are a brilliant word magician, you can save your breath. It often creates quite the opposite outcome and shows that you’re not smart enough to put things into terms people care about or respond to.
If you want to show off your intellect, try taking your complex concept and making it easy for people to understand. That is a much better measure to show off how smart you are.
People want to communicate with people, and not Scrabble robots. If you want to reach grandma or those many others who live in the “real world”, you will do best to use real world language that is comfortable for them.
The Solution: Make it Readable to 8th Graders
The best advice I can offer about marketing communications is to make it easy. I understand the temptation to use big words or complex phrases to make a point. Maybe you even talk like that when you are having beers with your buddies – but I doubt it. Let me make another example. I’ll let you tell me which one you think is better.
A.) What I wish to express is that when you use big words and complex phrases, you not only alienate people, but also stand to lose their attention.
B.) If you make it harder to read, you’ll lose people.
You can criticize me for my lengthy writing. I’m guilty of this “crime against Grandma” at times. There is a time and a place for it, though. Knowing when and where to use your wordiness is worth consideration.
If you are not already familiar, I encourage you to take a close look at popular readability formulas such as The Flesch formulas, Fry Readability Graph, or The Dale–Chall formula. It should not be shocking to find that they were each designed to be very easy to read and understand.
I’m back to my job search now. I’m hopeful there’s somebody out there who wants a real-world marketing executive that grandmas everywhere will understand – and love.
I consider myself lucky to be looking for a new job in marketing. That may sound completely insane to millions of people looking for work these days, but I’m inspired by it. I’ll tell you why.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – I’m not good at everything, and I don’t want to be. I am good at marketing, and that’s where I want to focus. It is best to have focus in any career, and perhaps this will get you thinking about a closer focus on your best assets and interests, too.
I’ve been the CEO of companies for a very long time. It is not because I am good at everything to do with a business. It is because I did an exceptional job of marketing communications – enough to build a successful corporation.
Some people have questioned why I would ever want to make a career change, but I have some excellent reasons. Being at the top of a corporation has its perks, but when it comes time for the tough decisions, they often land on the CEO’s desk. For example, in 2009, when suppliers began to falter and it was time to decide whether to pump my own money back into the company to preserve many people’s jobs a little longer, I did it. I made the decisions that a “better” CEO would never have done … and it cost me millions. I don’t want those decisions, because they hurt me, and they don’t focus on my best assets.
I guess I could call this writing my occupational therapy. It’s helping me to further define where I’ve been, and where I’m going. It’s forcing some of those tough questions that I never really put my finger on before. I believe it will even help me with better direction when I go to interview those lucky folks who seek to hire me. If I do this right, it may get you thinking about what you love about your work, and what you would rather leave behind.
Here is my list of seven things I love about my next job in marketing. I will begin with the three things I will be the most joyful to dismiss from my current role in marketing. This is not intended to be negative about my current work, but rather a forward look at what I will love about my next job role. It adds emphasis to why I made the decision to seek a new career adventure.
Love Comes in Many Forms
Number One Love About My Next Marketing Job: No More Apathetic Clients
As I make my move away from providing marketing services as a consultant, leaving apathetic clients in the past is my biggest relief. I will never – and I mean never – subject myself to explaining the benefits of marketing to another person who is any of the following:
indifferent about their business objectives, or refuses to define their business objectives.
too paralyzed by fear to make good business decisions.
convinced that marketing is an expense rather than an investment.
a big talker who is actually flat broke and trying to impress or mislead me. Only real data is allowed here.
wasting my time. I am entirely done with that. My time is worth a lot of money, but its value is greatly diminished when I waste it with people just because I’m nicer and more considerate than they are.
Number Two Love About My Next Marketing Job: Ignorant Clients Be Gone!
I think I may whistle and skip my way into the office an hour early every day for this one.
I will never be asked to speak to somebody who has not already been vetted and prepared for the valuable information I will share with them. I will never have to entertain the bottom of the barrel. That’s because my new employer will realize I’m far more valuable to the company when I’m not trying to slit my wrists with paper cuts from the 45 page proposal that I spent three weeks researching, or thrusting forks into my eyeballs when I look across the table at the zombies who just didn’t get it.
If dealing with apathetic clients is like setting me on fire, then ignorance is like throwing tequila at my flaming corpse and calling it a party.
I have often said that when it comes to marketing, there are no innocent victims … just ignorant ones. Nearly anything a person could ever hope to know about our world is on the Internet. Yet, I find that many people will still try to hide behind their ignorance as a shelter. Who are they fooling, anyway?
What’s worse is that in order to be ignorant in this great era of information, a person has to be apathetic, too. If they actually care to know enough to save their own skin, they can pick up a mouse and know it in an instant. The trouble here is that so many want-to-be clients don’t comprehend the value in paying somebody who knows the right questions to ask … so they hide under their ignorance blanket.
Here are some of my most polite answers for those ignorant people:
No! You cannot increase your return on investment without an investment. Please slap yourself for me.
No! It is not a good idea to spend more on telephone book advertising than on the Internet.
No! I will not choke you until you turn blue for being ignorant, but mostly because I don’t want that on my résumé.
No! You may not have another free consultation. Do you swipe the whole tray of free samples at the grocery store, too, deadbeat?
Number Three Love About My Next Marketing Job: Dishonest Clients Turn to Dust
I will never be ripped off for the value of a new luxury car again! Oh yes, that actually happened in my former professional life.
I guess I can sum this one up pretty quick with the words “Suture Express“. That’s the name of a company where the CFO (now CEO), Bryan Forsythe, claimed the check was in the mail (for weeks) and ripped me off, but then tried to pay me off later to take down what I wrote about them because my marketing was too good. Marketing Lesson Learned: Don’t hire the best marketing guy you can find, but then rip him off when it’s time to pay the bill. Even the best reputation management cannot make up for decisions that bad.
This one is a case study in what not to do if you ever want to market a business online. Just see how many nice things show up in the first page of Google when searching their company name. When I say this one is a case study, it really is, and it’s been referenced in keynotes at industry conferences. It is a case study that I will never need to address in my next marketing job – not a chance!
Number Four Love About My Next Marketing Job: A Great Team
I feel fortunate for my knack at finding the right people for the job. Knowing how to recognize and delegate to the best people for the task at hand has served me exceptionally well in my career. They don’t always need an MBA or a perfect résumé. They have to be right for the responsibilities they are given.
The think tanks are built in! A skill that I very often embrace is putting together think tanks of bright and talented people who can imagine the right questions and think their way through to solutions as a group. Ideas are fun to produce and shape into works of art. Thinking and being with thinkers creates great passion for me.
I look forward to working with a team where I can make magic happen and we can be glad to see each other every morning. That’s worth more than money alone, and that spins my turbines!
My new office will come complete with thinkers to put into the tank, and will also enjoy the benefits of my existing network of great thinkers.
Number Five Love About My Next Marketing Job: They Will Love Me, Too!
I am a highly dedicated person, and I take a lot of pride in doing things the right way. When I consider my new adventure, it is important that my new employer recognizes my dedication to their success. Likewise, they will be dedicated to my success.
I don’t just skip around to the next great thing in my career. I have three more kids and many more years of experience than I did the last time I changed jobs. I am not wishy-washy about my work, and I don’t plan to leave anytime soon.
My next employer will appreciate my dedication, and they will notice very early that “This Murnahan guy doesn’t think like those other applicants. He has something special in mind.” They’ll be right, too. I have some very special ideas in store for my next employer – and they will love it!
Number Six Love About My Next Marketing Job: The Location is Amazing
As I discussed this with my wife, we realized that the location of my next marketing job will be incredible. We will enjoy a great city that is mostly new to us, and we will discover many amazing things to do as a husband and wife with three brilliant kids. We will see our new adventure with amazement, and we’re each very excited to know where it will be!
Number Seven Love About My Next Marketing Job: I Get Paid for This!
With all the great things that come with my next marketing job, I’ve got to say that getting paid for doing what I love is fantastic! I’ll probably be paid a whole lot. It will not match my previous seven digit earnings, but it’s going to be a nice income for doing the job I would choose if all jobs paid exactly the same thing.
There you have it. That’s the list of seven things I love about my next marketing job. Do you have a list burning to get out? I know I could sure go on with a Top 100 list. For now, this one feels like a great start. I hope it will help you to think about your own list.
I have just one more thing to add. If you have a good lead for where I may find my next marketing job, please introduce me or pass this along to others. Perhaps it will eventually land on the right desk of that one special person at that one special company for me. Thank you kindly!
WANTED: A Glass of Water
People really are friendly. At least that’s my view. They may not always have a great day, and they may be disappointing at times, but I still love people. It feels great to express it, too. Most people really do have a kind side. As long as that’s the side you’re appealing to, the result is like magic.
Even when you doubt them, sometimes you’ve just got to take the plunge, and believe in people.
I want to share something I find fascinating about the nature of people. I also hope that since my blog is about marketing and business, you will relate to how this applies to your business. I’m even going to point out what I believe is the most popular thing on the whole Internet – even more popular than sex and bacon – and I think you’ll agree with me.
Stop and Smell the People … Err – Roses
None of us would be very good without the others around us. I imagine that same need for people is a strong reason social media is so popular. We get to connect, share, brainstorm, encourage, and gain a connection with more people – awesome people. So, I’ll repeat it – I love people – even the disappointing ones who are having a bad day.
People may not always realize exactly why they do it at the time, but being good to others makes them feel good. I believe it is a baseline reflex that is built into each of us, and those who neglect that reflex do so at their own peril.
Even when there is not a large perceived personal benefit, and sometimes especially because there is not a large perceived personal benefit, people move together for a common action. I’ve witnessed it my whole life, and it still amazes me every day.
Making others feel good spreads far and wide. In fact, I’d like to challenge you to find anything more “viral” on the Internet than a smile. If you doubt it, just consider how many times you’ve seen this: 🙂
Job-Seeking Taught Me a Lesson
What brought this to mind for me today is the friendliness of people when I recently asked them to assist me in a very meaningful career endeavor. I reached out to a small handful of people for friendly advice and assistance to reach Steve Phelps, Senior Vice President and CMO at NASCAR. I humbly asked a circle of friends for introductions to others who could provide me with even more friendly advice and introductions. I didn’t ask for a large sacrifice, or a huge piece of their time, but I was amazed to find them giving their time freely, and without seeking a return.
You see, I’m a marketing guy with a passion for racing. It makes sense that Steve Phelps received the very first résumé and cover letter I sent in what seems like a squillion years. People knew it means a lot to me, so they gave freely.
It was as if I had simply asked them for a glass of water, and they were delighted to help.
For those people, the greatest return is perhaps just my sincere thanks, and a smile they can spread to others. They made me feel good, and knowing how it feels when I do something similar, I know it made them feel good. I’m not selling anything here, but I even wrote a book that focused on the great benefits of being good to others … and imagine what happened … it made me feel very good!
The Pursuit of Meaningful Work
I’ll back up just a bit. In December, I decided that I would stop taking new marketing clients in 2012. I announced it, but I said I would have another announcement to come. On January 2nd, I solidified it, and officially bid sayonara to mediocrity. Today’s announcement is where I’m going next.
I’ve heard it surprised some people when I stopped taking clients. Those who know me probably did not imagine where I decided I wanted to go with this career. That’s because it sounds like a step down … and it is, in some ways. I’ve run a successful corporation for over a decade, and before that, I was retired for a while and resting on the good fortune of a previous endeavor. Some people would ask what in the heck a guy like that wants with a job working for somebody else. I’ll tell you just that.
I’ve been a CEO and business owner my entire adult life. I’ve participated in board meetings and advised corporations since I was a teenager. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot, and enjoyed a lot. I’ve also been the guy who is handed many of the hardest decisions. I’m good at decisions, for the most part, but one I battled with for a while is to change my career and stop being the guy who is supposed to be good at everything. I want to focus on the things I am the best at, and that’s marketing. I feel it is a healthy and productive change for me, and I’m prepared to go “both feet in”.
Maybe this will encourage you, too. I hope it will.
Going “Both Feet In”
I’ve witnessed many people who want a lot in life, but are afraid to ask for it. I think that kind of fear affects each of us on some level, at some time. Asking for something simple from a few of my inner circle of friends has reminded me that it is important to ask for what you want, and recognize that many people will go out of their way to be helpful. I teach this principle, and I do it for clients every day, but it is easy to neglect even my own good advice.
I don’t often ask a lot from people around me, so this was a really great reminder to practice what I preach. I hope you will take this good advice from me. Ask for it! Have a call to action! If you don’t, you’re missing out on most of the best results.
You will not always get it just right, but if you never take a risk, you may never know what you’ve missed. I don’t want to live with those doubts, so I believe there are times to go “both feet in”.
Here’s a little Racing 101 course that you can apply to your marketing.
The term “both feet in” is a term used in racing when you’ve tried to recover from a slide and the car is not in agreement. You let go of the steering wheel (before its rapid spinning breaks your hand) and put both feet to the floor – one on the brake, and one on the clutch. It’s a thrill ride, but not in the way we drivers prefer it. It slows us down, and hopefully keeps us off the wall. It quickly resets our objectives.
That's one of my Corvettes, after I drove with both feet in on a practice day.
This happens when you know that steering and throttle alone will not correct the car’s angle, and it’s time to save what you can of the car and your safety. All the while, time moves slowly, and you just want to get back in the race.
For experienced drivers, this only happens once in a long while, and preferably only in practice. As out of control as it may sound, it’s often well-calculated and happens when we’ve decided to lay on the gas a bit harder and earlier as we come out of a turn. Sometimes you have to push the limits to know the limits, and sometimes you have to take a risk. That’s how you get big speed on the straights, and that’s how you win races.
I love racing. I even love analogies about racing, so I’ll give you one. I believe today is a great day to push the throttle hard and risk a “both-feet-in” ride. I’m pushing the throttle on a new career directive, and I hope you can offer me a friendly hand to exit the turn with more speed than ever.
I’ll describe the race course, and I hope you’ll find it as easy as a glass of water. I also hope you will find inspiration in seeking a glass of water for yourself.
How About That Glass of Water?
My “both feet in” moment is when I ask you to help me reach the right person with my message. Here’s the simple “glass of water” I’m seeking:
If you have a friend, colleague, or know a company that you believe can benefit from my skills of 25 years in marketing, please introduce me.
If you have a connection with anybody at NASCAR, BMW, Porsche, Mazda, Ford, Audi, or any other automotive, racing-oriented, engineering, or high-technology companies – or recruiters for such things – please introduce me. I’m not married to automotive, either. Like I said, I love people, and the people and culture of the company will matter more than the industry … or even the pay scale. Most importantly, they must appreciate the difference between just doing something, and doing it well.
Take a look at my résumé to find out what I know about my area of expertise, and get to know a little more about me. I have extensive experience in marketing and business consulting. I want to share that experience for the benefit of my next employer.
Let’s brainstorm. I’m an analytic guy with a lot of imagination. I may have some good ideas for you, too. I’m not selfish with the thoughts that race through my mind, and I’m usually happy to share some inspiring ideas.
Please spread this message and help me with my goal of finding the right match in an employer. That would mean a lot to me, and you have nothing to lose. Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are some great places to start. Anything is appreciated.
It will not cost you any more than a glass of water to help me, and it will most certainly make somebody smile … and probably more than only me.
Does that sound self-serving? I guess maybe it does, but if you know me at all, you know I would do the same for you and I would smile the rest of the day just for feeling helpful.
YourNew.com Racing Corvette Z06: Driver Mark Aaron Murnahan
Check Your Branding Gargoyles
Your gargoyles say more about your brand than you may think. They are your front line. If your marketing doesn’t match, you’re asking for trouble.
I recently responded to a blog article written by Kay Ross, who wrote about the faces we put forward in a marketing message. Kay’s article is titled “In Your Marketing, To Thine Own Self Be True“, and it reminded me of many observations I have made about the overall feel of companies during my career, and personal encounters.
That “feel” of a company is what makes up a brand, and when it’s done well it involves every aspect of the company, and extends far beyond the marketing department. I want to share some thoughts about your brand, and I believe you will be able to relate to this from both a consumer and business viewpoint.
The topic which was addressed in Kay’s blog came from one of her subscribers who asked the question as follows: “Which is more important when communicating with your audience: say things you really want to say, or say things that people want to hear?”
Should there really be such a disparity between the two? If the marketing is reaching the appropriate audience, it should not have to be one or the other. The way I interpreted this question, it led me to imagine the question as whether it is acceptable to fake it in your marketing. If you know my brand at all, you can place your bets now about where I stand.
Let Them Love You, But Realize You Cannot Force Them
As I read that question, I immediately thought of something I once wrote titled “Polarize Your Audience and Stop Making Everybody Happy“. In that piece, I used examples of companies like Apple and Google, who understand their brand enough to stand behind it.
You will never make everybody love you – so don’t even try. Trying to be everything to everybody will only serve to dilute your brand integrity and create a “wishy-washy” brand message. People don’t like that in politics, and they don’t like it elsewhere, either. That doesn’t mean ignoring anyone or treating them badly … but you should realize there is always a good, better, and best customer for any company.
Instead of creating a false brand loyalty, I suggest looking closer for the ones who will find a connection with your brand, before you assume you should re-brand. You’ve got one brand to work with, so you should understand it well, and embrace it. Kay and I agree that it is important to know what you are about, and stick with it. I think most people would agree with that point, once they give it a little consideration.
Don’t Make it “Us Versus Them” … Make it “Us With Them”
Many companies struggle to strike a perfect balance between what others want from them, and what they are willing and capable of delivering. This means there is a gap between the two parties – the company and the consumer. In most cases, there is a huge gap, and it’s why you would be wasting your time to try and sell me knitting needles. This is exactly why it is extremely important for any company offering anything to anybody to realize the message I shared in an article titled ““Everybody” is Not Your Target Market!” Please feel free to read that thought provoking piece. This one will still be here when you get back.
Gaps Between Companies and Consumers
Shrinking that gap between the company and consumers is extremely important, but try to imagine it like another kind of relationship for a moment. When I was a single guy, I tried to make myself more attractive to ladies – but not just any ladies. I wanted a certain type who would want what I offered and understand my vision. I could have let it change me completely, but wouldn’t that eventually fail?
Try a Friendlier GargoyleI wanted the type who fit my offer just right. If I faked who I was, it would have potentially led me down a really ugly path of disillusioned ladies – ladies who would warn the other ladies – and it could have left me single even longer.
I fixed my hair just right, I shaved extra close, and I adapted to things like closing the bathroom door. That’s right – when I met my wife, Peggy, I would close the bathroom door if I needed to stink the place up. That doesn’t mean I’d go out of my way to hide the fact that I stink the place up sometimes … I just kept it a bit more courteous. I didn’t fart at the dinner table, either … I waited until we made it out the restaurant door.
Now imagine if I just held it until she left. Can you imagine how much gas and poo I would have held back? Then imagine if she had married me for all my amazing (but fake) charm. I mean, can you imagine finding a non-pooing, non-gaseous guy? She would have surely loved me even more, but what if I had sealed the deal based on that fakeness?
Wouldn’t she be disappointed later, when she found out that I can curl the bathroom paint? Wouldn’t she have really hated it once she realized that each of our three babies poo, too?
Now put that in terms of a company brand message. Even pooing companies with gas are charming and “perfect” to somebody. In the case of marketing, that usually means a lot of people. By reaching that perfect segment, you can encounter something I’ve said many times, and that is as follows:
I don’t try to please everybody, and that pleases some people very much.
Perception Shaping Versus Waiting to Poo
Shaping the perception of consumers is important, but letting your integrity slip just to tell them what they want to hear is not the right answer. I believe that each and every company can do a better job of closing the gap between the company and their ideal consumer. It requires research and paying close attention, and when companies can get out of their own way, that market research and paying attention serves them very well. What I refuse to advocate in is glazing over the things that make the company what it is, and creating a false perception that can later be discovered as such.
In the article by Kay Ross, she cited something I said in a piece titled “Great Marketing is Not About You … Hogwash!” In that article, I explained ways that is really is about you, and that the people of an organization are what makes it special.
About Those Gargoyles …
I want to share what I wrote in my response to Kay’s article. I’ll paraphrase, but I invite you to see her original article and the comments there, as well.
Is This Your Gargoyle?
My take-off, based on the article, was to address how company cultures spread throughout the company, and how valuable or destructive that can be. I based it on things I have seen over a long period of time, as a marketing consultant, a corporate officer, and a consumer. I suspect you can find instances where something similar has created an impression with you, about a company.
In my experience, if a company has a mean gargoyle as their gatekeeper, it is easy to expect it throughout the company. On the other hand, if that gargoyle is helpful and friendly, it is often a sign of the company’s culture – their brand. If it is faked in the marketing, it becomes obvious very quickly.
You can experience this right now, by simply considering how you feel about any given restaurant, retail store, doctor’s office, cellular provider, or any other brand experience you’ve had. Somebody set the brand feel in motion from the very start. Whether that came directly from the marketing department or elsewhere, it begins to forge your view of the company. If that brand message is inconsistent with your experience, it is easy to become very critical of the company. It can also become very enticing to share that feeling with others. Thus, it is wise to know your brand and not waiver from it.
Here is my longer answer, based on Kay’s blog:
I believe that the personality of a company shows through very clearly, and in many ways. If you try to cover it with a veil, it only serves a wasteful agenda, and I’ll get to that, but I’ll give an example first.
I very recently reached out to the senior vice president and CMO of a large and extraordinarily visible corporation. When I called for a follow-up and reached his assistant, I was met with a very friendly and helpful demeanor from his personal “gargoyle”.
In decades of dealing with everything from large corporations to small “mom and pop” companies, I have always found a strong similarity in the attitudes of people across a whole company … from top to bottom, and side to side. People adapt to their companies, and you can tell a lot about the company by how those people treat you.
Sure, it’s easy to discount the fact that the first impression sets an expected tone, which it does, but I find it to be true that the culture of a company spreads to all edges of the organization, and can seldom be faked very well.
Since I’m not citing broad statistics (although I could), you may imagine that I’m just imagining this, but consider your own experiences for a clearer picture.
When you look at it in this way, doesn’t it make good sense to show off the true culture of the company, rather than faking it? Although it can often influence products or services, that culture does not exist within the products or the services themselves. It exists in the people, and it becomes integrated across the company. It strongly influences their brand, regardless of what their marketing portrays.
When I say that trying to cover it up only serves a wasteful agenda, I look at it like this: If your company is not likable, and people don’t feel good about it, the company will probably never be able to buy enough faceless and nameless advertisements to make up for the cost of lost opportunities.
Without the people, a company is just a hollow shell. That goes for all shapes and sizes of companies. They may last a long time, but they seldom realize extraordinary growth and the full potential of their market.
In summary, please consider this: If you stray from the things which make up your brand just to make your marketing appealing, it is best to revisit those gargoyles and get them in shape, first.
The value of “human collateral” should not be neglected. The people within your organization make up a huge portion of the brand, and it is nearly impossible to convincingly change it without changing the people, themselves.
If you project a brand message that is not consistent with the consumer’s experience, they will see through it. When they do, the outcome is not favorable, it is best to get it right from the beginning.
I turned forty today. I’m happy about it, too. It doesn’t really feel like forty quite yet, but I’ve done it! I have lived long enough to have some well-earned gray hair, and a good amount of wisdom that comes with it. For such a young guy, of course.
My forty years have come with a lot of lessons. Having spent well over half of those years as a marketing professional and business owner, I’ve learned a lot about marketing. I’ve shared large volumes of my experiences here on the Internet, and I feel great to say that I’ve helped a lot of people with that experience.
One of the things I learned about marketing is the value of brevity. Keep it short. Keep it easy. Don’t get too confusing with all of your wordiness. I learned it, and then I threw it out the window for the purpose of this blog. Brevity matters when you are selling something, but I am not. If you can embrace some blatant verbosity today, I’ll reward you with some valuable real life marketing lessons.
Did you get that? It’s my birthday, but I’m trying to give you a gift. I guess that’s lesson one. When you give more, you receive more, and it’s an important principle of marketing. It’s a principle that is far beyond most people’s patience threshold, but to the ones who get it, it is invaluable.
I’ve shared a lot of helpful principles and practices of marketing on this blog. Much of it comes directly from things I learned through decades in the marketing profession. I feel good about that, and I know I’ve made an impact. I’ve helped a lot of people reach their goals, both business and personal. I plan to continue that work, but in a different way.
The Announcement That Changed My Life: Sayonara Mediocrity
At forty years old, I decided it is time to change things up. I intended to be fully retired by now, and a few years ago, I was actually well-prepared for it. I had plans to race cars full time, and my work was going to focus only on things I love. My bank is not as big as it used to be after somebody screwed up the world’s economy, so I’m still working. That should not keep me from pursuing the work I love, so I’m doing it … I’m making one of those scary changes I’ve encouraged so many others to make.
As I announced a few weeks ago, I stopped taking new clients (of course, that is unless somebody with really big goals and a ginormous budget comes calling). It’s very liberating. Now I feel even more free than ever if I need to call somebody out for being an apathetic bonehead. I’m also inspired to believe that if I tell you something, you’ll feel confident there is not an underhanded agenda just to sucker you out of your hard-earned money.
A challenging fact of marketing is that the best marketing consultants will never receive as much benefit as the client. It’s why many independent marketing consultants have their own products or services to market, outside of the marketing industry. The best marketers know that marketing is an investment rather than wasted money, and that if they build their own business, they will always be paid far more than by boosting a client’s return on investment.
Sometimes clients will find themselves skeptical about who receives the greatest benefits, but it is the client and not the marketing consultant. I explained this in an article titled “Find Good SEO: Why Good SEO Don’t Seek Your Business“. Being regularly at odds with that inherent negativity and skepticism in the market is why I’m changing things up and creating some significant career moves. No, it’s not because I’m not good at it … I’m just ready to move on to something more positive and inspiring.
I have no reason nor desire to lie to you or mislead you, and I cannot recall a time when I intentionally misled anybody about marketing. So slow down and stop worrying about the next thing to click.
Velocity is Great in a Market, But Sometimes You Must Slow Down
Rushing around the Internet looking for the next bit of marketing enlightenment is not where you really want to find yourself in another 15 minutes or half hour … or three months … or next year. That’s what everybody else is doing, and if you think searching the web and looking for the next bottle to rub and hoping a genie will pop out is a better option, you’re likely to get pretty average results.
Settle down and look for the greater benefits. A mathematical fact of the online marketing space is that an average result is abysmal. It’s true! Most companies really stink at reaching an online market, and never get much out of it. I find that it is very often because they don’t slow down – breathe – get some oxygen in their brains and pay attention. They don’t pay attention to their market, and they don’t pay attention to things that can help them to reach their market more effectively. They are often all mouth and no ears, and rushing too hard to get things right that they get it all wrong. That’s them, and I hope you will make the choice to not be one of them.
Honesty in Marketing: It’s Not All Evil!
Marketing is often viewed with a sizable dose of skepticism. If somebody will gain from it, there is a frequent perception that somebody also loses. It’s not true, but this skeptical belief often hurts people in their own marketing, based on how they view marketing as a whole. If I am introduced to something as a result of marketing, and I trade my money because I wanted it, did somebody automatically lose? I got the thing I wanted, and the company marketing to me got what they wanted.
Yes, there are a lot of dirty scoundrels who will lie to you about marketing, but in the big picture, dishonest companies just don’t make it very long. It reminds me of a principle I implemented to create one of my most successful business endeavors, and it was a single word. It came to me when I asked my wife and business partner to summarize what made us stand out from the crowd, and what made us better than the competition. She said “It’s easy, Mark. It all comes down to a single word … Integrity.” That moment will never leave me, and it has provided me a great amount of success.
Marketing Wisdom: It Only Appears Simple
Even today it feels strange and almost surreal to say that I’ve been in marketing for 25 years … but I have. I was raised into marketing, and I was sitting in boardrooms offering my opinions from the time I was a teenager. I started my first company when I was so young that my mother had to sign the legal papers … for years.
It took a long time to make good sense of it all, in business. In fact, I still utterly stink at some points in business, but the part I do understand is marketing. I know from many years of running successful (and some not so successful) businesses that marketing will make or break a company. They don’t make it easy to understand, either. Even in the best universities, they often talk about a lot of theories and concepts, but where the fork meets the food, it takes some stomach-churning hard work to see real success. I know, because I’ve done that, and if you ask me, or any of my peers who have earned anything more than six-digits per year, you will find very few of them who came by it with simplicity.
Stop buying into people’s notions that it is simple. If it was really so simple, it probably wouldn’t be very profitable.
TAM, SAM, SOM, ROI, SEO, SMM, and PECKERs
There are enough acronyms and industry buzz phrases to bring my lunch back to the top of my throat. Some of those acronyms really matter, such as TAM (Total Available Market), SAM (Served Available Market), SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market), ROI (Return On Investment), and many others. These matter in huge ways, but they are very frequently misunderstood or overlooked because of shortsightedness, which often comes from a frightened accountant who knows little about marketing or how the company actually gets the money to pay their salary.
In small businesses, it is often because, although the person in charge was good enough in their field to start a company, they were not good enough at business to understand that being good at a trade does not mean being good in business. Being good in business means knowing where your weaknesses are, and knowing how to fill those gaps with people who are as good or better at their field of knowledge than you. That’s right, the best business leaders learn to effectively delegate what is out of their league. It’s why I don’t handle my own bookkeeping, and why people in other trades are usually let down when they try their hand at marketing.
Advertising is Only a Very Small Part of Marketing
I find that a lot of people imagine marketing to mean advertising what they offer for sale. This is only a small part of what makes up marketing. Marketing addresses many other things, including a whole lot of math, creativity, strategy, and so much more. An easy example is to look at anything you have for sale, and answer the question of why you priced it at the level you have. Is it because of its cost to produce? Did you leave it up to the competition to decide your price? Did you ever actually do the research to know what it’s worth – and not just that – to the right audience? Did you get that research just right, or is it really so impossible that you made some costly mistakes by using guesswork instead of basing it on the right factors?
The ways that marketing influences a business are far too numerous to list in a single blog. I hope you’ll think about some of those things you may have overlooked. I welcome you to my blog archive to help get the wheels turning. There are hundreds of articles there, and I think you’ll find them very useful if you slow down.
Throw Out Your Sandwich and Make a New One
I hear a lot of people regurgitating the last thing they heard or read about marketing, and how fresh the latest idea is. I guess maybe it was fresh sometime before it hit a squillion blogs, but now it’s like a day-old tuna sandwich sitting out in the sun.
Great marketing is seldom a matter of seeking the latest and greatest thing. Following trends is important, but following them too closely that you follow the mistakes is often a train wreck in the making. The things that work are not just following what everybody else fervently exclaims will work. Great marketing requires research, testing, and discovering what works – really works – for your company, and being the one all of those trend-talkers are talking about. It is not about tweeting, Facebooking, Flabunctuating … or whatever the next big trend is.
I’ve written volumes about social media, including hundreds of thousands of words, and even a book. I marvel at how many people think it is something new. Did you think social media is new? It’s how I met my wife, well over a decade ago … and many close friends years before that. Social media helped me to grow several of my companies quite abundantly, too, but social media is not a unicorn net or a leprechaun trap.
One of its greatest uses is to listen and learn about what makes your market tick … and then use that information. Many people are too short-sighted to take things to a new level of analysis, and understand what to do with a good analysis. Most are unwilling or unable to dig deep into their creativity and find ways to make their brand stick out like a sexy model passing out free bacon sandwiches and all expense paid trips to “Available-Sexy-Model-and-Free-Bacon-Sandwichville”.
I witness many scared companies making scared decisions, but I’ve watched a lot more scared companies fail than I care to count … and that’s because they don’t count. The ones that count are the ones willing and fearless enough to do what it takes to be more like you want your company to be. Not like the bottle-rubbing, instant-enlightenment-seeking, one shot wonder at the competitor down the street – like you – or at least your vision of you. So stop being scared! Go out on a limb. That’s how people succeed in the real world of business.
Fear of Failure Destroys Marketing Efforts
I know the extreme power of fear. I have witnessed it throughout my career, and I’ve even allowed myself to be a casualty of fear at times. There is nothing easy about making the kind of commitment it requires to be successful. This goes for anything you really want in your life, whether it’s a spouse, a family, a new home, a new car, or an improved bottom line in your business. It takes a leap, but it doesn’t have to be simply on faith.
If you think about your marketing as a foundation of your company, which it really is, you will find yourself on a much stronger path. I know, it’s easy to try and argue the point. The accountants think accounting is the foundation, the attorneys think the legal structure makes the foundation, and the people who created the company think it’s all about the product or service … but that’s really not true.
Businesses simply do not work without being marketed. Even in the most obscure and complex examples you can throw out there, the biggest factor between success and failure of two equal companies really does come down to how well they are marketed.
I Believe You Could Do Better With Your Marketing
How could I put this any more clearly? You can do better! Failure to control your fear impulses and continuing to worry about what will not work is a fast track to failure. Try thinking more along the lines of what you stand to gain, instead of cowering to the fear of what you stand to lose. Then consider what you continue to lose effortlessly because you’re waiting. There is a steep cost of missed business opportunities. In fact, it is often the worst scenario of all. Getting out of your easy chair to face your fears is a huge factor in success, and I know it from experience.
I turned ideas into millions of dollars within only a short time after completing my 8th grade education. It didn’t take an MBA, or however you spell those fancy degrees hanging on the “smart guy’s” wall. It took research, creativity, and a good supplier of balls. I said balls, and you can call me a bad marketer for that … but if you want to know about selling balls – or selling anything else – read this article to get your thinking up and bouncing: “SEO, Social Media, and Marketing Balls”
Stop worrying about the cost of marketing done right, and start focusing on the positive outcome if you do. There are plenty of chickens out there, and I hope you aren’t one of them … and if you are, I hope you’ll make a commitment to change it.
Some Personal Lessons I Learned About Marketing
When I consider why I advocate for people to take their marketing more seriously and stop waiting for “something” to change, I look inward at how it has changed my life. I imagine the things that would never have happened without marketing, and I’ll give you a glimpse.
I dropped out of school at age 15 to start my first company. That could have gone quite miserably without good marketing.
I retired (the first time) at age 25. Without good marketing and having guts, that would have sucked for the average 15 year old dropout.
I met my wife in 2000 by using good marketing skills … online … with social media. Without that, I would not have the three wonderful kids I enjoy so much today.
I learned to competitively control automobiles at over 170 miles per hour (270+ KPH). It took a lot of marketing to own a race team. It is what I wanted, and because of good marketing, I made it happen.
I learned that without climbing out on a limb and having the courage to embrace the immense value of marketing, I would have very few of the things that bring me joy and sustenance today.
I learned that sharing what I know feels very good, but even better when people will use it to improve their own lives.
I learned a whole lot more, but that’s why I have an archive, and that’s why this blog is not finished yet. Please subscribe if you want to keep learning with me.
I have no intention of explaining all that I have learned about marketing in a single blog article. That would be impossible. I hope that you will be willing to take a good look and accept some useful tips from a guy who has been around the block. I hope you will bookmark my blog archive and keep coming back to feed your brain with some useful marketing advice. I also hope you will subscribe for more to come soon. Don’t miss the point that it will make a lot more difference to your business than it will mine.
I also welcome you to get to know me. I’m a very approachable guy who loves the field of marketing, and I’m always delighted to be helpful.
