creative marketing Archives - Page 4 of 12 by Mark Murnahan

In Marketing, It Will Fly or It Won’t: What Grounds Your Marketing?

Persistence is important in marketing. If you give up too soon, you could miss a huge opportunity. On the other side of the equation, if you are trying to fly a lead balloon, it is best to stop before wasting any more time and money.

I want to inspire you with some questions about your marketing, and your business challenges. You don’t have to answer, but I hope you will. So, let’s start thinking about some things that can ground your marketing.

Know When to Change Course

How do you define the point when it is no longer productive to keep doing what you are doing? If you don’t know when to implement changes, it can destroy your company. What is the right answer? Is it when the competition starts taking away market share? Is it when the budget runs out? Is it when the company goes completely broke? Is it before all of this begins to go wrong, and you can take a proactive approach? Let’s consider this quandary, because although it may not be comfortable, knowing when to make changes is imperative to the growth of a company.

Have you ever pulled the plug on a marketing campaign? I have, and sometimes it was too late, but other times it was too early. I lived, and I learned. It sometimes felt like I was one of The Wright Brothers, crashing airplane after airplane trying to get it right. If you have ever really tried to make a business fly, you have probably felt the same way. Sure, there is value in mistakes, but there is even more value in learning to avoid them!

Look at the efforts in this early flight video, and tell me if it feels a bit familiar to you.

Marketing really doesn’t need to be so painful. The information you need to know is right there at your fingertips. Yes, right there at the computer you are gazing into, but it will only help if you learn how to use it. Even then, it does no good if you don’t actually make the tough decision of putting it into action.

If Your Marketing Won’t Fly, You Need to Know Why

How do you avoid the failures and cut straight to the part when your marketing soars like an eagle? That is tricky, and it is as unique as the company itself. You cannot eliminate all mistakes, but you can come a lot closer, don’t you think? I think we all can.

Something that many companies hesitate to embrace is that a marketing campaign should be carefully researched, or it should not be launched at all. When companies neglect the value of market research and planning, it is usually because they have already reached a point of desperation. This is often geared to cut corners, but it is about the worst place to make cuts. Another reason I see companies skip market research and planning is because they simply fail to realize how much they don’t know about growing a business. They may know their business, but know little about how to make the business grow.

Shortsighted marketing is especially common as social media marketing has become a perceived savior of the business world. This can all be used to your advantage, but not if you are doing the same things, and making the same marketing mistakes the competitors are.

Social Media Made Marketing Easy … Mistakes and All!

During my 20 plus years in marketing, I have made a lot of observations. What I have seen in recent years is a far greater tendency for under-funded and poorly planned companies to try and emulate competitors, rather than stand on their own unique merits. I call it imitation marketing, and imitation marketing means imitating failures, too. It does not fly well.

Along with the social media marketing craze where everybody wants to become a marketing professional, a lot of talent has been discovered. Far more often, it has led to massive amounts of waste created by squillions of people trying to earn as they learn, instead of earning based on their experience, knowledge, and marketing talent. I’m not exaggerating when I say that social media has as many downsides as it does upsides, and this is a huge downside!

Projections became more like a drunken bar room shootout for a lot of companies, and based less on solid mathematics and science, and more on luck. This makes absolutely no sense to me, because there is no other form of marketing that is more measurable than that which is performed with a computer. Computers record data and organize it very nicely, but some people still question the measurement, or the ability to hit the target. That sounds completely absurd to me, but then again, I have worked with it every day, since the 1990’s.

A Crash at the Air Show

Wouldn't Orville Wright's Diary Help You Fly?

I often watch unprepared marketing departments and small business owners running off customers by crashing their plane at the air show. They finally get an audience, and they make a bad maneuver. Worse yet is when they strafe the audience.

Firing into the crowd and hoping something hits the target is popular, but it yields a low return on investment (ROI). In military or police terms, it is a “spray and pray” effort. If you spray enough bullets, and pray to the warrior gods, you may get through the battle alive.

Failure to implement a proper marketing strategy is often why small businesses remain small. I don’t think it is because they don’t want to do more business, but rather because they are overwhelmed.

There is much more to running any business than just the marketing. A challenge exists in realizing that good marketing is what makes a company successful. Marketing is what makes the difference between Coca Cola and other drinks that didn’t make it. It is a pretty terrible area to make mistakes, or take shortcuts.

There are many potential points of failure in any organization, but making your company more marketable, and actually marketing it well, can make the difference between huge success and utter failure. It makes the difference in whether it will fly, or it will not.

What Challenges Your Marketing Flight?

I want to know what you think. What are your biggest challenges, or the challenges you see other companies facing? What do you think companies are missing in their marketing? Is it ineffective market research, lack of marketing creativity, failure to budget, fear of loss, or the monster of all monsters … complacence?

You name it … I want your opinions, and I hope your insight may help others.

Let’s do some learning together. I would not ask you these questions if I didn’t want to learn, too. If you struggle with an answer, here is another way to look at it: What obstacles do you think hold a company back from hiring an experienced flight engineer like myself? Please share your insight.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Target Your Marketing and Love Your Customers Again

Do you sell something that has a potential market of “everyone”? Maybe you sell widgets, doodads, or gadgets that everybody in their right mind should own. If you treat your marketing that way, you are probably pretty frustrated.

I learned this the hard way, many years ago, by thinking that “everybody” was my target market. I remember when I sought out my market with thoughts like “Who wouldn’t buy my stuff? They must be crazy if they don’t buy!” Then I parked my bicycle and quit my paper route.

I learned what it meant to target my marketing. I stopped wasting time and money trying to reach everybody with a good reason to buy my stuff. The result was that I sold a lot more stuff.

When I stopped viewing everybody as a potential customer, I also stopped seeing them all as the “deadbeats” who wore me down and just wouldn’t buy. I started loving them more each day, and it turned out that my business grew massively.

Carefully conceived targeted marketing is a huge factor of success in a business. I don’t just mean targeting your market for every customer who will buy, either. I mean targeting your market for the customers you want, and who will help your business to grow.

I want to help you to avoid this common oversight, because it is in the top five most costly business errors. It runs close behind killing a hooker (and getting caught), or naming your child Bernie Madoff.

If you try to market something by believing your ideal target market is “everybody”, it is like hunting elephants in a termite mound. You will find a lot of termites there, but very few elephants. Many people only believe this after a “less-than-ideal” profit and loss statement proves it to them.

Marketing to Morons, Idiots, and Fools

Sure, I still think that most people are just totally insane if they don’t write me a check, give me their credit card, or provide me the passwords to their massive offshore bank account. They should at least send me a box of cigars and a bottle of Bourbon to butter me up. I mean, after all, I know it is mathematically factual that I sell something which returns more money than its cost. What kind of moron can’t see that?

Let me tell you something you you probably already know. There are a whole bunch of crazy, “idiots, morons, and fools” out there who will not buy what you sell. Even if you are selling the cure for cancer, free money, or a magical 24 hour orgasm, it will not sell itself. It will also not sell to “everybody”. Marketing to “everybody” as a prospective buyer would not even be a wise marketing approach if Coca Cola, McDonald’s, and Microsoft merged.

When you consider it closely, maybe they are not all such idiots, morons and fools. Instead, maybe it is your lack of targeted marketing, using data-driven customer modeling and calculated market segmentation.

Targeted marketing is exactly why I don’t write this blog for idiots, morons, and fools. I write it for people like you, who will appreciate good marketing ideas, pass them along to others, and add to the conversation with your comments. Actually, I don’t rely on the blog comments so much, because my target audience is pretty shy, but they do share a lot.

Target Market Segmentation Challenge

My challenge to you is to take the time and effort to segment your market more carefully. Start thinking in terms of demographics, psychographics, geographics, and who your best customers really are. What spins their fan, and what can you do to make your brand more like sex, bacon, and other things they love? Where will you reach them, and what will inspire them? Use what you know, expand what you know, and get creative with your marketing.

Targeted marketing seems very foreign to many people, but the good news is that this includes your competition. Just like everybody is not a customer, everybody is not a marketing genius either. Understanding a market requires marketing talent, which comes with practice, accurate data, and the right set of marketing tools. Unless you are willing to hire a professional, you will need to practice, and practice a lot.

I think of it like a trip to the gun range. Sure, I like to bring a lot of ammunition, but it is even more important to use the right gun, and learn how to aim it well. A sniper rifle is best, but many people fear that level of commitment to their marketing. So it is best to at least learn how to aim what you have.

A Lot of Ammunition is Good, But Sharper Aim is Better!

Practice Targeting Your Market

Maybe you believed that optimizing your marketing reach would be easy in the beginning, but you surely know better by now. Look at your market penetration and consider these questions:

Are getting all you can (or at least all you want)?
Are you getting huge buyout offers?
Are you expanding your company at astonishing rates that would make Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg blush?

If your answers are “no”, then you need more practice to hone your skills. It will not kill you, and in the off chance it does, it was nice knowing you. If you are not afraid of dying, keep reading for thoughtful encouragement.

Practice your creative thinking. Practice your analytical thinking. Figure out who wants what you have, and what they will respond to favorably. Don’t try to reach them all. I know that it is hard to overlook all of those potential customers, but you will reach a whole lot more of them if your marketing is targeted appropriately.

If growing your business really matters to you, be ready to lose some sleep for it. Perfect customer modeling takes a lot of marketing talent and creativity. These are things you can improve, with enough effort.

Back to the gun analogy: You can make a lot of noise and scatter a lot of lead with a 12 gauge shotgun. It is particularly good for scaring your customers away, but not very good for hitting them in the heart, where you want your brand to penetrate. When you hit your market in the heart, you will find a lot more love flowing in both directions.

Shotgun Marketing Scares More Birds Away

If you don’t have the time or skill to become a true marksman, it is best to either rework your schedule to develop your abilities, or find a good hired gun.

I will part with some articles related to targeted marketing. There are more in my blog archive, and more yet to come. Check them out and subscribe for more bits of marketing brain food coming soon.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

SEO and Social Media Reward: $5,000 for Introduction

Updated 13 June 2011 — This offer is re-opened through 30 June 2011.

I am going to give you an opportunity to pick up $5,000 just for making a simple introduction. This is not a hoax, and I really will put $5,000 in your sweaty palms for introducing me to “the right one”.

Great weather is coming, and I am pretty sure that most people can find a way to spend a surplus of $5,000 this spring. Cruise ships, sandy beaches, mortgage payments, utility bills, and many other amazing delights are right around the corner.

I hope that $5,000 will be worth a few minutes of your time to rack your brain, peel through your list of contacts, and think hard about whether you know this person I am seeking. Mostly, I hope that you will do it because I am a good fit for that acquaintance of yours, and because we deserve to meet each other.

So that you can have a better idea of who you are introducing, I offer you a link for more information about me, but you can come back to that part.

First, I will briefly explain why I am making this offer, what I offer, and who I am looking for. If you just want to skip to the details, click here.

I just reviewed the response to an engagement letter I sent out a couple days ago, and I almost wet myself with laughter and dismay all at once. I send out what seems like a squillion responses to companies that contact me hoping to benefit from my work, but this one was different. It was for a company that was referred to my services by somebody who was referred to my services. Somewhere along the line, it seems that I have picked up a reputation for what I do. This still does not mean that everybody I meet has a brain in their head, a dollar in their bank, or a sincere desire to improve their business.

As I have seen many times before, the recipient of my engagement letter hit me back with something resembling “Duh, wut duh ya mean … ya want us tuh pay fur it?” This was not their exact words, but that was my interpretation. To say the least, I am not very tolerant of cheapskates, or people who talk about action more than actually taking action.

It was after this response that I seriously realized that I had hit the wall at the end of my patience for dealing with this equivalent of The Abominable Snowman on Looney Tunes (video reference). As a husband and father of three, I am all grown up and reasonably mature, but if I must tolerate another of these abominable snowmen who insist I am a rabbit, I will likely use much stronger language than good old Daffy Duck.

Yes, I am a snarky guy, and I prefer to send a good booger from your nose to your computer screen than to make this sound too serious. After all, I am trying to put 5,000 bucks in your pocket, and that should be fun!

In this case, I am going to spell something out in sobering terms. I love the work I do. I help companies to be successful with their online marketing. It is an awesome feeling to see companies succeed. However, I must say this in true Murnahan fashion: “Business is great if not for all the damn customers.” Is that crazy? Perhaps, but it is very true. I am inundated by requests each day to offer my services to build an uncommitted company’s success for a fraction of what my work is worth.

The size of the company doesn’t matter. Building bigger and more profitable companies is my job. Even a small company with a focused desire for business growth can be extremely successful with a good strategy and a decisive marketing approach.

I broke my magic wand a long time ago. So, these days I build companies with other tools like market research, strategy, customer modeling, and well-crafted ideas to help companies look, smell, and feel like sex, bacon, and other things people crave. Yes, you read that correctly. In layman’s terms, my job is to make companies more like sex and bacon. You know what I mean, the things that people like.

That is how companies become popular. It improves their search engine rankings because all of the sudden the whole world wants to link to their website. Understanding their best value proposition and knowing the customers who want their “sex and bacon” improves their social media reach, and response rates. When it all comes together, it makes a lot of other great things happen for a company, including much higher profit.

Seeking a Frog Hair in a Fiberglass Factory

Although I am a very experienced and creative marketing guy, finding the best clients is like searching for a frog hair in a fiberglass factory. I sort through a lot of people rubbing their lamp and hoping for a genie, but a much smaller number of people are ready and able to put a signed check in my hand. They still want their fill of that sexy bacony stuff that comes when I rub a couple brain cells together, but that comes with money.

I have said it many times, and even blogged that “When I go to hell, they will have me selling SEO“. I say that, because I simply do not enjoy the selling process. Sure, you can search Google for How to Sell SEO and find me right up top, but the truth is that I love the work, and not the selling. This is why I am seeking an ongoing project, rather than the short-sighted marketing that many people ask for.

To make this fun for both of us, I am offering you a $5,000 reward to help me find that one special “frog hair in the fiberglass factory”. I want the one who wants the benefits that a great SEO and social media marketing guy can provide.

Claim Your $5,000 Social Media Reward!

The details are easy: If you introduce me to my special someone who is ready to take their marketing to a new level of success with a minimum six month engagement of my SEO and social media marketing services, you get the money.

This could be either contract work, or in-house, working directly for the company. You can introduce me by email, telephone, blog about it, tweet about it, direct them to my resume, or whatever you like. You only have to be the one who brings us together, and the money is yours. I just need to know that you are the actual person who introduced us, so I welcome you to contact me.

When do you get the money? I am sure you were thinking that, right? I will pay the $5,000 reward within ten days of my acceptance of a paid contract, or within 30 days of joining with a company full-time.

This is a limited offer! This is limited to just one … my special one. I don’t take on a lot of clients, and if somebody wants me enough to make me their Marketing Director, that is clearly a one-time offer. I am also limiting it in time, so stop dilly-dallying and claim your five grand!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Business Evolution and Crash Test Dummies

Take just a moment and reflect on how your job evolved. Whether you are a business owner, manager, or just working your way up the totem pole, look at your career in a snapshot. It is uncommon for a career to move smoothly along its initial planned path, from start to finish. A business entity is no different in this respect.

Companies change a lot over time, and if the business evolution is just right, people are happy. The world is perfect, and you can look out your window to see pink unicorns kissing adorable puppies on the forehead. Business evolution should always be so perfect, but then the human resources department would have the additional job of giving out hugs instead of layoff notices; accounts payable would cheerfully add a bonus for the utility company; and the accounts receivable department would send chocolates with every delinquency notice.

Since career and business are usually not perfect, many disheartened people will give up managing the evolution of their company and the direction of its travel. They end up going for a ride like a crash test dummy waiting for the impact.

Hop in and Ride With Me

I am a huge fan of analogies, and I also love cars and driving, so I am inserting my loves here. Hop in and let me take you for a drive through the typical evolution of a business as it navigates between “point A” and “point B”. Don’t worry, I am a trained driver.

I hear from a lot of businesses struggling to define the path between where they are and where they hope to be. I gather a lot of observations as I listen to these companies, and I uncover many commonalities between them. This helps me to build better strategies. Most of the people I talk with feel like they landed themselves in an industry and with a job title that was at least a few miles away from where they began, or where they expected. This goes for people in every level of a business, from the very bottom to the very top.

It all seems to “woosh” by in such a rush for a lot of business people. Whether you own your company or not, whomever it is who signs your paycheck has probably experienced that same “woosh” effect. So, let’s examine some factors which significantly put on the brakes during the evolution of a business.

In this business evolution, I want you to think about where you find yourself today. I suspect you will find yourself cruising somewhere on this road, either as a driver, navigator, or passenger. Many businesses begin as somebody who found a passion for something, or a perfectly timed opportunity, and grew an idea from a spark into an ember, and eventually into a flame. Now we have the combustion engine … an engine to help move us down the road to where we want to go.

Will the Driver Keep Their Head on the Crash Course?

Fatigued Business Drivers Fall Asleep at the Wheel

Along the road, a business founder usually ends up doing a lot of driving. A small company, and most are small at first, will often begin with somebody acting as the sales, billing, accounts payable, reception, public relations, marketing, and “something else” person. The “something else” is the part that the business is about, whatever it may be … accountant, electrician, car dealer, home builder, surgical supply company, real estate brokerage, cigar shop, or whatever it is. The “something else” is that cargo in the back that we are driving to deliver.

At the start, the company is fueled based on the skills, passion, opportunity, and funding of that same “something else” person at the wheel, and not based on all those many tedious jobs to fill. As the business gains a little momentum from all of that exhaustive work given by a person or small group of people, many of those jobs are delegated properly to others who are fit for the position. They each get their seat in the vehicle that moves the business.

If all goes well, navigators will be reading the road signs and updating the business plan, the business budget, the marketing strategy, and keeping the business driving in a good direction of growth. Much of the navigation lands in the driver’s seat with a tireless owner or manager who has great navigation and driving skills. They drink a lot of coffee to remain alert, and they seldom take their eyes off the road.

I know that it must seem almost impossible, but what happens if their vision gets blurred? What if they get a bit too distracted, or just too familiar with their day to day commute and they relax at the wheel? I’ll tell you what happens, because I am frequently like the dismayed highway patrol officer who arrives on the scene when the vehicle is already out of control. Of course, nobody appreciates me for writing them a citation, but they expect me to be very compassionate when I pull their kids out of the wreckage.

The initial passion, funding, and opportunity of the drivers with the “something else” is usually not enough to safely navigate the business through the winding road and beyond the inherent roadblocks. Even with their eyes fixed on the road, if they let go of the wheel for a split second, the whole trip becomes a big wreck. Many businesses crash with no more than a driver and a passenger or two, but if they made it beyond the earliest road blocks, they may have a bus full of dead crash test dummies.

Fear of the crash is why most people will never own or manage a company.

Killing the Crash Test Dummies

Screeeeeeeech! Slam on the brakes! The business is all of the sudden sliding out of control, and going in unpredictable directions.

The business plan, which was once the road map, is frequently forgotten while the company is still driving down the same road and on the same mission as it was yesteryear. Somebody forgot to budget, so the bills are just being paid as they come in the mail. Marketing strategy? Well, the marketing strategy is to sell as much of this “something else” stuff as possible to put enough money in the bank to cover all of those checks that keep going out.

Many drivers will loosen their seatbelt, ignore the squeaking brakes, and let the fuel gauge needle dip a little too close to the “E” before checking the map for a gas station. They forget to take good advice from employees and other influencers, and begin to treat them like crash test dummies, instead of as the great assets they represent.

It sounds like a pretty nervous way to do business, right? Would you be totally shocked if you found similarities to this in your company? If you are nervously looking in your mirrors like a single occupant in the carpool lane, or grabbing your safety belt like a bus driver with bad brakes, you are not alone. Many companies of all sizes operate this way, and they overlook important steps to better business evolution. Careless driving is one of the biggest killers among businesses.

The most common factor is that the people with that special “something else” let the map fly right out the window. This happens periodically throughout the lifespan of nearly any company. In fact, it may surprise you to ask other business people around you when the last time they thoroughly reviewed and updated their business plan, their budget, or their marketing strategy. This may not apply to Fortune 500 companies, but they often don’t have it just right, either.

Arriving at the Crash Scene

How this came to me today was in a very common exchange with a company manager trying to navigate for his company. He wants his company owner / driver to stop at a gas station to get some racing fuel, instead of just driving along with a dirty windshield. The driver has not crashed in ages, but that is never a good excuse to let the insurance lapse, or to stop using a seatbelt. It not only goes against the laws of business, it can cause a mess for all of the passengers (employees) and bystanders (customers).

The managing navigator flagged me down as the highway patrol because he wants to report his boss for careless driving. In this case, the owner opened the business with that same passion and timely opportunity as others. He has been lucky to navigate well without a map, and with bald tires for years. Since the time he settled into his driver’s seat, his risk of a crash is increased exponentially. His windshield is dirty, his road is filled with potholes, and the other drivers are speeding by him and pointing at his seatbelt dragging on the ground outside his door. Worse yet, he fails to let his backup driver take the wheel when his eyes feel tired.

I am here to check the driver’s license and insurance of this owner / driver, or otherwise to help his top navigator to get in his own car and drive away. The manager is so dismayed by the owner that he is hesitant to continue presenting good ideas. The owner is so accustomed to just going along for the unplanned ride that the manager feels like he is in a crash test, too. It has forced him to decide whether to buy into the company, or to start his own.

Running a business well means maintaining the vehicle, keeping the drivers and navigators on the right road, and so many other things. The hazardous but common truth is that many business drivers will take better care of their car than their business plan, budget, and marketing direction. Instead, they have just stumbled upon a road by chance and circumstance and driven the best they know how with the vehicle they landed in.

Most business people are not good at every aspect of running a company. Even fewer of them properly address the value of efficiently delegating tasks to professionals, especially with marketing strategy. They mostly just know the things they picked up along the road during the journey with their unique “something else” that their business is about.

If you know somebody like this, pass this along as a reminder that other “dummies” are counting on them for a good trip. I am not telling you the perfect navigation for every journey on the highway. I just want to remind other drivers to look up from the steering wheel enough to read the road signs.

What do I have to do with this? My job is to isolate the squeaky parts, find the right mechanics, train the driver, buckle in the passengers, supply the road map, change the tires, and pour racing fuel in the tank. I guess you could call me the marketing crew chief.

I will leave you with this compelling crash test video. Give it a play and consider your driving safety while you prepare your comment to tell me what you think.

Photo Credits:
IIHS Crash Test Dummy via Wikipedia
Dummy Heads by Greg Westfall via Flickr
Dummies in a Cage by Brad K via Flickr
Ford Crash Test by Rian Castillo via Flickr
Sierra Sam (hanging dummy) via Wikipedia

Podcast: Play in new window | Download