Marketing
Blog Post: How to Become an Expert
Have you ever had a huge corporate client and delved deep inside the organization only to find incompetence around you? I have, and it makes me wonder how we've become the richest nation in the world. It's also encouraging, because the bar is set very low and therefore it's pretty darn easy to be an expert!
One thing I get asked a lot is this: "What is an expert?" There are many ways to define that, but here's how I think about it. I picture myself keynoting a conference. In the auditorium are 3,000 people. After my presentation, I open it up to questions from the audience. There's a microphone on a stand in the center aisle, and soon a line forms with people who want me to elaborate or they want to disagree with me.
Picture yourself in that place. How do you feel? Prepared? Nervous? Naked? Eager? Being an expert is flat knowing that you can answer any question about the narrow field you serve. By the way, you don't need to be some amazing speaker or a strong extrovert to captivate an audience. Essentially, it boils down to two things: do you know what the hell you're talking about, and are you presenting it with a personal authenticity.
So the next question is how you get to that place where you think of yourself as an expert, and where markeplace acceptance confirms that belief. Here are my seven specific, practical suggestions:
Read MorePosition Paper: Saying “No”...Or Caring Too Much about the Wrong Things
Caring too much about something can put you at a distinct disadvantage.
Car salespeople know this when they detect even the slightest interest or sense any desperation on your part. Savvy negotiators sniff out this weakness when working their magic at the final hour. Kids know this when they look up at you and ask for something you wouldn’t normally allow but hope that they can tug at your heart strings with that special look.
Read MorePosition Paper: Changing Client Perceptions
Ever return to a reunion and been frustrated when former classmates are surprised at your success? It may be human nature to pigeonhole each other, and since (most) clients are human, they have a natural tendency to make assumptions about your abilities that will be tough to change.
Smaller ships turn quicker, and your capabilities are likely to expand more rapidly than client needs will evolve. You are a smaller firm than your client, and are likely adding capabilities very quickly. That’s another way of saying that clients may have you in a rut.
Read MorePodcast: Relationship Between Business Development and Account Service
David C. Baker explains how new business can help account service manage clients well, resulting in lots of money and significant impact on the client. The control comes from your willingness to replace bad clients with clients who are a better fit.
Download PodcastBlog Post: Storytelling and Real Storytelling
Bill Baker (no relation) is nicer than I am, so don't pin any of my introduction on him. I recently spoke to an auditorium of C-level executives, and the title of my presentation was long but revealing: "The Happy Death of Branding, the Next Fad of Storytelling, and the Hopeful Rise of Alignment."
I guess that expresses my view of branding: there are a few firms really doing it, and the rest (and majority) aren't doing anything differently than they did before, but now they are calling it branding because it sounds upstream. There was no training in marketing, no classes, books, or even real processes. The typical four circles with the ubiquitous use of alliteration doesn't count and should be taken off your website.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with my view of branding, it clearly is yesterday's news, and storytelling comes up frequently. Rather than being marginalized even more, I think we ought to jump on this one early so that we don't relieve the word of even more meaning.
Bill (disclosure: a client) is one of the very few people really doing story telling. While the concept has been around since people wrote on cave walls, modern storytelling was really maximized by E+S (Envisioning and Storytelling) in Vancouver roughly three decades ago, a place where Bill was Chief Strategic Officer. Now, under BillBaker&Co he continues that great work with clients like GE, Relais & Chateaux, Johnson & Johnson, The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, etc. Here are some of his thoughts on the difference between faux storytelling and real storytelling. Real storytelling is a very complex skill, and I can sit for days listening to Bill point out the subtleties involved. This is just the outer layer.
Here's Bill:
Read MoreBlog Post: You Might Need to Change the Name of Your Firm
Most creative firms are poorly named, especially if they are named after the principal and perhaps multiple partners. Unless you turn out to be a very large agency with a 40+ year track record, your name matters. Naming it in the traditional way after yourself does this:
- it makes it a tad more difficult to sell
- it encourages new clients to work with you when you should be doing other things that the firm really requires of you
- it makes it difficult to add significant partners, because every time you do so the name will likely change
- it makes your agency look small
Chances are that you didn't put much thought into naming the company when it began with just you as an employee. The attorney was pressuring you to come up with some name that s/he could put on the forms, and so you defaulted to the easy choice. If I had done that, my company would be Baker Inc., or Baker & Associates, etc.
Read MoreBlog Post: Playing Whack-a-Mole with Prospects
One of the most significant marketing blunders that marketing agencies make is deciding who they want to marry after they fall in love with someone. In other words, they bend the criteria for what makes a qualified client, either because their sales techniques are weak or because they find themselves with far less opportunity than capacity. No part of the marketing mix is exempt, either: you find it with internet marketing services, public relations firms, marketing agencies, and design firms.
Read MoreBlog Post: The Hardest Weekend I've Had in Many Years
About two weeks ago, I had one of the hardest weekends of my career. Many things came together all at once and pretty much brought me to my knees.
- Our wonderful, special dog Lucy has cancer. We rescued her from a very abusive situation and she's been a wonderful companion. She's fighting it well, but we don't know when and how the end will come. When we got her, she was terrified of men, terrified of newspapers, and had a bullet in her hip. Now she brings me the paper and is as sweet as can be. She's a Rottweiler and Labrador mix.
Position Paper: Belief, Opportunity, Capacity
What leads to business success? If you’ve ever gone back to your high school reunion, you’ve probably seen some surprise success stories and scratched your head while asking the same question. For small marketing firms, success typically follows one of two paths.
Read MorePosition Paper: Commission Structures
Don’t we wish that performance was as easy to measure in all positions as it is in the sales function! Because sales does lend itself to measurement, we leap toward that comfortable spot, relieved that our management load has been lessened.
But just because it is measurable doesn’t necessarily mean that we should view it primarily in that fashion. In fact, experienced managers sometimes get this nagging feeling that they are missing something by implementing commissioned sales in a service business.
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