Category Archives: Consulting

July 19, 2017 · 11:29 am

Not So Great Expectations

The gasoline that keeps a good portion of the sports machine running is sponsorship. I’m using the gasoline analogy today because there has been a high profile sponsorship dispute going on in the world of auto racing and I think it’s instructive to any of us who sell or buy pretty much anything.

You’ve probably heard of Danica Patrick, NASCAR‘s only female driver in its top-level series, The Monster Energy Cup. She drives for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), who sold the rights to sponsor her car in 2016 for several years. Somewhere along the line things went south and Nature’s Bakery terminated what was a three-year deal after the first year, claiming that SHR “did nothing other than collect Nature Bakery’s money”. An additional issue was that Danica personally endorsed a competing product (albeit one with no visibility on the car or around the races). SHR sued to recover the agreed-upon payments. As it turns out, Nature’s Bakery will sponsor four cars during this season, split between SHR’s drivers, as part of a settlement.

I spent a lot of years selling sports sponsorships and I know first-hand how hard it is sometimes not to over promise in your zealous pursuit of the sale. In this case,  Nature’s Bakery was told to expect a 4-to-1 return on investment. The reality was there was no significant increase in sales. That could have been due to any number of reasons, including some that had to do with logistics and not with awareness, but it points to a core issue.

When you’re selling anything, setting expectations and agreeing on how performance is going to be measured is key. In this case, many of the measures of awareness did rise significantly, but if the client’s goal was sales then the buyer and seller seem misaligned. Keeping expectations of both parties on the same page and in alignment must be the goal of all parties, and the documents shouldn’t be signed until that goal is reached.

There also seems to be some inexperience in sports sponsorship at work here. A team that has Coke as a sponsor might very well have athletes who endorse Pepsi. An arena with Mastercard as a building sponsor might see an athlete who plays in that building in an American Express commercial. Danica is one of NASCAR’s most visible drivers and her personal endorsements should have been identified to the buyers (even though anyone could find them easily on her personal website). Always remember that a good seller sits on the same side of the desk (figuratively speaking) as their buyer since you’re both trying to accomplish the same thing.

Aligned expectations, appropriate measures of reaching goals, and transparency are how sports sponsorships (and others too!) get done and stay on track. You with me?

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June 26, 2017 · 12:20 pm

One At A Time

Like many of you, I often feel as if I have way too many things on my “to do” list. I’ll often start one task and then segue into another while trying to complete the first. Maybe I’ll read my email mail while I’m talking on the phone or maybe I’ll try to write the screed while I’m thinking of solutions to a client’s problem. My guess is that you make similar attempts to multitask.
Then there are the dummies who multitask at the worst possible times. Texting and driving, for example. The sad fact is that multitasking – even in situations where there aren’t potentially deadly results – does not work. As the American Psychological Association research found:

Psychologists who study what happens to cognition (mental processes) when people try to perform more than one task at a time have found that the mind and brain were not designed for heavy-duty multitasking. Psychologists tend to liken the job to choreography or air-traffic control, noting that in these operations, as in others, mental overload can result in catastrophe.

When we try to begin a new task while performing another, we have to make a mental switch to whatever rules and information will govern the new task. Our brains can’t do two things at once, and that switching means that we’re actually losing time and being less efficient in our attempt to be more efficient. Doing one thing at a time – and finishing it! – helps you get more done. Most importantly, you feel better as you can actually cross something off that “to do” list.

I think we’re all a bit ADD. The non-stop stream of news, email, social pings, and other distractions makes it incredibly hard to focus. I’ll admit to having a shorter attention span than I did 20 years ago, and I don’t think it’s (solely) because my aging brain is less functional. We’ve all become victims of the TL;DR syndrome or, even worse, the Fear Of Missing Out by remaining focused to the exclusion of all those alerts. Everything is too long and we want Cliff’s Notes versions. It’s hard to pay attention to that one task for an extended period, at least it seems so to me. But overcoming that desire to multitask is really the key to getting things done. I’m really going to work harder on it. You?

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June 23, 2017 · 10:58 am

Opening A Can Of Mistrust

It’s Foodie Friday and I want to talk about a widespread fraud this week. If you cook Italian food every so often, you might have been a victim of this common deception, and of course, it has implications for your business (or else why would I bring it up here?). I’m talking about the lies told by many companies about what lies within a can of tomatoes labeled as “San Marzano.”

If you’ve been to Italy you’ve tasted the difference in what they have there vs. what we commonly use here, and one of the biggest differences is the true San Marzano tomato. Grown in the volcanic soil that surrounds Mt. Vesuvius, these plum tomatoes are protected by an official designation – DOP – which certifies that they are the real deal. Many other types of products receive this stamp which certifies that they are locally grown and packaged in the specific region according to strict standards – balsamic vinegar and mozzarella di bufala are two of the best known along with these tomatoes.

If you walk through your local supermarket, you will find many cans labeled “San Marzano” and yet there is a high likelihood that they are nothing of the sort. 95% of the tomatoes sold here as San Marzanos are fake, at least according to the person who certifies them. If you see crushed or diced San Marzanos, they’re fake, since true ones are only sold whole. If they are grown in the US, they’re fake. If it doesn’t have the DOP seal and the seal of the consortium that sells them, they’re fake. Some unscrupulous packagers put a DOP-looking seal on their cans; some don’t even bother, knowing that the words “San Marzano” are enough to confuse shoppers.

Why do I raise this? First, it bothers me that so many retailers are complicit in perpetuating this fraud. You wouldn’t see a legitimate store knowingly selling fake Dior bags or knockoff golf clubs with high-end labels. Why do supermarkets allow this? Can I trust that the wild-caught fish you’re selling at the fish counter isn’t farm-raised? Second, some fairly big time packagers engage in this, which calls into question what’s in the cans of other products they produce. Are those really organic peas or are you just charging more for the same stuff that’s in the non-organic cans? Lastly, and most importantly, it reiterates the point we’ve made often here in the screed. The most important thing any business gets from customers is trust. Losing that trust can be fatal, no matter how good your service or pricing might be. Knowingly perpetuating a fraud on your customers is way over the foul line.

I don’t want to make too big a point about a can of tomatoes. Most shoppers don’t look for San Marzano tomatoes – they buy whatever is on sale. It only takes one customer, however (like me?), who figures out that you’re profiting off of the deception to put a crack in your reputation. That’s not the type of sauce you want to be serving, is it?

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