Category Archives: Reality checks

November 11, 2015 · 11:29 am

A Salute On Veteran’s Day

It’s Veteran’s Day once again, and once again I’m posting what I felt at the time was a screed reflective of the day. I decided I couldn’t improve my thinking so I’m letting the post loose on you all once more.  I hope you share my thinking, both about the post and the day.  Back to the usual raving tomorrow.

Often when a national holiday approaches I’ll go back over my posts to see what I’ve written about the day in the past.  I’ve written about Veteran’s Day, which we celebrate today, here, here, and here.

Joseph Ambrose, an 86-year-old World War I vet...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Feel free to go back and read them but I noticed a common theme that I want to repeat and  pretty big omission that I want to correct.

In each of those posts I thank our men and women who served to protect and defend this country.  I do again.  “My war” would have been Vietnam just as my Dad’s was WWII.  He served when his time came because he was needed; I didn’t since the war was winding down and the draft was ending.  Putting the politics aside is almost impossible when discussing the differences between those two conflicts but the service given by those who went is indistinguishable.

I also draw an inelegant analogy between those folks selfless service to us and how businesses ought to be dedicated to serving their customers.  I also touch upon the teamwork needed to succeed.  A long time ago Fast Company published an article which cited an interesting study:

After World War II, the US military commissioned S.L.A. Marshall, a Harvard historian, to do a remarkable study. The question he was asked to research was, literally, why are men willing to die in war? Marshall was allowed to advance and test a variety of explanations. Patriotism – people would die for their country. Or family – men would fight and die to protect their wives and children. The answer that finally emerged was small-group integrity. In a group of people where each is truly committed to the others, no one will be the first to run. So they all stand and fight together.

You know I’m a big proponent of teamwork and believe it’s critical to business success.  The article goes on to talk about managerial courage and how it’s tested and that brings up the omission I want to correct.  Too many of us talk about business as war from time to time, just as we do comparing sports to combat.  We need to stop that.  I used to say that the best part of what I did was that when I screwed up nobody died.  Protecting one’s country for a lousy salary and risking a life can in no way be compared to playing a game for a lot of money or running a business for an obscene amount.

So to my Dad, my other family members, schoolmates, and the millions who stepped forward when their time came to serve I say thank you.  We voted last week – you made that possible.  Think about that as you conduct your business the rest of this week and you serve customers. clients, and commercial causes, hopefully as well as the Vets served us.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Reality checks, What's Going On

Tagged as , , , ,

October 28, 2015 · 10:54 am

Misreading Their Minds

Every so often a piece of research comes along that asks the same questions of consumers and marketers and then compares the answers.  It’s instructive to see the differences in how the folks who are responsible for knowing how their consumers see the world vs. how those consumers themselves see it.  The latest example of this comes from the folks at Spong, and their 2015 Brand Reputation Study.  Their release on the information begins with this:

An organization’s brand is one of its most valuable assets. Greatly influenced by the reputation of the organization, the strength and weaknesses of a brand can have a direct impact on every aspect of the business, including the bottom line. But when it comes to evaluating what is most important or least important about a brand, a new brand reputation study from Spong indicates that marketers may not really understand what consumers care about and think.

Hmm.  That doesn’t sound particularly good, but what does it mean in real terms?  First and foremost, it turns out that marketers overestimate how often consumers talk about brands.  Marketers seem to think that consumers chat about what companies are doing a poor job, with 88% of marketers saying they think consumers do so daily or weekly.  The reality is that fewer than a third (31%) do so.  While a little paranoia is a good thing, I suspect this thinking leads into another data point the survey found.

Marketers underrate editorial and overrate social as a source of information, with 14% of consumers calling editorial a top source of accurate brand information.  Only 6% of marketers think consumers see it that way.  Conversely, we’re smarter than most marketers are about the accuracy of social media.  27% of marketers think consumers use it as an accurate source of brand information; the real number is less than half that (13%).

Consumers also put more importance on whether a brand is local far more often than marketers think consumers do. 30% of shoppers said they would always or most of the time choose local over national brands, all things being equal while only 12% of marketers would expect that sentiment. I guess the point is that once again, those of us who are supposed to have our finger on our customers’ pulses have missed the boat. As they summed up:

The research paints a picture that should serve as a wake-up call for marketers, whose stock in trade is understanding what triggers consumer behavior. As the research reveals, marketers over-valued a few key customer concerns at the expense of the wide range of other issues affecting their decision-making.

I agree wth that.  You?

Leave a comment

Filed under Huh?, Reality checks

Tagged as , , , ,

October 19, 2015 · 12:08 pm

Let’s Cure This Epidemic

I had another topic on my mind this morning, but I’m going to go on a rant about carelessness instead. I’m sure that many of you read as many, if not more, articles and emails as I do. Have you noticed that we are in the midst of an epidemic of carelessness? I don’t mean with the “facts” many writers pass off as gospel. I’m talking about something far more basic: spelling and grammar.

I know English is a difficult language, even for those of us who are native speakers. Spelling, however, isn’t. Of course, one needs to take the time to check not just the spelling of a word but also if the correct homonym is being used. It’s not just individuals either. I see lots of corporate “content” that contains errors of the same sort. Social media, white papers, blogs and tweets are overrun with misused and misspelled words.  As a former broadcaster, I wince at every graphic that contains a typo.  You just know that more than one person looked at it (or should have) before the error ever saw the light of day.

I hope it’s carelessness and not ignorance. I’m pretty sure it is – what politician would spell “education” as “edutation” or “America” as “Amercia” out of anything other than carelessness? That carelessness makes me think you’re careless about everything, including how you will protect my data, my credit card information, and how you will service your customers.  I’m fed up with “it’s” being used as a possessive (it’s a contraction!).  I hate “your” preceding “welcome” (it should be a contraction – you’re!).

I admit to being an optimist, so I’m assuming we’re not all just idiots.  Most of us feel a time crunch and sometimes rush to meet a deadline.  It’s not a new sickness, as you can see from the clever 2013 Snickers ad, but it’s time we cured it.  Let’s be careful out there!

1 Comment

Filed under Huh?, Reality checks, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , ,