August 7, 2017 · 12:18 pm

Eclipsing Our Sun

By now you’ve probably heard that there will be a total solar eclipse in two weeks (August 21).  This will be the first total solar eclipse (when the moon moves directly between Earth and the sun) visible in the United States in nearly four decades.

English: Total Solar eclipse 1999 in France. *...

(Wikipedia)

During the eclipse, the 70-mile-wide shadow cast by the moon will darken the skies from Oregon to South Carolina, according to Space.com. What makes this eclipse notable is how accessible it will be to many people since the path of most total eclipses falls over water or unpopulated regions of the planet. This event will go down as the first total solar eclipse whose path of totality stays completely in the United States since 1776. Too bad it didn’t happen on July 4!

Total solar eclipses supposedly have happened at notable times in history. Jesus’ crucifixion, Mohammed‘s birth, and King Henry I‘s death all coincided with a total eclipse. I’m not here to speculate on why those or other events happened simultaneously with a disruption in the Sun’s presence. Instead, I want to focus on a business thought that came to me as I thought about other effects an eclipse has.

When we fall into the moon’s shadow, birds think it’s night and stop chirping, the temperature falls, and things not usually visible become clear. The Sun’s corona, which is the Sun’s upper atmosphere, is clearly visible, as are many stars and planets often obscured at night by moonlight or all the lights turned on automatically on the ground. If you look around you, you might even see a 360-degree sunset as well. What does this have to do with business?

We all have our business “sun.” It might be our process, it might be our boss or coworkers, it might be the favorite customers that illuminate our days, provide warmth, and make survival possible, Every once in a while, however, it’s not a bad idea to precipitate an eclipse of some sort. As with the upcoming event, doing so will often make things visible that your business sun obscures. Maybe your reliance on that sun or suns is stopping you from seeing things about them or opportunities beyond them. What do you think?

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July 28, 2017 · 12:18 pm

Eating With Your Eyes

It’s Foodie Friday, and today’s topic is the thought that we “eat with our eyes.” While sometimes you can smell food coming, most often our eyes are the first sensory organ we use as part of eating. It’s why many cooking shows (Chopped, Top Chef, etc.) grade dishes not only on taste and creativity but also how the dish is plated and its visual appeal. Since the rise of Instagram, eating with our eyes has taken on an entirely new dimension. As The Verge reported:

For years now, Instagram has sat at the center of trends in food and beverages. Rainbow-colored “unicorn foods” are often designed with Instagram in mind…Now some entrepreneurs are taking the idea a step further, designing their physical spaces in the hopes of inspiring the maximum number of photos. They’re commissioning neon signs bearing modestly sly double entendres, painting elaborate murals of tropical wildlife, and embedding floor tiles with branded greetings — all in the hopes that their guests will post them.

I’d encourage you to read the full piece, but it does raise a business thought in my mind. I did a little search for “love decor, food sucks” and got over 2.5 million results. In the course of helping people eat with their eyes and/or to gain social virality, many of these places have forgotten their primary mission: to cook great food. “Going viral” isn’t a strategy. While it may increase your visibility, as Chipotle will tell you, so will an e-coli outbreak. Gaining followers and visibility is ideally a reflection of the quality of what you’re doing.

Designing any business or product so that visual appeal is its primary focus is designing for failure. Yes, it’s smart marketing, but as with any marketing, there as to be, as Gertrude Stein said, a there there. We might eat with our eyes, but ultimately we want something more substantial than a great visual. None of us should forget that our customers may come based on good marketing, but they stay because of great a great product or service. Don’t you agree?

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July 26, 2017 · 10:20 am

Staying Alinged

One thing that bad golfers do (and I’m speaking from personal experience here) is to misalign themselves. They might point the clubface at their target but they fail to get their hips, shoulders, and knees properly aligned. When they go to hit the shot, inevitably the ball goes someplace other than where the golfer desires.
I thought of that this morning as I read the results of a study on marketing compensation. Conducted by MediaPost, the study found that:

Agencies and their clients are far apart in terms of what they deem to be the most fair method of compensation, according to findings of a survey of advertiser and agency execs conducted recently by Advertiser Perceptions for MediaPost. While labor-based fees are the No. 1 method preferred by agencies (45%), incentive methods were the top choice among marketers (40%).

You might not be a marketing agency or a marketer, but there is something to be taken from that for whatever business you’re in. Think of a car’s four wheels. When they’re properly aligned, the car is easy to hold on the course you set. If one wheel is out of alignment, the car pulls left or right and you’re constantly having to fight to keep it heading where you want.

Your business is no different. Your goals and your customers’ goals have to be in alignment. So too do yours and your team’s. Being paid fairly is a critical part of the employer/employee relationship, and no one is going to do their best work if they feel like they’ve been treated unfairly. I’ve known agencies who’ve resigned clients because they felt that they were losing money servicing the account. I actually had a client who hired me to complete a project over a few weeks. When I presented the completed work in a little over a week, they asked to reduce what I was being paid since “it didn’t take as long as we thought.” In that case, it was my fault for not being sure that their expectations (how long it would take and the value of that time) were in alignment with how I did the work and the value of the project regardless of the time spent. Sure, I could have sat on the completed work until it was due, but that has no benefit to my client and only helps me justify what they’re paying.

All the wheels need to be aligned. The club face and your body need to be aligned. The goals and expectations of everyone in your organization need to be aligned, and that alignment must extend to your customers as well. Hard to do sometimes, but always worth it, right?

 

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