Tag Archives: Strategic management

May 4, 2016 · 10:51 am

What They Want

Over the years, it’s been a main tenet of the screed that we don’t do politics in this space. I’m going to veer close to the line today although please believe me when I say that my interest here is only to use something that’s been happening in politics to make a business point.

Donald Trump enters the Oscar De LA Renta Fash...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It appears that Donald Trump has assured himself of being the nominee of the Republican Party. What started out as somewhat of a sideshow became the main act as Trump sent 15 other more “mainstream” candidates packing. The response of the party elders has been along the lines of this quote:

With Trump’s success, “I’m watching a 160-year-old political party commit suicide,” said Henry Olsen, an elections analyst with the Ethics and Public think tank.

That’s mild compared to some other statements, and the morning shows have been filled with Republicans mourning the death of their party and expressions of fear about the forthcoming November debacle.

As an observer of all things business-related, I find the entire thing both logical and instructive.  Think of the Republican party as a business that has only one competitor (Donkey Co.) in their business sector.  Let’s call the business Elephant Co.  For most of their customers, using the other business isn’t an option because the product Donkey Co. sells is totally unacceptable.  As it turns out, the product the Elephant Co. has been selling hasn’t been totally satisfactory either.  The management of Elephant Co. was way more focused on the upcoming sales season than on customer satisfaction and delivering on the product promises they had made.  Each model year they’d make promises and ask for money, and each time they didn’t really deliver (while continuing to ask for money for maintenance).  What would you expect to happen?  I’d expect the customers to revolt.  In my mind, they’d send a message to Elephant Co’s management.

That’s what I think has happened here.  We have a political party that’s out of touch with a significant segment of its customer base.  No company can afford to ignore customer feedback.  No brand can fail to deliver on the promises it makes on a consistent basis over a long period of time.  As Ray Davies of the Kinks wrote, “You gotta give the people what they want.”  In this case, since the people weren’t being given it, they’ve decided to take matters into their own hands and send management a message.  That’s my take.  Yours?

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Filed under Reality checks, What's Going On

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April 26, 2016 · 9:41 am

Getting To Know You

One of the most basic things we should do in business is to identify the group of people that is most likely to buy our product or service.  That’s not a profound insight, I know, but because it is a “duh” moment, I wonder why more business people don’t really do it?  How you define your audience is something that influences everything from marketing to product.  Understanding how those customers and potential customers interact with your business is incredibly basic and yet it often goes undone.

One reason I hear for that, particularly among earlier stage businesses, is that it’s expensive.  Putting aside what I’m about to tell you, it’s critical no matter the cost.  While we may have self-driving cars, there are no self-operating businesses of which I’m aware.  However, the cost isn’t really an issue.  There is a lot of free infomration available from the government. Maybe you thought all the Census Bureau did was count us all once a decade – check out their free stuff and I’ll bet you’re surprised.  Do you have analytics on your website?  Google Analytics is free, at least until you become a high-traffic site (and you won’t mind paying at that point).  Finally, if you’re a physical location, you can ask people to fill out surveys about basic demography.  Heck, you can have an employee jot down who they see.  Online questionnaires are easy to implement and also are free.

My point is this.  I rail from time to time in this space about the overwhelming amounts of data we confront these days.  It’s often hard to make sense of it and we often get conflicting information.  That, however, is a far better outcome than having NO data.  Getting to know our customers and their behavior, likes, media habits, who they are, where they are, and why they buy from us is an important part of business.  It’s not optional!

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Filed under Consulting, Helpful Hints

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April 13, 2016 · 9:10 am

2, Not 250

I was listening to one of the many podcasts to which I subscribe yesterday. The speaker was rambling on about the subject of content generation and he said something that made me rewind the podcast so I could be sure I heard him correctly. He was opining that the only reason that companies are spending money on content creation today is to generate data.

His statement made some sense. After all, brands today don’t think of themselves as sponsors of other people’s content. They’ve been sold on the idea that they need to have their own content creation hubs which can populate multiple channels such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. I encourage that in some ways with my clients since who knows the brand better than the brands themselves?  Who better to speak in the brand’s voice? Who ought to know the customer and the customer’s interests and to reflect those perspectives in their content? But in retrospect, I couldn’t disagree more and here is why.

I might be way naive about this, but I think audiences want to be educated and entertained. I don’t think they want to be tricked into being tracked and giving us data. I think when they are offered a list, that list ought not to be on 25 pages so as to squeeze out every last page view and ad exposure. I think they want to feel emotions – awe, wonder, joy, excitement, rage – and not just kill time. When I read articles about how I can create titles (People love lists! People love “epic”!) to lure people to my blog, I get sad.  I understand that many people are intellectually lazy.  I get that there is a reason for the use of TL;DR as a standard retort on the web but maybe that’s a commentary of what passes for most content these days rather than on the specific content.  People have become overwhelmed by crap and they’re weaning themselves off that crapacious diet by minimizing consumption.

I don’t think greatness is anything is measured by the volume of consumption or traffic numbers.  Thre are still fewer iPhones in the world than Android.  There are still fewer meals served at Per Se than at McDonald’s.  If we all do our best not to post 250 times a day but to post 2 great, enlightening things – however long that enlightenment takes – maybe we can stop the downward spiral of attention spans and intellectual curiosity.  If “stupid is as stupid does”, how about we upgrade what we do?

 

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