Why prioritise the quality customer service experience?

If you need to ask that then your entire marketing strategy is in trouble.

Quality customer service experience (QCSE) attracts customers. What’s more, it retains customers.

QCSE generates word of mouth referrals: pleased customers can’t wait to toast your business to others.

Their “free press” is priceless, and it can be yours by just making sure your business supplies superior products and impressive service.

Sadly, many managers try to use commercials and gimmicks to drum up the kind of increased business profitability that can only be manifested by the key marketing component of keeping customers content.

Understanding Experience

Managers who understand that marketing is much more than advertising are continually working towards increasing the value of their products and service — aiming to be outstanding in fields full of mediocrity.

They step up to challenges and create and maintain competitive edge that boosts prosperity.

They know that all customers crave experience.

For instance, people can watch the latest blockbusters at low rate cinemas, or at home via DVDs or cable.

Yet, they pay premium prices to “have a movie experience” instead.

They are buying into the promise of a quality environment with people like themselves.

Noteworthy service

It’s challenging to stand out when there are a quite a number of other businesses offering the “exact same products” your company does.

That is why you need to define and execute a QCSE that is yours alone. Use it as a signature for your company.

Here’s some of what you can do:

Be guided by your own personal experiences as a customer.

Think about the last time you received service that was so noteworthy you made recommendations to your friends.

Try adopting that exceptional standard into your company

Transcend expectations. Make your product more useful, safer, more portable or more efficient, etc than the rest in your industry.

Train your staff. Treat them well

Elicit and respect their feedback. Staff can provide you with valuable insights, while happy staff are likely to work harder and provide better service.

Also encourage your customers to provide feedback.

Assure them that you welcome constructive criticism and you are willing to improve. 

Take their advice.

 

Managers of successful businesses take a strategic approach to marketing — they espouse a long-term vision where they think ahead and plan in advance.

Meanwhile, managers who only look at short-term solutions take a tactical approach to marketing:they are desirous of overnight success and are fixated on the latest get rich fast scam.

Strategic managers, however, understand that success is the result of making strategic decisions over a period of time. 

Shortsighted managers have a fear of spending. They consider marketing to be an expense, maybe even a burden.

Tactical managers may also claim that they do not have the time for marketing.

This is because they waste their time finding ways to cut back, starving their business, keeping it from growing.

Meanwhile strategic managers recognise marketing as an essential investment and they allocate time and resources to it.

They appreciate professional expertise. 

Prudent managers hire legitimate agencies, which have qualified teams that work with them — going through intense process to produce promotional campaigns of the highest standards. 

Compound Leverage

Tactical managers may execute a single marketing activity sporadically. They often wait until business has identifiably slowed down before they decide to initiate marketing thrust.

Such myopic managers might try placing a single advertisement in the newspapers when their business is going through a tough time.

Would this really lead to increased sales?  

Strategic managers blend a range of marketing activities together on an on-going basis to create a compound leverage effect: where marketing activities build upon each other to leverage the best results.   

Our Working Ideas principle involves working with high quality clients (HQC) to implement holistic advertising campaigns via press, radio, television; as well as web advertisements, which all come together, leveraging the highest returns.

Success that lasts

A tactical approach to marketing can inevitably lead to a business’ demise.

For your business’ long-term life and future success, you need to stop thinking short-term and start investing your time and resources into your company.

By switching from a tactical to a strategic approach, your time and resources will be used more efficiently, and your marketing will become more effective … which will of course result in more sales and greater success.

What approach will you take to marketing?

A great prince once commented to his star gladiator, “You’ve been lucky in battle.”

“Yes,” replied the gladiator, “and it’s amazing how the harder I practice the luckier I get.”

Marketing is like that: not by luck, not by chance, not even by the best intentions, but by dedicated effort, committed practice and above all the understanding that the work never stops.

Marketing work does not begin when you hire a crack team of advertising professionals. It begins from the inception of your company.

Marketing does not stop at the press, radio and TV advertisements. It is applied from the ground level up with the services you offer and the products you make.

A good marketing strategy is nothing without structured, systematic, industrious endeavour being applied as a fundamental part of the process.

 Same, but not equal

There’s a Zen story I like to repeat that tells of a Master and his two disciples.

Each day he would give to each disciple a brick and some clay.

Several weeks passed in this way, before the master asked each student to show what had become of the bricks and clay.

One disciple led the master to a pile of broken bricks and hump of hardened clay.

The other student led the master to a comfy prayer room made of bricks and clay.

Both students were afforded the same opportunity to make something productive happen, but they were not both equal to the task.

We can imagine the second disciple as each day he laid his bit of clay and brick onto the ones from days past; patiently constructing the vision he had.

The other disciple lacked the insight to see what was possible, and the commitment to follow up with the labour.

Planning & work 

Times are tough, and all businesses are having to adapt to get by.

Some companies fall, some struggle on; yet some are thriving, even though they all exist in the same tough times.

This is not about luck. This is about proper planning and steady working.

It is about coming up with a vision that is bigger and better than what you have to work with right now; then patiently, devotedly and painstakingly applying worthy effort to the task of creating something that has meaning … even if you have to do it one “brick” at a time.

It’s better to trade good luck for good fortune.

Be careful whom you offend when you’re on top, because if you slide, you’ll meet those people on your way down.

Marketing in a small country is a special thing: it’s easier to reach the majority of the population with information about your company.

It’s equally easier for negative info to get out, and people remember the last thing they heard about you or experienced with you.

In big nations “negative press” relies on focus from the media to be dispersed.

In small countries it can travel quite widely through the tried and proven “old-time” process of word-of-mouth.

What’s more, word-of-mouth tends to get bigger.

So what began as small talk about a minor offence can be grown, with each telling, into urban legend.

Some countries have less than six degrees of separation among citizens. So it is never wise to presume that offending “insignificant” people won’t adversely affect company standing.

 Groundwork marketing

Total quality experience (TQE) is what every business should design and conduct.

That is groundwork marketing and — in a country this size — it is more valuable than many above-the-line promotional tools.

However, TQE must not only be aimed at clients and customers, but for employees and people external to the company whose services are utilised.

Each of these persons can wield the positive or destructive power of word-of-mouth.

And while that’s no big deal with one person, imagine if it’s more than one, maybe even many people who don’t directly know each other, saying the exact same thing about your business.

The word for this in our modern lexicon? VIRAL.

Informs & conveys

A company uses tools to market itself. In the same way, modern technology lets people take word-of-mouth to a whole new level: the viral level.

Today you’re mistreating an “unimportant” customer or worker, and tomorrow there’s an entire blog devoted to maligning your company; where people who have experienced similar maltreatment can sign on and share their agreements, grievances and support.

No, it is not possible to please everyone; but delivering proper TQE practices is the most effective way to guard against most things.

TQE efforts protect and defend your company’s reputation and identity.

Your TQE design also informs and conveys your company’s identity. Thus, it is part and parcel of your brand imaging.

Marketing and advertising have always used titillation of the five senses to connect with people’s emotions.

But is there a way to make emotional connect without going through the “middle man” of the senses?

Experts in the field acknowledge that it is easier to hawk a product than a service precisely because of the aforementioned.

Selling perfume involves above-the-line ads that use words and images to spark the sense of smell; or below-the-line, direct promotion, like placing sniff samples in magazines or setting up sampling booths.

Even some services, like automotive, can use the purr of a fine-tuned engine to put the sense of hearing into gear, and drive a customer to desire the same sound for his/her car.

But what about something like insurance? Or banking?

Evolutionary development

Would a radio, TV or press ad have more effect when it comes to promoting something that less directly connects to the senses?

It’s clear that there are feelings that need to be inspired — faith, trust, respect.

So it is difficult to pin authority on any of the senses as the one to stimulate if you want to awaken specific emotions in potential customers.

But let us consider that in the animal kingdom, creatures usually display some sort of action to show they mean no malice.

In all mammals there has been evolutionary development that requires seeing to establish trust.

Thus, maybe a TV ad works better on humans when one is trying to manifest confidence.

Revolutionary shifts

There are no easy answers, naturally. But it is intriguing to consider.

Over the decades, advertising and marketing approaches have themselves gone through evolutionary development.

Every time technology delivers something as revolutionary as radio, television or the Internet shifts in the promotion arena take place.

With that in mind, every marketing agency should be constantly, or at least regularly, considering innovative concepts to gain the edge over the competition.

Then they should apply the same to give their clients the edge over their competitors as well.

Ask the questions nobody else in the field is asking. That is the first step towards coming up with working ideas that nobody else in the field is manifesting.

 

 

 

The Bible cautions: “As you reap, so you sow.” This is pure science.

It is the same as “what goes up must come down”; and for every action there is a reaction.

What you put into your marketing strategy, you’ll get that much worth out of it — big or small.

Thus, while there are inevitably going to be mistakes made, don’t keep making the same mistakes.

Scientist, Albert Einstein, describes insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Logic, then, would dictate that to get different, better results, you need to take different, better actions.

Zen principles subscribe to an Eight-fold Path, which includes: Right Action, Right Understanding, Right Mindfulness and Right Effort.

 Being right

In business, as in marketing, learning from mistakes is essential.

When mistakes are made, dwelling on them and laying blame might not be the Right Action.

Analysing and then remedying systems, to minimise chances of the mistake being repeated, is far more productive.

Identifying what needs to be changed has proven to be a priceless art in applying marketing plans. This is Right Understanding.

But, identification without solutions is nothing, so this is where Right Effort comes into the picture.

The overarching emphasis is on resisting the urge to constantly focus on what is being done wrong; but rather on acknowledging what is being done right; learning what more can be done right and then using positive energy to do the right things the right way.

Potent purposes

One popular marketing website cites several “alternative approaches” as the methods to success for many businessmen.

• They don’t waste the majority of their time nitpicking at minor things

• They focus on what they want, not on what they fear or detest

• They take full responsibility for their business — in triumph or failure

• They work hard to put things right instead of whining about what they think is wrong

Right Action, and everything else, must start with the Right Attitude.

Attitude is a way of seeing … as is marketing. So it makes perfect sense for the one to affect the outcome of the other.

Bill Gates knows people consider him to be a genius.

Yet, he points out that he’s at least genius enough to know he does not know everything, and always makes sure to connect with people who do know whatever he does not know.

Naturally, if you dream, think and want to achieve anything remotely as big as what Gates did, you’ll need other people.

As I turn sixty-two today, and I look back on the span of my life, I can assure you that what has most meaning to me are the uplifting relationships I have formed in my personal and professional life.

This is one of the most invaluable lessons I have learned in my over thirty-five years of working experience in this field.

The people you align with are as integral to your marketing success as the clients you represent and the customers you try to get.

The term “professional relationship” would be an oxymoron if people’s personal values did not intersect with work ethics as they interact with others in their chosen field.

Partnering, hiring, training — these are all different ways in which business people can seek to manifest supportive relationships that will go on to serve their ends.

In marketing, as in any other industry, the relationships you form can help with what you are doing … or be your undoing.

The weigh-in

Look at the work relationships you have now — your employees, co-workers, partners, members of your board, the people outside your company with whom you collaborate.

Now rate what each of these relationships brings to you and your company on a scale of one to ten.

It may not instantly seem like this has anything to do with effectively marketing your business or product.

But ask yourself: is the relationship advancing you, teaching you, encouraging you, uplifting you? Or is it leeching you, disrespecting you, making you jump through hoops and sapping your energy?

Now you begin to understand.

People insist that it is normal for professional relationships to have elements of the good and the bad. Perhaps that’s true.

Potent purposes 

However, if the bad consistently outweighs the good then that relationship has to come to an end.

If, on the other hand, you rate the relationship and realise there is more positive than negative to it, then you need to water that relationship well and help it grow.

Your marketing relationships should serve many wonderful purposes.

Two immensely potent purposes are: they should make you think big and feel proud.

Anything doing otherwise is actually destroying your identity and, thus, everything connected with it … like your “brand identity” and “brand image.”

At risk of sounding repetitive: now you begin to understand. 

A tagline is to your brand identity what a smile is to your face.

You can touch someone with a sincere smile; fool him with a fake one; turn her away with a mean one, and make someone want to smile along with you if you do it just right.

Which of the above are you trying to achieve with the tagline you’re inventing?

If you want a tagline that touches customers and makes them want to “smile along with you” then the first thing you must be is honest … with yourself.

Truthfully define what you can deliver, otherwise your tagline risks making claims you cannot meet.

Next, put on paper what the customer needs to understand, then research how that aligns with what the target market actually wants.

After that, begin brainstorming. Remember, good marketing develops out of many concepts being refined down to one or two exceptional ideas; as opposed to coming up with one idea — that may be good, bad or ugly — and trying to force it to be brilliant.

Energy factor

So when you have whittled down your tagline options to a few that seem to have salt, explore how it can move. See if it can work in multi-faceted ways.

Is it believable? Can it shift through varying themes, campaigns? Match it with the logo. Sound it out. Is it public relations and marketing-friendly? Will it stand the test of time?

Consider RAMCO gas: “Under Every Good Pot.” It’s been around for decades. That’s a working tagline.

Some taglines try to convey what kind of experience will be had. Other taglines focus more on whipping up customer emotion.

Then there is the major underlining factor of “ENERGY.”

With a few words you can convey something is going to happen (“Don’t leave home without it”), or something is happening right now (“Finger-lickin’ good!”).

Defining relationship

A great tagline combines elements of experience, emotion and energy, to varying degrees that match its product, service or company.

A tagline can be direct, roundabout, grand, simple, strong, soft and more besides.

So when you set out to create, or change, your tagline, by all means use guidelines like the ones above.

However, don’t be confined to hard and fast rules that say things like: an effective tagline can’t be one word; a catchy tagline can’t be longer that five words; a tagline has to be able to stand alone.

A tagline is a thing of relationship.  It cannot exist alone. It cannot exist without its brand.

 “Just do it” does not make sense, have meaning, or resonates power to someone who does not know what Nike does.

Taglines do not always have to “read-and-spell,” because they gain definition from the brand even as they help to define the brand.

If you saw a smile without a face, would it make sense to you? Hmmm?

Working Ideas next week: Think big!

Many a time, when an advertising agency develops an entire advertising campaign, the value is compared against direct production.

Direct production can be defined as a client “cutting out the middle man”: in other words, liaising directly with a supplier — be it a printing house, video production house, writer, graphic artist, etc. — rather than interfacing with an agency, which will then access and utilise such suppliers.

Currently there is the perception abounding that a compelling press ad can be reproduced by anyone with the computer skills to build one.

Meanwhile, there are “quickie” TV ads being produced without thought for target markets, aims or objectives.

Adding to this, certain carte blanche tendencies practiced among less principled or seasoned parties negatively impacts upon advertising agencies that have committed to operating under certain codes of ethics.

In all, there is a general diminishing of value occurring in the advertising arena … to the detriment of the bodies that help bring value to the field: advertising agencies themselves.

Process and evaluation

Agencies seldom ever do just an ad — be it press, radio or TV. They do campaigns.

Campaigns get done through a process involving intense research, market studies, creative meetings; brainstorming by highly trained agency professionals; repeated evaluation; committed reworking and generally lots of hard work.

There is nothing that can match the arena experience and acumen contained in the average legitimate agency.

Yet, there seems to be limited understanding that putting this combination of forces to work for an end result is not just worth the respect and money it tends to command, but it is simply, beautifully invaluable.

Integrity ensured

I keep going back to the adage “Knowledge is power.”

That is the value of agencies. Their knowledge, their power, can be put to use in just about any good imaginable way.

But for that to happen there must be appreciation for the worth of it.

Instead, what is being faced today is that the very worth is what’s under threat.

The solution seems to be for agencies to shuck off their dignity and professionalism and play the game according to the very rules that are undermining the value of the field.

To do so … to throw in the proverbial towel, would be to ensure the demise of advertising as a highly-specialised commercial art arena that employs millions worldwide.

The integrity of the field can only be upheld by the integrity of the parties invested in the field.

That integrity is the priceless commodity advertising agencies apply to ensure they add value to all the work they undertake.

At risk of repeating myself: that is simply, beautifully invaluable.

Working Ideas next week: Think big!

Do you think the same thing when you hear the words: “image” and “identity”?

In advertising and marketing their differences demand absolute understanding and appreciation to properly promote anything.

“Image: the general impression that a person, organisation or product presents to the public.”

“Identity: the fact of being who or what a person or thing is; the characteristics determining this.”

The bottomline: “image” is what the marketplace thinks of you; “identity” is what you actually are.

If you were writing a proposal that patterns itself similar to our Working Ideas process, the OVERVIEW would describe exactly what the company is and does. That would be its identity.

The OBJECTIVE, in which you describe what you are aiming to achieve, is connected to “image.”

You might aim to get housewives to see Flix dishwashing liquid as the premier brand for their kitchen needs.

Whether Flix is or isn’t actually the best goes back to the issue of identity.

Solid identity

Often, companies expect advertising and/or marketing agencies to help them change their image without sparing a thought for the fact they might have to change their identity to help things along.

If a company wants the target market to believe it has the best tyres, then it should spend much of its effort in designing and manufacturing really good tyres.

Agencies might promote its tyres as the best, and the market might buy into it initially. However, if those tyres are not up to scratch, eventually the market will know.

Then the market develops a negative image of the tyres.

Identity must support image, not the other way around.

That’s why, if anything needs changing in a marketing strategy, it should always be the image not the identity … because the identity should have been stable from the start.

That’s why a company like Apple can make 1.5 billion dollars in one weekend by selling 3 million new iPads.

Solid image supported by solid identity.

Forward and backward

Here are some other notable differences:

• Identity develops from the company; while image is perceived by the consumer

• Identity is strategic and driven by substance; while image is tactical and driven by appearance

• Identity is active and enduring; while image is passive and superficial

• Identity looks forward to “where we want to be”; while image is a looking backward at “what we had”

Finally, identity is the company’s promise; image is a consumer’s perception.

Deal with that.

Working Ideas next week: Advertising Agencies: the Value Added

Gandhi felt humans work best lying down. Richard Branson likes to go for a 3-mile swim around the island he lives on. Gertrude Stein would sit in her parked car and write her famous poetry on scraps of paper.

Talent is not determined by sleek offices so many people feel it’s mandatory to have.

It’s what is in our minds that separates the success stories from the failures.

Marketing today is an arena full of many misses and rare hits. If all it took was fancy equipment to guarantee a hit then the misses would be in the minority.

The equipment outside could never make up for what’s lacking on the inside.

High definition monitors will make an ineffective marketing idea look good, but that won’t get it miraculously functioning well.

Yes, just about everything relies on technology these days.

However, there is nothing smart or savvy about investing time and money on things we can do without while we fail to invest even an iota of focus on gaining knowledge to advance us in our field.

Elements to progress

It has never been this easy to get capably informed about anything we choose. So why not choose to learn your craft?

Thanks to social media and via Internet connection, companies and individuals have a voice that we can let the world hear if we work at it. How’s that for marketing opportunity?

Now ask yourself if you’ve taken advantage of this.

You cannot claim to have taken the advantage if you allow yourself to remain ignorant about the elements needed to progress in your arena.

Any yahoo (pun acknowledged) can use technology and go on the Internet to spout whatever he wants. But only the wise use these things to effect for the advancement of their service and/or product.

Nobody wants to put faith in someone who sounds like they don’t know what they are talking about.

Act of faith 

The beautiful thing about being in the know is that you attract people who also want to be in the know.

This means you attract people who are sensible, intuitive and want to learn. These kinds of people make good customers.

In fact, they tend to make high quality clients who are reasonable, dependable and respectful of you and your work. They value your worth.

When you opt to remain ignorant, you attract the self-same kind of people: who eventually become the low quality clients that are your bane.

They won’t respect you and, thus, will never trust your work or appreciate your worth.

Bottomline, you have to be bright to get high quality clients to put their faith in you.

When you look at it this way, isn’t it amazing what a bit of knowledge can do?

No wonder the saying goes, “Knowledge is power.”

Did your homework?

So what are your company’s strengths? Weaknesses? And what are your closest competitor’s strengths and weaknesses?

Once you possess that information you are ready to do a comparison study (you will realise that you have to repeat some information).

WRITE DOWN:

1. What you are very strong in/What your competition is very strong in
2. What your competition is very strong in/What you are weak in
3. What you are very strong in/What they are weak in
4. What you are weak in/What they are weak in

The art of advantage 

It takes finesse to understand the right way to seize the advantage via this data, but let us look at it.

1) Where both you and your opponent are strong you can decide to accept or to re-engineer your side. It might be better to accept, however, since any drive for gains in this case will most likely be expensive and, thus, prove pyrrhic in the long run.

2) What they are strong in, but you are weak in, calls for corrective action on your part. Remember, quick fix in this case will mean nothing. Commit to long-term investment.

3) When you find your strengths and their weaknesses … attack!

4) Where you are both weak there is an opportunity. If you improve but your opponent does not — voilà! — you will “win the day.”

Imitation to effect

There’s a saying that goes, “Imitation is the surest form of flattery.”

You do not have to imitate your opponents per say, but learning from their strengths and applying that learning to improve your company is something like a form of copying.

There is nothing wrong with that.

As surely as we choose our competitors the instant we choose our products or service, similarly we can choose to give strength to our opponents or leech from their strengths.

If we choose not to acknowledge their plusses and identify our negatives, we can never upset the balance and give ourselves the upper hand.

You might not want to see the competition, but do not let that stop you from looking at them.

How else can you find out what they are up to? 

Working Ideas next week: Image or identity

Have you ever asked yourself: “What makes a company successful?”

Let us consider a homegrown company, popular with the female market in the lower- to middle-income bracket.

It is doing a thriving business at all nine branches: always full of customers who faithfully purchase more goods in a visit than they intended to do; not to mention the increased sales during certain holidays like Christmas, Valentine’s Day and others.

Yet, this company stands as a good example why it is folly to focus on sales as the mark of success. What of reputation? What of quality? Etc.

See, the very women who devotedly spend their money there almost all share the same passionate sentiment: “We’ll shop there, but we hate to shop there.”

In what marketing universe is that success?

Strengths & weaknesses

At this point you may be wondering what does this have to do with competitors.

Well let us take a walk among the above-mentioned stores target market and find out why shoppers still go there:

• It is the cheapest on goods

• It is a veritable specialising one-stop-shop

In brand marketing, these would be listed under strengths.

So now let us look at why the clientele abhors shopping there.

• Customer service is non-existent

• In fact, sales clerks are rude, ignore customers completely, or may even be abusive

• Customers feel the products are “watered-down” by the company, because products seem of lesser quality than when bought elsewhere

• Customers leave the store with everything they needed and more, but often feeling angry, hurt, offended or upset

In brand marketing these would be listed under galling weaknesses.

Making starts

Provided you’re a good businessperson you will realise instantly that all a competitor has to do to completely trump this company is to match its strengths and then better its weaknesses.

The reason why the original company has not made any attempts in decades of business to correct these glaring marketing deficiencies is because it has allowed itself to become what no company must ever become — complacent.

That company did a wonderful thing at its start: moved its brand far away from any existing competition, maybe into a category that no other competitor inhabited.

But after years without competitors to be nervous about, what set in was laziness and disrespect for the very target market that put it where it is today.

Here’s a little homework for you.

Make a list of your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Make a list of your closes competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

Next week, we will put this information to practical use.

Working Ideas next week: Let Your Competitors Be Your Guide — Part 2 

WORKING IDEAS

Painting out of Corners

IDIOM: paint yourself into a corner

to do something which puts you in a very difficult situation and limits the way that you can act — The Free Dictionary

So you have an idea for a business. Join the club.

Having an idea for a business does not make you special, does not set you apart from the people who will be your competitors, does not guarantee you success.

The truth is people often have bad or mundane ideas for a business; put time into finding out how to make that idea take form; spend money on giving it form only to realise in the end that they’ve wasted a lot of time and money on trying to do a wrong thing the right way.

It’s usually problematic to move in a positive new direction after you’ve good and properly painted yourself in a corner that way.

What begins “limited” simply will not grow.

You’ve decided to corner the market on good, cheap shoes … only to find that there’s something to, “Cheap thing no good.”

What continues “limited” simply will not grow.

A man with a brilliant idea started Victoria’s Secret, then sold it five years later for US$4 million. Victoria’s Secret currently grosses US$6 billion a year. Sadly, there is a suicide in this story.

Making starts

Some people cannot begin to think big, while others cannot sustain big thinking.

The old adage goes: Look before you leap.

• Look at society. What would the marketplace value? Make a list you feel strongly about.

• Look at the list and use research to determine the feasibility of each. This should help you eliminate some.

• Look at what’s left and try to determine the viability of each, because business is more than making starts, but about continuing and growing. Eliminate some more.

• Look at what’s left and imagine each ten years down the road … fifty … a hundred.

Substance will always see you out of tight corners.

Some may argue any comparison of substance between a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a soft drink; but the truth is that for all the billions spent in marketing and advertising, if the product tasted like drain water it wouldn’t be the number one soft drink in the world.

There is substance in creating a taste that people will crave and, yep, love.

What’s more, that company now produces other drinks to meet changing market demands.

Did the drink’s creator think about all of this when he was concocting his dark refreshing brew?

Of course not. He didn’t need to. It was a different world.

But some things don’t stop making sense. The proverb “look before you leap” was first recorded in 1546 by writer John Heywood, and the idea appears in a fable of Aesop’s, circa 500BCE.

Yet, it still remains the best advice to follow. Or you could just go right on ahead and choose the colour you want to start painting yourself into that corner with.

 Working Ideas next week: Let Your Competitors Be Your Guide

WORKING IDEAS

From Learners to Earners

We have all seen dozens of movies where people do drastic, even desperate things to uplift their lives from listlessness.

In the 1955 film, The Seven Year Itch, (with the most famous Marilyn Monroe scene of her white dress blowing up), introduced the term as meaning “the inclination to become unfaithful after being married for seven years.”

The original term actually referred to a 19^th century contagious skin rash that could last as long as seven years, and later was used as a metaphor for anything annoying and long-lasting.

In similar fashion, the new definition introduced by the film went through its evolution, so that now it can extend to encompass any deep urge to explore outside of any situation.

Seven year itch implies that wanting to change is a very natural part of being human.

In real life, in the business world, I see something different: people becoming so comfortable with the status quo they cling to it even when it has long ceased to be enterprising, compelling or profitable.

Dream weaving

Marketing is more than advertising your business; it’s more like managing your business, because marketing makes sure that everything related to your business is in place and working.

That being the case, marketing cannot pander to the status quo, because one aspect of good marketing is being able to move with the times and the target markets’ changing face, abilities, lifestyles and dreams.

(Yes, I said “dreams.” And anyone who can’t see that major companies, from Apple to Toyota build on the dreams of their customers needs to open his eyes. There’s no company called Realityworks. There is one called Dreamworks.)

Dreams are like life, and life is like business: it’s not about “arriving.” It is about “journeying.”

Journeys require adaptability to be rewarding … and that requires learning new things.

New things need to be learned for change to commence.

Learning large

You might decide to start a blog to try to market your company. But you don’t know how to blog. What’s going to happen if you don’t learn? Answer: NOTHING.

That’s usually what happens when we don’t learn new things in business.

Adding to our knowledge, improving our skills, broadening our horizons: all that makes you better than you were before you learned it, will support your efforts to make progressive change that advances your company’s ends.

Legendary film dancer, Fred Astaire, said: “ Do it big. Do it right and do it with style.”

The bigger you think and learn, the bigger you see and dream, the bigger you can achieve.

Working Ideas next week: Painting Yourself into a Corner