St. George and the Monitor

Wise old-timers used to say, “Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.”

But it’s hard to believe anyone actually lived by those words.

More and more Americans get their information from monitors, rather than from direct experience.

And non-technical information on our monitors is mostly hearsay or opinion.

So presentation becomes everything.

The more convincingly you say something, the more loyal followers and influence you can generate.

Almost nobody has time to carefully compare various expert opinions before making a choice or decision.

We’re buried under thousands of small instant choices that need to be made.

So we leave our biggest choices to unseen leaders of our status quo.

Almost nothing of what we see affects what we believe.

Many beliefs are defined by what we “hear” online, from the people we choose to believe.

Fifty years ago, playwright Clifford Odets wrote: “All of us should have the values of a St. George. But there is no St. George without a dragon. And we don’t have a dragon.”

That’s more true than ever today, when the only dragons are the beliefs we disagree with.

And in our Photoshopped, overly-engineered world, we can no longer believe what we see.

So we’re 180 degrees from the old-timers’ advice:

We now believe nothing of what we see, and only half of what we hear–the half we happen to agree with.

A Bridge From Industrial to Post-Industrial Communications

Any company planning to use social media in a systematic way to support customer service, sales, or any other business function needs every employee on board from the start. It’s a corporate culture shift that won’t work with a traditional management approach.

But using the right combination of educational and information-gathering techniques, presented in a stimulating and memorable way, will get you the data or feedback you need at the same time that you’re preparing employees to get involved in the transition.

And there’s no need to make this project very complicated or widgety. Here’s my suggestion of how you might get off on the right foot. It’s an original idea I came up with in response to the request for help from a member of marketingprofs.com.

1. People get involved in social media because they want to feel connected and engaged with other people, and hopefully learn something in the process.

2. Technology has changed how we engage with each other, but not why we feel that need (especially Americans, the world’s most avid association junkies).

3. The more AUTHENTIC the initial online engagement–the more relevance, proof, and value in first interactions–the more a person wants to stay in touch with another individual or group.

4. So divide your employees and other stakeholders into three or four random groups and have them read several posts, communications, messages etc., each of them written in a style similar to one of the major social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube etc).

5. Then have everyone complete a survey with 20 or so questions, each with five multiple-choice answers. This will help determine how engaged respondents felt with the writer or presenter: how interested they might be in meeting that other individual in person, post a comment, refer it to a friend, etc.

6. If you’re clear on your project objectives, it wouldn’t be very hard to make sure your survey also gathers some data about specific execution or transition issues you expect to face.

7. Before starting have each respondent indicate how often they already use the various platforms in order of frequency, so their answers can be weighted accordingly.

Good luck and let me know if I can help!

Timeless Art, Timeless Marketing

Great marketers and advertisers build memorable conversations with audiences. Their messages and images connect us to people, narratives and solutions . . . then hopefully to their product or service.. .

They probably don’t realize that a great artist’s technique was doing the same thing centuries ago.

Scientists studying Rembrandt’s “eye guiding” technique and skillful use of “lost and found edges” believe they’ve decoded the magic of his art.

His most famous portraits naturally guide our gaze to the subject’s carefully painted eyes. That gives viewers a calming, memorable sense of personal connection.

For the study, scientists followed the eye movements of volunteers as they looked at new photo portraits that copied Rembrandt’s technique.

“When viewing the Rembrandt-like portraits, viewers fixated on the detailed eye faster and stayed there for longer periods of time, resulting in calmer eye movements,” UBC researcher Steve DiPaola reported

More recently, iconic advertising pioneer David Ogilvy’s ads also used expressive personal images as emotional hooks. He guided our attention comfortably around the ad step by step, until we’d reached his call to action. The best advertisers and marketers continue to adapt his version of Rembrandt’s “eye guiding” technique for compelling narratives and calmer viewing experiences.

Tell an affecting story in your ads and marketing. Incorporate images that use Rembrandt’s principle–and remember to add content that’s rich with relevance, proof and value.

Market it like Rembrandt!

When Surfers Watch the Shore

Yesterday my favorite blogger, Seth Godin, shared a brilliant analogy about business success in the internet age.

He says today’s successful people are like “surfers.” Unafraid of a wave’s inherent instability, they “hunt for that blissful moment that combines three unstable elements in combination.”

It takes guts for a surfer to focus on something as unpredictable as the liquid curl of a wave. It takes even more guts for an entrepreneur to build their business on freedom, change and risk.

But entrepreneurs or businesses that can’t let go of industrial-age business and marketing models are like surfers who secretly long for the safety of the shore, or race car drivers who keep glancing at the race track wall.

They crash.

p.s. For a striking illustration, check out the Guinness commercial that British viewers called the best one ever.

50 First Steps to a Breakthrough

Did you know that anxiety is an expression of creativity? Why not get creative today?
 
1. Smile–your brain needs more endorphins and serotonin
2. Reorganize your kitchen drawers
3. Paint something. Anything. With anything
4. Show a waiter or waitress they’re special
5. Read a favorite book to a child, upside down
6. Attend a wedding and toast the couple with a poem
7. Send a Christmas card to someone for their birthday
8. Carve something from a potato, then eat it
9. Make up a song with nonsense lyrics
10. Be thankful about something ordinary
11. Reframe an annoying sound as a call to action
12. Make a great breakfast for someone you love
13. Read the Heart Sutra while breathing deeply
14. Find two dissimilar things that have something in common
15. Record your first thought in the morning
16. Enjoy a casino with just $5
17. Write down a homeless person’s favorite story
18. Sing in the garage with your kids
19. Buy the first little thing you see in a store
20. Find something you like about someone you hate
21. Attach a picture to your ceiling
22. Convince an older person to do something silly
23. Write a sonnet about spare parts or produce
24. Pray for an acquaintance in need
25. Buy macaroni and cheese at an Asian supermarket
26. Write a speech about something you’ve just learned
27. Balance a coin on its edge and watch it for a moment
28. Open a branch office overseas just for fun
29. Transform your business lunch into a special event
30. Leave the computer off for a full day
31. Walk across a dark room without stumbling
32. Take a nap at night
33. Transform a hurtful comment into a compliment
34. Eat popcorn while smiling
35. Create an alcoholic snow cone
36. Listen to a type of music you never much cared for
37. Recall everything you ate yesterday
38. Share the story of your biggest mistake
39. Interview a child and post the video
40. Buy medicine for someone who’s sick
41. Put lemon in your coffee rather than milk and sugar
42. Give an acquaintance your favorite book
43. Thank your Mom until she believes you
44. Turn a picture into a short story
45. Let your dog take you for a walk
46. Massage the bridge of your nose for two minutes
47. Give someone you love a foot massage
48. Choose a cloud and make it your landmark
49. Tell people thank you until you begin to feel happy
50. Catch me if you can!

Lessons from the Olympics

At this year’s Olympics, great athletes demonstrated their amazing talents. Olympic organizers, meanwhile, did great at Whistler and really dropped the puck in Vancouver.

Whistler had fewer events and less infrastructure. It was a huge “block party.” Fans could wait in short lines and get pictures with friendly medal-winners, enjoy international camaraderie, and celebrate authentic achievement.

People of all nationalities and ages rubbed shoulders and dreams in a real-life international social network.

Just down the valley in Vancouver, commercialization and other familiar forms of crowd control ruled. These fans waited in long lines to reach arena-quality seats or restrooms. Only a lucky few, in the front rows, had any chance of long-distance interaction with the equally dismayed athletes.

(Fans at home had to watch rebroadcasts. “Prime time” is completely blurred in the internet age, but NBC needed the ad revenue)

The longer lines in Vancouver were there to protect the bottom lines of sponsors and organizers.

Most internet marketers (and the businesses that follow their advice) still share these same dreams of control and ownership of our experience. The online leaders and taste-makers are “servant leaders;” they organize around their followers.

Barack and Beck … and You

What do President Obama and the Barack-bashing politicians at the recent CPAC conference have in common?

They gain power by marketing anticipation.

Americans’ love of being titillated is historic. Famous around the world for our “optimism,” we’re actually born hopers: anticipating that the Next Big Thing will live up to its promise, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

Hearing Obama’s promise of real change energized his huge campaign rallies and election. Mere months later, the same promises draw crowds to “tea parties.” Crowds of folks hopin’ that some new group of professional hopers will do more than just sell us more hope.

Anticipation drives our daily decisions and feeds our consumer habits. We buy new services or products in anticipation of becoming more rich, serene, popular. Whatever.

Instant gratification is rarely what drives us. It’s the expectation of instant gratification. Curiosity has become a modern leader’s main commodity, because it sparks potential followers’ anticipation.

Anticipation isn’t only big in America. Dutch researchers recently talked to 974 people who had gone on a trip. Those who’d spent the most time planning it enjoyed it the most, and remembered the lead-up to their trip as the best part. The journey itself was almost secondary.

Social or new media and the internet make us more intensely expectant and fickle than ever. We can now live in a non-stop frenzy of discovery and expectation. To an extreme anticipator, achievement is something dreary that sometimes happens at work.

Presidents Bush and Obama and the Tea Party movement represent our consumer passion for anticipation. It drives up ratings for entertainment channels like Fox News, MSNBC, even C-Span. Simple news or information is never enough.

You’re in marketing. Does your marketing and sales material burst with anticipation, or at least make us all very curious?

Ownership Isn’t For Real Leaders

Image via Wikipedia

It’s ironic, isn’t it? We use social media super-widgets like Facebook; iPhones; and internet technologies to gain control over our lives. But in the overcrowded networking age they tend to reduce personal ownership of communications. This means less real productivity.

Think: how many of the last 20 non-salesmen you’ve tried to reach actually answered, maybe two or three? And if you’ve left messages, how many people returned your call in a reasonable amount of time–if ever?

Even friends or acquaintances, like strangers, seem too busy to talk. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you, when I want help or to chat about my priorities.”

This isn’t cruel or unfriendly behavior; it’s how we maintain ownership over our lives.

In a perfect world, everyone would be waiting for my call. Conducting business would be as easy as driving down the freeway at 2 a.m. But the communication superhighway is becoming snarled in a perpetual rush hour.

It’s the rare soul who’s willing to personally answer a call, or at least return it promptly.

That rare soul is also a Leader. Why? Because leadership’s no longer about status or position. It’s about offering more value to every task or interaction. And in our “drive-by” era, nothing is more valued than personal attention and authentic engagement.

Extraordinary leaders have always acknowledged others’ value, and relinquished direct ownership of tasks and solutions. Think of Kambei in “The Seven Samurai,” or the great CEOs. Each built teams respectfully, the way a conductor builds a great symphony orchestra. One superior participant and collaboration at a time.

This approach is also at the heart of Servant Leadership.

I feel like a celebrity every time I get through to the super-busy publisher of the local business newspaper. What a class act! And a few other folks are just as ready to answer and help when I call. Guess who I share my work or referrals with?

You carry your phone around to make calls with. Why not pull the autocratic little thing out of your pocket or purse when it rings as well? Your business will thank you for it.

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• The Conductor doesn’t Make a Sound (conversationagent.com)

New Hope For Recovering Salesmen

Hi, my name is Carey and I’m a salesman. A recovering salesman. And thanks to social media you can recover, too.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sales. It’s even addicting. But I love making a decent living more than sales, which has put me on the road to recovery.

It won’t be easy to give up the familiar sales rush that comes from enthusing across the bows of busy, preoccupied strangers about opinions and hopes that I hope will move them to action. Unfortunately, prospects knew the game as well as I.

My most important opinion: I deserve to get paid for sharing my employer’s opinions of his service or product. My fondest hope: a prospect will give me money before I can finish my pitch. That way I won’t have to ask him or her for the sale.

Most people don’t have the money or interest to purchase; so there was rarely a snowball’s chance in hell of making a sale. And that’s even before my carefully rehearsed pitch had a chance to kill any interest in me or what I’m offering.

We all know great sales professionals who are making money. For example, my friend and advisor Frank Hurtte of River Heights Consulting does his homework, carefully chooses the best prospects, qualifies them, and presents compelling reasons to buy during his carefully orchestrated campaigns.

Times change, of course; and technology will help ease the pain of recovering salesmen. Because online opinions are often bundled with solid information, we can use them together and “sell” even some knee-jerk opinion to somebody–with a stray fact or two as evidence. And when we pass on a favorite blogger’s opinion, we have their gazilllion followers as proof that it has merit.

So take heart. recover and prosper! In the social media age, we have nothing to lose but . . . the nothing on those commission checks.

How can legions of recovering salesmen make a decent living? Stay tuned. But remember: You’ll only be getting one man’s opinion.

How To Monetize Brilliant Ideas

Of course you have brilliant ideas. But to monetize them you need a responsive team of expert advisors, and a doable process that allows you to tap into their expertise.

This isn’t new. Almost a century ago, the sainted Napoleon Hill told businesses to create a kind of Mastermind group.

Business incubation companies usually help established companies. Sole proprietors and startups often rely on Mastermind support groups, or agencies like SCORE.

You know a little about business incubators and how well they work. Wikipedia says:

“Business incubators are programs designed to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts. Incubators vary in the way they deliver their services, in their organizational structure, and in the types of clients they serve. Successful completion of a business incubation program increases the likelihood that a start-up company will stay in business for the long term.

“Historically, 87% of incubator graduates stay in business.”

Wow, 87%? That’s about the same as the depressing percentage of new businesses that close within their first few years. Incubators clearly help, and could do even better if the business had a home grown Mastermind group, and was ready to fully tap into its skills and talents.

You could hire an incubator company, or invest time and effort into working with SCORE and SBDCs. But most of their experience is in industrial age business. Even if that approach still worked in the internet age, you’re probably not ready to follow their suggestions without educating yourself first.

Every day you spend hours online educating yourself. It’s quick and easy because so much information is modularized and partially filtered by super-widgets like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or StumbleUpon.

Why don’t more businesses create greater value from all that information? Why can’t they organize and tap into this unlimited pool of expertise? Simply because they lack the right implementation strategy and plan; a customized “Social Media Business Incubation for Dummies” process.

One simple, disruptive-technology process helps transform raw ideas–yours or others’–into productive, sustainable action. Why not start “incubating” your own business this week?

First, create a clear vision of what makes your business unique. Not what you do, but why you do it so well. You’ll stay focused, and easily screen out unhelpful bits of information and false prophets. Next, build authentic, long-term engagement with your stakeholders, tapping into all their wisdom and experience. Finally, plan and execute world-class communications that will really build your business.

The tools you need for viral success are already familiar to anyone who uses social media. Begin your new business incubation program and thrive.