QOD - 01/27/06

"“I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating."” - Sophocles (496 BC-406 BC)

QOD - 01/26/06

``I believe that if you see a competitor drowning, you stick a fire hose down his throat.'' - Patrick Bryne, Overstock.com CEO

 

 

Missed the QOD - 01/25/06

Sorry I missed posting the QOD yesterday - I was in travelling. Fun Fun Fun!

QOD - 01/24/06

"We look at the present through the rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future." - Marshal McLuhan

 

 

QOD - 01/23/06

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

 

 

QOD - 01/20/06

"There is always room at the top." - Daniel Webster

 

 

 

QOD - 01/19/06

"When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece."  - John Ruskin

 

 

Today's QOD continues the planning theme of yesterday

While we thank the gods that marketing and sales of products and services is not war, it is a battle to win. 

 

Win the minds of the prospects and customers so that you can sell more goods and services.  And to win, you must plan and put it in writing with the appropriate goals, tasks to accomplish and measurements.  They don't have to be complex or voluminous they just have to be.

 

So, like Sun Tzu said don't be defeated before you start, plan your efforts and your market share and sales revenue will increase.

 

 

 

QOD - 01/18/06

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." - Sun Tzu

 

 

Rate of Change

When I read the previous QOD...quote of the day...from ol' Jack Welch of GE, I wonder how many people apply this to their own marketing and messaging efforts.

Most firms only look at the rate of change internally (I think about molasses here - slow!) and never really gauge the effects of external forces except from a short-term perspective. Better marketing and messaging will help in the short-term but longer term, the 'right' message comes out and becomes part of your market's community voice and raises and reinforces your brand.

So when companies only look inward, they think 3 'wrong' things about marketing and messaging:

- that they can do it ourselves

- that marketing and sales are the same thing and

- that if they do marketing that they only have to do certain pieces of it.

OK - maybe some firms are able to do it better than using external resources but the vast majority of the small to medium sized companies and even the big ones put out 'suffering' and suffocating marketing efforts and thereby suffer from the lack of results - muddled messages, brand abandonment, cluttered websites, same ol' boring PowerPoint pitches, etc. Sometimes, external talent can help you focus on getting that message honed and fine tuned that you might normally be missing by your internal focus.

Next, marketing and sales are not the same. Marketing is product, pricing, placement and promotion. Sales is moving product or services to generate revenue. That doesn't sound like the same thing to me nor should it to you. Remember one thing - 'market' the vision and 'sell' the product (that is from the wisest person I know and it's not me).

Also, you have to have a marketing plan with tangible goals and objectives so you have something to monitor and measure. It is difficult to measure ROI on your marketing efforts if you don't have a plan and you are trying a shotgun or a Chinese menu approach to marketing. An external expert or your internal staff can help you build a plan that has the measurements in it so you can track the results. Remember - plan the work and work the plan.

Finally, GE is renown for their quality efforts - Six Sigma and all that stuff - and it applies throughout GE. So, do you think the GE execs and marketing people are over there 'winging it' on their marketing and messaging efforts? Nah - they're planning their work and working their plan. And, so should you or as Jack says, 'the end might be in sight.'

QOD - 01/17/06

 "I am convinced that if the rate of change inside an institution is less than the rate of the change outside, the end is in sight." - Jack Welch, ex-CEO of GE

 

 

 

QOD - 01/16/06

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator." - Francis Bacon

 

 

QOD - 01/13/06

"In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exits."  Eric Hoffer

 

 

 

QOD - 01/12/06

"It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity." - Publius Syrus

 

 

QOD - 01/11/06

"Out of clutter find simplicity." - Albert Einstein

 

 

 

QOD

 

"Focused attention will win over brains and brawn everytime." - Unknown

 

 

Cable TV

Hi,

We had a cable line run to the kitchen where we installed an under the cabinet TV that has AM/FM, CD/DVD and if we hook it to the phone line you can use it as a phone! Too cool!

Gus - Team ConvergingWater Mascot
- a great Boykin Spaniel but not much of a hunting dog!

Xmas at Riverbanks Zoo

I took some of the kids to the zoo before Xmas. It was my first visit to the zoo at Xmas and it was great.

While alot of the animals weren't out or sleeping, it allowed me to see the zoo from a different perspective. It's like when you breakdown your messaging to the bare minimums and the greyness of the limbs of the tree is all you see.

Sometimes you need to get back to the basics and review the important messages we need to make sure that our prospects and customers hear.