Work
As marketers our job is to get people to act—buy something, give something, do something, say something. We want to disrupt the flow of their normal existence and get them to do something. We want to make enough noise in the din of their normal lives to make them stop and pay attention.
Last night my dad skyped me to ask how things were in Davis. He’d just seen on CNN that the city was being overtaking by protesting students. They attempted to hold a sit-in on the interstate and blocked a number of streets in town. This was simply one in a series of protests by students responding to the 30% + increase in tuition at UC.
Hold on a second, what got all of these students to stop studying, stop partying, stop training, and go sit on a road?
It was an issue that had a direct impact on their existence. It affected them deeply and personally.
Bingo.
That’s our challenge. How do we make the products, programs and ideas that we’re selling seem close enough to make our audience go out and sit on an interstate? Make it personal. It’s simple.
Life
The Olypmics are over. Last week was funny.
Perhaps the biggest single difference between American and Canadians is that Americans are proudly patriotic and aware of their own importance in the world and Canadians are clearly aware of their own irrelevance in the world and think it’s kind of funny.
We went to a military air show this past summer (if you go—bring ear plugs). Sure there were cool planes doing crazy stuff, but the thing that stood out was the fact that throughout the day the announcer would yell things like “that’s what makes us the most powerful military power on the face of the earth!” in a growly, excited, 'high school football coach before the big game' kind of voice. As a Canadian I thought it sounded funny and oddly arrogant.
Last week as the gold medals poured in, the athletes sang the national anthem, Canadian hockey teams beat American teams, and Canadian celebrities gave speeches, much like the Grinch who felt his heart growing four times larger inside his chest, I felt this brand new pang of patriotic pride inside of me. At first I felt guilty and tried to suppress it. Eventually I threw my guilt aside and embraced this new found national pride. It all culminated with me running up and down our street with a Canadian flag over my shoulders screaming, “that’s what makes us the most powerful hockey power on the face of the earth!” I’m sure our neighbours thought it sounded funny and oddly arrogant.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Waxy Almonds and Monster Trucks
Work
We help a lot of non-profit organizations raise money for all kinds of really good causes.
We are fundraising experts.
We know when to ask, how to ask, where to ask, and why to ask for money. We start by asking for and receiving that first gift and then we very carefully work with our clients to help them move donors in and up – in closer to the cause (loyalty) and up in giving levels (revenue). When we’re successful in this work everyone wins. The donor feels good about making a difference and the cause gets its much needed support.
I know the ABCs of fundraising but when I was out for a run yesterday I got thinking about what makes me give money away. I know I am not unique in that I am exposed to many, many good causes: those who provide clean water to those without, those who work around the world for child protection and well-being, those who provide capital to micro-entrepreneurs so that they can help themselves, those who educate, those who provide spiritual nurture and care, those who provide homes to the homeless, bikes to the bikeless, wheelchairs to the wheelchairless, and so on.
It seems to make sense to think that a person or a family’s charitable giving is directly proportionate to the causes that mean the most to them. Certainly that factors in for me: my mother died of cancer so whenever someone asks for me to support a cancer cause I have trouble saying no. But when I look at our family’s giving patterns they are definitely not fully prioritized with our charitable concerns.
Motivations for giving large, well-thought-out gifts are well documented but ad hoc giving that happens on a weekly basis is different. It is not well-thought-out, it is not intentional. Unless our family is different I’d suggest that many of us give to avoid feeling awkward and uncomfortable. Think about who you give money to on a weekly basis:
1. The neighbour girl selling chocolate covered almonds to raise money to buy a new tuba for the school music room – you don’t want the almonds but you can’t say no because you’re having dinner with her parents in a few weeks.
2. The street person with a tin cup that you have to walk around to get into your office building.
3. The retired police officer that calls wanting money to take kids to the circus.
4. The spouse of a friend who is a fundraiser for a local college - you have no association with the college but don’t want to look cheap.
5. The church usher who passes the plate down the pew and watches it collect a little something from each of your pewmates.
There are likely causes that are nearer to your heart than the ones you support on a regular basis but you’re not giving to them, instead you’re helping to buy the tuba for the neighbour girl’s music room.
So what’s up?
What are the common threads that run between the examples listed above? They are all direct, personal, slightly uncomfortable, unambiguous, tangible requests for money. If you are a charity and not raising as much as you’d like are you delivering personal, slightly uncomfortable, unambiguous, tangible requests for money? Are you trying TO make your donors feel a little awkward, or trying NOT TO? Are you trying NOT TO sound too needy?
Next time you go out asking for support think about the girl with those waxy chocolate covered almonds, think about the guy with the tin cup, because those guys, those guys are good fundraisers.
Life
It would be so nice if you could tell your kids exactly what to like. I do, I tell them. But, I guess what I meant was, it would be nice if they would listen.
We try to convince Reuben, our six-year-old that he should be into art, music, learning new languages, you know, enlightened stuff. Rather he was born with a natural and intense love of motorcycles, BMX biking, war planes, football, and yes, monster trucks.
For Christmas he got what every six year old needs a handheld Nintendo DSi gaming unit. He then went to Target with Grandpa’s Christmas money and bought the Monster Jam, Monster Truck game. After playing a dozen or so times he was whipping Grave Digger around the car crushing circuit at championship speed – he consistently wins on the hardest skill level.
Well last week they filled Arco Arena in Sacramento with 15,000 tons of dirt, old cars and sound equipment and brought Monster Jam to town. Reuben told us we were going. We pulled our Hybrid SUV into the parking lot full of jacked-up pick-up trucks in plenty of time for the show. As we lined up in a sea of black t-shirts, tattoos, leather jackets, jeans and cowboy boots to go through the gun control check I realized we weren’t exactly fitting in.
Once in our seats the crowd went crazy as the heavy metal music blared through the sound system and fancy vehicles with evil names flew over piles of dirt and destroyed rows of wrecked cars by driving over them. I was thankful for the deafening noise of the Monster Trucks, it almost drowned out the steady stream of profanities being hollered out by our fellow fans.
It was fun to see these crazy vehicles do stupid things, but man I wish that boy would love playing piano like his sister.
We help a lot of non-profit organizations raise money for all kinds of really good causes.
We are fundraising experts.
We know when to ask, how to ask, where to ask, and why to ask for money. We start by asking for and receiving that first gift and then we very carefully work with our clients to help them move donors in and up – in closer to the cause (loyalty) and up in giving levels (revenue). When we’re successful in this work everyone wins. The donor feels good about making a difference and the cause gets its much needed support.
I know the ABCs of fundraising but when I was out for a run yesterday I got thinking about what makes me give money away. I know I am not unique in that I am exposed to many, many good causes: those who provide clean water to those without, those who work around the world for child protection and well-being, those who provide capital to micro-entrepreneurs so that they can help themselves, those who educate, those who provide spiritual nurture and care, those who provide homes to the homeless, bikes to the bikeless, wheelchairs to the wheelchairless, and so on.
It seems to make sense to think that a person or a family’s charitable giving is directly proportionate to the causes that mean the most to them. Certainly that factors in for me: my mother died of cancer so whenever someone asks for me to support a cancer cause I have trouble saying no. But when I look at our family’s giving patterns they are definitely not fully prioritized with our charitable concerns.
Motivations for giving large, well-thought-out gifts are well documented but ad hoc giving that happens on a weekly basis is different. It is not well-thought-out, it is not intentional. Unless our family is different I’d suggest that many of us give to avoid feeling awkward and uncomfortable. Think about who you give money to on a weekly basis:
1. The neighbour girl selling chocolate covered almonds to raise money to buy a new tuba for the school music room – you don’t want the almonds but you can’t say no because you’re having dinner with her parents in a few weeks.
2. The street person with a tin cup that you have to walk around to get into your office building.
3. The retired police officer that calls wanting money to take kids to the circus.
4. The spouse of a friend who is a fundraiser for a local college - you have no association with the college but don’t want to look cheap.
5. The church usher who passes the plate down the pew and watches it collect a little something from each of your pewmates.
There are likely causes that are nearer to your heart than the ones you support on a regular basis but you’re not giving to them, instead you’re helping to buy the tuba for the neighbour girl’s music room.
So what’s up?
What are the common threads that run between the examples listed above? They are all direct, personal, slightly uncomfortable, unambiguous, tangible requests for money. If you are a charity and not raising as much as you’d like are you delivering personal, slightly uncomfortable, unambiguous, tangible requests for money? Are you trying TO make your donors feel a little awkward, or trying NOT TO? Are you trying NOT TO sound too needy?
Next time you go out asking for support think about the girl with those waxy chocolate covered almonds, think about the guy with the tin cup, because those guys, those guys are good fundraisers.
Life
It would be so nice if you could tell your kids exactly what to like. I do, I tell them. But, I guess what I meant was, it would be nice if they would listen.
We try to convince Reuben, our six-year-old that he should be into art, music, learning new languages, you know, enlightened stuff. Rather he was born with a natural and intense love of motorcycles, BMX biking, war planes, football, and yes, monster trucks.
For Christmas he got what every six year old needs a handheld Nintendo DSi gaming unit. He then went to Target with Grandpa’s Christmas money and bought the Monster Jam, Monster Truck game. After playing a dozen or so times he was whipping Grave Digger around the car crushing circuit at championship speed – he consistently wins on the hardest skill level.
Well last week they filled Arco Arena in Sacramento with 15,000 tons of dirt, old cars and sound equipment and brought Monster Jam to town. Reuben told us we were going. We pulled our Hybrid SUV into the parking lot full of jacked-up pick-up trucks in plenty of time for the show. As we lined up in a sea of black t-shirts, tattoos, leather jackets, jeans and cowboy boots to go through the gun control check I realized we weren’t exactly fitting in.
Once in our seats the crowd went crazy as the heavy metal music blared through the sound system and fancy vehicles with evil names flew over piles of dirt and destroyed rows of wrecked cars by driving over them. I was thankful for the deafening noise of the Monster Trucks, it almost drowned out the steady stream of profanities being hollered out by our fellow fans.
It was fun to see these crazy vehicles do stupid things, but man I wish that boy would love playing piano like his sister.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Sell, sell, sell
Work
I’ve got a dollar and I want to make it ten.
That’s just life. Am I a marketing guy? I don’t know, I guess so, but when I get called into a client or prospect, it becomes clear in 15 minutes that they don’t want to talk about elevating their brand or marketing, they want to grow, expand their reach, acquire new customers, retain existing customers, and add to the top and bottom line of the company. They want to invest in our services and see that investment pay off in a tangible and measureable way. They want to see 3:1, 5:1, 7:1, or even 10:1 return on the money they spend with us.
My brother heads up a big ‘marketing’ organization in Toronto, their tag line is “Helping you sell more.” I like that. I wish I could say I came up with it, but that would be a lie. I don’t understand everything they do, it’s a pretty complex business, but I get the tagline. That’s what our clients are looking for.
It’s funny but I’ve found myself in client settings reminding them that all they care about is our ability to help them drive return on investment. No matter how well we’re building the brand, increasing customer satisfaction, excelling at customer service, if we are not measurably contributing to the bottom line in a way that our predecessors haven’t, our tenure will be short-lived. We can build strong relationships, help clients pick up the pieces when they let something drop, do back flips for them on a daily basis and that’s great but when we sit down at review time with the numbers person they’re going to be looking at a spreadsheet and that spreadsheet needs to speak for itself. Interpretation is not sought.
Am I a marketing guy? Are we a marketing firm?
mar⋅ket⋅ing*
–noun
1. the act of buying or selling in a market.
2. the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.
*source: dictionary.com
According to the definition above we most certainly are. The thing to keep in mind is that while many ‘marketing firms’ have their sights set on various components of the process at the end of the day it’s all about the transfer of goods.
I’m trying to think of a tagline for us.
Blue North – we help you hawk stuff
There’s no shame is being a good sales guy.
I’ve got a dollar and I want to make it ten.
That’s just life. Am I a marketing guy? I don’t know, I guess so, but when I get called into a client or prospect, it becomes clear in 15 minutes that they don’t want to talk about elevating their brand or marketing, they want to grow, expand their reach, acquire new customers, retain existing customers, and add to the top and bottom line of the company. They want to invest in our services and see that investment pay off in a tangible and measureable way. They want to see 3:1, 5:1, 7:1, or even 10:1 return on the money they spend with us.
My brother heads up a big ‘marketing’ organization in Toronto, their tag line is “Helping you sell more.” I like that. I wish I could say I came up with it, but that would be a lie. I don’t understand everything they do, it’s a pretty complex business, but I get the tagline. That’s what our clients are looking for.
It’s funny but I’ve found myself in client settings reminding them that all they care about is our ability to help them drive return on investment. No matter how well we’re building the brand, increasing customer satisfaction, excelling at customer service, if we are not measurably contributing to the bottom line in a way that our predecessors haven’t, our tenure will be short-lived. We can build strong relationships, help clients pick up the pieces when they let something drop, do back flips for them on a daily basis and that’s great but when we sit down at review time with the numbers person they’re going to be looking at a spreadsheet and that spreadsheet needs to speak for itself. Interpretation is not sought.
Am I a marketing guy? Are we a marketing firm?
mar⋅ket⋅ing*
–noun
1. the act of buying or selling in a market.
2. the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.
*source: dictionary.com
According to the definition above we most certainly are. The thing to keep in mind is that while many ‘marketing firms’ have their sights set on various components of the process at the end of the day it’s all about the transfer of goods.
I’m trying to think of a tagline for us.
Blue North – we help you hawk stuff
There’s no shame is being a good sales guy.
Life
I don’t like Halloween.
In California Halloween is a much bigger deal than it is in our part of Ontario. Basically it’s a week-long dressed up candy party.
I went into our bank two days before Halloween and our banker was dressed up like Homer Simpson. I don’t want to dampen a good time but dealing with Homer about intimate financial matters is a little tough.
* Our kids had school parties
* Downtown Davis basically shut down the day before Halloween. All the shopkeepers dressed up and every kid in town went trick or treating downtown
* On Halloween night every parent I saw was dressed up walking their kids around (I borrowed a neighbour’s wig because I was feeling silly. My feeling of silliness only deepened with the wig)
* Pumpkin patches popped up all over the surrounding countryside
But the culmination of the whole thing is bags full of chocolate and candy.
There was a study in the UK a while back saying that there is no connection between sugar consumption and behaviour in kids. Sorry folks that is just plain wrong. I’m not a scientist but I will tell you for certain that our kids turn from being sweet little angels into raging, crying, laughing, screaming, jumping terrors after a few pieces of candy.
Last year after Halloween we rationed. One piece a day we said. Good idea, but the candy lasted until Christmas. This year, new plan. I told them they could eat all they wanted on the day after Halloween. They didn’t even need to ask. After some initial shock, they took full advantage. Gabbi piled a bunch of candy on her plate for lunch. They had chocolate, M&Ms, candy corn, life savers, gummy worms, they just kept on eating. By 3:00 pm I was ready to give them away, it was like they were high on something. Running around the house, smashing into things crying, getting up punching each other laughing then crying it was awful. By 7:00 they both were lying on the couch with both head and stomach aches. Gabbi wanted carrots and celery, Reuben wanted to go to bed. Before bed they both handed me 90% of their leftover candy and told me to get rid of it. It worked I guess.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Why so complicated?
Work
I can’t say I’m an Avril Lavigne groupie but at 17 the Canadian songstress had something figured out that eludes many for their lifetimes.
“Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?”
In my career as a consultant there have been a number of times when I’ve sounded simply brilliant. Yes it’s true. The reality, as any good consultant knows, is that brilliance is often just stating the obvious. Shhhh.
We’ve worked for many large organizations over the years. And man can they make things complicated. Not long ago we were working for a large bank, helping them to redesign and rewrite some of their letters and correspondence. We recommended a fairly radically overhaul of one particular letter. Our recommendations went to IT who assessed our changes and the response they gave us was in order to make the changes we were recommending it would take approximately eight months and cost several hundred person hours. We know how these letters are composed and assembled, we do it for a living, and we responded to the bank that we could build the application from scratch and give them exactly what they wanted in less than a month and it would take approximately 40 person hours. The challenge was, they were not able to look at the requirements and figure out how to build it as we did, instead they had to work within the confined 20 years of legacy processes, systems patches, old technology, and archaic processes, and from this perspective the changes we were recommending were enormous and complicated.
Organizations seldom take the quickest path to getting things done. Often they can’t. Rather than building something they are trying to modify a hugely complex mess. As consultants we come in without the benefit/liability of history and simply think about the quickest and best way to get it done. Often this simple outside perspective can be profound.
As we work at humanizing and personalizing these huge organizations that chug along on legacy systems and processes it’s critical to ask the same question Avril asked and force ourselves to think about the quickest path to our destination rather than thinking about ‘the way we do things.’
Life
Speaking of complicated. . .
Moving a family across a border and across a big country is a really big deal.
I’m glad I drove our car to California. As I drove with my father across the corn fields of Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, the wastelands of Wyoming, the mountains and salt flats of Utah, the desert and gambling casinos of Nevada and finally the mountains and central valley of California the size and scope of our undertaking became clear.
Getting immigration in order, importing a vehicle, figuring out healthcare, getting services like internet, TV, power, water, gas (without any credit history) establishing kids in a new school system with different expectations and patterns, meeting new people, adjusting to 100 degree days in September, figuring out the good grocery stores from the bad, finding new running and biking routes, getting an office up and productive, hiring new people, meeting neighbours, fixing things that aren’t working in our home. . .
Doing all of this and more with a government system that makes everything so very complicated is exhausting and frustrating.
What are you complaining about? You’re living the dream. California, hot weather, palm trees, swimming, it’s the good life baby. Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot.
I can’t say I’m an Avril Lavigne groupie but at 17 the Canadian songstress had something figured out that eludes many for their lifetimes.
“Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?”
In my career as a consultant there have been a number of times when I’ve sounded simply brilliant. Yes it’s true. The reality, as any good consultant knows, is that brilliance is often just stating the obvious. Shhhh.
We’ve worked for many large organizations over the years. And man can they make things complicated. Not long ago we were working for a large bank, helping them to redesign and rewrite some of their letters and correspondence. We recommended a fairly radically overhaul of one particular letter. Our recommendations went to IT who assessed our changes and the response they gave us was in order to make the changes we were recommending it would take approximately eight months and cost several hundred person hours. We know how these letters are composed and assembled, we do it for a living, and we responded to the bank that we could build the application from scratch and give them exactly what they wanted in less than a month and it would take approximately 40 person hours. The challenge was, they were not able to look at the requirements and figure out how to build it as we did, instead they had to work within the confined 20 years of legacy processes, systems patches, old technology, and archaic processes, and from this perspective the changes we were recommending were enormous and complicated.
Organizations seldom take the quickest path to getting things done. Often they can’t. Rather than building something they are trying to modify a hugely complex mess. As consultants we come in without the benefit/liability of history and simply think about the quickest and best way to get it done. Often this simple outside perspective can be profound.
As we work at humanizing and personalizing these huge organizations that chug along on legacy systems and processes it’s critical to ask the same question Avril asked and force ourselves to think about the quickest path to our destination rather than thinking about ‘the way we do things.’
Life
Speaking of complicated. . .
Moving a family across a border and across a big country is a really big deal.
I’m glad I drove our car to California. As I drove with my father across the corn fields of Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, the wastelands of Wyoming, the mountains and salt flats of Utah, the desert and gambling casinos of Nevada and finally the mountains and central valley of California the size and scope of our undertaking became clear.
Getting immigration in order, importing a vehicle, figuring out healthcare, getting services like internet, TV, power, water, gas (without any credit history) establishing kids in a new school system with different expectations and patterns, meeting new people, adjusting to 100 degree days in September, figuring out the good grocery stores from the bad, finding new running and biking routes, getting an office up and productive, hiring new people, meeting neighbours, fixing things that aren’t working in our home. . .
Doing all of this and more with a government system that makes everything so very complicated is exhausting and frustrating.
What are you complaining about? You’re living the dream. California, hot weather, palm trees, swimming, it’s the good life baby. Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The magic of marketing
Work
Is marketing magical?
A story comes to mind. When I first got into the business we took on whomever we could get as a client, that’s just the way you start a business. Our first big client was a national technology-based organization (I’ll give no more details than that). We developed their corporate ID and did their radio, TV, magazine, newspaper, subway ads , as well as billboards, corporate brochures, PR and a host of other things. This firm was looking to radically grow their business.
At one point after working with them for a while we did cross-country focus groups to find out how their clients were feeling. During these sessions one thing was consistent and clear – their clients weren’t happy. They complained about old technology, error-filled material, unqualified staff and a bunch of other things.
It became clear to us that we were being asked to constantly drum up new clients while their previous and existing ones were spreading the bad news and fleeing in droves. They thought that a good marketing firm could compensate for their poor product offering.
What happened? They got increasingly frustrated by ‘our’ results and we got increasingly stressed by their frustration. In the end, guess what, we fired them. We decided it just wasn’t worth the anxiety.
Good marketing isn’t magic. It isn’t about deception or tricking the customer.
Good marketing is about honesty, specificity and accuracy.
Every marketer’s goal is to understand where their audience is at, and then deliver messages in a way that makes sense. It’s about speaking relevantly and honestly with people. If you try to deceive or trick the audience they’ll figure it out.
If you analyse your client base with the goal of only sending messages to the people that really care about them and then work at personalizing the messages you send to specific people, things will work. You will end up sending fewer messages/pieces out while increasing response rate.
Be realistic. Marketing is about getting the right messages out to the right people. If you haven’t got the right messages or the right people your challenge is bigger than one that a marketer can solve.
Life
I’d forgotten how tough moving is.
When you begin the process, you methodically go through each item and decide whether or not you want to keep it, store it, move it or throw it.
Throwing things out is tough at first. The first few items almost stick to your fingers as you struggle to put them in the Thrift Store box or garbage bag. Once you do it though it feels liberating to be free of the item you’ve just discarded.
After the first ones, it gets easier. Momentum builds. A few weeks into it you found yourself frantically shovelling through former treasurers and throwing stacks and bundles away without even looking at some of it.
At some point in the process of shovelling and discarding you are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff you are getting rid of and not going to miss.
And then you get down to the last few days. Panic sets in. It is no longer liberating, or in any way fun. It’s just hard work.
My father-in-law talks about possibly moving into a retirement home someday. I asked him what it will feel like to move from a large home with a big yard to two small rooms in a retirement complex. He said, "By the time I move I’m not going to feel like maintaining a big place like I’ve got. It will feel just fine."
We start and end with very little and that seems to work out just fine. Why do we do the middle part to ourselves?
Is marketing magical?
A story comes to mind. When I first got into the business we took on whomever we could get as a client, that’s just the way you start a business. Our first big client was a national technology-based organization (I’ll give no more details than that). We developed their corporate ID and did their radio, TV, magazine, newspaper, subway ads , as well as billboards, corporate brochures, PR and a host of other things. This firm was looking to radically grow their business.
At one point after working with them for a while we did cross-country focus groups to find out how their clients were feeling. During these sessions one thing was consistent and clear – their clients weren’t happy. They complained about old technology, error-filled material, unqualified staff and a bunch of other things.
It became clear to us that we were being asked to constantly drum up new clients while their previous and existing ones were spreading the bad news and fleeing in droves. They thought that a good marketing firm could compensate for their poor product offering.
What happened? They got increasingly frustrated by ‘our’ results and we got increasingly stressed by their frustration. In the end, guess what, we fired them. We decided it just wasn’t worth the anxiety.
Good marketing isn’t magic. It isn’t about deception or tricking the customer.
Good marketing is about honesty, specificity and accuracy.
Every marketer’s goal is to understand where their audience is at, and then deliver messages in a way that makes sense. It’s about speaking relevantly and honestly with people. If you try to deceive or trick the audience they’ll figure it out.
If you analyse your client base with the goal of only sending messages to the people that really care about them and then work at personalizing the messages you send to specific people, things will work. You will end up sending fewer messages/pieces out while increasing response rate.
Be realistic. Marketing is about getting the right messages out to the right people. If you haven’t got the right messages or the right people your challenge is bigger than one that a marketer can solve.
Life
I’d forgotten how tough moving is.
When you begin the process, you methodically go through each item and decide whether or not you want to keep it, store it, move it or throw it.
Throwing things out is tough at first. The first few items almost stick to your fingers as you struggle to put them in the Thrift Store box or garbage bag. Once you do it though it feels liberating to be free of the item you’ve just discarded.
After the first ones, it gets easier. Momentum builds. A few weeks into it you found yourself frantically shovelling through former treasurers and throwing stacks and bundles away without even looking at some of it.
At some point in the process of shovelling and discarding you are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff you are getting rid of and not going to miss.
And then you get down to the last few days. Panic sets in. It is no longer liberating, or in any way fun. It’s just hard work.
My father-in-law talks about possibly moving into a retirement home someday. I asked him what it will feel like to move from a large home with a big yard to two small rooms in a retirement complex. He said, "By the time I move I’m not going to feel like maintaining a big place like I’ve got. It will feel just fine."
We start and end with very little and that seems to work out just fine. Why do we do the middle part to ourselves?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Pleasant Surprises
Work
I spend a lot of time on airplanes. So much so that a while back we had a client at our office and she was describing a lengthy and humorous exchange she had with a flight attendant on a route that I fly often. When she finished I said, “Oh that was David”. First her mouth dropped open and then she started to laugh because I was right, I know the Air Canada flight attendants on my favourite routes.
The other thing I seem to do a lot of is complain about companies that don’t treat me the way I like to be treated. I see it as my professional obligation. In almost every talk I give I tell a story of poor customer service. And yes with all the travelling I do those stories are often about those who carry me around on my journeys.
Well not today.
This week I flew from Toronto to Sacramento. Before leaving I called National Car Rental because my flight was landing at midnight and their office closes at midnight. The reason I love National is that with my Emerald Club card I can walk right past the counter, pick a car and drive out of the lot after a brief stop at the exit kiosk, without lines or major delays. When I called they asked for my number. Upon seeing that I was a frequent customer the fellow at the desk told me he’d arrange for someone to wait after midnight just for me. That would be nice, if it worked out.
I went to the airport in Toronto walked right past the long immigration line and had my eyes scanned at the Nexus kiosk and headed to the Air Canada frequent travellers lounge. I did a little work, had my complimentary salad and soup, grabbed some reading material for the plane and left. Nice.
I arrived at the United Airlines gate with my economy class ticket in-hand. (I’m not a frequent traveller with them but Air Canada is part of the Star Alliance network so I’m kind of a second rate good United customer.) As I handed my boarding pass in to be scanned the fellow at the gate ripped it in half, said “Welcome back”, and handed me an upgraded business class boarding pass. The flight was full and rather than giving the nice seats to occasional travellers they opted to reward their regular guests. Nice.
I got to Sacramento a few minutes after midnight, walked to the National lot and sure enough sitting at the exit was a young man with a smile on his face waiting for me. Nice.
All trips certainly don’t work out that well but that is exactly how companies should treat their regular customers. They know who I am because I use their rewards programs, it’s their chance to say thanks and lock me in for my next trip and my next after that. Air Canada, United, National, it was late, I was tired, but you got me to California feeling happy and that’s a good thing.
What are the basic principles that all of these companies followed?
1. Capture, store and track data on your customers’ habits
2. Before talking to your clients, make sure to look at what you already know about them
3. All customers are not equal, so don’t treat them that way. Treat them all well but give your best customers lots of reasons to keep coming back
It’s that easy.
Life
I’m going to make a confession that I’m likely going to regret. I’m not a facebook fan. Sure I have my page, because I feel like I have to, but I’m not diggin' it.
I keep in touch with the people I want to keep in touch with by email, phone and social events. When a long lost friend writes on my wall and wants to fire up a conversation it feels like more of an annoyance than a happy moment. If you know me, you likely have my email. If you have my email, send me a note if you like. Don’t try to get me to support Palin for VP when I live in Canada. Don’t add me to your family tree. Don’t invite me to your online parties. Sorry, but the truth is I’m just not that interested. Blasphemy, right?
So this week while in Sacramento I had my facebook moment. A lot of people have told me about these distant and obscure reconnections they’ve made on facebook that have been really interesting. Until this week the obscure interesting people have managed to avoid me.
When I was in high school I was not the best behaved young lad at the school. In fact, I got into a fair bit of trouble. When I think about most of the trouble I got into one guy’s name instantly pops into my head as always being at my side. We bagged off classes, drank things we weren’t supposed to be drinking, went places we weren’t supposed to be going and did a lot of things we were supposed to be doing. Yes, I’m intentionally leaving out ALL details.
We shook hands on high school graduation day and I haven’t seen him or heard from him since. It’s been nearly 25 years. This week he sent me a note. The note said, “I bet you thought I’d be dead.” He had a good point there.
I went to his facebook page and in his 200 or so contacts were the same folks we hung out with at high school. By just sending him a note back I felt like I was going to get into trouble. We chatted for a bit back and forth. It turns out he’s married and happily into fatherhood and family life just like me. I didn’t ask him but I’d bet that he’s settled down a lot too.
Will we strike up our old friendship again? I hope not, unless it’s a lot different from our first go around. But I do have to say it was kind of fun experiencing that flood of memories and regrets. For a brief couple of minutes in a hotel room in Sacramento I understood at least a part of the facebook thing. I had my facebook moment.
I spend a lot of time on airplanes. So much so that a while back we had a client at our office and she was describing a lengthy and humorous exchange she had with a flight attendant on a route that I fly often. When she finished I said, “Oh that was David”. First her mouth dropped open and then she started to laugh because I was right, I know the Air Canada flight attendants on my favourite routes.
The other thing I seem to do a lot of is complain about companies that don’t treat me the way I like to be treated. I see it as my professional obligation. In almost every talk I give I tell a story of poor customer service. And yes with all the travelling I do those stories are often about those who carry me around on my journeys.
Well not today.
This week I flew from Toronto to Sacramento. Before leaving I called National Car Rental because my flight was landing at midnight and their office closes at midnight. The reason I love National is that with my Emerald Club card I can walk right past the counter, pick a car and drive out of the lot after a brief stop at the exit kiosk, without lines or major delays. When I called they asked for my number. Upon seeing that I was a frequent customer the fellow at the desk told me he’d arrange for someone to wait after midnight just for me. That would be nice, if it worked out.
I went to the airport in Toronto walked right past the long immigration line and had my eyes scanned at the Nexus kiosk and headed to the Air Canada frequent travellers lounge. I did a little work, had my complimentary salad and soup, grabbed some reading material for the plane and left. Nice.
I arrived at the United Airlines gate with my economy class ticket in-hand. (I’m not a frequent traveller with them but Air Canada is part of the Star Alliance network so I’m kind of a second rate good United customer.) As I handed my boarding pass in to be scanned the fellow at the gate ripped it in half, said “Welcome back”, and handed me an upgraded business class boarding pass. The flight was full and rather than giving the nice seats to occasional travellers they opted to reward their regular guests. Nice.
I got to Sacramento a few minutes after midnight, walked to the National lot and sure enough sitting at the exit was a young man with a smile on his face waiting for me. Nice.
All trips certainly don’t work out that well but that is exactly how companies should treat their regular customers. They know who I am because I use their rewards programs, it’s their chance to say thanks and lock me in for my next trip and my next after that. Air Canada, United, National, it was late, I was tired, but you got me to California feeling happy and that’s a good thing.
What are the basic principles that all of these companies followed?
1. Capture, store and track data on your customers’ habits
2. Before talking to your clients, make sure to look at what you already know about them
3. All customers are not equal, so don’t treat them that way. Treat them all well but give your best customers lots of reasons to keep coming back
It’s that easy.
Life
I’m going to make a confession that I’m likely going to regret. I’m not a facebook fan. Sure I have my page, because I feel like I have to, but I’m not diggin' it.
I keep in touch with the people I want to keep in touch with by email, phone and social events. When a long lost friend writes on my wall and wants to fire up a conversation it feels like more of an annoyance than a happy moment. If you know me, you likely have my email. If you have my email, send me a note if you like. Don’t try to get me to support Palin for VP when I live in Canada. Don’t add me to your family tree. Don’t invite me to your online parties. Sorry, but the truth is I’m just not that interested. Blasphemy, right?
So this week while in Sacramento I had my facebook moment. A lot of people have told me about these distant and obscure reconnections they’ve made on facebook that have been really interesting. Until this week the obscure interesting people have managed to avoid me.
When I was in high school I was not the best behaved young lad at the school. In fact, I got into a fair bit of trouble. When I think about most of the trouble I got into one guy’s name instantly pops into my head as always being at my side. We bagged off classes, drank things we weren’t supposed to be drinking, went places we weren’t supposed to be going and did a lot of things we were supposed to be doing. Yes, I’m intentionally leaving out ALL details.
We shook hands on high school graduation day and I haven’t seen him or heard from him since. It’s been nearly 25 years. This week he sent me a note. The note said, “I bet you thought I’d be dead.” He had a good point there.
I went to his facebook page and in his 200 or so contacts were the same folks we hung out with at high school. By just sending him a note back I felt like I was going to get into trouble. We chatted for a bit back and forth. It turns out he’s married and happily into fatherhood and family life just like me. I didn’t ask him but I’d bet that he’s settled down a lot too.
Will we strike up our old friendship again? I hope not, unless it’s a lot different from our first go around. But I do have to say it was kind of fun experiencing that flood of memories and regrets. For a brief couple of minutes in a hotel room in Sacramento I understood at least a part of the facebook thing. I had my facebook moment.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Good clear instructions
Work
Canadians are sinking deeper and deeper into debt. An unprecedented amount of debt is piling up on credits cards. One would think that people generally know that increasing ongoing debt on a credit card is not the best plan from a financial management perspective.
When the government announced last week that credit card companies have to configure their statements to prominently disclose interest rates and fees in a box on the front page of every statement the following thoughts quickly ran through my head:
1. Excellent, this will mean more redesign business for us with our many credit card customers
2. Don’t people know the interest rates they are paying, is this really necessary?
3. Come to think of it, it makes perfect sense and follows a basic principle of design and communications
When our government ramped up its war on cigarettes, a first move was to force the redesign of cigarette packages to boldly present the health problems associated with this habit.
These moves by our government serve as a good reminder to us as communicators. We assume too much.
While I’d like to be charitable and suggest consumers are intelligent, always thinking and aware, this simply is not the case. Allow me to give two quick examples:
1. We did some consulting for an insurance company who was endeavouring to streamline their communications. One of the things we came across was discovered in the payment processing room as we sat and watched as a small army of people worked at a long table tearing open envelopes and processing remittance slips and cheques (checks). They were remarkably fast at their jobs EXCEPT when the cheque was stapled to the remittance slip. In this case they had to stop what they were doing, pick up a staple remover, fiddle with the staple to remove it, and then resume their work. I asked how frequently this happens and was told that likely 25 – 30% of cheques are stapled or clipped to the remittance slip, they also estimated that the extra time required to manually deal with these stapled cheques added up to two full-time employees. I looked at the slip and there was nothing on it asking customers not to staple their cheques to the slip. I, being the brilliant and insightful consultant that I am, carefully crafted the following profound recommendation: “Ask customers not to staple their cheques to the remittance slip.” After much debate this recommendation was implemented. No one complained. Their occurrence of cheques being stapled to the remittance slip decreased by 90%.
2. When we were working with a credit card company to redesign their statement they told me about a situation that happened several times each month. They said that customers call to complain because even though they keep paying their entire amount due their monthly balance keeps increasing. In every situation the problem is the same. What these customers see as a monthly balance is actually a monthly credit which they pay, and it therefore doubles the next month. We implemented a few design tweaks to eliminate this problem.
We’re all busy, and my experience suggests that many of us are a little dense. When communicating it is therefore vital that we assume nothing, anticipate misinterpretation, and design each piece of critical communication in a way that clearly and intuitively instructs the recipients down the right path. There is little room for subtleties in transactional communication. Bills, statements, policies, and other such documents are relatively ‘blunt’ instruments. We need to focus our efforts on being deliberate, clear, plain and straight forward. Give people the straight goods, tell them what they need to do, and guess what - they’ll do it.
And yeah, I’ve got to confess I am just a little bit excited about all the extra business this government regulation is going to generate for us. :-)
Life
More than any other piece I’ve written on this blog, the one that people most commonly mention to me is the one where I asked if I should have bought my young four-year-old lad a motorcycle. I’ve received an overwhelming amount of parental advice. Because of that interest I thought it was time to provide another update on my dear boy Reuben.
He’s now five, never serious, always entertaining, and he loves anything with a big loud engine.
Last Sunday I had a problem. It was 5:30, I was wrapping up several hours of yard work as big black storm clouds started to roll in. I estimated that I had about 30 minutes before the sky would open up and unleash a furious storm. My work was almost done except I had about 30 piles of yard waste in different places over our acre of lawn. My loader tractor was at the ready but if I had to drive it around, stop at each pile, get off, clean it up, get back on and move to the next I’d never finish the job before the rain.
I needed to be creative to get the job done.
Young Reuben was hamming it up running around the yard. I called him over, picked him up and stood him in front of the steering wheel of the tractor. I gave him a quick set of instructions and told him this was his time to be serious – no playing around.
Standing on the tractor, with his eyes barely high enough to peer over the top of the steering wheel, one foot stretched out to touch the gas pedal, one hand on the wheel and one hand on the hydraulic bucket controls he was off. I walked around the yard with my rake and an eye over my shoulder and he drove around the entire yard following my every step and positioning the bucket for me to pick up each pile of waste. The look on his face was extraordinary, his eyes were focussed and deadly serious, but his mouth was literally smiling from ear-to-ear. After we finished and drove the tractor into the barn (just before the first drops of rain) he grabbed my hand, looked up and said, “Dad, today was the best day of my life.”
Was it my best example of sober good thinking to give him the wheel? Maybe not. Was I proud and glad I did it? In the words of my farmer Grandfather “You betcha.”
Canadians are sinking deeper and deeper into debt. An unprecedented amount of debt is piling up on credits cards. One would think that people generally know that increasing ongoing debt on a credit card is not the best plan from a financial management perspective.
When the government announced last week that credit card companies have to configure their statements to prominently disclose interest rates and fees in a box on the front page of every statement the following thoughts quickly ran through my head:
1. Excellent, this will mean more redesign business for us with our many credit card customers
2. Don’t people know the interest rates they are paying, is this really necessary?
3. Come to think of it, it makes perfect sense and follows a basic principle of design and communications
When our government ramped up its war on cigarettes, a first move was to force the redesign of cigarette packages to boldly present the health problems associated with this habit.
These moves by our government serve as a good reminder to us as communicators. We assume too much.
While I’d like to be charitable and suggest consumers are intelligent, always thinking and aware, this simply is not the case. Allow me to give two quick examples:
1. We did some consulting for an insurance company who was endeavouring to streamline their communications. One of the things we came across was discovered in the payment processing room as we sat and watched as a small army of people worked at a long table tearing open envelopes and processing remittance slips and cheques (checks). They were remarkably fast at their jobs EXCEPT when the cheque was stapled to the remittance slip. In this case they had to stop what they were doing, pick up a staple remover, fiddle with the staple to remove it, and then resume their work. I asked how frequently this happens and was told that likely 25 – 30% of cheques are stapled or clipped to the remittance slip, they also estimated that the extra time required to manually deal with these stapled cheques added up to two full-time employees. I looked at the slip and there was nothing on it asking customers not to staple their cheques to the slip. I, being the brilliant and insightful consultant that I am, carefully crafted the following profound recommendation: “Ask customers not to staple their cheques to the remittance slip.” After much debate this recommendation was implemented. No one complained. Their occurrence of cheques being stapled to the remittance slip decreased by 90%.
2. When we were working with a credit card company to redesign their statement they told me about a situation that happened several times each month. They said that customers call to complain because even though they keep paying their entire amount due their monthly balance keeps increasing. In every situation the problem is the same. What these customers see as a monthly balance is actually a monthly credit which they pay, and it therefore doubles the next month. We implemented a few design tweaks to eliminate this problem.
We’re all busy, and my experience suggests that many of us are a little dense. When communicating it is therefore vital that we assume nothing, anticipate misinterpretation, and design each piece of critical communication in a way that clearly and intuitively instructs the recipients down the right path. There is little room for subtleties in transactional communication. Bills, statements, policies, and other such documents are relatively ‘blunt’ instruments. We need to focus our efforts on being deliberate, clear, plain and straight forward. Give people the straight goods, tell them what they need to do, and guess what - they’ll do it.
And yeah, I’ve got to confess I am just a little bit excited about all the extra business this government regulation is going to generate for us. :-)
Life
More than any other piece I’ve written on this blog, the one that people most commonly mention to me is the one where I asked if I should have bought my young four-year-old lad a motorcycle. I’ve received an overwhelming amount of parental advice. Because of that interest I thought it was time to provide another update on my dear boy Reuben.
He’s now five, never serious, always entertaining, and he loves anything with a big loud engine.
Last Sunday I had a problem. It was 5:30, I was wrapping up several hours of yard work as big black storm clouds started to roll in. I estimated that I had about 30 minutes before the sky would open up and unleash a furious storm. My work was almost done except I had about 30 piles of yard waste in different places over our acre of lawn. My loader tractor was at the ready but if I had to drive it around, stop at each pile, get off, clean it up, get back on and move to the next I’d never finish the job before the rain.
I needed to be creative to get the job done.
Young Reuben was hamming it up running around the yard. I called him over, picked him up and stood him in front of the steering wheel of the tractor. I gave him a quick set of instructions and told him this was his time to be serious – no playing around.
Standing on the tractor, with his eyes barely high enough to peer over the top of the steering wheel, one foot stretched out to touch the gas pedal, one hand on the wheel and one hand on the hydraulic bucket controls he was off. I walked around the yard with my rake and an eye over my shoulder and he drove around the entire yard following my every step and positioning the bucket for me to pick up each pile of waste. The look on his face was extraordinary, his eyes were focussed and deadly serious, but his mouth was literally smiling from ear-to-ear. After we finished and drove the tractor into the barn (just before the first drops of rain) he grabbed my hand, looked up and said, “Dad, today was the best day of my life.”
Was it my best example of sober good thinking to give him the wheel? Maybe not. Was I proud and glad I did it? In the words of my farmer Grandfather “You betcha.”
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