My Deffinition

Ever have a "duh?" moment?

The other day I was reading (no, seriously, I was) Seth Godin's new book Free Prize inside, and I had a wonderfully DUH moment. In Seth's last book, Purple Cow, he talks about making your product REMARKABLE. So being the genius that I am (NOTE TO THE READER: THE GENIUS BIT IS SARCASM) I think he's talking about making your product great, or fantastic, or super duper. Well, DUH think about it... REMARK-ABLE. He means that your product is so great that end users actually remark to others about your product. THEY ADVERTISE FOR YOU.

WOW, how many of your customers REMARK about your product? Sure, sure, your product is great, industry leader, the benchmark, blah blah, do customers recruit NEW customers themselves? Is it that good?

Here's my suggestion for a remarkable product: my stoller. Well, I don't have a stroller, I have a Chariot.

Make your product worth talking about.

Up in Smoke

Not to come off all preachy, but I'm amazed how many of Toronto's restaurants and bars have raised up their voices to complain against the new non-smoking laws in the city. So, as to not sound preachy, I did some research.. wouldn't you know it, the kind folks at Statistics Canada told me exactly what I thought.. the percentage of smoking Canadians is on the decline, as of 2001, the rate was 23%. How does that relate to business? Not sociology? Well, if you knew that your market was on a decline.. wouldn't you do everything to cater to the NEW market?

It's amazing that when pressed for cash, Phillip Morris, now called Altria Group sold its Miller Brewing Division instead of it's tobacco business. I know, smoking doesn't have the same stigma all over the world, but, I'm willing to bet that smoking will be banned worldwide (WOW, what a concept - remember you heard it here first folks) before they ban beer. Talk about a long term strategy..

Anyway, I'm just amazed that bars are so near sighted that they cry over the smokers, as opposed to the 77% of the rest of the population that doesn't smoke!!

Are you catering to the right market? I'm not saying you have to do business in the largest market, I just think it's not a wise move to target one that you know is declining. If your strategy is to jump on the non-smoking bandwagon when "all the smokers are gone" - we will have moved on.



Time to butt out.

Re-imagine this..

So I am a HUGE Tom Peters fan. From Re-imagine, to The Pursuit of WOW, to Thriving on Chaos...

The man is a great writer. He is often said to be one of the great thinkers of our time.

From time to time I check out his website.

This morning it was down.. I moved on to Seth Godin's site.. another author..

How often do you check your own site to see if it's up?
How often to you call your call centre to see how you're treated?
How often do you walk through one of your stores, or try to buy something from your company?

How often are your customers disappointed?

How often do they move on?

Do Real Stuff

Fill this out.

Strategy Maps

Well, while researching a strategic thinking assesssment for an upcoming workshop, I came across another series of diagrams of strategies, similar to an earlier post of mine.. this time for chess...



The caption for the picture is "Black is already on the slide". If you can't figure out why... learn to play chess.

You too may already be on the slide...

Sunday, Purple Sunday...

Boy did I have a great day yesterday. Sun was out, everything was great.

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I decided to have dinner at our favourite family restaurant (don't laugh!!) Boston Pizza. If you have small children you know that finding a restaurant that caters to their needs are abundant, however, these places rarely cater to the parents' needs. So when we went to Boston Pizza for the first time, we were more than thrilled to find what we did. NOTE TO THE READER: I am about to pass on the world's most effective marketing message...

Check out your local Boston Pizza. I recommend it.

So, here's the problem, I live on the Danforth in Toronto, and, the closest Boston Pizza is 30 Km away from my house. Let's go back to the fact that I live on the Danforth, which is one of Toronto's best restaurant districts.. I'm willing to drive across the city to have dinner..at Boston Pizza... must be good eh?

Now, to make this story better, more Purple Cow to use the right lingo.. I was actually trying to surprise my wife and kids with the dinner, so I planned a trip to buy a new accessory for our stroller.. 20 Km away from our house. Let's be more specific... we don't have a stroller, we have a Chariot. So, one remarkable product deserves another. So off we go to buy a cargo rack for our Chariot, and a pizza at Boston Pizza.. Seth Godin would be proud.. you know your product is remarkable if your customers are willing to seek you out, and drive 30 Km past HUNDREDS of your competitors to buy your product.

How many of your customers do that? What would it take to make your product remarkable?

Thinking Strategically

So moments before I posted my last ..er.. post.. I had a thought.. it came to me.. (don't laugh) when I saw the series of pictures at the bottom of the page I hyperlinked to in my last post..




Moments before I sat down to the keyboard, I received my two books of the week fresh off the truck from Amazon.ca. One was appropriately entitled Thinking Strategically, and is filled with wonderful diagrams like the one below...




How many times have you seen a diagram like this one at your organization? How many of these do you have. Good Coaches have a playbook full of options, to match situations before the play clock winds down...

How would your company react if the market imposed a play clock on your decision making process..

Oh wait... they did. Get your play book out..

The Power of Alignment

Oh no, it's only June and I'm about to throw out a football reference...

Maybe I'll pretend I'm talking about the CFL, ya, that's right..

Anyway.. in the huddle, it is the job of the quarterback to direct the routes that each of his (or her) receivers will run on the upcoming play. This way, when the quarterback goes to throw the ball, he will know where each person should be on the field. Even in the case of the run and shoot offence, at least the quarterback knows that each receiver will be running based on the situation they are presented with, following no predetermined patterns.

What's my point? Well, today, I called one of our suppliers to discuss a new service they were offering. How did I know about this magical new suite of offerings? Via email. So, to learn more, I simply called the number provided, and enquired about the new services.

What's the problem? Well, the person on the other end of the phone HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT!! They had never seen the email, and had no idea their OWN company had added these new services!!!

I guess that my point is, after reading yet another brilliant book, Unstuck, everyone should understand your organization (for the most part) from top to bottom. Everyone who works for you is a keeper of the brand, the message, the level of perfection. It is everyone's job to know. Great companies celebrate new products and services. Great companies empower every employee to be a steward of the brand. Good companies ensure that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing...

Go long...