Quick thought: Sooner or later, you’ve got to sh*t or get off the pot…

Posted on | March 7, 2011

This may sound like a weird sentiment come from a guy who writes strategy for a living, but sooner or later the time for planning needs to end and the time for action needs to begin.

I’ve seen it too often, and it’s normally driven by people in my industry.

Why? In my opinion that’s a simple answer: if you’re still planning your strategy you haven’t implemented it. If you haven’t implemented it you can’t track it. If you can’t track it, you can’t be judged on the results.

And most marketing people I meet are terrified of being judged on results. They’ll dance around it, but it’s the truth.

The sad fact is that, no matter how good/clever/insightful you are parts of your strategy won’t work. Parts of it will work better. Parts of it will fail. Parts can be saved. Parts need to be binned.

That’s one of the reasons I like how we work at Designate. We create the strategies, to be sure, but we also implement them every month. We track our successes, we learn from our failures, and we constantly re-evaluate. Some of our ideas work great. Some don’t.

But we always call time on the the strategy creation and make sure we get to the actual work.

Sooner or later you have to stop thinking and start doing.

- j

No no….please…invite me (and every one of your contacts) to all your events….I don’t mind

Posted on | March 4, 2011

It’s friday. And that means I get to set aside a bit of time to bitch about something. Seriously…you should try it. It’s cathartic.

But really this is a pet peeve of mine.

Why on earth do people insist on using online networks as SPAM vehicles? It’s such a waste of a (potentially) powerful interactive tool.

It happened today again, and it was just about the time where I was thinking about writing anyway, so here we are.

I don’t know about you, but I get this a couple of times a week. There is an Edinburgh-based business (I won’t name names yet) that runs networking events in the city. I am connected to the MD on LinkedIn.

Now pop-quiz:

Hands up who think that your online networks should be treated with the same respect as your offline one?
Hands up who thinks your online networks are there to be an cheap sales platform?

(I’m not normally subtle – the first answer is correct)

So this morning I, yet again, get a message from LinkedIN. MD-man has sent me an invitation to an event. Again. This happens every month.  Multiple times. And you know what? I’m actually to the point where I am going to block him from my network. I mean, what’s the point? He doesn’t think “gee Jordan’s business might really benefit from this event. He hasn’t been in a while, so I’m going to get in touch with him and see if he’d like to come”. No, instead I’m pretty sure his thought process is “right we have an event coming up and I need to sell my tickets, let me go into my handy online community and send it to everyone. It’s easy and free and it’s the law of numbers, right?’.

Well you know what? He’s right. It is the law of numbers and I’m sure he’ll get his attendance.

But he’s lost me. Absolutely. He’s lost me for good. He’s lost any referrals, any relationship, and business, he might have received from me.

And I’m probably not the only one.

Your online community is no different from your offline one. You build relationships and you build trust. If all you’re going to do is SPAM me with sales messages, you’ll see how quickly I get rid of you – and you’ll lose me for good.

It’s not that hard. Treat your online community with the respect they deserve. That is the surest way to building a mutually beneficial (and profitable) relationship.

(And stop sending me all those fucking LinkedIn invites please)

- j

Just because your mother thinks you’re handsome doesn’t make it true…

Posted on | February 11, 2011

There are times (I can say with only a small hint of sarcasm) where my mouth gets me into trouble.

I’ll pause now for you all to stop laughing.

Anyway the point is  I’ve decided to self-censor the title of this post a bit. It’s normally a little more crude, and I have a habit of saying it when I’m on stage speaking, but it also is a nice way of illustrating some business points that drive me wild.

Just because you like what you do, and your friends like what you do, and your mum likes what you do…. you get my point right?

It’s funny. I run into this problem a lot.

People are always more invested in their own things. Nobody cares about my business more than me. Staff don’t. They never will. That’s not saying they don’t like working here or really like the company. They do. They work hard. But they won’t ever live and breathe it like I do. Nor, to be honest, should they.

Where it starts to lead to mistakes is when you’re applying these thoughts to your marketing and growth.

I’ll give you a couple of scenarios that I’ve seen first hand:

1. A technology company. These guys are geeks. They love their tech and they are very, very, good at it. They’ve got an idea for a website. It will simply fly. They know this. Why? All their developer friends love the idea. All their developer friends get it. They are on the road…

2. A retailer. They manufacture high-quality luxury goods. Really nice stuff. But now they are looking to expand and they are looking to go into some new territories. That’s fine though. Look how good their stuff is! It won’t be hard to get people interested in their product. Easy.

Do I really have to state the obvious?

They both failed.

Spectacularly.

Why? They suffered from that central flawed assumption – they love their products therefor everyone will love their products.

I see this a lot when I’m looking at potential high growth businesses. Most of them have some sort of innovative product or process and are looking to create a commercial vehicle out of it. They are all very good at what they do, and sometimes the products are actually very cool. Whether they succeed or fail usually hangs on the marketing strategy.

1. Do they have a market for it?
2. Will the market pay for it?
3. Do they know how to reach this market?
4. Have they priced it correctly?
5. Is the market big enough to support the investment to get it off the ground?

You can think you have the best company in the world. You can think you have the best product in the world. You can think you have the best people in the world.

Just because you think it, doesn’t make it true. Just because you believe it, doesn’t mean anyone else will.

My mum thinks I’m a pretty handsome guy, but guess what? I’m going home alone….

Get your head out of the sand and look objectively before you make a move.

- j

Investment needs talent. Talent deserves investment.

Posted on | February 7, 2011

Why are you trying to sell me a car? I can’t even drive…

Posted on | February 4, 2011

I’ve been busy. Yeah, I know. I say that all the time. In fact, I say it each and every time I write one of these blogs.

But I mean it this time. I’ve been busy.

But it’s been the start of the month this month and guess what that means? My inbox is assaulted with dozens of different email newsletters! And when that happens I get to say to myself: “Great! Just what I’ve been needing! A bunch of emails that have nothing to do with me from people who send out thousands of these things to everyone in their contact database.”

Perfect. I love being a number within a database.

Don’t take this to mean that I like neither databases nor email marketing. It’s not that at all.

It’s just that so many people do it in a really lazy (and less-effective) way. I find that a bit offensive.

Is it so much to ask for companies to put a little bit of thought into what they are sending, who they are sending it to and why they are sending it? But no. The majority of newsletters I get spread the same messages to the same people in the same ways.

How much of it is relevant to their intended audience? A pretty frickin’ low amount.

The thing is. Is doesn’t have to be this way. And it also doesn’t take that much time or effort to do it right. You can do this within your free systems (like Mailchimp) just as well as you can do this within your paid ones. You can do this in every CRM system I have ever seen. You can do this within a spreadsheet if you absolutely must.

It all comes down to one of my pet subjects: Relevance.

If something is relevant to me, I’m interested.

If something isn’t relevant to me, I’m not.

It actually is that simple.

Making Your Communications Relevant

When I speak to companies about this subject, the big worry is time. How, they want to know, can they possibly tailor their messages to each individual contact? Won’t that take a lot of time?

It actually doesn’t, and the truth is, you don’t have to tailor it to each individual contact within your database. You just have to make sure that you are sending relevant information to each person.

That’s where a strong database comes into play. If you accurately segment your database you can come up with categories and interest areas pretty quickly.

I’ll give you an example that I worked on a couple of years ago. I was working with a firm of Financial Advisors. The majority of the advisors had a pretty extensive database of clients, but very few of them actually used these databases effectively.

I say very few. The reality is – none of them did.

One of the first things we looked at was how we could target the users with communications that would interest them.

For them, we broadly broke down their customers into three main areas:

1. Young People and Newly Married
   These clients were at a stage in their life where they were looking to the future. They were thinking about babies and student debt…about buying their first home or getting a nicer car. They were looking at their life ahead of them and were excited.
2. Middle Age & Families
   These clients had families and were looking for security. They had families. They thought about their kids security and college tuition. They thought about their health and their retirement. They thought about how they could get rid of their mortgages.
3. Retirement Age
   These clients were thinking about the next generation. They thought about their grandkids and their inheritance. They thought about their health and their estates. They thought about their families and their security.

Three very different types of clients. Three very different stories. Three very different interests.

Why on earth would you send the same messages to these three different groups? How relevant do you think you’re going to be to them? How much are they going to associate themselves with your message?

The answer is….not a lot. Not a lot at all.

It’s really pretty easy to do (marketing is, after all, simple) and there is no excuse for being lazy. You have to make sure the messages you are sending are relevant.

Or you can feel free to call me ;-)

- jordan

I call it simple for a reason…

Posted on | January 17, 2011

It’s all in the title, right?

It’s been a nice time away, but I’m back now, and that means that I’m back to putting my thoughts down on a (semi) regular basis.

To kick off 2011, I thought I’d do a little bit of the old ‘back to basics’ routine. It’s time, I thought to myself, to dust of the ‘simple stupid’ tags and remind people what I mean when I repeat (and repeat and repeat) that simple mantra.

Marketing is simple (stupid?)

I’ll amend that. 80 % of Marketing is simple for 80% of us.

When I talk to SME businesses (large of small) the challenges they face are more or less the same. They want to build a stronger customer base. They want to build better customer relations. They need to be more efficient. They need to increase their sales.They need to…well I think you get the point. It’s a pretty narrow list that applies to the vast majority of businesses.

In short: We need more of this and to get better at doing that.

Marketing can seem like a bottomless bit for these companies. How can they know it will work? How can they guarantee results? How do they know investing will be worthwhile? Who do they get help from?

The truth is, they can’t be guaranteed anything. If you’re looking for 100% guarantees, buy a hoover.

What I will say is that a lot of them over-complicate what marketing means for their business. This is precisely what I mean when I say that ‘Marketing is Simple, Stupid’. It really is simple, it just needs to be planned for, and executed, properly. That’s where good advisors (ahem) come in.

Sometimes this over-complication really isn’t their fault. They get sold a lot of crap (that’s a technical marketing term, BTW) from people who, essentially, talk crap.

They get sold big ideas. Big ideas are great. Big ideas are wonderful. But big ideas tend to be high-level ideas, and that’s not necessarily the first steps you need to take to improve your bottom line. It’s the simple stuff that really kicks it off.

For 99.9% of SMEs, it’s the small steps and simple processes that will make the biggest immediate impact. This is even more true when these ‘small and simple’ things are tied together with a comprehensive strategy.

So what ‘small and simple’ things do I look for in any SME strategy?

1. Database Segmentation – most businesses have a pretty decent sized database. That’s great, but you need to get the database working effectively. Not all contacts are equal and not all contacts should be treated in the same way. Prioritise and segment your database properly and it becomes a vital tool. (And there are lots of great pieces of software that will help you do this)
2. Communication Structure – I’m always amazed at companies that haven’t really thought through their communication structure. It’s not just about ‘who’ you communicated with – it’s also about ‘what’ you say and ‘when’ you say it. If you have a rigorous communication structure that has been well implemented into your CRM system, the work is, more or less, done for you. You don’t have to think about when you need to contact people and you will never let contacts slide.
3. Cross-Selling/Up-Selling & Referrals – A lot of business, particularly at the SME level, is done through people you already know. Clients return. Clients refer. Your network refers. How many times are you really using this effectively?
4. Focus, Focus, Focus - Anyone who has ever heard me speak on marketing has probably heard me use that beautiful (little) word over and over again. I do it for a reason. It’s important. At the SME level, you can’t afford to waste time and money going after things that aren’t going to make you money. You have to focus on the bets opportunities that will offer you the best profit. Too many companies I meet spend their marketing time lurching from target to target like a drunk looking for the loo. That’s a pretty low-rent analogy, but both end up pissing money away…

The bottom line is – 80% of effective marketing for SMEs is simple.

And the other 20%?

Well for that, you can contact me here….

-j

A useful way to spend (about) seven minutes…

Posted on | January 12, 2011

Thanks to Andrew Burnett and Mike Coulter for flagging this video up to me.

The void between Super Angels and VCs

(for some reason I can’t embed the video here, sorry)

Interesting interview. Worth (about) seven minutes of your time.

-j

It’s January 10th and it’s time to kick 2011 into gear.

Posted on | January 10, 2011

I’m back in Edinburgh. It’s cold, grey and crappy out. Very much unlike the weather I have had for the past three weeks in Florida.

I had a great break. It was a much needed break. And I really took the opportunity to switch off. I didn’t take any work home with me, and I spent almost every day in the sun out on the golf course. It was wonderful.

I’m back now, and I’m raring to go. This year should be exciting. We’re going to be working hard on the various groups I’m a member of  (The High Growth Group, The Franchise Gap, The Retail Gap) and we’ll be seriously pushing forward some new work in high-tech companies, franchises and software development.

Lauren (you can check her blog out here) forwarded me a very cool new HTML 5 project from the chaps at Arcade Fire. Check it out: The Wilderness Downtown.

Have a great 2011.

-j

Five Years Still Standing

Posted on | December 8, 2010

So today’s the day. It’s December 8th 2010. It’s crept up on me in many ways, but somehow it was five years ago today that I officially registered Design-Ate (UK) Ltd at Companies House and started out on the single bumpiest ride I have ever been on.

In a lot of ways, these last couple of weeks have been a really weird mix.

On the one hand, I’ve been excitedly looking forwards to upcoming projects and new opportunities. I’m looking forward to new clients, anticipating new adventures and genuinely feeling as confident and optimistic as I have for a long time. I’ve worked hard to grow the company that I want to lead, and I genuinely think that it’s been a success.

On the other hand, it’s been a bit of a period of reflection. It’s not always fun to look back on mistakes I’ve made, challenges that proved too great for me and disappointments that I have been hit with each step of the way. And let’s be honest: it’s my company and most of the problems we have experienced came directly from me.

There are a lot of transitions we make in life. Some are forced on us – try as we might we can’t quite master time – whilst others we come to gradually. Some are the result of external pressures and some are ones we bring to ourselves. Over the past five years, I’ve been forced (or have I been forcing myself?) to make a number of transitions.

From musician to businessman. From starting a business to running a business.

(and that’s just to name two)

Every couple of months I will be speaking to someone who doesn’t run their own business but really really wants to. Our conversation will inevitably run towards that subject, and I’m almost always asked:

“What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned starting your own business?”

I have different answers to this question depending on how trite I’m feeling on the day. They range from the mundane (‘Cashflow, Cashflow, Cashflow’) to the pretentious (‘You never really stop learning’). As I said, depending on my general mood, and the attractiveness of the person who asks me, I’ll chose an answer on the spot.

Today, on the other hand, I’ll ask it of myself.

What have I learned over the past five years?

1. Surround yourself with people you trust, and trust them
   As much as I hate to admit it, and as much as I can be an obnoxious prick at times, I’m a people person and I always have been. I can get along with more or less anyone and I can normally start up a pretty easy rapport right away. I didn’t know it when I started, but this is probably one of the biggest reasons we’re still here.

   Every networking group I’ve ever been to bangs on about how ‘people do business with people’. It’s a bit of a cliche. It’s also very true. Over the past five years, I have surrounded my business, across the globe, with people whom I trust. These are people I can trust with my business, with my clients and with my reputation. These are the people who refer me business, the people I bring in to my clients, and the people who, when the chits are against you, are there to help pull you through.

   My network is the reason I’m here, and I value it enormously.

2. Look to the stars, but keep your feet on the ground
   I’m not someone who settles. I never have been. Looking back, almost every decision I have made over the past five (ten?) years has been based on following my passions, my gut instincts and my heart. That has lead me down some pretty dicey territory, but it’s also made my life incredibly fulfilling.

   The other thing it has done is lead me into trouble. The trouble starts when I take my feet off of the ground.

   In business, that’s normally about the mundane logistics. Managing staff, paying bills, tracking projects, setting targets. None of which is all that sexy is it? Unfortunately it’s all pretty fucking vital if you’re going to be able to pay the bills at the end of the month.

   The biggest thing I have learned over the past five years (and it’s something I’m still learning) is to dream big, to run big, to race big, but to plan small. You need to aggressively pursue the dream without letting the smaller details slip.

3. You have got to learn to let go
   Designate is my baby, but it’s also bigger than me now. It’s not just about me, and I’ve had to learn to let go. A couple of years ago I asked one of my best friend’s to join the company as a Director. That was an awesome thing and a really wonderful occasion, but it also meant that, for the first time, the company was more than me.

   Five years on and the company isn’t all about me. Yes it’s my company and yes I set the direction and the ethos behind it, but it’s much more than me. It’s the staff, the people we work with, our clients and our partners. Designate is an entity in its own right.

   And things don’t always work. Over the past five years I’ve had two major business disputes. That’s not too bad really. The first one was horrible and took a real personal toll on me. It hit me hard. It was a slap in the face. The second has been easier to deal with. But I have also learned I need to let go of it. It doesn’t matter who is right and who is wrong. We’re both right. We’re both wrong. What matters is how we behave, how we act, and how we keep our integrity in the situation. All the negative feelings and anger? Let it go.

So that’s it. Five years today and we’re celebrating on Friday night with a whisky tasting/party at the SMWS in Leith (if you are reading this and you fancy coming to the tasting or the drinks, drop me an email).

Five years and we’re still standing. Let’s see how I do after five whiskies, eh?

- j

The fall is going to kill you…

Posted on | December 1, 2010

I’m a big West Wing fan. I was re-watching a couple of episodes the other day and one of the lines stuck out for me. For those that care, it’s C.J talking to Josh…

“You guys are like Butch and Sundance peering over the edge of a cliff to the boulder-filled rapids 300 feet (91 m) below, thinking you better not jump ’cause there’s a chance you might drown. The President has this disease and has been lying about it, and you guys are worried that the polling might make us look bad? It’s the fall that’s gonna kill you.”

I’ve always liked that, and it sort of sums up my feelings on one of the areas that isn’t talked about enough in the marketing world – capacity.

Capacity is important. Capacity is critical. Capacity can be what kills you.

So much of our marketing world is concentrated on landing the sale. We want more customers, bigger ROIs, less risk, more expansion…we want more, more and more.

And that’s OK. Marketing is supposed to grow your business. Marketing is supposed to increase your profitability. Marketing is supposed to help you expand.

But with expansion, comes a problem: Can you handle the new work?

I can absolutely guarantee one thing – the quickest way to lose a new customer is to under-deliver, and the quickest way to under-deliver is to fail to plan for your expansion.

At Designate, when we develop a marketing strategy, we pay very strict attention to the type of capacity that our clients have, and where that capacity will need to be increased to deliver what we’re asking them to deliver. We make sure that we match the growth curve with an execution curve that fits it. There is no point in implementing the best strategy in the world if the company can’t execute and reap the rewards.

Sadly, this is not an area that enough companies look at when they evaluate their marketing strategies. They focus on the growth, sure, but they bypass the critical question:

Can they deliver what they promise?

It’s an achilles heel for a lot of SME businesses when they look to grow, and it’s the fall that really can kill you.

So plan for growth, but make sure you plan for every side of that growth. The good, the bad, and the mundane.

- j