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How Do You Put a Price on Inspiration?

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

I was listening to the CBC wrap-up of Olympics coverage this afternoon.  The topic was along the lines of “Is our investment in the Olympics worth it”.  Apparently Canada spends about $22M on supporting athletes for the Olympics.  I didn’t catch if that was for summer sports, winter sports, or both.  But I was amazed that there were a few people who called in to say they feel it’s a waste of money.  All I could think was that $22M is a pittance.  The government wastes many more millions on far lesser programs.  And how can we quantify the value of the inspiration that the Olympics provides?  If watching athletes - Canadian or other - inspires anyone in the country to aim high, keep working hard on their trade, and be proud of what they accomplish, then surely that investment yields an incredibly healthy ROI.   

This fits with marketing when it comes to the idea of ‘creative’. We often preach about the importance of measurement in marketing, because far too many dollars are wasted on tactics and techniques that don’t provide meaningful results.  But we have to be cautious when it comes to our ‘measurement, measurement, measurement’ mantra - because sometimes it’s hard to measure or put a value on a great idea that separates a company from its competitors.  Just like it’s hard to put a price on the value the Olympics provides to Canadians. 

 

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There Is Such A Thing As Communicating Too Much

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

Business gurus love to espouse there’s no such thing as over communicating with your customers.  I know lots of companies really fail the ‘communications’ test, but I disagree that you can’t overcommunicate.  And I just experienced it the hard way. 

I was on a 6am flight from Calgary to Toronto.  With the one hour pre-departure check-in requirement and the 30-minute drive to the airport, that meant a 4am wake-up call for me and most of the other passengers. 

By the time we were all joyfully boarded onto the aluminum tube at 0545, all that anyone wanted to do was to try and get back to sleep.  You could see it on people’s faces - please, please, just let me get some more sleep. So when the pilot and the in-flight director made something like 6 public announcements about the wonderful crew we had on board, our planned cruising altidude, the weather in Toronto, the safety features of the aircraft, and on and on, in both English and French, it was too much.   

The airlines can take a page from their marketing teams and communicate with passengers in a way that is effective for them, when it’s effective for them.  Can’t they use those cool new in-chair TV sceens to communicate the details to us - in silence - before take-off, especially if it happens to be before a civil hour, say 8am?  And can’t all the details about the flight, like the weather at our destination, be left for later in the flight when we’ll be cogent enough to care? 

Communicating with customers is vital.  But let’s start with an understanding of what customers want to know, what they need to know, and - critically - when.  If it’s extraneous information and it’s 6am, skip it. 

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Laziness Gives Cold Calling A Bad Name

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

I had one of those ’shake your head’ cold calls recently. Mezzanine just appeared on the list of Fastest Growing Companies in Canada, so we’re getting inundated with calls from business services providers.

I have nothing against cold calls. It’s a successful lead generation tactic in many businesses. What does bother me is useless calls where there is no apparent preparation or focus.

Here’s how the call played out:

Phone rings. I check call display. Name of a local publication that I’m vaguely familiar with appears.

“Interesting,” I think to myself. “I wonder what they want?”

I answer the phone, “Lisa Shepherd”. Young voice on the line says, “Is this Lisa Shepherd?” (Uh-oh, I think). “I have Jane Jones* on the line, from XYZ Magazine. Would you take the call?” ( I know we’re all busy and time is precious, but this approach just seems pretentious.) But, I say “Sure”.

“Hi Lisa, how are you? I’ve put together a community of CEOs as a peer group to get together and talk about what problems they face.” No background on herself or company. My head reels. I’d been intently working on something else prior to this call, so a little context would have helped. Then she adds enthusiastically, “Tell me about your business.”

If I was unsure before, I’m now very sure that I regret picking up the phone.

I could go on with the details, but it’s too painful. After a couple of minutes of her rambling, I ask “What can I do for you?” She asked if I want to get together for coffee. Presumably this is preamble to joining the peer group. But talk about a dodge-dip-duck-dive strategy. Getting to the point would have been much better. I tell her I belong to a similar group already (Innovators Alliance), am actively talking to another (Entrepreneur’s Organization) and had been approached by another the previous week (Presidents of Enterprising Organizations). She is unaware of all these organizations, except the last one. I wasn’t sure if this was more dodge-dip-duck-dive or serious ignorance. At that point I was in too much pain to care.

I’m writing this because I want those who have to do cold calling (and it is a tough job, I truly admire those who do it well) to avoid this painful and embarrassing situation.

Here are some basic tips for a good cold call:

a) Do your homework. Don’t call me and ask me what my company does. It’s on the web for all to see. Asking me this question is laziness in the extreme. I can’t help but think “If this is what you do when you’re trying to sell me something, how bad is it going to be when we’re working together?”

b) Make it easy for me to understand who you are and what you want:

  1. State your name and company name.
  2. State what the company does or offers.
  3. State why I might care about what you offer (hint: it will help my business perform better, grow faster, decrease costs. Pick any.)

c) State what you want from me. 15 minutes of my time for an intro meeting is a reasonable request. Of course I will give you more than 15, but it’s nice to start with the small ask.

Cold calls aren’t usually so painful. All the same, I’m not going to answer my phone unless I recognize the number for a while.

*Not her real name