December 23, 2004
hughtraining
Dave Parmet left a nice wee comment in a recent post:
The third [type of marketing blog]- and this is where you come in — are blogs about marketing itself. About the ideas and not about the execution of the ideas. Which is amazingly useful since I come here every morning and go ‘so that’s what’s been bugging me about Client X…’ The problem as you put it is that ideas are not very .… product-able. If that makes sense.
The question — as Christopher puts it — is what do you want to do with this? Write a book? Grow up to be Seth Goodin? Let a thousand Hughflowers bloom among the ad, pr and marketing agencies of the free world?
Figure that out and then do it.…
1. Well, I have a product. Or at least I think I do. Almost ready to go public.
2. I’m not realy interested in doing “merch”: books, T-shirts, prints, blogcards etc.
Sure, I’ll do them, but more of a fun, money-making hobby than something designed to pay for my retirement.
3. “He let a thousand Hughflowers bloom among the ad, pr and marketing agencies of the free world” wouldn’t be a bad thing to have on one’s gravestone, Methinks.
4. The Hughtrain is not rocket science. “We humans want to believe in our own species; and we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so” is not rocket science. To me, it’s just common sense.
The hard part is not in believing it. The hard part part is actually doing it. Yeah, my stuff sounds great in a meeting. But the average client is not atually that interested in the substance of it. The average client is far more interested in us marketing types finding clever, short-term ways of making The Old Lies work better than they have been of late.
But for how long…?
In my experience, what the client is interested in is whatever makes the client look good to his or her own bosses. In most cases that is, ultimately, shifting the client’s kit.
[Note: This is in the post dot com bubble burst world. Before 2002 things were markedly different.]
The way that kit is shifted is of little to no interest to the majority of the clients I’ve worked with in recent years. Sure, they like to use the latest buzzwords, sure they like to be seen as marketing gods but if the results ain’t there they panic and run.
As you’ve said before, it’s all about deliverables now.
I’ve been reading a lot of Stephen Covey latey, so forgive me, but it seems like what the Hughtrain is getting at is that corporations need to be more like people. Interesting since they are legally considered to be people, but anyway, a real relationship with a customer cannot be built on quick fixes and ‘personality’, but rather must come from customers appreciating the true principles practiced within said company.
I’m willing to wager you’ve read the Seven Habits, but as I’ve just been reviewing it I’ll expound. It reminds me of the ‘emotional bank account’ that Covey speaks of. I’ll use my relationship with Apple as an example. In a relationship, the two parties involved each have an emotional bank account with the other. By executing deeds of good will for each other, the emotional bank accounts on either sides are built up. Apple does this in a variety of ways, but the biggest thing to me is when my powerbook failed. While, granted, it’s not great that the hardware failed, first someone who knew what they were talking about courteously stepped me through a few checks to make sure that the problem required sending the machine in. Then, they had a box out to me by the same day, in the afternoon. I shipped it to them that evening, it was gone for one solid day, and it came back fixed the next morning. Their turnaround has generally been the same the few times I’ve had to do this. This is done at great expense to Apple. Could they use cheaper, slower shipping? Sure. But, they recognize that part of the deal when you lay down the money for a premium piece of hardware is that they keep it up and running for the duration of the warranty, with minimal downtime. They do everything they can to mitigate the problem.
When people aren’t just looking to push kit out the door, when they are interested in building their emotional bank account with their customers, that’s when you’ll begin to see customer loyalty again.
Sorry, I kind of wandered. This isn’t really my area of expertise. Do you kind of understand what I’m getting at?
Perhaps, Brock, though it’s easy to push the “relationship” metaphor too far… I’m seeing lots of that already.
Intimacy doesn’t really scale, at the end of the day…
The average client is interested in doing exactly enough to look good, not rock the boat and not get fired.
Figure out a way to move that rock and the world will beat a path to your door.