Business as Unusual

In the marketing ecosystem, there is no such thing as "business as usual." The phrase alone conjures up images of gray flannel suits and good ol' fashion mass marketing.

Successful marketers adopt the mantra of, "if it ain't broke, break it, and break it again." As marketers, every day we need to be thinking of darn good reasons why our customers should keep doing business with us and why people who aren't customers should be doing business with us. To support my theory, I take you back to the parable of the lion and the gazelle…"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion to survive. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle – when the sun comes up, you'd better be running!" How true.

So how do you survive, thrive, eat well and trump your competition? Here are my Top 10 Ideas, plus six bonus ones (I was on a bit of a roll) that will give your business the stamina it needs to endure:
  1. Out-think your most threatening competitors – the ones who are luring business away.
  2. Be interesting. Ever heard the phrase, "No thanks. Not interested."? Ugh.
  3. Become relevant.
  4. Provide better solutions to people's problems.
  5. Think of the risks people may have in doing business with you and then minimize them.
  6. Be where your customers are.
  7. Find out what your competitors won't do and then do it.
  8. Discover an unmet need and then fill it.
  9. Do something special that becomes your brand's signature.
  10. Do something…anything, to get people talking about you.
  11. Become a resource.
  12. Become disgustingly easy to do business with.
  13. Never let the customer hear the word "policy."
  14. The difference between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" is the "extra." Do the extra.
  15. Do the unexpected.
  16. Frequently ask your customers how you could improve their experience with you. Then take their comments or suggestions, implement them and tell the world how you are better.
Choose any one of these, or choose all 16, implement them and then bake them into your marketing plan. Even if you are doing most, if not all of these already, ask yourself if you can take them even further or do them even better. In other words, do business as unusual.

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The Currency of a Thriving Company

I've read many business books and have done quite a bit of research on what the top characteristics are of thriving companies versus the top characteristics of failing companies.

The truth is, everything from proper business planning and effective hiring techniques to leadership skills and building a robust marketing plan, (along with everything in between) is absolutely vital. I would never challenge their significance or importance. However, there is one aspect of leading a thriving company that is oftentimes overshadowed and dismissed…and that is creating ideas.

Victor Hugo once said, "There's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come," and Albert Einstein always believed that imagination is more powerful than knowledge. I challenge anyone to disagree. Everything we have today from iPods and Dyson vacuum cleaners to ultra-thin laptops and handheld GPS units, were results of ideas. Even the services we have come to count on, including Geek Squad, AAA, online shopping and managed services were the results of ideas. Someone thought of an unmet need and fulfilled it. Someone thought to themselves, "Wouldn't it be cool if _____________!" then filled in the blank and made it happen.

So my questions and my challenge to us as marketers is, what was our last idea? When will we come up with another one? Will our ideas stick? Or, equally important, how can we take an existing idea and make it even better?

I contend that you can have the best business plan, the best marketing plan, the best people and the very best leaders in your business; but if there isn't someone, somewhere, thinking of a new idea to make your company more exciting, more relevant to consumers and more marketable, you will never thrive. Ideas are the currency that has no exchange rate – and the only one widely accepted everywhere!

Need an idea for your company? Click me.

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