« April 2005 | Main | June 2005 »

May 25, 2005

Of diamonds, dogged determination, dragraces, and uh, blogs too

Sticking to what you know can really pay off. Nowhere is this more true than in the category of etailing. We have previously written about Blue Nile and how we admired what we saw as their use of onlie to drive a best of both play. But check out Ice.com. These guys, a family that has been in the diamond business for generations, have seen it all from the dizzying heights of the dot.com bubble to its bust.

http://www.forbes.com/2001/01/29/0129ice_print.html

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2002/tc2002101_8420.htm

Nice remaining private

http://sparklelikethestars.com/

http://www.justaskleslie.com/

http://blog.ice.com/

Posted by johnza at 01:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"He Said, She Said" - Rashômon in Marketing and in the Office

If you haven't already seen the amazing Akira Kurosawa film Rashômon (starring Toshirô Mifune), hurry up and see it.

The film is set in medieval Japan and proceeds as follows (thanks to James Berardinelli:

The story told by Rashomon is both surprisingly simple and deceptively complex. The central tale, which tells of the rape of a woman (Machiko Kyo) and the murder of a man (Masayuki Mori), possibly by a bandit (Toshiro Mifune), is presented entirely in flashbacks from the perspectives of four narrators. The framing portions of the movie transpire at Kyoto's crumbling Rashomon gate, where several people seek shelter from a pelting rain storm and discuss the recent crime, which has shocked the region. One of the men, a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), was a witness to the events, and, with the help of a priest (Minoru Chiaki), he puzzles over what really happened, and what such a horrible occurrence says about human nature. In each of the four versions of the story, the characters are the same, as are many of the details. But much is different, as well. In the first account, that of the bandit, the criminal accepts culpability for the murder but refutes the charge of rape, saying that it was an act of mutual consent. The woman's story affirms that the bandit attacked her, but indicates that she may have been the murderess. The dead man's tale (told through a medium) claims rape and suicide. The only "impartial" witness, the woodcutter, weaves a story that intertwines elements of the other three, leaving the viewer wondering if he truly saw anything at all.

Aside from being a marvelous film in its own right (cinemantography, acting, script etc.), it is enduring because its themes - of subjectivity, of perception vs. reality, of the bias of personal interest, of how hard it is to know the truth, of the difficulties of being on the same page - are so deeply felt by all of us in so many aspects of our lives.

Other blogs have commented on the relevance of this movie as a metaphor for these issues in fields ranging from global economics to truth in journalism to baseball umpires, even a whole blog dedicated to the idea. So I reflected that the same applies to what I have seen in marketing and in everyday office politics.

We constantly harp on the importance of positioning, of getting your basic logic and arguement down and down consistently before you go off and spend money on all kinds of sales and marketing tactics. Way too often folks don't do this. Way too often the team is not in synch - not just on what the marketing tactics ought to be - but not in synch on the basics. Even in companies so small that the whole team is rubbing elbows all day it is easy to see opinions on the fundamentals of their business reality as those of the bandit, the lady, the dead man and the woodcutter of Rashomon.

In one very typcial company I talked to the exec team all agreed that the website was no good and needed to be changed. But when you asked them a few simple questions:

• what does your company do?
• who does it do this for?
• why is it better?

the answer you got from the CEO was very different from the head of sales, which was different from the CTO, which was different from the head of marketing. Before they went off to try to tell their story to people outside the company they really needed to get and agree to those answers. Otherwise they would leave their customers very confused.

And honestly think how true this dynamic is when it comes to office politics - rating employee performance, dealing with disagreements. There always seems to be a variance of opinion, even amongst the smartest, most well-intended people.

The answer. Not to give up and despair. Two things seem to help me. In the marketing case - talk to customers - up close and personally. They usually do a better job telling you what they want and what they think of you than anyone inside will. In terms of office politics - try to find real data - and always stick to your values (assuming you know what they are).

Posted by johnza at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mark Your Calendar - June 8 Silicon Valley

We will be giving a "Fireside Chat" to Silicon Valley chapter of the AMA on June 8. It's at the Network Meeting Center at Techmart, 5201 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, California. It starts at 6 PM with food and drink and then the talk is at 7 PM.

For more details click here. Should be fun.

Posted by johnza at 12:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 24, 2005

Taiwanese Edition

Forgot to mention that, in addition to the Korean edition that recently came out, the book is also out in Chinese in the Taiwan market. It is published by Sunbright.

It is also available from online booksellers Eslite books and Books.com.

The Chinese version for mainland China release will be coming out in July. More on that later.

Posted by johnza at 09:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2005

Korean Edition

We were extemely gratified to learn that the Korean version of our book just got published last week.

The publisher is the Sejong Institute Press who also published Kotler on Marketing the bestselling Korean business title in 2000, 2001.

For our Korean speaking friends, you can find the Korean version online at:

• Yes 24
• aladdin
• Kyobo Books, and
• Interpark

It is really cool to see in another language. And what an incredible market Korea is. Hearty "kam sa ham ni da"
to the kind people at Sejong Institute Press, to Penguin for continuing to push, and of course to our friend Ike Lee for all he has done to help us out in Korea.

Posted by johnza at 08:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 20, 2005

Openness as Strength - the New Progressive Campaign

Doing a price promotion campaign by showing that the other guy has a lower price? Is this crazy or is it really smart?

Just saw this new campaign for auto insurance from Progressive recently. They call the campaign "Think" (watch the clips on their site here). In it they highlight a unique feature of their online insurance quotes - that it will show their price as well as that of their competitors. They also highlight that sometimes they aren't the best price - openly showing the "scorecards."

The approach very much recognizes that in the world of the internet and of Pricegrabber you can find just about any info you want. The Economist had a great survey in March - about how the consumer has become king - where they highlighted this trend:

• "the ability to get information about whatever you want, whenever you want, has given shoppers unprecedented strength"
• "If Dell changes prices on its website, its customers' buying patterns change literally within a minute. That tells you people are well-researched and knowledgeable," says Mike George, Dell's chief marketing officer
• "Over 80% of Ford's customers in America have already researched their prospective purchase on the internet before they arrive at a showroom, and most of them come with a specification sheet showing the precise car they want from the dealer's stock, together with the price they are prepared to pay"
• "more than three-quarters of mobile-phone buyers in America do their research on the web"

Rather than fighting this process Progressive's campaign instead embraces it and in essense says "Bring it on." We're not afraid, we'll make the process easier for you (with the call to action of "Quote, Compare & Buy", we'll be honest and open, we might not always win but "You be the Judge."

They end up positioning themselves as more trustworthy by making themselves vulnerable and trust is obviously a key factor in insurance. Not sure how sustainable this is as differentiation but it sure seems more compelling than a Gecko.

Posted by johnza at 06:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 17, 2005

In the Line of Fire

Jerry Weissman is a phenomenon. A powerhouse. We owe Jerry a great deal – for teaching us just about everything we know about presenting, for inspiring us with some great concepts, and for being a big supporter of our efforts in writing our own book.

I recently had the distinct honor and delight of receiving an advance reader's copy of Jerry Weissman's newest book, In the Line of Fire : How to Handle Tough Questions...When It Counts. It's being published in July by Prentice Hall.

I enjoyed this book even more than his last (which is saying alot). This is a very focused, very hands on book. It is all about dealing with the heat, not of the prepared pitch but beyond it when you open yourself to questions. This is something all of us can use because life goes way beyond the Powerpoint slides. Here are a few highlights:

• Control the time – before starting with questions, set a time limit or an excuse to end the session after only a few questions
• Control the traffic – raise your own hand and ask for questions
• If you don’t know EVERYONE’s name in the audience, don’t call anyone by name
• Make the questioner feel like you heard them (or make the audience feel that way)
• Resist thinking of the answer while the questioner is talking – instead look for the key issue around which to formulate your MESSAGE
• Focus on that key word and sound clear and decisive in using it to deliver your MESSAGE as an answer
• Create a buffer between the question and your expression of the answer, keeping you in control and not on the defensive (boy he has a bunch of great techniques for doing this)
• He’s also got a very useful variation of Yes, But, So called “Buffer – Agree – But – Evidence – Call to Action” You have to check this out.

Can’t wait until the full book comes out. Congrats Jerry on a terrific accomplishment and on a truly terrific Rude Q&A/interview/Debate Taser to put on your communications utility belt.

Note, we are far from Jerry’s only fans in the blogsphere, here are a few other who sing his praises:

• Tina Ornstein found the wonders of WIFFY (what’s in it for you) in Jerry’s last book
• Watertank and Dennis Kennedy recommend Jerry’s as one of the two books you should read about making powerpoint presentations “Interestingly, neither is really about PowerPoint."
• Fast company highlighted Jerry’s great five rules for great presentations (which I love)
  

  Focus on what matters.
  Converse, don't perform.
  Plain talk is the best talk.
  Let me rephrase that!
  The pause that refreshes.

• Mike Clark has a great list of powerpoint resources, commentary etc. and of course highlights Jerry
• And Doc Searls highlights Jerry as “the presentation guru whose influence on the corporate selling skills of Silicon Valley CEOs should be valued in the billions of dollars, at the very least” in his own classic post “It's The Story, Stupid
  Don't Let Presentation Software Keep You From Getting Your Story Across” - also a must read:
  

  “Begin with the end
  Come from who you are
  Tell your story
  Write from an outline
  Talk from headlines, not headings
  Use graphics
  Use numbers for lists
  Research
  Make comparisons
  Stand and deliver”

What fun. Keep your eyes open and pre order his book!

Posted by johnza at 06:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 05, 2005

Great input on the ABCs

9 to 5 and otherwise had some very insightful comments about our ABC and Yes, But, So gap analysis approach.

For all the usefulness of being really simple and breaking things down - into A = Situation B = Destination C = Gap - you still need to be careful that this becomes actionable and not just a nice theoretical pitch:

• is your team, are your people the right ones to cross that gap? are there personal gaps?
• have you done your homework sufficiently to understand the gap and what you can do about it?
• and once you have identified this gap, can you break down your actions into doable chunks rather than simply trying to pole-vault over it?

Great thoughts. Thanks for sharing.

PS: We think you have to break the gap analysis into several dimensions. The overall industry at the high level to understand possible mission/vision gaps, the customer/market next to understand offering gaps, the competition to understand relative positioning gaps, and your own competencies/resources to identify the realistic action plan.

Posted by johnza at 04:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 04, 2005

Watch out, it's raining iPods

A few weeks ago, I noted with mild surprise that the Economist was using iPods as an online subscription promotion tool. Since then I've seen more free iPod giveaways, promotions and sweepstakes than I can count. Pretty soon you've get a whole matching set when you buy some Ginsu knives.

Here is a very cursory, random round-up of the promotions I found - the range of companies and offerings is striking:

• Of course, Apple gave them away at some point.
• Citibank has "Shuffle your songs, control your money," get a free iPod shuffle when you open online banking.
• Exact Target (an email marketing company), gives you a chance to win an iPod if you provide customer referrals.
• FrontZone, a helpdesk company for Act and Goldmine, will give you an iPod shuffle if you buy five licenses of their software.
• Eclispe, a plugin marketplace, will give you an iPod mini if you write a product review.
• There's a whole review of giveaways in the UK.
• Some mysterious company that wants your email is giving them away.
• Midcom, a seller of all kinds of retailer and other technology, gives you a chance to win a mini in return for promoting printer, barcode scanner and other discounts.
• Branch, a nightclub in NYC, is offering a chance to win a party with "10 iPod shuffles, 10 friends and 100 open bars"
• Pepsi did a promotion in Canada giving an iPod away every hour until Christmas (lucky Maple Leaves). And Pepsi may have done another one before. Keep an eye out.
• TripMania, an online travel marketplace, has a contest for subscribing to their Top 10 Travel Deals weekly newsletter with weekly giveaways including iTunes.
• Consumer Survey Group, has a giveaway offer for an iPod (in return for your email of course)
• Survey Networks has a similar sweepstakes (and of course lots of other chances to win cash too!!!! ;-)
• Consumer Incentive Promotions is offering a Photo iPods to "qualified consumers who participate in marketing promotions and surveys" (wonder what that means beyond having a pulse, credit card number and email address)
• On a nicer note, Action Medical Research, the UK's "most forward thinking charity" is offering a free Apple iPod to every runner who raises £3000 or more on our behalf in the Flora London Marathon 2005.
• Duke generated a bunch of controversy by giving every student an iPod, stopping the practice and then starting again.
• There's even a blog dedicated to iPod contests.
• Look on iPod Hacks for more as well.
• And to help you control all the companies using iPod promotions to create more spam, Proofpoint has a promotion to giveaway an iPod when you buy their email security appliance.

We'll really know that we've arrived when these guys start giving away copies of the Marketing Playbook (or maybe that will just mean there are a lot of surplus copies?)

Posted by johnza at 10:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 03, 2005

The Fourth Place?

(not me by the way)

• Cluetrain = markets are conversations between sellers and buyers
• Hughtrain = products are conversations between providers and consumers
• Starbucks = a store can a place to be not just to buy things; a 3rd place (beyond home and work)
• The 4th Place = your service/the internet itself could be a place; not just to find/buy stuff; but a place to go, a place where these conversations happen

What the heck do I mean? Let’s look at each element:

A. Clue-/Hugh-Train and how they make us think differently about providing our stuff

Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger shook things but at the height of the internet bubble by challenging us to think differently about what the internet made possible. The Cluetrain Manefesto challenged business people to think of markets as conversations, between buyers and sellers, where there is real give and take and the opportunity for things to be two way. In markets like this accountability, openness and speed force a whole new level of interaction.

More recently the inimitable Hugh MacLeod, inciting us to take this intimate, accountable, participatory attitude down into the product and brand itself. The Hughtrain manifesto challenges us to think of products as conversations, that they are actually the “product” of both producer and consumer interacting. This can be a great, open, mutually beneficial interaction or a one-sided one. But if the latter, things like tons of brand advertising dollars and other marketing BS are not going to save you in the long run, expectations and information and choice have empowered your customers (and in many cases yoru competitors) too much for those things to be sufficient.

Both of these ideas are great ways of thinking, both in how to create something people want and of how to audit where you really are in delivering it.

B. The third place concept of how a business can help fulfill the deep need for calm and community

Case in point for thinking differently about a business. I wrote this piece during a momentary refuge from “vacationing” my mother in law in Florida (no offense to my wonderful mother-in law or my kids, but once in a while it is nice to get away from family for a bit of peace and quiet). Where? At a Starbucks of course. Why?

Well, Howard Schultz did not turn Starbucks into a global cultural phenomenon by thinking of it as just a coffee business. He clearly thought of his product and his market as a conversation with his customers, not just about coffee but about something much deeper. He thought about it as fulfilling people’s needs for a special place, a place to find refuge, unwind, meet, chat and connect in a more and more fast paced world. A third place.

A guy named Ray Oldenburg (an urban sociologist, oddly enough from Florida) wrote a book called The Great Good Place, in it, he writes about how informal public gathering places are essential to community and public life. He argues that most people have three places in their life that they feel define them: home, work and a third place. And that bars, coffee shops, general stores, and other "third places" are central to local democracy and community vitality. Such places are also called "social condensers" -- an important way in which the community developed and retained cohesion and a sense of identity. The third-place concept has become a buzzword for retailers as a place to aspire to become.

But whether or not Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz coined this concept, he sure did pick it up and run with it. This means thinking about a lot more than the coffee provided but about all aspects of the experience and the surroundings. Thinking beyond just the product to the place where the product happens and making it a desirable place to be, being focused on keeping rather than turning tables, set Starbucks in whole different category from it’s competition and those elements have given the chain one of the highest "user frequencies" of any restaurant operation. Starbucks claims the "average customer" visits a Starbucks outlet more than a dozen times a month.

C. The Fourth Place: the internet and how it could create a different kind of refuge and community

As I sat at Starbucks jotting these ideas down, I also had a wireless internet connection and found myself going to other “places.” Places where I found what I needed or places that gave me a reliable laugh or perspective or places where I could connect with other people. Places on the internet. Some of these places were great, some were confusing and frustrating.

I know I have to go to the internet all the time to find stuff, to find people, to learn etc. But is it really up to the vision of a special, comforting, welcoming place – a la the 3rd place of Starbucks, etc.?

And it hit me. Why can’t the Internet become a 4th place. A place that we’ve never really had before, where we get many of the things that we get from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places but without the physical limitations. A 4th place where we can feel happy, safe, relaxed and totally connected, on top of ALL the things, information and people we need, anywhere, anytime. This vision seems all the more tantalizing because we don’t quite have it yet. So many things give us a hint of this – search, blogging, shopping, media, gaming. But to what degree have of these things become “places” that we totally look forward to visiting and staying at? I think it’s a mixed bag. With the gigantic pile of stuff out there, the technical complexity, the spyware and viruses, sometimes the internet feels just as much like a place to escape from as a place to escape to.

What would happen if instead of just thinking yourself simply in terms of your product or service – no matter what product or service you offer - instead you were driven by the vision of the internet becoming this 4th place, if you saw your mission to help make the internet exactly that? What would you do, what would you need?

Well, here are a few things I guess I would take from both the Clue/Hugh-train and the Starbucks/3rd place handbook:

• Be easy to find
• Be easy to use
• Be simple to understand
• Be consistent
• Be responsive
• Be fun to work for

So why not aspire to make your business just such a refuge or place? Not a physical one (unless you are in bricks and mortar retail), but rather as a welcome but as a virtual, psychological place, where your customers feel a sense of relief at arriving, where they find exactly what they want, and where they feel a need to keep coming back.

I think we could all use a nice, cozy, 4th place to go to.

Posted by johnza at 01:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Speachless

See story

"Bill Gates said Monday he regretted that the world's largest software manufacturer had ever used stock options to reward employees."

Microsoft was always good at the Platform Play of embedding it's interest with those of others. In my mind, that included employees - and by being owners making them super passionate. I counted myself among them.

Hmmmm...

Posted by johnza at 11:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 02, 2005

Yes, But, So

Recently, we've been doing a lot of analysis of the landscape, in venture, in technology, etc. We've also been seeing a lot of pitches of course. And in each one we keep coming back to this simple formula for both assesing the situation and making your case for the right action in the situation.

We've talked about the ABCs of situation analysis a lot already in this blog. But we have not walked through the analog formula we use all the time for translating this assessment into a compelling arguement or case - no matter what the topic. We call this method Yes, But, So, and boy have we been using this a lot lately.

So here it is "Yes, But, So" excerpted, paraphrased from Chapter 13 of our book...

For people to buy into what you are proposing, they need to understand the rationale behind it. The “Yes, But, So” approach offers a simple formula for making this clear in three sentences that acknowledge the situation, challenge the status quo, and propose an alternative.

To prevent yourself from getting lost and tangled up in the minutiae in doing all this complex analysis, you followed our simple ABCs method — With A representing the summary current situation, B representing the better way or possible future, and C, the gap or path from point A to point B.

For conveying your summary case (and, in fact, for holding people’s attention when you are making just about any argument you will ever need to make), there is an equally simple method to match the ABCs.
This wondrously magical technique is called… Yes, But, So.

The Yes lets your listeners know that you’ve heard their position and you understand. But announces that you know there can be a better way. So presents your idea for how to get there. These three little words are the only ones you really need to kick off any logical argument. And they will help you keep it down to three sentences.

Yes. Of course your case starts with “Yes.” However often it's actually used, “yes” has got to be one of the most popular words in the English language. It's what we all want to hear most. And there's a reason. Finding a way to empathize, to identify with someone, is the most important starting point to any interaction. That's the purpose of the Yes in our little Yes, But, So formula. Yes shows that you understand and acknowledge the facts of the situation—market situation, customer responses and desires, competitive strengths and responses, and the immediate feedback of your audience.

But. “Yes” is not enough. Nothing does, can, or should stay the same. That's where But comes in. Only when you understand the gap between the current situation and the desired or potential situations can you make any progress. The But statement forces you into a position of being open minded, critical, taking things from a different perspective. It is questioning, challenging; it’s what keeps things fresh. In this context, But drives you to recognize the opening, the potential break in the situation, the kernel of change.

So. What’s next? It’s pretty dissatisfying to leave a conversation on a negative note, focusing on just the problems. Once you know your limitations and challenges, you have to decide what to do about them. That's what So is all about—taking all this analysis and converting it into a call to action. It's about embracing the possible. It addresses the need to find some resolution, hope, goals, or motivation in a tough situation. So is your way of taking all this analysis and hypothesizing and converting it into recommended action, into resolve, commitment. So means, “Let’s go!”

Here’s an example. We started out the section on situation analysis with the story of Henry Ford and the Model T. Behind all the momentous business and technology dynamics and historic industry forces was a very simple three-sentence case:

• Yes, cars remain the domain of elites and aficionados, not regular people.
• But, the underlying auto technology and manufacturing techniques are becoming more efficient.
• So, we should now be able to make a reliable car that the mass market can afford.

Another example updates the Ford story with similar challenges and opportunities in the modern time—the Volkswagen approach, especially when the company first relaunched with its more daring line of cars like the Jetta and the new bug.

• Yes, there are terrific, German-engineered cars available on the market for driving enthusiasts.
• But, they are very expensive and appeal only to those who can afford them .
• So, let’s offer a high performance German car for normal enthusiasts.

Sounds simple, but frankly, we think it’s profound. Why? It’s the psychology of getting someone to agree with you.

By, the way, this works great as well with kids and spouses (say "yes" first to empathize, inject "but" to begin explaining the issues and provide a "so" to suggest something positive rather than just disagreeing).

Posted by johnza at 04:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack