Want to be more successful in a time of economic mayhem? Focus on the place where ideas and decisions are made.
Today’s newsletter, The Land of Ideas & Decisions, focuses on this simple truth. It’s simple, but it is easy to overlook as the media and conversation bombard you with bad economic news.
You can’t change macroeconomic trends, but you can influence the (microeconomic) decisions that your customers make. Learn from the “Land of Interpretation,” but then focus your action in “The Land of Ideas & Decisions.”
Please comment on the newsletter here. Do you see people missing the chance to affect their lives and businesses, because they are “wallowing” in bad economic news? Are you? What kinds of ideas could your form, and what kinds of decisions could they make, that would improve your business results?
(Are you a subscriber to the newsletter? Look to the right on this page.)
Recalibration reality check: Are you saying “yes” more than you are saying “no?”
This has been a constant theme in the advice I’ve been giving to people throughout this recesssion recalibration. It is so easy to say no. (Not saying yes is saying no, by the way.) It is so easy to be scared. It is so easy to use the current economic mayhem as an excuse to put your head in the sand and not say yes. It is so easy to hide behind the misfortune the environment hands you.
Don’t!
Check yourself, everyday. Am I saying “yes” more than I am saying “no?”
1934 may have been the height of the Great Depression, but it is also the year that one of my favorite movies came out: Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.
In a famous scene, Clark Gable removes his shirt before going to bed and reveals that he is not wearing an undershirt. Legend has it that undershirt sales dropped 75%, immediately, in the U.S. After all, if Clark Gable doesn’t wear an undershirt, why should I?
Imagine you are an undershirt manufacturer in 1934. You have three choices:
Say, “this is just a fad,” do nothing, and wait for undershirt sales to return to normal levels.
Say, “this industry is dead,” and get out of the undershirt business.
Say, “our world is different now. We need to recalibrate our whole approach to our business in light of these changes.”
Not hard to guess which choice I think is the right one. Think about this: T-shirt sales after 1934 grew exponentially, as the t-shirt became not only an undergarment but a special piece of clothing in its own right.
Now, think about your world, right now. Changes in your world happened, essentially, in one night, and it didn’t take Clark Gable undressing for bed to cause these changes. Your world today, on April 16, 2009, is completely different than your world on April 16, 2008.
So, what are you going to do? Hunker down and wait for the undershirt business to come back to “normal?” Get out of the undershirt business? Or … recalibrate your approach to your business, finding opportunity in the new world order?
The choice is yours …
(P.S. As Arna and I were being married, on January 21st, 1984, the VHS recorder in our apartment was, at the same moment, recording It Happened One Night off of our local PBS station.)
We’ve been blindsided by two hype-bubbles in the last 10 years.
One of the many lessons we should have learned: If something looks wrong/fake/stupid/overblown/disingenuous/hyperbolic/ exaggerated/too-good-to-be-true … it probably is.
So, if something looks fishy, smells fishy and/or tastes fishy, call it a fish.
If you see a big purple elephant on the table, don’t look around it, call it a big purple elephant.
One very important piece of recalibrating your approach to business in this post-hype-bubble world is to question assumptions, question prevailing attitudes, question things that just don’t seem right.
In 1971 Pete Townshend wrote and Roger Daltry sang, “We Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Want to sing the same song 38 years later? When you see the truth, say the truth.
Today I’ve been thinking a lot about recalibrating the approach to customer interactions.
The day started off with a meeting with a client about a potential project. Our discussion explored how this very successful company can develop more business from current customers, especially in these tough times where it is harder to find new customers.
As we talked, it became clear that the best answers lie not in more lucrative promotions, better offers or a new loyalty program. It’s much more fundamental than that. Interacting with customers during this time of economic uncertainty and turmoil requires, more than ever, an approach based on the customer interaction principles that have obsessed me for years.
It’s not about customer service. It’s about the relationship-building encounter. Customer service is not what you strive for; it has become basic hygiene. (Yes, some companies still don’t brush their teeth.) The goal of every interaction between a person in your company and a customer is to make sure that the relationship with the customer is better at the end of the interaction than it was at the beginning.
Stop shouting already! People hear Brand Harmony. This is the worst time to dial up the brute-force marketing techniques, trying to out-shout, out-promote and out-sizzle your competition. The world is way too noisy and your customers are way too scrutinizing. Interact with customers in a way that matches how they form impressions of you: By creating a strong sense of Brand Harmony that communicates a clear, compelling, comprehensive story.
How much better would your business be if your organization, with the talent of virtuosos, adhered to these principles?
Today’s newsletter, sent this morning to those of you who subscribe, focuses on recalibrating your brand story.
Here’s the idea, in a nutshell: Everything about your customers is different than before – what they care about, what they think about, how they make decisions, how much money they have to spend, even who they are.
If your customers are so different, isn’t it time to recalibrate your brand story to make sure they care about it?
Please comment below! And, if you’d like to subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter, or to this blog, look to the right.
I’ve started publishing a six-part series on tompeters.com, focusing on my Six Recalibration Questions:
Where is the latent profit in your business, and how can you rethink how you generate results?
How can your current customers help you unleash that latent profit?
How can you unleash latent profit with new customers?
Is your brand strategy right for the times, i.e., what do you want customers to think about you?
Are you communicating optimally at all customer touchpoints?
How clear and compelling is your internal brand?
If you approach each of these questions, with a “spirit of recalibration,” you will greatly improve your chances of thriving during this economic mayhem.
Here are links to parts 1, 2 and 3 of my series on tompeters.com. I’ll update when new posts are published over the next few weeks.
"When Steve Yastrow writes, I pay close attention" - Tom Peters
"I had to buy two copies. The first one is so dog-eared and underlined I couldn't read it any longer." - Seth Godin
Steve is the author of Brand Harmony and the newly published We:
The Ideal Customer Relationship. Learn more and order direct from our Products
page, or from Amazon.
In addition to writing, I spend most of my work time helping companies unleash their potential by creating better connections with their customers. This happens through my speaking events and through Yastrow & Company consulting engagements, where my team and I help companies figure out who they intend to be in the future, and then engage the entire company in creating that future through strong "We" customer relationships.
Before starting Yastrow & Company in the mid-90s I was vice-president of resort marketing for Hyatt Hotels. My experiences in the hotel business showed me clearly that most marketing doesn’t happen in the marketing department. Customers are paying attention to all interactions with a company, not just the promises made in traditional "marketing communications."
1934 may have been the height of the Great Depression, but it is also the year that one of my favorite movies came out: Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.
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