Two Hat Marketing -- Would YOU Do Business With YOU?

It's okay to steal

I recently took a group of clients to Austin, TX. They're sort of a "super, double-secret" club of major trade & professional associations that's been meeting for thirteen years. We fly low under the radar.

One of the big purposes of the club (besides having our own nifty, secret handshake) is to expose ourselves to alien experiences. I learned a long time ago from some very smart people that most, if not all, industries and markets tend to develop a central strategic orthodoxy where everybody looks alike and everybody acts alike. It's simple to see how this happens, because most companies study their competition for new ideas. Somebody does something new (like start a frequent flyer program, or install really soft, comfortable beds, for example), and soon enough, everybody's doing the same thing.

Where we get really new ideas is by studying people and organizations that completely unrelated to us. I call it Stealing Genius. Not a super clever title, but it fits. The concept is to study other organizations for ideas that are not found in our world, steal them and mold them into something we can use that's brand new. Even better is when we can mold them into something difficult to copy.

In Austin we studied a couple of really cool and successful aliens, Whole Foods Market (their flagship store), and Book People (a local independent bookstore). As I wrote in my meeting recap:

Both were designed to look very different from competitors. Both had strong local community ties and clearly announced that through signage. Both gave a lot of attention to making the customer feel very comfortable and even striving to keep the customer there as long as possible.

It was interesting to see how Book People and Whole Foods were so similar in their approach to creating and maintaining long-term customer relationships, yet visually they were so different. Book People looked like a local, independent store. A little worn, a little cluttered, hand-made signs, but very comfortable. Whole Foods, on the other hand, was all shiny and new, very high tech, classic rock playing, but still comfortable. They even served beer and wine at a sit-down counter in the back of the store.

Two different industries. Two different visual styles. But similar experiential philosophies. I couldn't help but think the Book People stole ideas from Whole Foods, and the Whole Foods People stole ideas from Book People. Classic examples of Stealing Genius.

I often ask consulting clients and speech audiences, "Who are you stealing ideas from?" If it's from your competition, then odds are you're not much different from them.

Five Good Things About Failure

I recently attended Yanik Silver's 2008 Underground Online Seminar IV in Los Angeles.

I'm guessing a lot of my readers don't know who Yanik is. It's funny how a person can be extremely well-known in one field and completely unknown in others. So if you don't know Yanik, trust me, he's a big gun in the Internet Marketing world. (If you're looking to start making $$ via the Internet, you can't go wrong by starting your studies with Yanik's 33 Days to Online Profits.)

But I digress a bit from my topic. That is not Yanik in the picture. That is Mike Faith, CEO of Headsets.com. Mike spoke at the Underground and had a great message.

Mike opened by talking about how failure has been a part of his life, like so many of us. But he said there are five things we can learn about failure:

• Failure is based on perspective. We've all heard the story about how Thomas Edison failed 5,000/6,000/8,234 times (depending on which author/speaker/consultant you happened to pay attention to at the moment) before coming up with a working lightbulb. Of course,Tom didn't see these as failures. He saw each one as moving him a step closer to finding the right answer.

• Failure usually comes before success. How many of us succeed right out of the box? Only those extremely fortunate and rare souls. It's absolutely true when they say the difference between a successful person and a failure is often times because the successful person simply picked himself/herself up one more time.

• If you're failing in one sandbox, move to another. Mike talked about how he used to sell windows door-to-door in England with little success. Then he started promoting his service through flyers and, ultimately, direct mail. These allowed him to generate appointments with those people who were interested in what he was selling. A better use of his time and more sales.

• Every failure is an opportunity to improve. While this might sound cliche, in reality, it's far too common for people to continue doing the same things over and over again, looking for different results.  They usually don't get different results, duh.

• Visualize success, but anticipate failure. Every morning at 5:00 am at Headsets.com, someone places an order online to check the system. They also place a phone call to make sure someone is there. This is a lot like how Fedex anticipates failure. Did you know that every day, empty Fedex airplanes take off from Seattle and Boston, then fly routes over major cities before heading to superhubs? That way if one of the planes on the ground has mechanical trouble, they can land, pick up the packages, and keep things moving for on-time delivery.

As Mike said in his first point, it's all about perspective. Failure can be a good thing. It's certainly a part of life, both personally and professionally. So it only makes sense we look at it the way Mike does.

Two Degrees away from $500,000

Talk about BIG goals! My buddy, Dan Cole, has set a huge one for himself. He has set a goal to raise $500,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society by June 14. That works out to roughly $8192.72 each day for the next 61 days. (But if American Idol can raise over $22 million last night, maybe Dan's goal IS reachable!)

I think Dan's going to need some help. Kay, Kelly, and I are personally pledging $1000 towards Dan's goal, but that's just a drop in the bucket. That's why I'm posting this.

Can you help Dan? Read the following and then go to TwoDegrees.org and join us!

Each person knows someone dealing with the devastating affects of cancer. Did you know?

•    More than three quarters of a million American are currently living with blood cancers.
•    Leukemia is the leading cause of death among children under the age of 20.
•    Every five minutes someone is diagnosed. More than 114,500 new cases are expected this year.
•    Leukemia and lymphoma are the leading fatal cancers in young men under 35.
•    The rate of lymphoma in women under 45 has been increasing steadily in the last few years.

Nearly every American has seen the debilitating effects that cancer can have on the afflicted and on the friends and family who care for and nurture their afflicted loved ones.

But the future bodes hope. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) continues to make great strides in research to fight cancer.  A cure is just around the corner. We can make a difference.

As part of the Man & Woman of the Year Campaign for the LLS, some 20 individuals joined together as Two Degrees of Difference to raise money for the cure of cancer.  Dan Cole, our Man of the Year candidate for the National Capital Area Chapter, leads our campaign, but each team member reaches out within their own two-degree connections to fundraise and find a cure together.

The LLS campaign runs April 10-June 14. Two Degrees of Difference aims to raise the most money ever in the 18-year history of the campaign. We invite you to join us and make a difference in the cure for cancer.

For more information on Two Degrees of Difference and why each team member is involved in this campaign, visit the team’s website, www.twodegrees.org and check out the team member stories. Have your own story to tell?  Post it on our website as well.

An unambiguous definition of success

A good hotel experience

Results Not Typical

My wife, Kay, writes an extremely funny blog with a very clever title, Kay's Blog. You should read it.

Like me, Kay tends to get off on a rant when she finds something that strikes her as funny. Lately, she's been pointing out all the "Results Not Typical" advertisements and marketing promotions we're expose to every day.

For example, you see an a full page magazine ad for someone who lost 300 pounds on some weird, exotic diet. There's always a poor quality, fuzzy "Before" picture, and a high-res, well-lit, probably PhotoShopped "After" picture. Below the "After" picture are the tiny words, "Results Not Typical."

I'm not going to steal Kay's thunder here and write really funny stuff about all the examples we see every day. That's Kay's job. But it does make me look at this trend from a marketer's perspective.

Certainly we want to promote our products and services in their best light, but when do we go past truthfulness and cross into the grayness of "Truthiness," as coined by comedian Steve Colbert? As a professional speaker myself, I've seen a lot of really well edited demo videos that make the speaker look like one of history's all-time great orators. But, frankly, some of those speakers need to put Results Not Typical at the bottom of the screen.

Trust is the most important reason why people buy from us and continue to buy from us. Trust comes from Truthfulness.

Everything walks the talk. How we communicate with our marketplace, whether through full page magazine ads, demo videos, or face-to-face, walks the talk. And the last thing you want your market to think about you is Results Not Typical.

It's The Light Thing To Do

Read Seth Godin's post.

When does your problem become an industry issue?

Perception is reality. We've all heard that and we all understand that. It's like the old saying that if your neighbor is out of work, we're in a recession. If you're out of work, we're in a depression.

A couple of weeks ago I spoke at a conference in Indianapolis for Christian retailers and suppliers. (Indianapolis in February. Now THAT was a smart choice on my part.) The retailers are primarily small, independent business people fighting a tough battle. Until a few short years ago, if you were looking for Christian books, bibles, music, apparel, or gifts, these stores were pretty much your best source.

Along came the successful Left Behind series of novels and movies starring Kirk Cameron, and later,  Mel Gibson's $612,000,000 mega-smash, The Passion of the Christ. All of a sudden God and Jesus became a lot more marketable and, naturally, big retailers took notice. Wal-Mart, Costco, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, and many other big stores broadened their offerings of Christian titles, music, and gifts. Good news for suppliers. Bad news for independent retailers.

Mega stores rely on discounted prices. Small independents rely on full retail. Mega-stores buy huge quantities. Small independents might buy a few hundred of a good seller. Needless to say, this made it extremely difficult for the Christian retailer. Suppliers were and still are delighted to sell to the big guys at massive discounts. And often, the giant retailers sell the product for LESS than the small guys can buy them for. How do you compete with these category killers?

I've heard the cry of "This isn't fair!" from the Christian retailers for several years now, and I truly feel for them (I'm a Christian myself). But I speak and consult in a lot of industries, so for several years I've also heard the same cry from independent hardware retailers, outdoor power equipment dealers, independent secular book stores, independent music stores, and independent grocery stores.

In each of those similarly affected industries we've seen thousands of independent business owners go out of business, ostensibly because they couldn't compete with the big guys. I say "ostensibly" because, at the same time, they haven't disappeared completely. Stories abound of wildly successful small businesses in many different markets and industries. Speakers and authors, like me, revel in discovering those heroic examples so we don't have to rely on the same-old Nordstrom, Fedex, and Starbucks stories that everybody else keeps using. (WE have to separate ourselves, too!)

What separates the successful survivors from the extinct? Well, it's nothing magical and nothing we haven't heard over and over. But based on my experience in Indianapolis, I feel compelled to list a few thoughts:

• You can't win this year's championship with last year's strategy. Regardless of the industry, too many companies rely on a playbook that used to work. The world is moving forward at the speed of time with you or without you. Technology and plain old human ingenuity will constantly change the rules of competition. You've got to either keep up, move ahead, or be left behind.
• Change happens. People say they like change, but really they like it as long as it happens to someone else.
• Life is neither fair nor unfair. It is what it is. Like poker, people win with good hands and people win with bad hands. And like poker, people also lose with good hands and people lose with bad hands.
• Look for the white space. There's always white space. Even Wal-Mart can't be all things to all people.
• Rewrite the rules of competition. Why play by somebody else's rules? Make your own.

Many (not all) Christian retailers see their situation as an industry issue. It's not an industry issue.  It's an industry-wide problem affecting a lot of small retailers. That's different from an issue. And the harsh fact is, the industry can't fix the problem and go back to the way it used to be.

Hard? Oh yes. But hard is never a reason for not doing something. These retailers, like so many others in other industries, must find a new solution to their survival.

What part of THE EXPERIENCE IS THE MARKETING don't hotels understand?

I'm dreaming of a solipsistic constructed reality

Too good to pass up.

Ron Judd, a columnist for the Seattle Times, wrote in today's paper:

This Week's (Unintentional) Brilliance-in-Marketing Award: A radio pitch for the sprawling, cookie-cutter Eastside housing development, Snoqualmie Ridge, brags: "It's like The Truman Show: Everything is perfect!" Apparently they missed the fact that the Truman in the movie lived in a fake, soulless town that turned out to be a set for a reality show.