Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Rhill, (Happy New Year) and great question.

As we move deeper into the heart of technological products & services and a more global economy that is business savvy I think the challenges are obvious.

(1) KEEPING THE (CLIENT) CUSTOMER FIRST:
As technology creates a sterile platform on which we do business with our customers/clients (we are engaging in on a daily basis) it is easy for us to forget that we are dealing with reality [Because our interactions through the internet put us into the Virtual hemisphere of thinking we tend to forget that there are living, breathing people on the other end of our transactions.]

Roy H. Williams, speaks of us learning to see our customers real and seeing ourselves real.


(2) KEEP EXPERIMENTING...
(LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE...BUT DO NOT MAKE EXPERIENCE THE END ALL SOLUTION)
For example as we transitioned from the live musician during the time when music was being integrated with technology (and we were losing human drummers for drum machines and pianist for electronic keyboardist during the 80's) we saw new growth in music genres but we also saw a sterility come to music that music producers had to learn how to deal with.

Obviously we saw more new music producers and singers increase that we wouldn't have heard of (because of the technology) but we also saw a battle raging between how to temper the technology with real live animated singers and audiences. Amazingly producers began to reintegrate real live players back into the concepts and we saw a resurgence and integration of analog instruments into the new digital sound.

So marketers must do the same and consider that the new market place we are in is in constant warfare against itself. We must balance our use of technological digital devices with our analog, instinctively creative minds, always looking for new ways to understand this biomorphic marketplace that is rapidly changing.

(3) KEEP MAINTAINING OR DEVELOPING OUR OWN INDIVIDUALITY...Stop chasing our tails.
This is a quality we not only as marketers need to keep in constant redevelopment but also solo entrepreneurs, small businesses and corporations alike.

As the R&D (Research & Development) departments began to shrink in the late 70's and now only those behemoth corporations have the ability to financially support an R&D department, we have become like a dog chasing our tail. We have lost our individuality in replacement for the easiest, fastest simplest way out of our problem. As Brian Tracy said so well in his new book "SOMETHING for NOTHING" pg. 24, "...people are lazy, greedy, ambitious, selfish, vain, ignorant, and impatient." Most people in possession of these character traits use them to work against us rather than for us.

As marketers we must desperately find a way to use those individual things that make us uniquely different from all the other choices people can choose in this day and age of specialization. I know these are some of the top challenges I see people facing this year and into the future. Is there anything I can do for you?

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

C-reating P-rophetic E-volution

Generally speaking, I believe most marketing folk in the States are struggling when competing with firms from India, China, etc.

I believe the biggest mistake marketing folk (at least in the US) will make in 2006 will be to focus too much on the short term, at the expense of developing and marketing more innovative and sophisticated products and services.

Absolutely great answers...

Our #1 Challenge as marketers?

Clarity - in the brand promise, the value proposition, and the strategic objectives.

Almost everything I se that has gone wrong started when someone cut a corner of making sure the brief, the market, the promise, somthing- was not clear and correct.

Our second challenge? Brevity. Conciseness. Keep it simple. Assume this: No one reads anything any more, no one listens, no-one watches. Anything you say better be able to get through the attention span of a two-year old, else it wil fail.

That's it. Clarity. Brevity. Conciseness.

Repetition, and a clear summary, won't do you any harm, either.

Good luck.

ChrisB