A Lesson in Change Management

1. Don't berate those who think differently.
2. Don't criticize.
3. Show them a better way.

Liquidity

Vocabulary Word of the Day:

LIQUIDITY

Definition: Liquidity is when you look at your retirement funds and wet your pants.

Messages to the Banks - Make Lemonade

The U.S. Banking industry is missing a HUGE opportunity. At the moment they've circled the wagons, admitting no wrongdoing, protecting executive bonuses. For them it's business as usual - except for the fact that they're receiving HUGE bailout money (mine and yours).

America has turned sour on all things Financial. To us it represents greed, betrayal, recklessness and dysfunction.

It is a huge opportunity for the industry.

Imagine how well an entirely new strategy would work if just one banking CEO changed direction.

Here's how his press release might read:

America,

We at (insert Bank name here) would like to apologize for our part in the economic crisis in which America finds herself. Over the past decade our Bank has undertaken unacceptable risks in our mission to drive profits for our shareholders. Our compensation plans provided bonuses for those most successful at driving the very behavior that helped our nation into the crisis we now face.

We accept responsibility for our actions and from this day forward pledge a new beginning.

We are working hard to repair our balance sheets to balance our assets with our liabilities. We are movong away from a 35:1 debt/asset ratio and are working to achieve a very conservative 5:1 ratio. Our progress towards this goal will be monitored by independent 3rd party accounting firms in conjuction with the SEC and Fed. Today we are announcing a new policy of transparency, and will show each and every account holder how we intend to keep these promises.

We are announcing today that 30% of all future profits will be returned to the taxpayer until such time as the TARP money we have received is paid back. This may well take decades, but it is our commitment to every American, that we consider this money a loan.

Finally, we are addressing compensation. Our bonuses, if any, will be based upon both our profitability and our journey towards a conservatively structured, sustained balance sheet. Every customer of this Bank must be assured that their assets are safe and that all creditworthy customers have access to the capital they need to run their businesses and their lives.

If your current bank is NOT pledging similar response to this crisis, may we suggest that you open an account with us.

Together we'll forge a healthy and sustainable economic future for America.

Signed,

Joe Moneybags,
CEO
insert Bank name here.

America has a huge capacity for forgiveness. It's time that the Banks stepped up and admitted their mistakes and told America what THEY are going to do to fix things. I think for a "first mover", the rewards could be substantial.

Think About Corporate Newsletters This Way

One of my favorite newsletters is McKinsey. Loads of great information. McKinsey offers free information to subscribers as well as a premium information to its members. For about $150 per year, I can become a premium member.

To those of us who haven't become premium members yet, McKinsey offers tantalizing articles to induce us to make the leap. They deliver relevant, compelling headlines with a teaser opening paragraph or two, as incentive to make the transition to membership. (I'm almost there.)

It got me thinking.

What if Marketing departments created Corporate Newsletters, that they actually had to sell? How would the content be changed? How might the headlines be written? How would they create more value for the customer?

Instead of an "I'm glad we published another one on time", perhaps we'd change our focus to "we got another 50 subscribers!"

After all, isn't that what we're shooting for?

Time=Money

I've recently come to the realization that I spend the better part of each workday trying to accelerate things.

Working with people to:

• Develop faster
• Execute faster
• Create faster
• Innovate faster
  
• Imagine faster
• Decide faster

Perhaps, it's all based in the belief that time equals money. Perhaps it's because I'm an impatient guy.

If a team believes it will take a year to accomplish a goal, it will.

My job is to question those beliefs. And if I'm successful, my team will begin to question those beliefs as well.

And that's when things begin to happen faster.

S.W.A.T. Marketing

Now I know what you're thinking. He must mean SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Marketing....

Not so fast.

I'm talking about SWAT Marketing.

The kind of Marketing that enables a company to go from marketing concept to reality in minutes and hours, instead of days and months.

Armed with ideas, a computer, a simple repeatable process,an easy to use web framework, and a video camera, yesterday our beloved marketing team put together a new website in under an hour.

Now it wasn't completely finished (from a content perspective). They never are. But it was available, crawlable, accessible, searchable in under 60 minutes. It wasn't PERFECT, but it WAS.

What used to take many meetings and many days discussion, lots of design (and re-design) to make perfect, our team now focuses on simply MAKING. Perfect can come with the additional content and refinements that will surely follow.

And by that time, our website will already have begun generating leads.

Just like the last one did.

Happy 20th Birthday WWW!

The guy who invented the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, tells you what's next.

Cleaning Up Shopping Carts

photo
Originally uploaded by dbw53022

Yesterday I heard a great story from our Sales Manager. He recently visited an Apple store, looking to purchase an iMac. Now they didn't have the keyboard that he wanted so it was recommended that he order online.

While at the store, he placed his order into an online shopping cart, but before actually purchasing the computer, decided to wait a few days to make the decision.

And so he abandoned his shopping cart. We've all done it.

And usually that's the end of the story.

But not in this case.

Withn 24 hours someone from Apple, whose job it is to "collect the carts" called him and asked how they might help complete the transaction. After a brief discussion, the Apple rep identified a marketing discount program that my colleague qualified for.

Within the span of a ten minute conversation, the transaction was completed. What began as an unfulfilled shopping expedition, ended as a transaction.

Now the moral of the story isn't to suggest you go online shopping and intentionally abandon your shopping cart. It's to point out that
with a little extra effort, you can capture "lost" business.

Cleaning up those shopping carts, is just ONE way.

We are all Rube Goldbergs Now.

This site is dedicated to the spirit of Rube Goldberg - the inventor of complicated, whimsical machines designed to do simple tasks.

The spirit of these inventions are to join together simple machine interactions in an interesting way, to achieve the desired result.

Nowadays, software services enable us all to become Rube Goldberg.

Using off the shelf capabilities, I recently used my iPhone to take a picture, upload it to Flickr, then blog about it on one of my Blogger accounts.

All in minutes. All for free.

The recipe ingredients are:
1. Download the (free) FlickIt application to your iPhone.
2. Link your FlickR account to your blog (takes just seconds).
3. Take a picture with your iPhone.
4. Upload to FlickR.
5. Use "Blog This" functionality on FlickR to post a blog entry on Blogger.










Voila!

The point of all this is that every day, new software services and capabilities are being created by talented developers. It is up to each of us to put together the pieces and work (or play) more efficiently.

This is an exciting time. Stay on the lookout for new, cool capabilities and make Rube proud!

A Plug for Loft 8

I just completed a short vacation to Florida with my brother and nephew. As frequent readers already know, my bro runs an Accounting firm in Ontario.

Whenever we get together, he usually brings along a little "swag" for the trip.

Typically he comes bearing logo golf balls, emblazoned with the name of his firm and with the instructions - Dave, when you lose these, it had better be logo side up, in the short ruff.

This year he came bearing a golf shirt, from Loft 8, emblazoned with his company logo.

Now I have a closet full of shirts bearing the logos of companies I've conducted business with. They never get worn. They sit at the back of the closet, never seeing the light of day. As a marketing vehicle, they fall short, in that the sponsor's name is never displayed in public.

My Loft 8 shirt will be the exception. Swag is meant to be seen. And in the case of logo clothing, if it isn't worn, it isn't working.

It is the most comfortable golf shirt I own.

In these tough economic times, every Marketing investment should have a payback. If you purchase golf shirts to hand out to business associates, consider Loft 8.

They'll be worn.

They'll be seen.

End of endorsement.

Crappy Pretzels. Cheap Airline.

Pretzels
Originally uploaded by dbw53022

Every once in a while I notice a tidbit of Marketing genius. For some reason, on my return flight from Florida, the crappy little snacks they hand out on the airlines caught my attention.

The label on the bag was brilliant.

"How to Eat Gourmet Pretzels on a Low Fare Airline."

Instead of reminding each passenger of the crappy snacks that they receive on each flight, the labelling served to enforce the fact that our fares were likely lower than the cost to drive the trip.

They took the tongue in cheek approach, reminding people how inexpensive their trip really was.

So instead of a complaint. They got a smile. (At least from me.).