Ray in Academia

Did you look at a company’s Mission Statement before applying for the job or calling on them as a customer? I think a mission statement can be quite revealing.

Take Google for example, Googles mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Does Google do this for you? Could this help Google staff better define what else they should be working on besides Googles search engine?

Googles search engine, yup makes the world’s information accessible and useful. www.google.com 

Google maps, again, very useful to me. http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/maps/streetview/ 

1.800.GooG.411  Free 411 service, makes the world’s information accessible and useful http://www.google.com/goog411/

Have you seen Google Flu Trends? Google tracks all the people Googling their symptoms and it turns out they are about two weeks ahead of the Center for Disease Control in the US. Useful if I’m travelling for sure, if I was working selling Tylenol Flu know I’d be making a call to Google.  http://www.google.org/flutrends/

Do these endevours hold true to the company’s mission statement? Do you think the company’s mission statement defines Google? What’s your company’s mission?

Do you ask questions? I seem to be a naturally curious person, so I ask alot of questions. Sometimes I ask questions to clarify my understanding, other times I ask more leading questions as stepping stones in an attempt to direct the conversation. Next week classes resume here at the school of business and I wholeheartedly encourage students to ask questions. In fact, read ahead in the textbook and then ask questions about topics you did not understand from just reading the book.

So welcome back, and I hope you brought your questions. They might lead you to a profession you are interested in and a career which you are curious about. Lifelong learning about a topic you are somewhat naturally curious about seems like a great way to become one of the best in your field.

Have you recently considered Blogging? How about Twitter? Why or Why not?

It seems to me that both of these electronic communication tools have very quickly evolved from simply tweeting about what you’re having for lunch to demonstrating that you are current in a field of interest.

This brings us to the current trend towards online thought leadership; specifically, clearly demonstrating an individuals expertise in a subject area by writing about it. Ideally becoming a thought leader in a subject area will lead to an increase in referrals, an increase in credibility, and ultimately should lead to yourself and/or your organization being more highly compensated, as the best in any field usually are.

I agree with this fundamentally but would add that a thought leader has to also be a doer. Let’s say you needed heart surgery which would you prefer the surgeon who has performed the surgery numerous times over the past 10 years or a surgeon widely regarded for his/her thoughts on the subject and has been published in medical journals discussing the surgery and new techniques in the field but has never actually done the surgery?

To me the best answer is obviously both.

Let me add to that one more question, if you were studying to be a surgeon which of those two individuals would you want to learn from?

I have been recently following a thread about ROI from using social media marketing (Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, etc). I thought I would share my post here as a thought du jour.

The first question you need to ask yourself before what is the ROI is “What is the objective” the second question is “What is the reach and frequency of my social media marketing campaign going to be” (Is your target audience using the medium you are?)

If you can not think of a specific objective but still feel the desire to use social media, perhaps what you are feeling is a desire for an increase in people’s awareness of your company or some “public relations”.

For me the ROI question at the moment, associated with Social Media Marketing, has to be viewed more inline with Public Relations rather than a specific Ad Campaign, Sales Promotion, direct mail or some other campaign designed with a traditional monetary return.

Increased sales, memberships, enrollment, sponsorship dollars or share price are all good objectives to have. However less tangible objectives are of value as well. For example Jay bought a logo for $200 – that’s an investment, the return on that investment might come from increased awareness of his company. Using his new logo consistently in all his marketing campaigns might make people associate his company logo with a certain “position” in the marketplace (”Healthy fast food”- Subway). If successful the logo might sell for more than $200 as Goodwill when he goes to sell his company. I would think that Goodwill came about as a result of numerous campaigns over a longer period of time and integrated with many forms of communication.

Hence at the end of the day Social Media Marketing is just an expression given for a number of new mediums or Electronic Platforms (Twitter, Blogging, Facebook, etc) all of which are communication tools. And when SMM is put in perspective in this way we can see how it can be used to create value for our customers within the traditional marketing mix (4 P’s) under promotion. And the same rules apply “Integrated Marketing Communications” being the main one that comes to mind.

Thanks for letting me share my morning coffee thought with you all. Catch me on Twitter raybilodeau (I know not very original for a marketing guy)

Best,

How do you know you’re creating value? I often use an example in my introductory marketing class of a new coffee maker I have invented and have a hundred of in my garage. The coffee maker grinds beans, has a digital clock to be set and an automatic start function, and lastly a built in smoke detector. As I then ask my students how many i should bring to our next class to sell them, I’m met with very low enthusiasm for my product. So we then proceed to identify who the coffee drinkers are, who buys coffee beans to be ground, who drinks their coffee it in the morning, and finally who needs a smoke detector. In this way we are looking for the people who can benefit from the features of my coffee maker (turns out not many which explains our low product enthusiasm).

Similarly, for the past few weeks I have been teaching a part of a course for the first time. And although I regularly enjoy the challenge of teaching a course for the first time, this one was bit unique in that it was all one on one role plays in very small class sections (my section had 8 students). 

The Course is our Mark 271 DRIVE: Professional Selling Principles. I think it was the one on one role play that set it apart from some of the other courses I have taught. DRIVE is an acronym for Direction, Rapport, Inquiry, Value , and Execution, a method to follow in creating value for the customer. Within the Inquiry step we use S.P.I.N. another acronym this one for Situation, Problem, Implications, and Need payoff.

These role plays are all designed to teach people to listen. It is only by listening to our clients problems that we can determine if our product/service has a feature that benefits our client or solves their problem. In that way the role play focuses more on the art of conversation than increasing sales.

It is in the ”Value” step that we focus on the features that benefit our client and not all our product/service features because our client is only interested in the features that benefit them.

This understanding/methodology seems very applicable to many fields. Are you creating value in your field by first identifying problems and then solving those problems with your company’s features/services or are you just telling people about all the cool features of your product or all the cool services your company offers and saying ”see aren’t we great”. 

Which conversation would you rather be in:

1) Would you like to buy a coffee maker with a built in bean grinder, digital clock, automatic on function, and comes with a built in smoke detector?

2) Hi, do you drink coffee?

Do you go to the movies or do you prefer to just watch them at home? What are we really buying when we are going to a movie? Is it just the movie or is there something more? Well there is the popcorn. And yes, I have a confession, I love theatre popcorn, and I love going to the movies. So I was delighted to see the movie industry is doing well.

I’m not sure what the draw is for me but I prefer watching movies to watching a number of sports baseball, curling or golf for example. You can decide for yourself but for me I would rather participate in a sport than watch it. I suppose a large number of sports fans actually go to these games not to passively watch but to participate. They question the calls, cheer on their teams, heckle the opposition, and applaud in unison to indicate approval.  

Similarly, are not the best movies the ones that make you laugh out loud in the theatre, or jump in your chair, or make a tear form in the corner of your eye?

Are you like this as well? Do you agree we generally enjoy things more that we participate in? Well if so, then what are we participating in? Are we (you and I) participating at school, at work, at home, because I think if we truely are then we will likely enjoy them much more rather than just clocking time.

How many times have you heard the slogan, “Just Do It”? Have you ever wondered how that slogan came about or why over twenty years later that slogan still resonates with us?

During a classroom conversation the topic of the power of focus came up and how we have so many activities and ideas in our lives that sometimes it can be hard to focus on those which really matter.

The conversation reminded me of a book by Scott Bedbury, “A new brand world”. Scott was working for Nike at the time the “Just do it” campaign began. In his book he writes about one of the current problems as: “Consumers were changing. Aging baby boomers were becoming more fitness- rather than  sports-driven. A new generation of youth was as interested in skateboards and mountain bikes as they were in playing traditional sports.” Seem familiar?

Added to this was the fact that “consumers already knew as much as they wanted to know about fitness. And that most if not all of them were ridden by guilt about their failures to live up to their potential.” And so it was in this educated consumer environment that the “Just Do It” slogan was born to remind us of the fact we know the right things to do, now we have to focus and just do them.

Yup still resonates with me.

Feeling a little down, got a cold? Allow me to pass along a quick piece of advice, because winter is coming.

When you’re feeling your worst, dress your best.

Simple advice but I’ve noticed it works! Have some confidence in how you look, who knows you might even get a compliment! Now imagine that a compliment to lift your day, even if you have a red nose.