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  • Research Is A Cost-Effective PR Tool

    Research Is A Cost-Effective PR Tool

    All of Granite Partners’ consulting engagements involves some sort of primary research, either as part of a SWOT analysis to assess market position, or customer interviews or surveys, or investigations into new applications for existing products. But there are other uses for empirical research – one of those is for PR media exposure.

    If your company does field research, product development, manufacturing or offers a service, you might be able to use your own internal corporate data, and publish your findings as they apply to the general public, and promote those findings to increase awareness of your company.

    Generally, for a business to receive media coverage, they need to craft and offer a story that is timely, urgent, relatable and relevant. Under the right circumstances, research findings can be all of that and more. If you’ve invented a new chemical formula for use in your products, there is likely extensive research on that new formula regarding it’s safety, it’s physical properties, it’s applications, it’s effects when reacting with other substances, and a host of other attributes. If you look at those results in a slightly different way, you might find that there is news in that innovation. If you were to find that the new formulation enhanced lubrication between plastic parts, for example, or had other solvent properties when used against marker or crayons, or some specific stain, that product could be marketed to a whole new audience. Your research might be promoted as something like “New Formula Removes Crayon Like Magic – new Kid-Safe Formula”.

    Taken further, if you are a service company, say a cleaning service, and you regularly poll or survey customers after they’ve received their service. Typically, there would be questions regarding the customer’s satisfaction with the job, what they liked and didn’t like, did the operators do a good job, did they arrive on time, etc. It would be very easy to add a couple of questions to that survey regarding the use of organic cleaning products, favorite fragrance used in the cleaning process, how the customer gauged the “level” of clean achieved, and others. In aggregate, that data could easily be used in an eye-catching headline “Only 35% of Consumers Prefer Organic Housecleaning Products – Majority Feel Organics Offer Reduced Effectiveness” and the subsequent release copy could go into detail about how customers don’t show a preference for organic cleaners citing that they don’t clean as well, based on your own company’s primary research. It’s not a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal article, it’s not a scientifically-vetted study, but it’s honest, it has actual customer data included, and it shows a preference that might surprise readers – and what it really does is create a platform for you to gain some exposure for your company as a thought leader in the industry.

    We’ve found in our experience with clients that primary research always pays for itself in terms of marketing insight, and some data has revealed trends, shifts in perception, and new applications that have yielded millions in sales and new growth for the companies that initially commissioned the research. Forward-thinking companies usually understand the value of the data we uncover, and the most innovative among them use that data for multiple purposes, including those described above. When weighed against all the additional uses for the facts that the data reveals, research is one of the most cost-effective marketing tools you have in your toolbox. Take a few minutes one afternoon and review your internal corporate research data on your products or services or customer’s buying behavior, and see how many attention-grabbing headlines and stories you can wrench out of it – you might be surprised at the resources for media coverage you’ll find hidden there!

    If you liked this post and would like to learn more about this and similar topics, be sure and pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” 

     

  • New Trends Not Always The Most Valuable

    New Trends Not Always The Most Valuable

    As a marketing consultant, I tend to observe things critically, find parallels and patterns in everything, to try and make sense of what I see and experience, so I can apply those learnings to client problems. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes, not so much.

    This morning, my young son Alex, was playing in the livingroom. At 4, he sort of wanders around the room, and when his eye catches something bright and shiny or something he remembers from yesterday’s play session that was fun, he makes a bee-line for the new toy, dropping whatever he’s got in his hand already. Even though the “old” toy was perfectly captivating just 10 seconds ago, suddenly it’s yesterday’s news and he drops it like its hot in favor of the “new” one.

    It dawned on me that some of my clients had exhibited this same behavior regarding their marketing and outreach activities. They were rolling along, sending out e-mail, sending out letters, engaging members or customers with their website, growing steadily, when someone pipes up in a meeting “Hey, why aren’t we on Twitter?” or “Why don’t we have a Facebook page?”

    Before you know it, the whole marketing and IT department is discussing profiles, and launching pages and starting accounts and firewalls and policies and a whole host of related and relevant topics, and before long, these items are in place and being used, to what end no one knows. With all this discussion going on, and activity stemming from that discussion, often there is little or no thought given to integrating this new activity into the existing marketing plan, to setting goals and metrics for those new programs to measure their effectiveness at meeting those goals. Without those elements in place, and really solid and well-researched answer to the questions “Why are we doing this, and how is it going to help us achieve our goals, and how will we know it’s working?”, going forward blindly is a recipe for at least needless unproductive activity, at worst brand damage and reputational damage for the company or organization.

    Non-profit organizations often have a history of behaving that way, although small to mid-size commercial businesses have been known to do this as well. They look a lot like my son, tossing aside what’s in place, even though it may be working, for the shiny, new, trendy, activity, regardless of it’s efficacy or effectiveness.

    The moral of the story is that while some of the new media channels and applications may look exciting and may be experiencing a groundswell of growth and popularity, it doesn’t mean that they are the correct or appropriate types of outreach activity through which to achieve your particular goals. You can spot this type of behavior easily. Simply ask them, “What do you use your Facebook page for?” or “What do you get out of your Twitter account?” It’s not even a matter of cost/benefit analysis, it’s more about aligning the mission of the organization with the tools and public outreach mechanisms you use to achieve the set goals. Twitter can be a nice, real-time market monitor for short term buzz and brand recognition, even customer service monitoring or PR effectiveness, but that’s more about listening than posting. Facebook can be a good way to build community around a product or service, but it has to be used carefully and with some constraints in place to maintain control of the voice and the brand. It may not be appropriate for it to be used to help drive sales or leads.

    If you are contemplating using new media tools, treat them and think about them much as you would any other service purchase – assess the needs, THEN go find the best tool for the job. Don’t go looking to add tools when you don’t know what the job is. Even Handy Manny knows to use only the right tool for the right job!

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  • Key Marketing Element – Define “Value”

    Key Marketing Element – Define “Value”

    Whether we’re creating a marketing plan, implementing a creative campaign or setting up for a key sales call, there is always a big question lurking in the background of all of our efforts – “What is the value of our product/service to the customer?”

    Most marketers can create a list of features that show off their product, might even do enough to differentiate it from competitors, but features don’t really drive response or sales. A list of benefits, what good things your product or service will result in for the customer is better, and will drive response and sales. But showing value, real intrinsic and perceived value, is where the true art of observation, listening, distillation and research converge to drive real results. This is where experience will pay off.

    Take for example a simple cleaning service: the features they might offer include trained personnel, bonded service agents, natural or organic or hypoallergenic cleaning products, long-term contacts and one-time specials for realtors and landlords. But those features will make the reader work to derive the benefits from them, if you’re lucky. More likely they will go on to the next competitor.

    Benefits derived from these might include peace of mind for landlords and homeowners, high quality cleaning jobs above and beyond the normal, fixed and reasonable pricing, flexible scheduling for repeat customers etc. Good benefits, if you know you have a need and understand how such services work and the challenges that they can bring. Again, a lot of work for the reader to figure out whether this service is for them.

    But what is the real value – a good impression on viewers or potential renters or buyers of the house or it’s residents, reduced risk of disease and infestation because the house is clean, reduced risk of allergic reaction due to reduced dust and allergens, and the bottom line – you don’t have to put in the work to clean the house! People hire a cleaning service because they don’t have time or expertise or inclination to clean it themselves. Luxury, convenience, time saving, thoroughness and a quality result are the key value triggers for marketing those types of services, so make sure you highlight them in your outreach efforts.

    Those values can be derived from some quick customer and ex-customer research, maybe a card after the service is SOLD, not after services are rendered, that’s a service-level evaluation, not a buying reason. Maybe a quick online survey or e-mail survey to your current and past customer list would reach the audience effectively. But you have to ask the right questions to extract this actionable information, and some analysis is needed to apply the newly derived data to your creative and strategic executions – that’s where the experience comes in – a highly experienced marketer can do that distillation of data and analysis and derive a strategy based on that knowledge and execute it for real results.

    Do your homework, do the analysis, and show the VALUE in your offering, not just features and benefits – value finds a home in buyers minds every time.

    If you found VALUE in this post and would like to receive even more, be sure to pick up a copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” – 

     

  • You Gotta Have A Plan!

    You Gotta Have A Plan!

    After thirty years of helping commercial companies and non-profit organizations enhance their effectiveness through high-impact marketing efforts, we’ve seen some patterns develop. It appears that there is a correlation between how effective these companies’ marketing efforts are, and wait for it, the specificity and thoroughness of their marketing plan. It’s not budget, it’s not necessarily vision, it’s not brilliance in creative execution – it’s how well they draw up a plan and stick to it.

    Imagine a fighter pilot, maneuvering a $150 million aircraft (small one), randomly, changing course whenever clear skies present themselves, dropping ordnance on whatever targets strike his fancy. He might hit the assigned target, at the right time, in league with others also scheduled to attack that target. But the odds drop precipitously with each misguided maneuver and missed “opportunity” bomb dropped on his way there. That’s how some companies run their marketing operation, wandering from media outlet to outreach platform to new endeavor, without ever consulting the plan, if one even exists. This kind of rudderless marketing is nearly always doomed to failure, and results from a lack of vision, lack of discipline, lack of planning.

    The best way to avoid this is to actually go through the often painful but always beneficial exercise of creating a specific, measurable, organized, well-researched and grounded marketing plan, and disseminating it to EVERYONE, so that all stakeholders are in sync and can be involved in carrying it out in an informed way. Make a plan, stick to it, carry it out aggressively, and measure your results routinely, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how much more successful your efforts will be.

    There are loads of publications, books, blogs etc out there to help you with this task if you are a young start-up with no experience at planning. Each one is different, each is unique, but each share several key elements, including measurable specific goals, time milestones, assigned responsibilities, and available resources. Fully complete plans include media choices for outreach advertising and PR activities, brand characteristics, audience profile, media schedules for placements, creative cues for progressive campaigns, drop dates for mail, e-mail, and designated resources and personnel for all tasks including social media activity.

    Big job, but one that not only saves time and money over the year by reducing missteps and waste, and one that removes the guesswork and allows everyone to move forward confidently and aggressively toward achieving the goal. How simple is that? Apparently not very, based on a resent study showing that nearly 40% of businesses with over 20 employees have no written marketing plan!

    If you need help, get it. If you can’t find it within, hire it! If you can’t stick to it, post it and have someone else hold you accountable. Ultimately, it’s plan now, or pay later – your choice.

    If you agree with these assertions (or disagree) drop me a line and let me know what you think. If you found it valuable, subscribe to this blog above, and be sure to pick up your copy of  “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” 

     

  • Tell The Corporate Story – Not “Just The Facts, Ma’am”

    Tell The Corporate Story – Not “Just The Facts, Ma’am”

    We’ve been reviewing lots of corporate materials over the last several weeks, as it’s stock Proxy season. Each Spring, public corporations hold their shareholder meetings, and issue proxy voting statements for the shareholders to provide feedback to the Board, elect new board members and settle other issues like compensation, accounting firm choice, and other matters. They are also required to bring shareholders up to date on the financial health of the company. Many of them choose this opportunity to further inform shareholders of their efforts and fill them in on future endeavors planned by the company, by mailing out Annual Reports with lots of artfully crafted text and full-page glossy images – all that’s required by the SEC is a set of edited, audited financials and some bare-bones intent reporting.

    If you read this creatively crafted text carefully, you’ll have a hard time discerning where the company fits in the competitive scheme in their industry (they’re all industry leaders) and how their products are perceived, sometimes even what they do or are used for! Some are so nebulous, so vague, so “artful” and flowery, they become nearly useless.

    Holy missed opportunity, Batman! What a tremendous chance to reach out and tell your corporate story in a way that really provides not only usable information that might prove relevant to increasing future investment, but to do double duty in a number of other forums where a corporate story might be useful. Love the images, too, but do they reflect the daily reality at that firm? Not likely. Do they tell the story? Better than the text, but is it the right story? Maybe not.

    I think they can do better. Printed Annual Reports may be going the way of the dinosaur, with online websites allowing technology to improve communication’s timeliness, and relevance. The use of multiple imagery, video, and the tantalizing prospect of nearly endless real estate in which to put more flowery copy, not to mention the reduced cost of reproduction and distribution, make online Annual Reports very tempting. Not sure of the SEC’s feelings on this, but we now have online proxy voting, so the annual reporting requirements can’t be far behind.

    For now, let’s hope corporate marketing departments take transparency to heart, and while they don’t have to back track all the way to the days of Dragnet scripts, a little direct, honest language may go a long way toward convincing shareholders to maintain and even increase their investment. It might also allow employees and other constituencies to become company evangelists – surely the current copy can’t be repeated verbally by company representatives – at least, not with a straight face . . .

    If you liked reading this and found it valuable to you in your business life, or just entertaining, you can receive more like it in your inbox weekly – FREE – just by subscribing to this blog above. And, don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

     

  • Exhibitions and Trade Shows – A Thing of the Past?

    Exhibitions and Trade Shows – A Thing of the Past?

    Guest blog

    Posted by garethcase ⋅ August 30, 2011 ⋅ 5 Comments

    It’s a subject that comes up every year. There is always an Account Manager who wants to do an exhibition because it’s closely aligned to their vertical market, but is there still real value in these events?

    The internet’s exponential growth over the last decade has meant that we have access to pretty much any information we want, no matter where we are or what device we are viewing it on. Research in general, for that latest gadget, your next holiday or even which e-marketing platform you are going to deploy is at our finger tips 24 hours a day.

    Before these technological advances, research was the reason I used to attend trade shows, but over the last 10 years, I have noticed a dramatic decline in both the size of events and the number of attendees.

    There are many reasons company’s choose to exhibit at trade shows. For example, it’s a good forum to launch your brand into a new market or geography. It’s also good to have brand presence at an event well subscribed to by your customers. The other main driver is lead generation. How many of you can honestly hold your hands up and say you have had a really good ROI from events and exhibitions overall? I hope I hear about some great successes but in my experience the ROI does not stack up. Yes there have been shows where we have converted some great opportunities, bit If I compare it £ to £ against over marketing activities it probably comes out bottom of the list. When working out the ROI, don’t forget to include the investment of time from your employees, a trade show with 4 of your sales team not only means you’re paying them to be there, but also missing out on them selling elsewhere during that time.

    If you are going to do trade shows and exhibitions then my advice is to pick niche events aligned to specific vertical markets you want to attack, rather that generic shows that cover your solution/product set. The key is to develop a proposition that really helps your target market overcome a ‘common challenge’. This way you will quickly gain engagement and been seen as a value add rather than a box shifter.

    Surely it’s better to be the only company at an event that offers your products and solutions than being one of 150 all offering something similar?

    My Response:

    Gareth – I, too, have sat on both sides of this fence, organizing some of the largest industrial events in the country (US) and attending and exhibiting in hundreds of shows for a variety of clients. I, too, have seen reductions in attendance and square feet sold, likely a factor of a combination of better information sources (the internet and elsewhere) and the current economy. However, if applied to the marketing plan in a focused strategic way, there is still a huge value in live trade events. NOTHING can replace the face-to-face interaction, the energy, the insight gathered at a live event. True, hard data research can be gained electronically, but the “Who” portion of the show is just as important as the “What” that you get electronically – seeing your competitors approach, viewing new entrants into the market for possible partnership, gauging the health and direction of an industry at large, are invaluable to the well-rounded executive.

    True, lead generation is one of the principal reasons to exhibit, and many shows don’t support this activity aggressively enough, though they should. But on the corporate side, 8 out of 10 viable leads are NEVER followed up with – after spending all that time, money and energy to exhibit, craft a display, man the exhibit with top, expensive sales staff, the leads lie fallow, reducing the ROI by a huge percentage. Shame on the sales manager who lets this practice continue . . .

    There are indeed numerous branding tactics associated with a tradeshow outside your individual exhibit, but some of the guerrilla tactics mentioned here in other poster’s comments would do more than “irritate the organizers” – they can get them thrown out of the venue, ostracized within the industry, their brand destroyed or reduced to a cartoonish bottom-feeding lout. If you work closely with the organizer, such tactics can be negotiated and usually an accommodation made so that these activities are viable and above-board, and a win for everyone.

    The branding aspect cannot be overstated – you’re given an opportunity to put your best foot forward in the most prominent arena your company has – a room full of customers and potential customers! Can’t ask for more than that in ANY business. When all this is factored in to the ROI equation, a well-selected show that gives you a forum to launch a new product, do primary customer research, show off a rebranding, put on a good face for the industry, and eyeball all your competitors in one room is an unbeatable opportunity. The rumors of the tradeshow’s death are greatly exaggerated and superbly premature . . .

  • Is Failure Life’s Greatest Teacher?

    Is Failure Life’s Greatest Teacher?

    As business people and entrepreneurs, most of us don’t like failure in general, and largely feel that failure is bad. True entrepreneurs, however, often tout great failure in the past as the driving force behind their current success. They’ve looked at their past objectively, dispassionately, and impersonally, and taken strong lessons from the failures and used the knowledge to fuel success. A very healthy approach, but one that is often difficult to adopt in other circumstances. If you’re not the boss, continual and ongoing failure in your work will not likely lead to a long career, unless you work at a Wall St. bank!

    Failure is a terrific teacher. It shows you when you should have zigged when you zagged. And often, the ultimate failure of a business enterprise is not caused by any single event or decision – its usually a cascade of seemingly small, inconsequential decisions and actions that take you down a path leading ultimately to collapse. If you could review any one of those decisions separately and out of context, you’d be hard pressed to find logical fault with it, taking into account it’s isolation and the information available at the time. But couple it with incomplete or inaccurate information that fills in or corrects later, and couple that with other seemingly innocuous decisions, and when you step back you can see a pattern developing. You can almost watch the slide in the wrong direction, but at the time you can’t see it and are powerless to stop it.

    Someone smarter than I once said, “it’s not what knocks you down, it’s how you handle getting back up that shows your true character.” I firmly believe that to be true, being an optimist, and believe that this kind of thinking is what powers the entrepreneurial spirit that makes this great country what it is. No matter what obstacles people put in your way, no matter how many times they knock you down, if you just get up, brush off, restore your dignity, regroup and come out swinging with a new action plan, you’ll eventually be alright and prosper. To do that repeatedly and not be insane, you have to examine the failures and learn from them to avoid repeating the mistakes that led to the failure.

    We closed down an ancillary business unit this year, as it produced insufficient revenue to be self supporting after 2 years of investments in time and money. The research told us we were right to launch it, the market should have been there, our advisers and others told us it was a great idea, but in the end, not so much. Now it’s time to do the autopsy, find out what went wrong, and file it away so we don’t repeat it in the future. Without this final, often painful, step, the failure has little positive value. Simply chalking it up to experience and loss without the analysis only yields negatives. Eventually enough negatives can weigh your efforts irretrievably downward to the point of being unable to recover.

    What’s the recovery plan? Once the analysis is done, the lessons learned, the mistakes and missteps identified, we move forward in a positive fashion, richer in the knowledge that we can apply that learning not only to our own endeavors, but apply it on behalf of our clients as well. That’s progress.

    In short, don’t hide from failures or hide the results when they are less than optimal. Own them, learn from them, use them to your advantage. Those who say they only succeed are lying or selling something.

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  • Guest blogger Adam Schectman of Eye Catching Creative on Branding

    Guest blogger Adam Schectman of Eye Catching Creative on Branding

    Branding is one of our mainstay services – it touches and influences every engagement we have to one degree or another. We focus on it so you don’t have to. I caught this article by fellow SMEI veteran Adam Schechtman, and though rather than restate it, I’d simply repost it and give him the credit he so richly deserves! Way to go Adam, nice take on one of our favorite subjects.

    Guest Blogger: Adam Schechtman, VP of Business Development  and Marketing, Eye Catching Creative

    To brand or not to brand? That is the question so many small and mid-sized businesses tend to overlook in the early phases of their development. The problem is there’s a tendency to keep shuffling this linchpin of marketing success to the dark corners of the priority list. Then one day, we read an article or hear someone talking about a competitor and cringe in uneasiness because they did something we didn’t…built a solid brand.

    Like marketing in general, branding is easy to lose focus on, especially when we have experienced some degree of success. If you agree that today’s markets have changed and the way businesses DO business has changed, then it’s time to recalibrate some of your own marketing efforts. That means its back to basics! Like the “butterfly effect,” small improvements in your branding strategy can have a tremendous impact on growth over time.

    We know from marketing 101 that your brand is your identity. Beyond the visual or physical makeup… name, logo, advertising, a brand is quite simply the psychological impact you have on customers. Branding is so important because people buy emotionally and then logic steps in to support their buying decision. Your brand is essentially a part of the ongoing relationship you have with customers. It is a compilation of messages that differentiate (or don’t differentiate) your business, product or service from everyone else who plays in the same space as you do. Take a second look at the competition of today. If someone stands out, why do they stand out? Who doesn’t stand out? Which category does your company fall into and who might be able to help you to improve on that position?

    From your email address to your website, to how the phone is answered to the relevance of your marketing materials, your brand must be professional, consistent and CURRENT. What the company stands for and what you’re offering should be different and clear. When is the last time you really dissected how you are perceived in the market and what your market position truly is? One easy way is to run a survey using existing customers or even some customers that you lost. Resources like SurveyMonkey.com are fantastic, free, e-survey questionnaire tools that are easy to use and easy on the budget. So let me ask you… what perception do your customers have of your business? What does your presence in the market “feel” like to customers and professional peers (aka competitors) and more importantly… are you being felt?

    Adam Schechtman is an entrepreneur and co-owner of Eye Catching Creative, providing virtual, on-call design, advertising and marketing solutions to budget-conscious small and mid-sized businesses. With more than 15 years in marketing, business development and sales, he is also the former owner of Achieve Senior Home Care and former co-owner/franchiser of Advance Realty Solutions. Adam holds an MBA in marketing from Johns Hopkins University. Visit www.eyecatchingcreative.com for more information.

    Get the feel right the first time – we can help you with your branding research to give you the insights to get it right the first time! If you liked this, be sure to subscribe to this blog above.

  • Who Do You Seek Advice From?

    Who Do You Seek Advice From?

    Before all you English majors go off on me, I know the title is making use of poor grammar -but “From Whom Do You Seek Advice?” doesn’t really “sing” when used as a headline. Nuff’ said.

    The real question is, how do you select, solicit and filter advice on the topics in your life and work that matter? Most folks have an informal network of influencers and advisers, people they turn to when they have a question, want to validate a choice or point of view. Some have a small circle, some have a very large network of various family members with a range of levels of expertise. Sometimes its just that you want to hear another opinion, from someone who thinks like you do, who will dilute and sugar-coat their stance and feed your own back to you, just as a feel good.

    But sometimes, picking the right expert really matters. Sometimes its a case of hiring a professional who you happen to know under other circumstances. Selecting a realtor, picking a doctor or dentist, finding a tax preparer or accountant, an attorney for non-criminal work. Most of those selections are based on referrals or references from our known network of advisers. Sometimes the professional themselves is part of the network! But how do you really make the choice? Is it emotional, is it pragmatic, is it price sensitive, is it strictly relationship based?

    Studies have shown that reaching those influencers is the most powerful way to prompt word-of-mouth transference of brand and product information. But how do you find them and reach them? Most of the advisers who are non-family are close friends from various stages of our lives. College roommates, fraternity brothers or sorority sisters, high school buddies, team members from sports activities, vendors of various services we use routinely – familiar faces. To find these people and gather them as a list for someone else is virtually impossible – until now. Social media does exactly that and more. Those influencers and advisers are now called “friends”.

    That’s the real power of social media – reaching the influencers of your target audience. If you wanted to build the killer marketing app, it would be one that selects all the Facebook pages from people that fall into your target demographic based on data presented on the pages, and selects the five most prolific friend commentators that appear next to a question mark. You’ve asked the audience for help with a question, and those top advisers answer it. Select them and market to them socially, and they will bleed that influence into the key purchaser. We can only dream . . . so far.

    For now, we’ll have to settle for joining the online conversation in a corporate but personal way, and hope that those influencers see us, hear us, and most importantly, believe us, so that they pass along the attributes we offer to their list of “friends”.

    Keep at it, the tech geniuses will eventually create the key that unlocks the real monetary power of social media, and when they do, look out . . .

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  • Be An Agent For Change

    Be An Agent For Change

    At it’s root, marketing is about change. Changing perceptions, changing appearance, changing buying behavior. But if marketers are to conquer the C-level chambers and earn a real seat at the management table, they have to be an agent for change in the business. Simply executing within the frame isn’t good enough any longer.

    It’s up to us as marketers to lead the charge into the future, to examine and adjust business models, to question the status quo and come up with workable solutions, without reservations, obstacles, roadblocks, and excuses. Lots of platitudes surround this type of behavior, but the ones that i prefer are “Better to ask forgiveness than permission” and “If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward, there is no standing still”. Food for thought . . .

    CMOs have it within their power to revolutionize their businesses, they just have to give themselves permission to do it. Use the powerful imagination you were blessed with and put it in gear to create the next step in the logical growth path of your business, or better yet, leapfrog the next step and go ahead by two! The competition will never catch up!

    Change effected is usually change managed. Making changes for change’s sake is a short-lived phenomenon, one that shakes things up, but doesn’t move the needle for long. To affect long-lasting change, the path must be plotted before it can be blazed. Note the spelling, Plotted, not Plodded. You don’t have to take a year to plan the next two – change can be made quickly and still be lasting. Better to try five or six different things now than plan one thing perfectly.

    Go forth bravely, boldly, and be a change agent – you’ll be surprised what just the change in mindset will bring . . .!

    For more on becoming an agent of change, subscribe to my blog above, or follow me on Twitter @docpoulos – let me know what you think! and don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”