EIDSON & PARTNERS

Three Cups of Tea

I was very inspired by the book "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson. It details his efforts to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is truly amazing what he alone has accomplished.

The title of the book is in reference to the idea that it takes three cups of tea to really get to know someone. "The first time you share tea with someone, you are a stranger. The second time, you are an honored guest. The third time you become family."

Too often in marketing we don't take that advice. We want results quickly and cheaply. And, we want our target audience to tell us all their wants and needs before they even know who we are -- when we are still a stranger. We need to keep in mind that it takes time and many "touches" to gain someone's trust -- especially if you are launching a new product or targeting a new audience.

The author, Greg Mortenson, will be in Kansas City on March 4.

Wayne Gretzky on Positioning

He is known as the "Great One". He is the NHL's all time leading scorer and nine time league MVP. He led the Oilers to four Stanley Cups in five years. And, he knows a great deal about positioning.

Mr. Gretzky has explained his success on the ice in a very succinct fashion.

He said, "“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

One of the fundamentals of positioning is to think in the future tense.

In most cases, management teams that are reconsidering their positioning are thinking two to three years forward. They are thinking about future market conditions. They are considering their technology plans, their product improvement paths, their new product development efforts, their future distribution efforts and considering what the competitors are likely to attempt.

To use the Gretzky analogy, the future market conditions become the puck.

Skating is the process of aligning the organization to compete in this future state. It involves defining everything in light of a new positioning approach.

We recently worked with an industrial products management team that adopted a positioning that included the idea of becoming known as the "low-risk choice". It was exciting to work through a process of redefining a host of policy issues (pricing, warranty, delivery, staffing, innovation) based on "the low-risk decision".

As you think about how to implement your brand's positioning, keep Wayne Gretzky's wisdom in mind.

If you keep your eye on future market opportunities (the puck) and skate with discipline and  determination, your brand just might win the Stanley Cup of your industry.

To YouTube or Not To YouTube

The other day I attended a presentation by a rep from YouTube. A few things he said really caught my attention.

1. Every minute of every day, six hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube. That boggles my mind.
2. When the JetBlue CEO posted a video statement regarding the stuck-on-the-runway fiasco, it was viewed over 300,000 times. The speaker stated that if JetBlue had NOT posted a video, those 300,000 views would probably have been views of something else related to the runway event – most likely very unhappy customers who were stuck on the runway. His point was that your customers and prospects are going to do Internet searches about your company no matter what. You make the choice if they are going to hear/see your point of view.
3. Try to stump YouTube. Think of any topic and then search for it on YouTube. You’ll be amazed at what you find.

I thought, “Well this is all very interesting but YouTube doesn’t apply to my client’s audience of wound care nurses and physicians.” So to prove I was right, I typed in “wound care” into YouTube. Lo and behold – videos of wound care nurses talking about why and how they got their specialized certifications, videos of nursing school presentation on wound care techniques, a physician from a well-known wound care center talking about diabetic-related wounds.

Whether you want to believe it or not, YouTube is applicable to your business and your audience – no matter who you are. Go online and check it out. Upload a video you shot of your kids, your dog or your latest home improvement project. Get smart about what the heck this thing is and how it relates to your target audience – because it does.

The Search for Asymmetrical Information

Kevin Fryer recently loaned me a copy of Ken Fisher's remarkable book, The Only Three Questions that Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don't.

As the title suggests, he makes the case for knowing (and actively searching for) information that no-one else knows. The logic and the detailed examples based on historical data are terrific. This book will radically alter your view of investing.

It was interesting, recently, to find Mr. Fisher's premise replayed in an on line course from MIT. That course dealt with asymmetric information as applied to business decisions.

In marketing, we invest a lot of time on customer research. But, one seldom sees a research objective that reads, "to learn something about customers that no-one else knows". But, isn't that the real objective?

Perhaps one of the most successful companies at levering asymmetric customer data is Procter & Gamble.

There were several case histories within P&G of the power of the annual brand surveys. The process includes an annual round of quantitative and qualitative research for each brand.

As the story is told, during a 1960s California focus group for Tide, environmental concerns about phosphorus in detergent emerged. The company acted on the consumer concern, reformulated the product, re-engineered the plants and stayed ahead of the competitors, the regulators and the nascent environmental movement in the US. In fact, the reformulation of Tide put the company several years ahead.

Finding the asymmetric data on your market could lead to a huge payoff.