Demand Generation Made Simple
You can poo-poo social media all you wish. “It’s a fad.” “It’s not a productive use of time.” But as this infographic by Search Engine Journal shows, social media now a pervasive part of life. Ignore it at your peril. B2B companies need to use social media in their B2B lead generation and global marketing programs.
We also invite you to check out the hugely simplified home page at Find New Customers – where the verbiage was slashed by 95%. Please tell me what you think.
Take today and tell a special someone that you love them. To my wife of 23 years, Kathy, I say “Happy Valentines Day.”
Do the laundry, vacuum the house, cook or buy dinner.
What do you think? We love comments and those who share on social networks.
When I found this great post at Mashable by Charlie White, I thought it perfect for the weekend after the Super Bowl. But since I live in the NYC area, I’m a big Giants fan and am thrilled that they won. You can read the original post here.
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Super Bowl 2012 is in the books and we can recap. It’s a weekend of superlatives, with astonishing numbers swirling around those brave warriors on the field.
In the Super Bowl, everything is larger than life. Instead of a dozen TV cameras for normal football game broadcasts, NBC rolls out 57 cameras. Instead of betting a couple of bucks on the game, people bet hundreds. And instead of eating a couple of chicken wings, an entire nation gangs up to eat 1.25 billion of them in one day.
Want more? We have numbers — a long list of them, taking into account the technology of the big game, the behavior of a nation and the world during the contest, the security necessary to keep everyone safe, the enormous amounts of money changing hands and lots more.
So sit back and prepare yourself for a gigantic triviafest, giving you plenty of ammunition to be the Super Bowl know-it-all when the game starts at 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. Warning: Recite these numbers at your own risk.
As the President of Find New Customers, I’m now in my 50′s and I’ve read newspapers like the New York Times and Wall St Journal in print for decades, but the world is changing fast. The business models of the past are collapsing. Some say people only steal. Let’s look at the debate and share some insights.
Newspaper Death Watch - is a website chronicling the decline of newspapers. That’s where you find articles like Fewer Newspapers Deliver Daily by Paul Gillin (@pgillin). (Paul was my guest on Mad Marketing TV, the marketing show I host.)
“Nowhere else is the demise of daily delivery more dramatic than in Michigan, where more than two-thirds of households will be unable get seven-day service after the end of January (2012). ”
The biggest challenge facing businesses like newspapers are dealing with rapid change. When I interviewed the foremost expert on change for Mad Marketing TV, Jeffrey Hayzlett, he shared ideas from his book, Running the Gauntlet. Click the link to watch the show.
Here are a couple of lessons for the print industry (and Hollywood, music, etc.) that I’ve learned and wish to share.
The Future is Digital
I now read the New York Times and Wall St. Journal on an iPad2 and I find that the experience is vastly superior to print. I can view a slide show, watch a video, share on social networks, and get updates in real-time. (Contrast that with news updated at 3am)
In fact, the digital experience is so much better than print that I canceled delivery for both the New York Times and Wall St. Journal. That says to me that the print versions are going the way of the buggy whip, the film industry, etc. It won’t happen overnight, but every publication needs to invest in a strong digital platform. (Are you listening Newsday? – IMHO your digital offering on the iPad sucks.)
People Want Low-Cost, not Free
In the battle over SOPA, this was said in the New York Times (Sunday, 1/22/2012, Business Section). “There’s no reason we can’t get together and work together,” said Michael O’Leary, a senior executive vice president for the Motion Picture Association of America. “But it’s difficult to do business with a business model that is based on theft.” (my highlight)
Is that really true? Are people committed to stealing music and movies? The answer is no. Sorry, Michael. You’re dead wrong.
Apple remade the music industry at $1.99 a song – not free. iTunes is a huge cash cow for Apple and they saved the music industry. But the best example by far of how theft is not the issue is the comedian Louis CK. He posted a comedy show online and gave people two options:
In 12 days, Louis CK raked in a cool million dollars. That’s 16,667 sales a day at $5 each. Think about that – Louis CK offered people a chance to LEGALLY steal his show, but a huge number decided to pay the reasonable fee.
The lesson is clear. Hollywood and the music industry say information wants to be free – people will steal it, but the reality is that people are willing to pay a modest amount, so long as it is $5 or less.
Here’s the bottom line for newspapers, music and movies – the future is digital and low cost – it is NOT free.
What do you think? We love people who comment and share on social media.
There I said it. It’s not about the platforms. (We built Find New Customers though social media, by the way.)
Think about it. Humans
have been communicating for centuries.
Therefore I content that social media is nothing more than the next generation of communication device.
That said, there are some fundamental differences:
It is time for every business to embrace social media and share engaging content all the time.
What do you think? What is your opinion of social media? We love comments and those who share.
Normally we put our own intro and closing on the video, so you know it is from Jeff Ogden, President of Find New Customers. But we are huge fans of JESS3 and this awesome video deserves full billing, we think. This will point out just how bad SPAM is today.
JESS3™ / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.
An incident happened recently and I see a great lesson in it that I want to share with you.
Despite the awards I have won as President of Find New Customers, such as a Top 50 Most Influential in Sales Lead Management and Top 25 Sales and Marketing Inflencers 
for 2012, a couple of well-known people bad-mouth me. Severely.
No big deal. As Celebrity CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett (who was a guest on Mad Marketing TV) told me “Don’t pay attention to the nay-sayers. Just prove them wrong with your success.” Amen, Jeffrey.
Someone else was upset with me, but instead of bad-mouthing me, he called.
How I Upset Him
We recently redid this blog for 2012 – a top to bottom total redesign. As the Fearless Competitor, we decided that the best image of fearless would be the King of Beasts. So I had a new logo made with a stylized lion head. (Find New Customers logo below)
One day my phone rang. It was the sales expert, Robert Terson. He was upset that I was using the lion symbol, as it’s his brand symbol for both his website (sellingfearlessly.com) and upcoming book “Selling Fearlessly.” (see lion head below).
I had seen his book and his profile picture, but it never crossed my mind when we considered the change. It was a simple oversight on my part. Bob and I had a nice chat, he explained his concerns, and I agreed to come up with a new symbol. I asked my graphics designer to come up with a new image. You can now see that the lion is gone.
The difference between Bob and the women that bad-mouth me struck me. When something happened that caused concern, those women bad-mouth me, but Bob called me.
It’s basic human nature. Some get mad and bitch. A few (like Robert Terson) pick up the phone, talk to the “offender” and solve the problem. The latter works a hell of a lot better.
The moral: If you have an issue with someone, don’t just complain. Instead, pick up the phone and call them. Thanks for picking up the phone, Robert.
What do you think? We love comments and those who share.
Daniel Pink
Most of what you think about motivation and rewards is wrong. Does money motivate? Not really, unless it’s too low. Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers is tired of companies wasting money on the wrong things.
This lively RSAnimate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.
What people really want (other than money):
What do you think? We love comments and those who share.
Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear about a company’s hiring mistake. “He had great experience and industry knowledge, but he just didn’t work out.” Or at a social media company in NYC, a VP departs after just 90 days. Another one bites the dust. I hear this over and over and over. (In fact, after I left Business Objects after growing GE by 242% in one year, they hired the person who handled GE for their #1 competitor. Can’t miss, right? He didn’t last six months.)
Why is this happening? Why do companies continually make hiring blunders repeatedly? Despite resumes, face to face interviews, reference checks, and credit scores. Why does such due diligence keep failing?
To analyze the reasons why, let’s examine a concept from Blue Ocean Strategy of Pioneers, Migrants and Settlers.
Before we examine those three personality types, it is useful to first explain what Blue Oceans means.
Blue Oceans are uncontested market space, while Red Oceans are hotly contested spaces. For instance, in the early car industry, cars were custom-built and very expensive. To compete in a Red Ocean, you custom build a car and maybe try to cut the price a bit. But Henry Ford used a different approach. Using an assembly line, he cut the manufacturing time from four days to four hours and used standard parts. Henry Ford famously said “If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”
Red Ocean companies compete in a zero sum game – to grow, you take market share from your competitor. Blue Ocean companies focus on the demand size, competing on value to win non-customers. Henry Ford went after the horse and buggy crowd, not the early adopters.
Most companies live in Red Oceans but a handful of successful companies find and compete in Blue Oceans.
Another good example of Blue Ocean strategy is Cirque du Soleil. Think of the standard view of a circus. 3 rings, animals, clowns, etc. If you do a new circus, do you have better animals or clowns, and target children – to take business from Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Bailey?
Cirque due Soleil used a different approach. Rather than competing against circuses, they competed against other entertainment options, like Broadway shows, concerts and fine restaurants.
The book says they “very successfully entered a structurally unattractive circus industry. It was able to reinvent the industry and created a new market space by challenging the conventional assumptions about how to compete. It value innovated by shifting the buyer group from children (end-users of the traditional circus) to adults (purchasers of the traditional circus), drawing upon the distinctive strengths of other alternative industries, such as the theater, Broadway shows and the opera, to offer a totally new set of utilities to more mature and higher spending customers.”
Now that we know what Blue and Red Oceans mean, we can go back to the personality types of Pioneers, Migrants and Settlers.
The authors point out that the skills needed to think outside the box belong to Pioneers. Only innovative risk takers create the dramatic changes needed to find Blue Oceans. Migrants are less desirable, but if properly coached, they can become Pioneers. The least desirable by far is Settlers. – those risk adverse task-completers. The authors of the book advise avoiding Settlers. Their recommendation? Hire Pioneers.
Unfortunately, our entire hiring approach is designed to weed out Pioneers/Migrants and hire Settlers. Case in point, one vendor of backup software insisted all candidates for a senior marketing position have experience in backup software. Not software. Not innovation. Not results.
Who fits? A Settler who has worked for the same backup software company for years and years. Do they bring fresh ideas and innovative insights? Certainly not.
Companies inability to find and recruit Pioneers is the main reason for repeated failures.
The problem is two-fold:
Here a few tips to help hiring managers identify Pioneers:
Keep those tips in mind for the next job your company posts.
What do you think? Do you see Pioneers, Migrants and Settlers? Are companies struggling to identify personality types? We love comments and reTweets too.
Jeff Ogden is President of Find New Customers “Demand Generation Made Simple” Find New Customers helps companies rapidly grow revenue by transforming how they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or send an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com.
In his weekly B2B marketing show, Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers (http://www.findnewcustomers.com) shares a key marketing lesson using wit and humor. We hope you’ll tune in each week for a new Laugh and Learn show as well as our weekly Mad Marketing TV show.
In this show, he illustrates the importance of selecting words carefully. In B2B marketing, the words you chose mean the difference between huge success and abject failure. This touching story show how selecting the right words can make a huge difference in results.
