The power of simplicity

This is one of those rare occaisions when instead of writing three newsletters, I only have to write one, because what I want to focus on this month applies to all three of my client bases. That’s so rare, that when the chance came, I couldn’t resist.

This past week has been wilder than normal. Not only has there been the work to do, two software packages that I use to do much of my work have presented me with major upgrades. I am sure that in time, I’ll get my head around all the changes, but in the meanwhile, a lot has changed and I am stumbling through my work instead of running like a well oiled machine.

I don’t envy software manufacturers. They are under constant pressure to add features and make changes. And yet, adding all those features adds complexity. What they do is what all of us do, we add things and patch and tinker and tack stuff on until at a certain point, what they have is an unweildy mess.  

And at a certain point, they have to decide, do I continue my patchwork path, or rethink the whole thing?

That same point comes to each of us, whether we are upgrading our technology infrastructure, adding new marketing initiatives, or growing as individuals. We patch and pile, add and tweak until we HAVE to find a more efficient way to work, a way to make what is very complex….. simpler.

The Benefits

Simplifying has a lot of benefits.

• Simplicity provides focus. And that focus helps us be more productive in what really matters. This is true whether we are moving our TV facility to a file based work flow, integrating our marketing, or building a better life.
• Simplicity makes us more productive. Yes, us gadget hounds in the TV/AV/IT world love being able to do everything, and marketing seems to be becoming more and more fragmented, but when we make what we do 95% of the time more complex to meet that 5% that doesn’t fit so well, we are not as effective 95% of the time. Study after study shows that simplicity makes us more effective in every aspect of work and life.
• Simplicity helps us make better decisions. This is because inherent in doing simplicity well is that we’ve already pre-prioritized what’s most important, less important, and what has little value. This has been verfied in industries as diverse as health care, manufacturing and personal coaching.
• Simplicity requires less maintenance – again, this truism crosses into technology, marketing and life.  Less maintenance means we can do more with less, or a lot more with the same, and just as importantly…..
• Simplicity reduces stress – and that makes life, work, technology, marketing and everyone, more creative, productive and just plain happy.

 The payoffs are enormous. Companies like Apple and Bose have build their whole product lines on simple quality. Amazon succeded where others failed because they made it easy. Companies that have simplified processes have saved millions, giving them a competitive edge in the marketplace. People who have simplified life and work create, innovate and produce more, and more happily than those who just keep piling things on in a web of complexity.

The Problem is....

The problem is, while BEING simple has all these benefits, actually simplifying is not as easy as most people think. Simplicity is not natural. It has to be concious or we just go on piling stuff on until we break. It has to be by design.

Designing simplicity takes discipline, and it takes an investment in time and thought before you see any results. And we want results now. That is why so many of us fail.

I spend a lot of time in all three of my main types of work simplifying. That’s not what people hire me for. They hire me to design TV systems, or to develop marketing campaigns, or to build better companies, ministries or lives. Each of these have a lot of particular skills involved to do them well, but the most important skill, and by far the most important thing I do, is simplify.

Hire me for my other skills and you will get results. I am a good consultant with a long list of world class projects in my resume. I produce quality marketing materials and have helped companies market well. I do good work. You get good value. But, hire me to go further and analyze what you do with an eye towards simplifying – be it a workflow study for TV/AV/IT or your entire marketing process, or your life and work, and the power of those individual skills is magnified several times.

Want more?

That is the power of simplicity more than it is the power of Quarry House - it gives you more and mutliplies your effectiveness on so many fronts. Whether you use me, or someone else, simplifying will make a profound difference in your effectiveness, in the quality and quantity of what you do, in your sales, in everything. I promise. 30 years of doing this has shown this to me again and again. 

Tom

PS – My whole business philosophy is that “Business is about promises made and promises kept. Everything else is fluff.” Just thought you should know

Logos as Symbols

Fuel Your Creativity is one of the best blogs on design that I read and I read it regularly. It's written by a team of designers and inevitably, the thoughts are clear, well thought out, and simple to grasp and put to work.

They recently did a post on logos as symbols. I find that most clients don't spend much time thinking about logos, but they have the potential to be a powerful tool, a real symbol that evokes your brand value every time they are recognized. This article makes that case graphically, and well.

Tom

Random Thoughts

NAB is coming.  This will be my 31st NAB, the major trade show for the Broadcast industry. Some of that those I have worked as a manufacturer and other years as a systems integrator and a couple as a end user. I've learned a lot in that time, and one of the most important things is to start early. I am already beginning to do work for some of my clients to get ready, writing materials for them, doing photography of showcase facilities for displays, logistics for the show, lining up demo artists. Doing things now make it all go smoother. Waiting too late stresses your marketing staff, and may mean that the free lancers (like me) that you want to use are booked. So it's time to dive in and lock in your help, for your own peace of mind, and the quality work you want. 

 
Speaking of NAB, have you ever wondered whether those little trinkets you give out at the show pay off? If so, you might want to read this article by Highbeam Research that addresses that very subject. 

 
Social media.  I am getting more and more people asking me about using social media in their marketing. The question they generally ask is this: "Should I be using social media to market?" The answer is probably yes. The bigger question is how to do it in an effective way. The answer is not easy, and depends a great deal on the span of your products, services and customers. I have developed a one day seminar on using social media. This is not a nuts and bolts step by step seminar that only a geek's geek can understand, but rather an overview of considerations and techniques that will help you make good decisions on how to approach it, what works for what mix of products. I do this one day seminar at your location, with the key people you think should be involved. If you are interested, contact me so we can schedule it for you. 

The New Challenge of marketing. When I began marketing in our industry, I used to believe that the purpose of marketing was to just get the information out there. Good clear information, plus putting that information where people got it, plus repetition equaled success. That's the classic formula. But a lifetime working both in marketing and sales has taught me how that is just part of the equation. People buy somewhat on information, but more than we would like to admit (particularly in a technology field, where we think facts and information matter), people buy on emotion, on relationships, on belief. So the real challenge we have is not just to tell our stories, but to find those connection points and tell our stories passionately, in a way that connects. In our industry, we forget that sometimes, but it's at the heart of the social media explosion and even we B2B marketers had best pay attention. 

This article about "the Power of You" really got me going on this topic, and got me thinking. How do we do this? How do we take our big industry of Broadcast, AV and Media Centric IT, and turn it into something that is not just classic marketing, but PERSONAL? We have sales reps, and that is one of their strengths, but how do we magnify what we already do in sales, combine it with what we do in marketing, and make it work for us? I have spent much of the past several months talking to companies and individuals who have done this well, and soon, probably next month, I will make some easy to implement suggestions that I am putting to work for a pair of clients already. Stay tuned!

Writing and Writing and More Writing - I have been doing a lot of writing for clients the past month or so. It began as case studies, but I began to look at how people used the time and work I put into case studies and realized we could leverage what I was writing for more impact. Now, when I do a story on a facility, we find we can turn it into a one page case study, (sometimes) a magazine article, a press release, web copy, social media copy, and (sometimes) a white paper. By adding just a little more work in revising the core writing for the different media, we get far more impact. It just takes thinking about it BEFORE you begin, and putting in place a methodology to make it work. If you're interested, give me a call and we can talk. 

Web Site updates - If you haven't visited the Quarry House site recently, you might want to. We're constantly updating it to make it easier to find what you want, know what we do. Now that the core site is in place, we'll be adding resources to help you market better in the Broadcast, AV and media centric IT world. 

Tom

The Three Prongs of Marketing

I have been a student of how manufacturers and integrators market since the 1990’s. I’ve watched my own companies, and a host of other manufacturers and integrators, rise and fall, and I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing the mix of culture, business dynamics and marketing that contributed to the rise of many companies in our field.

 

While the products, cultures and dynamics that led to strong growth is often dramatically different, one thing I have noticed: three prong marketing was a strong contributor to the success of many companies.

 

What we think marketing is...

 

Most of us think of marketing as something we put out there for customers, the end users who buy our products. We want to get their attention, lay out why we think our company has the best product or service, and thus make it easier for our sales force or channel to sell.

 

That is the first prong, and it’s important. It’s where most of us focus our time and budget.  And it should be. But there are two other prongs we often ignore, or do poorly, that can have a big impact for a realativly small investment.

 

But there is more.

 

The second prong is internal marketing. Most of us are simply not very good at letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing internally. It’s a standing joke in the industry that we are in the communication industry, yet we tend to communicate badly.  

 

The investment to do this is not huge: A bit of thought, some time, and someone to focus on how to let our people internally know about products, services, sales tools and success stories, and a strategy to get that information out to everyone in the company.

 

That’s right, everyone. Because nearly everyone in our companies has customer contact, and hears of opportunities for sales. Armed with good information, they are prepared to help you sell. Not armed with that information, they do their job and that’s it,  and the opportunity is lost.

 

I have one client that I talk to about every two weeks. I ask him what’s going on, get the core information of cool things going on, and from that, I generate an internal newsletter. It is NOT a big investment, but it gets the word out, every couple of weeks or so, and pays dividends in terms of sales, as well as growing a corporate culture that is positive and more and more, on the same page.

 

Sell to the Salesmen

 

The third prong, and this is more for manufacturers than integrators, is marketing for the sales channels.

 

Right now, as some of you are reading this, a few of you are saying “Wait a minute, we send out bulletings to our channel all the time!”  Yes, you do, and I get lots of them. For the most part, they are full of specials, new products, discontinued products, pricing – that sort of thing. Very useful, but not what your channel really needs to sell most effectively.

 

When I meet with a manufacturer’s rep, after they have done their presentation on a product, I almost always ask the same questions:

 

• What sets this product apart?
• Where have you found the most success with this?
• What’s the most effective way to sell it?
• What are the tools you have to help me sell it?
• Who has already bought it? (success stories)

 

In short, I want to know how to make this product pay off for me and my channel company.

 

The sales reps always have those answers at hand, but they are rarely part of the marketing bulletins that I get every day, most of which get filed away until I need them, instead of being read in the moment.

 

So my advice to manufacturers is to be proactive. A good marketing bulletin should always ask not just what information will the channel sales rep need, but what will INSPIRE the sales rep to choose you over someone else. Rethink your marketing bulletins. You can still have the pricing, etc go out, just put it at the bottom, after you’ve gotten the attention of the sales guys with information that helps them sell. (Sales guys after all, are the ultimate “what’s in it for me” types.).

 

It's not hard, or expensive.

 

None of the second and third prongs are hard. They are not terribly time consuming, particularly if they are part of a strategy, as opposed to separate functions. It may take some rethinking, but once in place, they can have a real impact on your sales.

 

Here at Quarry House, we help you market and sell. We can consult with you to help rethink your own strategy and we can do the practical work that goes along with it: set up processes that make three prong marketing easy, develop sales materials and tools, do copywriting for your own marketing, and more. Consider giving us a call if you need extra help. (or visit our web site to learn more.)