Larry's back!

Larry Hendrick has restarted and renewed his podcast Motivation on the Run.

One of the things I realized as I listened to his show last year is that motivation can be just an artificial stimuli to gain results. Apparently, Larry realized that, too, as he has shifted the focus a bit, to what he calls 'live the dream'. While its not touchy-feely, he is encouraging introspection and self-awareness to find your dreams and live them out.

Check out the last show, titled Motion, as a sample:

This week I discuss the importance of Motion in our series on “Live the Dream.” If not obvious, it is a critical component of the process. We are either in Motion or Hung on High Center.

How many questions?

I survived the Thanksgiving weekend very well. I hope you did, too. I'm back and facing a week of crunching numbers and my first cub scout pack meeting. A bit stressful and focused, it will be. So a rant is in order just to let out some stress...

Coming in this morning, my mind flipped back to a phone survey I endured last week. It was a marketing survey for a major telco services company. Since buying such services is one of my 'hats' here, I assented, then suffered, the survey.

"When you think of phone and data services, which brands do you think of?"

And so it started. I rated different brands in youthfulness, trustworthiness, pricing. I replied with answers that were quicker and duller as the questions got more...more...insipid....circituous? Well the questions just got to be more and more. Then when they started asking me about TV commercials, I knew what brand was behind all these questions.

In all, the survey probably ran 20 minutes. Good grief!

And all this data of these vague questions will end up on some VP-Marketing's desk as a 360-degree-view of the marketplace and their new ad campaign. And the data will be so muddy it will all be thrown out.

Can't they ask the questions they really want to ask:

• Have you seen our new ad campaign?
• Do you think this boosts our brand image?
• Will these ads help you remember our brand?
• Did you learn anything about our services?
• Are you more likely to buy or renew our services?
  

Yes/no questions only, because, unless your brand and campaign are stellar, I'm only going to vote somewhere in the middle, and so is everyone else.

Let's not beat around the bush when making survey questions, folks. You get crappy data and you waste my time and patience. And please, keep it focused to 10 questions or less.

BtoB Mag gets roasted by readers

The latest issue of BtoB Magazine (Nov 12 issue) had three pretty critical letters to the editor, two focusing on their recent 'BtoB Best' feature.

Some snips:

• "Ge, yeah; AT&T, yeah; HP, yeah, yeah--yawn. Same old bunch saying the same old things...What about those of us slugging it out in less glamorous trenches?...Next year dig a little deeper." --Frederick Sitter
• "You must work for a Fortune 500...average years in your current job is 2.3...steer projects like 'ecomagination' and 'people-ready business'...and it helps if you are white. ... Let's face it, Forbes you ain't." --Steve Lundin

Then Bob Bly takes them to task for their selection of best BtoB direct marketing campaigns, which were likewise from big companies and heavy on the gloss:

• "The accompanying articles don't talk about response rates, leads, or sales generated."

Indeed, why focus on the big boys?
So do we read BtoB to see, and maybe learn, how the rock stars of B2B marketing do it? Or do we snicker at them the way we do at models in $300 jeans in Men's Health or GQ magazine? Or are the editors just to lazy to look at real, results-oriented B2B marketing. Personally, I think their location in NYC is probably part of the problem.

Who me? A true story

Beginning of Story
"Its the easiest job in the troop. You just have to be fun," the organizer announced.

Mary was there with to help my twin boys' (10 year-old Webelos) cub scout troop rebuild after its cubmaster had politely quit, and we found out how much he was really doing. We were the parents who cared, there waiting to see what position we might volunteer for, or be volunteered for.

We already had the key volunteer, the committee chair, selected ahead of time. The chair is the CEO, we were told, and that was what we were missing before. Now Mary was looking for a new cubmaster.

The chair smiled and tapped me on the shoulder. "That's you," he whispered. As he stepped away, he attached a qualifier along the lines of 'only if you want to.'

I listened to Mary and her husband share about how easy it is to be cubmaster: You get to have fun, give out awards, and have boys look up to you. "We need someone who can be the goofball," Mary explained, while my head swam.

The chair handed me a sheet with the job description. Not like I could read that right now. But now I knew he was serious.

Dramatic Part of Story
I looked around the gymnasium at the other parents. I don't know most of them, and its hard to pick out a goofball in a crowd by looks. Someone had already volunteered to be treasurer, to which I was very grateful. Could anyone of these want the job and save me?

I had already proved my goofball-worthiness in some scout events the year before. The chair knew me well enough. He had confidence that I could be the figurehead they were looking for.

I dug around for excuses, reasons to say no. Life is too busy, I don't have time for this, of course, but who does. Len thinks I can, he is actually excited to be nudging me. I'll take his confidence in me for the lack of my own confidence.

My hand thrust up and I announced my intention, humorously, that I would be the cubmaster. Followed by a smattering of applause. Mary then started her hunt for an assistant-cubmaster.

Funny Conclusion of Story
And do you know what I did next? I can't believe I did it.

I waved at my boys' friend's mom, and whispered "that's you." I know she is way busy, but she 'likes fun'. She leads parties at the kids school.

That's right, I volunteered someone else. My first act as leader. :)

Moral of Story
My friend Larry told me this: "The best leaders are those that don't mind getting involved. Remember my definition of leader? Someone who is willing to step up and make a difference. "

Stepped or nudged. Who me? Yes, me, the leader, the figurehead. Whatever--watchout, here comes the goofball!

Do your prospects print your PDFs?

So last week I said we need to consider content formats that tell 'the story' online in a linear fashion, as websites are often not read linearly and therefor don't tell stories well. PDFs were one suggestion, and an easy one to implement, as we can just post our existing collateral. Right?

Wrong.

One of my field guys related this story to me this week:

• After pulling out a brochure for the product being discussed, he asked the prospect if they had received a copy already. He said yes, but as a PDF sent with the initial quotation. The prospect went on to say that he would like the printed copy the rep had. The client explained that the very colorful cover had dissuaded him from printing it out.

And since that conversation, I've printed three different PDFs from online where I have purposefully skipped printing the first page. So its not just weird prospect, this must be a common reaction. (Or I'm weird, too.)

Why? Maybe we just hate printing using a lot of color that doesn't have any useful content. It seems wasteful both in printing cost and our attention.

Another problem with that same brochure is that it has two 'spreads' that look don't work well in PDF. If you keep them as a spread, they really become one page, and become hard to read on screen or when printed. And if the spread is separated into two pages, it is also hard to read. You can't win this one.

(Oh, yea, and then there is the constant battle with file size for PDFs, but that is better as bandwidth has increased and Acrobat has improved over the years.)

Lesson: We need to think beyond paper when creating brochures these days. And once again, content trumps style.