TNG Blog

As the owner of a small marketing agency, a professional who is very often executing a one-man show as an outside consultant, I don’t often get to observe other companies’ sales pitches. I guess that one part of me has remained curious and puzzled about what is presented and how others perform at that opportunistic ‘show off your capabilities, leave an impression, and land the project’ meeting. The concern that others always execute better and that they are superior public speakers (yes, a complex of not being a native English speaker) has served as both motivation and stage fright, forces that have cancelled out one another on each occasion.

Although this has primarily fueled my curiosity and allowed me to engage in healthy discussions, I recently heard about a situation in which an agency, following an unsuccessful pitch, repeatedly asked the potential client for direct advice, ideas for improving the proposal for future purposes, and wrapping up with “what exactly did the other company propose?”. Yeah, what’s the secret formula for Coca Cola? Don’t people understand the concept of having a competitive advantage, where the whole point is that someone offers something that others don’t?

This post won’t be about competitive advantage, but about the challenges that growing businesses face even when they start with a well-defined competitive advantage. My fascination with the topic of business growth, as well as challenges that growing businesses face, started with a series of conversations and observations about the topic. Of particular interest are the central figures in the story, the founders, who just like their business started a journey of growth and adjustment, and ended up as considerably different versions of themselves.

The typical story starts with a couple of outstanding professionals who decide to start their own company. Tired of seeing injustice or inconsistency in execution, they believe that they have the right know-how and relationships to break out and do something differently. Each contributes a different set of skills and expertise, and the ultimate product(s) / service(s) has the potential for a very bright future. Not surprisingly, the business takes off:

• they are enthusiastic about what they do
• they roll up the their sleeves and actually do the work
• they know all about the company’s product(s), service(s), and processes
• they pride themselves on delivering customized solutions and knowing their customers
• they clearly define the company’s expertise

Some years later, the founders / senior management acknowledge that they have succeeded, but could exceed even their own initial expectations and grow the business even faster if they would:

• become more efficient, reprioritizing certain activities and trying to get into a routine
• outsource their work to become more productive and cost-effective
• implement new standards and consistencies (i.e., templates and frameworks)
• branch out into related areas that have high demand

So they implement a series of changes and get their business moving in the fast lane – their baby grows…a lot, like Alice in Wonderland with the ‘eat me’ cookie. Business booms, with multiple offices in emerging markets, a growing list of Fortune 500 clients, and several additional practice areas helping fuel unparalleled growth of the business. Along the way, various challenges are successfully overcome and valuable lessons learned. But, something is lost in the process – growth came with a price.

Some years later, the founders become absorbed in delivering sales pitches and proposals full-time. They realize how far they have come from more humble beginnings and, now and then, become too overconfident and even arrogant. No longer the same energetic entrepreneurs they once were, they now focus too much on efficiency and business development:

• they have lost the enthusiasm that was obvious when facing clients
• they have lost their expertise as they no longer work in the field
• they no longer know the details of their products / services, which are instead being developed, tested, and improved by others
• their business has become a mass producer of ‘customized’ products thanks to the standards and templates they have implemented
• their business has branched out into too many areas and they no longer develop proposals simply for what they do best, but offer solutions for whatever the client needs, providing at moment’s notice slides and frameworks

The most overlooked and perhaps trickiest detail when growing a business is actually growing yourself accordingly and staying true to who you are and what you do. Don’t forget the core values with which you started your venture. Don’t forget the competitive advantage that helped your business grow, and don’t forget yourself in the process, because there is some truth in growing your business, yet staying young and foolish at heart.

“Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Albert Einstein

I am sure that everyone who works in the social media industry sooner or later faces the million dollar question of ROI of social media. It is just a question of time and luck before they run into one of the following:

a) A business that is excited to finally join the crowd that dominates Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and can’t wait to start communicating with its fans / customers. Usually, ROI questions are not raised, as these businesses are guided by the ‘everyone is doing it and we want to do it also’ attitude (note to consultants: immediately take them as a client and help them as much as you can!)

1. ‘The Casino’ – This type of business is aware that there will be some challenges (when they might have to delete some comments), as well as many benefits (positive discussions), to opening the door to the public. It is open to engaging customers in any action or discussion that takes place on their account (taking risk).
2. ‘The Movie Theatre’ - A type of business that wants to ‘do it’ while eliminating challenges; they want to be ‘social’ without being social and what they end up having is just one-way communication. The story goes like this – I like the status and fun that the Casino brings, but I just don’t want anyone coming through my door and doing what they want – they can just sit and watch / listen.

b) A business that is aware that it should be present in social media and works towards proving why this is a good decision; however, it is not excited about social media and would be alright if it simply ignored this ‘whole social media thing’ (note to consultants: rethink if you should work with such a client, as you do not speak the same language!)

1. ‘The Safe House’ – A type of business that needs to have many logical and analytical questions answered, ASAP, with ROI usually being one of the first. They are thinking money – if we invest $1 how much are we getting back. You need to be a math geek and find a way to calculate how much each Facebook fan is worth, or Twitter follower. Not to mention how ‘like’ translates into sales!!!
2. ‘The Nursing Home’ - A type of business that has just begun doing research and long-term planning of next steps towards getting into social media. It is comfortable with being a very late adopter and will analyze any case study out there of ‘other businesses’ journeys and experiences’ in this new venture called ‘opening the first account on a social media platform’. After all research has been completed and organized, it will progress to the stage of a ‘Safe House’ where endless questions and approvals will make it impossible to even open that first account.

c) A business that openly states complete disinterest in social media (note to consultants: take a deep breath and wait for them to set the tone the conversation). In this case you can expect either to be trapped in a passive-aggressive monologue about (bad, bad) social media or manipulated into changing the topic. Please consider yourself extremely lucky if you run across a business ( a person) who will state clearly its (or his/her) disinterest in being active in social media, yet still be open to engage in a normal conversation about social media.

So, what does one do when faced with such questions about ROI and needing at least some promising numbers in order to justify a potential investment? Below are some good resources that can help you arm yourself and become better prepared to address the topic and hopefully open doors to the casino, movie theatre, safe house and nursing home.

Sounds (looks) familiar?

It is always good to start at the beginning…

And then arm yourself with even more knowledge…

Then understand the paradox

Remember when we needed to write a 500, a 1,000, or a 3,000-word essay for school? Don’t those times seem sooo last century, when the quantity of the content was equally important to the quality of the content? Am I starting to sound like my parents, who always talked about long-gone times? Would I now be able to make it to 3,000 words in an essay, after training myself to convey 140, 256, or 700 character communications all over the social media world?  The ongoing trend of shortening and compressing communication in business is becoming so common that we are becoming pre-programmed to think and communicate in a short, direct, and effective way. The handicap might only become obvious for a moment, on rare occasions when you realize that you have a great piece of communication in front of yourself,  but you just can’t fit it in your usual ‘le petit’ mold.

The trigger

As a Chicagoan, I maintain contact with the community through many subscribe lists for the area … I’m currently not residing in Chicago, so the other day thanks to one of those subscriptions, I had a nostalgic moment when I was linked to an inspiring video from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

The experience of watching the video was like this:

• It started with excitement!
• Then, emotions overwhelmed me!
• Then, I approached a moment of pride!
• Then, a moment of acknowledging a job well-done from the marketing/communications side!
• Then, moment of coolness - connecting all of their statistic with dog years and Kim Kardashian!
• Then, they got the ‘Wow” out of me for all that they do or stand for!
• Then, hmmmmm…

I couldn’t say anything bad about the video, since it really was well made…but something was missing. Something that kept bothering me for a couple of minutes….and I just couldn’t figure it out.

The revelation

4min and 21 seconds!!!  The fact was that the video was too long for me! I became nervous halfway through…even if the content, their statistics, their success were all impressive and informative, I became jittery as the video pushed my limits. I became afraid. Am I really so handicapped that I’m incapable of handling more than 2 minutes of video content/communication? What happened to that person that knew how to appreciate and enjoy quality videos, articles, and speeches no matter how long they were, if they were good?

That person micronized – as most things in business: “Your email is too long”, “Your presentation is too long”, “Your excerpt is too long”, “Your status is too long”, “Your article is too long”… “Nobody is going to read/watch that…people don’t have time”.

Micronize. Shorten the URL. Forget the introduction. Get straight to the point.

The entire concept of ‘le petit’ measures communication not in words but in characters - exaggerating to the point that even empty spaces count. How far can we push this concept of micronization if we  micro-blog, micro-write, micro-talk, micro-listen?! and then as a result of the process, even micro-communicate?

Don’t business schools still teach that the optimal balance of  effectiveness and efficiency are key to business success…so how are we supposed to transmit powerful messages, influence stakeholders and customers, and make a difference if we continue to micro-communicate – an efficient, but not necessarily effective form of communication?

Great job Northwestern Memorial Hospital! Excuse the new generation of  ’micronizers’ that can’t get through 4.21 minutes of high quality content!

Have 4.21 minutes?

December 31st… great time to sum up the year that will be left behind in a number of hours. Over the last week, it seems that one can’t stop thinking “Wow! What a ride 2011 was…” while reading articles that summarize 2011 events on one page. Lots of real life events and lots of turbulence transmitted to the economy, both positively (UK’s economy got £620 million boost from Royal Wedding) and negatively (tsunami in Japan damaged its economy for $300 billion)

Absorbing all of this information, one can’t avoid questioning what 2012 is cooking for us, realizing this time more than ever that some unpredictable natural or social events can drive or slow down our businesses and the economy as a whole. If we ignore that the Internet’s ‘2012 predictions’ warn us only about the end of the world, we small business owners are left to prepare for what we know will come:

- The US presidential election, where ‘small business’ will be again in the spotlight

- The London Olympics, where an additional boost of £ 10 billion is forecasted for the UK economy – and UK small businesses should be aware of this the most

- Batman, Spiderman and Hobbit together with the Avengers are coming (back) to movie theaters in 2012;  if you embrace the buzz, your small business could profit from these heroes

While 2012 still holds a dose of mystery for small businesses, it feels good to say that a large number of expected trends for 2012 are much more obvious. If we reflect on what people predicted a couple of years ago about upcoming trends, we can see redundancy from year to year. The green trend, the social media trend, the mobile trend, the blogging trend, the localization trend in small business, etc…. haven’t we heard it all, each year in the recent past?  So, what’s new if we read somewhere that ‘social media’ is still a trend for 2012, when it has been a trend to watch the last couple of years? Haven’t we spoken about mobile websites being a must already for the last couple of years, so why does it continue to be a trend to watch in 2012? What…blogging is also a necessity in 2012?

Last call guys! The trends that we’ve been following the last couple of years are no longer trends, but the way business is going to be done in 2012, so be ready to adapt or die. If you haven’t already taken them seriously and done something along these lines – you have a lot to do in 2012…like now!

Still, when you immerse your business in 2012’s trends, maintain cautious optimism. People across the web are moderately optimistic after looking at current economic indicators. The word on the street is that consumer confidence continues to rise and unemployment claims continue to fall – sounds like good climate for small business, right? If you cautiously accept this optimism and if you do it right, you might save some money, grow your business, and have more flexibility with your time – ah, a small business owner’s dream, right!

Flexibility…I remember when I started my own business: my friends and family didn’t take me seriously. Somehow the only thing they saw was that I was able to reply to their emails at 11AM and to pick up the phone whenever they called – so I was not exactly working…right? What they did not realize was that my working day did not start at 9AM and finish at 5PM, and that some weekends I had to forget about the ‘week-end’. Welcome to my world! That tendency will probably become more notable in 2012. Given that technology has become so accessible and that the world has become a global village, one can really do a lot from his or her bed at 11PM. Small business owners will have easy connectivity to their customers and more flexibility with their time. Saving money and growing your business…technology continues to rapidly evolve and present us with more options to choose from, resulting in much cheaper if not completely free software. Applications are going to boom even more in the following years, and they can finish so much for us. In 2012, you should say it loud and proud…that you are a bit more optimistic than you were at the beginning of 2011. Just please, say it cautiously.

A Cautious Happy New 2012!

So, since recently moving to Europe, I’ve been working on business development and doing a lot of networking…and I’ve come across quite a few characters. This month, I wanted to point out a couple of ‘leader’ personas to watch out for! Yes they’re successful and to some extent capable, but there’s a reason they got to where they are, and it’s not always ability or intellect.

The Charmer

He’s there because he has that ‘something’. Let me be clear: not the leader ‘something’, but that general ‘something’. The something that you noticed in that realtor who somehow made it to Sotheby’s, the something that waiter had in that fancy new restaurant that only serves an obscenely expensive 5-course $300 feast , the something that your best friend would say George Clooney has. What I am describing helps push certain people in a miraculous way to certain branches on the tree of success…why are people with this ‘something’ never truck drivers, construction workers, regular Joes?

Well, amazingly this ‘something’ also works its magic in the business world. The Charmer is easily spotted as he is usually an ugly duckling among white swans, just vice-versa. He is a highly influential ‘leader’ at a senior position, albeit with mediocre abilities. He lacks obvious professional and leadership skills, but the charm closes gaps left by his missing knowledge and experience. His ego clearly drives his interaction with people; however, people are willing to look through his ‘minor’ faults just because the overall experience of being around this persona – the karma around this guy (let me for the first time say: or girl) is like opium.

He is a good representative for the company, says upper management.

Nevertheless, occasionally some people will be able to register his mediocre capabilities and wonder how he got there where he is…usually those who work for the Charmer. He typically succeeds and moves forward not because of his outstanding work, or a team that follows him and his great leadership, but because he just appears to be great choice for that top-floor corner office.

“He just looks like a leader”…yeah…right.

The Safe Haven

He seems like a good (think: safe) choice for a leader. After the last guy who put the company on the cover of a gossip magazine because he was caught in striptease bar, you finally want a Safe Haven to lead your business and people. You know that a Safe Haven will never cause scandals or misbehave. He also looks smart with those glasses (it’s good that he’s not too sexy or comes across as distractingly attractive), is articulate (I mean, he never delivered an outstanding speech, but he always has well-structured presentations), has a normal family life (yeah, he won’t do anything stupid, since he needs to support his stay-at-home wife and young children) . So what if his track record is not outstanding – leaders are made, not born – at least the board sometimes buys that.

And while upper management is happy with the Safe Haven, the consequences are felt among the people who should follow him. He is just not the type to inspire and motivate his team. He doesn’t have the passion to push for that extra mile. He is ok, an outstanding average. His team doesn’t love him nor hate him. He’s just simply ‘blah’. A leader appointed by the guys from the top floor because he’s a risk-free leader – both for the company and for success.

I’m sure there are other prototypes out there…other types of leaders that you and I have come across over time, and somewhere among them are true leaders…guys like Steve Jobs (anything against Steve Jobs, keep it to yourself please! ) who have a little bit of charm, a little bit of common sense, and a lot of drive, intellect, and vision.

Have you recently run across some ‘interesting’ leader?

A notorious big-time executive died. As he hung out in Purgatory, waiting for his turn, he was sneaking glances through the windows of both Heaven and Hell. Heaven looked nice with wide green fields, flowers, singing birds, and people having picnics.

‘Hmm, not bad’ thought the former executive.

Hell, on the other hand, looked much more fun. It seemed like a big, wild party was being hosted there; hot girls were dancing and sipping cocktails, while candy girls were circling around, offering the world’s best cigars…everybody seemed like they were having the time of their lives.

‘Hell just seems like so much more fun…I would be so bored in that other place’ the corporate big-wig concluded.

Shortly thereafter, his turn came and a voice asked him ‘Where do you want to go?’

The executive eagerly responded ‘Hell.’

A door opened and the executive walked on through. As soon as he entered, fire started, demons grabbed him from all around, and started to torture him.

‘But, but…’ he began mumbling.

‘But what…you think that we haven’t heard of marketing here as well?’

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Brainstorming with self about October’s blog, I fell into the typical Halloween trap. Hey, it’s a trick or treat season, no one can escape it (even here in Germany!). Being in the spirit of the season, I remembered the old marketing joke that you just read. It seems that we marketers have been placed on the same boat as blondes, policemen, and politicians… jokes are being told about all the luring and tricking that has been done throughout the years. Unfortunately, just as with blondes, policemen, and politicians, the outrageously stupid actions of a few individuals was all that it took to cause a whole profession to become a stereotype – marketers have been branded as tricksters. Although it is difficult to change such a stereotype, marketers are evolving, learning, and shifting from tricking to treating (with lots of yummy candy).

1. The product that can solve all of your problems

-         Trickers who promised an ‘amazing product that will outperform any other on the market’ never thought about creating a return customer. These marketers who relied on ‘gimmicks’ never planned on building a long-term business but only on that one sale, one profit, one trick. Ninety nine percent of the time, a once-fooled customer will not return for more.

-         Treaters are aware that times have changed; in this economy, treaters know that overpromising and exaggerating will take them nowhere. They know that honesty and truthfulness about the product, combined with a creative and witty marketing campaign, will be much more appreciated by customers. And, they will return for more.

2. Don’t put any effort into it…just buy 30 seconds during the Super Bowl or M*A*S*H

-         Trickers knew that their brand was in control of the game. The conversation, or should I say monologue, with customers was always on their side. There was no need to care about the customer’s response. They were unbeatable – the side with the recognizable product, more than adequate resources ready to invest in advertising / marketing … and with no need for further effort (engagement with customers, what?). Throw a line (e.g. during the Super Bowl), wait for the fish to bite (they can’t stop talking about you at the water cooler), reap the profit (your brand is etched in their heads).

-          Treaters today are here to provide much greater value to the customer experience. They are here not only to come up with and launch the campaign, but also to engage in any conversation that the campaign catalyzes (even if that means defending their brand). They are here to educate, to inform, to show another perspective that customers might have overseen. They’ve learned not to intrude, but wait to be found (ok, let’s be honest, the Super Bowl thing still works for some brands). For the most part, they know that customers have total control over what, when, and how they will be reached.

3. Just add some good looking girls (sex sells everything), or bring a celebrity onboard

-          Trickers knew the easy way in and didn’t hesitate to use it. Appealing visuals, lots of fast moving pictures, or even better yet, a trendy celebrity that would endorse the product. Content? Hmm, who wants to read when there’s a hot blonde squeezing toothpaste. And who cares if we end up using a bunch of different characters saying different things….the bigger, the louder, the hotter, the merrier, the better. A consistent and integrated approach?! What’s that?

-          Treaters know that content is king and that it will spread like a virus through the Internet (God Bless Smart Water!). Treaters swear in the power of a simple ‘search’ that will bring ALL into the light. They are everywhere, starting with a website and continuing onto different social platforms, blogs, and forums, all along making sure that their message is unified, genuine, and that customers’ questions are all answered with integrity. Yes, you can bring in a hot Isaiah Mustafa and try to make an Old Spice guy just based on sexy abs and fast-moving settings, but if you don’t put the right words in his mouth, he is not THE Old Spice guy.

So, Happy Hallowen fellow treaters! Tricks are so out!

Four months ago I started an apartment search in Germany. It seemed to be enough time to find the perfect place that I would call home for the next couple of years. In an initial round, I filtered 8 apartments from 68 on the rental market at that time, each of which seemed to have what I was looking for. No crazy requests, I just wanted a window in each room (read LIGHT, since I don’t want to live in a box), hardwood floors throughout (since lots of places had tiles in the whole place…yes, bedroom too), and a balcony where I would be able to put my patio furniture. From those 8 apartments, only 3 actually had all of what I was looking for. Great! It felt like finding a place to live in Germany was an easy task. The only thing left was to negotiate the price and move into the ‘best deal’ since all of them seemed a bit pricey.

My first negotiating activity was a real disaster. The agent was obviously annoyed and irked by my attempts to negotiate a lower monthly rate. I really had good arguments why I thought that the rate should have been lower – from comparing the price to others on the market to naming all the investments that I would implement in the place and which would stay for the owner (since I’m not planning on taking with me, nor can I resell custom-made kitchen cabinets). No matter how hard I pushed his answer was “No, this is the price for this apartment. The owner knows that the place is worth this much and won’t rent it for less. If you don’t want it, someone will come along who will”.I guess that every product has its customer, one who’s willing to pay a particular asking price. Obviously I was not the right customer for this product.

Ok. Tough luck. 2 more to go.

The second  place, the second agent. Of course I had questions about the apartment! However, the agent found my extensive interest in details….frustrating and pestering . One moment he turned to me and actually said “Since you are asking too many questions, it’s obvious that you don’t like this place.” No! I liked the place just fine! I just wanted to know if holes in walls would be closed and if I could change or remove the curtains…. But, he didn’t have any patience for me. He had this demotivated look on his face, showing me that the visit was obviously over – since I was not the right customer for that place. I had too many ‘issues’ that the right customer would not. The right customer would be just happy, quiet and would take the place without question. I didn’t even get to the point of negotiating the price this time.

In the mean time, I was trying to rent out my own condominium in the Chicago area. After a month on the market, I started to rethink the price – was it too high? After a second month not renting the condo, it was clear that I had to lower the price if I wanted to get a tenant. People started to call and show some interest, and finally an offer came – even a bit lower than my reduced asking price – but hey I couldn’t afford to go on for much longer with paying rent on one side and a mortgage on the other side.

The third place was being rented out directly by the owners. I kind of felt for them since I saw myself for a split second. Decent renovations, decent location, more or less both I and my partner were satisfied…that is until we started hearing about all the conditions that we needed to fulfill “No animals, preferably no children, a garden that was exclusively mine had to be ‘this’ way,  you are not being allowed to paint the walls any color other than white…”. Should I mention that the rent would be raised 10% after a year and even more the subsequent year. Space for any negotiations? I think not! Did they seem a bit more emotionally attached to their ‘product’ than normal? Yup! Were they aware of the rest of the offers on the market ? No. They didn’t have an outsider (an agent) to even give them constructive advice about how to ‘sell their product’. In their eyes, they had a perfect product on the market and only a fool would pass and not rent it. They were doing a favor to the world by even putting their product on the market. I just wasn’t thankful for that (favor)….what an imperfect customer I was! Thank God!

Living in the United States, we take many things for granted. We, customers, are used to handouts of a mature and competitive market where businesses have learned lessons that help them survive and remain profitable:

1. how to grab a customer’s attention,
2. how to transform a customer’s interest into action,
3. how to keep a customer happy after a purchase,
4. how to create a repeat customer.

We, customers, are  s.p.o.i.l.e.d; nevertheless, we develop this awareness only when we leave our US ‘safe ground’ and find ourselves in awe of things that are so customary for us, yet neither standard nor even possible elsewhere in the world. To make this ‘spoiled customer’ assumption even more fascinating, I look upon people like me who grew up somewhere else, moved to the United States, and then quite quickly adapted to the perks of living in the Promised Land. People can get used to better things quite easily, can’t they? Maybe I would never have noticed this had I not traveled outside of the US nor, more interestingly, had I not recently moved back to Europe (even if only temporarily). The Old Continent definitely still does it the old way.

Let me say it out loud: Customer Service!

Step back. There is always a difference in how things are done: big guys (corporations) do it in a big way ($$$), small guys (small business) do it similarly but in a small way ($). Big guys hire big agencies to develop and manage their campaigns, small guys hire freelance graphic designers to make their marketing materials. Big guys have 24/7 outsourced customer service, small guys try to act as friendly neighbors who solve issues when needed. Both groups run their businesses in their respective way for the same reason: to attract customers and to retain customers.

Prologue. Since June, I’ve been living in a mid-sized city in Europe (more than 250,000 residents) that is also a tripoint (I highlight tripoint since it offers an amazing strategic location for any business that should be maximally utilized – and in my experience it’s not). In less than three months, I have somehow already managed to have a list of places (shops, restaurants, real estate agencies, etc) where I will not return. Yes, you’ve heard me well! Call me spoiled, but my hard earned money will not end up supporting those businesses that have made it to that list. The culprit: very bad or rather no customer service. On the other hand, I find myself willing to drive to two nearby countries (even though only 15 minutes away) to support businesses where I’ve received excellent, or sometimes even average, customer service.

Situation. For example, restaurants… their customer service – throughout most of Europe – is something that we Americans complain about quite a bit. Since being here, I’ve learned that waiters and waitresses are not tipped at all like they are in the US (e.g., 10-20%), rather receive a reasonable wage. As a result, customer service is not their greatest focus…by far. That patrons come to restaurants primarily for the food and that they pay for their food, and not service, is often felt in the air.

Experiment. I decided to test a restaurant that offered amazing food however no customer service. As I was enjoying my meal and suffering from the lack of service, I thought of an interesting experiment. At the end of my initial visit, I tipped the waiter an unheard of 15%, even if undeserved. I had to wait an unreasonable amount of time for everything and I was the one smiling and being friendly; he remained cold and disinterested. I wanted to check whether he would improve his service the next time I returned to the restaurant (thinking that he would recall someone who tipped so much, spoke the local language with an accent, and indicated that she was now residing in the area). During my second visit, the food was great (still), the waiter was the same (still), and the customer service was the same (unfortunately, still)…and I tipped him 15% (still). I mean, he had to remember me the third time. The third time…unfortunately…was not the charm.

Result. Restaurant added to my no-go list.

Lesson Learned. The look in his eyes told me that I was just a crazy American giving him free money. For me, this waste of money showed that you can’t pay for something that is not offered, valued, nor expected to be compensated. The bottom line is that the market here, although as mature as in the US, has simply matured a different way. Customer service is not really offered, it is not really valued by customers, and neither party really expects compensation for it. So, the same game – ‘Business’ – has been played with two different rulebooks, amazingly successfully in both parts of the world.

Review. Although Europe is also starting to move towards a customer service culture, the US is already deeply dependent on it. The big guys are often multinational and have the luxury of implementing various levels of customer service based on local needs. In some cases, they are even close to monopolizing the market regardless of their level of service. Small business owners, however, are in many cases local and quite often dependent on local customers. Although in Europe small businesses may not need to focus as much attention on customer service, it is quite clear that their American counterparts need to devote sufficient attention to maintain and grow their businesses.

Business Strategy. In the past, I’ve provided a lot of advice for investing in the right marketing tools and tactics to increase customer awareness and drive interest in your product or service. However, any such expense can be a complete waste if customers are not retained once they are captured. Even though you may be doing a great job driving customers into that sales funnel, keep an eye on your customer service and ensure that there are no leaks out the other end. Some people even go as far as saying that customer service is the new marketing; I as a marketer wouldn’t go quite that far…I say that customer service is extremely important (in some geographies) and that it should be implemented as one of the many tools and tactics that any business leverages to attract and retain customers.

What about you? Have you had an interesting experience with customer service outside the US?

We all strive to reach success. We plan, we organize, we execute…all in order to get there – to the peak of the curve. It’s a nice view from there – say those who reached the peak. They also say – it’s hard to stay there once you’ve reached it, since the winds are strong.

We hear a lot about people, products, companies who made it. Their success stories are used as case studies and lessons for others. The steps that they took are analyzed, praised and copied. While most of us could remember at least a few success stories that we have heard about, how many of us can recall what happened to the subjects of those stories after success? A day after success? A year after success?

In a couple of my previous posts, I wrote about the wunder-campaign of our time. In 2010 I joined the army of marketers and bloggers who meticulously followed a living legend – the Old Spice marketing-viral-social-etc-etc-campaign. W+K got us all hooked up with Isaiah’s perfectly chiseled body and witty monologues. Millions of people bowed down to creativeness and a new approach to marketing that Old Spice dared to implement in its marketing campaign. A direct response to customers, wow – yes, future marketing students will have the Old Spice name materialize throughout their textbooks.

The Old Spice buzz lasted quite a bit… resulting in increased brand sales and a crowd of groupies who obsessively engaged and responded to the campaign. W+K brought the Old Spice guy to the top of the peak, but what was the plan from there on?

Source: W+K Old Spice Case Study, 2010

In perfect product or brand life-cycle management, by the time a sales peak is reached, there should already have been a plan developed for innovations that might restart the cycle (I hope that Old Spice  planned something to prevent Isaiah from rolling downhill). The same rules could be applied to a marketing campaign, which also has a similar cycle, one during which marketing activities  become noticeable enough to gain customers’ attention and a positive reaction, resulting in increasing sales. However, if not ‘restarted’ at the right time, that same marketing campaign becomes worn out. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict what happens to the brand.

So, going back to our wunder-campaign “The man your man could smell like”…what happened almost exactly a year after the big success? Since Isaiah was such a hit, inertia dictated that rather than developing an innovation to restart the brand life-cycle, Old Spice would try to revive the man that everyone wants to smell like. The revival process was called Mano a Mano in el Baño. The most publicized ever internet duel was supposed to put Old Spice back on the peak. Brilliant!  The comeback of nice-smelling American hero Isaiah was supposed to be safeguarded by cheesy, metro-sexual Italian sidekick Fabio, a guy who had the campaign-duel taken place in Europe might  have even had some chance of winning….but, not in a land dominated by tough, primarily un-metro-sexual,  NFL-loving men.

The buzz has been created, people have spoken, and the American hero has won, but people talking about a campaign vs. buying a product are two completely different scenarios. It will take some time for both us and Old Spice to determine whether or not the revival succeeds. If it did, kudos! He lives! Or does he? Perhaps Old Spice never truly wanted to revive, but simply milk the ‘man who smells like he can bake you a cake’ for all that he is worth. And he is worth a lot….especially shirtless.