The [Non-Business] Business Book

Last week I was in the Denver airport waiting for my flight home and I was faced with an unsettling feeling: I am bookless. There are so many books that I feel I need to read: Freakonomics, The Long Tail, or the one that I thought was at the top of my stack, Small Is the New Big by Seth Godin.

But as I scanned the shelves at the Hudson Booksellers the words of my wife and so many of my colleagues echoed in my head: "If you read another business book next, I'll kill you." Sounds threatening but I really do have a problem with this. It's unintentional. And I'm not trying to brag but I just read these books faster than others. (I must have a problem with fiction in general. Even when not reading business books, I love non-fiction. Sports non-fiction, memoirs, essays, and biographies.)

I was especially antsy that night because it was Game 3 of the World Series and I had to get to the airport sports bar to watch as much as I could before going "silent" on the plane. (I'm a bit of a Cards fan by default -- they're my son's favorite team. I prefer the more tepid, lukewarm response that I like all Midwestern teams equally.) So it was probably a subliminal thing that led me to purchase 3 Nights in August, Buzz Bissinger's take on a 2003 three-game series between the Cubs and the Cards told through the transitioned lenses of manager Tony LaRussa.

Well, the Series came out just like I wanted it to and the book appears to be headed that way as well. I've also come to the conclusion that 3 Nights in August, is actually what I'm calling a non-business business book. By that I mean seeing the series through Tony's eyes, you get a feel for the elements of strategic planning and management that go into a game simplistically referred to as "America's past time." You see LaRussa pouring over video and statistics but not being totally driven by them. This is important: he straddles the line of intellect and intuition in a way that is applicable to several aspects of day-to-day life in modern baseball and business.

He also posses what Tom Peters calls a "bias for action." When in doubt, do something. We see LaRussa's now famous (back then, thought to be crazy) experimenting with the injured Albert Pujols' position to get him back into the line up as a perfect example of trying something to get results (which he did).

The Point? I'm not saying Transition Tony is Peter Drucker but you might find this read interesting and surprisingly applicable. Plus, if you're a baseball fan it is a hell of an easier read than Drucker. I think 'The Point' is also like Tony pacing around and tinkering with the line up. You have to expose yourself to all kinds of non-linear things to be open to a crazy idea that could be the equivalent of getting Pujols back into your line up.

P.S. You might also enjoy this post by Tom Peters, if for nothing else than his free PowerPoint on Think vs. Do. Enjoy!

I'm Taking Pictures of My Trash Again

Again, you say? Yes. As some of you may remember I was similarly moved by some fast food packaging that I had to photograph and blog about pre-trash last year. Anyhow, I love this Pizza Hut box because they took advantage of their packaging to touch on a unique product need. "Dinner now. Breakfast tomorrow." Those four simple words sum up the added value of ordering pizza. Some clever copywriter took a personal moment of product interaction - not just the key customer need of satisfying immediate hunger - and found a way to market to it. Those sentences remind us why we have twice as much pizza delivered as we need.

The Point? Embrace and find a way to market to an atypical use for your product. I say embrace because I remember the story about the Preparation H marketing exec on the ski slope that begrudgingly admitted that a number of their customers (the skiing exec included) used the product as an exceptional cold weather lip balm. Now what if they found a way to embrace that need and market to it. And finally, remember that it's not just a box, or a sack, or an invoice. It's a piece of advertising that will be laying around your customer's home or office. Make the most of your packaging or I'll be forced to take more pictures of my trash!

Mousetraps and Marketing Metrics

It's that time of year again. Last night I was walking through my basement and I turned on the furnace room light in time to see a mouse scurry away through a crack in the wall. Luckily, I had just reset all of my non-humane, old-school mousetraps with fresh peanut butter over the weekend.

As I was resetting the traps, my thoughts wandered to marketing metrics. (Yes. I am insane.) You see, for one of my clients the past month also marked the beginning of their fiscal year and they have been celebrating with a lot of strategizing and planning.

How does placing mousetraps throughout your home relate to planning your marketing? Easy. As I was dropping off the traps I thought of my "mousetrap results" from the past year. The two mice I caught were from the same trap location (downstairs bathroom next to the shower). In my mousetrap planning this is the equivalent of a marketing campaign that works. All six other traps that I've set are essentially unproven as they have yet to yield a result. Did I do anything different? No. I set all of the traps in the exact same location I've always set them.

Was this responsible, results-driven planning? If I wanted to make decisions based on actual results I should have set the proven trap next to the shower and tested some new trap locations. But I didn't and the only reason was because I didn't bother to consider the results.

Now you may think that these are just mousetraps and marketing planning is a much bigger deal that always gets more careful consideration. Really? Take a step back and look at your current plans? How many of your proven efforts from last year are you repeating? (Your answer should be all of them.) How many of your unproven efforts are scheduled to be repeated this year? (Your answer should be none of them.)

Or, worse yet, are you in the dark on your efforts because you don't track and measure them. To continue with my mousetrapping metaphor, that would be like setting several trays of poison out and a random dead mouse shows up. Which poison tray (marketing campaign) got the mouse (your results)? You'll never know. So you also need to take an even bigger step back and make sure you are measuring your efforts. Remember, you can't manage what you don't measure. For my money, you can't beat actionable ads and mousetraps that kill. Both are dependable, measurable, and provide results.

The Point? It's simple. Make sure you are tracking and measuring every ad, marketing campaign, and promotion you do. Then when it comes time to plan, repeat what really worked, try to fix what kind of worked, and test something new in place of the stuff that failed. Failure isn't bad. My direct marketing mentor always said you either want a clear success or a clear failure because they give you a result that you can read and take action on. In other words, you know something. So take some time and think through where you "trap your mice and your customers and remember you can improve both if you know where your results are coming from.

P.S. "Try something!" and "Test. Test. Test." are some of the rules of one of my favorite analytical minds, Dr. Gregory House of Fox's House M.D. This week one of my favorite business minds, Tom Peters, did a great post with a slide summing up "House-isms" that can be applied to direct marketing and really anything strategically focused. Enjoy.