If all your problems look like Nails, should you use a screwdriver?
In the professional services business, it’s common to come across a few sayings. “Use the right tool for the job”, and “When all your problems look like nails, all your solutions look like hammers”. Each of these sayings is reminder to the service professional, or rationality to the client, about the approach that is taken on a project. They both make very valid points, but I think there is a problem in the way we apply these sayings, and as a result the pressure we put on our clients and ourselves.
“Use the right tool for the job.” It’s impossible to know everything about anything. There are so many hours in a day, and most of it is devoted to production. We all have to get paid. In order to cope, specialization happens. People and even companies start to play in a niche in order to be able to know as much as they can about a specific topic, and become an expert in it. After all, that’s what clients want, experts. This knowledge leads to bias. If you know more about hammers, then every problem looks like a nail. This obviously is where the second saying comes from.
“When all your problems look like nails, all your solutions look like hammers”. This saying is usually used as a warning to keep an open mind. It works along the lines of “If you want a different result, you can’t do the same thing.” This makes sense, but if you look at the other side of the coin, you will also notice its implication for professional service providers.
If you need to increase your bottom line, you have two basic options: 1.) Reduce Expenses or 2.) Increase Revenue. Either of these will work (in our hypothetical perfect world). If you ask an efficiency expert, he will tell you that reducing expenses is the best way to go. If you ask a marketer, he will tell you that Increasing Revenue is the better option. In both cases, your asking the hammers to look at your problem and they see nails. This leads us to two points.
1.) The nail is not the same. The nail in our metaphor is dependant of the perspective of the person looking at. Just like “Don’t ask your lawyer health advice, ask your Doctor”. Your doctor sees nails based on his experience, and so does the lawyer. If you get into an auto accident and it causes damage to your health, you will need both the Doctor and the Lawyer to pound the nails that they are good at.
2.) Hammers will always see nails, and sell hammering services. This leaves a lot of stress on the client, because most often, they will not hire out a solution that can solve by themselves. They look for experts to help out. Each expert has their own hammer and their own view of nails. If you need someone to put in screws, a hammer will never sell you that. They are more likely to convince you that screws could work, but so will nails. Then they will try and sell the hammer instead of the screwdriver. Not because they are malicious, they might be right, nails will work just as well as screws, but they have experience in seeing that nails work, more than they do with screws. They can’t know it all and they are experts with nails, so a hammer is what you need.
The real lynch pin of all this is that the above statements work well for strategy, less well for tactics, and almost irrelevant for execution or production. Lets look at an example.Imaging that you are the in charge of a new technology startup. The product is a solid first version and can be purchased over the internet as a digital download. It’s time to sell some products. You need to market your product and start to make some sales. Two marketing firms with two different core ideas present their plans to you. The first group lays out a plan to build your brand awareness with the largest group of people in your potential target market. The plan includes direct response including direct mail and email, print ads in trade magazines, digital advertising and a website that shows all the features and benefits. The entire campaign is directed to the person most often responsible for purchasing, the purchasing managers of companies. For this example you are buying hammers for nails.
The second marketing group comes in and suggests aiming the campaign at early adopters to grow the user base of the product. The idea is that while purchasing managers do purchase the products; it is the users that will influence the purchasing manger to pick a certain product. The best way to get exposure to a new technology is to go after the smaller market segment of early adopters, because the rest of the main stream will be to opposed to new technology until they hear a buzz about it. To grow the buzz they will target the early adopters. Their plan includes blogger outreach programs, conversational marketing in tech communities, participation in relevant trade shows and un-conferences and a website that is built for community interactions. For this example you are buying screwdrivers for screws.
To choose between the two you have to figure out if you need hammers or screwdrivers. Are the problems nails or screws? This is a very important question at the strategy level. Do you go after purchasing managers or early adopters? When we apply the questions further down, it makes less of a difference.
If we ignore the strategy, and start to apply the question to the tactics, it makes less of an impact. Is it better to do a blogger outreach program or print ads in a trade magazine? In theory you can do a blogger outreach program to reach the purchasing managers, and you can probably use a print ad to reach some early adopters. The effectiveness may vary so it still matters somewhat, but you can impact both the nails and the screws with the tactics.
Now lets take our example down to the execution or production level. In the first strategy, we need to build a website that shows features and benefits. In the second strategy we need build a website with community features. On a tactical level, we could build a site that does both, so the questions isn’t very important, but from a production standpoint, does it matter what language the site is built in? Lets say that the first marketing group that is selling hammers to pound nails has built a specialty in Microsoft’s .NET environment, and they build dynamic websites using the language C# (c-sharp). The second group that is selling screwdrivers for screws uses open-source technology, and builds their dynamic websites using the language PHP (hypertext pre-processor). The question becomes, does it matter what the website is written in?
The answer is yes and no. In one way, the question is irrelevant. You can build a site that shows features and benefits in either language. You can also build a site that has community features in either language. Yes there are differences, but it can, and has been done both ways, and they both work. In comparison to the whether the strategy is the right tool is infinitely more important than this production question. For this reason, I say that the question is irrelevant. That is the “no” part of the answer; here comes the “yes”.
Questions of execution are not usually a zero sum proposition. It is rare that there is one “right” way and every other way is wrong. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. The real point is that due to the specialization of talent and ability each person or firm will be better at a few ways of doing something, and less good at other perfectly acceptable ways of doing things. Most often, it’s better to the let the people responsible for execution or production to do it “their” way. They will be better and more proficient at it, and because of that it will make a difference. If your professional service team prefers hammers to screwdrivers, let them drive nails. At the end of the day, what you really want is two pieces of wood joined together, whether it was done with nails or screws.
The long and the short of it this, pay attention to the decisions that matter, and don’t make decisions based the lower level pieces. You wouldn’t make the decision on what advertising agency to use based on their copywriters use of the word “pleased” instead of “happy”. You make the decision based on the brand strategy, and the copywriter’s ability to use the right “voice”. Make the decision based on the big picture, and let the people who make the product worry about the production.
Why the Carrot and Stick style of improvment is flawed.
“You get better at what you measure,” or so it goes. Metrics are an important part of business. It allows us to focus on key areas and ensure that progress is being made. The good thing about good measurement is that it takes the guesswork out of improvement, and makes a more equal environment. If you notice an employee who is not doing a good job and you tell them, they will more than likely get angry and think you don’t like them. If you have a solid measurement system in place then you just show the employee the data. They can understand it and see the need to improve without a lot of emotion.
All this is well and good, but it does seem to raise one problem. We know that people are motivated by WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). You can’t motivate someone to care about something they just don’t care about. To solve this problem it has become common practice to use a bonus or reward system tied to a set of metrics. “If you can bring up production levels 10% by the end of the quarter, you will get a $500 bonus.” On the surface this tactic sounds good. It allows us to help motivate our employees to do better because if they do, they get a reward. It’s the carrot and the stick at work. Do good, get a carrot, do bad, get the stick!!! There are two evident problems with the carrot and the stick as we know it.
1.) It doesn’t matter what you measure, the better you get at something, the harder it is to get better. Lets say that you are measuring production of a product. You find out that you are running at about 20% of what you could be running at. You set up a system of measurement, create a reward structure, train and educate your workforce about the system and then get to work. In the first quarter, you get an increase to 30%. Everyone gets bonuses and everyone is happy. The next quarter you get to 50%. More bonuses are handed out and life is good. Then you go on to get 60%, 65% and then 70%. Then all of sudden your increases are now lucky to grow at 1 or 2%, if they grow at all. What Happened???
There is a certain amount of energy that takes place maintaining a position. Its a lot more work to stay at 70% than it did at 20%. This is predictable and can be planned for, but more often that not when the numbers stop growing at a rapid pace, many people get complacent again as they don’t seem to be making as much of an impact. It hard to get the troops worked up over 1%. How much of a bonus can you get for that extra 1%? Is the work required to maintain your position PLUS the amount of work to get even better worth that 1% bonus? This brings us to point number 2.
2.) The carrot and the stick deal with very shallow motivational tactics. Don’t get me wrong. Money isn’t everything, but stop paying your employee’s and see how many show up to volunteer. The problem is that the prospect of more money is a superficial motivator. Many people want to do a great job. Given the choice between work that is mediocre (or working for a company that is) and working for an industry leader, or at least a strong competitor at the head of the market, almost everyone wants the latter. It is also apparent that most people understand that good work done smartly is the key to a great company. The carrot and the stick relies too much on such a shallow premise that it can actually work to lower motivation.
There is a part in most of us that wants to succeed, and have a part on the winning team. The sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing we did important work for a winning team feels better to us than the satisfaction we get from an extra $50. By focusing on the money (the carrot) we degrade the mission to one of greed, and most people do not want to be seen as greedy, or to be thought of as someone who can be bought. The metrics we use and the processes that surround them should be used and presented as tools given to a skilled and valuable worker. They should not be presented as a “program” or “an initiative”. Rewards should still be given, but they should be done as a thank you in the background, and not the focus of a project. Let the business purpose stand out and be the purpose, not the prospect of a bonus. Let your employees have a deeper since of purpose by completing identified key objectives instead of chasing a carrot.
Make customers care. Care for them first.
In the commercials that play before movies, at the theater, there is an All State Insurance commercial that asks “Do you know the name of your insurance agent?” I’m not sure how common it is for people to be able to answer that question. While sitting there with my family in the theater, when the All State guy asked the question, both my wife and I knew the answer. Not only the name of my agent, but we know the names of most of the people who work in that office. So do my Mom, Dad and Sister. Unfortunately for All State, I’m with State Farm.
It is no coincidence that my whole family uses the same agent. They know who we are. They know all about us and our policies. They know the name of my kids and how old they are. After my son totaled his car a few days ago, the local office called to make sure he was OK after getting word that it happened from the regional office. The bottom line is that they care about us.
I like a lot of the insurance company ads that are running right now. I love the Geiko gecko and the cave man. I also think the All State campaign is right on, but at the end of the day I won’t even consider getting a quote from anyone else. Even if I am paying more than I would from another company (which I don’t think I do) I wouldn’t switch. The bottom line is that if you want your customer to be loyal, be loyal to them first. It worked for State Farm, from my family alone they are insuring 2 trucks, 3 SUV’s, 2 cars, 3 motorcycles and 5 life insurance policies.
Do agencies take their own advice?
I have been reading a lot of blog posts lately where the agency side is trying to convince clients to stop coming to them with solutions, and start to bring them problems. I don’t know why anyone would want more problems, but maybe that’s just me. 
All kidding aside, the premise of the argument is that agencies feel that if they are brought the problems the company has (I need more market share, I need higher positive brand recognition) that the agency can use their insights to help create the solution (the strategy).
There is a lot of merit in this argument. Because most agencies work with many different kinds of markets they are in a good position to help move things that work in one sector into another. Often times, the ideas and strategies they bring are new to a particular market and if works wonders. When you spend your days thinking about brands and markets, you get good at it. This is very different than taking an agency your solutions. This is often spec work, and a lot of agencies and independents don’t like it. As an example, lets say you need to increase your brand awareness. You have read a lot about the migration of markets to the web, so you decided you need to beef up your web presence in order to fulfill your need for brand awareness. You decide that you need a website that does a, b and c. So you shop around, get some referrals and call a digital agency. They get on board, do a great job and launch a site that has the best execution of a, b and c. Then 6 months later you measure you progress to find that the web initiative failed. As it turns out your focus on a, b and c made no difference to your brand awareness. You should have focused on d. If the agency we’re brought the problem (I need more brand awareness) they could have helped identify that d was what will make the difference, not a, b or c. That’s the way the story goes anyway, not all agencies would have identified that d is the best option anymore than their client-side counterparts.
The part where this all gets interesting is that, don’t we get taught in brand / business 101 that to be really successful, you need to identify the need and wants of your market and then fulfill those needs? I have heard a million agencies tell their clients exactly that. Try to go with the market instead of trying change the market to fit the business practices? If this is true (you decide if it is) then do agencies practice what they preach?
I received a twitter from David Armano from the Logic + Emotion blog, that pointed to a story on Marketing Vox about whether size matters (size of the agency) to clients. As it turns out, it doesn’t matter that much. But in the article was the list of top reasons marketers choose one agency over another. Here is the list:
1. Quality customer insights
2. Chemistry
3. Creative work
4. Service level / response to needs ongoing
5. Cost control
6. Innovative / strategic thinking
7. Case for ROI
8. Client list
9. Strict adherence to brief
10. Seniority of account team
11. Location
12. Size
It does indeed show that size doesn’t matter, but look at what else it implies. Innovative / strategic thinking didn’t even break the top 5, and neither did Case for ROI. Chemistry and Creative work are at the top of list. With these priorities, does it seem like many clients are searching for help with strategy as agencies think they should (the problem), or are clients searching for great execution (the solution)? It would seem the latter.
Why you should plan thoroughly and expect it to fail anyway.
This post started with some discussions I have been having lately with my business partners and colleagues. Here lately I (we) have been battling the same problem regardless of the scope of work, be it brand work, digital work or just good old fashion marketing strategy work. In an effort to reduce cost or speed along a project, the one thing that always seems to get sacrificed is the planning. It takes a lot of time and effort to try and convince people of the importance of planning. So here goes, in a nutshell and as short as possible, why planning is important, even if the plan will more than likely fail.
First off, I will agree that planning anything seems to be an exercise in either mind reading or some other form of extra-sensory intelligence. Most plans are built with the assumption that with enough hard work and diligence, everything can be outlined and mapped to ensure that success is obtained. We look at market research, consumer behavior and mountains of data to try and project what will happen if we do (insert your tactical changes here) or how the market will respond if we (insert your strategy for new product / brand extension / creative idea / making the logo bigger on your packaging).
The fact of the matter is that no matter how hard we all try, we cannot see into the future. We plan hard and thoroughly with the assumption that an educated guess is better than random actions. Then we launch the program / idea / whatever and quickly discover that what we thought would happen usually doesn’t, at least not exactly. As the adage goes, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy (or no marketing or business plan survives contact with your customers or employees). So while it would seem that these are good reasons to not plan or to cut back on the planning process, they are actually the entire reason we should plan to begin with.
Every plan is built on a set of assumptions. We assume our customers will like blue in the design. We assume the market is ready for innovation. We assume that our customer research is factual, even when chances are they are only another set of assumptions our customers make about what they want. So we go thought the best ideas we have, apply some type of logic to them and then craft our execution. In short, we make a stack of assumptions. It should then come to no surprise that, as assumptions often go, the assumptions are off. Sometimes a little off and sometimes a lot, but rarely ever are they right on. The real trick to all of this is to identify which one(s) of the assumptions are off, after all a plan is a stack of assumptions. If you can identify what was wrong in the planning, they you have a head start on figuring out what to do about it. (Pause for the Ah-hah moment.)
Can you imagine going thought the process of a new product launch that misses every projection and you realize that you won’t hit profitability when you need too. If you have no plan you have no place to start to adjust your processes or offerings to make your new product work. Its also common that without a solid plan, you can make some adjustments to your assumptions without fully understanding how they effect the other assumptions you have. You may launch your product and find that you are not moving enough pieces to meet your goals, so you react by offering lower prices or specials. You see the inventory start to turn and your product start to fly off the shelves so feel good about your “save”. Then, five months down the down the road, you discover that you are not going to be profitable in time, and you might run out of money. This is because as one assumption changes so do every other assumption in the stack that follows it. There are too many correlations to track without a road map, and that road map is a plan.
The true value of a plan is that it’s a map to your assumptions. DO not skip, or skimp on this step. Too many things change too fast for you not to be driving with a road map. Know in the planning process what assumptions you are making, even if they seem like facts, and know what assumptions are stacked on top of each. When you know that your plan in some way shape or form will fail to some degree, you will plan better and be ready to make changes as needed. Plan with planning in mind.
Beware the web metrics, it might not be what you think.
Imagine setting a goal to double the sales you get from your website. You look at your options and decide incremental changes to a few areas can make the difference. So you look at your sites log files or log into your analytics program to see how your site is doing now. You are shocked to find that your page view per visitor are really high, and so is your average time on site. How can this be? Don’t these metrics mean that the site users are engaged? If they are so engaged, why don’t they buy more?
The answer is because the users of the site are not engaged. They are confused. This example is a true story. Users of the site spent so much time on so many pages just trying to figure out how to use the site that the metrics were through the roof. I was hired to fix these issues, among others, and after working with them we (mindSpace, Inc) also made their total traffic number go down. That’s right, I said go down. Normally, you might think that that is a bad thing; however, in their case after just a few quick changes to their cpc (cost per click) campaigns, their traffic went down about 10% and their conversion rate went up 400%. What does that mean? It means they are spending less money on traffic that does them no good, and now only brings people to the site that actually might want what they are selling.
In this age of accountability, it’s important to remember that numbers don’t tell us anything. They are numbers. They can show us what is going on, but not always why. Develop a solid business strategy and figure out what is important to measure and WHY. Don’t just measure stuff you “think” you need to measure. The numbers are trying to tell you something, but they can’t say it out loud. They are more like signs that point to where to look.
3 points about the Nikon D80 debate
Admittedly, I am a little behind in my podcast listening and blog reading; however, I did just finish listening to Joseph Jaffe’s Across the Sound episode #82. As I sit here writing this post, Jaffe has put out episode #85, so I’m almost caught up.
In this episode of Across the Sound, Jaffe has a conversation with CK and Tangerine Toad about blogger outreach programs, and a lot about the Nikon D80 campaign specifically. For more info about the campaign, listen to the episode or search for Nikon D80 on technorati. In the course of the conversation, it seems that Nikon got a bad wrap. While I will agree the campaign wasn’t perfect, I can’t say it was bad. Here are my thoughts on the conversation.
1.) They should have used photo bloggers – I disagree. I think that photo bloggers are probably well aware of what the D80 is and what it is capable of doing. I agree this would have been a great idea if the D80 was revolutionary, but I don’t think it is. To be sure it’s a great camera, but it doesn’t do anything the Canon equivalent can’t do. For this campaign, I think getting a lot of people to talk about the Nikon worked well to get people to at least say “Nikon, huh? Let me go check them out.”
2.) This wasn’t a one shot deal. This isn’t the only thing that Nikon did to get attention for their D series cameras. They also gave a small town a bunch of D40’s and just let them go wild with them. They set up some web space for the townsfolk to upload their images and tell their story. This D80 campaign seems to be another aspect of this same strategy. I may only be speaking for myself, but between the two parts of this effort I have to say I am impressed with what Nikon is doing. They are putting product in the hands of people who will use them, and that has to generate some buzz. It also makes me think that Nikon is being a pretty good company. To me it says, “We at Nikon know we have a good product, so here check it out.” This is much more compelling than saying “We at Nikon have a good product, trust us and just buy it.”
3.) Final point – whether you think this was a good idea or not, just ask your self this – what did Canon do? I happen to be a Canon fan. When it was time to buy a digital camera I got the Canon Rebel XTi. I believe that Nikon is a good camera, for that matter I think the Nikon and the Canon are basically the same (although cnet doesn’t agree). I bought the Canon because I believe they have better lenses. But when I bought the camera, even though I thought that both Nikon and Canon were the same quality wise, I bought the Canon and didn’t even consider the Nikon. Now between these two campaigns for the D40 and D80, and the fact that a few of my friends and colleges went Nikon, I would have reconsidered my purchase.
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