Being Point

Month: January 2009

  • Marketing January 16, 2009

    Concluding our topic of marketing this week, consider the idea that almost every interaction with others can be seen as a marketing event.

    Why is this true?  Because every time we’re . . .
    * Educating others

    * Keeping or breaking promises, and

    * Influencing
    . . . we’re marketing.

    The implications are huge.  The way you answer the phone . . . is a marketing event. How promptly you respond to emails. Whether or not your shoes are shined. The consistency with which your employees treat customers as individuals. Your reputation. Tone of voice. Reliability. Performance. Attitude. Sincerity. Etc.
    Sure, marketing can be performed on a corporate level with huge budgets, but marketing is also an everyday event.

    Where and how can you have an immediate, positive impact by viewing marketing as something that you can always do?  What are the implications for you in both the personal and professional aspects of your life?

  • Marketing January 15, 2009

    Continuing our discussion of marketing, we’ve noted that:
    * Marketing is education

    * You and your brand have a set of brand promises

    * Regular contact with Centers of Influence is key

    Today, let’s focus on how much time you can spend on marketing and how we make sure that that time occurs.  We can use the CFR Tools to support your marketing efforts.

    Please give some thought today to how to *assure* that you provide a specific range of time to marketing each week – which will, in turn, provide reliability to your sales and marketing efforts.

  • Marketing January 14, 2009

    This week’s topic: Marketing.

    Let’s get highly practical and try something profoundly simple.  Centers of Influence (COI’s) are those people who are well-positioned to help you – personally and / or professionally.

    Thus, marketing to that core group is vital.  Simple is often best, so consider the following.  Create a basic Excel worksheet.  List the top 25 or 30 people who have the most ability to influence your life in a positive way.

    Create six columns for the next six months, and map out how you’ll be in touch with each person.  Choose from emails, meals, golf, articles sent, gifts, coffee, birthday card, etc.  Arrange the tasks so that you can easily take the time to have the right amount of each category.  Look for ways to help those people, and include those in your chart as well.

    Work the chart every month.  The logic is simple.  You’re marketing to “your” most important group – those people could could influence your life in a positive way – on a regular monthly basis.  You’re interacting with them in a wide variety of ways.
    Most importantly, your contact is consistent:  at least one time per month for at least six months.

    Common sense relationship building is simple – and simple is often better!

    Marketing does not have to be expensive.

  • Marketing January 13, 2009

    Yesterday, we began discussing marketing and the “promises” that make up your personal and professional brands.

    Here’s one easy perspective on marketing:  it’s educating others.  As Robert G. Allen says:
    “No matter what your product is, you are ultimately in the education business.  Your customers need to be constantly educated about the many advantages of doing business with you, trained to use your products more effectively, and taught how to make never-ending improvement in their lives.”

    How can you do a better job about educating people about your brand promises? How would you rate your abilities as a educator-marketer – and why?

  • Marketing January 12, 2009

    In our continuing consideration of topics which impact how we produce results in all aspects of our lives, let’s challenge ourselves to dramatically improve our marketing!

    One of the many ways to understand marketing is that it’s about building and expanding positive awareness in order to increase the likelihood of a desired positive outcome. Businesses “market” so that their “sales” efforts can be more successful.

    And, in a very broad sense, each of us “markets” ourselves as a “brand” in all aspects of our lives in ways ranging from personal grooming to choices in where we live.

    What kind of marketing plan do you have . . . both personally and professionally . . . for 2009?  How much attention will you give to marketing yourself and / or your business or job position?

    What kind of breakthroughs in marketing . . . both personally and professionally . . . would make the most difference in 2009?  Is there merit in considering yourself as a “brand”?

  • Creativity January 9, 2009

    Our discussion of creativity this week reveals that engaging with it accesses a powerful tool whose  utility goes far beyond visual aesthetics or art.  Harnessing creativity is a powerful strategy for advancement.

    It’s intriguing to use creativity in service of improving our lives.  Duke Ellington said, “A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”

    Please think for a moment about what have been problems for you in mind, body and spirit.  Let’s end the week with a new, creative approach to at least one historic problem in each category.

  • Creativity January 8, 2009

    Creativity – our topic this week – can be dramatically enhanced by being around creative people.

    If you could form a five-person”Creative Council” to advise you, and you could choose anyone living or gone, who would you choose and why?  What qualities in those people do you admire and would you find useful?

    There are obviously so many choices, but I’d like to have Einstein, Mozart, Socrates, Steve Jobs and J.K. Rowling.  It would be great to have the qualities of searing insight, scientific genius, marketing savvy, wild imagination and musical composition.

    Here’s the fun part:  What advice do you think they would give you?  How well would you follow it?

  • Creativity January 7, 2009

    Creativity is a strategic advantage in life, so let’s become more creative.

    The web has spawned many new terms . . . among them, the word “mash-up. Originally used to describe the integration of different kinds of web and technology elements, the term can now be applied to the creative combination of potentially disparate elements to form a new experience.

    Think mobile phone + music + address book + email.

    Think banking + inside a market + automated check-out + dietician onsite + florist. A now-common, but previously unusual, mash-up.

    How can we take these commercial examples and apply the concept of mash-up to your life and career?  What novel combinations can you create?

    Emerson said, “All of life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make, the better.”

    Try experimenting with mash-up’s!  I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

  • Creativity January 6, 2009

    We ended yesterday’s Study Hall with a goal of your identifying several areas where you could embrace uncertainty in such a way that your creativity would be enhanced in 2009.

    The most radical way to challenge what we know is to try on its opposite.  Charlie Munger, famous partner of financier, Warren Buffet, says, “Invert, always invert.”
    Munger advises always trying on the opposite of any situation.  For example, was that really a terrible thing that happened, or was it the best thing that could have happened?

    Being locked into perceptions that become hardened and calcified leads to a blocking of your creativity.  Today, as an exercise, try on the opposite of what you hold as true in a few situations to observe the impact on your creativity.

  • Creativity January 5, 2009

    Welcome to the 2009 edition of Study Hall!

    This week’s topic is creativity.  As the Apple ads say, “Think different.”  This year, let’s also resolve to think creatively and broadly.  At first glance, one might assume that creativity only relates to the arts, but we know that all areas of life present opportunities for creativity.

    As we begin the New Year, expanded creativity can help us address times in our lives when we are “challenged” – in both the most positive and the most negative senses of the word.

    Psychologist, Eric Fromm, said:  “Creativity requires the ability to let go of certainties.”

    It may feel counter-intuitive to “let go of certainties” as we begin a new calendar year.  How do you feel about Fromm’s requirement?  What “certainties,” if you let go of them, would foster your creativity so that 2009 could become the best year in your life so far?