A slight variation on the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” And it came to my mind this morning as we interviewed customers at a well-known financial company in order to gain insight regarding the way they feel about one of our client’s products and service.

Every two words, both customers would go back to the same comment, “It’s all about relationships, ” and the “relationship” they were talking about was not between companies; it was between people. They’d tell us story after story of the many instances of personal dedication and attention to detail by different employees, ranging from engineers to maintenance technicians.

Quality was pretty much taken for granted, and the competitors were criticized not because their product was not as good as our client’s but because their service was not as impressive. A useful reminder that people are your best, most robust differentiator.

Got an early morning call from an 800 number with an automated message, saying that my bank was always watching the activity in my account and they had seen some suspicious transactions. I was asked to give the last four digits of my SS#, at which point I got uneasy and hung up.

I called my bank later, and was told that I had done the right thing, since they never use an automated service, a real person always calls. A couple of hours later, somebody else from the bank called me about the same issue. When I told them what had happened, they said, “Oh, don’t worry, very often people at the front desk don’t know that we use an automated service to keep an eye on debit card activity!”

Oops.

What a classic example of the importance of inside out communications, huh?

You want to let your employees know that the company is launching a product that might revolutionize the market, and show them samples of the ads and a summary of the selling strategy. You need them to get the news about a possible buyout from you, not from the press, or you’d like them to hear straight from the top that the company has hired a management consulting firm. Whatever the news, having it straight, undiluted and from within the company, not second-hand, makes a big difference. You know that. So how do you share?

Depending on the size and personality of your company; availability and access of electronic communication for all employees, and the urgency of the matter, you can choose among the following methods.

Company intranet

Company newsletter

Meeting; regularly scheduled, formal; or spur-of-the moment, informal

Electronic mail

Traditional mail, sent to each employee’s home address.

Or should we say, the audience nobody remembers to reach. I’m talking about your own people. Your employees. Remember, “Nature abhors vacuum.” You can be absolutely sure that if there’s no official news, the empty space will be quickly filled up with manufactured news/gossip.

Each one of your staff members has a life of their own, where they meet and interact and talk to hundreds of other people. Don’t you think that you’re wasting a great opportunity when you don’t respect their value as an audience and act accordingly? Connect with them; let them know what’s happening; make them feel proud about their job; remind them how their work affects others; share customers’ comments… Yes, it’s a lot of work. And it makes a lot of sense.

How do you reach them? A company intranet could be a media option that gives you space to feature all sorts of information, news and materials.

Your company is launching a product that according to all the experts is sure to catch the market’s attention. It’s better, cooler, faster than anything else out there. Pricing makes sense. Distribution channels have been lined up. Ad campaign is super exciting. Board has approved. Press has been told. New product literature is stacked up.

But manufacturing hasn’t heard about the plans. Guys on the floor have no clue. And nobody has told the receptionists or the admins.

Should you? We think so. Why? When you treat your employees as stakeholders, they behave like stakeholders.

The nursery rhyme said it,

But wait! When it comes to silence, there’s one more lesson to learn from owls. According to The Engineer,

“Owl-inspired coating could lead to more efficient wind turbines”

Cambridge University researchers have taken their inspiration from owls in the development of a coating they claim could help make wind turbines, computer fans and even planes much quieter. The team developed the material by carefully studying how owls hunt and fly in silence and used high-resolution microscopy to examine owl feathers in fine detail. The coating mimics the structure of an owl’s wing.

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/owl-inspired-coating-could-lead-to-more-efficient-wind-turbines/1020561.article#ixzz3dnRoDGxc

Yeah to owls. Lechuzas. And buhos, too.

Last month a colleague and I were fantasizing about developing a client webinar – “How to get the best from your agency.” We thought we’d be objective and scientific, creating a list of do’s and don’ts and adding some solid, real-life examples. In the meantime, here’s my homegrown list. And I am thinking it’d be great to ask clients for their own list, too. If I had the guts, that is.

Definite Do’s

Give us background. Help us place the project within the bigger picture. That can make a huge difference in the strategy.

Believe that we care. We want you to look good. We want you to do well. Hey, we’re not dumb, it’s good for us when you look good and do well.

Let us meet your end-product or service users. It results in better creative work.

If there are people whose opinion carries veto power, give us their input from the beginning.

Share results. Good or bad. We need to know what happened, so next time we take that into account.

Loop us in. Tell us what’s going on at the company, even if it’s not connected to marketing. It motivates us to know that we are part of something bigger, and sometimes knowing what your company is saying or doing or making is exactly what we need to re-ignite the fire.

 

 

 

Did you know that “Positioning” had been promoted? (P intended) Yes, it’s official; it’s now one of the seven “Ps” of the marketing mix. The other two new ones are People and Packaging. There used to be just four; Product, Price, Place and Promotion. And you had to make do with them.

Well I am all for Positioning splintering off “Product,” where it used to reside, modestly and meekly, with its pal, Packaging. Positioning has even outdone “Branding,” a much sexier and glamorous competitor for marketers’ attention. I had made a sort of cheat-sheet for myself so I’d remember the difference between the two. It went like this; “Branding” was an emotional connection between a product, a service, even a company, and the consumer; while “Positioning” was more of an intellectual concept; it referred to where in the consumer’s mental map that product, service or company was located.

And regarding “People”? Love it. That is a super astute addition to the Ps.

I love fish, so I am not trying to yuck your yum, it is my yum, too. But I didn’t realize or I had conveniently forgotten that the fishermen oops fisherpeople who give us our yum have a pretty scary job. This from The Islands’ Institute latest edition of Working Waterfront:

“Hazardous working conditions, strenuous labor, long work hours and harsh weather make commercial fishing one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. Nationwide from 2000-2009, 504 fishermen died on the job; 165 deaths occurred on the East Coast, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a department of the Centers for Disease Control.”

I am adding two heaping tablespoons of respect and a full cup of appreciation to my next bouillabaisse.

Glancing through the pages of the April 2015 Control Design  my eyes caught a quote that stopped me – “If you’re sleeping through the night, you have not borrowed enough money.” Wow. I loved it. Searching the article I found the person being interviewed and quoted was Brian Beaulieu, author of Prosperity in the Age of Decline. I’ve got to read that. In the meantime, here’s another Beaulieu quote; advising people to make sure that their children learn three languages, he says, “First, make sure they learn to speak proper English. Second, they should learn French, because it’s the language of Africa, a rising continent. And the third language is math.” Ouch. I was ok until that.