Keeping a Sense of Wonder

Keeping a sense of wonder is the opposite of being jaded and cynical.  It is about keeping an almost child-like view of your business and your market.  That sense of discovery and newness that allows you to think about what excites people who find your brand for the first time or what excites people about your products needs to remain with you no matter how long you work with a brand or product line.

Keeping a sense of wonder can be difficult.  You get overly familiar and too expert about your products and how to use them.  Things become old hat.  You downplay your competition.  You forget what got you excited in the first place about your product.  You forget who your consumer really is.

But that sense of wonder is what will allow you continue to keep your marketing fresh and find new products that delight your customers.

So how do you stay fresh?

• Use your product the way your customers do (a lot of marketers never use the products they sell which I really don’t understand at all).  Or watch others use it.
• Read business books and think about how you would apply that to your business.
• Spend time at retail watching people shop for your product and listen to how they decide what to buy.
• Listen, listen, listen – there are more ways than ever to listen to your customers.  Read what they are saying on Facebook and Twitter, read message boards, competitors’ websites, Twitter and Facebook pages.   Read blogs that matter in your industry or profession.
• Pretend to be your customer.  Sometimes role playing, even in your head, helps you understand if you have overcomplicated or underestimated what your customer wants or needs.

A sense of wonder about your brand is really a gift.  It makes your job more fun and helps you be more successful.

 

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When is Good Enough Good Enough?

There is a definite line between making products that delight your customers and going over the top.  Many times companies make Cadillacs when their customers would be more than thrilled with a really nice Chevrolet.

This is also true of things you do every day.  That presentation doesn’t need to be perfect; that spreadsheet doesn’t always need that extra feature; the house doesn’t have to be perfectly clean.  Sometimes good enough is just good enough!

As a perfectionist, I know it can be hard to let go.  But I have learned that 90%, and sometimes even 80%, is good enough to call something done.  You are the only one who will really notice what that missing bit is.  Does it serve the purpose?  Does it communicate what is needed?  Will it delight your customer?  Then it is good enough.

And those products?  It is really critical to understand what your customers really want and what will delight them (and what they are willing to pay for that widget you are developing).  Sometimes over-engineering your products alienates exactly those customers that you are trying to service.  And you can certainly be spending more in product and packaging costs than you need without adding to the perceived value of the product.  And let’s remember that it needs to ship too.

I am a big believer in getting things approximately right (back to that 90%) then going into an improvement cycle that allows for course correction and needed adjustments and improvements.  This is also where line extensions come in – get out what you can now then do the rest later.  Getting to shipping is more critical than perfection.  I think the last 10% is often wasted anyway.

At one company I worked for, they introduced a beautiful product.  Nice packaging with a reusable tray and really heavy cardstock.  But the competition was on lighter paper in shrink film and it was selling like hotcakes.  Why did this product fail?  Because the product we were offering was too expensive and way more than what the customers were really wanting for the purpose.  So this product line failed – it was too good for the market that was targeted.  Our competitor got it right – they gave the customer that nice Chevrolet that addressed the need; we made a Cadillac that most consumers didn’t see a need to buy and didn’t see as a significant improvement to the other products available (at a lower price of course!).

Just because you can make it better or more beautiful doesn’t mean that the market will appreciate it.  If you know who your customer is and what they really want and value, then stick to what they need and deliver that.

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Yes I Am Still Here

Dear Readers:

It has been a while since I posted.  Sorry about that.  Sometimes life just gets in the way of a good marketing blog!

It all started with a National Sales Meeting in Chicago followed by Product Camp SoCal in the same week.  Both events were wonderful.  I strongly urge all of you to look for your local Product Camp and attend.  It is education and networking nirvana for marketing and product management people.  Product Camps are run all over the country.  If your area doesn’t have one, you can start one with your friends.  They are all run by the users and are a great way to develop new contacts and skills.

After that week I was interrupted by a really bad stomach flu (bad = emergency room and several days in bed).  Then it was Thanksgiving.

So somehow it gets to be a month later and here I am back to blogging and making a renewed commitment to show up every week.

To make up for the lack of posts, and at the suggestion of one of the readers, I have added the ability to share my posts via Twitter, Facebook etc.

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season.  We all need to take time to appreciate what we have including our family, our friends, our health and all the opportunities that come our way.  Marketing may be a passion but it is only one part of who we are as people.

Thanks for being a reader of my blog.  New posts coming starting next week!

 

 

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