Sometimes a comment spawns an entire thought train for me. Today, it wasn’t a comment here, but rather on that crazy Irish dude from Boston’s blog (can’t remember his name), and by Ken Kadet. I’m actually very much immersed in the thoughts about B2B and B2C not being so different right now, but I’ll have to save that for another post or a comment of my own.
Here’s the bit that struck me:
“The challenge for organizations is that the marketing communications teams feel like they have no time to get what they see as “the basics” done, let alone do “technology stuff” in social media. What they need to do is step back and reassess how their organizations view the basics of communications. That reassessment has to happen across marketing, sales, product management and at the executive level.”
If I look back at my traditional marketing/communications days in a B2B world, the basics were things like mailings. Collateral. The website. Maybe email if we got around to it. Press releases. And they all had the aim of taking the “message” we’d created, writing it down lots of times, and sending it to as many people as we could. The hope, of course, was that the message would somehow:
- Remind our B2B customers that we existed, or let prospects know
- Remind our B2B customers that they should call us for more stuff
- Get someone in the media to notice us instead of our competitors
- Make us feel better that we “got the message out there”
The thing we forgot is that these communication mechanisms spoke once and quit. They landed on someone’s desk, possibly read, certainly soon forgotten. Our 1% response rates sucked (even though we said they didn’t because everyone else’s sucked too, so at least we sucked equally), mostly because acting on it – in our customers’ worlds – required them to remember to do something with the information. We were lost in a sea of people’s other “things to do” and because it lacked anything remotely personal or relevant, people forgot it.
We lost sight of the fact that communication implies an ongoing and reciprocal process. So we’d follow on the first blurt with another blurt, and we’d call that “continuing the conversation with our customers” when what we were really doing was just talking some more.
I’m not saying that some forms of traditional marketing can’t be effective. But how do we EVOLVE them? How do we learn from the pieces that don’t work, and rethink what we consider the basics? We will spend millions on process improvement to take the slightest inefficiencies out of our production or management, but we won’t work to make our dialogue with our customers ruthlessly efficient and easy? (I know, I know, we can talk too about “streamlining gone bad” but stay with me here).
Once you’ve talked, then what? Are the basics out of habit, or because they really work? What elements of them maintain their relevance? What pieces are just holdovers because we don’t know what to replace them with?
Maybe some of the answers to scale issues when integrating social media is that some of these things aren’t an AND, but an INSTEAD, or a DIFFERENT.
I’m just thinking out loud, and my thoughts are obviously incomplete. But I think Ken is onto something. This is where you come in. Help me (and Ken) think this through some more?
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I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
you hit the nail on the head when you said this…
We lost sight of the fact that communication implies an ongoing and reciprocal process.
Follow-up is key.
it’s so important!
I think bigger companies could test some social media out on a small scale… see how they can incorporate it… plust it will give them a competitive advantage over their competitors if their competitors are not doing it yet.
Thanks for the great post!
DBK
David Kings last blog post..What is your marketing saying?
you hit the nail on the head when you said this…
We lost sight of the fact that communication implies an ongoing and reciprocal process.
Follow-up is key.
it’s so important!
I think bigger companies could test some social media out on a small scale… see how they can incorporate it… plust it will give them a competitive advantage over their competitors if their competitors are not doing it yet.
Thanks for the great post!
DBK
David Kings last blog post..What is your marketing saying?
Amber, I just returned from a trip to rural Western Kansas where I had breakfast for under $2.00 – Coffee (including refills) was 25 cents. Anyway, it got me to thinking that for many of the businesses in rural America the basics are even more basic then the “basics” you describe. These are very successful small town “main street” businesses where the basics involve breakfast at the local cafe, being involved in town government, being a boy scout or girl scout leader, coaching their kids soccer or little league team, and being active in their church – I could go on but you get the idea. These businesses are built on genuine relationships one customer at at time. The dialogue they have with their customers is “efficient and easy”. For them Social Media has nothing to do with technology. Their communication is “ongoing and reciprocal”.
I think those of us caught up in the excitement of the Social Media whirlwind sometimes forget this segment of our society exists or at least don’t appreciate how significant (and for me refreshing)it is.
The traditional marketing/communication basics you refer to are perhaps not basics at all but rather attempts to convince the customer that “we” know what is best for them. So, yes “INSTEAD and DIFFERENT” must be the strategy.
I believe that Social Media is an evolution of the very effective basics I describe above and succeed because they tap into very basic human values.
Thanks for helping exercise my brain – it is now sore in places I didn’t even know existed. 🙂
Rick Morgans last blog post..ACT Future Issues Work Group
Amber, I just returned from a trip to rural Western Kansas where I had breakfast for under $2.00 – Coffee (including refills) was 25 cents. Anyway, it got me to thinking that for many of the businesses in rural America the basics are even more basic then the “basics” you describe. These are very successful small town “main street” businesses where the basics involve breakfast at the local cafe, being involved in town government, being a boy scout or girl scout leader, coaching their kids soccer or little league team, and being active in their church – I could go on but you get the idea. These businesses are built on genuine relationships one customer at at time. The dialogue they have with their customers is “efficient and easy”. For them Social Media has nothing to do with technology. Their communication is “ongoing and reciprocal”.
I think those of us caught up in the excitement of the Social Media whirlwind sometimes forget this segment of our society exists or at least don’t appreciate how significant (and for me refreshing)it is.
The traditional marketing/communication basics you refer to are perhaps not basics at all but rather attempts to convince the customer that “we” know what is best for them. So, yes “INSTEAD and DIFFERENT” must be the strategy.
I believe that Social Media is an evolution of the very effective basics I describe above and succeed because they tap into very basic human values.
Thanks for helping exercise my brain – it is now sore in places I didn’t even know existed. 🙂
Rick Morgans last blog post..ACT Future Issues Work Group
Last month I wrote on the same idea, and expounded on how social media is an evolution of things businesses have been doing for years. I even used the exact same picture as you did. It and titled Let’s all do the social media evolution”
To me one of the main keys to getting businesses online is to get them to see the similarities between the things they have done offline and the things they can online and see how much more effective the results can be, which is one of the fundamental ideas behind the Guerrilla Social Media Marketing series.
I’m sorry to link to myself twice in the comments I don’t do it often and it is very relevant to the post at hand.
I feel that many businesses won’t get it because they are so used to the old ways of “spend millions on process improvement to take the slightest inefficiencies out of our production or management”. Until you can show them on their own terms how a similar product, or company has been able to reduce their cost while raising their profits and compare it to their higher costs and lower profits people just aren’t going to see the correlation.
You can see this resistance to change through the entire history of business. When computers came out businesses were laughing while clinging to their typewriters. As the internet started to grow businesses laughed and called it a fad, but now you can’t really do business and NOT be online in some fashion.
Change is coming and I’m not just talking about the white house. I firmly believe that this year we are going to see some amazing new developments in the areas of social media, business, marketing, and personal brands.
Thanks for the great post, it really stirred my inner commenter.
Josh Peterss last blog post..Mashable guest post: 30+ FaceBook Apps for Doing Business on FaceBook
Last month I wrote on the same idea, and expounded on how social media is an evolution of things businesses have been doing for years. I even used the exact same picture as you did. It and titled Let’s all do the social media evolution”
To me one of the main keys to getting businesses online is to get them to see the similarities between the things they have done offline and the things they can online and see how much more effective the results can be, which is one of the fundamental ideas behind the Guerrilla Social Media Marketing series.
I’m sorry to link to myself twice in the comments I don’t do it often and it is very relevant to the post at hand.
I feel that many businesses won’t get it because they are so used to the old ways of “spend millions on process improvement to take the slightest inefficiencies out of our production or management”. Until you can show them on their own terms how a similar product, or company has been able to reduce their cost while raising their profits and compare it to their higher costs and lower profits people just aren’t going to see the correlation.
You can see this resistance to change through the entire history of business. When computers came out businesses were laughing while clinging to their typewriters. As the internet started to grow businesses laughed and called it a fad, but now you can’t really do business and NOT be online in some fashion.
Change is coming and I’m not just talking about the white house. I firmly believe that this year we are going to see some amazing new developments in the areas of social media, business, marketing, and personal brands.
Thanks for the great post, it really stirred my inner commenter.
Josh Peterss last blog post..Mashable guest post: 30+ FaceBook Apps for Doing Business on FaceBook
I agree with Dave. You need follow up.
I agree with Dave. You need follow up.
While traditional messaging is still important, and has a major impact on your branding effort, it has not been a real conversation, largely to due to the technology. (there is no dialogue on television)
The new social media is all about conversation, so the new “basics” need to understand how to embed the message within the conversation, and at the same time realize that the conversation of today has far more value than the message of old ever did.
Consumers, for the most part, want to be engaged, not talked down to. And the beauty is that a more authentic message will evolve from the conversation than ever came out of an ad agency!
Global Patriots last blog post..Blessed Unrest – Insight #2
While traditional messaging is still important, and has a major impact on your branding effort, it has not been a real conversation, largely to due to the technology. (there is no dialogue on television)
The new social media is all about conversation, so the new “basics” need to understand how to embed the message within the conversation, and at the same time realize that the conversation of today has far more value than the message of old ever did.
Consumers, for the most part, want to be engaged, not talked down to. And the beauty is that a more authentic message will evolve from the conversation than ever came out of an ad agency!
Global Patriots last blog post..Blessed Unrest – Insight #2
But is it possible? We all enjoy and appreciate the authentic conversations, 1 on 1, with people who take the time to understand us. But, in reality, can that scale within a business? If so, how does it look? Or, does it just evolve to another, different, form of mass media.
If you look at the top people on Twitter, I would have to say that they have evolved to a one-to-mass communication system already (occasional 1-to-1 conversations notwithstanding). It’s not faulting them in any way, nobody can reasonably scale to have 35,000 authentic, 1 on 1 conversations at once.
So, where do we end up in 10 years? Do the old habits and models end up resurfacing just because of the scale involved?
Steven Woodss last blog post..Looking for an Outcome – Testing in B2B
But is it possible? We all enjoy and appreciate the authentic conversations, 1 on 1, with people who take the time to understand us. But, in reality, can that scale within a business? If so, how does it look? Or, does it just evolve to another, different, form of mass media.
If you look at the top people on Twitter, I would have to say that they have evolved to a one-to-mass communication system already (occasional 1-to-1 conversations notwithstanding). It’s not faulting them in any way, nobody can reasonably scale to have 35,000 authentic, 1 on 1 conversations at once.
So, where do we end up in 10 years? Do the old habits and models end up resurfacing just because of the scale involved?
Steven Woodss last blog post..Looking for an Outcome – Testing in B2B
Excellent questions as usual, ma’am. My favorite line:
“What pieces are just holdovers because we don’t know what to replace them with?”
You talk about squeezing out process efficiencies, but a lot of companies (and certainly many individuals) aren’t even good at that — even in areas like manufucturing, finance, and sales where the benefits are clearly demarcated by numbers. I think that in very many cases marketers are doing the best they can, GIVEN that they are (a) under the gun all the time, and (b) working in a fog, either without metrics or with highly imperfect metrics that don’t tell them the right things.
As for what to do about all of this? Yes, “INSTEAD” and “DIFFERENT.”
Tim Walkers last blog post..Back to the ethic of the farm?
Excellent questions as usual, ma’am. My favorite line:
“What pieces are just holdovers because we don’t know what to replace them with?”
You talk about squeezing out process efficiencies, but a lot of companies (and certainly many individuals) aren’t even good at that — even in areas like manufucturing, finance, and sales where the benefits are clearly demarcated by numbers. I think that in very many cases marketers are doing the best they can, GIVEN that they are (a) under the gun all the time, and (b) working in a fog, either without metrics or with highly imperfect metrics that don’t tell them the right things.
As for what to do about all of this? Yes, “INSTEAD” and “DIFFERENT.”
Tim Walkers last blog post..Back to the ethic of the farm?
The only thing I can add to this conversation is to ask the question: how do I receive information now? For me, a customer/consumer, I still get the newspaper delivered to my door and I still do look at the advertisements. I don’t watch television – we don’t subscribe to cable. We do purchase dvds of favorite movies and tv shows. I get news also from the internet such as MSNBC. I Twitter and have a blog and read blogs. I throw away “junk mail.” I don’t even look at them anymore and never respond to door-to-door or telephone sales. So – maybe marketers ought to think: how do they receive messages? How would they like to receive messages? And then apply that to their companies efforts.
Linda Smiths last blog post..What my parrot’s nutrition has to do with my business
The only thing I can add to this conversation is to ask the question: how do I receive information now? For me, a customer/consumer, I still get the newspaper delivered to my door and I still do look at the advertisements. I don’t watch television – we don’t subscribe to cable. We do purchase dvds of favorite movies and tv shows. I get news also from the internet such as MSNBC. I Twitter and have a blog and read blogs. I throw away “junk mail.” I don’t even look at them anymore and never respond to door-to-door or telephone sales. So – maybe marketers ought to think: how do they receive messages? How would they like to receive messages? And then apply that to their companies efforts.
Linda Smiths last blog post..What my parrot’s nutrition has to do with my business
The only problem with what Linda says @7 is that it makes WAY too much sense. 🙂
In fact, Linda, you’re in very good company: as you probably know, Seth Godin has been talking for years about “permission marketing” — and how ALL of us prefer to do business with people who don’t, for instance, interrupt us by telephone in the middle of dinner.
The hard part is that a big chunk of existing marketing know-how — the bad kind that Amber talks about in this post — is tied to old / bad / interruption-oriented methods. All of this stuff takes a long while to uproot.
Tim Walkers last blog post..Back to the ethic of the farm?
The only problem with what Linda says @7 is that it makes WAY too much sense. 🙂
In fact, Linda, you’re in very good company: as you probably know, Seth Godin has been talking for years about “permission marketing” — and how ALL of us prefer to do business with people who don’t, for instance, interrupt us by telephone in the middle of dinner.
The hard part is that a big chunk of existing marketing know-how — the bad kind that Amber talks about in this post — is tied to old / bad / interruption-oriented methods. All of this stuff takes a long while to uproot.
Tim Walkers last blog post..Back to the ethic of the farm?
I like how you managed to simplify a marketing departments responsibility to 4 bullet points – lol – and it works! I agree with the posters saying it’s about creating a conversation – you need to create reasons to follow-up, but its not all about the “push” – you need to create reasons for your prospects/customers to follow-up – the “pull” – and just as importantly to create conversations between each other – the “pass”. I’ve just been discussing this very topic in my blog looking at how brands can create a “social currency” to support this.
Mark Sages last blog post..Social Currency Marketing
I like how you managed to simplify a marketing departments responsibility to 4 bullet points – lol – and it works! I agree with the posters saying it’s about creating a conversation – you need to create reasons to follow-up, but its not all about the “push” – you need to create reasons for your prospects/customers to follow-up – the “pull” – and just as importantly to create conversations between each other – the “pass”. I’ve just been discussing this very topic in my blog looking at how brands can create a “social currency” to support this.
Mark Sages last blog post..Social Currency Marketing
Amber,
Good points all… marketing, perhaps counter-intuitively, does tend to be one of those departments that tends to resist innovations like automation and process improvement. Perhaps with good reason — there’s an element of creativity and spark that in marketing that can and should resist some of these efforts.
Others require a second look, like using content management systems, and measuring marketing programs.
In B2B, your list of marketing responsibilities is incomplete without mentioning sales. Marketing is all about delivering leads to sales and giving sales the tools they say they need. Keeping these “basics” in the pipeline keeps sales from complaining that “marketing isn’t doing anything.”
If sales is engaged, you can get somewhere. Can they participate? Can they see what their leaders are doing to engage their market? Can they measure how leads are increasing, and, more importantly, whether those leads are improving in quality? Is all this effort making it easier for them to make and exceed their numbers?
Then you’re getting somewhere!
Ken Kadets last blog post..B2B and Social Media: It’s a Matter of Time
Amber,
Good points all… marketing, perhaps counter-intuitively, does tend to be one of those departments that tends to resist innovations like automation and process improvement. Perhaps with good reason — there’s an element of creativity and spark that in marketing that can and should resist some of these efforts.
Others require a second look, like using content management systems, and measuring marketing programs.
In B2B, your list of marketing responsibilities is incomplete without mentioning sales. Marketing is all about delivering leads to sales and giving sales the tools they say they need. Keeping these “basics” in the pipeline keeps sales from complaining that “marketing isn’t doing anything.”
If sales is engaged, you can get somewhere. Can they participate? Can they see what their leaders are doing to engage their market? Can they measure how leads are increasing, and, more importantly, whether those leads are improving in quality? Is all this effort making it easier for them to make and exceed their numbers?
Then you’re getting somewhere!
Ken Kadets last blog post..B2B and Social Media: It’s a Matter of Time
The crazy Irish dude is right 🙂
Right now, marketing departments and, less puzzlingly, PR departments are looking at social media as an additional “thing” on their plate that they have to take care of and they don’t think they have time for it or even if they do, it gets relegated to the end of the TO DO list.
It’s the same problem we keep talking about. Communication professionals look at social media and see it as something extraneous to their overall strategy. They feel like they have to check off the Social Media box on their checklist of areas in which to promote their message, but don’t know how or maybe even why.
This problem is easily solved. More people need to understand that what’s happening isn’t something radically new and different. Simply put, we now have the tools to build community in a different way than before: quicker, more targeted, more participatory, etc. Other than that, it’s just as Rick Morgan said: genuine relationships, one customer at a time.
The crazy Irish dude is right 🙂
Right now, marketing departments and, less puzzlingly, PR departments are looking at social media as an additional “thing” on their plate that they have to take care of and they don’t think they have time for it or even if they do, it gets relegated to the end of the TO DO list.
It’s the same problem we keep talking about. Communication professionals look at social media and see it as something extraneous to their overall strategy. They feel like they have to check off the Social Media box on their checklist of areas in which to promote their message, but don’t know how or maybe even why.
This problem is easily solved. More people need to understand that what’s happening isn’t something radically new and different. Simply put, we now have the tools to build community in a different way than before: quicker, more targeted, more participatory, etc. Other than that, it’s just as Rick Morgan said: genuine relationships, one customer at a time.
So now here’s the ugly question that’s always in the back of my mind, but now I’m going to put it out there.
You teach. We inform. You guide, evolve, do everything you can to move the discussion forward and find a new perspective.
Will some companies just not ever “get it”? And is there a point where it’s okay to say you’ve done what you can and walk away (whatever that means) and let the chips fall where they may?
What I’m wondering is: should we be spending the time teaching and furthering the ones who “get it” instead of trying desperately to convince the ones that just aren’t cut out for this? Hmmm…perhaps a post….
Amber Naslunds last blog post..Marketing & Execution in 2009
So now here’s the ugly question that’s always in the back of my mind, but now I’m going to put it out there.
You teach. We inform. You guide, evolve, do everything you can to move the discussion forward and find a new perspective.
Will some companies just not ever “get it”? And is there a point where it’s okay to say you’ve done what you can and walk away (whatever that means) and let the chips fall where they may?
What I’m wondering is: should we be spending the time teaching and furthering the ones who “get it” instead of trying desperately to convince the ones that just aren’t cut out for this? Hmmm…perhaps a post….
Amber Naslunds last blog post..Marketing & Execution in 2009
Some companies will never get it. Let them go. They’ll either find a way to thrive without it (and perhaps give you and me a surprising lesson), or they’ll muddle along (like most companies do most of the time), or they’ll fail (and good riddance).
In general, to make a mashup of Guy Kawasaki and NY Giants coach Tom Coughlin (!), you need to focus your efforts on the converted and the agnostics — not the atheists.
Tim Walkers last blog post..Stop!
Some companies will never get it. Let them go. They’ll either find a way to thrive without it (and perhaps give you and me a surprising lesson), or they’ll muddle along (like most companies do most of the time), or they’ll fail (and good riddance).
In general, to make a mashup of Guy Kawasaki and NY Giants coach Tom Coughlin (!), you need to focus your efforts on the converted and the agnostics — not the atheists.
Tim Walkers last blog post..Stop!
To walk away or not to walk away? It’s a difficult question to answer. I wrestle with this on a near daily basis as it pertains to the democratic process and people being informed about the activities of government and elected officials.
One approach in that area is to just let it go, stop trying to educate. People are as informed as they want to be. If they’d rather watch sports and American Idol, then just forget about them.
One could apply the same prescription to social media. If an organization doesn’t understand its use or value, then forget them.
I’ve tried that attitude on for size. It doesn’t fit me. Maybe when I get older I can get more complacent. For now I still see hope. I still feel like the atheists can and should be preached to.
To walk away or not to walk away? It’s a difficult question to answer. I wrestle with this on a near daily basis as it pertains to the democratic process and people being informed about the activities of government and elected officials.
One approach in that area is to just let it go, stop trying to educate. People are as informed as they want to be. If they’d rather watch sports and American Idol, then just forget about them.
One could apply the same prescription to social media. If an organization doesn’t understand its use or value, then forget them.
I’ve tried that attitude on for size. It doesn’t fit me. Maybe when I get older I can get more complacent. For now I still see hope. I still feel like the atheists can and should be preached to.
Good post. You are right in that the traditional old school way of communicating was a monologue. Social Media is allowing companies to get closer to their customers and to seek 1:1 relationships and to create a real and lasting dialogue.
You mentioned that we will spend money to remove “inefficiencies” from processes but we won’t do the same for “dialogue with our customers” – the reason for this is that it’s hard. Tom Peters said “What gets measured gets done” and I think this applies to traditional processes and to marketing activities.
The challenge is that most marketing oriented tasks (processes, if you will) do not have specific metrics tied to them. This may because the marketeers don’t want to tie themselves to specific goals and objectives (which can seem quite paltry – e.g. a 1% return) or because they don’t know what to measure.
I think the smart companies are understanding this and they are making adjustments. They are using Social Media to affect this effort to put more realistic metrics behind more of the processes that traditionally had not been measured very effectively.
Jeff Shueys last blog post..Microsoft drops the Hammer (as predicted)
Good post. You are right in that the traditional old school way of communicating was a monologue. Social Media is allowing companies to get closer to their customers and to seek 1:1 relationships and to create a real and lasting dialogue.
You mentioned that we will spend money to remove “inefficiencies” from processes but we won’t do the same for “dialogue with our customers” – the reason for this is that it’s hard. Tom Peters said “What gets measured gets done” and I think this applies to traditional processes and to marketing activities.
The challenge is that most marketing oriented tasks (processes, if you will) do not have specific metrics tied to them. This may because the marketeers don’t want to tie themselves to specific goals and objectives (which can seem quite paltry – e.g. a 1% return) or because they don’t know what to measure.
I think the smart companies are understanding this and they are making adjustments. They are using Social Media to affect this effort to put more realistic metrics behind more of the processes that traditionally had not been measured very effectively.
Jeff Shueys last blog post..Microsoft drops the Hammer (as predicted)
Anna @16 – I’m sympathetic to what you say, because I’m an optimist at heart and a teacher by nature, so I always figure that if everybody can just sit down and talk it out, the “atheists” will eventually come around.
But a couple of things prevent me from acting on that:
1. Thomas Kuhn noted that scientific revolutions often happen only after the old guard has died off: new ideas often need a new generation of people to carry them forward. This isn’t a good or bad thing in itself — it’s just a thing. But it’s worth pondering how sometimes it takes generational change to bring reform to a discipline, whether scientific or commercial.
2. People who have genuinely closed their minds to something often represent bad investments of our time because they throw us way over into the land of diminishing returns. What if it takes 100 units of my effort to get one of these “atheists” to begrudgingly admit that 5% of my viewpoint is valid? And what if the same 100 units could totally convert 10 people who had been merely indifferent or uninformed? I ought to spend those 100 units on the 10 who can be “converted.”
On top of everything else, some of those 10 will become evangelists themselves. (Which reminds me to note that the atheist/agnostic language comes from something Kawasaki wrote about being a product evangelist.) Eventually, some of the real soreheads will come around, but it will be in part because they see enough people they respect (or admire, or fear, etc.) coming over to our side of the fence.
Fish where the fishing’s good, in other words.
Tim Walkers last blog post..Stop!
Anna @16 – I’m sympathetic to what you say, because I’m an optimist at heart and a teacher by nature, so I always figure that if everybody can just sit down and talk it out, the “atheists” will eventually come around.
But a couple of things prevent me from acting on that:
1. Thomas Kuhn noted that scientific revolutions often happen only after the old guard has died off: new ideas often need a new generation of people to carry them forward. This isn’t a good or bad thing in itself — it’s just a thing. But it’s worth pondering how sometimes it takes generational change to bring reform to a discipline, whether scientific or commercial.
2. People who have genuinely closed their minds to something often represent bad investments of our time because they throw us way over into the land of diminishing returns. What if it takes 100 units of my effort to get one of these “atheists” to begrudgingly admit that 5% of my viewpoint is valid? And what if the same 100 units could totally convert 10 people who had been merely indifferent or uninformed? I ought to spend those 100 units on the 10 who can be “converted.”
On top of everything else, some of those 10 will become evangelists themselves. (Which reminds me to note that the atheist/agnostic language comes from something Kawasaki wrote about being a product evangelist.) Eventually, some of the real soreheads will come around, but it will be in part because they see enough people they respect (or admire, or fear, etc.) coming over to our side of the fence.
Fish where the fishing’s good, in other words.
Tim Walkers last blog post..Stop!
Thanks Tim, those are all very good points. I think you might be right about the generational change aspect in particular. Sometimes that’s really the final piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately patience isn’t one of my virtues 🙂 But I’ll keep working at it.
Thanks Tim, those are all very good points. I think you might be right about the generational change aspect in particular. Sometimes that’s really the final piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately patience isn’t one of my virtues 🙂 But I’ll keep working at it.