Manizesto

I will never forget the knock on our door twenty years ago one Saturday morning. It was a door to door salesman.

“Hello Sir, How are you this fine morning? That’s fine, just fine! I know it’s Saturday and I want to respect your time, but I wonder if I might steal just 3 minutes to show you an amazing home cleaning product that will change your life.”

After a 30 second demonstration and sales pitch, my dad challenged him.

“Can it clean the oil stains on my garage floor?”

“Yes, sir it can.”

“Prove it. I’ve tried everything.”

My dad takes him into our garage, where we’re greeted by a huge oil stain where the previous renters’ Ford Grenada sat leaking for two years.

“See here,” said the salesman, “just three sprays of this stuff, it will take it out. One. Two. Three. Then a small brush, like this one…just like you’re brushing your teeth, then wipe it with a cloth.”

The salesman was perspiring, on his hands and knees with that little white brush, but seemed totally calm and confident that his product would work. He brushed it lightly for about 10 seconds. We couldn’t believe it. The oil was completely gone. My dad was as shocked as I; he thought for sure this impossible stain would disprove his “miracle” product, and he’d have an out for not buying the stuff.

A good salesman, like a good marketer, will let the product do the talking. Flashy images, a slick presentation, and a gigantic budget should always be secondary to the product. Otherwise you’ll end up with empty promises and disappointment when the product gets into people’s hands.

That salesman 20 years ago got it. The innovation you’re looking for in your marketing should be supplemental, never a distraction.

I want to obliterate my competition. And to do that, I often compare myself to the competition, analyzing every nuance of their business, finding out what makes them successful and innovative, and how I can replicate that success to their demise. Many companies spend millions and countless man-hours trying to beat the competition at their own game.

Who do you think you’re competition looks at? That’s right - you.

It’s a vicious cycle that leads to nowhere. You and your competition scrutinize each other to death like some sort of spy vs. spy game.

How can you get ahead of someone if you’re both doing the exact same thing? How can you find innovative solutions when you and your competitor are both staring back at each other? You can’t.

Don’t fall into the trap of looking at your competition as the end-all for your business. Truly innovative marketers know how to look at other, drastically different industries and find ways to apply those tactics to their companies.

Copycat companies may duplicate what you’ve done, but none will surpass you if you continue innovating.

Having trouble innovating? I am.

It’s draining to come up with ideas to grow your business, especially when tried and true tactics that you’ve tested and proven in the past suddenly don’t work. Has anything we’ve been doing changed? Why are our messages not getting through? Have we become irrelevant overnight? Was there an impact we could not foresee?

When things start to go south, you ask all these things. You question your capabilities. You question your data. You question your messaging. And you should. But if none of the usual questions turn up reasonable answers, you have a decision to make.

Option one - the easy choice - is to continue testing, searching your data and trying variations of what you know has worked. You may or may not have success by doing this.

The only other choice (unless you’re a quitter) is to do something drastically different. I mean consider changing your whole business model; go after a different target market; move your business online (or offline); hire or fire; invest in that R&D; consider you might have different competitors than you thought.

If you struggle to distance yourself from your business, hire someone who can. In short, think of something audacious and remarkably different than anything else you’ve done, and do it.

Photo by donnjmck

There’s a delicate balance between being friendly, competent and timely and just being creepy.

1. We like it when people use our names, but not if we haven’t told them it.

2. We like it when people smile at us, but not if they do it from a park bench 50 meters away and keep doing it as we walk by.

3. We like a nice firm handshake, but not when the person doesn’t know a handshake should only last one or two seconds, not 20.

4. We like Facebook friend requests, but not from people who aren’t our actual friends.

5. We like timely responses to our inquiries, but they can come too quickly. For example, I know of a company with technology that can call a person within seconds of them visiting their website. “Hello, Caroline, this is James. I noticed you’re looking at the MP3 players on our website site right now. Can I help you with that?”

6. We like it when Amazon sends us email offers based on what we’ve shopped for on their site, but how would you feel if they sent you a coupon for a product you looked at on a different site?

It’s best to use what you know about others wisely, to avoid singling people out for no good reason and to respect personal space (even personal “virtual” space should be respected).