I have been fortunate to have had many people who encouraged me toward self-improvement. An early example was an employer’s requirement to complete Dale Carniegie’s training to learn “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” As those of you who know me might expect, it did require staying after class a few times. I almost dropped out when I was required to stand up in front of the class and yell with believable enthusiasm, “Boy, do I feel good.” But somehow, I got through it and completed the course. Other than making some great friends in the class and remembering their names for a few months, the long-term affect was not as dramatic as was hoped. I do still remember to “live in a day tight compartment” and that “any fool can criticize, condemn and complain.”

Admittedly, my anti-establishment beliefs ran and still run deep. I didn’t buy their politics, their wars, their attitudes on race or religion, their dog-eat-kennel mentality. I didn’t want to dress like them, talk like them or concentrate on my golf swing. I didn’t want to demure to the “man” or respect a fool for his money or power. And still don’t.

Subsequently, I was encouraged by employers to be Ziglarized, motivated, sold on success, taught to be productive and trained to be a leader. I’ve listened to 10,000 miles of cassettes, read dozens of books, done exercises, been coached, retreated, meditated, counseled and cajoled (George W. Bush wasn’t on tour during my self-improvement phase). Generally, with the same result. As I once said to my wife about technology, but the same is true for me when it comes to self-improvement, “the mind is like a rock. Pour the water of knowledge on it and it looks wet, but almost nothing sinks in.” Okay, I do remember a Ziglar story from “See You at The Top” that I loved – how to train fleas. I love it because I suffer from flea training and still observe friends and their children who suffer from it. It goes something like this:

“To train fleas you place some fleas in a jar with a lid on the jar. The fleas will, of course, begin to jump, repeatedly hitting the lid in their attempt to escape. Wait about 20 minutes. The fleas begin to grow tired of hitting their head on the jar lid. They just give up and will no longer jump as high. Once they become accustomed to the fact that if they jump too high they will hit their heads on the lid. You can remove the lid and the fleas will continue to jump at the same height, never escaping the jar.”

One exception to those who watered my rock was Mooney Player. You’ve probably never heard of him. For much of his life, Mooney was a high school football coach in South Carolina at Saluda High School and Lower Richland. His teams won five state championships in his 18-years of coaching. Ken Burger, executive sports director at the Charleston Post and Courier, said of Mooney,

“He won 90 percent of his games by turning ordinary players into true believers.”*

In 1974, after a year as an assistant coach to Lou Holtz, the University of South Carolina was looking to replace Paul Dietzel and Mooney wanted the job. He campaigned publicly for it, saying that, “if his teams didn’t win at least 10 games, he wouldn’t accept a salary.” Of course, the university would never hire a high school football coach (hired Jim Carlen) and Mooney stopped coaching and became a motivational consultant. That’s when I met Mooney.

Mooney taught me to be productive and helped me learn to communicate without pissing off everyone in the process (I’m still working on that lesson). He didn’t have books or tapes and generally worked from a notebook more fitting for a football sideline. Mooney taught me to establish goals, break them into meaningful steps that could be accomplished and to set priorities. He taught me to plan each day with A, B and C priorities and to only do the A’s. His thinking was if you take care of the big things, the small things weren’t worth doing. I believed him and it works.

That is until you either run out of goals, or you live in “the worst economy since the great depression.” For many of us, business just stopped last year. Those of us who know a thing or two about a lousy economy or depression know that you gotta re-up. Set new goals. Break out the steps. Learn new things. Implement. Stay productive. Keep good habits. Stay busy. Most of us quickly accomplished our social marketing. We updated our sales tools. We streamlined. We planned. We called. We met. We scaled back. And we tried harder.

After a while of not having A priorities that could be accomplished (see training fleas, above) and being bored silly with B priorities, I found myself compulsively accomplishing C priorities. Those easy things to accomplish that fill our lives and have almost no positive consequence, except the sense of accomplishment that comes from crossing things off a list. I’m over that.

I know unemployment will likely worsen. That small business will likely not see an upturn for a year or more. That the worst may be behind us, but the future is going to be awfully hard. I know the stimulus won’t help me much. That health care reform, should it pass, won’t help me until after the next presidential election when it would go into effect. That doesn’t have anything to do with me. I’m not looking for Washington to solve my problems. I’m setting new goals. I’m going to break them into daily steps that I can accomplish. And I’m going cold-turkey on the C priorities.

I’m guessing that is how Nero must have felt when he stopped fiddling and looked out to see Rome in ashes. What a mess. Let’s get out the broom and get to work.

_________
*”Looking back at Mooney the motivator.” The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC). 2001. Retrieved November 04, 2009 from accessmylibrary.

I’ll give you a case in point – LikeTheDew.com. We started the site and are very much involved. We don’t accept ads, because we know we can’t deliver enough eyeballs for a traditional advertiser – at least, not yet. The site is about 6-months old. We have over 100 writers – many of them extraordinarily experienced, acclaimed and serious journalists. The site is doing great, particularly since we have zero promotion budget. We’re growing in unique visitors by about 25% or so a month and have jumped up 400,000 places in the site rankings this month (if this holds up, we should pass Google in a couple of weeks).

We monitor just about everything on the site. I can tell you who is on the site and where they are. I can tell you what system they run and browser they use. What they click. Where they came from, how they got there and where they go. Who gets our newsletter (all opt-in). Who opens it. How many times they open it. And what link they follow to get there. We don’t trust just one set of numbers, we have six different tracking software programs running at all times, plus “independent” analytics.

Each uses different technology. Each filters robots, spammers, feeds and the like. Each comes up with widely different numbers. So we look for clues to come up with realistic numbers. We can afford to, because we don’t accept advertising.

• So if I want to impress you, I’ll spout pageviews: 176,135 last month. Basing your advertising buy on pageviews would be like buying a magazine based on circulation multiplied by the number of pages read. Nice to know, but MEANINGLESS in total viewers. If does, however, tell us that our readers spend better than average time with us.
• So if I want impress you but seem conservative, I’ll spout visits: 50,420 last month. Basing your advertising buy on visits would be like buying a magazine based on circulation multiplied by the number of times they picked up the magazine. DARNED CLOSE TO MEANINGLESS, but more valuable on a site (repeated advertiser impressions) than in a magazine, since it’s unlikely the reader reads the same stories over and over, and thus will see the adjacent ad over and over.
• So if I want to be more realistic, I’d quietly spout unique visitors: 9,875 in the last thirty days. Basing your advertising buy on visits would be like buying a magazine based on circulation and adding pass along copies. A good number, maybe the best you’ll get, but who are these people, where do they live, will they respond to my ad, buy my product and did they mean to come to the site in the first place? Good questions.
  • 11% came from outside the US, had an 80+% bounce rate and averaged less than a minute on the site. So discount these numbers by 11%.
  • 44% of the US visitors came from outside Georgia, so if you don’t sell outside of Georgia, you might want to discount the numbers.
  • 47% of the Georgia visitors came from outside Atlanta, so if you don’t sell outside Atlanta, you might want to discount the numbers.
  • That drills us down to 2,609 unique visitors in Atlanta.
  • They spent an average of 4 minutes and 37 seconds on the site on each visit (excellent).
  • Averaged visiting 2.65 pages, but 52% only visited one page (decent, but not spectacular).
  • 24% were new visitors to the site (pretty good growth).
  • As a group, they averaged visiting the site a little better than 8 different days in the month (strong loyalty).

Now file that information away and let’s consider how you are going to be charged for an ad on a typical site based on cost per thousand (cpm). Let’s take a figure like $5 a thousand for impressions (many small sites charge upwards of $20 or more per thousand). On LikeTheDew.com, a one-month schedule, if it were available, would be $880 (176*$5), but what you’d get is 2.6 thousands in Atlanta which turns your cpm into $338.46. Seems a little high, don’t you think?

Does that make LikeTheDew.com (or any other small web site) a bad buy for your company? Not necessarily. It is also important to look at some other things. For instance:

• Environment – few or no ads, and yours stands out.
• Influencers – just how involved are the visitors and how many degrees of separation does it represent to a much larger population? Many smaller web sites have very involved readers. Lots of comments, means loyalty, involvement, etc. which can be meaningful to an advertiser, particularly an affinity advertiser. Likewise, if they have a good number of twitter followers and a high number of Facebook fans who are exposed to each post and comment, can be an enough of a multiplier to make it worth it.
• Audience composition – LikeTheDew.com is more like the features section you used to find in a good newspaper. People stories, reviews, lifestyle and even politics. These readers are involved, upscale and smart. Might be the intangible that makes the price worth it for the right advertiser with this target.
• Value adds – do you get a daily email newsletter with your buy? LikeTheDew has 1,100 opt-in email readers. That is a bonus.
• Content – if your product aligns with editorial (food with food), you might find that promoting to this audience is worth the premium.
• Cause rub-off – if your company uses cause marketing to promote your brand, being a supporter of a small web site that advocates causes consistent with your brand, may make it a valuable buy.
• Partnership – most small sites will work with you because they want your support. Set some reasonable and trackable goals (clicks, transactions on a unique offer, etc.) and ask the site for a make-good if you fall short.

On the flip side, if your company needs numbers – sheer, quick reach to make the transactions work, stay away from small sites. They won’t work for you. There are plenty of opportunities out there for lower cost impressions.

Bottom line: just because it is affordable, doesn’t mean it is.

This was no mid-life crisis. After all, I’m beyond “mid” life, unless I live to 106-years old. Rather, this mid-turnship was the manifestation of a dream to do work that really matters. It was about a passionate desire to use my communication skills to sell something more meaningful than soapsuds. When I pitched the idea to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, I coined the term, “mid-turnship” to describe an “internship” performed by a seasoned (AKA “middle age”) professional. By design, I spelled the “turnship” part of the word with a “u,” rather than the traditional “ternship,” as I envisioned my mid-turnship to be a turn… ing point in my career.

Why Susan G. Komen for the Cure?

I wanted to learn everything that I possibly could about cause-related marketing, so I chose one of the premier cause-marketers in the world. I had spent my entire 25-plus year career in the for-profit marketing communications arena. Along the way I had done my share of pro-bono marketing projects for worthy causes, many of which resonated with my own life experiences, or those of loved ones. Undeniably, I found the non-profit projects to be the most personally fulfilling.

I was not a total novice to the cause-related marketing discipline. Over the years, I had convinced many clients of the marketing, and inherent consumer loyalty value of cause-related initiatives, yet my ideas and methods came from instinct and common sense, not so-called “best practices.” I wanted to observe and absorb the best practices that have permitted Komen to be the leader they are, with blue-chip partners that return, year after year, having recognized the value of an association with Komen. I also wanted the insight that would be provided from the other side of the conference table – in other words, the cause.

What were the standards and characteristics that made for a good cause partner from Komen’s viewpoint? With a host of brands seeking pink-ribbon tie-ins, why, and how, did they choose their partners?  I felt blessed, downright jazzed, to have this opportunity.

Aside from the obligatory pink, there was something pervasive there.

Was it hope? Sure, there was enough to go around and spread far and wide. Was it purpose? Absolutely. Or pride? Perhaps, but, if so, it was not typical; there was not a whiff of arrogance in the air. Rather, there was something more like humility.

Perhaps I approached the question from the wrong direction. Instead of something that was omnipresent, what if there was actually something missing instead? That’s it! There was something missing at Susan G. Komen for the Cure. There was a pervasive absence of ambiguity. This was more profound to me than mere clarity; this was much more like certainty, as in: beyond doubt, to the point of conviction. Conviction is a powerful phenomenon that spawns another rare characteristic: unity.

“For the cure.” The mission is certain. The Founder, the Board, the CEO, the staff and volunteers are convicted and unified. I was enthralled and envious. I wanted to be part of something with this much purpose.

Briefly, I was a part of something with this much purpose.

Komen took my mid-turnship seriously with an ambitious and purposeful agenda. They provided me access to virtually everyone in the cause-related department, despite how extraordinarily busy and focused these people were.

On the first day I found my desk piled high with materials created for prospective partners, affiliates, survivors, and the general public, along with a bundle of surprisingly tasteful “pink” stuff. Retrospect suggests that I should not have been surprised by the good taste, but let’s face it: Pink is poised for plenty of prissy possibilities, not to mention a plethora of alliteration. Wanting to be part of the group, I quickly donned the promise ring they had given me. It was attractive, but basically little more than a wider-than-normal, smaller-than-normal pink rubber band. I had seen the stylish CEO, Hala Moddelmog, sporting her own promise ring, despite her attire in a chic St. John suit. She focused some of her unrelenting energy on twisting the ring to and fro, spinning it round and round, the word “cure” ever visible. Rubber accessories with a couture suit  = haute humility. It’s been almost a year since I slid that circle down my finger. Today, I feel as if something is missing when I’m not wearing my promise ring.

While it took me a bit to identify the ambient clarity of the place, I was much quicker in my review of their literature, promotional materials, and organizational chart.  Never had I seen such continuity that somehow still appeared fresh; rarely had I read stories that struck such a perfect note. What could have solicited pity effected admiration instead. The messages were as much about courage as cancer. As I turned the last page of the brochures, newsletters and such, I knew one thing for sure: Susan G. Komen for the Cure had the real thing – bona fide brand integrity, unwavering, yet still innovative, consistently up-beat despite the potentially deadly subject matter, and a potent infrastructure to protect and maximize the hard-working dollars they raised – close to a billion dollars to help educate, prevent, and cure breast cancer. As I later surmised, the brand integrity and brand equity have value well beyond fund-raising; they command authority in Komen’s public policy voice, prestige in research partnerships, and a welcome mat abroad as their mission goes global.

The Brand Police

My first meeting was with my mid-turnship mentor, Katrina McGhee, vice president of marketing. Katrina created my curriculum, in part based upon an advance outline of my self-defined mid-turnship goals and objectives. I had read and heard good things about Katrina: smart, energetic, dedicated, tough, but also delightful. I was most curious about the “tough” piece. How might it manifest in good works? The answer was soon revealed. She was Chief of the Brand Police.

Katrina’s brand “force” was primarily made up of fast-thinking, fast-talking, fast-walking women who act as if every moment counts. (Yes! There are many talented men employed at Komen, too). I never got the sense from anyone on the team that there was an individual upside to ones role or tasks. Rather, it seemed that their job descriptions were so clearly defined that they could have painted their individual brushstrokes single-handedly, yet they would still fit into the perfect spot in the big picture. This is not to suggest a soul-less assembly line; on the contrary, the process was simply very finely tuned.

Katrina explained the cause departments’ vertical practice structure, in which defined specialties were assigned to cause-related managers by product category: health & beauty, packaged goods, fashion, etc. Despite the individual domains, the group still valued, and sought the teams’ collective wisdom at a weekly gathering known as the Marathon Meeting, where would-be partners and promotions were discussed and vetted.

Komen’s guidelines for potential partners are thoroughly outlined on the komen.org website, with such requirements as: a guaranteed minimum contribution for the promotion, a strongly recommended minimum 10% of the purchase price donation for participating products and services, request for product samples and more. Prospects are also directed to download and complete the required new business questionnaire for consideration as a partner. Komen ultimately accepts approximately 20% of the partner-prospect submissions.

“Is Komen leaving donation dollars on the table?” I asked.

Katrina had ready answers. “Aside from obvious categories that are inconsistent with our message and mission [alcohol, tobacco], we seriously consider whether the real support and infrastructure are there for the would-be partner. Can the proposed program really deliver our breast health messaging? Can their concept raise the funds to meet our minimum donation requirements? Does the idea or brand conflict, or create competition for an existing loyal, long-term partner? Is there a champion for the cause at the top of the organization?”

From the partner side, it’s not strictly about near-term revenue. A good cause-related program can shift the paradigm on how consumers view a product for the long term, paving the way for a relationship with the consumer. A cause relationship can become a parity breaker in-store. In many respects, the Komen cause team actually performs on behalf of the prospect when they decline a partnership that is not well suited for both sides. As Katrina said, “The consumer will know when a brand is not committed to the cause and is just selling products, which doesn’t work for the cause, or the partner.”

The Circle of Promise

Once again, I began my day with Katrina. I had questions; she had answers for me, and for everyone else who appeared at her open door, or rang her telephone, including on this morning, an interview with Ebony Magazine.

Komen was embarking on an unprecedented campaign to engage women in the African American community. The campaign had been named, “The Circle of Promise.” This particular constituency had been identified for good reason: African American women were dying from breast cancer at a significantly higher rate than other women, despite a lower cancer incidence rate. This knowledge made me angry; it seemed to me like a random, and unfair disease bias.

Research findings highlighting this outcome disparity among African American women had given pause to Komen leadership. Why had this been happening? How could they change it? These questions led to the creation of The Circle of Promise, and a powerful top-down commitment to reverse this alarming trend. It was not even 10AM and I had been reminded that it takes courage to look backward, to peer in the rearview mirror and see those who may not have benefited as much as others from decades of unrelenting effort. This is hard to face, but Komen did so, intent on building trust and energizing a movement to again elevate the individual struggle to a larger purpose, which took Komen back to their roots: the real work. The partnerships, races, gala benefits, promotions, donations, and all the pieces of the cause-related efforts are merely lifting tools for elevating the struggle. Proclaiming what may be fundamental to their extraordinary success in the not-for-profit arena, a cause-related team member reminded me, “This is not something Komen does; it’s part of who we are.”

The days sped by in a flurry of note taking as I moved from one office to another to question, listen, observe and even on occasion, challenge. I found that I could not help but offer my thoughts. Even an intern has perspective, albeit at times, naïve. During those moments, I was most mindful of the curious dynamics of a “mid-turnship” versus a traditional youthful internship. I have experience and transferable knowledge; I wanted to be more than a sponge; I wanted to squeeze back. I did and the team was receptive.

Elevating the Individual Struggle to a Larger Purpose

Over time I have thought a lot about this concept of individual struggle elevated to a larger purpose. There really was a beautiful woman whose name was Susan G. Komen. She died too young. It was her individual struggle with breast cancer that lead Susan’s sister, Nancy Brinker to found the Susan G. Komen Foundation 26 years ago. She promised Susan that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever. Today, Susan G. Komen for the Cure is the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists fighting to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures.

So, what are the so-called best practices of cause-related marketing that I longed to learn? The prevailing answer is to be steadfast and uncompromising in one’s commitment to the mission. Some may find “uncompromising” to be an inflexible concept, but consider that the very heart, and root of the word, is PROMISE.

What this means to causes, and cause-related marketing, is not complicated: every initiative, every promotion, and every partnership should be held to the standards of the mission. One must ask, and answer, the straightforward questions:

• Can, and will, all parties keep their promises inherent in the partnership?
• Does the idea have integrity at its’ core?
• Can consumers and cause stakeholders believe the promise and trust the messenger?
• Is the concept consistent with the values of the brand and the cause?

Ultimately, and most importantly, does this relationship help the cause to keep their promise? Just as your mother told you, and as Nancy Brinker and her team have proven with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, it’s really all about keeping your promises.

“There is a subtle difference between a mission and a promise. A mission is something you strive to accomplish – a promise is something you are compelled to keep. One is individual, the other is shared. When a mission and a promise are one and the same… that’s when mountains are moved and races are won.” ~ Hala Moddelmog (President and CEO, Susan G. Komen for the Cure)

Putting Cause-Related Marketing Best Practices into Practice:

• Complete consumer disclosure is key. The partner should tell the consumer exactly what the contribution to the cause would be. Define it in terms of percentage of sales and/or minimum contribution. Make it visible on packaging and signage, advertising and the website. The cause-side should also be specific about how the funds raised will be used.
• Research the co-venture laws in the state(s) where the cause program will be employed. Many states require posting of bonds to ensure the contractual minimum donation.
• As the cause, seek multi-year contracts for sponsorships; as the partner, expect multi-year contracts. It’s in the best interest of all. Sponsorships need time to develop consumer traction. (Komen generally requires a three-year contract for sponsorships.)
• Budget at least $2 or $3 dollars per dollar of your sponsor fee in promotional support. What good is the sponsorship if the brand does not communicate the cause relationship to their target audience?
• As a partner, you should expect the cause to make it easy for your brand to participate. Look for programs with concrete internal infrastructure. Susan G. Komen for the Cure has created such a program in their turnkey “Passionately Pink for the Cure” where brands, companies, associations, and even individuals can easily participate, and even customize their participation. This program allows the most sophisticated – and the least sophisticated marketers, to readily employ participation.
  
• Whether you’re buying, or selling, determine the price tag for the promotion, or sponsorship based on a solid valuation formula that all parties can believe in. IEG, the premier sponsorship consulting organization offers valuation consultation on cause marketing programs, sponsorships, promotions, naming rights and more.
• The brand (or sponsor) should seek a 360-degree partnership: don’t leave possible consumer “touch points” untouched. Bring it home to local communities; activate local tie-in through retailers, volunteers and/or local affiliates.
• For more information on cause-marketing best practices, visit: causemarketingforum.com

1. First things first: file and organize all your email for the last 11 years into nifty folders and subfolders. By the time you’re finished, surely someone will call and give you business.
2. Update your billing: when your client gets a fresh bill that will remind them to buy something else.
3. Update your new business list. Create a plan to start an email newsletter. Freshen your web site. Update your new business PowerPoint. Commit to yourself that tomorrow, or someday soon, you will pick up the telephone and call someone on the list, even though you’re not really sure you really want to “do coffee” with anyone on the list.
4. Update your profile on LinkedIn so you’ll be ready when that business needs to find you.
5. Ditto Plaxo, Ryze, MySpace and Facebook.
6. Play some solitaire. Read the trade magazines on-line. Check the stock market. Get caught up on your expense reporting.
7. Work the social and business networks to find all those you haven’t kept up with for the last 15 years or more and invite them to be your colleague or friend. Surely they will have some business they have just been waiting all this time to give you.
8. Organize all of the photos you’ve taken since you bought your first digital camera, tag and upload them to Flickr, PhotoBucket, and Picasa. This is going to work.
9. Just a couple of degrees separated, join Classmates, Reunion, Meetup, Friendster. Start commenting on HuffPo, Blogspot, WordPress, Technorati. Digg it. Reddit. Stumble over it. Somebody’s looking for me and when they do, they are going to be so impressed they are going to give me work, but what you really want is work and have little of interest to post – that, and, you’re a naturally lousy blogger.
10. Start twittering via your iPhone with automatic posts to your networking and blogging sites with pedantic updates on your success at brushing your teeth, filling the car with gas and your latest thought.

Not all of this is, strictly speaking, passive-agressive, nor pathological (would be if you have hidden your contact information). However, if, during this time of economic crisis, you have practiced three or more of the above behaviors, you probably need to join a chat room and talk about it with others who will be understanding. Or, drop the passive crap.

One of the few guarantees of the new tell-everything-social-network-world is the anonymity that comes from all the noise on the web. Except for your spouse, your dog and, if you’re lucky, a few close friends, nobody cares. Everyone is too busy. There’s no 140 character success big enough nor malady bad enough to break through the narcissism of the social networks for longer than the 15 seconds it takes to go past it.

Sounds pretty negative? A passive-agressive trait. Hmm. Seems I’m infected. What’s the cure, I wonder?

Relevance. That’s it? Yes. And drop the passive crap. Helps to make it interesting or newsworthy so that it is noticed, but being noticed won’t make you relevant.  Problem is, relevance today is harder than it used to be. The only remaining vast homogeneous audiences are not likely your target: old people and toddlers. Develop aggressive relevant strategies for one micro group at a time. Then repeat the process a few hundred times. Drop everything that doesn’t work immediately and try again. Repeat the process until the crisis is over.

Now, take the rest of the day off and wait for the phone to ring.

There are a couple of segments that have not been affected by “the worst economic crisis since the great depression.” If your business is in one of those, congratulations and please try and keep it to yourself.

It is our nature to spend most of our lives on cruise control. Just as you do in a car, once you decide where you’re going and how to get there, you just point and instinctively react to what is before you. To continue the metaphor, the problem right now is that all the cars have stopped moving. Cruise control doesn’t work. You know you can’t get to where you are going unless you are moving. And that sooner or later someone in your car will get hungry, thirsty, need to pee, or you’ll run out of gas and freeze to death.

1. Do you sit there idling?
2. Do you change lanes only to find the problem is in that lane?
3. Do you forget your destination, jump the median and make a uey?
4. Do you wait for the next exit and set off on some unknown, longer alternative way in spite of the risk of getting lost or ending up at Bates Hotel?
5. Do you cheat the others by taking the emergency lane to pass as many as you can for as long as you can and hope you don’t get caught?
6. Do you abandon your car and start walking without fear that you’ll probably be eaten by roving bears?
7. Do you poll the others in the car for their opinion knowing you can blame it on them when things get worse?
8. Do you turn on the radio hoping to get some information from the news?
9. Do you get out, look to see if you can find out what’s wrong or ask some other drivers?
10. Do you pick up your cell phone, call someone who is not stuck in the same traffic, get them to find out what’s going on, and recommend the best way to get around it, think about it, discuss it, maybe get a second opinion and then act on it?

Most of us know that this crisis is real, that things have changed, that our future depends on the decisions we make right now. We waited as long as was prudent. We have used that time to listen to the pundits, check all the sales reports, review and amend contingency plans, meet and get input from all the staff and update our LinkedIn and Plaxo profiles.  We have cut back about as much as we can. Preserved as much capital as possible. And are wondering what’s the smart thing to do and when to do it.

I have spent my life studying decision making and why it is so easy to make decisions for others and so difficult to make them for me. Mind you, I never, well, almost never, take my role of influencing a company’s marketing and communications lightly. Quality decision making is so much easier when you have a measure of informed objectivity and are less influenced by fear of what could happen when the fortunes of many depend on it.

While not on every marketing bookshelf, Dr. Roberta Temes writes in her book about grief, Living With An Empty Chair,  the three stages of behavior that most of us in business identify with:

1. Numbness (mechanical functioning and social insulation)
2. Disorganization (intensely painful feelings of loss)
3. Reorganization (re-entry into a more ‘normal’ social life)

We are all grieving. We’ve felt the numbness and the disorganization. It is time for reorganization and re-entry into a more ‘normal’ business life. To restructure to profit on the business that is there. To communicate with stakeholders that expectation should be realistic. If you have the capital for patient investment, it is time to buy market share and hold, using the time to restructure that investment. But, it is not the time to invest in the same strategies and expect the same returns. Your customers have changed forever. So must your marketing. Cruise control no longer works. Regis would suggest, that this is the time to call your Lifeline and seek objective independent counsel for new ideas on ways and messages to increase share and reach new markets. Call me at 404-625-5848 (or email).

If this is your first visit, feel free to read on the really wonderful crap about how smart we are and what great work we can do for you by clicking the navigation menus under our logo at the top of the page. If you have some work, for god’s sake, just call me at 404-625-5848 (or email) and we’ll stop bloggin’ and get to work for you. We’re really, really fast – particularly fast, in fact, if you pay quickly. And I promise, in fact I swear that we’ll save you money over any out sourcing you might be considering in a really expensive Asian country. Convinced? Then call us at 404-625-5848.

Not convinced? Okay, another really good reason is that we do great work and we’ll make you money – yeah, money – and in this economy, too. Okay, that’s two reasons. Need more? Okay, how ’bout helping out small business (us). We are, after all, each other’s economic engine and small business, ours especially, will trickle up, down, on and all over this world. Do your part now. Call us. Give us a project. We promise to exceed your wildest expectation or just don’t pay. That’s right, don’t pay – in this economy, it happens all the friggin’ time. The small business guarantee: we’ll bend over backwards and you screw us if you want to. Though, we respect you a lot more in the morning if you do pay us.

Sounds pretty negative. Don’t mean to be. Must be my blood sugar. I’m a morning person. So maybe it best to ask for Terri, if you call (or email) in the afternoon.