marketing
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“Be Prepared,” that's the motto of the Boy Scouts of America. "Be prepared for what?" someone once asked Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, "Why, for any old thing." said Baden-Powell. As a young man I took the motto of the Boy Scouts of America to heart. And I suggest that in sales and marketing you do the same. Now I’m not advocating some high-pressured “Always be closing, always” type of philosophy. What I’m talking about is a thoughtful and prepared approach to any sales and marketing situation. “Being Prepared” in marketing is having the tools and strategy in place to not miss the opportunity or be caught off guard in a business situation. The team at Social Media Examiner recently received a real gold mine of social media insight. It’s a mega report recently released by MarketingProfs called, “The State of Social Media Marketing.” This massive report highlights social media usage, strategy and predictions for 2010. And this article will bring you a small look at some of the findings from this content-rich report. In a cool, air conditioned office on the West Side of Olympia, Washington are Monica Jonen’s new piping-hot-off-the press business cards rolling off the die cut board. The business cards hold an unusual title of Human Marketing Flotation Device. The picture above the title is a woman in red scuba goggles and a yellow snorkel accenting her black wet dive suit keeping her warm in the chilly Puget Sound waters.  The company W. L. Gore and Associates, makers of Glide brand floss, adheres to an interesting group management model – that of 150. Each of their plants is limited to 150 workers. A Gore associate confirmed that the company is so purposeful in its long term planning that they build no more than one hundred and fifty parking spaces: “When people start parking on the grass, we know it’s time to build a new plant.” What is so special about 150? Bill Gore, the late founder of the company, said that things get “clumsy” at 150. By “clumsy”, Gore is referring to the inefficiency in productivity that correlates with inefficient human relations on the job.  The number theme continues from our last blog (the 3/50 Project) to this one, the Power of 80/20. The 80/20 ratio appears in several business-related disciplines, including management, sales and marketing. In terms of management, Pareto's Law is an efficient way to maximize one of your most precious resources -- time. According to the law, you can reach 80% of your outcome with only 20% input. How exactly does this work? Start with a traditional "To Do" list -- your e-mail is a perfect starting point. Prioritize using the 4'D method -- Dump the junk (easier to set up a junk filter to begin with), Delegate to others what they can take care of (you hand off the responsibility, yet still retain the accountability), Defer (put off what you can handle later), and what's left, you DO it! Essentially, what you have accomplished is a true to do list, separate from the not-to-do list, which is a big time waster.Only a few short years ago, Facebook was still running on a computer in a dorm room and no one had heard of services like Twitter. Now, Facebook has surpassed Google as the most visited site on the internet, and Twitter now processes over 300 messages per second. |
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