While much is being made of the pending bankruptcy of Kodak, some fail to remember just how long Kodak has been around.  Kodak might be bleeding badly but it took 131 years to get to this place.  That’s a long cycle time from start to failure.  So while younger & sometimes techie companies might snicker at this venerable, once-great company’s slow death spiral, their potential cycle time  from start to failure is much shorter and more abrupt.

The list of once great companies now teetering on the brink of oblivion or at least in the struggle for survival on some level, is memorable:  AOL, Motorola, Sears, Dell, Blockbuster, Yahoo, Barnes & Noble, and more than a few others.

With the exception of Sears and Motorola, all the others were once high flying companies that lost their edge in a relatively short period of time.  Sears was started in 1886, so even though they’ve struggled in the last 20 years, they’ve had a good long run.  Motorola was started in 1928.

AOL, Dell, Blockbuster, and Yahoo are all relatively recent companies who started, rose, and fell (although not quite dead yet either) in a short cycle time compared to the Kodak’s of the world.  And that’s the funny thing about business failure these days: it seems to move faster in a more compressed time period than ever before.

Groupon is my personal favorite poster child for the shortest cycle time of rise and fall ever…even though they are still in business today.  Groupon had the expectation it would rise forever (and sell lot’s of shares at its initial IPO) but that isn’t to be so far.

I think you’ll see more companies going through what Groupon is experiencing: rise fast, rise big then fall fast, fall big.  While Groupon isn’t dead, it’s not a sure thing either.

In today’s fast moving business cycle environment – especially in tech but not exclusively – you need to build scale fast (lot’s of potential eyeballs or prospects) and then you have to have a business model that is not easily replicated after you’ve achieved scale…if you achieve scale.

Of course, it is possible for those falling to rise again.

The Lazarus Moment

Apple and IBM are obviously technology companies but that isn’t the history that brings these two corporate stories together.  Before Steve Jobs came back to the company in his second act, Apple was only months from bankruptcy.  IBM at it’s lowest point was near death until a new CEO (with no tech experience!) nursed IBM back to live in the early 1990′s.  Both Apple and IBM had a “Lazarus Moment” of coming back from the dead with new life and vigor.

But let’s be clear about this:  The Lazarus moment of both Apple and IBM are the exception to the rule.  They had the good fortune of being nurtured back to health by leaders who came in the right moment and the right time.  They made mostly the right decisions in terms of how to move those two companies from bad to great again.

Perhaps AOL or Groupon will prove everyone wrong and will rise again.  Or perhaps not.

High flier today.  Dead bird tomorrow.  The only difference between Kodak and AOL is that it took Kodak 131 years to fall from grace and only 29 for AOL.

Did you close business from this (print ad, direct mail piece, radio ad, TV ad, etc.) we ran?  

Now, the savvy salesperson who’s been around awhile will probably (not in all cases but most) say a resounding “YES” to that question…even though it’s probably not true.  Yup.  Happens more often than you think.

Case in point.  Many years ago when I arrived at JPMorgan Chase, I took inventory of the kinds of marketing efforts that were underway when I arrived.  The print ad spend was very high and sales managers went out of their way to tell me how highly effective the print campaign was.  The results were so good that they needed more of it.

My first question of course was centered on how they were tracking the results from the ads.  Tracking?  What tracking?  We know the ads are working because our guys say so, would be the common response.  The phone numbers in the ads were the sales branch phone numbers.  There was no way to electronically track the ads.  And asking the branch office to track the calls manually from the ads was in my experience giving the fox the keys to the hen house.  Manual tracking never works.

I’m always willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt the first time out.  However, I recall my favorite Ronald Reagan line during his presidency: Trust But Verify.

I wanted to believe that the current advertising campaign was working too.  All I did was create tracking so that we could see just how many times the phone would ring at any branch office due to an ad.

Guess what?  The phone was not ringing much at all.  In fact, the ad campaign I was evaluating was bust.  The senior sales managers were surprised.  ”How could this be?  Such a wide variance between what our sales guys were telling us?”

How does this happen?  It’s simple really.  There are more than a few sales professionals who have learned never turned down marketing support – even when it isn’t effective.  There’s a fear that if they told the truth, the valuable marketing investment on them would go away.

So next time you hear a sales person tell you that the marketing campaign is “working” or “we’re closing business with it”, trust but verify.

Local business owner decides it’s time to make a capital investment into their business and expand it one one fashion or another.  The banker is called in and they evaluate the loan package.  The banker’s first pass: will they be able to pay us back for the loan?  Of course, this is a good question for any loan.  All the ratio’s are calculated and analyzed in depth.  Cash flow calculations are made and discussed throughly.  The numbers are crunched and the loan is deemed approved by the higher powers at the bank.  All’s good right?

In most cases the answer is no, things are not good.  Why?  I can’t tell you how many businesses have been loaned money only to see the expansion fail and the loan gone defunct.  What could go wrong when all the right ratio’s where calculated and the cash flows necessary to pay the loan back deemed appropriate?

Plenty.  First and foremost, how much of the loan was set aside for marketing and promotion for the new expansion?  In too many cases that I’ve observed, there was little or no appropriation for marketing and promotional expenses.

Build it and they will come?  Not.

You spend time, effort and money on expanding your capacity to conduct more business and no one will know about it.  So focused and intense was the effort to make sure the expansion gets built right that marketing and promotion is pretty much an afterthought.

If your banker isn’t hounding you about what your marketing and promotional plan is for your great expansion, they aren’t doing their job.  If you don’t dedicate a healthy amount of your loan proceeds for marketing, then you aren’t doing your job.

Here are two takeaways:

1.  Every project, expansion or new build, takes longer to build and usually costs more than we plan for.  We end up with a finished project but with little or no money for marketing and promoting it.

2.  As a  rule of thumb, look to allocate and reserve at least 15 to 20% of your capital investment for marketing and promotional expenses.  If you end up spending that allocation because of cost overruns, you’d better figure out how to get the promotion done on a shoe string.

3.  Develop your marketing and promotional plan before the project work for the expansion begins.

You’re now the boss of your own life.  That’s right, today you officially become your own Chief Life Officer.  At Lincoln Financial, we’re here to help all Chief Life Officers take charge no matter where you are in life.  So here’s to long weekends and longer retirements, 14-year-olds and 401(k)s, and to passing on wisdom and opportunities.  Of course, this job doesn’t require you to punch any clock, or fill out any time sheets, because life isn’t just about what you make, but what you make of it.  And while your boardroom is more likely filled with family photos than mahogany, we’d be honored to join your inner circle to help you make important decisions with confidence.  After all, the future success of any organization comes down to the one making decisions today.  Let Lincoln Financial help you take charge.

Calling all Chief Life Officers.

I don’t know about you but that call to “all Chief Life Officers” really appealed to me.  Born at the tail end of the baby boom generation, I can appreciate the appeal to my deeply rooted “need to achieve”.

I’m sure if I was in the room at the time this ad campaign was conceived, I’m sure they were aiming for baby boomers just like me.   Chief Life Officer…yup…that’s me   (and many of my fellow baby boomers too).

Great strategy.  Great ad.

We say yes to just about everything.  Surely there’s plenty of times when “yes” must be deployed.  Like the time you get your first big job offer or promotion early in your career (and then a few more times after that).  When your future spouse asked you to marry.  When your kid asks if he or she can have that special something for their birthday.  When a close friend reaches out and asks you for help.  When a client has a major problem and asks you if you think you can help them resolve it.  These are all great times to say “yes”.

Then again, there are many times to use the word “no” in our personal and professional lives.  Here are a few of my favorite times to use the word “no”:

When someone who can afford the work asks me to work for free (or next to free).

When someone I work with makes a commitment for me without consulting me first.

When someone spams me on the phone.

When some stranger approaches me for cab fare giving me a story on why they don’t have it (it’s a scam…you’d be surprised at how many people give in to it and give money to a criminal).

When your teenager thinks you owe them a car.

When the person who just sent you an email sits in front of their computer or cell phone waiting for an immediate response.

When your cell phone rings in the middle of a meeting or conversation with anyone.

When someone asks if you received their text message on your phone.

When someone asks if your interested in serving on yet another non-profit board or taking on a “fantastic” committee opportunity.

I can think of a lot of reasons to say “no” these days.  The deliverance of “no” is simple.  It frees you from having to wear yourself down with a plague of insistent questions or queries.  It frees you from taking on responsibilities that only bog your life down and yield little to anyone.  It clears the air of constant interruptions and forced ADD.

Just try it sometime.  It’s quite habit forming.  And you’ll learn to enjoy the sometimes jolted look on the face of the person who fully expects (and in their minds insists) you say “yes”.

No.

Szekely did what digital publishing promises: cutting out the middleman, in this case a studio and sold his product directly to his customers.  And he sold the video for five bucks!

As he noted in the Mashable piece (by Lauren Indvik), “This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want…I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you).  You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.”

But here’s the real deal noting that he’d “continue to follow the model of keeping my price as far down as possible, not overmarketing to you, and keep as few people between me and you as possible in the transaction.”

That’s the promise of the constantly innovating digital publishing world for anyone who has a hankering to publish their work (whatever that is).  It’s the ability to publish your book or collection of essays or your video and have it listed on Amazon or in iTunes the very next day.

Flash forward now to a great literary publishing story named Vook.  What is Vook?  I’ll let Vook tell you:

A vook is a new innovation in reading that blends a well-written book, high-quality video and the power of the Internet into a single, complete story. You can read your book, watch videos that enhance the story and connect with authors and your friends through social media all on one screen, without switching between platforms.

I could go on and on with examples of where access to publishing to market is getting more direct to consumer than ever.  People selling novels for 99 cents and selling thousands and thousands of ebooks…introducing themselves to their new customers…who they can sell more novels to.

You know Amanda Hocking?  She’s an author that in January of this year sold 450,000 copies of her nine ebook titles that were priced from .99 cents to 3.99.  She went from ‘zero to sixty’ in publishing…something you couldn’t imagine not too many years ago.

Would be authors and video producers need not get too excited just yet.  No matter what the publishing model, it still takes that one thing to make a successful endeavor:

TALENT.

“People who earn the label ‘creative’ are really just people who come up with more combination of ideas, finding interesting ones faster, and are willing to try them out.  The problem is that most schools and organizations train us out of these habits.”  

For as much time as we all seem to spend trying to get to the essence of innovation in ideas, products, services, or whatever, it really does come down to being willing to mix and match different ideas, concepts, thoughts, and experiences and culling out of that process the best creative ideas.  The reality though is that not everyone has that ‘mix & match’ mentality built into their thinking processes.  I also think there are a couple of important components to what Berkum noted.

We can fall victim to our own experiences…good, bad or indifferent.  Being able to step out of your own viewpoint is not easy to do but vital if you want to get beyond the concreteness of your own perceptions on any subject.  By training, we try to put every idea and thought into a category box that we think it fits in.

There is creativity in numbers (but not too many).   The power of one is never better than the power of many but you can over do that like anything else.  Over the years, I’ve found that a rule of thumb for creative problem solving is at least 5 but no more than 10.  And when you can pick a team, pick from a variety of backgrounds and areas of knowledge.  Variety is the spice of creative and innovative thinking.

Defining the problem or challenge clearly and concisely a must.  We’ve all been in those meetings where we are trying to tackle a problem but keep going in circles, never quite getting at the kernel of an idea that could potentially lead to a workable solution.  In most cases, the cause for this cluster is a lack of problem definition.

Capture every kernel of an idea or thought.  I’m a big flip-chart guy.  Put me in a room with people and flip chart and I’m capturing thoughts, ideas, and anything else that moves in that room.  It doesn’t’ have to be neat.  You can always go and sort things out later.  But capture as much input as develops during the course of the discussion….AND DON’T EDIT.  Make sure you are capturing the thoughts and ideas of others in the context they mean it in…instead of slanting it in the context you want.  After a problem solving type meeting, I like nothing better than going back to my office and paper my walls with the charts and just stare at them for a while over a few days.  That’s when ideas start to form and gel.

Prototype and test.  Fast.  Berkun notes, “The best bet is to be an experimenter, a tinkerer — to learn to try out ideas cheaply and quickly and to get out there with people instead of fantasizing in ivory towers.”

Look, there’s no ‘secret sauce’ to creativity and innovation…just plenty of hard work & trial and error.  That’s why we love to solve problems, isn’t it?

The business value of integrity is worth far more than gold.  Integrity in business has another name and a distinct, definable value: goodwill.  Goodwill is defined as “the established reputation of a business regarded as a quantifiable asset.”  So, if you have a business that is engineered on a great business model that rest on a solid foundation of integrity, you win two ways.  Your first reward is a business that is growing and profitable.  Your second reward is a business that is worth far more than what your accountant would call “fair market value”.

What I personally like about integrity and the resulting goodwill that it produces over time is that there is no ‘formula’ for it.  There’s no ” 5 Steps to Integrity” or some other swill.  You either possess it now or you don’t.  That’s refreshing.

Social media marketing (SMM) is simply the process of creating and engaging both prospective and current customers using social networks, online communities, blogs, and other digital platforms.  The ‘social’ aspect social media marketing means that there is a two-way dialogue between you and your customers.

According to the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry report, businesses noted three essential benefits of social media marketing.  First, it provides a way to stand out in an increasingly distracted world.  Secondly, SMM can help improve your search engine rankings over time.  And last but not least, SMM can generate qualified leads for your business.

Small business owners are already taxed for time trying to attend to daily business matters.  Now they find themselves trying to figure out how to create and leverage SMM.

Here are 7 key steps that should be considered as you establish a social media marketing strategy for your business.

1.  Have a goal for your social media strategy.  Social media without goals is aimless.   If you create a Facebook Fan page, you need to be clear about the type conversations you want to engage prospects and clients in and the results you expect.

The Orange County Business Accelerator, (www.facebook.com/OCAcelerator), for example, uses its Facebook page primarily to promote its latest workshops and forums.  Filling seats for their workshops is the goal.

Local author Gene Ladd (http://tinyurl.com/GeneLadd) uses his Facebook page to engage his readers and followers in discussions related to topics covered in his nutrition and spirituality books.  His goal is to grow his following with like-minded people who are also potential buyers of his books.

2.  Social media choices: less is more.  Focus on a few key social media platforms and excel on them.  With literally hundreds of digital platforms to choose from, start with one, say a blog, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, or your own YouTube channel.  Once you establish a presence on that platform, then invest time in learning it inside and out before adding any other social media platforms.  The idea is to only take on what you have time to handle.

Stick with the basic and most popular social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Linkedin, Blogger, and BlogTalkRadio.  In most cases, I highly recommend starting with a simple blog or at most, a Facebook Fan page at first.  Neither costs anything to start other than your investment of time.

3.  Social media marketing is a content beast.  You should be prepared to feed the beast on a regular and consistent basis.  The basic types of content are written (i.e. blog or Fan Page post), video (i.e. YouTube.com), and audio (i.e. BlogTalkRadio.com).

Develop & produce fresh, relevant, and compelling content as often as you can.   To take some of the pressure off of yourself, encourage your partners and/or employees to also provide relevant business content whenever possible.

Create content that can be distributed across multiple social media platforms.  For example, Manhattan-based immigration attorney Brad Bernstein video records his daily radio show and then uploads it to his web radio channel (www.blogtalkradio.com/sparbernstein) and his YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/sparandbernstein).

Bernstein’s YouTube channel gets an average of 4,000 views each week.  Since he created it in 2007, his channel has garnered over 526,000 views and translates into booked consultations with prospective clients every week.
4.  Make your social media easy to find and link everything together.  What good is a blog or a YouTube channel if no one can find it?  If you have a website, make sure to link every social media property you have to it.

5.  Promote your social media sites constantly.  Promoting your social media marketing platforms is a 24/7 task.  Add your social media addresses to your email signature, on your business stationary, and your website of course.  Most social media sites allow you to add links so you can cross-promote on every site you have.

6.  Engage your audience.  Ask questions or discuss key issues in the context of your industry and business.  Create an open loop that encourages people to respond back.  Remember, social media means you have to be ‘social’.
7.  Social media marketing for the long haul.  All too often I see businesses that start a blog, Facebook page or some other social media presence and then flounder with little follow-up.  Eventually their social media efforts dwindle in direct proportion to their flagging investment of time creating and posting content.

Keep in mind that when you first engage in social media marketing, it will seem to take forever to build a following.  Like top athletes, you’ll ‘hit the wall’ on social media effort.  Keep pushing forward until you get your ‘second wind’ to keep up your social media efforts.

Most social media sites cost little to establish your business presence on.  The real cost is in creating and then sharing content that is relevant and engages your prospective and current customers.

If you can consistently create and share content with your social media audience of prospects and customers, you’ll be that much farther ahead of your competition.  Be assured that most are still asleep at the wheel of the social media opportunity but not for long.

1. Business Growth
2. Talent
3. Cost Optimization
4. Innovation
5. Government Regulation
6. Corporate Brand and Reputation
7. Customer Relationships
8. Sustainability
9. International Expansion
10. Investor Relations

I don’t know about you but you know what surprised me? Customer relationships didn’t even make it in the top third of the rankings. That’s very interesting in light of all the decades worth of attention, studies, books, workshops, conferences and a host of other resources that have put customer relationships at or near the top of the ‘priorities’ list.

Now I’m not saying that the other top rankings like business growth or talent are critical issues. They are but I’ve always subscribed to the practice of putting your customer relationships in the center of the engine for business growth. Everything within an organization from sales, marketing, operations, and servicing are all connected and integrated into the customer relationship.

Interesting that CEO’s find that ‘cost optimization’ is far more important that customer relationships. Well, it’s more like an astounding fact. Sure, cost optimization is always an ongoing focus but do you build an organization around that?

And for all the talk (and there’s been a lot of that) on ‘sustainability’, that ranks even lower than customer relationships. Then on the bottom of the CEO rankings are the poor investors aka shareholders. Remember that the next time you hear a CEO talk about building ‘shareholder value’.