Some marketing messages just hit you between the eyes.

I was in Philidelphia’s Reading Terminal Market to discover the delights of the famous philly cheesesteak and the sign in the picture had me straight away.

“Pizza & Cheesesteaks” is the simplest kind of marketing message, relying on the idea that if you want a pizza or a cheesesteak, and you want it now, you should stop wasting your time and buy it here. It’s a straight forward tactic that worked well for the cheesesteak that day and for commodity products any day.

But what if your product is a bit more complicated than fast and cheesy food?

Leading a team that wants to skip to market with a reputation for great products means weaving four simple ideas into every part of your go-to-market thinking. The first two often get lost under the heading of marketing — remember the old saying though, marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department — the second two are pure product development, but all four are built from the ground up.

Simple Description

What is in the box? The idea here is to give your customers a simple way to describe what you have to offer, whether it’s cheesesteak, a micro-blogging platform or a jet engine.

If you’re struggling to work out what you’re selling, listen in to what your existing customers already call it. Don’t worry about trying to differentiate here — the in-the-box question isn’t supposed to turn up a unique answer, but a framing one.

Simple Value

Why would I buy it? If I’m in the market for what you sell AND you come up with a great reason to buy, you have a least half a chance of turning me into a customer.

So what’s the value, what will it do for me? Will you fill that huge sandwich shaped hole in my stomach, connect me to the world in less than a minute, haul an aeroplane full of paying passengers/cargo into the sky at the lowest cost per unit?

Of course, the best marketing messages are stuffed full of differentiated offers and compelling thoughts. Marketing communications people spend their day doing this but they sometimes lose sight of the true value. However persuasive the copy, and however sophisticated the message you have to get across, make sure you don’t obscure the simple description and simple value of what you have to offer.

The point of marketing is to ease a customer’s path to your door — good marketing means I’m more likely to try, and even persist with a product for a while — but the success of the product comes when I incorporate it into my daily life and tell my friends about it. And that means it better be simple to use too.

Simple to Use

Don’t make me work (too hard). Marketing may provide customers but the product lives or dies in the hands of the customer.

Any product that’s difficult to use risks a future covered in dust and destroys almost all chance of positive word-of-mouth. Products should be as intuitive as possible but the creators are usually the worst judges — so get out of the building, talk to customers, test, test, test, and then act on the results.

Simple to Extract the Value

Help me be successful. Ultimately, you have to deliver the value you promise. You’re not selling widgets, you’re selling what the widgets can do for the customer.

Send your customers on an unsupported voyage of discovery and they might get to the promised land but more likely they’ll bob around on rough seas. Build a support network around your customers that helps them get exactly the result they wanted when they dipped into their wallet.

The Ultimate Benefit

Of the four simple things, the ultimate benefit is the value that customers extract. Great products, reputations, and word-of-mouth are all built when customers do things more quickly, more easily, more cheaply, or just better than before.

The ultimate benefit means success for the customer and success for you.

The success of my cheesesteak? My stomach complained but my face was smiling.

Every manager has to deal with uncomfortable situations from time to time.

From giving constructive feedback to letting people go, difficult conversations are part of life.

If you’re not sitting down with a troublesome member of your team, and dealing with the stuff that’s so troubling, then you’re not managing — you’re ignoring/avoiding/ evading/bailing/hiding/running-away-from and not living up to your responsibilities.

Some of the most difficult conversations involve key players who aren’t living up to their responsibilities or your expectations; worse still if the problem is a fellow founder.

• Deal with problems early — don’t wait for a mythical right time. Give feedback (good and bad) as near to the source as possible. Immediate and direct is better than delayed and fudged.
• Use direct language — “you’re not pulling your weight” isn’t very helpful; “I’m really frustrated that each new feature takes much longer than your original estimate,” is.
• Write it down — the more difficult the conversation or the more likely you are to chew over your words, the better it is to use notes. I make sure I can stay on track by looking at my crib sheet and saying “Let me make sure we’ve dealt with everything. Oh yes, …”

No amount of experience or preparation ever makes these situations easy, but leadership means entering the discomfort and dealing with the issue.

One final point — don’t tell them how difficult it is to say this stuff. You may think it helps to get them on your side. It doesn’t. If it’s hard for you to say, it’s even harder to hear – so stop thinking about yourself and try to empathise; this conversation is not about you.

Image copyright: Corscri-Daje tutti! via Flickr

Inside any kind of organisation bigger than the land of Me & My Mate, you’re probably surrounded by people who do a job that’s completely different to yours.

What do all those people do?

I’ve been thinking about the doing part of that question lately, rather than the people part. The way I see it, no matter what the job title or department, the doing falls in to one of only five categories:

Making Promises – easiest to think of as all the things that happen in sales or marketing, some customer services and board functions. Anything that makes any kind of commitment on behalf of the company is a making promises action.

Keeping Promises – everything that even vaguely fits into operations: all the tasks that make the product, perform the service, look after customers, pick up, package or deliver the thing.

Measure and control – all the things involving numbers or making sure nothing gets out of hand.

Support – what gets done in order to make everything else function; what normally happens under the headings of IT or HR for instance.

Leadership and innovation – without getting bogged down in book style definitions, leadership is about direction setting and steering to the compass whilst innovation is all the processes that aim to improve things.

These are not departments, they’re functions, and whilst every person spends most of their time in one kind of role, they probably undertake processes in others, if not all. For example, a production worker is mainly employed to keep promises, but they probably also try to innovate to improve things, keep an eye on production rates and quality, put their arm around colleagues when they need it, and continually make commitments within and for their department.

Ok. So what? Is this anything other than yet another way of thinking about organisational structure?

If every process is about making, keeping, ensuring and supporting promises, or improving the way the whole thing gets done, then every job is about the customer.

So what do all those people do? Let’s hope they’re not wasting any time discussing, deciding or doing anything that doesn’t draw a straight line to improving the life of the customer.

There are no rules.

Running a business, moving a new product along the birth canal, change, getting things done – there are as many ways to do stuff as there are people who answer to ‘you.’ Thankfully. That means my way, or your way, are both fine. You’re good. Go for it.

But if you’re in a place where other people are just, you know, hanging around waiting to contribute, why not give them a shot? Running a meeting isn’t like driving or typing or looking in the mirror, it’s not a table for one. The point is to share, to bring along, to hear, to understand, to convince, to check, to develop, to decide.

To communicate, to converse. Two way.

And here’s the thing.

Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say, if only given the chance. Of course, some people have to be invited, “what do you think John?”, whilst others should be invited to allow them space, “that’s fantastic James, thank you. Now let’s hear what someone else has to say. How about you Jane, what are you thinking?”

Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say, if only given encouragement. Creative and independent thought is in everyone, but it is sensitive and easily scared off. Make it feel welcome. Facilitators’ guide books are a hundred ideas on encouraging, they all boil down to, “feel free, be bold.”

Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say, if only given permission. Talking shops and rubber stamping happens when people are afraid to speak truthfully. Push for candour, especially when it’s hard to take – better hear it in this room today than in the market tomorrow.

I have no idea why you called the meeting, but I know for sure it will be better if everyone speaks, and speaks the truth.

There are no rules, but if there were, this would be one of them.

Picture credit: From an excellent series by lou, via Flickr

The main thing is to begin – do it now

Write down your commitments

Don’t commit to what you can’t do

Finish what you start – follow through

Leading others starts with leading yourself

A or B?

It’s a simple enough question, should we go with option A or B?

I think B.

What’s that you say?

Oh, maybe A would be better because of C, or D. So you think A then, right?

No?

Yes I see, there’s the chance that E will happen and then B would’ve been better after all. Hmmm.

Let’s just wait until the next meeting and then not make a decision then either. Cool.

Hear that noise? It’s the sound of the entire organisation spinning it’s wheels whilst you make up your mind.

The greatest gift a leader can have is the ability to decide.

I can’t find a direct quotation but I believe this comes from George C Marshall, 1880-1959, Nobel laureat 1953, Chief of Staff US Government 1939-1945 and originator of the “Marshall Plan”.

At some point on the journey, someone – that would be you then – decides it’s time to write a business plan. Time to crank open Word and Excel? Not yet.

Whether for a new product, a new business or a new period of the calendar, business planning has three distinct disciplines:

1. Data – what can we know?

There’s a lot of data points out there, the idea is to track down everything you can about the market and the competition. Don’t filter. Collect as much intelligence as possible, including: size, share, financials, products, new products, trends, lists, processes, names.

Next look inside. What can you know about your own organisation? Capacity, capability, financials, attention, focus. What are the strengths to build on and the risks to manage?

2. Discussion – what do we understand?

Time to crunch the data and get into detail about why things happen, what might happen and how they’re related. It’s critical to involve the people who will have to do the work. Getting the benefit from all the data demands a full and frank debate – this is no time for happy talk or leaving things unsaid. A robust plan is always based on robust thinking.

3. Decisions – what will we do?

Make decisions and, finally, commit the plan to writing. Words and numbers. Slides and spreadsheets. Powerpoint and Excel.

Anyone raising money (internally or externally) will probably need a longer piece of writing so allow a few more days for that long awaited appointment with Word. Whether you’re writing long or short, the process is identical.

Bringing a product to market actually involves bringing a company along too. A clear, well thought out plan puts the wheels on the bus.

It’s easy to be seduced by action – doing all the whats of what we’re doing.

Image copyright: annnna

It feels good to be busy. It feels good to do stuff without thinking. To feel wanted. To roll along. To do.

So nice in fact that sometimes we get into things just because we can, or always have, or someone says please.

For one day only, see what happens if you ask yourself and your team, why?

1. It brings the what into focus
2. It defines success
3. We’re likely to be more motivated when we know why it matters
4. It releases creativity – for alternatives whats that get to the why better
5. It creates options and helps prioritise
6. A clear common cause aligns resources
7. Decisions are faster and firmer
8. It can save a lot of work – particularly if there is no why and you can stop, or not start

No getting away with “because I have to” or “you told me to” — to get the benefit you have to go deeper than that. Visit the why-stuff-happened world of root cause analysis to work out why stuff should happen.

The 5 Whys Method.

Legend has it that Sakichi Toyada, founder of Toyota Motor Corporation, invented and systematised the 5 whys method for engineers looking for the seat of a given problem, although anyone who’s been a kid knows that asking a bunch of whys is the way we’ve always learned. You can use his method to determine the future, not just analyse the past. Just ask why (about) five times.

I’m about to drive to Cambridge to attend a conference (the possible action)

• Why? – I need to connect with some people in our market (first why)
• Why? – To find some potential pilot sites for our next product (second why)
• Why? – We like to do live testing before we do any marketing (third why)
• Why? – We’re obsessed with quality (fourth why)
• Why? – The golden rule; treat others as you’d like to be treated. We don’t want to sell anything that hasn’t proved its worth in the real world and we know is up to the job (fifth why, root cause)

So going to Cambridge is the tactic that will fulfil some personal goals and further the strategy and values of the company. If the answer to number 2 was, “I always go, they expect me there”, I’d save myself an awfully long drive.

Whenever you need to commit resources, better know why.

This happens a lot in organisational life. Employment contracts, licensing agreements, partnerships, outsourcing, non-disclosures, service level agreements. Internally and externally, we rely on bits of paper to nail the detail. These things are so common that it’s easy to believe that this is the way to do business. That this is how to deal with difficult possibilities. That this will make everything ok. But it won’t.

Lawyering like this is good, but it will only reduce some of the wriggle room for some of the arguments that normally come up. Not eliminate disagreements altogether. Not stop problems happening. Just squeeze some of the juice out of the lemon – it’s still going to hurt, but not as much.

If it’s going to hurt, why do it? Why employ, agree, partner, outsource or do anything else that puts us in the hands of others? The promise of working together is that the business of the organisation will be better than before. An organisation’s success will increasingly be determined by its ability to work across formal boundaries – whether than means inter-department or inter-company.

• Go in with eyes wide open. By all means clock up some billable time with lawyers but don’t kid yourself that this means plain sailing from start to finish. There will be problems. Expect them to happen, however good your relationship and however willingly the parties sign at the start.
• Work through the bad times. When things start going wrong, put your collective heads down and work it out. Nobody wins when you walk away or run to litigation. Remind yourselves the reason you got together – to both be better than before – and find the path through the mountains.

When choosing which person or organisation to share ink with, work out who you’re dealing with (which is more about values than names or capabilities), and ask yourself “can I work with them when things go wrong?”

Ultimately, never allow the desire for a deal to cloud the needs of the business.

The way I heard it, Wozniak was the last person who created a whole computer – pulled the hardware together, wrote the software, built the Apple.

I was reminded of Woz today by this post from Guy Kawasaki, who also spent time at Apple. Wozniak is an engineer but the parting thoughts are good for anyone starting or building a business. Now I realise I’m quoting a quote but, according to Kawasaki:

“The book ends with Woz’s thoughts on being a great engineer:

• Don’t waiver
• See things in gray-scale
• Work alone
• Trust your instincts”

Starting and building a business is a test of will. The problem has never been a lack of ideas. Any organisation that’s been around for more than five minutes is presented with more opportunities than it will ever have the resources to chase down. The difficulty is in choosing what not to do, which rocks to put down, when to say no.

The antidote to too many opportunities is to know what you’re up to:

• Get it clear and firm in your head; then don’t waiver.
• Understand the truth at the heart of the thing, what’s really going on; see things in gray-scale.
• On your way to market, only work with people who care as much about the success of your thing as you do; work alone with that team, there’s plenty of time for interested parties after you’ve nailed it.
• By definition, you’re doing something that no-one has done before. No-one knows whether to zig or zag, it’s your decision; trust your instincts.