it was poetry - you raised their expectations

April 9, 2024

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, one of my favorite movies is The Commitments. It’s the fictional story of a group of scruffy people who banded together to form a 1960s-style rock and soul revue in the unlikely city of Dublin in the late 1980s. They were supposed to meet and presumably jam with music legend Wilson Pickett. The day came. The band waited. He didn’t show. Imagine how bummed they must have felt. To elevate the mood, the most experienced player in the band (the trumpet player, who claimed to have worked with Elvis Presley and other legends) referred to the missed meeting as “it was poetry – you raised their expectations.” Whether or not Wilson Pickett even knew about the meeting, for a brief while the band members had something to lift them out of their grind and aspire to something greater.

I’ve had more than a few of those moments in my career, such as…

Interviewing for a marketing leadership role at a company I’ve worked with and long admired. Another with a company I’ve competed against and always wanted to join.

Project managing all workstreams related to product and service award submissions, identifying and partnering with subject matter expert contributors, and serving as the internal champion, and then waiting for the award announcement. Sometimes your name is called, sometimes it isn’t.

A company I worked for was invited to bid on a $16 million deal – one of the largest opportunities in the company’s history – as a direct result of my relationship with an analyst firm. Even though the prospect was a Tier 1 for the company, the salesperson was unaware of the opportunity. The company lost because the bid was significantly more expensive than another supplier. Not a cry for help but a statement of fact, the marketing function of the organization (that would be me) is not involved in pricing.

Spending countless hours researching, roleplaying, and giving it all you have, only to come in second in literally hundreds of interview situations.

So how do you rebound from a setback?

Allow yourself to (briefly) feel disappointed: It’s normal to feel disappointed or upset. Allow yourself to acknowledge these feelings without judgment. Take some time to process the rejection and reflect on what went well during the interview process and think about what areas you could improve in your presentation.

Stay positive and maintain perspective: This is especially true in the analyst RFI and awards submission processes. It’s important to maintain a positive attitude and keep things in perspective, especially if this is your first award or you’re working with team members who are new (to the process, the company, or to you). Remember that this rejection does not define your worth or product/service value. Keep in mind that there are other opportunities out there, and this setback is just a step closer to a win.

Keep moving forward: Use this setback as motivation to continue pursuing your goals. Stay resilient and determined. Although the Commitments broke up when Wilson Pickett didn’t show, you can pick yourself up and keep moving forward.

you can be what they’ve made you into, or you can make your own luck

March 15, 2024

One of my favorite lines from a rock song is “You can be what they’ve made you into, or you can make your own luck,” which was written more than 30 years ago by the under-appreciated songwriter Jules Shear. Many other artists have recorded the song, such as an unforgettable version by Roger McGuinn that has his signature Rickenbacker 12-string chiming all over it. That line, in the last verse of the song, is incredibly powerful. Making your own luck is the story here.

The sales cycle, or the time it takes for a B2B sales organization to close a sales deal, can be extremely lengthy. The more complex the deal, the longer the sales cycle. Contact center outsourcing deals are complex (often involving multiple services, multiple delivery geographies, even many languages), multi-year agreements that can be millions of dollars per year, so the prospect company’s CEO often needs to sign off on the deal. They can take more than a year to close. What does a salesperson do while they are shepherding their deal through the sales cycle?

The short answer is to find some new prospects. Outbound activities such as emails and calls can help uncover when a prospect is in the market for products or services, but that is relying on luck to open doors. It was all too common to learn about an RFP or real interest during a call with a prospect or as an offhand comment at a trade show. As I put it to our sales leader, “It was pure luck. I wanted something to help us make our own luck.” Not only make our own luck but help me reach targets who seemed to be allergic to phone calls and cold emails.

Tooting my own horn (it’s my blog, after all ), here is an illustration of ‘making our own luck’ in action…

I designed and executed an omni-channel marketing campaign that involved earned media (a published article), targeted advertising (to 100 health insurance plans that the US government deemed worthy to sell Medicare and Medicaid), retargeting to the article, and tightly scripted phone calls.

First, the earned media. My PR firm secured placement of an article about how health insurance plans could identify the sickest of the sick and the poorest of the poor in their populations. Since my then-employer had an accountability index that did just that, one of our subject matter experts graciously partnered on authoring the article. The publication loved it.

Next up, retargeting. You’ve probably been retargeted and don’t know it. Have you ever done a lot of online research on a product, and then you start seeing them pop up in subsequent browser sessions? Congratulations, you have been retargeted! Retargeting looks at your browsing behavior and serves up what you’ve indicated as an interest. To complete the retargeting, I fed the key words from the article, along with the web domains of the targeted companies, into an amazing tool named Demandbase. Whenever someone from the prospect companies fed a key word into their friendly neighborhood search engine or consumed content with those key words, they were shown the ads that pointed to the article.

The result: 40% of the targeted audience clicked on the article and visited the company’s website for the first time. Although all of the companies had been in the database for at least a year, none of them had taken any action with the company until clicking on the article. And 10 of those companies moved from unknowns to real prospects, adding about $15 million to the pipeline. The sales cycle was significantly shortened. You can make your own luck.

What can a pinata teach you about follow-up?

February 15, 2024

One of the attendees on a recent video call asked me why I have a piñata in my office. The answer is not only a story about the piñata, but also a lesson in the art of following up on a sales call.

The concept of the piñata is believed to have originated in China and was part of the Chinese New Year celebration. The celebrations had colorful figures of animals that were filled with seeds. Striking the animal figures, to let the seeds fall out, was seen as a sign of good luck. The tradition eventually made its way to Europe and ultimately Mexico. Over time, piñatas have transformed into colorful, intricate works of art that are part of many ceremonies.

Fast forward to early 2021. Because offices were closed in the dark days of COVID and people were working remotely, the concept of sending a gift to an office was no longer feasible. To paraphrase Michael Crichton, commerce finds a way. Practically overnight this whole industry of people sending stuff to home addresses magically appeared. Nearly every week, someone would ping me on LinkedIn to ask if they could send me a piñata through the mail. Probably a dozen companies asked to send me a piñata. Why a piñata crept into the zeitgeist and not some other form of gift is a mystery, but I responded to the more credible requests. The responses were usually met with deafening silence. Did these companies vaporize as soon as they formed? Was offering to send a piñata no longer attractive for a salesperson? My cynical New Yorker brain thought these may have been thinly-disguised attempts at securing home addresses for nefarious purposes. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. But the lack of response from these solicitations was concerning.

Finally, one company did send me a piñata. You didn’t have to whack it with a stick to open it. Senor piñata had a trap door on the top. The candy inside didn’t look very appealing and was soon discarded. The next day, the salesperson who sent it called me. We chatted. Package delivered, transaction completed, customer surprised and excited. This transaction would prove to be the exception.

I kept this one in my office. Why did I keep it? Not just because everything else in the office is white or beige and I needed a splash of color on video calls. It was because these guys delivered and followed up. The other piñata people either ghosted me on LinkedIn, or shipped and I never heard from them again. That, dear reader, is the lesson. If you are a salesperson, outbound demand generator, job candidate, or anyone offering their services, following up with the prospect is as crucial as taking that first step.

what’s in your playbook?

January 11, 2024

You may have this kind of information in your head, on myriad documents, maybe pieces of paper, but a playbook is your definition of your Go To Market strategy and how to make it repeatable.

Here is what should go into a playbook:

• Priority offerings: What are the most important services or products that you offer? Do you have any materials such as white papers, case studies, press releases, or analyst report snapshots that the sellers can easily grab and share? Most importantly, can you explain them to a six year old?

• Personas: Who are you selling to? What levels are they in their organization? What is important to them? What thought leaders do they read? What are the challenges in their roles?

• Prospect Companies: What kinds of companies would be buying these services or products, and why? Segmentation of what you sell to is a critical first step. Identifying prospect tiers comes next. The tiers determine who in your organization owns the relationship. Tier 1 prospects are usually owned by the salesperson, with marketers adding support. Marketing owns the Tier 2 prospects and keeps them engaged with campaigns, thought leadership pieces, event participation, and more. The last tier is owned by the outbound calling team. More on them later.

• Target Titles and Campaign Types: Here is where you get into the good stuff. Focus in on your target titles and levels in the organization. Where you go up the food chain is important too. In my experience with outsourcing companies, we rarely called on anyone lower than a Vice President. The reasons are a lower title such as specialist, supervisor, manager, or even director typically has limited if any visibility into company initiatives and is not involved in the outsourcing decision-making process. Making matters more complicated, they may see outsourcing as taking away their job. You’re there to help their function (e.g., customer care, claims processing, revenue cycle management) work better, not to take it away. But be careful to keep people in these roles engaged, because they will likely be your key points of contact once the deal is signed and execution of the program begins.

• Messaging and Differentiators: What are your top selling stories for each solution? Can these be distilled down into sound bites that a seller can easily quote? What about your differentiators? And be careful with what you think is a differentiator. It may be new to you but not to your prospects. I keep going back to the example of a very young child who suddenly realizes they can wiggle their own toes. At that early stage they don’t realize wiggling toes is something most people can do. But do you do anything different – maybe counterclockwise, or synchronized to the alternating beats of “Stairway to Heaven,” – that is unique to you?

• Competitive Landscape: Every company has competitors. Run screaming from those who say they don’t. Make sure you know who you are competing against, and what you offer your prospects that makes you better.

Early in my most recent role as VP Marketing at an outsourcing company, they transferred two inbound customer service reps into new roles as outbound appointment setters. You’d think since they both use the phone a lot, that it would be an easy transition, right? Think again. Inbound care people and outbound hunters are two very different animals. An inbound care rep may be uncomfortable with the tenacity needed to secure meetings with prospects, while the outbound hunter would typically lack the empathy needed to understand customer issues. It is a very drastic leap from “thank you for calling Blue Cross, may I have your member number?” to “would you take a meeting with us to see how we can boost your Net Promoter Score?”, so the team needed a lot of direction and context into the prospect-facing side of the house. I sprang into action and created a playbook to help them understand what we were selling, who they were calling and what is important to them, and how they could be successful in their new roles. I used the playbook to help in-house and external resources (when it comes to pipeline, you can never have too many oars in the water) to understand our business, and even shared it with the PR firm. The PR firm loved the selling stories and integrated them into media pitches.

So ask yourself: What’s in your playbook? How often do you update it? Who else can use it?

It’s getting very near the end…of the year, and a mild rant

December 28, 2023

I’ve been in job search mode for the last quarter of 2023. Although a lot has changed in the few years since I’ve been in this mode (for example, LinkedIn has become the most used and reliable job board), there are still a few old pains that continue. Here are just a few mild rants directed at a few business practices:

To staffing firms: How hard would it be to tell the applicants something about your client? Is your client a law firm, luxury brand, sports team, retailer, etc.? Are they looking for someone with B2B or B2C or B2G experience? Add a descriptive phrase or two. As a marketer who has sought named client testimonials and case studies in the business process outsourcing industry (where non-disclosure language is standard with most client contracts), I am certain that saying something basic about your client will not betray their confidentiality. It is a screening measure that may also deter candidates who don’t have relevant experience from applying, which may decrease the number of applications you’ll have to review. Wouldn’t it be better to be seen as a hero?

To companies with applicant tracking systems (ATS): The good news is that the clunky Taleo applicant tracking system has gone the way of the 8-track tape! Newer ones such as Workday and Greenhouse are much better from this applicant’s perspective, but there are still a few questionable processes out there:

• Why are candidates required to set up an account on your ATS, when you are merely going to reject my application in a few hours? It is unlikely that I will apply for another job at your company, so why put people through the motion? This is a master class in customer dissatisfaction.

• Why do I have to fill out the EEO statements multiple times? I’ve already told you about my ethnicity, race, gender, citizenship, sponsorship status, and disability status once in the form. Why do you ask me to do it again – are you concerned that I will change my answers?

• Aren’t topics like age, race, marital status, and sexual preference still illegal to ask in job interviews? If they are, why are they OK to be asked on the job application/ATS?

To companies that assign a task to candidates: As a hiring manager I have done this. When I was hiring for a content writing role, I gave a writing assignment (usually 500 to 1,000 words on a topic) to finalist candidates. The goals were to see how they project-managed, and in the days before ChatGPT how they wrote and presented their ideas. All finalist candidates had the same number of days to turn in finished work. So I understand the tactic. But make sure it is fair and don’t use what the candidate sends you.

To companies where I interviewed but didn’t get the job: Provide feedback! It is cowardly to just ship a generic form letter when a candidate has invested hours in preparation, presentation, follow-up, and the interview itself. I’ve even interviewed with the CEOs of some companies, only to receive a generic letter. Provide feedback! Tell the truth – are you looking for someone with different experience than I have, or you’ve re-thought the role, or I said something that triggered a red flag, or my presentation was less than expected, you didn’t think I would fit into your team? Let me know. I’ve had rocks and firecrackers thrown at me when I’ve played concerts. I have pretty thick skin and can take it. If you are concerned that a candidate will try to sue or use it against you, think again. This candidate is only interested in continuous improvement and helping his next employer to succeed.

Here’s to a productive 2024!

Make the stand, stand for something

December 7, 2023

If you think that AI is everywhere, that’s because it is. AI is here to stay. Those who understand how to work with it will thrive.

Lately I’ve been attending webinars and training sessions about how to incorporate AI into your work life. PlayPlay put on an excellent Content Summit this morning, with storytelling and AI as the centerpiece. Here are a few of my takeaways from the summit:

AI isn’t here to do our jobs for us. You can use AI as a tool to help with content creation, becoming our collaborative partner, or just to cultivate our skills and creativity. It should be embraced and not feared! Natalie Lambert from GenEdge Consulting mentioned that AI gets you to Good faster than ever. Remember it does not get you to Great. That is where you the human enter the picture. You need to work carefully with AI to get the results you’re looking for – constantly refine the input to achieve the output.

The more you train your AI tool, the better it gets. Think of AI as your new intern that knows everything but understands nothing. Yeah, we’ve all had those. AI can search the entire web universe and then throw stuff back at you, but what does that stuff mean? AI has no opinions but you do. It doesn’t know if it is being controversial or politically incorrect. Don’t just take what it sends you and use it verbatim. Introduce your biases and take a stand.

All through the summit, the 80s songs “The Stand” by the criminally underappreciated Alarm (imagine if U2 came from Cardiff rather than Dublin) and “You’ve Got to Stand for Something” by John Mellencamp were going through my head. Both songs urge taking a stand. The Alarm take on injustices and early death in Thatcher’s UK, while Mellencamp looks back on his first third of a century on the earth and encourages the listener to stand for something. Or you’ll fall for anything.

Remember that for today at least, AI cannot write the story for you. But it can help get you started. You’ll need to infuse your own voice. Take that stand.

burning man got it right…sort of

September 5, 2023

The annual Burning Man festival is in the news this week, more as a debacle than a celebration. Although I’ve never been, I’ve always associated Burning Man with concert festivals such as Lollapalooza, Warped, and the veritable but not forgotten HFStival. Turns out it was something else again.

The weeklong event—known for its art, communal activities and atmosphere, and burning of effigies—is held in a 7-square-mile temporary city on the Black Rock Desert playa. This is one of the flattest and driest places on Earth, and this year it saw nearly 3 months’ worth of precipitation over the course of 24 hours. Tropical Storm Hilary brought heavy rains to the Burning Man site, causing a gate closure for guests ahead of the festival’s start. The downpour almost immediately transformed the dry desert surface into mud. Most vehicles became trapped and officials urged attendees to shelter in place and conserve resources, while some made the hike (5 miles) to the nearest town. Traffic for the 72,000 people getting out of there was brutal to say the least. Reading these stories reminded me of a concert at what was then called Nissan Pavilion, a concert shed near the Bull Run battlefield in Virginia. The concert ended in a sudden downpour, and the drive for 20,000 people up the narrow road leading to Route 66 took longer than the concert itself.

Back to Burning Man. The event was founded with the best of intentions. According to https://burningman.org/about/10-principles/ the event is based on these ten principles: Radical inclusion, Gifting, Decommodification, Radical self-reliance, Radical self-expression, Communal effort, Civic responsibility, Leaving no trace, Participation, and Immediacy.

They sort of have the right idea. But it is increasingly expensive. A former work colleague was a somewhat regular attendee. Their first Burning Man was 2002, and back then it cost around $40 a ticket. The last year they went was 2016, and the cost exceeded $400 a ticket. Now it’s at least $700 + a car fee. Way too much for a spot in the desert. And my colleague noted that in 2016, they waited 8 hours in line to get in, along with 3 hours in line to leave a day early. Brutal indeed.

So where did Burning Man go wrong? First of all, there is logistics. Burning Man erects a temporary town in the Nevada desert. Supply lines and an infrastructure need to be put in place. Something the organizers did not count on was climate change. Rain in the desert? Check. Aside from the logistical challenges that arise from planning large events, and the possibility of external emergencies, there also is the risk of festivals failing because of poor management.

Burning Man will likely go on next year, as will so many annual events.

Confession time – I haven’t been involved with organizing such a large and complex event as Burning Man. But I’ve organized tons of events involving hundreds of attendees, coordinated tens of thousands of flights and reservations, been on countless site visits, trusted untold number of vendors and partners, and spent hours anticipating/countering anything that could possibly go wrong. Something always does. It is how you respond that makes the difference.

Where’s that confounded bridge?

September 18, 2023

Are you familiar with the concept of unconscious bias? It is when people make judgments or decisions based on prior experience, their own personal deep-seated thought patterns, assumptions or interpretations, and at times they are not aware that they are doing it. The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines it as an unfair belief about a group of people that you are not aware of and that affects your behavior and decisions.

I’ve been on the receiving end of it for nearly nineteen years. And I can pinpoint my move from DC to Dallas – which was the result of a corporate relocation that I chose to make and am glad I did – as to when it began. I don’t ever recall being asked if I’ve always lived in New York or DC in the decades I lived there. But if the fact that I am based in Dallas comes up in a discussion (maybe with a work colleague, or vendor, or client or prospect), immediately the other person assumes I have never been anywhere else. Why? Where did the notion of a hermetically sealed Lone Star State come from? Texas has undergone a considerable transformation in recent decades, and its urban centers may well be among the most diverse environments in the country. The state has experienced countless corporate relocations over the years, with companies from all over the US bringing a lot of workers with them. Most of my neighbors are newish Texas residents because of corporate relocation. We had a block party a few years ago, and learned there were only 3 families out of 20 on this street who were native Texans. People moved here from Illinois, California, Maryland, Arizona, Georgia, Rhode Island, and even other countries. So why do people outside of Texas not realize this? You’d think that the tons of cities in Texas named after other places (Fredericksburg, Roanoke, Bedford, Arlington, Palestine, Rome, and Dublin, to name a few) might provide a clue to the large number of transplants here.

I’ve tried to find answers online, but unfortunately there are no clear answers. Anyone who has heard me speak would quickly find an indication of a life lived to the north or east. I’ve made an icebreaker US football analogy about working my way through the NFC East. My digital footprint is sprinkled with some hints that although I live in Texas now, I’m not from here. Since you’re reading this blog post, scroll up to the photo at the top of most of the pages. You’ll see that same bridge on my LinkedIn profile. Recognize it? If you think it is somewhere in Texas, guess again. It is the bridge portion of the Robert Moses Causeway on Long Island. Robert Moses was an urban planner who is regarded as one of the most powerful and influential individuals in the history of New York, despite never having held an elected office. The Robert Moses Causeway (or as the locals affectionately call it, the Bobby Mo) connects West Islip to the barrier beach islands. My high school was a few yards from the bridge, and my family would sail toward it on frequent sailing excursions. It serves as a nice reminder of my Long Island roots.

Do you know where the title of this blog post comes from? Here’s a hint. It is the last line spoken on the first side of an album that was released 50 years ago this year. And I’ve visited the site of the album cover.

happenings ten years time ago, or what would make a good podcast

May 11, 2023

One of the more fun things about getting your colleagues more famous is doing podcasts. I’ve been a podcast champion for years and have encouraged my PR partners to secure them.

So now I am looking to start one of my own, and recently connected via LinkedIn with someone who has been running them for about 8 years. Big shout out to Adam Merino at Influencerr TV https://www.linkedin.com/company/influencerrtv/.  He’s a pro. We were discussing how to launch a podcast today, and he said to visualize one of three people – someone you know that you want to help, someone you visualize, and yourself from ten years ago.

Several people that I’d want to help, and each for different reasons, and those will be future topics. I’ve put together campaign playbooks that utilized a Mr. Potato Head approach (the headshot of one person on the bio of another on the demographics of still another) so visualizing the second person is easy. On that third person, my mind immediately went to the Yardbirds song “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” from way back in 1966. The Yardbirds were the breeding ground for Eric Clapton, then Jeff Beck, then Jimmy Page. Although their most memorable songs were written by outside writers, they had a few classics of their own. “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” was one of them. They were in their early twenties when they wrote it, and it is about looking back yet not sure if it was a dream. The surviving members are in their late seventies now, so looking back that long probably does seem like a dream today. To commemorate his tenth year in the music business, one of Philadelphia’s greatest cultural icons, Todd Rundgren, devoted half of his 1976 album Faithful to incredible covers of that Yardbirds song and others popular in that year such as “Good Vibrations” and “If 6 Was 9.” Confession time – when I’ve played the Beatles’ deep cut “Rain” I am more familiar with Todd’s version than the original, so that is the one I play on guitar.

Back to the podcast. So what would I say to myself of ten years ago (that would be 2013 for those of us not good at math)?

• Remind yourself to take the meeting. And don’t be afraid to take a day away.

• Turning sixty isn’t nearly as scary as turning forty. You will still have most of your own hair and it will be in the original color. Own it.

• ProTools is only half the Satan that Dave Grohl says it is. Sometime in the next ten years, you will purchase a licensed copy and will learn to not hate it.

• Embrace new technologies such as ChatGPT and NightCafe, just like you did with blogging a decade earlier. Play with them and see how you can work them into your toolkit.

• Cherish every conversation – in person, over the phone, or digital – with your parents. You never know when it will be the last one.

My two cents. Podcasts will not take the place of blog posts. There are many channels out there. Embrace all of them that work for you.

The tower of Pisa, Perspective, flaws, and the kinks

April 17, 2023

Today’s blog post is inspired by a recent article from Crystal Thies, The Clash of the Titans in Our Minds. Here is a mind-bending concept – the maps and mapping programs that we use today were based on assumptions made centuries ago. Wait, what?!? This is true. Europe was basically the center of the known world, so the maps were drawn from a European perspective. So imagine completely changing your perspective. You may get a different view, but you will never create the permanent change you’re looking for without fully adopting the new perspective. So, if you find you’ve been vacillating or struggling to make a change, then you may need to revisit your perspective and the underlying assumptions.

If you’re looking at something that looks like a rock, look a little closer. Be wary of the assumptions that look like rock but are nothing more than Styrofoam. The assumptions used to build the Pyramids were rock. We know that because they’re still standing!

Sure, the Pyramids were built on rock-solid assumptions. But what about the Tower of Pisa? And that thought got my mind in motion. What if the Tower of Pisa had been built on something more solid, and it didn’t lean? Would we still care about it? Would it even still be standing? Perhaps the tower with a better construction would have been bulldozed to make way for a shopping mall or a parking lot. So the flaw is actually the differentiator!

Embrace the imperfections that can make a difference. One of the most famous models of my generation is Cindy Crawford. She has a birthmark (also known as a beauty mark) on the right side of her face. Modeling agents asked her to remove it, but she pursued a modeling career anyway. This minor imperfection helped get her noticed.

Another imperfection that turned out to be a difference maker is in the British Invasion band the Kinks. They were not exactly the tightest band, nor were they stellar musicians. But they had something in that ragged grandeur. Sir Raymond Douglas Davies, their bandleader and primary songwriter, once said the reason for his band’s popularity was Flaws. People love our flaws.

The key takeaway: embrace the flaws. Look carefully at what appears to be a rock. It could be Styrofoam.

ChatGTP had no role in creating this blog post

March 19, 2023

One of the most talked-about technologies today is chat, and in particular a chat bot technology known as ChatGBT. The technology has a lot going for it – it is easy to get started, easy to use, and (best of all) it is free. And a little addictive.

I attended a webinar recently that discussed ChatGBT’s role in the marketing mix. The webinar presenters created email subject lines with a human writer and with the chat bot, and attendees got to pick which was which. It was really hard to tell! I liked some of the bot-written subject lines better than those written by humans. There was also some recent controversy about school systems banning students’ use of chat bots in creating term papers.

So I downloaded an instance of ChatGBT for my personal use. I was listening to a lot of Lou Reed and Warren Zevon that week, and for fun I asked ChatGBT to write songs in the styles of these late legends. The instructions were to write a song about Dirt Farming in their respective styles. Lou Reed, like me, was a Long Island native so dirt farming would be pretty far removed from the experience. Warren Zevon was from California (which he predicted would slide into the ocean in his incomparable “Desperadoes Under the Eaves”), and probably never farmed anything either.

Exhibit A: Song about Dirt Farming in the style of Lou Reed

Verse 1: Out in the fields, under the sun Working the land, it’s where we come from Dirt farming, it’s the way of life From dawn till dusk, we work through the strife

Chorus: Oh, dirt farming, it’s what we do Sowing the seeds, watching them sprout anew Harvesting the crops, feeding the land Dirt farming, it’s what we understand

Verse 2: The earth, it’s our mother, our provider We tend to her, with love and desire Our hands, they may be calloused and worn But our spirits, they are never forlorn

Chorus: Oh, dirt farming, it’s what we do Sowing the seeds, watching them sprout anew Harvesting the crops, feeding the land Dirt farming, it’s what we understand

Bridge: The seasons may change, but our work remains From the early spring, to the summer rains Through the autumn breeze, and the winter frost Dirt farming, it’s never lost

Chorus: Oh, dirt farming, it’s what we do Sowing the seeds, watching them sprout anew Harvesting the crops, feeding the land Dirt farming, it’s what we understand

Outro: Out in the fields, under the stars We work the land, without any scars Dirt farming, it’s the life we choose And we wouldn’t have it any other way, it’s true.

Exhibit B: Song about Dirt Farming in the style of Warren Zevon

Verse 1: Well, I grew up in the country, out in the fields Tending to the dirt, it’s where my heart yields Planting seeds and watching them grow There’s just something about it, don’t you know

Chorus: Dirt farming, it’s a way of life Working hard from dawn till night Harvesting crops, feeding the land Dirt farming, it’s the life we planned

Verse 2: I remember my father, a man of the earth Teaching me everything, from birth Sweating under the sun, digging in the soil Hard work and dedication, it’s our toil

Chorus: Dirt farming, it’s a way of life Working hard from dawn till night Harvesting crops, feeding the land Dirt farming, it’s the life we planned

Bridge: The seasons come and go, but we stay true To the land, and all that it’s due From the seed to the harvest, we give our all Dirt farming, it’s our call

Chorus: Dirt farming, it’s a way of life Working hard from dawn till night Harvesting crops, feeding the land Dirt farming, it’s the life we planned

Outro: Dirt farming, it’s not for everyone But for us, it’s where we belong The land, it’s our heart and soul Dirt farming, it’s how we roll.

The moral of the story – chat bots are here to stay. The technology will continue to grow and improve. This could be a great inspiration for marketers who are stuck in writing the next line. But I don’t think a chat bot will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame any time soon.

The recurring dream(s)

February 25, 2022

A few months ago, a friend posted a story on Facebook about a recurring dream. His dream involved having tea with Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend of the Who. Pretty interesting stuff, especially since Roger is an avid tea drinker and Pete is better known for much harder stuff. Their conversation included kids, life on and off the road, and plans for the summer. My friend posed a question about recurring dreams especially during the pandemic, and I shared my recurring dream.

I’ve actually had two recurring dreams, which started decades ago. The first one involves Jimmy Page, one of a few people who have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice (first as a member of the Yardbirds and later as a member of Led Zeppelin). In the dream, I am on a layover in London’s Heathrow airport and I’ve stopped at an Admiral’s Club. Mr. Page is seated at the bar and I grab a seat next to him. He has been interviewed countless times, and has been described as curmudgeonly, dismissive, and sometimes downright combative. Do I care? Nope, I’m about to chat with a legend. So I decide to ask him guitar nerd questions, thinking he would enjoy the conversation. Led Zeppelin’s music is known for its layered sound, accomplished with numerous tracks of overdubbed guitars – a few Les Pauls, a Telecaster or two, the odd Danelectro, and maybe an acoustic – building up to a cavernous sound. I wanted to know how he translated that sound to the concert stage. When I asked him how he arranged all those guitar tracks into a single play onstage, he shot me an awful look. I could swear the paint on the walls was boiling. He looked baffled, and was clearly not amused. No matter how many times I’ve had the dream, he never spoke an answer.

The second dream is a little more varied. I am looking out a window but each time the scene is different – the window has been in a city bus, a subway train, a taxi, and a jet. What am I looking at? There is a choir of street people right outside the window. And they are singing Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love” in a beautiful harmony. A Capella. Always that early 70s deep cut from one of Long Island’s finest songwriters. The harmonies are different; I remember one being barbershop style, another sounding like the Beach Boys, and another a Himalayan chant.

What does it all mean? Way too big a question. But don’t be afraid to dream. A music legend might just get around to answering your question.

Make Room for Growth

Confidence doesn’t always arrive with a bold entrance. Sometimes, it builds quietly, step by step, as we show up for ourselves day after day. It grows when we choose to try, even when we’re unsure of the outcome. Every time you take action despite self-doubt, you reinforce the belief that you’re capable. Confidence isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about trusting that you can figure it out along the way.

The key to making things happen isn’t waiting for the perfect moment; it’s starting with what you have, where you are. Big goals can feel overwhelming when viewed all at once, but momentum builds through small, consistent action. Whether you’re working toward a personal milestone or a professional dream, progress comes from showing up — not perfectly, but persistently. Action creates clarity, and over time, those steps forward add up to something real.

You don’t need to be fearless to reach your goals, you just need to be willing. Willing to try, willing to learn, and willing to believe that you’re capable of more than you know. The road may not always be smooth, but growth rarely is. What matters most is that you keep going, keep learning, and keep believing in the version of yourself you’re becoming.

Ideas don’t really grow on trees, or do they?!?

February 26, 2018

‍ ‍Gearing up for a major trade show usually means “show specials,” or specific promotions designed to help spur business at the show. The other day a colleague asked me if I was finished creating a flyer for a promo we had discussed. After spending most of a day in promo flyer mode, I didn’t have any ideas left to start work on that one. So what did I do? With a lot of other projects I was working on, I turned my attention to some work that had been on the back burner. Something totally different. I related to my colleague the story of the “Battle of Evermore” from Led Zeppelin’s fourth album. The song is a radical departure from what you’d associate with Led Zeppelin. The song has very little instrumentation, just an acoustic guitar and a mandolin. Very soft percussion. The vocals, a duet with Robert Plant and Sandy Denny, are sung in a whisper. Band leader Jimmy Page once explained why he wrote “Battle of Evermore,” saying he picked up bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones’ mandolin, and made up this quiet song to clear his head. The idea came to him quickly, and it was unique. So I explained that in order to clear my head and focus on the promo flyer, I needed to work on something different.

‍ ‍Sometimes you have too many ideas going through your head and they are not connected. Sometimes you get stuck. There are a lot of ways to get unstuck, connect the ideas, and get the juices flowing again. I wrote a blog post about retraining your head. My blog post Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters is about taking something familiar and placing it in an entirely different context

You may not have to learn a new instrument to have a new idea. Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics was asked to identify the secret of his success as a songwriter and producer. He said if you’re struggling for an idea, put it away you’ll get another idea eventually. Work on something else. Trust your creativity. And that from a guy who has been on the ballot for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and has produced Mick Jagger, Daryl Hall, Bob Dylan, and a few other people you may have heard of.

‍The idea is to do what you have to do to keep your creativity fresh despite deadline pressures, writer’s block, and an ever-mounting workload. Put it away if you have to and come back to it. You’ll find the idea tree full of fresh fruit before you know it.

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You always play better when you wear your suit

January 24, 2018

Ireland, rhythm and blues, and the thrill of being in a new band. Sounds like a perfect mix, right? They were all plot elements of the 1991 movie The Commitments, in which a group of scruffy people banded together to form a 1960s-style rock and soul revue in the unlikely city of Dublin.

During one of the band’s earliest practice sessions, the most experienced group member urged his bandmates to dress like their heroes (think Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, the Temptations) who wore suits onstage. His advice: “You always play better when you wear your suit.”

What does that mean in our day-to-day lives? I am not advocating that anyone wear a suit to work unless your role calls for it. That went out of style decades ago. But whatever job you do, dress right for the part. Even if you work from home, and I will say more about that later.

Early in my career I was between jobs and joined a club for others in job transition. The club leveraged the knowledge of its members and volunteers to train people in prospecting, resume writing, and interview preparation. One of the people I met there was a senior executive in financial services who lost his job when his employer was acquired by a competitor. In those days, financial services people wore suits and ties to work. A suit was this executive’s standard working uniform, and he told me that when he was doing research and job prospecting, he wore a suit. It was how he felt comfortable and ready for business. Putting on a suit got him into the mindset of potential employers; plus if he got a call for an interview that day, he was ready to go.

Since I primarily work from home, I have the luxury of dressing any way I want for work. My typical working uniform is business casual – khaki pants or jeans, button-down shirt, and shoes. I’d wear the same if I worked in an office. It helps me get into the role and keeps me focused. Similarly, I would be ready to roll out to a customer meeting.

If you are comfortable and productive in your job, dress for the part. You’ll play better when you are wearing the right suit for you.

Baby, I’m a Star - how celebrities can make or break your event

July 20, 2017

Let’s face it – there are lots of people who want to be around celebrities. Every industry has them; they don’t have to be in pop culture. There are people who are noted for being good at what they do while others are legends in their own minds. As a marketing professional, I’ve run hundreds of trade shows, client conferences, and employee events. Adding a celebrity to host or serve as the drawing card for your event can be a blessing or a curse. This blog post presents two blessings and two curses. Three are well-known in their respective fields and one is no longer with us.

Blessing – Tim Sanders

When I worked for a company that provided customer care for the world’s leading brands, we hired Tim Sanders (early-stage employee of Broadcast.com who stayed on as Chief Solutions Officer following it’s sale to Yahoo, now a published author and speaker) as a featured speaker at our annual client conference. My role included vetting the speakers to ensure there was continuity of message, briefing speakers on the audiences, and helping any way I could with their speaking slot. Although I usually glanced through their books, I read Tim’s “Love is the Killer App” and enjoyed every paragraph. So our conversations flowed nicely. Tim was a total pleasure to work with and wowed a very tough crowd. He was the only speaker that received 10 out of 10 rankings from the 100+ customer experience experts in the audience.

Curse – the Cash Cab Guy

With every blessing there is a curse. The same company’s client conference featured evening entertainment – dinner on a mountaintop in Aspen, a black-tie special event complete with red carpet at Universal Studios, you get the drill. My colleagues and I thought the audience could use a laugh that year, so we sought a comedian. We viewed hundreds of clips and decided that Ben Bailey, the host of “Cash Cab” (a trivia game show that takes place in a Manhattan taxi), was the one. His clips were good, clean fun. Remember the Beatles’ “Paul is Dead” rumors? Perhaps Ben was replaced by a lookalike when he took the stage. Being no prude, I was raised by sailors and swear like the best of them. But this guy took working blue to a whole new level! Every sentence had expletives. No filter. The audience hated the experience so much that the company did not hold the event the following year.

Curse – Spoonman

A former employer held a major product launch party following an industry trade show in Seattle. We hired Artis the Spoonman (a local performance artist and the subject of the Grammy-winning song by Soundgarden) as the evening’s entertainment. Big mistake. Neither Spoonman nor his handlers took any of my pre-event phone calls. We became concerned that he would be a no-show. He showed up but was late and left the audience waiting. When I outstretched my hand for a handshake, he held his arms behind his back and coldly replied, “Spoonman does not shake hands.” OK, I get it. Beware of people who refers to themselves in the third person. That was the highlight of his performance. He seemed to not want to be there and left the second his performance ended.

Blessing – Tim Conover

Another blessing and one of the finest individuals I’ve ever worked with. When I joined an 80-year-old radio manufacturer, we wanted to add some pizzazz to our trade shows. A colleague suggested a magician named Tim Conover. Tim was no mere magician. His first career was as an engineer who had co-developed the modem. He combined the technical smarts to understand the products with the stagecraft of a master. I merely sent him some product catalogs and he created magic tricks about them! Who could have imagined the Project 25 standard for interoperability as a rope trick! He thrilled every crowd and loved hanging out with us. We considered him an indispensable member of our intrepid little band. The job title on his booth badge was Traffic Magnet, and Tim kept our booth packed with the right people. Year upon year. He died tragically a few years ago. Godspeed Tim.

The lesson in all this? It is OK to hire a celebrity for your event. Just make sure you partner with the celebrity to ensure they understand your brand, your audience, and your expectations.

We’re one but we’re not the same

February 3, 2017

‍ ‍Many organizations prefer to group Sales and Marketing together. The head of such a combined organization typically has SVP of Sales and Marketing in their title. The executive presides over two very different organizations. But which one are they? Are they a sales person or a marketing person? The truly rare bird has been both in their career. I am proud to say that I am one of those birds. I began my career as a highly successful B2B sales person for a subsidiary of a Fortune 1000 company, selling CD-based training programs to corporate safety directors, industrial hygienists, and human resources leaders. Not to toot my own horn too loudly, but I sold the biggest deal in the product line’s history. So I know what it takes to put a capture team together, to shepherd a deal from initial contact to service delivery, and to ask for the order. I’ve done it numerous times. The marketing aspects of the job – creating the sales tools, developing the campaigns, and running the events – held more interest for me, so I focused on marketing as a career path. Those 3+ years as a sales person were the best education a marketer could ask for.

‍Back to sales and marketing. Not every sales person is a marketer, and not every marketer is a sales person. These two vital roles are often confused in the organization. Which becomes increasingly clear in every job search I’ve undertaken. Read the job description, not just the title. Jobs that are posted as “Director of Sales and Marketing” are usually sales reps that are required to do their own lead generation. Such roles do a disservice to the companies and ultimately the employee. Similarly, I applied to a “Marketing Director” position with an outsourcing firm. The description in the posting sounded like a great fit. It described developing marketing plans, creating sales tools, segmentation, budgets, campaigns, and events. But when I called the company to follow up on my application status, I got an earful. The HR person said they are looking for someone to call on companies within a territory to sell their services. She said the Marketing Director is expected to have their own rolodex of prospects to call on, and should make at least 50 outbound calls and 50 outbound emails a day. Sounds like a sales position, doesn’t it? I was told that they titled the position “Marketing Director” because sales people cost too much. So the solution is to bolt a marketing title onto a sales role, save some money, and maybe nobody notices. Sales and marketing, all the same, right?

‍ ‍Truth is, sales and marketing are different roles. The relationship is symbiotic. Not to oversimplify but Sales people need a pipeline, a credible product/service to sell, and the right sales tools to make their quota. Marketing, in turn, is the provider of pipeline, visibility, sales tools, and (in some organizations) the product. The success of the two roles are inextricably linked. Sales cannot sell without Marketing laying the ground work, and Marketing cannot be effective if Sales does not sell using what Marketing provides.  One, but not the same.

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This is Part One of a series…

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The secret to omni channel is channel compatibility

January 8, 2017

Your customers have a multitude of channels through which they can interact with you. Does that make them omnichannel or multichannel? It doesn’t really matter, so long as your customer service team has visibility into all of the communication channels your customers use. This applies to everyone who faces your customers, whether they are store employees, in-house call center team, or outsourced partners. Consistency of customer experience across these disparate channels is key. A customer can start a query on her phone, check online reviews on a website, open a web chat to verify further, and then complete the purchase at the store. Any point along the way is a potential gain or loss. A successful customer experience involves minimal effort on the part of the customer and seamless integration.

My recent experience with a telecom carrier is a case study in omnichannel confusion. I wanted to set up direct bill of my cellphone to my corporate credit card. Should be an easy transaction, right? On the first call, the carrier was more interested in changing my password than in my billing. Every time I called their call center, they would only reset my password. On one call they suggested I visit a brick-and-mortar store, but the store had no record that I was already a customer. I called ten times and spoke with ten different agents, who reset my password ten times. My new password is an alphanumeric anagram of the atomic weight of Promethium, the birth dates of two childhood pets, and two Rickenbacker guitar models. But no direct bill. So I took to Twitter. The carrier’s Twitter team couldn’t verify that I was their customer. To further complicate matters, the call center agents had no visibility into the Twitter team’s records or my store visit. Apparently the three channels use separate databases and vendor partners that have neither an intersection point nor the ability to share data. Thus the seeds of channel discontent are sown. My personal case should not have taken multiple calls, a store visit, half a dozen tweets, and hundreds of hours of frustration.

The lesson learned is whatever the channel(s) your customer chooses, make sure the channels can reference the same contact information and customer interaction activity. Omni channel can be a beautiful thing when properly executed. Channel compatibility can make for an exceptional customer experience.

The stars look very different today

January 15, 2016

The world was stunned this week by the sudden death of David Bowie. He released an album only last week (on his 69th birthday) and from this fan’s perspective it was great to have him back in the spotlight. Bowie defied almost every convention over a five-decade career that spanned multiple music genres, movies, theater, art and more. Someday, a dictionary will show his photo as the example of “chameleonic.”  He taught the world so much.

Here are a few lessons learned from the man born David Jones:

Reinvention as an art form

Ziggy Stardust? The Thin White Duke? Elephant Man? He had numerous alter egos and personas, each perfectly matched the music to the character. The muscular guitar figures of the late great Mick Ronson of the Ziggy era were nothing like the sinewy funk lines of Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick of his Thin White Duke period, which presaged the Stratocaster  pyrotechnics of Stevie Ray Vaughan on Let’s Dance. He ditched the disco getup for the tailored suits and serrated guitar work of Reeves Gabrels for his Tin Machine days. These personas and musical styles had a common thread – the unmistakable voice and compositional chops of Bowie.  The lesson learned is, don’t be afraid to try or be something new.

Collaboration across generations

Bowie worked with so many different and varied artists who helped shape his sound and vision. One of the more bizarre television appearances I’ve ever seen was his duet with Bing Crosby on a Christmas special. With an age gap of more than 40 years, Crosby had no idea who this strange creature was singing with him. But that didn’t stop them from sounding great together! Their accomplishments in music and the movies actually gave the two stars significant common ground. Another Bowie collaboration grew out of a conversation at a dinner party. John Lennon and David Bowie discussed the path to fame, and once a level of fame is achieved the famous try to deconstruct and downplay it. The resulting song displays some of Lennon’s finest guitar work.  Bowie would later re-record the song with Queen Latifah (born Dana Owens), then an up-and-coming singer.  One of my favorite songs from the 1980s is Under Pressure, the brilliant duet that Bowie recorded with British rock legends Queen. He had been friends with their singer, Freddy Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) for years and they shared a love of presenting rock as a visual spectacle. Can you sense a pattern with his collaborators?

Great Risk Great Reward

His innovations stretched into the unlikely worlds of finance and technology. Bowie was one of the first celebrities to offer bonds on his back catalog. Bowie Bonds were asset-backed securities of current and future revenues of the 25 albums (287 songs) that Bowie recorded before 1990. The idea was pioneered by investment banker David Pullman, and the bonds issued by Prudential in 1997. At one time, Bowie Bonds had  a higher rate of return than a 10-year Treasury note!

His footprint in technology was also significant. In September 1998, Bowie launched his own Internet service provider, BowieNet. Subscribers to the dial-up service were offered exclusive content, as well as a BowieNet email address and regular Internet access. Although the service was closed in 2006, Bowie was again a pioneer in another world.

One of the true originals has left us, and made an indelible mark on our world. The stars do look very different today.

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, or why you should always try to challenge yourself

December 3, 2015

‍Six strings, four strings, it’s all the same, right? Wrong (imagine Dana Carvey as John McLaughlin in his most bellicose bellowing)!  The ukulele and the guitar may both be stringed instruments, but there are many differences in how they are strung, tuned, and played. I’ve been playing guitar for decades and can voice most chords on the guitar without thinking. Which is where the little uke comes in. It has only 4 strings (from low to high: G, C, E, and A) for you to express yourself.

‍As a musicianship exercise, last weekend I took a few songs that I knew well on the guitar and rearranged them for ukulele. The point of the exercise was to get me thinking about chords, structures, and shapes in a new way. Liberate my thinking a little. My first rearrangement was “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” one of the most beautiful and under-appreciated songs in the Elton John catalog. Pick up his 1972 gem “Honky Chateau” and you’ll find it is full of treasures.  In fact, Rolling Stone ranked it number 357 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time (2003 version of the ranking).  The song was inspired by Elton’s lyricist Bernie Taupin hearing gunshots outside his hotel room during his first trip to New York. So the song states that “Rose of Spanish Harlem” is just a myth, rose trees never grow in New York City – powerful stuff to me, since I grew up half an hour by train from New York and have sworn I’ve seen many trees alive and well.

‍I’ve been playing the song on guitar for years and can usually play it from memory. But the C, A minor. and  other chords in the song are much different on the ukulele. Your fingers wind up going to places you (and they) never thought they’d go. Be ready to take your mind to different places too!  The transition to a different instrument taught me a lot about the song and showed me things I didn’t know were there!

‍Which brings me to the topic of this post. There is an opportunity to stretch yourself in everything you do. You are never too old, too set in your ways, or too structured to learn something new. Even if you think that you know something well, looking at it differently can teach you new things. So go back over that customer engagement survey and look for some new insights. Ask a client if what you do in another vertical could work in theirs. Look into a new cloud technology. As the song says, turn around and say “good morning” to the night.

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