A Creative (and Spooky) Marketing Story

I’m always interested in what other companies do for marketing, I hate to say that I easily forget/lose interest or dislike far more than I wish I did. I think too many businesses do what others do or just don’t give it a lot of effort because they’re afraid to break out of the box, or they just don’t have the finances (or connections or courage) to spread their really good marketing ideas and efforts around. But a recent bit of very creative marketing caught my attention and I thought it was worth sharing about because of how creative it was and how it did a really good job of straddling the line of being promotional as well as entertaining and engaging. The marketing campaign? A Zillow listing for Disney’s Haunted Mansion in their new movie of the same name.

If you’re not familiar with Zillow, they’re a company in the real estate industry and one of the things they offer are online home listings/profiles, which is the first reason why this campaign caught my attention: it’s a genius partnership. Who wouldn’t want a glimpse into what the haunted home looks like both in general and what Disney added for special effects? And it’s definitely not a traditional marketing campaign, and as much as the house is central to the story usually the marketing done for movies is less about the location and the sets and more about the actors and the type of movie. And another great thing about the partnership is that it allowed Disney to create a static marketing opportunity that’s not the traditional website or some other media that some people might ignore or bypass because it’s “boring.”

Which brings us to the second point, that it’s a great creative opportunity for both partners. I really appreciate that Zillow was able to find a happy medium between getting a little creative and flexible with the listing (structurally/detail wise it’s not exactly the same as it is for other homes on the site) yet still keeping it close enough to their normal layout that it’s unmistakably Zillow. On the Disney side of things, this listing gives them the opportunity to highlight some of the details that people might miss in the movie that their artists worked really hard and should be appreciated, as well as things that people would be interested in taking a close up look at the rooms/details because they enjoy architecture or scary things or movie artistry. I love how both companies were able to stay on brand and on message yet willing to spread their wings a bit beyond the traditional advertising that they’re both known for.

Could they have done a little more or include some more pictures and details without totally spoiling the movie? Yes, I definitely think there’s room for improvement in a similar marketing effort someone may do in the future. But the last thing I’ll add for reflection on today is the fact that doing an advertisement like this reduced a lot of the drama (and therefore controversy or taking sides) that comes with some ads, yet that didn’t mean that this advertisement was flat or without story. It tells a great story, it enhances the story the movie tells and it’s an opportunity for two companies to bring their audiences together in ways that aren’t typical yet are very natural. What great business or marketing partnerships have you seen lately?

Wisdom on Focusing for Success

Lately as you’ve probably seen, a topic I’ve been working on a lot is focus. In need of some wisdom myself today I went looking for what other people had to share on this topic that might help me find my focus again. Hopefully these words of wisdom will help you as well on your success journey.

“Live life to the fullest, and focus on the positive.” Matt Cameron

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” Mark Twain

“Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.” Denis Waitley

“At the end of the day, you can’t control the results; you can only control your effort level and your focus.” Ben Zobrist

“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Steve Jobs

“You can do anything as long as you have the passion, the drive, the focus, and the support.” Sabrina Bryan

“It is wise to direct your anger towards problems – not people; to focus your energies on answers – not excuses.” William Arthur Ward

“Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.” John Carmack

“You can focus on things that are barriers or you can focus on scaling the wall or redefining the problem.” Tim Cook

“Many people don’t focus enough on execution. If you make a commitment to get something done, you need to follow through on that commitment.” Kenneth Chenault

“It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.” John C. Maxwell

“If you just focus on getting better, and not being the best, you have such a good time.” James Acaster

“Action requires focus and priorities and these inherently require compromises and pragmatism.” Dominic Cummings

“Instead of trying to get work, focus on your network. People will play a huge part in directing your growth and investing in relationships is critical no matter what you want to do.” Jay Shetty

“I learned long ago to focus on things you can control and don’t even pay attention to things you don’t.” Bryan Cranston

Doing Good Work

You know I’m not a fan of perfection, right? I don’t think it’s helpful or healthy in 95% of circumstances to try to achieve perfection, the only one that I give a little leeway in is medical, because of course we all want our surgical procedures done as close to perfection as possible although we’re smart to be cautious even then because it’s not possible to take away 100% of the risk or remove all of the unknowns. But at the same time I don’t believe not aiming for perfection means that we shouldn’t be trying our best, giving it 100% of our effort or checking for mistakes whenever possible before things are unleashed on the world.

For example I bought something online the other day and when I got what I ordered it didn’t match the online description, and when I asked the seller they told me that they had updated the listing but guessed it didn’t change. It’s good they knew enough to change the listing, but you can’t just assume that the changes go through when you’re talking about being in business or being responsible for something, you have to check (and double check if the situation calls for it) so that you don’t have issues down the road.

This episode and several others recently have reminded me how much work you’re saving yourself if you do your best before things become an issue, how much stress you’re eliminating, and the importance of teaching the next generation to do the right thing sooner rather than later and to be the best person you can be. So where is the line between perfection and doing the right thing/doing a good (enough) job? I think it is where you do everything you can to remove the issues, for example you check your spelling and make sure you include clear pictures and include relevant details and ask questions so you understand the needs/timeline and of course you show up on time or early. By doing your best on the things you can control you leave less up to chance and failure, basically just what you have no control over anyway.

A great opportunity for teaching this line between perfection and good work is through homework from school and encouraging them to study and complete all the assignments on time, and it also can be done through housework or other (appropriate) responsibilities you give them. Of course you should also show your kids that adults are equally responsible and hard working so they see the truth from you about how to apply the things they’re learning to life. What lessons have you learned about doing good work and have you taught to your kids?

Let’s Celebrate Business Successes

Every business has areas that aren’t so awesome to think about or look at. Every business makes mistakes and has customers who would not shop with them even if they were the last remining business on earth. No business is perfect and no people are ever perfect, and honestly we do ourselves and the many customers who do love us a big disservice when we let our focus be on trying for perfection. Each piece of a business is important, from the customer service to the leadership to the actual product/service to the marketing, but so often what I hear from other business owners in all industries is about what they can’t do. “I can’t go viral on social media.” “I can’t come up with ideas for my newsletter.” “I can’t get customers to share reviews.” “I can’t get employees to stay.” “I can’t come up with a product/service that everyone loves.” “My employees don’t seem to care about the customers.” I’m sure you can add some more ‘can’ts’ to that list that you’ve either said or heard.

And I get that. I’m sure most of us could go on for quite the time period about all the issues we have. And to an extent we should because we should recognize the issues or failures we have and work to improve them so that we hopefully can avoid those issues in the future, or at least not let them get worse than they might already be. And the negative reviews help us better target our marketing, and help our potential customers know if a product or service is right for them before they buy and then have to get a refund or choose to leave a nasty review. But what if instead we focused on the good?

What if instead we shared about/focused on the cool marketing group we found or how many pages we wrote or a positive review about a product we’ve had forever but found a new fan or the interesting article that taught us something new or the new partnership we’re doing with another local business or the employee who has made a measurable difference in our business or the (anonymous/redacted) progress that a client has made? So instead of letting the bad or difficult overwhelm us, what if we did better about paying attention to the progress, the good, the exciting, the breakthroughs, however small they might be? I’ve seen that when we focus on, celebrate even, the good, the progress, the advancements more tend to show up and we’re able to make better progress than we do when we’re fighting the failure battle. What good things have happened in your business recently and how can you and your team do a better job of focusing on and highlight the good in your business?

Live for Success

One of the things I love most about summer is how we tend to simplify. We have watermelon seed spitting contests, hike mountains, swim in the ocean, sit and watch stars, relax in hammocks, and rock in rocking chairs on porches. None of these are super complicated or complex, they’re full of simple activities and simple pleasures that so many can participate in and enjoy, and yet their simplicity doesn’t take away from the impact they can have on our lives. After all, would these simple pleasures be as iconic as they are, be part of the many years of summers that they have been and will be, if we didn’t find value and enjoyment in them?

If you’ve been following along in recent months on either of my blogs you know that a big theme for me has been simplicity. For whatever reason I just don’t seem to have the same bandwidth that I used to. Part of me is OK with that, but part of me is frustrated that I’m struggling to include as much in a week as I used to (I’ve been joking about being on a 8 or 9 day week lately with the extra time I seem to need to get everything done that I used to do in a 7 day week). Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always preferred to be flexible with life and scheduling, but I also know how much harder it is to be successful when you have to extend your schedule out further than you used to (or want to). But I recently read some wisdom from Alan Watts that helped me see this struggle from a different perspective:

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

Maybe it’s not a bad thing that I’m doing less in a day. Maybe we’ve all been doing ourselves and our success journeys a disservice by trying to cram it all in as fast as possible and do as much as possible in a sitting or session or whatever you call the structures in your life/schedule. Maybe by letting things get as complicated as we do we’re actually setting ourselves back? Maybe the healthiest path to success is to never forget that life is to be lived, not worked or pushed or scheduled. What is your focus in life? What are you living for? What does how you live say about your priorities? What are you missing out on because your focus isn’t on living but on something else?

A Summer that Matters

You’ve heard it said tons of times that money won’t keep you warm at the end of the day, and it’s absolutely true.  An hour of TV will never take the place of spending an hour at a bar or coffeehouse with a friend, a meal cooked by a world class chef just for you will never replace a barbecue with family and friends, and there’s no number of words that can ever leave the legacy that children can.

There’s no replacement for another human being.  But I know as well as you do that money and possessions definitely have value.  It’s nice to be pampered, to not have to do everything yourself, to have options through the internet that aren’t available to you locally, it’s nicer to live in a house than a shack, and showing up in a well designed outfit will get you a better job than showing up in sweats (most of the time).

I always encourage my clients to make sure they balance their work, their passions, with time with family and friends.  It’s not easy to run a business or have a demanding full time job in 2023, but it’s important to realize that even if you do make a great impact with your business or job, you can’t sleep with it, can’t have a snowball fight with it, can’t visit the beach and pick up shells with it, and it won’t make your meals any more enjoyable. People ultimately are what add the joy into life.

This summer I encourage you to take time and be with people.  Yes, you can hang out on social media, but also get together physically and have a BBQ, go to the beach or play Frisbee in a park.  Get out there and have fun together!

“I am convinced that material things can contribute a lot to making one’s life pleasant, but, basically, if you do not have very good friends and relatives who matter to you, life will be really empty and sad and material things cease to be important.”  David Rockefeller

Business Goals: Retain Customers

How good are you at retaining your customers? I know for some business owners it’s not a question because they don’t sell things that are bought frequently by most people, like real estate for example. In those situations it becomes more of a question of how frequently or consistently your previous customers recommend new customers your way. But the goal for most businesses is to not only have more sales but to get their existing customers to buy more frequently, which means they have to get good at retaining their customers. So that brings us back to the original question: do you make an effort to build relationships with your customers so that they feel like they’re part of your business, want to give you specifically their business, and send more business your way too?

If you read the business news or pay attention to the businesses that declare bankruptcy or are in the headlines like I do, sometimes I wonder what the business was thinking that got them to the point that they’re at or why they decided to make the changes that they’re making. So today I thought we’d dive into a couple of the current topics of debate that I’ve seen with businesses in the headlines and talk about how their decisions are helping or hurting their chances at retaining customers.

It may sound strange to start here, but I think the first step to retaining customers is through change. Change is a very natural part of running a business because as the resources, needs, interests and goals of customers change so must the business. It’s OK to offer different things or to tweak and change your offerings because not only can it help you better meet the needs and desires of your current customers, but it can also help bring in new ones as well. And sometimes changes happen based on the direction the business is headed which means you’ll lose some customers but hopefully again bring in new ones with your new/more specific focus.

Second, it’s OK to decide that you’ve reached a stage where you want to offer more exclusive offerings. Exclusivity is a great way to increase revenues, get subscribers who will pay you consistently, or work with a very specific niche audience. Exclusivity will also bring in some new customers as well as help you retain customers because they can’t get what is being offered elsewhere. However, when you choose to go exclusive it’s usually the case that you won’t be able to retain all the customers that you had before you moved your offerings to exclusive. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having exclusive offerings, where I’ve been seeing the issues pop up is where the exclusive offerings are creating a barrier to great service/experiences with the company or making it harder for regular customers to work with you. For example if regular customers can only use the AI customer service while exclusive customers have a broader range of service options, if the AI service consistently is down or provides incorrect answers or can’t find the orders in the system, you’re going to alienate the regular customers and ultimately end up damaging your company and your brand rather than adding a new level of service.

Finally, if you want to retain customers you have to have stuff to sell. During the height of the pandemic there were signs in stores everywhere and on online stores that businesses were working to restock shelves as quick as possible but there were serious supply issues and they were sorry for the empty shelves (physical and virtual). When you go in a store and see that they don’t have (many) products on the shelves and then hear they’re closing, do you think they’re closing because they didn’t have products or they didn’t have products because they were closing? Because when you don’t show up to provide your services, when you don’t have products on the shelves, it makes it really hard for customers to want to be returning buyers even if the quality of what you’ve always offered is good. I understand the cost involved in being ready to provide services/products, however that’s part of the cost of doing business and if you’re not willing to accept that cost or do the marketing to sell enough products/services to have the necessary cash flow, maybe it is best if the business doesn’t succeed.

So is your business working to retain or repel customers? What can you do to create a better relationship between you and your customers so that they want to buy more from you?

A Success-Inspiring Breakfast

A lot has changed over the years, but one thing has remained pretty consistent: parents are picky about what their kids eat for breakfast. I can remember being told that certain things weren’t breakfast foods, or at the very least I had to eat something that was approved before I could have something else. And forget about asking or trying to skip breakfast all together, because that wasn’t happening. Of course the response our parents always gave was “you can make your own decisions about breakfast when you’re an adult,” and we always responded with something about cookies, cake, ice cream, pizza or nothing, right? As I enjoy my breakfast of healthy-but-not-filling watermelon and thought about what the day ahead holds I was struck by a couple of lessons we can apply from this situation to our success journey.

First, it’s your success journey. As adults we have to know our bodies and we’re responsible for fueling them and making sure that they get us from waking to sleeping without dragging all the time or feeling terrible (or else we pay the price!). Likewise, you have to make decisions about your success journey based on who you are, and less about what others have done or are doing that works for them or what they’re telling you to do. This means knowing who you are, how you think, how you react to certain things, boundaries you’ve got in place and aren’t willing to be flexible on, the environment you work best in, when you’re at your most focused, and maybe most importantly how committed you are to achieving the goal.

Second, don’t be afraid to start someplace and go from there. Watermelon won’t be all I eat for breakfast this morning, but it’s where I’m starting, and that’s OK. Starting is the hardest part for many people and once they get over that initial challenge, fear or hesitation, they’re good to go. So pick a place and start working, and if it means you have to take a couple of steps back once you realize you should have started somewhere else, that’s OK. Why? Because you’ll have two goals you’re working towards, and you’ll have the added confidence of knowing that you’ve already done some of the work further along the success journey, so as soon as you get back to that point you’ll be ready to keep going with a solid foundation in place.

Finally, set yourself up for success whenever possible. It’s really hard to eat a good breakfast if you don’t have anything in the house or on the way to work that you’re willing to eat. So if breakfast is an important meal for you or you’re picky about what you eat for breakfast, obviously the best way to avoid issues in the morning is to make sure you’re always stocked up on whatever you prefer for breakfast. Success is similar in that you can set yourself up for success by having good habits in your life in general, taking care of yourself, investing in relationships with people on a regular basis rather than just reaching out when you need something, and being careful with your resources.

What breakfast sets your day up right for you?

What is Summer Fun?

“Summer should be fun! We should be out doing things with the kids! They shouldn’t just be on devices!” Have you said those words yet this summer as a parent? I heard a parent say that recently and it brought back memories of my childhood and being told I had to do something other than read a book all day long. I wasn’t quite as bad as some kids today are with their devices because I did like gardening and Legos and walking and TV too, but pretty close. The more I thought about those fond memories, the more I was convinced that parents are wrong in their statement about “Summer should be fun!” as in the kids aren’t having fun doing what they’re doing. Which is totally wrong, especially if they aren’t saying “I’m bored!” If they’re not telling you they’re bored, by process of elimination, chances are good that they’re having fun (even if it’s not your definition of fun)!

So this is your official reminder and invitation to share with your kids that you want to participate in a whole host of fun summer activities before they go back to school. What that means is that yes, that includes device time or book time or whatever their preferred non-school activity is. It also gives you the opportunity to include other things that you know to be fun as well as things you think they might find to be fun as part of their summer activities. Maybe you even want to go so far as to say that every day they can do their preferred activity, but they also have to do something else that’s on your/the family fun list.

If you haven’t yet, this is a great opportunity to sit down as a family and make up a list of things you all would like to do during the summer, from the probably can’t happen (like go to every water park in the country), to the things locally that one or more person knows is fun, thinks might be fun, heard is fun, or would like to try while they’re not in school. Creating this list and then posting it somewhere that everyone sees it regularly also brings us full circle and helps remind all of us that there are lots of fun things to do, especially near our homes and during the summer. What are your favorite summer activities to do as a family?

Are You Committed to Your Customers?

Sometimes I think we don’t give businesses enough credit for how difficult their job can be. It’s not easy to manage all the products, know everyone’s status, an be on top of all the issues. It’s not easy to work at 100% all the time, and to expect that there won’t ever be downtime or issues with your products/services/people. It’s hard to accept that products and structures come to an end of their life and have to be replaced, especially if it should have lasted longer or usually does. Of course yes, each business owner knows that they’re taking on a lot of work if they’re going to be in business and serve more than 10 people, but that doesn’t change the fact that knowledge and reality don’t always line up which is why some businesses fail, every business has issues from time to time and no business has 100% happy customers.

But there’s this one grocery store I sometimes have to go to that has a very confusing design/layout. I always joke that I certainly get my steps when I go there because I walk the whole store at least 3 times to find all the things on my list. Between my organizing brain and my customer brain I believe there is a better way for the store to be structured so that it’s not so confusing and doesn’t make people dread or avoid shopping there. Because honestly if I don’t have enough time to circle the store again and again I won’t get everything on the list, and they lose out on the sales. There’s another (online) store that many people shop through and I’ve been hearing more and more from people that the store is making it very difficult for people to find what they’re looking for on the website and that pre-orders are being cancelled. Let’s say that I’ve got a network of 200 people that I’m conversing with about this store, and I’ve heard about issues from more than 30% of them, which, even with the incredible number of transactions this company does, doesn’t say good things about the company.

All of this brings us back to the customer: is the customer willing to put in a lot of effort to find what they’re looking for? How many times will a customer order or pre-order something and not get what they’re trying to buy before they stop buying it or buying from that company? Is a customer willing to put up with standing in line to check out for the same amount of time they were in the store (more than 15 minutes)? Is the customer willing to put up with being told lies about what the issues are (“these things just happen” “it’s a signal issue”)? How willing is a customer to shop with a company they know has terrible or difficult-to-find/access customer service?

Yes, of course the business owner wants to end up on top, wants to end up with a profit at the end of the day, wants to stay in business for as long as possible with as few costs and sacrifices on their end. But if you have customers who shop with you as a last resort, don’t take advantage of sales when you have them as often as they probably should, or get more than a few complaints about quality control issues, I think the question has to be asked how seriously you’re taking being in business, and how serious you are about the commitment you made to your customers when you decided to start your business. Because a business that intentionally makes it hard for a customer to find things or buy things isn’t a business that’s really got their priorities straight. Are you working for or against your customers?