(Time to read this Blog is about 3.5 minutes)

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “The beginning of wisdom is the recognition of reality!   There’s no wisdom in denial or false beliefs!  What realities are you ignoring in your business?” 
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   The year is half over.  How are you doing?
    
   It’s time to do a mid-year check-up. Are your sales and profitability on track to meet your 2025 commitments?  Are expenses under control?  Are major projects and initiatives on track…or falling behind?  Who’s not performing and needs more training, coaching or encouragement?  Who’s not rescuable and needs to be ‘coached’ out of the organization?
    
   Do you and your team have clear performance commitments for the 2^nd half of the year…and does everyone know what those are…and what their role is in achieving them?  Is their performance measured and are they held accountable?
    
   What will you do in the 2^nd half of the year to improve the customer experience?  And what will you do to create world-class operating efficiency in every part of the business?
    
3. Fun fact. The world’s most sustainable cities are all in Scandinavia. They are Helsinki, Finland; Gothenburg, Sweden; Copenhagen, Denmark and Bergen, Norway.  What can we as a business, as a city and as a nation learn from them?
    
4. Don’t let this happen to your business. I’m a big fan of Consumer Reports Magazine.  They rigorously and independently test thousands of products from sunscreen to automobiles …and rate their performance on a scale of 1 to 100.
    
   I’m always amazed at how many Brands that once led their market have now fallen so far behind.  For example, Hoover, who really created the vacuum cleaner industry in 1908, is barely mentioned in Consumer Reports latest ratings.  Newcomers have taken over the top spots.
    
   Another example is Beltone.  They’ve been in the hearing aid business for 85 years.  For years, they were the industry leaders.  But, they’re now rated dead last out of the 17 prescription hearing aids recently tested by Consumer Reports.  So, what are you doing to ‘create the next’ and stay relevant…or will you loose your focus, fall behind and disappear?
    
5. AI update. We keep hearing that AI will change or affect almost everything we do in business, regardless of the size of our business.  But what does this really mean?  How do we find the right AI coach or consultant to help us with this massive disruption to how business is done?
    
   So, I asked ChatGPT, “How do I find the right AI consultant for my business?”  and here’s the first tip it spit out.   

   ‘Define Your Goals: Clarify what you want to achieve with AI.’
    
   But, if we don’t even know what’s possible with AI, which is the position that most of us are in, how do we know what we can achieve with it…and what might happen to us if we don’t?  It’s a classic case of, “We don’t know what we don’t know.”
    
   Here’s my thought.  It should be a key priority of every Industry Association in the world to take the lead in educating their members on what AI means, specifically for their industry…how to go about it and to identify the best AI Consultants.  Contact your Industry Association, right now, and tell them to get moving on this.

Now, to this week’s important topic:

So, exactly what is ‘marketing’?  It’s much more than you think:

Every business talks about ‘marketing’, but most never define it properly.  There are many debates and myths about what marketing is.  Some folks equate it to advertising, promotion and sales, but it’s much more than that.  Here’s my simple definition of ‘marketing’ that may be helpful…

Marketing is anything you do to increase the demand for, or sales of, what you sell.

So, customer and competitive research are marketing. Product design, product quality, selection, availability, packaging, presentation and signage are all part of marketing.  (Note:  In your business, your ‘product’ could be a ‘service’, rather than a physical product.)  How you look, sound and perform in every part of your business, your sense of urgency and quick delivery are all part of marketing.  Kindness and joy are marketing.   

Proactive selling, being the ‘Caring Coach’, delivering extraordinary service that creates raving fans, your pricing, your policies, your guarantee, your customer value and your corporate values are all part of marketing.  As are your advertising and promotion, your website, your use of social media and everything you do that communicates in any way. 

Marketing is creating clear and compelling value and then telling that value story in a way that ‘grabs’ your target customers, clearly differentiates you from your competitors, makes you famous…and grows your bottom line.  First you have to be a story…and then you have to tell your story.  So, what’s your clear and compelling value story, and how effectively do you tell it in everything you do?

Increasing the overall demand for what you sell is a big part of marketing.  ‘Make the pie bigger’! This is especially true if your product or service is new, or if many of your target customers are not familiar with it…or have some fear, anxiety or doubt about it.

Many businesses are trying to convince us to buy something from them that we haven’t yet been convinced to buy at all.   So, you have two marketing jobs.  First, is to convince folks to buy the product or service that you sell…and second, to buy it specifically from you.  Most businesses jump right to ‘Marketing Job #2 …and it’s usually a huge waste of money.

Home Depot grows the ‘Do-it-yourself’ market by offering Seminars on how to do various home repair or improvement projects yourself. They help people feel comfortable and competent about tackling the job.  That’s great marketing! 

A very smart camping equipment store in Edmonton, Alberta offers guided ‘Camping for Beginners’ weekends in the nearby mountains to coach and assure potential customers that camping is amazing, fun, safe and affordable for couples, families and groups.  What a brilliant way to ‘make the pie bigger’!

Casinos offer courses in ‘Poker for Beginners’ to lure in more suckers.  In my opinion, gambling and lotteries are a tax on stupidity!  But I digress. 

For years, the Recreational Vehicle Dealers’ Association has run a media campaign designed to excite more families about the experience of RVing.  More great marketing.  

So, how could you coach, encourage and promote to get more people wanting and using what you sell?  How can you ‘make the pie bigger’?

Many folks disagree with my definition of marketing…but they’re wrong.  They say, for example, that things like product design, product quality, performance and dependability are not part of marketing.  But the truth is they’re the very start of marketing.  It’s a lot tougher to sell poorly designed crap than something that looks appealing, functions magnificently and uplifts the soul.  Anything that gives you an edge in the marketplace is ‘marketing’.

It’s not that I think everyone in your organization should report to the head of Marketing.  That would be goofy.  It’s just that everyone in your organization, no matter what their job, or department, should understand how they personally affect the ability of the business to serve, to differentiate, to be extraordinary, to compete and to grow.  We should all be thinking of ourselves as being an important part of the Marketing Team, even if we’re not part of the Marketing Department. 

So, what will you do, starting right now, to help every member of your Team feel more connected to your target customers? What customer and business insights, clear commitments, ongoing training and regular communication, performance measurement, feedback, ‘thank yous’, rewards, encouragement, hugs and celebrations will make everyone on your Team more customer-connected, customer-passionate and customer-committed?    

If you’d like help with any of this, perhaps we should chat.  I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.

That’s it for this week…

Live brilliantly and be kind to each other!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.