Author Archive for Leo Valiquette

Thinking outside the bunker

Diefenbunker tunnelhighres Thinking outside the bunkerBy Leo Valiquette

Effective marketing is often an exercise in thinking outside the box to make the most creative use of assets already at hand.

In a content marketing context, this may mean tapping into the brain trust residing within your organization to use the industry experience, perspective and forward-thinking vision of key individuals to establish thought leadership through blogs, whitepapers and contributions to trade and industry publications.

There are also those instances where a certain caché can be built around providing a unique experience to your marketplace. British startup Screach, which we regularly check in with on this blog, is an excellent example of a technology vendor that is all about audience engagement and interaction by creating unique and fun experiences that take advantage of mobile ubiquity. But with any kind of product or service, there are unique aspects that can be used to create an original and memorable experience.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with the staff of the Diefenbunker on the outskirts of Ottawa for a chat about how they have “thought outside the bunker” to creatively market and position the site for a variety of different market segments.

For those of you who don’t know, the Diefenbunker is a 100,000 square-foot, four-storey underground facility built in 1958-59 to protect Canada’s government from nuclear attack. It is an enduring reminder of the Cold War, the horror of nuclear conflict and the dedication of the personnel who were expected to leave their families behind to fulfill their duty.

It was also a massive white elephant before local interests decided to purchase it and turn it into a cold war museum.

“There is no other facility like this in North America built as both a nuclear blast and fallout shelter that is open to the public,” executive director Yetta Riegel told me.

But the museum’s team wasn’t content with pulling in the regular crowd of history buffs, tourists and bus loads of bored students. Instead, it has taken advantage of the site’s symbolic and historical significance in several ways. It is promoted as a venue for the ethics workshops and the emergency preparedness scenario testing required of some government departments, and for corporate retreats and team-building events. The staff also takes advantage of the retro ’60s look and the cold war spy theme to host cocktail (“shaken, not stirred”) and birthday parties. In July, the bunker even hosted a performance of the Moscow String Quartet called Beyond the Bomb: Music of the Cold War.

Granted, the Diefenbunker may be an extreme example given its unique significance and physical structure. But even here, it took creative thinking to consider how the site could position itself as more than just a museum. Regardless of the product, service, brand or venue in question, there is always the need to escape a rut that is dug by either the status quo or the obvious. It isn’t just a matter of asking “how are we different?” but, “How can we be different?”

Image:  Ottawagraphy.ca

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on August 29, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Marketing strategy — 3 Comments

Truth … and sincerity … in advertising

reduce your flesh 227x300 Truth ... and sincerity ... in advertisingBy Leo Valiquette

Have you seen that commercial for a teeth-whitening toothpaste that features two “sisters,” one of whom says, “as a professional photographer …” but as she speaks, a disclaimer pops up on the screen that states this is not a photographer, but an actress?

Read zero on the credibility meter.

As Alex blogged about earlier this week in her inbound marketing post, more traditional outbound marketing, in which specific messages are pushed upon a target audience in a one-way flow of information, remains an important part of the marketing mix. The good old boob tube is the best place to see examples of it done right and done horribly, horribly wrong.

With many large brands, there is often a corporate mindset at work in which too much control is wanted over the message and the image being projected, but this can result in marketing campaigns that come across as too slick and contrived and have little resonance with the intended audience.

The most striking examples are found in those instances where big brands rely on actors to play the part of happy customers or experts. There are occasions where this makes sense and the result can be highly entertaining. Take, for example, the grumpy old men characters employed by TD Canada Trust.

On the other hand, there is often no substitute for real customers speaking from the heart about how your product or service has been of benefit to them. Or, in the case of that toothpaste commercial, having someone with the authority that can only come from actually being the expert they claim to be. I wrote a few weeks ago about the merits of letting your customers speak for you and this applies regardless of the medium in question.

With broadcast media, this isn’t a case of giving a reference customer an open mike and hoping for the best. It does take pre-screening to ensure the story that customer has to tell about the value and benefits they derive from your product or service supports your marketing objectives. Coaching and rehearsal may be necessary to ensure that story comes out in a clear, crisp way that isn’t painful to watch and fits within the constraints of a 30-second spot. But in the end, you still have a real customer talking about what mattered most to them.

I recently wrote a content marketing piece for a bank, which wanted to showcase three areas of its commercial operation. While the bank managers I sat down with expected customer testimonials to be part of the final product, their intention was that the bulk of the article still be the bank talking about itself. I suggested another approach. Give me three customers to talk to, I said, each being representative of one of these three areas. Two-thirds of the article ended up being these customers talking about the bank. The bankers were quite pleased with the result and the senior among them admitted to me afterward that this approach had never occurred to him.

No bubbly piggy bank required

I have to give kudos to the latest advertising campaign by Money Mart. Here is a financial services institution that specializes in payday loans and other services for people who, for whatever reason, need an alternative to a typical chartered bank.

Over the past year or more, it has used as its spokespeople an attractive and vivacious brunette with an equally vivacious CGI piggy bank as her sidekick. The brunette isn’t pretending to be a customer; she is simply a spokesperson talking about Money Mart’s services. The piggy bank is cute and adorable eye candy that’s more decorative than functional. There is nothing particularly wrong with these ads, as far as TV ads go, but neither do they have a real hook.

The latest series of ads, on the other hand, feature real customers talking about real challenges in their lives, including a lady with a relative who has a crystal meth addiction, and how Money Mart’s services have helped. I am not endorsing these kinds of financial services, simply recognizing outbound marketing done right. These ads feature real people talking about real challenges, even referencing the perceived stigma they feel is attached to turning to a service provider such as Money Mart.

As the advertiser, it takes no shortage of intestinal fortitude to have customers speak so candidly to the marketplace. But you tell me which approach is going to strike the strongest chord with a target audience.

Image: MomGrind.com

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on August 23, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Content marketing, Marketing strategy, Product marketing — Leave a comment

The buck has to stop with whoever owns the byline

plagiarism The buck has to stop with whoever owns the byline By Leo Valiquette

Quality writing, whether it is for journalistic, marketing or public relations purposes, is too often considered a commodity service. For those of us who have experience with the community newspaper business, where editorial content (to quote a colleague of mine) has often been viewed by publishers as “the shit that keeps the ads from bumping together,” this was painfully evident long before the advent of the Internet content mill.

The question is whether our present-day age of real-time, on-demand news and information is driving this to an extreme and leading many writers to, either accidentally or intentionally, break those tenets of ethical writing most often talked about in the context of journalism.

To be frank, some forms of content are a commodity and can be pumped out far more quickly than others. Nor are all writers created equal. I have worked with no shortage of wordsmiths who, despite the fact that this is their profession, still agonize for hours to produce something on a deadline that will still read much better if they are granted a second crack at it the next day.

Nonetheless, quality writing by anyone takes time, effort, focus and sober second thought to produce. And by quality I don’t mean just proper spelling and good grammar. I mean content that distills analytical thought, thorough research, penetrating interviews and confident creativity into something fresh and new that both conveys and deepens understanding of the subject matter.

Mark Twain is famously quoted, perhaps misquoted, for once apologizing for writing a long letter because he didn’t have time to write a short one. But it’s what he said in a letter in 1881 to a young Canadian writer named Bruce Weston Munro that sticks with me. Munro had written Twain to ask him about becoming a successful writer. Twain’s response ran five pages and was less than encouraging. Twain finished by saying that, if Munro found the tone of the letter too harsh, he could take comfort in the fact that the effort had cost Twain a day of work on his book, because, as Twain wrote, “he that desires to do the best work he can, doth not put a part of his day’s steam into a letter, first and then work with a three-quarter head of it on a book afterward, you know.”

This train of thought started this morning when I read Simon Houpt’s piece in the Globe and Mail, which asks the question, Is plagiarism the result of journalists being stretched thin? Houpt recapped a host of scandals in which writers with high-profile publications have been caught plagiarizing or just making stuff up, from CNN host and author Fareed Zakaria to Janet Cooke, who won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about an eight-year-old heroin addict that turned out to be more fiction than fact.

The Cooke incident may have been three decades ago, but the frequency of such incidents appears to be on the rise. Houpt’s piece suggests writers may simply be stretched too far by the added demands of blogging and other social media activities. It just ain’t enough anymore to have a byline or two in tomorrow’s print edition. This is particularly evident among those in the top tier of the journalistic profession, where there is pressure to maintain and grow a “personal brand.”

Houpt quotes James Fallows, international correspondent with the Atlantic, who contends that the recent cases of high-profile plagiarism “may be a useful moment to re-establish a difference between actual written product – that is, an article, a book, or even a personal blog posting – and things everybody assumes to be corporate.”

I couldn’t agree more. Fallows also pointed out savvy consumers understand that anchors on the six o’clock news haven’t necessarily written their own material, but the written word is a different sort of beast, especially when it is topped with a byline. To me, that byline is a personal stamp by that writer that makes them accountable for every word that comes after. Those words will (hopefully) have been edited by someone else before publication, but the burden is still on the writer to ensure accuracy of the facts and proper attribution.

It’s devilishly easy to dig up all sorts of data points and background information on the Internet and lose track of the origin. Even more so if that material has come from a colleague or staff researcher. Does this excuse plagiarism, whether intentional or accidental? No. But it does reaffirm the need to take those few extra minutes to reflect, review and revise as needed, and do so without having one eye on Twitter or Facebook at the same time. The buck stops with whoever owns that byline, no matter what kind of pressure is on them.

Image: Edutopia.org, Wesley Bedrosian

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on August 15, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Content marketing, Random thoughts, Social media — Leave a comment

How to get the media’s attention with your dignity and reputation intact

Latest News Mar 10 270x300 How to get the media’s attention with your dignity and reputation intactBy Leo Valiquette

Last week I talked about how any media coverage can be good media coverage if it provides an opportunity to establish rapport with a journalist.

Of course, this statement comes with a big fat caveat – it’s only true if said journalist is not on a witch hunt and sizing up you or your organization for a stake and a pyre. But if you have bad news to share, or find yourself embroiled in some kind of juicy scandal, then what you need is a program for crisis communications. That’s a different beast and not my focus here.

Instead, let’s look at how you can go about getting the media’s attention when journalists don’t have an obvious reason to come to your door or don’t know your story well enough to understand why they should.

It starts with the strength of the story

“I’d like to get covered in your magazine.” Editors get this kind of vague request all the time. I should know – I was a managing editor of a business publication and still play that role on a freelance basis. But you have to help them out and provide a compelling reason why. They need a “news hook” and the simple fact that you exist and do whatever it is that you do is seldom enough. Have you just landed a big funding round, nailed a contract that has turned your business into a top industry player, or announced a major product release? Are you a recognized industry expert who can speak on a timely topic that is relevant to a publication’s readership?

Understand your target

These days, journalists are making editorial decisions and editors are still working as journalists and pumping out stories on deadline. From daily newspapers to trade magazines, it has become the nature of the industry as declining ad revenues cut editorial budgets and force remaining staff to handle more work. Don’t assume that the managing editor or the editor-in-chief of a publication makes all of the decisions about what gets covered and what does not. Often, it’s in the hands of the individual journalist who covers “that stuff” on a regular basis. Television stations and some daily newspapers are exceptions to this, where dedicated assignment editors may still call the shots.

Don’t be a Mary Sue

In fiction, a Mary Sue is a character who is unrealistically flawless and therefore flat and boring. The story of any business is rife with ups and downs, successes and failures, and lessons that where learned the hard way. You don’t have to lift your skirts all the way to entice the media. Does anyone need to know that your co-founders almost punched each other out in the last board meeting? No. But if the media’s interest is on the story of your business, you can’t be afraid to talk about real challenges and setbacks. Drama and conflict are what make for compelling reading.

Let your customers speak for you

If the media’s interest is on the products or services that you provide, it’s usually best to give your customers the podium. Trade and industry press in particular hunger for compelling case studies and customer testimonials. Nothing validates your offering better than a customer who willingly doled out the cash for it and has positive things to say about the outcome. However, be advised that many journalists will want to talk to your customer alone. It’s therefore crucial to decide in advance which of your customers would be the best choice to put before the media and discuss with them the story that they will tell. I’m not suggesting that you put words in their mouths, but you do need to know which words are likely to come out of their mouths. I’ve seen it happen where a reference customer who had supposedly been prescreened waited until they were talking to a journalist to reveal their dissatisfaction with aspects of the vendor’s product – ouch!

Embargoes maybe, exclusives no

Playing obvious favourites with the media will only burn you in the long run. To put it bluntly, your business is likely not on the scale of an industry titan such as Apple with the weight and influence to dictate to the media. In some circumstances it may be advantageous to provide select media with an embargo — advance access to the news that you will be distributing, usually on the understanding that they do not publish anything until after your news has been issued. An exclusive, on the other hand, involves giving only one or a few media outlets your story. Regardless of why you think you should do this, you are basically flipping the bird at a majority of the press – do you really think that will play to your advantage?

It isn’t all about you

In addition to reference customers, a journalist may be looking for a variety of other sources of information – analyst reports, research data from think tanks and government agencies, even a bearing on who you consider to be your chief competitors. Help them out. Point them in the right direction or even give them access to third-party research your team has already compiled or paid for. All this builds good will.

Remember, you didn’t pay for this coverage

As I said in last week’s post, ultimate control over how the story turns out will reside with the journalist. At best, you may be given the chance to review facts and figures or specific quotes. Few journalists, however, will allow you to review the entire story prior to publication. This is standard practice in the industry and falls under the heading of “journalistic independence.” Consider this as a reader – if a story is passed off as independent journalism as opposed to paid advertising content, but one of the sources in the story was allowed to influence how it was written, would you still view the publication as a reliable source of news and information?

Image: Wine with Christina

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on August 9, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Public and media relations, Startups, inmedia Public Relations — Leave a comment

Any press is not always good press, but it may pay dividends down the road

newspaper ball 300x199 Any press is not always good press, but it may pay dividends down the roadBy Leo Valiquette

Business and trade press journalists regularly find themselves in the position of needing owners or executives who are willing to talk about specific issues in their industries and how their businesses have dealt with them.

For a PR practitioner it’s the classic dilemma – the goal is to drive earned coverage of a client’s story (as opposed to paying for an ad) when many of the media who are receptive may have a different agenda in mind. Hard-nosed and busy executives often brush off interview opportunities if they feel that the nature of the story will not provide a clear and obvious promotional advantage for their organization. “Why should I talk to this reporter about X when that doesn’t highlight the value proposition of my business?” they ask.

This is certainly a valid concern, but as we counsel clients of our inmedia public relations practice, if you want full control over how your story gets told, you will have to pay for the privilege—that’s just the way it is. On the other hand, ceding that control to an ethical and independent journalist has one significant benefit—earned media coverage is typically viewed by readers as more credible.

I recently experienced this first hand when I wrote “a sponsored feature” on intellectual property issues for early-stage tech companies. I quoted principals from two different professional services firms that specialize in IP matters. Why these two specific firms? Simple. They had ponied up the cash to advertise in the feature. However, if they had not been advertisers, I would have still considered them choice interview subjects solely on the merits of their experience and expertise.

A few weeks after that article was published, I ran into a serial entrepreneur at a local networking event. He told me how useful and informative he found the article to be as a business owner with IP to manage… until he reached the end of it and saw that damning label, “sponsored feature.” He told me how disappointed he was and how (in his mind) this invalidated what he had just read.

Huh?

It was hardly a rational or logical reaction as far as I was concerned. Nonetheless, there it was.

What’s the moral of this story? Earned and paid coverage opportunities each have their pros and cons. More importantly, the target audience may have preconceived notions about one versus the other. Whether they have a legitimate cause for such a bias is beside the point. It’s a bias that exists and shouldn’t be discounted when deciding how best to focus your PR and marketing resources. My advice is, if you are chasing paid, rather than earned, content marketing opportunities such as that IP article I wrote, make damned certain that the content focuses on providing real value to readers rather than on selfishly singing your own praises. Save blatant self-promotion for the traditional display or banner ad (and even then, less is more, but that’s a different post).

Which brings us back to my opening point about being standoffish when journalists come knocking. There is certainly a difference between getting just a one-sentence sound bite of coverage versus several paragraphs that focus on your expertise and that of your business. But neither can you focus exclusively on the immediate, transactional nature of what a journalist is looking for today. The emphasis must always be on laying the groundwork for a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship. Is there an opportunity to make yourself known as a useful and readily accessible resource that journalist will want to call on again? We call this building your “rolodex factor” and I’m not talking about a brand of wristwatch.

At a time when newsrooms have been cut back and journalists have the added tasks of blogging and tweeting, presenting yourself as a helpful resource willing to look past your own agenda can leave a positive and lasting impression. Next week, I’ll talk more about how you can do this.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on August 1, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Content marketing, Public and media relations, Startups, inmedia Public Relations — Leave a comment

Have the feds finally found the right way to back winners?

FM Series banner headART 1 300x145 Have the feds finally found the right way to back winners?By Leo Valiquette

Government, particularly Canada’s federal government, isn’t known for being a bold early adopter of new technology and certainly not an entity eager to play the role of guinea pig.

But earlier this week, six Ottawa-Gatineau technology companies were awarded contracts through Public Works’ Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program (CICP), ranging in value from $71,500 to $565,000. Four other local firms had already secured contracts through the program since its launch in 2010, in addition to a host of others across Canada.

Public Works describes the program as “connecting Canadian companies with federal departments and agencies that have a need for innovative products and services. By selling to the federal government, businesses can demonstrate the value of their products and services, and potentially generate future sales to non-federal customers.”

Bureaucrats can be champions, too

Early in this series, we discussed the nature of the role which government is best suited to play in the commercialization ecosystem. We quoted from The Way Ahead: Meeting Canada’s Productivity Challenge, by Tom Brzustowksi, RBC Financial Group professor in the commercialization of innovation at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management.

Brzustowksi wrote, “I believe that it is only the private sector that creates wealth.” The public sector, on the other hand, is a consumer of wealth in order to bankroll the two fundamental roles it plays. First, it provides the “supportive and normative framework for wealth creation by the private sector” through laws, regulations, treaties, incentives and so forth. Second, it is a “concentrator of resources assembled through the tax system” to pay for things like education, healthcare and infrastructure.

Both points are most certainly true. But government can also play the important role of champion. What is a champion in the context of getting technology to market? We explored that question too last year with Didier Leconte, president and director general of MSBi Valorisation, and Thomas Martinuzzo, project manager for business development, sciences and engineering at Gestion Univalor, both active in Quebec’s technology transfer scene.

According to Leconte, a “champion” is someone with decision-making authority within an established organization, perhaps a future CEO, who sees the value in a new technology and will support it by either investing money and resources into it, and/or adopting it within his or her own organization.

Leconte and Martinuzzo’s idea of “champions” also applies another way – established companies must be willing to share their needs, their pain points, and challenge both R&D folk and entrepreneurs to develop relevant solutions they can use.

“To commercialize, we need companies with an innovation vision willing to share risk,” Martinuzzo said.

Red flag, or the right step?

It appears that the federal government is certainly embracing the role of champion through CICP, which is budgeted at about $40 million a year. In this week’s announcement, one of the six local companies that garnered much of the media attention was Solana Networks. This startup with only 10 staff is engaging in a six-month trial with DND, in which the federal department will serve as a test bed for Solana’s cyber security technology and to conduct security evaluation and vulnerability assessment studies.

Securing these contracts is no cake walk. As can be expected of government programs, there is an exhaustive, multi-round evaluation process. This should of course raise a red flag that bureaucrats who are seldom on the leading edge of technology trends and have little if any experience with competing in the private sector are in the position of trying to pick winners and losers. That alone could be enough to tarnish the whole initiative with the same sour aftertaste as the Technology Partnerships Canada program from the previous decade, which was once described by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation as a “sinkhole for tax dollars.”

However, this time around, our government of the day is relying on the input of an external innovation selection committee “of which the majority of members are from the private sector, are chosen based on their experience in investment and entrepreneurship; knowledge of innovation and commercialization trends; and knowledge of international business practices.” Without knowing who these individuals are, I can only assume on faith that they are a positive influence.

At a time when the IT consulting industry remains wary of what changes are in store with the federal government’s drive toward shared services, a program such as CICP is reason for optimism that the Harper government is putting serious effort into fostering innovation and, more importantly, commercialization in Canada’s technology sector. We can only hope that the entrepreneurs, executives and investors who understand what it takes to get great technology to market and have firsthand experience doing it will play primary roles in moving this agenda forward.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on July 25, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Commercialization ecosystem, Startups — Leave a comment

Where is Ottawa’s International Startup Festival?

FM Series banner headART 1 300x145 Where is Ottawas International Startup Festival?By Leo Valiquette

On Monday, Francis shared some highlights from last week’s International Startup Festival in Montreal, which of course raises the obvious question, why do we not have these kinds of events in Ottawa?

After a false start, serial entrepreneur and all around community booster Scott Annan has launched his Mercury Grove startup incubator. Over at Exploriem, Bruce Firestone and the team are ramping up the scale of their operations. And then there’s the whole reincarnation of OCRI as Invest Ottawa.

There is no shortage of activity in this city in support of early-stage and growing technology ventures. Isn’t it time to knit this all together with a signature event that would feature the best and brightest from locally and abroad sharing their insights with the Ottawa community?

It’s not like there isn’t a local appetite for something like an International Startup Festival. I can’t speak for last week’s event in Montreal, because I wasn’t there, but in March of last year I attended Accelerate Montreal and I was running into familiar faces from Ottawa at every turn. And not just startup entrepreneurs, but senior executives too from established, mid-sized technology firms — companies that are already active in overseas markets and understand the need to export or die.

We’ve blogged in the past about whether a growing tech company must have a presence in Silicon Valley or if it simply needs to have something of that culture embedded in its own DNA. At a local networking event for startup entrepreneurs last year a guest speaker from the Valley talked about the dynamics of being a small fish in a small pond versus being tossed into a large one. His view was that truly talented and innovative small fish are not going to be devoured in the big pond. Instead, they would flourish like never before given the resources they would have close at hand.

In other words, this esteemed speaker from down south was telling his audience, “stop screwing around in this backwater called Ottawa and go where there’s real action.”

There is certainly some truth in what he said. On the other hand, my first response (which I kept to myself), was “Bullshit!” If we subscribe to that school of thought, we might as well hammer the final nails in this city’s economic coffin and be done with it. If Radian 6 could build a compelling value proposition from a home base on Canada’s east coast and still maintain that Canadian HQ even after its merger with Salesforce.com, then world-class companies can certainly be built from Ottawa.

Or look at Shopify, an Ottawa-based company that has reeled in $22-million in VC at a time when most entrepreneurs continue to lament the lack of funding. Not only is it on a steady growth track, it has launched its own Build-a-Business program to foster other e-commerce startups.

In a recent study of the success and failure rates of more than 10,000 startups, professors Olav Sorenson of the Yale School of Management and Michael Dahl of Aalborg University found that startups perform better when they launch (and keep) their startups in their hometowns.

No. Our bright lights don’t have to pull up stakes and flee Ottawa to find entrepreneurial success, but they do need to tap into the expertise and insight of those who “have been there and done that.” They must go after the resources that will help them succeed, regardless of whether those resources are found in Boston, New York, Silicon Valley or Bangalore. Sometimes that means getting on a plane, or getting involved with an organization such as the C100. But other times, it requires a few enterprising individuals to step up and work together to bring the world’s best to our own doorstep.

Montreal has Phil Telio to pull together signature events like the International Startup Festival. Who’s going to be our Ottawa equivalent?

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on July 18, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Commercialization ecosystem, Random thoughts, Startups — 4 Comments

Your audience will judge you by your cover

dont judge a book buy its cover Your audience will judge you by your coverBy Leo Valiquette

Earlier this year, I had the honour of being involved with Northern Lights 2012, a four-day conference that showcased economic and business development opportunities in Canada’s north, along with the social, cultural and environmental considerations that must be part of any commercial activity up there.

The emerging opportunities in the north, as well as the bargaining power its resources afford Canada on the international stage, are immense. The conference focused on the territory of Nunavut, the region of Nunavik in northern Quebec and the region of Nunasiavut in Labrador. Between them, these regions possess oil and gas reserves that dwarf western Canada’s, a diverse selection of mineral wealth, massive untapped green energy resources and new opportunities for tourism.

On the other hand, developing Canada’s northern resources is also a politically charged issue, in which the well-being of local communities and the environment are considered paramount. Despite the fact that many northern communities, business interests and government officials are eager to attract investment and create partnerships with businesses from the south, any commercial activity must tread lightly. Effective public relations and candid community engagement are crucial.

Before I go further, let me state for the record that I have nothing against white, middle-aged men in suits. I often am one (a white man in a suit, that is). And I believe that Canada must develop its natural resources to ensure our economic prosperity.

Why the disclaimer? During the conference, I sat in on about a dozen panels that featured white, middle-aged men in suits from mining, exploration and transportation companies that are already active in the north. Not one of them stood up to deliver their spiel without first emphasizing the great lengths to which their respective company was going to protect the environment, provide vocational training, create jobs and improve quality of life across the north.

Were they lying? Of course not. These are not claims that can withstand public scrutiny for long if they are false. Nonetheless, I was often left with the impression that these guys in suits were making certain to tell their audience what they thought the audience wanted to hear. They were prefacing their presentations with a form of disclaimer. At times it seemed that they were trying to outdo each other in singing the social praises of their respective companies the loudest.

I made it a point in these presentations to watch the reaction of the audience, which of course included residents of these northern communities. Perhaps I am betraying some kind of personal bias here, but it seemed to me that the most common reactions by these audience members was bemusement, skepticism and scorn, fueled by history and the divide between social class and cultural values.

It was an assumption that was proven by what I picked up wandering about the arts and culture pavilion and speaking with a number of the exhibitors. There is a contradictory mix of anticipation and fear of what will result from developing the north. Change is seldom easy and often messy.

This brings me back to those white middle-aged guys in suits, plying middle-aged aboriginal guys in denim with all the right messages. Sure, there were middle-aged aboriginal guys in suits too who bridge the two divides, but they do not represent the majority. The private interests that want to develop the north’s potential need to win over and prove their sincerity to the guys, and gals, in denim.

Perhaps it isn’t the message that was the problem in those panels, it was the presentation. In this context, the Mr. Corporate Executive persona gives the wrong first impression and creates a barrier with the audience. It’s Marketing 101 — you have to engage with your audience on their terms and with sincerity to win their trust and prove your value to them. What I saw at Northern Lights is but one example and the rule applies to any brand that is trying to sell itself to a new market or demographic.

Image: Arrested for Life

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on July 11, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Marketing strategy, Public and media relations — Leave a comment

The price of everything, the value of nothing and customer service

sales gatekeeper 300x296 The price of everything, the value of nothing and customer serviceBy Leo Valiquette

Customer service, and the lack thereof, is a recurring topic on this blog, and for good reason. As public relations and marketing consultants, we appreciate the profound impact that a poor experience with your brand can have on a customer’s willingness to come again or refer your products and services to others. We may not be customer service experts, but we are active consumers who regularly engage with the front-line staff of numerous brands. And it’s what happens on the front lines that matters most.

Francis said it best in a past post, Kudos for empowered customer service:

My consistent points are that the cost of acquiring customers is almost always far higher than the cost of keeping them, that effective customer service is the only sustainable competitive differentiator, and that most customer-service operations fail by forcing their agents to be powerless automatons more interested in getting the customer off the line than actually servicing them.

If your customers do not feel well-served on the front line, your marketing messaging, no matter how well-crafted, will not save you. Your brand reputation is built, not by words, but by the actions of your team at every point of contact, from the reception desk to order fulfilment and after-sales support. The purpose of the words crafted by the marketing team is to evangelize the great service you provide. As marketing consultants we can’t create something from nothing and in the age of social media, what smacks of hypocrisy can come under harsh, and very public, criticism quite fast.

The gatekeeper and the barista

On a rainy day some time ago, I was parked at a public lot downtown for a meeting. I don’t carry much cash, but the lot allows you to pay with credit or debit (as they all should!). However, when I returned to my car and attempted to exit, I discovered that the system for electronic payment was down.

“No credit, only cash!” the manager of the lot said with a certain curtness, as if the whole situation was somehow my fault.

When I told him that I didn’t have any cash on me, he grew somewhat belligerent and suggested I might have to return to my parking spot and go in search of a debit machine.

Did I mention it was raining?

When I refused to do any such thing, he reluctantly allowed me to leave, but not before taking down my license plate number and demanding to know when I would come again so he could settle accounts.

I have made it a point to never use that lot again, and it is not for the sake of that contentious $12.

After leaving downtown, I went to my local Starbucks, where I will often work during the afternoon. Again, debit and credit was down. But the baristas had decided that cash only wasn’t fair, since not everyone had cash on them. But rather than shut down for the afternoon, they had decided to give their product away for free.

That’s right, free. And they did it with a smile.

The staff at Starbucks realized, and rightly so, that a few hundred dollars worth of free product would buy them a substantial amount of goodwill.

I don’t suggest that you give volumes of your product away for free. Or maybe you should, depending on what that product is and the nature of your business model. But the important lesson here is to consider what best serves the long-term interests of your business, especially in a trying situation. Don’t foster the perception that nickels and dimes matter more than your customers’ convenience and satisfaction.

Image: Tiny and Mighty

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on July 5, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Marketing strategy, Public and media relations — Leave a comment

7 ways to stay sane and productive

productivity 300x242 7 ways to stay sane and productiveBy Leo Valiquette

There’s an old joke about the easy-going work-life balance that results from being an entrepreneur. “I can work for only half the day,” says the entrepreneur. “And I get to decide which 12 hours that will be.”

There is certainly something to be said for being your own boss without any commitment to regular office hours beyond making damned sure your deliverables are done on time and clients or customers feel well-served. But in my experience, being self-employed, which invariably means you are working remotely from whoever has agreed to pay your outrageous fee, requires that you impose upon yourself the same obligations as any teleworker with a traditional J.O.B. and a boss.

I’ve met many entrepreneurs and sole proprietors for whom the weekend is often a convenient time to get work done without worrying about emails, phone calls and the other distractions that often plague a regular workday. That’s all well and good, and I’ve found myself in that same boat fairly often. When you don’t have the security of a regular paycheque and can only eat what you kill, finding yourself with such a volume of work that it bleeds over into the weekend is not always a bad thing. And if you’re a startup entrepreneur trying to get a product to market, a regular 40-hour work week is an indulgence you can seldom afford to enjoy.

On the other hand, there is a proverb with which you may be familiar: “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” It’s called Parkinson’s Law and I suspect it often conspires with Murphy’s Law, but that’s a post for another time.

So how do you prevent the glorious anarchy of self-employment from beating the hell out of your productivity? The pressure of a deadline is great, but here are my thoughts on what to do the rest of the time:

1. Remember the regular workday and keep it holy. This is the foundation upon which all else rests. Don’t forget that most of the rest of the world is working Monday to Friday, with some eight or nine-hour block between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., and this is the timeframe in which you are expected to be available. Always aim to get as much done as possible during this period. For those of us who have kids, the routine of getting them off to school is a great task master – once the school bus is out of sight, it’s time to sit down and get to work.

2. Have a dedicated workspace that simulates a formal office. I’ve read experts who say that your home office should be a completely separate room in your home that you only enter for work. At all other times the door is closed and you do not carry out any non-work related activities there. I don’t believe you need to go that extreme, but you do need a dedicated and private space with the principle purpose of being for work. It serves to put you in the right frame of mind. Even when there is no one else in the house, I still find it easier to focus when I am in my office upstairs in the spare bedroom as opposed to parked at the dining room table.

3. Organize your workspace in a manner that facilitates your focus and productivity. Maybe feng shui is the way to go and maybe it isn’t, but you know what’s right for you. Move furniture around, try putting your desk facing a window, remove visual distractions from your field of view. You will know when you have found the physical arrangement that works.

4. Reward yourself. A great way to stay focused and productive is to reward yourself. Set a goal such as knocking off for the day at 3 p.m. to do something fun and diverting, but have your To Do list of what needs to get done finished first.

5. Make a list. And did I just say have a To Do list? Cross off the items as they’re completed. I suggest starting with the biggest item first.

6. Avoid cabin fever. No matter how inviting and productive your workspace, the persistent sight of the same four walls can still drive you bats on occasion. I have the convenience of a nice independent fair-trade coffee shop only a 15-minute walk from my house. I will often structure my workday so I spend my afternoon there if I have a big chunk of research or writing to do. I am also lucky in that this place is usually pretty quiet in the afternoon. Some “remote offices” are far busier and distracting than others. I’ve seen it where a group of teleworkers congregate daily at a local coffee shop, but spend far more time socializing than they do working.

7. Get face to face. By that same token, don’t overlook opportunities to meet with clients and colleagues face to face. While time spent in the car is usually time wasted, it is nonetheless important to get out of your home office wear (a.k.a. pyjamas) and engage with other living, breathing human beings, as opposed to disembodied voices on a telephone. Read Alex’s post on why meeting in the real world matters. Consider too spending time in a co-working space, such as TheCodeFactory.

What would you add to this list?

Image: Cruciality.Wordpress

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Leo Valiquette

Posted by: Leo Valiquette on June 27, 2012

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in: Random thoughts, Startups — Leave a comment