Monthly Archives: April 2013

Lavish Leadership

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“Maybe Microsoft suffers from too much leadership.” That surprising statement came from an industry analyst with one of the major groups. We were recently splitting lunch and enjoying some obscenely great Silicon Valley weather, discussing the tech industry as a whole and wondering if Microsoft might soon be known only as “The Xbox Company.” We mutually marveled at how seemingly inept Microsoft has become, with one market disaster after another. Since we both had experience with start-ups and big vendors alike, the discussion focused keenly on leadership and ossification. You never want to be the leader for the former. Microsoft has two primary problems when it comes to innovation, the first of which is that they remain consumed by former glories and the old ways of thinking. This same analyst told me that – at least until recently – Microsoft sized their markets based on the number of PCs in … Continue reading →

Buzz Kill

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Two cynical definitions of language neatly describe many marketing communications: The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another’s treasure … and The source of misunderstandings. Marketing’s job is to charm people out of their money, preferably by articulating the true value of necessary products. Yet many marketing managers slip straight to snake oil salesmanship and leverage a ton of text and bunkers filled with buzzwords to attempt recruiting prospects. Misuse of language is a chief cause of unhappy customers and board members. The first task in marketing communications is to promote value. Here at Silicon Strategies Marketing, we defined (copyright alert) value as “the intersection of need and differentiation.” Value intersections tend to be precise, and the language used to describe a particular value must be as well. Generalized and buzzword-heavy statements like “the most cost-effective, easy-to-use, and universally accessible” detract from precise value articulation. The results are … Continue reading →

Managing Market Movement

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You have to go through Step-B before reaching Step-C … or Step-Z. Try telling that to a start-up CEO and you’ll earn some nasty looks. One of the greatest errors of leaders, political or business, is to move too fast. Many militarists believe Hitler could have ruled Europe had he taken his time and not rushed to open fronts everywhere at once. Great products have vanished because CEOs aggressively tried to push it into every segment simultaneously. Make too many changes while delivering too little value and you’ll have too few customers. This topic gurgled forth because J.C. Penny, a company born over 100 years ago and thus slightly older than my jokes, ditched their CEO. His overhaul spiraled the once legendary retailer nearly into ruin and its share price was cut in third. Nothing nice has been said about CEO Ron Johnson’s re-rigging, but a common complaint was that … Continue reading →

Evil Email

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The worst thing you can do to a good bar is to make it popular. Once everyone goes there, it isn’t worth going there anymore. Email advertising and online surveys used to be good bars. When email first commercialized, it was a great and inexpensive tool for lead generation, prospect follow-up and brand reinforcement. But as emails popularity exploded, so did the number of marketers who abused the process. Today people dread reading their morning email – it has become a disappointment filled chore. Email open rates have been dropping. This has caused some marketers to get smarter and create better and more targeted emails. Lousy marketers just find bigger lists and thus annoy more people, which will continue to drive down open rates. Something related is occurring to surveys. Once online survey tools became cheap and easy to use, every man, woman and hermaphrodite with an email account started … Continue reading →