Monthly Archives: February 2010

Business Brands, Life Experiences, Uncategorized

AMAZING Marketing for Cougar matchmaking service!

Cougar
Grrrrrrr

 I was driving to see a client in Mosman in Sydney a couple of days ago and was struck by some seriously GREAT MARKETING.  I passed a prominent Pub on the way and some posters jumped out in front of me.  They were so effective that I remembered the script on each, which is amazing in itself as I was literally at the set of lights outside  the pub for no more than a couple of minutes. 

Here are two of the messages on the large, poster collateral on the balcony of the pub;

  • “Age knows no barriers.”
  • “Who said scratch marks are out of the question?” 

Immediately this grabbed my attention as the instinctual thought was “what has this got to do with a pub ?”. Another glance along a few metres gave me the answer.  The next 2 posters  said;

  • “Adopt a Cougar”
  • “Cougar Kingdom”. 

 For those that do not know what the message means or indeed what a Cougar is, I will endeavour to explain………..

The dictionary says that a Cougar is “a large tawny cat;….. now greatly reduced in number and endangered in some areas”.   But, I don’t think that this pub had THAT meaning in mind.  A cougar is actually a woman over the age of 40 (generally) who exclusively pursues young men.   The woman could be already in a relationship or single. The young man could be the age of the woman’s sons. 

With this in mind, the thoughts that went through my mind played havoc with my morals whilst igniting my passion for smart marketing.  The questions I asked were; Is this right ?; Is this pushing the boundaries ?; Is this taking advantage of a gap in the market ?; Is this morally right or wrong ?; Will it be successful?;  How many will they get attending on their first night ?;  How do they get both Cougars and younger men to be plentiful enough ?; Is this smart of simply taking advantage of a trend ?; Will this be a success?; ….. and more…….. 

I’m sure that these questions run through the minds of many people that pass this pub.  The point of this is, can YOU bring to mind a marketing strategy that has provoked such thoughts or taken your mind away from what you were doing.  Or in your business, can you find a marketing campaign that gets people thinking like this ?  The fact of the matter is that if you fitted into the profile of a Cougar or a younger man and you were interested in such an event, then you WOULD DEFINITELY find out more about it, wouldn’t you ?  Now THAT Is GREAT marketing.  Congratulations to the Pub and their marketing team for such an amazing campaign ! 

There is however a downside to this story, which could make the campaign fall flat on its face.  For the purpose of telling you guys about this (as I am happily married and definitely not Cougar material!! – and there are no other White Now team members in this category – as far as I know !), I went to the pub’s website to see what the event was really about and all I found was one banner saying “Cougar Kingdom Coming Soon”.  There was no link to any further information and all the great marketing that was on display at the pub was not to be seen on the website.  They did not follow through and think about where their future customers may go to find out more. 

 Does YOUR company market well in one area and fall down in another ? Have you got all areas of your market segments covered ? Remember this story when you review your marketing campaigns.  The lesson is priceless.

Life Experiences, The 'Read & Recover' Initiative - Helping sick kids!, Uncategorized, Values

Plan all you want, but flexibility is what is needed !

Read & Recover

When we started our Read & Recover Initiative in partnership with Brad Sugars, we knew that it was going to be a big job, full of fun and a fair bit of hard work and hey, we’re ALWAYS up for a challenge and ALWAYS up for hard work !  To us, it was going to take some great organisational skills and a passion to make kids smile. If you think about the process in its simplest form, all we have to do is buy 1600 books and send them to 100 hospitals.  All of us at White Now consider ourselves as organizational machines (and we usually are except when one of our kids has been up all night then we are more like organisational disasters) !!

We started with a plan and a time line. Isn’t it true though that it’s not until you plan a process that you actually work out that the simple logistics that you had once thought of, have turned into a 68 page procedure manual that takes 2 weeks to develop and another 2 weeks to digest ? Our aim though is to get these books out there and we will do what it takes to make that happen.

We are rapidly crossing the tasks of the list with each cross triggering a smile on our faces knowing that we are one step closer to getting those books out.  There have been so many people who have offered their assistance to pack or deliver the books or simply be involved somehow, and they are patiently waiting until it is ‘packing day’.  We had many photographers offering their services to do photo shoots for us with Brad and also taking images of the delivery of the books to the hospitals. We ended up securing Michael O’Farrell from www.ofarrell.com.au, who is already an absolute pleasure to deal with.  This contact came through Facebook and we thank his daughter for putting his name forward.

We are right in the middle of calling the hospitals and this is where the interesting challenges have manifested.  The plan was to call each hospital, find the appropriate person to chat to about the initiative, grab their details, gain their permission to donate the books, send them a formal letter, get the delivery volunteers to call them when it is time to deliver, have the hospital contact receive the books at a mutually suitable time and there endeth the process.  Don’t forget that we are organizational machines here at White Now and if there is a process to follow, we will do it.  What we didn’t plan for was all the variables that we would find once this ring around started – these include;

  1. The person we need to talk to is on leave
  2. The person we need to talk to is unable to return our call
  3. The Reception staff want to handle this themselves and won’t pass the call on
  4. The hospital is unable to take books for hygiene/OH&S reasons
  5. The hospital is unable take books, they can only take monetary donations
  6. The message gets lost
  7. The hospital wants to give the books to kids to take home
  8. The hospital wants to see the actual books prior to accepting them
  9. The hospital will only take them if they are posted

With all of these variable thrown at us, we soon realized that we had to be flexible to meet the needs of either the individual taking the call, the hospital or the donation protocol.  So guess what ? That is what we did.  We put our ‘flexible, accommodating’ hats on and tried to meet all of their needs.  Once we did this, we could achieve White Now and Brad Sugars’ goal of getting 1600 books to 100 hospitals.  What was so great about talking to the hospitals was that even if they could not accept the books, they usually offered suggestions about other hospitals that could.  Everyone seems to care which is simply amazing.

We have learnt a valuable lesson with this process and that is that you can plan and set up procedures to YOUR requirements, but the other stakeholders may not always be able to follow your procedures. You have to quickly adjust your strategy to suit everyone…… and that is just what we are doing;  Some books are staying in their factory wrapping, some books that were to be delivered are now being posted, some hospitals that were to receive books now are not receiving the books with other hospitals being added to the list, our formal letters change depending on the individual requirements of each hospital and soon there will be 1600 more books in Australian hospitals.

It is certainly true that if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail, but when you are planning anything, build into the plan the flexibility to meet the needs of others as you cannot always predict others behaviours.

Life Experiences

Good Peoples (intentional typo) !

Isn’t it funny how “Good Peoples” attract “Good Peoples” ???

What a treat !

I can quite honestly say that I work in a truly great organisation and am surrounded by a whole load of genuinely “Good Peoples” both professionally and personally.  And sometimes things happen that reaffirm this, such as yesterday (a work day):

My fantastic MD arranged through one of her contacts for me to be taken for a drive in a BMW M3……………………..something that I have always wanted to do.  (I openly admit to be a Revhead, but promise to do my best not to make this a car story as such !).

I was instructed to be at a certain location at a certain time and as my Dad (a fellow Car Tragic) was visiting from SA, he was also invited along for the ride.  Upon our arrival we were greeted by the owner of the aforementioned M3 who saw my Dad was using a walking stick and so very kindly told us to wait there whilst he collected the car and brought it out the front.  As this gorgeous charcoal-silver M3 pulled up to the collection point, Dad and I prepared to load ourselves in to the passenger seats, but the owner had another offer – one that quite frankly blew me away.  He wandered over to me and handed me the keys to his VERY powerful and VERY expensive ‘pride and joy’ and told me that I would be driving.

Mouth agape and in a mouse-like voice I tried to decline but he insisted and so I climbed in to the driver’s seat and got myself comfortable.

I won’t bore you with the details of the drive as I know cars are not everyone’s cup of tea, but I will just comment that it was everything and more than I had imagined.  I came back quite literally shaking with excitement, nervousness and awe.  The car’s owner had happily let me have a pretty serious “go” and was quite obviously chuffed at my enthusiasm and enjoyment.

Upon returning to where we had set off from, we all went out for lunch where we shared a fantastic meal and some amazing company.  Dad and I spent nearly three hours with a person that we had never met before and he had managed to clear his very, very busy schedule to make time for us !  Dad had a ball !!!  He has been retired for a few years now and so rarely has the opportunity to mix in “business” circles which afford a level of intellectual conversation.  I had the opportunity to spend some quality time almost one on one with a highly intelligent and very successful businessman and in doing so discovered a person of great integrity and passion – a person that enjoyed the opportunity to give with absolutely no expectation of anything in return.  A truly “Good People” !

Yesterday was indeed a VERY special day !  I not only got to drive one of the cars of my dreams, but I had the opportunity to witness my Dad be genuinely happy (not that this is uncommon, but it is something that you never grow tired of) and I also got to broaden my network of “Good Peoples”.

To everyone involved (you know who you are)………………….THANK YOU !  THANK YOU !!  THANK YOU !!!  I wake up on a daily basis and thank my lucky stars for all of the wonderful things around me and yesterday was yet another moment to be thankful for !

You guys ROCK !

Business Brands, Life Experiences, Values

Is this a calculated risk ?

2 Comments

Perception !
Recently I have been challenged with a huge decision.  Without having to discuss the ins and outs of the situation, it is a decision that is frought with risk but the risk far outweighs the possible results surrounding not taking the risk.  The dictionary describes calculated risk as “Undertaken after careful estimation of the likely outcome”.    Being a logical person who has a strong aversion to failure (don’t we all), all my decisions are calculated.  This brought me to think about one of my favourite pics going around the traps. 

 Is this fella about to take a calculate risk ? Does he think it is a calculated risk ? Does he see any risk at all ? Does immaturity result in the inability to calculate risk ?  These are all questions that I think about. 

In business, as long as we really estimate the likely outcome(s) then the risk is calculated and the decision to take the risk or not is easier.  Make sure that you look at all of your decisions with the end result in mind !

The 'Read & Recover' Initiative - Helping sick kids!, Values

Making a special guy’s day at Australia Post

 

It’s not every day that you walk into a Post Office and tell the guy behind the counter that you are not there to buy stamps, but you would like to buy 1600 kids books from him.  This is the story of Stuart from Australia Post.

I first went into the post office a couple of weeks back to simply look at the shelves to see what was available and decided that, after all our hunting for the perfect books to give to 100 hospitals that this was it !  I lined up in that all too familiar post office line that always seems to go out the door (why is that ? – that is a service/operations question for another conversation I think) and 10 minutes later arrived at the counter in front of Stuart. 

Stuart

“Hi Stuart, I’m Jenny and I am hoping to chat to you about buying a few books”.  Stuart in his happy, willing tone said “of course – what would you like”.  I informed him that I was looking at buying 1600 books and a heap of packaging and postage as well.  This was a sale that was worth thousands of dollars to the local post office and Stuart must have worked that out in his head pretty quickly as he then stepped out from behind the counter to come out and have a chat to me with no barriers like counters or tills.  From that point on, Stuart was focused on my needs.  Stuart was not a manager, he was a postal service officer, but for some reason, he seemed to take ownership of this with the skills of a manager.  I knew that Stuart was going to really help me from this point onwards.  I was looking forward to dealing with Stuart and secretly hoped that I did not get tipped to a manager instead.

I planned to go back once or twice more before sealing the deal.  I just had to confirm this spend with the key stakeholders in the initiative.  A week later, I went back into the post office expecting that Stuart would have been moved from the job and the manager of the business would take over the sale.  I was so pleased to see that when I went to the counter, Stuart was called to meet me “Stuart, that lady for all those books is here to see you”.  This was the manager calling for Stuart.  She had generously and rightly empowered Stuart to carry out the sale to its end.  So many times I witness a manager taking over from an employee thinking that they can do a better job.  An employee never learns how to do a great job unless they are empowered to do so.  I could tell that the manager had coached him a little by the questions that he came back to me with and that was great!  Stuart was on a roll.  He organized the order to a tee and promised to call me when it was ready so I could come in and pay!  I got the call as promised and went down to see him with credit card in hand.  What I had also done was put that special touch to the transaction, I had made a plate of Anzac biscuits for his team. 

After the transaction was complete, Stuart’s manager came out to thank us and of course, I spoke so highly of the efforts that Stuart had made in sealing the deal.  The manager then offered to personally deliver the books to the venue where we will pack them which I of course accepted.  We had made Stuart’s day and he had made ours….. I don’t know what was more rewarding for him; knowing he played some part in giving books to hospitals; making such a big transaction; or being the person whose customer brought him a plate of Anzacs. 

The moral of this is that in everything that you do, try and make someone else’s day and you will walk away with a smile on your own face every single time. Empower your staff to be great and they will come through with greatness ! 

PS: When it is time to send the books, the only person I want to deal with is Stuart !