Panic at inappropriate times!

Panicking when something really bad happens is counter productive.

Imagine a potbellied, nervous, cigarette-smoking salesman, pacing back and forth in front of his office building. He’s annoyed to be outside, but they won’t let him smoke inside. He’s puffing as hard as he can, anxious about getting back to work.

This guy is focused on solving the urgent problems in his life. And all those problems are about today . He is not focused one bit on losing weight or giving up cigarettes or understanding how tense he is. He figures there will be time for that later.

Right now, he needs to panic about the sales numbers that are due tomorrow. He’ll have time to panic about his health when he’s in the hospital having bypass surgery.

The time to panic about his health is right now, of course, while he can still do something about it. Taking action today on a long-term problem is easier, cheaper, more effective, and far less time consuming than waiting for it to become an emergency.

The time to panic about his health is today. The time to panic about the sales numbers was last week.

Why not start panicking in advance? Why not start taking emergency measures while there’s still a chance that those emergency measures will actually accomplish something?

Every organisation that gets into trouble falters because it waited too long to do the stuff that should have been done a long time ago.  Panic early, not late…

- From The Big Moo (edited by Seth Godin)

On a completely related note…

My major research report is due on October 31. In a vain attempt to preserve some form of sanity during the month of October my new strategy is to panic…now. Inappropriate? Yes Effective? Hopefully. The time to panic about honours is not October 20, or even October 1. The time to panic about honours is today!

Who am I interviewing??? PANIC

What if they say no??? PANIC

If they do say yes, what will I ask them??? PANIC

Oh wow they talked for a really long time, when will I transcribe all this???? PANIC

God, ok so now it’s done but how do I put this writing???? PANIC

Oh no writers block!!!! PANIC

OK yes it’s written but it looks less than awesome!!! PANIC

What will my report look like??? PANIC

Is this professional enough to hand to a perspective employer??? PANIC

Uh-oh I can’t afford a designer!!! PANIC

What Every Good Marketer Knows

Loving this post by Seth Godin. I’ve cut it down to include only my favourite points. To see Seth’s post in its entirity click HERE.

What Every Good Marketer Knows: 

• Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.
• Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.
• Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.
• Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
• Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
• Products that are remarkable get talked about.
• Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your returns policy.
• You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people, once unfooled, talk about the experience.
• People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
• You’re not in charge. And your prospects don’t care about you.
• What people want is the extra, the emotional bonus they get when they buy something they love.
• Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
• People all over the world, and of every income level, respond to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants.
• Good marketers tell a story.
• People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
• Effective stories match the worldview of the people you are telling the story to.
• Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.
• A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.
• Marketers are responsible for the side effects their products cause.
• Reminding the consumer of a story they know and trust is a powerful shortcut.
• Good marketers measure.
• There are more rich people than ever before, and they demand to be treated differently.
• Organizations that manage to deal directly with their end users have an asset for the future.
• You can game the social media in the short run, but not for long.
• You market when you hire and when you fire. You market when you call tech support and you market every time you send a memo.
• Blogging makes you a better marketer because it teaches you humility in your writing

Another point I would like to add – Courtesy of Mark Horstman of the Manager Tools podcast:

•  People do things for one of two reasons: To seek pleasure or to avoid pain

This question should be the foundation of a campaign and come before EVERYTHING else.

How can you conduct a campaign of any description if you don’t know the basic motivators of your target public. Ask yourself: What pleasure do they seek? OR What pain are they trying to avoid?