Decker Marketing

Cliche Man

I was going through my corporate notebook today. It's a hard-covered ledger where I take my notes from meeting to meeting. In the back I capture interesting nostalgia from corporate life -- bingo words, quotes, experiences.

I had a guy work for me that was a Cliche Master. Here are JUST a few I captured. Don't ask me what some of them mean!

• Shake the 8 ball
• Brass tax
• Feedback monkey
• Crux
• Hit the Nail on the head
• Whisper from the Lietenant
• Dominus Ominus
• Circle the Wagons
• Belly up to the bar
• Strafed into that
• Tree top discussion
• Could you be a gem...
• Fly caught in the soup
• Real storm brewing...clouds on the horizon
• Goat rodeo
• I'd rather lick chalk in the rain
• Rally the troops
• Blocking and tackling
  

There are some more in here from a few anonymous co-workers:

• We don't want to waste emotion on that
• We have to table set the org announcement
• "Cauterize"
• Put some wood behind this arrow
• The hamster in the snake
• Bucketize the gluttony of resumes
• Landscape of unmanaged problems
• Don't want Mike to spin his mental power
• Spastic recovery effort
• Can you walk in a windstorm
• Did you all decide on the trackey-poos
• When what's his face was our manager
• Dripping in wittiness
• I've got to discuss an armpit topic
• You like your nuts, don't you? [female co-worker, referring to peanuts on my desk]
• ...are those the nuts you've had for the past year?
• Our rating system creates feelings that don't add value
• He's kind of like farting along
• Another really thing that's important
• [consulting firm name here] wrote this...I'm not sure what it means. But should we ask for that?
• ...I'm not sure they knew either.

I'm sure I'm working with some of the smartest people in corporate America...but sometimes we don't sound like it, eh?

3 Quotes for April

"Here is a simple but powerful rule … always give people more than they expect to get." -- Nelson Boswell

"The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." -- Albert Einstein

"You don't build it for yourself. You know what the people want and you build it for them." -- Walt Disney

Dangerous Usability Findings

Today I saw a slide in a meeting that said: Usability Finding: People don't like to read on the web, only skim.

In short, I agree, but with conditions. People SKIM to find what they want to READ so they can decide what to BUY.

And that was my problem. The conditions were not communicated. I feared the marketing audience would internalize this statement as a general ‘online tenant’, and therefore de-value online copy.

Since I no longer manage the site, I started to bite my tongue. However, without further explanation, I feared this axiom could have far-reaching consequences. So I spoke up.

For four years I managed Dell.com Consumer, and participated in 30-40 usability studies, with all types of methodologies. I captured pages of insights and ideas from these studies, and they were always valuable in gaining empathy for the customer. But I also got data from surveys, financials, web metrics, previous studies, and my experience. I never made a major decision without these balanced data points, or at least a real-life test.

In this study, if the task presented were to BUY a computer, I guarantee people would be reading much more diligently. I've seen studies where some people (i.e. "the readers") read everything line for line, just to make a navigation decision. The littlest thing can stop them. The majority of participants, however, skimmed to find what they were looking for. Regardless, you can't generalize behavior in usability to real life. You can gain insight and direction.

In short, I agree visitors do skim. That's why writing in reverse pyramid format (answer first), formatting, chunking copy, bullets, and succinct relevant copy is important. However, results on a selling page would suggest that long copy pages sell better. Customers want the details when they're considering buying, and that benefit statements drive conversion. And you are reading this!

I think the team understood this and simply mis-communicated (I think). Certainly they agreed they would not make major changes without an A/B test. But, it made me realize how poor conclusions can be drawn by generalizing usability findings or communicating them with incomplete context. Be careful out there.

Customer-Centric Velcro

It’s hard to come by leaders who have a cognitive filter on everything they say and do which keeps the customer top-of-mind. I call this way of thinking “Customer-centric Velcro”.

Business leaders must have the ability to understand business and financial needs, formulate strategies to achieve results. Effectiveness at that is an achievement. However, before a customer-centric leader moves a hand or opens her mouth, their behavior passes rolls past a “customer-centric Velcro” in their head. Some assortment of synapses -- like the hooks in velcro -- grab non-customer-centric ideas from the brain and prevent them from being spoken or acted upon.

On the inside of a company, it’s easy to think of ideas and behave in a way that is right for the business, wrong for the customer. Those with “Customer Centric Velcro” are able to keep the non-customer-friendly behaviors from getting executed.

I don’t see many people who have this gift. And I don’t know if it’s natural competency, a developed skill. My friend Bryan Eisenberg suggests customer-centricity may be typically found the Meiers Briggs personality type of NT (Intuitive Thinkers) or NF (Intuitive Feelers).

I am convinced, however, that companies who fill their cubes with people like this will drive bottom line results in a customer-centric way.

5 Dysfunctions of a Team

I highly recommend the book "The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni. It's easy to ready, easy to remember, and most importantly, the principles are right on.

Here is Patrick's pyramid of effective teams:

I found small Austin company that publicly endorses these principles. Surgient. It's refreshing to see a smaller tech company managed this way. In my experience with other startups very few drive this culture. As a result, their growing pains are greater and risk of success higher.

The keys to instilling this into a culture, in my opinion, are: deploy it early, communicate it broadly, hire for it, demonstrate enforcement, and drive it from the top.