Sunday, May 18, 2014

It's too easy to just change the battery

My watch stopped. I was at lunch with Josh and Dru, and looked down and my watch had stopped at 11:55.

I knew it was a simple battery change, a routine. Fixing it would eat up 45 minutes and $10. Simple adjustment. As a marketer, I'm always interested whether they will offer me supplemental services when I have a watch battery changed: polish the silver band, clean the inner workings, change the scratch crystal.

The next day I drove over to the watch repair shop. They opened at 10 a.m. I was there at 9:58. The repairman took the watch, and less than four minutes later returned it with a new battery. No upsell, and I was in-and-out. All this guy wanted to do was just change the battery.  And in fact, as the customer who had a busy Saturday planned, that's about all I wanted.

Watch is running fine, but it got me thinking.

Marketing is like that. It's expected that things will stop working. You can anticipate it and keep it adjusted all along the way. Or you can wait til until certain touch points, then do what needs to be done.

But real marketing takes place when you put in the work to do what really needs to be done to keep your marketing at the optimum level.  It's more than just a battery change.

 It's an examination of the entire process, what's working, what needs to be done to take it to a new level.  It starts with an attitude, a commitment within the company to  the ongoing work of excellence, and the willingness of all departments to periodically make sure everything is done well.

Too many companies give themselves excuses: we don't have time (money, resources) to really think about this right now. Next time.Next month. Next year.

Is it time to get real?