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 Once upon a time, because this story is befitting of a fairy tale beginning, the hierarchy of a company was similar to the factory where its products were produced. Every department took its place on the assembly line and as the conveyor belt brought the product along, each group took its turn adding a few bolts here and there or a coat of paint as needed. The people who held the paint brushes rarely acknowledge the ones wielding the wrenches, but somehow, the product kept rolling down the line in one piece. Imagine if the paint shop suddenly became responsible for not just putting the bolts in place but it also had a hand in purchasing the raw materials and handling customer requests for changes to the basic model. In today's workplace, the allegorical paint shop is a company's marketing department, and they may be the key to that company's "ever after." In his foreword to Scott M. Davis' new release The Shift: The Transformation of Today's Marketers into Tomorrow's Growth Leaders, noted marketing expert Philip Kotler chose to quote management legend Peter Drucker. "A company only has two basic functions: innovation and marketing," Drucker said. Whereas tectonic plates generally cause a chasm to divide formerly solid ground, the shift at the heart of Davis ' book pushes innovation and marketing together, and it's the marketer who firmly stakes this new ground as his or her territory. Davis calls his new power group "Visionary Marketers" and it's a title that is not acquired without an overhaul of one's abilities. Marketing has long been seen as a reactive agent within a company. A product is dreamt up, created, tested and priced, then marketing gets involved with spreading the product's gospel to the public. While the latter is vital to the process, Davis pushes a less one-dimensional role for marketing. He refers to this move as going from "Tactician to Visionary," and it's the business equivalent of a play in five acts. Each act constitutes one of the author's five shifts in the marketer's approach, both personally and as it applies to the marketing department's role in the organization. Davis is careful to give equal attention to both the individual and the team to which he or she belongs. This is essential for executives who have previously read books to propel their personal performance into the future only to find that their company remains immovable from its present strategic bent. The five shifts Davis proposes are certain to cause waves in some companies, whether proposed from the lower rungs or cascaded from the top. For example, one of Davis' key recommendations is for marketing to begin to own a portion of the P&L. Many marketers might feel that this has traditionally been one of the blessings of their job, not having to suffer the burden of P&L. However, full credit should be given Davis for such a bold suggestion. In an era when the term "job security" continues to be redefined, The Shift gives credible advice to help a marketer help himself by first helping the company. Executives who follow the author's path will develop a set of skills that would help them market the most important product of all, themselves. Critics of The Shift may find difficulty with Davis' section on the need for marketing to be involved in pervasive innovation. Initially, the chapter seems to deal more in concepts than in concrete direction. Davis acknowledges that marketers will have to do a bit of a sales pitch to convince the other members of the executive team that their department belongs in the innovation effort. He cites a study from Boston Consulting Group that indicates only 5% of respondents feel that marketing is the driving force in their company's innovation process. Executives reading The Shift should pay close attention when reading this segment of the book. Davis answers critics by showing the ways in which marketing can play to its own strengths and carve out its place in the process of pervasive innovation.
Because 90% of new business inquiries are for search engine optimization (seo), and the craziest thing is that 90% of these clients already have websites! They already have an under performing, out-dated website (infrastructure) that they've "invested" in, and they've already experienced the emotional roller coaster that started with: "yesss! we got our website up and running and now it's just a matter of time before yada, yada, yada, cha'ching..." then, after six anticipatory months of waiting, the client begins to wonder if they got on right ride with the right company or if they we're taken for a ride by some young, ambitious, well intentioned website development group?? The obligatory time, money and skeptisism conversation takes place and it's typically rounded off with something like this "since we've been burned in the past, how can you guarantee... yada this, yada that..." This is what we say: "We don't make guarantees or any other claims, or proposals, until we can better define the scope of your vision. Let's start with the mission of your website at its inception. What was the intention of creating that site, and did you explicitly express that vision to the developer... We ask, because 90% of our clients can articulate what they want but they struggle in explaining the reasoning to the whys. Such as, why did you invest in a website, and why would that help your business become more successful... and, why would your webstie matter, if no one could ever find it... why is it difficult to identify the character of your brand on the website... and just out of curiousity, did you discuss this with your web developer, and if you so, why did you choose to start the project when you really knew (deep down inside) that your needs would be better served with another agency. Maybe even a brand agency?"
Could the client speak the truth, and if so, why didn't they just say it? I don't know! Because 90% of the time, what really happens is that passionate people rush into things without the end in mind - they're visionless. And without vision, it's impossible to tell the web developer what's wildly important to you and how you will measure victory for this project. But we begin the project anyways. We begin building a website without ever really knowing why it matters. What's more, is that 90% of the talented web dev groups are happy to accept your business and build you a website without understanding the fundamentals that the site should be built around. The fundamentals like, your brand, your vision, your vertical and your victory. What's a win for you? So neither the client nor the business partner really have a sense of the vision, and neither are compelled to stop the chaos because just maybe, it will turn out alright? The only guaruntee that SP makes is in investing to understanding the fundamental needs, the vision, the victory, the purpose and the passion before we can even get the chance to impress you with one little proposal. One little proposal that's all about one big thing... your visoin! And if you only knew... "That which seems efficient, is usually not effective. That which is effective, is realized to be radically more efficient."   
"I am a kid a heart. Are you a kid a heart? I remember what it was like to be a kid. I remember that we could be completely care free. So care free that it seemed like we could just wonder away in a world of boundryless possibilities. It was a world full of potential and possibility, limitless by every stretch of the imagination. It was a world where as long as we could wonder it, we could get lost in it. We could go anywhere, we could be anything and we could do anything... "  "We design, develop and destroy the clutter of tradional thinking..."
Welcome to radically different. We design, develop and destroy the clutter of tradional thinking so that we can show and share in a discovery process that unleashes boundrylessness. A discovery process that offers such insight, that we get to see into the world of the wildly important. Because we live and play in a world that's so obsessed with speed and luxury goods, that we've de-evolved the very attributes that created them. Attributes like: leadership, imagination, creativity, vision, innovation, insight, purpose... the very attributes that drive victory for the wildly important goals for people, brands & organisations. |
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