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By Jim Carey, Core Strategies
I come from a family of bad pole vaulters.
(Insert obvious joke here.) The 12-foot
barrier was always elusive to us. Not
to mention the other eight feet it takes
to be world class.
But I did start to pay attention to the
sport. And it got me watching Sergei Bubka,
the worlds greatest pole vaulter. Over
a lot of years, Bubka has broken indoor
and outdoor records almost 40 times. In
his world, he's Michael Jordan, plus Wayne
Gretzky.
He's a champion, and he deserves to be.
The way he keeps his edge holds a lesson
for us in direct marketing.
And actually, it's a lesson about what
we shouldn't do, as much as what we should
do. It's a positive lesson because it
shows the ongoing rewards of focus, discipline
and hard work.
But it's also a negative lesson. You
see, Bubka set so many records because
his goal was not to do his very best,
not to have a transcendent achievement
but merely to set a record. Why? Because
every time he set a new record, track
meet promoters and Nike would pay him
tens of thousands of dollars. So what's
the rational choice? Break the record
É a very little at a time.
While Bubka was jumping 20 feet in practice,
in competition, he was setting records
at 19'2", and then 19'2 1/8",
and so on. Setting world records É
a bologna slice at a time.
We marketers don't live in as benevolent
a world as Sergei Bubka does. He can see
all of his competitors. And they all play
by the same rules, on the same field,
at the same time, with the same sets of
tools.
Our world is even more competitive, and
our competition comes from increasingly
unlikely places. It's not just the people
we know, it's the unknowns. In high tech,
they refer to "two kids in a garage
putting us out of business."
Time and again, we're seeing established
companies brought to their knees by upstarts.
These unknowns don't try to win by the
same rules. They play an entirely different
way.
In seminars, I sometimes challenge audiences
to switch uniforms to become the "away
team" for their businesses. And I
ask, "If you were to beat your own
business, what would you do?"
Many times, the people on the inside
know exactly how to do it. And it's rarely
by doing more of the same, by upping the
bar "by a bologna slice."
Instead, it's by doing something fundamentally
different to accomplish the same goals.
They put away yesterday's strategies and
tools, and use today's and tomorrow's.
And not just marketing communications,
but whole value propositions and business
processes.
I then ask, "Why aren't you doing
this now?" And it gets uncomfortable.
The answer is ... "because."
We direct marketers are the masters of
the roll out. Of winning by a bologna
slice. It's not enough in today's world.
Being 2% bigger isn't enough when our
competitors are trying to be 10 times
better.
If we are to be up to the challenges
of the 21st century, we need to go to
a place where we haven't been. We need
to go beyond our comfort zone. But as
we go there, we should have the confidence
that comes from knowing the challenges
that we have mastered before.
We should think back to our roots --
when the Bob Stone's of the world were
inventing our business -- and how they
weren't afraid to be radically different
in order to win.
We're certainly capable of it. When we
go beyond Bubka-ism, we'll all be able
to look back with pride. And then it will
be time to look forward again.
It's a challenge worthy of our talents.
Let's go for it. |
