Don't be correct, be accessible in your marketing message

I recently had a conversation with someone who discussed a "bifurcated costing model for predictive analysis" - and yes, I too almost glazed over as I heard this. While I may have the math and science background to understand that phrase, and it may be technically correct, there's a cost or penalty for using such an accurate description in communicating your idea or message.

I try to look at problems and solutions as a opportunity to explain it to my mother. Granted, she's pretty smart, but she has no reference point to the math or statistical phrasing involved in technical solutions I often have to explain. In fact, all she cares about is that there's a problem and I try to solve it. If she can grasp the problem because I explained it using accessible terms, all the better. I'll explain why this matters later.

Realistically, a "bifurcated costing model for predictive analysis" appears to have no bearing on everyday life, it's worth another look. While "bifurcated costing model" is mostly descriptive and sets context, the key phrase, "predictive analysis", has a real-world application in behavior. The result was framing the message as a solution - a way to help predict people's behavior during online transactions. It may not be perfect, but it gets to the heart of the matter.

Now why is that important? By using accessible language that my mother understands (or the general public can grasp for that matter) has led to connections, introductions, and even future business, as people quickly understood that I somehow helped people manage or improve the buying process. No one in their right mind would ask their network if they knew someone who did "bifurcated costing models for predictive analysis", but they might ask for a contact or reference to someone who might optimize or improve targeted behavior.

Your Customer Said Build Green, but You Need to Build a Jaguar

People say what they think, but not always what they mean

Ever have a customer who wanted a product and would say something like "that would be really cool in forest green"? Then you might build them a version in forest green and they continue "that's not how I imagined it would be, I don't think I'd really want one in forest green."

You haven't been punked, you've been hearing, but not really listening. The customer may have imagined a version of your product that had the color, shine, and elegance of a Jaguar that was both art and gadget. You just delivered color when the customer really wanted experience.

Sometimes customers say things that are the easiest to say. Colors are easy to see and describe, but they often have emotional ties with meaning. But it's not just colors, but think of shapes, another difficult topic. What do you do when someone says your product is too linear or angled? Do you add curves , make it curvy, or even wavy? The linear shape may suggest industrial, simple, or cheap, and the lack of rounded anything may symbolize austere or minimalist expectations.

My point is that when someone gives you feedback on a product or service, be sure to listen deeply and don't just record the words you hear. This problem exists for consumer goods,  physical services, and even online applications and enterprise software.  If you listen deeply, you may just uncover a real need or opportunity that the customer has not figured out how to articulate.

If you do your job right and extract the real need, you may be rewarded with happier customers and a larger market.

Startups and 'It's not my job'

After my article on 'hiring Moron X', I was lucky enough to get feedback from colleagues with experience at both small startups and larger companies. One comment led me to this article: "startup types may be ineffective in big companies due to turf wars."

Let me explain, with some background first. In well run startups, there's one phrase you rarely hear "That's not my job". On the rare occasion it pops up, it's usually followed by "well whose job is it and why aren't they in this conversation." In most startups, the team is well focused and aligned, everyone is/should be working toward the same goal. If an important job isn't getting it done, the team rallies, offloading, reassigning, or sharing responsibilities to ensure that the important things get done. When something needs to happen and resources aren't available, someone should, and usually does, step up to execute, even if it means night and weekend hours. It is important, after all. There's usually plenty of work to do, so people routinely step up, taking on tasks above and beyond their normal skill-set or training, even crossing functional boundaries.

In larger companies, operations are often broken down into more discrete tasks, where employees are hired as specialists in one functional area. This can lead to departmental and functional optimization where employees do a few tasks and are expected to do them well. If a task comes up that a specialist is not trained to do - they often have little interest and/or knowledge about how to execute on that task. Literally, it's not his/her job, and the task can be accomplished by someone more experienced with the proper skill-set.

Herein lies the potential conflict for startup types in larger organizations. When a startup type joins a large company and finds an important task not being addressed, they find a way to make it happen. They might do it themselves or try to acquire resource to quickly move forward. Unfortunately, trying to get it done and making it happen have different processes in a larger company. "Trying to get it done" may mean identifying the related projects, the required resource, the managers, and the chain of command that would normally get the task done. The startup person's task is one tiny priority among dozens of others, and when pushing his/her agenda, they often get the "I won't have resource until Y days/weeks in the future" response. In frustration, the startup person may do it himself, imperfectly, w/o the resources and w/o the blessing of the other managers, but doing it in a day or two instead of waiting two weeks before resource became available. This is how egos get crossed, walls get built, and turf wars begin against the startup person.

It doesn't have to be this way, and no one is really at fault, but this same cycle happens over and over again when the mindset and culture of the startup person is implicitly applied in the larger company environment. Often the manager who hired the startup person feels like he/she hired a rogue who doesn't fit, but in reality, a gap in communication and alignment has been exposed. It's really a learning moment and opportunity for the startup person and the larger company to operate more efficiently and effectively.

The solution is communication and goal alignment. When urgency, priority, resource, corporate advancement and opportunity can be weighed, managers and resources can be highlighted to allow a project to be executed in a more scrappy and nimble fashion, or the project urgency can corrected to more realistically reflect the priorities and goals of the company, focusing the startup person on higher priorities. I have seen communication and clarification work well, pushing a larger organization to new levels, but I've also seen the reverse, where the larger company manager is intimidated and insecure or the startup person can't adapt to the new structure.

Have you been involved either way? Successfully or not? Feel free to comment or contact me with your feedback.