How well do we really know our clients? Employees? Family? What was their favorite toy as a child? What was their worst haircut? What was their first job? – All questions that, upon first thought, may not seem to have much impact on your task at hand – whether that’s business or personal… But how do you know until the right question has been asked?

It’s through questions and honest communication that strong relationships are built. And through open lines of communication and discovery, true understanding of your clients’ needs can be revealed. Sometimes a client may have deeper reasons for not subscribing to your “innovative” marketing plan simply because they were bitten by a dog when they were seven… How could you have known?

Ask questions. Learn and listen.

I recently read a story in the Business section of the Des Moines Register about Mitch Mathews, a business coach and entrepreneur that has created a game that provides a new twist on an (very) old relationship-building concept. It’s a game that he calls, simply “Q.”

Astoundingly innovative in its simplicity, “Q” is a collection of random questions written on a stack of cards bound together in sets with a pin. In a fan-like mass, similar to an oversized Gin-Rummey hand, each player takes turns asking and answering questions that probe past the casual weather-related openers and uncomfortable stock questions about careers and kids to deeper, sometimes more revealing topics like “what did your bedroom look like when you were 15?” or “Where were you when you had you first kiss?”

Mathews’ “Q” game has become such an inspirational networking tool that companies ranging from business coaches and consultants to Fortune 500 juggernauts like Principal Financial Group and Whirlpool have used them for business retreats and team-building programs. The results and testimonials he has received are inspiring and sometimes humbling. But any way you look at it, “Q” gets the answers…

How do you learn about your clients? And for that matter, how do you learn about your employees or your family? Mitch Mathews has given us all a simple ($13) tool to deepen our discovery process. I plan to go out today to find a set. If not just to play with my family.

Are you asking questions before giving answers? How do you “get to know more” about your clients, employees, family and friends? With the speed of business/life screaming by, sometimes a simple game is what we need to catch up…

My favorite color is green… Why? It matches my eyes.

How well is your discovery process working? How do you discover your clients’ (employees’, family’s) needs? And how well do they know you?

Keep Cooking!

Photo credit: http://www.doyouq.com

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I’d rather be Alfred than Batman…

Superheroes… Cops and Robbers… Cowboys and Indians…

Whatever the genre, I’m sure we all have fond childhood memories of strapping a beach towel around your neck and chasing after the “bad guys,” leaping from pic nic tables and flying through the back yard (or running in circles with your arms up in the air like a goober) in hot pursuit of your nemesis… As children, it was black and white – the good guys wore white and the bad guys lived on the street behind the bowling alley.

Thanks to Drew McLellan’s recent post, I was reminded of some of these events that sprinkle my childhood where I was the eternal sidekick to my older brother. Ah, but I was never Robin to his Batman or Kato to his Black Hornet, but the inspiration behind the powers…

Pat, the eternal alpha first-born, would always be the Superhero. Whether it was supplying him with mud with just right viscosity for the home made slingshot or tracking after the perfect light saber (fallen tree branch), Andy (yes, I used to go by Andy) was the Alfred to Pat’s Batman. Eternally loyal and intuitively accurate in evaluating the situation… So Pat stands at the edge of the tree house – his locks blowing in the summer breeze – chest and chin protruding and hands on his hips with another victory over the Farnham boys. Andy stands on the ground, proudly, as the enemy runs, snotty and sobbing, back to the clatter of the bowling alley… True support for the hero.

With that, Drew asked if we as marketers and creatives are taking the appropriate roll with our clients, saying ” If we’re the hero, guess who we’re casting in the role of victim?” So, who does becomes the victim?

Today it’s a bigger picture and not as simple, but the same personalities seem to show up…

It’s the work I do for my clients that I take pride in and not the accolades that may come afterward. That’s why, when you come to my “Bat Cave” you won’t find awards on the walls or photos of myself with important diplomats. You see the tools I use to help in the creation of true, honest branding and integrated marketing peppering my workspace – simple, unassuming and honest – a true cave…

When it comes to testimonials and praise for the work I’ve done, the ultimate compliment I could ask for is something to the effect of… “Studio 24, has become a trusted partner… wanting to collaborate with us to create a brand that would help us grow …” In my opinion, happy clients make more noise than a trophy.

Credits for defeating the evil of bad communications and redefining the marketplace for clients is no one-person effort. As a team, the clients and the agency work together to make solid and wise brands that efficiently and effectively change the landscape of their marketing – and sometimes their market all together.

Like Alfred in the Batman series, it’s my job to create the components my clients need to effectively communicate their brands. It’s my job to stay in the Bat Cave and polish the Batmobile while the clients go out with the tools I have provided them to battle the marketplace. Hopefully, If I have done my job, they will come back victorious and we’ll share in the joys of their success and maybe a hot chocolate.

What roll do you play? Or better yet, what roll do you expect your communications partner to play?!?

Image credit: www.batman-superman.com

TM & ©2001 Warner Bros.

Batman and all related characters, names and indicia are trademarks of DC Comics © 2001

So the conversation always leads to “I don’t market because my budget is so much smaller…” Without blinking, I site an article that I recently read, “Why Small Marketers Need to Reach for the Stars.”

I can’t justify that comment when realizing that the small companies of the world are making strikes at the “Big Dogs” with a paw of aggression that has the Pit-bulls reeling back on their heels. When did John Schnatter (Papa John’s Pizza) get the idea that he could go head-to-head with the likes of Pizza Hut and Domino’s?

Simple… focus, brand discipline and an unfettered commitment to integrated marketing. And the article doesn’t stop there. It also supports my last post definding the fact that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to effectively market your brand.

If you haven’t already read the news, I’d say, for the good of your business, your clients and the economy as a whole, check it out. It’s inspiring.

You don’t need to be big to be heard. Woof.

Photo credit: www.papajohns.com

According to Harris interactive, the ever stable and eternally present Reynolds Wrap (Alcoa) won out in a nation-wide survey tracking the brand viability and strength in the American home consumer market – eclipsing other brands such as Hershey’s, Kleenex Clorox and, yes, even Coke, iPod and the ubiquitous Starbucks.

Thoughts? It’s obvious.

Although Betty and Pat, Reynolds Wrap’s peppy kitchen mavens, are the anti Gen-X/Y spokes persons, with as much excitement and vitality as Dan Rather, the Reynolds Wrap brand has always held it’s ground. In a consumer market, filled with a gross ebb and flow of potions and gadgets for a higher quality of living that man (or woman) has ever seen — or needed for that fact — Reynolds Wrap has, and always will be, that simple, fascinating mirrored magic sheet of necessity we all remember chewing on as a kid –- just to feel the tingle against our fillings. — C’mon, I know you did it too. — Never mind the fact that it kept mom’s oven and dad’s grill clean as a whistle.

So, what’s the lesson you ask? It may be as simple as the first thing we learned in marketing… K.I.S.S. Or “Keep It Simple Stupid.”

As a marketing community, and I’m as guilty as the rest of you, we spend a majority of our time analyzing the so-called “innovators” like Apple and Volkswagen spewing their “cutting edge” brand-puke out there like frat boys in a strip club – eyes glazed over with mouths agape – never realizing that the girl in the Reynolds Wrap tube top may be Miss Right.

Either way, you end up unsatisfied and broke.

Okay, I digress.

It’s not rocket science and it’s not even that expensive. According to the Adage article (6/21/06), WD-40 (No.6 on the list), the wonder “stuff” that unlocks your car doors in the dead of winter, ranked on the list and only spent $25,400 — compared to Clorox (no.7), spending $413,800.

Keep it simple. Stop screaming at the “alter of your brand” and support your product or service with true, honest and believable integrated brand marketing. The consumers will appreciate it and your accountant may like it too.