The 8020Info Water Cooler

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The 8020Info Water Cooler
Issue #85 - Vol. 6 No. 5
03 April, 2006

1. Five Tips For Improving Marketing Copy

You undoubtedly know what makes your service or product special. But translating that into marketing material can be difficult. Copywriter Wendy Zak offers some tips in Enterprise magazine:

Forget about yourself: Unfortunately, when your prospect first looks at your web site or brochure, they aren't interested in you. They want to know: What's in it for me? Answer that, speaking the prospect's language, as if you were face to face.

Catch the eye: Use a graphic element to attract prospects to your copy. Make sure it supports your message and leads the reader's eye towards the start of your advertising copy rather than away from it.

Make your headline a doozy: Your headline must sum up your message and force your prospect to think, "Hey, I need to find out more about this." Ideally, it should focus on a problem or solution -- one with emotional pull for readers.

Don't be afraid to tell your story: Ignore those who tell you to avoid long advertising copy. "If your copy is well written and consistently interesting to the prospect, they will read as much information as you care to give. Actually, the more facts you give to support your case, the more likely your prospect is to buy," she advises.

Make it easy to read: Keep sentences and paragraphs short, separating paragraphs by a blank line. Avoid blocks of capital letter, even in headlines.

2. How Non-Profit Boards Can Meddle Constructively Top

Management guru Peter Drucker felt that a non-profit board couldn't do its job without meddling "so it had better be organized to meddle constructively." Most non-profit boards have no trouble meddling but they fail to do it constructively because they don't distinguish between governance and management roles, Ottawa consultant Mel Gill found in a study of 20 non-profits and public sector organizations. Many had a committee structure that paralleled management and operational functions, such as finance, human resources, and programs. "This inevitably invites board intrusion into operational details. Meeting agendas typically mimicked this structure," he notes in Governing For Results.

Instead, he urges boards to let the CEO run the operations, while the board focuses on results. Committees should be organized around board responsibilities, not management functions. The seven board responsibilities are:

establishing and/or safeguarding the mission and planning for the future,

financial stewardship,

human resource stewardship,

monitoring of organizational functioning and accountability to the stakeholders,

community representation, education and advocacy,

risk management, and

ensuring proper management of critical events.

The board sets direction, monitors, audits and reports to members on results.

3. Applying The Broken Windows Approach
To Your Business Top

New York City and other jurisdictions have used the "broken windows" theory to greatly reduce crime by cracking down on those small acts like graffiti, purse snatchings and jay walking that create an environment encouraging more significant crimes, such as murder. In Executive Excellence, consultant Michael Levine recommends the same approach for your small business by correcting the small things -- from literal broken windows to poorly located sale items to sloppy treatment of clients -- that can snowball into large problems:

Pay attention to every detail, immediately correcting any broken windows you find.

Screen, hire, train and supervise your staff to notice and correct broken windows as soon as possible.

Treat each customer like they are the only customer you have, exceeding expectations.

Be on constant vigil for excessive pride or arrogance that can lead to problems down the road.

Mystery shop your own business to discover broken windows using a fresh point of view.

4. What Are The Big Moves You Need To Make? Top

The 80/20 rule suggests that 20 per cent of the things you do today will account for 80 per cent of the benefits your organization receives. Tom Foster takes it further on the Management Skills blog by asking you to identify and consider the four or five decisions in the past few years that had the greatest lasting impact on your organization or career. For him, it was the opening of a new office, a key hire, and the creation of a new business direction. "The rest was just noise, busy work to make me believe that I was doing important adult stuff," he says.

Now ask a further question: In the next three years, what will be the most important decisions that you make that will have a lasting impact on your career, department or organization? That's obviously a difficult question to answer in advance when the consequences are unpredictable, but pondering it will provide focus that can improve your future.

5. Zingers Top

Average weekly earnings for payroll employees grew 3.1 per cent in 2005, compared to 2.2 per cent in 2004.
(Source: Statistics Canada's The Daily)

When trying to convince someone with a big ego to adopt your idea or service the danger is that the person will resist because their ego may feel threatened. Consultant Jeff Mowatt suggests beginning the conversation with "you are the expert on such and such. What I bring is…"
(Source: Influence With Ease newsletter)

Australian entrepreneur Leah Maclean follows a principle she calls "tempo giusto" -- a just or precise tempo. There is a right speed for everything. The best of business and life doesn't come from always being the fastest.
(Source: Working Solo blog)

Steven Berlin Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good For You, says three of the best innovations in recent years -- the Web, Google and the iPod -- share three qualities. They have simple user interfaces. They reuse existing information. And they were created by small groups of people, not cumbersome committees
(Source: Knowledge@Wharton newsletter)

Martin Lindstrom, author of Brand Sense, suggests drawing a pentagram -- a star with five points -- and noting on each point how your business appeals or could appeal to the five senses: Touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound.
(Source: Entrepreneur newsletter)

6. Q & A with 8020Info    Top

What is "timespan of work"?

8020Info Consultant Harvey Schachter responds:

Timespan of work is a concept developed by celebrated management scientist Elliott Jaques as he tried to figure out how work should be organized in an organization. He determined that what separated people at different levels in a hierarchy is the complexity of their work, which could be measured by the longest time span of the tasks they do.

An administrative assistant might handle tasks with a timespan of less than three months, while the head of a medium-sized organization is dealing with some issues that will impact the organization for five to ten years, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper is charged with looking 20 to 25 years into the future.

Jaques believed this theory had to be put to use in organizations, determining how many levels there will be (perhaps two in a small family-owned business, and four or five in a medium-sized operation). For smooth operations, organizations have to ensure staff members are working at a level of complexity that fits with their abilities, and that everyone's manager is capable of working at the next higher level.

There are true believers, who follow this religiously and believe organizational problems stem from a failure to adhere to these principles. I'm jaundiced, but it is certainly an interesting and important factor to consider about your own organization and staff. For more, read some of Jaques' books, such as Requisite Organization, or Toronto consultant Ginty Burns's more accessible book A is For Accountability.

7. News From Our Water Cooler:    Top

Marketing guru Seth Godin (author of All Marketers Are Liars, The Purple Cow, Permission Marketing, and Unleashing the Ideavirus) suggests the era of "TV-Industrial" mass media advertising is past its prime. New approaches involve managing word of mouth, permission marketing, and social networks, working more in the tradition of fashion industry buzz. (There's a great video of Godin speaking to Google employees on this at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294&q=seth+godin.)

At 8020Info, we're finding a similar trend. Earlier this year, for instance, a business group with a $250,000 marketing budget allocated barely $8,000 to traditional media advertising, putting its main effort into other marketing techniques. Several municipalities have also been in touch recently to talk about fresh ways to engage community stakeholders and connect through two-way dialogue.

We welcome your enquiries about some of these new trends in marketing and how they might apply to your strategies. Just send us an email at contactus@8020info.com.

8. Closing Thought    Top

"Freedom is the opportunity to make decisions."
-- Kenneth Hildebrand