My newest fascination is with well-designed presentations. Whether made with PowerPoint or Apple or Linux, there are some elements which make for a great presentation. These start and end with a clear story.
So I get all jazzed up when I find prime examples of awesome presentations like this one. It was sent to me via email, and supposedly opened Sony's Annual Meeting. Even if it was only shown once in a church basement somewhere, it's still an amazing story, presented in an outstanding way.
On a related note, I've gotten so sick of boring PowerPoint decks that I went ahead and made my own. A sample deck, if you will. If you'd like to take a look, or want me to look over your next presentation, drop me an email at
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It might seem odd for a market researcher to tell you that research can't tell you everything. But this blog post over at Church of the Customer lays it all out on the line.
I know you've seen Tropicana's new packaging. I call it the "70s Lounge" style cartons. (No, I'm not a fan, how did you guess?) And my first thought upon seeing carton after carton of the new design on the shelves was, "I wonder what kind of research they did for *this* re-launch."
The moral of the CotC post is that you need to engage your core, brand-loyal customers - AKA brand evngelists. And you need to know what they think, what they're passionate about, or risk a major gaffe like the one Tropicana is repealing. The answer is not to do more research (although that would make my job easier). It's not to do less research because you'll get the "wrong" answers anyway - after all, Tropicana did reserach this rebranding effort.
No, the answer is to think about your research differently. Find a way screen for brand evangelism. Make sure that you're talking to at least a few of them when you're doing your market research. Because when information moves as fast as does nowadays, anticipating how your core evangelists feel is more crucial than ever.
It's one thing to market yourself by email. (I'm activiely engaging in that pursuit today.) But it's another thing to buy a list somewhere, and spam a whole group of people with your shady scheme. Today, I got my second of two emails from the Round Table Group. I'd link to them, but I find their business to be unsavory and don't want to drive up their web traffic.
The really disgusting part is that both emails were addressed to "Mr. Carvin." Now Mr. Carvin is my father-in-law (or technically my husband, but he's much more of a "Brian" to me). Last I checked, I was totally, unmistakably female. It galls me that this creepy company bought my name and then couldn't be bothered to check out whose names they purchased.
Additionally, the emails talk all about "consulting opportunities" and other vague terms. The website spells it out plainly, they're looking for paid expert witnesses for legal matters. And that just feels "yucky" to me.
So the moral of the story is, market yourself smartly. KNOW to whom you are writing. Be gracious and transparent. Don't spam. It helps if you're sending anticipate, valuable content. If you'd like to leanr more, you should really check out Seth Godin's blog (and books and other incredibly smart stuff). And also Michael Katz, who writes the best e-newsletter about sending, well, e-newsletters.
Do what those guys say and you won't get response emails like this one that I just sent to the Round Table Group.
Congratulations! If you're seeing this article, it means you're on our new and improved website. This space is my new, old blog - The learning Curve - which is now going to focus directly on business "stuff". Travel adventures, wonderful colleagues and ideas for making our business (and yours) as good as it can be. I do hope you'll stick around make yourself comfortable. There'll be a comment section coming soon, in the meantime - email me with an idea for a post, offer to guest-blog - whatever. Welcome and I'll see you around.
It's a new year and there are some big changes a-coming to this little blog. I've pulled up roots and moved over to a new blog (2 new blogs actually) - Filed Under Missylaneous. This'll be the personal stuff - Abby's adventures, stuff that keeps me up at night, etc.
Here on our new and improved New Directions website, the Learning Curve will continue as a business-y blog. There may be some cross posting, but I'm trying to be all Libra here and strike a balance.
So come on over to the new blog, hosted right over there on Blogger.
