From the Mind of Minolta

March 23rd, 2009

Years ago, I was the public relations counsel to Minolta Corporation  and occasionally I would travel with its president , Sam Kusumoto. We’d be in a camera or copier dealer market and my assignment was to book Sam on a local TV or radio show  or get him an interview with a newspaper primarily so he could gain publicity for the dealer in that market.

 

I remember on one dealer trip to Layafette Louisiana, I had booked Sam for an evening interview on a local radio station. We had literarily met in New Orleans, hopped a small commuter plane to Lafayatte and headed directly to the station in a rental car.

 

The interview took place at a time when the Japanese were just beginning to beat the hell out of the American automobile market with inexpensive, fuel efficient vehicles. On top of that, America was in its first fuel crisis and hour-long gas lines were common at the pumps.

 

So you can imagine the first question from the radio show host had nothing to do with office copiers or cameras. It was direct, it was blunt and it was somewhat naïve—but it was also top of mind to everyone in Lafayette: Japanese carmakers were taking jobs away from American factory workers so why should Americans buy Japanese copiers and cameras?

 

Sam’s responses set the tone for how I would handle such tough questions for clients in the years to come. Here were his two responses:

 

“I first came to America through San Francisco on a commercial freighter with a box of cameras in its hold. When I saw the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time I said to myself “My God, why did we fight these people?”

 

“I don’t understand why people are upset with us. After World War II, America showed Japan how to be capitalists, you showed us how to make quality products with your manufacturing processes and technology. We simply copied everything you showed us how to do.We’re doing exactly what  you told us to do.”

 

It pretty much left the talk show host speechless. And it taught me for the future that the first and easiest way to deal with tough issues is to be disarming. Sam didn’t confront the radio host, he disarmed him. And it’s a lesson I’ve taught clients and my own agency people ever since.

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Step Outside the Box to Think Outside the Box

March 7th, 2009

A few weeks ago, one of our clients hired a high powered business guru who’s helped “thousands” of clients to make “billions of dollars” by “thinking out of the box” to speak to a group of its dealers who have businesses in the home improvement industry. Some of these dealers are pretty big—with sales of more than $50 million.

I chuckled as I sat through his talk as he skillfully offered just enough information to set the bait in the hopes he would reel in a few more customers for his consultancy before the day was over.

Most of what he had to say we had all heard before. And many of us were hoping to hear more about doing business in the current economy. But one thing he did say that struck home was an “out of the box” idea I suspect most people have not considered before.

He urged the dealers to consider specific joint ventures with other types of home improvement companies—particularly non-competitors, i.e., one who does windows and doors and another that does roofing and gutters. He suggested groups of businesses jointly fund an “employee”who is a specialist at one particular aspect of business. For example, someone who is particularly good at setting up deals and maximizing relationships with media for advertising and promotion could be employed by more than one business to expertly do that task for all of them. We are not talking about a consultant but a full-time employee of the co-op making a salary with incentives and benefits.

He noted that a single company might not be able to hire that specialist fulltime. But a group of companies loosely working as a co-op could afford to do so and capitalize on that person’s area of expertise to ultimately earn the group more bang with its collective buck. This could apply to virtually any business function. For example, a purchasing specialist with an exemplary track record could be the purchasing agent for a group of companies. And yes, even a public relations or advertising professional who has a lot of experience and excels in a client category could be hired and paid to do work for several clients. It really wouldn’t matter what the category is as long as the members of the group cooperatively using the service are not in competition with each other. Of course, the downside of this could be controlling the level of service among different members. Would one receive more service than another? Those kinds of issues have to be resolved in advance among the members.

One other interesting comment from the guru: Most industries only know and use one particular business model or marketing approach — even though there may be dozens of more effective and profitable strategies and options available to them. You know your own industry and you probably think you have your marketing communications approach down pat. But there may be 20 other ways to do business besides the one you know. Travel outside your own industry and find out how other businesses see life beyond your own. If you’re selling industrial products or professional services, then investigate how retail and proprietary pharmaceutical go to market and consider pulling the best ideas for marketing communications in their industries for your own.

The guru threw down a challenge to the dealers. Look at a different industry every two weeks for the next year. Hit the internet and find out how they market and use marketing communications within their industries. Then see if they are doing something that might be useful to you. If you like something enough, fit it modestly into your budget for the coming year and test it.

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Sometimes Public Relations and Promotion Simply Aren’t the Answer-Yet

March 4th, 2009

An ad agency owner and friend of mine is on the marketing committee of a regional chamber of commerce here in Northern New Jersey. Last week he asked if I would meet with him, the chamber’s paid staff and some members on a pro bono basis to discuss public relations ideas for the chamber to gain awareness and drive membership in these economic hard times.

They of course had no budget and were kicking around ideas like sending out mugs or promotional gimmicks to area non-members.

I tried to remember what chambers do to prepare for the meeting.

I had belonged to two regional chambers in the past and Mari had joined a municipal chamber last year. Most chambers seem to have an ongoing service program centered around three core programs: networking events centered on breakfasts and cocktail hours, expert” speaker appearances to address members about timely business topics, and a scholarship program fund for local high schoolers headed to college.

The expert speakers are usually professional services consultants looking to sell their services to the members and who hang out just enough bait about what they can do in the hope of hooking a member fish. Chambers also seem to be populated by a lot human resource and public relations professionals who attended events because it’s part of their community relations responsibility and little else.

I tried to think of why I would want to join a chamber and what would get me to do it—particularly in the current economy where I’d have to think hard about where I wanted to spend my money.

Mugs and promotional gimmicks surely wouldn’t drive me. It had to be something substantive that would probably change or add to the way the chamber currently functioned. Yet it couldn’t cost anything.

The answer was almost obvious. Get the members of the chamber to tap into the social and business networking networks of the Internet collectively so that each and every one of them could immediately and effectively expand awareness of each other. In a chamber that encompasses three of the most densely populated counties in the United States, the opportunity for personal and business Internet networking is immense. The numbers of people one can reach as “friends” or as “links” is incredible and far-reaching. If you have a friend and they have five friends and they have 10 friends, you can reach an amazing number of people as long as you meet the rules of each site. Sure, some members might not choose to link or make friends with others. For example, members from banks, law firms, public accounting firms and others in competition might choose not to share information. But retail businesses might find LinkedIn, Face Book, MySpace, YouTube and even Craigslist perfect venues if they were to be used carefully.

The question of course would be how do members learn to join and use these sites if they were unaware of them and had never used them before–particularly if they were not Internet savvy. The answer was by tapping into chamber members who already had and by creating a volunteer program where savvy chamber members would voluntarily work with non-networkers to show them how.

The chamber members left our meeting excited. Today, they have emailed a survey to members asking them if they would be interested in participating in such a volunteer program to help or be helped. If the chamber goes ahead with the program, it will more than likely be unique among chambers in its marketplace. It will be using the social networking capabilities of the Internet to help its members network—a key goal of any chamber. And it will be offering a program it can use to market to prospective members who will understand that there is strength—and business—to be found in the numbers of the Internet.

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