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Josh
Nason
Business Development
A few Thursday thoughts as your author prepares to begin looking at condos for the first time and is working on his second article for MarketingProfs.com, the first of which you can find here.
I'll take a dozen roses and two Number 3's - Do you remember that Burger King once tried a stint as a "real" restaurant? It was in 1993 where after 4 pm, you would place your order at the front and then wait for it to be brought to your table like a normal establishment. I distinctly remember tablecloths, free popcorn and a strange feeling caused by this whole experience. 15 years after that experiment failed, White Castle is attempting something similar but my guess is this will turn out a lot better.
Tonight (Valentine's Day), White Castle is taking reservations for for a 'candlelit, tableside feast' at 15 locations across the country. You have to make a reservation in order to 'bring your significant other, moderately important friend or a complete stranger...' There will even be a photo gallery posted tomorrow with 'white hot' pictures. This is just plain awesome; a great idea from a fast-food joint that needs to try anything to get a foothold against its competitors. It's just crazy enough to work and if you add an email component in (ding!), you got a real stew goin' on. To see how you can make a reservation, go here lovers.
People don't like solicitors...but why? - Like many of you, I'm a member of LinkedIn (see my tag below). The other day, I was looking for someone that worked at a specific non-profit and happened to stumble upon a somewhat-big sneaker company's marketing person. Since I'm friendly, I sent an InMail to make an introduction and to make them aware of our services. Soliciting? Yes, but isn't making people aware of what you do part of sales? I can see how this could be a debate, but my intentions were honest and it was merely a shot in the dark. Within a few minutes, I got a notice I had been replied to. The message? 'Inappropriate'. The message is still there as I'm partially baffled and partially angry at such a blow-off.
I took a step back and decided to think of my days as Director of Marketing for a pro sports team. I was hammered every week with people trying to offer me some new service, new pricing, new everything. Often, I didn't acknowlege or simply replied that I wasn't interested. But as I think of it now, some of those offers may have been good - I just didn't have the mental time to review or even consider them. These people were simply trying to do their jobs, but I viewed them as a nuisance. Yesterday, I inadvertantly become one of those who I eschewed so easily in my previous career. Are we truly that busy to not even consider new marketing alternatives or improvements to what we do? One of the best lines I have ever heard was, "No one has the market curbed on good ideas." It's true.
I am now left wondering exactly how to break this cycle. Even though 'sales' is a dirty word in our culture, there are legitimate companies and legitimate salespeople out there that have great services but don't have the financial resources of their competitors. The only way to raise awareness is by contacting people that don't know who you are, but to do it in a way that isn't seen as 'soliciting.' So I decided to change up my plan of attack. I'm going to do a better job at reviewing business offers that come my way and reply back in a polite fashion as to what my thoughts are. I wish others I reach out to would do the same. At the end of the day, we're all people trying to better our lives by, in part, helping others better theirs. There's nothing inappropriate about that.
Picture-taking in stores: what's the problem? - I was in an American Eagle Outfitters over the holiday season and observed a couple younger guys looking over some stuff. One wanted to take a picture of the other with a hat, but before that could happen, a clerk came over and said, "Sorry guys...no pictures."
I got to thinking about it and wondered why that policy was in place. It's not the first time I've heard of a 'no picture' philosophy, but it doesn't make sense. What would a company like AEO be worried about? You can probably get the same hat online and with the magic of Photoshop, edit it onto a picture of a person. Is it the store layout? I'm sure you could get a pretty easy visual by just...I don't know...looking around? If someone was that dastardly, a hidden camera on a pair of glasses would do the trick.
I just don't understand. We're not talking about military intelligence or an unannounced product line here. It's a public place seen by thousands of eyes a week. If you have a cool product or a cool location or something to crow about, why wouldn't you want to let others know?
Greg Bulmash did a good piece on this via Brain Handles. Find it here.
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