Gray Matter at White Space

I’m forced to prioritize daily—and many times throughout the day. My daily routine actually starts the night before when I put my workout clothes next to my bed (wishful thinking!). If I make the girls shower at night, that’s 10 or 15 extra minutes the next morning… so, let’s do that.

Once they’re on the bus to school, there’s no more hiding from the beastly inbox of things waiting to be addressed. Sometimes that’s not so simple to determine what comes first. The same applies to business and marketing. You know certain pieces of strategy are more pressing than others, but how do you select, definitively, the order in which they rank?

When you hit a plateau—in business or life—it can mess with your motivation. Oftentimes, it’s even more frustrating than hitting a “wall,” because that would mean there is a clear obstacle in your way and there are defined ways to get around it. With a plateau, there may not be a clear hurdle to get over or anything glaringly negative in terms of performance results. It may just be… boring.

Of course, this happens all the time in business, and many times marketing is leaned on to shoulder the burden and get out of the rut. A campaign levels off, then starts to become ineffective. Budget cuts can create a challenge and often require creativity. Senior leadership isn’t interested in what you have to say, making it easier to stay placated and say, “I guess this is fine…”

It’s anything but fine.

In my blog last week, I referenced that I believe I’m becoming a “real, human marketer.” What I meant by that is that I’ve started to look at everything from a marketing, branding, customer journey, and customer experience perspective. I would not go so far as to say “the student has become the master” (I still have a lot to learn), but it’s actually quite fascinating to observe the world in this new(ish) light.

One thing I’ve observed is that brands who “do it right” share this defining characteristic: They really take care of their customers.

Last week’s biz buzz included a debate on whether or not Kylie Jenner is truly the youngest “self-made” billionaire. As part of the Kardashian empire, commentators on either side questioned whether Kylie’s fame and fortune prior to starting her makeup line excludes her from the self-made designation.

Skeptics would say she had plenty of support and thus doesn’t deserve the title. Supporters would say she used her own money to start the company and the success that followed was very much in her control.

Death, taxes, and a 9:30 a.m. Uberconference call with Ilene every Monday through Friday--these are the certainties in my life.

I requested this call about three years ago. We had started to get busy enough where she was handling one end of the company and I was handling the other. A bad habit of skimping on communication meant, at best, gaps between the two of us. At worst, it meant holes is client interactions. So, this became our morning huddle and our time to find out what was on each other’s dockets.

I subscribe to a daily inspirational email newsletter, which doesn’t always spark me as so much “inspirational” but rather a bit preachy. However, from time-to-time, the creator (Jerry Del Colliano) gets me into a light-bulb state of mind. One recent topic was, “People Want to Buy, Not Be Sold.” The writer prefaced his quick snippet of wisdom with the following:

That’s true not only of merchandise and services, but ideas and concepts.

If you have a great idea for your team, spend much of your effort into getting them to buy it from you rather than have you sell it to them. If you have a daughter or son who could benefit from your wisdom, don’t push it, get them to buy it from you.

"Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

“It’s not what’s on the outside, but what’s on the inside that counts.”

That’s nice to hear, but it couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to marketing. Full disclosure, I’m quick to judge. I think a lot of people are, whether they own up to it or not.

Unfortunately, we tend to form assumptions and make hasty decisions based on personal experiences, preferences, and dislikes. So, while you may want to offer the benefit of the doubt or put on your self-righteous hat, the fact of the matter is, in marketing--as in most aspects of life--first impressions matter.

When asked how I define my role at White Space, I like to say that I take Ilene and Adrianne’s good thinking and strategic planning and bring it to life with our team’s tactical execution. Admittedly, I’m not particularly patient. I’ve been on mind-numbing internal phone calls where these two were debating if something was a strategy or a goal.

As badly as I want to get to the tactics, wading through the strategic process is an important step. Plotting out marketing scenarios in the beginning makes for better, more actionable decisions in the future.

Sometimes content marketers and their writers get lucky. A client who has diverse blog content needs is a near-ideal situation, particularly if the topic matter is fresh, new, and ever-changing. I specify blog content, because the downside to this situation would be spending exorbitant amounts of money to continually produce other assets, like brochures, ebooks, one-pagers, and the like.

My childhood memories include a myriad of wisdom from my parents. My mom delivered these nuggets through dichos y refranes, the popular sayings and proverbs she learned as a child. My father imparted wisdom more directly, in plain Spanish, without much flourish. One of my favorites came to mind recently: