Spiker Communications

Wobbly Front End?

When I think about the term alignment, it usually conjures up images of letting go of the steering wheel while driving along an open road. If I’m aligned properly, my car will stay straight. If not, it will veer to one side or the other in a manner that without correction, will yield catastrophic results.

It may be subtle and take a little time for my car to start to veer off the intended path. It isn’t that my car has a mechanical problem; it may be due to me getting distracted reading a billboard, changing radio stations, or replacing CD’s. And when my eyes revert back to the road, my path has quickly changed. It may be unintentional, but just as dangerous as a wobbly front end.

Each and every time that happens to me I tell myself I’m not going to do that again, as I’ve got to keep my eyes on the road. But soon after, I find myself in familiar territory looking around again and repeating the same mistakes I made earlier, and each time telling myself that it’s too dangerous to be looking around and to keep my eyes focused straight ahead.

Alignment and keeping your eyes on the road in both familiar and unfamiliar territory is what is required to win in today’s hyper-competitive climate. It’s not only great advice in terms of leadership and business strategy, but also essential with regard to communication. And if your front end is a little wobbly, then get it fixed.

Marketing Here. Marketing There. Marketing Everywhere

The sooner developers understand that everything they do is marketing, the sooner they will see their brand on the road to success.

We have the opportunity of working with many successful developers and entrepreneurs. The ones that seem to stand out and grow faster, and gain the lion’s share of their market are the ones that really understand how important marketing is and that marketing is much more than just the website.

Marketing is everything, including the kitchen sink.

When I get a request for everything, from logo to vehicles signage to sales center walls, I smile a great big grin. Not because it means a lot of work for my team, but because it means that we have a client that is serious about their branding and our efforts will not only be noticed and felt, but appreciated. This is where Spiker Communications really shines.

A lot of people believe their logo, business cards and website is marketing. It’s only a small portion of marketing, as everything is marketing: from how your phone is answered to how clean your sales office is to how your hair looks. Everything you do embodies the spirit and essence of the brand. This also influences how your staff feels about your brand and how they reinforce the brand message in what they do. This is reflected in how they deal with the prospect and your brand shows through.

If you’re selling a luxury brand or anything of quality, you can’t be handing out cheap pens - cheap begets cheap. Because your brand essence is so much more than just your logo and web site, you need to look at all the ways your customer experiences your brand and make sure they are in sync with your brand message.

Your brand has to walk the walk, and talk the talk. To do this, you have to understand that everything you do is marketing because marketing is everything.

Feedback Kills

For the last couple of months, we’ve been working with a client that insists on showing the work to everyone and anyone. In listening to their interpretation of the feedback, we know more about the person making the comment than on the actual work. We even had a client take a phone call from a "customer" who commented that if the client could afford multiple billboard locations in town, that they should pay their people more.

I’m not usually interested in feedback as the source is usually not qualified to comment, as they are not the audience that we are targeting. But feedback today is a major problem for us, such as the English major who insists that single-sentence paragraphs "aren’t allowed" and who may be qualified to critique a book, but certainly knows nothing about writing marketing text.

This doesn’t mean I don’t listen to feedback. For example, I listen to what clients say they’re looking for. That tells me something about them, and there’s often more in their feedback than what appears on the surface. This is where the "Golden Rule" comes into play. Whoever has the gold makes the rules, and that’s why I listen very closely to their feedback.