Openminds

On a scale of 1 –10, I love owning my own business. There are many reasons for this, however the drive to succeed likely supercedes all others for me. I am not competitive with others by nature. I am highly competitive however with myself.

The best satisfaction I derive is from making myself do things in business that I never thought I could or that others said couldn’t be done. On the personal front, I’m not so great at this. If I were, I would challenge myself to be exercising regularly and eating healthier than I do. But that is likely a conversation for Dr. Phil’s site not for my work blog.

There are days however in business when I just frankly want to say I’ve had enough. The saying that it’s like a rollercoaster ride – with the highs being higher and the lows being lower than anything else you will ever do - is so true. One day you are feeling ecstatic that you have climbed that impossible hill and the next day you wonder how you are going to be able to dig yourself out of a hole that feels bottomless.

On those bleak days, I would fill in the blank in my headline with the world Hell. Whether its from feeling frustrated with the ongoing dynamics of business or whether its dealing with issues that are so clearly not what I got into business to deal with, it is often no fun whatsoever.

BUT. And, it’s clearly a big but, there is no better feeling for me then when our company has helped another firm to deliver on its business and marketing goals. There’s nothing that can replace the feeling I have when our team works together to do the impossible and does so with integrity, fun and intelligence. Nothing beats that. And that feeling overcomes all of the bad stuff and all of the business headaches I sometimes experience.

I guess the reality is that on 95% of the days I’d fill in the headline with the word Incredible.

And that feeling is enough to get me out of bed every day and wonder what the day will hold. I realize that sometimes it’s going to be just a plain awful day and, awfully hard to get through. But I know that on most days its going to be, well, incredible. So that makes me one of the luckiest roller coaster riders in the world. Because I know that when the ride is low it will surely go back up and I will feel like we’ve climbed a mountain. That thrill will always have me getting back on the train again and again.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, venturecommunications,

Yesterday I was flying to Toronto from Calgary and was pondering the value of time. As I sat on yet another flight, my mind turned to the business challenges of some of our clients. It is what I and most people in the marketing industry do – we consider the business issues facing our clients and think, sometimes 24/7, about ways to help overcome them in a creative and meaningful manner.

The marketing industry sells ideas and solutions masquerading as time on an invoice. It should instead only sell creative solutions and scrap the concept of selling time.

We deliver ideas that flow from creative and highly intelligent people who are given problems to solve and the time and information necessary to solve them. Our industry has, for too long, held up the creative product as the only tangible output of our thinking. We charge by the “ad” or by the hour instead of for the real business value of the ideas we generate. We defend an hour on an invoice and should instead be charging for the real value of the expertise we put forward. The ideas we create come from people with genuine knowledge and expertise in business and they know how marketing can be a driver of it. I think the reason people don’t value our time is that they don’t appreciate that great marketing actually involves deep expertise. Unlike law or accounting or engineering where you have an exam/credential process to certify that you have the required expertise – anyone can say they are a marketer. And, everyone thinks they know marketing because they have opinions about the marketing that is around them every day.

I recall a lawyer saying to me once that he would only ever bill me for the value of the work he did for me. And, if I ever got a bill that I felt did not reflect the value I believed I had received, that he would happily accept whatever payment I decided was fair.

That takes a guts and conviction that the marketing industry often lacks. Why are we so afraid to say that the expertise and thinking we deliver is of great and important value? Why do we continue to hide behind our ads instead of heralding our smart and creative approach to problem solving. An ad for sure is valuable. But is it a feature or a benefit or working with us?

Nobody likes to pay for time. Everybody will pay for a great business building idea.

This pricing philosophy has, in my opinion, created a commodity world in an industry that is anything but off the shelf. Instead of discussing our smart thinking and business and brand building strategies, we focus on the creative ad that was spawned from them and the time it took to deliver it. Yes, the ad is brilliant. But, what’s more brilliant and totally undervalued is the brains that drove the idea and then was able to put that idea into a creative form that can and does impact the way the world sees and thinks about a variety of issues and products.

When did the world stop valuing other people’s time and the ideas that flow from the time to think? We value widgets and anything produced that we can see, touch and feel. We seem to undervalue however peoples time and thinking in the marketing world.

Technorati Tags: Venture Communications, venture, advertising, value billing, marketing

On a regular basis I get to listen to a wide range of business ideas presented by a variety of different types of entrepreneurs. I hear smart people talk with great passion about their inventions, philosophies and aspirations.

I also listen to a lot of ideas that are doomed to fail.The truth is that a great marketing idea is only great if it’s centered on a great business model. Many of the people I speak to believe that marketing is the answer to everything.

Really, it’s pretty simple. Marketing isn’t a separate function in a business, it IS the business. A great marketing plan cannot cover for a poor business model. On the other hand a great business model requires marketing at its core to realize it’s true potential.

Some of the ideas I hear are truly stellar and just need strategic planning and great delivery to bring the person’s vision to a business reality. Some need immediate sales to keep the doors open. Some need funding. And some just need a bullet to kill the idea.It’s genuinely hard to tell any entrepreneur that the dream they have been chasing is not real. It would be a real crime, however, to allow people to throw good money after bad and provide marketing services for an idea that was doomed to fail at its inception.Dragons Den is really just a televised version of part of my day-to-day reality. Talking to entrepreneurs who have good and bad ideas and who believe that with enough money and marketing they too will be the next biggest global brand.Having to put my money where my mouth is from an investment perspective, is one way to show my belief in a business idea. However, I will not invest the money I have worked so hard for into just any idea - no matter how well funded it may be. Money doesn’t solve the root problem of an idea that simply wont work. Every day I am asked to utilize my firm’s services into supporting marketing efforts for other peoples’ brands. I invest the time and energy of my team in the desire to create a long lasting and meaningful partnership with the company who has hired us. If we don’t understand their business and co-share the marketing strategy, we are simply taking their hard earned money and crossing our fingers that creative alone will save the day.

I know the enormous brand power of a visionary person who is backed by discipline, funding and a great idea behind it all. I also know there are too many dollars wasted in marketing efforts that are not driving any real business value. Too many marketing firms are eager to take dollars from any business without a planned approach or mutually agreed upon success factors.

Just like the entrepreneurs, these marketing firms come up with creative ideas and expect that the idea alone will win the day. Yes you do need outstanding creative that breaks through and is relevant to the consumer. However, great creative that’s not developed as a result of a sound business strategy is never going to cut it.

Technorati Tags: Venture Communications, Dragons Den, entrepreneurs