There's a biblical proverb that says, "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." 

It is Proverbs 27:17, to be exact, and it has really stuck with me lately.  There was a time when I had lots of "sharpness" around me.  As a young entrepreneur, lots of other young entrepreneurs seemed to gravitate to each other. 

And we made each other better.  Not always by challenging each other or pushing each other like personal trainers in the business world, but just by pursuing our dreams and being our best and loving what we were doing.  I think that was one of the really important yet lesser known factors in my early success.

[A big thanks to Rob and Jason and Christy and Bobby and Anton in particular.]

Then, for no real reason other than perhaps the demands of growing families or people moving around, there was a time when I didn't feel much sharpness in my business or friendship circles.  I didn't even realize it until I got in one of those rare introspective states.  Maybe it was when I turned the ripe old milestone age of 30... 

I had become surrounded by people who preferred coasting over driving.  People who didn't really expect much, people who weren't really trying to accomplish anything meaningful.  There are a lot of nice people out there who aren't going to make you better.

We need iron.  We need it badly.  It is so vital that we find ways to keep getting better, and one understated way to ensure you stay sharp is to be in contact with others who are sharp.  The rest of the world needs us to be our best.  Who is your iron?  Who can you be iron to?

[My wife is an iron lady -- she makes me better.  I've been blessed with iron vendors and iron clients too.  So this is where I thank Michael, Mike, and Mike.  Rich and Leasa and Scott and James and Julie and Magi and Ben and Frankie and Vernon and Jeff and another Mike.  I know a lot of Mikes... but more than that, I know a lot of iron people and I'm better for it.]

Labels: bad habits, creativity, differentiation, employees, management, marketing, planning, strategy

We often find ourselves pontificating against cookie cutters.  Not the kind literally used on cookies, but the kind of lazy "copy and paste" thinking that too often turns into marketing plans that have little hope of succeeding for business owners.

You're not a cookie, so don't go for a cookie-cutter marketing program.

The cookie-cutter approach is ultimately just about selling a product.  Someone has a so-called "program" and they want to sell it to you.  But maybe it's not right for your particular type of customer... in which case it's not right for you.

That's not to say we don't learn from past experiences and carry those insights forward.  It's also not to say we see familiar opportunities but try to reinvent the wheel regardless.  When we have similar clients in similar markets with similar needs, the marketing strategies will inevitably look similar.  The marketing for a flooring store in one midsize Midwestern market will likely have many of the same elements as the marketing for another flooring store in another midsize Midwestern market.  But they won't be identical.  They can't be.

We never assume.  We never fit the client to the program; we fit every single program to the individual client.  To have a highly effective marketing plan for a small business, it can't be stamped out like factory work.  It can't be mass produced.  It must be tailored for the one and only.

Two major reasons good marketing work is always custom are these:  personality and personnel.  Every company has a personality, often driven by the owner and/or founder(s).  That's only natural, but it also means every company is distinct -- often in ways that aren't readily realized -- and therefore a cookie-cutter marketing approach is going to miss much of the company's essence because it's not set up to even identify or account for it.

Every company also has distinct personnel.  Two community banks may be similarly sized and in similar markets, but have grown and developed in entirely different ways because of the people inside.  Their strengths and weaknesses are likely to be very, very different.  I can think of one case in the past where the executive team wanted to drive a specific type of lending that was quite profitable, but they didn't dare because they didn't have personnel in place to make it work.  A cookie-cutter marketing idea would have failed miserably at that place and time.  Once they got the personnel side corrected, great new opportunities opened up; the change was dramatic and almost immediate.

What are your distinctives?  How can you market your business in a way that is effective and authentic only to you?  Let's talk about it today.

Labels: bank, creativity, credit union, customer centered, differentiation, employees, management, marketing, planning, strategy