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Defense may win championships, but you still have to score

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The Houston Astros used to be my favorite baseball team. I don’t mean today’s Astros, who are fine, btw, or even the solid clubs of the Jeff Bagwell/Craig Biggio era. I’m talking the Alan Ashby-Cesar Cedeño-Luis (not Albert) Pujols Astros. (Still have my vintage Astros jersey with full-body wraparound stripes and giant star.) Year after year those Astros had arguably the best pitching staff in baseball, anchored by fireballer and strikeout king Nolan Ryan. Game after game they would either shut out the other team or give up a run or two—and lost a lot more games than they should because too often the Astros’ batting order couldn’t hit its way out of a paper bag (OK, the infield).

Employers and clients, we can hit home runs for you, but only if you put us in the game. (Gag me before I cliché again, but segues are not always pretty.) Continue reading

Come sail away

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Two MarketBLOG entries ago we presented a company that, despite our best efforts, remains intent on not optimizing its website to drive revenue generation and retention, let alone use social media in pursuit of those business-building (or -saving) goals. The next took responsibility for being unable to book it on the oceangoing voyage many perceive social media to be. Today’s entry shows how when we succeed in moving companies to the third stage of AIDA [remember?]—desire, in this case the desire for a better site—they are actually primed to set sail.

How? Well, the journey begins with the larger question of structure and getting down to core essentials: Which pages and content should even appear on your site? Continue reading

…but the light bulb has to really want to change

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A variation on the changing-a-light-bulb joke goes like this:
Q – “How many [psychologists/psychiatrists] does it take to change a light bulb?”
A – “Just one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.”

Let’s just say we recently concluded a contract with a tiny company in a niche market that claimed it wanted us to help it take its business to the next level. “We’re tired of trading dollars, winning just enough new business every year to offset the accounts we lose. We want you put us on track to grow from $2 million a year to about $7 million.” Let’s just say the firm’s founder, CEO, grand poobah and big kahuna (all the same person) claimed to want to grow his “baby” from a minuscule unknown to a big or at least bigger hitter. Yet none of it is going to happen because he and the firm didn’t really want to change.

Let’s just say.

SWOT on demand: Company believes it is the “sole source supplier” to its niche. It’s not. It faces 15 competitors including publishing giant Thompson. Continue reading