The Funnelholic

I know what you’re thinking: Another sports analogy? But hear me out - this one is near and dear to my heart.

Look, I love metrics. Metrics have helped me run my business, made me more efficient and added scale to my company. I love them. In particular, I love Billy Beane’s approach to baseball stats: focusing on nontraditional statistics like on-base percentage versus straight batting average. I believe his methodology translates well to lead generation: Love metrics, but make sure you’re focusing on the right ones.

On the other hand, we can’t forget one core issue: people, not computers, win the World Series. Billy’s process keeps his team in the running every year, but he has never won the World Series. This is interesting from a business-building perspective. I used to say, “Billy Beane has never won the World Series,” as we built Tippit and we made gut decisions that ran counter to the data. It became a part of my lexicon.

I heard two quotes over the last couple of months that retriggered this thought process:

• “Don’t forget that all these tools are great, but you need great people to be successful.”
  - Rich Blakeman, sales vice president of Miller Heiman, speaking at the Sales 2.0 conference.
  When he said this, all I could think was, Billy Beane has never won the World Series.
• “The way to pick the winner of the NCAA basketball tournament is … what team has the most future NBA players.”
  -Skip Bayless, ESPN morning show commentator.
  This was interesting to me. In college basketball, coaches are the stars and are portrayed as “master strategists.” But at the end of the day, the team with the best players wins. Yes, they are supported by a highly effective system (process) - but to win the big one, your players have to execute.

For all the metrics and processes a colleague or I put in place, I am reminded all the time that that the data is there to help make great decisions – decisions that need to be made by people who then need to go execute them. People have to make gutsy calls, decisions with the data and decisions DESPITE the data. They alsy have to execute on a daily basis, outwork competitors and more. Metrics alone simply can’t do that. Power to the people!

Sorry about being gone a week - I have been inconsistent lately and I apologize.

I look for inspiration everywhere, and I found some on a billboard overlooking highway 101: The Charles Schwab  “Do Something About It” campaign. It was great timing for me to see this ad; a couple weeks ago I did a Webinar with Netprospex and, as usual, I was ranting about the importance of understanding new-age buyers and how they are unduly affected by the recession (broke, no budget,yadda yadda). I got a couple comments from the crowd like, “Did this guy’s dog die?” and, “Do buyers really think like tha?t”, etc. I realized that I wasn’t entirely making my point: The buyer has changed, and the recession is bad, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should cry about it.  You need to embrace the change in the buyer’s environment and craft your message accordingly.

Enter Charles Schwab’s  “Do Something About It.” Here’s what I like about the campaign:

1. It captures the current mind-set of the consumer.
2. The “it” inspires.
3.  It needs no other explaining; when you see it, you know what they’re talking about.

I actually wrote about seizing opportunity in this time of economic crisis in a previous post, When the blood flows in the streets, it’s time to buy real estate. Again, my point was that the economy is terrible, but the opportunity is great.

As a matter of fact, my buddy recently sent me this quote from Rhonda Abrams in USA Today:

History bears me out. When times are bad for the economy, it can be a great time to start a business. In fact, 16 of the 30 companies that make up the Dow industrial average were started during a recession or depression. These include Procter & Gamble, Disney, Alcoa, McDonald’s, General Electric and Johnson & Johnson.

So, go do something about it.

Let me start out by saying that I’m on a streak of great thought leadership interviews. I may put these interviews into an e-book and distribute it. The content in the Thought Leadership interview series has gone well beyond my expectations with rich, thoughtful responses that I have learned a lot from.

My latest interview is with Will Schnabel, Vice President of International for Silverpop and co-author of Silverpop’s new e-book, “Lead Management Workbook: Advice and Worksheets to Develop a Strategic, Results-Driven B2B Marketing Program.” Before his current position, Schnabel was responsible for overall operations and product direction at Silverpop’s Engage B2B (formerly Vtrenz).

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