The Funnelholic

When we were starting Tippit (soon to be Focus), a gentleman named John Luongo was an observer in our board meetings. He had a storied career at Oracle and then was the CEO of Vantive. He had lots of advice for us, but one thing in particular that he said has always stuck with me: “You really need to pick an enemy.” I actually mentioned this concept in an earlier post on the marketing automation market.

Here is what John meant: Management should declare an enemy and rally everyone in the company around beating this enemy. Sales will want to outsell the enemy, product will want to produce a better product than the enemy and so forth. John described how, in his early days, Oracle obsessed about beating Informix (which Oracle did handily). Sure, you could simply say, “Pick a goal to strive for” — but that doesn’t play on primal, competitive instincts. I love this concept, and I see at least five distinctive benefits:

1.      It helps everyone focus: Having a rallying cry gives teams a reason to come to work each day. It also can help you make decisions on where to put your energy.

2.      It motivates: See above.

3.       It serves as a scoreboard: Scoreboards work.

4.       It fosters our natural mean streak: That’s always a good thing.

5.       It can provide a ‘measuring stick’: Take a reference point like a competitor’s product and say, “We will beat their functionality (or even their website).”

No, obsession is not healthy, but having an enemy makes so much sense.

There are some great examples of this, but by far my favorite is University of Colorado football. In 1982, Bill McCartney took over as head coach of the Colorado football program; at the time, the team couldn’t win a thing (in 1980 the team was 1-10; in 1981 the team was 3-8 — you get the picture). One of the first things McCartney did was name Nebraska as Colorado’s primary rival. Nebraska was a perennial powerhouse, had defeated Colorado 14 times in a row, and could care less about Colorado. Honestly, anybody following college football at the time would tell you McCartney was crazy. That’s why this is the perfect example: McCartney made the best team he could their measuring stick for success. His “enemy” was perfect for the team to aspire to, and it set a bold, “hairy” goal for his program to achieve.

Here is what happened next:

• Four years later (1986) Colorado beat No. 3-ranked Nebraska 20-10.
• In 1990, Colorado won the national championship.
• In all, McCartney created a national powerhouse of a program.

You might ask me if this is the first article in the “business-aholic” stage of my life. Maybe, but the decision to declare an enemy is something even department and organizational heads can do. In other words, this concept is still very “Funnelholic.” As a marketer, I love to have an enemy. If I had to decide on my marketing plan, I would use my enemy as my measuring stick. I would want to create a better website, blog, social media presence, content, advertise where they are and so forth. All of this makes my program better and, for me at least, makes it more fun — I get to keep score and compete.

Choose an enemy, you’ll be better for it.

Is it time to close (or perhaps rename) this blog? This question has been in the back of my mind for the past few weeks. I tried to create a provocative title for this post, but the real question is: What should I do with The Funnelholic? The issue at hand is that I believe I have a lot to offer beyond just the sales and marketing funnel. Here is an example: I have learned a lot about the startup business from helping build Tippit and now Focus - I want to share these tips. Moreover, with my new role at Focus, I have been reading a ton of customer service, HR, and business-building content that I want to discuss and share. Is The Funnelholic capable of expanding beyond the funnel?

Here is another scenario I thought of: What if, for my next job, I want to be hired as a CEO (for example). Would being The Funnelholic help me or hurt me?

Just so everyone knows, I have written about how I came to the name this blog on the Annuitas Blog awhile back. In a nutshell, my CEO Scott Albro came up with the name. I had wanted “Funnelnomics,” but it was taken by my friend Suaad Sait . Scott said, “You need something that represents you, more fun and loose, it should be something like ‘The Funnelholic.’ I bought the domain name that day, started blogging, and it was on.

It was a great name: totally memorable and well-suited for my personality (irreverent, a bit edgy). Just the other night, I went to the Content Rules awards dinner, hosted by Eloqua at Foreign Cinema, and met Ann Handley for the first time. I said, “I’m Craig Rosenberg.” No reaction, no recognition. Then I said, “The Funnelholic.” “Ooooh!” she said. Like it or not, The Funnelholic is my brand.

But is it my brand, or have I typecast myself? I feel like a television star trying to break out of his medium to make it in the movies. What do I do now that I want to talk about more? I want to talk about business, not just demand generation and marketing automation. This whole “soul-searching” process has led me to these questions:

1. What should I do with The Funnelholic? Now that you know what you know, what is your recommendation? Should it stay or should it go? At the Content Rules dinner, I asked my table-mates the same question. My table had PR people (but primarily knowledgeable social media-ites) Mandy Mladenoff, Abigail Snyder, Jesse Noyes, Tyler Willis, and Lisa Loeffler. They thought I was crazy (literally). Their vote was that the brand stays and the writing can evolve. What do you think? Please submit your opinion.

2. What is the best practice for naming a blog? Should you use your name, or should you give the blog its own unique name? Could I have avoided typecasting had I gone with my name? Give me your input.

The real question is: Now what?

Drumroll please …  I present the 210 B2B marketing tips for 2010. Let me tell you, this was quite an adventure, one that I will certainly do differently in the future.

Basically, the sequence of events went like this: Continue Reading »

It’s amazing — after a couple weeks of writer’s block, I’m back to finding something to write about every day.  Right now, my company is recruiting a marketing contractor which triggered some Funnelholic-type thoughts.

1.      If you’re not on LinkedIn, you’re not trying. It’s amazing to think LinkedIn is roughly 5 years old.  Now, the first thing any self-respecting recruiter does is check candidates out on LinkedIn and vice versa — if someone has an interview with a recruiter or other company representative, he or she looks them up on LinkedIn.  So, as I’m reviewing marketing contractor résumés, I can’t believe some applicants have the nerve to not be on LinkedIn, have incomplete profiles or only have six friends.  That’s not to say I eliminated anyone because of this, but it’s pretty surprising considering the prevalence of LinkedIn, particularly in the marketing realm.

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