Execution over Creativity

November 4, 2010

Execution Wins Out over Creative Messaging

There were days, not so long ago, when the cutest, most creative mass advertising campaign won the day. Those branding messages like the Marlboro Man, Cap’n Crunch, or the Beetle (the original) worked great in the TV-Industrial age. There is no way that approach will work today. If you want to know more about this, read Purple Cow by Seth Godin. He reports that only 6% of the world’s most valuable brands used the now-obsolete strategy of constantly reminding us about their ordinary product. That was in 2002 and the percentage is less today.

Seth Godin thought in 2002 that the only way to aggressively grow was through remarkable products. He presented a great case for the end of mass media marketing and the rise of truly remarkable products. He’s right AND today the Hyper-Social communications transformation is adding a new complication. The speed and spread of communications has raised Seth’s bar for remarkable products and services. It’s 10 times truer today, consumers are demanding, not listening to mass advertising, and trust their friends over any company’s advertising messages.

I believe that day in and day out in this new age that execution of changing your processes, your people, and your technology will win out every time over a creative ad and a superlative branding message. Customers see through all that crap now with blinding speed. Peer level trust for your products is the key to success. It’s 90% how you deliver (EXECUTION) and 10% how you sell the sizzle.

Strategic planning is “so worn out”

By “so worn out” we mean that although vitally important to every business, too much emphasis and expense constantly gets invested in the latest strategic planning work. Every consultant in the book starts with strategic planning. It’s usually a two day offsite, some team building, and if the company is lucky, an innovation session where new ideas are given a forum to surface. This is great but how many times does it need to get done before companies spend more time and energy executing the plans instead of planning?

In our business transformations around hyper-social communications, we tackle this problem by starting with process overhaul. Strategy and innovation are critical to any long term transformation at any company. The problem is that 99% of consultants, marketing guru’s and business development experts attack the strategy first. They ignore the fact that in almost every company it’s not the lack of ideas that hold them back, it’s lack of processes that work to get things done.

“Visions-to-Reality” – What’s with this EXECUTION Secret?

The secret to winning in business can really be boiled down to two things:

• DREAMING – The ability to be a kid again and dream the visions of what you want for yourself and your company
• EXECTUION – The discipline and hard work to get things done

A few people have trouble with dreaming and setting a vision for their company, but for most of us it comes easily. Just think back to when you were a kid and how easy it was to dream. The problem was that reality, and all the adults, kept telling us how and why our dreams wouldn’t work so we started believing them and gave up.

Shut your eyes and dream about where you want to be in 10 years and what kind of company you have to be to see that dream come true. For some it’s a money goal to allow doing that one dream that we just can’t get out of our head. For others it’s a crusade they are on to change the world, or at least their little piece it. What’s your dream? How does that translate into a vision for your company? Is this hard work or easy?

So, does your dream make you smile? Does it give you a warm feeling inside to close your eyes and see you in that dream? I’m betting it feels great! So how do we go from a fleeting glimpse of our dream to actually living it?  It’s all in the SECRET OF EXECTION.

In the rest of this eBook, we are going to show you how to transform your key processes around social media and new technologies so you can beat the competition through execution. It’s about speed, communications, discipline, and repeatable processes in the age of messy social media. We hammer this hard because execution is the missing link for most companies when it comes to change. They have great ideas, all the newest buzzwords, but don’t change their processes to EXECUTE. That’s where we want you to put your attention, at least until you get it right.