crboynton's blog

Merlin Mann is wack-job

crboynton — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:11:20 +0000

…and this video about Inbox Zero proves it

But sometimes I like wack-jobs. Especially those with occasional intriguing or insightful thoughts. This video proves that too – with emphasis on the “occasional” part. Enjoy.

Freedom and Order

crboynton — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:50:03 +0000

I’m reading productivity guru David Allen’s latest book “Making it all Work” and have encountered an eye opening and insightful quote about life and the wants and needs we have at various life stages, particularly from the perspective of getting organized. Hope it’s as useful for you as it is for me…

“For the first 25 years of my life I wanted Freedom. For the next 25 years I wanted order. For the next 25 years, I realized that Order is Freedom.”
-Winston Churchill

Free idea – Somebody ought to…

crboynton — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:07:07 +0000

Invent a proof positive document shredding company. Hate the idea of leaving my old confidential documents in someone elses hands. Love the idea of handing a bag of papers to someone behind a counter and watching them shred it right in front of me. Call me paranoid, but I bet there is a market for this sort of thing. Especially if it’s 50% or more as cheap as buying a basic paper shredder for home.

And so another day begins :)

crboynton — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:20:10 +0000

..from commoditized dumb pipes to banks

crboynton — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:21:14 +0000

One interesting development from the Haiti earthquake crisis with marketing implications is the use of text messaging to trigger a payment. Text ‘Haiti
to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross. Text ‘yele’ to 501501 to donate $5 to help with relief in Haiti via Wyclef Jeans’ Yele Haiti foundation.

What these two organizations quickly figured out is that many people will give if you make it super simple & easy. They also were astute enough to look at cell phone companies as more than just providers of a wireless signal – in this case they are a billing vehicle. Brilliant.

I’d be surprised if this form of mobile payment didn’t become wildly popular in the not so distant future with any company that is looking to sell something. What’s more, putting a wireless carrier in the middle of a customer and corporation could breathe a new life giving revenue stream the wireless industry. For the Haiti crisis, the telcos will pass along nothing short of 100% of donations to the relief organizations. However, given the approach of intermediary in moving money from one party to another based on a consumers credit, it’s inevitable the telcos start collecting a merchant processing fee for each transaction, or even interest payments for immediate distribution of funds (ahead of consumers paying their bills). This could turn wireless telcos from commoditized dumb pipes into banks.

What do you think: will texting of payments grow wildly popular? Will telcos start acting (and collecting) like banks or credit card companies?

An Inspiring and Motivating exercise for Closing out 2009 & Preparing for 2010

crboynton — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:03:53 +0000

Happy New Years Eve!

I just spent a few minutes perusing David Allen’s latest ‘Productive Living’ newsletter and felt compelled to share a very thoughtful and interesting portion of it with you. For those of you who know about David’s Getting Things Done system, it should come as no surprise that he is recommending (and guiding you on) a year-end review in an effort to put closure to 2009 and providing some goal oriented questions that allow you to move into 2010 with focus. To check out his newsletter in full go here. To walk through his process of mentally closing out ‘09 and moving into ‘10, set aside a half hour and answer the below questions. It’s a fun exercise that’s somehow confidence building and motivating too. Enjoy….

COMPLETING AND REMEMBERING 2009

Review the list of all completed projects
What was your biggest triumph in 2009?
What was the smartest decision you made in 2009?
What one word best sums up and describes your 2009 experience?
What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2009?
What was the most loving service you performed in 2009?
What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2009?
What are you most happy about completing in 2009?
Who were the three people that had the greatest impact on your life in 2009?
What was the biggest risk you took in 2009?
What was the biggest surprise in 2009?
What important relationship improved the most in 2009?
What compliment would you liked to have received in 2009?
What compliment would you liked to have given in 2009?
What else do you need to do or say to be complete with 2009?

CREATING THE NEW YEAR

What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2010?
What advice would you like to give yourself in 2010?
What is the major effort you are planning to improve your financial results in 2010?
What would you be most happy about completing in 2010?
What major indulgence are you willing to experience in 2010?
What would you most like to change about yourself in 2010?
What are you looking forward to learning in 2010?
What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2010?
What about your work, are you most committed to changing and improving in 2010?
What is one as yet undeveloped talent you are willing to explore in 2010?
What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2010?
Who or what, other than yourself, are you most committed to loving and serving in 2010?
What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2010?

The silly things businesses do to lose sales

crboynton — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:31:52 +0000

This post is about how businesses today need to think hard about their customer experiences, before, during and after the sale. It’s based on a not so positive recent experience I had.

Recently, while shopping for a Halloween costume for my 3 year old son, we made a special stop at one of those seasonal Halloween specialty stores that seemingly appear overnight in empty mall/strip mall retail space. Excited by the idea of getting this annual task out of the way early in October, and finding a great costume, we walked briskly from parking lot to store, which was a massive retail space formerly the home of CompUSA.

Entering the first set of double doors we were greeted by a life-size Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy in a dark and cob- webbed environment. This was a great start to the shoping experience! My son was relishing the sight of the spooky creatures.

Then it happened. As we walked up to and through the second set of double doors and set foot in the store proper, we came face to face with a 8-10 year old girl sitting at table with green cash box offering tchochky type prizes in exchange for a charitable donation. Granted the store shared a common entrance and exit, but without hesitation, as we entered, the litte girl delivered the pitch, stopping us dead in our tracks. Feeling just slightly put on the spot (understatement of course), :30 later we had $5 less in our pockets and still hadn’t made it 10 feet into the store. Strike one.

We then made it into the front of the store where a cashier, near a very cool crawling/grunting Frankenstein with lit eyes, gave us a chilly reception. We didn’t mind because we were more focused on the entertainment value of that crawling Frankenstein with the glowing eyes. My son, wife nor myself had seen nothing like it before. We were all so enamored with this $100 porch decoration, I wanted to immortalize it with a quick pic so I could share it with friends. Re-
enter the cashier, now telling me that I can’t take a picture of the creature due to corporate policy. OK, I get that I can’t walk around retail stores snapping pics for competitive reasons, but with my wife and son laughing and giggling at this creature, this was far from an intelligence gathering exercise. In fact it was obvious that this would be a picture equivalent in intent to one you’d take on vacation. Strike two.

At that point, even though my wife continued to look for costumes, I was mentally checked out of the shopping experience. Now she may disagree, but in my mind after the charity ambush and cashier repromanding, there was no way any of my hard earned dollars would be spent at this place. My POV on this is driven in part by the bad customer experience and in part by management incompetence.

Before you draw the wrong conclusion here that I’m being unreasonable, let me elaborate on my thought process a bit more. If I am a brick and mortar retailer, I may spend 5-10% or more of my annual revenue running advertising/marketing programs designed to engage and attract customers to my store. Trying to create and deliver a message that resonates and catalyzes a desire for that person to get in their car and head over to my store is certainly a challenge, but hey, that’s marketing. So, when all my efforts pay off and someone actually takes the time to head over to my store, why would I do ANYTHING that jeopardizes the fragile buying state of mind? Retailers should figuratively be rolling out the red carpets customers walk into their stores. And while allowing a charity to set up a table in front of your store is a very noble action, if my primary objective is to sell Halloween costumes, I should not let a charity pitch come before the customer had the opportunity to browse my store. Since this store shared a common entrance and exit, a simple directive to the volunteer to not pitch people just walking in, but rather exiting, would be a much smarter play that would help to preserve the customer desire to shop. And in terms of the hand slapping i received for trying to snap a pic, I think empowering employees to use discretion and judgement is also a much smarter move. Great service brands live by the mantra “the customer is always right”. It would have been very easy for the cashier to evaluate the situation and conclude that I am not a competitive risk. I’m not walking the aisles snapping photos of products and price tags, I’m just enjoying a fun moment that this retail store created with my family. In fact, had she let me take the pic I would have shared it with friends on Facebook and Twitter, with a store name callout. In the marketing world that is what we call “Advocacy”. Ad-vo-ca-cy. It’s the holy grail that all marketers seek, where your customers take on the job of marketer and tell others why your product/service is great, completely of their own accord!

The implication for marketers everywhere is that the customer experience should always be in the forefront of your mind. “How will this decision affect the customer, the buying experience and/or product usage occassion?”.

What silly things have businesses done to turn you off from buying something at the last moment? Leave your story in a comment.

The Psychology of Abundance

crboynton — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:54:26 +0000

An interesting thought stemming from Chris Anderson’s book FREE is that while we cognitively understand the concept of abundance, our psyches and primordial instincts are only really programmerd to respond to scarcity. In other words, we are motivated by the things we don’t have, not by the things we do. So. how would wants originate in a world where everything was plentiful and free? As always, thoughts on this topic are welcome (and free)…

Obama gets it right, urges kids to be like founders of Google, Twitter and Facebook

crboynton — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:24:00 +0000

Pete Cashmore at Mashable published a post yesterday that highlighted something very cool about the current President of the United States – his belief in ‘new media’.

As the name of the post suggests “Obama Speech To School Children: Be Like Founders of Google, Twitter and Facebook” this is a snippit from a forthcoming speech meant to inspire and motivate a future generation of leaders, currently grade school kids, in the face of a rapidly changing business and communications landscape.

As a parent, this post really struck a chord with me because it’s the same idea that I have in mind for how I wish to raise and educate my almost 3-year-old son. Thinking differently, observing the world through a different perspective, finding new ways for the basic elements of humanity to come together through the web. The possibilities are limitless if you know how and what to look for. And this speech to America’s grade schoolers is a nationwide step in the right direction.

The inevitable next question now becomes, will our nations school curriculum adjust to teach and foster the principles that will drive the world and world’s economy forward? My son will learn about new media regardless of what the school system teaches, but for the sake of the rest of his peers and the benefit of our nation and world, I hope it does adjust.

2 supermarket marketing tips

crboynton — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:44:53 +0000

This will probably fall on deaf ears, but what the heck.

To supermarket GM’s and Regional Managers who are looking to acquire new customers and retain existing customers: there are two areas where you should not be cutting corners.

1) Freshness of Produce: Past ripe produce shouldn’t be on the shelves, period. The cardinal error in produce handler judgment is leaving it on shelf “just a day” longer than it should be. And, hiding soft spots from view. This may get it in someones cart initially, but will inevitably be discovered at home and you will have a very angry customer.

2) (and this is just ever so slightly less important than fresh food…) Baggers at each and every register. If you want to win a customer over, bag their groceries for them. HINT: most shoppers will wait a little longer for a line with a bagger at the end of it, so heed that insight and put a bagger at the end of every open line, every hour your store is open. This counts for self-checkout lines too; have a 1 or 2 baggers that roam/float just to help these folks out. The worst thing you can possibly do to a pleasant shopping experience is have customers bag their own groceries when there is a line of rushed people standing impatiently behind them. Just don’t do it.

Consider this free focus group learning that should be used to improve the marketing of your product, which is Food AND the Shopping Experience.