What are you paying for?

I can't stand most Chinese restaurant food.

Yes, I'm spoiled. I spent two years in China and had really, really good Chinese food. Here, despite the sometimes attractive decor, all the sauces taste the same (and they're all bought in gallon jugs from the same distributors...), the food is too sweet, and the dishes have names that don't exist in China.

So, how do we pick? Easy.

Who is your customer?

Peter Drucker always asked every one of his clients four questions:

1. Who is your customer?

2. What does your customer consider value?

3. What are your results with customers?

4. Does your customer strategy work well with your business strategy.

If the answers to these don't cause you to rethink your business, you're not thinking hard enough about the answers.

Client focus matters.

Microsoft's new logo won't make a difference

The intent is laudible. Preparing to launch updated versions of most of its products, "we felt it was a good time to express the newness in the Microsoft logo (see below) as well," said Jeff Hansen, Microsoft's general manager of brand strategy. 

Microsoft certainly needs to do something. With the exception of late a spike in 2007 and a dip in 2009, the stock price has hovered between $25 to $30 for a decade.

Failing at strategy

How many new strategies have you actually seen succeed?

If your organization is typical, you undergo an annual 'strategy' process which almost invariably confirms the current strategy. Nothing changes. Not because of the data. Or the hard thinking. Or the valid strategic options.

Losing the sale

My daughter, shopping for clothes for her first job, walked into an upscale store, approached a saleswoman and asked if she had any suits.

"No," she said somewhat disdainfully.

Dogs are loyal

Dogs are loyal.

Until someone else gives them a treat.

Dreaming of sushi

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a must-see documentary about the world's greatest sushi chef, 86-year-old Jiro Ono, the only sushi chef to receive 3 stars from the Guide Michelin. The restaurant, located in a subway station in the Ginza, has 10 seats. A 20-minute meal STARTS at $370, and diners often reserve a year in advance.

Jiro has been perfecting his craft for over 75 YEARS (his alcoholic father abandoned the family when Jiro was 7 and when he left home at 9, he was told he had no home to come back to), yet says "even at my age, in my work, I haven't reached perfection."

Robotic brand behaviors

By now most marketers (effective ones, anyway) have moved beyond a Mad Men "brand = logo (or advertising - read From Mad Man to Superwomen) view of the world, and are focused on behaviors.

And with good reason. Viewing marketing as communications (only) is like viewing sales as cold calling or finance as accounting - necessary, but no where near sufficient. A logo or ad may catch your attention, but the customer experience results in the sale, and repeat business. Great companies define and build the experiential aspects of the brand into everything they do, creating a competitive advantage that can't be replicated.

But there is a fine line between definition and prescription.

Do it right

I had my first Five Guys hamburger years ago, well before they took the nation by storm. I'd given up on the other fast food competitors (one almost right next door), despite the price - those burgers over the years had become inedible.

USAToday wrote last week about the chain's success in an article entitled Five Guys found a simple recipe for suceess: Do it right. CEO Jerry Murrell (the patriarch of the five sons for whom the business is named) said, "We did everything we weren't supposed to do." Such as:

Picked especially for you...

Increasingly, I get eblasts that start "Picked especially for you..."

Amazon made this popular, and I still enjoy its missives, because it actually has made picks for me, based on sophisticated algorithms. I don't always buy, but I am always interested in learning about new books that may be an enjoyable read.