The tagline for Agile Marketing is the phrase “Do, Learn, Adapt.”  It allows for speed because it relies on getting customer feedback quickly, learning from that feedback, and then adapting so you aren’t wasting time or effort on things that are not important to the customer.  Like many new business approaches it can be implemented poorly.

One common mistake is to believe that simply implementing something quickly is Agile Marketing.  It depends.

Implementing the wrong thing doesn’t help anyone.  There’s a great body of marketing knowledge on what works and what doesn’t for each particular situation.  Many CEOs fall into the trap of implementing the wrong thing quickly.   This is because their conception of marketing may be naively  “Advertising or PR,” and they want results.  So for example, if you are a small B2B company, advertising isn’t usually productive, and it doesn’t matter how fast you implement an advertising campaign.  All you will wind up with is an expensive bill.

So the modification to Agile Marketing is “Ask, Do, Learn, Adapt.”  First get some idea whether you are even in the ballpark.   Ask others what works in similar situations (see next post).  The Do, Learn, Adapt motto is better as a refinement for proven techniques such as inbound marketing.   Because motion without purpose or direction isn’t progress, it’s just a waste of energy.

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell24x7)

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I just put up two different websites using two different vendors.  One was relatively complicated, while the other was straightforward.  They both took the same amount of time: three months.  I decided I would formulate a new law of website development.  Every website takes three months.

Then I thought about other vendor projects that I’d contracted.  They all required three months.  Three months to get set up before launching.  Three months to get the new messaging.  Three months to work out the databases.  Maybe I was onto something.

But why?  Everything shouldn’t have to take three months.

Maybe it’s because, no project is any one person’s focus.  Every one is doing multiple projects, and as a result, everyone’s schedule is busy.  Once a project is launched, it takes a week to schedule the next meeting.  There are approval and review steps. And so on.  Pretty soon, three months have lapsed.   This is corporate marketing and control at it’s worst.

Time is the new currency.  It doesn’t have to be like this.

Agile Marketing provides a new mechanism for dealing with the three-month law.  Its core tenant is “Do, Learn, Adapt,” and it leverages small teams focused on completing one thing rather than ten.  To get an idea, you can check out my new e-book, The Problem With Marketing.

But here’s an extension.  If you are a vendor to corporate America, why can’t you use Agile techniques to drive your clients projects to completion in 30 days instead of three months?   Focus, meet everyday, and deliver.  I understand that there is a risk and cost to dedicated resources.  But this can be offset by variable and part time staffing.

I think agencies and organizations that help their clients do things faster will gain more customers, will have more satisfied clients, and will grow faster.

I’m looking for vendors like this.

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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Slow:  unhurried, lazy
Synonyms: apathetic, crawling, creeping, dawdling, delaying, deliberate, dilatory, disinclined, dreamy, drowsy, easy, gradual, heavy, idle, imperceptible, inactive, indolent, inert, lackadaisical, laggard, lagging, leaden, leisurely, lethargic, listless, loitering, measured, moderate, negligent, passive, phlegmatic, plodding, ponderous, postponing, procrastinating, quiet, reluctant, remiss, slack, sleepy, slothful, slow-moving, sluggish, snaillike, stagnant, supine, tardy, torpid, tortoiselike

Fast: speedy
Synonyms: PDQ, accelerated, active, agile, blue streak, breakneck, brisk, chop-chop, dashing, double-time, electric, expeditious, flashing, fleet, fleeting, flying, hasty, hot, hurried, hypersonic, in a jiffy, in nothing flat, lickety split, like a bat out of hell, like all get out, nimble, on the double, posthaste, presto, pronto, quick, racing, rapid, ready, screamin’, snappy, speedball, supersonic, swift, velocious, winged

As children, we are told the story of the tortoise and the hare and how the hare wins the race by ‘slow and steady.’   In today’s business environment, no one would agree that slow and safe is better, but I see it all the time.

I have a client that told me he wanted to produce a newsletter for a group of prospects at the request of a sales person.  So he sat down and wrote one in thirty minutes.  He used material already published by his company.  Then he made the mistake of showing it to his Marcom people, and they showed it to their legal department.  You know the rest of the story.  Several months later there was still no newsletter.

Maybe it’s the size of the organization.  Large companies reward people for maintaining the status quo and avoiding risk.  But I think it’s a personal issue.  Are we afraid to make mistakes?

Of course, direction to action is important, otherwise all you have is speed.  You wind up like a 22 caliber bullet shot inside a grain elevator.   That’s why Agile Marketing is going to be really important to your organization.

Do Great Things!
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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