Have You Seen the Movie "Twister"?

by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan

The other day I was watching the movie Twister. The essence of the story is that there are two groups of scientists working on a tornado forecasting system, and part of the research is chasing tornadoes and assessing them in all sorts of fiendish ways.

There are two groups of researchers.

One is a neatly buttoned-down, sophisticated folks with investors' money oozing out of their ears. They are led by a rotten-to-the-core scientist who is willing to steal, plagiarise and probably kill too for money and glory. They are the typical "wise man and his minions" set-up. It's fairly obvious that they are in it for the money the glory can bring the leader and the other may be able to go for a ride of success.

The other group is a group of renegades. They are putting on the final touches of their tornado forecasting system, called Dorothy. There are some problems though. These folks re-mortgaged their homes, maxed out their credit cards and bet their last pennies on this project. It's clear that they do this with true passion. But the slime ball leader of the sophisticated group stole the idea and with a generous injection of venture money, they are about to gain a significant advantage.

So, how does all this relate to marketing and business development, you may ask?

What relates to business development is that the second group believed in its mission so strongly that they were willing to invest their last pennies into the project.

Companies use two forms of justification for slowing down on their business development.

1) "We Can't Afford It"

Regardless of what business you are in, business development is the investment with the highest potential return. I use the word "potential" because if you run stupid but expensive ads, your return will be precisely zero or maybe a tiny bit more. And the sad fact is that while many businesses slow down on marketing because "they can't afford it", many business owners use this "newly found" money to buy new cars and other toy for their personal use.

And there are many business owners who have this amazing idea, "Let's not spend on marketing but hire an army of peddlers on 100% commission, so they will advance the company's success."

And here lies an interesting problem. Are you so naive to believe that for a 10% of the reward someone takes 100% risk, puts in 100% effort just to hand over 90% of the reward to you?

The other problem is that many accountants advise their business clients to cut expenses, and that affects marketing too. The next step of course is to replace good employees with cheap ones because that will save more money.

Here in Canada some 65% of all job ads are seeking minimum wage people, The minimum skill and minimum commitment that come along for a free ride are irrelevant for these idiotic employers, as long as the employees are cheap to acquire. Just as Tom Peters sadly summarises in his book, "Re-Imagine", in the talent age most companies are still looking for docile, cheap employees, not hot talents who could bring in new value.

The other day I saw an ad from a local company bragging that they world leaders in Internet technology. They are hiring some programmers. And at the end of the ad the small print said, "We guarantee legal minimum wage". Shit. The bloody world leader guarantees minimum wage for its people. Swell!

I suppose this alone explains why Canada is a commercial laggard in the developed world. Do you know that when Canada wanted to join the - at that time - G5 countries, they had to drop the standards to admit Canada? Even the Soviet Union qualified but Canada did not.

And now business is really good because the owner has even more "newly found" money to lift out of the business. Hooray! And since so many businesses operate on the basis of prostitution, "We do anything for anyone for money... right now", long-term vision doesn't really exist. What exist is day-to-day survival and using this "stolen" money to buy toys and gadgets that impress the neighbours. After all they can admire the brand new Porsche, but can't see and get shocked by the miserable cashflow statement.

When money is tight, most businesses cut back on marketing and skill development. In a way that makes sense. Without skill development people's knowledge becomes obsolete and there is not much glory in promoting a substandard company with substandard workforce.

And now let's see the other reason why so many businesses slow down on their marketing.

2) "It's The Slow Season. No One Is Marketing Anyway. Why Should We?"

Let's say you are a racecar driver in the middle of a race, and all of the sudden everyone slows down. You look around but see no danger. Do you slow down just because everyone has done so or do you go full throttle towards the finish line?

I'm not a racecar driver, but if I were you I would step on the accelerator big time and without hesitation. I would even install a powerful rocket engine for good measure.

I want to win the race whatever it takes as long as it is morally, legally and ethically correct, and giving all I have and some, when the others are tinkering, looks fair play to me.

It's basic warfare 101 that when the enemy is low on ammunition, you bring in everything from the archers to the nuclear missiles, and if necessary even the knights who say "Ni!", the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog with its nasty big pointy teeth and mile-wide vicious streak, and the vicious Chicken of Bristol (See the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail). And then you ram the enemy down to the ground.

But there is one more thing here. Let's jump back to the movie Twister for a bit. The slick arses were a boss and many minions. The renegades were real team. Many minds and one heart one vision. So, it's only one thing to have a good marketing programme in place, but do you actually have a team to execute that programme?

And remember! Don't sell harder. Market smarter. Both you, your employees, your clients and prospects will find it more enjoyable, profitable and attractive.

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