Just How Desperate Are You?

The print publication industry is indeed facing any challenges:  declining ad revenues, free content online, increased competition for eyeballs, and many more.

That doesn't mean pricing decisions should be made out of desperation.

I just received my renewal notice for TIME magazine. The regular annual rate according to the invoice is $72. The annual cost when purchasing at the newsstand is $252.45.

I am being offered the Platinum Subscriber rate (apparently offered to anyone with a subscription since I've only had mine for one year) of only $20.  But I can renew now for two years (112 issues) for only $25.  No, you didn't read the numbers wrong.  So desperate is TIME to try and hook me for two years, I'm offered an additional 52 issues for the same price as ONE newsstand.

The two-year rate amounts to 22.3 cents/issue.  Each issue averages around 36 pages.  So TIME's message to me is that their publication quality isn't even worth what it costs to print each page of the magazine.   And yes, I know ads subsidize the magazine's costs, but those revenues are declining rapidly, remember?   

Bottom line? Two years of TIME will cost less than half what I pay for 30 days delivery of the New York Times.

It's an absurd pricing model that reeks of desperation.  But because it is such a bargain, people will sign up.  In turn, the minimal subscriber revenue stream further weakens magazine financials, probably leading to even more desperate decisions to acquire revenue at any cost possible.

In this case, the ultimate cost is the almost complete devaluing of the product itself.  It is a completely unsustainable revenue model that devours itself and a brand's value proposition with each renewal notice sent.

Perhaps you have a product or service with a pricing model based on similar dire straights.  Nonprofit organizations notoriously price their efforts with insufficient consideration of their true value.  Stop it.  Right.  Now.

Commoditizing your offerings ultimately cannibalizes your core purpose.

WWIF #3: A Little Bit Better All the Time

This week's Wednesday What IF? draws on the Olympics for a little bit of inspiration.

What if, like US figure skater and 2010 Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek, you focused more on consistent higher quality and execution and less on the big breakthrough in your work?

If you didn't watch the men's figure skating you might not totally understand the possibilities or meaning of this "what if" question, so let me quickly explain.  Figure skating judges score skaters with two marks, one for the technical difficulty of their moves and one for the overall artistic impression of their efforts.  Lycasek's main competition for the gold, Russian Evgeni Plushenko, had two of the most technically difficult jump, the quad, in his program.  Lycasek had none.  But Lycasek still won.

Plushenko relied on the big points that come from the quad, but lost small amounts for many of the other elements in his program.  Lycasek didn't have that singular "wow" moment, but did have four minutes of steady and sure jumps and spins executed immaculately and with more overall artistic flare.

Too often, both individually and organizationally, we overemphasize the value of the exponential innovation, the breakthrough idea or product, without adequately embracing the real value that comes from doing lots of things just a little bit better consistently.  It's like the restaurant chef who offers a killer entree flanked by an average appetizer and dessert course. Doing so may not get as much attention from others and may not feel quite as sexy, but it often scores the upset win in the long run.

It's the law of compounding interest, but applied to our own innovative thinking.   Instead of putting so much energy into (and pressure on) a single effort to help you beat the competition, consider how to make every single element of your efforts richer and more valuable.  The aggregate result of those efforts may very well put you at the top of the podium.

Turning One-Times into Repeats

Yesterday I did something I haven't done for at least three years:  I flew American Airlines.  The only reason they got my business yesterday was because of offering a flight at a specific time when I needed it.

It was fine.  Nothing particularly great; nothing particularly bad.  Just OK.  Which is about how I remember it from three years ago and probably why it will be about that long before I feel the need to fly them again.   I used to fly them more regularly, even having their lowest level of elite status, Gold, for two years.

Businesses and associations need to better track and intervene with what fundraisers call LYBUNTS, donors who gave Last Year But Not This Year.  In addition, they need to have an intentional strategy and system in place to take a one-time action and convert it into another commitment or purchase, deepening the connecting between the individual and the organization.

A stellar or unique product wins loyalty.  More human and personal member and customer interactions win loyalty.  But if those two options aren't on your side (and really that's where your attention should be focused), a little marketing incentive certainly can't hurt.  Imagine if this morning I would have received this type of email from American:

Hey stranger. Welcome back.  We wondered what had happened to you, and we're excited to see you back on an American flight again.  Three years is a long time.  Too long.  Let's not let that happen again, OK?  To make sure it doesn't, here's a $25 travel coupon good for any flight over $250 that you purchase within the next 7 days.  Things will seem a lot better if we know you're flying our skies again.

Sure, you can play wait and see, hoping a one-time program registration, flight, or product purchase turns into a steady stream of comparable actions.  But why would you when you have the opportunity to influence the future in a direction you find more desirable?

Life's Too Long, Not Too Short

In Seth Godin's interesting new book, Linchpin, he asserts that "life is too short not to do something that matters."  It's not a unique sentiment as many others have expressed similar thoughts for a long time.  It is a popular one, and most people generally nod their heads in agreement upon hearing it.

I would suggest it is wrong.

It's not that life is too short not to do something that matters, it's that life is too long not to do something that matters.  Most predictions suggest we will live longer and work longer, so it is even more imperative that we discover work and create lives that are overflowing with meaning.

Jim Collins talks about it as the intersection of what you can be the best in the world at, what you love doing, and what people will pay you do to.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to it as flow.  Dan Pink suggests in his new book Drive that it results from autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

I'm not as smart as any of these three guys, but I do know this:  whatever we call this state of being, it results when you live from the inside out and listen to your own values and aspirations rather than conforming to others' expectations and living from the outside in.

And the sooner we accept embrace this fact the more we start racking up the years of a life (and career) worth living.

WWIF #2: Giving Implicit Permission, Instead of Requiring Explicit Approval

In support of abductive logic—the logic of what could be—I'll be posting a question for your consideration on the weekly feature: Wednesday What IF?

Lengthy and overly bureaucratic approval processes often inhibit innovation and entrepreneurial thinking.  While some decisions and resource allocations certainly require more exhaustive or detailed reviews, many don't.

What if your organization flipped the approval process and granted implicit permission for certain decisions/experiments UNLESS they meet certain criteria?

In other words, the green light is automatically given unless an individual's idea requires ________ (fill in the blank with your own criteria. 

Instead of making people ask for permission, give permission upfront to unleash individual self-direction and contributions to your organization's strategic and tactical aspirations.


Previous WWIF posts:

What if associations let members pay annual meeting registrations or dues in multiple-year increments (i.e., three-year dues or three-year annual conference registration)?

Why You Need Your Own Olympics

I think every organization, conference, city, or profession should periodically sponsor their own version of an Olympics-style competition for the following reasons:

• Individuals not normally in the spotlight get to share their talents.
• People who might toil in obscurity in their discipline finally get a chance to compete with others.
• The concentrated time period focuses attention and energy.
• The opening and closing ceremonies challenge artistic creativity.
• They are inclusive yet still build hometown and national pride.
• They give people a reason to train ... and train hard for an extended period of time.
• Each has its own rhythm, but shares ritualistic elements that span decades.
• Having different host cities shifts attention to different locations and introduces us to them.

If you were to create a comparable event that would advance your goals and help achieve your vision, what events would it include, how would you structure it what would it spotlight and celebrate?

Why aren't you creating it?

Up for Grabs: Rotating Responsibilities

At some point the job responsibility you once found very motivating starts to be less appealing.

In most organizations, job descriptions are ironclad walls of individual authority and jurisdiction, untouchable by anyone but the jobholder.  So you're stuck with a task or project that no longer engages your best work and others are similarly trapped.


It doesn't have to have this way.

In almost every organization, some projects assigned to a particular individual or department could just as easily be done by others.  Pull these projects out of permanent individual ownership and instead place them in a pool.  Annually let people select a pool project (either individually or as part of a temporary team) that gets them excited, one for which they have new ideas and a lot of passion and energy.

By placing some work up for grabs each year, you ensure individuals always get some variety in their jobs, that projects are less likely to get stale, and that territorial walls around certain activities don't get built so quickly.

Our policy is ...

Little good ever comes from conversations that start with those three words.

So why do customer service reps so frequently use them?

Better to start member or customer interactions with the following:

• Let me make sure I understand.
• What's most important to you right now is ...
• Here's what we can do given the circumstances.
• Let me tell you how I can help.

Any of those will completely change the tone of the interaction and the loyalty you receive in return.

A new blog feature: WWIF #1

Last week, I had the good fortune to facilitate three half-day sessions on Refreshing Your Competitive Advantage for three of CalSAE's regional networks.  During the program we discussed some of the design thinking concepts in Roger Martin's new book, The Design of Business.

One core concept Martin advocates is what Charles Sanders Peirce called abductive logic, the logic of what could be.  Here's Martin commenting on the value of this logic in a recent Fast Company blog interview:

"In a knowledge-intensive world, design thinking is critical to overcoming the biggest block: overcoming analytical thinking and fear of intuitive thinking. The design thinker enables the organization to balance exploration and exploitation, invention of business and administration of business, originality and mastery."

In this spirit, I'm starting a new weekly blog feature appearing each Wednesday: WWIF, Wednesday What IFs?  This week's WOW question is:

What if associations let members pay annual meeting registrations or dues in multiple-year increments (i.e., three-year dues or three-year annual conference registration)?

Like other organizations that do this (think airline clubs) a reduction in cost per year is a good enticement.

• Members benefit by saving money and leveraging the financial surplus that might be available in flush years to cover the investment in the possibly tighter financial future.

• Associations benefit by possibly retaining members during tougher financial times and by reducing expenses associated with annual renewals.

Once you open the door with this WOW, you might then begin to question or play with additional possibilities for rethinking how you bundle other financial investments asked of members … dues, a conference registration, and a journal ... etcetera.

Breaking the Mold of Waiting to Be Told

In a recent blog post entitled "The relentless search for 'tell me what to do", guru Seth Godin writes:

If you've ever hired or managed or taught, you know the feeling.

People are just begging to be told what to do. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think the biggest one is: "If you tell me what to do, the responsibility for the outcome is yours, not mine. I'm safe."

When asked, resist.

Far be it for me to question someone who probably gets paid 50-100 times what I do to give a speech, but I think he's disproportionately placed the blame for this phenomenon on the back of employees.

Equally if not more culpable are the managers or bosses whose mindset and actions foster a Wait to be Told culture.

• It's hard to assume responsibility for decisions you're not allowed to make.
• Always having to get someone's approval to act inhibits you exercising initiative.
  
• You lose your desire to innovate if your new ideas are always rejected at the top.
  

Too many managers still operate from a command and control paradigm, one that fosters the very "tell me what to do mindset" Godin bemoans.

No doubt some prospective volunteers or employees come into an organization wanting to be told what to do. Perhaps their past experience with ill-conceived management is the real source of that expectation.

Until our organizational cultures advance the real sources of individual motivation as addressed in Dan Pink's new book Drive—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—we should expect little to change.

The One-Click Rule

When you go to book a flight on Delta.com, they apparently assume you are only interested in the current month or next month. Anything further along the calendar requires you to advance the dates month by month, click by click. Book a flight now for the 2010 December holidays? 9 clicks please.

While I am not a fan of US Airways most days, their reservation calendar is much smarter. By presenting all of the months above the current calendar, they make date selection a one-click process.

Design thinking focuses on what the end user wants to do. Smart organizations will meet that need in one-click whenever possible. Rethinking what information is required and the best way to present it is the place to begin.

Where are you causing unnecessary click consternation with your members or customers because you haven't taken the time to think about what they might be trying to do?