Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

Different or Alike? Which Do You Aspire to Be?

One of my favorite weekly newsletters is written by Roy Williams of Wizard of Ads fame. If you are in sales and marketing and don’t subscribe to the MondayMorningMemo, I highly recommend it. But this week’s edition has life application beyond any advertising campaign you might be developing.

I think Mr. Williams’ message has insight on how we interpret and present ourselves to the world as individuals – not just for businesses. His question of whether to “differentiate” or “conform” can be used to to evaluate how we see and relate to others. In other words – how we get along with those around us. The person who insists on always being different and “special” might take heed that there is a cost of not fitting in. The person who always conforms to his or her surroundings might be reminded that each of us have a uniqueness accompanied by gifts that are meant to season the world around us.

But I’ll let the true Wizard speak from his observations as an advertiser.

Differentiate or Conform?Chronic problems in business are usually the result of binary thinking. “It’s either this way or that way. It can’t be both.”

Strangely, the answer is almost always “both.”

“Should I try to attract the price-driven (transactional) customer, or should I go for the (relational) customer who cares about something other than price?”

Both. Create and schedule ads that speak convincingly to the question of price. Create and schedule other ads that speak of important matters beyond price. Just don’t try to do both in the same ad.

“Should I manage with strict policies, procedures, methods and systems, or should I empower my employees to make decisions on their own?”

Both. Systematize the 90 percent of your company’s activities that are recurrent so that your employees have the freedom to humanize and customize the 10 percent of your activities that are ever-changing and unusual. A company without freedoms is a sweatshop. A company without policies, procedures, methods and systems is a country club for unproductive employees.

“Should I promote an exclusive brand and risk the manufacturer betraying me by allowing my competitor to sell that brand for which I’ve created all the demand, or should I create my own in-house brand so that I can remain in control of it?”

Both. You need the credibility of established brands to lend strength to the new brand you will introduce. Advertise both, but never in the same ad.

“Won’t this make me seem unfocused?”

No. You must get on board with proven procedures. You must also do your own thing and go your own direction. It’s not only possible that you do both, it is essential.

Mechanics across Europe began building cars in 1886 and each time they built a car it was different. More than 2,000 different garages built and sold cars one-at-a-time before Henry Ford’s 1913 introduction of the first moving assembly line employing conveyor belts. Henry popularized the concept of interchangeable parts. It was efficient. It also made him the richest man in the world. By 1923 Henry Ford was personally earning $264,000 a day. He was declared a billionaire by the Associated Press.

More than 17,000,000 Model T’s rolled off Henry’s assembly line and you could have any color you wanted as long as it was black. The inefficiency of building cars one-at-a-time forced the other 2,000 garages to sell their cars at about $2,500 apiece while the price of a reliable, new Model T was only $849.

Soon the other carmakers got on board and America became an automotive Wonderland.

But we always take a good thing too far. Fifty years later, General Motors decided to take this idea to the next level. “Instead of designing 5 different brands each year and retooling our machinery to build Chevrolets, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Cadillacs, why not just put a different interior package and grille and taillights in the same, basic car and sell that car under 5 different names?”

A Chevy Cavalier is a Pontiac Sunbird is an Oldsmobile Firenza is a Buick Skyhawk is a Cadillac Cimarron.

A Chevy Nova is a Pontiac Ventura is an Oldsmobile Omega is a Buick Apollo is a Cadillac Seville.

A Chevy Caprice is a Pontiac Catalina is an Olds 98 is a Buick Electra is a Cadillac DeVille.

On the surface, this looks like exactly the same idea that made Henry Ford rich. The problem with the “platform engineering” introduced by GM in the late 1970s is that it eroded the distinctiveness of their brands. Two decades later GM was forced to close Oldsmobile and a few years after that, Pontiac fell as well. Analysts speculate whether Buick or Cadillac will be next.

Conformity is essential or you will not be efficient. Differentiation is essential or you will not be special.

Random Thoughts On Getting Older (or “happy birthday to me”)

The joys of getting older.

Turning 50 – what changes?

In case I didn’t remember that tomorrow is my birthday, Facebook came up with an app that makes sure I and a host of well-wishers – along with a few trash talkers – are very aware that I am about to have another number added to my age. Last year was the big five-oh so this one shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Right? But then again, it is a full year later, so maybe this and each subsequent birthday is a much greater accomplishment and deserving of more fanfare.

I started thinking about writing this blog on getting older last week and came up with a really clever title and approach to the topic, but since I didn’t write anything down I can’t remember what I had in mind. So while I’m thinking about it now, here are a few random thoughts on the aging process that just might reflect what is coming your way a good ways down the road, what you’re currently experiencing as a fellow 50-something or what things you remember (but might have forgotten) that are now in your rear view mirror.

1. Oatmeal and prescription meds are big topics of discussion. And I’m not talking idle chatter. I’m talking the fodder of deep and enthralling conversations.

2. I now routinely call each of my children by one of their sibling’s name. Despite rolled eyes or vacant stare, I don’t think they mind that much and maybe find it mildly amusing. At least until I refer to one of the boys by one of the girl’s names or vice versa.

3. Retirement is on my mind. It was a couple years ago, too. But back then I was thinking I might do it some day. After watching my accounts and home equity go the wrong direction, I now think more about not retiring some day.

4. Stretchy fabrics are underrated. Particularly fabric swatches that circle the waist.

5. The kids think Amy and I talk too loud. I think they’re crazy. I can barely hear a word Amy is saying.

6. They – whoever ‘they’ are – are right; ‘old’ is a relative term. Even if a few things hurt that I didn’t know existed in my 30’s, I really don’t feel old at almost-51. More to the point, in my copious research for this piece, I discovered ‘old’ refers to people who are five or more years advanced in age than I am. Not only that, ‘old’ is on a sliding scale and will continue to be five years out from where I am in future years.

7. Fiber is mysterious and confusing. When I think of fiber, I think of something substantial and solid. Now they (there ‘they’ are again) sell fiber – with extra roughage thrown in for good measure – in little gel caps. I don’t know what this has to do with anything but I could go on about fiber all day!

8. Many parents of young children look like children themselves. This observation isn’t actually new. It came to me 10 years ago when I took my oldest child to college and my youngest child to kindergarten. The same week.

9. The world really does need the wisdom that comes from age and experience. This wisdom is treasure to be cherished and honored. I don’t know how I ever thought that youth and energy were what made big things happen.

10. A lot of my friends in my age range are looking older these days. (This observation is only intended for certain trash talkers – and you know who you are.)

Aging. It’s no laughing matter. It’s something we all must face. And on the positive side, it certainly beats the alternative unless, of course, you are one of the drafters of Obama’s health care plan. So I’m going to get very serious now.

But first I think I’ll take an afternoon nap!

Charles Darwin Discusses the Housing Bailout

Charles Darwin turned 200 years old on Feb. 12. Happy belated birthday.

I’m not going to touch his evolutionary theory in relation to biology and the origin of humans with a ten-foot pole – and I’m going to avoid cheap and gratuitous humor, like, “Charles you don’t need a match to light your birthday candles where he went,” or anything else juvenile.

No way am I getting anyone from any side of that debate mad at me. What I thought I’d do is get people mad at me for other things, like imagining what Darwin might have to say about Bailout Fever in Washington, D.C., applying aspects of his theory of evolution like natural selection, adaptability, and fitness.

Note: The views expressed may or may not be the views of the blogger in whole or in part. The character named Charles R. Darwin did in fact exist (Feb. 12, 1809 – April 19, 1882) but he probably did not state nor even think any of the following thoughts. This blogger is also not positing any theories of whether dead philosophers would agree to be interviewed. This is intended for entertainment only!

MG: Charles, what do you think of all the money the U.S. Government is spending to save companies and industries?

CD: They are simply rearranging chairs on the Titanic. The ship is sinking. And so will the whole fleet called Western Civilization if they keep pursuing such poppycock.

MG: Wow. How did you know that? The Titanic sunk in 1912 and you had already been dead almost 30 years.

CD: I have my sources.

MG: Like?

CD: Unnamed.

MG: I’ll leave it at that … but don’t you think it’s compassionate for a government to step in and relieve millions of people of the misery caused by such dramatic failures?

CD: Compassion? What does that have to do with survival? In fact, I’d say that rewarding weak and bumbling practices is the opposite of compassion. It hurts everybody.

MG: But it worked in the 1930s when FDR saved our nation from the Great Depression. Oh, I forgot you were already dead when that happened.

CD: I know the whole story.

MG: That’s right, you have sources.

CD: Exactly. In fact, I blame FDR and his adopted son LBJ for creating the conditions that will eventually lead the American economy into a death spiral.

MG: That’s rather dramatic. So are you saying that government assistance and intervention is always bad?

CD: First of all, I think government has an important role in economic evolution. I think Teddy Roosevelt got it right when he kept the Rockefellers from taking over the country and building an oligarchy that would have made Medieval feudal lords roll over in their graves with envy. You could argue that Teddy, not FDR, set the economy in motion. This opened up many more entrepreneurial opportunities. As a believer in letting natural selection take its course in a free market it doesn’t mean I don’t believe that there should be no accountability of corporations. For example, I believe they should pay for defrauding consumers. Nature has laws. Business should too. The business culture thrives when it adheres to good laws.

What FDR did may have helped America in the short term. But the course correction would have happened naturally, even if slower. And the companies that would have survived would have been much stronger for their resilience in face of adversity. But don’t be fooled. America is paying for FDR’s largesse with a populous that has screamed ever since, WHY AREN’T YOU SAVING ME? Maybe things are better for what he did and any argument about how history might have unfolded otherwise is pure speculation, either direction. I won’t say whether the payback is reasonable or not. But ask the Romans. Once the masses are promised that government will be the great problem solver, do they ever stop asking for their due? As a society you are constantly looking for money to fund the kinds of programs rolled out by FDR and accelerated by LBJ with his Great Society. Kennedy may have been from Boston but he would never put up with that kind of ethos. His dad taught him to exploit opportunities with the best of them. I digress. I’d just say again, the expectation and demand for more help, even after a crisis ends, never ends. People will ask for more and more government and more and more funding, which rewards ineptitude and punishes success. As glum as it looks in America right now, check out the economies of the more progressive social democracies. They won’t admit it but they would love to have your problems.

And ultimately natural selection finds a way anyway. When you crash and burn under the burden of compensating for a lack of fitness, you‘ll be singing a new tune, WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST LET US BE FREE?

MG: What about things like universal health care? Surely you can’t be so cold-hearted as to withhold that as a basic responsibility of the government?

CD: Again, I can’t think of a single country in the world that doesn’t envy your health care system. But I believe that when you move to socialized medicine America will absolutely love it. For a while. That is until services devolve and the governmental bureaucracy demonstrates it can no longer manage it. Then typical of America, you all will cry, UNFAIR!

MG: But it isn’t fair is it?

CD: Uh, who said anything about fair? I didn’t prescribe a theory of adaptation and fundamental fitness, I just described it. You all can do whatever you want.

MG: You seem awfully negative when it comes to government. Government gets a lot of things right.

CD: Sure they do. Other than eternal potholes around Chicago, Eisenhower’s interstate highway system was great. But when priorities and plans come from above, what happens to productivity? There ceases to be the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that feeds new design and development. There is no motivation to adapt to changing circumstances. So what you see is the eventual collapse of a healthy, breathing, growing economy. Capitalism does have to clean house in a big way every once and a while and incrementally on a daily basis, and yes people are hurt financially in the process. But you Americans worry too much about setbacks and love your histrionics. It sells newspapers! You take a snapshot and declare it is moving picture that will endure for 10 years! Almost as long as that Titanic film that came out a while back. I remember your end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it handwringing of 1987, which lasted about a month – and yes, I was already dead, but I do have my sources, so don’t ask how I remember. But in a fit and adaptable society, there are enough opportunities for people to get back on their feet. And don’t fool yourself. In a government-sponsored economic system, cataclysm comes as well. When the government can’t feed and clothe its wards the result is often violent and ugly in ways Americans can barely imagine.

MG: But owning a home has always been the American dream. Are you willing to kill that dream?

CD: You can manipulate the housing market with government rebates and incentives but it’s not going to solve the problem. Actually, if everyday Americans want to solve the housing crisis they can do so right now. Joe Homebuyer can go out and start a trend of buying and that will effect comparable sales and begin the process of price stabilization and even appreciation. But Americans aren’t doing that. Why? Not because of greed or corruption. It simply doesn’t make sense right now to buy. It’s not the investment it once was. The market was artificially inflated with government mandated lending policies and it’s still undergoing correction. Once it nears rock bottom people will buy again. Lenders will create new affordable lending practices to accommodate the demand. This will perpetuate appreciation. It will happen naturally. Just leave it alone.

MG: Where’s the compassion?

CD: Who said anything against a neighborliness that isn’t federally enacted?

Again, do what you want. Just make sure you have counted the cost of asking government to be the great financial problem solver. Does the make you more or less of a free nation? Does that fuel innovation and productivity or hinder it? Are you personally more responsible or less?

Having a government define and deliver what is good for the collective sounds compassionate and just might solve some short terms problems. But will government pull back from such a mandate? I’ve not seen such a tendency. One of my contemporaries, Karl, made a lot of utopian promises in an economic environment that was much more dire than it is today. Make sure the promises that have your heart thump thumping so excitedly today aren’t as empty!