Creative Solutions

In today’s incredibly challenging world publishers and salespeople are constantly looking for creative solutions to difficult problems.  It begins with how we think.  Are we utilizing our entire brain capacity to come up with innovative ways to thrive in a time of chaos?   I think you’ll find this article to be useful.  For more information on how to apply these concepts to increase sales, contact ksimonsen@mediagrowth.com, 530-268-4717.

The Conceptual Age
By:  Ed Simonsen

I’nst it inrtseenitg taht, eevn tgohuh the mldide lttrees in msot of the wrdos of tihs sceentne are mxeid up, it is sltil psibosle to raed and usrdtenand the mgsasee qilukcy and wtuohit too mcuh tburloe.

Though it might appear that the proofreading for this article was outsourced to a developing country using English as a second language, that’s not what’s happening here. You’ve just been encouraged to solve a problem by using a portion of your brain that is not normally associated with the ability to read - the right hemisphere of the cerebrum. As long as the first and last letters of each word are in the correct position, and the words form an intelligible sentence, the right hemisphere can see beyond the details and use context to help the left hemisphere decode the message. Was the process easy for you, or did it hurt?

Pain not withstanding, it could be in the best interest of your career to focus your right
hemisphere on forces that may be reshaping business success today, all around the world.

A few decades ago, innovative workers in America avoided an economic disaster. Realizing they couldn’t compete with cheaper factory labor from overseas, they embraced change, re-tooled their skills and introduced the Information Age. This creative class of knowledge workers applied its own brand of creativity and produced technological innovations that propelled the nation to record employment and profit levels in the late 1990s. Engineers, programmers, financiers, educators, attorneys and business leaders revitalized the country’s threatened economy.  What will we do to meet today’s dramatic changes?

Daniel H. Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind, asserts that it was the computer-like creativity of the left hemisphere (Left-directed thinking) that produced the jobs, wealth and abundance of the Information Age. Americans must now shift to Right-directed thinking, which will result in products and services that consumers desire.  It’s a popular misconception that people are either “right-brained” and creative, or “left-brained” and logical. Actually, the two hemispheres work in conjunction, with the collaboration directed by one side or the other. Thinking directed by the left hemisphere is logical, linear, and analytical, functioning best in the realm of detail - words, numbers and time. Thinking directed by the right hemisphere is intuitive, holistic and simultaneous, dealing best with the big picture – context, emotion and space. Research indicates we each operate somewhere on a continuum between R- and L-directed functioning and that we are not locked in place, but can strengthen our capabilities in either direction with attention and practice.

Pink explores the need to design products for significance and not just utility, the power of telling stories, the effectiveness of looking for connections between seemingly unrelated ideas to create totally new ones, the value of intuition and the understanding of what another is feeling, the use of laughter and fun to increase productivity, and the ability to elicit joy in others by providing purpose and meaning. He predicts that many Americans will apply R-directed thinking in ways like these and be rewarded for it in what he calls the Conceptual Age.

Professor Gwen Amos of California State University, Sacramento says. “We all begin life as very creative, right-brain thinkers, but we don’t get the practice that we need to develop. Our education system has been oriented to the aptitudes of the left-brain, designed to be orderly and neat while creativity is messy and often appears to be out of control.   According to Amos, design should be a required course in school because it teaches visual literacy. “The design process requires that we look at every problem from at least five or six different points of view, and that we don’t pass judgment or make decisions too quickly,” she says.

R-directed thinking enriches facts by presenting them in a meaningful context that
communicates the big picture. Lists of facts can be manipulated by a computer or by a
technician in another culture – that’s L-directed. But the value of putting those facts into
a context, delivered with emotional impact that can help convince someone to hire
someone else – that’s another story entirely. 

R-directed thinking can also be exercised to combine seemingly unrelated facts and ideas to come up with something entirely new. It sees relationships, discovers patterns and makes analogies.    Telling stories is a great way to use the right brain. 

Dr. Jerry Estenson is a content coordinator for an executive leadership-development program.  He is interested in using creative environments to foster learning.  “...We provide environmentally challenging situations such as mountain emergency rescue training, high ropes courses or sculling races to get them to listen to the input of others and to think differently about their specific situations.”  Estenson is concerned that too many American workers are not seeing the need to constantly be pushing their skills to the next level.

Professor Amos worries that sellers of the creative product are often too L-directed. “Many don’t understand how designers work and hesitate to climb out on the limb where we like to be,” she says. “They think we’re having too much fun. They fear the risks, the mistakes, the frustrations – all the things that lead to solutions, the fruit. We’re working to change this. MBA people, especially, will benefit from learning to develop their R-directed creativity.”
   
Of course, all this emphasis on R-directed thinking is not meant to imply that any direction from the left side is undesirable. Jerry Estenson is quick to say that the answer is found, not in the extremes, but rather, in balance. “Competent leaders must balance the aesthetics and the numbers. But considering the left-leaning nature of education and
business, it can be extremely valuable “to rethink what you know and stop being a prisoner of ‘used to do’.”

It is almost cliché to talk about how the world is changing and what we must think and do to keep up with or get ahead of the wave. A few years ago a famous computer ad encouraged us all to “Think Different”. In order to return to a profitable balance in American business, an update of that slogan for the years to come just might be, “Tnhik Rhgit”.


Left Hemispheric         Right Hemispheric
Functions:            Functions:

Controls right side          Controls left side
of the body            of the body

Deals with inputs          Integrates many inputs
one at a time            at once

Processes information in a       Processes information more
linear and sequential manner      diffusely and simultaneously

Deals with time         Deals with space

Does logical and analytical      Does intuitive and holistic
thinking            thinking

Responsible for verbal       Responsible for gestures, facial
expression and language      movement and body language

Recognizes words and       Recognizes faces, objects and
numbers            music

The seat of reason         The seat of passion and dreams

Computer engineers, writers       Artists, counselors, craftsman,
accountants, doctors         musicians, designers

Sousa, D. R. (1995). How the Brain Learns. Reston, VA: NASSP
R-directed suggestions from the experts…

1.   Practice writing/telling very short stories.
2.   Occasionally re-examine what you know to be true.
3.   Make different and more creative mistakes.
4.   Take responsibility and stop blaming.
5.   Develop oral communication skills.
6.   Try to embrace the differences of others.
7.   Say Thanks. Gratitude works.
8.   Get along with others on the team.
9.   Balance WIIFM with others’ goals.
10.   Always have a skill development goal.

Gwen Amos, Jerry Estenson, Lynn Marks, Daniel Pink, Helen Scully


A Quick Measure of Your Hemisphere Dominance

The total number of the following statements that apply
to you will place you on a scale from 0 (quite L-directed) to 15 (quite R-directed).

1.   You’re often running late for appointments.
2.   You’ve always preferred essay over multiple-choice tests.
3.   You have “hunches” and act on them when making decisions.
4.   You feel comfortable multi-tasking.
5.   You were better at Geometry than Algebra in school.
6.   You explain by giving the main point first than filling in the details.
7.   You don’t have “a place for everything and keep everything in its place.”
8.   You read the instruction manual as a last resort.
9.   You usually got the right answer in math but couldn’t explain how.
10.   You’re usually excited and not frightened by major life changes.
11.   You respond less to the words and more to how something is said.
12.   You do your best thinking walking or lying down – not sitting.
13.   You’d have trouble talking if you couldn’t gesture with your hands.
14.   You don’t begin reading a magazine on page one, but skipped right to the most interesting page.
15.   You have difficulty telling how much time has gone by without a watch.

Dr. Carolyn Hopper, Middle Tennessee State University

Monetizing the Internet

Monetizing the web continues to be the quest of publishers who need to attract new customers and offset the down-trend in revenue within the more traditional sectors of their businesses.  Publishing is not a one-size-fits-all medium. What works well in certain markets often fails in others. Creating an integrated strategy that helps our customers realize their goals in the markets that we serve is more complicated than it has ever been in the history of our industry. 
More and more, advertisers are demanding that we deliver a wide range of advertising products and services with tangible ROI attached.   We must step up our efforts to search out ways to meet these demands if we are to continue to grow.  "Performance marketing has always been about accountability".  The Internet Advertising Bureau

We are hearing a lot today about social networking. This may be an area where publishers can do what we do best to serve our customers.  We can implement new ways to bring audiences together and generate traffic through the exchange of ideas and opinions. This involves moving out of our smaller, tighter networks, and looking beyond our relationship "cliques" to form other bonds and discover what Mark Granovetter has called "the strength of weak ties" – those relationships that can provide us with the new ideas that will serve our markets with the ROI they demand.

Whether you are employing e-mail blasts and attempt to balance the risk between effective frequency and e-mail fatigue, or allowing customers to sponsor everything from a key word to a page, to a section, or offering the use of your database, you probably are not satisfied with your results. 
Leveraging your database to it's fullest on the Internet is critical.  Your database isan extremely valuable resource for publishers and their customers.  Forrester Research's web site showed that many companies don't know how valuable their data base is.  "We've asked a lot of marketers ... and we found that ... they do not necessarily have a value on the database."  We, as publishers, know the value of our databases and their ability to generate revenue.  Customers are willing to pay substantial amounts of money for our audiences. Still, is there more that can be achieved?
Some publishers create an "ask the experts" section.  Here consultants in your field pay you to be perceived as experts by posing and answering relevant market questions.   This can be a significant revenue stream.
Some publishers collect demographic information on their web site and use it to get advertisers to run larger schedules.  This capitalizes on a trend in marketing today often called Rich Data.  Forrester Researchsays "Many marketers are trying to adopt a more customer centric focus.  Doing so requires the use of numerous technologies that facilitate deep customer understanding and better targeting of offers."    What knowledge can you acquire from your readers to help your marketer better target their products and services? 

Another important factor in Internet sales is to put together an integrated package that serves the customers needs and goals in an effective manner.  This takes the pressure off rates and enables the advertisers to make a substantially higher investment with you.  Jupiter Research wrote an article titled, "Removing the Silos to Improve Coordination",  which discusses this essential element in today's media buying.   The time that it takes you to carefully research the integrated package and put together a coordinated proposal will come back to you in a long-term satisfied customer and significant profit.  It's still about knowing customer's needs - some things never change.
 

What’s Next


We’ve all been hearing the depressing news of publishers in trouble.  The good news is that, despite major challenges, many magazines are faring better than any other media.  The magazines which are doing the best are those which serve a finely-tuned niche (and are not overleveraged).   They have enough of a stronghold in the market or industry that they still have advertisers who want to reach those reading their quality content; print or on-line.   They too are exchanging dollars for “digital dimes” but they have an advantage over the competitive Internet start-ups because of their years of building credibility.  Still, this is still not an easy time for anyone.

What’s Next?  How can publishing change enough to survive and, in time, thrive again?  Here are some things I see working for various clients.

We’ve all heard throughout our sales careers that we must listen to our customers and meet their needs.  What do marketers want today?  I’ve been researching marketers’ challenges.  I wouldn’t want their job!  Not only are their budgets cut dramatically but they are under intense scrutiny and their management expects that every dollar they spend must bring a proven return.  Lead generation is not just their demand on publishers, it is critical to their survival. 

The more leads we can deliver, the more we can get beyond the “digital dimes” to some real revenue.  Webinars are excellent lead generators and thus are items that advertisers are willing to sponsor for a good price.  Videos generate good leads because readers like them and are usually willing to give a little information to watch them.   White papers can draw large number of views especially in information-rich industries.  Podcasts, online “sound off surveys”, salary reports and research centers can also generate significant numbers of leads. 

Presently, the medium that marketers are most excited about is social media.   They see this as a tremendous opportunity to reach their target audiences.  At first, publishers pulled away from this “unregulated medium”, but lately some have set up their own social media sites and are selling sponsorships to generate revenue from them. 

Many trade publishers are slicing and dicing their databases and leveraging them in various configurations at proprietary prices.  Some say this is becoming a stronger revenue stream than advertising.   Consumer publishers are focused on audience development.  They are getting more money from readers who will pay extra for premium services targeted for their interests. 

Events are certainly not new, but they are playing a bigger role for publishers, especially local, focused events that don’t require air travel.  This medium has always been a great lead generator for exhibitors.  Custom Publishing is being revamped to produce high quality leads in print and on-line when it meets the goals of the advertiser and reader.  Advertisers are willing to pay a significant amount for the perfectly-targeted piece. 

These are incredibly difficult times.  If you want to see a creative, humorously sad, all too true take on media today check out this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CqRcCHk_Pc   

It spite of these difficult times, I am optimistic for the long term because, over the years, I’ve observed that publishing professionals are innovative and smart.  I’m confident that, as an industry, we will find new revenue solutions to come out the other side victorious and stronger for having faced these incredible challenges. 

For more information on ways to generate additional revenue and to prepare your staff to sell them, contact:

Kathi Simonsen
ksimonsen@mediagrowth.comn
530-268-4717

The economic downturn and the dramatic growth in marketing venues available to advertisers have eroded our value differential in publishing.  Our products have often shifted from "unique and valued”   to commodity which has made it difficult to combat price pressures.  But now, the "fire storm" of the economic downturn has cleared away many of the "weaker trees” whose only claim was discounting.  The day is here to begin to rebuild our businesses by doing what we do best – acting as solution providers.

This month's success story is about a salesperson that has had to struggle against commoditization even more than we in publishing.  What product is more of a commodity than paper?  Price is the only differential. Or is it?  Here is a salesperson that provides much more than paper to his publishing clients.  He provides any solutions his clients (and anyone related to them) might need.   We can learn a lot from his approach.

I met Marcus Witte, of Graphic Communications, a national paper broker, in my role as a board member of the Western Publisher’s Association.  I quickly noticed that he was always willing to go out of his way to help the association.  But beyond that I was continuously impressed with the way Marcus kept in touch. I received e-mails from him with potential leads for my business. He pointed out conferences that he thought might be useful to me and information on what others in our industry were doing.  I don’t buy paper, but my customers do, and who do you think I’ll recommend?  I asked Marcus if he’d share a little bit about his selling philosophy. 

He said, “If a salesperson works diligently to bring value to publishers in that first conversation and helps them with real solutions, they will remember him or her.   It takes time to build relationships. Attempt to close a sale too quickly and the client will feel pushed and will back away.  But show them that you care about their business and you become their partner.  Things to Remember: 

1.  Bring value, grow relationships, help people
2.  Value the customer’s time, always bring something of value to the time you’ve earned
3.  Earn the right to be heard more than once
4.  You are a disposable resource if you ignore the things to remember...”

Marcus seeks out valuable information for his "partners" on the trends in their industries.  He sends a lot of this information snail mail because people are more likely to open it than e-mail.  He tries to get to one or two of his large clients' conferences or trade shows each year.  He also reads a lot about their businesses and offers to bring in experts from his company to teach the publisher in areas that can help.

He is always on the lookout for ways to help everyone related to his work.  He often brings his clients business through his connections. He also brings them new opportunities, new customer needs and new technology.  He is a great example of the illustration I often use in my training - the salesperson is a worker bee who carries pollen from one flower to another to help the whole garden. 

What is Marcus’ payoff for all this hard work and extra effort?  He is visible, well known and well respected in the publishing community in his territory.  When publishers on the West Coast think of paper, they think of Marcus.  Why?  Because he has “earned the right to be heard”.   He “gives his customer’s success and that success comes back to him”.   All of you, my most excellent clients, know these phrases well :-).   

Let’s keep thinking of innovative ways to apply them as we rebuild publishing’s success.   Let’s overcome the commodity trap and the price war by providing valuable customer solutions.

Some encouragement is in order these days.  For many years the publishing industry consisted mostly of privately held, entrepreneurial companies led by individuals who were passionate about their industry.  They did what was best for their readers, advertisers and employees.  They were willing to invest for the long-term, they didn't have any get-rich-quick by slaying-the-golden-goose schemes...and they were very profitable.  Then Wall Street took over, instant profit ruled and we all know what happened... 

But lately I see indications that our industry is returning to its roots.  Granted, a lagging economy and a bucking bronco internet still challenge us, but many of the price-cutting  short-term-profit seekers are gone. The entrepreneurial experts who are passionate about their market and interested in treating people fairly are gaining ground.   This is the first in a series of success stories of these publishers, those who are doing what has always made publishing great and are reaping the profitable rewards.  If you are one of these successful publishers please contact me ksimonsen@mediagrowth.com so I can share your story to encourage others.

Success Story #1

Paul Bowers worked at Cygnus Business Media for many years as a Publisher, Group Publisher and Vice President.  As an expert in publishing, he rose to positions of influence even as the company went through rounds of dramatic changes as it bounced from investor to investor.  Then, in one of the corporations many downsizings, Paul was laid off.   Instead of crying the blues, working for a company he didn't like, or searching for a job that didn't exist, Paul decided to enter the ranks of the entrepreneur to make use of the knowledge and contacts he had acquired over the years. 

He created a magazine in 2008 in the field he knows best; aviation.  He called it Airport Improvement, www.airportimprovement.com.  He recognized that the airport field had steady growth thanks to federal government funding.  Having spent many years in the field, he was able to identify the needs of the market precisely and use his connections and understanding to gain rapid credibility. 

Following the principles of good publishing, Paul insisted on providing quality editorial written by experts in the industry.  He offered a targeted circulation of buyers and influencers to his industry's advertisers.  He relied on his contacts in the industry for helpful ideas. For example, the name of his magazine came from a friend and fellow publisher, the editorial concept from a former boss.   Handling most sales effort himself, he communicated the value of his publication to both readers and advertisers   He does not discount rates.  Instead, he offers a quality product that they realize they must advertise in. 

Paul's magazine was profitable by the end of his first year. And he has had a phenomenal second year despite on-going economic turmoil.  Amazingly, 90% of his advertising is print.  He is following the basic principles that publishing has always been based on.

While the b2b landscape has changed new opportunities and a great ROI still exist for magazines delivering value to advertisers.

 

Google analytics works well.

I agree with you--vehemently. The days of acting as if the tracking of leads is the clients' business, not ours is over...

My question: What service/analytics do you use? I know IMS has a service for this, but am not sure if this is the only service available for such things...

In today's crazy world we have to be creative about finding those accounts that will advertise, buried in the stack that say no.  In last night's speech, Obama discussed his stimulus plan which has some rays of hope for us in publishing.  Where can you find companies that are offering green energy products and want to reach your readers?  Those companies will have stimulus money and be able to advertise.    Is there anyone relating to healthcare, education or construction who wants to reach your readers?  They too will all have money from the stimulus.  Be innovative, are there ways they can fit you market?  This is a time to go outside the endemic advertisers we have traditionally relied on and find nonenedemic advertisers who have a reason to want your audience (if you think about it creatively) and HAVE MONEY.  How can you offer them ROI?

With the move for immediate ROI information, on-line is the way to go, however as you point out trading dollars for dimes will not keep us in business long. I think building on our established brand with the consumers and advertisers under one roof is a great way to gain an immediate ROI, and engage the readers in a live environment where our brands can shine. Another idea that we are pursuing is a take off the old custom publishing angle. We are prodcuing an annual for a client incorporating their existing print catalog with an exciting editorial package.
Special thanks goes to Kathi for providing the inspiration and forum for us to bounce ideas off one another!

Good comments from previous posts.  Another way to provide ROI is to offer an event where you bring buyers and sellers together.    The sellers pay for it and the buyers come because of the nice venue (ie San Diego in January)  Sellers have to be significant advertisers (ie 12 pages) to come to the event which ups your print revenue as well as bringing revenue from the event.   The sellers love it because of their exposure to their buyers.