What Are We Really Doing Here
The problem we are solving for our clients is… It begins with the notion among the internal management that best practices resources are not affordable or not available to scale (the systems, processes, or people) the organization profitably. One issue is cost, the other is simply wherewithal. Client teams often don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t understand what they need to do each and every day in order to affect their own future for the positive. Good people that would crush it if they could produce the right message and deliver it at the right time to the right customer, could measure their own impact and continue to iterate and improve the merchandising offer, use experience, and overall service… seamlessly.
The natural instinct to solve the problem is… To “Do.” Hire a layer of management to identify a market opportunity, create a “brand strategy,” build a website, produce content, distribute eMail, publish social media, make “better” product for the market opportunity, and measure all of the big stuff (e.g. sales) and all of the little things (e.g. conversion rate). Missing is the engine that makes it all go, the thing that drives and coordinates all of the doing, that defines how all of these disparate efforts manifest, work together, and produce results.
The real problem is… The alchemist is missing. In the above scenario, one plus one equals less than one. The difference is “Being” the right thing versus “Doing” the right thing. It’s not about just producing the work. It’s about having an engine, a conductor, a source of light, an invisible hand that guides the right work in the right way.
Realizing fundamentally the difference between Be and Do changes every aspect of the business, including: the financial model, data collected, metrics reported, the type of content produced, where it’s distributed, and the type of people and skills required to operate.
“Being” enables a company to operate as an organism instead of as an organization. Guided by an invisible hand, transforming an organization that requires ideation, constant management, oversight, and leadership into an organism that empowers autonomous teams to act deliberately with purpose. The premise is that the “engine” shines light on what to do and how to do it, such that the need for constant ideation is eliminated.
The real answer is… The “engine,” as described, or more eloquently, the alchemist required, is a literal understanding of why and how a given customer forms a relationship with the brand—Knowing this and every key experience and milestone along the way that reinforces and assures the actualization of the relationship allows teams to create exactly the circumstance that uniquely serves its constituency. This is where productivity and market impact reside. It’s science. Alchemy.