What Is It You Do Again?

Okay, hands up, who knows what "transformational change" means? Thought so. Not many of you and those who do grasp it are probably in the business anyway.

I don't profess to know exactly what it means, but I suspect it has something to do with changing the way you operate --- a kind of business-not-as-usual proposition.

I came across the term most recently emblazoned on a roadside poster between Brisbane Airport and the City. The massive poster read: "We deliver transformational change" and under the headline was probably the name of the organisation that does just that. Probably. I didn't look.

I was on my way to a conference where I was to be banging on about how to get the attention of Australian small business and my audience were computer hardware vendors, so the sighting was quite timely.

The poster sums up perfectly one of the classic behaviours that marketers make: failure to engage potential customers due to muddled messaging.

We cannot expect our target market to give a damn about who we are and what we do if we don't allow them to comprehend it in the first place.

Imagine if the poster had said something like: "Change your thinking. Transform your business". Maybe then I would have taken a split second to see who the advertiser was, rather than being blinded by a big fat question mark in my mind.

As I've said before, I reckon that if our key messages are not readily understood by a child of eight, we risk missing a lot of passing traffic. Traffic that doesn't care because we haven't permitted any level of connection.

Anyway, enough of all this I must focus on the facilitation of some hot beverage sustenance. Yep, time for a coffee.