Change Just Creeps Up On You And Then? Boom!

Back in July my wife and I played in a pickleball tournament in Newport Beach. If you won your bracket, you earned a Golden Ticket to the National Championship in November in Mesa.

We got ... KILLED.

Two years ago the guy generally covered much of the court, with the woman playing a postage stamp. The guy would hit a drop shot to a woman, then the women would dink back-and-forth until somebody made a mistake.

Last year, the pro game began to change. Guys were more aggressive than normal, and women became very assertive.

Last week, points in the mixed championship match looked like this (click here for this one point). Women driving the ball, guys poaching, gun fights galore (heck, watch the women here just throwin' haymakers ... it's not a game of dinking for relaxation anymore).

And, unsurprisingly, that style of play tricked down to Newport Beach, rendering my old-school strategy useless.

I've spent the following eight weeks reinventing my style of play. I have no choice. It's a long slog, it is absolutely not how I want to play. Adapt or die.

The first month was awful. Let's assume I'd play six games and typically win three of the six games playing the old style. Playing the new style was uncomfortable. My results were not good ... I'd win two games out of six instead of three games out of six. Unforced errors increased. In other words, all of my metrics "looked bad". My partners looked at me ... "what is wrong with you?"

It would be easy to say "nope" and go back to the old style of playing, to just try to "be better" at the old style of play. Had I done that, I'd have gone back to winning three out of six games on average and I'd be ... average ... in the short term. But I'd also be falling farther behind the rest of the world on a daily basis. Eventually the gulf between everybody else and me would be too big ... a canyon too big to cross.

Maybe you see where this is headed.

When you get back from your three-day weekend, give some thought to those who keep asking you to pay Facebook/Google for access to your own customers. Ask yourself if you are falling behind companies leveraging alternate ideas? And if you are in the print world, for crying out loud, ask yourself if the LinkedIn professionals asking you to use the hashtag #printrevival have an alternative agenda to keep you buried in the past? There is no #printrevival, and if there were, why would they be using an ancient digital tactic (hashtags) on an antiquated digital platform (LinkedIn) to promote print? Wouldn't they leverage print to tell you? Are your print-centric partners moving into the future, or are they like I was at the pickleball tournament in Newport Beach, applying outdated skills to a modern game?

Pundits Talking About Your Marketing Plans For The Election

It's hard to visit LinkedIn these days ... it's even harder as an election barrels toward us and pundits are telling you what you need to do from a marketing perspective.

Nobody, and I repeat, nobody, has any idea what is going to happen over the next ten-ish weeks.

If I would have told you on Memorial Day weekend that one candidate would be forced out while another candidate would survive an assassination attempt ... and both events are already ancient history by Labor Day weekend, you'd have barely believed me. And yet, here we are.

So what if customers are distracted for a week? You made it through a pandemic ... you think your customers weren't distracted then?

In e-commerce, you have businesses that create demand-generating scenarios, and you have businesses that react to those who create demand-generating scenario. Too many readers react. Not many create.

I know, you are going to tell me that your business analyst says sales will be down 20% that week or whatever. Fine. So what? It happens every four years. Every five-six years you lose a week between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and you somehow get through that situation.

You'll get through the election as well. Take a breath. Focus on what you control, focus less on what controls you.

A MineThatData Minute: New Items and Existing Items - Customer Preferences

Another quick video to peruse, enjoy (https://youtu.be/PDoyRBd22kY)

A MineThatData Minute: New Customers via Marketplaces

Many of you expanded into Marketplaces (ahem ... Amazon) over the past 2-3 years. If that's you, give this short video a view.

Forecasting Season is Coming!

The requests are coming in now, a bit earlier than in prior years ... readers wanting to know what 2025 looks like if certain changes are made to the business model.

Start thinking about your needs ... it is common in the e-commerce world to want to know what happens when PLA/Search spend is increased/decreased ... our catalog audience ... you know the drill.

Forecasting Season should be fun ... you get to see what the future holds, then you get to make changes to better adapt to the future. Let's have fun this Fall, ok?!

One More For You

Yes, go buy the book.

Maybe I'm obsessed by the book because it was written by a female coach butting heads in a male-dominated sport. Seriously, how many leadership books have you read, authored by women, women who didn't use the phrase "lean in"? Not many. How many e-commerce books have you read that were written by female executives? Not many.

A few quotes for you to think about.

• "The mind runs amok when it doesn't have facts to digest." In my project work, I present facts that many haven't seen before. You should see what happens to the mind when it is forced to digest a few facts! Praise to my clients for being willing to be challenged.
• "The word 'happy' would lose meaning if it were not balanced by sadness" (via Carl Jung).
• "Dressing rooms are hierarchical places" (so are the informal social networks created at your brand).
• "I couldn't compete with the power of bad memories." How many of you are still tormented by something that didn't work at your company? "We tried that in 2013 and it didn't work!" Well, it's 2024, isn't it? I said stupid stuff like this last week in an email to somebody, telling the individual I tried something in 2007 and it did not work. Take your own medicine, Kevin!

Ok, this is my final reference of the book. Now go do something with what you've learned after reading the book. You're capable of so much good work!

National Public Data / Data Brokers

Now that your social security number and phone number are linked together and available for purchase on the dark web, one can use their imagination as to what could possibly go wrong?

Many of you who are catalog-centric readers have used data brokers for three decades. One of you sent them parsley, one garlic, others oregano, peppers, olive oil, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar. The data broker puts it in a food processor, blends it, then sells you chimichurri sauce. You supplied them free data, they supplied you with customers, they made money.

All of you who are e-commerce employees leverage a different kind of data broker ... two modern ones ... Google and Facebook ... Alphabet and Meta.

I had a reader send me a nasty gram last month, wanting "actionable tactics" and less talk about "community". "Where is the information I can use today?"

Let me be really clear about something.

If your brand builds communities outside of old-school data brokers and modern digital data, you manage the relationship with the customer. Yeah, you. It might mean you host a loyalty program where you have a direct relationship with your best customers as opposed to a brokered relationship with a third party who just might slip up and cost you your personal data. It might mean you host a forum on your own platform instead of paying a third party money for access to a customer that the third party might carelessly abuse.

So, no, I'm not here to give you "5 Tips To Make Money Off of Google and Facebook".

I'm here to ask you to own the relationship with (checks notes) your own darn customers.

How is that a bad thing?