Wednesday, 9.07pm
Sheffield, U.K.
When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed. – Kurt Vonnegut
Every so often in a game of football you see a straightforward foot race. The ball is kicked forward and then there are just two players on the pitch. For a brief moment in time what happens next hinges on who gets there first.
I saw this moment play out again and again in a game today, between children, where the faster kid won out time after time.
Speed matters in football.
And it matters in other areas as well.
Take b2b marketing.
I recently tried posting more often on LinkedIn. I had some posts that got some traction. And some that didn’t. Some that felt well written. Some that were garbage.
Very quickly I found myself in an echo chamber. The same voices, commenting on the same things, turned up again and again. It’s like finding yourself trapped in a vortex, or maybe a tornado, with a surprised looking cow and you bouncing around the sides of the funnel.
If you do shout into the darkness you hear echoes.
If you are quiet, you still hear them, just different ones.
Drucker once said that “the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer”.
I liked that definition, and it led to Drucker’s next point that only two activities: marketing and innovation helped achieve this purpose.
So, one might ask, what is the purpose of marketing?
The purpose of marketing is to start a conversation with a potential customer.
And where do conversations start?
The best ones probably start in bars. The second best ones from an introduction.
Not many start from cold calls. Probably none. I wonder if anyone in the history of the world has ever created real business from a cold call.
Yeah, they say they have. But I don’t know.
The value of a platform like LinkedIn is, on the surface, as a place to have business conversations.
Its real value is as a list of people doing jobs.
And some of those may be ones you can advertise to.
Consider two futures.
In one you start a posting habit and serve the algorithms to create content and build a following.
In another, you pay money to advertise to your target customers.
Which one do you think will work more quickly?
Which one will you choose?
Okay, that was a trick question. I learned from one of my children that you never choose.
You take both options. And some that aren’t on the table.
Take every chance you get. And be quick.
That’s the secret.
Cheers,
Karthik Suresh
Handcrafted insight 