Contrarian viewpoints are always fun. It takes a lot of guts to stand up and speak out against what is conventionally accepted. And this is exactly what makes it interesting to listen to. If someone is going to stand against the crowd, they must have some strong evidence to get any credibility. Could all those people who tout the current thinking be wrong? Well, you only need to think back to the mortgage debacle of 2008, or perhaps to the dot.com bust of 2001. So yes, all those people could be wrong.

I recently read the Scott Adams’ Secret of Success essay,in which the famed Dilbert creator talks about his personal experiences. One of the topics is passion. As in, “passion” is the driver to making things happen. Not so, states Adams. From his personal experiences, passion does not have the fortitude to make things happen. In fact, passion stays strong when things are working out, but really scales down when things are not working out. One of the interesting supporting facts was that Scott Adams was at one time a commercial loans officer. And the data supports the fact: passion is not a good bet for the loan. What is a good bet is the applicant who has a system which looks good on a spreadsheet and they have the commitment to grind it out. When I think of all the boring and profitable businesses out there, his credibility rings true.

When it comes to marketing and generating demand, there are just a lot of choices. And it is an easy trap to get pulled into approaches that may work for someone, but will not work for you. It often happens that incumbents in a market will look around to see what their competitors are doing. If they see a lot of players doing the same thing, it is feedback that those things are working. Of course, it is not often possible to look under the hood to see the innards of how well things are actually working.

The whole concept of social proof has been well researched by Dr. Robert Cialdini and presented in his book: “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”. The fact is, it is both a conscious and subconscious element that causes people to look to others for signals on what decisions to make. So don’t feel bad if you pride yourself in being an independent thinker. It’s just human nature to see what the other guy is doing. But, don’t let yourself be convinced too quickly, just because it is working for someone else.

The key is your system. That is, the process which can be executed and produces predictable results for you. Your system will have a distinctiveness that is all your own. There can be a lot of factors to shape that distinctiveness. It could be your location, your skill set, the nature of your product offering, the dynamics of your team, or something else. But a multitude of factors will shape it. Along the same line of thinking, your starting point can be from many directions. It is not as critical where you start, but it is important that you garner the right measurements to decide on effectiveness of each step. In the end, you will have produced your own “spreadsheet”, metaphorically speaking. The passion for your product or service will only get you so far, before it gives out on you. Build your system and keep it grinding.

The reality is that it seems to be something that switches spontaneously as you go about your things.

“Lean Back” and “Lean Forward” are the descriptors that have been coined to characterize the focus of your attention and overall demeanor when processing information. In the “lean forward” mode, you are at a traditional desktop setting. You are at a desk with a physical keyboard, and you have a task-based mentality. There is a something that you need to get done. When you go to the web, you are driven by your task and will be looking for specific information tied to that task. It’s very much the same as men shopping in a retail setting. They get in, get what they want, and get out. No loitering.

In “lean back” mode, your goal is more along the lines of infotainment. That is, your mind is not heavily pre-occupied with the task at hand, and you have time to stop and smell the roses. And in fact, within your chosen areas of interest or exploration, you enjoy the process of allowing serendipity to help steer your attention. Traditional media is very much positioned to cater to your “lean back” needs. Even with the decline in print ads, there is a much higher value that is placed on them, simply because they are in the “lean back” zone of the reader. Much larger amount of wandering attention is available, and hence the print ad has a better chance to capture that attention.

So traditionally we have associated the computer with the “lean forward” mode, and traditional media with the “lean back” mode. But it is no longer a clear dividing line. Brought on by the increasing power of mobile computing devices, i.e. iPads, tablets, smartphones, and the increasing wireless internet speeds driven by both 802.11ac and LTE, people are now able to comfortably consume a larger breadth of digital content in the “lean back” mode. Reading electronic copies of a business or trade magazine is now made quite comfortable.

Conversely, there are now also increased interjections of the “lean forward” mode, as people treat their mobile computing device as a “second screen”. Which really means that it is a supplemental screen of information to their primary area of attention. And there is a whole new phrase, “content grazing”, which now describes this activity. So if people are in a “lean back” mode, there is now minimal effort to pick up a handheld computing device, and briefly switch into a “lean forward” mode (without actually going to a traditional “lean forward” setting).

This is why it becomes more important than ever to ensure that your content is created for all those different screen sizes. And this is about more than just resizing. You have to have content that can fit the screen for someone that is either in “lean back” or “lean forward” mode. Just as peoples’ behaviors are evolving to be interwoven between the 2 modes, so should your content. It means that those one-line display ads displayed on mobile devices may be effective. Conversely, it is possible that your target customer will want to have a more in depth read on mobile device as well. So you better make sure that it is readable.

Lean back, or lean forward. You don’t know for sure which is going to happen, in which setting. It really is a mixed bag. But one thing is for sure, digital content consumption is increasing. And your task is to ensure your message is positioned where and how it needs to be, in order to effectively reach your target customer.

You all know that when you are dealing with executives, you must be focused and to the point. Whether you are thinking of an elevator pitch, that concise 30 seconds where you need to get your whole story out, and get a swing; or perhaps an executive summary, where you need to cover all that matters in 10% of the content. Either way, it is all about being able to get the message out that matters to the executive, as succinctly as possible.

Executives are busy people. Not that the rest of us have a lot of idle time on our hands. But as we know, executives are driving a multitude of activities through various staff that they direct. And all of these reporting groups must able to operate to achieve a level of harmonious execution of the organization. It is only natural to expect that executives will sharpen the skill set to get things done.

When it comes to engagement with others, it means having barriers in place to block out random disturbances of all sorts, and having a rapid qualification process to determine how much time and attention to invest. It is more than once that I have heard an executive say “Do I really need to be here for this?” So if you are able to get in front of an executive to present your story, you know that your message needs to be bang on. Otherwise, the engagement is terminated before it runs to completion, or the executive simply picks up and leaves the room. Ouch!

Well, the reality is that there is an executive function in each of us. The executive function in the brain is nicknamed “the brain’s CEO”, and it oversees our ability to sweep away distractions and stay focused on a goal. And as the number of distractions continues to increase, with the demands of your job and your life expecting more to get done, you kind of expect that the executive function is pressed into action more often than not. It is no wonder that people are developing a natural predisposition to mentally blocking out random advertising messages. In fact, this tendency has been dubbed as “banner blindness”.

So where does that leave you, when you must get the attention of that prospective customer, with their executive function working away? There is only one thing to do. You must be completely focused on seeing the issues, exactly as that prospective customer sees them.  It is completely like selling to executives, all the time.  You have to do your homework. That entails a collection of activities, but it all boils down to being able to garner what the chatter is all about. Google analytics, existing customer interviews, partner discussions – whatever the sources – but you must be able to obtain and translate those insights into messaging and positioning that will resonate, in the briefest of timeframes.  Otherwise, you will just get swept away with all the other noise. The executive function rules and acts automatically.

One of the most entertaining scenes in any detective drama is the interrogation of a suspect by adopting one of 2 approaches: good cop, or bad cop. It’s just fun to watch who will be effective. First you have Good Cop who just can’t help but empathize with the situation. It’s just an unfortunate situation for the suspect. And it’s not really their fault entirely. Just a bad set of circumstances. So the dialogue is directed at helping the suspect show that they have some good in them; and they can be a somewhat better person. And then there is Bad Cop. There is nothing friendly about this character. And so the dialogue is all about the disdain for the suspect. If the suspect will not co-operate, the maximum amount of pain and suffering will be brought to bear on them. No mercy. It is all about creating fear.

In watching these dramas, it is interesting to watch the behind the scenes planning. Often two interrogators will discuss and agree who will be Good Cop, and who will be Bad Cop. Who will start first? When will they switch tactics? The situations are always different. There is no one way with which it is always best to proceed. It always depends on the specifics of the situation, and the nature of the suspect who is going to be interrogated. Human nature and all its complexities. And the tag team of good-cop/bad-cop, are only effective if they can find a way to navigate the complexities of that human nature.

When it comes to demand generation, the situation is not that different. Potential buyers always start out as suspects who you may know little or nothing about. But whatever interactions occur, they must be managed in way that will move things forward. Just like good-cop/bad-cop, it is necessary for you to have a working theory with which to start. From there, you must develop your own script and screen play. There will not be one set of tactics that will work in all situations. Rather, there will be some combination of tactics that are dynamically strung together, all being driven by how the reality TV version of things plays out.

If it was just one suspect that you are dealing with one-on-one, you can expect to get pretty good at things. But the true reality is that you are dealing with an aggregated set of suspects or prospective buyers at any one time. And this is where it can get hairy and just plain unmanageable. In a multi touch-point world, there are suspects and prospects interacting with your brand constantly and irregularly. In order for you to “break them”, you need to devise processes to both track them, and reach out to them. And this is where it becomes useful to incorporate tools that will facilitate the effort.

When it comes to marketing in the internet age, it is no longer about message broadcasting alone. You must be able to effectively bring the suspect in for questioning. You must figure out the correct good-cop/bad-cop combination of tactics. And you must narrow in on whether you have the right suspect or not. Otherwise, they are all going to get away.

If you follow the stock market at all, you know that the ecosystem is quite interconnected with the Federal Reserve System, aka “The Fed”, playing a key role. Naturally since they can control both the money supply and the cost of money, it is something that the investment community is keenly interested in. Just so that all those assumptions that have gone into all of those investment models, don’t all come crumbling down at once, the investment community keeps a constant eye on The Fed.

But when you listen to the talking heads analyze every word and pause on the part of the Fed, trying to make something of it, things just seem to be getting carried away. As an example, CNBC mentioned that The Fed used the word “appropriate” 55 times in their latest minutes, compared to 16 times in the previous minutes. The analysis: The Fed may not know what it is going to do going forward.

What can you say? The Fed’s action have such strong potential to impact everyone’s behavior in the economy, that you could say there is a degree of over analysis that occurs here. But you have to ask yourself, does it make sense to dump your stock because The Fed used the word “appropriate” 55 times. Ok, I am being a bit facetious to make a point.

In the marketing world, there is a parallel to those Fed watchers. They are Google watchers. Where the focus on what and how Google acts is analyzed excessively. The danger is that we become too driven by an influencer’s behavior, rather than the behavior of the actual market constituents.

Going further with the analogy, The Fed evolves its decision making model based on continual and large amounts of data collection, analysis of what that data is telling them, and debate and discussion about what actions are needed to accomplish their continued goals. Not that different from Google, who continually acquires large amounts of data focused entirely on search behavior and patterns. With the strict goal of serving up answers to what individuals are searching for, Google also needs to evolve their model for the search engine results page. Just like The Fed, they don’t know how they are going to evolve their model, until they can decide on what the data is telling them.

Which is why it is important not to get over zealous about Google’s detailed behavior; just like it doesn’t make sense to over analyze every nuance we hear from The Fed. Whether it’s Panda, Penguin, or Hummingbird, those releases would be of keen interest if you were strictly an SEO company. But if you are solving a different set of problems for your customers, your focus must remain on those problems.

What is important is having pertinent data. Like Google and The Fed, your focus needs to be on continually collecting the data that shapes the behavior of your specific market. Experimenting with both questions and analyses than can provide more insight on how to shape not only your marketing strategy, but also your business strategy. This is the prime directive, whose outputs must bring you to a closer coupling with those that you seek to serve. Without you worrying too much about Google, Google will notice you more if you are effectively answering questions which your customers have.