You often hear stories of how a negative event sparked a change that would not have occurred otherwise. The realm covers both individual and business stories. Whether it is a job loss, a relationship breakup, being cut from a team, the loss of a key customer, the failure of a key product, it is an often heard phrase: “The best thing that ever happened to me was…” Well, the occurrence of a paramount negative event is not really a good thing. They are only seen as good, because of the positive events that may have ensued after the negative event.

But there is also the flip side, where there is no recovery from the event. A sudden and unexpected event hurls you into a free fall. It makes it impossible to continue doing things the same way, and it impedes progress towards your goals. And in fact, we often hear the phrase: “Things were never the same after that”.

In business, there is often the desire to stick with the techniques that got you to where you are today. No doubt, it makes no sense to turn your back on what is known to be successful. But it is just as important to be mindful of how effective your systems are, in light of the inertia of your customer base, or their propensity for change. And being mindful is more than just thinking about it. It is about measuring both inputs and outputs of your efforts. Objectively. Rather than filtering things out that are not in agreement with your working thesis.

You do not want that sudden trigger event to force change on you on its time scale. When it comes to demand generation for your product offering, it is especially important to be sensitive to changes in customer behavior. This is where it all starts. If you cannot generate demand for what you have to offer, it is game over. Time for a different product offering. And you cannot afford this to be a sudden trigger event, because it will always come with a certain level of collateral damage.

The reality is that it is never a certainty what combination of demand generation techniques will work better tomorrow. But it is certain that things will not stay the same. The effectiveness of various techniques can wither and wane, or customers can just get bored and tired of the same old, same old.

There is only one way forward. You must take some resources away from the tried and true and invest in different, as-yet unproven ways. You do not have to be a pure pioneer here. No need to for total invention. There are many tools and techniques that are out there. But ultimately, it is the creativity in how you use the tools to drive your messaging and sustain engagement, which is key.

With change in customer behavior that is always brewing, some of those changes will aggregate into tipping points. And it is these tipping points that you want to be a part of. Businesses that continue to rely on doing things the same old way are bound to get wacked one day. There will be a trigger event. And things will never be the same after that. Don’t let that be you. Reach out and find your place on the frontier of adapting to a changing world, and make it tip in your favor.

Yes it’s that famous phrase that just doesn’t tell the whole story. Whether you have an on-line or off-line presence for your business, you will have the lookers passing through. But we all know that everyone has some kind of interest, some kind of purpose, in “looking”. And the strategy you adopt in response will make all the difference in whether you make them stop looking or not.

For starters, it is important to let them keep looking. People like visiting websites because they can do so in an unencumbered fashion. No disruptions. No dialogue required. No one hovering over them. And no one peppering them with questions. It means allowing them to focus on the content and decide for themselves. Your website visitors need to be in control of the visit. The instant that the website is forceful, it changes the whole dynamic.

Recently, I can’t help but notice the increase in the anxiousness with which the sign-up forms are popping up. I thought that the days of the pop-up were over. But there seem to be an increasing number of blogs that hit you with the sign-up form before you have had much chance to take a bight out of the content, never mind being able to digest it. Presumably the reasoning for marketers who employ this strategy is the fact that attention is so fleeting, they have to jump in quickly. But if they haven’t captured any real attention, what is the point really?

This rapid and overzealous sign-up request does not seem that much different than a paywall. There is no monetary transaction, but it is not conducive to creating that positive user experience, which everyone wants. It has both a disruptive and smothering effect on the visitor, and in fact I would say that it tarnishes the brand image of the website. Even though the content may be quite good, this act of wrestling away the sign-up info (often by making it a challenge to find the clickable button to close the window), just does not reflect well on the brand.

Well, you may believe that it is all a numbers game with more subscribers translating to more real customers. But it is not that simple. What is key is the number of active followers. That is, the ones who are interested enough to regularly follow new content. To stay engaged at some level. As opposed to followers who forget they even signed up.

A good user experience to a website is not that different from a good user experience to an off-line facility. Visitors do not want to be completely smothered, nor do they want to be completely ignored. In both cases, the content must be organized and presented in a manner that engages. Windows that appear in the sidebar with courteous offers of communication (and where the visitor doesn’t suffer any significant disruption), are likely to be much better received.

As opposed to rushing for the sign-up and risking the turn-off effect, the focus must be on providing additional content that has a higher level of value than the posted content. If the visitor has come to your site in search of information related to their problem, there must first be a level of satisfaction with the content that is openly posted. Only then can there be a real consideration of whether to hand over that closely guarded contact information. Website visitors know quite well, if they fork out that email address, more content is bound to follow. And they will choose not to take the first step at all if the persuasion is not effective.

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.