In fact, I'd argue that doing right the third best thing beats doing the perfect thing not so well in 90+% of cases.

Really glad to see you have added this post to the top down thinking post. Because top down thinking without the discipline of asking the questions you discuss and putting it down on paper is a recipe for disaster.

As a marketing/new product development veteran, I was trained to use a Marketing Planning checklist to develop a one page (albeit single-spaced with very narrow margins) document.

The checklists provided thought provoking questions which help articulate assumptions, set expectations, and anticipate problems that will need to be overcome. Importantly, they also provide benchmarks to monitor performance.

And these documents were written to provide management, r&d, sales, advertising creatives, media planners, promotions, etc. with a common roadmap to reference.

Could they be updated to be more relevant to today's more competitive market of abundant choices? ABSOLUTELY. Could they be improved with technology to enable real time collaboration and performance monitoring. YESSSS.

Indeed this is my passion and what we're immersed in and we're here to find others who share our interest.

Katherine Warman Kern
@comradity
http://www.comradity.com

I understand that the marketing example was just that — an example (of the overall concept of doing the right things) — but even as a standalone it's pretty valuable insight.

If you're going to ask the questions, be willing to have people hate you for it. As the questions often enough, and that action can get you fired. Of course, if that's why you're being fired, you probably hated the company in the first place.

Completely the wrong way to do business.

I Would Love to Have That Problem!

As a marketing lead in a start-up organization I think you need to walk before you can run – meaning I agree with most of everything you're saying but you still need to do some of the standard marketing activities. With a website as your only customer facing channel, you’d be a fool not to do any kind of SEO. Of course, any SEO should be focused on your offerings with the intent of obtaining qualified leads. Also, the disservice would only be the case if your sales team was not responding to inquiries, a problem I would love to have!

I totally agree, simplicity is more effective and many times ‘less’ is ‘more’. With a small team, you really have to focus on “the right” activities, but how do you know what is “right”? You have to test the waters and see what works. At first you might try several marketing channels and through careful tracking and measurement you’ll learn which ones are most effective. In the worst case, none of them may work and you’ll try again either with a new message or new channel. On the flip-side, many of them may be effective and you might be unprepared for all the inbound lead generation, the next steps to take, etc. Another problem I would love to have!

And finally, yes its great to dumb down your product offering (minimal features) to focus on the ‘ease of use” as this is a great way to test the market. People can easily download and install your software and they will hopefully ask you for more features. Why create features that you think may be needed, let the customers decide what they need and build for them. Of course, unless you have a unique differentiator, competitors will likely win the business… but at least you know your marketing is working – you got people to download and evaluate your software, yet another problem I would love to have!

Bobby

That was me as CEO and how I ran my company from 1994 to 2006. We had some significantly visible success (#123 on the Inc 500 in 1999), but we could have achieved so much more…

Awesome food for thought. Thanks, Mark.