Why Don't We Just Break the Rules?

[Kyle Lacy]

When did rules ever apply to the art of running a business?

Let me preface this by saying that I do not mean moral, ethical, or legal rules. There are rules that each person has set aside for themselves whether spiritual or from the laws of the land. I am talking about business rules.

They are the rules predestined and applied by business owners, scholars, and business minds throughout the centuries. Rules on innovation and marketing that if applied correctly will help you run a business but...

Times are trying and individuals/companies are scraping to stay ahead of the competition and make a little bit of cash on the side.

My favorite example is from the minds that brought us Quicken and Quickbooks: Intuit. In the early days the founders were struggling to produce demand for their product. Distributors would not pick them up because, frankly, they were the 47th (or so) product on the market. They decided to take every cent of their $100,000 in the bank and invest it in marketing directly to the consumer and not the distributor.They broke the rules and revolutionized their business.

What is keeping you from breaking the rules of communication? What is keeping you from adopting a social media strategy that could revolutionize the way you communicate? What is keeping you from starting a blog or starting a Facebook group?

Is it fear? Is it understanding? Is it resources? Is it measurement?

[Kyle Lacy]

I think it has potential of growing brand awareness and empowering your customers to talk about your product or service. I think one of the rules I am talking about is the concept that maybe.. you have the ability to gain traction in your business whether through public-relations or social networks to grow your business. Social networking and public-relations have no real measurement model but they still work.

[Steph Woodward]

Isn't utilizing social media quickly becoming a part of those "rules", Kyle? This is definitely one of the trends that is rapidly being adopted as a norm for most marketing plans, don't you think?

[Kyle Lacy]

I can agree with that completely but many companies are still not using it the right way or breaking their "public-relations" or communication rules to do so..

[Lorraine Ball]

The only "Rule" that seems to make sense to me is evolve or die.. I think you have to keep trying, testing, and not being afraid to abandon what does not work

[Kyle Lacy]

I can agree to that Chris.. that has to do with every marketing model in my opinion. If you are spending a ton of money of direct mail or yellow pages and they are not yielding results.. you should re-evaluate and then if the situation arises.. abandon it.

[Steph Woodward]

I agree with this rule entirely. However, with a fairly new technology, it's difficult to render a substantive judgement about whether it's working for you or not. There may be delayed effects, or you may not be utilizing the tool in the best way for your organization. Abandoning any particular tool in its entirety is a pretty bold statement to make... sometimes we don't realize the potential something has until we've experimented with it to learn what it can do for us. To abandon a tool as new as social media at this point definitely strikes me as premature.

I also find it very difficult to believe that social media couldn't be productive for ANY business in SOME manner. I, for one, think it would be an interesting experiment for us to start a thread and let both sides put their theories to the test. I'd love to hear those that are in opposition to utilizing social media throw out a hypothetical business setup that they feel would not benefit from using social media, and see what the social media proponents could come up with as far as how social media could be useful in each scenario.

[David Mark]

Bravo! LB, Bravo..... :D

[John R.(Dick) Troll]

There's always more to the story.
Sure the founders of Quicken broke some rules. But one of them had a Harvard MBA. They had the resources to go $300,000 in debt BEFORE they invested $125,000 in advertising directed to consumers. And they had $95,000 dollars in the bank when they took out the ads.
Breaking rules often means, engaging in painful trial and error. Emphasis on the error. Most businesses fail for lack of capital. That was true under the old rules. I suspect that it continues to be true.
As for blogs, social media, networking, branding, web pages, they are rapidly becoming a commodity. Everyone will engage in them, just as everyone once had a sign in front of the store. And struck deals at the country club. Or at church. Or at the Elks club.
And there will need to be a new, new thing that will allow one to be seen as cutting edge. Google's beta product?
And the life cycle of that new, new thing will, almost certainly, be shorter than the life cycle of Twitter.

[Kyle Lacy]

Very true.
This is the reason why it is even more important for companies to adapt to a marketing model in quicker time. Life cycles of consumer communication platforms are shorter and evolving at rapid pace.