56: Survival of the Fittest Marketers

Posted on: March 31, 2010 /

Categories: Auction Marketing, Branding

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of reviewing senior portfolios at Liberty University, the largest of the four major colleges in the greater Lynchburg area. Of the 39 portfolios to be judged, I was assigned eleven.

Sequestered in a small conference room, one at a time with each student, I had them give me a tour of their work—what they were proud to show and why, what they felt needed to be reworked. I’ve got to tell you, a couple or three of these “kids” had work as good or better than mine (and I’ve got a 10-year head start on them). I wish I could show you their work. I left there (1) impressed by the next decade of talent to be unleashed on businesses who need branding help and (2) thankful I left college when I did in the job market I did.

For the past four days, I’ve been reflecting on my own senior portfolio and my journey since then, literally 2,000 different project folders/campaigns—mostly in the auction industry. I’m embarrassed to look through my D-ring binders full of the direct mail pieces of the last decade of my career, especially the first half of the collection. I would even shy from showing my designer peers some of the pieces for which I’ve won national awards.

Tonight I pulled out my senior college portfolio and thumbed through its pages. The nostalgia of that belongs on a different blog, but let me say that my time in the auction industry has honed the core principles of how I design.

So, since this article is about us (not just me), what can we all learn from my 5.5 hours in a conference room?

Don’t stop evolving.

In the peripheral, we know that culture and technology are in permanent flux. Progress—the constant movement—has become normative. It’s hard to remember life before the Internet. I don’t know what I did before my iPhone. Email and facebook are built into the rhythm of my daily life; texting and tweeting have lost their new car smell. The various media I help clients coordinate per auction is a longer list than it was five years ago—even two years ago.

That trajectory won’t change.

In an industry where the average age literally qualifies for an AARP card, it’s easy to make habitual the successful tactics of the past. But the audience has changed. The media they use to find things to buy has diversified and multiplied. The competition for auctioneers now includes self-helpers and retailers. The buyer base required to achieve market value often requires bidders from foreign markets.

The question is not, “Am I adapting?” It’s, “Am I adapting at the same speed as the market?”

It’s not a question of whether you should have a Facebook account but how you immerse yourself in it. It’s not whether you have online bidding but how you broaden the buyer base that’s on the other end of it. It’s not whether you have color brochures but how precisely you can target to whom it mails. It’s not whether you get designations and continuing education but how much you absorb and implement.

It’s not about the brand image the locals trust. It’s about updating and expanding that brand to include a new generation, a wider buyer base. And it’s not about whether you have a logo; it’s about what that logo communicates. It’s not about having an email list but whether your emails interest those who receive them. It’s not about the auction anymore. It’s about what you’re selling. It’s not good enough to measure yourself against the industry; we must measure ourself against the marketplace.

So, can you chart the changes in your service? Can you articulate why your strategies have changed. Are they changing?

The balance of consistency vs. creativity has dramatically changed since I entered both the design and auction industries The filter through which I look at branding has evolved even in the 7.5 years biplane productions has had a hangar. The tasks I include in my service packages have increased, while my focus has narrowed. The way I organize my workflow, finances, and thoughts looks different now than it did a few years ago. (I could be specific, if we had more time here.)

How ’bout you? What’s your metric for relevance? Do you measure success or growth? There’s a difference. If you don’t see the difference, please move out of the HOV lane. Your faster competitors hate using the right lane to pass.
[tip]

I cringe when I look back at some of the things I used to think about God and say on his behalf. I was jacked—straight up. I had a personal relationship with my Creator, but it was shadowed by philosophies and tradition, insecurities and ignorance.

But rather than focus on the regret over waisted spiritual interactions and who I may have pushed farther from God, I choose to look at the mile markers of progress from that place. The way I express gratitude to and feel affection from God has expanded. The way I approach heaven in prayer has been profoundly rethought. I’ve substituted new filters through which to view the church, culture, and my own introspection.

Our relationship with Christ is often compared to marriage. I’m a few months from my tenth anniversary. The way Crystal and I relate and the depth of our knowledge of each other has evolved greatly since the days I carried her backpack to class. It’s a constant adjustment, a gradual education. We’re better at marriage and better people for it.

Much of organized, Western religion is set up to get to a place, a set of parameters—walls in which to build and conserve a faith. But if you look at Jesus’ personal ministry, you’ll see a constant walking, a journey beside people. That personal evolution with our eternal love still works the same way. If our faith looks the same as it did a year ago, we’re dying. If we aren’t seeing new aspects of our love (not just new facts from the Bible), we’re losing touch with our lover. If we define our spiritual life solely by correct theology or a list of accomplishments—instead of what the Holy Spirit has recently whispered into our souls—we are in atrophy and of less and less value as salt and light in a lost world.