Are We Communicating or What? (Part 1)
One of my favorite forms of confusion is the “high-level” discussion! Every time I hear someone say high level in a meeting, I know it’s probably going to be a line of bunk. We live in a world of direct and catalog marketing where the details are everything. A world where lists drive mailings, which drive mail plans which drive the top line. You can forget that top-line hooey; it’s below the line where our best business discussions need to take place.
Said another way, you can’t grow the top line in a multichannel business; it’s impossible — well, almost. You can have a high-level discussion about top-line growth while your circulation planners are snickering in the corner.
Maybe people who have high-level discussions forget all that. Or maybe they just don’t want to understand the details. Could they be the people who changed the saying from “God is in the details” to “the devil is in the details?”
Any time someone wants to get into a high-level discussion with me, I instantly become wary. You know, that same kind of reaction — a raising of the hairs on the back of my neck — that I get any time someone tells me to think outside the box. (Note to readers: Thinking outside the catalog marketing box can have deadly consequences. There’s a reason for the “inside the box” rules we have in this business.)
The joke is, we do all of this business communication to better communicate our ideas and thoughts to each other. That is, until the “four crappy communicators” arrive and get in the way.
In my next column, I’ll help decipher some of the most common (and possibly ridiculous) business terms. Then, I’ll offer a foolproof method for communicating more effectively (all about the four crappy communicators). Don’t miss this column; it will make your career go much smoother.
- Companies:
- Gilbert Direct Marketing
- People:
- Jim Gilbert
Jim Gilbert has had a storied career in direct and digital marketing resulting in a burning desire to tell stories that educate, inform, and inspire marketers to new heights of success.
After years of marketing consulting, Jim decided it was time to “put his money where his mouth was" and build his own e-commerce company, Premo Natural Products, with its flagship product, Premo Guard Bed Bug & Mite Sprays. Premo in its second year is poised to eclipse 100 percent growth.
Jim has been writing for Target Marketing Group since 2006, first on the pages of Catalog Success Magazine, then as the first blogger for its online division. Jim continues to write for Total Retail.
Along the way, Jim has led the Florida Direct Marketing Association as their Marketing Chair and then three-term President, been an Adjunct Professor of Direct and Digital marketing for Miami International University, and created a lecture series, “The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing,” which he has presented across the country at conferences and universities.
