Sam Birkett 0:05
Well, hello, everybody and welcome once again to Marketing Meanders with Sally and Sam, and today it's a very damp, horrible morning and there's an awful lot going on in the world, of course. So we thought we'd come in and try and brighten up your day and we're talking today about perfection in marketing, or how to try and achieve or try not to achieve perfection. Is it possible to even get anywhere near perfection in our marketing practices and campaigns and I thought, unusually, I would start this one off, Sally with putting out two poles, two pole positions, not positions in the race track, but two poles of thinking on achieving perfection in anything we do in life in general, but particularly in marketing, of course and if you just indulge me for a moment, I was thinking about this yesterday and thought, there are two potential poles of opinion here one, which is someone I worked with, for a period of time was adamant that he had this mantra of do it once and do it well, which of course, people will probably have heard of before. But so he was very much like get everything, right, and then utilise it and move forward, whether it's a campaign website, whatever, anything in life, and the other is my old geography teacher, who was famous for his catchphrase, which he would say, this catchphrase, as he was tucking in his shirt to his belts, usually. And so he had a company that was a bit of a grunt. So he'd say, good enough, hmppf. Like that and it was always like that good enough and he'd say that when he was sort of looking over your work, and so you'd be like, doing your geography writing up whatever writing out the summary, which he always wants us to do on each of our textbooks and he just go yeah, good enough and then like, run out, sort of off you go now and so I thought, it's interesting to think between the good enough and no, it has to be perfect, where we are, but I thought I would launch into this. Putting that your way, Sally and saying, do you find it in your experience, do we find people strive for perfection, or go too far the other way?

Sally Green 2:09
I think that's really interesting and I think it depends what you're doing and how much time you've got. Because if you've someone said to you, Sally, you've got to write a 500-word blog now, and we need it in 10 minutes, then I probably go, yeah, I could do that. No problem and I would quickly jumble something together and think, Well, you know, that feels that we'll do and if you need it now, this is all I can do for you, I can't make it perfection, I just can't because I'm gonna have time and to be honest, if it really is that urgent, then that we'll do is fine. It really is fine and it's extremely unlikely that the people really are going to think, well, unless you've really really goofed, that people are going to think, God, this looks like something cobbled this together in 10 minutes. Most of us, if we're professional enough, can probably put something together, that's good enough, whic people won't think is rubbish. If however, you are doing if you're just, suppose you're launching a company, that's a brand new company, and you're developing a web page, and it's got to really impact a crowded market, good enough, is probably not going to crack it, it's then probably worth strict giving ourselves time to strive to perfection. Now, we are never going to be perfect. We just aren't and we never can be and it's just not possible. But striving to be as good as you possibly can be, is worth doing sometimes, but not every situation is the same. It's just not and actually trying to strive for perfection all the time, can really kind of damp down creativity, because you'll think, oh no, I've got to get that checked. I've got a measure that that's got to be to the nth degree and it stops us kind of thinking outside the box or jumping up and down with excitement and all those things. Perfection is not always a very nice thing to do.

Sam Birkett 4:05
Yeah, I think that's that sort of, yes, of fears of risk, isn't it? It's sort of being comfortable with risky things and it does bring me back to a large, in my mind's eye I can see now this big meeting room when I worked for a well-known publisher a number of years ago, and we were talking about launching a new software, I say software, a piece of educational software effectively and it was a real shift for the guys there. I always come back to these examples, there was a lot of publishers in the room who did you know, hardcopy publishing of, it was he workbooks for education for schools, and then it will move on to more of the digital side and this was now you know, a cloud-based piece, which was used in multiple schools around the country and internationally and so it was a big, big piece of investment to and they're all these IT technical type guys coming in, and they were talking, you know, they were all completely working in this new way for everyone and it was the agile framework and so there was this real meeting of two different cultures, shall we say? One, which was far more obviously, well, we obviously have to get completely correct the printing the type and data has to be perfect has to be correct, I suppose I would use that word and we have to get this as good as it possibly can be because doing another print run, and then sending it out to schools is going to be A) very expensive and B) is, you know, we've, we've got a second shot that makes us look bad, because if we got it wrong.

Sally Green 5:42
It's embarrassing.

Sam Birkett 5:42
Exactly embarrassing. So that was a really interesting mix there. Because then they were talking about, well, you know, we're going to launch this little bit of this software now. Not being the full knowledge that we'll communicate with our audience saying, well, that's this one bit, there's another two or three bits to come. They're not ready yet and this is it and there was a bit of a... oh, gosh, oh, that's a bit? Well, I don't know and so there was a real, that feeling that I was watching this transition from the sort of slightly more risk averse kind of this has to be correct to, it's okay, you know, chill. This is a new way of doing things. People know that we do bits and pieces, we don't do a waterfall approach. We do elements here. If it doesn't work, we fix it and that's okay. Obviously, we want to get this to a place where it can be used and you know...

Sally Green 6:28
Exactly, it's that true agile way of doing things.

Sam Birkett 6:31
Yeah, yeah, exactly and it takes that, it does take that mindset.

Sally Green 6:36
I mean, I worked for the same publishing company. Yeah, completely. I worked for the same publishing company and I was selling this product into international markets and a lot of the international markets I was selling it into were in Africa and they set these big sales targets to sell his product into various African countries and I had to sit down in a board meeting and say, these targets are not achievable and they said, no, no, this is the perfect product is absolutely perfect. In all these markets. I said, no, it's not. Because quite a lot of these markets, quite a lot of the schools in these markets don't have regular electricity, they learn under trees, or they can get they have to pay extra for their electricity because they're in townships, or whatever the situation is and so their perception of perfect was absolutely not when they weren't being taught agile it was we've got this new product, and we've got to sell this many of it to make it work. Well, no, that's not going to be possible. You haven't looked at the market properly. So you're going to have to change your sense of perfection because the world is not the same everywhere.

Sam Birkett 7:42
Absolutely. That's it, isn't it? And it goes throughout, doesn't it, I mean, if you think about if you're sitting down with, I'm just thinking all the way back up to, you know, a planner to sit down, perhaps you've just been appointed to a new marketing role in a company, and you've got this just feeds into everything, doesn't it so that, you know, understanding of the market, first of all, as you saying, the market, and then what needs to produce for that market and then the ways in which you support the processes that enable you to do those marketing exercises for that market. This whole, it's a cultural thing. It's interesting in different industries. I think, actually, as well. We've talked about publishing, but I think there's also, again, if you look at caricatures of a tech firm startup and you think, Well, you know, because I'm working with a suppose a scale up, you would call it organisation in recent times, and they have a very different Well, quite a different sense of like, you know, trying things and, you know, okay, that's not perfect, now we'll do this, we'll cancel doing that webinar, because, you know, we're not ready to do it. So yeah, we said, we're not going to we'll move it out, you know, and sort of adjusting, because you've seen that they don't have, you know, a full set of people in post and, you know, they have to work with what they've got, but they are comfortable in a cultural sense to shift things around, and even things with like, trying different, you know, work processes and software's like, let's try doing it on this platform for today. But that's not working. So let's shift to this other platform, see if it's better, and it's very open to ideas and innovations and enthusiasm from the team, as you might expect, whereas perhaps more traditional industries suffer more from well, we've always done it this way and you know, therefore, this has to be done this particular way. But almost that culture pervades into the processes and the campaigns and the perspective of the market, again, massive generalisation there, and I don't necessarily mean it's just established industry is going to have marketing teams who think that way, but I do think that you do need to establish a bit of a culture don't you to actually... you can't just one day say we're the do it once, do it well crowd and then tomorrow we're going to say, hey, no, let's just chuck it all away and we'll get minimal viable products out there and doing things differently takes time.

Sally Green 10:12
Yeah, I think you're exactly right. It's I think you're either Waitrose or you're Tescos. Tescos was pile it high and sell it cheap. That was a that'll do whatever, you know that pile nearly stands up anyway, let everyone just pile in no worries. Whereas Waitrose is more we are going to make it absolutely as we want it to be for you alone, this is a perfect solution for you. So there's, I think it depends where people want to sit, you have to be aware where your audience is on that perfection scale? Are they wanting something which is going to be in every way tailored to their every need at every point along that line? Are they going to want to, I don't know, I can't think of a very beautiful car at the top end range of Porsche which is going to drive to perfection? Or are they happy just to get from A to B in a second-hand Mini Metro? What is perfection for them is perfection, the absolutely lovely, leather-clad steering wheel and you know, an oak-lined inside of their car? Or is it the fact that I've not had to walk from A to B, I can get in a car and drive? So I think perfection is one of those very, you have to make sure that what you think is perfection is what your audience think is perfection.

Sam Birkett 11:29
Definitely. Yeah and as you say, the other question I was saying about, you know, is this good enough for what, is the product, and the selling of the product good enough for your audience is really the thing, isn't it? And it's the fact that yeah, the Mini Metro kind of might be, this does what it needs to, I need to travel five days a week to the office and back and that's what I use that car for and it's reliable enough to do that. It's not sexy or exciting, but it's reliable and cheap. Whereas if it's then the same person, perhaps who then says it would be a rather interesting person, wouldn't it? You had a really good week, and then says, but I have my Porsche for Friday night and this is where I go off and I, you know, I cruise around all the local hotspots and that's when absolutely I have to look like the dogs proverbials and this is where that is correct, you know, it would not be correct, it was a very different type of space and my needs are different at that point and so it comes back to, I think, going all the way back even to internal processes, it goes as a marketer, it goes to understanding your market, doesn't it really? And what you need to be accomplishing for them as you make, absolutely correct point.

Sally Green 12:42
And can people afford perfection, you might be able to achieve perfection. But can people afford a beautifully leather-bound copy of this textbook? Are they prepared to put out that much money for that piece of perfection because sometimes people aren't. Perfection usually costs more, in lots of ways, and maybe your audience isn't prepared to pay that. So in every way you failed, you failed your audience, you failed yourself and your budget is now completely kaput.

Sam Birkett 13:15
Yeah, that's it, isn't it and, as you say, in terms of, I always use this phrase of, you know, cutting one's cloth, you have to cut a cloth accordingly to what we can do with it. It does come back to that whole, you know, whether a freelancer or a manager or director of a large marketing team, you've got to understand your budgets. As you say, you understand your market, you understand your budget, what you can do. So, yes, we could spend an entire year working with, you know, this very expensive agency to launch the most perfect, I've used that word again, it's not perfect, to use the most objectively perfect website in the world. But what does that fit the budget? Does it fit the resources? Does it fit the market? It's almost because I'm thinking about trying to Yeah, muse the solutions, I suppose. What we're effectively saying is that obviously, there's no perfect as this subjective construct doesn't really exist. But also, you know, there are consequences. There are requirements for you know... it depends what you're doing, going back to our Independence Podcast about all these things in marketing. It depends. Do you strive for a type of perfection or getting things ready to be right? Or do you go for more of a incremental testing, because that's the thing I would say again, about the good enough approach, which I haven't spoken enough about, which is, which is the idea of baking in the concept that yes, this isn't perfect right now, this isn't as good as we're gonna get it right now. But it will get better. We have to have that mindset of this will improve this will get closer towards where it needs to be bearing in mind the budgeting resources we have available to make it better. So that's a really important point to think about and it all comes down to that planning. and doesn't really suffer understanding what it is that...

Sally Green 15:03
Yeah, that's a really, really good point, I think, to reach perfection, you have to be prepared to sometimes go backwards. Sometimes they actually, this wasn't perfect, but I'm going to very happily walk back three steps, and set off again, and see whether we can make it better, because making something better is better than just saying, because it's not perfect, we're just going to stop, because we can't make it perfect, we'll just not bother at all. It should be okay, this isn't great. But we can definitely make it better. That's a better position to be in then just say, well, if we can't make it perfectly, what's the point?

Sam Birkett 15:38
Yeah, yeah, and again, it really is paying very close attention to the purposes why even more and more now, actually, and almost almost anything I do, I think if we're going to plan for for, I don't know, a webinar or some sort of campaign on social media, I just keep going back to the purpose and then just saying, you know, purpose and objectives and then what are we doing to measure if that's working or not, you know, I mean, and I know, it's always important, the absolutes of 101, effectively, but it's something that so often gets forgotten about and a lot of things come down to, you know, the more the just good enough approach can, the more negative way that can go can be where people just say, well, just we've just got to get, we've just got to, you know, get this done, get that out, do that, do that do that and you very rarely, particularly when I mean, as we know, most people are constrained in terms of budget and resources, it's usually time they don't have enough time and so you fall down this rabbit hole of, you know, just, you feel like you've been productive, you feel like you're getting a lot done, you're achieving a lot and yes, you're comfortable with the risk of doing stuff that isn't perfect isn't as good as it can be and you're happy to do improve in the future. But perhaps that future keeps moving out and you just keep on producing, producing, producing? And I mean, you'll quite quickly, obviously notice, weren't you in terms of, are you getting your customer or not? Are you getting your sales or not? And if you're not, then you can go? Ah, scratching your head, well, what why is that? It's because we just do, do, do, but we don't learn and that's where you're perhaps slipping up.

Sally Green 17:14
I think that's right. I think this is a good place for us to bring this round to a close in a way, because I think what we've said is that there is no perfection and that'll do is on occasion, okay. But actually where you need to be is, that'll do for now. Because I know that I'm still going to explore into the future. So we've got we've kind of moved along that from one pole to the other from the that'll do to perfection, perfection is not possible, that we'll do isn't right. But we're constantly moving along that path between that will do and perfection.

Sam Birkett 17:52
Yep, that's a very good point and it's a very nice way to sum it up really to say it's that fluidity of where these things are. So I suppose if we're talking to anybody out there who's thinking, Oh, well, where do I start with this, then? It's just it's asking ourselves those questions, isn't it about well, where are we on that current scale in terms of all the different things we do? And have we really thoroughly thought about, you know, can we go ahead and this sort of more agile approach? And are we asking the right questions of ourselves? Are we doing the analytics? Are we revisiting things in an appropriate way? Or are we sort of paralysed with this position of thinking we need to get strive this perfection? Question that perfection? What is it? Does it exist? We've already told you it doesn't exist, so get over it. But that's perhaps where people need to start asking. Yeah, I think there's probably more hidden submissions for the examples. There's always more.

Sally Green 18:43
There's always more, we will carry on talking about this kind of thing.

Sam Birkett 18:50
Yeah. Oh, sorry. I just lost you there for a moment. But I'm sure it's...

Sally Green 18:53
But what's what's ironic is that just as we're talking about perfection we're having because of my internet connection, we're having a very deeply imperfect podcast.

Sam Birkett 19:04
Well, that there you go, this is it. This is what we'd like to do. We'd like to sort of have, you know, the stars aligned to have a kind of summing up exactly where we are with this, but I think the fact that, you know, we have a good mindset of, you know, understanding this and be able to adapt and change, and we didn't talk about adapting did we. But anyway, as with all these things, it's a work in progress we will have to revisit...

Sally Green 19:29
Next time.

Sam Birkett 19:30
Exactly. Revisit next time and keep the conversation going as we will, but in the meantime. Yes. Thank you very much Sally. I hope everyone's enjoyed that. Just to let you know.

Sally Green 19:41
Tremendous.

Sam Birkett 19:46
I think there's a delay on the line. It's less like trying to talk to Stockholm to get the Eurovision results, isn't it? But I was just gonna say you can find us @meanderspod, you can email us meanderspod@gmail.com. We're also available on Facebook, so go to Facebook, look for meanderspod and Twitter we're also there as @meanderspod all one word. So yeah, please check us out and spread the word with your friends if you enjoyed our conversation, and we look forward to talking to you again as we have some new good interviews coming up actually with some very interesting people. So we hope to talk to you again that and yes, thank you very much, everyone. Thank you very much, Sally.

Sally Green 20:27
Bye bye.

Sam Birkett 20:28
Bye!