Even though I am 46 years old and live 1500 miles away from my Dad, not a week goes by when I don’t hear his voice in my head telling one of his many stories about business, marketing or management. We still talk weekly, but I am most often reminded of these stories when I’m working with clients or reading the news. My family knows these stories by their headlines; he can say just a few words and get a big laugh.

Jim Head is my Dad. Apparently, he gained a lot of wisdom in his 30 years as an advertising executive in Chicago. When I was younger, I thought his stories were just funny and interesting. The older I get, the more I see the wisdom in the punch lines (after I stop laughing).

Here are a few of his best one-liners that make me smile the most:

The freak show is never in the main tent

In the circus, the main attractions play in the big top to the big crowds. The obscure and unworthy attractions, like the freak show, will never make it to the main tent no matter how hard they try. This one-line zinger applies to the politician who thinks that being unusual is going to help her win an election and to the chronic entrepreneur who keeps dreaming up new ideas that will never fit their core business.

Most organizations have one core and important “main tent” for their business — and plenty of freak shows. Are you playing in the main tent?  I certainly hope so.

There’s always someone who doesn’t get the message

Experienced CEOs and marketers know how hard it is to get your message across to everyone in a large group. This is never accomplished with just single press release, advertisement or blog post.

This one is also known in my family as, “not everyone gets the memo.” In big companies, getting the message across to the front lines (and back again) is often one of the top challenges — sometimes harder than communicating with customers. No matter what you do, there are always 10% of the people who never get the message. Jay Leno’s man on the street interviews are closer to reality than most leaders know.

Don’t be the last to get the message. People will make fun of you.

Nobody ever explained it to me like that before

As the story goes, Dad took over responsibility for a problem employee – a salesman who hadn’t made his numbers for a long time, but nobody had done anything about it. At their first meeting, he explained politely to the salesman that if he didn’t make his numbers this quarter he would have to let him go. The salesman appreciated the clarity and responded, “Nobody ever explained it to me like that before.”

Maybe the expectations you have for your employees or children are not as clearly “explained” as you think. And sometimes the message is clear but not really received. It takes two people to communicate. Just ask my wife – sometimes I need to be “’splained” for me to really get it.

Thanks for the witty advice, Dad. I remembered at least a few of your useful one-liners. :)

Last month I took the plunge and got an Apple iPhone 3GS. Since then, my personal and business friends have been asking me about my iPhone experience to see how I like it. Many Blackberry users that I know are openly considering the iPhone.

“How will a Blackberry user like it?” “How is the AT&T service?” “How is the typing?”

I upgraded from my trusty Palm Treo 700 to the iconic iPhone in one step. Apparently this is newsworthy, like my Buick-driving Dad showing up in a hot red convertible Corvette. Maybe my buddies are asking me how I like the iPhone because I’m not one of those trendy cool people that buys every new product from Apple. (I have never personally owned an iPod or ever had white earphones dangling from my head.)

So, how does an older, less trendy, business user like the iPhone? Here’s my experience to help you make the right smartphone choice.

How is the AT&T service?
AT&T’s legendary inconsistent cell coverage was the main reason I didn’t consider the iPhone earlier. We have all heard complaints from angry AT&T customers about poor coverage and dropped calls. But in the last few months I began hearing more “it’s better now” comments from more iPhone users. Could this be true?

I can say that the coverage around the metro Phoenix area (and visits to Long Island and New York City) has been just fine so far. I actually get better coverage at my house than I did with Verizon. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona, in a flat-ish suburban area, not on the side of a mountain or far out in the boonies, so I can’t speak for the coverage in fringe areas of Phoenix or in your particular city.

How is typing on an iPhone?
For ten years I have used smartphones with QWERTY keypads that have individual physical keys. I was skeptical of my ability to type well on the iPhone touchscreen keyboard.

Surprisingly, I actually found typing on the iPhone to be easy and reasonably accurate. I use the pop-up letters to confirm that my finger has found the right letter. After one day, I was typing as fast as I did on my Treo or Blackberry. Soon enough I’ll be typing faster.  I didn’t expect that.

Are the “apps” really that cool?

Yes, iPhone applications are elegant, functional, fast – and connected to the Internet. That’s the point of the iPhone — it’s a great Web device with a phone in it. There are thousands of useful apps, and we’re still at the beginning of the iPhone application groundswell.

I set up my iPhone with two email accounts and ten additional apps in two hours without reading the manual. I was doing those slick finger-swooshing demos of my iPhone apps (like you see on TV) after one week. Like other Apple products, it feels great and is fun to use.

Why shouldn’t you get an iPhone?

No device is perfect for everyone. Here are a few reasons to stay with your current phone.

• If you are a corporate warrior who lives and dies by email, you should stick with fastest and most secure email device on the planet – the RIM Blackberry. The iPhone just isn’t as fast and powerful for ripping through email as the Blackberry. (This is partly because you are so used to your Blackberry. I just don’t want to hear you complain as you relearn your speed-freak mail habits on a new device.)
• If you are a power phone user and efficient text typist, you should probably stick with a phone optimized for just that. I don’t think the iPhone is the best phone ever, but it is the best phone/mail/apps/web device on the planet.
• If you live in an area that doesn’t have acceptable AT&T coverage, you’ll have to wait until another phone carrier partners with Apple. I didn’t see that happening in the next 6 months, so I switched from Verizon.
• If you don’t care that “there’s an app for that,” then you can probably live with the phone you have that is just a phone.
• If you don’t want to use what everyone else is using, get a Palm Pre. Nobody appears to be using that. (Sorry, Palm.)

What do I like about the iPhone?
OK, the fun part.  Here’s what the iPhone does for me:

For the first time, I have a slick, useful version of all my most-used applications, news sites, and browser bookmarks in my pocket that I can use anytime and (almost) anywhere. I can do about 50% of what I do on my laptop on my iPhone. That’s a big deal. (My Treo was around 20% of my laptop function.)

I can now envision traveling without my laptop. If I don’t need to launch Microsoft Office applications, write a lot, or spend a lot of time in a browser, I can do most everything else pretty well on the iPhone. Most of my applications are Web-based or Web-connected anyway, so it’s just another way of accessing my stuff that’s “in the cloud.”

I actually enjoy reading on the iPhone, too. I can see a day when all newspapers, magazines, and books will be available on this type of device. The iPhone Web browser is fast enough and easy to navigate, but it’s not a true full-screen browser.  The maps, iPod music, games and other fun stuff are very cool.

Some Quirks

• The iPhone doesn’t support multiple email signatures, even if you have several email accounts.
• Switching between email accounts to check multiple inboxes is a lot of “clicks” and gets pretty tedious. This is a one button action on most email-enabled phones, but the iPhone interface consistently brings you back to the screen you last viewed. There is just more maneuvering to get mail.
• It’s really expensive if you drop it.  This is not your old phone – it costs $400-600 to replace it if you break the screen. This explains why you see most iPhones protected by an ugly plastic cover.

Sorry, there is nothing new in this review for all you iPhone early adopters, but this is still an important time in the life of the device in the big picture. Most Apple fans already have iPhones, but the really big market is all the rest who don’t. Those people are on the other side asking, “Is it OK to move from my Blackberry or other phone?” For me, it was.

What this review really describes is how the iPhone is successfully “crossing the chasm” to the mainstream market. I think this will be an even bigger phenomenon next year.

Even if you don’t buy an iPhone, it might just be a good time to buy Apple stock.

iPhone users – What do you like and dislike most about the device?

One of the hardest things for entrepreneurs to tackle is the definition of their core business “positioning.” Positioning is known by many names – your focus, your marketing strategy, your elevator pitch, your business description. This description answers these questions:  What business are you in?  Who are your customers? What unique value do you offer them?

Sure, you may be selling your products and services already without a formal strategy, but until you can distill “what business you are in” in a clear and compelling way, you will always struggle to create awareness and interest in the marketplace beyond your long-winded sales force. Without this clarity you will struggle to get the word out, whether you have money to spend on marketing or whether you are relying on cheaper bootstrap sales and marketing tactics exploited on the web.

To the action-oriented startup CEO who is developing the next great business idea, building products and chasing customers (and funding), this can seem like a futile exercise.  Why spend time on creating a simple strategy statement when we have so much to do?

The answer is simple: Everyone who interacts with your business requires a simple and compelling understanding of what your business is and why they should care. This includes your customers, prospects, employees, investors, partners, and suppliers.  All of us have a filter when we see something new and allow our brain to remember and use that information.  How do we all do this?  We simplify, we filter, we categorize.  If what you do can’t be understood quickly, at a minimum, it won’t stick in our minds, much less allow us to repeat it and spread of your story by word of mouth.

Having lived through several startups that have grown into big businesses in now-mature industries, I can tell you that as you grow something very surprising happens. In the beginning your story sounds great, but it takes a 15-minute sales pitch with a presentation and a demo for others to “get it.” As the business grows and the market matures, the description and story actually get simpler, not more complicated.

Think about it. You can imagine what wonderful words were written in the business plans of tech giants Google, Microsoft, Dell, Amazon, YouTube, Apple or whatever tech or non-tech success story you know. Now we associate them in our minds with a single word or two:

Google = web search
Microsoft = PC software
Dell = business PCs
Apple = great consumer devices
Amazon = online books (online stuff)

These words are really “positions” in our minds.  This idea was defined and popularized by Al Ries and Jack Trout 30 years ago in their book “Positioning:  The Battle for Your Mind.”  They have also individually written great books about Focus and Simplicity and many others have covered this topic.

Although much has changed in the tactics of marketing since then, not much has changed in how our minds work.  What was the simple message of Barack Obama’s campaign in his successful election?  Change.

The simpler the idea, the bigger it usually is — and the harder it is to develop and to conquer in minds of the market.

Take this test.  Write down the names of 10 successful businesses in any industry.  Can you easily write down the simple words they “own” in your mind?  I bet you can.

How simple is your story?

Welcome to the New Avenue blog. The goal of this blog is to share insights about marketing strategy to help entrepreneurs and business owners to understand and be successful with their marketing efforts.

The biggest problem I see in ambitious startups and small businesses is not a lack of money, but the lack of strategic marketing foundation that is required to execute well, to convert customers efficiently and to build a brand. Before you decide whether to webcast, e-mail, hire a new salesperson, advertise, blog or change your website again, business leaders need to tackle the bigger questions and decisions at the core of their business.

Fortunately, many of the current ways to build awareness and convert customers do not require big ad budgets or lots of money. Many companies have succeeded without advertising or marketing program spending at all, including new giants like Google, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace.

This doesn’t mean that new Web 2.0 companies do not have a marketing strategy, do nor does it mean they aren’t doing “marketing” any more than other traditional businesses. They are just doing it in different ways using new tactics that are right for them.

Your marketing strategy is different than the tactical marketing plan that outlines what you are going to promote your business. Marketing strategy is part of your core business strategy. A sound strategic foundation is required to be successful and efficient what whatever marketing tactics you use.