Marketing Strategy tends to focus heavily on planning the use of time. We ask questions such as:
- Where do we want to be in a year?
- What are the goals for the upcoming quarter?
- What are the prospective opportunities we are focused on this month?
- What meetings do you have scheduled this week?
- How is your schedule today?
These are valuable planning questions. They serve the important purpose of focusing our attention and energy on accomplishing goals. The old cliche is that “You plan your work, and you work your plan,” which is solid advice. Plans are great, but they are not enough. Plans live in the future. Life happens in the moment.
So many marketing opportunities are presented to us in an unplanned fashion. The chance meeting. The after hours phone call. The urgent customer issue. The opportunity to operate with integrity. The genuine smile. The helpful attitude. The thoughtful gesture. The extra minute spent truly, deeply listening to someone. Capitalizing on them requires mindful attention and a deep commitment to creating a remarkable experience. Creating a moment is about going beyond expectations, deviating from the norm, and doing something that makes a lasting impression. These things exist separate from the plan. Ironically, embracing them typically brings the plan to life in new, unexpected, and accelerated ways.
Special moments account for a very small percentage of life yet these same special moments account for almost all of our perceptions and enduring memories. Having a plan is important. At the center of that plan should be the idea of recognizing, creating, and capitalizing on unplanned moments.
Ask yourself how can you create memorable moments for your customers?
