Are You One Step in Front of Your Competition?

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Got HAL? I was reminded this week of an old story that once surfaced about the Heuristically programmed Algorithmic Computer (HAL) in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

The story suggests that HAL was so-named to indicate that he was one step ahead of IBM. Alphabetically “H” “A” “L” precede “I” “B” “M” by one letter. The author of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke denies this legend in his book “Lost Worlds of 2001.”

All the same; doesn’t it feel good to be one step ahead? Many marketers’ look for high powered analytics to provide that extra step; but that may not always work because in the customers’ algorithm, it often doesn’t matter.

Are you spending so much time, money and energy trying to predict customer behavior that you’re now lost in space? Today, customers’ actual experiences live in the public domain.

If your product – or service is bad, no amount of spin, marketing or branding will fix it. If your goal is to build a high-performance brand through a differentiated customer experience you may need a new way of thinking, and a new discipline for getting things done.

In the book “Execution” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan the authors point out that a business’ culture defines what gets appreciated, respected, and ultimately rewarded. And the culture of an organization is the sum of its shared values, beliefs, and norms of behavior.

In short, to deliver a differentiated customer experience you may need to start with your organization’s ingrained beliefs concerning the customer and how to perfect the execution of your customer experience strategy.

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Alan See
Alan See is Principal and Chief Marketing Officer of CMO Temps, LLC. He is the American Marketing Association Marketer of the Year for Content Marketing and recognized as one of the "Top 50 Most Influential CMO's on Social Media" by Forbes. Alan is an active blogger and frequent presenter on topics that help organizations develop marketing strategies and sales initiatives to power profitable growth. Alan holds BBA and MBA degrees from Abilene Christian University.

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