Knowing where to hit
You may have heard this story, which helps to illustrate the value of expertise. There are probably several versions and it goes something like this:
There once was a grand ship that had a reputation for being the power in its waters due to its engine, which was the size of an apartment block and powerful enough to pull several of them over.
On one particular day, loaded up with goods and ready to cast off, the Captain gave orders to start the engine.
There was silence. Nothing happened.
The engine wouldn’t start. Not so much as a whimper.
Amongst the Captain’s many crew, none were able to get the engine started, despite spending most of the day crawling over and inspecting every aspect.
Loss of reputation and income building with each tick of the clock, the Captain tasked a crewmember to find someone who was skilled, experienced and successful at such matters.
Having found them, the crewmember made a call and the engine specialist, understanding the urgency, responded that as they were close by, they were able to come right over.
On arriving, they were shown to the huge engine room. The Captain and several of the crew briefed the specialist, before they started examining the engine more closely.
Watched on by the crew, the specialist walked slowly around the idle engine, all the while moving their eyes back and forth, up and down, surveying each and every part of the engine.
Occasionally, they’d reach forward and lay a hand across a part or surface, jiggle something as if to ensure tight connections and still other times they’d stand as far back as possible and pan their field of vision across the wider view they’d created in doing so.
Eventually, they walked back to a specific part of the engine and, reaching into a bag they’d brought with them, revealed a fairly stout hammer.
Taking a couple of steps forward, they touched a surface of the engine with their hand, moved aside a couple of steps and touched another part, looking down as if concentrating on something only they could feel or hear.
All at once they looked up, took stance with the hammer, targeted their eyes on a spot and with purposeful yet smooth action, swung and struck the spot with a precise, audible clang.
The crew jumped a little. The specialist leaned in and ran their hand over the spot once more, gave a confident nod, backed away and called for someone to start the engine.
Without hesitation it sparked into life, as loud, powerful and smooth as ever.
The Captain enthusiastically thanked the specialist for getting the ship back on the right track. They responded with a humble “you’re welcome; it’s what I do”, said they’d email an invoice the following day, and left.
The specialist had been on the ship for no longer than thirty minutes and with travel, their total time spent was no longer than an hour.
The following day, the Captain checked email to find the invoice and on opening it lost their jaw momentarily to the floor.
The invoice was for $100,000.
The Captain was outraged at the cost and replied, questioning the invoice and expressing a strong desire not to pay $100,000 for what amounted to an hour’s labour and a swing with a hammer, which any of the crew could’ve done (a point the Captain thought needed making, despite the fact that not 24 hours earlier, they hadn’t).
The specialist responded with a succinct, polite email that highlighted cost of labour – the hammer strike and travel – was $500.
As for the remaining $99,500, this was the value of years of training, knowledge and experience in knowing where to hit.
They also asked that if something similar happened again, despite knowing how to swing a hammer, would the crew be able to figure out where to hit it?
The Captain paid, and considered hiring the specialist more permanently.
The message in the story is that expertise is valuable, and that value is quantifiable.
Expertise is the practice of an expert and expert here means someone who’s a master in their craft (or are advancing towards it).
Someone who is informed by their training, qualifications, experience, successes, set backs and subsequent fine-tuning. They understand the nuances of each specific situation, gained through their experience in execution and can adapt.
Through these things, armed with adaptable skills and insight, they’re able to survey, assess and analyse a situation, problem or goal, in order to develop strategy that segments, targets, positions and executes towards the course of action that’ll impact most upon it.
Marketing, and all its related disciplines, is especially subject to the sort of scrutiny and suspicion displayed by the Captain in this story, when it comes to the intrinsic value it creates.
Unfortunately, much of it is of our own making.
Because we, as Marketers often fail to properly sell what Marketing exists to achieve, sell it short on the longer term impact side of the Marketing ledger, and be drawn blindly to following buzz trends and (usually) digital world promises of phenomenal reach, automation and efficiency like moths to a lamp, without appropriate respect and belief in a stand for imperatives like strategy, segmenting, targeting, brand positioning, focused execution and activation.
It’s often done in the pursuit of innovation, based on a lack of understanding in what innovation actually is, as well as a fear of being seen as “left behind” (or its opposite, equally poor, trail blazing without purpose) in the newness stakes by not jumping headfirst into the Next Big Thing without figuring out if it’s right for the brand and strategy.
So, at risk of joining the chorus of Next Big Thing marketing predictions ensemble, if there is anything that I want to see change in 2019 (and for my own part have been banging on about for most of my own career), then it’s two points:
A collective move further in advance of improving perception and value in the basic bedrock of what skilled, qualified and experienced Marketers are able to achieve for brands and their businesses
Strategy first, assessment of the role of said Next Big Thing second.
Make a difference.