June 2010

Jeffrey Hayzlett is a big, boisterous, pickup truck drivin’, pheasant hunting, South Dakotan cowboy. Part time. Most of the time, he is one of the most successful and well-known marketers in the country, having spent the last four years as the Chief Marketing Officer of Kodak. Hailed as a “celebrity CMO,” you might recognize him from his appearances on The Apprentice . And now he is an author, too, of the recently released business book, The Mirror Test , already in its second printing. We sat down recently to talk about the state of marketing, the state of South Dakota, and the best way to eat pheasant. Robert Rosenthal: Talk about the importance of ‘marketing’ in business today. Jeffrey Hayzlett: It all comes down to one thing: sales. The impact on growing the bottom line of your business. They say in good times advertise and in bad times advertise more — that couldn’t be more true today. Marketing should exist to grow sales and with that comes satisfied customers and greater margins. But let me add one thing: marketing “buzz” is not sales. When people talk to me about buzz, I tell them to buzz their way right out the door. Without specific sales expectations attached, buzz is like a whoopee cushion: a joke that has all the noise and none of the consequences of the real thing. RR: What is the impact of social media on marketing today? JH: In the broadest and briefest stroke possible: speed. Thanks to social networks and technological advances, information can be delivered and feedback can happen from any device, almost anywhere and at any time. But speed is nothing without relevancy. Your messages will never have a chance of getting through and be well received unless they are relevant to the customer or the community you are marketing or responding to. RR: How is that achieved? JH: In social media, relationships matter and those relationships must be maintained with relevant messages that are communicated regularly and authentically. But this is hard work to maintain. A lot of businesses think speed means easy. Not so. Social media is not exercise. You should not do it moderately. You need to drive it, set the tone, and support it or it will cost you more than money. Today if a company is not doing this to engage its customers and team it will fail to keep growing and die. RR: Speaking of speed, talk about the “118″ you write about in The Mirror Test. JH: The “118″ is my version of what some people still call “the elevator pitch.” Problem is that time used to mean three to five minutes. Now, an average elevator ride is about two minutes. But you only have seconds before I tune you out and maybe two minutes after that to completely sell me with your initial pitch. That’s where I came up with the 118. It’s the 118 seconds you actually have to pitch: 8 compelling seconds to hook me and up to 110 seconds to drive it home — less than two minutes with only seconds to spare. The first eight seconds is the length of time the average human can concentrate on something and not lose some focus. It is also the length of time of one of the toughest rides in the world: a qualified ride in professional bull riding. You must hold on as one of the meanest, toughest animals in the world tries to throw you off — just like any good prospect will. And if you make it those 8 seconds, I’ll give you 110 more to drive your message home with no bull. But please: No 30-page PowerPoints. If Moses could present the commandments in two slides, five bullet points each, you can do the same thing with yours. – Jeff Hayzlett RR: Did you learn more from running your own small business or from working at a Fortune 500 company? JH: Both. I’m not trying to be a smartass. I learned the core tenets of the things that were good for business in a small business. I learned the scale at a company like Kodak. I describe it in The Mirror Test , as “just zeroes.” The things that are good in big business are good in small business. There’s just a lot more of them. I learned better techniques and more sophistication in the bigger business and for that I’m very grateful. RR: Like you, I’ve traveled the world and have friends on every continent except Antarctica, but I don’t know anyone from South Dakota. JH: That happens a lot. Now you can say, “I know Jeff.” And that’s the way South Dakota is, that’s what really cool. I will be in England and all of sudden I’ll run into somebody for the first time and they’ll say, “oh, I know this person from South Dakota,” and they’ll tell me and I know who they are. That’s the kind of state that we live in. RR: How did growing up there inform your life experience? JH: A lot of my directness came from that. RR: It’s a very direct place? JH: Well, it’s a very polite place; but we’re really honest and everybody knows everybody and everybody’s business. Ok, I take it a step further and say, we know it, let’s just quit hiding it behind the counter and let’s talk about it. You all know that this guy is the smart guy and that guy isn’t and this guy is the rich guy… let’s not make believe we’re all the same because we’re not all the same. So I think there’s a real directness in South Dakota. It’s a populist state. That’s where the populist movement came from back in the late 1800′s. So it’s a big part of who we are. RR: I don’t see a lot of directness in corporate America today. I don’t know if we’re afraid of it, or for what reason we shun it, but it’s not a part of how companies behave. JH: Well, most companies try to avoid it because directness can cause them liability. So they look at it from a constriction point rather than an expansion point. Growth companies look at those things as an expansion point. With very big growth companies and growth cultures, you see a lot more of that. It’s like a high performance football team. A quarterback should say to the guard, “You missed the block.” We all know he missed his block. Why do we come back to the huddle and not talk about it. Instead, it should be, “Hit that guy next time.” RR: One of the consequences of social media is that, in effect, it forces more directness. JH: Oh, without question. I think because of the nature of the microscope that we live in, everything has become so public. You have to be concerned with what your brand looks like in this very transparent culture. But, if you don’t have something real at the core, then it really doesn’t matter, and that will be exposed very quickly. RR: For example… JH: You can be Apple, but unless you create a really cool product, then you can’t sell it. They happen to have cool products and they sell them at a premium. At one time, it wasn’t that way. And all companies go through that cycle. And that’s one of the key points: I always find companies are real successful when they go back to the core of who they are. RR: What do you want your legacy to be? JH: He was a good person. He helped. He contributed in some way. He’s a valuable member of the team. RR: What trait do you most admire in a person? JH: Openness. Awareness. Receptive to things. RR: What is the best way to prepare pheasant? JH: My favorite is what I call South Dakota Sweet & Sour . Start with pheasant breasts and cut them into thin strips, the smaller the better I think. Dip them in eggs, then coat them with seasoned flour and bread crumbs (or just flour will do) then fry them up just like chicken. I prefer peanut oil myself, but any will work. When done coat them with this special gourmet sweet and sour sauce… ketchup, vinegar, and sugar in equal parts. Take a cup of each and mix together and heat. You can adjust the amounts to your taste, but equal parts of each ingredient is best. Mix and heat then pour it over the fried fowl and you have a great appetizer or serve it up with some rice. Seriously good. RR: Let’s play name association. RR: Trump JH: Driven RR: Lady Gaga JH: Artistic RR: Rush Limbaugh JH: Loud RR: Ann Coulter JH: Shrill RR: Martha Stewart JH: Conglomerate RR: Seth Godin JH: Quirky RR: Ashton Kutcher JH: Cool RR: Steve Jobs JH: Vision RR: What’s your favorite meal? JH: Bone-in rib eye steak, medium rare, salad, and potato. And diet Mountain Dew. I could have that every night. (Note: If his wife is reading this, perhaps I mis-heard. He might have said grilled chicken and steamed vegetables.) RR: You have a motto? JH: Jump off the cliff. No one’s gonna die. RR: What talent would you most like to have? JH: Music. I have no rhythm. I wish I did. I’d be the first one voted off on Dancing With The Stars . Actually, Dance Your Ass Off would be more appropriate. RR: Why buy your new book? What do you hope readers get? JH: Practical advice about asking the key questions you need to survive and thrive in your business. RR: What do you know for sure? JH: That I don’t know what I don’t know. Here’s a link to Jeffrey Hayzlett’s book, The Mirror Test .