Below is an embedded video from YouTube. The link has been circulating for a little while now, but it is quickly picking up steam. Maybe it’s the message of hope that we all need to hear so badly in these trying times. Maybe it’s the daedal presentation. Maybe it’s another sign that social media brings millions of people together. Anyway, watch and enjoy.
Almost three years ago, the stock market was raging forward, consumers were buying their second and third homes, waiters were being tipped 25-35%, and people were thinking their next raise was on the horizon. People were fearless.
Then the market tanked. Jobs were lost. Goods went unsold. And businesses clamped down. Heck, even major media companies began to collapse like an opera singer at a Cardinals baseball game in late August.
What changed to create such a pother in the markets? I think it was caused by consumers coming face-to-face with their fears.
Everyone heard stories about business struggling, neighbors losing their jobs and even their homes, and retirees running out of their investments, causing just about everyone to analyze their own situations to determine what they would do, “just in case”. So just about everyone tightened their belts to wait it out, watching every report they could find and researching every bit of gossip they heard that could help them determine the future.
This isn’t right, is it?
The stock market to me isn’t a barometer of a company’s or industry’s worth. Rather, it’s a barometer of the country’s overall fear level. In good times, we buy into almost anything, regardless of whether it’s worth it. And in bad times, we flee. For proof, look at what happened to the stock market over the past three years. Did those companies really lose half their value because they no longer provided a good product or service? Hardly. They lost because people sold their stock in droves, plain and simple. And the more people sold, the more others became worried to the point that they sold their shares as well. And the spiral downward continued.
Funny, but that’s not how anyone is taught to play the stocks. You buy low and sell high. Mr. Potter, in the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”, made this really clear way back in the late 1940’s movie when he chastised those in Bedford Falls for “losing their heads” and selling things for pennies on the dollar out of fear, while only George Bailey and Mr. Potter himself were smart enough to stay calm and buy things knowing that the time was right. Years later, Potter owned most of the city while everyone else tried to figure out why they had so much less.
The thing is, none of this will change while people have fear. You can reduce your prices by 50% and still not sell. That’s because fear causes paralysis.
But this is nothing new to a good salesperson. Fear is the number one reason people do not buy (of those who can). What’s more, fear is the number one reason people cancel an order after making it. This behavior is so well known that there’s a name for it — “buyer’s remorse”.
So what’s an advertiser to do?
First, deal with it and stop trying to provide solutions that don’t alleviate the market’s fears (50% off sales enforce our fears). Understand that some people do not want to buy your homes, or products or services simply because they fear it will be the wrong decision and will cause them some major discomfort. After all, most people simply don’t want to be afraid. So regardless of how good your product is or how much the price has been reduced, or how “safe” purchasing it is, you won’t sell a thing to a market that fears making the wrong decision.
So get rid of their fear by making a purchase from you the “right” decision.
Since times have changed dramatically, so must your advertising. Fear is eliminated by knowledge, so you need to help people understand why they should not fear purchasing from you. But since this cannot be accomplished in ads alone, look for your advertising to build relationships with people so you can communicate more often with them. Get them to sign up for eblasts, tweets, etc. And then educate them, over and over again.
For example, potential new home buyers lament that they cannot buy now because they won’t get enough out of their current home if they sell it now. While that fear might be real in terms of their ability to get a jumbo mortgage, most people simply believe their current home is worth more and don’t want to “foolishly” sell it for less than they believe they would have received a year or more ago. But that’s foolish, right? The home they are looking to buy is likely much lower in price as well. So the two kind of cancel each other out, right? Plus, with mortgage rates still very low, a new home buyer might only see an increase of $500 or so in their mortgage now if they’re buying a bigger home. That’s likely less of an increase than it would have been a year or two ago. And an increase of $6,000 per year is little when weighed against the advantages of having a bigger, nicer home for the family.
But how do you get these fearful people off the couch?
Play to their fears, of course.
Homeowners now know they must pay their mortgage, and what troubles them is the fear that they won’t be able to in the future. Some should be worried, but not all (a simply pre-qualification form can separate the groups). For those who can buy, can their misguided fear of not being able to afford the home be overwhelmed by the fear of living their lives in less than desirable surroundings? Don’t people still want to chase their dreams? Don’t people still want to “keep up with the Jones’”?
I say yes, but remember consumers are sissies. I believe these consumers have to know that others like them have taken the plunge too. They have to see that the Joneses are alive and well and that their real fear is that they’re not living up to their own potential. And they must have more fear of their current condition than they do of moving to a new home.
So scare them, in a good way.
When your advertising generates relationship building email address, use them often. Pepper these potential customers with testimonials from your current customers frequently. Let your customers tell others why they should “take the plunge”. Let your customers tell others that they should have no fear. And let them tell others in eblasts, on blogs and in the “comments” section of news stories.
After all, we’re all sissies looking for someone to tell us everything is okay before we make a decision. So tell us all is well, over and over again. And then over and over again.
Next thing you know, everyone will be fearless and, with any luck, we can return back to a more manageable version of 2006.
CollegeHumor.com just posted an original video about Microsoft’s new “Discovery Engine” — and a possible reason why it may not catch on.
Sadly Michael Jackson died last afternoon. Where did people go to find breaking news information? Far and away the sources were Twitter and TMZ. Twitscoop posted this incredible video of the trending topics cloud.
But wait, wait, wait — before we all talk about the irrelevancy of mainstream media and how most people found out about Michael Jackson dying via Twitter, Facebook (likely because many people let their Twitter accounts update their Facebook status) and TMZ — lets not forget something very important: fact checking.
Fact: Mainstream media indeed is becoming irrelevant as a source for breaking news. However, despite some huge enormous blunders, mainstream media really does a decent job every day of making sure the stories they run are correct. And while early reports of Michael’s death were reported correctly with new media it also could have been a false alarm. Last night Jeff Goldblum was also reported dead (he’s not) and Harrison Ford had been lost at sea (he is not) and earlier this week that Patrick Swayze passed away (not yet). Those stories didn’t go far though. It is the mainstream media outlets that help the smart people who use social media to cull out rumors from garbage.
It seems like there are two camps, and I sit squarely in the middle. In the first camp are those like TechCrunch, who run an excellent blog, but like to self-servingly point out how mainstream media is a bitter and crabby old geezer who needs to defend themselves against their own demise. (Actually, the Chicago Tribune quickly gave themselves a largely unjustified pat-on-the-back by defending their sister paper for doing the “heavy lifting” on the Jackson story yesterday.) Both new media and old are complaining about each other without naming names.
In the second camp are those who almost have to wipe the foam from their mouths as they talk about how they hate new media, calling it at worst dangerous and at best silly.
Personally, I think there is a place for both in this world. We are all currently scrambling to define the roles of each, but the key thing I think everyone should remember is that I don’t think the dust will settle on this for a long, long time. Printed and traditional mainstream media is still extremely valuable. New media and social media serve the purpose of getting breaking news out to many people quicker than anything ever before. It’s all just media, whatever form it comes in and both will continue to evolve for years to come. Let’s all play nice together as best as possible.
Huge lecture halls are a waste of space. Forget lugging expensive, heavy textbooks around. Sleep in: your old 8am class is now online. We’re all very aware of how technology is rapidly changing big media and the way information is disseminated. Since information is essentially education, what we learn from media may apply to colleges and universities as well. It comes down to this bellwether: if big name (big brand) universities do not adapt then smaller ones will come up from behind to take the lead, or at least diminish their larger rival’s perceived value — exactly like blogs and social media has done for mainstream media.
It’s no secret or surprise that universities need to reinvent themselves, as big mainstream media is doing now. The true answer must involve more than just providing recorded lectures as podcasts and administering online exams — just as the answer for big media involves more than just uploading their content to a website. Of course, certain classes like labs and others that require hands-on and face-to-face interaction will always need a physical room and location. There will always be professors and teachers. In that way, our image of a university and college will never change. But the ways in which students are reached — and more importantly, the way students learn — must evolve.
If you are in education, do not fear. Universities will always make money. These changes I’m talking about are about adapting, not obsolescence. People will always need college credits and diplomas. Universities will always be a place for research, invention and intellectual growth. In other words, universities will always have customers.
The days are already gone when information originates from a single source (whether that be a newspaper, magazine or TV) and is sent out to the masses. Now news comes from The People. News outlets are scooped by Twitter. Blogs can have equal footing with a national magazine. The question is: how will this affect learning on the collegiate level. I’m not sure anyone has the answer yet.
Last fall, as the leaves turned bright colors on a crisp fall day and students walked across quads all over America, David Wiley, a Brigham Young University professor of Psychology and Instructional Technology, stood up before a room full of administrators and professors with a dire prediction: “Your institutions will be irrelevant by 2020.” That’s a tough message to swallow.
Access to first-rate information in the form of digital media, video lectures, and audio is becoming more and more available. Of course, it wasn’t always that way. When I was young and had a question my parents couldn’t answer, they directed me to our home set of Encyclopedia Britannica’s, complete with Year Book updates. The well-used burgundy books still line the shelves in my childhood home’s library. These days I never consult an encyclopedia as a first source for information, and I doubt if you do either. When I have a question the answer is always in my pocket on my iPhone or on a nearby computer, only seconds away. Accurate answers (Yes. Highly accurate answers, despite what some well-intentioned but skeptical Luddites may have you think) exist on websites and in videos and audio files and are not limited to a few elite sources.
What if in the future all information is free? That’s not such a radical or dangerous concept. Textbooks could be replaced with digital information that is able to be updated quickly and inexpensively. Professors assign links instead of chapters for reading. Professors would be published in professionally edited, copyleft, searchable and peer-reviewed online magazines funded by tuition and advertising. A “class” may be made up of students from across the world instead of just 30-60 who walk into a classroom or lecture hall. Collaboration and the sharing of knowledge will happen faster. Answers to simpler questions will be available easier, leaving time and energy for deeper examination. Wiley has even taught classes where students complete their homework in blogs that are open for anyone to read. Professors will serve in the same way they do now, as guides and stewards of scholarship. The key change will be the scope of information that professors will be able to access and lead their students to will be practically infinite.
In addition to the new pathways for information distribution there is also a more basic problem with colleges and universities. Education has become far too expensive for most families and many carry student loan debt well into their professional lives. Parents either have to save, starting at the birth of their children, to pay for college or they need to take out loans so large that may eclipse the cost of their home. Not only that, college tuition is still expected to increase at 7% a year. That’s not a formula for continued success and is doomed to collapse just like an overinflated housing market.
Change is happening, established models are transforming and history is being written at a seemingly faster rate than ever before. Universities are now faced with a unique challenge: they need to become students themselves and recreate their own business model.