I’m not a plant. I’m a customer.

There are times when you just want to be part of the view. And there are times when you want to be seen, and it shouldn't be that hard for a retail business to be able to differentiate the two.

There are those days when I go shopping on a mission, armed with a list and ready to fight the clock to make sure I get what I need in time for my next chore. And there are those days in which I just want to browse, look around and enjoy the surroundings. In either case, I have a basic expectation: that I will find what I want.

So when I go to big brand stores and am greeted with a discouraging “What is up?” or get no help at the cashier to switch a product that I found while waiting in line was defective, it baffles me! How do they survive? How have they gone that far? Do their employees understand the business’ vision? Do they connect to their founders’ goals? I usually write them a constructive letter, vowel not to return and spread the bad word. What do you do?

Peekaboo? Boo!

I have been hearing that nowadays people like to hide behind emails. Or even better, that email has the same effect of alcohol in some individuals, giving them the courage to say things they never would otherwise. Email seems to provide the braveness to confront the scary co-worker, to implement unpopular policies in the office, to ask the hot girl out, to tell your team that they suck. The list is endless. For the most part it doesn’t make people show their best side. Who hasn’t received an email that has made you want to scream “jerk” ?

Yes, you hear a lot now that emails are over. That Facebook, Twitter and whatever else is the way to go. But the reality is that when you want to talk about serious stuff at work or with friends and family, email is what you use. Not because I say so, but because it simply is.

So, going back to the peekaboo game with emails, I don’t know about you, but I think this is a very coward attitude and it actually generates the opposite effects of what the person sending the email expected. Instead of respect and buy-in, you usually get a set of rolling eyes and maybe an enemy. It’s seriously impossible not to look at some people’s emails without wondering whether or not you should even open it. They do become a joke and you can’t help it.

But there is something even worse than people hiding behind emails. It’s businesses hiding behind websites or other online tools. I have the personal protocol to not do business with any company that doesn’t have a working phone number listed on their website. Why? Because if they don’t want to talk to you it’s because they are trying to avoid dealing with their problems and a dissatisfied customer. All the experiences I had with companies like that turned out to be either rip-offs or true customer service nightmares. On the other hand, the companies that rule in online sales are the ones that want to talk to you and want to talk to you NOW. Take Amazon.com for example. You enter your phone number on their website under customer service and your phone rings immediately with a real person waiting to talk to you. I will shop there a thousand times.

This is the beauty of the online world and it’s been said a thousand times, it gives you a choice. You can ignore the “jerk” (sorry but saying this and thinking of some individuals makes me feel so much better!) who sends out the stupid emails with topics that should never be approached like that. You can ignore the businesses who don’t care about you. Even better, you can do what I’m doing and vent about them!

A six-hundred-page long plan and no one to read it.

It’s been interesting to watch all the buzz about Obama’s recovery plan and the fact that no one that I have seen be interviewed about it has said to have read every page of it. At first, it made me very uncomfortable, and then I started noticing that this might just be the fate of any plan.

Marketing planning is a crucial piece of a marketing campaign and worth every minute spent on it. But what happens once it’s finished? I almost want to say that no one reads it! Or no one reads the whole thing. However, does it really matter? Probably not. The important part of the marketing plan is its construction. The brainstorming sessions that take place, the time that is taken to think about what needs to be accomplished, how and when. Before these discussions happen, all the ideas about a product are extremely vague, even though we might believe that we know exactly what to do. It’s impressive how everything changes along the way. And this is the purpose of a plan. To allow ourselves and our team to think, take the time and get ready for action. Above all, it allows us to know what actions to take.

The plan then becomes a binder in a book shelf that you go back and open sometimes, look at the graphs and bullet points when you need some refference, and then close it again. What is important is that the key people involved in the project never forget the road map they created and are all on the same page. That they have the key points in slides, side notes, whatever works. That they get the buy-in from everyone they need. And that they know why they are doing what they are doing. One more important thing: keep it simple and short, which is different from obvious and empty!

So you think you can dance.

Every time someone asks me what I do and I say “marketing”, people seem very satisfied by the answer, so much so that they don’t ask me anything else. That always puzzles me because when I see the same interaction happen with professionals from other industries, the reactions are different and the conversations longer.

So, this is my theory. Marketing has sadly become an overused as well as misused word to define any sort of professional aspiration that some self-proclaimed creative people have. Although I do believe that the talent factor surpasses education and knowledge many times, I do think that there is a big, I mean big, difference between believing that you do marketing and really doing it. To be able to do one of the marketing mix’s components well doesn’t really mean being a marketer. No offense, but a lot of talented office managers and event coordinators out there can do that.

People often forget about the importance of tying all these components together , placing each of them in the best place, orchestrating their execution and being creative on the way they are used, and not only in the way they look. There is a significant difference between these two things. These sort of short-sided approaches to marketing explain why the term "marketing" sounds like a straight forward, easy to understand concept to anyone. In a way, this is a great way to market marketing! The more comfortable everyone feels about it, the more likely they are to be open to it. On the other hand, this also explains why so many CEOs and CFOs are skeptical, not to say scared, about marketing. Sometimes, I am too!

I am now finally able to understand – but not accept – why some clients, CEOs or CFOS come up with this reaction: “ Ok, fine. I will approve the budget you are asking for, but if this doesn’t work, it will be the last time”. Yes, I do hate this type of non-committal and set-up to failure buy-in, but when I see a lot of the so called marketing activities out there, I can’t stop but think that had I been in their shoes, I might have done the same. It might have been easier to just say, watch the show “so you think you can dance” and see how some individuals are really dancing and some just aren’t.