In some respects, we’re all looking for people to invest in us either professionally or personally. As an individual, we hope that people we like (or are related to )will spend some of their time with us. We might even be lucky enough to have those close to us invest monetarily in our futures or in our everyday lives. The same is true professionally. Essentially, we want people (i.e. our customers) to spend some of their scarce resources (time and money) on us-to listen to what we have to say and invest in what it is we have to offer.

Now more than ever, both time and money are at a premium for most of us, which means we’re cautious investors at best. Why then do so many organizations fail to appropriately woo prospects and customers ? Instead of trying to connect authentically, companies hide behind websites where content is severely dated and contact information is buried or nonexistent; they strip people at the point of actual potential investor contact of dignity and empowerment; they take short-term profit over long-term stability; and then they wonder why ‘marketing’ doesn’t work. The truth is, marketing only works when it’s part of a larger system of interactions that build positively on an organization’s reputation and character.  Marketing only works when management is engaged in the process of providing true value to its investors and not using it as a means to a short-sighted, self-serving end.

If you’re looking for more investors and/or higher returns for your own business, perhaps you should review your own investments and your investor relations strategy.

Around here, we like Seth Godin quite a bit. Although he sometimes points out the obvious, he does it in such a way that you actually feel enlightened when you read his stuff.

His latest blog post http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/seen-it-all-bef.html , is again, pretty much common sense–if you stop to think about it. The trouble is, a lot of us don’t stop and think about who we’re trying to reach…instead a lot of time is spent thinking about how we’re going to reach our audience. The focus is on tactics instead of targets. We think it should be the other way around. After all, as Seth says, “Your audience isn’t as homogeneous as it used to be.”

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/seen-it-all-bef.html