Getting into heads, hearts and cars

Ever had a good idea that comes from a mistake, misunderstanding or mishearing something?

Well, Jill Konrath (of SNAP Selling fame) gave an excellent and inspiring motivational talk at our 2012 Kickoff meeting held in Fort Lauderdale.  After her Rick Perry moment (she’d already talked on similar sorts of faux pas in her blog), she referred to the; “‘Malvern Maximizer’ – or whatever it is you make.”  I instantly copyrighted (or is it trademarked?) this new product in my head before she would get a chance to seize on her flash of brilliance…

Now the ‘Maximizer’ does say what our Mastersizer actually does; maximizes use of time, resources, material leading to maximum profitability…  It challenges and changes the status quo in manufacturing and quality control.  Conversely Mastersizer also minimizes wastage and possible poor product.  So, should we be working on a new product or campaign for the Malvern Maximizer?!

A further amusing moment occurred a little later.  I’d been reading one of Jill’s handouts that mentioned ‘getting into the customer’s head’.  I talked this over with Jill in the break and I stated that we actually needed to get into the customers’ hearts.  She agreed.  Over lunch I was relating this moment to one of our team and talked about getting into the customer’s heart.

“Getting into the customer’s car?” he said, “I don’t understand”…