Over the extended holiday weekend I had the chance to watch my favorite Clint Eastwood western of all time, The Outlaw Josey Wales. If you haven't seen it, let me encourage you to watch it, it really is a fantastic story about the ravages that the Civil War visted upon our country, not just during the war but for years after it was over. The one thing that struck me was, although I certainly remembered all of the excellent action sequences, I had forgotten how much humor Eastwood managed to inject into the film. Little moments of levity that broke up some of the intensity and grisly reality in just the right places at the right times. One of the best characters for accomplishing this was Lone Watie, the aging indian played wonderfully as a counterpoint to Josey Wales' hardened warrior, by Chief Dan George. Watie has some of the best lines in the movie, bar none, when it came to great "blink-and-you-miss-it" one liners that even had to make the revenge driven Wales smile.
In one instance, a carpetbagger that has shown up at various points of the film, is trying to foist his snake oil on what he considers country rubes in a small, desolate town and he is working his marketing magic with lines not that far off from what you experience today on infomercials all across the country. All in the same breath he would tell people that his tonic is good for everything from curing human ails to cleaning clothes and homes. As he is making his pitch along walks Lone Watie, who has come to town with Josey Wales to get supplies, and a great exchange takes place:
Carpetbagger: "Say, you're an Indian aren't you? You speak any English?"
Lone Watie: (Nods)
Carpetbagger: (Indicates tonic) "Well, sir, this is the very best thing for those who can't handle their liquor!"
Lone Watie: "What's in it?"
Carpetbagger: "I don't know. Various things. I'm only the salesmen."
Lone Watie: "You drink it."
Carpetbagger: "What's that?"
Lone Watie: "You drink it."
Carpetbagger: (Taken back turns to the crowd) "What can you expect from a non-believer?"
The moment is played with dry perfection by Chief Dan George, and it made me chuckle for a number of reasons, not the least of which is a modern day application that sprung to mind.
As a full service marketing firm, Xapsis Integrated Marketing seems often to be caught between serving our clients to the best of our abilities, with the latest in technology, and treating ourselves as clients and applying those same technologies and strategies to our OWN marketing. It's most often a question of time, as we spend the bulk of it taking care of our clients needs, at times to the expense of our own. It's a tension many young, but growing, companies experience.
We would be just as disingenuous as the carpetbagger trying to sell tonic to people that he has never even tried himself, in point of fact has no idea what it is, if we would continue to go around and talk to people about signing on as a client for cutting edge, state of the art marketing strategies and applications that we don't ever use ourselves. As fast as we are growing we are making a very concious attempt to "drink" our own medicine and see how we can leverage the exact same tools that we talk to our clients about. At the very least we want to know what's in it, so we know how it works.
You may be thinking right now, "So what? What does this have to do with my business?". Those are fair questions.
At Xapsis we are passionate about assisting our clients to promote and market their businesses, grow their companies, expand their market share, increase their bottom lines and then hopefully be able to employ more people so that everyone wins. In order to do that we pay very close attention to to what our client's needs and goals are, what they are trying to accomplish, and then make recommedations or develop strategies that we believe will be the best choice to attaining those goals. We don't gamble with our client's money, we want to give the best advice and do the best job we possibly can, everytime.
To that end we avoid recommending something that we ourselves wouldn't ever subscribe for our own company. Now certainly every business is different, as is every target market segment for those businesses goods and services, but even with that in mind we try to do due dilligence research on strategies, techniques and tools that have a proven track record. We incorporate many of these things into our own marketing mix so that if and when people ask, "What's in it?" we can answer confidently that we drink it ourselves, or at least know what's in it and how it works. When we discover new "tonics", because as I said a few weeks ago we are always learning more and more as technology races ahead, we investigate the ingredients as much as possible so we understand it and feel good about WHO it would work best for and HOW it would work for them practically. All reasons why you can trust Xapsis with your marketing dollars, and feel good about who we are and how we would handle your company.
If you are going to work with a company or buy a service or good, you want to know that the people producing it stand behind it, don't you? You don't want some carpetbagger promising you the moon and stars because he, or she, thinks it's what you want to hear. If you get that vibe from any vendor you work with, it's fair game to ask, "What's in it?" and "Do YOU drink it?". If you don't get satisfactory answers to these questions, then maybe it's time to look elsewhere for your partnerships. The answer to these questions can be very telling in determining what their intentions are for you and your business, and that my friends leads to whether or not you can trust them.
In this economy, it's more important than ever to work with people you trust, too much is at stake. We look forward to earning that trust, so please feel free to call or email us with any questions you may have, or solutions you may need.
From where you are to where you want to be,
Doug
