The Perfect (business) Wave
January 6, 2010
I’ve been surfing -- or rather, learning to surf -- for the past 5 years. Surfing is a tough sport and I’ve had many struggles in the water. Each wave being different than the one before makes it difficult to practice the same maneuver over and over in order to master the skill. Surfing requires diligence, persistence, patience, a belief that sooner or later all the hard work will come to fruition … and of course, a good wave to ride.
I paddled out into the waves on a chilly, sunny, beautiful Encinitas day. As I passed the break, I sat up on my board to watch the other surfers and to catch my breath. The waves were nicely formed, weren’t too big, but still had a powerful thrust to them as they barreled and crashed over the reefs.
It was then that I saw it … a swell gathering into a nice form behind me without any other surfers nearby. I realized that this is what I had been working so hard preparing for. I swung my board around, keeping an eye on the wave, and laid down into position. As I started paddling it dawned on me that that I had been in this same position before, but not while I was surfing. It was the business of RealAge in 2002.
After a wonderful start to our business in 1999, RealAge had just been through two very difficult years. First we had to survive a huge splash of the dot-com crash in 2000. I was VP of sales during that time and most of our e-commerce advertising clients dried up and went out of business in a matter of three months time (anyone remember eNutrition or PetPlace?). Our CEO made the difficult decision to eliminate most of our workforce to give the company at least a chance of survival in the face of our revenue disappearing.
My sales team was left fighting to find a new customer segment. Every single meeting was a struggle during that time: each client had their own idea of what web marketing should accomplish; the web was an unproven marketing medium; and there were few -- if any -- industry standards. Some clients didn’t even have a consumer website to drive traffic into … talk about a difficult sale!
The entire RealAge team came together to figure out this post dot-com crash new world we were dropped into. We developed our own best practices, then tested & optimized web and email campaigns. Each program was unique and there were no role models to follow, but we had a talented and dedicated group that forged through these unknowns. We even created websites for some of our clients so they were able to run a marketing campaign with us (how’s that for creative thinking?). I’m proud to say that many of our early practices turned into industry standards, especially on the email and ROI results portion of our business.
I was promoted to President during this time with the added responsibility for overall company operations. That was on September 1st, just as I was flying out to meet with several of our new key clients to talk about their budgets for the upcoming year. And just like that big surf wave that knocks you over as you start getting pretty good at the smaller waves; we got smacked with another huge business wave. Yeah, that was 9/1 … just ten days before 9/11. The entire economy took pause and consumer sentiment turned fearful. Untested marketing programs were the first budgets to be put on hold.
However, our hard work and diligence to pull out of the prior year’s doldrums positioned us well to work with our new clients because we were no longer untested and we had developed a unique methodology to show a conservative and defensible ROI calculation. It wasn’t easy, but we were able to stay on our clients’ budgets heading into 2002. At the same time, consumers were hungry for sensible health advice and were registering on RealAge at record rates.
As my friend Chris D. points out: strong management, good products, and proper strategy are needed for success; but the single most important element required for success is a rising marketplace. I was fortunate enough to hit all those at RealAge in 2002 that carried us for the next seven years.
And as for the wave that made me remember 2002, well, I nailed it! It was my first real ride of my surfing career. It took a lot of practice, persistence, faith -- and spectacular wipe-outs -- to be in position to take advantage of that perfect wave. It hasn’t been all awesome rides since then, but it did get me to the next level where I can claim that I’m more than a newbie and more than a wannabe -- I am now a surfer.
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Contact me if you would like assistance riding the business waves of 2010 to achieve superior results for your company.
Rich Benci
Benci Consulting, LLC.
Rich@Benci.NET