Greg's Right FIT #421

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Evidence
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Evidence

• Asking prospects provide evidence is an example of hard questions to ask in a soft way. "Show me proof" sounds confrontational, but "Where does that show up in your business?" sounds softer, and gets results.
• Evidence is easy to confuse with opinions. To help differentiate, here are four kinds to look for: no evidence, soft evidence, hard evidence, and 3rd party validated evidence. Try to fit what you hear into one of those boxes.
• Since evidence comes in four flavors, if you're looking for it, start by making No Evidence a valid answer. Knowing where there is an absence of evidence is knowledge. It's a great place to start, but you have to be ok with it.
• I prattle on about evidence because uncovering evidence is the first step to bigger opportunities. The steps after evidence include context (where? when? to what extent?) and constraints. (why isn't it done now?)

Being Human - Do we train the machine?

“A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.” - A.Turing

To start the year, I've been knee-deep in reviewing marketing campaigns. One of my mantras is "let's not guess." It takes time to find and dig out something close to hard evidence. However, if we take the time to do it now, even if we don't find exactly what we're looking for, we can set it up to make sure don't have the same problem next year. 

Little bits of progress today to keep tomorrow's momentum going. 

One of the exercises I did was review search engine searches. As you may know, when we run ads on Google, we bid on the search terms we think prospects might use. What you might not know is advertisers get to see exactly what these people typed in. You don't get to see 100% of the terms, but you get enough for a feel of how non-insiders might ask questions on Google. (such as when people use terms like "who, what, where, when, why, question, if, should, can, do, etc." in their search) It's a great brainstorming tool and, when it comes to learning more about how prospects think, it helps. 

As we go through the process and I look through thousands of lines of searches, one thing sticks out. The searches are phrased in a particular way. It used to be in this exercise we'd see funny searches. The kind that makes you wonder if the person doing the search knows how a search engine works. Now, I see far fewer. 

One reason could be that Google is suppressing those searches from my reporting tool, but another possibility is stuck in my head. 

The machine is training us. 

The Turing test is a machine's ability to exhibit human intelligence, but how human is it to interact in a browser via short text notes? How far away are Alicia Vikander Ex Machina type machine interfaces? Will the robots even need to get to that point? We seem pretty willing to adapt our behavior to far simpler interfaces. 

At the point where my thoughts start to drift, I remember the Progressive "don't be like your parents" commercial. The one where he says, "This is a status bar, not a search bar," and shows where someone typed their social media status as "recipe for pot roast." 

We're probably a long way from Ava. 

Random Stuff

“You make good coffee . . . You're a slob, but you make good coffee." – Loretta, in Moonstruck

Let's talk about caffeine. I may have this wrong, but I remember an anecdote about gin drinking in England. The water was so bad, gin was safer, but everyone was understandably sluggish. Tea/caffeine was introduced to England in the 17th century. Coincidentally, the rapid expansion of the Empire came along around this time. Going from a daily buzz from booze to a daily buzz from caffeine, the anecdote goes, led them to world domination. 

Caffeine hasn't led me anywhere near domination, even in my own household where I rank above the dog but below the cat, but I'm still a fan. 

Early days, my delivery vehicle of choice was Coke. Calorie watching led me to Diet Coke, and a dear friend introduced me to Diet Mountain Dew, which I may be addicted to. My morning habit changed, however, when my lovely bride, upon seeing me gulp down a bright yellow #5 beverage for breakfast, said, "it's too bad you don't like coffee. I imagined us as old people drinking coffee on the porch." 

That's all I needed to hear. I started on coffee. First a little. Now a lot of coffee. 

The best part about my new coffee addiction is toys. Diet Mountain Dew, no toys. Coffee, lots of toys. 

I've moved from the old Mr. Coffee drip-automatic, to a fancy one that pre-infuses. I have an espresso machine. I have a shot measuring glass. I have a scale calibrated to my area's altitude. And right now I'm working on my tamping because I have a feeling my current technique may be leading to a distribution problem and channeling. To remedy this, a dosing funnel and puck screen are ordered and on the way. 

What's the evidence, you ask? How do I know I may have a channeling problem with my pucks? Where is this showing up in my daily business?

No evidence. I just have a little time on my hands and an unusual amount of energy from 6am to around 3:30pm. 

That's all.