Less Talk, More Action

While looking for something else, I stumbled upon this article with its bold headline and laughed out loud. While I continue to support the West Indies cricket team, albeit in a diminished capacity, their actions in the past several months by way of their performance, have not buoyed me and more importantly have not convinced me that their captain's pronouncement is anything but laughable.

Of course the Australians are beatable. I am not disputing that at all. No team is invincible. Can THIS West Indies team beat them? Sigh. Let's just say, I got a couple emails from relatives abroad who also read the article, and they too LOL'ed in their offices.

What I want from my cricket team and its skipper (note I did not say MY skipper, cause I am not a fan of Mr Christopher Gayle) is less talk and more action.

It ties back to my previous entry, where less is also definitely  in business. It's no longer about words and press releases, ads and mission statements. These mean nothing if there is nothing solid behind them. For example, what good is a corporate mission statement about being a leading provider of a service, if your service is universally horrendous, and customers slam your brand as a result? It becomes just a statement in a pretty frame hanging on a wall. What steps are companies taking to ensure that what they are promoting to the outside world is indeed the reality?

And, in terms of social media, there are companies which are setting up Web 2.0 "communities" which attract many of their customers, but the communication somehow falls flat. There is feedback via many outlets, and none of the feedback is incorporated to enhance the customer experience so the community becomes a talk shop and an ideas graveyard. Some communicator are hearing, but are they listening, and more importantly, doing?

Companies cannot hope to create content for social media without collaborating with the persons for whom the content is being created. Ideas and suggestions live via this new media and marketers would be wise to start paying close attention to what is being said out there. The paradigm shift is clear - more and more consumers are defining products and services, and the content they want on blogs and social networking sites, and marketing and comms peeps need to step up to the plate, not just support social media conversations but bring them to life. Quite simply, we need to walk the talk.

And a brand defined, not by its idealistic, chest-beating public statements, but by its "laughable" reality can never really stand the test of time or boast of superior loyalty from its audience. I hope one day Mr Gayle and his band of merry boys will understand this, if they even care.

Photo: Cricket Australia