Thursday Keynote: Take Action: Be the Change

Keynote: Take Action: Be the Change

Greg Bennick

Hm… SMPS members are a “special brand of happy lunatics”… which means we are perfectly poised to take risks, try new things, and TAKE ACTION.

We are here to speak about change – marketing is all about dealing and working with change constantly. If we’re effective marketers, we’re in the business of serving other people. If someone comes to us with a change, we work with it. We know ourselves, know our strengths, so when change arises, we know what we can do with it. It’s not about making money… that’s a byproduct of serving other people. If we focus too much on the money, we will fail.

Five points (in SMPS fashion) to Work with Change and Take Action:

• Focus
• Ignite
• Launch
• Propel
• Take Action

Usually the five points make some powerful acronym. ..  F.I.L.P.T. -- ?? Yeah, ok, maybe a “brand fail” by the brand-happy, happy lunatics…

Greg was selected to speak because he is the result of unanticipated and unpredictable change. [And now a little backstory about Greg]

In 1957 – his mom (Diane) decides to wear for the 800-teen person dance, she decides to wear pants. She is immediately kicked out of the dance.

Father, Daniel, sporting a new crew cut and overcoat, looks great. He doesn’t know that at the last dance, someone was kicked out of the dance for starting a fight, who had a crew cut and wearing a long overcoat. He is mistaken for the guy who started the fight… and HE is kicked out.

Now both are standing on the porch, under the awning, kicked out of the dance – they look good, they’re a little miffed, and they connect. And Greg came along…

1983 – young Greg is attending middle school. They are offered a mini-course on Wednesdays to learn “fun” stuff for an hour after school. At age 12, he had decided that one thing was important to him – he had decided to be a coin collector. He wanted to be the greatest coin collector in history of the world. He went to local coin collector shop, with a plan – “I would like you to teach a coin collecting class to me and my friends, and I will offer you $5 a week…” and he puts the five dollars on the counter.

The guy said yes… And he signed up for coin collecting. The school secretary organized the classes, but she made a slight error and signed him up for juggling. Greg didn’t want to go, but went anyway, and walked in sulking. When he looked up, he saw a young guy juggling 3 white baseballs, and the light went on: That’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.

In thinking about architecture/engineering/construction --- you have an element of planning (pencil), tactics (hard hat), and communication (phone). It’s not so simple – throwing things in to a big maelstrom and having everything work out. Some things fall. Some things change or drop off and new things come in.

Don’t be afraid to drop the ball – you never know what is going to happen, what will fill its place.

Story: Greg designed a postcard, picture on the front, information on the back. He wanted  to hand out these cards at every event. At the first event, a 10 year old stood in front of him, staring at the card, oblivious to the people filtering around him. He stared at the card and looked at the speaker… And asked “What is your name?”  In all of the design, and printing, of the 10,000 cards, Greg had not put his name on the card.

There was some white space on the card, and he had some stamps made, and stamped his name in the white space. And used the cards as an example of happy accident – “Great card, huh? Classy with the stamp on the side, right?” Happy accident. A more memorable card; a story to tell.

[insert amazing juggling here…]

Throughout his juggling, Greg pounded in the Focus, Ignite, Launch, Propel, Take Action tracks of the National Conference. Juggling, marketing, everything – is about paying attention (Focus), processing the information you receive (Ignite), making a plan (Launch), kick-starting/building enthusiasm (Propel), and implementing the plan (Take Action).

The juggling was amazing. It got a little tiring to hear the same five points hammered for an hour. But yes, I get it – take what I learn here and DO something with it.

On it.