Leading. Solution. Best. Innovative. These are the top 4 most overused buzzwords in public relations, according to Adam Sherk and PRFilter, a website that searches and aggregates press releases. Here's the Top 10 list and the number of times each word was used in press releases in a 24 hour period:

1. leading (776) 
2. solution (622) 
3. best (473) 
4. innovate / innovative / innovator (452) 
5. leader (410) 
6. top (370) 
7. unique (282) 
8. great (245) 
9. extensive (215) 
10. leading provider (153) 

What does this mean? Clearly, these words lose their impact through overuse. While intended to convey uniqueness and value, instead these words communicate "ho hum," "me too," "jargon," and "I don't really know my customer." Digging deeper, I believe the biggest offender is "solution." What customers talk that way in everyday life?? Aside from being generic and ubiquitous, the term "solution" has a very sterile feel to it that weakens your intimate connections with customers.

So what's the alternative? Stay real. Get to know your customers. Find out what the "solution" is, and what problems you can help them solve. That's what you talk about in press releases, in sales training, and especially with customers.

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(Click here for the full list in PR Daily, and thank you Tom Gable, San Diego PR expert, for posting the link on LinkedIn.)

Don't you hate when that happens!?!

You invest a lot of time and money into a new business model, an innovative product concept, an exciting promotional campaign. Then you try to sell it. And it doesn't work. Customers fundamentally tell you - directly or indirectly - that you're wrong. Now customers are not always right (that's the subject of a forthcoming blog entry), but disagreement with you is NOT a good reason to dismiss their perspective. That's not your business savvy getting in the way, it's your ego. 

I was meeting with a very bright and seasoned CEO recently who, after describing his company's downturn in winning sales, exclaimed about his sales prospects: "They just don't get it!" Now he could have labored on about how it's all the customers fault, how can they not understand, etc. But he knew better than to go there. Instead he humbled himself and said, "We must be doing something wrong." Then we proceeded to talk about how they could better understand the customer's multiple perspectives and apply those insights to improve their value proposition and win sales.

In our work with business leaders, we recommend imagining the customer is in the room with you at all times, especially during difficult business decisions. I'm giving a talk on this on December 7th at University of San Diego called "Why customers should run your company." Would love to see you there and hear your thoughts if you're in town!

I was talking with my colleague Frank Bailey, a very smart guy who heads up Education and Outreach at AARP. What came up was this: As an organization grows, as new leadership chooses its path, and as the world changes, do you turn to customers to tell you what they want you to do, or do you exert leadership and simply move forward? 

My answer is this:

1. Always keep the pulse of your customers and the market. Ask them what they want and need, but not in a vacuum. Provide boundaries to the inquiry, which should come from your mission and vision.
2. Marketing research, which we do a lot of and believe in, should inform leadership certainly, but it is not leadership.
3. Do NOT abdicate your responsibility as a business leader to commit, and to make the decisions you need to make.

It's up to you decide what you will do as an organization. Customers can tell you what they value and don’t value; not what you should do. Ultimately it comes down to your core values, what you can do better than any other company, what drives your economic engine, what sets you apart, and what sells in the market. These are your leadership decision tools.

I was talking today with a very smart colleague who runs a large health department. He is one of the best leaders I know. As he was bemoaning the impending budget cuts here in California, he also exerted optimism. He knows that great leadership shines in tough times. That means be honest, but not hopeless. Even with furloughs and layoffs, in a well-led organization, there is still reason for optimism. This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings: It is what it is.

In light of a worldwide recession and a worldwide pandemic and in an industry (in this case public health) repeatedly hammered by budget cuts, there may only be room right now for incremental gains. However, these gains need not be anywhere there is a foothold. They can and should be tied to your fundamental purpose. As Jim Collins says, "preserve the core." And at the same time stimulate progress. 

So whether the gains are about protection or growth, and even if they are very small, they should be both strategically planned and celebrated. So whenever you have a good small win, remember you're practicing the art of strategic incrementalism.

Obama just nominated Regina Benjamin, MD to be our new Surgeon General. She's a family doctor in the shrimping village of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, winner of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" and on board of trustees of the American Medical Association.

One article credited her going back as a physician for an MBA degree as evidence that she's politically savvy, presuming that people with political ambitions get MBAs. I'm thinking of my many MBA students who for some reason chose corporate paths. Hmmm.

To me, the fact that Dr. Benjamin spent much of her career dealing hands-on with poor folks in need of care bodes well for healthcare reform. And that's how Obama introduced her, someone "who understands the urgency of meeting this challenge in a personal and powerful way..."

Onward, healthcare reform!