We have a winner in the first Do It Wrong Quickly contest. It was a far easier decision than I had anticipated, because I got exactly one entrant! So, I think I probably did this contest wrong quickly. Now it’s time for me to dust myself off and try again.
Thanks to all who gave me feedback on my first contest—I hope this new one seems better to you. It focuses on success stories rather than ratting out the boss, which folks said is more likely to generate response. So, have a gander at the newest Do It Wrong Quickly contest.
For those on the edge of their seats, here is the sole (and winning) entry to our first contest:
Just because it’s in the budget doesn’t mean you can spend it
I used to work at a company where although I was the Advertising Director on paper, I was not allowed to direct or otherwise make any decisions. I had to filter through hundreds of vendor calls, proposals, and ideas, choose the ones I thought would give us the best ROI and CPL, and run them through the VP of Ops (when he wasn’t travelling) who had the final say of yes or no. It took me over a year to learn that 1.) if anything had a cost of over $500 he’d veto it, 2.) if it was not a direct lead-generator he’d veto it, 3.) if it wasn’t a “traditional” advertising source (TV, radio, or print) he’d veto it, and 3.) he’d routinely pull advertising in sources with poor conversions, and 4.) was fond of saying “just because it’s in the budget doesn’t mean you can spend it” (WTF?).
In a series of bad decisions over a 60-day period, he had pulled the print lead sources from an entire market for “poor conversions” after 2-week runs without getting any quality feedback from sales, cut spending for the media sources that were converting to save money, and would not entertain any alternative endeavors for indirect lead-generation. Finally, we maxed out our Internet lead-generation quantity because he capped our CPL too low. 2 weeks later, I was the one fired for non-performance and was told I wasn’t doing my job.
To date, this has been the best example of “Do It Wrong Quickly” that I have experienced in my professional life. It certainly taught me a valuable lesson on how NOT to plan, observe, and make decisions based on feedback and data.
