Analogies 101: Cruising in the Express Lane with the Crystal Ball and GPS
Sean Lewis, Absher Construction Company

It happened again. There I was, sitting at yet another one of the informative and insightful professional sessions at Build Business: Setting the Stage, the 2006 SMPS/PSMA Conference in Hollywood, when a simple but very clear thought seared through my little brain: Why don't all marketers come to these?

Last year, after attending my first national conference in New Orleans, I just had to write about my first-time impressions, and there were many. As the conference brochure had promised, I did indeed leave with renewed enthusiasm and higher perspective on the issues we all face in professional services marketing.

And as I said, it’s happened again, but this time with a little more clarity. As I was listening to Keith Ferrazzi’s keynote address at the 2006 conference, the analogies started popping into my head about what SMPS involvement really means.

According to my calculations, attendance at one national conference is equal to exactly 18.7 months of on-the-job experience. Really, it is. Think about it. You can spend, say, 18.7 months doing your job diligently and learning on your own as you go, as we all do. Or you can attend a national conference and immediately see your perspective begin to rise above the clatter and din. At the national conference, you engage in conversations and hear presentations and discussions that give you the kind of greater insight only gained otherwise through trial and error and, of course, day-to-day (to day... to day...) experience (certainly an effective process, but not nearly as efficient).

It’s like easing over into the express lane on the scenic eight-lane Marketing Highway, passing all the other traffic as they try to work through their marketing issues on their own, reinventing the wheel.

It's like having a GPS unit right there with me that helps me see where I need to go—AND how I can get there most efficiently.

It's like the proverbial crystal ball that—wow, just like The Mysterious Madame Veronica’s sign says—actually lets me see into the future.

Sheesh—maybe it’s also like navigating the North Atlantic in an icebreaker instead of the S.S. Minnow. Or clearing a road through the wilderness with a 20-ton bulldozer instead of a flathead shovel. Or...well, you get the idea.

These conferences—like SMPS involvement in general—are all about us, folks: the things we wrestle, work, and wrangle with every day in our jobs as marketers, communicators, and coaches. And the insight and heightened perspective we gain from attending just one national conference—where you really get immersed in it all—seems to me to be a quantum leap in one’s professional knowledge, advancement of methods and processes, greater understanding of the challenges we all face—and, simply, overall value to our firms. About 18.7 months’ worth, I think. Multiply that by, say, just four or five good conferences and you’re, well, way ahead.

But you know all this because you were there too... weren't you?

About the Author
Sean Lewis has been the Marketing Manager for Absher Construction Company, headquartered in Puyallup, WA, for 13 years, and an SMPS member for six of  those. He can be reached at sean@AbsherNW.com. [ return to top ]