Peeling the Onion Blog
This is a blog about business, specifically marketing, customer management and product management. It will also detour into general management and the aspects of corporate “culture” that encourage innovation and experimentation.
What is the goal of this blog?
This blog is a way to share my observations, opinions and thoughts about business and marketing. Onions will be mentioned occasionally.
Why Peeling the Onion?
Peeling the Onion is a metaphor that means there are layers to knowledge and that the first impression or superficial answer may be wrong or misleading. The metaphor’s literal interpretation is peeling away layers to reveal a core truth underneath (e.g. vertical approach). Another way to look at it is that capturing different perspectives leads to greater understanding (e.g. horizontal approach). If I haven’t lost you by this point it means that you are a) not a cook/prep chef; or b) can deal with abstract concepts and metaphors.
Come on, that metaphor doesn’t always hold!
True. I considered other titles such as Balance or Prisms, but one story pulled me back to Peeling the Onion. But then a coach friend told me about a client who was an extremely literal thinker. When the coach began explaining the concept of Peeling the Onion, the client responded, “I don’t like onions.”
My first response to that story was “that can’t be true.” My next thought was that the truth of the story really doesn’t matter; it is just an extreme example of how varied responses or interpretations can be to a few simple words.
Magritte was a literal thinker.
Why is this story relevant?
The fact that a single word can prompt such a response shows how much we take for granted in communications. While I don’t think there is an algorithm to determine onion haters, there is other information about prospects and customers that can tell you much lot about who they are and their mindset when they visit your website or enter your store. While this type of “profiling” is not perfect, it is preferable to using irrelevant or annoying messages. Peeling the onion is one path to relevance.
When should I start peeling?
Whoa, be careful. Keep in mind that information for information’s sake is not useful—it needs to relate to a tangible goal that you can measure and is relevant to long-term success.
Before you begin, this is what you need to do:
- Capture and store the data (including unique IDs such as a device, prospect, household, customer, etc.).
- Come up with several questions or hypotheses to test (note that you need to start with the most obvious) and understand that sample sizes do matter.
- Determine a way to operationalize your findings and yield tangible benefits. If you discover that your website’s visitors from the Deep South are unprofitable, you will need to suppress these in your marketing efforts or reject these orders.
Now, you are ready to start peeling the onion! I hope my blog helps you as you do it!
