Have you ever blurted out to a colleague or business acquaintance (or heard someone else say)–in reference to the possibility (or likelihood) that your company might actually generate more leads, sales, or customer inquiries than you can handle, " Well, that’s a QUALITY problem!" I have done such blurting myself, more than once.

Wrong, that is not a "QUALITY problem." If true, your business has a very serious challenge and certainly not one not to be taken lightly. If you don’t respond to simple inquiries, respond poorly or late, don’t quite have the product you’ve pitched, can’t implement it anyway, and mainly pay lip service to customers--that word gets out too quickly, now, to too many people. And then you’re usually toast.

What if that new marketing campaign generates all sorts of new calls, emails or other contacts? Who is going to handle it? How? What are you going to do next? Do you have anything else to communicate to that new prospect other than the same brochures or brochure-ware that they already saw or the same boiler-plate email ("Thank you for your inquiry…..")? Do you have the (right) people to follow-up? Currently, do you even respond the same day to any and all emails and phone calls that come in to your business? Why do a small or large marketing "campaign" unless you are prepared to handle it?

What if your product starts selling a little or a lot faster than you anticipated? Maybe it’s not quite ready for prime time–as advertised? And you don’t really have a clear idea who’d implement it or how you’d manage the new accounts?

Or perhaps you’ve decided that you need to encourage more customer feedback–and, lo and behold, customers start providing it. Who’s listening? Who’s responding? How quickly? What are you going to do: Communicate? Act? File it away and do nothing?

Good marketing is all about making new sales and keeping customers. You’d better watch out--because sometimes you get what you ask for: leads, sales, customer feedback. So before you lightheartedly chuckle again to one of your buddies, "Well, that’s a QUALITY problem," you might want to re-visit your business strategy and how you plan to get the most out of your marketing investment.

PS: I’m leaving the NOSPINMARKETING survey question open another week (see responses at http://www.nospinmarketing.com/page420258.htm):

Do early and mid stage companies spin more or less or about the same amount after the tech melt-down? Examples?

Here’s what Dave Francis of Jeffries and Company had to say:

"Given the hyper-sensitivity of capital markets these days, the tendency to spin has become even more pervasive as management teams have focused on generating short-term PR instead of (and often to the detriment of) long-term value. This phenomenon is certainly evident in smaller companies as they attempt to attract private equity, but often carries on to more established companies as they try to meet financial objectives every 90 days. Spin fails to deliver value 99.9 percent of the time. More importantly, companies that are perpetually "spinning" will lose credibility in the capital markets -- creating even more difficulty in building long-term value."

What do YOU think? Look forward to hearing from you.

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Tom Ranseen NoSpinMarketing 615.383.7157