A fool company and its money are soon parted…

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Comcast is cutting off customers who download too much.

Is this a strategy to add value to its bottom line? With a policy such as this, Comcast will also have the added bonus of ticking off its customers.

Worse still, the “policy” is not consistent or concrete – as it pertains to volume or geography – according to subscribers cited in this CBS News story. At the end of the day, Comcast customers with a hearty bandwidth appetite are in a lose-lose situation because the company “provides no tools for monitoring bandwidth, and does not give any specific guidance.” 

Comcast’s decision to cut the bandwidth cord on heavy users is foolishness. The reasons why it’s foolish vary depending on your perspective…as a consumer, as a marketeer, as a field technician for Comcast. However, I am compelled to highlight this key financial reason, which was so eloquently illuminated by The Motley Fool:

“Given its triple-play option, the last thing Comcast would want is to lose three connections of revenue from a peeved subscriber. Psst, Comcast. Want to know how you keep those greedy customers? Charge them for their heavy habits!”

  gamewikisjester6.jpg   Jester hats off to The Motley Fool for its sound business and marketing advice. 

Image: GuildWiki – Available under the CC 2.0 by-nc-sa license.

What aspiring leaders should know

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Give people credit.

All they need from you is the vision, some tools and the freedom to perform. Finally, you must trust that they will perform – within the purview of your superb leadership.

It’s a myth that the concept of managing people is the same as leading people. It is an even bigger myth that micro-managing people is somehow the same as “carefully” leading people. It will serve you well in your future endeavors to embrace and honor this distinction….

To further illustrate, it’s okay to manage projects, work/life balance, stock portfolio, anger, and weight – just not people. It is also perfectly suitable to manage time, budgets, processes, and crises…again, just not people. The closest one should come to managing people should be in the event of a riot or evacuation. But even then, this is often referred to as crowd “control” – an altogether different concept from leading or managing and, thankfully, not a typical scenario in business.

Leaders who inspire, guide, motivate, empower and enable people will achieve great results…outstanding results that will be undoubtedly driven and achieved by the very people with whom they had trust and confidence.

Can you recite the names of today’s successful businesses? Can you truly answer why they are successful? Are they experiencing growth through M&As or do they simply have great leadership? Dig a little deeper and you may find that true leadership has little to do with “managing” people…as is the case with Internet powerhouse Google, which also ranked #1 in Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2007. 

Gary Hamel – management consultant and author of the soon-to-be-released book, The Future of Management – comments on Google in this Wall Street Journal article:

“The Mountain View, Calif., company is packed with intriguing, distinctive ways of running itself, he says. These include radical decentralization; small, self-managing teams; a just-try-it approach to rolling out new products before they are fully finished; and a willingness to let engineers spend sizable chunks of time on offbeat projects.”

Vision. Tools. Freedom. Trust.

Astounding results.

Leadership riddle

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Q:  What is a vision that is neither shared nor consistently communicated?

A:  An hallucination.

Creating the vision is only the first step. Sharing the vision is the second step. Consistently communicating the vision – over and over again – is the third, and most important, step.

With the third step, your perception can actually become a reality.

Betting on the farm

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Did you ever market a product or service that was in high demand? <NEED>
Did you ever market a product or service with a limited supply? <SCARCITY>
Did you ever market a product or service that was mission critical? <FEAR>
Did you ever market a product or service that was required by law? <RISK>

In each case, your job was probably a bit less challenging than other marketing jobs. You might even say it was “easy” at times.

Why? Need + Scarcity + Fear + Risk = EZ Sales and EZ Profits.

It’s rare to provide a product or service that appeals to all four of these purchasing motivators. Even if you had a product or service that represented a mere triple threat, such as Need + Scarcity + Fear, you’d be in great shape from a marketing perspective.

FOOD PRODUCTION is a prime example of a triple-threat service that would make your marketing job a breeze. Check it out:

<NEED>
The US population increased almost 50% in 55 years. Top this off with current demand for food-based biofuels and you get an exacerbated need.

farmpie1950_8-18-07.jpg

 farmpie2005_8-18-07.jpg

*Does not include figures for undocumented immigrants, which are projected to be between 10 and 20 million people.

<SCARCITY>
The number of farms in the US shrunk by 61% during the same timeframe.

<FEAR>
In May 2007, the US Department of Agriculture released a report regarding the world’s grain supply, which is at its lowest level in 47 years (the length of time this data has been tracked). The report also provided grim predictions for the supply of other food sources.

Moral of the Story #1
If you own a farm, HOLD. If you are thinking about owning a farm, BUY.  🙂

Moral of the Story #2
Marketing a triple-threat service like PRODUCING FOOD could very well end up being one of the easiest jobs in the world. 

Chart sources: US Department of Agriculture, US Census Bureau, and http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/index.htm

UPDATE as of 25 September 2007: Australia Cuts Wheat Forecast by a Third and Global Dairy Demand Drives Up Prices