{"id":656,"date":"2012-10-04T08:16:22","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T19:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=656"},"modified":"2012-10-04T08:16:46","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T19:16:46","slug":"lunching-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=656","title":{"rendered":"Lunching alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A former colleague tells the (cautionary) tale of being commissioned to write a document in support of a new marketing strategy.\u00a0 The strategy itself was very simple.\u00a0 But the marketing director \u2013 who needed to sell the strategy to his Board \u2013 wanted weighty support for the simplicity.<\/p>\n

\u2018We need something substantial,\u2019 he told my colleague.\u00a0 \u2018We need something serious.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking 50 or 60 pages of serious.\u2019<\/p>\n

My colleague suggested that something short and to the point might be more appropriate.\u00a0 \u2018Perhaps just a page or two?\u00a0 Clear and concise?\u00a0 Something that\u2019s easy to read, consider, and digest?\u2019\u00a0 But the marketing director was set on the idea of a document with the physical attributes of an old-fashioned telephone directory.<\/p>\n

The document which my colleague eventually delivered was an impressive 52 pages long.\u00a0 And, about two-thirds of the way down page 47, he slipped in a sentence that said: \u2018If you\u2019re still reading this, call me on [telephone number supplied] and I\u2019ll be happy to shout you lunch at my favourite restaurant.\u2019<\/p>\n

For several days he waited for his phone to ring.\u00a0 But it didn\u2019t.\u00a0 It seems that even the marketing director failed to get as far as page 47.<\/p>\n

In the wise words of one of my early mentors: \u2018When you have something important to say, say it as simply and succinctly as you can.\u00a0 And then shut up.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A former colleague tells the (cautionary) tale of being commissioned to write a document in support of a new marketing strategy.\u00a0 The strategy itself was very simple.\u00a0 But the marketing director \u2013 who needed to sell the strategy to his … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=656"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":658,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions\/658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}