Although I did not attend this year’s conference, I was pleased to see that the YPA swallowed hard, dug deep, and paid the money necessary to have best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell address their annual meeting last week in San Diego.
So what types of insightful “tips and pointers” did the YPA get from Mr. Gladwell in exchange for their rapidly disappearing cash?
Drum roll please:
- Don’t exaggerate the challenges
- Re-frame the issues
- Leverage social connectors
- Challenge conventional thinking
Let me be clear about this. I am a huge fan of Mr. Gladwell’s, but I doubt that he’s ever bought a yellow pages ad in his life, and it appears that his speech was a colossal waste of an opportunity to challenge an entire industry that has long been asleep at the wheel while dreaming of yesteryear.
The YPA could have saved a bunch of cash and instead had Joe the Plumber address the convention.
Joe The Plumber: Next Year's Speaker at the YPA?
Imagine for a moment what Joe might have said different from the esteemed Mr. Gladwell:
- get me more leads for less money
- beat the crap out of that guy named Eric Schmidt and all of his buddies
- be more social and help people talk more about my plumbing business
- make it easy for me to get online and get found in Google and wherever else customers might be looking
I am sure everyone enjoyed hearing from Mr. Gladwell.
Perhaps Joe will get a chance next year?
Matt! It would be kind of fun to have Joe The Plumber (!!!). But Gladwell’s main point was that instead of worrying about how much of your legacy business you have lost, you should focus on what opportunities are there for you to keep leveraging.
I NEVER get tired of hearing this. And neither did the Yellow Pages publishers in attendance. Most of these guys don’t read Gladwell in The New Yorker, but they listened with rapt attention
http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2009/04/28/ypa-09-malcolm-gladwell-talks-yellow-pages/
Thanks peter for the clarification.