I was thinking this morning of back when I was in the third grade. You may ask yourself, was he thinking of the time he sang "I Love Rocky Road" by Weird Al in the school talent show? Or was he thinking of when he used an entire jar of Vaseline in his hair to add authenticity to his "Greaser" Halloween costume? Though both of these memories are forever etched in my mind, the answer is "no". What I was thinking about was the future. I remember one day our teacher asked us to draw what we thought the future would be like....and at the time, the "future" was the year 2000. I remember everyone I drew had sunglasses on, I assume because everyone futuristic-looking wore them, not because of a foreseen ozone problem I predicted at age 10. Plus, the world had gotten a bit lazier, as everywhere you looked was a moving sidewalk. No more of that pesky walking, when the moving sidewalk could take you where you needed to go- and seconds faster! Here are a few other things I once hoped would be around by this time that could do wonders in this world of marketing of ours:
Jetpacks: Where is my jetpack? I thought for sure we would have those by now. The ability to pop one of those things on like a backpack, hit the accelerate button, and zoom all around the place seemed inevitable. Even the Rocketeer had one, so I just assumed that was a foreshadowing of what technology was going to bring me. I guess the closest we got was a segway, and let's face it, it is really tough to look remotely cool on those things. Can you imagine if we had those now? You could zip around the city, meeting to meeting, in no time. Fly on over, park your Jetpack in the special "Jetpack Visitor Parking Only" spot, and you're there, ready to seal that deal!
"Warping": Come on.... they did it on Spaceballs! And that was supposedly a long time ago in a galaxy far away! It's like we have regressed, not progressed! How crazy would it be if you were on a call with a potential finance affiliate you've been wanting to have promote your credit card offers and you could, with the press of a button, beam yourself over to their office? "Oh, Mr./Ms. Affiliate, you would like to meet in person before doing business? No problem...." ZAP!!!! There you are, right there in their office. I think we need to put some more tax dollars into warping. It just seems so obvious!
Now of course, the above probably won't happen anytime soon (or ever) however, there are some technological advances that do exist that I think are actually underutilized.
Skype/Video Conferencing: Putting a face to a name is important in this business. Granted, meeting in person is the ultimate goal, but for everyone it may not be feasible. Phone calls are great and are my preferred method of communication, however, having the ability to have a conference room meeting with another company hundreds of miles away, and actually see who you are talking to, in my mind, is something we don't take advantage of enough. I have Skype, and it's free, so sign up and feel free to reach out to me with any questions on your Credit.com affiliate account. Just please note that I work remotely, so give me a heads up in order to change out of my pajamas.
Webinar: Have you ever had to go back and forth, trying to explain an idea of how a credit card offer would look on someone's site, only for them to not quite "see" what you mean? Webinars are tools that can easily allow you to walk someone through visually what you are trying to convey verbally. These too, for the most part, are free, so create an account for easy access, so the next time you can invite someone to see what awesomeness you are trying to sell them on!
I think way back when to where my dad went to work everyday. There was no email. There was none of this crazy "world wide web" phenomenon. Random side note: I think it is safe to omit the "www" when conveying the name of a website to someone over the phone- think of all the time we would save! Continuing on, it's crazy how everything was accomplished with the lack of expedient technology. Nowadays, if you can't get someone on the phone, you can email them. If email isn't fast enough, you can IM them. But then? You call someone and leave a message.... and that was about it. Today, you need that IO signed fast. You email it, scan it, and done. But back then, you either fax it-- if you have a fax machine, or you drop that agreement in the mail and wait for it to get there and back to you. And don't even get me started on computers! They actually existed without email AND internet access! They served two purposes: 1. To save data and 2. To play Oregon Trail. I can only assume that productivity back then had to be at an all time high, seeing that fantasy football scores and Facebook weren't around to take people's focus off the task at hand.
To summarize, take advantage of the many advances that do exist today and utilize them to the best of your ability. They may just get you over that stumbling block you have encountered so many times in the past. Share ideas you have with others as well, to perhaps create even better ways to engage with your clients. Just think, you could be the next Marty McFly (I know Doc Brown makes more sense here, but Marty has that "ring" to it)
-Ryan Zimmerman
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