Revenue Journal®

George Lucas, being interviewed recently by Kara Swisher of The Wall Street Journal, was pontificating on the difference between circus and art. He said that YouTube is circus - which the movie industry calls "throwing puppies on the freeway," because you just create something and put it up and see what happens. He then said that art, on the other hand, is "where the person contrives the situation and tells a story, and hopefully that story reveals the truth behind the facts."

This comment really caught my attention, because that's exactly what good marketing is supposed to do: reveal the truth behind the facts. And if you think about how George Lucas spins his stories, you realize how far marketing is from the ideal he describes.

Working with CEOs and entrepreneurs, I identify and eliminate barriers to revenue and turn stalled or slowing companies into revenue-growth machines. I have become a revenue engineer. I am an industry of one, and happy to be here.

I'm bringing this up to talk about self-reinvention, a skill that all of us must master in this age of fast-moving markets. As you learn more and become more experienced, and apply those lessons and that experience to your next job, you need to know what you are good at, what you can provide, and what you should call it.

I was evaluating at an attractive-looking website while talking on the phone to the entrepreneur who created it. As I clicked around, I realized that the website suffered from a common problem. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but this whole website is about 'dead chicken parts, fried in grease at 200 degrees,'" I told him. "What's missing from this site is 'finger-lickin' good.'"

In other words, the entire site was all about the process behind his product, rather than the satisfaction his customers will get from the product.

He's going to change the site, after he interviews some customers to find out what they consider to be "finger-licking good" about his product.

What is "finger-licking good"?