Yesterday as I was listening to “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd on ESPN radio. He woke me up with his rant on ex-Missouri coach Quinn Snyder. Snyder resigned over the weekend after originally saying he wouldn’t… and Colin called Quinn a “poser.” He had the pedigree from Duke, the look, the dress, the hair and of course he talked the part. But evidently, Snyder didn’t put in the time.

What I head Cowherd say is right on the mark: coaching is a grind. You have to hit the road and develop relationships with high school coaches. You can’t recruit players out of a magazine. And you have to build those relationships at home. Your players need to be a community and have each other’s back.  I have many friends that are successful coaches at the high school and college level. It’s not glamorous - it’s hard on their families, and the pay is seldom the reason, at least with the ones I know.

Does all this sound familiar? Because it hit me like a ton of bricks. How many advertisers and their clients have the look, the dress, the hair and can do the talk… but don’t put in the time? I can think of a lot of “posers” out there. I think it comes down to doing the right thing.  As a matchmaker between the brand and the consumer, we can help facilitate this dance, this relationship. It’s not the easy thing to do to take a client on the road and have honest discussions with their customers, but it has a real value. We have all faced that gut check when you could be a “poser” or a do-er. and sometimes I think we are a ”poser” and we don’t mean to.

My hat goes off to Discovery Education, Southwest Airlines, and all the other companies out there who do the grinding work of building relationships with their customers and employees.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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