stupa croppedI read an article recently in National Geographic Adventure magazine (link below) about how a team of climbers helped with an archeological expedition in one of my favorite parts of the world, Nepal.

The gist of the story is that for years, local residents of Mustang have “reported seeing old manuscripts fluttering out of [an inaccessible] cave, but they never had the means to explore it.” So National Geographic got an expedition together to use expert mountaineers to climb up and into the caves. One of the climbers said something which has really stuck with me: “It was the first time in my career that I got to use climbing techniques for something other than mountaineering.”

There’s a great parallel to the business world here.What knowledge does your company have that you could apply in a completely different way? From a marketing perspective, perhaps it’s the customer calls your customer service team dutifully logs every day. Have you ever thought of looking through those once a month to see what suggestions your customers have for making your products better? Or maybe it’s some success stories that you have which you could turn into case studies to help you sell through a B2B newsletter? These ideas are just a few examples of ways to improve your business using tools and information you already have.

One of the things I love most about working with mid-sized companies is all of the great knowledge and information they have internally that they may not even realize is valuable for their marketing efforts. Just like the climbers in the story who never realized that their climbing skills could help an archeological team. What knowledge or assets does your company have that you can deploy to help you be better marketers?

CLICK HERE to read the story.