The Super Trooper.

The Isuzu Trooper was my baby. We called it the Super Trooper. And boy, it was super. I bought it a few years into school when everyone went all country and I could no longer try to be country and drive a Nissan Maxima at the same time. The Trooper was like a giant dumpster with windows and wheels. I think if I would have bolted a giant piece of plywood to the bumper, it might have improved the gas mileage. This was an SUV from an era when SUVs were actually sport utility vehicles.

It was a 4x4 in every sense of the term. You had to get out and lock up the hubs, guaranteeing you'd slip and fall in the mud. We used to go bogging out along the Oconee River because it was like a cheap trip to the amusement park and because the girls liked it so much. It made them feel rustic, which is hard to do in the 'burbs.

One afternoon we decided to go get muddy and I gassed up the Super Trooper and picked up the girls at their house. We roared down the old jeep trails and through the mud pits until not a speck of the Trooper's white paint was visible. And then came the monster. The monster was a pit of mud 20 feet across, 4 feet deep, with a slanted bottom. When we rolled up on it, two Jeeps were already stuck side by side. Bryan was trying to plug the hole in his Jeep's floorboard as muddy water shot through like Old Faithful. Cory was standing on the hood of his Jeep, hopeless. We sent another vehicle around to the other side to pull them out.

I don't know what I was thinking. I just got in the Super and drove right in. The Trooper lunged to the side and I saw muddy water crawl up the passenger side widow. The engine shut off and I heard the people outside yelling. They were holding onto the roof rack to keep two of the tires on the ground so I wouldn't tip over.

They pulled Super out of the pit with a tow strap and I took her home to wash her. I thoroughly got my 75 cents worth at the local car wash when I noticed it. Just a little rainbow in the suds. Getting bigger. An oil leak.

I hypothesized the worst. The bottoming out of the Trooper in the muddy pit hit the transmission hard enough to weaken the rear main seal. I knew from people who had the rear main seal repaired how expensive it could be. I took the Super to the shadiest mechanic in Athens and he confirmed my suspicion. The cost to repair old Super was as much as I had paid for her.

Over time, the leak got worse. It got to where I would drive around with a case of oil to fill her up every hundred miles. Eventually, I bought a new car and parked old Super. Once in a while, I'd go out and wash her or just let the engine run a bit.

Then Maura and I bought a house and we had to move. The Trooper had fallen into enough disrepair that she could not be driven. I had her towed to a mechanic recommended by a friend to fix the things so at least we could drive her. The mechanic called and said, "I found a brake caliper and a few hoses for that power steering line cheap so don't pee yourself over the price. I should be able to get all this installed by the end of the week. Oh, by the way, I tightened down the head so you shouldn't be leaking anymore oil".

Tightened down the head? What happened to the rear main seal? I've been leaking enough oil around rural Georgia to rival the Valdez. You mean it was a few loose bolts?
I was tempted to go punch that first mechanic in the throat. However, I was so happy that Super Trooper's oil leaking days were over. For now. Until she sprung another leak, as vehicles with 220k miles often do.

I have paid a lot of money to mechanics for the wrong diagnoses. I've had mechanics ignore what I brought the car in for and fix something else entirely. I've paid for a fix that lasted about as long as it took to leave the mechanic's driveway. Shade tree mechanic does not come close to some of the fools I've hired. My mechanics would cut down the shade tree into logs, stuff some of the logs in the trunk and say they fixed that pull in the suspension. They're just plain shady - no tree required.

Then again, I've met some shade tree marketers as well. They change the oil hoping it will inflate the tires. They put washer fluid in the gas tank to save a few bucks and want to know why the engine won't run. They paint the inside of the car while sanding the outside and call that a long term strategy.

Making the right diagnoses of your marketing is a crucial but often overlooked procedure. We marketers could have meetings about planning meetings to plan something, but when it comes to discussing how to get the lead out we seemed more inclined to let the air out instead.

We need one of those diagnostic computers that mechanics hook up to the car so that it will tell you what is wrong. Sorry. They don't make anything like that for marketing plans. No, we'll have to do this the old fashioned way. Pop the hood and hand me that flashlight.


The best test of whether or not it will run is to try to start it.

The easiest test of a marketing plan is to see if it is doing what it is intended to do. Are sales rising? Are we making money? Sure, this is simplistic, but I ask you, if the marketing plan couldn't even turn over, is that not a good indicator that something might be wrong?


Work backwards from the starter.

Take the entire drive train of marketing and do diagnoses. Have you done things to build awareness? Are customers building enough interest? How are we helping customers gain knowledge or make a decision to buy? When they want to buy, how helpful are we? After the sale, do we reinforce their decision or run away laughing with the money, which, by the way, is what that first mechanic did.


Check for burning oil.

If the machine is in good running order, you should not only have decent efficiency, it should be getting better. As many marketing activities are cumulative, the cost incurred to make each sale should be decreasing either by an elevation in sales or a savings in costs due to ever-bettering practices. Unnecessary smoke is most often the use of price reductions and financial incentives which you can run on for a while but it'll run like crap and eventually clog your engine.


Check the gaps and the timing.

As consumers are made more aware of your offerings and you are constantly evolving your offerings with the consumer, the gap between their desires and your offerings should narrow. This should always be an ongoing process of improvement and refinement. The idea that if you just get it right once and it'll run forever is just as true as it is with cars.


Kick your tires for a change.

Every marketing plan is worth a little diagnosis if just to head off bald tires and poor alignment that is inevitable in every business over time. Regular maintenance helps ensure a long running machine and more enjoyable experience when driving. And you never know, you might have a leak that you can't even see yet.

The Trooper is still alive and hauling things on my in-laws property. There is a good reason for this. The oil leak meant the Trooper always had fresh oil and it was checked every 100 miles. Also, the spray of leaking oil coated a bunch of parts that would have otherwise rusted long ago. She self preserved like one of those ancient mosquitoes trapped in amber. It's pretty amazing. Well, we didn't call her Super for nothing.