Category: Leadership

Do Something (Stupid)

MattLeave a Comment on Do Something (Stupid)

I recently caught an interesting piece on NBC News about the Muppets and their humble beginnings. Working on the Jack Paar show, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Don Sahlin and Jerry Juhl) had a lot of downtime. Decades before the Blackberry and iPhone, the crew couldn’t check email or while away time on Facebook.

Instead, they did something that some would have considered a waste or just plain stupid. They found a closet full of pipes and drew faces on them. Those faces later became The Muppets. Is your organization open minded enough to let people do something ‘stupid’? Are you open minded enough to try something ‘stupid”? The next time you’re waiting for a meeting, put the smart phone away and see what crazy things you can dream up!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/37581189#37581189

A Quick Way to Improve Your Reputation

MattLeave a Comment on A Quick Way to Improve Your Reputation

I’m reading a book called Getting Started in Consulting right now and Alan Weiss brings up a simple way to improve your standing with clients. When people call or email you, get back to them within 3 hours. Don’t just make this a guideline, make it a foundational rule and promote it as such.

Think about how nice it feels when you leave someone a message (or email) and they get back to you with an answer very quickly. You feel like this person/firm is well-informed and capable of producing results. Surely, there will come times when an answer can’t be given right away but you can still keep your promise by acknowledging the request, restating what you believe they need, and stating what you will be doing to meet that need.

Just Be Better

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Just got done reading Adobe’s clever new ad re: Apple. How much energy does your company spend trying to keep others from copying you? How much time do you spend trying to let good leads in while keeping the bad (competitors) from peaking in?

My advice is to take that time and invest in making your product better. Talk to your existing customers. Talk to potential customers. Talk to people who’ve never heard of you. Explore promising solutions in other industries and find new ideas. Don’t engage in a feature war. Features can be copied. That’s how the game is played. The trick is to change the game with innovation.

in an open market, the best products will win in the end – and the best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors.

Chuck Geschke and John Warnock Adobe Founders

Don’t worry about what your competition might do. Just be better than it.

It’s Not About What You Want

MattLeave a Comment on It’s Not About What You Want

As marketers it can be relatively easy to get sucked out of reality into the dream world where our company offers everything WE could ever want it to. Everything WE offer is cutting edge, revolutionary, and safer than ever, even if that’s not necessarily true. Problem is, WE don’t matter. What matters is providing, to quote McCann Erickson’s enduring slogan, ‘Truth well told’.

The moment marketing collateral begins to edge away from truth,  brand equity begins to chip away. And when people can’t believe what you say, whatever you do say starts to matter less. In the age of social media, brands can’t afford to be disingenuous.

So the next time you’re thinking about rounding the corners to make your brand look good. Think about the last time you bought a product that was grossly overstating its potential and how you felt about that brand.

You don’t have to exaggerate to be successful. You just have to concentrate on finding real benefits. Real benefits beat unmet expectations every time.

The Importance of Asking Why

MattLeave a Comment on The Importance of Asking Why

As we go through our lives, it’s very easy to get caught up in routine. Routine is comforting in life but can be detrimental in business. While we all have any number of assignments, duties, tasks, and deliverables, it’s important to re-evaluate each task and ask why it is being done. Hint: The answer isn’t ‘because we’ve always done it’.  Is this process still relevant to your goals? Has technology afforded you an easier, faster way to achieve the same result? There’s no shortage of things to do. Make sure the things you are doing are worth the effort.

Taking Advantage of Uncertainty

MattLeave a Comment on Taking Advantage of Uncertainty

Facing a challenging economy and tightening budgets, some companies may choose to do the first thing that comes to mind.

Trouble is – all analogies aside – marketing isn’t war. You don’t succeed by hiding out and waiting until it’s safe. What better time to get in front of consumers than when everyone else is taking shelter? If you need to find a way to trim your budget, look at ways to cut overhead. Can you re-purpose something that’s already been designed? Take a more focused approach or combine your company’s efforts to save time and money.

Here is a concise report from MarketingSherpa regarding marketing in an economic downturn.

Spring Cleaning – Welch Style

MattLeave a Comment on Spring Cleaning – Welch Style

Jack Welch is famous for removing the lowest performing (bottom 10%) from his staff. So this year I challenge you to do the same. I’m not saying go out and start handing out pink slips in the parking lot, but take this opportunity to evaluate your marketing programs.

What has been performing above average, about average, and below average? Has this trend been about the same for the last few quarters? Years? If something is continually performing below others, cut it out. Money and time are precious, don’t waste it on things that aren’t giving you back what others could.

And if you find any Boston or Kiss records while you are doing your other cleaning, send them over. Mine are skipping!

Who’s On First?

MattLeave a Comment on Who’s On First?

When you woke up today did you have a plan for the day? Did you know what tasks were waiting when you sat down at your desk? Did you know who you’d be talking with, taking orders from, giving orders too? If your organization, like many, has gone through some restructuring or reorganization the answers to those questions might not be so easy. If it is easy for you, maybe it’s not easy for the people that interface with you. Make sure they know their role, how it supports the strategic goals of the company and how to fulfill it on a tactical basis.

Baseball would look awfully weird if the first baseman didn’t know where to go when the ball was hit.

The Upside of Responsibility

MattLeave a Comment on The Upside of Responsibility

Often in big business, tasks are broken down into small easily repeatable processes. The goal is to take something complex and make it simple.  That way the pieces can be easily replaced as necessary.

Though it may seem like a good idea to distribute the work, you may actually be doing more harm than good.

When we separate process responsibilities there is more room for a breakdown in the process. Blame can be shifted, communication can fail, and eventually — productivity falls.

Encourage your people to take ownership of projects from start to finish. Sure it might take them a while to learn the ropes and yes they’ll be harder to replace. The upside is that they will feel a greater sense of achievement, gain meaningful experience, and become your resident expert.

Viewing the process with a wide-angle lens will give them the opportunity to examine the process as a whole and possibly find new, more efficient ways of doing things.

Keep Social Media – Social

MattLeave a Comment on Keep Social Media – Social

Let’s face it, social media has hit the big time. I recently read a report that said close to 80% of the Fortune 100 are engaging in some sort of social media strategy. However, the danger with social media going corporate is sterilization. There’s so much money/equity at stake that the people at the top take very restrictive stance on social media. Employees are told to get on twitter but only to follow others or broadcast press releases. Any socialization or interaction on these sites is frowned upon. While I understand the thought process, I tend to think that people join Twitter and Facebook and YouTube to be interactively involved. If your account serves only as a one-way mechanism to ‘blast’ consumers with content, it’s very possible that either a) users will quickly learn to filter out your content or b) one of your competitors will be happy to interact with them about your product AND theirs.

Think of all the great insights we would miss if we told our children to look and listen but never talk.