Tag Archives: business best practices

What’s The “Bunny Cake” of Your Content Strategy?

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Everything old *is* new again. No idea is really a completely *new* idea. Perhaps variations on a theme. An idea extension. A different flavor. A different shape. A different angle. But it’s definitely a case of deja vu.

Take, for example, content strategy. It’s a fairly newish term but it’s been a de facto business approach for years… decades… centuries, perhaps! 

Case in point:

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I recently stumbled across a friend’s Facebook post with a picture of the Easter cake she had made. It reminded me that my mother had just given me some old books and papers. One of the papers was page from the March 28, 1976 Atlanta Journal Constitution Magazine (see image), featuring a recipe for a “Baker’s Coconut Bunny Cake” that we made for my father’s 33rd birthday 38 years ago. I promptly posted a picture of the yellowed article on Facebook.

One friend commented that she had first made the cake for a family “bon voyage” party about 38 years ago, another commented that they made it every year for Easter from a recipe in Redbook Magazine, and yet another friend commented that they used to make it when she was younger from a Baker’s brand recipe cookbook for “cut-up cake shapes.”

You know what Baker’s was doing? Re-purposing content… about forty years ago. Weren’t they smart and savvy?!? That recipe was all over the place – BEFORE PCs, the WWW and social media. People were making that cake in the late 70s and it became a spring tradition for many families. It became their star content du jour. Baker’s knew it and they used it. It was an anchor in their content strategy.

Every time I hear someone talk about a new business or technology buzzword, I immediately think “That’s the same thing we talked about in the 80s then the 90s, but with a different moniker.” And I’ll bet the same concepts we buzz to death today existed in the 60s, 50s, 40s and beyond, as well, but with different names.

Content strategy is not new, but perhaps it is more complex than in the not-too-distant past, with myriad potential vehicles to consider, an opportunity to hyper-target content and reach, and technology-enabled communications and metrics. But perhaps businesses can benefit from the simple notion implied by that bunny cake recipe forty years ago: If you have a some great content, leverage the heck out of it. It gets people talking (or in this case, shopping and baking) and can, ultimately, sell more of your coconut.

 What’s the “bunny cake” of your content strategy?

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Advisory Board Activation

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collaborateHaving served on several technology start-up and non-profit advisory boards over the years, as well as advised companies on how to create and engage effective advisory boards, I enjoyed most of the points made in the AlleyWatch article, “5 Minute Guide to Advisory Boards,” but I differ on the point about group meetings. The author stated “The reason that you will rarely, if ever, have a meeting of all the advisory board members is that typically their experience is so varied as to make such a meeting unproductive.”

With the risk of sounding “old school,” here are my thoughts:

– There is tremendous power in gathering people from different backgrounds. The opportunity for idea exchange is unlimited. With a robust, facilitated agenda, businesses can garner valuable insights and/or validation on connections and direction.

– Some advisors will be more engaged than others. Exposing the more latent advisors to the more active ones can help ignite passion and stimulate action. Passion can be contagious. And passion is good in business.

– Getting people together in the same room sparks bursts of action. The days following an advisory board meeting are when we see the most dramatic forward momentum with connections and inputs. When there is a lull in meetings, there is a lull in action. I want to move the ball forward faster and farther, and the face-to-face meetings inherently promote that.

-The power of treating the advisory board as a “team” adds value to the board and your business. Teamwork is beneficial to a business through the engagement, accountability and momentum that it creates. Framing your board as a team – which means gathering them in person from time to time – will make for a stronger result.

– Here’s my “old school” band wagon again: Nothing replaces the power of a face-to-face meeting. Nothing. Technology is a great facilitator and enabler but can never, ever replace the communications potential and benefits of in-person conversation.

A quarterly face-to-face meeting, interspersed with regular email updates and phone calls (group and individual), will be welcome with active advisors who care about your business and its success. Those who are inactive and not adding consistent value should simply not be on your board.

What are you doing to engage and activate your advisory board?

 

C-Suite Conversations: The Blame Game

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Several conversations over the past week with top-level executives has me thinking – and thinking hard – about what is often broken in sales, marketing and business.

blame

First, a re-cap:

1) One global Director of Innovation for a mega-consumer brand was quipping about the lack of alignment between sales, brand management and innovation/product development. Sales is out selling something that is not ready to roll out so they can meet their quotas and make money; product development is not adhering to baseline global standards; innovation is not engaged in product development; marketing provides data about where the customers are, yet sales does not develop in those target areas; the company is not reaching its revenue goals.

Soooo, whose problem is this? Everyone’s. And, it’s not a sales problem, a product development problem, nor a marketing problem. It’s a business problem. It’s a revenue problem, an alignment problem. It’s the problem of everyone in the business. But do they know that? Do they take ownership for it? Do they even know across the business that the problem exists?

What’s the solution? Not to over-simplify, because getting everyone pointed in the same direction and synced up is not easy, but a robust, interactive, internal communications platform fed by external inputs would be a great start, in addition to a communications process and cadence that drives human collaboration and conversation. What about a cross-team, facilitated, action-oriented session to tackle issues and opportunities, one or two at a time?

(Ref: My first blog post, “Shortcuts make long delays…”)

2) A CFO shared an analysis of his company’s lack-of-growth woes and identified the issue as a “sales problem,” owned by the sales executive. In talking with him, it was clear that the problem was not isolated to sales, but also extended to marketing and, possibly, customer service and product development.

How can sales sell if marketing is not in lock-step and equipping the sales team with relevant messages, targeting insights and collateral? How can a company effectively sell products and services that are not directly addressing their customers’ pain points and needs? How do you determine how to solve the problem across the business vs. taking a silo approach?

3) A CEO of an established and growing software company struggled with the lack of their customers’ implementation of marketing insights into their overall strategy. Their clients don’t lack data from their customers and prospects, they are just not analyzing and executing on it to drive customer engagement, retention and acquisition.

He said that the context for the data is missing; the power of the human element and strategic context is being de-valued and diluted with the emphasis on marketing operations over marketing strategy and the proliferation of marketing automation and technology tools, replaced by stats on clicks and likes, which – in his words – are meaningless.

My takeaways from these insightful conversations – not surprisingly – validates some of my previous musings. In short:

– Marketing data does not replace marketing strategy, it feeds it.

– Marketing operations is not marketing strategy. Operations is, by nature, tactical. Don’t let tactics drive your strategy and path to success.

– Do not let technology supplant the human aspect of your marketing and communications efforts. Your customers are human. Your partners are human. Your investors are human. Your employees are human. Don’t forget it. Recognize and embrace that important fact by nurturing conversation and engagement.

I hope to have many more discussions with business leaders over the coming weeks and months about how they are driving business alignment to overcome obstacles and seize opportunities to drive revenue.  Think about your business issues and consider how other teams and divisions could support success through alignment, conversation and collaboration.

How A String Can Build Your Business

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“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” – Shel Silverstein

Does your company’s “suggestion box” collect dust and largely go ignored? Have the same problems plagued your company or team without resolution? Do you work for or lead an organization that struggles with innovation? Do you or your employees feel like you have great ideas for the business but they never get recognized or moved forward?

I believe that many companies and organizations are challenged with effective collaboration, problem-solving, and innovation. It’s no grand revelation. In fact, one or several of these common business obstacles may have you nodding your head in recognition. And, ironically, these are some of the very things that help businesses succeed and thrive.

One of my previous posts was about the importance of conversation to drive sales and marketing alignment. The reality is that conversation is important across the business, both internally and externally, but it can be difficult to effectively orchestrate in a way that is truly meaningful for your business. There are technology tools to instigate, facilitate, drive and track these conversations. However, many of the existing tools being utilized were either built as externally-facing tools to ultimately drive revenue or are bi-lateral in nature, which can be limiting.

Yesterday, the firm that I work with (TechCXO) launched a two-day “Be Heard” event that I believe will have dramatic impact on the business, the partners and our clients. This event is being held on a powerful, interactive technology platform called ideastring. (Disclaimer: I know the CEO of this company, but she does not know that I am blogging about her company today and the only upside I get from blogging about ideastring is to help other teams and organizations achieve their potential.)

Here’s the beauty of the ideastring platform: Ideas get shared and heard, built on, and prioritized. Problems get addressed – if not solved – by tapping the breadth of expertise and ideas across the team. Direction may be shifted or re-defined. Insight about partner expertise and passion is revealed. Collaboration happens. Pretty powerful, nest-ce pas?

I, for one, am enthusiastic about the potential of this tool to help facilitate meaningful dialogue and engagement. Perhaps your company or team could benefit, as well? Check it out: ideastring.com.

What A Violinist Can Teach Us About Business

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Last night, we went to see David Garrett perform. If you don’t know who David is, you should check him out on YouTube. He is a master of the violin, and a pure delight to listen to and watch. Here are some of my favorite videos:

Mozart’s Turkish March https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJNvpvq7xxk

Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbHwYazHiLI

He’s a Pirate (from Pirates of the Caribbean) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGuBYvURSZw

On-stage, David did several things that relate to my philosophy of business. Trust me, I did not think about business during the concert – at all, in fact – but, in reflecting on what made the concert so enjoyable, the business takeaways were crystal clear:

– Alignment has lots to do with overall performance: Throughout the concert – despite being on the road touring 300+ days out of the year with the same line-up – David went over to each musician and made eye contact. They were synchronizing and communicating with their gestures to make the performance the best it could be. This is how a business should operate: Keeping a finger on the pulse of each division and team to drive optimum alignment. Constant, interactive, “human” communication is at the crux of alignment success.

– Content is king: David is a master violinist, an artist, a maestro. But he is also a master marketer, as evidenced by the diversity in the audience and his content. Where else can you hear artfully arranged and performed live music by ACDC, Chopin, Michael Jackson, Tchaikovsky, Coldplay, Mozart, Nirvana, Beethoven, Queen and Metallica? He showcased his breadth and depth while appealing to wide range of fans. He implements a thought-through, diverse and engaging content plan based on a common theme to engage and astonish his audience.

– Everything old is new again: David performed several classics, but with an innovative twist through new arrangements and modern instrumentation. He had been thinking about how to arrange Hava Nagila for the past six years as a tribute to his manager, about how to create something new from a song that is solidly rooted in tradition. He *innovated* but did not re-invent the wheel. In fact, the majority of pieces performed in the concert were highly familiar, but presented in a fresh, innovative way, not the least of which was using a violin as the voice. When you think of innovation, do you consider current assets? You should, just like David Garrett.

(Of note, a review of the Forbes Reinventing America conference: “America’s Greatest Inventors Don’t Dream Up Novel Ideas — They Execute On Old Ones”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2014/03/28/americas-greatest-inventors-dont-dream-up-novel-ideas-they-execute-on-old-ones/?utm_campaign=forbestwittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social)

I am a fan – not just of David Garrett, but of everything his amazing performance delivered. What other artists do a good job of alignment, content and innovation?

“Short cuts make long delays.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

In recent conversations with CEOs, marketing executives and sales leaders of technology companies, one of the topics that often comes up is the ever-increasing insight that marketing automation, CRM and sales enablement solutions provide. Technology has certainly become an ally in opening up the conversation between sales, marketing and the C-suite in the past 26 years I have been in technology marketing and management.

With the increasing sophistication of software and Saas solutions, sales and marketing have become distinctly more measurable and, as a result, more accountable to each other – as it should be. However, technology should not replace the cadence and content of *real*, meaningful conversations between sales and marketing. The conversation provides the context; technology fuels the conversation.

In short: Technology and data enable the conversation between sales and marketing. They do not *replace* the conversation between sales and marketing.

I’ll be talking with more companies and executives over the coming weeks about what effective, powerful sales and marketing alignment looks like (hint: what technology solutions they use does not constitute the whole answer!); how sales and marketing collaborate and communicate with customers and internal/external constituents; processes for driving action from sales and marketing data, both internally and externally; and how their results might improve with enhanced alignment.

Which companies are doing a great job aligning sales and marketing to maximize revenues?