Leadership

No Roadkill Marketing – Take the Pledge

Share Have you ever eaten roadkill? I know several people that have, but it’s not something that appeals to me. Besides the yuck factor, there’s the risk of disease. So why would you tolerate Roadkill Marketing in your organization? What’s Roadkill Marketing? Just like it sounds. It’s driving in any direction toward a distant business […]

Read More

CEOs: For Better Success Improve Communication of Your Strategy

ShareYou’ve worked really hard on your strategy and plan. You’ve communicated it to the troops. You’ve done this frequently though a variety of channels. But six months later, your strategy isn’t getting traction? There are lots of reasons strategies fail. In a study by Donald Stull (MIT Sloan School of Management) and Kathleen Eisenhardt (Simple […]

Read More

Solve This Strategy Implementation Killer in Four Steps

ShareA CEO of a $50M SaaS company is faced with a strategic implementation problem. In order to recognize his strategic vision of double-digit growth he has challenged his sales team to get so many orders that his implementation team leader literally cries. Failure of managers to work across disciplines to implement strategy is one of […]

Read More

Blog Mills. Really?

Yesterday, I had a colleague send me a link to a site that offers to write your blog for you. The price was very reasonable, an introductory offer of $68.75 per blog! He asked for my reaction.

Read More

You Can’t Tweet a Whitepaper- Part 1 of Content Strategy and Tactics

I heard someone say, “Marketing is just publishing.” And if this is true, then the saying “Content is king,” should also be true. The question is… does your king have clothes? And is he dressed appropriately?

In thinking about content I’ve come up with four key elements and a set of questions you can ask yourself about each to see how well-dressed your king is.

The four elements are: 1) Creation, 2) Quality, 3) Focus and 4) Media. Marketing’s job is not content creation…

Read More

Passion, Measurement and Heisenberg

In quantum physics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is often misstated so as to imply that simultaneous measurements of both the position and momentum cannot be made. The same is true of some very essential human traits. Measurement kills them.

Read More

Building Blocks for Internet Marketing

Here’s a model I’ve developed to think about the four basic building blocks for inbound Internet marketing: 1) Content, 2) Contacts and 3) Tools, all of which are first surrounded by a clear and concise #4; Messaging.

Read More

Steve Jobs

I once got a job offer from Steve Jobs. I say this not in the “My mother petted Secretariat” sense because I hate name dropping. But his name in the news got me reflecting on our conversation and the value of doing what you are passionate about.

Read More

At Play in the Fields of Business

3M has an unwritten cultural tradition that allows employees to spend 15% of their time working on their own ideas. This is time that managers can’t ‘second guess’ or override. The process, which has been in place over decades, breeds a type of thought leadership and product leadership that has been studied and emulated by many. It also makes the bean counters and upper management uncomfortable because they can’t always measure the immediate result.

Read More

The Secret of Becoming the World’s Greatest Lover/Marketer

A key characteristic of true thought leadership is sharing; sharing ideas, technology, knowledge, and intellectual property, all without the thought of immediate gain. It contains elements of passion, generosity and education. Ultimately, like brand, it is about what others say about you. You can’t say you are a thought leader or if you do, no one will believe you. It’s like saying you are the world’s greatest lover. Though that also has something to do with sharing, recognition comes more with simmering the sauce over a long time.

Read More