One of my U14 teams was playing a game against a staunch rival. The other team had won the championship from them the year before. The kids knew this, and so did the other team. The other team expected to win. Our first half strategy was simple. Just harass the ball, disrupt their passing and wait for a counter attack. The Italians call this Catennacio.
Read MoreEdina was a large school, and I suspected we might be in trouble when their players each arrived with their own matching athletic bags and personal trainers. When the game started, it was forty-five seconds before they scored on us. After three goals, our goalie began to cry.
Read MoreOne of the thing’s management always wonders about is… do they have the right team? When coaching a youth soccer team you don’t have the opportunity to fire players or draft new ones. It presents a unique opportunity. A good coach or manager asks, “How can I develop each player to their maximum potential?”
Read MoreOne day, my ten year old daughter begged me to coach her rec-center soccer team. Most of what I know about managing and motivating business teams comes from coaching youth soccer. I agreed and went skeptically to “draft night,” unsure of why kid’s needed to be drafted. There I found two other coaches poring through the kid’s applications and putting them into two piles; the ones they wanted and the ones they didn’t. It appeared they had been at it for a while.
Read MoreI just read a survey that said that only 30% of Americans trust corporations. Marketing and sales own this problem. My three year old grandson has an answer for how to deal with this.
Read MoreA while ago, Hubspot wrote an interesting e-book called, “Hiring in the DARC Ages… Are the Right People on Your Marketing Team? I recommend the e-book, and you can download it here.
The essence of the article is that the characteristics of successful inbound marketers are represented by the categories: Digital, Analytic, Reach and Content. In other words, D= Hire Digital Citizens, A= Hire for Analytical Chops, R= Hire for Web Reach and C= Hire Content Creators. My current client is looking for such a marketing person.
Read MoreIt’s the strategic planning season again in corporate America, and it’s difficult for me to not be a little cynical. I’ve been through dozens of strategic planning sessions, some good, but most just awful. In my observation, there are two related sins in strategic planning.
Read MoreWhen I checked my finance page yesterday after the market dropped six hundred points, I saw something that reminded me of the need to quickly market to the event. There was a pop-up ad promoting the book of some guy who predicted the last crash. There was also an ad for gold. These people were marketing to an event. Their response time for their campaign was several hours.
Read MoreWhen my daughter was fourteen, she said, “Dad, I’m going to Central America next summer for three months.” There was no implied request for permission. I wrote it off to youthful fantasy. It made no sense for a fourteen year old to go alone and live in a small village in the mountains of Central America. Her mother was vehemently against the idea, logically outlining the risks from disease and rape to snakes and revolution. But in the end, my daughter used one argument to persuade us to “let her go.” An argument that I don’t hear enough of from marketers and corporations.
Read MoreI 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…
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