Tag: growth

Alignment

Fabrizio1 Comment

Every single company is on a mission to talk about value. Value proposition, value selling, value chain, added value. And (almost) every single company fails to appreciate what value is.

That’s because value is defined not by your management, but by your customers. It is not about increased productivity or improved workforce efficiency, but it’s about what you enable your customers to do day after day (to increase productivity and improve workforce efficiency).

Value is how, what, and why.

It is one of the most difficult lessons to understand and put in practice. It is the only way to find a unique and consistent way to talk about value across people, deparment, and stakeholders. It is the alignment you are missing.

It is worth it.

Recognition

FabrizioLeave a comment

You can’t heal if you do not recognize you are hurt.

And of course, this is valid for teams, groups, and communities as well. The more people involved, the more challenging and long the process of recognition is going to be.

Have you told everyone how you feel? Have you shared with them what has happened? Have you signaled you are committed to a different future? Have you shown your own vulnerability and accepted the vulnerability of others?

Even a deep crisis can be an opportunity to build something better and stronger.

But if you approach it hoping that things will turn around because of luck, because of a new year, because what is not working will suddenly start to work. That is just wishful thinking.

Managing up

FabrizioLeave a comment

We take for granted that people in charge have it under control. And that makes it difficult for us to empathize with somebody who has a better pay, a better job, more power, more status, a bigger house, and the tacit or explicit appreciation of those around them.

Yet, it is so important.

The last person you want to be alone is the one you are reporting to. They need support, they need help, they need ideas, they need clarity, they need feedback, they need sharing, they need to know, they need solutions. They need you.

As part of the infinite wisdom First Round delivers to its readers, they came up with a great article full of practical tips for managing up.

You play a part in every bad boss situation you encounter in your own career.

The greatest illusion

Fabrizio3 Comments

Here is an extract from the lawsuit that is rocking social media, particularly interesting for marketers.

253. For example, as a result of Facebook’s unlawful conduct and harm to competition alleged above, advertisers are harmed by a lack of transparency about Facebook’s reporting metrics, inability to audit Facebook’s reporting metrics, unreliable metrics due to Facebook error, and the prevalence of fake accounts. In addition, they are unable to ensure the same ad is not shown to the same person across media platforms. Without accurate information about performance, advertisers cannot accurately assess the value of their ad spend on Facebook’s properties.

Full text here

Of course, we have known this for a while now, right?

The great illusion that social media has created for marketers is that they can be mastered. And if we are not deeply mad about all this, as professional marketers, then we are complicit. After all, it is easy to be fascinated by views going up, likes spiking, shares sky-rocketing when all that matters is plateauing.

Measure the impact on the business.

The rest is just the greatest illusion ever created.

Feel, think, and behave

Fabrizio3 Comments

If you tell me you will increase my productivity, that’s an idea that comes and goes very quickly.

If you tell me you will cut the time it takes me to translate my research into deliverables for my stakeholders, that’s a much more difficult idea to shake off.

If you tell me you will improve my efficiency, that’s an idea that comes and goes very quickly.

If you tell me you will provide a platform where I can store, search, and analyse all customers’ feedback, that’s a much more difficult idea to shake off.

If you want me to be interested in an apartment, and all you show is the floor plan and the energy consumption, you would probably be much more successful if you would take me on a tour of that apartment well furnished and decorated.

If you are asking me to buy a new car, you should not stop at the pictures and the range of colours it comes in, but you’d better give me the keys and let me drive it for a couple of hours.

Doing marketing is easy.

Doing marketing that changes the way people feel, think, and behave is not.

And it is the most beautiful thing in the world.