Tag: marketing
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Data is not the story. Nor is it marketing
Modern marketing is ever-more difficult to distinguish from data. But it is crucial that we put forth continued effort to separate them in order to best invest our resources. Here is my take on it. Marketing is the story. Multiple stories, actually! – The story about why and how you (the brand, product, team, individual,…
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Everything is Marketing. Marketing is Everything!
Everything we do and don’t do communicates something about us, our values, preferences, and personalities. It helps us build trust and social bonds to those around us, as well as to seek other places/groups where we can easily connect. This applies to individuals, small business entities, and large corporations equally. Humans evolved to communicate at…
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Profitability is Key to Sustainability
Sustainable business IS profitable. Let’s start with simple explanations of 2 key concepts with 7 words each. PROFIT: calculation of total revenue less total expenses. SUSTAINABILITY: The ability to continue operations perpetually. In order to continue operations, businesses need to collect more than they spend. Each business has a unique pattern to the sources, timing,…
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Easy Is Always Better
One way to gain huge advantages in the minds of the human buyers and users is to make things simple. Einstein has been famously attributed to a reminder to us all that if we can’t explain it simply enough for a 5th grader, we don’t understand it well enough. This applies to Business, Finance, Economics,…
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Ideal Clients Are Not Always Ideal
It is easy to describe ideal clients/customers as being … well… perfect. As in:– Easy to identify and find digitally– Already know they have a problem or challenge– Currently looking for solution options– Funding approved– Ready to buy While some of these attributes ARE available, they alone are not likely to sustain your growth goals,…
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Story is EVERYTHING
You’ve likely heard it many times before, story is important to your brand. What is most fascinating is that it is less about the story you tell, and more about the story people say over and over within their own mind. You get to influence their story of you through the following: – content –…
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Personalization is HUMANIZATION
YES. We are buyers, sellers, users, employees, partners, owners, influencers, interacts, and an unthinkably broad range of demographics. Most importantly, we are HUMANS We are individuals with passions, interests, dreams, hobbies, friends, people demanding things from us, challenges to navigate, and lots of ideas. Smart marketers understand the value in the first list. They build…
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Dreams Require Processes
Ideal outcomes are like whimsical dreams without a process to bring them into reality. These 6 Key areas help channel efforts and energy into building systems that create ideal outcomes. They are presented in a circular design to suggest that it doesn’t matter where you begin. There is no particular order to follow. Start where…
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Limits of Product Design
It is nearly impossible to design and build a product that will sell itself millions of times over! Great product design IS important. But Sustainable and growing revenue streams are built by stories, connections, and relationships of marketing, branding, and sales professionals. Period. Revenues can be generated without them. However, the default arena is PRICE – which is heavily slanted toward…
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Strategy and Execution
Execution is a valuable and important skill to have in business. It shows up as our history. We can easily look back at the sum of the decisions we make and assess a judgement – Did we execute well? But execution is only half (at most) of the story! Strategy and purpose are what drive our decision-making and will…
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Always Add Value
When business is booming… When things are slow… When you are absolutely confident… When you are in doubt… Find ways to add value to whatever situation you find yourself! Here are some common ways to start adding value. Listening and attention Compassion and understanding Sincere compliment Smile or tasteful humor Hope, new options, or a path forward Education or…
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Simplifying “BRANDING”
I wish I had a nickel for every time I had a conversation with a business professional about what branding is or isn’t; why it is valuable; when and how to invest in it; etc. Here is an overly simple solution for executives, owners, founders, as well as our friends and family members. Every time you see the word branding,…
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Leading from Chaos
All your thoughts, beliefs, actions, and reactions have brought you to where you are today. It might not be the depiction of Strategic Mastery you would like it to be. It is likely the most accurate depiction of “learning curve” and represents huge investments in developing emotional boundaries, physical dexterities, understanding others, situational awareness, and…
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What is Leadership in Marketing & Sales?
-It is building authentic connections with customers, clients, and users; as well as teammates, other departments, and internal competitors. – It is helping those in your sphere grow, benefit, find joy, minimize pain. – It is sharing knowledge and skills while constantly learning from others and trying new things. – It is about facilitating communication and trust. (notice that it is NOT…
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Is your business sexy?
My personal belief: confidence, consistency, something of clear value or benefit to me, and maybe a sense of humor … all without taking one’s self too seriously is #SEXY, #ALLURING, and #ATTRACTIVE. It is what I want! Though they are expressed very differently; I think it is what most people want in terms of product, service, and functionality,…
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Polishing Turds or Audience Selection
I admit it! On more than two occasions in my career, I invested massive amounts of my creative, persuasive, and story-telling energies into a product or company that I knew wasn’t going anywhere. It was torture! What separates successful #innovations isn’t how much spin or #marketing resources are applied. It is doing the challenging work to understand who can…
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The Thin Line Separating Crazy from Genius
The distance between “Crazy” and “Genius” is measured in tenths of millimeters and often comes down to 3 categories – #Practicality, #Audience, and #Messaging. Here are some questions to help bring clarity to each of these categories. The more you invest in them, the more you will develop unlimited value, markets, and revenues. PRACTICALITY:How does it benefit, bring…
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Why People Love Brands
The foundation of every #Brand is psychological safety. People want to feel #heard.We want to feel #connected with others.We want to be part of a shared #future #Communicating that brand is done through #BelongingCues – subtle and authentic behaviors repeated over time that create conditions for collaboration, shared problem-solving, listening, and learning. People show love and support where they feel it reciprocated. Are you…
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Innovation and Product Life Cycle
Innovations are often mis-understood as being instant hits that immediately resonate with mass audiences and ‘virtually sell themselves’ based on their merits, coolness, or impact alone. This is NEVER the case! More accurately, all innovations follow the exact same sequence of growth as every other product. No brand, person, or idea can escape it. Following…
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Only Execute Fully-Funded Projects
A mentor talked with me about only executing fully-funded projects early in my career. I feel strong and confident every time I use this tip to make a decision about where to invest my energies. I have been burned every time I go against this methodology. As have countless others. One trick I have learned…
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To Brand Is To Be Human
Your brand is critical to attracting ideal clients/customers, defining expected quality, overall business stability, growth opportunities, and personal wealth. Meaning: without a defined brand, all the above is extraordinarily difficult. It has always been this way! By always, I refer to dating of early branding irons that go back thousands of years. More crucially, branding…
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Simple Rules For Communication
1st Rule of Marketing and Communications:Say something you believe and that people want to hear. It is about being original in your perspective, not just verbal vomit 2nd Rule:Say it clearly, and in appropriate channel. 3rd Rule:Repeat and refine your message, audience, and channel. These rules are alarmingly simple and easy to overlook. They are…
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Finding Your Marketing Sweet-spot
Marketing initiatives and strategies are as unique and diverse as humanity. There is NEVER a single best-solution for any brand, product, service, or industry. Rather, each marketing and leadership team must determine their own goals, outcomes, and objectives they wish to achieve with their efforts and find a range of nuanced tactics that serve them…
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How Do You Harness Engagement?
How do you build #engagement beyond social and digital platforms? Many consider engagement strictly as a buying signal and assign points or metrics as a form of progress towards a purchase. But there are many times when engagement is consistently very high, yet there is no opportunity to transact.– Industry Incompatibility: maybe respectful peers like…
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Connect. Don’t Persuade
My acceptance into the Sales Training MBA program offered by The School Of Hard Knocks was accepted 3.5 years ago – shortly after the birth of my daughter. I continue to learn so much from this program and am enthusiastic about never graduating! Before enrolling, I had sat through countless seminars teaching the benefits of…
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Platinum Rule For Business
Happy, safe, and trusting humans are THE BIGGEST KEY to any business being able to operate. It is the foundation for employment, leadership, buying, and selling. Surely, we can all agree that there is no way a business can make money without these systems in place. Today’s business environment is often demanding that these systems…
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Compound Interest For Marketing
Long ago, I freaked out when I read one of the first quarterly statements regarding the performance of my 401k. I was ALREADY LOOSING MONEY! Thankfully, someone slapped me out of my panic and reminded me that financial investing is all about money growing over time… as in 2, 3, even 4 decades. The same…
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The Power Of Systems In Marketing
Contrary to beliefs throughout the industrial age; marketing and sales are not interchangeable words. Independently, they seem to be infinitely complex and divergent, but when blended together properly they blend create powerful synergies. Described separately and in overly-simplified terms; ‘Sales’ is about creating and maintaining a relationship that results in a transaction. ‘Marketing’ is about…
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Words Have Power
The purpose of communication is to help someone else to understand something in your mind. At the beginning of 2013, I started the foundation for my own communication strategies when I published Law Of Communication. I suppose this time of year is ideal for me to think about communications. While few other animals have sophisticated…
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Advice For College Students
Yesterday I was fortunate to participate in my 3rd Sales Alumni Panel at University of Louisville College of Business. 6 other Alumni gave their morning to share wisdom, advice, and experiences to attentive students about to graduate. My 3-minute story began with… “I remember this program when I took this class and how the panelists…
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Grow Your Business Through Networking, Not Karaoke
Networking events are not for making sales pitches and closing deals. They are for meeting and connecting with other people. Sometimes you meet some really great prospects, but as most networking events are put on by an industry organization; you meet a lot of your competition – or at least people who already believe,…
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Marginal Impact – How A Change In Operations Becomes Great Marketing
The dictionary refers to marketing as the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer to seller to consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing and selling. Marketing is not something that is done TO a product; it should be part of every aspect in business. Years ago, I was working…
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Field Guide To Market Penetration
One of the problems with marketing a new idea or product is that it often takes vast amounts of time to get through the diffusion curve of any given audience. It can take years, or even decades to properly communicate brand attributes throughout an audience. Another problem is in the complexity and subtlety across industries.…
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Customer Abuse or Good Marketing?
On my way to an appointment the other day, I saw this sign in front of a business. My first thought was noticing that someone put a fair amount of time and talent (compared to what I could do with a chalkboard) to draw the anchor, write the message, and outline each of the characters…
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Dare to be bold
There is a common old saying that tells us squeaky wheels will eventually get the oil they need. But in today’s technologically-driven world, our ears are bombarded with dings, buzzes, chirps, and audible reminders that we are likely to think that squeaky marketing is somebody’s custom ring tone and are likely to ignore it altogether.…
David R Frick 