I think clarity comes from engagement not thought, as we learn best by action not through theory. I have observed many great marketeers throughout my career and the advise would give to anyone aspiring a career in marketing would be to study consumer psychology and focus on the following:
• Cognitive biases
• Objections
• Struggles
• Emotions
• Behavior
• Triggers
• Beliefs
• Desires
Digital marketing is an excellent way to reach a large audience. Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that involves endorsements and product placement. An influencer is someone who has a large following on social media and can influence what people buy or where they go. When a brand partners with an influencer, they usually receive payment, free products, or services from the brand in return for posting favourably about their experiences. Linking up with influencers that align with your brand is a relatively simple way of boosting your social media marketing strategy. And this is a wonderful way to gain exposure on platforms you may not have a huge following on.
What makes your brand stand out from the crowd?
To stand out from the crowd, you need to know what your audience expects and wants. Being relevant means being personal, joining your audience's conversations, meeting them where they spend time, and talking to them through people that they trust. I think people are attracted and loyal to brands because they form emotional connections to their products or services. I have seen far too many brands spending money trying to get people to like them instead of getting people to want them. It’s important to market your brand with hardcore discipline and core values to people who are committed to your mission and vision. Hire new people who are not like you but complement you. Hire people who have high self-discipline and are passionate about leaving their mark in the world. Keep the people around you who want to help you succeed and have the ability to guide you through difficult transitions with sound experience.
Cultural consistency stresses adherence to a code for the business and cultural fit emphasises an aspect of the culture that will attract employees and partners who are similarly inclined. Cultural diversity focuses on promoting inclusiveness and celebrating employees and partners for their differences as much as their similarities. I specialise in going into companies and seeing the existing culture, then fine tuning it to ensure that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. Every business has to find their own protocol as the company structure and culture will determine what feedback loop approach works best. And I think the way a company designs their feedback loops will make a difference as to whether the responses actually get incorporated into actionable actions. Contact me via e-mail if you would like some help with this process.
When you are a young company, your story will define your valuation and as a founder the words you use to describe your business can be the difference between finding an investment partner or not. With mature companies, it’s your numbers that will drive your valuation as the older a company the more the numbers drive the valuation. Start-up companies need “Steve the visionary” as CEO. As they become a young growth company they will need, “Bob the builder” because they have to start building a business. When they become a mature company, they will need “Don the defender” as CEO and when they are in decline, they will need “Larry the liquidator”.
Some businesses have low barriers to entry and are easy to enter and scale-up in where it doesn’t require infrastructure investment or decades of building up. Other businesses take much longer to build up, where going from start-up to maturity takes decades. When I have my business consultant hat on, I go into companies and explore their existing culture. My speciality is looking into work-flow systems and processes to see whether companies are optimising their economic potential. In my experience, it doesn’t matter what top line metric an organisation uses; the crucial fact is that they have a system they follow consistency. Contact me via e-mail if you would like some strategic guidance. Please note that there’s no specific thing that I can tell you that will make your customers or employees trust you.
Marketing campaigns are sets of strategic activities that promote a business’s goal or objective. A marketing campaign could be used to promote a product, a service, or the brand as a whole. To achieve the most effective results, campaigns are carefully planned and the activities are varied. And I think marketing campaigns are most effective when they are the offspring of a corporate purpose rather than originating from one. Remember when you take responsibility for your beliefs and judgments this will give you the power to change them.
Now ask yourself the following questions:
1. Why your company?
2. Why your product (or service)?
3. Why should they choose you?
“One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation”
Whenever you are the first one out of the gate, you will have to break through that metaphorical plate of glass. I mean you will have to go through deep scrutiny and answer questions, for example, “What does this mean? Why did you say (or write) that? Are you insulting us? etc., etc.” Selling a service is vastly different than selling products, and the main difference is that a product business sells physical, tangible objects, whereas a service business provides value through intangible skills, expertise and time. Image and message are sometimes more important than execution. Even though I think that if you can show your products in a picture, illustration or in real life, it will help your presentation. Vision drives everything and without one, you will get lost.
All first impressions are non verbal, for example, when you walk down the road, your subconscious mind will automatically begin to categorise the people you see in your preconceived frameworks. I think that first impressions are when we become a blip on other people's radar not when we open our mouth. It's an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality.
“Before you talk, listen.
Before you react, think.
Before you spend, earn.
Before you criticize, wait.
Before you pray, forgive.
Before you quit, try.”
The first law of thermodynamics is that energy is neither created or destroyed, merely transformed. This means that humans are bundles of energy and transform at death, we don’t just disappear. I think with the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your life. Contact me via e-mail if you don’t understand and we can have a meeting.
“There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.”
Most people crave simplicity, and beyond simplicity is complexity. I’m interested in the simplicity on the other side of complexity. There’s an inextricable link between leadership and communication because those who lead are those who clearly speak about what they believe. I think communication is the most important skill in the world, and simple communication skills should be taught in schools. Communication is both words and emotions but what’s really powerful, are words loaded with emotion. Words filled with emotion can move nations, they can help people change directions and establish good or bad ideology. The stronger and wiser you become, the more caring you become shows up in your language and manner of communication. Would you like some help with that? Contact me via e-mail and we can arrange a meeting in person or online.
The most basic human desire is to feel like we belong, it’s so powerful. Everything you say and everything you do has to prove what you believe. When you are in an environment where you don’t feel you belong, you seek out anyone who may share the same values and beliefs as you so that you can start to form trusting relationships. This is why I think this cannot be recreated over our computers, it’s our biology as human beings that gives us this ability, and it’s this ability to read each other which has enabled us to evolve. I don’t believe you can replace these human experiences and human feelings over the internet. Contact me via e-mail and let me know your feelings around this topic.
Leadership is not a natural by-product of career progression, it’s a skill that takes time, patience, and practice. Mental toughness is often portrayed as determination and persistence, but it can also be viewed by your flexibility and adaptability. When you build a habit of appreciation and gratitude into all you do, you will see a positive impact on team members' motivation, idea generation, and enthusiasm. I think that when your employees feel valued, they are more likely to be more engaged and be satisfied in their work. Remember the best doers won’t always be the best leaders, and the best leaders won’t always be the best doers.
I think that marketing and innovation are basically the same thing. This was confirmed after attending “The Great Wine Experience” opening event in Copenhagen, where jazz music, photography (The Uplift Sessions) and delicious wines were in focus. There are hundreds of wine bars in this city, so in reality there are only two ways where you can add value in the marketplace:
a) You can either find out what people want and work out a clever way to make it, or
b) You can work out what you can make and then find a clever way to make people want it.
The money you make is the same regardless of which option you choose, therefore, it’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel and spend thousands of kroner on creating a new concept. Another way is to take an existing concept and this case a wine shop, and then presenting, pricing, positioning and framing it in a completely different way. Natalie and Wilfred have done a wonderful job, and this is just the beginning.
Business leaders are under pressure come up with a corporate purpose and defining your purpose is equivalent of being able to define your organisations North Star. I think to qualify as a “North Star,” a metric must do three things: lead to revenue, reflect customer value, and measure progress. Finding the right answer involves identifying the most authentic and motivating basis for alignment among key stakeholder groups on which the success of the business depends. For example, climate change, workplace safety, diversity, employee well-being (whistleblower platforms), etc. Contact me via e-mail to discuss the possibilities for your organisation to incorporate the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals into your strategy.
Optimism is a choice.
Happiness is a choice.
Giving back is a choice.
Forgiveness is a choice.
Being honest is a choice.
Spoken words are choice.
Teaching others is a choice.
Showing gratitude is a choice.
Respecting others is a choice.
Living a recommendable life is a choice.
I wrote this back in November 2017 around data.
Big statement as an analogy: “Data is the new oil; analytics is the refinery for the data and intelligence is the fuel.” Data for data’s sake is interesting, with good hypothesis in you’ll get some great information out but with the volume of it, there is no way to go through it without some form of analytics. And there is no way that you can do something unless you are actually the mindset that is willing to think differently from what the intelligence tells you to do, and this may be counter intuitive to what you would have thought. Then you argue with the data and try to get the data to tell the story you want it to tell.
Stock Photo
What was your motivation to get into leadership?
I love sales and being in a leadership position does not change who I am as a person. Whenever I am in a leadership role or even in my younger days when I was in sales positions – I always chose to help my colleagues. I have had the benefit of good education, and I think a good education means that you have gained the ability to think on your own. Every time that I have gone into a leadership role, it was not necessarily something I was looking for, it’s something that I have naturally done. Whenever someone has asked me for help, whether friend or foe, I have always said yes, taking time to listen, articulate and advising on how we can become better as a team. Generally speaking, I have really enjoyed being in a teacher - motivator role, and in my humble opinion I have always excelled in them. I’m fully aware that whenever leaders push excellence, the haters will come out of the woodwork as employers are not fond of change.
What’s the outcome that keeps you moving forward?
Everything in business comes with a cost and sacrifice and it’s not always smooth and easy. I think the road is paved with nothing but potholes and bumps, so you need to have a clear direction to start with, and that’s what a robust strategy will provide you with. First this will give you a direction that you are confident in and then you will be more willing to change and shift that direction. The direction has to have some way to anticipate change and cascade this strategy throughout the organisation. Those of us working directly with customers and witnessing their direct response to new products, services or innovations can then put these responses back into the strategy process.
How do you make your work and life more robust?
There is massive value just taking time away from the office to spend time with smart, inspired people as their ideas and energy will influence you. I think we can use nature as an example for us that life is about rebirth and transformation, becoming exactly who we believe ourselves capable to be. This is not only possible, but inevitable, if we let go of the struggle and speediness, and of the need to become our best instantly and without journeying through several unique stages. Nature’s metaphor releases us from a sense of battling against our circumstances and invites us to rely upon an innate, perhaps universal, order and timing.
“To have the results that very few have, we must be willing to start doing the things that very few are willing to do.”
