Marketing Cartoons in Content Marketing

One change can make all the difference. Here’s what you can learn from Google, Kronos, IBM, Dun & Bradstreet, and other B2B tech giants about creating lasting impact with effective content marketing.

If you’re investing in content marketing, ask yourself, “When was the last time my customer printed out my content and hung it up on their wall or made a T-Shirt with it and gave it out at trade shows?” For most companies the answer would be “NEVER!”

But that’s exactly what has been happening at several B2B technology giants, and the results of these content marketing programs have been nothing short of impressive, with some companies experiencing as much as a 400 percent increase in content marketing effectiveness. So what are they doing differently? They are using brilliant marketing cartoons.

Marketoonist Branded Content

Last week I had the opportunity to catch up with my friend Tom Fishburne, whom I first met while he was working at Dreyer’s. He went on to be a key player at Method
(home cleaning products) before launching his own company, Marketoonist, where he and his team have been taking the content marketing industry by storm.

The Power of cartoons in content marketing.

“We are at an interesting moment in content marketing” says Fishburne. “Companies are taking a fresh look at an old media. Even as newspapers are in decline, the cartoon medium is thriving”. And the growth of marketing cartoons is happening for good reason. Effective content marketing today means capturing the essence of a great idea in a quick snackable way. I see the potential of marketing cartoons replacing the flood of infographics we’ve seen in the past.

“There is a serial nature of cartoons”, explains Tom Fishburne. “There is a cadence of capturing and sustaining the attention of your audience. Daily, weekly, or whatever your frequency, each installment allows you to get several points across and chip away at the overall story.”

One of the key elements of a cartoon has always been that the reader co-creates alongside the company publishing the cartoon. “When someone thinks to themselves, ‘I’ve been there,’ it makes the cartoon funny and evokes an emotional connection”, says Tom Fishburne. “When done correctly, we’re acknowledging a universal truth and this is where content marketing works best — more about the reader and less about the brand. Cartoons lend themselves to this powerful approach.”

The ROI of cartoons.

Measuring the ROI of cartoons may sound funny, but B2B technology companies are quite serious about the business impact. “One of our clients is Kronos, which provides workforce management software,” Fishburne explains. “We’ve been producing a weekly cartoon for them for more than five years. And one of our clients in eDiscovery received a call from the Head of the Library of Congress requesting permission to outfit their walls with their cartoons.”

Imagine a key influencer from your industry asking permission to print your content marketing to hang on office walls, or print out on T-Shirts that are given away at trade shows. That’s when you know you’ve created relevant content that gets to the essence of what your audience cares about. After all, if you are looking to establish yourself as a thought leader, you want other leaders of your industry to reference your work.

Without revealing any names, one big company added one of Fishburne’s cartoons and saw a 400 percent increase in content marketing effectiveness. Fishburne is quick to point out that this was a single campaign and not all of his clients share the results of their campaigns (nor do all clients rigorously A/B test the impact of his work), so each company’s results will vary.

In Fishburne’s own email newsletter, he gets a 40-50 percent open rate. And it makes sense, as his audience expects to see something fun and interesting. Contrast that to the industry average of roughly 20 percent, according to the data recently posted byDave Chaffey, and you’ll see why more businesses are looking to use marketing cartoons in their content marketing efforts.

And these results work for startups, too. “We worked with a technology startup calledRealEyes on an email nurturing campaign,” explained Fishburne. “We also encouraged sharing through signed print giveaways to influencers. The campaign exceeded open-rate benchmarks by 24-38 percent and click benchmarks by 121-189 percent.” Examples of some of the cartoons from the campaign are available on theMarketoonist website.

Sharing the inside joke.

“I think one of the biggest issues with content marketing today is the fire hose approach” says Fishburne. “You can’t break through the clutter by adding to it. Rather than looking for mass appeal, the trick is to find things that are directly meaningful to the audience you’re going after.” This speaks to the power of niche content marketing. When you know your audience well enough, you can find inside jokes that not everyone will get — and that’s the point.

“It’s almost like a special handshake” Fishburne explains. “When you have a deep connection with a niche target audience, you can mine for some great humor. When you put yourself in the space of your audience, you can surface specific pain points and frustrations. It’s a way of saying that we, as a brand, get you.” And when you find those inside jokes that well represent the emotional feelings of your audience, they can’t help but share via their social channels.

For example, Marketoonist and Kronos used cartoons with a green screen at a trade show so attendees could get pictures of themselves starring in cartoons. This generated a lot of interest at the show and even more activity via social channels.Here’s a Facebook page with over 600 pictures of people posing in cartoons.

So while you really can’t force something to go viral, when you discover specific universal truths and find humorous ways to express them, there is a high probability that your audience will take the time to share your clever insights with their peers.

And when you continue to deliver humorous insights on universal truths on a consistent basis, is it any wonder why? The next time you are thinking about ways to break through the content marketing clutter, consider the power of the marketing cartoon as well as the reasons they are doing so well.

/by
, ,

Why, Despite Simon Sinek’s Best Efforts, You Still Don’t Know Your Why

You were inspired by Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk, but since then you’ve struggled to put into action the great advice he shared with the world. Here is the simple action you need to take to get it right.

The Trouble You’re Having with Articulating Your Why
I admit it. I am complete guilty of everything I’m about to share with you. As the CEO of a fast-growing company, I was inspired by Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”. As of the publishing of this article, he’s inspired more than 24 million people with his simple phrase, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy whyyou do it.”

And yet, as moved as you were by this Ted Talk, I’m willing to bet that since that inspirational speech, you’ve been obsessing over your company’s purpose by thinking deeply and trying to clearly articulate the “why” of your business. That was the point, after all, wasn’t it?

Actually, no, it wasn’t.

You see, people are visual learners. As the Chinese proverb goes, “Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.” Simon Sinek told us exactly what to do, but he DREW a concentric circle with the word “Why” in the middle. While you were moved by his words, it’s that bullseye with the word “Why” that keeps you obsessing about your company’s purpose. And yet, if you listen to the words he says, you’ll come away with a much different conclusion.

It’s What Your People Believe That Truly Matters
Imagine my surprise, when I discovered what was right there in front of me all along. Go back and listen to his Ted Talk (without watching the video) and pay attention to what Simon Sinek actually says. I didn’t discover this on my own. No, my coach, Chad Cooper, sent me a link to Roy H. Williams “The Wizard of Ads” video who broke it down for me, and it’s embarrassingly simple.

Rather than focusing on clearly articulating your company’s “Why” statement, fold a piece of paper in half and on the left-hand side write, “We believe” several times. On the right-hand side write down ONLY statements that are observable by your employees and customers alike (as opposed to something that is “global and ambiguous”). The example Mr. Williams used was, “We believe in doing our best” or “We believe in doing the right thing not the easy thing”. The problem with these statements is that while they may be true, they are not observable and therefore do not reinforce a true belief system.

Instead, Mr. Williams walked through several small business examples of belief statements that are, in fact, observable by your employees and customers. For Goettl, an air conditioning company, these belief statements looked like this:

  • We believe in showing up on time.
  • We believe in super-sealing the air ducts because no one needs to air condition their attic.
  • We believe in eliminating every squeak, rattle and hum, because if you don’t bigger problems will come.
  • We believe in replacing every screw–even the ones other people left out–so that we can tighten the unit up like new.
  • We install everything level, plumb and square because this is the signature of asuperior technician.

Take a minute to stop and absorb what you just read. Every one of these belief statements are observable and measurable are they not? Does this feel like fluffy “shareholder value” doublespeak? Would you want to hire this company to come in and fix any and all problems related to your air conditioning unit?

And that’s the point, isn’t it? So I ask you, would Simon Sinek agree that this company has found their “Why”? Does this company not remind of the part in Walter Isaacson’s book Steve Jobs where Steve Jobs talks about how important getting the INSIDE of the computer right? This is when his young team was complaining about no one ever seeing the inside of their computer. But Steve Jobs was obsessed with making every component neat, tidy and representative of the best company in the world–because we know better and we don’t take short cuts.

Turning Belief Statements to an Actionable Reality
But Mr. Williams didn’t stop there. He suggested that once you identify these observable belief statements, have your team recite them every day, as a group, similar to the pledge of allegiance. It’s easy to ignore management-led mission statements and dismiss lofty, “global and ambiguous” doublespeak. You simply can’t recite these statements each day and then go out and do the opposite. As human beings, we are compelled to act out the things we really believe. If you worked at Goettl as an air conditioning repair person and repeated these belief statements before you started your day each day, is there any chance you’re going to cut corners while out in the field? Not likely.

What’s more, Mr. Williams advises his clients to ditch their “About Us” link on their home page and instead replace it with a “We Believe” link. Not only will more prospective customers click on it, but when a real person can envision in their head a core belief system that benefits them directly, it’s really hard to sign on with anyone else.

If you could clearly envision an air conditioning repair person showing up on time, replacing screws on the shoddy work someone else did, super-sealing air ducts, and installing everything level, plumb and square, wouldn’t you even pay more for that piece of mind? Now, imagine a video where each one of those belief statements were recited by a different employee and you, as a prospective customer, could see the honesty and integrity first hand. Yeah, that’s powerful.

Feel free to watch Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk again with these new insights, but first, do yourself a favor and watch the Roy H. Williams “The Wizard of Ads” video. Then, take the time to run through his simple exercise. You will be living the very mission that Simon Sinek wanted you to in the first place.

/by

The Next Frontier of Big Data Gets Personal

The future of Big Data is a lot less about a handful of large enterprises attempting to control the data and a lot more about access by the people who are most impacted by their own digital footprints.

More than 18 months ago, Bennet Bayer, Global CMO & VP Strategy at Huawei, posted an article on LinkedIn that rocked my world. He asked the simple question, “Are we looking at Big Data from the Wrong End?” Specifically, what we if gave consumers access to their own Big Data footprint? He mused:

What if I could get just my data…what could I do with it? I like my credit card company sending me an annual summary…if I had that every month could I budget better? Energy utilization in my house? How about all my medical information? Family? I can think of dozens of things (you?).

What if the collection of “Big Data” information was given back to “us”…”sold” back to us with range of tools (dashboards and historical tracking) helping us to improve how and what we do.

Like most visionaries, Mr. Bayer was sharing thinking that was ahead of his time. And, like all great idea viruses, this unique way of looking at Big Data has stayed with me. The more Data Scientists I talk to, the more I realize that having access to your own personal data is the next frontier of Big Data, although we’re probably a few years out before we have the kind of dashboards that Mr. Bayer envisioned.

Accessing Personal Big Data Started with Health & Fitness Apps
We’re slowly getting access to individual siloes of our personal data. It started withFitbit and Nike’s FuelBand tracking our daily activities. Then Apple dropped its own Health app on everyone’s iPhone. Perhaps you’re already using MyFitnessPal, which combines your exercise with a simple daily diary of your food choices (leveraging 5 million foods pre-populated in their database). In fact, Apple’s App store’s “Health & Fitness” section has hundreds of apps ready to track your calorie intake and exercise routines.

Personal Big Data Grows via IoT
The personalization of Big Data continues to grow with the Internet of Things. Watches from Samsung and Apple have kicked off this trend, but in the next year or so, expect to see digital sensors woven into clothing and more of your gadgets connecting to each other via Bluetooth or WiFi. At the moment, it’s unclear how much direct access we will have to the data we are creating each day, but the trend is certainly leaning in that direction as several entrepreneurs are looking at unique and interesting ways to provide personal Big Data back to the very people creating that data in the first place.

Why Personal Big Data is Likely to be Accessed & Analyzed Directly by the People Who Create It
I spoke with Rafaela Frota who is a researcher and entrepreneur focusing on developing new solutions to raise nutritional awareness through big data and emerging technologies. Among her projects, she is working on Wawwe, an app that concierges’ people to eat healthier and a hand held pesticide detecting scanner. Ms. Frota shared her perspective and explained it this way:

We, as entrepreneurs and global citizens, are living within a privileged technological era. For the first time in human existence, the complexities of cultures, behaviors, places, and people are capable of being quantified and analyzed to bring about meaningful experiences and knowledge. The internet has forged the connectivity between billions of previously untouched people. It has given birth to an expanding realm of ideas and information. All are connected, but few are aware. All are unique, but few are valued. Until, that is, big data came into the picture.

Doug Laney, one of the most prominent and founding advocates for big data, noted that volume, velocity, and variety are the three major components that make up this powerful and game changing industry.

Increasing amounts of data are accessible through emerging technology, and high velocity, real-time analysis is made possible by sensors, wearable technology, and the internet of things.

Big data allows for the quantifying of structured and unstructured information in the forms of numbers, audio, text, transactions or videos. Billions of portfolios are created every second that allow for personal engagement, insightful predictability, and wise decision making.

Research conducted within the University of Rochester in New Yorkstipulates that by 2020, more than 30 billion devices will be wirelessly connected. Imagine what that would mean for consumers and corporations both. Imagine personalized catering to the needs of consumers based on observed trends, behaviors, and wants.

This would mean a specimen of consumerism no longer based on the principle of idealism and superficiality, but instead driven by its actual relevance to those with purchasing power. “Buy less of what you don’t need, and more of what you need”- a call to action opposite the 1950s foundation for the “American Dream”.

If knowledge is power, then as decision makers, we are more powerful than ever.

However, the beauty lies in offering this decision making power to the end user, as well; broadening the playing field to include not only us, the entrepreneurs behind the corporate wheel, but the people who make the entire machine work.

Within an increasing number of app based business models, it is important to note that currently, there are 190.5 million US smartphone users of all ages, representing 73.4% of internet users and 59.3% of the population. It is expected that by 2019, the smartphone audience will reach 236.8 million. There is an almost immeasurable amount of user generated data that is stored, accessed, and analyzed by the social media gurus of today, yet in larger scale, only about 0.5% of all retrieved data is being assessed, and only 23% of organizations assessed actually have an enterprise wide big data strategy. There is a gap present.

As entrepreneurs, we seek disruption, change, innovation, and purpose. With the unleashing of the power of big data to consumers, we achieve all of that; personal engagement, insightful predictability, and wise decision making are no longer subjective to the visions of corporations, but instead in the hands of the consumer. With increased market transparency, awareness grows. Consumerism becomes an autonomous machine driven by the values and needs of the people and not the wants and profits of corporations.

Within the food industry, this is most evident. By giving access to nutritional information, personalizing recipes, food alternatives, health benefits, and utilizing the power of big data to connect all of that with news within the industry, ranging from food recalls, research findings, new product releases, etc–you have created an entirely new world of meaningful information.

As an entrepreneur unleashing the potential of big data to the end user, you have given the consumer the greatest form of power. You have brought the control to the soon to be 236.8 million smartphone users, instead of a handful of leading corporations. Forge the path to a post consumerism era, and raise awareness for smarter decision making.

Well said, Ms. Frota, I completely agree. The future of Big Data is a lot less about a handful of large enterprises attempting to control the data and a lot more about access by the people who are most impacted by their own digital footprints. It may take a few years to get this right, but it’s too important to get it wrong. We may have lost the privacy war, but having access to our own digital footprint is the first step to having more control over our digital lives and making smarter decisions on a day-to-day basis.

/by

The Future of Retail: Bridging Digital With the Physical

Westfield totally reimagined the retail experience, placing the consumer at the center of everything, empowering entirely new world-class experiences fueled by data and customer preferences.

This week at Shoptalk, I’ve been speaking with several commerce innovators about the impact of technology on every type of business. Facebook proudly shared its latest innovations in social commerce. Google spoke on the power of shopable YouTube Videos. Amazon made compelling arguments on why they are an ideal technology platform partner. And nearly everyone reinforced the critical importance of a mobile-first strategy.

One of the more intriguing keynotes, however, came from an unexpected tech-forward commerce innovator: Westfield Malls.

“We once saw technology as a threat to malls”, says Steven M. Lowy, Co-CEO of Westfield Corp, “but now we see it has an enhancement. We’re bridging the digital with the physical and have made significant investments into what we’re calling the Westfield Cloud.”

Building the Mall of the Future
“We’re a 57 year old company that needed to change and adapt,” Mr. Lowy explained. “Westfield is essentially getting back to its roots. Malls first started because no one retailer could afford the real-estate, so we aggregated the cost across multiple retailers. Today, we’ve built a digital platform along the same lines.”

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend watching Westfield’s concept video that is now a reality (at least in pilot form) according to Mr. Lowy. Westfield has invested heavily in technology so that they can deliver a more powerful customer experience that leverages a customer’s mobile device with embedded technologies such as beacons throughout the mall. Mr. Lowy says that anyone from brands to retailers to third-party solutions providers can plug into Westfield’s technology (i.e. the “Westfield Cloud”), as it was built from the ground up to serve this purpose.

With 34 shopping centers worldwide, Westfield houses more than 6,500 retailers and 400 million annual customer visits responsible for more than $16 billion in retail sales last year. Placing the customer at the center of everything has substantial ramifications on the future of retail.

Data Personalizes Shopping
Without technology, every shopper is essentially treated the same and this is a big mistake in retail environments. If you’re a mom with kids, you have very different needs than a single female. With better data insights and a connection to your mobile phone Westfield can tailor the mall experience to meet your specific needs, weather that’s to find a specific item in a specific store, explore new product lines or hunt for deals. Westfield is effectively bringing more of what’s worked online into physical retail.

A Mall as a Warehouse
“A mall is basically a big warehouse,” Mr. Lowy explained. “We connect consumers to these warehouses by bridging the digital with the physical.” Think about it. Much of today’s digital engagements are fueling desire. When someone wants to buy something, the fastest way is often to drive into a store and buy it. While many business models have been constructed around ordering online and picking up at stores or having the item(s) delivered, businesses understand the power of physical retail and the act of touching and feeling an item before a purchase is made.

Today the fastest way for people to transact is still to enter a physical store. What needs to change, however, is the in-store experience. By integrating technology, retailers can deliver more personal and therefore more meaningful shopping experiences which will lead to increased loyalty and advocacy.

There’s a lot to enhancing the customer experience and Westfield is leveraging it’s technology in new and interesting ways that benefit its retail partners. The thinking being that by supporting the digital needs of its retailers and customers, Westfield can better deliver on its mission of connecting consumers with retailers.

Bridging Digital with the Physical
We’re living in a digital world and people expect to seamlessly move between their devices and the physical world. Mobile phones are now your remote control that empowers you to change your real-world experiences. Westfield understands that by bridging digital with physical retail they are able to enhance the shopping experience and thereby support the growth of their retail partners and deliver on the needs of their customers.

/by
,

The One Question That Shapes Everything

Discovering your primary question is critically important. A negative one will ultimately lead to unbelievable pain. A positive one will ensure you build an extraordinary life.

If you have attended Tony Robbin’s Date With Destiny, then you know where I’m going with this. While we ask ourselves tons of questions every day, there is one question that we ask ourselves several times every day and it shapes who we are, what we do, and why we do it. As an entrepreneur, it’s likely that this question has driven you to launch or join your current company rather than follow more traditional career paths.

The vast majority of people are not even aware of their primary question, even though it has a dramatic impact on everything we do. Discovering your primary question is critically important, as a negative one will ultimately lead to unbelievable pain, while a positive one will ensure you build an extraordinary life for yourself–including successful businesses, relationships, and deep levels of satisfaction and fulfillment.

Examples of Negative Primary Questions
Destructive questions include those such as:

– Why do I continue to struggle?

– How come I’m not successful?

– Why am I so miserable?

– Why am I so depressed?

– Why am I such a failure?

– What do they think of me?

– Why does this always happen to me?

– What did I do to deserve this?

Basically, any negative question that you ask over and over becomes engrained in your identity. “Where focus goes, energy flows,” says Robbins. And this question, when asked several times a day, begins to shape your outlook on life. When you ask a question, your brain comes up with answers and evidence to support what you believe.

Discovering Your Primary Question
For Robbins, this all started when he discovered that he had an obsession with making things better. He would attend someone else’s conference and write down all the things he wanted to either incorporate into his work or ensure his team avoided like the plague. For Robbins, his question was, “How can I make this better?” Everywhere he looked, he saw opportunities to make things better, whether in his businesses, his fitness, or his personal life.

But, for a question to be your primary question, you have to link extreme consequences with not accomplishing or delivering on this question. It’s not enough to ask this question several times a day. For it to be your primary question, you have to believe that not finding answers to this question will lead to severe losses, including exclusion from your loved ones or even death.

Sounds strange, doesn’t it? But your primary question started when you were very young and kicked in as a survival instinct. Your brain has not evolved all of these years just to make you happy–its first order of business is (and has always been) survival. Therefore, your primary question is linked to your very survival. The good news is that after you discover your primary question, you have the power to change it.

Examples of Positive Primary Questions
Instead of asking negative questions, you can train your brain to look for ways to enjoy life and make it even better. Positive primary questions include those like:

– How can I enjoy this moment even more?

– What can I be grateful for in this moment?

– Why am I so blessed with love and abundance?

– How can I enjoy this moment and make it even better?

– What can I do to appreciate this and share it with those I love?

– What can I learn from this and make my life even better?

Each of these questions positively reinforces the incredible life you already have while looking for ways to make it even better. It’s fine to want to improve your life, just as long as you first acknowledge that you have a pretty awesome life already.

When you come from a place of gratitude and abundance, it’s really hard not to enjoy the incredible life you already have. That is the sort of primary question that drives you in a positive way rather than obsessing over all that you have not yet achieved or have failed to do. The destination may be the same, but a positive primary question will make the journey to that destination a lot more fun along the way.

If you really enjoy the insights from this article but haven’t attended Robbin’s Date With Destiny, then I highly recommend you check it out. Discovering your destiny is certainly a tall order for a six-day conference, but I am willing to bet that the majority of the 2,500 people who attended it earlier this month did just that. I know I did.

/by
,

Influencer Marketing Delivers 11X ROI Over All Other Forms of Digital Media

Influencer Marketing has been at the forefront of Digital Marketing for the past few years, but attribution modeling has proved challenging. Nielson Catalina Solutions proves that Influencer Marketing drives measurable retail sales lift for CPG brands.

Nielsen Catalina Solutions in partnership with TapInfluence and WhiteWave Foods released a case study that proves Influencer Marketing delivers $285 incremental sales per 1000 views, and TapInfluence shows this to be 11 times ROI over all other forms of Digital Media.

This is music to the ears of content creators and social media influencers who have, for years, known that authentic promotion of brands is substantially more impactful than say a banner ad. Until today, however, they couldn’t prove it.

I happened to be on-site with TapInfluence when this news was announced. I also had the chance to speak directly to Rustin Banks, the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of TapInfluence, who is leading the measurement practice. What I’m about to share with you will forever change the nature of the Influencer Marketing conversation. Now we can prove, definitively, the measurable sales lift that the right content delivered by the right influencers has on retail sales volume.

Why Influencer Marketing Is So Powerful
I believe Francesca Cruz, VP of Sales for TapInfluence, said it best, “Great content is expensive to create and yet it rarely gets seen because most companies publish it on their own channels. Brands end up paying for distribution and content creation. Influencer Marketing, however, delivers both content creation and distribution for a much cheaper price, is more authentic, more engaging and drives ROI at an order of magnitude greater than all other forms of digital media.”

Read that last part again, because it’s the crux of the study and is the start of a conversation you’re going to be hearing about for the next 3 to 5 years.

Clinging to the Embarrassing Results of Banner Ads
Knowing this, why do so many smart companies cling to a marketing tactic that has been proven to be 99.9% ineffective? Look, I have a soft spot in my heart for banner ads because I build one of the very first ones for MasterCard on Yahoo in early 1995. Back then, we were seeing double digit click-through rates and so there was no wonder the banner ad industry exploded. But when you’re seeing 0.06% effectiveness, it’s downright irresponsible to keep moving forward with a totally ineffective digital marketing tactic.

So why do CMOs and VPs of Marketing still cling to the banner ad? Because, despite the continual rise of ad blocking and the massive amount of ad fraud, the banner ad is the unit of currency that has proliferated the publishing world and has delivered billions of “impressions” programmatically.

This is the rub. Programmatic media buying is built on banner ads and has become the lazy marketers solution to digital media buying. Until today, it was an acceptable solution to a brands request to advertise online. And while it’s known that banner ads deliver a 0.06% CTR, at least it’s measurable, right?

Influencer Marketing is the Viable, Measurable Alternative
Rustin Banks, Co-founder of TapInfluence, says “Companies like Disney have told me that the last step for big dollars to flow into Influencer Marketing is measurement. With this study, we’re about to see a sea change in media dollar allocations.”

With the data to prove it, I would agree. And as Banks points out, this is not earned media value. This is actual sales lift. Real revenue directly tied to marketing spend. Below is the infographic that they prepared as part of this announcement. I encourage you to read the full report as you’re going to want to know more about the measurable impact Influencer Marketing will have on your business.

I’m so excited about this historic report. Let’s take this conversation to Facebook and discuss the many implications of this study. This is only the beginning.

The Lifeline

/by
,

Your Future Depends on Your Ability to Understand Big Data. Here’s What You Need to Know.

The global impact of big data is too important to be left in the hands of a limited number of highly skilled data scientists. Time to get in the game.

This is what today’s entrepreneurs need to understand. 90% of the world’s data is estimated to have been created in the past 2 years and most recently via mobile devices. Whether you know it or not, this data is impacting your business. More importantly, your ability to understand the available insights from this data and navigate through this real-time information will determine your future success.

Simplifying Big Data: What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Law Enforcement

You might be surprised to learn, for example, that your local law enforcement is using big data to solve crime. What used to take weeks for highly skilled data scientists to sift through can now be crunched in minutes by non-technical law enforcement using software tools that dramatically simplify the ability to manipulate vast amounts of unstructured data.

I had an opportunity to speak with a former FBI agent, Louis Grever, who is now a board member of Wynyard, an advanced crime analytics company. Mr. Grever, along with his colleague Derek Brown, VP of Americas for Wynyard, walked me through specific use cases where local law enforcement (not data scientists) leveraged big data for pattern matching, real-time visualization, and the ability to deploy limited resources in a smarter and more efficient manner.

Sound familiar? Like local law enforcement, your business has limited resources and lacks the budget to employ the highly skilled data scientists you’d love to have on your team. However, your business is currently being disrupted by the impact of big data. Your customers expect you to listen to them via social media channels. They have given you permission to market to them, but expect you to use the data you’ve collected from them in intelligent ways.

So here’s what you need to do.

  1. Stop Expecting Others to Figure Out Your Big Data Solutions. If you wait until you have highly proficient engineers on your team to solve your big data challenges, chances are you will be eclipsed by your competitors. You don’t have to be a data scientist to leverage the power and impact of big data. Take that same entrepreneurial spirt that got you to step out of your comfort zone and start leveraging the vast amounts of data that will help you grow your business.
  2. Identify Your Biggest Information Needs. What insights could help shape your ability to better serve the needs of your best customers? This could be as simple as listening to what your customers are saying via social media channels or observing where they are getting lost on your website. Or perhaps it’s about better understanding the customer journey. How are your customers discovering you in the first place? Where do they want to engage with your brand? What’s their preferred way to transact and buy your products and services? And how do you help them become advocates of your offering?
  3. Determine What Data Provides The Best Insights You Need. Once you’ve identified your biggest information needs, determine what data best illuminates the information you seek. Google Analytics, for example, provides a treasure trove of data regarding how your customers engage with your website. While Facebook and Twitter provide all sorts of data about how your customers engage with your brand on your social channels. For every marketing problem you’re looking to solve, there is a plethora of available data just waiting to be tapped. There are also many third party suppliers ready and willing to help you access additional data you might need to solve your particular marketing challenge.
  4. Find the Software Tools You Need to Turn Data into Insights. This is where most entrepreneurs fall short. The expectation here is that you need to be a data scientist to extract the insights you need form the data. Yet, in most cases, there are several free and inexpensive software solutions out there that allow you analyze the data. For example:
    1. Google Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics/ — The industry standard free platform for web and app analytics.
    2. IBM’s Watson Analytics: http://www.ibm.com/analytics/watson-analytics — A freemium platform for analyzing and visualizing your data automatically, built on the same technology that IBM used to beat humans on Jeopardy.
    3. Canopy Labs: https://canopylabs.com/ — Sales analytics and optimization platform.
    4. Swipely: https://www.swipely.com/ — An analytics tool for brick and mortar businesses, like restaurants and retail.
    5. Gephi: http://gephi.github.io/ — Gephi is an interactive visualization and exploration platform for all kinds of networks and complex systems, dynamic and hierarchical graphs. Runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Gephi is open-source and free.
    6. R: https://www.r-project.org/ — And if you’re feeling adventurous or have more engineering skills than you’d like to admit, R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It compiles and runs on a wide variety of UNIX platforms, Windows and MacOS, if you are looking to unleash your inner data scientist.

And I haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s out there. For every big data problem, there are free and relatively inexpensive solutions available to you. There are also companies like Wynyard who have started in one industry and are branching out into several others. So you can go it alone or you can find a partner to work with you, but whatever you do, get in the game. The longer you ignore the impact of big data on your business, the further you are falling behind. Instead, jump in and enjoy the discovery process as you listen to what your customers really want and find new ways to deliver it to them.

/by

Managing a Powerful Work Force: Performance Analytics, Not Time Tracking

In the future, not everyone will work on-demand, but time tracking and hourly billing will give way to real-time performance analytics. Think Uber ratings for projects.

During the Collision Conference, I had a distinct pleasure of meeting and speaking with Adam Miller, Founder and CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand, a publicly traded maker of cloud-based talent management software. As Mr. Miller works with many Fortune 500 clients as well as mid-size enterprise companies, I wanted to get his perspective on how companies will manage their workforce in the future.

Will Every Business One Day Hire “Employees” On-Demand?
During the Collision Conference, there was a lot of discussion about an on-demand workforce. Companies like Handy have already adopted an Uber-like workforce model that allows people to flexibly work when they want without being a W-2 employee. To hear some companies talk about a scalable on-demand workforce, they believe it is a forgone conclusion.

Mr. Miller disagrees. “Despite what some people may think, not every business will become an on-demand business; nor should they be” Mr. Miller explained. “Companies have a vested interest in retaining top talent and many people will prefer full-time employment to the on-demand model. Make no mistake. Industries are becoming much more flexible. You can get your work done at home or at a Starbucks, but that’s not the same thing as becoming an on-demand employee.”

Performance Analytics Replace Hourly Time Tracking
So if not all businesses are going on-demand, what does the workforce of the future look like? Mr. Miller believes that the answer is a whole lot more real-time feedback, predictive employee hiring and retention programs and new levels of insights being discovered with big data performance analytics.

“Beyond benefits and compensation, people want to work for companies for three reasons: They believe in the mission. They want to be part of the culture. They want to grow as individuals” he says. “I don’t think people fully appreciate that Millennials expect to go through 5 to 7 careers in their lifetime. Not jobs. Careers. If companies want to hire and retain great talent, they need to be much smarter about the needs of their employees. Gone are the days when we keep track of hours spent. If your employee is working from home, how can you verify the hours they work anyway? Instead, they are going to be graded by their peers on the tasks they complete and the projects they are working on. Performance analytics will replace hourly time tracking, and the function of mangers will change substantially.”

Hourly time tracking has driven many services-based industries for years. Lawyers, for example, charge not based on the value delivered or outcome achieved, but rather how many hours they spend on behalf of any client. The rise of performance analytics over hourly time tracking has profound implications for how businesses can and should charge for their services.

The Impact of Managing Employees by Results
“The way the modern workforce will be managed is by results, not by hours”, Mr. Miller explains. “How do you measure people? You need to have better, incremental measurements. This idea of measuring people only once a year doesn’t work. You need better markers along the way that people are actually being productive and doing what they need to do.”

What Mr. Miller believes we’re moving toward is real-time feedback across the organization. This could be anything from project-based feedback to activity-based feedback. You’re constantly getting feedback. “The second part of this is that you’re no longer getting feedback just from a manager”, he explains, “because the manager doesn’t have time to do their job and watch you do your job.”

This idea of continuous feedback and measurement means that you need multiple inputs. “We’re moving away from manager-based feedback to essentially crowdsourced feedback.” Depending on what projects you touch and who you interact with, you’re constantly getting feedback on the interactions you have with the team you’re working with. It’s a very different way of managing teams and Mr. Miller is already seeing this shift occur today.

Implications of a Performance-Driven Workforce
As entrepreneurs, we should be excited by this trend. The on-demand trend may not be for every company, but the Uber ratings system appears to be permeating many industries and business models and becoming much more pervasive. The implication for service-based businesses is clear. Utilization and realization rates will ultimately give way to real-time rating systems which provide a much more clear indication of the value of the time being spent by your team–not just hourly allocations by project or client.

Aligning a company’s results with the individual contributions of each member of your team has, at least to date, been much more art than science. But, according to Mr. Miller, we’re seeing very positive trends toward a new era of real-time performance feedback and peer-to-peer evaluation of the value being delivered. As this trend takes hold, we could very well say farewell to time tracking as we look to increase insights around the ongoing results we deliver.

/by
,

Winning the War for Talent: The Best Companies Use Training

Training will help your business grow despite the ever increasing talent shortage. Nothing beats having happy employees that see your company as a place where they can grow and advance their careers.

In the coming decade, we’re going to see an increasing talent shortage. As the baby boomers retire, there simply aren’t enough qualified candidates to replace them. Generation X may have the appropriate amount of experience, but there are far too few of them. Millennials are eager to take the reigns, but often lack the critical skills necessary to fill the gap left by the now retired baby boomer formerly in that role.

How can entrepreneurs compete effectively with their larger, more established counterparts? One way is through training. The future of your business depends on the next generation of workers who need mastery of increasingly complex skills. To avoid being caught flat-footed as the talent war heats up, it’s important to train your next generation of leaders now.

For the past 20 years, Tracey McCormack, CEO of McCormack Media, has been teaching media courses as part of a UCLA Extension program as well as designing custom training workshops for companies such as Creative Artist Agency, Fox, Hulu, NASCAR, NBC, and ZenithOptimeida.

“Training is a long-term investment and you have to plan and set aside time and resources for it, in order for it to be effective” says Tracey McCormack.

Most entrepreneurs struggle with consistent training as the needs of a growing business often take precedent. When done correctly, training can sharpen the skills of your team, break down internal silos and, in doing so, deliver new levels of growth for your company. But not all training is the same. So what should you look for when considering training resources for your company? When speaking with Tracey McCormack about this, she illustrated the key differences between short-lived and sustainable, high-impact training programs.

5 Aspects of Best-In-Class Training:

  1. Holistic. Successful training programs tend to include all levels of an organization and every department. While one-off training tends to be short-lived, holistic training galvanizes an organization around new areas of growth. When training is seen as a strategic investment in a company’s growth, everyone’s participation matters and ensures that the appropriate changes permeate not just the people being trained, but the process that allows for ongoing improvement well after the training has ended.
  2. Hands-On. The most effective training programs need handled in person. Despite all the great screen share technology out there today, nothing beats person-to-person, hands-on training. When you’re in the room, you’re usually not multi-tasking. A good facilitator ensures engagement and doesn’t allow outside distractions. This creates a highly interactive and engaging forum that leads to breakthroughs. These discoveries allow for immediate implementation internally and externally with new and current clients.
  3. Qualified Expertise. There are many people who claim to be experts. But the information being taught is just as important as the person conducting the training. Your training should be conducted by industry experts who are current on the latest trends and platforms. It helps if they can share their real-world experience so that the training goes beyond theory and can be applied to immediate opportunities your company is considering today.
  4. Individual Attention. While most training programs are conducted in groups, it’s important that each individual have the one-on-one support they need. Consider the needs of each person in the room, and ensure the training efforts are appropriately matched with the amount of time needed for each trainee so that there is an individual and practical application of the skills learned.
  5. Accountability. Before you engage, be sure you know what outcomes you see for your training. If you’re not sure, speak with the organization you’re considering to get clear on what you’re looking for. This should lead to follow through of the key strategies, tactics, and techniques learned so that they are applied against pre-defined and measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This is how you can measure the return on investment (ROI) of your training investment.

“Your training can and should be personalized and customized for your needs and measured upon actual, measurable goals and results”, says Tracey McCormack. While most companies view training as an expense to the business, it’s clear that Tracey McCormack views training as an investment with an expected return. She sees training as an investment in the long-term success of your business. And, according toa study by the National Association of Advertisers, capability development has the strongest correlation to revenue growth, brand health, and ROI.

Winning the Talent War with Training
In addition to the near-term ROI of your training investment, having happy employees that see the company as a place where they can grow and advance their careers builds loyalty and will help your business grow despite the ever increasing talent shortage. Most businesses will agree that your talent is your most expensive and most important company asset. Training is an investment in that talent that builds a strong corporate culture. Training cultivates loyalty and creates a corporate culture for success.

/by
, ,

At 24, This Recent College Grad Became the CEO of Her Father’s Company and Hasn’t Looked Back Since

The inspiring story of Amanda Holmes illustrates that there are plenty of Millennials who are ready, willing and able to take the reins of established companies.

My favorite sales book is Chet Holmes The Ultimate Sales Machine. Anyone familiar with this masterpiece probably also knows that Chet Holmes died at an early age of 55. What many people don’t know, however, is that his daughter Amanda Holmes, became the CEO of her father’s company, Chet Holmes International a year and a half after his death.

Here’s why this is an incredible story. Think about this for a moment. You’re 24 years old having been graduated from USC just 2 years earlier with a music degree (and a promising performing arts career) and you are faced with an incredible decision to “stay the course” with your original career path, or pivot and become the CEO of your father’s incredibly successful multi-million dollar enterprise with more than a 100 employees–most of whom are older than you and have been with the company for several more years than you.

Stepping-Up And Building The Future
So I asked Amanda Holmes how she felt about this incredible situation. To which she replied, “It was daunting at first. Who was I to come into this company and attempt to fill my father’s incredibly large shoes? So I just went to meetings and listened. I did a whole lot of listening for several months. Then I started asking questions. People would tell me to keep asking questions because my questions were really good. And so I did. Eventually it became clear that I was, in fact, best suited to be the CEO of my father’s company as I had spent so much time with him and understood his vision and how I could play an important part in that future.”

And it is at this point that I want you to think back to when you were in your early twenties and ask yourself if you were that in tune with how to come into an established company, listen deeply, ask great questions and decide how to build the future of an already successful company. I’m sure it helps to have an incredible mentor like Chet Holmes in your life, but as we know great advice only gets you so far. You have to be willing to take massive action on great advice in order to reap any actual benefits. This is what gets me excited and why I believe Amanda Holmes represents a mastery that is not typically associated with the Millennial generation.

Breaking Down Stereotypes
Last week while I was in LA, I attended an event hosted by METal, which is “an exclusive gathering of and for dynamic entrepreneurs and change-makers in the media, entertainment and technology space.” This was my first event and the founder, Ken Rutkowski, was not at this event. Instead there was a guest MC who showed an Official Comedy clip called Millennials in the Workplace Training Video. It’s a spoof training video about “…a new type of worker has entered the workforce. They are called Millennials and they’re terrible. Today I’m going to teach you about this new breed of worker so that you can avoid misunderstandings in which you feel the need to fire them immediately.”

What struck me about this video is that I’d heard that story before about my generation, Gen-X. It seems that every older generation feels that the up and coming generation is entitled and without the work ethic that got their generation to their desired rung on the corporate ladder. In my previous article, Growing and Thriving in the Age of Mediocrity, I surface a scary statistic that “workplace incivility is costing U.S. companies $300 billion a year and that 1 in 4 Americans have quit their jobs because of incivility at work.” A lot of this incivility comes from office stereotypes such as the ones called out in the Millennials in the Workplace Training Video.

Millennials Empowered
One reason why Amanda Holmes’ story is such an incredible inspiration is that it highlights such a contrast to the millennial generation stereotype. As Baby Boomers retire and it becomes painfully obvious that there aren’t enough experienced Gen-Xers to replace them, it’s people like Amanda Holmes that illustrate that there are plenty of Millennials who have mastered business at a young age and are ready, willing and able to take the reins of established companies and help them grow and thrive. Amanda Holmes has a unique perspective on this:

“There is a lot of talk about how large the Baby Boomer generation is, but few people talk about how Millennials are actually bigger than the Baby Boomer generation. There has been plenty of complaints from the Baby Boomer generation that Millennials cannot be hired because they’re lazy and disrespectful. But I see there are a lot more similarities than differences between these generations. It turns out that Millennials and Baby Boomers have the same values including family, friendship, and respect. It’s just different how each generation expresses these values. Baby boomers show respect with titles like saying, “Sir” or “Ma’am.” Whereas Millennials show their respect by giving honest feedback and speaking their thoughts. Same values, just a different approach to honoring these values. Since there are so many Baby Boomers in the workforce, Millennials will have to start taking over companies at an earlier age to account for the massive number of Baby Boomers going into retirement.”

And Amanda Holmes should know as she’s done just that. I feel very fortunate to have met Amanda Holmes and look forward to learning from her as she flexes her business muscle and takes Chet Holmes International to new heights.

/by