“It worked really well, until it didn’t”
Thu, Mar 9, 2023 |
Over dinner with Ted, the retired founder/CEO of a successful company in the electric power sector, I heard an interesting story with a widely applicable lesson.
What Tech CEOs Get Wrong About Positioning
Thu, Jul 28, 2022 — If you are a CEO that is lamenting slowing sales and lagging growth at your company, it’s tempting to place the blame directly at the feet of the sales team – those well-intentioned front-line soldiers who are responsible to turn your solutions into the bucks that feed the company growth. Indeed, most CEO’s I talk to feel this way – when product and market fit is not happening with enough velocity, or visions of declaring leadership in their market are unrealized, the obstacle standing in the way is always sales.
Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership - Part Four
Thu, Nov 12, 2020 — Embracing Your Competitive Advantage Ask any sports athlete what gives them the fire to take their field of play, and they will likely cite the prospect of beating their rival. Indeed, without the subplot of competition, sports would be exceedingly boring – for both the players and the viewers. As CEOs, competition, too, represents our drive, our passion, our reason for being. Though we might actually prefer owning the playing field and having it all to ourselves, we can be relatively assured that we will have company as we pursue excellence and strive for the only true tangible measure of success – revenue growth.
How Does Your Brand Positioning Measure Up?
Tue, Jan 15, 2019 — 3 Sales Lessons from Harry Winston vs. Tiffany, Tesla vs. Mercedes Benz The latest issue of Harvard Business Review (Jan.-Feb. 2019) included one of the best Brand Identity methodologies published in the last few years: What Does Your Corporate Brand Stand For? The authors, Stephen Geyser (Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School) and Mats Urde (Associate Professor at the Lund University School of Economics and Management) contend that developing and enhancing your corporate brand takes a concerted and lengthy effort between the executives and team leaders throughout your company. It is a far more extensive process if your team has international locations. Yet they share a systematic 9-box matrix exercise that your teams can use to examine your core brand identity along four paths: Strategy (Mission & Vision and Position) Communications (Personality and Expression) Competition (Value Propositions and Core Competencies) and Interaction (Relationships and Culture).
7 Things Successful CEOs Do to Grow their Business
Tue, Jul 11, 2017 — Lessons from UPS, Campbell’s Soup, Amazon, and Others In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy for CEOs and other executives to get mired in day-to-day fire-fighting, only to find that growth has stalled. Below are 7 things successful CEOs from companies big and small do to build momentum, create and keep a strong culture, and grow their business.
To Grow, You Need to Know – Why Market Awareness is Essential for CEOs
Tue, May 16, 2017 — If your company is not growing, it’s important to dig deep when looking at market changes. James Quincy, the new CEO of Coke is demonstrating the progressive thinking needed to turnaround his company, which is in decline. In a recent article on PYMNTS.com, Quincy talks about critical information that he is using to understand the declines and then respond to them.
Delivering on Your Brand’s Promise through Lifestyle and Culture
Thu, Jun 2, 2016 — Today’s brands offer a rich means of consumer self-expression. Like digital bumper stickers, the blogs and pages we follow and interact with on the Internet and social media are beginning to serve as a reflection of what culturally defines us as people. Whether or not we, as consumers, build a personal connection with the barrage of brands around us, can ultimately impact the fate of the brand itself. As former IBM chairman and CEO Lou Gerstner said in his interview with Spencer Stuart, “Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game.” Since a brand’s authenticity and lifestyle fit is so important to today’s customers, we know that we have to fortify our brand’s promise, so it means much more than a set of two-dimensional, written benefits on our website, social media pages, and product packaging. There are two distinct ways we can achieve this:
Communicating Your Brand’s Story Effectively
Wed, May 18, 2016 — Take a deep breath, brand builders – we are now more than halfway through the steep, yet fruitful five-step climb to building a winning consumer brand. By understanding the importance of an emotional consumer connection, and in taking the time to develop our positioning statement and branding promise, we’ve carefully, yet confidently, laid our brand’s foundation. Now, we have everything we need to tell our unique story and establish a mutually beneficial relationship with our target audience.
Position Your Brand: Three Questions to Power Growth & Profit
Wed, May 11, 2016 — In Step 1, we began paving our road to a winning brand strategy with the basics. We determined that in order to win in a competitive consumer marketplace, we must first establish an emotional connection with our target audience. We also decided that remaining focused on emotional motivators is the key to the development of that critical connection. It’s time, now, to make sure we are winning with our “head,” as well as our “heart.” For the second step in our quest, we’ll don our lab coats and, utilizing the data from our emotional motivators and target audience surveys, we’ll now engage our sales and marketing teams to develop our company’s positioning statement and brand promise. If we can nail this critical “statement of purpose,” we’ll effectively stand out from our rivals and drive our company forward in the process.
Positioning Your Brand to Make an Emotional Connection
Fri, Apr 29, 2016 — According to an old adage, it is implored that we of the human species should “help yourself before you help others.” While this strategy is particularly important in oxygen-depleted aircraft cabin emergencies and personal matters (but was not great for people like Bernie Madoff), it also represents the foundation of modern marketing strategy.