The Wealthy Business - by EnergizeGrowth

Startups: How to Go Beyond the Honeymoon Phase

Cincom's Expert Access team recently interviewed me for their show. Here is a reprint of that program and a replay of the radio interview.

“A company is like a marriage,” says Lisa Nirell, author of EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company and recent guest on Expert Access Radio. “When you have a start-up mentality, things are great and it can be a lot of fun, like the honeymoon; but like all honeymoons, it has to come to an end.”

During the “honeymoon stages” of a business, you are constantly feeling like you are fighting fires and crises. It’s that love for the adrenaline rush of doing different things every day that leads you to a point where you have to move on. When you reach that crossroads in the life of your business, you are forced to make a decision on where you want your company to go.

In most cases, there are two choices:

Option 1 - Build an infrastructure, clearly defining the roles and responsibilities for the staff, so that they know how their jobs are tied directly to the vision of the company.

Option 2 - Continue to immerse yourself in the adrenaline rush. That chaos and frantic excitement is not always the wrong direction. Some people live off the adrenaline rush and need it constantly through their careers. When you choose to stay in the adrenaline rush stage, you have to come to terms with the fact that your ability to predict your growth will diminish greatly.

A special audio bonus for my community…

More and more marketing leaders are facing new demands on their time and roles. That’s why RainToday recently interviewed me. Editor Michelle Davidson wanted to know what challenges my CMO community is facing, and what they can do to rapidly address them.

Here is the link to the interview (18 minutes).

In this interview, you will learn:

• How marketing leaders can alleviate the dysfunction between their department, the sales team and the executive board
• The new competencies marketing leaders must adopt
• How organizations such as Infosys, MindJet, and Red Hat are overcoming challenges and thriving

What are your experiences and thoughts as a marketing leader or business owner? Please share them—I want to hear from you. The first three people who respond on my blog will receive a complimentary copy of my book.

And, if you are an active, VP level marketing executive located in the Washington, DC area, contact me to reserve your seat at my next CMO breakfast on June 26. (no agencies, please)

copyright 2013, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved

Five Primal Lessons in Marketing and Publishing from Guy Kawasaki’s APE

An overview of "APE," the new bible of self publishing, from Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch.

Last year, Guy Kawasaki was preparing to speak at an annual conference. He had just published his ninth book, and contacted Penguin Publishing to fulfill 500 digital orders of Enchantment. The publisher, to his dismay, said that they could not fulfill the order. He was slightly upset.

As disgruntled anchorman Howard Beale said in the film Network, many authors are mad as hell, and they are not going to take it anymore.

Wisdom 2.0's Compassionate, Chaos-Reducing Brand Of Leadership

Where can you go to meet a Tibetan nun, the CEOs of Ford and LinkedIn, an acclaimed mindfulness teacher, and an African drummer--all in one event? Wisdom 2.0. Behind the curtain of this four-day utopian festival are dozens of important takeaways for any business leader.

This conference began four years ago when author and conference host, Soren Gordhamer, raised this question: How can mindfulness and technology peacefully co-exist in a metrics-driven, impersonal Web world?

I attended Gordhamer's fourth annual gathering in San Francisco with 1,700 other personal development junkies (full disclosure: Wisdom 2.0 gave me a free ride for the event). I arrived in search of insights that would help my clients and readers, most of whom are high achieving, innovative, tech-savvy, exhausted leaders. In my recent CMO survey, the majority of them told me that they struggle with managing their personal effectiveness and leading their teams.

Latest CMO 2013 Trends Report and Videos Now Available

“infographic provided by Carousel30.
For full infographic, visit www.energizegrowth.com/cmo2013.

I am excited to share the results of my latest research on 2013 CMO trends, success stories, and recommendations.

In a nutshell, CMOs and VPs of Marketing face four major hurdles in 2013. Thanks to the 24 x 7 nature of customer interactions, new buyer dynamics, and web-based decision making tools, the rules of the marketing game have forever changed. Customers and boards expect them to be data-driven, sales-savvy demand centers, and bold brand ambassadors.

 

B2B Marketing Strategies From "The Challenger Sale"

I just attended a seminar to showcase of The Challenger Sale, a recently released bestseller that reveals some credible studies on changing buyer and seller relationships. Co-author Matt Dixon, a Director of Research with CEB (formerly Corporate Executive Board), outlined some important trends in B2B sales and marketing. If you are in the throes of channel and global field sales planning for 2013, you need to recognize these:

1. Consensus decision making is becoming de rigeur. Today's corporate decision makers are very risk averse. Just when salespeople think they have a strong inside supporter, the buyer will ask them to gain buy-in from a variety of evaluators from other departments. As Dixon stated, "for salespeople, it is now a game of herding cats."

4 Timeless Qualities Of Strategic Marketing Leaders

Being a marketing leader in today's economy reminds me of my first solo cross country flight in 1988: even when I think I'm totally in control, bad things can happen.

I prepared one week in advance for this adventure from Stratford, Connecticut to Concord, New Hampshire. I had all of my sectional charts clearly marked, and the forecast was clear blue skies and calm air. As I crossed the invisible aerial border from Connecticut to Massachusetts, something strange happened.

I was headed for an airport--but it wasn't the Concord airport. In fact, it had two runways. It took me several seconds to realize it was Manchester airport, a military base. Visions of armed military guards greeting me and my Cessna 152 were scary. Even though I had meticulously prepared for this day, my plans were almost thwarted.

Does HR Have a Clue?

This is a sobering month for HR executives.

The latest KPMG study of 400 global executives finds that only 17% of respondents think HR is doing a good job. This is a prime profession for more outsourcing, automation, and obsolescence. In addition, only 15% think their HR teams can provide "insightful and predictive" information about their employees. To make matters worse, 76% believe their HR teams are doing a poor job at supporting virtual and flexible work teams.

Why does HR continue to struggle to add value in today's global companies? Why do they continue to struggle to create impact in the boardroom? As I observe the positive transformations occurring among Chief Marketing Officers, I just cannot understand why HR executives are not getting any traction. 

Here are possible culprits:

1. They announce initiatives based on best practices, not ones that compliment their organization's culture, or are proprietary and innovative.

2. They spend little or no time with customers.

3. They view the world through the eyes of an HR person, not through the eyes of customer-facing executives.

4. They lack self-esteem to take risks and challenge executive management.

5. They structure their positions to focus heavily on administrative tasks, not value-added activity.

What do you think are the causes?

If you are an HR professional, start thinking seriously about how you can re-design your career.KPMG (and this author) considers your position increasingly "non-essential."

P.S. You can read more about the study findings here.

copyright 2013, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.

 

It's All About Trust: Growth Insights from a Marketing Master

I just returned from my regular pilgrimage to an Alan Weiss event. As usual, Alan never disappoints. Here are some insights from our session that you can immediately apply to your annual planning activity.

photo courtesy of Gary Hallquist

Guest Post: B2B Marketing = Shift from Sales “Push” to Demand “Pull.”

Here is a guest post from my friend Charles Gold who has been a software marketing executive for nearly 20 years.  He serves as CMO at Sonatype, where he has helped propel the company's growth to category leadership.  Charles believes passionately  marketing is rapidly becoming *the* thing that distinguishes software market winners.  Read Charles' blog on software marketing at www.cgoldmarketing.com and find him on Twitter at @chasgold.

Have you bought a car recently?  How much information did you get from the sales person?  Not much, right?  You probably did your research online, read reviews, determined fair pricing, and checked in with your network on Facebook. Then, and only then, were you ready to talk to a sales person.  You had self-educated, and were ready to enter a buying process.

Sales take place when a buyer has convinced him or herself of the value of a purchase -- and generally not until then. Like so many things, it’s true in B2C and it’s true in B2B.