Posts Tagged ‘strategy’
Thursday, November 17th, 2011
Last week, I ranted here about how buyers define thought leaders by their current work and how that work can be translated into a message the audience needs to hear. I’m not done. Here’s another example of this trend at work: Fast Company magazine’s Innovation Uncensored held on November 2nd in San Franciso.
First thing I noticed about the agenda: the topics. We experts have great content on this stuff, too. But look at who they chose instead. Folks on the front lines, speaking from experience. Here’s the playbook: get a bunch of cool people who do cool things and learn from them. Attendees not only get access to these folks, but also content connected to big results.
My take: our content is not enough. We need to connect our content to a cause that gets buzz. No worries, I’m on this. Stay tuned…
Tags: branding, consultants, experts, positioning, Speaking, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Tuesday, November 15th, 2011
As you read this, I am in China teaching a class about branding. My message to these business owners: buyers make choices based on criteria that they don’t even know they have. The brain plays tricks on us all the time. The key: sometimes it pays to go counterintuitive.
Case in point: researchers have learned that publishing negative information about us can be a good thing. Yes, they even have a name for it — the blemishing effect. How it works: studies show that folks think more highly of a business when they receive a little negative info in the midst of several rave reviews. Therefore, we should not hide the negative, but use it to our advantage. Go figure.
Remember, it only works when the negative info follows good news. But don’t take my word for it. Check out the synopsis from Booz Allen’s strategy + business.
Tags: branding, consultants, experts, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Thursday, November 10th, 2011
Want to know what the most influential folks in healthcare are pondering? Check out Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation’s annual Transform Conference. Given the slate of speakers, I see this event as the health care version of TED. A great combo of innovators on the front lines, academia and those not even in the healthcare industry. My favorite part: they save five 5-minute slots (called iSpot) on the main stage for the public. (That’s us folks.)
Another similarity to TED: every speaker is doing “cool projects”, things that don’t involve a stage of audience. They were invited to speak or share their views on what’s next. My guess: they were chosen not only because of their backgrounds, but also because of their current work.
Why do you care? Two reasons: if you’re going to speak for free, these are the venues to do it. Anyone can apply for the iSpot slots. And second, this is how the marketplace defines thought leaders. Brand yourself accordingly.
Tags: branding, consultants, experts, Health, speakers, Speaking, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
Just returned from the Women’s Leadership Board meeting at Harvard last week. Learned a lot from fabulous research on a variety of topics. One of my favorite presentations was on how top performers fare in new environments. Harvard Business School associate professor, Boris Groysberg, burst a lot of bubbles with this primary research into what really happens when companies hire super stars to save them. Among his findings:
- In the 21st century, many more companies will hire from outsiders rather than develop from within. Conventional wisdom from the C-suite: our current team can’t deal with upcoming changes or we wouldn’t be in this situation now. Their expectation: super stars will hit the ground running and create instant results.
- The reality: results from a vast majority of top performers tank within the first year. While performance gradually improves, these stars only rise to average levels after five years.
- Top performers who are hired to rescue struggling companies experience the biggest dip in performance.
- Stars who move to another company with their colleagues fare better; those who move alone or to launch a new venture do not experience the same success.
The upshot: the biggest factor impacting performance was not the selection of outside super stars, but how well they integrated into the company’s culture. This goes far beyond on-boarding; I see a lot of opportunity here for experts beyond the typical OD types. Check out Boris’ book, Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance and see for yourself.
Tags: books, consultants, experts, positioning, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Thursday, November 3rd, 2011
You’re spending a lot of time on Facebook — might as well take advantage and promote your brand, right? This cool infographic has some great ideas that will help you channel all that enthusiasm from your fans. My favorite part: the different ways a fan can like you.
Moral of the story: let’s get past the novelty of social media and be strategic. If we spent just 25% of our Facebook time thinking about how to use the dang thing strategically, how much ROI could we create? Again, we’re spending the time anyway…
Tags: branding, experts, social media, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Thursday, October 27th, 2011
The best thing I’ve learned in social media is how to have a conversation with people I disagree with. I’m happy to report that I can go to threads and respond without thinking someone is an idiot. (Well, most of the time.)
That said, I have come to believe that in the spirit of promotion, many of us have become too clever for our own good. For those of you doing the below, please know that the rest of us know you are just trying to promote yourself at our expense:
- Asking a provocative question and then pointing to your article: if you can’t give me insights in your post, I’m not clicking to learn more.
- Answer a question by saying, “hire me and find out.” Yes, I have seen several of these. Some even go the extra mile to say, “I’ve checked your website / video / material. It’s pretty bad, but I can still help.” I don’t even bother responding to these posts.
- Use the same answer for every question. One person was passionate about presentation skills. So guess how he answered every question? With generic platitudes about the importance of these skills. Poor man didn’t realize that if he had just given some specific ideas, folks would’ve seen him as a resource.
It’s tempting to justify all the time we spend on these discussions with slick tricks to promote our blogs and offers. My vote: don’t do it. Instead, if we focus on posting specifics with insights, both the participants and the lurkers will reach out.
Tags: consultants, conversations, experts, Marketing, positioning, social media, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
As many of you know, I am obsessed with infographics. Between the deluge of data and the need to speed-read, these handy visuals are the best thing to spread our ideas fast. So what happens when everyone likes them too? The bar gets raised, according to a recent Fast Company article about the future trends in infographics.
Why do you care about these developments? Because 1) thought leaders need these critters to make their ideas more sticky; and, 2) you don’t want to look obsolete when you think you’re being cool.
My thinking: this isn’t as hard as it looks. These changes just mean we need to hire the geeks who have the goods. Click here to check out the latest in data visualization.
Tags: branding, experts, positioning, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Thursday, October 20th, 2011
The biggest tragedy in this recovery is that the opportunities we have grown to depend on are not coming back. Paid speaking engagements are now free or cut to 25 cents on the dollar. Many coaching assignments are handled in-house. And don’t talk to contract trainers about their fees.
So how do we find what’s next? This article in strategy-business last month has some good ideas. What we have to do: ignore evidence that confirms our assumptions. Yep, easier said than done. How to do it: look for incongruities. My favorite is #4: what is annoying shouldn’t be.
Sadly, the days are over when we can go back to the same places to offer our services. Now is the time to take what we have and make something new. Test your assumptions, reconnect the dots and see what happens.
Tags: consultants, economy, experts, positioning, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
I’m hearing way too much advice about being “authentic”. As in “just be authentic and everything will be okay”. Really? If that’s the case, why are there so many “authentic” experts out there being ignored?
That’s like showing up naked and asking folks to accept who you are. This hogwash and an excuse for intellectual laziness. Buyers do have expectations about how we communicate our ideas.
Let’s assume that we have compelling ideas our buyers want to hear. Here’s what decision-makers also expect of thought leaders:
- To be comfortable in our own skin. There’s no need to be flashy or outgoing if you are naturally shy. They are wide open to a wide variety of styles. Whatever your natural style is, buyers expect you to accept yourself enough to embrace who you are.
- To be confident in your communication. Too many of us hedge our bets, trying to please everybody. Result: we can look wishy-washy, and uncomfortable with our views. This makes them nervous and wonder if we really know what we’re talking about. Let’s make our brilliance look effortless!
- To be succinct. They don’t want a bunch of funny stories without a point; they don’t want to spend a lot of time on extra wods.
Yes, buyers expect us to be clever and have a sense of humor. They also expect us to be able to draw distinction and to have a nuanced point of view. But authentic? Sure. As long as “authentic” doesn’t mean “come as you are”.
Tags: branding, experts, positioning, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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