When you hear the word “sales,” what comes to mind first? If you’re like most people, you might think of negative qualifiers such as “icky,” “pushy,” or “sleazy.” But selling is not only an integral part of running your business; selling is a way for you to help people. Your…

By Matteo Tonello, Managing Director, Corporate Leadership, The Conference Board While companies devote considerable effort to creating and managing social media presences, little is known about how they use social media to communicate financial information to investors. A new report from The Conference Board’s Director Notes series examines the use of social media by S&P […]

In this session, Benjamin Jankowski, Group Head, Global Media – MasterCard and Virginia Pereira, Business Leader Regional Media Marketing – MasterCard shared how MasterCard is leveraging the programmatic space and data to guide their storytelling strategy.

The ANA, in partnership with GfK, conducted research to find out how B-to-B marketers can become drivers of growth in their organizations.

Advertising and trade promotion spend are closely tracked, but historically there has been no comprehensive view of the total marketing ecosystem available to marketers. The ANA, in collaboration with and licensed from PQ Media, recently completed the first-ever forecast of brand activation marketing expenditures.

By Jen McClure, Chair, SNCR Advisory Board, and CEO, JEM Consulting JEM Consulting has launched a new survey-based study to measure organizations’ adoption of employee advocacy programs. The study will explore trends and best practices for program adoption and management, goal-setting and measurement, growth, training and tool usage. The purpose of the study is to […]

Good to Great, the bestselling book by Jim Collins, offers timeless insights into what it takes to become great.  It applies not only to businesses, but also to brands, people, churches, non-profits, governments, communities, and more.  I recently revisited the text, along with the monograph accompanying it, Good to Great and the Social Sector, and was reminded of how greatness is a choice.  In light of my own books, What Great Brands Do, and Extraordinary Experiences: What Great Retail and Restaurant Brands Do, I thought it would be helpful to consider what choosing greatness means specifically in brand-building.

Collins conveys fundamental points about greatness that are particularly true in building a great brand — here are three that rise to the top for me:

1. Greatness is characterized by superior performance, distinctive impact, and lasting endurance. These are outcomes of greatness as well as inputs to it, reflecting choices that aspiring brands make.

Superior performance, most clearly indicated in businesses by higher gross profit margin, means a brand is creating value for the organization.  In social sectors and other cases, superior performance might be measured by greater demand for services or better outcomes.  Regardless, a great brand chooses to drive toward superior results instead of accepting modest outcomes or believing there aren’t adequate metrics to measure performance, as some non-commercial groups wrongly conclude.

Distinctive impact means uniquely contributing to your target group — creating unique value for target customers if you run a business, for target people or communities if you run a nonprofit, etc.  A great brand aspires to make a certain contribution that no other can — something it is the best and only in the world at — instead of simply trying to be better than existing options.

And, lasting endurance is about sustaining that distinctive impact.  Great brands do this by attending to timeless fundamentals like excellent execution and clarity about what is on-brand and what is not.  Collins calls this “clock building” and contrasts it with the short-term ability of “time telling.”  Unlike pursuing a hit product or a buzz-generating campaign, great brands commit for the long-term and therefore last through market changes, changing trends, multiple product cycles, and generations of people.

2. Greatness is achieved through relentless focus and commitment. As I travel around the world to speak to businesspeople about great brands, I’m amazed at how many people expect me to extol the virtues of a new social network or cool digital tool.  As if, they seem to believe, these are the keys to building a great brand.   But I make no apology for explaining that greatness is only achieved through a comprehensive, long-term management approach — brand as business.

The brand-as-business management approach involves putting your brand at the center of your organization — and keeping it there — using it to drive, align, and guide everything you do,  While it’s important to consistently innovate and explore new ways to connect with your target and many cool ways to do so emerge every day, no one single, short-term action is going to create a great brand.  Great brands choose brand as business.  As Collins states, “In building a great institution, there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment.”

3. Greatness is an inherently dynamic process, not an end point. Collins explains, “No matter how much you’ve achieved, you will always merely be good relative to what you can become.”  This isn’t just some empty platitude about the journey vs. the destination, it is a reflection of the reality all organizations operate in today.  Great brands recognize they have competition — whether for people’s dollars, attention, loyalty, mindshare, or advocacy; whether close and direct or distant and indirect — and any leadership position they’ve been able to achieve can be fleeting.  So they adopt a posture of dissatisfaction with their current state and continuously make the choice to be great.  And if you truly aspire to make a difference in this world, you know there is always more difference to make.

There are plenty of good brands out there.  People buy, use, support, and belong to them — and that might be enough for you.  But great brands are the ones people go out of their way for, the ones people admire, the ones people bond with.  If that’s the kind of brand you want to have, you must choose greatness.  “Greatness is not a function of circumstance.  Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.” — Jim Collins

The post choosing greatness appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

In recent years, official estimates of labor productivity growth have shown a significant slowdown. But many argue that the government has failed to correctly estimate productivity. This argument was made recently in a Wall Street Journal article featuring Hal Varian, Chief Economist of Google. The piece prompted an elaborate discussion in the blogosphere.[1] Mismeasurement of […]

A while back I interviewed radio host, author and music marketer David Hooper about his book Six Figure Musician. We did the interview in Nashville about a week prior to the launch. At the time he told me about his plans for the book and how he intended to market it. I thought it would be interesting to follow up with him and find out how his marketing strategies were working and what he had learned about his audience. The book is available for free as well as a number of paid versions too. Would people value them differently? Was there any unexpected insight as to what people would go for? I have noticed that free can often result in less interest due to a lower perceived value of the content, whether it is a free music industry panel, workshop, webinar, concert or album download… What can David tell us about the world of book marketing within the music industry?

In our conversation we talk about marketing, getting a #1 on the billboard charts and a best selling book on Amazon. We discuss the global business market and the ability to choose the best partners on a global scale. Although I am not one for talking about hype, on this occasion I ask David his opinion of the media around Miley Syrus from a marketing perspective.

As always the conversation takes many twists and at every turn David has some hugely valuable insight to share. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Aaron Bethune. Music Specialist. Creative Collaborator. 

www.playitloudmusic.com  www.abovethenoise.ca  @playitloudmusic

Interview with David Hooper

For more on David Hooper and his book Six Figure Musician please visit:

www.musicmarketing.com

www.musicianbook.com

Even though they weren’t scientists at the time–she had graduated from law school and his career was in transportation technology–they were determined to do whatever it takes to become medical researchers. It meant leaving their jobs, going back to school–and not just any program would do. They were accepted for PhD’s at Harvard, and that led to their current work at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The director of the Broad, Eric Lander, describes the couple as “full, card-carrying scientists. They really came in with a total plan of all the options, because failure is not one of the options.”

Can they help cure a disease that claims the lives of over 7,000 people each year? Sonia told Hartman: “We really think this is doable.”

The Ancient Roman poet, Virgil, wrote “Love Conquers all things.” We’re rooting for you, Sonia & Eric!

CBS Evening News, 1/1/16

The post Newlyweds become medical researchers to find cure for wife’s disease appeared first on The Good For You Network.