– the book: Amazon bestseller The Relationship Engine: Connecting with the People Who Power Your Business, an instructive book about developing valuable, sustaining business relationships

– the brain:  Ed Wallace, President and Chief Relationship Officer of The Relational Capital Group, a consulting firm that bring expertise in leadership, sales, account management and customer service to clients around the world — and perhaps the ultimate Relational Leader (read on to find out what that means)

– the best bits:  The Relationship Engine is comprised of three parts:  strategy, application, and tools.

1. Strategy — Ed starts off by introducing The Five Principles of the Relational Leader. Here’s where he explains the meaning and importance of terms including Worthy Intent, Relationship Superiority Complex, Relationship GPS, and Relational Leader.  “A Relational Leader is anyone who intentionally puts the other person’s goals and values at the forefront of each business relationship, creating an exceptional experience for others.“
2. Application — The book then shows how to apply the strategies and concepts of the relationship engine by categorizing relationships as colleagues, professional peers, and advocates; and walking through the development and implementation of a Relationship Plan. Ed uses a hypothetical case study involving a manager named Jason and outlines the four steps he takes with people in each kind of relationship:  1. Determine your goals. 2. Attach goals to real people and their relationship dimension. 3. Develop strategies for each relationship. 4. Implement by using the Relational Agility Process for launching, advancing or elevating your important business relationships
3. Tools — Ed ends by explaining the RQ Assessment (that is, Relationship Quotient, like IQ and EQ). There’s even a link to where you can take the assessment for free and assess the high and low potential of specific relationships you have. The book concludes with a summary in the form of Five Steps to Transform Contacts into High-Performing Business Relationships that follow:

• Establish Common Ground: launch the relationship
• Display Integrity and Trust: secure the relationship
• Use Time Purposefully: invest in the relationship
• Offer Help: share relational equity
• Ask for Help: realize returns on your investment

There a lots of thought-provoking ideas throughout the book, from the more factual or tangible:

“Seventy-eight percent of professionals overestimate the strength of their business relationships.”

“The best relationships are working at only 45 percent of their potential.”

“When planning client meetings, I think about the acronym “POP,” which stands for purpose, outcomes and process.”

To the more strategic or philosophical:

“Relational Leaders leave nothing to chance when they focus on the relationships that will most impact their performance.”

“Authenticity is the most difficult quality to demonstrate due to the degree of bravery it requires for us at times to be our unvarnished selves.”

“Purpose pulls profits along the way a horse pulls a cart.”

– the bottom line:  The Relationship Engine is a must-read for anyone whose success relies on working with other people — and that’s pretty much everyone — so I highly recommend it.

Listen to my conversation with Ed to learn:

• why our relationships are only working at 45% of their potential
• what is the key to Worthy Intent
• how you can better create trust relationships

Check out:

• The Relational Capital Group
• The RQ Assessment
• Ed Wallace

Other Brand Book Bites:

• Zingerman’s A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business by Ari Weinzweig
• Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden
• Dare to Serve by Cheryl Bachelder

The post brand book bites: the relationship engine appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

By Vanessa DiMauro Most community professionals need a better way to show how their online community is giving their business a competitive edge. Because we know the struggle is real, Leader Networks, a source for digital industry research, is doing the first research study on “The Business Impact of Online Communities.” The Society for New […]

Marketers are no longer in the advertising business; we are in the relationship business.

How do we know what people are feeling before we even speak to them about a solution? In this new norm, listening—not dialoguing—is the barometer. Listening gives us an indicator of what people are feeling. These days, if you want to go out of business, keep having one-way discussions about using advertising. If you want to sustain long-term success, however, cultivate relationships by listening first and then having a dialogue in which the other party’s emotional investment takes precedence.

Marketers need to spend less time advertising to their customers and more time connecting with them, growing with them, and listening to them. The path to this relationship is creativity, not knowledge. No amount of knowledge can help you in this situation.

While many companies and agencies rush to hire social media strategists, digital experts, and chief content officers, forward-thinking organizations are building influencer programs or hiring chief influencers. Some employees are simply becoming influencers without a mandate because of the abundance of publishing platforms and networks at their service, like LinkedIn, Pulse, and Medium. These programs are a combination of diagnosing customer feedback mixed with amplifying company insights in a robust, ongoing dialogue. Several of these influencers have a mixture of skills including:

+Product and competitive product awareness
+Awareness of technology evolution
+Product research and development
+People relations
+Thought leadership
+Controversial points of view

The ability to connect and listen to customers and other influencers directly within a line of business may seem antithetical to our long-held perspective on brand marketing. Yet this creative destruction uses two key elements to help customers learn and make decisions: debate and ongoing conversation. 
Unfortunately, not everyone has the qualities needed to create these new programs. In the rush to be on trend with what they consider new, many organizations try to establish a foothold in a discipline in which they don’t have much investment, or they will shape it to have the look and feel of an advertising campaign. We know how successful that will be.

Seek Out Creative Hybrids

To navigate this new, creative economic growth territory, the best way to be a marketer is to not be a marketer at all. Instead, it is to be a media company. For years, media companies struggled with digital formats, but lately they seem to be crossing the chasm. The New York Times, Washington Post, and even Condé Nast have embraced new ways of thinking. Armed with content, data, and creative talent, BuzzFeed, Vox, Mashable, and many new media outlets have successfully pushed the envelope, reimagining what media should look and feel like. And the titans have perked up. NBC/Universal is heavily invested in both BuzzFeed and Vox. Even big media legacies realize the power of data-driven, creative-hybrid outlets. 
While brands continue to navigate this new world, it’s important to note who is on your team and how the team handles working in this environment. So, ditch the “MBAs preferred” approach to marketing and embrace the 50/50 creative-hybrid approach. You can start by building on and improving these seven personality traits for your team:

1. Listening Skills. Listening is essential to future success. To truly find out what’s interesting in the world and how it links with other things, you need to possess amazing listening skills. This flies in the face of conventional marketing, which has always believed in amplification. Yet as we know, those who do all the talking cannot stay silent long enough to listen and learn. Know when to shut up.

2. Curiosity. Rather than trying to find something interesting in everything, pay attention to the things you genuinely find interesting—no matter how obscure, silly, embarrassing, or irrelevant they may seem. Because when you are curious, you bring your whole self to whatever you’re doing. You give it your full attention, and you have the energy and persistence you need to do something innovative.

3. Emotional Intelligence. I believe that a greater awareness of emotional intelligence (EI) will lead to more women taking positions of power in marketing and in embracing disruptive marketing. Some industries are becoming so competitive that effective marketing is no longer a numbers game. Instead, it is about connecting with customers and clients in meaningful ways. This connecting entails building friendships with your target audience so they adopt your culture. Those entrepreneurs who can successfully walk in the shoes of their customers almost always create a foolproof model for success and longevity.

4. Creativity. Steve Jobs famously said,
 Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it. They just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while; that’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. In the creative economy, every profession requires some degree of creativity. Creativity is taking preexisting elements and integrating them in a way that has never been done before, with the aim of improving conditions. Indeed, some may argue that creativity is the source of all innovations and improvements. And how you build that creative vision is through experience. How you gain experience is by doing as many different things as possible. You never know how those experiences will influence the future.

5. Customer Centricity. In the book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson counts the ways that giving away content can help boost your business and build your tribe. He argues that many individuals under the age of thirty aren’t used to paying for digital information when they know they can find it somewhere online for free. By tapping into this demand for getting something for nothing, you can attract and maintain a loyal audience while building premiums as you go. Some feel this flies in the face of monetization. Again, a growth hacker builds via customer experience, whereas an MBA-trained brand marketer uses monetization. The former is thinking about the customer; the latter is thinking simply about the company.

6. Story Making. Marketing is no longer about corporate storytelling, mind tactics, manipulation, or persuasion. It’s about inspiring your audience to tell a story by using media in new and different forms. Ask yourself, “What story does my business allow others to build or make? How do they help translate a narrative with their POV to others?”

7. Generalist Experts. If you’re a marketer and still don’t understand how paid social targeting works, you should make an effort to improve your knowledge and skill set in this area. If you’re good with pay-per-click advertising and data, but you don’t understand the creative process that goes into producing video, creating imagery, or design, make an effort to learn more about how creative content is 
actually made. Don’t be an expert in one area. Be an expert in both.

Learn how to keep your brand relevant in the 21^st Century in my new book Disruptive Marketing.

Compete. Win. Learn. Join us in Hollywood, California for Brand Leadership in the Age of Disruption, our 5th annual competitive-learning event designed around brand strategy.

The Blake Project Can Help: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

Economics is about deciding what’s valuable.

After nearly a decade that saw the global re-set and the recent uncertainty of a new American President’s impact, people everywhere are re-evaluating and sorting out what is valuable in their lives and what is not. What the world needs now is to have more value added to it. And that’s what brands must do — add value to the world — if they want to lead the market in the age of disruption.

Creating new value is fundamental to the healthy functioning of our free-market economy. Like the natural law of gravity, creating new value is the natural law of increase. People are always seeking an increase to their lives — wanting to be a higher and more fuller expression of themselves. As marketing oriented leaders and professionals, when we have the opportunity to serve people well, we find greater meaning and satisfaction in our own life experience.

For 50 marketers that are focused on creating new value for those people most important to their future, The Blake Project and Branding Strategy Insider have designed a uniquely powerful experience for brand leadership in the age of disruption. We call it The Un-Conference: 360 Degrees of Brand Strategy for a Changing World.

It’s unlike any other conference you’ve attended before:

• Everyone in the room is an expert and gains from the sum of the expertise in the room.
• Our competitive learning format is fun, energized and impactful.
• The walls are down, there are no podiums or stages, there is no hierarchy – your uniform is jeans.
• The focus is on learning outcomes, not ticket sales.
• Small is powerful, with only 50 marketers participating in hands on learning.
• As in your marketplace, some will win, some will lose, all will learn.

No Attendees. Only Participants.
The best pathway for learning is through participation, not observation. The Un-Conference: 360 Degrees of Brand Strategy for a Changing World will challenge your thinking about brands and brand management. To do that, we’ll put you on a team of 10 and offer you opportunities to compete, lead and learn alongside other marketers in a unique environment. The challenges you’ll tackle are based on and influenced by the actual issues that you and other participants are facing.

In May of 2017, our 5th event, we are focused on: Disruptive Marketing Trends, Building Emotional Connections, Encoding Brands In The Mind, Brand Storytelling, Brand Leadership, Digital Strategy, Customer Experience, B2B Brand Strategy and more.

It all takes place at The London Hotel in West Hollywood, California May 1 – 3, 2017.

Our schedule…

Monday, May 1st – Kickoff Mixer: 7- 9pm at The London Hotel Rooftop Pool

Tuesday, May 2nd – Day 1: 8am – 5pm, at The London Hotel / 6:30pm – ? Team building event and dinner

Wednesday, May 3rd – Day 2: 8am – 5pm, at The London Hotel

Who Should Participate?
We have reserved these two days (and a kickoff mixer on the evening of the 1st) for 50 senior B2C and B2B marketers who see professional growth and value creation as a mandate for success and who seek a learning experience superior to last century’s format of marketing conferences:

-Marketing oriented leaders
-Marketing professionals (brand managers, product managers, directors, vice presidents, CMO’s, brand strategists etc.)
-Advertising agency professionals (account executives, planners, creatives, agency heads)
-Marketers facing brand strategy issues
-Marketers seeking a competitive advantage
-Professionals in charge of brand building, brand management, human resources
-Professional brand consultants, digital consultants and researchers
-Marketers who prefer participation over observation
-Marketers who don’t believe that last century’s format of marketing conferences advances them as leaders.

Every year a wide range of marketing oriented leaders and professionals from around the world join us representing startups, emerging, regional, national and global brands. Past participants include AAA, Bayer, Bloomberg, Humana, Land O’ Lakes, Liberty Mutual, Pilot/Flying J, RJ Reynolds, TD Ameritrade, GlaxoSmithKlein, Wounded Warrior Project, Monsanto, Ogilvy, Kawasaki, GE and many more.

Only 50 marketers can participate. To secure a spot for you or your group at The Un-Conference: 360 Degrees of Brand Strategy for a Changing World call me directly in Los Angeles at 813-842-2260. Or simply email me.

Special pricing for MENG / Marketing Executives Group and American Marketing Association Members.

I do hope you can join us.

Sincerely,

Derrick Daye for The Un-Conference, Branding Strategy Insider and The Blake Project

Recently Ryan Holiday, noted author, gave some interesting advice on why you should not start a podcast. I read it and disagreed with it at first because we as brands now all have tools to create and produce anything we want.

But I read it again and again and over time I agree with Ryan. Brands usually do things because they are tasked with driving growth. As a result, many brand marketers will do what everyone else is doing. This makes sense. As the famous quote goes: “good artists copy, great artists steal.”

As a result it isn’t foreign to customers to see brands who want to continue to grow to tweet, post on social media, market content, start podcasts, live stream video and pretty soon will try to create AR using AI.

The issue is that because brands assume they do these things, they will be relevant and successful right away.

Accenture recently released a study that should be an eye-opener to many CMOs and brand directors. You can’t simply manage a brand anymore. That is not your sole focus and duty. Just like writers no longer just write, film directors just direct or marketers just market, brands must drive growth.

So what’s the best way to make this transition? Well, the tools of a traditional past aren’t the right tools and maybe it’s time you realize you’re using antiquated metrics, belief systems and even staffing organizational hierarchies to get ahead in a world not shaped like the one you were used to in your career trajectory.

So how do you turn your brand marketing team into a growth engine?

1. Don’t rely on conventional tactics. Conventional ways to build your brand don’t work as well because disruptive technology is all around us. So you must use this to your advantage. This means tons of tests. Make sure you hang a sign on your wall that has two phrases on it: I don’t know and I may be wrong. Use this as your guide to growth. Growth isn’t just doing the same old thing so risk is essential.

2. Use rebellious “go to market” plans. Be rebellious. Think about the best way to get customer attention before thinking about conversion. People don’t buy immediately. They ponder and decide but if you emotionally connect with them in an authentic manner you convert them faster than through staged approaches. The only way to move them to a purchase decision faster is to rebel against past planned marketing strategies. They need to hear and see about your brand not simply from you, but from others in their social circle several times before that exposure leads to a decision. This goes back to point number one. If you listen too much to the voice in your head that “this isn’t going to work,” you’re never going to find out if you don’t know or that you may be wrong.

3. Don’t over rely on the data. As we’ve seen recently, data is not a predictor, it is a probability. The best growth marketers understand this and exploit data through action faster than their competitors. If you’re waiting around to see if the data is right on what creative you should use, well, you’re going to be waiting an awful long time. Test the probabilities, find what resonates best, repeat.

No one says growth is going to be easy but it is essential to long term success and sustainability.

Learn how to keep your brand relevant in the 21^st Century in my new book Disruptive Marketing.

Compete. Win. Learn. Join us in Hollywood, California for Brand Leadership in the Age of Disruption, our 5th annual competitive-learning event designed around brand strategy.

The Blake Project Can Help: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

intu, the owner of some of the UK’s largest and most popular shopping centres, is launching a new TV campaign under a new brand platform this Christmas: “Your kind of shopping”.

The Christmas campaign, created by Now, features beautifully and painstakingly crafted bird puppets inspired by stage shows such as War Horse and The Lion King to personify seven different types of shoppers and shopper behaviours – from the ‘Last Minute Panic Shopper’ in a flap to the ‘Wise Shopper’. The message of the campaign is that, no matter what type of shopper you are, intu understands you and can make your Christmas shopping experience better.

The puppeteers in the film include specialist performers from Henson and War Horse and the puppets, film and photography were produced by Blinkink and directed by Joseph Mann, who together have also helped create loveable characters for the likes of Cravendale and Churchill.
Having the puppeteers as part of the performance, a technique traditionally reserved for the stage, allows the film to feel more like a piece of theatre..

The integrated campaign launches on TV on Monday, November 7th and will also run across digital, social, OOH and in-centre media.
Now, which was appointed to the business in January this year, also worked alongside media agency Blue 449 for the campaign.
Remco Graham, Executive Creative Director at Now, said: “In a world of elves, bright lights, jingle bells and sad songs, we knew we had to do something a little different to ensure intu stood out at Christmas.”

Roger Binks, Customer Experience Director at intu, said: “The intu brand is all about curating the very best customer experience. To support this, we wanted to create a consumer proposition that resonated with our audience and that could act as a platform for the next phase of our brand development. Our “your kind of shopping” proposition using the seven shopper groups has been crafted to drive an emotional connection with our guests, allowing them to see themselves in our advertising and to demonstrate that we understand them.”

Joseph Mann said: “Keeping the puppeteers in shot was always our plan but it came with some challenges. The puppeteers are used to working in front of a screen so they can see what they’re doing. Making them part of the performance meant this wasn’t possible. They had to almost be an extension of the bird and therefore act alongside them, looking at them rather than straight on. As you can imagine, this required a lot of tests, rehearsals and choreography and with only four shoot days to work with it was a real challenge, but we are very pleased with the result.”

CREDITS:
Now Credits:
Executive Creative Director: Remco Graham
Creative Team: Juliet Kent and Clint Harding
Head of Film & Content: Jeremy Muthana
Planner: Amelia Wood
Account Director: Jack Howker
Account Manager: Katy Stanage

Client Credits:
Roger Binks, Customer Experience Director, intu
Richard Bailey, Head of Group Marketing
Izzie Peskett, Regional Marketing Manager, South
Charlotte Ullathorne, Regional Marketing Manager, Midlands

Production Credits:
Production Company: Blinkink
Director: Joseph Mann
Producer: Ben Lole
DOP: Matthew Day
Editing House: Stitch
Editor: Max Windows
Post-production: Finish
Audio: Wave Studios
Music: Simon Pegg
Media:
Blue449

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By Matteo Tonello, Managing Director, Corporate Leadership at The Conference Board Stock awards have taken up the slack of virtually every other component of pay. S&P 500 CEOs receive 47 percent of their total pay in the form of stock awards, up from a third in 2010, while in the Russell 3000 it has risen […]

Watch the new 2016 John Lewis Christmas TV advert featuring Buster The Boxer. This is the story of a little girl called Bridget who loves to bounce. When her mum and dad buy her a trampoline for Christmas, they soon discover that she isn’t the only one with a passion for jumping.

The music is One Day I’ll Fly Away performed by Vaults, the original song was by Randy Crawford.

CREATIVE CREDITS:
Ad Agency: adam&eveDDB
Chief Creative Officer: Ben Priest
Executive Creative Directors: Richard Brim, Ben Tollett
Copywriter: Ben Stilitz
Art Director: Colin Booth
Production Company: Blink Productions
Director: Dougal Wilson
Editing: Final Cut
Sound Design: 1618 Digital
Composer, Soundtrack: Randy Crawford, “One Day I’ll Fly Away”
Performed by: Vaults

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Nancy Pelosi at TEDWomen 2016 – It’s About Time, October 26-28, 2016, Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts, San Francisco, California. Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED

Nancy Pelosi has represented San Francisco’s 12th district for 29 years, is currently the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, and made history by becoming the first woman Speaker of the House. But before all that happened, she never felt that she was on a course for public office. When the opportunity to run came along, she was a young mom; while she was heavily involved in the community, the thought of running for office had never crossed her mind.

Pelosi’s predecessor, Sala Burton, encouraged her to run when she became ill. Pelosi, feeling confident that she had a clear purpose, decided to go for it. “I knew my purpose and my call to service was to children,” she says. She wanted to make sure that all children had the same opportunities that her own children had. She won the election and the rest is history.

Asked by interviewer and TEDWomen co-founder Pat Mitchell what makes women’s leadership different and beneficial, Pelosi reflects how, when she ran meetings as Speaker of the House, people sometimes remarked on how different the meeting would have been if it was led by a man. Women are intuitive and respectful of other views, she says. They listen, learn and are ready to use their time well — and those differences make a difference. In fact, Pelosi believes that nothing is more wholesome to government than the increased participation of women.

Reflecting back on her long career, Pelosi offers advice to other women seeking leadership positions. When setting out on a course, she urges women to know their purpose, know their subject, act strategically and use their intuition. “When people know that you are going to act, your leadership will be very, very respected, and people will not try to destroy your options while you take your time,” she says.

Most important, she encourages women to be sincere. “It’s wonderful to have mentors and to have role models, but you must be your authentic self,” she urges, remarking that people want to see sincere and authentic candidates.

Nancy Pelosi with host Pat Mitchell at TEDWomen 2016 – It’s About Time, October 26-28, 2016, Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts, San Francisco, California. Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED

When she attended her first meeting at the White House, Pelosi was aware that this was unlike any White House meeting that any other woman had attended. As she sat down at the table with President Bush and the other leaders, she suddenly felt that the chair she was sitting on was very crowded. “It was weird, it was so tight, and I realized that on that chair were Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth,” she says. “I could hear them say, ‘At last we have a seat at the table.’”

In that moment, she was standing on the shoulders of all the women who had come before her. “Women fought for the right to vote — it was not given,” she says, correcting the headlines that came after women’s suffrage in 1920. She realizes that one day, other women will stand on her shoulders, too.

Pelosi believes that the issues that face the United States are part of something bigger — and it all boils down to respect. “It’s about creating a government and society that are respectful of the voices of the people in their country,” she says. That future, she believes, is on the horizon.

This fall, TED welcomes Colin Helms as its Head of Media. In this leadership team role, Colin will oversee strategy and operations of TED’s core media business, including video production, new format development, distribution, social media, mobile and design.

Colin brings more than 20 years of experience in both digital and traditional media content strategy and platform development. Prior to joining TED’s New York office, he was the SVP of Connected Content at MTV, where he oversaw the brand’s digital evolution from broadband video and social media to its pioneering multi-screen programming and original digital content studio. Before that, he served as a founding editor of Complex magazine as well as the editor-in-chief of the music magazine and festival CMJ.

“It’s more important than ever to give ‘ideas worth spreading’ their greatest potential audience,” said TED curator Chris Anderson. “Colin’s expertise navigating today’s media landscape—at once vast and unpredictable—will help us expand that mission into an exciting new future.”

“My team’s challenge is to make TED available and relevant to audiences we haven’t reached yet,” Colin says. “Media behaviors and habits vary depending on so many factors — geography, economics, cultural norms, you name it — and our job is to meet these audiences where they already are. That means online, yes, but it could also mean TV, radio, and a very broad variety of other content platforms. I’m excited to help TED become a part of millions more people’s media habits.”

Credit: Dian Lofton / TED