It’s not always easy to tell who’s really leading when an entire team is just going through the motions and following procedures in a manual that they’ve all used before for similar projects. When all the variables for a project are known and the expectations and plan are clear to everyone from the very beginning, all it really takes to move things forward is keeping people motivated and on task. If everyone knows their role, and team members direct themselves to get their part done, you really only need someone to organize and report, which isn’t necessarily leading. It’s managing.
Effective leaders are the ones who take charge in a group when a task or problem is completely new, the next step isn’t obvious and there is no manual. When others hesitate and look to their peers for answers, the leaders are the ones who are busy breaking the problem down, creating structure where there is none and developing a plan that they can communicate and act on. When new problems that require novel solutions come your team’s way, take a moment and observe who everyone looks to when someone asks “what do we do now?”. Those are the people who are really leading.
Julie got this card in the mail the other day from our dry cleaner. It probably took them only a few minutes to write and send it. I think the card speaks for itself. Simple, personal, perfect. Handwritten notes still go a long way.
Five years ago, if someone from your marketing department said “Let’s market to our existing customers!” they would have risked losing their job. Why would any organization spend time or effort on customers who’ve already bought the product? Backwards you say? Not anymore. This is a winning strategy on the social web.
Social media changes the game by giving brands and organizations an unprecedented ability to target and energize their existing fans. 5 to 10 years ago, brands didn’t know who their biggest fans were or where to find and engage them. Now individuals come to you and they bring their entire social graph of trusted relationships with them. When the stars align and they start to come in droves, it’s word of mouth on fire – that’s the real power of the social web. Recognizing that, smart organizations that have a connected fan base shift their spending away from recruiting and start focusing on their existing community’s happiness and let the fans do the marketing for them.
BMW has had amazing success with it’s strategy of targeting existing Mini Cooper Owners because they understand how critical their passionate customers are for spreading ideas that promote the brand. Mini Ownership for many isn’t just about the car – it’s about being part of a subculture that has it’s own fashion, events and lifestyle. BMW made a smart move by focusing on treating their best customers as special insiders who love to be in the know and talk about the product. There’s a key lesson here for any brand with an existing community. People haven’t fundamentally changed, but the technology does change their ability to market for you so significantly that it changes where the dollars should be spent.
It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? There are a lot of people out there right now who’ve had the question thrust upon them when they weren’t ready. What would you do? Would you seek another job just like the one you had because it’s easy, familiar and safe? Or would you go and do the things that you’ve always wanted to do because they matter to you?
There’s been a strong surge in the pro-entrepreneurship movement this year urging individuals and organizations to focus on making a difference. People are starting to see how participating in the culture of entrepreneurship and doing things and working on problems that add value not only gives them a sense of fulfillment in their lives, it improves society overall. The great shaking out we’re all experiencing right now is producing new thoughts and solutions on how to go about doing what we do and finding meaning in our lives. Some call it “The New Entrepreneurship“, or “awesomeness” and some simply call it “working on stuff that matters“.
What would you do tomorrow if you were laid off today? Would you change the world?
This lecture from Seth Godin is around 2 years old, but the ideas still resonate strongly, especially in the wake of recent discussions about Chris Anderson’s new book Free and the concepts of Freemium and Freeconomics. If you’re currently writing a book, or thinking of writing a book one day, you should get a lot out of this. The core concepts to keep in mind as you’re going through this are:
- Books are souvenirs (give ideas away and people buy)
- Permission is your only asset (relationships matter)
- Conversations are (the best) marketing
- Make words for readers, not readers for words (ideas that spread sell, so get the order right)
- Blogs work (and continue to pay off over time), and
- It’s not about selling books (it’s about spreading ideas)
Audiences are skipping TV spots with their DVRs and learning how to ignore ads on the web. Instead, they’re talking (bluntly) about products and brands on Twitter, chatting about them on Facebook and searching for the reviews and opinions of other customers on Google before they buy. Armed with free, easy-to-use tools that allow them to ask trusted friends what they think or give an unsolicited opinion to hundreds in an instant – it’s word of mouth on fire. The truth is, as people are increasingly empowered by social media, marketers are losing control.
In a lot of ways these trends are great news for the world because more customers are getting the real story and finding out from each other which products and services have real value, and which ones don’t. But where does this leave the people who’ve build honest businesses being experts in push strategies that used to work? A lot of them are scratching their heads wondering “How the hell are we going to make money now?”
If you’re one of the ones scratching your head, here’s the good news…your clients are about to need you more than ever. The bad news…in order to consistently deliver measurable value to your clients, you’re going to have to shift the way you do business in a major way. Read More
Timing is everything. Making “amazing” look easy isn’t just about talent and practice, it’s about being in tune with the environment. The surfers that really wow us and capture our attention repeatedly when the big waves come aren’t just getting in the water more than average, they’re watching weather patterns, studying the beach and trying to anticipate where the perfect break will be so that they can position themselves in just the right spot to get the best ride when the conditions are right. From the beach, seeing a great surfer catch that perfect wave seems effortless…but only because they were in the right place at the right time and were paddling like hell when they saw the wave coming.
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/knmurphy/3827402016/sizes/m/
