BoostStrapping

eBoost Consulting's Guide to becoming a Complete Marketing Strategist | Part 2: The Big Picture

The big picture.  Many take this into consideration when talking about business – you often overhear consultants or marketing professionals urge their team/boss/client to “take a step back and look at the big picture” but rarely do people take the big picture into consideration in professional development.  Big mistake!  Without seeing the big picture in your development (as a marketing strategist) or in  your talent pool (as an employer developing top marketing personnel), you are severely limiting your work capacity, work capabilities, and ability to discover your best work potential.  Perhaps more insidious is that you will lessen your leadership impact and decrease your company’s chances to achieve the big picture that you urged them to see in the first place! 

The foundation of the eBC Pyramid is Business Acumen.  Understand what key drivers that make up your business model.  Many people mistake this for a template business plan and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an MBA education without ever learning how to put the pieces of the puzzle together in a simple language.  Essentially, the business model comes from answering two questions: 1) What customer need is being met?  2) How does your company make money?  As a complete marketing strategist, you can’t perform to your accountabilities if there are deficient components in the business that must be brought up first.  Developing a keen business acumen will allow you to set the proper expectations for your company. 

Functions Knowledge – The biggest deficiency in talent development exists here.  Have you ever witnessed a meeting between the CFO, CMO, COO, CTO, C(insert letter here)O?  It’s akin to putting a Brazilian who only speaks Portuguese, a Chinese person who only speaks Chinese, a French person who only speaks French, and an Aussie who only speaks rugby, alone in the same room.  Communication is limited to awkward body language, makeshift sign language, and ineffective gesturing that can only be described as “pointing-to-things”.  Hijinks ensue.  Good for a sitcom, sure.  Good for business, not so much.  To be a complete marketing strategist, you must become fluent in the functional languages.  This requires an understanding of the key metrics that the functional lines are evaluated on and also an empathy for the accountabilities and responsibilities of the functional heads (CFO, COO, CTO, et al).   A complete marketing strategist is a change agent and change starts with proper communication. 

Marketing Fundamentals – When someone asks me what they should be reading, I reply with Principles of Marketing by Dr. Philip Kotler.  This is my honest answer and when it comes to the moment of facing the reality that this is a textbook that exceeds 1000 pages, most people (99% of the people who asked me this question, I’d estimate) reply with “Can you recommend something I can pick up at Borders?”  I typically don’t even bother offering this recommendation anymore because most want a short, enjoyable book that they can read over a weekend.  But a short, enjoyable book isn't what they need.  Sure, the book was written before I was born, but it’s timeless in the sense that fundamentals are timeless.  In basketball, the fundamentals of dribbling – head up, weight balanced over hips, ball on fingertips – haven’t changed from Cousy to Lebron.  In marketing, the fundamentals – segmentation, targeting, positioning – haven’t either from Kotler to Mikailian.  Learn them properly so you can maximize the next level. 

Marketing Strategy – I haven’t run into any studies on this but I’d surmise that the best marketing strategists would be exceptional chess players.  Not saying that you have to become the Bobby Fischer of marketing (thereby making you eccentric and unattractive to 90% of the opposite sex) but marketing strategy is a complete chess match.  On the other end of the table sits your competition’s marketing strategist.  Be too reliant on one move and you become too predictable.  Be too risk-averse or risk-favorable and you may open your competitors to taking you out with an early attack or waiting you out and taking your market when you have no more ponds.  I LOVE THIS GAME! 

There are ebbs and flows to every strategic reality.  Though a paper deliverable is a good start, more often than not, you’ll have to remain agile to adapt to the fluidity of the match.  There are short-run moves (ex: promotions) and long-run moves (ex: advertising).  Understanding the business engine, functional strategies and proper marketing fundamentals allows you to be creative and put it all together.  Putting it together to get your result (i.e. dominate the competition by capturing the affection of the customers with minimal loss to your own company) is the game you have to love to truly “get” strategy.  Did I mention I freakin' LOVE this game?  Can I get next?  

Tactics – I won’t belabor this for now.  Facebook, Twitter, email marketing, SEO, PPC.  These exist here as do most purported "marketing strategists/consultants" who we appreciate, but really, they are "marketing specialists".  Please don’t get me wrong!  We are addicted to new trends and new technologies.  New trends and new technologies give us more options to choose from, more players to play with, when executing marketing strategy for the business/client we're serving.  After all, the customers are driving these trends and technologies and you’ll need to pay close attention to the pulse of your environment.  But it’s a full understanding the why and how of these tactics that transform a "marketing specialist" to a "complete marketing strategist". 

More on each level of the eBC Pyramid to come on BoostStrapping.  Next Monday, I will begin with a lengthy diatribe on Business Acumen. 

Peace,

-johnny

eBoost Consulting's Guide to becoming a Complete Marketing Strategist | Part 1: Fundamentals

Fundamentals are the key to being a complete marketing strategist.  Everything we do at eBoost Consulting, everything we’ve achieved can be traced to how we approach business fundamentals and apply them to individual marketing cases for clients and ourselves.   

The pyramid above displays the basic building blocks that we use to make a complete marketing leader.  That is, someone who is strategic, cross-functional, intelligent and creative.  Whomever comes to our company, we assess them on how rigorously they’ve attacked the fundamentals and how aggressively do they continue to work at the fundamentals.  If you’re weak on one of these levels, the pyramid falls apart.  Nowadays, the space is ripe with one-trick ponies.  And there are plenty of people with great tactical skill but if they don’t know how to apply those tactics to the big picture, then what good are they?  

But most people, particularly those of the Gen Y clan, don’t want to deal with that.  They’re looking for instant gratification, the shortest route to promotion, to that next title.  Perhaps they don’t learn segmentation practices because they don’t like analytical work.  Perhaps they don’t develop proper communication with Operations or Finance because they rely on communicating with marketing peers with similar communication skills.  Perhaps this is you?  Sure, you can get away with it for a while but the deficiencies will catch up with you sooner or later.   

It’s like they’re so focused on composing a masterpiece that they never master the scales.  And you can’t do one without the other.  The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether its proper preparation, thought-processes, or work ethic – the bottom falls out easily. 

When I was at Whole Foods Market, everyone said I was being held back.  But I was taught the scales there.  I was taught the importance of fundamentals and how to apply them to individual cases and my own propensity to be creative.  The concept of being a complete leader was heavily stressed and imposed.  When I got to eBoost Consulting and applied my learning to include new digital tools, I had a strong foundation to work from.  I knew the way to approach learning and I developed a feel for what would be flashes-in-the-pan or solid tools.  It allows me to be decisive.  It allows me to save time.   

When you understand the building blocks, you begin to see how the entire operation works.  You know what tools to use, which frameworks will click to bring out the best in your team. 

People are often surprised that I spend so much time on the whiteboard in meetings when we made our name on being cutting-edge.  They ask if we knew which frameworks, which tools we were using.  My answer is always no.  Tools change.  But the fundamentals remain the same.  I assess the distinct abilities and personality traits of the personnel in the room because I am always confident in my understanding of fundamentals and my ability to apply the fundamentals to any canvas.  Give me  a $10,000 brainstorming software or give me the back of the napkin.  The results will be the same. 

It comes down to a very simple saying: there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.  Peter Drucker once noted that effectiveness comes before efficiency.  Not the other way around.  Get the fundamentals down to be effective and then your level of efficiency and probability for success will raise. 

More to come on The eBC Pyramid tomorrow.   

-johnny

The above excerpt is adapted from the chapter “Fundamentals” from I Can’t Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence. 

Introducing Alpha Gamma Omega!

Just Like Octomom, We Are Extending Our Family! 

Bad analogy?  Man.  Two days in a row.  Anyhow, Alpha Epsilon announced its selections for the summer internship class.  They called the Fave 5 today.  Lucky for you, we got their calls on video.  Though only Heather and Aparna picked up, our current interns (minus Sunshine) still had fun with it.  I'm only posting the Heather video for real estate's sake.  Flip our YouTube station to watch the rest.  They are under the eBoost Intern Videos playlist.  While you're there, subscribe to the channel if the mood just so happens to strike ya. 

peace,
-johnny

Top 10??? Someone call Letterman...

San Diego Business Journal Names eBoost Consulting On Top 10 Best Places to Work in San Diego. 

Cleverly, this means "10" in marketing gang signs.  Real talk.

Update (May 27, 2009): Read the press release!  Input in the good ol' social media press release format. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/05/prweb2465614.htm

So this is what Nixon must've felt like when he tossed the victory signs up like they were going out of business.  Bad analogy?  Perhaps.  I wasn't even born yet, and neither were any other eBoosters come to think of it.  What was I talking about again?  Oh. Right.  eBoost Consulting being ranked as the #1 Marketing Firm to work for in the 10th Annual San Diego Business Journal Best Places to Work Awards!

If you missed our original post about eBoost Consulting being named as one of the top 50, pop this.  And while you're at it, watch this video I cut up.  I'll wait. 

To say we were stoked about finding out we are top 10 in the small business category would be a severe understatement!  A few other companies *cough* Nautilus *cough* said they would beat us.  Therefore, our year of trash-talking begins now. 

One word simply cannot describe our feeling towards this honor.  So what do I do?  I go around using the Flip Cam and ask everyone to give one word to describe it.  I call this being "counterintuitive".  That's Sun Tzu stuff.  For the Geaker-maniacs out there, yes, Geaks is notably missing - likely saving a child (again) or doing pushups in the parking lot (again) or something.  But I'm sure he'd say something like, "bad-action".  Amber is also notably missing - likely doing work whilst getting in the zone to the New Kids On The Block station on Pandora.  I'm sure she'd say, "lock-it-down!". 

As for me?  I think Walt Whitman said it best when he said, "Swizneat."  Press release will be out tomorrow.  (Correction: Read the press release here and now). 

Go ahead and click the play button.  Go ahead.  Really.  Do it. 

peace,
-johnny