A plan is a method for achieving an end, so says Merriam-Webster. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that relying too heavily on the solidity of your plans is foolishness. Defining yourself by your adherence to a plan subject to the current volatility of our world can leave you feeling disappointed, jaded and cynical -- and cause you to operate from a defensive or a defeatist ...
How do I do biz dev now?
Even as we’ve settled into routines around working remotely, meeting virtually and supervising online learning, many of us still seem stuck when it comes to how to carry on doing business development. More than once recently we’ve heard the exasperated frustration, “I used to go to lunches and happy hours and events! Now I can’t do any of that, so how do I still do biz ...
Why is marketing so hard right now?
Branding and marketing have never been easy. But throw in a pandemic, social and political unrest and a recession and that will complicate things a bit more. So no shame from us if you went into hunker-down mode. We get it! But we would also challenge you to consider this: the world needs you and your brand right now. So maybe it’s time to re-emerge. Maybe the reason it was ...
Bored of Marketing? Have More Fun! An Interview with Misty Megia
Q: Who are you and what do you do? I am Misty Megia, I am a CEO/Creative Producer and Business Strategist. Q: Do you have any nicknames you care to share? The only nickname I've heard people call me is Sunshine, which I will gladly take ;) Q: What do you love about marketing? I love the creative world of marketing and figuring out the solutions to consumer problems. I love the art, ...
Branding is Still a Performance
Authenticity. Vulnerability. Transparency. Being more human. These are the standards of a modern brand. Branding is still a performance, and a powerful one. But it’s not a performance built on pretense, on flimsy supposition or shallow projection. It’s a performance that rises from truth, integrity, and genuine emotion. It’s a performance because you, as a brand, always have an audience. ...
Your audience is practicing attention curation. Are you?
Unless you intentionally live in a self-created bubble, everyone and everything is trying to get your attention at all times. Therefore, we don’t give our attention for any length of time to just anything. Our attention must be earned. It’s something we call attention curation, and it works two ways. For individuals, attention curation is the disciplined practice of consciously ...
This is who we are
Injustice in our country must be addressed. It begins, as all deep work does, by looking inward. This is precisely what Michelle Obama highlighted in her public statement May 30, “It's up to all of us—Black, white, everyone—no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out. It starts with self-examination and listening to those whose ...
Why should we come back to you?
Soon, people will be making decisions. The decisions will be about what work they choose to do, what schools they will send their children back to, what places they want to eat at and shop at and gather at. They will be deciding how to re-engage with the world. Will they be re-engaging with you and your brand? The decision-making filter that existed before the pandemic, which would have ...
Humans of Marketing: Stop the Madness
In the best of times being a director of marketing and communication is kind of like holding your ground in the center of a tornado. You must watch carefully where you step. And while it is relatively calm in the eye, every other thing is hurtling, very near, at dangerous speeds. A misplaced step might pick you and your day or week up, sending you swirling along with all that is whipping ...
Will Marketing Still Matter?
No. And yes. Crisis reveals pretense. So the days of hardcore, tone-deaf, insistent and interruptive marketing are over. That kind of marketing does not matter now. It doesn’t matter to the extent that marketing with old ways in this new world will do more harm to a brand than not marketing at all. By harm we mean: if you market with pretense, with disregard for human beings, with a ...