Linda's Marketing Leverage Blog

What Steve Jobs Could Teach Mel Gibson

It's very simple...YOU are the brand. What you say, what you do, how you say it, the environment you set--all impacts what people think about you and your products. Steve Jobs gets this. Mel Gibson unfortunately doesn't.

Take a look at these two recent videos. The first is a compilation of key words and phrases used by Steve Jobs in the recent iPad product launch.

In the second, Mel Gibson is interviewed about his new movie opening, but becomes defensive when asked about anti-Semitic remarks he made several years ago and eventually curses at the reporter...

Using SaaS to Enable The Next Generation in Non-Profit Fundraising

In the latest installment of MarketingThoughtLeadership, Carol Schrader CEO of givezooks tells us how givezooks! is using software as a service (SaaS) to help non-profit organizations conduct more effective fundraising, as well as what it means to be a social entrepreneur.

Listen now.

A Special Message to Sun Microsystems Employees

Now that the Sun-Oracle deal has closed, what happens next?
What are your career alternatives after Sun?
Where do you go from here?

If you're wondering where to find the answers to these questions, you're not alone. Even though this acquisition has been on the horizon for many months, it will still be a big transformation. Are you prepared?

Sun was an exciting and wonderful place to work for many years. It was an exhilarating experience – one I will never forget. We had the opportunity to meet and work with some of the brightest, most talented people in the industry. People who had great skills and capabilities and a can-do, get things done attitude. People whose ability to contribute was the envy of many other organizations.

As Scott said, we truly did change the world. And we had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

If you’re a long-term Sun employee, you may be worried about how you’ll do in the job market. Do you have the right skills and experience? Will other companies value the time you’ve spent at Sun? How will you compete in this economic environment?

I strongly believe the time I spent at Sun prepared me for the success I've had since.

I’d like to reassure you that your Sun background is extremely valuable. When I left Sun in 2002 after 15 action-packed years and started my own strategic marketing business, I was surprised to find how valuable my Sun experience was to others. Today my clients include some of the largest and most well-known companies in Silicon Valley, as well as innovative startups, midsized companies, and nonprofit organizations. You can learn more about me here.

Now I'd like to help other Sun employees succeed.

As I’ve helped organizations improve the effectiveness of their marketing, I’ve found that many of the same principles that help us launch and market products are also applicable for individuals. Several years ago, I began creating a series of tools to help people like you market yourself and drive your career more effectively, especially in a down market.

I have the opportunity to help you, my former colleagues at Sun, who will be displaced as a result of the Oracle acquisition.

To help you jump start your career search, I'm offering a low-cost one-hour teleseminar especially for current and former Sun employees. We’ll focus on many of the key factors you'll need to be considering as you move out into the 2010 job market, including how to leverage your Sun pedigree and connections. Life After Sun: Marketing Yourself for Success in the New Economy, will be held Wed. February 17, at 11am PST. For those of you who can't make this live, the session will be recorded and available as an MP3 file.

For more hands-on support, we’ll be offering a half-day workshop entitled: Positioned for Success: How to Market Yourself in 2010, to be held Saturday, March 6th, in Silicon Valley (location TBD). Attendees will learn strategies and approaches to better prepare you to be successful in marketing and positioning yourself. We'll discuss how to articulate your expertise and experience in a way that's compelling to potential employers. Best of all, you'll leave with the blueprint for an action plan that will help move you forward through this transition. There'll be optional interviewing skills and social media sessions available that day as well.

Special Offer for Sun Employees: As a current or former Sun employee, when you sign up to attend the February 17 teleseminar, you'll receive a FREE copy of my e-book, Marketing Your Career Interactive Workbook. Current or former Sun employees who attend the Saturday, March 6th, workshop will receive a FREE hardcopy of Marketing Your Career Interactive Workbook, as well as a complimentary review of your resume or LinkedIn profile. Register here.

More to come . . .

We’re planning additional programs to support the Sun community, such as podcast interviews with former Sun employees who've moved to other successful positions, and ongoing tips and suggestions for leveraging the Sun alumni community. If you’d like to leverage the power of a group, we'll be creating coaching groups of 5-6 people that will work together for four months to support each other through the transition process. If you’re interested in starting or growing your own business or consulting practice, you may also be interested in my 90 day 1:1 mentoring program for those of you who may be interested in starting or growing your own business or consulting practice.

Yes, there really is life after Sun.

For me, leaving Sun after such a long time was a little bit scary, but also exciting. Seven years later, I'm happy to say that the future is bright (you gotta wear shades!). I'm hoping these programs will help each of you make your own seamless transition to the bright post-Sun world.

Good luck and welcome to life after Sun!

For more information, go to www.Lifeaftersun.com.

Linda Popky

Sun Employee # 4225

1987-2002

From Tylenol to Toyota..Lessons in How to Handle Trouble

For years, marketers have used the case study of the 1982 Tylenol poisoning crisis as a textbook example of how to handle a product crisis. Within days of finding that Extra Strength Tylenol had been tampered with, causing 7 deaths in the Chicago area, Johnson & Johnson sent out alerts to the medical community, set up hotlines and recalled the products. An entire subspecialty of public relations developed to help other organizations respond to crises as effectively as J&J handled this one.

Fast forward to late 2009 when consumers began complaining their Tylenol smelled moldy and causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Unfortunately,the recalls in this instance were limited and slow in coming. Granted, it doesn't appear that anyone has died from moldy Tylenol. Still, the brand is suffering greatly because of the perception that J&J has not moved quickly and decisively to solve the problem.

At about the same time that smelly Tylenol was making people sick, owners of Toyotas were dealing with their own product issues: gas pedals that would stick open, causing vehicles to accelerate to a high rate of speed and resulting in several deaths.  Toyota wound up recalling over 4 million vehicles because of this potential problem. Today, however, they took a huge step beyond--suspending sales of all of the models involved in the recall.

Pulling Toyota Camrays and Corollas from the market is as serious a move for Toyota as removing Tylenol was for J&J nearly 30 years ago. Many dealers are grumbling, many consumers are unhappy, and certainly everyone involved with the manufacture and distribution of Toyotas is concerned about the impact this could have on their business.

Yet it was absolutely the right thing to do. With this move, Toyota told the public that they will not allow a product to be sold that doesn't meet quality and safety standards. That sounds suspiciously like what the J& folks did back in 1982: Doing the right thing for the public and the business long-term at the expense of short-term sales and profits. Sounds like they took a page right from the J&J playbook...the 80s version that is. Tylenol management--are you listening?

Marketing Strategy Roundtable: The New How: Enabling the Front Lines of Change

We kicked off the Northern California Business Marketing Association (BMA) Marketing Strategy Roundtable this morning with a great presentation from Brett Olszewski, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of K/P Corporation about Closed Loop On Demand Marketing.

Mark your calendars for next month's featured speaker, Nilofer Merchant of Rubicon, who will be discussing The New How: Enabling the Front Lines of Change.

Nilofer Merchant

For too long, companies let their execs or planners decide the strategies for the company and then tell others what to do. Today, organizations that win need to engage people everywhere in their organization--by being transparent about the problem, having the necessary debates, picking well, and ultimately taking responsibility for creating (or co-creating) the new future. While all of this sounds like "motherhood and apple pie," experience suggests it's not at all easy because of the humans involved.

Nilofer Merchant will tell us about the tools and approaches--the New How--tha can actually take this from an idea to a way to create better results together. The session will share key tools to make sure your insights get heard at the table, get built into strategy, and, ultimately, bcome part of a new marketplace reality.

Roundtable meetings are held at Scott's Seafood Restaurant, 855 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, on the last Tuesday of the month from 8 to 9:30 am. Cost is only $15 for BMA members and $30 for nonmembers, which includes your breakfast.

More information.

Today's Lesson from The Tonight Show: It's About the Viewers, Stupid

The best drama on TV right now is the unfolding saga of NBC's prime time/late night hosts.

Instead of moving veteran Jay Leno aside, NBC chose to carve out 1/3 of their week night prime time real estate to give him a new program. A risky move that has appeared to back fire, as NBC acknowledged this week.

The problem is it's not that easy to stuff the cat back into the bag, so to speak. Finding new programming for 10-11 five days a week is fairly straightforward. Shuffling hosts is not that easy (anyone for musical chairs?) Moving Leno back to 11:30 means moving Conan O'Brian from Tonight to Tomorrow (whatever happened to that show anyway?). Conan's already said no to that.

The bigger question though is how did NBC get into this mess to start with. Because they made decisions based on cost (much less expensive to program comedy than 5 nights of drama) and product availability (we've got Leno, where can we use him?), rather than on market need or customer input.

What they didn't do is consider the audience, their target market, and determine what it is they wanted to see. Their competition, OTOH, loved it--moving quickly to fill the vacuum and take advantage of the misstep.

Clearly, NBC made decisions a little bit bass-ackwards. As a result, the audience voted with their feet, or, more accurately, with their remotes.

It will all work itself out one way or the other and before long it will be mostly forgotten, except for in case studies of how not to consider the customer. But shame on you, NBC, for getting into this position to start with. This should be yesterday's news.

Why Mentoring Matters for Consultants and Entrepreneurs

Linda Popky Brings Alan Weiss Mentor Program To Silicon Valley Consultants and Small Businesses

I am very pleased to announce that I have been certified to deliver mentoring services to consultants and entrepreneurs as part of noted consultant Alan Weiss’s Private RosterTM Mentor Program. Only 20 senior consulting professionals have been certified worldwide, and I am the only consultant with a focus on marketing.

Alan Weiss and Linda Popky

Over the last 15 years, Alan Weiss, the Million Dollar Consultant, has created one of the most comprehensive mentoring communities available. The program has over one thousand graduates globally, with scores of individuals renewing for multiple terms. A conservative estimate, according to Weiss, is that graduates have generated over $660 million dollars in incremental revenue as a result of their program participation.

"I'm expanding our ability to help people in professional services globally through these expert mentors, all of whom have worked with me,” said Alan Weiss. “Linda is among the best of the best."

Learn more about the program.

Read the news release.

Our New Year's Wish...

At the start of a new decade, we wish you health, happiness, and hope. May the new year bring success, prosperity, and fulfillment to you and yours.    Linda Popky   L2M Associates, Inc.

Linda Popky L2M Associates, Inc. 50 Woodside Plaza, #102 Redwood City, California 94061 (650) 281-4854 linda@popky.com www.L2Massociates.com

Reflections on Two Wonderful Years of WIC

As my term as president of Women in Consulting comes to an end this week, I find myself reflecting on all the incredible experiences I’ve had throughout the last two years.

Through the worst recession in nearly a century, we grew our community to be nearly 500 strong–with our ranks of full members swelling by nearly 40% this year.

And we did all this as an entirely volunteer run organization, with over 100 consultants taking on pro bono consulting roles for WIC.

Read more.