Linda's Marketing Leverage Blog

Just a Moment for Marketing: Be Careful About Crying Wolf

Linda advises: Stop and think first.

Reminder: Consulting Triple Play Workshop - Early Bird Rates Expiring

Consulting Triple Play Workshop – October 15, Mountain View, CA

Are you closing new clients?  Getting top fees for your work? Generating proposals that are accepted every time  

On October 15th,  marketing expert Linda Popky will again be offering the popular one-day Consulting Triple Play workshop in Silicon Valley, focusing on three of the most popular topics of Million Dollar Consultant Alan Weiss: How to Acquire Clients, Value-Based Fees, and How to Write a Proposal That's Accepted Every Time. As an added bonus, she’ll be including tips on branding for consultants, based on her own personal experience. 

This special workshop cuts to the essence of successful consulting, giving participants the foundation you'll need to drive business growth. Whether you want to jump start your practice or increase your momentum, this day will provide you with the tools you need to realize rapid ROI on your efforts.

If you close a single project as a result of this workshop, you’ll likely get more than a 10x return on your investment.

With the Early Bird discount, expiring on Tuesday, this workshop is literally a steal for so much value and information.

More information.

Top of Mind Thursday August 29, 2013: From Dream to Reality

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the famous March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's legendary "I Have a Dream" speech. 

 

In the half century since this event, we've made great progress in advancing civil rights and equality not just in terms of race, but also in terms of religion, gender, national origin, and sexual orientation, too.

 

Yet there's still more work to do. One hundred and fifty years after the Gettysburg Address, we still have situations occurring on a daily basis where people are not treated as equals--where decisions are made based on extraneous factors that should have no place in the workplace or in society.

 

An inclusive work environment makes good business sense. Your employees, customers, partners, and suppliers will all appreciate the ability to work with an organization that values individuals for who they are and what they contribute rather than where they come from, what they look like, or who they'd like to marry.

 

It's up to us to take the next steps to make Dr. King's dream a reality in our own organizations.

 

Read the text of the "I Have a Dream" speech.

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Let us help your business rise to the top.

[email protected]
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com

Top of Mind Thursday August 22, 2013: We All Scream for CREAM!

Ice cream is one of our favorite foods. Americans eat so much of it that it's not unusual to find several shops doing well within a block or two of a well-trafficked area. But a new store in Palo Alto has literally scooped the competition.

 

CREAM provides a new take on the old American standby. They offer a variety of ice cream flavors in made-to-order "sandwiches" anchored by gourmet cookies freshly baked in the store. Customers choose their cookie and ice cream of choice, then watch the staff assemble the concoction in front of them. Gluten free and soy options are available, too. 

 

What are you doing to look at your offerings in different ways? How are you creating unique, engaging customer experiences on an every-day basis? Are your offerings positioned to shine above the competition?

 

Follow CREAM's example and you might just have customers eating out of your hand...

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Let us help your business rise to the top.

[email protected]
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com

Marketers: It’s Time to Lead by Letting Go

Terri Griffith, Ph.D.
Chair, Management Dept., Santa Clara University
www.terrigriffith.com

Prof. Terri Griffith is an expert on the process of making combined technology and organization decisions, and then working these changes into an organization. These ideas are outlined in her recent book, The Plugged-In Manager: Get in Tune with Your People, Technology, and Organization to Thrive.

As we get a tighter grip on understanding the world around us through sensors, big data, and transparency, we have the opportunity and the need to let go of many past business perspectives.

In this podcast, Terri talks about Lead by Letting Go, her new project which offers a clear model for slowly letting go (backed up by decades of research, as well as modern examples) thereby improving business outcomes.

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Listen to this podcast.

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Just a Moment for Marketing: Beware of the $400 Calculator

Linda observes: It's nice to be first but not when it costs big dollars for little rewards.

Top of Mind Thursday August 15, 2013: Do You Still YAHOO!?

Many recent well-intentioned rebranding and logo relaunches have misfired badly--because the companies involved underestimated the connection consumers have to their favorite brands.
 

 

In 2009, Tropicana Orange Juice spent millions of dollars on new product packaging. Consumer reaction was so negative that in just a few weeks, the company retrenched and went back to its old look.

Shortly after that, The Gap launched a new logo that was so universally panned on social media it lasted only a few days before being yanked back.

 

This month, as part of its overall reinvention, Yahoo! is rebranding itself and launching a new logo - but with a twist. Each day for a month, a new version of the popular purple Yahoo! is unveiled on the company website. Each version is reminiscent of the old logo, but just a little bit new and different. At the end of the 30 day period, the company will announce which version it's chosen to move forward with.

 

There's no guarantee Yahoo!'s target audience will embrace the new look. But the logo launch is fun, creative, and engaging--attributes that Yahoo!'s marketing team are sure to want associated with the brand. And it's creating much-needed buzz for a web property desperately trying to reinvent itself.

 

Check out all of the logos shown so far.

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Let us help your business rise to the top.

[email protected]
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com

Just a Moment for Marketing: Not All that Glitters is Gold

Linda notes: The real value is in results.

Top of Mind Thursday August 8, 2013: The Dirty Dozen

This week Major League Baseball handed out suspensions to a baker's dozen list of players for using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).

Twelve of the thirteen, including 3 All-Stars, accepted their suspensions without question. The 13th, Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) is contesting his punishment, which allows him to play for the Yankees while his case is under appeal--a strange twist, since the other 12 are benched.

PED scandals have swirled around some of baseball's greatest stars, including Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens, for years, and former MVP Ryan Braun was suspended just last month.

Yet instead of putting a firm policy in place to eliminate the loopholes and backdoors that have allowed this abuse to continue, MLB has hedged its position. After all, juiced players have added energy and excitement to the game.

Problems happen. Issues arise. The question is whether as an organization you're ready to take the actions to face them head on and make things right, or you'll strike out instead.

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Let us help your business rise to the top.

[email protected]
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com

Just a Moment for Marketing: Your Top Salespeople Don't Sell A Thing

Linda observes: Your top sales people are the customer-facing people in your organization.

Top of Mind Thursday August 1, 2013: A Rose By Any Other Name

I'm often asked how important it really is to have a strong brand. Isn't it enough to have a great product or service? 

 

Here's a real-life example of the power of brand. J.K. Rowling, noted author of the Harry Potter book series, decided to write a mystery under the nom de plume of Robert Galbraith.

The book, The Cuckoo's Calling, sold less than 500 copies in its first three months of availability. However, once Rowling was outed as the book's real author, sales went from a measly 43 copies in early July to 17,662 copies the following week. Last week the book was ranked #1 best seller on Amazon.

This may be an extremely well written book, but the quality of the writing hasn't changed since the title was published. Nor were there changes to distribution, packaging, promotion or even book reviews. The only thing that changed was the knowledge that this volume was written by Rowling.

That's the power of a strong brand.

Does your organization have a powerful brand? Or are your offerings languishing in obscurity, rather than hitting the best seller list?

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Let us help your business rise to the top.

[email protected]
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com