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Charismatic Leadership  Take a moment to think of the most effective and powerful leaders in history. Martin Luther King Jr. Abraham Lincoln. Nelson Mandela. What do all of these renowned leaders have in common? Charisma. In today’s podcast, we had the opportunity to speak with Bud Haney, co-author of Leadership Charisma, a step by step guide on how to become a more successful and charismatic leader. Successful leaders demonstrate multiple qualities, so why is charisma the diamond in the ruff? Stated simply by Bud- “Charisma creates positive engagement and engagement drives business results.” An effective and charismatic leader can dramatically improve productivity, motivation and overall company success. So what exactly is charisma defined as? “A special quality of leadership that captures the popular imagination and inspires allegiance and devotion.” Imagine the productivity and bottom line results companies could achieve if all of their employees felt an allegiance and devotion to the leader of their company; if every day they showed up prepared to give the results their leader desires. Four Essential Steps Bud reiterated a charismatic leader can absolutely be taught and he discusses the four key steps to be effectively charismatic: 1. Make a Decision to become a charismatic leader and commit. 2. Build a foundation for your charisma. Be self confident, visualize your success, and be proactive. 3. Fine tune your physical charisma, we communicate mostly through body language after all! 4. Create a charismatic leader’s persona. I would like to leave today with a quote taken directly from the book: “Charismatic leaders create and maintain a work environment where people are emotionally and intellectually committed to the organizations goals. They build an energetic and positive attitude in others and inspire them to do their very best.” Key learning- everyone has the ability to be a leader and specifically a charismatic leader. You don’t have to be in an executive or senior role to be a leader either. Imagine the productivity, results and positive work environment everyone would experience if they made a conscience decision to change from a follower to a leader. Tune into the full podcast below or check us out on iTunes or Stitcher. [ Lead Image via Creative Commons by Small Business Trends ]

So Long and Farewell I hope everyone had a great holiday last week. Today is bittersweet. This will be my last blog post for Brand Fast-Trackers and Brand Connections. After 3.5 wonderful years I’ve found a new opportunity and will be transferring duties to two trusted and wonderful colleagues: Breanne Hiser & Wendy Benstock. Bre will take over writing duties and a lot of the technical aspects and Wendy will manage the overall production of the show. It has been such a pleasure producing and writing about these shows these past few years. What started as a task turned into a true love for podcasting and audio. I’m proud of each and every interview and hope to see Brand Fast-Trackers live a long time into the future. I hope to stay in touch with many of you. Killing Giants Now to today’s episode. We first spoke with Stephen Denny when his book Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliaths in Your Industry came out. Since that time, Stephen has toured the world speaking about book and it is now available in 6 languages. A very impressive feat! As he toured around speaking about the book, he realized there was a supplementary need, so he recently published a Killing Giants eBook update that includes the KG frame work with a few more real world case studies. One of those case studies was of GM Netcon/Jabra and their GM Pete Fox.  Both Stephen and Pete joined us for this interview.  The Killing Giants Frame Work: How many times have you read a really great business book? I mean a really great business book. One that changed how you approach your business? Have you ever read a book that drove you to contact the author and hire them for your business? I am guessing not. But that is exactly what happened when Pete Fox read Killing Giants. Of the three frames above, Stephen said that the idea of Seizing the Narrative had been resonating the most with his readers/listeners and it was that knowledge that led him to put together the eBook. It was this idea that also sparked Pete to contact Stephen.                                                                                                “I found the book really practical, so I got a hold of Stephen and realized immediately if we allowed our competitor to define who we were, then we would stay exactly there. So changing the narrative was really exciting.” Giant Slayed So what were the results of Jabra seizing the narrative with Stephen's help? An

Employees, Entrepreneurs & Intrapreneurs One of the key tenets of this podcast is entrepreneurship or how do I go from being an employee to an entrepreneur? We have certainly have had many entrepreneurs on this show, and have also recognized the growing trend of intrapreneurship. Today speaking with today's guest made perfect sense. Julie Cottineau has a long history in the agency world at Grey and Interbrand and spent almost 5 years as the VP of Brands for Virgin. I don't know about you, but when I think about famous entrepreneurs, Richard Branson certainly comes to mind. Now Julie oversees her own brand consultancy and uses lateral, out-of-category thinking to help agencies and entrepreneurs innovate through BrandTwist and BrandSchool. Lessons from Richard One of the must ask questions for someone who has worked with Richard Branson is what did they learn, so we asked Julie what her key takeaways were from her time at Virgin. I found this particularly fascinating because Virgin plays in so many different buckets and succeeds. How do you translate the Virgin brand across categories successfully in everything from mobile to credit card to airplanes? In asking Julie what lessons she took with her, she shared four key nuggets: A Clear Core Promise Julie shares the biggest thing she learned is that the reason why Virgin can go into so many different categories is that they have a really clear core promise, which is about shaking things up and delivering a good promise to the consumer. Your Brand is the Product/Experience Your offering must deliver what it promises to do. This is key and comes before the messaging. Embrace Failure Failure is embraced at Virgin as a learning opportunity. Only through failure can you go on to succeed the next time. Know your Brand Framework Virgin is involved in multiple industries and verticals so knowing the brand tenets was key. If you can't stay true to who you are as a brand when expanding into new opportunities, you will likely fail. Your brand should not be a document; it should be a living tool. The Age of the Entrepreneur The conversation with Julie covered a lot of territory, but one trend she pointed out is that it is the age of the entrepreneur. It has become easier and easier for inspiring entrepreneurs (and intrapreneurs) to launch their businesses quickly as easily. There has never been a time where there were so many resources at our disposal. So the next time you have a big idea, run with it. Yo

  For today's episode we return to Shopper marketing series with Chris Brace and discuss brand equity. The first thing that came to my mind when thinking about brand equity were things like Harris Interactive's Brand Health Tracking and a few examples of the reputations of certain brands plummeting after poorly-handled PR crises. I also think of specific measures that give you overall brand health ranking. For Chris, however, brand equity is defined quite differently. He agrees there are a set of assets linked to the brand and brand symbol that add value, but it goes way beyond those. It's really about the story. The Stories of Brand Equity For Chris, your brand equity is actually the stories that consumers have about your brand based on the experiences they have had with your brand. That's a mouthful, but it makes a lot of sense. The word storytelling gets tossed around a lot in the marketing space. And that's when it really hit me and Chris's words made sense: Storytelling is all about making memories. So how can you brand make memories for your consumers much like I was making with my older daughter in the image above? I might be idealistic, but it can be done. What's Missing? So given that true brand equity comes from storytelling, what are brands missing or how can they approach storytelling? Chris offers this key tip:"Create communications that trigger memories that the shopper already has about the brand and that also allows them to create new memories. You build brand equity when these communications/experiences go into long-term memory." Who is Getting it Right? A brand that immediately comes to mind for me is NYDJ. I must have read about how fantastic their jeans were in some beauty magazine. So I started researching them and discovered their stories. I went and tried on my first pair and I felt thin and beautiful and you better believe I spent the $100 those suckers cost. And now, a few years later, they are my go-to jeans. I know they fit me, and I will feel beautiful in them. You may say, 'Kat, I don't buy that,' which I get, but if you were able to get a consumer to associate your brand with feeling confident and beautiful like NYDJ has for me, wouldn't you do it? Not buying it? Okay, what about Southwest? I recently saw Brooks Thomas present at a Ragan PR Conference about how Southwest uses storytelling. The thing that made his presentation unique was that he didn't speak at all. He used music and videos of these Southwest stories t

Picture Your Business Strategy In mid-April I attended the Ad Age Digital Conference and at some point found myself sitting next to a woman who was drawing the conference. We've all seen those fantastic business-doodles that represent the "big idea" or the most salient points of a presentation. But seeing one of these unfold in person is another matter altogether. I was enthralled to see one of these drawings in progress and especially impressed because the artist was drawing solely with her iPad. This got me thinking about how one goes about drawing in this way and I was lucky to come across a fantastic book about this very topic. Today we are joined by Chris Chopak, the author of Picture Your Business Strategy: Transform Decisions with the Power of Visuals. Chris's company Alchemy helps companies of all varieties use visual/drawing techniques to both tell their stories and solidify their strategies. So what do you do if you can't draw. I know this is a fear of mine. During the interview, Brian mentions he has the same fear. As Chris puts it though, it's not about the drawing, it's actually about the critical listening skills. She says, "If you can draw a circle, triangle and an arrow, you can do this." Drawing Goofy This led Brian to share an anecdote that really resonated with me. He recently spent a bit of time with a Disney animator. (I promise this all relates.) At first, you think how magical animated characters are and how complicated they must be to draw and make lifelike, but the animator pointed out to Brian if you can draw a circle, a square and a few others things, you can draw Goofy.  I don't know about you, but this sounds an awful lot like what Chris is talking about. So I took the point to heart and came up with the image you see here. Now if I can draw something someone can at least recognize as Goofy, all of us can put Chris' advice to work and draw for our respective businesses. Listen Without the Intent to Respond I can't tell you how many times this has been drilled into my head by our esteemed host, but Brian is right. When you really focus on what someone is saying, you can identify needs in a way you won't be able to if you are instantly trying to interject your opinion. The bottom line is that 83% of us are visual learners. Why is this so critical? By the time we are 27, our neural pathways are very well established. Our brain like consistency and repetition. We like patterns. There are only 3 mediums that engaged both

What is the Holy Marketing Grail? ROI, ROI, ROI Okay, brand marketers, ROI is the holy grail, so where have you assigned your best copywriters and content generators to achieve that ROI? If I had to guess, I would say it's still in your TV/Broadcast advertising. Despite how TV is changing with an evolving on-demand culture, conventional wisdom tells us broadcast still works, so this marketing focus/spend is still the right way, right? RIGHT? Well, maybe not, shares today's guest. Meet Email Marketing's Rebel Extraordinaire DJ Waldow joins us today to discuss this very issue. DJ is the co-author of The Rebel's Guide to Email Marketing: Grow Your List, Break the Rules, and Win (along with past BFT guest Jason Falls). He is known through the digital/social marketing space as the email guy. If you get a unique email, you tag DJ on FB or Twitter and say, 'Hey DJ, have you seen this?" The point is, he knows his stuff when it comes to email.  'Email, how boring,' you may scoff, but as DJ shares during the interview, there is a $40 return from every dollar spent on email marketing. Let me say that again, the Return on Investment for Email Marketing is $40 for every $1 spent. Is the same true for that $4-5 Million you spent on that one Super Bowl TV spot? For DJ, email is a missed opportunity for a lot of brands. Yes, they're sending emails, but they are not optimized for consumption by different devices, nor are they designed to always provoke a response (SALES). As he puts it: Email is your best return on investment, so you should have the best team on it, the best writers, the best designers, etc dedicated to your email marketing efforts.  3 Key Tips on How to Amp Your Email Marketing Beyond putting your best people on your email marketing, DJ offers these 3 tips to see the holy marketing grail - true ROI - come to fruition. Leverage Social. Give your consumers an incentive to share the email or connect with you on social networks. Email is inherently social. And it works both ways. Make sure you are on Facebook etc and giving people a reason to subscribe to your email list.   Be more human. Your emails should not be overtly salesy and read 'blah blah blah buy my stuff.' That just doesn't resonate. You must capture people's attention and you can do that through being more human in your approach and assigning your best people to your email initiatives.  Test, test and test some more. Email gives you an opportunity at immediate feedback, so

The Perfect Storm We last spoke with Edelman's Steve Rubel way back in 2010. Today he's back on the show and in a fairly new role at Edelman as their Chief Content Officer. Content, content, content. We're hearing it everywhere, but what does it mean and especially, what does it mean for you as a brand marketer for your brand? For Steve, there is something fundamentally profound going on – a perfect storm similar to social media storm that happened between 2004-2006. Steve believes that in many ways this is even more disruptive and impacting the media environment over everything else. Content Disruption So what is this content disruption? Steve sees 3 key trends happening simultaneously. There is more and more content available on mobile devices, both tablets and smart phones. It is scaling at the like of which we have never seen before. Banner ads were never extremely effective. I've read stats around .2%. Not great by any stretch of the imagination, but when you apply that to the entirety of the web, there are significant sales dollars there. The move into mobile content completely erodes efficacy of banner ads. Major changes are happening in the media business. Steve points to a large inventory of content, but only a limited demand for it. Consumers have less and less time and attention to consume content (your brand's advertising). What we are left with is a tremendous amount of inventory that is not being monetized. Enter demand-sized platforms that are traded like any other commodity. Overall CPM cost is being driven down. The pressure this puts on media companies leaves them with limited options. Subscriptions models are hard to do. We have seen many paywall and premium content strategies fail. Media companies must offset these loses. Simultaneously there is a willingness and appetite by brands to tell their story their own way. Their success in social they now feel they have the confidence and infrastructure to do that. Enter Native Advertising. This is a reinvention of the advertorial or product placement for the web. Owned media is intersecting with paid media to allow brands to have significant real estate on some of the largest media platforms in the world.  More about Native Advertising I came across the infographic from last year as I was writing this post. It gives a good overview of native advertising, so wanted to reshare it here. For the rest of Steve's interview, scroll down below for the audio. The show is also available via

For those of you that follow me on my other social accounts (Hey, connect why dontcha? Twitter, FB, LinkedIn), you know I am at minimal, very health conscious. I'm gluten free, mostly dairy free (cheese, must have it), and sugar free when I am really on my game. That being said, it was a special thrill to have Mike Murray, VP of Marketing for So Delicious® Dairy Free on the show. Mike is a classically trained marketer who spent the bulk of his career at General Mills. And this at a time when both digital and social media marketing gained their footholds and fundamentally changed brand management. Mike is now overseeing the fast-growing So Delicious® and helping the brand bring joy to dairy free lives. For Mike, growth comes from 3 key marketing philosophies: Understanding, evaluating and leveraging trends. This really resonated with me, as Mike talked about the macro trend of health and wellness and the micro trends of dairy free and veganism. It makes sense that a brand focused on dairy free products has a lot to draw from here, but the lessons apply to all brands. Pay attention to what consumers are thinking about or paying attention to and finding a niche to serve them becomes easier. Using Hyper-Targeted Marketing. This thought ties back the podcast we did with Erika Napoletano. Figure out who your customers AREN'T, then focus on your customer. Mike puts it like this: "The correct way to grow [a brand] is to be more exclusionary with your target consumer. It seems counter-intuitive but it is not. The more exclusive you are, the better you can understand and meet the needs of that consumer. The outer circle growth takes care of itself. The reason it works is the increased empathy will yield stronger, more relevant consumer insights." Mission-based Brand Identity. We've talked a lot about this through various shows, whether    we were speaking to UNICEF's Caryl Stern or Method Home's Eric Ryan or Seventh Generation's Joey Bergstein. One part of me thinks this won't apply to every brand, and another part of me asks 'why not'? Find a mission that makes sense with your brand identity, integrate it, make it resonate for your customers. Be authentic, but also take advantage of it. Brand and agency marketers alike, i really think there is a lot to glean from Mike and this interview. Tune into the full episode below. And hey, if you haven't yet read our new eBook - Career Advice from 5 of the World's Best Marketers compiled from the brill

Mitch Joel's Ctrl+Alt+Delete On Friday, I posted my book review of Mitch Joel's new book, Ctrl+Alt+Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It. Today, I'm pleased to share the podcast discussion we had with Mitch about the book. As I discussed in the book review, for me, the greatest part of the book is that Mitch takes it further than a lot of other business books I have read. Part 1 discusses NOT the trends to look out for, but the 5 fundamental movements that have ALREADY happened and what your brand needs to do to survive. So much of the book and the discussion really hit me, but for as much as we talk about the fragmented media world, it is amazing what a truly relevant ad can do. "If you put something truly relevant in front of me, it will make an impression and I will act on it." --Mitch Joel Want your mind-blowing fact of the day? Mitch shared that Google advertising revenue is greater than all print media advertising globally.  Surviving and Thriving as a Modern Employee or Entrepreneur For part 2 of the book, Mitch shares lessons for individuals. The 5 movements he discussed have irrovacably changed business, but they've also changed how we as individuals need to operate. What do you need to do to survive as a modern employee? Mitch recommends operating with a digital first posture, making a concerted effort to build you own (personal) brand by investing in yourself and operating as if you were in a start-up.So what does operating in a digital first posture really mean? Here are Mitch's Key Lessons Be Human - People by from people, not companies. Be a Digital Native - Don't be afraid of new technologies. Embrace them. Be the first to try them. Take care to remember social ranking. Sites like Klout, Kred and PeerIndex are here to stay. Be Humble. Concede with grace when something you are trying online is not working. Embrace the simple. Don't over complicate. Tune into the full episode below and hey, buy Mitch's book. It will become your new business bible. Oh, and if you don't already read Mitch's blog or listen to his podcast, do that too. You will be smarter for it. :-) [Lead image by the fantastic Tom Fishbourne]

(A quick note - in delving into Brand Fast-Trackers archives, we actually have about 30 more episodes that were done before I joined the show as producer in 2010. To reflect this, I am slowing updating the show numbering. So today's episode is actually #205. Please be patient as we get his all updated. Thanks! - Kat) So What Is Big Data Exactly?     Today we were lucky to speak with SiliconANGLE's Senior Managing Editor Kristen Nicole. When it comes to technology trends for marketers, Kristen has her finger on the pulse of what is happening. We've been hearing about talking about big data for the last year or so, but what does it really mean and is it being leveraged appropriately? This ties into the show we did with Webtrend's Martin Doettling, but really delves into how and where big data is unfolding for brands. For Kristen, a lot of big data started in the IT Sector and now we are seeing that transition to marketing. This makes sense considering the marketing/technology mashup with the 'marketers spending more on IT than IT' trend that is happening. All hail the CMTO! 3 Biggest 'Big Data' Trends Use of data for brands will become a competitive advantage Predictive Analytics. There will be a big shift towards services and P.A. is a huge piece of that. Privacy concerns will continue to be at the forefront and brands need to be aware and accommodate for those concerns. To hear more from Kristen tune into the full interview below. I think you will feel smarter for it. I know I did! :-) [Lead image via D3eksha.com; big data infographic via AIS]  

There are certain iconic brands from my 80's childhood that just stick in my mind. If I asked you to sing the jingle for DoubleMint or Big Red gum, could you? What about Zest? Do you still remember the packaging of V05 Hot Oil? Zestfully Clean . . . A Brand Refresh Today, we are privileged to speak with a classically trained marketer (General Mills, Unilever) who brings iconic brands back to popularity. Nina Riley is the Vice President of Marketing for High Ridge Brands, including Zest, Coast, White Rain, V05 and Rave. Here on Brand Fast-Trackers, we've spoken with big brand marketers and niche brand marketers, we've spoken with venture capitalists/lawyers/developers, but I can't think of a show where we've talked about how to refresh a brand.  High Ridge is owned by private equity firm Brynwood Partners. They specialize in buying iconic brands that have been neglected under bigger brand portfolios for years and flipping them. They've done this with Balance Bar, Sun Country Food and others. As a marketer, what prepares you to thrive in a lean, private-equity owned brand? For Nina, her experience founding her own company is key to this lean culture, but more than that, successful brand refreshes requires three core principles: You must have an inherent curiousity You have to know where a brand comes from and what its heritage is You have to know to whom that heritage/brand stance will appeal For High Ridge, their brands appeal mostly to the value consumers, so that goes into all of their initiatives. Nina recommends to not be afraid of really delving into the brand heritage. With V05, she was able to discover that the "5" actually stood for five essential oils in the formula. Turns out that v05 was using most of these before they became key ingredients in other popular hair products. Overall, this was a really insightful discussion and one I think you will enjoy: [Lead Image via High Ridge Brands]

Say What? Social Listening Consumers are having conversations every day; about the brands they are engaging with, the products they love, their interests, their ideas and their lifestyle. But how are we as marketers engaging in these conversations with them? Making our presence known and responding relevantly? Today we connected with Zena Weist, VP of Strategy for Expion, who had a lot of great insights about how we should be engaging with consumers every day. Zena’s key strategy is a simple concept we all have been taught since our elementary years and is perhaps one of the most effective tactics all marketers should be utilizing. Stop and listen. When we were discussing with Zena the most frequent “misses” brands have related to social, Zena eloquently explained: “You have to listen first. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason. They (brands) need to listen to the conversations that are going on. Not only about the brand, but by the people they are targeting. What conversations are going on and how can the brand become a part of those conversations in a very relevant and meaningful way? How can they organically weave themselves in? They only way to do this is to really listen to the conversations that are going on. They have to identify advocates and listen to the advocates. This is a time commitment. It boils down to customer relationship management.” Zena ended this thought with a key take a way, “Social Media is more than broadcasting the brand. It is to stimulate conversation.” That insight truly made me stop to think, how are we engaging in conversations? How are our brands relevant to consumers beyond the product itself? Are we telling consumers about our brand, or are we talking about it? For more incredible insights from Zena on how to reach your consumers please tune into the podcast below: [Lead Image Via ICUC Moderation]

Every day we as marketers are working to represent a specific brand or company.  We are creating brand awareness, attracting new consumers, provoking interest, and telling stories.  But what about our individual brands? We all have personal branding, so what are we doing to proactively market ourselves? We were joined by Erik Deckers today, expert pro-blogger, author, social media guru and key-note speaker who eloquently and quite matter of factly shared what everyone NEEDS to do to successfully brand yourself and become  the go-to expert in your field. You must start a blog. The blog will be the hub of your entire personal brand. Be active on Twitter Be active on Facebook to consistently engage and reach new consumers. Be active on Google+ Connect with people who are associated with your industry, even if just a little bit. Start sharing information with EVERYONE. Immediately. The key insight here to me is that this is all very practical advice; clear direction that everyone can begin to follow today. Erik continues to explain that if you continue to work these tools consistently and for an extended period of time “people will assume you know more than anybody else because you are talking about it the most.” For more key insights on social media, blogging and the future of reaching consumers tune in below. [Lead Image via business learning solutions]

In a lot of ways, today's podcast completes the venture capital trifecta. In episode #137 with Dave Knox, we spoke about his work with the Cincinnati-based start-up accelerator The Brandery and why budding entrepreneurs have to act on their ideas. In episode #143 with Ed Zimmerman, a venture lawyer, we spoke about how he helps start-ups to raise the necessary funding to get their great ideas off the ground. Today, we speak with Frank Dale, the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at DeveloperTown, a venture development firm. I had never really thought about VC firms vs. venture development firms, but Frank explained the different positioning of the two and how venture development firms are more hands on operationally. For those of us who have thought of starting our own business Frank's advice was surprisingly simple. Much like Dave Knox sharing that one has to act on the idea, Frank asks two simple questions: What have you done to validate that the problem you are trying to solve exists? What is your strategy for connecting the new product with the right consumer demographic on a large scale? Simple, succinct advice. To hear more of Frank's interview on thinking innovatively, finding gaps in the marketing and identifying the new needs of consumers. Listen below, on iTunes, or Stitcher. [Lead Image via OnStartups.com]  

 The Power of Unpopular Today's show really resonated with me. We were lucky to be joined by Erika Napoletano, author of The Power of Unpopular. So what is exactly the power of unpopular? When we spoke recently with Peter Shankman talking how critical it is that businesses are nice, that struck me too and I wondered if we were talking about opposing viewpoints here. In listening to Erika, I came to realize these two are really talking about very similar things or at minimum approaching the same problem from two complementary angles. What I really love about Erika's approach is that marketers tend to be people-pleasers, (Yes, I am talking to you.), but you can't please everyone. When you try to please or appeal to the masses, you end up appealing to no one."Are you more worried about how many people you have or more worried about having an audience that loves you, spends money and time with you and is enthusiastic about sharing who you are with everyone they know who they think might like the same things they do?" -Erika Napoletano Erika advises that brands start with who they don't want to be as a brand. Do you really want to be like your competitor? Maybe, but maybe not. Once you do this, says Erika, "your competitive landscape shifts and becomes a whole lot smaller." Two companies this makes me think about (and 2 past podcast guests coincidentally!) is Method and Seventh Generation. Neither of them were trying to be like their giant competitors. Method strives to be environmentally friendly with a great design aesthetic and Seventh Generation appeals to a very specific customer, who is also very environmentally-friendly. To hear more on the power of unpopular, listening below. And hey, check out Erika's Tedx talk on this very topic. You will love it. Connect with Kat on Google +, LinkedIn or Twitter. [Lead Image via macksfield.wordpress.com]

Born to Blog We talk a lot about inbound and content marketing here on this blog. Of course the center of an inbound strategy often revolves around a blog. Many of us read popular blogs every day from Mashable to Gini Dietrich's Spin Sucks to HuffPo to Mark Schaefer's {Grow} blog. The question of course then becomes how do you build your own online presence? And how do you build it to the point to see both business and personal growth? Today, we reconnect with previous Brand Fast-Tracker Mark Schaefer and talk about his new book Born to Blog (cowritten with Pushing Social's Stanford Smith). One of my favorite things about the book is how simply it is laid out. It's an easy read, and even easier to follow and take action for your own blog. For readers of The Tao of Twitter: Changing Your Life and Business 140 Characters at a Time, the feel and format of the book will be really familiar to you.  I know I took a lot of the advice to heart in terms of this very blog and our new corporate BC CONNECT blog. Mark's advice is simple and yet powerful. The Human Part of Blogging People often get caught up on the technology or A-plugin verses B-plugin, but as Mark so eloquently shared during the show, this is actually a small piece of a blog when summarizing the book: "The real success to blogging is not technology. So many people focus on gadgets and widgets and WordPress themes and do we do Tumblr vs. WordPress?  The technology at the end of the day you can make it do whatever you want, but it's reaching down inside and finding your voice and having the courage to publish. That's the human balance, that's the human part of blogging that we wanted to explore." Mark goes on to share that every person has their own expertise, wisdom and stories to tell. Maybe that is your perspective as a marketer or as a parent or as a foodie. For Mark, the key to success is finding your own voice and hitting Publish. For me that really resonated. I know I get a bit of the butterflies each time I click that button. Am I providing good content and being helpful? Is my commentary on the show and issues at hand insightful? And of course, can readers hear my voice in my writing? I hope the answer is yes! What are the first steps? Mark suggests one simple exercise to start. Write out first 25 or 30 headlines that you think you want to write. As he puts it the first five are easy, but it gets much harder by #20, #25, #30. The key in this exercise is to not only potentially lay

Priceless I first reached out to Alfrédo Gangotena shortly after he took over as Global CMO of  MasterCard in 2010 when I read his Ad Age interview with Beth Snyder Bulik. At the time, he told me he would love to do the podcast at a later date. To be honest, I largely forgot about it until recently. We all know the MasterCard Priceless campaign, but I read recently that it is now 16 years old, spans 112 countries, and 53 languages. Think about that for a moment, can you think of another marketing campaign that is used and resonates globally in this way? Needless to say, I realized we had to get Alfrédo on the show! I reached back out and am so delighted he was able to join us. Marketing and Mathematics So how does one become a Global CMO of a company as large as MasterCard? Alfrédo shares that he started his career in finance at P&G. He says that his move to the creative came because he kept pushing his marketing counterparts to show ROI. What struck me as I was listening was just how many of our past Brand Fast-Trackers guests either came from finance (Esurance's John Swigart comes to mind) or are extremely numbers focused (like when Gini Dietrich shared "ROI, ROI, ROI" in her second podcast with us). Alfrédo refers to this as his M&M, not the candy, but marketing and mathematics. He says:"At the end of the day, any decision you make at the end of the day has to have a return. It has to create business and you cannot just be satisfying yourself with a very creative campaign that doesn't really push the needle." Tweet This  Alfrédo's Marketing Absolutes Given his expansive career, I was really interested in hearing what Alfrédo considers to be his marketing absolutes. He offered up two, both of which seem simple and yet so profound. Have a complete open mind and open eyes. As he puts it, try to understand before being understood. "If you are in a marketing function and you pretend you know it all, you know you're going to fail." Tweet This Make a picture out of what you see. In other words connect the dots after you have listened. "Very few people are able to understand data or understand consumer reactions and make any sense out of it." Tweet This Media Fragmentation We've spoken about media fragmentation on this blog and podcast quite a bit in the last year. THe ability for brands to reach their key audience is one fell swoop has changed. When veteran marketer and Haas Business School professor Bill Pearce was on the show, he shared "yo

As readers of this blog know, I have a particularly fondness for purposeful brands, that is, brands who are sustainable and socially responsible. This can come from many things from how they source their ingredients/materials to how they treat their employees and customers to causes they authentically align themselves and beyond. Think Patagonia and their Don't Buy Their Jacket campaign and their Common Threads Initiative. Was it a completely altruistic initiative? No. At the end of the day they want the sales, but it how they go about it that counts. I recently learned about another example of which you may not be aware. Nokia. Nokia has been in the top 5 on Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics for the last four years. But well beyond that, they developed a real-time text initiative for third-world farmers that allows them to check market prices. The idea is that each morning, a farmer can easily ping this network to know what prices his particular crop is selling for in nearby markets, so he can price his supply accordingly. All of this takes place via the tech-simple SMS message. Why is Nokia doing this? In the words of a Nokia exec I recently heard speak at Social Media Week, they do it because it is the right thing to do. Very powerful stuff. So today, when I had the chance to speak with Joey Bergstein, CMO of Seventh Generation, I was particularly excited. I hope you forgive my nervousness on the audio as I was filling in for Brian. Our conversation was about much more than just purpose of course. Like many of our previous guests, Joey started his career at Procter & Gamble and grew is various roles in Canada, Europe and the U.S. across multiple brands. For Joey, his time at P&G taught him how to build and manage a brand. Obviously key skills for any marketers. When I asked him how he thought the role of brand manager had changed (and I am thinking back to our conversation with Dave Knox of The Brandery and also a former P&Ger), Joey shared: The role of Brand Managers haven't changed per se, but the tools have changed. Successful brands managers are universal soldiers. We also spoke about how in this consumer-driven world that shoppers are essentially looking for everything. That is, they want value for their dollar, but they also want to find a brand that resonates with their lifestyle. This insight becomes particularly important for niche brands like Seventh Generation. I asked Joey what his strategy was for competing with larger, hous

We spoken here before about content marketing and most recently about using your content to make more lovable marketing. It seems that content goes hand in hand with SEO or search engine optimization. As I think about SEO, I think there are two big misnomers or things that are misunderstood about SEO by marketers. SEO is the same thing as digital ad buys via Adwords and other platforms SEO is getting higher search rankings via shady tactics Today we wanted to clear up any confusion, so we brought Andrew Dumont of SEOMoz on the show. Andrew helped to clarify a lot of the above. The days of black hat SEO are over. The key to high rankings is essentially high-quality content. What surprises me is how few brands are actively engaged in real SEO. We are basically looking at the 80/20* rule, but it is working against us. Markerters are essentially spending the bulk of their digital ad spend (and time) on platforms like AdWords, and yet that effort is only reaching 20% of consumers. Said another way, 80% of searchers prefer the organic content over the paid, promoted ones. So why aren't more brands engaging deeply with SEO in this way? For Andrew it boils down to this: It's hard. It takes work and it takes time. ROI is harder to calculate. Marketers are often pinned to a marketing mix model or ROI calculator. Do things the way they have always done them. The risk of course is that sometimes sticking with what has worked in the past no longer means you are playing the long-term game. And that is the game we all want to win.  Which will you do? Connect with Kat on Google +, LinkedIn or Twitter. [Lead Image by HubSpot] *Not exact figures

  Contrary to the cartoon above, you don't always have to face the maze of destruction when bringing an innovative idea to market. Today we speak with global innovation & trends expert Debra Kaye. Debra is an author of the brand new book Red Thread Thinking. We have covered innovation in the past before with both Mark Sebell and Bryan Mattimore. Mark's episode focused more on how large brands can innovate from the C-Suite and what that process looks like. Bryan focused on the brainstorming process itself. What I really like about Debra's perspective is the tie to profit. Let's be honest, ideas are great. Innovation is better. BUT unless you can take it to market and make a profit out of it, it is just another idea. And in the immortal words of Dave Knox, "The problem is, people have ideas and aren't taking action." Applying this to Debra's book, it is fundamental to tie new ideas to profitability. Debra puts it simply:"I think what holds us back is fear and doubt; that's what actually holds us back a lot in life in everything. Right? And innovation's really all about connections. [. . .] You don't really need to have any creativity. You just need to do a really good gap analysis of what's missing. Any company today that really looks at their marketplace and looks at gaps and looks at consumer needs can be great innovators. That's what innovation's really all about." One of the key things that Debra touched on is separating creativity from innovation Once you realize that it comes down to analytics and seeing an opportunity, the pressure of being creative goes away. Take a listen to the episode below and hear more from Debra about this and her nuggets on insights. Enjoy! Connect with Kat on Google +, LinkedIn or Twitter. [Lead Image by The Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne]