Derek Jeter on Leadership...

I recently had the opportunity to ask Derek Jeter about leadership. After 13 years with the New York Yankees, and one of the greatest baseball players of all time, you’ll hear Derek Jeter quotes on winning and leadership. His number one piece of advice during the interview, “practice what you...

Don’t let anyone else influence yo...

Credit: sizumaru Flickr Photostream Every day we ask our 4 year old how was school. Often times it is good, but just as often we hear some bad stuff as well. Like, “we only read books once in a while.” And one time she came home and told us she had to sit in the class room while all of her friends played outside “the entire time.” As you can imagine, we were very concerned as parents. Over the course of a month and a half, we became so frustrated with the school and lack of academic focus (and I’m talking ABC’s here), that we began...

New Direction with Fresh Perspectives...

Credit: Shahram Sharif photostream Much of the content on this blog has been influenced by my work and experiences at IQPC with a focus on social media marketing within the events industry.  As of Monday I will be embarking on a new chapter in my career as the Vice President of Marketing for AxialMarket. AxialMarket, is the world’s first business investment marketplace where qualified buyers and sellers of privately held companies can confidentially, efficiently, and securely discover, engage and close private transactions. Essentially, our platform connects active...

The Marketing Sandpile...

In reading The Age of the Unthinkable by Joshua Cooper Ramo, one of the central themes of this book is Per Bak’s Sandpile effect. In an overly simplified explanation, the sandpile effect draws an analogy between the unmappable and invisible interconnections between global events and the complex relationship between individual grains of sand as they are piled on top of each other.  Each time a grain is added to the pile, the relationship between each grain is altered.  The experiment tries to determine how many grains will it take before the sandpile collapses. ...

5 Steps to Finding Your Disruptive Force...

The Your customers are wrong post gives a brief overview on how your customers are wrong, and what I mean is essentially, they just don’t know what solutions exist to solve their problems. They will just ask you for an incremental improvement to what they currently use to solve their current problem. Below (in an overly simplified manner) I’d like to outline some of the steps I would take to try and identify some needs and what to do about it. First off, you can’t do anything without knowing your customers.  And I mean truly know them to the point where...

When your customers are wrong...

Credit: Beverly & Pack's Flickr Photostream Now we’ve all heard your customers are always right. Well, sometimes, your customers are just plain old wrong.  Sometimes, your customers just don’t know what they want.  Don’t try to use this as an excuse to force your product, service, or event down your customers’ throats, but as an opportunity to give your customers what they really want. Sometimes, your customer just doesn’t know what’s out there and what’s good for them.  They don’t know what possibilities exist to...

5 Ways to Leverage Your Event Content...

Credit: woodleywonderworks' Photostream How valuable is content generated at your events? How do you use that content? Nowadays, if you’re generating live content and not using it for something else, you’re leaving money on the table. There is this fear of cannibalization, or this concern that if you put your live content online that no one will go to your event. That’s crazy talk! Here are 5 ways to use your post event content. Sell it. If attendees are willing to pay for the content live, there is no reason why you can’t find customers to consume that...

Tapping into New York Nostalgia Through ...

I grew up towards the end of the New York Street Games era, and I remember playing each and every one of them. My favorite was skelly and handball, and this movie really brought back fond memories of my youth and growing up in New York. I took this opportunity to ask the producer of New York Street Games, Craig Lifschutz, a couple questions about their marketing efforts and how they could tap into the passion and fondness of the experiences many New Yorkers have around these games. This movie presents a great opportunity for you to reach New Yorkers all over the world,...

The Part of Marketing that Everyone Forg...

Credit: Lars P. on Flikr Why do companies even have marketing departments? At the end of the day…it’s all about sales.  Marketing people don’t like to think of themselves as sales people.  The reality is, it’s a difference of a macro vs. micro targeting of customers. One to one vs. one to many. Looking at marketing from that perspective really helps rein in any distraction and focus in on what’s important.  It will always answer the question, ‘why should I do this?’  I have seem many marketers get distracted with pretty colors,...

What does your Brand stand for?...

What do your customers think about when deciding on engaging with you. How does your brand answer that question? What I find most interesting is the disparity between what companies think their brand means and how their customers define their brand. What does this say about a company? - Our commitment to innovation and design has allowed Company X to strengthen our presence in the XXX space and develop high quality products at a competitive price, across three specific categories. Well, that’s great, but what? But what if I have a problem and call your...