Blog Author Mellissah Smith - Page 64

Let’s be honest. Generally, businesses are happy to celebrate their wins, and sweep their losses under the rug. We drink champagne when our marketing strategies work, and suck lemons when they don’t. But the minute we stop running from our failures, we can stop and examine them to find solutions and refine our approach.

Not every marketing campaign comes to fruition; sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Let’s get very honest and face the five possible reasons yours flopped:

There are many advantages of being single; you can do what you want when you want, you will never wake to snoring, and you never need to get out of your pajama's if you don't feel like it.

You can kiss as many boys as you wish, decide on the spare of the moment to fly abroad, and eat baked beans on toast without having to consider another.

As seen in LinkedIn:

When examining Marketing Eye’s culture, one idea usually sticks out at people; that is, our stance on bad ideas. Taking a unique approach (remembering nothing we do here is status quo), I encourage my team to share their ideas daily; the great, the good and the terrible.

Why? Because I firmly believe there is value in bad ideas.

If you look in to the journey behind the biggest accomplishments in the world, they’re littered with bad ideas. In fact, it’s the mishaps, the arduous trial and error procedure that leads to greatness. A bad idea simply paves the way for a new and improved one. Bad ideas are often discouraged and quickly discounted as failures, but in reality, they identify solutions.

I need my team; from the marketing managers to the interns, to feel that they have an open forum to exchange their ideas freely; we are, after all, a creative company. And during a consultancy, our marketing managers will implore our clients to lay all of their ideas on the table. And often we harvest gold from the very idea our clients are hesitant to tell us.

I know - when you shut down the idea on bad ideas, you close it on future good ones too.

Why marketing automation is more than just a buzzword; it’s a way businesses can flirt with customers.

You walk in to your favourite restaurant and immediately, something beautiful captures your attention.  Summoning all of your courage, you walk over to that breathtaking prospect and begin your introduction.  I’ll stop you right there - I’m not talking about a man!  I’m describing a potential new client, and that instantaneous attraction of making a new connection.  Similar to dating, you must approach business like you would a potential mate. 

Yes, I’m encouraging you to flirt with your customers.

Yesterday, I spoke at Cebit 2014 on sales process automation.

It was an interesting topic because so many Australian companies have yet to realise just how much more efficient their sales process can be through sales automation and the ROI in terms of revenue acquired because of having an effective sales process automation system in place.

Collaborating CRM, marketing automation, workflow automation and email marketing, sales process automation is one of the most important areas for businesses to focus on in 2014. 

Sure, this is not a top-tier newspaper gig or a glamorous television job, but we do have Timtams and laugh alot. Our deadlines are not as dramatic, but we do have a magazine to get out. You will meet lots of interesting people from all walks of life, namely entrepreneurs that may one day be 'the next big thing' and some big businesses that choose us as their marketing arm.

It's true, we are looking for a journalist, because we like journalists. They seem to be smarter, more diverse and faster than having a PR chick (or bloke) in-house, and let's face it, communications people suck at writing real stories for quality magazines - but you seem to have that one sorted.

And... we aren't a bad place to work. Our people are nice, all with interesting and diverse backgrounds. We work hard and as much as I would like to say that we play hard, its possibly not the case other than for a few Gen-y'ers that work for the company.

We have a dog, but she is stuck in the US at the moment. Hopefully one day she will join us back on these sunny shores.

Chase Performance has created successful business solutions through an award-winning combination of consulting and services. They work across a wide range of industries, developing the expertise required to deliver the most premium consulting services available.

When writing my business plan 9 years ago, I took many things into account like how the business would look in 10 years time, who we would employ, what services we would provide, and how we would expand into new markets.

But what I didn't take into account is how I would actually make it happen. You see, like many entrepreneurs, I have struggled with working in the business and trying to at the same time work "on" the business - never quite getting the mix right.

At long last, since I made some smart strategic business moves last year, including changing management, I have become the entrepreneur I always wanted to be. I am implementing our business plan that was written so long ago, and it feels really good. There is a sense of satisfaction that is growing deep inside me and I believe in every single thing that we are doing.

As a person who has employed hundreds of people in my career, I am always amazed at how some people stand out from the crowd, while other's don't.

In today's work environment where work-life balance seems to take precedence, and the millennials and gen-y are looking for more than their predecessors who were mainly happy to be gainfully employed and on a career path that funded their lifestyle - it appears that fewer employees are seeking to be outstanding. They are looking for more than just to be an outstanding employee, but rather a career that is fulfilling, balanced and with the right perks to help them get the outcomes financially they are looking for in their lifetime.

Now, this is not a bad thing. As you get older, you realise that you only live once. This new way of thinking and the younger generation putting life first and career second, can only benefit generations to come.

Where the real problem lies in the blurred line between how to advance your career or how best to maintain your status quo in the workplace.

When I started Marketing Eye more than 9 years ago, I had a vision to be the world's best small business marketing firm. I dreamt that I would open offices all over the world that would sell marketing services backed by sophisticated technology platforms, media and education, to businesses that had revenues of $1 million to $200 million.

Primarily, the companies that would be ideal clients were one's that were entrepreneur-led, like me, and who had a dream to significantly grow their businesses and mostly be industry game-changers - although the latter wasn't exactly necessary.

In the early days, we had hurdles. The first was our own mind-set of being use to working with funded startups or medium to large corporations and shifting the way we interacted, engaged and nurtured our clients to success to cater for burgeoning SMB market.

It took time. More time than I ever imagined.