How do you manage the inevitable Corona –led marketing budget cuts?
‘The bug’ has given us a once in a generation opportunity to make change. Things that may not have been possible, have suddenly become not just possible, but necessary. While most of the focus is automatically on cutting costs, the greater long term benefit is...
What is your ‘Teabag Index’ to measure performance improvement?
To measure anything in a meaningful way, you need some sort of baseline. To say you have a 20% increase in market share sounds impressive, but if your starting point is a 5% share, it is less so. By contrast, if your starting point is 40% in a competitive...
What are the 2 common characteristics of useful metrics?
Metrics at their best deliver game changing insight and wisdom. At their worst, they are misleading , irrelevant and a pain in the arse to collect. So, what are the two characteristics that make a great metric? The metric is a leading indicator. A Leading indicator is...
4 critical inputs to a robust forecast
Preparing forecasts is an integral part of most jobs these days, even if it is just how much available capacity there might be on the machine tomorrow, and how best to fill it. Most forecasting I see is based on the financials, and is one of two methods: The...
What do the Christmas bushfires, Covid-19 and ‘Black Lives Matter’ have in common?
It has been a busy year so far for marketing departments, especially those without any real foundation and understanding of why people might engage with them, and their lousy products. Each of the three has been taken as an opportunity for many marketers to...
Where is Batman when you really need him?
Observing the virulent spread of 'The Bug' and the institutional responses from around the world, there is a disturbing commonality that points at a deficiency in political and ethical leadership, until the horses are running free, and the stable almost empty....
Successful remote work: 6 critical challenges.
Have you seriously considered the implications of the apparent recognition that remote working can, and will, be a greater part of the employment mix in a post corona world? There is a loud noise that 'everything will change' reverberating, an echo...
5 lessons to apply as you rebuild Post-Corona.
As it seems we are slowly going to come awake after the close-down, it is timely to consider the steps we need to take to ensure that we survive the revival. Over 45 years of working with all sorts of businesses, in all sorts of situations, there are a number of...
The critical ingredient that will empower remote working.
Like all new things, remote work was a small outlier in the world of corporations. It was something that a few dabbled with, mostly with specialist consultants and those for whom they had statutory responsibility, such as maternity leave. That has now all changed, as...
The 7 most common questions I get about price: answered.
Settling on a pricing mechanism for your products and services is a profoundly important element in a successful enterprise, but is often the last thing done. Ask a few people internally, go and see what others are doing, or just add a margin to your costs and out you...