My Podcast Recommendations For Marketing & Growth Leaders

Here are my most recommended podcasts for Marketing leaders, as you will see the majority aren’t marketing-specific podcasts, they are importantly more business-related, with that said they will help with honing your skills and improve how you communicate to business leaders and consider how you approach Marketing and pitching across the business.

Decoder

Good for company breakdowns, deep questions and CEO profiles

Rapid Response

Good for business responses and how they’ve reacted 

Work Life

Good for exploring interesting topics and deeper conversation 

Marketing Against The Grain

Good for marketing chatter. I am not always a big fan of all of their recommendations (as for very specific types of early-stage companies) but good for food for thought and opportunities to see if the ideas would fit for your business

Business Untitled

Good for understanding the people behind the business and great for ideas

Definitely check out the genius behind MSCHF and the art of going viral podcast

Masters Of Scale

Good breaking down companies or themes and considering how to apply to your own situation. 

Land Of The Giants

Good for the inside look of companies and breaking down business and business leaders.

The latest series on Disney is brilliant 

Marketing Freaks

Good for getting under the skin of the companies, the how and why behind campaigns and channels. As a past guest I can tell you how much effort they put into sourcing their guests and setting up their vodcast and podcasts.
Here is my cheatsheet from my appearance on Marketing Freaks

Or watch the short version ↓

The Uncensored CMO

Good for understanding the varying worlds of CMOs, their day to day and their journey to the leadership team

Discover Daily

If you are a brand lead and want to understand how you can create a highly-produced daily podcast Perplexity is a great example of how to do it and bring the brand to the front of the project.

Mentoring In The Hybrid & Remote Era

I am a huge advocate of mentoring and coaching. I don’t say this as a coach, I say this as something who learnt a lot from mentors, especially unofficial mentoring, importantly reverse mentoring and silent mentors.

(Remember a coach is someone who has hard goals with deadlines to improve a core set of skills. A mentor is someone who helps to guide you over a longer period often without setting goals but to help you navigate difficult situations and build towards the future. You can have multiple mentors and likely have one coach who will help specialist skills develop and then change, coaches and mentors can overlap)

Having spoken to several businesses over the last year and the majority are worried about their move to hybrid and remote and how it will impact their staff.

Something most overlooked is the coaching element of in-person work and the indirect mentoring many get from spending time face-to-face, in meetings and bumping into each other in the office, going for lunch or grabbing a coffee together.

These are situations that can be re-engineered but have to be engineered as many do not seek out their own internal development and will let these moments not happen because of a screen or poor nudging from leadership.

How to think about improving mentorship moments:

• Organise time slots for mentorship (leadership teams shouldn’t have to do this but if they don’t it won’t be something that naturally occurs throughout the org)

• Set up fika - A Swedish traditional for friends or colleagues to grab a pastry and a coffee together

• Create moments to share learnings and a mentor manual that people can access and learn from

• Create reserve mentorship - match younger team members with more senior members (especially good for those on the leadership team) to understand what the teams feels, see's and the latest changes in their area of expertise

• Create internal mentorship programmes and see if you can invest time into sourcing and matching in external mentors, external mentors are often taken more seriously as they do not have a status or stake in the internal game being played.

All of these will help you improve mentors, amentorship and endorse a mentor programme that likely needs the most senior support in pushing forward.

>> If you are worried about your wider subculture (what I suggest is your department’s culture), I wrote about it in my leadership newsletter leaders letter last year.

Want to go deeper into different types of mentors?

• Internal mentors are usually paired or seeked out, less experienced staff are matched with more experienced members to help navigate the business and have a support network

• External mentors are usually seeked out by the employee or their manager - they can be in a related field or have a lot of similar experiences to help the mentee forward

• Silent mentors are those you learn from, their emails, and the way they handle themselves in meetings, but also are those who have direct impact on you, likely through the content they put out, the podcasts they host or appear on etc.

• Reverse mentorship is critical for great managers and generalists and those who are serious about their career and improving their career internally.

And if you are not taken by what I have said here’s the all in podcast discussing mentorship from 11:18 ↓

Why Love Hate Anger LOL & Vanity Are The Key To Shareable Content

For years smart people have reverse-engineered how and why things are shared on the internet.

A handful of years ago people even got it to a point they could make something go viral…

In recent years with the shift away from a monoculture to many algorithmically driven subcultures, we have seen the way we share go from public by default to semi-private (in chat app groups) to one-to-one sharing.

From my background in crowdfunding and fundraising, there were always 4 main reasons why people share, it was simple,

• Love 💜 - for the love of something or someone

• Hate 🤛 - for the hate of something

• Anger 😡 - something that causes anger

• Vanity 💅 - something that made you look great aka vanity.
  

The one element we missed was LOL (😂), we have always shared laughable moments, whether that is by storytelling together, sharing a joke on email (yes this used to be a thing as did chain emails), share a clip of your favourite comedian before they were all close to being cancelled to someone banging their head or slipping over.

We have gone from sharing moments we saw → to moments others captured and then — sharing on group chats.

All of these parts of the formula are driven by you, your points of connection (nodes) and the connection and emotion it triggers. If it were a movie it would be inside out.

• Love - I love this, you will love this, I love you (made me think of you), ‘this is love’ always works as it drives a deep feeling and connection.

• Hate - I hate this, you will hate this, this will make you hate me, this is hatred always works as it drives a negative feeling and connects you both around something (for good and for bad)

• Anger - this makes me angry, this will make you angry, look at this angry mob etc picks on what we can be driven by or are looking for

• LOL - this is funny, this will make you laugh, this is funny do you remember this - all are centre points based on laughing together or sparking a memory

• Vanity - look at what I did, look at what this person said about me, look at your post doing well - all is about making you or your friend/colleague feel good.

If you are building a Product or looking to build out product features, definitely consider how you leverage these 5 emotions to help make your product sticky and truly build features that gain shares with these 5 emotions front of your mind and the users mind.

I’ll leave you with the Pixar storytelling video that will help you understand storytelling and how to apply these to your work.

The Issue With Webinars & Potential Fixes

Webinars have a bad rep. Whenever I consult or coach CMOs, VPs and CPOs I always tell them to rebrand the webinar, don’t call it a webinar as they are mostly broken.

I bet you joined a webinar (most likely live) and you waited 5 minutes for it to start, and then for the first ten minutes it is intro, intro, intro, promote product, intro.

If you were to watch a YouTube video and it offered nothing for the first 5 minutes you would leave, let alone the first 15 minutes.
Likewise in a podcast you wouldn’t waste ten minutes with ads and promotion…

Webinars were designed for the viewer, give value as quickly as possible. Most people attending aren’t there for the logos, they want to know something they didn’t already, they want to understand if they are on the right track or want a nugget to implement in their own work to make them feel like they are the hero in their own story.

So rather than bash webinars too much, here are ways to improve them:

1. Short Sharp Intros: Most attendees will look up the speakers/hosts/guest, give the audience something not everything - use ice breakers if need be

2. Ask Hard Questions: Unless it is a presentation give a hard-hitting question early, grab the attendee’s attention, and make them want to share the answer early

3. Give Value ASAP: Say what it is, give a few takeaways in the first few minutes and link to the takeaways ideally the cheatsheet

4. Engage The Audience: The webinar needs engagement, it needs Q&A, if you are running a webinar ask questions, prep questions just in case of low engagement or low attendance and help create a safe space for questions

5. Expert Recap: The host’s job is like an expert panel moderator, offering expert recaps and reminding the audience of key takeaways, don’t be afraid to use notes and share nuggets as you go

6. Remove The Panel Problem: Some professionals don’t prep, even with a prep call they don’t feel like they need to prep or have anything ready, if a panel member is struggling to offer something, ease them towards an answer or ask them to tell a quick story

7. Better Landing Pages: Offer something post-event, ideally a landing page not just an email to be filtered with takeaways, links mentioned, links to LinkedIn and interactive content - so many webinars don’t think about how to engage post-event and allow the landing page to gain shares (sharing your content and your brand/platform is key)

8. Do Post Edit: If you have a team definitely do a few quick edits, remove long pauses, and remove the 5 minutes of set at the beginning, the post-experience is key to attendees sharing and wanting to attend another event or use your product

9. Reward Audience Participation: Simple and low cost, reward those who offered a question, a different point of view or shared an experience, this is easy, low cost and scalable.

And remember, yes you have a number of goals associated to your event/webinar, however, if your live audience and post viewership experience is poor you will lose any chance of building an engaged audience of potential customers or potential repeat customers.

Free Power Hour

For the past ten years, I have offered power hours, which is an hour with a person (usually a business leader or senior c-suiter), a company or an institution where I help and support.

I have ran power hours for:

• Creators

• CEOs and founders

• Startups

• Known Marketplaces

• For SMBs

• For leadership teams at a school

• & for large businesses

Sometimes it is a sanity check, other times the time is used as a lunch and learn for their teams, others use it an AMA and then for some, it becomes a coaching session. It is more clinic (clinics are similar to office hours at a VC firm with their portfolio companies) than therapy but I’m always happy to support.

I am opening this up a little further to readers and visitors of my site and wider than I have before, so if you would like a power hour with me, please complete the form below or DM me on LinkedIn.

So get in touch and let me know how you’d like to collaborate and where you might need help, a sanity check or an AMA with your team/department.

My Favourite AI Tools

Small disclaimer: I have to admit I am not a huge AI tool user. Why? Simply put; I haven’t been blown away by many AI first products and I tend to take as long tweaking and editing to make something I would want to put my name to. Most of the time I have to use the jobs-to-be-done framework to work out what the AI tool purpose is and then have to fit my need.

With that said here are my favourite tools

• Perplexity - I use it for quick answers, it is quick and acts like an answer engine (not a search engine - it isn’t a new Google) and offers sources from their answers 

• Bing Image Creator - I use it to create quick and easy images for this blog and presentations. It is a simple and free creator (not exactly perfect images but good for blogs or social content) 

• Descript - I use it for editing podcasts, it automates and transcribes my podcasts (audio and or video) and then you can create clips to share on social media. If you can create in a Google doc, you can create and edit video and audio in descript.  

• Notion AI Q&A - I use it to find and ask questions about the documents and databases in my notion. It saves me a lot of time and works better than the standard search does. As a Product person, I appreciate the care and effort taken in this product. 

• Lex.page - I use it to build out ideas and articles or to question myself on the content. It’s perfect for simple editing and it is like writing in Google docs with inbuilt actions to take with quick prompts to help move you forward.  

• Claude - I use this as a creative assistant. I find it better for answers than ChatGPT. I have found you don’t need the most detailed prompts for Claude to produce high-quality answers and their artefacts really do help create a better search for better results. It’s a product that puts the consumer at the front vs other creative AI tools.

• Bearly.ai - I use bearly as a creative assistant and alongside it being research assistant, as you can select the AI model when you query you can ask it varying questions or question on other AI models (say ChatGPT 4o and then Haiku) to validate or expand out. I don’t use Bearly as much as I should… Something that many people love using it for is transcription (audio and YouTube videos)

Other decent AI products include Grammarly, Canva and ChatGPT 4o.

Brands You Don’t Have To Say Anything

One of my biggest bug bearers is how brands fell into the trap to say something every time something happened or every time there is a calendar event happening.

Brands let the social media companies mislead them, chasing engagement and using these channels as news platforms hasn’t brought you closer to customers or fans, it has cut your reach and diluted important things you need to say.

Quality will beat out quantity almost every time.

Why? In every training workshops, in most c-suite coaching and founder expert calls I am always asked questions along these lines, should we talk about this news story or should we share something on National X or Y day, the answer 99% of the time, is don’t say anything unless you are directly helping, immediately impacted by the event or you are the go-to resource.

A free tip: Unless your brand is directly involved - it is often smarter and more authentic to say nothing externally. You will have to cut through internal pressure and say no, this is your job as a leader, knowing when no beats yes and being focused on what makes you win.

Remember this deliberate approach doesn’t mean you (and your brand) don’t care, it means when you have something important to say you will get cut through and it will land with your customers.

The less time you spend in a ‘war room’ making hard decisions and press statements (and social posts) - the better for you, the team/department and the brand.

Hodinkee’s CEO Update & “In The Comment Section”

Hodinkee (the watch editorial and ecommerce site) used to be the go to example of what a content brand could be.

It used to be a signal of how to create a media business around a theme, in their case luxury watches.

I have spoken to five businesses in the last five years who all have mentioned Hodinkee and their approach as the example of what they were attempting to replicate in their business. In most cases the investment costs to even consider this will put most businesses off.

Media Companies Of The Future: I do believe every company will become part media company - some channels and media will be a natural media fit based on their business vertical, while many others will struggle to make the transition.

The shift to commerce was a bumpy one for Hodinkee and in their recent CEO update (“A Note On The Future Of Hodinkee”) suggested they were going back to their roots. Their sub-header said it all “Spoiler alert: It looks a lot like its past, and I think you're going to like it.”

Speak With Not To: This blog post is a shining example of how to speak to and with your customers while knowing your customers and their they would respond…

“See you in the comments section!” cemented knowing how to speak to their audience while knowing them and their expected reaction(s), with 453 comments and counting this is highly unusual.

Would any other company get this feedback on-site in 2024? - I highly doubt it.

Moving into August many brands are disconnected from their customers and from knowing how to speak with and to their key audience, it is great to see a brand admitting they made a couple of strategic missteps and embracing feedback on site, rather than social media.

Best of luck to Hodinkee and if there was a coaching moment here, it would be to embrace your audience, keep them front and centre of your messaging and don’t be afraid to admit a mistake and guide them into the future.

My Recent Recommendations To Coaching, Consultancy And Advisory Clients

Here are the most recent pieces of advice I have given my coaching, consultancy and advisory clients over the last six months.

1. Learn The Tools: Learn the comms tools (especially new tools) - Gmail, Slides, PowerPoint, Slack/Teams. The tools will help you do more in a quicker time (here are my 7 ways to get the most out of Google Workspaces)
   

2. Use The Tools Your Customers Use. That means Discord, Snapchat, and TikTok. That could also mean Notes app, Excel, Sheets, Strava or Pendo etc 
   

3. Understand AI - I will not tell you to learn every prompt and every tool, however, understanding how ChatGPT works, playing with Claude (Claude is better output than ChatGPT IMHO) and using the new features inside work tools are going to be a competitive advantage for you and cut through when your team might be just using AI tools 
   

4. Reverse Coaching: Team members will know the new tools, they will know the newest tactics and tricks to help improve the performance of your department or company, set up sessions where the team can officially coach you and reverse coach you, make this their session and help them set out the training. Offer this as a two-way street, they coach you, and you then coach them. 
   

5. Culturalise Frameworks: Other people’s frameworks and templates only work if you customise and culturalise them for your business. If you don’t you’ll have to teach everyone how it works and then they fail.
   

6. OKR Struggles: If you are struggling with OKRs (most people do) look at think BIG, act small by when as an alternative. Here is a free Think BIG act small by when template for you to use. If you’d like to read more about this framework read my think big act small by when post.  
   

7. Refresh: Get into a fresh environment when you’re stuck. Outside in the garden in the sun, if you’re working from home get a commute and walk for 10-15 minutes, block out time for lunch and break down the days to recap the day and write down the good, the bad and the ugly to give you chance to attack the next working day 

My Favourite Matrixes & Frameworks

Here are my favourite matrixes and frameworks together on Google Sheets, free to make a copy and use for improved goal setting, better ownership and cross-functional alignment.

Frameworks & Templates

• John Whitmore Model - Aka GROW Goal Reality Options Will matrix for what you want, where you, what could be and what will you do.

• SMART & PURE - Setting the best goals and helping to select the right goals

• DACI - A project management framework helping to clarify ownership and feedback in a project (RACI is more well know)

• RACI - A project management framework helping to clarify ownership and feedback

• Feedback Model - A way to field feedback from colleagues or managers and categorise

• Eisenhower Matrix - Work template to go through what to prioritise

• SWOT Analysis - Self-assessment of strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats (I run through this template with every coaching client and is a foundation we work on top of)

• Subtle Signals Model - Effort vs reward matrix

• Maslow's Hierarchy - Score your engagement

One More Question Podcast

This is my One More Question Podcast appearance, Ross and I broke down the modern-day Marketing world, what the business impact of Marketing is really and how the creator space is leading the way for brands to improve their products and the connection with their customers.

So Why Listen?

• Why being a brand and standing out is an active business decision

• Why Performance Marketing vs Brand Marketing isn’t versus it is and always has to be and - if it’s not you are building a brand ready to disappear

• Grasp the importance of your utility level as a company and develop this out within your messaging and growth action plan

• Understand that the delivery company you choose to deliver your customer orders is a reflection on your company and your brand, your first experience will be your last if your delivery is impacted

• Why my coach+ product is popular and why coaching is critically important to Marketing and Growth team successes

• Nostalgia is always going to be essential in Marketing but many overlook it or don’t see the power of the archive

• Understand the power of generational brands

• Why being a brand not a bland is critical in winning your customers

• Learn why brands can go hyper-personalised to beat out competition (a handwritten thank you note will scale for you to win and stand out)

• “Brand” is a tribe and tribal - it is critical to understand when to build a tribe or ask customers to join your tribe

• Be bold to win - that has to be a business decision

• Why community brands could be the next big

Or listen on your podcast player of choice ↓

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts ,

HVE - High Value Employee(s)

Why High Value Employees (HVE) Need To Be Identified, Supported & Have Individual Plans Of Action

Imagine this ↓

Your best-performing member of the department comes to you and suggests they are unhappy and have been applying for external roles.

Your first thought was likely FFS, your second was to try and talk to them and hopefully listen to their points.

Your next action is likely to convince them to stay…

If this comes as a shock, there are likely three things that it could be or that are happening:

1. You are busy and missing the signs from this employee

2. The subculture or company culture has shifted and the employee doesn’t feel connected
   or

3. The company is not moving in a direction that connects with said employees.

Most department leads do not identify who is your HVE (your high value employee(s)). They have an idea but do not actively treat the identified employee as such. They definitely do not have a plan of action for these individuals.

Yes, you can identify them and treat them well and they will look to progress their career elsewhere but many do not actively check-in, you miss their signals from their performance dropping, being continually frustrated in meetings and hearing what they are saying from their silence, you or they actively miss 1-2-1’s,

In some organisations, they train department leads and executive teams to identify and actively discuss key person risk - when someone is that important it creates a business risk for them to become unhappy and leave the business. If you were to take a step back, would your HVE be a key person to leave the business and create a risk to the business?

Do you have a handful of HVE’s or a high-value employee who you need to connect with and work through how they like to work, how you could support them further or know when to get out of their way?

A coachable moment for the week ahead is to review your team (try not to make it a 9-box exercise), identify your HVE and work out a plan of action for them or the HVE’s.

Remember: It is also great to support them in moving on, often high value employees need to leave and it’s ok as their line manager to support them in reshuffling your org and creating the most effective org design.

If you enjoyed this post why not read more of my blog posts here, if you are interested in more actionable coaching blog content read here

Pepsico’s Price Conscious Consumers

Why The Price Versus Value Debate Won’t Go Away For Any Brand Big Or Small.

I recently read a powerful quote about Pepsico (the owners of Pepsi, lays, Tropicana, Quaker, and Gatorade) about consumers buying fewer snacks (to this point it’s referring to fewer snacks being purchased from Pepsico’s brands) and the performance from their CFO.

Below is a quote from their earnings call:

“There is a cohort of consumers that have become more price conscious,”  — Jamie Caulfield, CFO @ PepsiCo.

“They’re looking for more deals to get more for their money.”

“PepsiCo is offering products and package sizes that offer greater value, such as a new 10-item variety pack of snacks that is selling well”
”Shoppers are now less interested in buy-one-get-one-free promotions and want lower price points for single items”.

It is safe to say over the last couple of years consumers have become more price-conscious, we have seen it in spending across the US and the UK and will continue to see consumer spending become more value-based. FWIW Election year always sees a dip in spending.

A topic I raise with almost all of my clients is price vs value, price is part of the debate, however, what most people are looking for value.

Value is an exchange, the value exchange is - what is the feeling I get from a product or service and whether it is giving me value or an experience to connect to a value rather than a price.

If the value exchange is not there is a product or the price has been increased massively (or in recent times shrinkflation) then people will stop buying or look for actively seek out cheaper alternatives. We live in an endless world of competitors and “good enough” competitors.
(Importantly we now live in a consumer world where we don’t just have good, better, best, we have good enough, good, better, best, greatest)

The question to ask in exec meetings now should be:

Are we adding value and are we removing the price from the equation and adding constant value?
If the answer is no, a competitor will be considered or a lower price item will be tried.

In future earning calls I predict we are going to see many companies and CFOs blame:

• GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic etc) and their impact on eating and drinking

• The price of food and the effect of reducing the size of a product while staying at the same price (aka shrinkification)

• Continued extreme weather (hottest summers in the US, wettest summers in the UK)

• Poor performance marketing results (constant algorithmic shifts are impacting both organic marketing and paid media results and typically negatively)

• The election results (whatever your leaning or who you voted for, elections shake things up)

• and the continued blame of price-conscious consumers

If there is a takeaway here I would recommend reviewing how you price your items, how you connect your products (even if it is snacks or drinks) to experiences (I bet you remember your first Coke or your first great experience with food) and consider how you are marketing your product vs the endless competitors who will cheaper or go for discounting to win the battle on the wallet and purse.

My 17 Rules For CEO Profile Development

Why CEO And Founder Profile Development Needs Rules To Make Them Successful

Here are my 17 rules to help CEOs and founders to know if we would be a good fit to work together on their profile development. And yes, it’s far more than the normal approach which is spray and pray LinkedIn updates and one video sliced and diced across social media to be successful.

1. Take profile development seriously 
   - it’s more than just a trial or testing if you will get any traction

2. It takes time and personality
   - if you lack either you have to do the work and there will be homework

3. You’ve been the boss so long you can’t boss it 
   - CEOs and founders have been the boss for so long that they try and boss every situation, in profile development you cannot control (aka boss) it, it’s a collaboration and an evolution.

4. Know when media training is wrong
   - and the training is going to mislead you often in this modern web-driven world

5. You’re not going to be a success overnight 
   - it will take time, effort and development to become any success. And if you go viral expect it to work against you as much as it goes for you

6. Do you have the time (and money) to invest in you?
   - You will need to crave out dedicated time, to be proactive and reactive to news stories and industry stories, you will have to be fluid with requests and with your time

7. Are you the star or is the company? 
   - you are representing the company, and remember being the star yourself should lead to company success

8. Have 5 important statements to say. You stand behind and will be able to answer with the harshest critics
   - if you do not have statements to say you won’t cut through, if you cannot back up these 5 things with your biggest critics or have solid answers when pushed you will struggle with audiences. Being controversial is a recipe for disaster for 99% of CEOs and Founders

9. Own your old mistakes 
   - these will be surfaced and you will have to answer to them

10. Know you’re going to make new mistakes and likely big mistakes  
    - mistakes happen and you will make big mistakes moving forward, these will be brought up frequently and you will have to be confident in having an answer and sincere apologises

11. Know what’s on the record, ‘on background’ and off the record 
    - where there is a camera, a mic or any size audience knows you will be on record unless you clearly state it. Anything that’s private or confidential will be used

12. You will be “hate-watched” (have thick skin)
    - not everyone watching you will appreciate you and will watch everything you do and will have something to say about it in comments, on social media and they will find your inbox

13. Your team will love or hate it 
    - not all of your internal team will love what you have to say and won’t agree with it, expect questions and hard points challenged, in person, on email and your company chat app(s) and in public

14. Who are you speaking to and what do you have to say to them? 
    - if you don’t know your audience, why you are talking to them and what you have to say, don’t start

15. Influencer vs KOL
    - know the difference and understand what you want to be. If it’s not a KOL (Key opinion leader) you’re looking for fame and that game is very different. Industry experts and leaders are rare

16. Platforms owe you nothing 
    - every social media platform and email platform(s) does not owe you an audience (followers, subscribers), doesn’t reward you with an audience and ultimately wants a cut of your budget, remember this when your reach is cut or your engagement drops

17. This is not a fair game
    - understand the profile development game is as such reputation management and business development as your profile and ego, you will be systematically taken apart by competitors you know, those you don’t know (yet) and those who make it their mission to take someone or someone’s business down

Lastly, it should go without saying you will need to invest in yourself, your image and importantly good equipment, a mic (for interviews and podcasts), a decent smartphone for videos and clips, your office or background for interviews and consider your look.

Get in touch with me directly to find out how to work together.

How Ryan Reynolds Pitches Wrexham To Each Potential Player

Many Department & Company Leads Can Learn From This Simple Approach

Many CEOs and founders can learn a thing or two from Ryan Reynolds on how he operates with Wrexham.

The top takeaway and running theme connection is key:

• Speak to every new player and potential signing

• He asks about their plan and their family (and what else can he do as the club’s co-owner)

• He says he will leave the football to the players but the storytelling and marketing of the club and town - he will handle and do this thing

• Sees what opportunities there are with the player and what they could collaborate on

In my coaching (specifically my exec coaching) I ask executives what are their unique skills and how do they stand out vs other execs from bigger or more well-known companies and go to my advice always centres around if they have high EQ show it and double down on it and layer IQ.
Maybe this is what is going to help you stand out and stand up against different execs or companies.

My Favourite Growth Video How To Start A Movement

I have a Google slides deck I share with all of my clients, it’s a long playlist of videos on Growth, not just business growth but includes categories that are:

• Life

• Product

• Marketing

• The Future

The deck is to how frame growth differently, it’s how to see growth and business as many different parts, many different biases and many different disciplines coming together. To understand behaviour, we must open up, see how movements are made, appreciate different perspectives, and evolve.

The (below) video is from a classic TED talk called “How To Start A Movement”, in 5 minutes this video demonstrates how human behaviour and human (cognitive) biases can be made or broken in a few moments, it shows you how to stand out, be different, embrace change and go with the energy.

Next time you worry about doing something different or wanting to stand out, remember it takes one small step/dance to be a leader!

7 Magic Moments For Coaches

1. A thank you email/iMessage/WhatsApp straight after a coaching session
   >> This shows you have landed or cut through the noise of their everyday work

2. When your coachee tweaks one of your frameworks and applies it within their business - the issue with frameworks is it is only proven within your business or when you have had the chance to implement it yourself. When you have your own framework it is ultimately built for you
   >> This proves you have been heard and your coaching has allowed more

3. A thank you message away from the coaching session, after a chance to think about what was discussed
   >> This shows you have landed your message and they feel comfortable and confident to deliver their own version of the framework

4. When a recommendation is instantly implemented and you are sent a screenshot or an email on how well it was received
   >> This shows you unlocked something simple for your coachee to deliver.
   Remember simple wins almost every time

5. Months after you have finished coaching you receive a message and your coachee informs you of something they have done
   >> This shows you have had a positive long-term impact and they want to share the experience with you

6. A personal introduction is made by someone you are coaching and recommends your services
   >> This shows you have made a real impact and they want to refer a colleague or professional friend to be coached by you. This also applies to people you have finished coaching.

7. When you are asked to come back and coach or run a workshop within the same business
   >> This shows you are respected and they trust you to deliver high-quality work with their colleagues

The Importance Of Audio & The Connected Attention Needed

The Power Of Audio Is Still Underrated

Have you ever had a jingle stuck in your head?

Have you ever heard a song and thought that’s the x advert? (Thanks to being stuck on a Jet2 flight Jess Glynne is forever burnt into my brain - enjoy her song at the bottom of this post)

Audio is often overlooked as an important component of Branding, Marketing, grabbing and holding attention.
TikTok managed to nail this so much that it is now driving huge success for artists and their songs.

A quick story from my past, I worked at a company and we had an app, the best feature reported by users was the money fall noise when someone donated to their page, it was that dopamine kick, that reward we crave and gave the fundraiser the celebratory feedback they needed.

When it comes to audio you need to remember the attention needed for each format, the way I frame this:

Medium To % Attention Needed

• Jingle - 10-15%

• Radio - 25%

• Music - 25-35%

• Podcast - 65%

• Phone Calls - 70-80%

• Audio Note - 80-85%

• Audiobook - 95%+

Jingles from TV ads or a sound from an app require 10-15% of your attention to stick into your mind (a few times and it’s embedded in your brain), ask any artist how important TikTok and music in Reels are for them at the moment.

Likewise, with podcasts, you need something from an intro, the outro, to a slogan you repeat to hold someone’s attention and build affinity with the audience. Once you have this and some repetition it builds a deeper affinity, alongside the para-social relationship that can be formed with the host(s)

My recommendation to many of my clients (coaching or consulting) is to select your mediums and create a jingle or a sound that you will be forever connected with you or your brand.

The same goes for brands I advise, I recommend owning a sound on social and an emoji that you are instantly associated with.

Go and own a sound, a jingle and an emoji.

The Original Song

The Ad

13 Simple Tips To Improve Exec Presentations

In my coaching and consultancy roles, I am often asked to help less experienced team members present or provide experienced operators to deliver more effective presentations. 

Here are my top recommendations:

1. Breath, they’ve all been there. Mistakes happen - it’s how you react and push forward 

2. Know your content, know the flow of the slides, and get used to the tech and clicks. Fewer slides = less that can go wrong.
   Never just read the slides.
   If you’re in doubt, download the deck as images and reassemble out of numbered order into order (this also applies to conference speaking - I did this with my recent keynote - community as the next business moat)

3. Understand the audience and who is the decision maker - numbers and context CEO/CFO, numbers and operating flow for COO, request of team and time required from CMO, request from the CPO and always think about the customer (internal and external) timelines and costs (budget asks). Remember simple tables save you time and space 

4. Remove transitions and too many clicks and use the company template.
   AI-created slides are easy to spot and often too formulaic and not in the style and culture of your business 

5. You’re presenting to management, not at a TED conference - images are important but rarely translate as well as you think. Same with emojis - semantics and clarity matter

6. Kill the (department and industry) jargon & if you have to use it explain it so simply a 5-year-old gets it 

7. Exec summary always - summarise asks, requests and next steps 

8. Remember content over design: design and layouts are important but the findings, asks and recommendations have to come across and land

9. When presenting you are primarily speaking to the room (virtual or IRL) first but now in hybrid and on-demand replays you have to remember you will have people reading, flicking through and watching after your walk-through 

10. Lead your presentation, set the guardrails and expectations upfront (time management is critical)

11. Have clear recommendations - if in doubt one problem two solutions. Preferred recommendation first and then back up with less time and emphasis 

12. Send pre-read (some execs expect this, whether they have time to read or not) and always link to data sources, excel/sheets, videos 

13. Always take note of the notes, decisions and follow-up actions 

Lastly, ask yourselves if you are a subject matter expert or a department head/lead does this translate so a non-expert understands it - will it pass the mum test? 

Good luck!

Is It Time To Dust Off RIP To The CMO Deck & Update For 2024?

Why Chief Growth Officers Are In Demand & Why The CMO Role Has Lost Some Of Its Influence

Recently there has been discussion around the CMO role and how the CGO role is what Marketing leaders do. This is inside the CMO community and at board and founder level.

Interestingly, this was not what I found back in 2019 when I keynoted a Marketing conference with RIP To The CMO and it is still very different to what most CMO roles are and what their outputs are.

Having held both the CMO CGO titles, coached both (And Product leaders) and advised company leaders and founders on what to hire for the roles are different, in the best CGOs - they understand Product, they blend the best of both worlds (Marketing & Product) and understand how to get the most out of the Product, improve the Product features (some even write the tickets) and get the most out of development teams and communicate this across the business.

The below deck is a quick breakdown of speaking to 20+ CMOs across 2019 and exploring how the role was and still is being disrupted, how the CMO will continue to be rebranded and what the future struggles might be if the CMO struggles to influence and own the traditional 4c’s and 4p’s.

The question now is 🤔 - Do I need to update for 2024? I think I might just have to

RIP to the CMO Role from Danny Denhard