Issue No.2 by Geraint Holliman and Will Wright
WOMENS DAY, EVERYDAY
This week saw International Women’s Day mark the achievements of women across the globe. Whilst it’s great to call out those achievements and raise awareness of gender bias on a specific day, we prefer to acknowledge the incredible achievements/work of women every day.
We are privileged – yes, privileged – to work with some truly astounding women who are both inspirational and admirable day after day. As fathers of daughters ourselves, we hold these women up as true role models for what women can, and do, achieve on a daily basis.
Whilst none of them would seek the limelight, we would celebrate Emma Fisher, Emma Bowkett, Aileen Ryan, Francesca Ecsery, Heather K Margolis as just a small sample of the brilliant women whom we work with, and are perennially grateful for the opportunity to do so.
Spotlight
Stop playing the bureaucratic game..
Gary Hamel, Wall Street Journals No.1 business thinker, author and lecturer reminds us, yet again, to think differently, innovate and build new management and organisational models fit for purpose, today. His new book Humanocracy, co-authored with Michele Zanini is a 'must-read', for anyone interested in different ways to operate a business, (we've just added it to our reading list).
Successfully navigating the future will depend on people and organisations that are fast, flat, free and fearless. This doesn't sound like the rhetoric of stability, 'steady-as-she-goes', conformist bureaucracy, and it isn't. Given the magnitude of todays global challenges and opportunities, Hamel says, we need a radical management overhaul that needs five things to happen, and happen soon:
Motivation - whole-hearted commitment to building organisations that are 'human-centric'
New mind sets - personal strategies to rid ourselves of old bureaucratic thinking
New models - learn lessons from businesses that have already replaced bureaucracy
Migration - new management structures, systems and processes founded on new management principles
Mobilisation - pro-change constituencies, wherever they are, to hack the management model
Stuff we're thinking about
Just a few things from recent blogs, our 'nudges', thoughts on value and growth and the kind of stuff we're thinking about, an endless stream of topics and points of interest....
Metrics that matter - cash flow
We so often see a complete obsession with ‘revenue’ as a success metric. However, not all revenue is necessarily ‘good’ revenue. Difficult customers requiring excess servicing, late payers or heavily discounted pricing can all contribute to make revenue less valuable than the really important metric – cash. It’s critical for marketers and sales to understand how the cash flow into, and out of, the business can sustain and build growth. For more detail on this and the thorny issue of DCF versus APV(!), read the Adaptomy blog on Cash flow here: Metrics that matter and those that don't - Cash flow.
Thoughts on Value and Growth:
Quantified Value Propositions (QVP's)
Another one in the series of 'nudges' posing some questions about commercial activity, assumptions and measurement. This one's on QVP's is questions what we really do with the quantification of value, do we really measure value created?. No one can fail to have noticed the profound impact that Quantified Value Propositions have on commercial operations and outcomes. But how many of us actively monitor the value being generated by each proposition? Are the ambitions of our propositions being met? Read the 'nudge' and join the conversation here: Linkedin Post - Thoughts On Value and Growth No. 2 - Quantified Value Propositions
Footnotes: things you might have missed
Nick Mason, CEO, Turtl, one of the best and most innovative young CEO's we know, is forging ahead with new ways to create and publish content. He just posted an interesting point of view on 'neuro-economic' marketing, something we've been working on with him for a while. Definitely more to come on this, it's a vast and topical subject that combines social sciences, psychology and economics to drive marketing. You can read the article here: How neuroeconomics will transform marketing over the coming decade.
The ‘Keynote Speaker Season’ has started again with Geraint speaking at a number of industry events across March on all matters Content Marketing as part of his contribution to the academic study of the content marketing field. Occasionally amusing, but always useful, he is speaking at the MMC Learning Content and Conversion Marketing Online Summit on 16th March, find out more visit: MMC Learning Content & Conversion Summit
Quote of the moment...
"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." Virginia Wolf
What we're reading
Marketing Due Diligence - Reconnecting strategy to share price by Malcom McDonald, Brian Smith and Keith Ward
We undertake a lot of commercial due diligence for PE & VC investors and it was interesting to find this book, which we hadn’t come across before. Originally published in 2007 its key as relevant today as it was then, if not more so. As one of the key exponents of the quantified value proposition you’d expect Malcolm McDonald to be a keen proponent for the creation of shareholder value by marketing activities. And he does not disappoint in this book. Fundamentally, the authors believe that marketing is very rarely treated as a proper investment, with the same standards, rigour and approaches that would apply for any other business investment. The authors pose a framework for evaluating and planning marketing investments around three key questions:
Does the promised market exist?
Will the strategy deliver the market share it promises?
Will that market share actually create shareholder value?
A great read for any marketer wanting to understand the key drivers of marketing as a true investment and achieve a far greater level of accountability for their marketing actions.