Because the four moments of truth explored in WTF not only define the modern customer journey, the link between the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) and what I call the Ultimate Moment of Truth (UMOT) is more influential today than when the book originally published?
Big company CEOs get paid ridiculous amounts of money, but the good ones also do something that most of us avoid.
They make decisions.
In fact, that’s pretty much the core of the job. Whether to shut a plant, open a store, create a division, invest in a new technology…
That’s the part that creates the most value.
When we go to work, most of us simply go to work. We do our jobs, respond to the incoming, hone our craft, make some sales.
The decisions get put off or ignored altogether.
And yet it’s the strategic decisions that can change the arc of our career and our job satisfaction as well.
Here’s a simple list of questions: What are the five big decisions on your desk right now? Would others in your position have a different list? How much of your day is spent learning what you need to know to make those decisions? And can you make them all by Tuesday?
While I have never been a CMO myself, I do have a lot of real-world marketing (and advertising) experience, I was a featured writer for the CMO Network of Forbes for nearly 10 years, I have interviewed well over 2,000 leaders just like yourself, I coach and counsel CMOs and I have very close relationships with many of your peers.
So while having never served in the role per se, I know the role quite intimately. I know of the struggles and challenges you go through on a daily basis. I know all about the daily ride you go on. Boy, do I ever.
Ok, just wanted to set the table for those who I have not had the pleasure of getting to know. I like to joke that I collect CMOs like I used to collect sports cards. As a kid, my brother Greg and I spent arguably just slightly less than the GNP of Sri Lanka on football, baseball, basketball, and hockey cards.
Of course, none of said cards still exist today else my brother and I would be living in the lap of luxury in, well, Sri Lanka.
A summary of Brian Solis’ keynote presentation at the recent Martechvibe Fest event in South Africa by Suparna Dutt DCunha
People keep saying it: everything has changed. As the days spent in our homes blur together, outside in the world of marketing, huge shifts in consciousness are happening.
The pandemic is teaching marketers not just to be digital, but to use it to bring new experiences that are more intuitive, productive, efficient and exciting for customers, and also be empathetic, according to Brian Solis, the global Innovation evangelist at Salesforce. Speaking on Day 2 of the Vibe Martech Fest South Africa about the new role of integrated marketing and CX in a novel economy, he said, “The novel economy is the term I came up with to describe the new normal. It’s not an old new normal, it’s not necessarily a new normal, it’s a future without a playbook yet.”
The virtual office skeptic says, “we can’t go fully remote, because the serendipity of personal connection is too important.” The theory goes that watercooler conversations and elevator encounters add up to an emotional bond. Add to that the happy coincidence of overhearing a conversation where you have something to add or seeing something on a colleague’s screen, and the case is made for bringing people back to a building.
Of course, what it overlooks is that in any building with more than 200 square feet of space, you’re only bumping into a tiny fraction of the people who work there. If they’re on another floor, or across the street, they might as well be in another country for all the serendipity that happens.
CEO of Photofy John Andrews considers how collaboration with your employees could make your digital content sing…
Digital marketing today is a crowded arena. It’s become the primary tool for marketers in terms of dollars spent. But as spending has increased, saturation and diminishing returns have occurred at an alarming rate. There’s simply a finite amount of human attention and too much noise. More dollars continue to flow into programmatic media all seeking to reach the right shopper with the right message at the right time… in the fastest and easiest way possible.
No thank you… is that really so hard to say? I get that people are busy, and that we all get a little overwhelmed sometimes from all the marketing that we see. But if we’ve got a long-standing relationship and I’m reaching out with an offer, a favor for a friend, someone looking for a job, or just to run something by you, then I would really, really like to see a response other than pure silence. Wouldn’t you? Occasionally a call, email, or bit of social outreach simply slips through the cracks. I get that. But you should make an effort to respond. It doesn’t have to be a yes, but anything is better than crickets!
Buzzing off those results you secured for your company? Feeling confident? Maybe even a little self-important? Time to check yourself people.
Ever work with someone who always had all the answers, even if they weren’t paying any attention to the questions? Have you ever been that person? It’s human nature for success to breed confidence; however, allowing that confidence to veer into arrogance is a dangerous thing in business and marketing. It’s hard to build a team-first culture when key members of the team think they are above the rules and above the rest of the group. And when a whole team becomes arrogant, success gives way to complacency. Beware of these risks at every level of your business.
When confidence turns sour
It’s hard to overstate how important confidence is to success, and how easy it is for confidence to become arrogance. It can grow from little things. Maybe you contributed a big idea to the project but felt that you didn’t get enough credit. Or maybe you got too much credit. Perhaps you see the positive trajectory of the team you’re a part of and overstate your part in it. It’s OK to be proud of your work and to foster pride in teamwork, but when that morphs into feelings of superiority, your whole team can start assuming that past results guarantee future success.
“A confident, level-headed leader knows that arrogance is bad for business, and that times of success are when they need to temper confidence.
No matter where it originates, arrogance is bad for business. A confident, level-headed leader knows this, and knows that times of success are when they need to temper confidence. You want team members to feel they’ve contributed, but not that they are more valuable than the rest of the team. As a leader or a team member, you also need to check yourself constantly, to make sure you’re not sowing the seeds of over-confidence in your business and marketing.
It’s important to stay vigilant because arrogance can destroy a successful business or team from the inside. When one team member feels they’re more important than the rest and their attitude goes unchecked, suddenly the rest of the team may not be so willing to engage and share their own ideas. An arrogant team member is willing to sacrifice the good of the whole to continue to feel important.
It starts with you
Of course, this isn’t just a risk for teams. It’s also something that we all must address on a personal level. When you come up with a great idea, put in the work to bring it to reality, and see your idea lead to success for your business, of course you should be feeling confident! However, stay humble and don’t let complacency creep in or the damage can escalate. You feel the confidence of success, so maybe next time around you put in a little less effort and expect to get the same results. Then, what happens when that lesser effort doesn’t lead to the results you hoped? Well, it’s got to be someone else’s fault, right? Arrogance might tell you to look outside of yourself and place blame, when the real problem is much closer to home.
Practice self-reflection
The cure for arrogance is a willingness to look at your actions through a lens of humility. Honest self-evaluation can be hard, but it’s incredibly valuable. In good times and bad, it starts with asking: How can I do a better job? No matter how well you and your team are doing, there is always room for improvement. Just as importantly, no matter how well something has worked in the past, there’s no guarantee that it will continue to be the best thing for your business moving forward. The old saying that “pride goeth before the fall” is true! People who take a step back and reflect periodically, often find more ways to improve their performance than their self-important colleagues.
Beware the dangers of pride and arrogance in business. You never want to feel like you have ‘arrived’ – no matter how well things are going, how hard you worked to contribute to that success, and how much your team values your input. Confidence is a powerful, positive thing, but only when it’s tempered by a healthy dose of humility.
The following is my comment and viewpoint. Unfortunately very few HBR contributors engage commenters…
In my opinion Blockchain Technology does nothing to solve this problem. It’s NOT a technology problem, it’s a marketing/sales mindset problem.
It’s the marketers who value this bombarding of consumers, and use of programmatic ads… they have the ability/technology to stop, they simply don’t want to. Every marketer can see a campaign had a 1.5% industry average click rate, they don’t need blockchain to know it’s 98.5% spam – and… consumers share their data now without blockchain, it’s just so many marketers are not JUST lazy… they only interested in what they deem the ‘additional” sale. For the most part they don’t care how many times they need to knock you over the head.
They only look at the upsides of bombarding consumers, they do not take the time, or have the inclination, to take the downside into account. Until they do, there is no technology that will make a significant difference.
The red sole of a Louboutin shoe, or the elegant tag on a pair of Tom’s? The sweeping fenders of a Porsche 911 or the needless complications of a fancy watch…
Today, a certain kind of customer is using a Muji notebook, or wearing a plain Everlane t-shirt. Is this what we’ve come to? One might come to the conclusion that consumers have rejected all the effort that designers and marketers have produced in a statement that rejects design. Not so fast.
