The Conduit Theory in Practice - Speaker Willie Brown

Blog Update #678
Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The Conduit Theory in Practice - Speaker Willie Brown

Willie Brown, the former speaker of the California Assembly, never intended to have a political career when he was born. Brown was raised in a backwater town named Mineola, Texas, in 1934, a time when Texas and the South were not particularly conducive to the career dreams of African Americans. To find a better path, his family packed Brown on a train from Texas all the way to California. There, with the help of a professor, Brown found his calling at a state University and earned a law degree from the prestigious U.C. Hastings. However, he was yet to prove his greatest accomplishment.

In 1964, after a second try, Brown gained a seat in the California Assembly. There, he learned simply being unique didn't get him much. He had to learn how to be a useful broker. In that respect, Brown quietly learned from his legislative tutors like Jesse Unruh and Philip Burton how to become a pivot point, a conduit between the many who want something and those with power. Positioning through legislative committees, Brown went from being a name in the Assembly to eventually to becoming its Speaker, one of the top five positions in state government. Brown held that chair for fifteen years, only to then retire and become the mayor of San Francisco in his later years.

Becoming A Conduit Point

For a business, Willie Brown's story is an illustrative one; you don't have to be biggest, most powerful player on the market to become instrumental. Brown, as an African American politician in the 1960s, was clearly not in the position to leapfrog right away to leadership or the Governor's office. However, he did find a position that everyone needed and had to go through to get something. By identifying how and becoming a conduit point, Brown secured his future, which is what successful businesses do in their market.

A conduit point isn't just limited to being between end retail customers and suppliers. Conduit businesses can easily do the same in the business-to-business market as well, often producing far greater revenues than they would on the retail side of things. However, positioning can be a challenge. One needs to see the entire market, not just a segment of it. Getting to the forest level instead of the weeds allows a business player to identify all the connection points and where being a conduit has the greatest potential for producing revenue. It also shows what is needed to be successful in that particular position. Sometimes some potential conduits are too challenging, and others may offer too little in reward for the effort. Picking the right market position takes some experience, which means a business needs to research well and study peers, suppliers, buyers, competitors, and middlemen. No one in a given market should be left out.

Willie Brown was an intensive study of his legislative peers, which is why he was able to position himself so well. He also took lessons from those more powerful than him rather than fighting them, using that knowledge to become one of the powerful ones himself. A growing business can learn a thing or two from his life example.

What You Need to Know About Facebook's New Mix Modeling Portal

Blog Update #672
Tuesday, February 21, 2017

What You Need to Know About Facebook's New Mix Modeling Portal

We've written extensively in the past about how when it comes to digital and print marketing, you're not looking at an either/or proposition. Often, businesses of all sizes are finding great success embracing the best of both worlds - reaching out to the customers who are most receptive to print channels via traditional methods and using digital resources when they're most appropriate. We've even written about how you can take the lessons learned online and use them to make your print strategies even stronger.

We're not the only people who share this opinion; it would seem. Facebook has recently launched a mixed marketing portal designed to make it easier than ever for businesses to compare Facebook-based advertisements to television, print, and other types of collateral. While this does mean big things for people using Facebook as an advertising platform, what it means for print marketers is even more interesting. 

What Facebook is Doing

The social networking giant's mix modeling portal for marketers is a significant extension of an existing partnership. Over the course of the past few years, Facebook has teamed with Nielsen (the people who tell you how many people watch the Super Bowl each year, among other things), comScore (the people who focus on digital, TV and movie analytics), DoubleVerify (a company that aims to "authenticate the quality of each digital media impression"), and others. This has all been done to provide clear metrics on how far a Facebook ad reaches, how many impressions it gets, its ultimate performance, and more.

For advertisers that rely heavily on Facebook, this means that they now have access to twenty-four different third party measurement partners to track the performance of their ads around the world, see how their ads are comparing against similar ads running in the world of print and more.

For print-based marketers, this also thankfully means that the reverse is true, too.

What This Means For You

Even if you don't heavily advertise on Facebook, this new model is still something to pay close attention to because of the metrics at play. It's another example of the ever-important concept of "pay attention to what is working online and use it to strengthen the foundation of your print campaigns." Thanks to Facebook, this just got a whole lot easier.

By giving advertisers the ability to compare a successful Facebook ad to other elements of their campaign like print, people who DO happen to be heavy print advertisers can essentially come in from the opposite angle and learn just as much. It's all a matter of perspective - the marketing mix modeling portal can be used to look at one of your successful print ads, compare it to ads that are running on Facebook and use that actionable information to feed back into the print campaign to help achieve your desired outcomes. 

Print and digital advertising have historically been measured in very different ways, but thanks to Facebook we just took a big leap closer to a uniform standard that can be used in both situations. You can use the Facebook MMM Portal to see how impressions reach and other metrics translate into the real world and back again.  

Making Sense of Paper Coating: How it Affects Your Efforts and What You Need to Know

Blog Update #665
Friday, January 27, 2017

Making Sense of Paper Coating: How it Affects Your Efforts and What You Need to Know

A lot has been written about the effectiveness of print marketing versus digital marketing - so much so, that we're not going to get into it here. It's safe to say that both have their fair share of advantages and when used effectively, can compliment one another very nicely. There is one major benefit that print marketers have that their digital brethren don't share - the paper itself.

People like to feel something in their fingers when they read it or consume it. One of the biggest contributors of that phenomenon is paper coating. Knowing how it affects what you're trying to accomplish is one of the keys to making the best possible paper decisions moving forward.

The Role of Coating in Marketing

We've already covered paper stock, along with how that stock affects someone's initial impression of a piece of marketing collateral. Making an effort to select the right type of stock can have a significant affect on the way someone experiences your marketing materials for the first time. Another contributing factor, however, is the coating - or the lack thereof.

When paper is coated, it's treated with a compound or polymer to make sure that the finished product has certain qualities that weren't initially present. Paper can be used to give your flyer a subtle sheen or surface gloss, for example, or it can even take a thinner piece of paper and make it feel thicker in someone's hands. It can be used to make a rougher piece of paper feel smooth, or even reduce the way that ink is absorbed when someone runs their fingers across it.

The coating is introduced onto paper stock using an offset press through a process that varies depending on exactly what type of coating you're talking about. Semi-gloss coating, for example, is often called "UV" coating because the paper itself is coated with a high gloss under intense UV lights.

The Many Types of Coatings to Choose From

Just as was true with paper stock, you have a broad range of different options available to you when it comes to coatings depending on what you're trying to accomplish. These include, but are certainly not limited to, ones like:

Matte Paper.
If the coating on paper was like the paint in your home, think of matte like a flat paint. It produces a high-quality result, but the coating itself does little to help those colors pop in the way you might need it to.

Glossy Paper.
To continue with the "house paint" analogy, glossy paper would be like semi-gloss paint. It introduces a beautiful sheen into the finished product, but it isn't necessarily super shiny like a mirror.

Coated paper.
If you've ever seen a piece of paper that was very, very shiny, you were looking at a piece of coated paper. This is commonly referred to as C2S paper, which is short for "coated (on) 2 sides."

In the end, paper coating requires you to add a new dimension to your thinking concerning your print marketing collateral. You can't just think about the impression you make when someone sees your next flyer or brochure - you need to think about the impression you give off when they feel it, too. Do you want something super shiny, or would something with a more traditional sheen do? The answer, as always, will depend on exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish.

5 Ballet Business Lessons You Should Make a Point to Learn

	Blog Update #648 - Tuesday, November 29, 2016     5 Ballet Business Lessons You Should Make a Point to Learn Business has quite a few things in common with ballet. Ballet is just as demanding as business, although in other ways. To succeed as a ballet dancer, one must put in a lot of hours of practice. To succeed in business, one must put in a lot of hours of work. For both, plans and dances must be executed in a precise way or the result will not be ideal. Because of these similarities, several things can be learned from ballet that can be applied to business. 1. Create Your Individual Style Although there are basic components of ballet that ring true, someone who develops their individual style and dares to try new things is someone who will go further than an individual who sticks to only the basic rules. The same is true in business. If you want to succeed, you must stand out from the crowd. Find your own path that is unique to your goals even though you will be utilizing the same building blocks as everyone else. 2. Continue Learning Throughout Your Career A great ballet dancer never stops learning new techniques and new dances. They simply cannot stop after they have learned only one dance and be successful. In business, this is also true. You must continue to seek out education. Whether it is another degree or simply a class to help you hone in on a skill set, you should never stop trying to learn more and improve your abilities. 3. Practice Makes Perfect In ballet, perfection is valued and coveted. To reach this kind of perfection, dancers will practice for days, weeks, months, and years on end. They understand that they have to practice to get better and one day achieve that perfection they desire. In business, the same is true. You may have success the first time you do something, but more often than not, you will have to try again. If you believe in a business idea, keep trying and practicing until you get it right. Practice does, after all, make perfect. 4. Know There is a Place and a Role for Everyone In a ballet dance that involves multiple people, there is a role for everyone to play. Not everyone can be the main dancer, even if they want to be. Someone has to play the supporting role. In business, it is important to understand this because the same is true. Even if you want to be the top dog on a project or in a company, you have to understand that sometimes you simply have to play another important role. 5. Develop and Build Trust Trust is a huge component of ballet, especially if you are dancing with a partner. If the two partners do not trust each other, it will be apparent, and the dance will not be as beautiful. In business, it is equally as important to trust your partner. Otherwise, you may not give much effort to the project, or you may hold back and cause the business to suffer. Build trust with those you work with and the business will prosper. Choose not to trust, and it can crumble, just like a ballet routine. There are several parallels between ballet and business. These lessons learned in the ballet circuit are important because they strengthen the dancer. Learn from these lessons, and you will become a stronger individual in the business world as well.

Warning: Are You Accidentally Shattering Your Brand Continuity?

	Blog Update #644 - Tuesday, November 15, 2016 Warning: Are You Accidentally Shattering Your Brand Continuity? At its core, brand continuity is the idea that all communication channels between your brand and your customers (live chat, email, phone calls, etc.) should all look and feel like they're coming from the same place. It's the idea that you should strive to give your customers an experience that is as consistent as possible, regardless of how they choose to make contact with you. Successful brand continuity requires you to strike a delicate balance, and if you're not careful, there are a few ways that you can accidentally shatter all that you've worked so hard to build even before you realize you have a problem. It's All in the Visuals One of the more subtle ways to build and maintain brand continuity is also one of the most important, mainly because it can be the easiest to get wrong. You have to make sure that all of your branding from the version of your company logo to things as seemingly insignificant as the font you use are as consistent as possible, regardless of which element of your online and offline presence you're using. If a version of your company logo is present on your website's "Help Desk" page, it should be the same version of the logo sent out in your latest email or print marketing materials. Don't use professional-looking fonts on your website if you're going to be using Comic Sans MS on your print materials. You may initially think that this is incredibly easy to miss and in many respects, you're right. Customers aren't necessarily paying attention to every last visual element on a page versus a flyer versus a billboard. But, think about it this way: the ones that do notice may be put-off or at least find it odd, which is a feeling you do not want to invoke. Those that don't notice will still benefit from your strict brand continuity, even if subconsciously. Getting Everyone on the Same Page Another way that you can accidentally shatter brand continuity has to do with getting everyone on the same page regarding how your business works. If your website is very clear about one particular policy but your customer service team isn't, you're immediately confusing customers every time they pick up the phone. This confusion is especially evident regarding promotions. If an email goes out offering a new sale, you'd better make sure that anyone who answers the phones for your business knows about it and knows what it entails. Otherwise, your customers may get a disappointing experience when it feels like the left hand is unaware of what the right hand is doing, so to speak. It gives the impression that the different parts of your business are operating independently of one another, which is something you don't want to communicate to prospective buyers. These are just a couple of ways that you can accidentally harm your brand continuity. Remember, you can never be 100% sure how someone is going to make contact with your business, especially for the first time. So, make sure however they encounter you, it's equally easy, enjoyable, and helpful.

Moving On Is Not Giving Up

	Blog Update #643 - Friday, November 11, 2016 Moving On Is Not Giving Up No business professional in history has ever had a perfect record. Though you only set goals for you and your team with the absolute best of intentions, sometimes you may find yourself coming up short. Everyone from our parents to our teachers to our mentors has told us over and over again to "never give up, never surrender," when sometimes, you have to do exactly that. The key to coming out all the better for it involves knowing how to identify that moment of surrender when it does arrive, and how to best handle what comes immediately after. Look for the Signs The best way to know when to move on from an objective in the world of business involves taking a moment to observe the world around you. How much time have you spent trying to accomplish this task? How much money have you expended trying to do this one particular thing? Would that time, money, and energy be better served if it were reallocated elsewhere within your organization? At a certain point, you will start to feel diminishing returns. You've put your all into something and success is still just as far away as it was when you started. When you have that moment of clarity, the best thing you can do is look deep inside yourself. Do you really believe that you can pull off the challenge in front of you, or do you just hope that you can? If you fall into the latter category, it may be time to move on. Moving On Doesn't Mean You've Failed The most important thing to understand about when you should move on from an objective you just can't quite accomplish has to do with what happens next. If you set a goal for yourself and come up short of that mark, a lot of things have happened -but failure is not one of them. You can choose to look at it that way if you'd like, but doing so actually limits the power of the moment you have in front of you. Maybe the objective you set wasn't the right objective in the first place, and everything leading up to this point has been trying to tell you that. It's a scenario you can see time and time again with some of the most successful companies in the history of business. Apple, for example, had been set on releasing a smartphone for years - or at least a "smartphone" as per the definition of that term in 2005. Steve Jobs and his team tried, and tried and tried again, and eventually released something called the ROKR E1, a phone designed in conjunction with Motorola that was basically a regular phone with iTunes connectivity built in. The results were disastrous - a rare black mark on Apple's otherwise top notch record. Jobs had set a goal for himself and had failed to accomplish it the way he wanted. But instead of saying "Apple and phones are not meant for each other," he thought differently. He realized that what he really failed to do was find the right hardware company to partner with to achieve this goal. He realized that by handling both the hardware and the software in-house, he could get at what he really wanted in the first place. Apple would go on to release the iPhone less than two years later and the rest, as they say, is history. In the End When you set goals for yourself, you always do so with the best of intentions. Remember that Albert Einstein's definition of insanity was "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Sometimes, you need to know when to try harder and when to try something else. However, moving on doesn't mean that you're a failure - it just means that you've cleared away the cobwebs, reassessed your priorities, and are ready to redirect that energy into something much more positive and appropriate.

The Powerful Influence Of Coffee

	Blog Update #640 - Tuesday, November 1, 2016 The Powerful Influence Of Coffee Does it ever seem as if you can't move another step forward without your favorite drink in hand? Coffee fuels many a creative mind in any industry. Whether you are an early morning coffee drinker or need a cup mid-afternoon to reboot your sluggish mind, coffee culture does pair with many of the best developments in business. You might even be the person who has to have a cup of coffee in hand all day long. Here are some coffee thoughts to help you jumpstart your day or keep it going into the wee hours of the morning when you are cramming for a deadline. Quotes about Coffee "I believe humans get a lot done, not because we're smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee." - Flash Rosenberg "Actually, this seems to be the basic need of the human heart in nearly every great crisis — a good hot cup of coffee." — Alexander King "Without my morning coffee, I’m just like a dried up piece of roast goat." - Johann Sebastian Bach "I never laugh until I've had my coffee." - Clark Gable "As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move, similes arise, the paper is covered. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle." - Honore de Balzac “I don't really like coffee, she said, but I don't really like it when my head hits my desk when I fall asleep either.” - Brian Andreas “Come on, don't you ever stop and smell the coffee?” - Justina Chen, North of Beautiful Coffee Influence in Our Culture and Lives Have you ever sat down and thought about how much coffee has infiltrated our culture and daily lives? Coffee is present at every meeting, event, gathering or celebration. It is a staple in good times and bad and helps stimulate conversation, ease communication, and calm people in the face of the unknown. It is so embedded in our lives that we often take having coffee on hand for granted. Would you ever have a work meeting without coffee for visitors? And don't you offer every visitor coffee when they arrive? There is an excellent article on the Scientific American blog (http://bit.ly/2eLnuIQ), "The Culture of Coffee Drinkers," that discusses the influence of coffee throughout history and in modern times. With the proliferation of Starbucks coffee shops throughout major cities, coffee shops have become meeting places for entrepreneurs, writers, company reps and corporate CEOs who want to meet away from the office. Gourmet coffees have become commonplace. Using Coffee to Improve Customer and Employee Relationships It may seem like a "no-brainer," but coffee can be used as a tool to connect with both employees and customers in your shop or office, and it doesn't cost much for you to do so. Whether you send your assistant on a coffee run, or have a Keurig in your office for each person to make their own cup, sharing a "cup of joe" will help facilitate discussions about difficult jobs, employee discipline, and new contracts.