Author: Sarah Welstead

I dare you not to love this

I admit that I went into this ad prepared to roll my eyes.  “Why can’t they just do after-school specials and Judy Blume books like they did when I was a kid?” I thought to myself. 

And then I laughed my head off. 

I don’t even think you have to be a woman or the mother of a daughter to love this.  

You know, I’ve secretly been making fun of all the advertising types in Cannes this week, droning on about one must always strive for The Big Idea and how we must, at all costs, be Creative, but sometimes, when it all comes together like this, you realize they’re right.

Just because you’re pushing a stroller doesn’t mean you’re not interesting

^{Roslyn Costanzo of Style Forage, looking more sophisticated at the park than I ever will}

Here’s something they don’t tell you about new(ish) motherhood:  It’s hard to make mom-friends.  Oh, you interact with mums of babies and toddlers all over the place – at drop-in, at the park, at baby music classes – but half the time one of you is harassed or sleep-deprived or rushing to get to a food source before baby goes nuclear.  Or, 10 minutes into a nice chat, the other mum says something like “I’ve been using fish oil as a substitute for vaccinations – I’m just so worried about Bobby getting autism”, and suddenly it’s like you’re reliving every traumatizing blind date with a nutjob you ever had.

So you can imagine how nice it was when, yesterday at the park, I met a mum who met my standards for laid-back-ness (she didn’t seem fazed when Fiona, spotting apple slices at 50 paces, took up residence on her picnic blanket until the apples were well and truly eaten). Forced to speak at some length due to the apple situation, it emerged that Roslyn – for that was her name – is, like me, doing a lot of freelance writing while she’s at home with her 3-year-old.  She does glamorous PR/bylined articles while I do a lot of (much less glamorous) ghosting, but still.  Anyone who writes for a living is fine by me.  Well, except maybe Dan Brown.

Anyhow, I checked out her blog today and found a great piece on how – and why – even the most stylish of mums so often slip into a 24/7 yoga-pants-and-tank-top uniform that can be difficult to shake.  (I myself have 4 pairs of black leggings on constant rotation at the moment, and it’s hard to believe I ever wore high heels 5 days a week.)

I may never see Roslyn again (especially now that she probably thinks I’m a stalker for Googling her after a chance meeting in the park), but in the meantime it was a good reminder that there are plenty of interesting newish mums out there, even if they’re hiding their lights under bushels of well-worn black spandex. 

Not to be overly dramatic about it, or anything

As some of you may know, I’ve done a fair amount of work for clients in the recruiting industry, and I’ve been talking about the importance of personal branding vis a vis career growth for a long time.

But I want to be clear:  For most people – people who have regular jobs, and aren’t looking to become independent consultants or start a business – personal branding doesn’t mean you have to create your own website and blog every day or amass a legion of Twitter followers.  It’s really just about doing two things:

1. Creating a personal narrative.  This is the ‘story’ about yourself that explains how your education, experience and skills come together to make you a perfect for X role or X career.  It’s what you say when people ask you what you do for a living or what you want to do for a living; it’s what you say when you’re networking with people who may be able to give you your next big opportunity; it’s the narrative that helps you map out a career path and make choices about your next career move. Remember:  People don’t have time to figure out how your teaching certificate, project management experience and passion for great design make you perfect for a job as Director of Training.  You need to be able to explain it to them, confidently and concisely.
2. Making yourself visible and interesting.  Have you ever logged in to LinkedIn, seen a status update or post from one of your connections and thought:  “Gee, Bob always seems to be doing something new. He must be doing well”?  Maybe Bob has an interesting LinkedIn Summary; maybe he’s uploaded a presentation he made at a conference; maybe he just posted a link to an interesting article with a witty comment.  It doesn’t matter which – Bob’s keeping himself top-of-mind, establishing himself as someone who’s engaged with his work and his industry, and making himself look smart and connected.  All of these things are good for his career, because the next time someone has an opportunity in his field, guess who they’re going to think of first?  

(BTW, if you’re in a role where you create a lot of presentations, whitepapers or other materials, you really should be posting them on LinkedIn.  It’s not only a good way to keep track of all the great work you’ve done, it also increases the chances that a recruiter will find you the next time they have an opportunity and search LinkedIn for candidates.)

Still not convinced?  The infographic below does a good job of explaining why branding yourself is good for your career.

Continuing our focus on infographics this month…

Came across this infographic from Leverage New Age Media this morning and thought it was a great overview and comparison of 6 of the top social media networks.

However, I would encourage you not to get too fixated on the total active users numbers as the bottom of each one:  It says that Pinterest has only 20 million active users (which I think is low), but we know that Pinterest users are particularly passionate, and spend hours of time flitting around Pinterest, so the potential to do a deep dive with the target audience is greater than on some other networks.  We also know that while Google+ claims a lot of active monthly users, they’re also including in those numbers anyone who watches a YouTube video via their G+ account or logs into a blog comment field with G+, or even just checks Gmail once in a while.  So it may be a lot harder to reach those users than it seems.

Anyway, another infographic to brighten your Sunday.

Your competitive set may be a lot different than you think.

Years ago, when I was young and stupid and working for a big advertising agency, I was a junior ween on a team pitching a big campaign to a packaged goods company.  We spent weeks on a flashy presentation, packed the room with black turtleneck-wearing hipsters, and did the elaborate agency tapdance.  We had feelers out at the 3 other shops we knew were in the running and were certain we’d totally outperformed them in every way.

We didn’t get the business.  Neither did any of the other agencies.  It went to a couple of guys we’d never heard of who’d done some super-creative spec work and offered the client a whole set of commercials for less than we’d budgeted for a single spot.  The client, sick unto death of high-octane presentations that always promised more than big agencies ever delivered, decided to take a risk with the unknowns.

These days, I’m on the other side of the equation:  Half the time I get a new client, it’s because some marketing/design company pitched them on a website that was going to cost  $30,000 and take 3 months to build, with an incremental $1500 tacked on for connecting their Twitter feed to their Facebook page.  Sooner or later, the client expresses their incredulity to someone else, who says “Why don’t you just call Sarah, because she can at least tell you if that’s realistic.”

99.9% of the time, the other company – my competitor – has never even heard of me, let alone considered me part of their competitive set.

 

A different economy means different choices

People – clients, customers, employees, stakeholders – are all trying to do more with less, while trying to look like rockstars. So they have to make choices, and they’re rarely as simple as choosing one brand over another.  If an individual has $100 to spend on something personal, for example, they’re not choosing between one brand of jeans or another – they’re choosing between jeans or an evening out.  If an organization has $1 million to spend on growing sales, they’re not just choosing between one marketing partner and another.  They’re choosing between marketing, infrastructure, new CRM software or even a whole new product offering.

And customers may not see your competitive set the same way you do.  In the situation I described above, we naively assumed that the client was only going to consider other ‘big agencies’ – but they were looking at a much broader set of possibilities.

Defining your competitive set

Fully understanding just who and what you’re competing against for your customers’ time and money has a lot to do with your industry, price point, and proposition, but asking these questions will help you get a better handle on what your competitive set looks like:

• Are you selling a commodity where customers can compare apples to apples?  Or a service which has all kinds of different variables?
• What do your customers have to give up in order to purchase your product (i.e. if they spend money on your product/service, what will they have to forego buying)?
• When you lose business, who are you losing it to?  Is it the same couple of companies, or a wide variety?
• Who do your customers see as your competitors?  Are you sure about that?
• What is the end result/benefit of buying your product?  What are the other ways a client could get to that result/benefit?

BONUS TIP:  Try pretending you’re a potential customer and Google some of the search terms you’d use if you were looking for a supplier.  The stuff that comes up that you thought had nothing to do with your product or service is a good way to start thinking laterally about your competition.