Episode 1629 Scott Adams: Biden’s Disastrous Press Conference, Havana Syndrome, and More Ridiculousness

Episode 1629 Scott Adams: Biden’s Disastrous Press Conference, Havana Syndrome, and More Ridiculousness

Content:

  • COVID deaths under age 75 without a comorbidity?
  • Democrats fail to change filibuster rule
  • AG Letitia James “significant” evidence on Trumps
  • MKUltra project, controlling human mind
  • Misrepresentation of Voting Rights Act
  • Biden’s press conference and gaffs
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

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How to Build and Measure Brand Awareness

Studies show only 5% of B2B buyers are ready to buy right now. You can’t force the other 95% into a buying position by spamming them with nurture sequences.

When people are finally ready to make a purchase, your goal should be one of two things:

  1. Customers recall your brand, or at least; 
  2. They recognize you in a lineup of other brands.

If you haven’t invested in brand awareness marketing then the opposite will happen. Your audience will flock to brands with a strong reputation because they don’t associate you with their need.

In this article, you’ll learn what brand awareness marketing is and how to become the only obvious choice when the prospect is ready to buy.

What is brand awareness marketing, really? 

Brand marketing is the most powerful weapon in your growth arsenal. When done right, it works tirelessly to build your reputation

Brand is how you win in crowded markets. It’s what builds shortcuts to your solution in your customers’ minds when it comes time to decide which is right for them.

Brand awareness marketing is the way to accomplish that. It’s the sum of activities to help your brand become the instinctive choice for consumers.

Those strategies are built on two components: brand recognition and brand recall.

  • Brand recognition happens when your target audience recognizes your brand when they see it (even if they’ve never used your solution). This level of familiarity means you have successfully made it past “obscurity.” Your brand is now closer to being chosen when the need arises.
  • Brand recall goes a step further. It happens when a customer can name your brand when reminded of what you sell (aided recall) or without that reminder (unaided recall).

Brand awareness marketing’s most formidable opponent is direct response marketing. Direct response aims to generate immediate action by asking customers to do something. Brand awareness marketing aims to make your brand the name people think of first and trust above all others.

While direct response is still popular, it’s not what it used to be. 

  1. There’s too much competition today asking people to take action. Consumers need trust to drive decision-making and loyalty. 
  1. You’re not guaranteed to reach your customers when they need you. Hammering people who aren’t ready to buy with cold calls and nurture sequences isn’t likely to be profitable.

If you want to direct more of the 95% of consumers that aren’t yet ready to commit toward your brand and away from competitors, brand awareness marketing is the way to go.

Why should marketers care about brand awareness marketing?

To get more eyes on your brand and build trust, you must understand and communicate why you’re different. What makes you the right solution to a specific problem?

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out on qualities like features and customer service alone. Brand awareness solves this. Anyone can create a chatbot, but there’s only one Drift

Take Canva,…

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No One of Us Is as Smart as All of Us—Treat People as Partners

No One of Us Is as Smart as All of Us—Treat People as Partners

New Book Giveaway!

20 copies available!!

Leave a comment on this guest post by Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley to become eligible for one of 20 complimentary copies of their new book, “Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to be a Servant Leader and Build Trust.

Deadline for eligibility is 2/5/2022. International winners will receive electronic version.

Image of a meerkat smiling and looking at the screen. The people around you already know you don't know everything.Image of a meerkat smiling and looking at the screen. The people around you already know you don't know everything.

“No One of Us Is as Smart as All of Us” is a simple truth of leadership that is common sense—why isn’t it common practice?

Brains:

Some leaders think all the brains are in their office.

Self-serving leaders spend lots of time trying to prove they are in charge. They think it’s their job to look over everyone’s shoulder and check that things are being done ‘correctly’. Sadly, these leaders miss the reality that people are capable of much more than they are given credit for.

Trustworthy servant leaders let people bring their brains to work.

These leaders see team members as partners, not subordinates. They understand leadership is about working side-by-side with people, freely communicating and sharing information.

How can you encourage and strengthen high-performing teams?

Smarter together:

#1. Face the facts.

The people around you already know you don’t know everything.

People don’t buy it when you act like you have all the answers. They know you don’t. There’s no shame in admitting you aren’t perfect. In fact, it will demonstrate vulnerability and help you earn their trust.

#2. Ask for help.

When you have a problem to solve, let your people know you need their suggestions. Involving people in decision-making is smart—and the best way to respect people’s experience and insight.

#3. Respect contribution

Worried that some team members are thinking of joining the “Great Resignation”? Acknowledge their hard work and explain why their role in the company is important.

When people feel valued, they think less about jumping ship.

You know how much you need everyone on your team. So tell them. Treat them as partners. Let them know you value their strengths and their input. You’ll quickly realize it’s the best way to lead.

How might leaders treat people like partners?

Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley talk leadership with Dan Rockwell:

Listen to Ken and Randy talk about pivotal moments in their journey. Ken talks about Egos Anonymous.

Ken Blanchard/Randy Conley:

Ken Blanchard is the bestselling author or coauthor of more than 65 books including the iconic The One Minute Manager®, and Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies®. Randy Conley…

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Episode 1630 Scott Adams: There Is Lots of Juicy News Today. Come Enjoy it With a Beverage

Episode 1630 Scott Adams: There Is Lots of Juicy News Today. Come Enjoy it With a Beverage

Content:

  • Top issues concerning people
  • Our perfect election process needs fixing?
  • Who can’t figure out how to vote?
  • COVID restrictions being lifted
  • Why push Putin closer to China?
  • Fake News in the news today
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

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The Agency of the Future is Remote Working

When you think of an office, you’re probably picturing something like this:

Or if you’re feeling fancy (and worth billions of dollars) like Google is, so you’re thinking something like this: 

These days you can even think of an office as a rented, shared space like WeWork:

Thanks to 2021, more offices than ever before are looking like this, home offices that we’ve set up in the quietest corner of our homes:

Although let’s be realistic…how many of your home offices actually look like this:

Yep, I’m raising my hand too.

When you think about work in 2021 and beyond—we’re no longer just thinking of this:

We’re thinking about a hybrid or totally remote model:

And that changes how we build our agencies.

Our offerings and products can stay the same—but the way our agency works internally…can completely shift.

There are 3 organized models that you get to choose to run your agency from nowadays:

#1: Gig Model

Short-term tasks that can be managed by one, or at most, a handful of people. With the Gig Model, you’re the opposite of a stage 5 clinger. Your business runs project-to-project and you’re focused on excelling at each of those projects—and then moving on.

There’s no need for water stations or happy hours because your team is distributed. You’re entirely remote and all of your workers are freelancers. Chances are you’re the only person on your payroll.

This model works great for startups that can’t afford full-time employees yet and are still getting themselves off the ground.

#2: Corporate Model

Hire a team to work on long-term open-ended jobs that can last for years. This is what you picture when you think of an office—lots of computers and people. We’re thinking of water station conversations and in-person team happy hours (remember those?!).

This is how DigitalMarketer ran pre-March of 2020. We had some freelancers, but the majority of our workforce was in-person, full-time employees. And it worked!

This model used to be an inevitable transition once your business required some full-time staff. It usually starts by bringing on some sort of operations or marketer—and quickly turns into full-time HR people, office managers, and interns.

But there’s a model in-between that most of us have missed—and it wasn’t our fault. We missed it because pre-March of 2020…we just weren’t thinking this way.

We were all thinking home offices and gig workers → rented office space and full-time employees. That was success in terms of an agency. Especially if you could afford the *good* coffee and the fancy snacks for your team.

Having to figure out how to run our businesses entirely remotely for months and in some cases over a year has taught us that…

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How Managers Confront Us/them-thinking and Win

How Managers Confront Us/them-thinking and Win

Us/them-thinking comes naturally to everyone, even children. 

Imagine giving blue shirts to one group of children and yellow to another. Us/them-thinking will animate perception quickly. Children think my group is better than your group. One researcher proved this.

“Kids started to think the blue was different from the yellow,” Rebecca Bigler Ph.D., says. “What comes very quickly after that is, ‘the blues are better than the yellows.’”

Image of a fallen tree that rotted from within. 'We' cultures win. Us/them cultures rot from within.Image of a fallen tree that rotted from within. 'We' cultures win. Us/them cultures rot from within.

Us/them-thinking in life:

I worked in a group that was housed separate from the main division. I felt our group worked hard and delivered better results than the rest of the division. I lost the luxury of superiority when we were brought under the same roof. Those ‘bad’ people were actually talented hard-working colleagues.

We’re prone to illogical bias.

I asked a VP of Apple what people saw in him. Among other things, he said, “It doesn’t hurt that I’m 6’5”.” Research shows that, “… people hold implicit biases against short people.” Tall people are more likely than short people to be hired and promoted.

Us/them-thinking in organizations:

Us/them-thinking permeates organizational life. ‘Them’ tends to be bad. ‘Us’ tends to be good.

  1. Boss/employee.
  2. Corporate/local.
  3. Inexperience/experience.
  4. Old/young.
  5. Men/women.
  6. Government/citizens.
  7. Republican/Democrat.
  8. Parents/teachers.
  9. White/black.
  10. Tall/short.
  11. Union/management.
  12. My team/your team.

Denying the reality of us/them-thinking propagates irrational decisions.

Leaders are suffocated by us/them-thinking every day. Suppose you’re charged to integrate two teams, for example. ‘Them’ is the enemy. ‘Us’ is the good people.

How managers confront us/them-thinking and win:

  1. Acknowledge us/them thinking is unfair, irrational, and adversarial.
  2. Agree on shared meaningful goals. Work for mutual benefit.
  3. Establish cross-functional leadership. When one loses, we all lose.
  4. Embrace ‘we’-talk. Words are rudders.
  5. Institute cross-dependencies that require ‘we’ behaviors to win.
  6. Promote people who practice ‘we’ behaviors.
  7. Have leaders from one team honor members of the other team.

‘We’ cultures win. Us/them cultures rot from within.

Where do you see us/them-thinking in your organization?

How might leaders confront us/them-thinking and win?

Added resources:
5 Essentials of Culture Building

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Episode 1631 Scott Adams: Lots of Spicy Takes on the News Today. You’ll Love it

Episode 1631 Scott Adams: Lots of Spicy Takes on the News Today. You’ll Love it

Content:

  • Elite plan to depopulate the world?
  • J6 new info absolves President Trump
  • Why the world needs to protect Ukraine
  • New Mississippi anti-racism law
  • Feb1 progress report
  • Patriot Front’s new fake video
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

 

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