Action goals are a powerful but seldom-used technique for business goals that reduces employee anxiety while increasing performance results
Business Goals Will Never Feel the Same Again
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Articles in the "James Archer" Category
Marketing Fundamentals 2: Target Audience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwd2zDI5QvY We're talking about the three layers of marketing, and how you want to start at the bottom by helping your target audience solve a real problem with your unique product. Then, you want to design your customer experience...
Marketing Fundamentals 1: Overview
https://youtu.be/xpiC3c1WD7Y Entrepreneurs start out with a lot of misconceptions about how business really works, and that's understandable because nobody really ever teaches them. Marketing, in particular, is one of the least understood concepts by business owners....
This is Marketing in the Real World
I’m trying to teach businesses how marketing works in the real world. I've been involved in some kind of marketing at pretty much every point for the last quarter of a century—which kind of makes me contemplate my own mortality, but whatever. For about half that time,...
Using Content Marketing in a B2B Setting
Content marketing is a way of marketing that focuses on creating and sharing valuable content with your audience. The goal is to educate and engage your audience, so they'll want to buy your products or services. It can be used in a number of ways, but for B2B...
Don’t Let Your Marketing Get Lost in the Numbers
Measuring marketing isn’t easy, and there are plenty of challenges you’ll face when attempting to measure the effectiveness of marketing strategies and tactics. Some of the biggest challenges include:The difficulty of isolating the impact of marketing efforts:...
What’s the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?
There are a few reasons people can get confused about the difference between sales and marketing. One is that the words "sales" and "marketing" are often used interchangeably, and many people may not fully understand the distinct roles and responsibilities of each....
When Does Skim Pricing Make Sense?
Skim pricing is a pricing strategy in which a company sets a high initial price for a product or service, and then gradually lowers the price over time. This strategy is often used when introducing a new product or when there is a high level of demand for a product or...
Marketing Truths No One Will Admit
In a recent thread on /r/marketing, the question was asked, "What is something no one in marketing will admit, but is definitely true?" While some of the answers in the thread were obviously snarky or pessimistic, there were also several answers that held a lot of...
The Product Design Pyramid
If you make it to the top, you'll have one of the best and most delightful products in your market The product design and user experience design industries are full of vague phrases like "delightful experiences" without a lot of specifics about how to get there. Many...
Smart People Always Want to Mess This Up
Several weeks ago, my company released a new product: a tool that helps small service businesses with client follow-up. We did it very quietly, late one night after most of the department had gone home. A few of the product leaders made the decision, flipped the...
You Know Your Core Values—Now What?
So you’ve identified your core values and everyone’s excited about them. Now what?The powerful experience of identifying a company’s core values is too often followed by the unforgivable act of forgetting about them. People frankly just don’t know what to do with core...
Every Document is an Experience
One simple but helpful step is to stop thinking about your company’s operational documents as merely transactional tools.Every document your company produces is an opportunity to emphasize and clarify what your company is all about. Spec sheets, release notes,...
You Don’t Get Long Walks on the Beach with Your Customers
Products are complex, but consumers typically won’t invest the time required to truly explore and come to understand the intricacies of your product. They’re not lazy or superficial; most companies just don’t provide enough value for them to see the point in spending...
Don’t Talk About Your Positioning—Prove It
Customer experiences are almost always indirect. You don’t feel good because a company told you to feel good. You feel good because that company set up a scene that had the right feel-good elements.Every bank wants to think they’re “a different kind of bank,” yet...
What Ancient Greece Taught Us About Innovation
It’s a little disturbing to realize how much of what we do is simply imitation. If you start analyzing your business objectively, you’ll probably come to the (somewhat depressing) realizing that a lot of it is simply rehashed ideas and behaviors adopted from your...
Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing
It's easy to get whipped up into the hype of social media marketing. Maybe you're just getting started with a new brand account, or maybe you've just been put in charge of all the company's existing followers. Either way, here are some basic principles that'll help...
Why I Left the Agency World to Go Product-Side
There are basically three ways to be a designer: FreelanceAgencyIn-houseEach of those three worlds has its own unique complexities and challenges, and it can take some experience moving between them before you find where you belong.I’ve been on the agency side of the...
What’s Your Business Really All About?
“From the outside looking in, you can’t understand it. From the inside looking out, you can’t explain it.” (Roy Spence) Figuring out your company’s purpose is no easy task. There’s no formula for it. It’s subtle, and it takes a while to reveal it, identify it, and...
Clear Purpose, Clear Decisions
“Strategy without purpose is like kicking the ball to the goal post without knowing where the goal post is.” (Charles Prabakar) Business is a non-stop barrage of difficult decisions. Should we engage in this partnership? Should we take on this client? Should we accept...
The Power of the Purpose-Driven Company
Picture this: You’re standing in the middle of a beautiful meadow on a sunny day. In the middle of this meadow is a large, heavy rock. Your assignment is to move that rock. So, you tie a rope around it, and you start pulling to the north. It’s heavy, but you’re...
Purpose-Driven Companies Make More Money
“A real purpose can’t just be words on paper. It has to get under the skin of every member of your organization…. If you get it right, people will feel great about what they’re doing, clear about their goals, and excited to get to work every morning.”— Roy SpenceWhen...
After Money, then What?
At larger companies, the phrase “maximize shareholder value” has become a trite summary of what they believe is their core purpose. At smaller companies, it’s usually translated into plain English: “Make the owners a bunch of money.”If you dig deeper, the actual...
What’s Your Company’s Internal Compass?
One of the hardest questions we ask in our discovery workshops is also one of the simplest and most fundamental: “Why does your company exist?”You’d think most CEOs would have a ready (and passionate) response to that question, but most don’t. When asked that...
Six Hard Questions Every Business Owner Should Be Able to Answer
“Imagine if Walt Disney had conceived of his company’s purpose as to make cartoons, rather than to make people happy.” — Jim Collins Companies typically start with a clear purpose in mind, but over time they find themselves drifting away from it. They hire, fire, and...