The article is a new format that I want to try to maintain. It combines diary entries, reminders, venting, and epiphanies I experienced during the week. This week was very busy. I had an on-site meeting with a client to review 2015 and plan for 2016, and many of the following were reminders of key things to remember.
- Thank your analytics team. The Analytics team is the people who show that what you are doing is working. We included the Analytics consultant in the planning meeting, and he added several suggestions to test and ways to parse the data. By the end of the meeting, he had created a new dashboard that showed the process immediately.
- Thank your IT Team – Same with analytics – none of the needed changes are made without these guys. Most meetings start with the following: What is the business value of doing this over another? They can better integrate it if they are integrated into the strategic planning and can see making SEO efforts with or instead of another development function. In these meetings, with the dead of development and a developer, both provided significant input and saw the missing opportunity due to not having changes made. Follow up: Within a week of this meeting, four items over 18 months old were implemented – show them the money and don’t forget to give them the credit and thank them!
- You have to play the game – You can give great recommendations but you have to fit into other agendas. The basic “what’s in it for me” has to be top of mind, and you must ensure you understand how to motivate and incentivize people to move your agenda forward.
- Patience is a Virtue – One of the changes that the Dev team implemented was a change that was on the task list for over 4 years. There was one content change that I suggested in our first meeting.. Finally, 4 years later, the change was made
- Performance, Performance, Performance – Most of the reason some of these recommendations and strategy plans were implemented due to the performance of the programs. As one manager told me, “Performance Talks and Bullshit Walks” – and the more you can prove incremental performance, the more of the changes will be implemented.
- Get one to demo and the others will follow – A portfolio company like P&G has dozens of companies in the same category. I find that if I can find one of them that is struggling, has a smaller budget, or an aggressive manager, they are often willing to give Search a try. Once you have a winning case study they all will want to join. We frequently forget this – it goes with patience that we must take time to find the first prime hunting grounds and then use performance to bait in the other brands.
- Understand what motivates people – Along with knowing how to play the game, you have to understand what motivates your contacts. Are they looking for a new job or promotion, and this project will help them get either? If you can fit into their agenda and help move them forward, you are more likely to get things done.
What I watched
This was an interesting video about understanding how people view change. They make big changes or lots of incremental changes.
