Category: Books

Episode 168

Memes act as our collective memory’s transportation system. The instant they are seen or heard, our minds hop to whatever emotion the meme conveys. The use of this brain-hack is as scary as it is impressive.

Memes rarely come to us via broadcast media. Instead, they spread organically online. Most of the original uses for these have faded, while the internet has collectively assigned them new meanings. 

Our guest was so interested in memes that he came out with a book in 2023 called Marketing Memetics  to explain all that marketers must consider when using them. 

Mike Taylor shares content on wider marketing topics, such as AI & prompt engineering, which O’Reilly has commissioned him to write a book that’s due to come out in 2024. Experimentation is also a passion; he’s run over 8,000 CRO experiments, and he shares the insights he gets on his social channels, and  in courses he has on LinkedIn Learning and udemy. 

His love of learning & teaching can be traced back to his studies at Anglia Ruskin University and U of Nottingham, where he obtained his masters degree.

But in between his schooling and the present, he was working in the marketing trenches, at places like Candor, SumoMe, ShopStyle, Travelzoo and marketing agency Ladder.io, which has grown from its beginnings with Mike and his co-founders to a team of 50 people.

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Mike’s company

Mike on Twitter

Skeumorphism

Christopher S Penn

Rory Sutherland TED Talk

Joshua Bell Violin Busking experiment

Episode 166

When it comes to branding, there are many facets to getting it right. But we don’t have to know all about branding to know that only one mistake can cause deep, irreversible damage to a brand. 

In 2009 the Tropicana juice company thought they’d be clever by taking their recognizable straw-in-an orange carton and simplify it down to an indistinct orangish object. Design critics howled and customers shied away from the sight of it at store shelves. In response to this 20% decline, Tropicana rapidly went back to the old packaging

Gerald Ratner, CEO of the UK Jewelry chain that bears his name, responded to a question about some of his products by saying they were ‘total crap.’ The company eventually closed over 300 of its stores, admitting that this comment caused a decisive blow to their reputation.

Subway named a game after long-time spokesman Jared Fogle’s famous weight loss pants and called it ‘JARED’S PANTS DANCE’,  just at the time that Fogle pleaded guilty to sexual interference charges.  

Google changed the logos of its suite of work-applications with geometric shapes in their corporate colours – confusing users (including me) who can no longer tell whether they’re opening Docs, Sheets and Slides.

To learn how branding is done right, today we are speaking with Dan White. 

He graduated from Cambridge University with a Masters of Arts. He has worked in marketing, market research and brand consultancy for 30 years. He is equally passionate about using imaginative visuals to bring marketing concepts to life. If people understand and remember an idea thanks to a clever framework or visual metaphor they will be able to use it in their day-to-day work. 

Three people have been repeat guests on this show; Dan White is now the fourth. 

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Dan White on LinkedIn

Dan’s earlier episode on The Smart Marketing Book

Professor Byron Sharp

Scrabble

Tony Hayward ‘I would like my life back’

Bertolli rebrandTry to make your brand like Ronseal, who’s slogan is: “It does exactly what it says on the tin”

Episode 167

A trend that’s currently having its day in the sun is Product-Led Growth. According to our guest, it’s a fine model, but our companies need growth that’s based on a more foundational element – advocating for Customer-Led Growth.

CLG begins with creating organization-wide understanding around what experience is most appropriate for the company’s best customers. Value to customers is then delivered — whenever, wherever, and however they need it — throughout their relationship with the company. 

Our guest pioneered customer experience mapping while she was leading marketing for the Vancouver-based SaaS company Unbounce.

She has been a brand builder since 2000. In 2009, she embraced tech startups and SaaS, recognizing marketing’s pivotal role in SaaS success. In 2023 she co-authored Forget the Funnel and with her co-founder Claire Suellentrop has a consultancy that goes by the same name. 

Let’s talk to Georgiana Laudi.

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Georgiana on Twitter/X

ACV = Average Customer Value

Clayton Christiansen’s jtbd framework

Dave McClure’s Pirate metrics

You may also like the previous episode on customer interviews with Ryan Gibson

Episode Reboot. Get the free workbook and other free resources on the FTF site.

If you want to learn about sales and start Googling, you quickly run across self-professed gurus, who claim to know the secret to selling. If you faithfully follow this method (available today only for a low low price), you’ll have sales success. Despite feeling a twinge of skepticism about their pitch, you’re so deep into their slick, pressure-filled pitch at this point that you pay for their books and courses…which end up being disappointing. 

Today’s guest says these gurus have put you in the Vortex of crazy. 

He doesn’t try to apply the same advice to everyone – his response reminds me of what an ancient Buddhist guru said. Well, according to a novel written a century ago by Hermann Hesse. 

There are a few men on a spiritual pilgrimage, and they reach a stage where the leader, Siddhartha, tells his followers that he must  continue on alone. His right-hand man, Govinda asks him why, “Siddhartha…spoke quietly… “Always, oh Govinda, you’ve been my friend, you’ve always walked one step behind me. Often I have thought: Won’t Govinda for once also take a step by himself, without me? Behold, now…[you] are choosing your path for yourself.”

Our guest says there’s only one sales method that works  –  the one that comes naturally to you. That refreshing take ripples through his 2023 book Do It! Selling.

David Newman has been working since 1992 to help customers land better clients, bigger deals, and higher fees. From Fortune 500 corporations to sole-practitioners, his firm has helped over 1,800 clients with their marketing, sales, and professional services. David is also the host of the highly rated podcast, The Selling Show.

David is married to the #1 most amazing woman on the planet (his words, not mine), launched two great kids into the world disguised as small adults, and has enjoyed raising some of the world’s sweetest retrievers.

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

David’s site Do It Marketing

David’s free webclass about consultancy growth 

David’s Do It MBA

1992 Movie A Few Good Mew

Brent Adamson’s The Challenger Sale

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

How come the companies you hear boasting about their growth rarely seem to rack up impressive growth numbers? For all those that talk the talk, very few can say they have doubled their revenue in the last 3 years. And yet, according to our guest today, by simply increasing new sales by 15%/yr and selling 15% more per year to existing clients, doubling revenue is totally achievable.

In the 27 years since he graduated with his MBA, Darrell Amy has worked  heavily in the tech sector, mainly in sales and marketing. Wanting to help a larger number of companies, in 2004 he started his own business, speaking and acting as a fractional Chief Revenue Officer. In 2020, Darrell authored Revenue Growth Engine book  How To Align Sales & Marketing To Accelerate Growth.

He is a member of the Forbes Business Council and co-chair of the Kingdom Missions Fund. Based in Arkansas, with a family that now includes a couple of grand-children, let’s go talk to Darrell Amy.  

Darrell’s personal site

Revenue Growth podcast

Selling from the Heart podcast which Darrell co-hosts 

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Jon Ferrera of GoldMine & Nimble

Tiffani Bova

Jay Abraham

Keith Eades author of The New Solution Selling

Brent Adamson co-author of The Challenger Sale

Theodore Levitt

Seth Godin

Donald J Miller’s “Storybrand”

Episode Reboot – get Darrell’s Revenue Growth Engine audiobook free by filling out this form or by texting ‘revenue’ to 21000