Category: Covid

When you cultivate real conversations in a safe space, anything is possible.

CLIC ’22 Cohort #6, Daniel Island SC. Photo courtesy of Doug Media Productions.
CLIC ’22 Cohort #6, Daniel Island SC. Photo courtesy of Doug Media Productions.

After a 3-year COVID hiatus, we hosted the 6th CMOs Leading Innovation Conference in scenic Daniel Island, South Carolina. The cohort included CEOs and marketing leaders from across the country, with a focus on growth planning, resilience, and agile strategies in the new customer era.

Whether you work for a museum or MarTech company, one thing remains constant: too many marketers still believe that a poor digital or physical experience won’t hurt their brand. 

Just think about how many retailers you recently visited, and how deeply disappointed you felt by the experience. If you’re like me, you probably walked out empty-handed, grabbed your phone, and chose to order online. The online experience was less painful and annoying.

Don’t let this happen to your brand….

When it comes to our careers and our customer relationships, the way we FEEL frames our reality.

Yet there is a “reality paradox” happening in our workplaces.

On the one hand, we are witnessing declining unemployment (now 4.8% in the USA), soaring corporate and consumer spending, and a frenetic hiring pace for marketing and CX professionals. 50% of my clients have either been promoted or changed careers in the past 22 months.

On the other hand, drug overdoses in the USA have surpassed 100,000 this year….

In the latest Mindful Marketer episode, creative entrepreneur, speaker, and author Bruce Turkel and I share the secrets of magnifying your personal power, the importance of connecting in a safe environment, and the miracles that happen when strong professionals come together.

Many people call themselves managers, but the word “manager” has undersold leadership for a very long time. In this episode, I share the screen with Don McGuire, the CMO of Qualcomm. He discusses how to creatively and proactively engage teams in today’s hybrid settings, marketing and connecting effectively with customers and strategic partners in the digital world, and leadership strategies that no longer work.

Here in the mid-Atlantic, we are experiencing the tail end of a natural phenomenon – the emergence of Brood X cicadas. After 17 years in the dark, billions of these noisy bugs have we emerged from underground.

This phenomenon echoes our own post-COVID emergence. We have a unique opportunity to reshape and redesign the new rules of the workplace. We can reinvent and reconnect with the people who matter: our teams, our customers, strategic partners, and other stakeholders….

Most of us are clamoring to return to face-to-face events and conferences. Yet conference planners and attendees are not necessarily on the same page. Valuegraphics, a noted research firm out of Vancouver, Canada, recently did a study of 1850 very avid conference goers. Here’s what David Allison and his research team discovered: there is dissonance.

Arriving at the gigantic, empty mall parking lot felt unsettling and unfamiliar.

Yet I knew the day ahead would get me grounded in the Loudoun County COVID POD (Point of Distribution) process, and the power of community service during a crisis.

This is how my adventures as a novice Volunteer Medical Corps (VMC) member began. One week ago, I reported for my first day of work at the POD.

The experience wasn’t just inspiring….

I just read Monday’s Wall Street Journal investigative story about Tony Hsieh, co-founder and former CEO of Zappos and author of the 2010 bestseller, Delivering Happiness.

I knew Tony, and it breaks my heart to learn about his rapid downward emotional spiral since the pandemic began. He delivered happiness to thousands without first securing his own metaphorical oxygen mask.

As many of us experience more aggressive pandemic restrictions and a potential increase in isolation, I encourage you to take note of this tragedy, how our loved ones and colleagues may also be feeling similar emotions, and what you can do to help them avoid extreme emotional distress….

Subscription businesses are reported to grow revenues five times faster than S&P 500 company revenues and US retail sales.

In this episode of the Mindful Marketer Life Stream, we sat down with the global expert on subscription businesses, Robbie Baxter, as she shares her wisdom and excerpts from her newest book, “The Forever Transaction.” We discuss how to build customers for life, steady revenue streams and mindfully designed membership business models.