Champagne Strategy

Brain-hurt scale = 8/10. Strategy has become such a buzzword these days. More often, just a prefix added to job titles to make it sound more attractive, not whether the job requires real strategy acumen or not. Everyone seems to be acting 'strategic'. But what does that even mean? Who better to unpack all these questions than someone who just finished working for one of the largest companies in the world. Today we’re talking to Bryant Graves. Ex-senior strategy manager at Walmart, now in charge of Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy at Snowflake. Back in Season 2 we spoke with Karim from Cascade which gave us a great overview on the modern state of Strategy. So listen to that first if you haven't already done so. In this episode, we needed to dig a little deeper into the business strategy weeds. Bryant has worked for VC firms, for consulting firms, for Ancestry, one of the world’s largest retailers (Walmart) and now one of the most profitable software firms in the world (Snowflake). With such breadth of exposure across all business functions, different-sized firms, different sectors, he’s the perfect person to help us unpack some of the curly questions we had. What is real strategy, what isn't strategy? Is it just a vision or mission statement? What are the different layers? From corporate to business, operational and functional - and how do they apply to our role? What are the hallmarks of a good strategy person vs an junior? How can you use some of these principles to determine which companies are good or bad when looking for a new job? Why is the traditional management consulting sourced strategy function waning and what’s replacing it? Why does a lot of strategy fail when it comes to implementation? Is strategy a few people in a board room meeting once a financial year - or is it more dynamic and changeable? What tools should we be using? PowerPoint and Excel? What caused Instagram to rip apart their whole organizational structure and rebuild it in just 3 months to respond to a competitive threat. What should we be measuring and how? Waterfall or agile - which is better? What core part of the business do people overlook when mistaking Walmart for a pure retailer? Get a Boba-tea, and press play

Brain-hurt scale = 5/10. Vayner Media, Zac Efron, Paris Hilton, Graeme Turner, Chris Voss - these are the sorts of people that Ronsley works with. And to say that he's learnt a few things or two would be an understatement. He's all about using content strategically - for maximum gain. And yes, we talk under the guise of podcasting a little, but also far broader. By listening all the way through, you'll be able to absorb the best way to create a strategic content framework which can be applied to any brand. Especially service and SaaS. You'll be able to use these fundamentals for the creation of all content. Including social media posts, blogs, news articles, video production, audio and more. Ronsley Vaz has been involved with some of the biggest podcasts in the world. Growing his first, Bond Appetite, back in 2014 from scratch into millions of downloads was no easy feat. Branching out, he started 4 more while creating a conference and advisory offering to boot. He’s a strategic thinker who blends commercial reality with creativity. A very rare skill indeed. Ex computer scientist, former chef, and finance professional. His career trajectory is indeed unusual. Coming up later this year is the largest podcast conference in the APAC region.  What do great podcasts and restaurant menus have in common? What are the three very different audiences which many podcasters assume is one? What three things will get you more listeners for your podcast? How do you best repurpose this content for distribution and promotion? What infrastructure and systems do you need to put into place so it supports your sales funnel? What’s the trick to getting famous people on your show? How do you best attract and execute sponsorship arrangements? And what is the one critical thing that businesses miss out on if they don’t have conversations? How do you create great content that actually had business value? Listen on

Brain-hurt scale = 7/10. Just last week I had 3 different people ask me for advice on podcast promotion. And I came up short on giving them a detailed answer. So you know what this means? I needed to ego-check and delve a bit deeper. So if you've wondered about how to use podcasts in your promotional mix, or how to promote your own podcast so it becomes a valuable asset for your brand - this is an episode you need to listen to.  I came across Josh Butt (Founder and executive) and Michelle Lomas (GM) who operate an independent production and distribution agency called Ampel Media.  This episode is in two parts. The first 30 is with Josh and the following 30 with Michelle. So we get two very good perspectives from people who are living and breathing audio productions, every single day.  Learn about: The history of podcasting - where it all started How firms are using podcasts not just for external brand building, but for internal purposes too The key advantage of audio vs video or text - things I didn't even realize Why more executives and managers are using audio for updates How much it costs to sponsor a podcast How much it costs to produce a podcast episode, including how many hours it takes regardless of whether you do it yourself or get someone else to do it How many episodes you need to produce before it really takes off  How often you should be publishing What format it can take - from short updates to long interviews and some examples of people who are being very creative for different format executions. What software to use and the production process from start to finish in order to get a great episode How to monetize the podcast  Which channels are best to use for promotion with specific examples and delves into the tactical side of things.  ... Basically everything you need to know Reach out to Josh or Michelle https://ampel.com.au?utm_source=hybrency

Brain-hurt scale = 4/10. Everything else being equal, the strength of your offer can make or break the effectiveness of any marketing campaign. Boring CTA's like 'buy now' or 'find out more' or 'book a demo' can scuttle sales by a substantial percentage. So consider this situation. You're about to buy a boring, commoditized, financial product. Then an ad comes on TV with Jerry Seinfeld as the spokesperson. He cracks a joke or two about home ownership and says, if you switch loan providers, you'll get a free holiday. Listen to this episode for the full story behind how this entire campaign came to be. But this exact offer, crafted by John for a challenger bank, raked in billions of new sales and was a roaring success. That was before a bunch of bean-counter executives got involved, thought it cost too much and mothballed it.  This is just one story from many, which we tease out of John Dwyer's long career - some of which he reveals for the first time on this podcast. John has a knack for being able to craft marketing campaigns which get people to buy. This is something most brand and agency marketers (99%) don't know how to do. They will avoid any accountability to the bottom line (sales revenue) and instead yabber on about brand purpose or something equally ethereal.  So today, you'll hear all the elements of marketing initiatives which directly result in revenue success. And there's a lot of ways this can go wrong - so the details in delivery are important. From problem definition to crafting the offer, the importance of CTAs and a litany of different sales promotion ideas which you could use to boost any brand's success. The agency 'brand crowd' will tell you sales promotion doesn't work. It devalues the brand. Bla bla bla. But sales promotions can work very well. Sales promotions doesn't have to mean discounting. Sales promotions can be a value-enhancer, not a value-detractor. So if you want to learn how to do it properly....first listen to this episode.  Then review this podcast within the next 7 days.  DM me on LinkedIn or Twitter with evidence, and you'll enter the draw to win a 3 night holiday in a city near you.  By the law of averages, 100-300 people will listen, maybe 10% will actually bother to this so you'll have a 3-10% chance of winning.  Sounds good doesn't it? Press play my dear.

Brain-hurt scale = 8/10. Just days earlier, Ross Sergeant, global head of media and touchpoints at Asahi, spoke to a conference where he debunked the 40/60 rule advocated by Binet and Field. Most marketing scientists, and savvy marketers in the crowd were not surprised. But so alluring and well-crafted are some of these 'laws', many in the UK, Australia and beyond, are still convinced a reliable path to growth relies heavily upon mass-reach broadcast media. There's a belief that this type of media should form a large percentage of the marketing budget.  But as you'll find out, this is not the approach at Asahi where they use an agnostic approach to media. In this episode we take media strategy out of the clouds of theoretical discussions and into a real life context with a global FMCG brand. We highly recommend you listen to independent media agency, Jonathan Rolley episode (S2 Ep4) before, or in conjunction with this episode.  Why do so many believe in this '60/40 rule'? What parts of it hold true? Does Asahi concentrate on building brand awareness through reach? What do they do differently? As two fellow marketers we had quite a bit in common. We've both worked for large brands, inside large ad agencies, started our own agencies and worked with small and large brands alike, in multiple and very diverse categories. So this was always going to be an interesting discussion. And Ross has an answer for everything. An old school agency-outsourcing, hands-off head of media head, he is not - it will become quick apparent that hes at the bleeding edge of marketing science with particular liking for the learnings exposed by the Ehrenberg Bass Institute. We start the discussion with his recent conference talk, but then quickly bridge into a great talk about how he applies modern marketing ideas into a global media strategy. But this isn’t just a discussion about media. We talk about vendor management. Marketing epistemology, brand measurement and touch on distribution as well. It’s a very contextual discussion, so if you're in the beverage or alcoholic beverage category, this is a must listen. But likewise, just as relevant for all  FMCG/CPG brands. And there's still a lot of takeaways no matter what product category you are in. Everyone can learn something here. Ross espouses what a real life practicing marketer, who’s at the top of their game should be. And it's not easy. This is an episode which serves part of our 'A day in the life of a real-life practicing professional' series. Check out other episodes such as Robin Daniels (ex-WeWork CMO), Matthew Hammon (Google), Andrew Roper (wine) and Andrew Walker (entrepreneur) episodes.  Warning - do not listen if you are attached to, and wish to stay in the adland-media bubble - and believe that the secret to growth is all about award winning creative with lots of reach.   Do listen if you wish to discover out how to do things properly with media budgets.  You know what to do...

Brain-hurt scale = 6/10. Parents only use Facebook, teens only use TikTok, Instagram is dying, Twitter is already dead, and YouTube is just for video.  Out of all the media that brands can use, perhaps Social is one of the most misunderstood, and it's a victim of it's own accessibility. The more everyone can use a medium, the more everyone thinks they know how to use it and how it works underneath. But, the opposite is usually true.  So we had to talk with a social media expert about social media strategy. First of all, is Social Media even a thing? Why do firms get an intern or the nephew/niece of the owner to do the social media instead of a professional. How do you 'hack' the algorithm? What's the best platform to use? If there’s one channel that’s changed just as much as Search has, it’s social. There’s a reason you no longer see the story on the news of the stay-at-home mum who’s made millions selling some random product online with just a Facebook or instagram following to boot. Those days have long gone, but legacy thinking remains. And there seems to be this fantasy that with the right post on social media, a brand can go viral. There an obsession with content and a belief that posting as much as possible will somehow compensate for a poor strategy.  But Social media is a mature market and platforms no longer give away free exposure for nothing in return. You’re obligated to pay to play - either with your time or, increasingly, with your money. So how do you slot social media into your growth strategy. What are the common mistakes to avoid and where are these social platforms heading in the future? We needed these questions answered which is why we had to talk to Marcus Willus, social media barron, passion-pop aficionado, melbourne hipster, business owner. Marcus has been running a social media agency for a number of years and we first met back in the good old days of instagram. When it was cheap and easy to use programs which automated Instagram activity. How times have changed. Today, those tactics would get you ejected or shadow banned pretty quickly. And that’s why we needed to talk. We needed to get to the bottom of what social media platforms are looking for at their core. The things that won't change very much in the future. By understanding this, we’ll understand where to focus our time and resources instead of chasing the tail or an ever changing, sophisticated algorithm. Elon’s purchase of Twitter makes this episode timely. With so many platforms out there, I’m not going to do a separate episode on each because they are all so different. The tactical approach would vary so much between them, and these episodes would date too fast. So instead, here’s a core social media strategy episode to sink your teeth into which will point you in the right direction, regardless of what platforms you are using - now and in the future.

Brain-hurt scale = 6/10. A long time ago, back in the good ol’ days of the Google internet, I learnt the power of affiliate marketing first hand. Affiliate strategies let you take advantage of an assumed message source separation. This is where the customer assumes the source of the message is not the advertiser.  Example, you pay the owner of a blog site within your niche, for the privilege of tapping into this pool of visitors in various ways. Prospects trust this more, because the message isn't coming from you the brand, but from a trusted source. So it will have a far more powerful effect on persuading people to buy. You’ll learn about this technique and much more, in this interview with Blake Hutchison, CEO of Flippa.  You'll have to excuse the quality of the audio. I had a slim chance to grab him in between sessions of a retail conference. so I bundled him into a nearby room to have a quick chat. Flippa.com is a self described global online marketplace where people can buy and sell digital assets as well as entire businesses. In this episode, we wanted to go deeper into the use of acquisition as a growth lever. These assets could be an entire business, but also things like a social media account, a blog or even source code. Flippa is one of the world's largest marketplaces for digital assets, where a lot of savvy marketers and business owners prefer to purchase assets, which they then leverage, instead of going to the trouble of building them from scratch.  So we wanted to talk about the acquisition marketplace movement in general, but also explore all the different ways acquisition can be used strategically as a growth driver. With thousands of transacted businesses over the years, there’s no shortage of examples we tease out during the conversation. Blake has been brought into the business recently, but he has a history of working with some of the top firms both in Australia and in Silicon Valley, from director of sales BDM roles at Lonely Planet in San Francisco to head of partnerships at Xero. More recently, he's moved into GM and Chief Revenue Officer roles before ending up as the CEO at Flippa. It becomes quickly obvious how competent he is about all things growth, marketing, sales, strategy as well as the tech startup process. We talk about everything from the mistakes people make when buying businesses, the types of assets that are sold, and how people can leverage a really key competitive advantage that is often missed at larger, more bureaucratic firms which we both see as a key to modern growth in the years to come. This episode really follows on nicely from the Peter Li episode, which covers more the  corporate M&A space. This corporate market has a very different dynamic to this market which may have smaller transaction prices but is far larger in terms of total volume. Until these online marketplaces came along, it was an underground market full of brokers and people in the know. Flippa and Microacquire are the platforms which are modernizing and scaling this market and there are many opportunities out there, easily within reach for those who are wishing to capitalize.

"I am going to love doing this podcast. Because I don't expect to ever be hired into an investment bank or in-house M&A team ever again, I can be brutally honest." We talked further, but he had me at 'brutally honest'. That was the moment I knew we needed to interview Peter and uncover this murky world. An overlooked way to quickly grow a business is to simply acquire customers. Customers which belong to another business. This tactic is overlooked because it's traditionally been the exclusive domain of investment bankers and management consultants who only deal with large companies. But recently, there’s been a groundswell of activity spurred by the tech industry as well as the emergence of micro-acquisition marketplaces. Acquisitions are frequently used by tech companies to buy capability, patents and for many reasons other than a short-term earnings boost. So we talk with ex-M&A specialist, former real-estate salesman, army cadet, investment banker, and now, founder of a medical service company, Peter Li. And he exposes the M&A industry, warts and all, never shying away from a good dose of self-deprecation or telling it like it is. So you’ll learn all the dirty tricks, the conflicts of interest, and tactical plays that goes on in this secretive, right-knit, murky world. So if you’ve wanted a crash-course in the world of M&A, or you’re looking at being acquired or thinking about acquiring another company, this is a must-listen episode. What does Mumm Champagne and M&A have in common? Why is the real estate and the investment banking industry so similar? What is the old school M&A space vs the future led by tech companies? Why are the best businesses to acquire almost never advertised for sale Learn the basic stages in the M&A process. Why most acquired businesses don’t create any value for the acquirer Which acquisition marketplaces are growing quickly Why did AGL reject Founder of Atlassian, Mike Cannon Brooke’s takeover bid? Don’t worry, we don’t get into a technical discussion about financial or legal jargon but stay on a strategic decision-making level throughout with lots of practical examples, mostly from the Australian business scene. So merge your consciousness with this podcast for the next 50 minutes and acquire newfound wisdom. 

“It’s easy to make bad decisions with data” he said straight off the bat. In today’s tech infected world, it can seem vogue to tout the fact that you’re data-driven. Kind of like it’s a badge of honor that provides an air of superiority over the other ill-informed business heathens. But what is data? What isn’t data? Are the people who call themselves data-driven, actually data-driven underneath? This is something we had to get to the bottom of. I came across Willem Paling after I saw a presentation he published on how cutting brand search advertising for one of Australia’s largest insurance conglomerates made no difference to the business’ performance. This was something I had also tested personally with client campaigns, but without the same rigor or scale. So who better to talk about segmentation and targeting than with someone who’s literally built out data infrastructure and carried out experiments himself? Apart from that, what really sold me was his background. His PHD centered on hard-to-measure variables - check. He was a fan of epistemology - check. He’s worked with both product, services and SaaS companies - check. Large and small businesses, early and late stage. Academia and private enterprise. Multiple and disparate industry sectors - check Strategic planning - execution and measurement - check. So what you’re about to hear is of course, a discussion about segmentation and targeting. But - to do both well, you really need to have a solid grounding in data analysis. So we talk a lot about how to use data to create value. And on the flipside, how not to use data, in a business context. What he says is so dense, don’t be alarmed if you have to listen to what he says twice or three times - I know I did - even as I was editing the videos. Perhaps the biggest takeaway for me from a strategy perspective was how subtle competitive advantages can be these days. He confirms to be that the businesses who are succeeding with are increasingly focused on building more certainty into their decision making via scientific methods  - all of which ultimately rely on great data and data analysis. I’m sure you’ll enjoy doing down this rabbit hole as much as I did.

Don't fear - this isn't an episode about accounting but rather how understanding some financial fundamentals can make you a far better marketer or growth professional. This is the point where marketing professional's career otherwise plateaus. If you've ever had trouble getting initiatives or projects approved, often it's not political. It's just that the business case is weak. So I thought that if we can understand how accountants and finance think - marketing and growth professionals will be able to get more projects they know are valuable to the business, approved. And as you'll find out, both camps think very, very differently. In fact they naturally clash in many core areas from mindset to through to general approach and responsibilities. So who better to speak with than Jason Andrew. He's a CA accountant, corporate finance qualified, business owner and marketer who has personally executed a lot of the marketing for his own businesses. What is accounting? How is it different to Finance? What numbers and metrics should we all understand before pursuing our growth-related projects. What hard lessons did he learn about marketing and growth on his entrepreneurial journey? Vice versa, what hard lessons should growth and marketing people learn about the accounting and finance profession? After this episode you'll see eye to eye and at the very least understand how both disciplines can work better together.