Champagne Strategy

One of the main reasons companies don't grow and stagnate is because they fail to execute on their planning phase.  There's many reasons why. This is an area we'll cover exclusively in this episode.  It’s always nice when you stumble across people in strategy who have interesting backgrounds. The more diverse and strange the background, the better the strategist in my book. These people tend to be a wealth of wisdom and have a certain perspective that only comes off the back of diversity of thought which in turn stems from a diversity of life experience. Karim’s career so far is strong and broad with a solid foundation of both book and street smarts. It started with a double masters in computer science and energy engineering, before he moved into product strategy and management and consulting roles. His CV is impressive to say the least. But then there’s the global context. To say he’s multicultural is an understatement. He’s lived and worked in 7 different countries which beats my measly 4. And this global curiosity must have helped land a role at the business travel division of Expedia group. Here he led global projects to help create a customer obsession culture in order to drive business growth. Managing a 15m budget and bringing together over 7 different departments to make them more customer centric was no easy feat. He’s just finished a product role at Safety Culture at the start of 2021, which is an Australian unicorn startup. Currently, he’s in a senior leadership role at Cascade - a strategy software platform that’s focused on bridging the gap between planning and execution for multi-business unit companies. And this is why we had to talk Connecting these two phases is one of the most challenging things a company will ever do. This whole episode is on just this topic. But by listening you will pick up so much more value. You’ll learn why companies don’t follow through and what are the 3 main things that prevents them. You’ll find out which things need to be present for strategy to work really well. You'll find out why we’re both dismissive of bridging in external consultants into a grey-haired boardroom to do annual strategy days. You'll learn which question you should ask yourself before starting any task which will instantly make you more strategic. Find out the main things which prevent innovation and all the true hallmarks of innovative companies. Learn why company culture is so pivotal and underestimated as a successful strategy driver Karim isn't a boring person. So even if strategy isn't your thing, have a listen and I'm sure you'll pick up quite a few handy tips no matter what job you do.  Ciao for now. 

Part 2 of 2. A continuation of the interview with Jennifer Harrison. Listen to Part 1 first. 

Part 1 of 2. How can companies like Tesla spend $0 on paid advertising and still sell billions of dollars of product? Well...they are very good at getting publicity and using owned media channels to their advantage. While this isn't possible for all brands, today we're talking to Jennifer Harrison to learn more about the power of PR and earned media strategy. Too much of what growth or marketing people are exposed to concerns, advertising or owned media.  But the world of PR is often a powerful, subtle, underrated growth-driver that works silently in the background. It's the key to a lot of brands' growth and many people can underestimate how persuasive it can be when building a brand that influences people to buy. Jennifer, has not come from a journalist or PR background originally which makes her all the more interesting. She has a bachelor in economics, a bachelor of laws, and a masters of applied finance. This strong foundation of multi-disciplinary knowledge feeds into her PR prowess. While she mostly represents clients in the Property Tech and Financial tech niche. In this episode we talk very broadly, and get to bust all the myths in the industry. So if you want to find out the raw truth behind the things which actually raise your brand's reputation, then you need to listen to this episode.  So what is PR? Is it a press release? And what are the secrets behind getting stories published?  What is the demand and supply issue that many outside the industry are not aware of?  Should you gate your content with a form? What should you include in your press kit?  Which is better, an in-house PR team, a freelancer or agency? And what are the pros and cons of each? All of these questions and more will be covered in detail. Get your PR and publicity chops and press play now. 

Everyone client-side wants to know which channels or mediums they should be investing in. Because they want the ones which get the most ‘results’ for the lowest cost. Some will trust their vendor or agency to answer this question. But, if they want to know the real answer in a nutshell...well it depends. It depends on many factors. Factors which this episode will reveal - in detail. Jonathan Rolley from Direct Response Media, specializes in a branch of scientific media planning which focuses on customer outcomes (the response). In this interview we’ll uncover the mistakes many brands make (even the biggest ones) and you’ll learn how to choose more wisely when allocating your media budget. Along the way, we also uncover all the dirty, dark secrets of the media world which plague the typical agency client relationship. As well as challenge many myths and widely-held beliefs within the industry. How does human bias play a large role in which channels brands invest in? How do media agency planners hide higher-profit margin media inventory into your plan? How does increasing brand awareness not result in increased sales revenue? What step in the media planning process do most brands skip? What perverse incentives drive agencies to push certain media over others? This is a juicy interview and I ask many questions many are not game to answer. To his credit, Jonathan answers them all. Take the red media pill if you dare and listen to this episode.

Everyone thinks the easiest way to grow a company is advertising or marketing campaigns. But, forging partnerships and creating distribution networks can be an exponentially more powerful revenue-driver. Why pay to temporarily leverage another entity's audience when you can do it permanently and share both the risk and the upside?  Partnerships are the less-talked-about growth driver that every business, small and large can do better. Find out why companies like Nike, Canva, Disney, Pizza Hut, Booktopia and more...use partnership technology stacks to create a customer acquisition machine that provides win-win outcomes for everyone involved. At it’s core - business is about the exchange of value between parties - It’s about the movement of money from one entity to another in return for perceptions of goods and services. But, in the modern era of shiny digital toys, obsessions with content and posting on social media, this fundamental growth driver can easily be overlooked. Running partnership programs used to be a messy, complex process. Not anymore.  Today, we’re talking to Peter Bray and Ayaan Mohumad from unicorn tech company, Impact. They specialize in scalable partnership technology. Their stories about how Canva, Nike, Disney and other major brands have been using their tech strategically as a marketing channel are fascinating. How do you go about forging these relationships effectively? How do you sell the business case of partnerships up the chain? How can you turn a bad partnership program into a growth machines? All of these questions and more answered in this episode.

Over the years, I've noticed the potential for teams and companies to grow, is often hampered by none other than a lack of operational hygiene.  Most business coaches and mentors will simply give advice that largely boils down to perspective, mental fortitude and operational discipline.  Often our perspective when working inside a business and industry can become warped.  We're inside the institution. We're part of the organization's culture. We're indoctrinated by norms and specific standard processes. But, where are the checks and balances? Who is asking whether that's the right way to do things? Are these the right jobs to do? Is there a better way to do it?  Marketers will, by default, obsess over designing creative content and forget about the need to pierce human attention. Engineers love to write beautiful code and solve difficult problems, but can easily become disconnected from the customer. Meanwhile, product managers can obsess over feature releases, but fail to check if anyone would use them in the first place. We can all get so caught up in our production bubble that we forget to reflect on why we are doing that work in the first place. Sometimes it takes someone external or above that ecosystem to set things straight. Sometimes that person is a really good COO.  While some can view operations as a boring topic. I disagree. It's one of the most overlooked, least-talked about, underrated and powerful growth drivers in organizations, large and small. Sales, marketing, product, and growth included.  So in this episode, we’re talking to Yaniv Bernstein a 10 year veteran software engineer from Google, former CTO/COO of Airtasker, a startup in Australia valued at half a billon dollars. More importantly, he’s worked at both large and small companies and now consults with clients all around the world. This episode is essential listening for CEO’s or founders at tech companies. It’s essential listing for chief operations officers or other people in a managerial or operations role. But even if you are a small business owner or founder, you'll pick up some very valuable tips.  We discuss what an operations manager does. How to set up measurement systems which avoid being gamed by employees. How to view operations as more than just an intranet full of standard operating procedures.  And how to keep teams motivated, on task and collaborating effectively, in order to get what needs to be done - done. Why does poker have to do with good management? Why is it so essential to understand Goodhearts law? How do you get the most from your employees without making them quit? All of these questions and more are answered by downloading or pressing play.

It’s rare to come across a finance expert who has such a deep understanding of true customer value and all the complexity that goes along with it. But, Professor Daniel McCarthy has joined forces with Pete Fader Professor of Marketing from Wharton and Rob Markey, Partner at Bain New York, to spread the word about their Customer Based Corporation Valuation method (CBCV). Pundits in Silicon Valley as well as many other modern firms have already taken notice. So we wanted to look deeper into this valuation method and see if there were any takeaways for investors and people in growth, marketing, sales or executive positions.  There were many. Slight warning however. Unless you have a basic grasp of finance fundamentals, you might get a little lost or have to Google a few terms during the discussion. Daniel was even stretching my knowledge at times.  But this will be a fascinating dive into some of the detail around how customer value manifests itself in a financial value sense. Especially how that value translates into revenue and profit for the organization. This is exactly what's lacking from so many marketing industry discussions and a topic which I’m personally very passionate about. After listening to this episode you should get a good grounding in the best way to approach increasing the value of a company from a customer perspective. We talk about vanity metrics vs lower funnel metrics. We discover how to properly calculate your unit economics like CAC and LTV - and the mistakes most make when doing so. And you'll also find out why he disagrees with the assertion that CLV should be your NorthStar.  There is also a key issue that Daniel clashes with Byron Sharp on which all should hear.  But do not fear, this isn’t an academic discussion about technicalities or a debate between right or wrong. What it will give you however, is a solid framework and approach to take when assessing what actions are financially valuable for a company and which aren't. Daniel uses lots of examples from his practical business experience which includes some very interesting discussions around Slack and Spotify Why do tech companies command such high valuations relative to their revenue?  What do oil wells and customers have in common? Why is customer heterogeneity such a critical concept to understand for marketers? How can VCs and investors improve the accuracy of their valuations? All these answers and more await so… If you want to know your CAC from your CLV, and your DCF from your NPV...start listening now. 

Programmatic display, video pre-roll, banner ads, skyscrapers, home page takeovers, leaderboards, MRECs, what the hell does it all mean? If you’re not advertising on search, social, content or digital audio, you’re most likely spending money on display advertising. Display advertising goes by many names, as we’ll find out in a minute, but this complex, murky world is a mysterious black box for many. In this industry, there was first talk of systemic ad fraud. Then the conversation shifted to brand safety and more recently, customer data protection with GDPR and CCPA. Things have almost become more complex as time has worn on. So we’re talking with one of the world’s experts in this area, Keaton to clear up all the mystery, myths and misconceptions. While tech companies won’t give much thought to this type of advertising, even large advertisers like P&G are addressing wastage in the supply chain and pushing for better transparency. With that said, programmatic display is the favourite punching bag of traditional-media-leading, rebate-friendly industry commentators who enjoy spreading fear and falsehoods. If you’re apprehensive already, don’t worry, we don’t get too technical here because it’s very easy to go down a rabbit hole that leads to nowhere constructive. With that said, if you don’t know what a server is, or the basics of advertising terms like reach, or impressions – this probably isn’t an episode you should listen to. See references and additional material related to this episode here https://jameshammon.com.au/blogs/the-champagne-strategy-podcast-episode-12-keaton-hulme-jones/

Hire slow, fire fast and blitzscale is often the mantra in Silicon Valley.  From personal experience, Alison believes in only one part of that statement. So we were intrigued to find more about her contrarian views regarding the management of global, remote, successful teams.  She's a self-described, "globetrotting multi-passionate pracademic", but also a genuine, loveable person underneath. This is rare in the cut-throat world of tech. Her approach to staff and team dynamics is unorthodox, yet extremely effective. The last company she worked for and her first job as a Chief of Staff, ended up in a successful exit for the founder to Automatic (owner of WordPress). So we wanted to delve more into this world, especially since this firm was 100% remote from day one. Given that most companies are currently in a similar situation, her wisdom in this area is very poignant.  Staff are the critical lifeblood of any fledgling company, especially service companies. But labor also forms one of the highest operating costs of any business. As she says, "when people get together, it's messy..." and there's few ways to avoid the mess.  In this episode, she talks about how recognizing the humanity in your human capital is not just an ethical way to manage people, but the benefits to your brand are exponential. Staff can be viewed as a marketing growth lever.  Her background is interesting to say the least. 25 years of extremely varied work experience has seen her work on farms, in ski resorts overseas, state and local government, health care, as a university lecturer, in research, and consulting. Somewhere in between she squeezed in a PHD in behavioral economics and became Chief of Staff for Prospress.  Alison believes that a good thought experiment for your organization is to "...imagine what your employees say to their friends and family about work on a weekend at a BBQ, or whatever the virtual version of a BBQ is these days". We talk about all the ways she has found teams can foster a healthy, human workplace in an increasingly online-dominant world.  Make no mistake, this is not a fluffy, idealist discussion about a fantasy work utopia or how you can write the best PDs/JDs. This is about high-level strategy and  tactics which you can implement to ensure your team is operating at it's maximum, regardless of the location or maturity.  Not many marketers talk about the importance of internal branding nor it's relation to the external, customer-facing brand. But, staff exude your brand at many touchpoints. To ignore their influence on commercial outcomes, is to ignore a large source of growth potential.  Find out how it's done right, in this interview with Alison Macintyre.  For all references, mentions and trailers go here

You will never find real entrepreneurs doing laps of the motivational speaking circuits and flogging a bunch of online courses to the masses on social media. They are very busy people, with high demands for their time. Which is why you're in for a treat with this episode where we uncover someone who keeps a low profile within the wine and business world.  Supplier of wine and trusted beverage consultant to many of the elite rock-stars, actors and celebrities around the world. The likes of Richard Branson, Billy Joel, Benji Madden, Cameron Diaz, Paul Stanley and many more.  Andrew Roper is living a very interesting life and a very interesting character. Former business manager for infamous Melbourne gangster, Chopper Read, professional wine reviewer and a very astute businessman. His story is a fascinating one, which is why were needed to unwrap the layers of mystery and find out just how he did it.  If you're not into wine, it doesn't matter. We don't use jargon and talk about wine making techniques. We talk about wine in context of business, with loads of personal stories and anecdotes to boot. There are important lessons here regarding the power of the brand, stories, distribution, positioning, partnerships and referral networks.  If you read between the lines, you'll discover multiple gems of wisdom throughout this episode. Anyone who's into the world of business, marketing, growth, and wine should easily glean some very important takeaways.  I really don't need to sell this episode. Start listening and I'd be surprised if you don't find it fascinating.  For all references mentions and trailers go here https://jameshammon.com.au/blogs/the-champagne-strategy-podcast-episode-15-andrew-roper/