Posts by Christopher Lochhead
163 How to build a breakthrough | Mike Maples, Jr. Floodgate Capital
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Today, the 1st in a two-part series on entrepreneurship, we have entrepreneur, Co-Founder of FloodGate and host of “Starting Greatness” Mike Maples, Jr. He recently wrote “How to build a breakthrough: the secret of back-casting” and we’re going to go deep on it today!
Watch out for our next episode, we’re having founder/CEOs Osman Rashid. He started $8B, publicly-traded Chegg and now Convo.com.
Status of Silicon Valley
Christopher and Mike starts their discussion about the state of Silicon Valley. Both agreed that most of Silicon Valley companies are the first adopters of sheltering in place and work from home arrangements. It has definitely benefitted some companies who have adjusted early on.
However, they also Mike also describes this coronavirus pandemic as a “hand of God” who “punished” some companies and catapulted some to success.
“I’ve never really seen a situation where you have a tale of two types of businesses. Most recessions, they affect some worse than others, but they affect everybody badly to some degree. Whereas what we’re seeing in this one is: it’s almost like a lot of things that were already starting to gather, got accelerated forward — telemedicine, remote distributed work, distance learning, remote work infrastructure. So you could make the case that this has had a dramatic impact in both directions ironically.” – Mike Maples Jr.
Moving Forward By Looking Backward
Mike recently created an interesting piece about moving forward by looking backward. He mentions that the future doesn’t happen to us. It happens because of us. He further explains why he wrote the piece and how it can help entrepreneurs plan their future.
“Great founders design the future. Design is the right word. It’s not just about drawings or how things look or even how they function or perform. It’s about people with a determined idea of what a better future should be. Not only building that better future, but convincing people in the present to change the trajectory, that they’re on.” – Mike Maples Jr.
Create A Movement To Move A Market
For Mike, entrepreneurs don’t discover markets. They create movements that become markets. They move people to their point of view and they move people from the present to a better future.
“I thought it might be useful to try to help entrepreneurs get some lessons that I’d received from some of the super performers that I’ve worked with on how do you build a breakthrough. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years trying to deconstruct what they do and how it’s different from what normal startups look like. That is why I wrote this post on backcasting.” – Mike Maples Jr.
To know more about how backcasting can help you design the future that you want and for more information about Mike, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Mike Maples, Jr is a Partner at Floodgate. He has been on the Forbes Midas List since 2010 and was also named one of “8 Rising Stars” by FORTUNE Magazine.
Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was involved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back startup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM) and Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent.)
Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, ngmoco, Weebly, Chegg, Bazaarvoice, Spiceworks, Okta, and Demandforce.
Mike is known for coining the term “Thunder Lizards,” which is a metaphor derived from Godzilla that describes the tiny number of truly exceptional companies that are wildly disruptive capitalist mutations. Mike likes to think of himself as a hunter of the “atomic eggs” that beget these companies.
Interests: Calligraphy, cinematography, and sporting clays.
Links:
How to build a breakthrough, Medium
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
045 Questions and Cocktails: Facebook Live Q & A (Part 2) | Marketing PodStorm #7
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During the PodStorm, were doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. Here is the second part of our recording, for Q&A about marketing and category design. We talk about all things ranging from new category creation, how to craft problems positively, and creating demand during a crisis.
How to know if you have a new category?
As counterintuitive as it might sound, now is a great time to launch a new category. Christopher encourages you to ask yourself a couple of key questions: number 1, “what problem do I solve?” or “do I solve that in a different or unique way?” and “What kind of market insights do you have?” If you don’t think of it as a problem, maybe you create an opportunity.
“Nobody buys a solution unless they see a problem. You might consider asking what kind of insights do you have. One is technical insight. Somebody creates a new algorithm or somebody creates hardware. Another one is Market Insight, for example, ‘I want to be able to hire somebody to do an odd job, takes something from point a to point b, come over and help me with something.’ Do you have a technical insight or do you have a market insight? Regardless of what it is, begin to evangelize that insight, that difference.” – Christopher Lochhead
How do you talk about problems in a positive way?
Evangelizing a problem in a positive way can lead to mass differentiation and category creation. Christopher advises legendary marketers to frame the problem as deeply relatable. This way, we want to be seen as a hero, mobilizing people to come together to solve said problem.
“Here’s what I’ve learned, what you want to do in the way you talk about problems is, do it such that you create ‘us.’ You make the problem an enemy, a ‘them.’ You want to define the problem very powerfully, in a way that resonates with people, and then you say, this aggression will not stand, man.” – Christopher Lochhead
How do you create demand in a situation where your revenue is dropping?
Christopher chides that this is one tough question. We know many companies are having this problem. He drops a bunch of ideas that although might not exactly answer this question, but hopefully might stimulate some thinking.
“The first idea, take a handful of your smartest people and lock them and brainstorm 3-5 things that you go near term to stimulate revenue. If you are in the B2B space, create a white space analysis. What you do, you take your existing customer base, do a quick analysis to find out which of your products and services they are currently using. Once you know what they are using, then you immediately target existing customers. If you’re in the B2C, be visible in your neighborhood.” – Christopher Lochhead
To hear more about the Facebook live Q&A session (Part 2) with Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
044 Questions and Cocktails: Facebook Live Q & A (Part 1) | Marketing PodStorm #6
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During the PodStorm, were doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. We did our first one, we’re going to share it with you in two parts. We talk about CEOs who don’t get marketing, the relationship between CMOs and CEOs during times of crisis, and more about evangelizing the brand.
What do I do if my CEO doesn’t get it about marketing?
Christopher shares that very little happens without legendary marketing. He stresses the difference of working on something exponential versus something that is incremental. In marketing terms, the more exponential it is, the more explanation it requires. In that situation, that’s called legendary marketing or category design.
“If your CEO, doesn’t get it, QUIT. If your CEO doesn’t get it about marketing and isn’t willing to be a leader, isn’t willing to get out in front and be the company designing and dominating the category and if you cant get your CEO there pretty quickly, its time to get out and go.” – Christopher Lochhead
What relationship should a CMO and a CEO have, particularly during a recession?
Christopher says that CMO is like the Press Secretary for the President of the United States. He shares quite a few examples, being three times CMO himself who sat in that position during a crisis.
“Strategic communication frames the context for everything that is going on in a company. If the CEO and CMO aren’t working in lockstep, then framing that strategic context is not going to work very well.” – Christopher Lochhead
Tell me more about evangelizing the category
Most companies have overrotated on brand. The marketing world have oftentimes marketed their brands and not necessarily their categories. He points out that in times like this, companies do not just fight over market share, they fight over a minimizing wallet share.
“Look, I’m a 3x CMO, I think branding is important. However, categories are about customers. When we talk all the time about brands, it is equivalent to a dinner party and talking all about yourself, as opposed to talking about others. Categories, fundamentally are about problems, or opportunities, being experienced by others. That is point A. Point B: with categories, it is the way the human brain works. We first understand the category is, then we start thinking about brands. Hierarchy. Our brain works on, category, subcategory and then brand. For example, drink, whiskey, brand. In other words, if I’m not interested in the category, then I’m not going to be interested in the brand.” – Christopher Lochhead
To hear more about the Facebook live Q&A session (Part 1) with Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
043 Drive Revenue Now | Marketing PodStorm #5
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Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world’s Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing.
Today, let’s talk about a few, very simple ideas that can help drive revenue for both B2C companies and B2B companies.
Get Radically Visible
As we are trying to come back and slowly opening up the economy, Christopher encourages B2C companies to get radically visible in their communities.
“The way to do that is to be thoughtfully aggressive and radically generous. A couple of ideas, sponsor some shit, food bank fundraiser, any kind of charity fundraiser. Be associated with helping to make good things happen in your community in a way that is very generous and that let’s people know you are back in business.” – Christopher Lochhead
Get Practical and Tactical
On the B2B side, Christopher shares similar, simple thoughts. He encourages B2B professionals to go back to the old school: cold calling and cold emailing.
“If you are in the B2B space, I highly recommend you get on a named account model because, we could do a whole podcast on it, but the net of this is, when you are on a named account model, your salespeople and your marketing people know exactly who to go after, especially in this case, we’re trying to drive revenue now.” – Christopher Lochhead
Final Advice
Christopher gives out clear examples of what you can do for your business at this time, whether you are in B2B or B2C. He shares that there are potential buyer avatars out there that are willing to drive revenues for your company.
“Reach out and touch ‘em. Try to do something creative and something radically generous to get their attention and hopefully set up some phone calls.” – Christopher Lochhead
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
Gain the visibility and control you need in your business: https://netsuite.com/different
Turn data into doing: https://splunk.com/d2e
041 Marketing Lightning Strikes| Marketing PodStorm #3
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Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world’s Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing.
In this episode, let’s discuss if you are either part of the noise or how you can rise above the noise with the power of a marketing lightning strike!
Reach and Frequency
It turns out that most marketing executions are predicated on an ancient idea on reach and frequency. The theory is, the more people who see your marketing efforts, the more successful your company will be.
“The reality is we get somewhere between 40,000 to 60,000 marketing messages a day. Reach and frequency really doesn’t work anymore.” – Christopher Lochhead
Christopher shares the idea of a lightning strike. It is taking a disproportionate amount of your marketing resources and execute in a very short period of time, against a small number of targets to get the maximum leverage.
Play Bigger: What is a Lightning Strike?
Now, let’s talk about how to stand out;
An excerpt from Play Bigger reads:
“A great lightning strike is a category-defining event. It evangelizes a new problem or an old problem that can be solved in a new way. It tells the world that this company knows how to define the problem and knows how to solve it. It makes potential customers believe that the company has the solution, and makes would-be competitors panic and call emergency board meetings. A strike is an event or coordinated series of events in a small window of time. It can take many forms. It can be tied to a product unveiling or a new round of funding. It could be a manufactured industry summit for the sole purpose of the strike.”
Do It Tight
The idea for a lightning strike comes from the movie industry. They stir up events to get maximum attention the two weeks before a movie launches.
What do you need? Christopher shares the following
- Pick a timing.
- Get super clear on your target audience.
- Make your target list as small as possible. You’re looking for leverage. You want to move your market category to action, by activating the most powerful, influential people in your category. If you get their attention and imagination and you get them talking. The idea is, “if you’re one of our Super Consumers, there is not a chance you’ll miss our lightning strike. You looking to create fast, word of mouth, leverage.
- Think of ALL of the components of the marketing mix that you use: Ads, PR, Social, Direct mail, email, podcasts, blogs, etc. Do a few legendary marketing executions that combined, will have maximum impact
To hear more about specific real-life lightning strikes event, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
162 Tangentially Speaking w/ Dr. Christopher Ryan Bestselling Author & Podcaster
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Today, we continue our run of legendary authors and podcasters with Dr. Christopher Ryan, author of New York Times bestsellers, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships and Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress. He has a chart-topping dialog podcast is called, Tangentially Speaking,
We have a fun, some times provocative discussion about everything from Muhammad Ali, what’s wrong with modernity, how the world is fundamentally changing, why living in a van is awesome, to what it’s like making a living as roving, smart person.
The Legendary Muhammad Ali
Christopher Ryan and Christopher Lochhead went into an insightful exchange of stories about Muhammad Ali. Chris shares during this lockdown, he discovered a YouTube channel that featured several classic fights and he enjoyed binge-watching on these.
Chris mentions Pete McCormick, the guy behind a documentary called “Facing Ali” and he interviewed guys who fought Ali. The interesting backstory was, during these tune-up fights, Ali would handpick his opponent.
“He would tell his agent, he heard one guy, his wife had been killed in an accident, so he will get a quarter-million dollars. He’s beating people up in a charitable, generous way.” – Christopher Ryan
Podcasting Has Been Instrumental
Lochhead describes Ryan as “an insanely smart Ph.D. dude who seems to make a living being a smart guy, writing smart shit, podcasting smart shit, generally being the smart guy in the world.” He says podcasting has been instrumental in getting his message across.
“It used to be, if you want to sit down and share your opinions to a hundred young smart people who are interested in hearing an old guy like me, you had a gig in the university. Universities are designed to filter out people like me or Joe Rogan or you, people who are liable to say something outlandish, to challenge this status quo.” – Christopher Ryan
He further shares that he is generally pessimistic about the modern world, but one of the wonderful things that happened recently is that podcasting exploded.
“It is almost like a printing press, it just exploded, the opportunity to have direct contact between someone in the audience and the audience chooses whether or not it’s worth listening to. It is not the administrators of the university or publishing house, you know the gatekeepers.” – Christopher Ryan
What It Is Like Living In A Van
Christopher says he owned an apartment for a while until last fall when he spent 5 months in the van. He ditched his apartment, rented a storage space, and continued living life on the road since then. He traveled across the United States during the summer and flew to tropical countries during the wintertime.
“When this stuff got weird, end of January, I flew back. I didn’t want to get stranded in Asia. I rented a house in a tiny little town in Colorado. I’ve been here, it is fantastic, there’s no problem with social distancing. I like solitude. I like a good solid chunk of quiet and distance.” – Christopher Ryan
To hear more about Christopher and what’s wrong with modernity and how the world is fundamentally changing, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher and his work have been featured just about everywhere, including Netflix, HBO, MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Times of London, Playboy, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, and The Atlantic.
Chris has been a featured speaker at TED, SXSW, The Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House, the Einstein Forum in Pottsdam, Germany, and is a frequent guest on The Joe Rogan Experience and many other podcasts.
He’s also provided expert testimony in a Canadian constitutional hearing and appeared in dozens of documentary films and television shows.
Even before co-authoring the New York Times best-seller, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships (translated into 18 languages), with Cacilda Jethá, MD,
Chris was on a wild ride.
After receiving a BA in English and American literature in 1984 he spent the next two decades traveling around the world, pausing in unexpected places to work at decidedly odd jobs (e.g., gutting salmon in Alaska, teaching English to prostitutes in Bangkok and self-defense to land-reform activists in Mexico, managing commercial real-estate in New York’s Diamond District, helping Spanish physicians translate and publish their research).
In his mid-30s, Chris decided to pursue doctoral studies in Psychology at Saybrook Graduate School, in San Francisco, CA, using his dissertation to critique mainstream views of human sexual evolution — providing the core arguments later advanced in Sex at Dawn.
Chris’s latest book, Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress (Simon & Schuster/Avid Reader Press, 2019), questions whether civilization has actually been a net benefit to our species. He hosts a weekly podcast, Tangentially Speaking, often recorded from the road, while traveling in his van, Scarlett Jovansson.
The podcast features conversations with famous comics, bank robbers, drug smugglers, porn stars, authors, and rattlesnake experts.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
040 Making Your Market Category A Must Have | Marketing PodStorm Episode 2
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Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world’s Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing.
In this episode, let’s talk about, arguably, the most important issue facing your marketing as you go forward powerfully: is your category a must-have, a nice to have or a don’t really need to have?
Customers Prioritize Categories When…
Christopher shares an important insight from a lot of CEOs and CMOs saying “our problem is that we are too much of a vitamin and not enough of an aspirin.” As it turns out, the more strategic, valuable, and urgent the market perceives a category, the greater the chances these customers will prioritize and buy from that business.
“I think there’s something very important to understand about what’s going on right now in the economy. We are all in a game of wallet share, much more than a game of market share. Customers’ wallets, as a result of the recession, are much smaller. They are going on a prioritization, deciding what is more important and what they can live without.” – Christopher Lochhead
Becoming a Must-have Is Job Number 1
Christopher mentions his observation about the mistake most companies are making as the economy starts to open up. They are evangelizing their brand, not their category.
“A brand is about us, is about our company it is about our product. The category is about customers, their problems, their opportunities. Categories are about customers, brands are about us. Right now, savvy marketers are focused on their customers and making their space, their category, critical.” – Christopher Lochhead
A Couple of Examples
The Washington Post has a very powerful tagline “democracy dies in darkness.” They are not hard-selling their brand, services, and company. The Washington Post is laying down a point of view about democracy and evangelizing this point of view results to elevating the value of Free Press.
“By evangelizing the category and keeping your brand more on the background, you also elevate your brand above everybody else in the category because, in the mind of the consumer, the company or the person evangelizing the category must be the category queen or king.” – Christopher Lochhead
To know more about how to make your market category a must-have, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter,The Difference, for some amazing content.
039 This Recession Will Not Stand, Man | Marketing PodStorm Episode 1
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Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world’s Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing.
In this episode, let’s talk about what is possible: it is possible to emerge from this downturn as a stronger business because this recession is not going to stand, man!
The HydraFacial Story
The legendary Peter Drucker once said: “the entrepreneur always searches for change, response to it and exploits it as an opportunity.” As hard as it is, particularly in this unprecedented time, legendary leaders are looking for opportunity and in many cases, they are finding it.
Christopher Lochhead conversed recently Clint Carnell, CEO of HydraFacial at Follow Your Different Episode 160, and Clint shares how they are dealing with the current C19 crisis, through radical business transformation.
How To Deal With “Ambush”
Last year was HydraFacial’s best year ever. When C19 hit, their entire category got stopped. Clint describes this as “being ambushed.” What do you do if this happens to your business?
“First of all, you summon your entrepreneurial spirit and you get, what my buddy Eddie Yoon call, thoughtfully aggressive and radically generous.” – Christopher Lochhead
HydraFacial partnered with a small company and they created the world’s first reusable cotton mask, infused with copper, which has natural anti-bacterial properties. Second, they entered the ventilator manufacturing business. Lastly, their call centers were converted to “helplines” to support the community during this crisis.
Roaring Out This Recession
Walter Frick in an article he wrote for Harvard Business Review cited amazing facts and figures that prove it is possible to turn your business around this recession.
“Recessions of 1980, 1990, and 2000, 17% of the 4,700 public companies they studied fared particularly badly: They went bankrupt, went private, or were acquired. But just as striking, 9% of the companies didn’t simply recover in the three years after a recession—they flourished, outperforming competitors by at least 10% in sales and profits growth. A more recent analysis by Bain using data from the Great Recession reinforced that finding. The top 10% of companies in Bain’s analysis saw their earnings climb steadily throughout the period and continue to rise afterward. A third study, by McKinsey, found similar results.” – Ranjay Gulati, Nitin Nohria, and Franz Wohlgezogen, Roaring Out of Recession
Christopher believes that you can come out of this downturn stronger when you commit and believe you can be a part of that 10%.
To know more about Christopher and why this recession will not stand, download, and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Links:
How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward, Walter Frick, Harvard Business Review
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter,The Difference, for some amazing content.
161 What IBM’s Experience In The Great Depression Teaches Today’s CEOs | Kevin Maney
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Today, we continue our run of legendary authors with Kevin Maney. He’s the world’s leading authority on IBM’s history. He shares some amazing insights into what IBM did during the 1930’s that ultimately positioned them for greatness. We also have a fascinating talk about what changes C19 might bring to the world and what that could mean for our businesses and careers.
Writing About Thomas Watson
Kevin is a multi-time best selling author of Unscaled and Play Bigger. He’s also a co-founder of Category Design Advisors, where he helps companies design and dominate their market categories. Today, Kevin shares how fortunate he was to be able to write a biography of Thomas Watson, the man behind IBM.
“I have been watching what’s happening and there’s all this economic damage and talk of a long term recession or depression everybody has to get through. Seeing companies laying off people, right and left and the jobless rate going through the roof and all these pain that is being caused made me think back to IBM in the 1930s during the Great Depression.” – Kevin Mahey
IBM and The Great Depression
Kevin narrates the amazing story of how IBM took the lead during a crisis. It was just a few years after the great depression. Instead of ceasing operations just like any other major corporations, he allocated funds to manufacturing and research and development.
“Imagine the tension, there’s no revenue coming in, spending all this money keeping these people, building machines and he is running out of time. Then this amazing event happened.” – Kevin Mahey
Then-President Roosevelt devised programs to assist companies wherein the government will be needing a lot of reports on salaries. IBM, being the only capable company to fulfill this demand then stepped into the picture. This made IBM as it is now and Thomas Watson, one of the greatest CEOs of all time.
Crisis As An Opportunity Rise
Kevin shares that similar to the Great Depression crisis, this current crisis could also be an opportunity to build something up, get ahead, and come out of even stronger.
“These kinds of moments in time can be seen as a tragedy but it can also be seen as an opportunity. If you can invest in the business, be wise and be careful, come out of the other end in a better position than you went in, and everybody else around you is devastated, I mean you’re in a great place.” – Kevin Mahey
To hear more about the inspiring story of Thomas Watson, IBM as told by Kevin Mahey, download and listen to this episode.
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