Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’
005 Mystery Shopping
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Retailers or B2C market often uses the term mystery shopping. It is a concept to understand the customer’s journey in your services. For the fifth episode, Lochhead tackles the importance of mystery shopping for your company.
Embracing Mystery Shopping
Retailers employ the concept of mystery shopping—where they pay someone to visit their store and document their experience. This is also applicable to online retailers as they commission mystery shoppers to test their website. It is important for marketers to look into the “funnel” and the “journey” because the key trick is simplifying the process.
“I think it’s really critical whether you are in B2B or B2C, that we embrace the idea of Mystery Shopping.” – Christopher Lochhead
Third-party participation is not always required for mystery shopping. Any individual can check their own websites and see how easy it is to navigate on it. Marketers should consider this in improving the overall buying experience.
How hard is it to buy from myself?
Lochhead discusses the importance of mystery shopping—whether its for B2B, B2C, digital or physical. These companies should be able to identify how easy or hard it is to do business with their company.
Further, Lochhead advises even the CEO or business owners themselves, to regularly mystery-shop. In doing so, they will be able able to experience first hand what their customers. This is a good ground to see what needs improvements as well.
“Mystery Shopping always uncovers one or two, often small changes we could make to incrementally increase our sales.” – Christopher Lochhead
To hear more about Mystery Shopping and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 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 — which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard 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.
Link:
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!
004 5 Traits of Legendary Brands
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In this episode, Christopher Lochhead discusses the 5 traits of legendary brands—different, stands for something, point of view, consistent and prioritizes category creation. We’re positive marketers will learn a lot from this mindset-oriented podcast!
1. Be Different
Legendary brands are unique, interesting and groundbreaking. Marketers must continuously ask themselves how to become different from their existing competitors.
“When you hear most CEOs, CMOs, entrepreneurs, business people, talk about their differentiators—most of what comes out of their mouths is a comparison from their competition—as opposed to a distinction from their competition.” – Christopher Lochhead
2. Stand-up For Something
Moreover, legendary brands have a mission, they stand up for something. Interestingly, more legendary companies of today are committed to creating more impact in society. It is often called a “double bottom line”, where they also build projects with a social or human impact.
“You got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” – Christopher Lochhead quoting singer/songwriter John Melencamp
3. Point of View
Legendary brands have a point of view. A company should have a true north that they believe in. A lot of brands have provocative POV and it has proven to skyrocket their revenues, especially when they associate with personalities who have strong positions and opinions.
4. Consistency
Because POVs don’t change, this brings us to the fourth trait, which is consistency. Legendary brands do not deviate from their core, but they can evolve and embrace new things.
“Legendary brands are consistent, their colors, their point of view, and if you will, the place from which they come stays the same.” – Christopher Lochhead
5. Category First
Arguably, for Lochhead, the most important trait of a legendary brand is category-first. These brands do not attack the category, in fact, they promote it. They help improve the category by expanding and leading the category in different ways.
“Most legendary marketers know that categories make the brand, not the other way around.” – Christopher Lochhead
To hear more about the 5 traits of legendary brands and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 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 — which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard 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.
Link:
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!
003 What is category creation?
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On today’s episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead delves into the concept of category creation. He discusses why legendary entrepreneurs, CEOs, and marketers see category creation or category design as the new approach to winning.
What is it?
Category design is a new management discipline that is focused on creating and monetizing new markets. Moreover, Lochhead sees category creation or category design as a radical differentiation of oneself.
“Winning today is not about beating the competition. The most legendary entrepreneurs, CEOs and marketers are the people who invent a whole new game by defining a new market category, developing that market category and ultimately executing, so that they dominate it over time.” – Christopher Lochhead
Distinguishing Oneself
Legendary marketers and innovators refuse to be in comparison to what came before them. Due to this, customers look at legends as unique, or someone who broke or took a new ground.
Most importantly, legendary marketers want others to be compared to them. They are the agenda setters. They’re the ones defining the game and the rules.
Moving the World
Legendary marketers educate the world about an idea or a problem. Therefore, they provide a solution in a completely different way. They also have the ability to create value and urgency around the idea or problem.
“When the world accepts your point of view about a problem and solution, you change everything. That is what category design is about.” – Christopher Lochhead
Lochhead also discusses the fact that categories are everywhere. Further, he states that category comes first and the brand comes second. According to him, “category is the human filing system that we have, so we can relate to things and most importantly, value things.”
In the end, Lochhead poses the question any marketer should ask oneself, “are you playing someone else’s game or do you have the courage in creating and designing your own category?”
To hear more about category creation and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 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 — which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard 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.
Link:
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!
001 Who is this podcast for?
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It’s an awesome day to be legendary! This is the first episode of our new podcast, Lochhead on Marketing, hosted by our very own, Christopher Lochhead. In this episode, he talks about who is this podcast for and what sets it apart from other marketing podcasts.
Join us as we define what makes this podcast, different—ultimately, what makes it legendary!
Who’s Who in Marketing
Entrepreneur and VC partner Christopher Lochhead is an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups. He is a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and co-author of two bestsellers: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
To add, he a dyslexic high school drop-out who started his own company at the age of 18. Christopher sees his setbacks as his springs to success—the farther he’s pulled down, the higher he is launched to the top.
“I have a unique perspective in working with early-stage companies, being an entrepreneur myself. Since then I have done a lot of advising and investing and I focused a lot on podcasting.” – Christopher Lochhead
Who is this podcast for?
This is the podcast for the pirates, dreamers, and innovators—those who want to introduce the world to new ways of doing things. These people want the world to be different. They want to explore what it takes to produce legendary results. Basically, this podcast is for anybody who wants the world to be different.
Entrepreneurial marketers, Founders, CEOs—of course, CMOs and business leaders who want to design and dominate their own market categories—would benefit highly from this podcast.
“This is for people who give a sh*t about winning! People who want to create the game, not play someone else’s. People who want to move the world from the way it is, to the way they want it to be” – Christopher Lochhhead
What more should you expect?
The show Lochhead on Marketing will examine the strategies behind what makes legendary marketing, legendary. Moreover, this podcast will share not only the strategies but the mind-set required for winning. Most of the episodes will be short and practical and will have simple take-aways.
“Having some marketing savvy, particularly around designing and dominating categories is an incredibly important skillset, regardless where you are in the C-suite” – Christopher Lochhead
Who is this podcast for? It will be for both B2B and B2C markets, especially now that these two concepts are merging in terms of marketing ideas. We will feature technology as well, as it is one of the key drivers of the industry. Technology enables marketers to be precise in measuring reach and accessing new mediums, just like podcasting.
To hear more about who this podcast is for and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 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 — which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard 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:
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!
083 A Legendary Executive, Sue Barsamian
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Today, we hang out with an amazing and effective executive, Sue Barsamian. Sue recounts the early beginnings of her career, her challenging job at Mercury Interactive with Christopher and her not-really-a-retirement retirement. In this episode, find out why people dream about having her career.
Challenges After Challenges
Sue has an engineering background that might have contributed to her natural passion for creating, building and solving things. She worked with Christopher at Mercury, which was sold at $5B to HP. She stayed with HP and was assigned to run a billion-dollar cybersecurity business.
“HP gave me a chance to test myself at a scale that I have never tested myself, ‘can you lead 4000 people, can you do 10,000 at P&L?’ Its a different ball game and you’ll never know until you tried it, so that was fun, I had a blast.” – Sue Barsamian
She went ahead to become the head of Sales and Marketing for Software at HP—a role that is unusually given to a single executive. At present, she’s on the board of Symantec ($15B), Box ($2.5) and privately held Gainsight, Xactly. She retired from the operations side of the business but still held a seat at the board.
Keep on Evolving
Sue admits she had a good run in her 36 years in the business. She worked with 8 companies have had around 25 roles overall.
“Nothing in my resume that would say ‘she could do that.’ One of the things about staying in a company is, companies take a risk on people they could stretch and that benefitted me tremendously through my career.” – Sue Barsamian
Other than staying with a company, she stressed the importance of working well with people. She admits that she loves working with different people of different cultures, surviving different situations. She has learned how to understand people and help them become successful
Career Tips to Ponder
Sue Barsamian shares a lot of career tips in this episode. She gives special importance to understanding people and how they have a part to play on the path to success. Giving due credit and acknowledging employees as heroes also do wonders.
“In order to get things done in a company, you need to move mountains that don’t report you. At the end of the day, if you are not about other people’s success, if its all about you and you taking credit to all of your work personally, you’ll crash and burn.” – Sue Barsamian
To hear more about the legendary executive Sue Barsamian and more relevant information from Sue, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Sue Barsamian is a seasoned technology veteran with experience in both startups and major public enterprises.
Her background spans in general management, marketing, sales and engineering.
She serves on the boards of Symantec, Box, Gainsight, and Xactly.
Previously she served as the Executive Vice President, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Software, successfully spinning the division out from HPE and merging with Micro Focus International, plc to form the 7th largest software company in the world.
From 2006 to 2016, Ms. Barsamian served in various executive roles at Hewlett Packard including SVP and GM of Enterprise Security Products, the company’s cybersecurity portfolio and SVP of Worldwide Indirect Sales.
Prior to joining Hewlett Packard, Ms. Barsamian was Vice President, Global Go-to-Market at Mercury Interactive Corporation and held various leadership positions at Critical Path, Inc. and Verity, Inc.
She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Kansas State University and completed her post-graduate studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
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!
018 Super Bowl Special with Brian Berger
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On today’s episode, Christopher talks Super Bowl with Brian Berger. The founder and host of Sports Business Radio
Behind-The-Scene Stories
Brian has worked with a lot of people who make the sports world go behind the scenes. They have a story to share. And so he started the podcast.
“Everyone was interviewing players and coaches, but no one would talk to the business people behind the scenes—owners, agents, front office executives.” – Brian Berger
After 15 years, they have brought a unique perspective to listeners. They get firsthand information from the people who live and breathe sports business. People often assume that they talk stock prices and deals, but they’re not that complicated at all.
“It really is more about, ‘Why did people make certain decisions that they made, how did they find their path to success?’ We keep it ‘simple stupid’, as they say.” – Brian Berger
Dealing with PR
On top of being a podcaster, Brian has also been a long-time PR executive. He knows what it’s like to be the person to deliver a guest to a show and to deal with PR people who are hit-and-miss. So, to help better the industry, he started Sports PR Summit.
“I like building relationships with the people that I have on my show as guest and I’d rather deal with them directly… But sometimes a PR person can add some elements that I may not have thought of.” – Brian Berger
And if you’re lucky, an exceptional PR
Super Bowl Predictions
The highest-rated Super Bowl was in 2015, with 114 million watchers. Even though there are top media markets involved in this year’s Bowl, Brian thinks there won’t be the same outcome.
To hear more about Brian’s podcasting and Super Bowl facts and figures, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
with Brian Berger
Brian Berger is the host and founder of Sports Business Radio. Since the show’s launch in 2004, Berger has gone one-on-one with high-ranking sports executives such as former NBA Commissioner David Stern, Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, NCAA President Mark Emmert, Portland Trail Blazers and Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley and 2-time NBA MVP Steve Nash.
Berger is also the Founder/CEO of the Sports PR Summit, an annual event that brings together Senior PR executives from the pro and collegiate sports ranks as well as from top sports corporations, media members and athletes for panel discussions and valuable networking opportunities.
Media members and athletes share candid insight about the best ways for PR executives to work most effectively with them. The event allows for all attendees to leave with a better understanding of the evolving communications issues and challenges we are facing in the sports industry.
Sports PR Summit speakers have included NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star Isaiah Thomas, WNBA star Lisa Leslie and ESPN journalists Tom Rinaldi and Jeremy Schaap. former NFL quarterback Michael Vick, New York Knicks Head Coach David Fizdale and ESPN’s Jemele Hill.
Berger received a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications/Broadcasting with a minor in Berger has been named to Forbes.com’s list of Top 50 sports follows on social media in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 (@SBRadio) and the award-winning Sports Business Radio podcast is regularly ranked in the Top 100 of the Business News section on iTunes.
Cynopsis Media named the Sports Business Radio podcast “Best Podcast” of 2018.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed Brian Berger in 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!
000 Welcome to the Follow Your Different™ Podcast
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From unfolding legends and losery, Christopher Lochhead moves on to unpack stories of how people embrace what makes them different. On this episode, he sits with his dear friend Jaime Jay to share the story behind the show and what people should expect from Follow Your Different™.
“The number one question that I have for myself is why would you change something that isn’t broken?” – Christopher Lochhead
Product of Evolution
Starting a new show is both exciting and scary. But according to Christopher, Follow Your Different™ is a representation of what Legends and Losers, his previous podcast, has become.
For a long time, Christopher stuck to the theme he started with when he first launched Legends and Losers. But he also began to feel a little straitjacketed by how people viewed the show as a life and business podcast.
“When I took a hard look at it, the theme that really seemed to run through the podcast was the… celebration of different, if you will.” – Christopher Lochhead
Celebrating Different
People readily embrace the mantra of following your different. According to Jaime, when Christopher first talked about the idea of the podcast, he didn’t know what to expect.
Legends and Losers requires some explanation, and that is something that Christopher hopes to do away with in Follow Your Different™. The new podcast itself actually has a double meaning. The diversity of Legends and Losers inspired this.
Firstly, the podcast is a celebration of different things, of people and companies with different ideas that may not be exposed in mainstream media. These make for very gripping stories for this very reason. Secondly, every episode is different.
“We’ve been called the Internet’s box full of chocolates.” – Christopher Lochhead
Different in a Lot of Ways
With the theme so deeply embedded in Legends and Losers, you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes it’s a top-tier venture capitalist, sometimes a CEO, sometimes a doctor who’s designing a legendary death. Other times, a convicted killer turned motivational speaker.
These two kinds of different should resonate with the audience of the brand new podcast. To hear more about how Christopher turns over a new leaf and launches Follow Your Different™, download and listen to the episode.
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!
