Freddie Daniells

Inspiration from The Hoff

Those who know me may not think I look the athletic type but I do enjoy going to the gym regularly. Well maybe enjoy is a little optimistic but I go anyway. ;)

Last week, whilst sweating my way past 4 kilometres on the treadmill, I spotted that the BBC breakfast news team were about to interview David Hasselhoff.

'The Hoff' (as he is now known) was the star of Baywatch and of Knight Rider. Indeed, because of these series he recently earned a world record from the Guinness Book of Records for being the worlds most watched TV star. Over 1 billion people a week are exposed to his programs! If you don't believe me look here.

He has also major chart hits with some rather cheesy soft rock ballads. In Germany he is an idol for having a huge hit called Song for Freedom when the Berlin Wall came down.

And now The Hoff has become an icon for the younger generation too. Google his name and you will see what I mean. An indie band in the UK called the Automatic always set up one corner of their concert halls as a shrine to the man. There is even an online campaign in Britain to get his next (cheesy) record to no.1!

In short, the man is a phenomena.

So, in deference to The Hoff, I quickly unplugged my iPod and tuned in.

His answer to one question really hit me. When asked why he had been so successful in picking both Baywatch and Knight Rider, he said that it came down to his checklist of three things. Any script must give Heart, Humour and Action.

These strike me as a great checklist for speech writers too. I think of them as such:

1. Heart - the best speakers bring passion to the dullest of subjects. You are left in no doubt about their position on the subject and their belief in their position. They tell you whether globalisation is good or bad and tell you with all their might. They tell you how Aids is the scourge of Africa and you feel their pain. They tell you a funny story and you know they are excited to be telling it to you. Heart sucks us in.
2. Humour - Humour should not be reserved for the best man speech. It is a powerful tool for everyone to use. This does not mean that you need to be a stand-up comic or a laugh a minute. But it does mean that your natural humour should come through. You should use your humour in the same easy going manner as you might at a wine bar or dinner party. This takes work for many speakers but with practice can be achieved. The use of props or amusing slides can help here - whatever works best for you.
3. Action - no-one likes dry, inward looking, highly analytical speeches. Numbers and facts need to be brought to life. Show us what it means at the coal face. They want to hear about real stories - what you have seen, what you have done, what you have experienced. These are what interest us most.

Guy Kawasaki (a great speaker himself) recently recommended we listen to Marjora Carter speak at the TED Conference in the States. She provides one of the best examples I've recently seen of Heart, Humour and Action in practice. Listen for yourself and see what you think.

I know this will be become a great checklist for my speech writing in future. See whether it might be a good one for you too.

Yay! President of Holborn Speakers for 2006/07!

I had some great news at the end of last week. I have been voted to be the President of my Toastmasters Club for 2006/07. We are a club of near 60 public speakers so it is a great honour. I start on July 1st. I am joined on the committee by an exciting group of individuals who, I am sure, can make the club an even greater success than it already is. Congratulations to Dominique, Heike, Ratan, Bernard, Graham, Fran and Michaela - I am looking forward to working with you all.

And thank you Deborah, our current President, whose tireless and selfless efforts have helped the club become what it is today.

If you are based in London and interested in learning how to improve your public speaking and the Toastmasters organisation, then drop me a line.

Tooting Bert's horn!

One of the blogs that I read regularly is Bert Deckers. He gives some of the smartest advice on the web on a range of public speaking issues. He runs Decker Communications, a San Francisco based coaching business for speakers and has worked for over 20 years with top business figures, politicians and sports people. If you want to learn more about public speaking I solidly recommend you subscribe.

In his posts, he often refers to The Decker Grid. On Monday, whilst taking a short flight, I read a copy of his book Creating Messages that Motivate: How to use and master The Decker Grid System. It gives the reader a wonderful overview of how to write a persuasive speech. The book remit is focused on structuring a speech, not on delivery. What you say will be much better organised but how you say it will be largely unaffected.

In business life I have found that the purpose of the majority of speeches is to persuade someone of something. (Scared of being pushy, many people end up writing speeches that inform but fail to go that extra mile to persuade. I will talk about this in a different post.)

Bert outlines many of the same principles that we learn at Toastmasters - the power of three, how to create a strong opening and conclusion, how to involve the audience in the presentation and how to add hooks (he calls them SHARPs).

The book is only 80 pages or so, is written in large typeface and has plenty of pictures. It was perfect given that I had been to a dinner party in Spain the night before, had 3.5 hours sleep and a mild hangover when sitting on my 7am flight home when reading it!

The process he advocates is simple and ultra effective (I used it on Tuesday night for a half hour short notice speech I had to give). It provides a good 'best practice' methodology that can easily be integrated into anyone's working style.

In short, it is an excellent book that I highly recommend. It is available on Amazon here.

A heart warming tale

Just followed a link from Howard Mann to this story. When so many news stories seem to be doom and gloom, it is really great to hear a good news story like this. Please make sure to watch the video - you won't know whether to laugh or cry! Big thanks Howard!

My recommended reads 19Feb06

Mark Lloyd recently told me he had been enjoying this feature so here it is again. Cheers Mark for the nudge.

Whatever: Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing - some great common sense advice on writing. These tips work well when writing a speech too.

Creating Passionate Users: Rethinking testimonials - these tips fit well with the advice I was once given by Richard White. If you need some advice on testimonials, make sure to give him a call.

Low-Fat Diets Flub a Test - New York Times - recent studies show that low fat diets don’t work. I am in the process of dieting at the moment so this is of particular interest to me. I’ll talk more about my experience in the near future.

Why The Economy Is A Lot Stronger Than You Think - a good look at how the US measures trade and deficits. The suggestion is that intangibles such as intellectual know-how isn’t collated properly and that in a knowledge driven world this is the most critical part of our value add.

Dealing_with_Darwin: Top Ten Myths about Business Innovation - Geoffrey Moore, who I think is one of the smartest business thinkers around, tackles innovation.

The Kiss of Life - New York Times - amusing look at the oddity that is kissing.

Publicly Speaking

Tom Peters is one of those 'gurus' who polarises opinions. Personally, I like his style. He is though, whatever your thoughts, one of the most in demand public speakers in the world.

So I was particularly interested to see Tom comment on a book on presentations called The Excellent Presenter by Timothy Koegel.

Tom picks up on one phrase that struck a chord with me:

Those who practice improve. Those who don't, don't.

Until a few years ago, I had to be forced into public speaking tasks. Frankly, I was crap! In one presentation I literally read the bullet points word for word for nearly 20 minutes. It was that bad! But this shouldn't have been surprising given the time I had put in to learn this skill - i.e. none.

And I guess that I was not alone. Tom recounts:

In Koegel's seminars, he asks participants how much time they spend communicating—including formal presentations, meetings, interviews to collect information, and even voice mails. The answer, and he cites other research with like numbers, is 50 percent to 80 percent of one's professional time. (Which makes perfect sense to me, as I sit here at a keyboard ... communicating.) Then Koegel asks how much time people spend practicing and evaluating their communication skills. A very, very fair question, eh? The answer is: 0/zero percent to 2 percent ... mostly zeroes.

For those interested in improving and practising their communication skills I can highly recommend Toastmasters.

I joined 18 months ago and my public speaking has since been transformed. My confidence is high, my ability to structure effective speeches is improved and the ability to support them through props, my own gestures and using my voice has transformed my delivery. I have confidently now presented at industry conferences and seminars both here and in the US. Indeed, I was voted best speaker at one!

The benefits of joining are:

1. You practice in front of a safe audience. It's better to learn in a helpful learning environment like Toastmasters than to learn from your mistakes in front of your Board!
2. You follow a structured programme touching on all the major aspects of an effective speech e.g. structure, vocal variety, gestures, persuading with power etc.
3. A committed member could be in front of an audience in different roles over 30 times in a year.
4. You learn many different aspects of public speaking - prepared speeches, impromptu speeches, running an event, listening to speeches and having to respond with only a short time to prepare.

In short, Toastmasters has been brilliant for me and I can recommend it to anyone. The only regret I have is that it took me so long to find it. It scares me to think how much more effective I might have been had I know about it ten or fifteen years earlier.

If anyone has any questions on Toastmasters please get in touch, In future I will comment further on the lessons I've learnt from my public speaking 'career'.

PS My club is Holborn Speakers. Disclosure: I am a committee member.

GTD people - take a look at ClearContext

Adrian and I are both fans of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. For newbies, GTD is a bottoms up system for managing the countless projects and tasks that life throws at us.        

Adrian recently blogged about how useful he had found the Nelson Email Organiser (NEO) Outlook add-in for managing his Inbox. I dutifully downloaded the trial version but found it made my Outlook unstable. So, despite its promise, I had to uninstall it. (most likely a reflection on my system than on NEO)    

This made me keen, however, to try ClearContext, a similar system for managing your Inbox. And I have been impressed. Things I like are:                  

1. Unlike NEO, everything is done in the familiar surroundings of Outlook.
2. Great for all GTDers - ClearContext puts the onus on you to deal with your mail through your Inbox. Because Outlook rules automatically distribute emails to the relevant folder, I lose important to-do mails amongst these folders. By contrast ClearContext collects mail in Inbox, allocates a topic to it and waits for you to process it before filing it away by topic. For GTDers, this means you deal with the 2 minute items immediately, filing them away after, and use the GTD add-in to make tasks of the rest. Very neat.
3. My contacts can relate to me in several ways at one time - they may be working with me on a project as well as arranging a beer evening out. Outlook rules do not easily allow you to file messages relative to the context of the message. In ClearContext each mail is filed relative to its topic rather than by hard rules. It also recognises that a series of mails with the same subject is a conversation and so automatically gives the same topic to all mails about the same subject.
4. Finally ClearContext lets you prioritse mail. If you want new mail from your spouse, your boss or best customer to always show at the top of your inbox, this is a doddle. Out of the box, the software analyses your existing mail and guessed what might be important to you. This is easy to customise for your needs.

There are other features but ClearContext is well worth a look - its cheap and will help you if you are overwhelmed by your Inbox. Price $29.95. Take a look at NEO too.

PS Scoble likes it too!    

My recommended reads 17Oct05

Burnham's Beat: Early Warnings Signs A Software Stock Is In Trouble - The key metrics to watch when either investing in or starting a software company.    

Seth's Blog: The new rules of naming - Seth Godin's always wonderful advice. This time on how to name a company in the time of Web 2.0.

Getting Flat, Part 2 | Linux Journal - Just re-discovered this article - Doc Searls explains that how IQ can go up as well as down. Hope mine is on the rise! Part 1 here. 

WSJ.com - Home Sellers Turn to Blogs To Make Properties Stand Out - Interesting use of blogs. Been toying with the idea of what to do with my apartment - this would be a smart way to market it. Subscription required.    

MarketingProfs - KPIs to measure marketing effectiveness - Interesting dialog showing how marketers struggle with metrics and accountability.        

WSJ.com - The Hidden Dangers of Heartburn - If you thought Heartburn is something you could ignore, think again. It is one of the major causes of esophogeal-cancer, the fastest rising cancer in the US. Subscription required.    

My recommended reads 10Oct05

WHO | Avian influenza - good explanation of the issues around Bird Flu from the World Health Organisation.        

Tom Peters is also raging here about what impact this might have and how unprepared we are.    

Creating Passionate Users: How to speak at a tech conference - This is just great advice from Kathy Sierra for whatever the conference you want to present at.        

Presentation Zen: The "Lessig Method" of presentation - A great demonstration of an alternative style of powerpoint presenting.    

Micro Persuasion: It's Time to Go the Distance - Steve Rubel tells the PR community to start to educate the corporate world about blogs.        

Obsessive Branding Disorder - great article from Fast Company reminding us that product is more important than brand.    

OnlyOnce: What a View, Part II - Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path tells of how his 360 review works with the board. See Part I also.

A 'Winning' opportunity for you!

Had a fun night last night. Jumped on the old Vespa and headed across to Westminster for a talk by Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE. He is doing a promotional tour for his new book 'Winning'.

It is always fascinating to hear someone of his stature talk about how they rose to the top of the largest company in the world and what made them successful. It is also interesting to see the personal angle too. For example, Jack apparently has a stammer. And yet today is one of the most sought after public speakers on the planet. This ability to conquer is undoubtedly a strength that has served him well.

The pearls of wisdom that worked for me were:

1. All business is about one thing only - people. HR is the least understood part of the management job. It is taught poorly at business schools and yet is the core part of management and leadership. The CEO should make it clear that HR is at least as important as finance or any other function. At GE, Jack spent 70% of his time on people issues and more time with HR than any other function. His biggest successes where about people (those people he hired) as were his biggest failures (not paying enough attention to organisational culture during acquisitions).
2. He uses a 20/70/10 rule. In any organisation there are about 20% of your people who are the stars, about 70% who you want to encourage to improve and become potential stars of tomorrow, and finally 10% (give or take) who you know are not going to make the grade.
3. He advocates transparency. In particular to point 2, he suggests that you tell the 10% that it isn't working and that they may be better suited to other cultures or careers. This gives them time to reposition themselves with your help rather than suddenly shocking them with the usual 'we're making cutbacks' story. Be honest with people.
4. While big businesses tends to drown in bureaucracy it must be fought at every corner. It is not a fight you will ever win completely but is nonetheless important. And the best weapon for fighting bureaucracy? Humour. Take the mickey out of it.
5. Work for a company that gives you energy and values your expertise and contribution. Any other type of business is draining and will not give you the best or encourage the best out of you.
   
6. Work-life balance is earned not given. Success gives you the flexibility to make work-life choices.
   
7. The way to competitive advantage is through having an insatiable interest in learning.

A fun evening all round - good weather for scootering, a great talk and plenty of food for thought.

PS As part of the deal, the conference organiser LBF gave everyone in the audience a copy of 'Winning'. As I already had a copy I now have one spare. So if anyone on the planet can give me a good reason (or joke!) to send it to them  please leave a comment below, or drop me a mail, and I'll stick a copy in the post. Offer ends 30th September!

Getting back in the saddle

If anyone still has this blog on RSS feed I haven't died. I have got married since I last posted but that's not quite the same!

Its been a long time - about 5 months - since I last posted. And it is not through lack of interest. After only 6 months of blogging I had created a pressure within myself that everything I wrote had to be insightful commentary. The pressure became overwhelming and I froze.

With this in mind that I have been following Jennifer Rice's comments, both on her own blog and at BrandShift, about blog burnout (here and here). I sympathise hugely. I too have been suffering the same fate.

And of course, then the procrastination sets in. The need for perfection, the need to have it all figured out before starting again.

On Monday I met with Johnnie Moore (and the other 173ers) and was reminded of his perspective that sometimes we need to play and see where the world takes you. And it is with this in mind that I am going to start again.

So for a while my contributions are likely to be less structured than before and we will see what themes (if any) develop.  There will likely be more personal stuff - the blogs I enjoy have a good mix of professional and personal. And watch out because my already poor spelling and gramma is just about to get a hole lot wurse!

Hopefully a few of you will stick around to see what emerges.

Changing customer behaviour?

I am in bed with some sort of flu at the mo. so catching up on a little reading (in between sleeping!).

In the Spring issue of the Marketing Society’s Market Leader magazine, David Cowan of Forensics, a strategic growth consultancy writes:

Marketing’s proximate mission must be to change customer behaviour – it is customer behaviour change that leads to top line growth. Changing customer behaviour is the link that connects the CEO and finance directors requirements with marketing.

and later…

Changing customer behaviour should be formally set as the header objective because it gives direction to the whole marketing enterprise.

Sorry David, I just can’t get with this at all.

Imagine you knew one of your suppliers had its objective to change your behaviour – what would your reaction be? I certainly know what mine would be and it is not suited to a family blog like this! As a customer, I have no interest in changing to suit a company’s needs – only to suit my own.

Indeed, I’ll go further. A responsive supplier would change it’s behaviour to meet my needs and aspirations not the other way round.

Of course, the best relationships are the result of conversation or co-creation. Change often takes place as part of this discussion – sometimes on one side only, but most successfully on both. Customer success (and the supplier’s long term aspirations) are won through dialog, understanding, education and common ground.

IMO they are never won through suppliers coaxing customers to do things that they neither want to do nor are in their longer term interests.

PS. I have mailed David about this post to give him the chance to respond in the comments.

Setting the right priorities

Just doing my daily trawl of the Wall Street Journal and came across an article about Motorola who reported earnings yesterday, handily beating expectations.

The money quote is:

“There’s no magic here” said Ed Zander, Motorola’s chairman and chief executive officer, in an interview. “When you focus on customers and developing compelling new products that they want, this is what you get,” he said.

Enough said.

More presenting duties - Marketing Resource Management conference

I will be speaking at the Marketing Operations Management Symposium in New York on Monday May 9th. If you are interested how technology can help improve the way marketing departments and brands are run, then this is THE event for you. This is the best place to hear about Marketing Resource Management (MRM), Marketing Operations Management (MOM), Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) or whatever 3 letter acronym this technology currently sports.

More specifically you can learn about how to use technology to improve internal marketing processes such as:

• Strategic planning
• Financial management and budgeting
• Production of marketing collateral
• Accountability and audit, including reporting for Sarbannes Oxley
• Brand management

Sessions will also discuss the issues around using technology for:

• New product launches
• Management of the marketing supply chain
• Marketing Return on Investment calculations
• Managing local implementation against a global backdrop
• Marketing knowledge management
• Six Sigma
• Integration with operational and analytical CRM

The conference runs on both the 9th and 10th May.

I will be talking about:

• How to conduct a needs analysis: understanding and optimising your processes before automating them
• A roadmap for MOM implementation
• Components of MOM, and key vendors in each category – CRM, marketing analytics and campaign management, DAM and MOM
• Comparing vendors that are typically short-listed – features and functionality, costs and benefits
• A product/competency matrix for MOM suppliers
• Enterprise versus mid market solutions
• MOM specialists versus enterprise infrastructure giants
• Examining the value proposition of these solutions – suggested and actual benefits

I have also been asked, in association with the conference, to facilitate a workshop on the Wednesday morning. As their marketing blurb says:

“Drawing on Freddie’s extensive experience” (yawn) “of auditing marketing operations at several major companies, this tutorial will provide a practical framework for understanding your current marketing processes, identifying opportunities for enhancement, and understanding how long your MOM project will take and how much it will cost.

• How to examine the structure of your marketing organisation
• How to audit your existing marketing program management processes, encompassing the brief, budget allocation and tracking, supplier relationships, creative workflow, review and approvals, through to execution
• identifying bottlenecks, duplications, delays and inefficiencies
• Setting project objectives and building a business case for MOM: finding short term wins / building with the long term in mind
• Developing a checklist of required and desired functionality / process enhancements to take into vendor selection.”

I presented at the same event last year, so am an old hand! If you have any questions about the event then please get drop me a line. Otherwise there are more details here.

For those based in Europe and unable to make it along, don’t worry! Henry Stewart, the conference organisers, are planning a similar event in London on June 21st and 22nd. I’ll post more details here as and when I have them.

PS If you wonder what I do for a day job then this should give you a pretty good idea!

173 Drury Lane

Johnnie Moore, Max Blumberg and myself recently set up a site called 173 Drury Lane.

We all feel a certain warmth for the UK’s third largest retailer, Sainsbury’s. Unfortunately, as UK readers will know, in recent years the company has fallen on hard times and is often the subject of takeover rumours.

We feel that Sainsbury’s has too much potential to ‘go down’ in this way. So 173 Drury Lane was born to talk about the specific issues surrounding the company.

We want the site to develop into a talking shop, a conversation about how Sainsbury’s might dig itself out of its current hole. As such, we will be looking for new authors who can bring fresh perspective on the company. In this vein, we have recently been lucky to have been joined by Adrian Trenholm who runs his own web design agency. We would like to hear from City folks, marketers, other retailers, employees and ex-employees, anyone who would like to take part in the debate on what Sainsbury’s future might look like.

Some good chat is already going on there. So, come on over and join us. It should be fun.

PS. For those wondering about the name, 173 Drury Lane was the site of the first ever Sainsbury’s – isn’t Johnnie sooo clever!