Month: August 2023

Categories
marketing projectmanagement

How to use a RACI Matrix for Project Management & Alignment

Ever struggled to know who should handle what components on a project? 🤔 If yes, then try a RACI matrix 🙌

RACI = Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, & Informed

R – Responsible: the person responsible for completing a project & actually doing most of the work

A – Accountable: the person ultimately accountable for the success or failure of a task or project.
They make sure that everything is on track & that the project is completed within the allotted time, budget, & scope.

C – Consulted: the people consulted for their expertise or input. Think of them for feedback and guidance.

I – Informed: the people who should be informed about the progress or completion of the project

Using a RACI matrix can help your team avoid confusion & overlap in roles, improve communication and collaboration, & ultimately lead to more effective processes. 🚀

When I started at HST Pathways, I found RACIs especially helpful to get aligned with the team on our Quarterly Detailed Marketing Roadmap, hiring, etc.

Have you used a RACI matrix?
Have any similar responsibility frameworks you like to use?

Categories
b2bmarketing customermarketing emailmarketing

Email Newsletter Growth Hack: Reviews & Referrals at the Bottom of Emails

Want a quick win? Include these at the bottom of every email newsletter:

“Leave a G2 review & get a $50 gift card.
Email a screenshot to marketing@xyz.com & we’ll send the gift card.”

“Refer a customer and get $X [after they take a meeting with us / after they become a customer].
Refer them by [doing xyz].”

I’ve done this in the past, & we got new reviews & referrals for basically no additional work.

What are other things you like to put at the end of every email newsletter?

Categories
marketing pixels seo

Removing Unused Website Pixels for SEO Improvements

We recently found ~25 pixels on our website not in use 😮

Easy way to improve your SEO: check yours & delete these suckers!

As you likely know, each pixel slows down your website a little more, so removing these can speed up your site and improve your SEO & your user experience.

For sites that are old / have been through many Marketing teams, the pixels likely get left after someone tried an experiment but didn’t remove it.

Clean-up time! 🧹

Categories
leadership peoplemanagement

Skip-Level Meetings Template & Purpose

If you manage people who manage people, it’s valuable to have skip level meetings. This is where you meet 1:1 with the people who don’t report to you directly but are part of your team.

If you don’t do this with your boss’ boss, then send them this & ask if they’d be open to meeting with you monthly or quarterly.

Below is why & a template for topics to cover:

Why do it?

  • Builds culture & employee engagement
  • Opportunity for two-way feedback
  • Increases employee retention
  • Opportunity for you to see how well your direct reports are managing

Here’s a template of topics to cover:

  • Chance for them to share anything, personal or professional, with me
  • Check-in on how it’s going with their manager and any related feedback
  • Any feedback they have for me, the department, or the company
  • Any recent company changes/announcements they may have questions on

Depending on how many people are on your team, I’d suggest doing this monthly or quarterly.

What are other topics you like to cover?
Have you had any meaningful experiences during a skip level meeting?

Categories
b2bmarketing customerresearch productmarketing

Customer Interviews for Marketing: a Real Example

Soon after starting at HST Pathways, I asked a COO at a happy customer, “What else is part of your tech stack other than HST Pathways?”

COO: confused face 😯

I quickly clarified, “What other software tools are you using?” Then she named a couple of others.

What I learned:
1. Our ICP doesn’t use the same jargon as me!
2. Most of them are not as tech-focused as other industries.
3. Reiterated the power of customer interviews, especially when in a new job.

>>> Watch the body language in customer interviews as much as you listen to the words said.

What have been some aha moments for you when speaking with customers?

Categories
b2bmarketing careerdevelopment

30-Day Marketing Plan & Findings

I like to create a deck of my initial findings after one month of starting a new job. This helps others catch the vision for where we can go, creates a good opportunity for feedback & discussion, and helps others learn my thought process.

Here’s the format I most recently used at HST Pathways:

2 slides:
Marketing Findings
Non-Marketing Findings

Each slide had 4 boxes:
Observations – Highlights
Observations – Opportunities/Lowlights
Recommendations
Where You Can Help

In the past, I sometimes have deep dives on specific topics too.

If you have a team, many of the observations and recommendations will be a synthesis of what they have suggested to you and what you have seen yourself.

Have you done something similar before? What format do you like to use?
Think you might try this in your next job?

Categories
b2bmarketing demandgeneration salesdevelopment

Inbound Lead Qualification: Best Practices, RACI Matrix, SDRs Reporting to Marketing

We recently moved inbound lead qualification from the Sales Development team to the Marketing team to create a more streamlined end-to-end process.

Here’s how we’ll continue to keep a close connection between Sales Development & Marketing.

We created a RACI matrix to define how to collaborate and delineate roles & responsibilities (kudos Lyndsey Lumpkin!).

We wanted to ensure:
– That the Inbound SDR will continue to have a peer group of people in a similar role
– There is a career path for them into Sales (or Marketing)
– They can benefit from the great training from Sales Development on soft skills, sales techniques, product training, etc.

Again, kudos to Lyndsey for creating this and for Caleb Norris and Nick Latz’s input on this and our overall plan.

We can foresee a future in which we route leads directly to AEs, but we’re not there yet.

What would you change or add to this matrix?
Does yours look similar?

Categories
nonprofit refugees

Global Crisis Unveiled: Understanding the Causes and Solutions for the 103 Million People Displaced Worldwide

Did you know there are currently 103 million people forcibly displaced worldwide?

The primary root causes:
– Conflict & persecution
– Economic
– Climate change

I’d encourage you to think about how you can help!
– Volunteer with a nonprofit
– Co-sponsor a refugee family to help them settle in your country
– Donate to help

What are your thoughts on forced displacement?

Shoutout to Derek Lee for sharing this slide.

Categories
Business professionaldevelopment saas

How to Boost Your Business Acumen: Top Books and Podcasts

Level up your business acumen with some of my favorite resources below. What would you add to the list? 👇

1️⃣ Required learning:

  • Zero to One by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
  • YouTube: YC How to Start a Startup YouTube course
  • Traction by Gino Wickman
  • Podcast: All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

2️⃣ Additional suggested books:

  • The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
  • Good to Great by Jim Collins
  • The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
  • The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
  • The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
  • Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
  • Case in Point by Marc Cosentino

3️⃣ Additional suggested podcasts:

  • Acquired
  • Bad Bets
  • How I Built This with Guy Raz
  • Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy
  • The Oficial SaaStr Podcast
  • The Survival to Thrival Podcast
  • TechCrunch Daily Crunch

Note: I purposely didn’t include leadership & professional development books or any discipline-specific resources (e.g. Marketing focused). Those will be in another post soon.

——
What would you add to the list?
Love any specific one listed?
Disagree with any of these?

Categories
leadershipdevelopment learning

Best Leadership Books for Growing Leaders

To become a better leader, check out these resources:

🔋 Required Learning:

  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
  • Radical Candor by Kim Scott
  • High Output Management by Andy Grove

🧭 Additional Suggested Learning:

  • Getting Things Done by David Allen
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  • The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
  • Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
  • The 5-2-1 Principle by Greg Campbell
  • The Surprising Power of the Coil by Greg Campbell
  • Who Moved my Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
  • Radical Candor podcast

——
What would you add to the list?
Have any favorites here?