Blog Author Mellissah Smith - Page 40

Am I an entrepreneur first, or am I a marketer?

I'm sitting at the Qantas Lounge at the Melbourne International Airport ready to board another flight to Los Angeles. I am a tad tired. 2.15am wakeup wasn't my best work, but sometimes excitement does get the best of me. Travelling for me, is exciting and part of the bigger adventure. I get to meet people that inspire me, shock me and sometimes join me on my journey as a friend, client or person "I just know".

Meeting people when you are an introvert is completely and utterly out of your comfort zone, and I know the value of being outside your comfort zone. It's one of the best things that can happen, especially if you are an entrepreneur.

Having the benefit of being part of a global entrepreneurial friendship group, made up mostly from people through my travels around world, I am always interested in different models in which employees are remunerated or attracted to an organization.

What works well for one company, may not for another. The big corporate beast can be a lure and it can also deter the best talent - depending on what is most important to any particular individual. If you want to know what keeps employees in the game, and on your team, it may in fact be something that you did not realize.

Start-ups and small businesses

I won't lie... I need to have the best team possible. They each need to be high achieving, dynamic, skilled individuals who are actively trying to be the best. What they don't know, they seek to find out. What they are good at, they share. What they can improve in, they ask for mentoring and coaching. Basically, people who are in touch with their own capabilities and are self-starters.

Watching from afar, but being in the thick of it all at the same time, the US election has taken a toll on our perception of what is going on, and what we need to do moving forward.

What is there to not love about America? I am blessed with a life of travelling backwards and forwards from Australia to Atlanta, meeting amazing people and having a team of individuals in my office that are very talented and uber cool.

It's almost time to clock off for the year, and start a new one. Are you ready? In Chinese custom, they clean their houses and life so that they can start a new year fresh. In business, it's not too different. If you really want to make the most of the new year, finish off everything that hasn't been completed and clean your house and find a new way of doing business in 2017.

In life as a normal rule, I do not reward bad behavior and have spent a lifetime being disappointed by people because of it. But the truth of the matter is that sometimes, you have to, and as painful as it is, choose not to be the one to set the example. You have to make a choice to let something make you or others miserable or to move on gracefully.

When we reward bad behavior a few things happen:

Sitting in the Atlanta office, with the weather outside mild compared to other years, I am looking at the view with a new perspective.

We run an international marketing firm, but so what? What does that actually mean? The last few days in the office before the end of the year are the best days in which to look back at the year you have just had and think about the year ahead. What are you going to do differently? How are you going to stand out from the crowd? What is going to keep you and your team motivated? What road blocks do you envisage coming up and how can you get around them before they become a problem? What changes are you making to your business?

Technology has revolutionized marketing and where it is heading in the next few months, let alone years, no-one knows.

But what I do know is that all of a sudden, we have forgotten something that is really, really important - and that is people are human and the human connection will never die.

Over the course of a year, Marketing Eye writes about 100 to 200 marketing strategies. They are integrated in approach, and incorporate the use of technology, data science, creative, and human elements. I recently was given a marketing strategy from another company that had done some work for a new client, and I literally threw it in the bin. It could be a strategy for any company, and all it did was talk about the technologies that the company needed to "buy" to achieve their goals.

I can't believe how many mistakes I make every single day. Sometimes, I think to myself.... "I must be stupid." Then I realize that there are always reasons as to why we make mistakes and as long as we learn from it - then that is all that counts.