Brian de Haaff's Blog, page 10

Stop Making Excuses at Work — Do This Instead

Tell me if this sounds familiar. Your colleague makes a trivial mistake. Maybe it is a financial typo in a presentation or they did not speak up when they had questions and finished work that was not quite right. All you want is for them to own up to it and move on. Instead, you get a long-winded explanation of why the mistake happened.  

It is a mark of strength — not weakness — to admit culpability swiftly and succinctly and explain how it can be rectified.

Now, I understand why people defa...

Stop Making Excuses At Work — Do This Instead

Tell me if this sounds familiar. Your colleague makes a trivial mistake. Maybe it is a financial typo in a presentation or they did not speak up when they had questions and finished work that was not quite right. All you want is for them to own up to it and move on. Instead, you get a long-winded explanation of why the mistake happened.  

It is a mark of strength — not weakness — to admit culpability swiftly and succinctly and explain how it can be rectified.

Now, I understand why people defa...

All Marketing Is Now Digital Marketing

When was the last time you got a brochure in the mail that made you want to instantly take action? My guess is not recently. (If ever.) And even if you did get a mailer for an appealing vacation resort or restaurant, I bet you did not call the 1-800 number listed on the back. Nope — you went to the website for more information. And you likely booked your vacation or dinner reservations there.

Our world today is nearly all digital — which is why today’s marketers are all digital too.

Now, you...

The Founder’s Paradox: How to Know What Decisions to Make and What Should Be Left for Others

We make decisions all the time. Some are small, subtle, you could even say reflexive — grab a coat in case of rain, scoop up the kids’ backpacks rather than waiting for them to do it themselves. (Getting them to make that choice would require years of coaxing.) There are of course more middling everyday choices, like what to eat for dinner. (Ad infinitum.) But what about at work, where even your subtlest decisions can impact so many?

As a founder, you make decisions that have a huge impact on...

Why Strategic Thinking Is So Hard for Digital Marketers

“Marketers are often relegated to the doers and order-takers as opposed to being the thinkers in the business.” Not my words. Someone left these comments on a blog post I wrote about why marketers need strategy. That article hit a nerve, especially with digital marketers, and I know why. You are the ones who should be driving the business towards new growth opportunities. So, why is it all doing and not enough thinking?

Because many marketers are mired in low-level, tactical work — which blo...

How Many Meetings a Day Is Too Many?

I once watched someone fall asleep in a meeting. It was early in my career and I was sitting in a quarterly business review. The organizer had scheduled one hour — but the meeting time bloated to more than three hours. Worse, it was after lunch. As the afternoon stretched on, I could hardly blame the sales colleague sitting next to me for briefly nodding off.

The scene is still playing out today, even more so. Because we are spending too much time in meetings.

In fact, researchers found that...

Hey Marketing: Watch Out, Here Comes the Sales Storm

Do you hear that rumbling sound? There is a storm coming — a big one. The air is growing thick and the thunder clatter is getting louder. The boom is echoing across your company. Because this is not your average weather event. This is a sales storm. If you are in marketing, you might want to run for cover because the downpour is headed your way.

I got this term from a digital marketer — she used it to describe being swarmed by a fuming sales team looking for someone else to blame for another...

Positioning vs. Messaging

How do you tell an original story? There is usually a real-life event behind every fantastical tale. If you work in marketing, you know that for your work to ring true it must be grounded in the unique truth of your company’s product or service. This value should be the basis of every great story that you tell.

To bring value to your marketing story, you need to understand two important terms — positioning and messaging.

Let’s start with positioning. This is an internally-focused concept that...

What Every Remote Worker Should Do Within the First 30 Days

Your first day on a remote team. We wrote about this topic a couple of years ago and I recently started rethinking why we focused on just one day. Not because the advice is no longer valid. But because I heard an Aha! teammate share about the first year in a remote company.

Yes, your first day at a remote job matters — but even more meaningful is what you do in the first 30 days. Your first month sets you up for success.

The fact that the first 30 days means so much to individuals and the tea...

The Founder’s Paradox: How to Get People to Tell You What They Really Think When They Are Afraid To

“What do you think?” This can be one of the hardest questions to answer. Especially in an all-company meeting, when the person asking is the founder or CEO. Silence is understandable — people may feel timid, worried about saying the wrong thing and looking foolish in front of their colleagues and other leaders. So, you get blank stares and tight lips. You truly want to know the answer, but people seem afraid to speak up.

I have experienced this in different ways at different points in my care...