See All My Writing Below
You can read all of my posts below in the reverse order of when they were originally posted (newest first). However, be aware that my intention is not to post on a regular basis. Rather, I intend to post as needed an UPDATE existing content to ensure it is always relevant.
To that end, you may find it more convenient to browse these posts by topic (feature coming soon!)
Marketing (click here)
Leadership (click here)
Management (click here)
Operations (link coming soon)
Evergreen Marketing Advice
A new connection messaged me and asked me for some marketing advice. I thought about it for a while and shared two pieces of advice that I thought would last forever. Then I came back here and wrote a list of 16 just for you.
The Foundational Org Chart
We’ve all seen traditional org charts with the CEO or President of an organization standing alone at the top of the chart and lines reaching down through various levels to the “bottom” of the company. We can do a lot better.
Leading A Team In 6 Steps
Be friendly, but keep your goals in mind. Be clear about expectations, but don’t be rigid. Be understanding, but not a doormat. If you are focused on the goals of your team and organization and achieving your mission, your team will be as well.
Ryan’s Rules of Social Media Mastery
As Captain Barbossa would say, they’re more guidelines than actual rules. However, these tips will help you get the best of the effort you put in.
Documenting A Business Strategy Map
Imagine you’re beginning to work on a strategic plan*, or a budget, or a marketing plan, or a staffing forecast… or well, anything that involves your entire company. Wouldn’t it be great to first have a giant, birds-eye view of your business? Wouldn’t it be great to know the impact one part of your organization has on another part?
You already have a plan. It just sucks.
Most plans come together the same way. Someone decides that something needs to be accomplished, and then they get to work creating a plan to accomplish that thing.
Unless you are part of creating something absolutely new and original this is the wrong thing to do because you probably already have a plan - it’s just that the plan you have sucks.
That’s okay though because it’s a start.
Optimizing Images On A Website
Starting a new website brings with it an opportunity to try new things and refine old things - including the processes that you use to build that website.
Here is how I recommend optimizing your images for the web.
Two Is One…
This phrase is quite popular in military circles but doesn’t seem to have caught on just yet in business. That’s really too bad because it can save your organization a lot of pain. The concept is quite simple: don’t expose yourself to a single point of failure. Always plan a backup.
Test Like A Formula 1 Team
Auto racing teams test. They test a lot. Tire compounds. Spring rates. Fuel mixtures. Wing shapes. On a good track day, the car will look drastically different at the end of the day from how it left the garage at the beginning of the day because many things will have been tested and changed.
A/B testing is great however, as the name implies, A/B testing is about testing A against B - one variable at a time. Racetracks are outside and many variables may change that the engineers didn’t plan for.
A/B Testing
There’s a scene in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross where Alec Baldwin’s character, Blake, says that his sales team should follow the ABCs: A - Always, B - be, C - closing.
Whether that is true or not I think most people, especially marketers, should be practicing their ABTs: A - Always, B - be, T - testing.
Ask These Questions Before Launching Anything
A person or team, when excited about an upcoming product or promotion, can become blinded by passion.
I have found that these questions, when answered honestly, can help your team get an unbiased perspective on what they’re trying to accomplish.
Choose Infrastructure Over Procedures
Often, managers default to procedural changes when faced with a problem. What if the issue is actually related to the infrastructure?
