After releasing, What’s the Future of Business: Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences, I also published a secret “bonus” chapter for those who finished the book and found the Easter egg at the end. Now, I’m making the bonus chapter available for everyone. Why? Because the four moments of truth explored in WTF not only define the modern customer journey, the link between the Zero Moment of  Truth (ZMOT) and what I call the Ultimate Moment of Truth (UMOT) is more influential today than when the book originally published? ZMOT represents the beginning of the discovery process, i.e ..read more

Why do bikes stay stable when you ride them (and fall down when you stop)? A tiny reason is the gyroscopic stability of the wheels, but the real reason is the forward momentum of the rider. And we learn the first day we’re on the bike that forward motion is essential or we’re in trouble. In our fast-moving world, it’s easy to get hooked on personal velocity. What’s in your inbox? Did someone follow you in the last ten seconds? Where’s the beep and the beep and the beep from your last post? Perhaps we talk faster, interrupt, talk over, invent, dissect, criticize and then move on to the next th ..read more

Originally published on the Salesforce “360 blog“ Customers care about end-to-end experiences, not how your company is organized. Business leaders are quick to say that a connected customer experience is a major business priority. But the truth is that they are struggling to do it well. New data captures the gap between business and digital transformation and the integrated experiences customers desire. Countless growing departments, new services abound, and the truth remains: Customers have to see you as one company. This is why a connected, personalized, and seamless customer experience (CX ..read more

Remembering this Blast from the Past from a WARM summer several years back! Every year in Toronto the summer ends with the Canadian National Exhibition running the last two weeks of August until Labour Day. For the first time in 30 years I decided to venture down in search of effective examples of experiential marketing and there were many to be found. In fact I’d say that many marketers are missing out on key branding and customer acquisition opportunities by not taking advantage of this annual event. First off let’s be clear, it’s been years since I’ve been to the  (CNE).  This was ..read more

Big company CEOs get paid ridiculous amounts of money, but the good ones also do something that most of us avoid. They make decisions. In fact, that’s pretty much the core of the job. Whether to shut a plant, open a store, create a division, invest in a new technology… That’s the part that creates the most value. When we go to work, most of us simply go to work. We do our jobs, respond to the incoming, hone our craft, make some sales. The decisions get put off or ignored altogether. And yet it’s the strategic decisions that can change the arc of our career and our job satisfaction as well. He ..read more

Dear CMOs: First and foremost, you have my utmost respect. While I have never been a CMO myself, I do have a lot of real-world marketing (and advertising) experience, I was a featured writer for the CMO Network of Forbes for nearly 10 years, I have interviewed well over 2,000 leaders just like yourself, I coach and counsel CMOs and I have very close relationships with many of your peers. So while having never served in the role per se, I know the role quite intimately. I know of the struggles and challenges you go through on a daily basis. I know all about the daily ride you go on. Boy, do I e ..read more

A summary of Brian Solis’ keynote presentation at the recent Martechvibe Fest event in South Africa by Suparna Dutt DCunha People keep saying it: everything has changed. As the days spent in our homes blur together, outside in the world of marketing, huge shifts in consciousness are happening. The pandemic is teaching marketers not just to be digital, but to use it to bring new experiences that are more intuitive, productive, efficient and exciting for customers, and also be empathetic, according to Brian Solis, the global Innovation evangelist at Salesforce. Speaking on Day 2 of the Vibe Mar ..read more

The virtual office skeptic says, “we can’t go fully remote, because the serendipity of personal connection is too important.” The theory goes that watercooler conversations and elevator encounters add up to an emotional bond. Add to that the happy coincidence of overhearing a conversation where you have something to add or seeing something on a colleague’s screen, and the case is made for bringing people back to a building. Of course, what it overlooks is that in any building with more than 200 square feet of space, you’re only bumping into a tiny fraction of the people who work there. If the ..read more

CEO of Photofy John Andrews considers how collaboration with your employees could make your digital content sing… Digital marketing today is a crowded arena. It’s become the primary tool for marketers in terms of dollars spent. But as spending has increased, saturation and diminishing returns have occurred at an alarming rate. There’s simply a finite amount of human attention and too much noise. More dollars continue to flow into programmatic media all seeking to reach the right shopper with the right message at the right time… in the fastest and easiest way possible. Every dollar s ..read more

No thank you… is that really so hard to say? I get that people are busy, and that we all get a little overwhelmed sometimes from all the marketing that we see. But if we’ve got a long-standing relationship and I’m reaching out with an offer, a favor for a friend, someone looking for a job, or just to run something by you, then I would really, really like to see a response other than pure silence. Wouldn’t you? Occasionally a call, email, or bit of social outreach simply slips through the cracks. I get that. But you should make an effort to respond. It doesn’t have to be a yes, but anythi ..read more