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Experiment Market Measure

Minimum Viable Marketing

We’ve all heard about lean product development principles: Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), measure its performance, and iterate.

We could apply this same principle to many Product disciplines. Take marketing, for example. Often, a Product team will hire a marketing manager or consultant and launch a campaign, aiming to reach as many eyes as possible.

Here’s another approach: A Minimum Viable Marketing (MVM) campaign.

Define a small campaign targeted only at the early adopters amongst your market segment, using words like Innovative, Pioneer, Breakthrough, Private, Limited, and Now. Choose just one channel to reach them on.

No need to build out every asset for every medium. No need to get the alignment just so. No need for pixel perfection. No need to wordsmith.

Since you’re starting small, take the time to get to know your audience. Talk with them, without any hint of self-promotion. Show them your marketing materials and gauge their thoughts and reactions.

Then iterate.

Categories
Focus Work

Be Quiet

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
— Walt Disney

Are you curious?

Curiosity and silence go together.

Curiosity is about searching and discovery. Things that get in the way of that are pride, arrogance, loudness, teaching, and even problem solving.

You can’t sell and be curious at the same time.

You need to be quiet.

Listen. Really listen. Empathise. Be quiet.

We have something new to learn from everyone: the elderly, our children, the arrogant, the meek.

In every conversation: Stop evaluating, and listen for something to learn.

 

Categories
Measure

Choosing the Right Metrics for Distributed Teams

There’s a temptation to burden remote workers with a tonne of metrics.

When managers don’t trust their staff to be productive at home, the staff are often closely scrutinised with daily standups, daily roundups, and to-the-minute time tracking.

Continue reading “Choosing the Right Metrics for Distributed Teams”
Categories
Work

Office to Officeless

When espousing the benefits of Distributed Teams, as I often do, I’m often told “but Luke, remote work wouldn’t succeed in my business”. And do you know what? You’re right.

Is it possible to transition from office to officeless? Not with that attitude.

Continue reading “Office to Officeless”
Categories
Work

Mixing Remote and Local Teams

Having a mixed location workforce feels like a natural step when transitioning to a fully distributed business, yet this intermediate step can present its own unique challenges.

Integrating remote workers into a non-remote team can be difficult because they don’t share physical office interactions with the local team.

Continue reading “Mixing Remote and Local Teams”