Lochhead on Marketing

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we dive deep with fellow Category Pirate Katrina Kirsch into the critical importance of clarity in marketing. We explore the common pitfalls that entrepreneurs and marketers face when trying to articulate their points of view (POVs) and the challenges of standing out in a crowded marketplace. This episode will break down the key insights from their discussion, and offer thorough explanations & actionable advice to help you refine your marketing strategies. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Katrina Kirsch on the Challenge of Clarity in Marketing Christopher opens the discussion by highlighting a prevalent issue: many marketing messages are convoluted and fail to convey the core message clearly. He points out that when potential customers visit a company's website, they often leave feeling confused about what the business actually does. This confusion stems from the tendency of companies to overcomplicate their messaging, using jargon and clever phrasing that ultimately obscures their value proposition. Katrina agrees, sharing her experiences with creatives who often fall into the trap of trying to be overly clever in their marketing. She emphasizes that while creativity is essential, it should not come at the cost of clarity. The duo stresses that the most effective marketing is straightforward and easy to understand. They argue that clarity is not just a nice-to-have; it is a fundamental requirement for successful marketing. The Power of Simplicity The conversation shifts to the power of simplicity in messaging. Christopher cites Walmart's tagline, "Save money. Live better," as an example of effective simplicity. This tagline is memorable and communicates the brand's value proposition clearly. He contrasts this with the overly complex messaging often found in the tech industry, where companies may describe their products in multiple ways, leading to confusion rather than clarity. Katrina shares a story about a photography club leader who was preparing to launch a virtual camp. The leader's email communications were filled with clever but confusing language, including hidden links and overly complex descriptions. After reviewing the emails together, Katrina advised him to prioritize clarity over cleverness. She emphasizes that when communicating with an audience, especially those unfamiliar with the subject matter, it is crucial to be as clear as possible. Katrina Kirsch on the Dangers of Overcomplication Christopher and Katrina discuss how the desire to sound smart can lead to overcomplicated messaging. They reference a smart startup CEO who, despite his intelligence, produced a press release that described the company's product in six different ways. This lack of consistency made it difficult for readers to understand what the company actually did. Christopher points out that this is a common mistake among intelligent individuals who may feel the need to showcase their knowledge through complex language. Katrina adds that in certain fields, such as academia or science, complexity can be valued. However, in marketing, especially for solopreneurs and small businesses, clarity should take precedence. The speakers agree that the goal should be to communicate the problem being solved and the solution offered in the simplest terms possible. To hear more from Katrina Kirsch on the Importance of having a clear POV, download and listen to this episode. Bio Katrina Kirsch is a skilled content strategist and writer specializing in creating impactful marketing strategies and engaging content. With a background in journalism and digital marketing, Katrina has a talent for crafting clear, compelling messages that resonate with diverse audiences. She excels in SEO, social media management, and brand storytelling, helping businesses build strong online presences.

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we engage in a thought-provoking conversation with Fernando Labastida, an innovative thinker in category design and a proponent of businesses creating their own unique markets. The discussion centers on the transformative role of writing a book as a strategy for businesses to carve out their unique markets and establish themselves as category leaders. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Fernando Labastida on the Value of Writing a Book Fernando Labastida begins by discussing the advantages of writing a book, asserting that it can serve as a powerful means to organize and galvanize ideas. He notes that while it’s possible to design a category without writing a book, the process of writing can clarify thoughts and solidify concepts. Fernando likens writing a book to assembling a puzzle or using a paint-by-numbers coloring book, where a detailed outline helps structure the ideas. He also highlights how a book can kickstart marketing efforts, enabling authors to engage in "information wars" and "air wars" to evangelize their categories. A book can open doors to speaking engagements, podcast appearances, and networking opportunities, amplifying the author’s message across various platforms. The Impact of Being an Author Christopher shares a personal anecdote about the impact of being a published author. He recounts a recent experience in Fiji, where a stranger recognized him as one of the authors of "Play Bigger" and expressed how the book had changed his life and business. This moment underscores the profound effect that a book can have on readers, creating a lasting connection that is often more impactful than other forms of media, such as podcasts or blogs. Fernando posits that in an age where attention spans are dwindling, writing a book demonstrates a commitment to deep thinking and sustained effort, which can resonate with audiences. Creating New Language and Thought Leadership The conversation shifts to the importance of language in establishing thought leadership. Christopher points out that those who create new language often dominate their categories. He cites Starbucks as an example, where the company’s unique terminology has shaped customer expectations and industry standards. Similarly, he discusses how ChatGPT has redefined language around artificial intelligence, introducing terms like "large language model" and "prompt engineer," which have become integral to the conversation about AI. Fernando echoes this sentiment, referencing the Eisenberg brothers, who coined terms like "conversion rate optimization" to describe emerging concepts in digital marketing. He emphasizes that new problems arising from technological advancements necessitate new solutions and, consequently, new language to describe them. To hear more from Fernando Labastida and the legendary value of writing a book, download and listen to this episode. Bio Fernando Labastida is a seasoned marketing strategist known for his expertise in content marketing and business growth. He has helped tech companies and startups build brand authority through strategic storytelling, connecting businesses with their target audiences. Passionate about innovative growth, Fernando excels in crafting compelling narratives that drive engagement and customer loyalty, making him a trusted leader in tech marketing who skillfully blends strategy with creativity to achieve impactful results. Links Follow Fernando Labastida! Website | LinkedIn We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Category Pirates Christopher Lochhead and Eddie Yoon talk about the power of simplifying business strategies into a One-Sentence Strategy. They discuss how successful companies, from large enterprises to solopreneurs, leverage concise strategies to drive focus and alignment. Highlighting examples like Gillette's "revenue per user per year" and Microsoft's "a computer on every desktop," they emphasize the importance of clarity and customer-centric approaches. The episode underscores that while crafting a one-sentence strategy is challenging, it is essential for achieving cohesive company culture and long-term success. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Power of Having One Clear Strategy Eddie Yoon emphasizes that the most successful businesses, regardless of their size, often operate under a singular, clear metric or strategy. This simplicity allows for better focus and alignment across the organization. He cites the example of Gillette, which used "revenue per user per year" (RUPI) and "profit per user per year" (PUPI) as their guiding metrics. This approach not only streamlined their decision-making but also ensured that all team members understood their primary objectives. Christopher & Eddie then give examples of several legendary companies that have thrived due to their clear, concise strategies. For instance, Microsoft’s one-sentence strategy was "a computer on every desktop," which guided their product development and marketing efforts for decades. Similarly, YETI, known for its premium ice coolers, positioned itself with the straightforward strategy of offering a "premium ice cooler," differentiating itself from traditional, lower-cost options. The Importance of Customer Focus They also point out how these companies maintain a customer-centric approach. For example, the Keurig coffee system was built around the idea of convenience and choice, with the metric of "K-cups per brewer per day" driving their business decisions. This focus on customer experience and satisfaction is crucial for long-term success. Christopher explains that while these strategies are simple to understand, executing them effectively is often challenging. He notes that when a company has a clear strategy, it becomes easier to align employees, investors, and customers towards a common goal. This alignment is essential for fostering a cohesive company culture and driving growth. The Challenge of Crafting a One-Sentence Strategy Creating a one-sentence strategy is not a straightforward task. It requires deep reflection and a thorough understanding of the business's core mission and values. Christopher & Eddie discuss how many organizations settle for vague or overly complex strategies, which can lead to confusion and misalignment. They advocate for a rigorous process of distillation, where businesses must sift through their ideas and focus on what truly matters. One of the standout examples is the Ritz-Carlton's guiding principle: "Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen." This simple yet profound statement encapsulates their commitment to exceptional service and sets a high standard for their employees. It illustrates how a well-crafted strategy can inspire and elevate a brand's identity. To hear more From Christopher & Eddie about the One-Sentence Strategy, download and listen to this episode. Want to hear more Pirate Jams? Head on over to Category Pirates and enjoy more conversations between Category Pirates Christopher & Eddie! Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand,

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead, a three-time CMO and a leading figure in category design, gives his Pirates Perspective into the critical concept that "the category makes the brand, not the other way around." This principle underscores the importance of understanding and defining a category in marketing, as it can profoundly influence consumer perception and the overall success of a brand. Through engaging stories and practical examples, Christopher illustrates how effective category design can lead to market dominance. Additionally, Christopher highlights Microsoft's strategic shift in the tech industry, emphasizing the importance of a unified category approach. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Understanding Category Design Category design is a strategic approach that involves creating and defining a new market category, thereby positioning a brand as the leader within that category. This concept is pivotal because it shifts the focus from competing within an existing market to creating a new space where the brand can dominate. Christopher emphasizes that successful brands are those that not only understand their category but also actively shape it. The Category Shapes the Brand Christopher’s central thesis is that the category makes the brand, not the other way around. This means that the success of a brand is largely determined by how well it defines and owns its category. By focusing on the problems they solve and the experiences they create, companies can differentiate themselves and achieve lasting success in their respective markets. Case Studies: Barcade and Qualtrics Christopher then shares compelling examples to illustrate the importance of category design. One notable example is Barcade, an innovative arcade bar that successfully carved out its niche by blending the nostalgia of classic arcade games with a vibrant bar atmosphere. By defining its category clearly, Barcade attracted a dedicated customer base and differentiated itself from traditional bars and arcades. Another significant case study is Qualtrics, a company that transformed its market position through a focus on experience management. Christopher contrasts Qualtrics with its competitors, such as Medallia and SurveyMonkey, to highlight the impact of effective category design. While Qualtrics successfully defined and owned its category, the other companies struggled to differentiate themselves, leading to varying degrees of success in the marketplace. Microsoft’s Journey Christopher recounts the story of Microsoft and its journey to dominate the office productivity software market. Initially, Microsoft faced fierce competition from established players like WordPerfect in word processing, Lotus in spreadsheets, and dBase in databases. Despite launching competitive products, Microsoft struggled to gain significant market share. The turning point came when Mike Maples Sr., a key figure at Microsoft, discovered an anomaly in sales data during a trip to Australia. He learned that bundling applications together and offering them at a discounted price led to a significant uptick in sales. This insight prompted Maples to rethink the problem: instead of viewing these applications as separate categories, he recognized that they collectively addressed a larger issue—productivity for office workers. To hear more about Christopher Lochhead’s Pirate Perspective on Brand and Category Design, download and listen to this episode. You can also check out more Pirates Perspective at Category Pirates. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap,

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead and Eddie Yoon dissects Apple's latest announcements from the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on an all-new Pirates Perspective. The conversation centers around Apple's introduction of Apple Intelligence, a cutting-edge AI-driven personal intelligence system, and their strategic partnership with OpenAI. They break down the key insights from their discussion, offering actionable advice and thorough explanations for marketers and tech enthusiasts alike. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Apple Intelligence: A New Category in AI Apple's announcement of Apple Intelligence marks a significant milestone in the tech industry. This AI-driven personal intelligence system is designed to enhance user experiences by integrating smarter, more intuitive tools into daily lives. Christopher Lochhead praises this move, emphasizing Apple's role as a primary category designer, particularly in the realm of personal computers. Actionable Insights: Embrace Category Design: Companies should focus on creating new categories rather than just competing within existing ones. This approach can lead to market leadership and long-term success. Integrate AI Thoughtfully: Embedding AI in products should be done in an evolutionary manner, ensuring that it enhances user experiences without overwhelming them. Strategic Partnership with OpenAI Apple's decision to partner with OpenAI rather than compete with them is a strategic move that highlights the importance of collaboration in the tech industry. Christopher Lochhead commends this approach, noting that it allows Apple to focus on serving their customers through thoughtful and aggressive innovation. Actionable Insights: Leverage Partnerships: Collaborating with other industry leaders can lead to innovative solutions and a better customer experience. Focus on Customer Needs: Innovation should always be driven by the goal of serving customers better, rather than just outpacing competitors. Privacy, Data Usage Concerns, and Regulations in AI Eddie Yoon expresses both excitement and concern about the potential benefits and privacy implications of Apple's personal intelligence system. He highlights the need for careful consideration of data usage and consumer privacy. The conversation also delves into the need for oversight and regulations in the AI space. Christopher emphasizes the importance of strong controls while acknowledging Apple's historical business practices and the need for critical examination. To hear more Pirates Perspective, download and listen to this episode. You can also check out more Pirates Perspective at Category Pirates. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different  **NEW!** The B2B Tech Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Engineer Your Market, Find What Makes You Different, And Become A Category Queen We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, I would like to share with you a very special tribute to a man who's not only a legend in the world of basketball but also a cherished friend of mine—Bill Walton. Join me as we take a walk down memory lane, revisiting the first time Bill graced my podcast with his presence and the indelible mark he's left on my life. A Meeting of Minds in San Diego It was August 24th, 2017—a day etched in my memory, thanks to the friends who captured the moment and shared a photo of our first encounter. Meeting Bill Walton was like stepping into a storybook where the characters leap off the page. Here was one of the greatest NBA players of all time, a man whose stature was matched only by his extraordinary personality, ready to become a part of my world. Our initial meeting took place at an executive event in sunny San Diego, where we were both slated to speak. I remember watching Bill, completely unscripted, captivating the audience with his life's slideshow in the background. His ability to weave tales and engage listeners with nothing but his memories and a carousel of personal photos was nothing short of mesmerizing. The Teacher in My Life Bill's journey is one of resilience. From battling a stutter to enduring chronic injuries, his path was never easy. Yet, he emerged stronger, channeling his love for music and life into everything he did. His passion was infectious, and his dedication to being unapologetically unique was something that deeply resonated with me. Bill played a crucial role in my transition to becoming a teacher. His influence was a guiding light, helping me navigate through new territories with confidence. His life lessons extended beyond the court, and I was fortunate to be one of the many who benefited from his wisdom. Radical Generosity and Unwavering Support One of the most touching aspects of my friendship with Bill was experiencing his radical generosity firsthand. I'll never forget the care package of memorabilia he sent my way—a testament to his thoughtful nature and the value he placed on our bond. In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, it was Bill's kindness that shone through the darkness. His heartfelt messages provided comfort and support when I needed it most, further solidifying the profound impact of our friendship. As I reflect on the time spent with Bill Walton, I'm filled with immense gratitude. His legacy extends far beyond his basketball accolades; it's etched in the hearts of those he's touched with his generosity, spirit, and unwavering friendship. I hope that this episode gives you a glimpse into the remarkable man that is Bill Walton and the special place he holds in my life. His story is one of triumph, tenacity, and the power of genuine connections. Thank you for joining me in this celebration of friendship and legacy. Bio Bill Walton, an NBA legend, is renowned for his exceptional skills, dynamic personality, and influential career. Born on November 5, 1952, Walton's basketball journey began at UCLA, where he led the Bruins to two national championships. In the NBA, he played for the Portland Trailblazers, San Diego/Los Angeles Clippers, and Boston Celtics, earning two NBA championships and an MVP award in 1978. In 1997, Bill Walton was selected as one of the NBA’s Fifty Greatest Players of all Time. Post-retirement, he became a beloved broadcaster, known for his colorful commentary. Walton's legacy continues to inspire basketball enthusiasts worldwide. Links BillWalton.com | NBA Profile | ESPN Biography We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, the conversation takes a deep dive into the complex and sensitive situation in Gaza, Palestine, Israel, and the broader Middle East, and how our perception here in America is being warped by misinformation from different sides. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. A Feeling of Déjà Vu for America On the evening of Feb. 20, 1939, the marquee of Madison Square Garden was lit up for the big event: "Pro American Rally." But it was the farthest thing from being American as can be. Uniformed members of pro-Hitler group The German American Bund carried American and nazi flags. That being said, In the last week of December 1942, fifty leading German-Americans (including baseball legend Babe Ruth) signed a declaration condemning nazis which appeared in ten major American daily newspapers. Ultimately, American patriots stopped the American nazis. Looking at the events this week at Columbia, MIT, NYU, and other elite US schools, they mirror much of the hate, horror and scale of The German American Bund. While some were there to genuinely support the civilians trapped in the ongoing conflict, there were others that openly supported Hamas’ extremist actions. It was very ironic to see banners about women and LGBT+ groups support, when they are the most oppressed in the world that these people envision. What’s even worse is that there were reasons to suspect that these protests were sponsored by people who don’t want to get their own hands dirty. (Mis)Information is Rampant One of the downsides of our technological boom is the ease of access to information. Unfortunately, ease of access does not always mean a smart populace. As information is shared from peer to peer, information gets distorted, if not outright manipulated to suit their agendas, that sometimes the victim comes out on the other end as the one being ganged on, instead of the oppressor. This particularly true with social media sites, who has become the de-facto source of information for the younger generation. There was even a brief period where young people were lauding a speech that Bin Laden made to justify 9/11. Never mind the atrocities he and his jihadist group committed in the US and international stage, he made a great speech! Totally justified. Call to Arms Nazis have attacked America from within before. American patriots stopped them. The only question now is, will you and I empower radical jihadists nazis? Or will we stop them, like our ancestors did 78 years ago? To hear more of Christopher Lochhead’s points on the matter, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead Links WSJ Article on the Anti-Israel Protesters The World’s Record Holder for Executing Women Has Executed Three Women in Three Days This Is Ahmad. He Was Queer In Palestine. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead of Marketing, we review a powerful strategy that has the potential to revolutionize how you approach marketing and demand creation for your product or service. We call this strategy "damming the demand," and it's all about redirecting existing consumer desire to carve out a new category that you can dominate. If you’re not convinced, check out how these giants in the industry have utilized this strategy to their advantage by creating demand in an already existing market. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Dam the Demand Traditional marketing often focuses on capturing the demand that already exists. It's about finding a place in the market and filling the needs of consumers who are already looking for solutions. But what if you could do more than just meet existing demand? What if you could create a whole new category of demand? That's where the concept of "damming the demand" comes in. It's a strategy that sits between traditional marketing and category design. Instead of just capturing demand or creating it from scratch, you harness the existing demand and redirect it, creating a new space for your product or service. Lessons from Tech Titans Let's look at some legendary examples to understand this better. Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com, didn't just create a cloud CRM; he dammed the demand for traditional on-premise CRM solutions. By evangelizing the benefits of cloud-based CRM, he forced a debate in the market, making businesses choose between the old on-premise solutions and the new, more flexible cloud options. This didn't just shift the demand—it expanded it, as more and more businesses began to see the value in cloud-based applications beyond CRM. In the B2C world, Peloton took a similar approach. They saw the demand for spin classes and dammed it by offering an alternative: high-quality home fitness. By doing so, they didn't just capture the existing market for spin classes; they expanded it to include people who wanted the convenience of working out at home. This created a new category of home fitness solutions that has grown exponentially. This isn't a new phenomenon. History is rich with examples of demand damming. Consider Henry Ford, who redirected the demand from horse and buggies to the "horseless carriage," or Marty Cooper, who shifted the demand from landline phones to the "wireless phone" category. These visionaries didn't just create products; they created movements that changed the landscape of their respective industries. The Strategy in Action So, how can you apply this strategy to your business? First, identify the existing demand that you can dam. Look for areas where consumers are already spending their money but might be open to a new, better solution. Once you've dammed the demand, use it to drive revenue in the near term. Then, leverage this demand to expand and create a new category that you can lead. Damming the demand is a potent strategy for any company looking to not just compete but dominate a new market category. By redirecting existing demand, you can create a new demand for your category, driving growth and market expansion. It's a bold move, but as we've seen from the likes of Salesforce and Peloton, it's a move that can redefine your industry and cement your place in history. Bio Christopher Lochhead Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different  **NEW!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about why thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking. This isn't just another buzz phrase; it's a fundamental practice that can revolutionize the way we approach entrepreneurship, marketing, and business strategy. So we thought that it would be a good idea to refresh new listeners minds and remind the old heads why Context is always King. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Power of Context in Decision-Making In the realm of business, context is everything. It shapes our discussions, influences our decisions, and ultimately determines the trajectory of our companies. It's not just about the data or the trends; it's about grasping the bigger picture and recognizing the underlying currents that drive market dynamics. Most people, particularly those who are entrepreneurial, have a strong bias to action, diving right in and creating content without the context to support it. However, it does have it downsides sometimes. “A strong bias to action means that sometimes, and I know I’ve been guilty of this more times than I will ever know, we spring to action without doing enough thinking. More importantly, without doing enough thinking and dialoguing around what the context is for whatever it is we’re talking about.” – Christopher Lochhead Rejecting the Premise: A Pathway to Innovation One of the most exhilarating concepts we discussed was the power of rejecting the premise. So often, we're boxed in by traditional ways of thinking, by phrases and concepts that are accepted as industry standards. But what happens when we challenge those premises? When we refuse to accept the status quo? That's when innovation truly happens. By rejecting the premise, we open ourselves up to new possibilities, to the potential for creating entirely new categories and leading the market in directions it has never seen before. Challenging Existing Contexts: The Forward-Thinking Mindset A key takeaway from this discussion was the importance of challenging existing contexts. It's easy to fall into the trap of backward thinking, of looking to past successes as a template for future endeavors. However, the true forward-thinking entrepreneur knows that what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow. By constantly questioning and reevaluating the context in which we operate, we stay ahead of the curve and maintain a competitive edge. To hear more about how thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different  **NEW!** The B2B Tech Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Engineer Your Market, Find What Makes You Different, And Become A Category Queen We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Today on Lochhead on Marketing, we want to share some insights from a riveting discussion we had with Eddie Yoon, our category pirate brother, about a monumental move by Apple. We're talking about a colossal $110 billion stock buyback and what it means for the tech giant's innovation trajectory, particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI). Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Apple's Strategic Crossroads: Innovation or Shareholder Pleasing? Apple's decision to buy back stock is a strategic move that has raised eyebrows across the industry. I've always been fascinated by the bold moves that define market leaders, but this move by Apple has us questioning: Is this a sign of maturity and stability, or a red flag signaling a lack of innovative vision? Warren Buffett, a name synonymous with investment acumen, was famously tech-averse until Apple caught his eye. The staggering 95% retention rate of iPhone users and the undeniable addiction to Apple's ecosystem reminded him of his investment thesis on Coca-Cola. But as Eddie and I discussed, there's a nuance to Apple's success under Tim Cook's leadership. Despite the financial growth and profitability, the company has struggled to launch new categories—a hallmark of Apple's DNA. The Apple Watch: A Beacon of Innovation in the Cook Era It's not all a tale of caution, though. The Apple Watch stands out as a testament to Apple's ability to innovate and create new categories even post-Steve Jobs. It's a reminder that Apple still has the chops to redefine markets. But the question lingers: Is this enough to sustain Apple's legendary status? The crux of the discussion centered on the massive potential of AI, as we're just at the dawn of what could be the most significant platform shift since the internet. With Apple's deep pockets, one would expect a torrent of investments in AI, propelling the company to the forefront of this new frontier. Instead, the $110 billion stock buyback seems to suggest a different priority—short-term stock price over long-term category creation. Microsoft's Contrasting Strategy: A Global AI Chess Game Contrast Apple's strategy with Microsoft's aggressive global AI investments, and you get a stark picture of two tech titans taking divergent paths. Microsoft is placing strategic bets on AI across the globe, from the UAE to Malaysia and beyond, positioning itself as a leader in the next wave of technological revolution. To hear more Pirate talk by Christopher Lochhead and Eddie Yoon, download and listen to this episode. If you want to join in the discussion, subscribe to Category Pirates and find more Pirates Perspective buried around the beach. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, it’s time again to shave that Marketing Dog with Christopher Lochhead. If you’re an avid listener of the podcast, you probably think you’re experiencing déjà vu. But we think that people still don’t get this simple concept, that it merits a replay. It is also a good reminder for others who may be falling into the trap of overcomplicating their marketing strategies. So strap in, and get ready for some timeless advice from yours truly. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Quality Over Quantity: A Bruce Lee Philosophy in Marketing In the world of marketing, there's a tendency to equate being busy with effectiveness. However, Christopher likens this to a young fighter who is all showboating but lacks the strategic focus to win. This fighter often ends up being knocked out by a more experienced opponent who understands that precision and strategy trump frantic activity. This analogy perfectly encapsulates the inverse relationship between activity and results in marketing. The pressure to be omnipresent in the marketing world is immense. Marketers are often told they need to be on every channel, churning out content at an unsustainable pace. But Christopher challenges this notion with a powerful quote from martial arts legend Bruce Lee: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." This philosophy is a stark reminder that quality and impact should always take precedence over quantity. Shaving the Marketing Dog: The Art of Elimination One of the strategies Christopher advocates for is "shaving the dog," a metaphor for the practice of eliminating the unnecessary to focus on what truly matters. By force ranking the critical components of a campaign and rigorously evaluating which elements have the maximum impact, marketers can streamline their efforts for better results. “Shave the dog. Shave that doggy down. Practice getting everything out. Consider getting even more radical.” – Christopher Lochhead Thinking Wrong to Do Right Innovation in marketing often requires us to "think wrong," to consider what is 180 degrees from what everyone else would do. This approach fosters creativity and differentiation, setting the stage for truly legendary marketing campaigns. “I learned everything I know about design from a couple of legendary designers and one of them is John Bielenberg. He’s an incredible business and corporate marketing designer. He has a perspective; he calls thinking wrong. The idea is this, when you do anything creative, ask yourself ‘what is 180 degrees from what everybody else would do? What is wrong? What would be the wrong way to go do this?’” – Christopher Lochhead This line of thinking also allows you to pursue options that multiply outcomes, as you can sift through the “wrongs” and find those that were rejected, not because it is inherently wrong, but either be not viable in the past, but now doable in our current technology or network. To know more why Complexity Is the Enemy of Revenue and Why It’s Time to Shave the Marketing Dog, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different  **NEW!** The B2B Tech Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Engineer Your Market, Find What Makes You Different, And Become A Category Queen

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we are presenting Christopher’s partner, friend, collaborator, and brother from another mother, Eddie Yoon, breaking down how to do a legendary marketing lightning strike with the Tesla Cybertruck as a textbook example. Eddie Yoon is the category design guru to the S &P 500, and he's written more about category design in the Harvard Business Review than anyone else alive or dead. So buckle up for a quick lightning strike of an episode, and hey ho, let’s go! Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Concept of a Lightning Strike Let’s talk about Lightning Strikes. Lightning Strikes have four critical ingredients: one, it should be profit-center and not an expense. Remember, marketing that does not drive revenue, category potential, or market cap, is just arts and crafts. Lightning Strikes are no different. Two, Lightning Strikes should be a strike and not a spread – meaning don’t space it over the whole course of the year; it will just dilute the effect of it that way. You want a clear point in time, a quick in and out in a certain area or market, and you’re done. The idea is to get maximum lift without spending too much. Third, it should have a multiplier effect. It must be engineered to generate word of mouth that lasts beyond the strike itself. You do it buy creating a stunt or a fight, or you want to have a very prominent giveaway. These are the things that people tell their friends and family, and spread from there. And lastly, you want to be a hijacker or hitchhiker. You want to your lightning strike to take advantage of some broader thing where you take over the conversation, or piggyback off an audience that is already established. The Cybertruck as a Lightning Strike by Tesla So, how does the Cybertruck fit into all these things? Let’s go through the list. First, the Cybertruck is a profit center in multiple ways. One is the product itself, but it also promotes the broader brand of Tesla motors. Lastly, its components are also something that can be a profit center for later generation of electric cars. It also has a multiplier effect, as it has generated word of mouth not only from Tesla car owners, but people who are either at awe or making fun of the Cybertruck’s design. Even after it’s short showcase, people are still talking about it. The design is so polarizing: you either hate it, or love it. Either way, you’re going to hear about it. The Cybertruck itself became the stunt it needed for the lightning strike to occur. Lastly, it’s hitchhiking off the launch of Apple Vision Pro, some people who are using Apple Vision Pro has been seen driving said Cybertrucks in videos and social media. It hit its target well that it hitchhiked in the Apple Vision Pro conversation to some extent, getting a rise from Apple enthusiasts. And that, my friends, is a successful lightning strike. If you want to join in the discussion, subscribe to Category Pirates and find more Pirates Perspective buried around the beach. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different  **NEW!** The B2B Tech Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Engineer Your Market, Find What Makes You Different, And Become A Category Queen We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we talk about why marketing the user’s problem works, but marketing only your brand/product/solutions doesn’t. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Importance of Understanding Consumer Problems in Marketing Market your brand/product/solution, and I think you want my money. Market my problem, and I think you want to help me. This is one of the biggest unlocks in category design for marketers. And it comes from a very simple, powerful notion: people do not buy solutions unless they have problems. Yet a lot of companies do not get this simple concept. For them, it’s always brand awareness this, or advertise this product to the “market”. They play the attention game and call it frequency and reach. But most of the users in that market only see it as a cash grab for said company. Marketing the Problem Done Right So here we present a good example of how to market a user problem, and it’s in the form of the American jeans we all know and love. Over the years, Jeans have come a long way from being those stiff dark blue pants to now being very soft and somewhat comfortable to wear. But therein lies the problem: the thing that makes it soft and pliable is very polluting and very resource-intensive. After which, they present their fix, a “remaking” of the American jeans as we know it. Framing the Problem to Create Urgency After naming the problem with the jeans, the article continues to explain that multiple companies have tried working together for years to develop jeans that are soft but not as punishing to the environment and our remaining resources. This serves as a way to intensify the problem by framing it as something that has not been solved. But now, they’ve found a solution. A solution to a problem they themselves proposed. If you follow that flow, they first introduced a problem that a user can relate to, being that the jeans they wear harms the environment. They then mention that other companies have tried but not yet succeeded in finding a solution. Only after that do they supply the solution, so you can continue to enjoy those comfortable jeans without the previous repercussions and guilt on them. Prompting users to buy new jeans and ditching the old. And that’s how you market with Category Design. Link to the article on The Remaking of American Jeans  Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different  **NEW!** The B2B Tech Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Engineer Your Market, Find What Makes You Different, And Become A Category Queen We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we enjoy the first of many visits from Al Ramadan in 2024, as we talk about moving from being a Category Contender to a Category King. We’ll dig into what is a category contender in what it takes to win the 18-to-36-month epic category battle that every tech startup faces. So if you're an entrepreneur or marketing leader who wants to go beyond competing to actually create and dominate your own market, you're in the right place. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Al Ramadan on Tech Industry Category Development and Dominance Christopher and Al discuss the concept of being category contenders, reflecting on past research and their book on category kings. They emphasize the dominance of one company, earning around 76% of the economics in every tech category, despite skepticism. They outline the three phases of category development: define, develop, and dominate, taking approximately 15 years. They note outliers like open AI and Google's swift battles, contrasting with Salesforce's longstanding dominance. They highlight the importance of category design, likening it to a fast-paced battle where one company wins all, stressing its critical role in the tech industry's landscape. Market strategy in a competitive industry Al and Christopher discuss marketing strategies in a competitive industry, emphasizing the importance of a winner's mindset and setting the agenda. They share a scenario where a leader in a crowded field differentiates by framing the problem uniquely, focusing on end-user needs rather than feature sets like competitors. Both highlight the futility of incremental strategies and the significance of capturing mindshare by empathizing with customer problems. They term this the "Battle Royale" for mindshare, where winning means addressing the core problem effectively, rendering feature comparisons irrelevant. Christopher also stresses the pivotal role of understanding customer problems in securing market dominance. Category design and understanding customer needs Al and Christopher discuss category design and understanding customer needs. They highlight the importance of framing the problem uniquely to differentiate in a crowded market. Christopher shares a scenario where a leader in a competitive field focuses on customer needs while competitors emphasize feature sets. They critique the common focus on technology rather than customer-centric solutions, illustrating with examples from Gartner's history and Google Plus. They emphasize that categories are about customers' problems and opportunities, not just technology, stressing the significance of defining the problem scope to win in category battles. To hear more from this Al Ramadan and Christopher Lochhead dialogue, download and listen to this episode. Bio Al Ramadan is a co-founding partner of Play Bigger Advisors and coauthor of the book, Play Bigger. He also co-founded Quokka Sports, which revolutionized the way people experience sport online. Al then joined Macromedia and Adobe, where he spent almost ten years changing the way people think about great digital experiences. At Adobe, Al led teams that created the Rich Internet Applications category and helped develop the discipline of experience design. In the early ‘90s he applied data science to Australia’s Americas Cup — an innovation in sports performance analytics. His work in sailing led directly to the idea for Quokka. He lives in Santa Cruz, California. Links Connect with Al Ramadan! Play Bigger | LinkedIn | Category Contenders | The Science Behind Category Design Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche

Today is a fun conversation with my fellow Pirates Eddie Yoon and Katrina Kirsch, as we talk about the importance of Framing, Naming and Claiming a problem, to create a different solution for your business. From time to time, we drop these video discussions that three of us have in Category Pirates, and this one I thought you might also enjoy. If you do enjoy this kind of content, you can check us out at CategoryPirates.com And subscribe to the Category Pirates newsletter. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Importance of Naming, Framing, and Claiming in Business When asked by Kristina on what “problem” does category design “Name, Frame, and Claim”, Christopher responds that category design solves the fundamental challenge of defining and owning a distinct market space. It asserts that successful companies excel in three areas: creating legendary business models, products/services, and categories. He emphasizes that a company must recognize category design as a crucial third of its success. Eddie reinforces this, highlighting the importance of capturing a significant portion of the market share by framing, naming, and claiming a category. He argues that failing to do so results in competing for a smaller market share, which is familiar but less lucrative. Ultimately, effective category design enables a company to articulate its unique value proposition clearly, ensuring it stands out to customers, investors, and employees. The Value of being an "Exponential Different" in Business The next part of the conversation delves into the concept of being an “exponential difference” in business, emphasizing the contrast between incremental improvements and exponential innovations. Christopher reflects on his career, realizing that focusing on exponential changes often leads to friction within companies geared towards incremental progress. He highlights the importance of recognizing when to contribute to exponential shifts and when to step back, as pushing too hard on exponential change can disrupt the organization. This understanding prompts a shift in perspective, reframing what was once seen as a career obstacle into a strategic advantage. Overall, it underscores the necessity of balancing incremental improvements with exponential innovations for sustainable growth and success in business. If you want to join in the discussion, subscribe to Category Pirates and find more Pirates Perspective buried around the beach. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about a trap that most budding Category Designers fall for, and that’s thinking about competition. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Feature Battle vs Category Battle Christopher shares a story of a company who consulted with him, regarding a rising competitor in the market. Most companies’ knee-jerk reaction would be to compete; take on the same messaging, and muscle out the competitor while it’s still early. But in the end, they opted to do the opposite – they did not compete, at least not in the usual sense of it. Rather than doing a Feature Battle to see who has the better additions, messaging, and branding, they focused more on their product. They went the Category Battle route instead, carving out a large portion of the market with their improved category, and leaving the others battling for the remaining scraps. Competition Derangement Syndrome The apparent simplicity of the concept begs the question: why do most companies fail to adopt it? The answer lies in what could be termed "Competition Derangement Syndrome." Many companies, instead of pioneering their own unique category to dominate, fall into a pattern of waiting for new categories to emerge before entering the fray. Alternatively, larger corporations may opt to eliminate competition by acquiring the reigning Category King. However, this strategy essentially involves investing a significant sum to pave the way for the emergence of the next category, which their competitors will inevitably exploit. This cycle repeats itself, with each new category birthing fresh contenders, until the tables turn and the once-acquirer finds itself being acquired. Thus, the cycle perpetuates, underscoring the failure of many companies to break free from the pattern of reactive competition. Competition vs Consumer This does not mean that you avoid competing altogether. We are all driven by our will to fight, and business is not so different in that regard. But rather than going down to their level to fight on “equal” grounds, why not make it so that you are always thinking a few steps ahead, rather than slowing down just to match up to them. And if they seem to be catching up to you at a faster rate, trying to adopt their strategies just means maintaining the status quo. It also sends the wrong message to the consumers, because you are adjusting for the competition, and not for them. In the end, it’s better to achieve market dominance by consumer trust rather than just having the competitive edge, because there will always be someone that will try to compete. But as long as your consumers know that your product continues to improve for consumer satisfaction, then it will always remain as the Category King. Bio Christopher Lochhead Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let's talk about why it's time to stop trying to fit in. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Everyone Wants to Fit In There’s an ongoing trend in the business, startup and marketing world of companies trying to fit in. There have been studies that indicate that among the B2B tech space, as many as 70% of the brands are blue. This urge to fit in seems to stem from a combination of several factors. One of which is that companies are trying to compete in the same market, and they end up adopting marketing trends that seems to be working, which just makes them look like carbon copies of each other. The second part is the current culture of people seemingly being offended by the simplest things, or if something does not align with their beliefs. So companies try to be as non-offensive as possible, which in turn just make their brand into something bland. “The overall strategy in people's marketing, and frankly, in many people's careers, is to achieve Marriott lobby status. So what's a Marriott lobby? Marriott lobby is nice; It's very functional. It's effective. And it's bland. It's forgettable. And nobody ever said, “Wow, that was a fucking legendary Marriott lobby.”” - Christopher Lochhead   The Primordial Need to Fit In We get it: people have a primordial urge to stay in groups. We are pack animals, after all. Staying in a group is safe, staying in a group is comfortable. And having something in common lets us relate personally to a group, which is why marketing companies aim for those traits to relate to their market. But at the end of the day, nobody legendary ever fit in. Because when you try to fit in, you become part of that whole, rather than something that defines it. And rather than companies trying to make their own markets and circles, they are being content in staying in the same circle, and competing for an ever-shrinking part of it, as more and more companies try to muscle their way in. So be legendary, and start being different. “And then I say fuck that, I'm going to follow my different. I'm going to focus on the things that are most meaningful to me, and most importantly, are going to make the biggest difference.” - Christopher Lochhead Bio Christopher Lochhead Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Today on Lochhead on Marketing, we talk about the good way and the bad way to rebrand. And wat better to use as an example than the recent Gemini AI rebrand by Google. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Good Reason to “Rebrand” Before we proceed with the main topic at hand, let’s first have a good example of when to “rebrand”. There’s a company called Chirp that sells foam rollers, which is used by athletes for training their muscles and easing soreness. But after some time, a new category was invented that was adjacent to their market, the percussion massager / gun. Rather than just create their own version of percussion gun, Chirp went ahead and combined their foam rollers into this new category, essentially making a new category, the rolling percussive massager, for themselves. The Bad Reason to “Rebrand”: Google’s Gemini So why did we tell you that story? Because Google is doing the exact opposite of that, always going for the “Compete in the market” model rather than making their own market. And it could be seen with their latest endeavor in AI, Bard now rebranded as Gemini. So, why did Google make this move? While we can't say for certain, we can infer their motives. Essentially, they directly challenged ChatGPT and came up short. Now, they're revamping Bard to give it a "fresh start." While that might be their goal, most marketing experts would tell you that it simply looks like Google is backing away from the competition and trying to repurpose their AI to make the best of the situation. That in itself is a problem, but there’s also the fact that Google doesn’t really do anything different than the reigning Category King of the market. This has been true with their forays in podcasts, social media, and their other services that are now defunct. They're competing, instead of creating, which is what most companies do, and they're fucked. When to do a “Rebrand” With that said, the best time to do a rebrand is if either you’re introducing a brand-new category as your main product, or revolutionizing one of your current ones by making a new category. Rather than chasing after the tail of the Category Leader and competing for the remaining small chunk of the market, why not try doing something different? Because otherwise, you’ll just get your ass handed to you, just like what happened with Google Plus, Google Podcasts, and now, the unfortunate Google Gemini. Bio Christopher Lochhead Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we have a very special episode with one of my favorite marketers, Ryan Alford. Ryan Alford runs a digital marketing agency called Radical Marketing. He also has a great marketing podcast that I've been stoked to be a guest on called The Radcast, which is a top 25 Business and Marketing podcast. He's just one of those guys I like talking about marketing with. Today, we are going to talk about how to have a legendary marketing career. We also talk about why it is that many people in Marketing don't view what they do as a craft that they're working on their whole lives, and what happens when you do so. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Ryan Alford on Marketing Careers and Current Industry Trends Christopher and Ryan discuss the appeal of marketing careers, especially for younger individuals. Ryan, with 20 years of experience, emphasizes the importance of creative thinking and adaptation in the face of industry changes like AI. He believes marketing offers opportunities for innovation and creativity, essential for standing out amidst a crowded field. Christopher adds that many marketers don't view their work as a craft, but rather as a job or set of skills, contrasting it with master surfboard shaping. Ryan, drawing on his own experience, sees marketing as a craft that requires honing skills over time, akin to his father's craftsmanship. Both agree that when you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work. Ryan Alford on Marketing Skills and Adapting to Platform Changes The two then discuss the evolving landscape of marketing skills and the need for adaptability. They highlight the importance of curiosity, continuous learning, and embracing change in navigating the industry's shifts. With the proliferation of digital platforms, they emphasize the challenge of staying updated and the risk of relying too heavily on platforms beyond marketers' control. Despite these challenges, they underscore the enduring power of innovative ideas to capture attention and drive success. Christopher also cautions against shallow tactics focused solely on grabbing attention without meaningful content, using the wind feather in car dealerships and mall entrances as an example. They advocate for a balance between leveraging new platforms and maintaining focus on substantive messaging to achieve marketing goals effectively. Ryan Alford on Marketing Strategies and Generating Outcome Christopher and Ryan discuss the importance of marketing strategies producing meaningful outcomes rather than mere attention-grabbing tactics. They emphasize the necessity of tying marketing efforts to revenue generation, highlighting the distinction between visibility campaigns and those that drive sales. Ryan stresses that successful marketers focus on moving consumers from one perception to another, ultimately leading to sales. They acknowledge the controversy surrounding this viewpoint, especially among marketers who resist being held accountable for tangible results. Both agree that marketing is for those who embrace accountability and are committed to producing revenue, with Christopher noting that marketing allows for creative ideation that triggers sales, contrasting with the more direct approach of salesmanship. To hear more from Ryan Alford and learn how to have a legendary career in Marketing, download and listen to this episode. Bio Ryan Alford Links Connect with Ryan Alford! The Radcast | LinkedIn We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Happy new year to everyone, and we at Lochhead on Marketing hope that you’ve been having a good one so far. To start off the year, let us talk about the big Distribution Lie, why it is so, and what you really need for your new startup or project to make it big. You see, in Silicon Valley, there has been an ever-increasingly large drumbeat that says the number one thing that a startup needs or that a new software launch of any kind needs is distribution. That if you can only get distribution, then you'd win, right? So, let's test this. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Myth of Distribution as a Key to Success For this discussion, let us use Google as an example. In 2018, Google launched Google Podcast as a competitor to the category king (Apple), and the current challenger (Spotify). On paper, Google Podcast should have the advantage: Google has a legendary distribution line with its 5 billion users and having a mailing and browsing platform that is widely popular worldwide. And yet for some reason, Google Podcast is now at the brink of closing down in 2024. So why did it not beat out the category king, much less its challenger in this race? Building the Category versus Muscling into the Market Simply put, Google Podcast did not offer anything new that Apple Podcast or Spotify doesn’t already do. It was simply relying on the fact that on paper, it looks like the better product with a well-established distribution network to back it up. Whereas Apple created the category, designed the space, and solved the “problem” that their product “solves”, thus cornering a big chunk of the market. This is a mistake that happens over and over and over again, category design economics are clear, the company that designs the space is best positioned to dominate it and by dominated our primary research has shown that the company that designs the category, if they can execute over time, earns 76% of the total value created. Doomed to Repeat Itself Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened to Google. One big thing most people might remember is Google Plus, which was supposed to take down Facebook. And not only Google is susceptible to this, as different big tech companies have committed this mistake, because they believe they could just use their better distribution systems to take over a market, rather than creating their own to dominate. So at the end of the day, no matter how good your product is, and how great your distribution advantage is: if you don't design a new category, around a problem that matters to customers, it doesn't matter how legendary your product is. Bio Christopher Lochhead Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

First and foremost, we at Lochhead on Marketing would like to wish everyone from the bottom of our hearts, happy holidays. Christopher Lochhead hopes that you have an opportunity to be with the people you love this time of year, and enjoy some happiness and peace. That said, there seems to be a lot going on lately. Be it about antisemitism, diversity, equality, and inclusion, and sort of the core values that the United States will be governed by and will latch on to. So I wanted to take this time and have a talk between you and I. You may not like what I will have to say, and that is all right. The important thing is that we have a good dialogue between us, and open ourselves to thinking Different does not always mean they hate you and your type of thinking. As we head to 2024, that is my wish for the holiday season. That we have a breakthrough in real, authentic, civilized, thoughtful dialogue. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Christopher Lochhead on LGBTQ+ rights over the years Christopher shared a heartwarming story about a LinkedIn acquaintance, a marketing executive, who recently had a baby with her wife. They had a positive exchange about babies, and Christopher expressed genuine happiness for the couple. “Around here, we think babies are fucking fantastic, especially when they're born to good people who are committed to raising those children and loving knows children. What could be better than a great couple are a great group of folks who have a baby, love that baby, and do everything in their power to provide that child with a great life and enjoy that child. It's wonderful.” – Christopher Lochhead Christopher then reflected on growing up around queer individuals, recalling the challenges they faced over the years. He emphasized the progress in societal acceptance of the queer community, highlighting the positive change that allows people to openly share personal milestones without fear of judgment. That said, Christopher expressed joy for the LinkedIn acquaintance, appreciating that she can legally be herself and share her family news without hesitation, considering it a legendary step forward, especially in the United States. Christopher Lochhead on mortgage discrimination Christopher then talks about a CNN headline that revealed the systemic racism about the Navy Federal Credit Union's discriminatory mortgage approval practices. The report states that while over 75% of white applicants were approved for conventional home purchase mortgages, less than 50% of black applicants were approved under the same circumstances. Christopher condemns this as not just systemic racism but outright evil. He criticizes financial institutions like Wells Fargo for repeatedly facing charges related to racial discrimination without executives facing jail time. He emphasizes the urgent need to acknowledge and fight systemic racism for true equality and justice, citing the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. “This is racism right in front of us. And anybody who's just anybody who cares about equality, and justice, and the pursuit of happiness for all must acknowledge that there is systemic racism against certain groups. There's no doubt about that. And we need to fight it. We really need to fight it.” – Christopher Lochhead On Systemic Racism and DEI in society Christopher expresses concern about the rise of hatred, particularly in the context of recent events, notably the conflict in the Middle East. He highlights the misunderstandings surrounding the October 7th events, emphasizing the severity of the situation and the explicit threat against Israel and the Jewish population. Christopher is dismayed by the confusion and the lack of recognition for Israel's right to defend itself. He shares a personal experience of a friend falling victim to violence and underscores the complexity of the situation,

This week, we're presenting to you Christopher Lochhead's appearance on Lenny’s Podcast, hosted by Lenny Rachitsky. Lenny Rachitsky runs the #1 Business Substack newsletter, Lenny’s Newsletter. It is legendary especially for people in tech marketing, product marketing, and startups. It's so legendary that even Christopher pays for it. And now, he’s in it. This is one of the more in-depth discussions Christopher has had with a very smart person about category design in a while. So settle in for a good listen and great lesson about category design. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. On taking the Good with the Bad Lenny starts off the conversation by showing appreciation to Christopher's extensive work, and jokingly adds that it was challenging to prepare for their conversation due to his numerous podcasts, books, and other content. That said, Lenny noticed Christopher's website displayed negative reviews prominently. When asked about it, Christopher explained his approach with humor, calling his team Category Pirates and embracing criticism. He believed it was essential for innovators not to fear criticism, citing examples of famous artists and musicians who faced initial negativity. Christopher displayed negative feedback to show the reality of creative work and to remind people not to take themselves too seriously. Lenny admired Christopher's ability to handle criticism and expressed the desire to adopt a similar mindset. Lenny Rachitsky on how Lenny’s Newsletter came to be Christopher Lochhead expressed admiration for Lenny's branding choices, appreciating the simplicity of just being called "Lenny." He found it endearing and highlighted that Lenny's authenticity stood out in a world where many influencers create an aura of superiority. Lenny shared that the name "Lenny's Newsletter" was a default suggestion from Substack, and he never intended it to be a long-term commitment. Similarly, he struggled to find a different name for his podcast, wanting to avoid a self-centered approach. But despite having his name in the branding, Christopher noted the content wasn't self-centered; instead, it reflected Lenny's genuine approach, unlike influencers who focus on creating envy. They both appreciated the authenticity in Lenny's approach. Lenny Rachitsky and Christopher Lochhead talk Category Creation Lenny asked Christopher about category creation, a concept Christopher has championed over competition in existing markets. Christopher explained how most people aim to compete by offering a better product or service in an existing category. However, legendary innovators don't follow this path. They create entirely new categories, defining unique problems and solutions. Christopher emphasized that a single company in a category usually captures two-thirds of the market value, making category creation a lucrative strategy. He cited Gojo Industries, creators of Purell, as an example. They didn't just invent hand sanitizer; they redefined the problem of hand cleanliness, leading to a new market category. Christopher stressed the importance of focusing on problem-solving rather than just product features, making one's brand irreplaceable in customers' minds. He contrasted this approach with typical marketing, where companies invite comparison, emphasizing the power of radical differentiation and being a category creator. To hear more about Christopher’s conversation with Lenny Rachitsky on Category Creation, download and listen to this episode. If you want to learn more about Lenny Rachitsky, check out his Newsletter and Podcast at LennyRachitsky.com. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche

On this episode, let’s talk about Israel, and the war that has come to this “Startup Nation”. Off the top, let me say the pain and suffering of what's happening is unbelievable, unbearable. My heart goes out to Israel, all Israelis, and all Jews around the world. I also want to say I have spoken with many Arabs since this happened. There's a very big difference between an Arab or a Palestinian and Hamas. They are not the same thing. My Arab friends wanted to stress that to me. My heart goes out to all the innocent Arabs in Gaza and in the region who are suffering and also experiencing extraordinary pain and loss. Israel is a “Startup Nation” If you’ve been in tech for a while, you’ve probably worked with Israelis. For the better part of my professional life, I’ve worked with entrepreneurs, engineers and executives from the country. The Israeli’s I know are smart, tough, driven, no-nonsense result producers. If you want to get big tech shit done, work with Israelis. It has one of the highest concentrations of startups in the world. Its tech sector is a major contributor to the country's economy. Tech is 18% of Israel's GDP, and 14% of all salaried employees work in Tech. That’s roughly 500,000 people. On top of which, 50% of Israel's total exports come from Technology developed by these people. The framework Israelis created to co-locate Israel/US tech startups, established an innovation model that is envied the world over. Israel has over 6,000 Tech Companies The impact of this war borne out by the Israeli people. Reports indicate that the start if this war was "the darkest day in Jewish history since the end of the Holocaust.” And, it will also be felt by virtually every major tech company in the world. There are over 6,000 tech companies operating in Israel, including some of the largest names, with Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Intel to name a few. These companies have a variety of strategic operations in Israel, including research and development centers, sales offices, and customer support centers. Israel is home to over 15,000 startups, and they employ over 100,000 people. In 2021, Israeli tech companies raised a record $25.6 billion in venture capital funding. Today, they are scrambling to secure and support their people.   15,000 Israeli Tech Startups Now, this evil war is extracting an unbearable human cost. More death, suffering and disruption is sure to follow. And this war will be felt by many of us in the tech industry. My heart aches for Israel. My heart aches for all of the innocent souls in the Middle East. We’re praying for peace, and the day we can all get back to building legendary companies. To hear more of Christopher Lochhead’s thoughts on the recent events that unfolded in Israel, download and listen to this episode. If you wish to join the conversation and get more information on the matter, check out Christopher’s post on LinkedIn: Christopher Lochhead Different: Weekly Newsletter We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we are presenting some Pirates Perspective from our newsletter, Category Pirates about consumer spending trends. Eddie Yoon, Christopher Lochhead and Katrina Kirsch of Category Pirates discuss the latest consumer spending reports and what they mean for the retail category and retail category queens. They also dive into a category opportunity for McDonalds and how it could impact the future of food delivery. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Changing Retail Landscape Eddie Yoon examines the evolving economic landscape and its impact on U.S. consumers. Employing a Category Science lens, Eddie highlights significant disparities in economic indicators. Disposable personal income in July saw a mere 0.15% uptick, the year's lowest, while personal consumption expenditures (PCE) surged by 0.82%, marking a 2023 high. This income-spending disconnect raises concerns. Eddie notes the imminent return of student loan payments, averaging $503 per month, which may strain disposable income. Loan delinquencies, nearing 2020 levels, signal financial challenges. Notably, a fourfold increase in young adults aged 25 to 34 living with parents since the 1960s reflects economic constraints driving lifestyle changes. Prompted by Christopher, Eddie also identifies two contrasting trends: robust growth in experiences and personal transformations versus declining interest in traditional goods. While international travel and categories like medical aesthetics flourish, traditional retailers like Target, Kroger, and Home Depot report declining revenues. Eddie predicts a future marked by consolidation and M&A, with only a select few brands and private labels surviving. Navigating the Shifting Consumer-Driven Economy Christopher Lochhead and Eddie Yoon then tackle the intriguing dual signals in the economy, driven by increasing digital influence on consumer behavior. On one hand, positive indicators suggest the American consumer remains a key economic driver, with retail sales growing by 0.6% in August and a forecasted real GDP growth of 3.5% for the third quarter. However, Eddie Yoon emphasizes the underlying shifts: Consumers are driving economic growth through increased credit spending, but it raises questions about sustainability. Many are making significant changes in their financial habits, including declining college enrollments, reduced home purchases, and a lower birth rate, all contributing to a redefined economic landscape. The trend toward single-person households, now at 29%, signifies a fundamental shift in the traditional nuclear household model. While the macroeconomic picture may still appear positive, these changes point to a significant remaking of the American economy, shaped by evolving consumer preferences influenced by digital transformations. McDonald's Dilemma Christopher and Eddie then discuss McDonald's recent announcement to phase out fountain drinks inside their stores by 2032, which highlights a significant shift in consumer behavior. Currently, 40% of their revenue is generated through app purchases, delivery, and drive-thru, indicating a decline in physical store visits. This trend reflects the changing preferences of Native Digitals, who prefer digital-first experiences and the conveniences they bring. As consumers become more discerning and value experiences over material possessions, businesses need to adapt to these mega trends. Eddie Yoon points out that while some trends are favorable, like digital and app-focused sales, the shift in product mix poses challenges. McDonald's heavily relies on the profitability of fountain drinks, which drive a substantial portion of their margins. However, the convenience of home beverages and changing consumer preferences may lead to a decline in the sale of large-size drinks at McDonald's,

On this episode, we have a powerful dialogue with our guest, Josh Greene about what it really takes to build your reputation online and do legendary marketing in the digital world. Josh Greene is the CEO of The Mather Group. In a world of digital marketing BS, sophomores hacks and self-congratulatory vanity metrics, Josh is the real deal. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Josh Greene on Marketing and Reputation Management The episode starts off with a discussion about marketing trends and reputation management with Josh Greene. They touch upon the impact of AI on marketing strategies and delve into reputation management techniques. Christopher highlights how individuals with negative reputations try to bury their past misdeeds in online search results. Josh explains that reputation management involves manipulating search engine rankings to push down negative content and make it less visible, while at the same time providing more positive information about you or your company. They also touch on the evolving landscape of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), with Josh emphasizing that SEO is not dead but constantly changing. He notes that traditional SEO tactics, such as keyword optimization, have evolved due to changes in Google's algorithms and the increasing importance of AI-driven queries. Josh Greene on what is the Internet thinking about you They also discuss the topic of the evolving landscape of SEO and the impact of AI, particularly in large language models like ChatGPT and Bard. As mentioned earlier, Josh highlights how SEO has evolved beyond optimizing for Google to also include considerations for AI-driven queries. He then emphasizes the importance of managing one's online reputation in this context. On the topic of AI, Christopher shares his experience with ChatGPT, mentioning how it produced relevant results related to category design, which led him to ponder the connection between AI training data, the internet's content, and these AI models' abilities to provide meaningful information. He also mentions that experts in various fields, including category design, are actively teaching AI models to enhance their understanding and capabilities. Josh Green on how to stand out from the crowd They then discuss how to stand out in the digital landscape, particularly in the context of AI and SEO. Josh explains that AI models like those used by Google rely on credible sources, with Wikipedia and Google's patent tool being primary sources. He emphasizes that credibility, links, and signals play a significant role in determining the relevance of content for AI models. Much like in SEO, authoritative content with strong signals will have a more substantial impact. Christopher adds that AI is evolving similarly to SEO and mentions that some individuals are already trying to exploit AI for personal gain by selling courses on how to manipulate AI models. He highlights the importance of providing valuable content to help people rather than merely trying to stay ahead of trends or exploit emerging technologies. They both agree that the key to success in the digital age, whether in AI or SEO, is delivering valuable content and expertise to genuinely assist others rather than chasing quick fixes or trends promoted by self-proclaimed gurus. They also note that having a real impact requires substance and credibility, not just buzzwords. To hear more from Josh Greene and on how you can build your online reputation, download and listen to this episode. Bio Josh Greene Links Connect with Josh Greene! The Mather Group | LinkedIn We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s take a look on what the movie Barbie did to reach such an overwhelming success, and what Tech CEOs can learn about their approach to marketing. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Barbie’s Approach to Marketing Christopher Lochhead opens up the dialogue with pointing out the things that the Barbie producers did that made it a blockbuster win, particularly with what they did on the marketing side. According to Christopher, Barbie pulled off the greatest “lightning strike” framework of any brand in 2023. One of the notable things that stood out was that Barbie spent $145M on producing the film, while spending almost $150M on marketing. Let that sink in: $145M to make it, $150M to build it up. Most companies would consider it outrageous to do such a thing, opting to focus their resources on building the product and spending what’s left on marketing, if any. And this is why most of those companies fail to make a mark and carve out a market early on in their product’s lifecycle. How about Barbie? Well, it spent a combined $295M, but that marketing approach resulted in $1B in sales. $145M to make it, $150M to build. $1B in revenue. Barbie’s Missed Opportunity That said, Christopher did point out a few missed avenues that Barbie could’ve made to take advantage of their marketing strategy. For one thing, they left the digital space widely untapped, spawning newsletters and enticing new generations of girls to getting into collecting Barbies and other related merchandise. Another thing they could’ve done is get older fans together and start building out a community in the digital sphere and talk all things Barbie. Not only does it heavily hit people in their nostalgia, but it can also help expose those older generation’s children into Barbie, and then you are back to point no. 1. The Recession that Never Came One of the things that Christopher also noticed with Barbie’s approach is that people are still bracing for a recession that seemingly never came, or at least was not as full-blown as we were expecting it to be. While everyone else was still timidly testing the waters, Barbie decided it would make a big splash instead. So for Tech CEOs out there, it may not be the time to be holding down the fort. Rather, it should be a good time to try and hurl some lightning strikes in the market and see if you strike gold. To hear more about Christopher Lochhead’s views on Barbie’s success and how it can teach tech CEOS about marketing, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we are presenting some Pirates Perspective from our newsletter, Category Pirates. Eddie Yoon, Christopher Lochhead and Katrina Kirsch of Category Pirates discuss Elon Musk’s recent move to rebrand Twitter to X. They also speculate why Elon made such a move, and what he could have done from a category design perspective. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Twitter to X Elon Musk's choice to rename Twitter as X has left people puzzled, questioning why he would give up a well-known brand and introduce a new one. Katrina follows up that the others think the move might be aimed at entering a different category, possibly related to financing. She wonders whether it would have been wiser to create a new company instead of rebranding Twitter. Eddie Yoon discusses the debate surrounding the cost of rebranding and the value of legacy brand identity. He highlights that classic economic theory suggests ignoring sunk costs, which are expenses from the past, and instead focusing on future opportunities. Eddie mentions that while some argue against rebranding due to the value of Twitter's legacy brand, most consumers prioritize what a brand can offer them in the future rather than its past reputation. He suggests that rebranding can make sense when a company wants to enter new categories and emphasizes the importance of looking towards future opportunities rather than dwelling on the past. In Musk’s case, he’s not banking on the legacy of the brand itself, but the established userbase that Twitter has, who have a high potential of also buying in to what new category Twitter, now X, might become. Elon Musk’s Mistake with the rebrand While Christopher Lochhead agrees with Eddie Yoon’s points, he also believes that Elon Musk made a mistake by rebranding Twitter without clearly unveiling his vision for the new category of service he wants to create. He argues that a rebrand should be part of a strategic launch of a new category and not just a standalone action. The value of a brand lies in its perceived leadership in a relevant category, and in this case, the microblogging category may not be as impactful as before. Although Elon Musk's approach might not align with the ideal category design strategy, his reputation and influence will likely still garner attention when he eventually presents his big vision for the new category. But it definitely will lose some steam because the rebrand has become open to interpretation, rather than being focused on the intended category creation. X as a financial category The three further discuss the possibility of X creating a new currency or incorporating cryptocurrencies into its platform. Eddie mentions that X is already experiencing a shift in money flow, with revenue coming from both advertisers and users. They also speculate that Elon Musk might have plans to introduce financial services or a new token (X token) on Twitter/X, incentivizing creators and potentially offering various payment options, including cryptocurrency. They compare this potential move to American Airlines' frequent flyer program, which essentially created a currency in the form of loyalty points. While they acknowledge they don't have insider information, they highlight that Musk's background with PayPal and his desire to make X a vital part of everyone's life might lead to interesting developments. To hear more about the discussion on what Elon plans to do with X, download and listen to this episode. If you want to join in the discussion, subscribe to Category Pirates and find more Pirates Perspective buried around the beach. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche

On this episode, we welcome Mike Bruno, Senior Category Designer at Play Bigger. Today, we dig into what it takes to make Category Design your career, and how incredible it is working with some of the most advanced technology companies in the world on category design. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind.   Mike Bruno and his first year as a Category Designer Mike, who has been a category designer for about a year and a half, started his career working in agencies and social advertising. Transitioning into category design was a return to a beginner mindset for him, which he found interesting. In his previous role, he helped people solve problems and develop strategies based on business objectives and existing products. This experience translated well to category design, where the front door is identifying the problem that the category solves uniquely. Mike also mentioned that category design involves many new concepts and a broader aperture, as it requires structuring not only the client's business but also influencing the entire market. While it was a humbling experience trying to figure it all out, he also had a sense of familiarity, knowing how to approach problems and strategize effectively. Overall, his first year as a category designer was challenging and exciting, with a mix of the familiar and the new, which kept him engaged and interested in the field.   The way people think about Category Design Christopher and Mike discuss the challenges of transitioning from traditional marketing to category design. They emphasize that category design involves creating new markets rather than catching existing demand. Mike points out that realizing someone invented categories was a facepalm moment for him, but it made him realize the importance of solving unsolved problems. Christopher and Mike also talked about the power of not doing anything, meaning finding a category that has already been solved, and how this is often underestimated in the business world. They use Apple's example of launching a new category called "spatial computing" instead of just a new product like most marketers do. They compare it to Magic Leap, which failed to create a category despite having inspiring visions. Mike believes Apple succeeded because they could bridge the gap between their vision and the technology needed to achieve it.   Mike Bruno on the Difference between Category Design and Product Design Christopher and Mike discuss the difference between launching a product and category designing a market category. They use the example of Magic Leap, which had a product but failed to category design the spatial computing market. Christopher explains that category design involves framing, naming, and claiming a new problem, creating an ecosystem of partners to solve that problem, and evangelizing the solution. Mike shares his surprise about the comprehensive nature of category design, realizing that it's not just about coming up with a new term but involves a rigorous process to make the category successful. They also mention Apple's success in category designing the spatial computing market, positioning themselves for significant market cap growth while other players who only launched products may miss out on the opportunity. To hear more from Mike Bruno and his experiences as a Category Designer, download and listen to this episode.   Bio Mike Bruno Mike is a Senior Category Designer with a background in psychology and communications strategy. He finds hidden problems and unspoken truths, and connects those with companies, brands and products to drive businesses and, importantly, the people they serve. Mike’s style of Category Design is simple, straightforward and playful. His work is equally influenced by the behavioral sciences, business theory and imagination. Carl Jung on one shoulder, and Dav Pilkey on the other.

On this episode, we are presenting some Pirates Perspective from our newsletter, Category Pirates. Eddie Yoon, Christopher Lochhead and Katrina Kirsch of Category Pirates discuss why it's crucial to frame, name, and claim a problem when designing a category and marketing it to customers. They also discuss why companies struggle to articulate their problems, and explain what happens if they fail to properly language it. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The three most important things a company does at the highest levels When asked about the problem that category design solves, Christopher emphasizes three key aspects. Firstly, it is important to believe that there are three crucial elements for a successful company: designing a legendary company/business model, offering legendary products/services, and creating a legendary category. These three aspects are considered the most important things a company does. If someone does not agree with this belief, he thinks that there is no basis for further discussion. Secondly, it is necessary to acknowledge the significance of taking ownership and authorship of the category. If someone is willing to assume this responsibility, then assistance can be provided. However, if they are not interested in this aspect, there is no intention to convince or persuade them. “That's the difference between you walking in the dojo and us standing outside the dojo and dragging you into it.” – Christopher Lochhead Would you rather capture the 76% or compete for the 24%? Eddie Yoon emphasizes the importance of category design in capturing the market. He argues that if one does not recognize the significance of category design, then other considerations become irrelevant. If it is agreed that category design is important, it must be acknowledged that it should be pursued wholeheartedly. Eddie suggests that the question of why naming, framing, and claiming are important is essentially a question about the importance of category design itself. He states that if one does not understand the essence of category design, they cannot effectively address the first question. He presents a scenario where capturing 76% of the category economics is compared to competing for the remaining 24% with a better or faster, cheaper version. Eddie suggests that many people are actually comfortable with the smaller percentage because it is familiar and known. However, if someone is content with competing for the smaller share, Eddie acknowledges their choice and states that traditional business strategies and teachings will suffice for that situation. Ultimately, Eddie highlights the importance of understanding one's preference for a larger or smaller market share and reframing the perspective accordingly. Unlearning the 24% way Eddie Yoon discusses the necessity of unlearning old and "comfortable" ways in order to capture the 76% of the market. He emphasizes that choosing to pursue the larger market share requires a significant amount of unlearning. Part of this unlearning process involves freeing oneself to focus on understanding and articulating the problem at hand. Eddie compares it to Mark Twain's quote about not having time to write a short letter, which highlights the importance of concise and effective communication. Framing, naming, and claiming the problem are essential because without the ability to express it clearly, important details can be lost in subsequent conversations with coworkers, investors, or customers. This loss of clarity can lead to a diluted understanding of the value proposition. Eddie explains that without a clear understanding of the problem and its articulation, customers may not perceive the worth or premium of the product or service, investors may question the multiple premiums, and employees may not see the value of choosing the company over competitors focusing on...

On this episode, we are presenting some Pirates Perspective from our newsletter, Category Pirates. Eddie Yoon, Christopher Lochhead and Katrina Kirsch of Category Pirates discuss why some companies ship products, but very few companies category design markets. They explain this through the lens of Apple's new Vision Pro spatial computing headset in talk about why Apple's approach is different. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Apple has always been Category First, Product Second Katrina Kirsch starts off the conversation with how a lot of companies tend to put out products, and not focus on creating a category for them first. Apple seems to be the biggest contrary to this statement, as it has always been a category-driven company rather than product driven. Eddie Yoon agrees with this, and adds that Apple has never been one to create a product first, or a first-mover. Even going as far as the first Mac, there have been personal computers before it, but Apple sold people to a whole new experience by creating a category around personal computers and having an interface that’s both intuitive and easy to get into. Copying vs Innovating Following up to this, there are those who say that Apple is just copying ideas from its competitors and adding their own quirk to it. But if you look at this deeper, Apple is just really good at finding different uses for existing products in the market, something that those who made it first didn’t even consider as a function. Take for example what Apple is doing to the Vision Pro right now, which was discussed by Christopher in the previous Lochhead on Marketing episode (LOM 178). The main difference with how Google and other virtual headset devices marketed themselves versus the clear-cut presentation and demonstration by Apple is just miles apart. It doesn’t just look like a proof of concept that people can experiment on: Apple clearly tells you, “This is what you can do with it, and what other things you can add on later.” Apple is attacking the "tyranny of the screen” Christopher then explains that a lot of people misunderstood Apple’s point of attack in launching the Vision Pro. As product-centric companies and businesses, they think Apple is attacking other products like the Oculus and other VR headsets. When in reality, Apple is aiming for something else. As Eddie Yoon puts it, Apple is attacking the tyranny of the screen. The concept that we have to get bigger screens when we want better entertainment value, or that we have to be tied down to a certain place when doing work because your display cannot move with you. The other misconception is that people say Apple did not invent spatial computing. That it has been there this whole time in other products. And that’s true. But they are one of the first to adopt it to a question that only spatial computing can solve, and not just push out a product to see what people will do to it. This gives Apple app developers a range that they can work with; a clear scope and limitation so they don’t overshoot their promises, but at the same time push the boundaries of what can be done with it. To hear more about these Pirates Perspectives, download and listen to this episode. And if you like to hear more Pirates Perspectives, you can find it and other buried treasures when you subscribe to our Category Pirates newsletter. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him,

Apple announced some powerful new stuff at their Worldwide Developer Conference. And, as usual, many people in the business press, Twitter, and in Silicon Valley didn't see what happened in plain sight. So here we are again, explaining why this new category is different from the other virtual and reality augmentation devices out there, and why it is important. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Don’t just launch products, launch categories Let me put it to you this way. Google launches products, aka Google Glass. Facebook, launches products, aka Oculus. Meanwhile, Apple does Category Design. It's fascinating to us that category design hides in plain sight. Because what most people got wrong is they think that Apple introduced a product called Vision Pro. And yes, of course, they did that. But they did not make the same mistake that Google and Facebook made, which is they just launch products; Apple designs categories. And they tell you that's exactly what they're doing. Press Release for Apple Vision Pro Here's the headline: introducing Apple Vision Pro, Apple's first spatial computer. And what you have is the new product and brand Apple vision Pro. And they tell you what it is. It's a spatial computer. It's not a VR/AR headset. It's not some kind of other variety – It's a spatial computer. And if you go on to read the press release, what you'll discover is that Tim Cook's quote sums the whole thing up. “Today marks the beginning of a new era for computing,” said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. Just as the Mac introduced us to personal computing, and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro introduces us to spatial computing. And that, my friends, is the difference between marketing a category and just a product. Creating a new computing platform And this is what most people miss. And the reason they did it at their worldwide developer conference, is because they want the vision pro spatial computer to become a new compute platform. Just like the iPhone became a new compute platform, the personal computer became a new compute platform. That's what they're doing here. The iPad, etc. became a new platform, a new category of technology, not just a product that they gave to people. Launching a product without a category is like a loose cannon When Google launched Google Glass, they launched a product, they never articulated a problem that that product solved. They never evangelized a different future with that product. What they did was show a bunch of features. And because they didn't provide the strategic context for understanding of what the product was, aka category, they left it up to customers and the media to decide. Google Glass Demo Well, what happened? If you don't control your own category narrative, somebody else will. And so what emerged about Google Glass? Well, number one, because they did the launch in Silicon Valley, the people who used it immediately got the nickname of “glass-holes”, because it was rich assholes using Google Glass and beta and early release driving around in their Tesla's and the like, that sort of drew the ire of much of the world. To hear more on what Apple did right with the launch of their new category, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006,

On this episode, we are presenting some Pirates Perspective from our newsletter, Category Pirates. Eddie Yoon and Christopher Lochhead of Category Pirates answer questions about how important it is to create a category name that resonates with people—and that is similar enough to everyday language. Languaging takes thinking, but it’s worth getting right. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The importance of a Category Name entering the mainstream The first topic comes from a question about the importance of having a category name, and how important it is to be relevant enough to be used in everyday speech and lingo. Eddie points out that it is every important and a great deal to have one’s category name be something recognized by the public, particularly the target consumers, while striking a balance of being unique and different from the rest. An example he gives is Starbucks, which is in the “Dessert Coffee” business. While they might not outright say that they are in such as business, how they portray their products is perceived by consumers as such. And they capture that particular market by Languaging, creating something new like the Frappuccino. Having your Category Name make a mark in people’s minds Continuing along that line of thought, Eddie Yoon emphasizes that it is not only important to create something new, but it is also important that people find it relevant and want to engage with your product or service. Going to the example of Starbucks again, people have had coffee before, but they have not had dessert coffee. And say what you will, Frappuccino is essential a liquid sugar bomb in a cup, which a lot of people find more interesting than your regular latte or cappuccino. And where can you buy this Frappuccino? That’s right, Starbucks. Nowadays, there are numerous coffee shops that use the term, but whenever one thinks of Frappuccino, Starbucks is one of the first things that come to mind. And that is how you make a mark in people’s minds. Combining Ideas to make a new innovative Category Idea Christopher Lochhead then brings up the topic of combining two or three ideas to make a new Category Idea. Sometimes, those ideas can even clash with each other individual, but makes sense when you combine them. An example of this was Sun Microsystems, which went all-in for networking earlier than everyone else. While people are still using their computers as standalone units in business, Sun Microsystems have been selling servers and advocated for business to build a network for their office PCs. They even have their own networking software called Solaris. So while the business people in the 90’s finally had their delayed A-ha! moment, Sun Microsystems have already carved up a sizable chunk of the market for themselves. To hear more about these Pirates Perspectives, download and listen to this episode. And if you like to hear more Pirates Perspectives, you can find it and other buried treasures when you subscribe to our Category Pirates newsletter. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we have a dialogue with Mike Maples Jr. on how artificial intelligence is changing startups and venture capital. Mike Maples Jr. is the co-founder of Floodgate, one of the highest profile early stage venture capitalists. He also has a podcast called Starting Greatness, and it is one of my absolute favorites. By the end of it, we hope that you'll gain a new way to think about both technical risk for startups and market risk. And why in an AI world, you must either be radically different or radically disintermediate something. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Mike Maples Jr. on AI We begin the discussion on the topic of challenges of making sense of the rapidly evolving field of AI. Mike also talks about the traditional funding model of startups, where the primary focus was taking out technical risk, and how the LAMP stack, which commoditized what was once expensive, made it easier to start a startup. Mike notes that the nature of the LAMP stack changed what startups were funded for. “What I like to say is that the LAMP stack was deflationary in terms of the cost of starting startup. And so what does that mean? It meant that what you were funding was different, because if Kevin Rose can start dig for $1,500, over a weekend, there's no technical risks there. I mean, he hired a contractor to do it that he didn't even know at the time.” – Mike Maples Jr. Who gets Product Market Fit first The conversation then moves on to the changing dynamics of venture capital investment. The discussion continues with the notion that technical risk and market risk are inversely related. Solving a technically difficult problem that is valuable to society will create a market; if the problem is easy to solve technically, it will all come down to who achieves product-market fit first. To add value to the business, Floodgate and YC have taken the approach of funding market risk takedown. As technology becomes more commoditized and innovations become more accessible, the person who creates something people want the quickest wins. This is why YC was so successful: it offered young people $100,000 to either take market risks or leave. He also mentions that the traditional venture capital model may not be appropriate for all businesses and that deflationary factors such as content, code, and data may change the way businesses are built. Mike Maples Jr. on AI and the future of Venture Capital Mike Maples Jr. then returns to the topic of artificial intelligence and its implications for the future of venture capital. Here, Mike emphasizes two ends of the risk spectrum: high technical risk and high market risk. On the one hand, some projects require large amounts of funding for mass computation in order to build massive models that have the potential to change humanity. On the other hand, AI is being used in a variety of fields, including content generation for marketing, customer service chatbots, and lead generation, resulting in a deflationary effect on content, code, and data. According to Mike, some businesses may not require traditional venture capital funding and should instead focus on achieving $50 million in revenue with a small team and minimal funding. There is also speculation that the current billion-dollar funds may be providing the wrong incentives to these companies. To hear more from Mike Maples Jr. and how AI can affect the future of startups and venture capital, download and listen to this episode. Bio Mike Maples Jr. is an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. He’s co-founder of Silicon Valley based, early-stage VC Floodgate. And the host of the popular “Starting Greatness” podcast. Investments include Twitter, Lyft, Bazaarvoice, Sparefoot, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Doubledutch, Twitch.tv, Playdom, Chegg, Demandforce, Rappi, Smule, and Outreach. Link

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, myself and Eddie Yun, co-founder & co-creator of Category Pirates, tackle what's going on with what Elon Musk is now doing at Twitter; specifically, the move to charging people for their Validation Verification– once coveted, now purchasable – Blue Checkmarks. This is part of a new thing we're doing with our Category Pirates newsletter called Pirate Perspectives. So if you are interested and haven’t subscribed to Category Pirates yet, now’s the best time to check it out. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Twitter removes the Blue Check. Kinda. The conversation starts with Christopher and Eddie Yoon discussing Twitter's recent decision to remove Legacy Blue Checkmarks and only allowing verified accounts for those who pay. Eddie argues that this move is a step towards aligning Twitter's incentives with its users by making them pay for the service rather than monetizing their data through an advertising model. However, he suggests that Twitter could offer a tiered pricing structure to accommodate different budgets. The two acknowledge that this move has caused a lot of controversy, with some users upset about losing their Legacy Blue checkmarks, while some are given Blue checkmarks even though they didn’t ask for one. Christopher mentions that Elon Musk paid for verified accounts for Stephen King, LeBron James, and others, and they are angry about the change given their prior stance about it. Elon Musk and the missed opportunity with repurposing the blue checkmark Christopher and Eddie then talk about the recent decision by Twitter to remove the blue checkmark verification for some users. Christopher mentions that he appreciates the verification process before because it helps him identify real people on the platform. They also discuss the success of OpenAI's GPT chat and the importance of delivering a valuable user experience. Eddie agrees and mentions that incentivizing creators can improve the overall ecosystem by improving content and reducing fraud. They agree that Elon Musk and Twitter missed an opportunity to position the repurposing of blue checkmarks as an improvement to the user experience rather than a takeaway. To hear more about these category pirates’ hot takes on what is happening to Twitter and the social media space, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

This Lochhead on Marketing episode is a short one, almost like a bedtime story with Uncle Lochhead. I recently did a post on LinkedIn that blew up in a way that I didn’t quite expect. It was meant to be a humorous post about Marketing, but it seems to have cut quite deep in some, and others found it relatable. I thought it would be fun to read to you so we could share a few chuckles about it. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Conversation CFO to CMO: “Our revenue is going down, so we must cut your marketing budget” CMO: "I’m confused, Marketing is how we drive revenue?” CFO: “The macro environment is tough and we need to cut costs.” CMO: “But, Marketing is how we drive revenue?” CFO: “Yes, but Marketing is the fastest and easiest way to cut costs!” CMO: “But, if we need revenue, don’t we need Marketing more than ever?” CFO: “Not sure what they’re teaching today at Marketing MBA school, but we’re cutting your Marketing budget 30%.” CMO: “OK, so when revenue goes down, the best strategy is cut Marketing?” CFO: “YES! I believe you’ve got it!” To check out how people reacted and responded to this “conversation”, check out the post on LinkedIn. If you like this and are interested in joining different business and marketing conversations, join us at Category Pirates today! Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Pirate Lochhead is sailing the seven seas this week, so we’re dropping a legendary conversation that he had recently with Mike Maples Jr. and Ann Miura on the Starting Greatness Podcast. They discuss the recent SVB bank run that lead to a variety of situations and accusations by “experts” on social media. They also discuss what lessons a Founder can learn by studying the cause and effect of such crisis and circumstances. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. How a crisis can make us better Mike opens up the discussion by stating that while crisis is something we do not wish to happen on anyone, it can be a valuable source of information and introspection on what Founders can improve upon within their own companies and organizations. No one saw it coming Ann Miura shares that the SVB bank run has caught her completely unawares, as did most of the companies in Silicon Valley. Even those who had their teams monitoring SVB activities only caught wind of the situation a day or two before it happened, and by then it was already too late even for them. The Difference between the Public and the Founders Ann also observed that while people on social media and the news media are shouting doomsday scenarios and blaming each other over the situation, the Founders that she was working with at Floodgate had their head down and was busy finding ways to mitigate the situation, and looking at possible scenarios to move forward, should the SVB run not get resolved in the near future. It showed a stark contrast on how the mind of a Founder operates in crisis situations, and it should be something that a lot of business leaders should emulate if they themselves suffer through a sudden situation that needed their immediate focus and levelheadedness. To hear more from Mike Maples Jr. Ann Miura, and the Pirate Lochhead himself, download and listen to this episode. Check out more Starting Greatness episodes! Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

There is a fundamental tectonic change happening in the way work gets done – White Collar knowledge work to be specific. This new technology is creating a new category of worker beyond what has been the sort of top of the pyramid, the Knowledge Workers. There's a new layer above the Knowledge Worker emerging called the Creator Capitalist – someone who gets paid not simply to apply knowledge, but to create it. And that's because the value of existing knowledge is dropping exponentially every day with the emergence of AI. Today, let's talk about how this is already becoming a radically different future right in front of our eyes, powered by chatGPT. What is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is the fastest growing application or website in the history of humanity by quite a lot. And while there are users that only see it as a minor amusement at the moment, people have been heavily using it for their jobs and businesses already. There are entrepreneurs, writers and other related enterprises that use it to write newsletters, blog posts, and even outlines for book ideas. Of course, you don’t just put it the prompt and take the ChatGPT output as it is. While it is doing a pretty good job, even with niche-y things, there’s still room for improvement, as well as giving it the old human touch. But the biggest thing here is, it saves people time. Time that could be better spent on improving other aspects of your business. How ChatGPT can innovate your craft In  terms of creating content, whether it be an blog article, newsletter, or marketing content, there is so many ways you can take advantage of this technology. As mentioned earlier, you can use it to write first drafts to flesh out an idea you have and refine it afterwards to make it more unique and correct stuff that seem off-point to what you had in mind. You can also use in something as simple as improving the readability and format of the thing you’ve already written beforehand. You can even use ChatGPT to learn new things before creating your content by providing it with sources and different templates on which to base the content you intend to create later. The AI is as smart as you make it to be While the AI has a lot of capabilities that it can do, it all still boils down to how we use it. An example would be the prompts that we give ChatGPT to execute. Being too vague or general with your prompts can yield confusing and subpar results, as multiple users have observed. So it is best to do some research from prompt engineers on how to maximize the results of your requests to the AI, so you’ll get the best quality of content or feedback all the time. To learn more on how you can use ChatGPT and other AI technology to create content and code, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy

Pirate Lochhead is sailing the seven seas this week, so we're dropping a legendary conversation that he had recently with Anna Furmanov on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. They discuss creative marketing category design, guns, human composting and more. Yes, human composting. Just… listen, trust me. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. What does “Creative” mean to you? The conversation starts off with Anna asking for Christopher’s definition on being a creative. Christopher shares that in order to consider something as being “creative”, it has to be something new. “Being creative is bringing into being something that did not exist. You can take an existing thing and innovate on top of it and create something new. But at the end of whatever the creative process is, it yields a new creation. And sometimes that's a doodle on a page. And sometimes it's a new piece of code. There's lots of different acts of creation that bring new things into the world. But fundamentally, I think creation is about exactly that.” – Christopher Lochhead On when you feel the most creative Continuing on the topic of creativity, Anna asks when Christopher felt the most creative, whether its on a specific project, a certain period of time, or something else entirely. “So for me, creativity, really at a high level, comes in two ways. One is just pure inspiration. Right – you're out on a walk, you're washing the dishes, you're in the shower, your whatever it is you're doing, an idea comes into your head. Because I'm a writer, I get sentences delivered to my head, and/or power ideas hiding in paragraphs. And then I'll have to immediately get to a piece of paper or my iPhone and write that shit down. That can happen anytime, all the time. My wife will see me running across the house to grab a pen or to grab my phone and start talking to it, so I don't forget the idea.” – Christopher Lochhead Thinking about thinking One of the things Christopher pointed about how people perceive thinking is that they misconstrue having thoughts as “thinking”. Having thoughts just means an idea or a thought that pops in your head, without much effort put into it, almost like a kneejerk reaction. Thinking, on the other hand, is actually taking that thought and processing it. It’s the suspension of that immediate and reflexive thought that one can really get into deeper details of the topic, and even find out why it elicited that sort of reaction from you and other people around you. To hear more from Christopher Lochhead and his conversation with Anna Furmanov on the Modern Startup Marketing Podcast, download and listen to this episode. Check out more Modern Startup Marketing Podcast episodes! Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

It's been a crazy handful of days in Silicon Valley. But now that the federal government has made their announcements and has the ball rolling, I wanted to spend a few minutes with you just clarifying some things that seem to be creating confusion in the recent Silicon Valley Bank situation. There seems to be more confusion about what just happened with the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and what the federal government just did as there was about COVID. So let me see if I can break this down for all of you. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. There is no Bank Bailout for the Silicon Valley Bank Let me say that again: there was no bank bailout here. The executives got fired. None of the investors, creditors, nobody doing business with the bank, in that sense, are getting any of their money back, particularly the investors in the board. The Silicon Valley Bank is gone. The Effect on the US Finance The President has said that this will not cost taxpayers’ money. You may choose to believe it or not, but that is the current position of the government on the matter. What they’re saying is if there’s any protection money required, it will come from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC is an insurance company managed by the federal government, which is paid for by Wall Street and the banks. They pay insurance fees to the FDIC for drastic instances such as these. Making that point clear as soon as possible was a good move by the federal government, because if they have wavered in their decision to do so, twisted narratives about bank bailouts and conjuring the past instances of it happening would have been a bad blow to the US government's image. The Silicon Valley Bank Depositors will get their money back White there’s no direct timetable for when the depositors can get their full funds back, the federal government, via the FDIC, came in and said that they will make sure that the people will get 100% of their money back. Here’s where most of the confusion lie at the moment, because there are some who spin the narrative like this resembles the recent FTX crash. But unlike the FTX crash where the money is in large parts gone, the Silicon Valley Bank’s money is still there. The main issue at the moment is that there were some horrendous mistakes in investing the money, which caused it to be stuck and become inaccessible at the moment. So when a bank run happened, they didn't have enough cash. And that's what caused this. But the money is still there, unless we learn otherwise after the ongoing investigations. To hear more updates and suggestions on how Silicon Valley, the federal government, and the FDIC can prevent such a crisis from happening again, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse went off like a bomb on March 10th 2023. And I want to reach out to you and essentially share with you the conversations that I've been having with many friends, many entrepreneurs, many VCs, in the last 24 hours or so. That said, let's talk about what's really going on; specifically, what the media talking heads and idiot, ‘thought leaders’ on the internet are getting very, very wrong. Second, we’ll discuss a few ideas on what you can do immediately to shore up your situation if you are a Silicon Valley Bank customer, or even if you are working in the tech world. And then thirdly, let's talk about the crisis from the perspective of your company, and what you can do moving forward. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Silicon Valley Bank Collapse As of now, what is clear is that Silicon Valley Bank went down in part, because of some combination of getting caught in a cash crunch. It appears they made some bad long term bond decisions at low interest rates. And as you know, the US government has been raising interest rates from about 0.25% roughly a year ago, to about 4.75% now a year later. This has caught a lot of people off guard. This is not to say there wasn't a mistake on SVB’s part, but what we do know is that there were some combination of over investing in long term bonds, and the interest rates going up that aggravated the problem. Here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal article breaking all of what has happened so far. Media and Thought Leaders’ “thoughts” on the matter First of all, there’s a thread  growing around that says, “Oh, this is the billionaires in Silicon Valley doing corrupt things, and now they're getting their comeuppance.” This is not the case. If there was something incompetent or illegal that took place in the Silicon Valley Bank, we’ll find out once the investigations are done. But for now, it is affecting a lot of people in the space, and not just those billionaires they are harping about. This is not some cash crunch hurting billionaires. It is hurting the people who didn't get paid on Friday, because their employer just froze their bank. This is the entrepreneur who DM me on Twitter yesterday saying they have their entire 20 million of VC funding at SVB, and asking what they can do now. These entrepreneurs and CEOs don't know how they're going to pay their people, don't know how they're going to pay their bills. It appears that the FDIC is saying that people will get their guaranteed 250,000 on Monday, but over 90% of the deposits in this bank are in excess of that. So it's really not much protection. And while it seems that much of this money will come back to its rightful owner, it's not clear what percentage and in what timeframe. Running a business with no money is fucking hard. And that's what's going on here. To learn more about the Silicon Valley Bank situation and how your business can cope with crisis of this magnitude, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™!

If you are in tech, a Silicon Valley type, in a startup, or you're a category designer working in that world, this podcast is for you. Because today, we're going to talk about career considerations for all of you. Whether you are planning to climb the corporate ladder or break away from it, we hope that his episode can help you figure things out. Speaking of making a difference, my friends at Acceleration Economy are hosting a legendary virtual event called the Digital CIO Summit. It is not a stretch to say that some of the smartest people in the technology industry are going to be participating. And when some of the big thinkers in the tech world are willing to share their thinking, it is an incredible opportunity that you don’t want to miss. If you are interested, register today at AECIOSummit.com. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. How Category King Economics Work The first thing that is important to talk about is how Category King Economics work, and what happens to its dynamics in downtimes. When a new category emerges from a company or a small startup and gains traction, it attracts competition and investment. Eventually, a category king or queen will emerge from said companies and will have the bulk of the market at its grasp – almost two-thirds of the market or so. As we have previously discussed in past episodes and in our book Play Bigger, these categories are usually developed during downtimes, or times of slower to no growth. This is because costumers will usually flock to the current category king or queen of their field, leaving number two and below competing for small portions. Rather than compete for said small portion, these companies are now incentivized to create new categories themselves, one where they can thrive and dominate. Otherwise, their company is in for a slump and steady decrease in profits and market share. Are you in a Category Battle? So as a company, it is important to know how your product or services rank in their perspective category. If you’re the category king or head-to-head with the current one, that’s great. If not and you are steadily in number 2 or lower, it might be time to get the whiteboards out. Why? Because it means that you are directly competing with pretty much the same product, with them having the superior specifications than yours. Hence, why customers and the bulk of the market choose them as the Category King rather than your company. You are essentially fighting a losing battle at that point, and bleeding money as a result. Time for Plan B Now that you are aware of how companies do battle for the top spot in a category, let’s talk about you. If you find yourself in a company that is consistently placing 2nd or in the market, it may be time to consider some career moves. The most obvious one is moving to the category king, and see what they are doing right over there. Another option is to go solo – a lot of solopreneurs tend to break out in these downtimes, either starting from a side hustle and developing it to a career, or working with other entrepreneurs and diving into a new startup with fresh ideas. Take stock of what you have to offer, whether it be intellectual capital or experience, and locate a way to leverage it for your own benefit, whatever course of action you are considering taking. Also, look for a business or a circumstance that will allow you to reap the greatest benefits from the qualities you possess. To hear more on Career Considerations for Category Designers, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by T...

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about what most people are missing about the biggest category battle of the decade: OpenAI & Microsoft vs. Google. Even some of the smartest people in business can't see what's happening here, as most people don’t have a category design lens; they have a competition lens. The competition lens is about winning a comparison game with other companies, which at most leads to a small piece of the market share, and rarely leads to being the category leader of said field. So join us as we dig into how to view the new AI category battle through the category lens, beyond product brand, and business model. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Categories Matter Before we look into things through the category lens, we need to point out why categories matter so much. The simple answer is: categories matter because that's how human brains make sense of information. “Here's a simple example: If I say to you: ‘automobile’, you know what that is. And then if I say to you muscle car, you know that a muscle car is a subcategory of automobile. Because the way the human mind works is that you and I ascertain information, and we need to put it somewhere in a file folder, because we need to sort that shit out and make sense of it.” – Christopher Lochhead The second piece of it is, each of these categories and subcategories, these folders in our mind are also a hierarchy of value. Whichever is valuable or not is how they are perceived by everyone, and we collectively give some things higher values than others, even if it sometimes doesn’t make sense why some things are more expensive than things that are actually important. Remember, there was a point in time where nobody paid for water. And then Evian showed up and got people to pay a premium price for a free product they had in their tap. OpenAI vs Microsoft So we get to the meat of the dialogue, which is about Microsoft & OpenAI and their new product, ChatGPT. ChatGPT represents a new category called consumer AI. Though there have been previous AI technologies that have been launched it the web before, none are as well-defined and has had a impact as big as ChatGPT. This in turn got people thinking if Microsoft is muscling in on the Search War. Well, not exactly – because Microsoft already lost that battle with their Bing search engine. Google controls about 83% market share of searches online, compared to Microsoft Bing’s  9.9%. So clearly, Google is the Category King in that regard. ChatGPT, however, is a whole other product and a different category altogether. ChatGPT does not search for the answer, it creates the answer based on the collective information that is available to it. It’s not he old category of Search, but a new category called Answer. After the success of OpenAI & ChatGPT grew and garnered more positive feedback from the market, Google has decided to create its own version of it. Which is ironic, as they fell into the same trap that Microsoft found themselves in with Bing before. To learn more about the surge of new categories from AI, and how to treat these new categories from a category lens perspective, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we are going to drop a conversation that I recently had with my dear friend, one of the smartest guys in tech, Bob Evans, on his podcast, Cloud Wars Live. If you work in technology, what Bob and his guests have to say is fascinating, illuminating, and, frankly, agenda-setting. If you're a regular reader of Category Pirates, you'll know that we've been writing about intellectual capitalists and the emergence of a whole new human category, Native Digitals, for quite some time. We believe this is an extremely important topic, and we believe that the emergence of the intellectual capitalist as the highest value role in the work world above that of what has historically been the highest value job you can have in the working world, which is the knowledge worker, is particularly significant. Because those of us who will thrive not just survive in the future, we'll move beyond acquiring knowledge and getting paid to apply that knowledge to getting paid to create and monetize new categories of intellectual capital, new categories of knowledge, new categories of thinking, which can be turned into new products and services. The Story of the Hummingbird The conversation starts off with Christopher telling the story of the Hummingbird and his Sensei Sutton. His sensei is an amazing martial artist and a badass individual, but at a certain point in his life, he had to overcome many adversities before getting to where he is now. “So the moral of the story is in life – Sometimes you're the hummingbird and sometimes you're the sensei. But Sooner or later, we all need somebody to catch us tightly enough not to hurt us, but strongly enough to save us.” – Christopher Lochhead In life, we will absolutely be in situations where we are the hummingbird. But the real question is, when we have an opportunity to be the Sensei, will we will we meet the call? ChatGPT and the Death of the Knowledge Worker Christopher then talks about the current boom in AI technology, particularly on the topic of ChatGPT and similar AI generated content. Much like how machinery and Automation have taken over some aspects of labor from men, this new AI technology seems to be crowding in the profession of Knowledge Worker. While it may not be up to par with certain intricacies to date, it is quickly learning and becoming better over a short period of time. And much like the service workers of the past have to learn to adapt to new technology, Knowledge Workers also have to follow the trend and evolve, paving the way to what we call Intellectual Capitalists. Intellectual Capitalist So what is an Intellectual Capitalist? For Christopher, it’s someone who doesn’t just collect information and apply it like a knowledge worker, but someone who actually generates net-new knowledge. It could be from their experience while working on a certain field that makes them faster, more efficient, or outright the best in that field. In one word, an Intellectual Capitalist has Leverage over other people who are in the same field, but can’t do it better or even as good as them. An Intellectual Capitalist should also not be only bound to current categories and ideologies. If there is an idea worth pursuing, it’s not enough to learn why it hasn’t been done before. One should also look through it with what we have today, and if the rapidly-growing pace of technology will  be able to support it and when. To hear more about the dialogue about AI and the Intellectual Capitalist, download and listen to this episode. Bio Bob Evans Founder of Cloud Wars and Co-Founder of the Acceleration Economy, Bob leads the strategic direction of the global analyst network and actively covers the Cloud and Digital Business categories. Creator of Cloud Wars Top 10, a ranking and ongoing analysis world's most influential tech companies driving digital business and the digital economy. World-class strategic communicator focused on emerging business strategy,

The Wall Street Journal says, “George Lois is the one the only prodigy or fathead, founder of agencies, creator of Legends, George Lewis is a genuine advertising superhero”. George Lois is well known if not famous for designing culture, changing cover images for Esquire magazine, and his “call your cable company and tell them I want my MTV”. That campaign made the music video category and made MTV the Category King. In his life and career, he broke every rule, created legendary categories and brands, and he did it in a brash, bold, exciting way. Sadly, we recently lost this legend at 91 years old. George Lois died just three months after his beloved wife, Rosemary died. And he is one of my heroes, a man that so many of us in marketing owe so much. And yet, most young people in entrepreneurship, marketing and creative endeavors and design. Don't really know of him. But if you've ever done anything in entrepreneurship in category design or marketing, that breaks boundaries, you're following in George's footsteps, and you might not even know it. Today, let's dig into some of George's life's teachings. Because if you want to become legendary, you have to study the legends. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. George Lois and a Damn Good Advice George Lewis was born in June 1931, and he passed in November 2022. And it is said that in the end, we are all remembered for two dates, and a dash. And I'm here to tell you that George made some legendary shit out of his dash. I want to focus on a book of his called Damn Good Advice for People with Talent, How to unleash your creative potential by America's master communicator, George Lois. If you have not read this book yet, I would suggest you do so. What I want to share with you are some of the learnings from this book – not all of them, but some of them that really have spoken to me over the years and made a big difference for me that I think might make a big difference for you. Force a Choice Idea number one is to Force a Choice. At the very beginning of damn good advice, George says this: “There are only four types of person you can be: one, very bright, industrious, [your perfect]. Two, very bright lazy [a damn shame]. Three, stupid lazy, you'll sit on your ass, so you're a wash. And four, stupid industrious [uh oh, you're dangerous]. If you're a number one or a number two, you'll get a lot out of this book, if you're number three, or number four, why you reading this book?” – George Lois So right off the top and this landmark piece of work by George, he's doing what legendary brands do, which is they attract who they are for, and they repel who they are against. Legendary brands force a choice, not a comparison. And best I can tell, that's how George lived his life. You are who you are Big Idea number two: Around here, we would express it as Follow Your Different. In George words, he writes: “Whether you're male, female, black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, ethnic, or gay, and wherever you work, you are who you are. And that's what you are, and be damn proud of it. Don't change your name. Don't change your accent, don't change your heritage, don't denigrate a humble upbringing. Be true to yourself, and you'll ring true to the world.” – George Lois To learn more about the different teachings of George Lois, download and listen to this episode. Bio George Lois Links Learn more about George Lois Website | Wiki | Books More about George Lois: NYTimes The Atlantic Washington Post We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Recently, I was a guest with the legendary Sachit Gupta on his fantastic podcast called Conscious Creators, which I highly recommend. During our conversation on his podcast, we unpack Category Pirates’ most recent book Snow Leopard. Our producer Jason DeFilippo heard this podcast and thought it'd be a great idea to drop it here for you. What you're about to hear is me and Satya go deep on what it takes to be a successful native digital creator slash writer. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Reason for Podcasting The conversation starts off with a discussion of how the two first met, and it was through the legendary podcaster Jordan Harbinger. Christopher was looking into getting sponsors and thinking about was to monetize his podcast, and was recommended to Sachit Gupta this way. While he did get ideas on different styles of monetization, the biggest thing that Christopher got out of the conversation was the realization that monetization was not his primary focus on doing podcasts. “I sort of had this aha that said, “Hey, wait a minute, dude, this was actually never about money”. And if I want to make money, I know how to go do that. So you sort of set my head straight, and that the emphasis was on the wrong syllable that if I wanted to make money, I knew how to go make money in a way that was much more exponential than being essentially an ad salesperson. The real gift you gave me around podcasting, was that I’m not doing this to monetize.” – Christopher Lochhead Sachit Gupta on Monetizing Directly vs Indirectly One of the things that Sachit wanted to share was that one doesn’t have to monetize directly. Focus on making good content first and foremost, so that you can reach out and cultivate an audience naturally, rather than going for cookie-cutter approaches for a short-term viral status. “Here's what I see happening in this greater world right now: there's a stat that I think like 75% of youngsters want to be YouTubers, and the path most of them see in front of them is go on YouTube or something else and create content that's for the extremes, because that's what spreads. And then once you chase views and get to a certain level of audience, you can monetize in some way, right. And if you don't become big, you can't monetize. In your book, you call like the obvious content, which is not really the stuff that's useful.” – Sachit Gupta While there is merit to uploading consistent content, you don’t have to flood your audience with bit-sized content that is just a big nothing burger. Creating meaningful content, let’s say once every week or two is way better than just dropping portion-sized content that just adds to the collective brain-rot of society. The Content Pyramid The topic then shifts to the concept of the content pyramid, and what types of people thrive in each level. Consumers, for example, are at base of the pyramid and consists of the largest section of it. In internet culture, there is something known as the 1% rule, which states that on social media platforms, 1% create while 99% consume. Most people spend their entire lives being content consumers—not content creators. And that’s totally fine, so long as you understand you’re not “playing the game.” You’re sitting on the sidelines watching the game. In order to “get in the game,” you must move out of consumption and up The Content Pyramid. To hear more of the conversation between Sachit Gupta and Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to this episode. Bio Sachit Gupta Connect with Sachit Gupta! Website | Conscious Creators Show | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

In observance of the Midterm Elections in the United States, we will not be dropping full normal episodes of Lochhead on Marketing this week. And if you are American, I do hope you get out and vote. It is, in my opinion, one of the most patriotic things you can do. I also just wanted to read you a little something that I wrote recently on LinkedIn that I think is germane. Because whatever happens in the American midterms, roughly 50% of the country is going to be elated, and 50% of the country is going to be pissed. So let me do a little reading for you here. “Today, more Americans hate more Americans than ever. And yet, we all know hating someone because they disagree with you might be the biggest stupid of them all. So how did this happen in the oldest surviving democracy in human history? It’s because politicians, media, and social media, on both sides, create hate. Politicians, media, and social media, on both sides. monetize hate. We took the bait and internalize the hate, but it's not too late. We can start really thinking. We can start really dialoguing. We can start really making a difference. American on American hate stops with us. This is something every American can be a leader on, and frankly, everybody in the world can be a leader on. American on American hate stops with us. God bless America and God bless the world."

What percentage of the total value created in any given market category goes to the category designer or leader? That was a question that we had several years ago. And we thought there would be research about that. Well, when we were writing Play Bigger, we couldn't find that data. So we had to create it. The number has been an extraordinary insight. It turns out that the company that wins the category earns 76% of the total value created in the space, as measured by market cap and or valuation. And that insight was so compelling, we actually published it in the Harvard Business Review. On this episode, let's dig into how you could be that person. How do you be that company that earns that 76%? Or seven another way? What are the different ways that category designers, the people who create and dominate new market categories think and become the one who earns that 76%? Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Category Design is a Game Of Thinking Thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking for a Category Designer. You are responsible for changing the way a reader, customer, or consumer “thinks.” You are successful when you’ve moved their thinking from the old way to the new and different way you are educating them about. But what is “thinking?” According to Roger Martin, arguably the world’s #1 management thinker, “thinking” is when you look at the world through an existing model. It’s how you use learnings from the past to make sense of the present. So when another driver cuts you off on the highway, you apply your past experiences to the present and swerve on reflex. But almost all thinking is “reflexive” rather than “reflective.” Consider the difference we laid out in our mini-book The Art of Fresh Thinking: “Reflexive” thinking: Having an unconscious “reflex” in response to ideas or opinions. “Reflective” thinking: Taking a moment to consciously reflect on how the past may have created a preexisting mental model keeping you from considering a new and different future. Reflexive thinking causes a scarcity of fresh thinking in the world because it relies on mental scaffolding built in the past. Some of the smartest people stopped reflective thinking a long time ago. We would even go so far as to say that being declared a smart person is almost certain to make you stupid. Because when you get called “smart,” you become entrenched in your comfortable past. When you’re smart, you know things. And most people who know things are called “experts.” Which means they already know. And when you already know, by definition you are using old mental scaffolding to consider new and different futures. Which makes you stupid. So, don’t strive to become an expert (ever!)—it’s the enemy of fresh thinking. Here’s How a Category Designer Thinks You are presented with information. You become conscious of which model you are using to evaluate the information (which “lens” you are looking through). And then before you react, respond, or give in to your reflexive nature, you pause and first consider which mental model you’re using to examine the information being presented. You train yourself to be curious, to ask why, to suspend your past opinions, beliefs, and mental models, and to open the aperture of your mind and consider something different. That’s “thinking.” Our friend, Mike Maples Jr., calls this “Backcasting.” “Legendary builders must stand in the future and pull the present from the current reality to the future of their design. So an important additional job of the builder is to persuade early like-minded people to join a new movement.” To learn more on how you can become a Category Designer and start thinking more reflectively, download and listen to this episode. You can also read more about it at Category Pirates. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bests...

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let's talk about public relations/communications, and a very different point of view about that. In particular, why your content is your marketing. Towards the end, we'll talk about five easy steps to consider when building your own direct audience, and bypassing the legacy publications: the old-school, dusty gatekeepers. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Problem with Legacy Media This episode is inspired in part by a conversation I had with a CEO friend, which I then posted on LinkedIn. It reads: A CEO friend just asked me, if he should go to a PR/Marketing smooze event with the legacy business media. Here’s my advice. (Warning: I’m biased. But for a reason) The bulk of legacy media is a waste of time. I used to write for many of the biggest legacy business media outlets. Stopped 5+ years ago, because a) (almost) no one reads it and b) it is mostly clickbait. No one reads Forbes fortune Fast Company, Inc, etc. anymore. Your best ROI will come from building your own media and thought leadership. And the AHA here is every company needs to be a media company. Playing Both Sides Another issue is that even as these legacy media have gone digital, they still rely on cookie cutter strategies and clickbait-y articles. They play the SEO game to keep their websites on top of searches, and then have companies pay to be featured as top so-and-so in a category. Some even go as far as charging subscription to access their media, which is a whole other reason why people don’t read their stuff anymore. You pay to get the “information”, only to find out that it’s something you can probably read 2 lines down the search results. Essentially, they are trying to get revenues from both sides of the process, which will eventually lead to burning both ends of the stick faster. They are still clinging to traditional ways, which shows even when they went digital. Go Direct to the Source So rather than subscribing to “publication lists” that doesn’t really net you any traffic, it’s best to do it in-house and go direct to the source by tapping into the digital market itself. You can start small with building up channels in various social media platforms, and promoting your content and linking back to your website if they are interested for more. At the very least, you now have a platform to actively engage your audience, and get a pulse of what works and what doesn’t, and go from there. To find out the other steps in doing better PR and communications on your own, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On September 15 2022, Adobe announced it was buying startup Figma for 20 billion US dollars. This is one of the largest private company purchases in Silicon Valley history. They paid approximately 50 times Figma’s 2022 revenue, and Wall Street hated it. Skeptics are saying that Adobe paid an "astronomical price" for a company projected to book only 400 million in ARR annualized reoccurring revenue this year. And this is exactly what people who do not understand how categories work. The “experts” on Wall Street when deals like this go down, are almost always wrong. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Wall Street Mercenaries Let’s start off with an interesting tidbit that I experienced by interacting with Wall Street. As I was doing a little bit of consulting and insulting back then, a group approached me about their matchmaking service. Simply put, they would match executives and experts to Wall Street folks, and they pay for your time so they could ask you questions and advise on certain things. The idea intrigued me, so I signed up for it. But it turns out, the Wall Street guys only wanted to ask for speculations and opinions on certain company’s performance and how it would affect the market, what stocks were going to tank, etc. The AHA here is that most people (this is a generalization) in Wall Street are mercenaries. They're looking to make money in the now term, short term. They don’t create a significant value in the economy. They just try to anticipate what might happen tomorrow, so that they can play a financialization game. While there are exceptions to this, it’s generally the perception most people have of them. How to Confuse a Wall Street Folk As we’ve discussed before, there are two kinds of acquisition deals when you look at them from the high level. There are consolidation deals and acceleration deals. Consolidation deals happen when a certain company is not growing anymore, and their solution for it is to merge with another company to get a bigger share of the market and look like they have “growth”. Value investors like the Wall Street folks typically thrive and look out for such deals, as it fulfills their requirements for “growth” and revenue increase. Acceleration deals is when a company acquires another because they see value on it once they have developed it. They company or IP they purchased may not have a huge valuation at the moment, but it could be a gold mine for them once it is fully fleshed out. Acceleration deals tend to confuse Wall Street folk, as they are focused in the “now”, and could not fathom the significance of such a deal entails, unless it affects the current quarter. Hence, they do not understand what Adobe did, which is why they hate it. To hear more about the Adobe deal and why Wall Street folks hate it, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Welcome to a special episode of Lochhead on Marketing, where we dive further into our new book called Snow Leopard. On this episode, we discuss the Content Pyramid, and how one can become a legendary creator, writer, and thought leader. But before all that, we’d like to say thank you very much to all who took the time to read our new book and share it around. It's also caused a tremendous amount of conversation in the entrepreneur, marketing, and writer/creator world. Because today, more than ever, being able to change the world with words, matters. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Problem Everybody wants to be a thought leader. They want to be seen as forward thinking, they want to be celebrated as the Guru, the expert, the All Knowing one in their industry, they want to be the keynote speaker, the bestselling author, the person listed in the next 10, marketers to watch in 2002 by Forbes, most of which are paid placements. Because now that the world has gotten exposed to the power of digital attention, and everyone believes the most valuable thing you could possibly have is an audience. Well, everybody wants one for themselves. Unfortunately, as we wrote about in our mini book, The Me Disease, the vast majority of people who want to be a thought leader, or bestselling author in today's digital gamified world, don't have any leading thoughts. That is to say, they're not actually contributing new differentiated ideas. What they want is to be seen as a thought leader, to collect badges of approval, and amass followers, and social metrics that send the signal that lots of other people say they are important, without having to say anything unique or meaningful, or different. More importantly, they want the audience without having to take the time to think deeply about who they are creating for and why they want the outcome without the process. Content-Free Content Since this has become such a desirable goal, there are now strategies for shortcutting your way to instant status gratification. The key is to cater to the lowest common denominator. The way the business world has been educated on how to become an overnight thought leader is to create content that doesn't threaten, doesn't challenge, and doesn't require the audience to think, as loud and as often as possible. This strategy caters to lazy button smashing consumers. We call this Content-free Content. It gets likes and views, and it lands you some followers. But after you the consumer, eat it, you sort of feel like a box full of Oreos. Zero nutritional value full of empty calories, and left feeling stupid. The Content Pyramid Ask yourself: do you want acceptance, or do you want to make a difference? If you want to be a legendary writer, creator, entrepreneur, executive or industry thought leader, you need to be honest with yourself about a how you measure success and be what category you're going to play in. Also, when you create you are creating something for someone. Anyone who says “Yeah, well I just want to create for myself” is a beginner and hasn't gotten far enough down the road to realize they aren't who matter: the reader, the listener, the viewer is who matters. To hear the full chapter about the Content Pyramid and how to become a successful thought leader, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software jugge...

Peter Drucker is considered the father of modern business management. If there was a Mount Rushmore of business thinking, he'd be on it. Recently on Category Pirates, we’ve begun work on the evolution of Peter Drucker’s concept of a knowledge worker, to what can today be called as the emergence of an intellectual capitalist. So I wanted to look back on Peter Drucker’s ideas that had a huge impact on me, and see if we can apply more of them in our current endeavors. His book, The Effective Executive, helped me become an organized person and an effective executive of my own.  And when I read the foreword in the latest edition that was written by Jim Collins, it struck something profound, which I hope to share with you. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Effective Executive: Foreword Here’s the foreword by Jim Collins: My first meeting with Drucker is one of the 10 most significant days of my life. Peter had dedicated himself to one huge question: how can we make society both more productive and more humane? His warmth, as when he grasped my hand in two of his upon opening his front door and said, “Mr. Collins, so very pleased to meet you please come inside”, bespoke his own humanity. But he was also incredibly productive. At one point, I asked him which of his 27 books he was most proud of, to which Drucker, then 86, replied, the next one. He wrote 10 more. At the end of the day, Peter hit me with a challenge. I was on the cusp of leaving my faculty spot at Stanford, betting on a self-created path. And I was scared. “It seems to me you spend a lot of time worrying about how you will survive”, said Peter. “You will probably survive”, he continued, “and you seem to spend a lot of energy on the question of how to be successful. But that is the wrong question”. He paused. Then, like the Zen master thwacking the table with a bamboo stick, “the question is, how to be useful.” A great teacher can change your life in 30 seconds. I know that there have been moments in my life where I wondered if I was going to survive or make it. And the interesting teaching here that Jim is sharing with us from Peter, is that when we turn our effort, our focus on being useful to others, ourselves become less important. So if you're somebody right now, who's wondering how to be successful or worried that maybe you won't survive, or maybe that your startup or your career is on the wrong path. I would just underscore the story, you'll probably survive. Like Peter said, the real question is, how can we all be useful? Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Matt Johnson and I have a conversation about the book that changed my life. In my case, it was two books in particular that changed my life. We look into them through a category lens perspective in Matt Johnson’s new podcast, One Book That Changed My Life Podcast. Matt Johnson is the founder of PursuingResults.com. Matt and his firm were the original producers of my original Oddcast back in the Legends and Losers days, and he's taught me a ton about podcasting. He's got a legendary podcast called MicroFamous. Of late, he started a new podcast called one book that changed my life. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Matt Johnson & Christopher Lochhead on how the two books made a difference After a brief introduction of who Christopher Lochhead is and his works, Matt Johnson starts the discussion on the book. Particularly on the topic of what the situation was when he was reading the books for the first time, and how it affected Christopher and his views. Christopher then talks about his background when he was first starting out his business as an entrepreneur and still learning the ropes. While there were a lot of books on marketing available, there was something about the 22 Immutable Laws the made him think, “this is the one.” “I started to read them early on, and, and it immediately spoke to me. What their work really spoke to was, if you want to stand out, if you want to be super successful, and you want to make a big difference, you got to do it by being kind of radically unique in some way.” – Christopher Lochhead Matt Johnson & Christopher Lochhead on the 22 Immutable Laws Of the topic of the 22 Immutable Laws book, the one law that really stood out to Christopher was the 2nd law, which is the Law of Category. It states that, “if you can't be first in the category, then set up a new category that you can be first.” Looking back, that law describes Category Design quite nicely. Christopher also brings up the idea of the importance of solidifying and codifying your ideas and defining them as a category, rather than just sharing new thinking without establishing it first. Because it leaves others the chance to improve upon it and move into the category before you, and by then you’ve lost the category despite being the actual first to think about it. Matt Johnson & Christopher Lochhead on Crossing the Chasm As for Crossing the Chasm, Christopher explains that the book presents a great framework for understanding how new markets in tech, and in these days, pretty much all digital-related markets. The book explains how new market categories develop. It has a standard kind of bell curve which introduces a non-obvious problem that anybody who's introduced a new tech category has experienced, but had no lens or way of understanding the concepts. On the side of the rising bell curve, you have the few innovators, followed by the slowly increasing number of early adopters. At the peak, you have the early majority, who mostly benefit from the experiments and not repeating the same mistakes as early adopters might have incurred. Then you have the downward slope, which features the late majority and the laggards who are late to the party. To hear more from Matt Johnson and the rest of the podcast, download and listen this episode. Bio Matt Johnson is a marketing agency founder, podcaster, and musician. He runs a podcast launch & production agency based in San Diego, an international team that helps business coaches, consultants and thought leaders use done-for-you podcasting to attract an audience, build influence & become MicroFamous. Matt is the author of MicroFamous and currently hosts the MicroFamous podcast. He is a frequent podcast guest and event speaker to audiences around the US, Canada, and Australia. Links Connect with Matt Johnson! PursuingResults.

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, our guest Al Ramadan talks about what’s at stake when it comes to category battles, how you can spot the category challengers who can become category kings and queens, and what they need to become category leaders that earn 76% of the economics. There comes a time in every startup’s life, where they face an epic, typically 18-to-36-month category battle. As we reported in our first book Play Bigger, the company that wins that battle earns 76% of the total value created in the category as measured by the market caps for public companies and valuations for private companies. What that means is, in any space, one company earns two thirds of the economics, which makes that category battle, which is typically 18 to 36 months long, arguably the highest stakes game in business. This episode will be available on both Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different and Lochhead on Marketing, because we think it is that important that everyone must hear about it. So without further ado, let’s dive into this dialogue. Play Bigger: Looking back, and its impact today Al Ramadan comes into the conversation bearing data about the businesses and companies we’ve observed when writing Play Bigger, as well as some new players that have achieve the same feat since then. To recap, Al Ramadan and Christopher Lochhead wrote a book back in 2014 called Play Bigger, which talks about category design and how it can make you become a category leader in your chosen space. One of the things they’ve found out in the course of their research is that Category Leaders tend to corner 76% of the value of said space. Though when they wrote Play Bigger, the world was nowhere near as digitized as it is today. So a lot of the research was based on tech companies back then. But now, as more and more categories are behaving like tech categories due to digital scalability and digital reach, these findings are becoming true for every category. Category Kings to Category Leaders Al Ramadan shares that he and his team looked into the 35 Category Kings that they have observed back in Play Bigger, and check on their current situation in the market sphere. In Play Bigger, we originally published a set of research and tracked 35 Category Kings in the tech space and their market caps at the time were 465 billion and those same companies today are now worth 1.9 trillion. “If you track what happened to those 35 kings, as we call them back then, between the year of 2014 to the year of 2021. You want to know what the numbers are? At the time in 2014, the entire pool of the 35 category kings were valued at 465 billion. They are now valued at 1.9 trillion. That is, they’ve created more than $1,000,001.5 in market cap and the annual for those people who care about this stuff like Investors and Financial people. The compound interest growth rate of those kings. Market cap wise, is 22.46%.” – Al Ramadan Given this data, it begs the question of how many understand that this is the new dynamic, and how many entrepreneurs and marketers still think that it’s a big leap of faith to follow. To hear more from Al Ramadan and how Category Kings can become legendary Category Leaders, download and listen to this episode. Bio Al Ramadan is a co-founding partner of Play Bigger Advisors and coauthor of the book, Play Bigger. He also co-founded Quokka Sports, which revolutionized the way people experience sport online. Al then joined Macromedia and Adobe, where he spent almost ten years changing the way people think about great digital experiences. At Adobe, Al led teams that created the Rich Internet Applications category and helped develop the discipline of experience design. In the early ‘90s he applied data science to Australia’s Americas Cup — an innovation in sports performance analytics. His work in sailing led directly to the idea for Quokka. He lives in Santa Cruz, California. Links Connect with Al Ramadan!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about how marketing can drive revenue with White Space Analysis. We talked about how to drive short-term revenue via category design a few episodes ago (LOM 151). Today, we provide you with more options to make that cash register sing as soon as possible. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. White Space Analysis & White Space Marketing Let's talk about White Space Analysis and White Space Marketing. Essentially, it is doing data science analysis on consumers and the product they purchased. From there, you can see what products or services they have not purchased, which is the “white space”, so to speak. Now that you know this information, you can then focus on existing customers that have purchased some of your products, and target them with marketing for your products and services that they have not availed of yet. This drives revenue quickly for your company, as you provide consumers with a “need” for something they don’t have yet. How Mercury utilized White Space Marketing Back in my CMO days in Mercury, we had a team led by one of the most legendary executives in the industry, Sue Barsamian. Sue got quite complicated with White Space Analysis; she was able to utilize it in real-time during one of the Big Customer User Conferences. The team got the data on their big customers and found the products they do not use that go well with the ones they have purchased before from the company. Then, they made sure that the salespeople on the floor have this information, and subtly drove customers to product showcases and panels for the products they do not have. They made sure to precisely market into that customer’s white space, thereby saving time and effort, while having a higher chance of a purchase afterward. The fastest way to earn revenue One could argue that doing White Space Marketing is the fastest way to earn revenue, as you are already marketing to existing customers. As we know, if they bought from us once, the likelihood they're gonna buy from us again is very, very high. So it’s surprising that a lot of companies don’t employ this strategy, opting to do spray-and-pray tactics rather than doing White Space Analysis and focusing their marketing there. Once you have this information with you, your company can do a lot of things to funnel revenue and market share to your business. To hear more about White Space Marketing, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

The Content Marketing category is almost 700 billion. Almost every company is working on content and increasing their content marketing investments. And yet, when was the last time you got a piece of content marketing and you said that was legendary? Let's dig into how the marketing world got duped into content free marketing, aka saying nothing everywhere, and why this is one of the largest opportunities hiding in plain sight. We recently launched our newest big book from category pirates. It's called Snow Leopard: how legendary writers create a category of one. What you're about to hear is the audio book read of me reading chapter three, which is all about content, free marketing, and why it's a giant opportunity for the rest of us. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Content-Free Marketing The Content Marketing category is a $4 billion industry. And it's estimated by 2024, the content marketing industry will grow another 270 billion, bringing the grand total to 700 billion. But content marketing is broad and includes everything from creation to distribution to content management. For example, in 2020 the enterprise content management industry was valued at $47 billion and is projected to more than double over the next five years, to more than 105 billion translations of the soon to be 700 billion content marketing industry. 20% of the entire market is exclusively dedicated to managing the content that gets created. Well, what's the content? More importantly, how much of the content being created, especially by enterprise companies and b2c companies, is actually worth reading? When was the last time you clicked on a company blog post and opened a company newsletter or listened to a corporate podcast and said to yourself, “wow, sure am glad I clicked on that”? The fact that most content marketing is garbage represents one of the greatest marketing opportunities of our time, for those willing to buck current conventional wisdom. Content Management The Content Management subcategory of the mega content marketing category is growing faster than ever. And yet, the number one activity b2b companies outsource is content creation by a mile. Get this: 86% of b2b organizations surveyed said they outsourced content creation. The next closest activity is content distribution, which only 30% of b2b organizations surveyed said they did editorial planning. Now, let's connect these two data points. On one hand, Content Management is growing at breakneck speed, while Content Creation creates more to manage. On the other hand, content creation is often the number one most outsourced marketing activity. Which means companies are deferring the single most important aspect of content, which is the creation of each and every idea and who's coming up with these ideas. Gary Vee D As we wrote about in our mini book, The Me Disease, many marketers today have, unfortunately, caught Gary Vee D. It is a content disease that leads creators and companies alike to believe the whole purpose of content creation is to do it and do it as often as possible. It doesn't matter if it's good or if it's valuable. Just say it out loud and say it off and, “pump out 200 pieces of content today”. Gary Vee and other digital marketing “gurus” have led the masses to believe the fact that you did it means you're succeeding. More equals mo betta. And so, every marketer everywhere has adopted this spray and pray approach where 100% of the emphasis is on the output, and essentially zero of the emphasis is on the quality of the content, and what is actually being said. To hear more about Content-Free Marketing, and how to avoid falling into this marketing trap, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about how you can be a Thought Leader. More specifically, we’ll discuss how to be a Solo Thought Leader and build yourself up with our guest, Diego Pineda. Diego Pineda is the author of the book The Solo Thought Leader: from Solopreneur to Go-To Expert in Seven Steps. Being viewed as a thought leader is a powerful thing. Becoming known for a niche that you own through leading thoughts is one of the most powerful ways to get there to either have a legendary career as a solo creator or a thought leader of some kind. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Diego Pineda on Going Solo The conversation starts off with the topic of the recent great resignation, or rather the aftermath of it. According to the data gathered over time, it seems that most of the people who resigned went solo or opened their own businesses. “I actually talked to somebody who does this for a living, like helping people transition from being in a company to going solo. And he said, even just when the pandemic started, it was about 35% of the people were leaving their jobs. He thinks it is much larger than that. So there's a lot of people just going out of their jobs and going solo. So this is a trend. And I mean, I think it's gonna be growing.” – Diego Pineda Why People are Going Solo When asked why this was the case, Diego explains that it could be due to a number of things. “I think there's a few things. One is, people during the pandemic just realize what was possible, just working from home, having this freedom. They feel like managing their own time and not having to commute or being an office or all that BS that has to deal with our office politics. They realize there's this option, so why go back? Second, I think just the technology, the tools, and being able to just reach out people through LinkedIn, through social media and getting clients that way is possible. So people say it's possible, so why not? I can do it. Right. So and then you get people like that on the internet, saying, “Hey, I reached in two years while going solo, I went from zero to a million.” Of course, those are some exceptional cases, but then other people will think it's possible. “So why not me? Why not try it?” They just go for it.” – Diego Pineda With new technology and tools being developed at breakneck speed, and existing ones being improved to be more versatile than ever, it’s really no wonder why someone would think they could go solo, as long as they learn how to make use of these tools at their disposal. Be your own Thought Leader When the topic of influencers and content creators just spewing out the same thoughts of someone who is at the forefront of a certain category, Diego agrees that not only is it not sustainable, but you are also competing for a small piece of that niche. According to Diego, you need to be your own Thought Leader and come up with your own ideas. If nothing else, have a unique angle that can differentiate you from the rest. One way to do that is to find something that is dogma, or the “best” practice in an industry, and find if there is anything wrong with it. From there, you can come up with ideas that can fix the problem, or maybe come up with something entirely different as a solution. To hear more from Diego Pineda and how you can be a Solo Thought Leader, download and listen to this episode. Bio Diego Pineda is the author of two novels, 9 non-fiction books, and hundreds of articles and blogs as a science writer, a business writer, and a sales and marketing writer. He started his career as a medical writer while writing fiction on the side. Diego is also a book coach helping solopreneurs and business leaders write their first book fast so they can become thought leaders in their industries, gain authority and visibility, and make more money. Links

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about the three marketing metrics that matter. Because it appears as if there’s still a lot of confusion out there about this. So I thought we could unpack the real metrics that matter for marketing. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind.   The Three Marketing Metrics Now, let’s talk about the three marketing metrics that matter, and break them down. Marketing that does not drive revenue is not marketing A lot of the counterarguments that I have received on this point is that marketing stuff people do can drive revenue. But the thing is, most of them do not drive long-term revenue. So if it doesn’t make the cash register sing consistently, It ain’t got that thing. But what about brand advertising or Awareness campaigns? Those things only matter if you already have revenue coming in over time. If you’re trying to build up awareness and brand before putting up a good product and making good revenue out of it, that’s like putting the cart in front of the horse. Marketing that does not drive category potential is not marketing Related to creating revenue, is building up category potential. It’s important, as it helps build demand for your product, whether you are creating a new category, or revolutionizing one with your product. Because when you have the ability to create demand, it will convert to revenue over time, which circles back to the first metric. Marketing that does drive increases in the market cap or valuation is not marketing Here’s the AHA for the third metric: investors in growth companies and stocks buy potential, not performance. What drives our market cap is the investor’s perception of the size and growth rate of the category that we're designing. Be their belief about our ability to prosecute the magic triangle, product, company, and category and earn 76% of the economics in the category that we are designing, because that's the average number that the average category cleaner can get. The other metrics like revenue growth, customer growth, margin growth, etc. are all metrics that validate that this company has massive potential.   How Legendary Marketing Executives do it The most legendary marketing executives, CEOs and entrepreneurs, when they talk to investors, the first thing they say is that we are designing a legendary new market category that has massive growth potential. And let me tell you why. So they start with the potential and marketing creates that perception and then helps the company turn perception into reality. Those are the metrics that matter: marketing needs to drive revenue, marketing needs to drive category potential, and then marketing needs to convert category potential in the eyes of investors into market cap. Because the company with the biggest market cap that is sustainable, I'm not talking about some kind of bullshit magic trick here. I'm talking about building enduring value over time. as measured by market cap, the number one market cap company in the category, always wins. Revenue, of course, is a critical metric for driving market cap. But it's not the only one. The perception of the future is actually more important from a market cap perspective. And so marketing drives revenue, short-term, medium-term, and long-term marketing drives market potential. To listen to a more detailed explanation of the three marketing metrics, download and listen to this episode.   Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some...

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about the three stages of a legendary career. Let’s also talk about the lessons we can learn about it from a source you wouldn’t think about at first, Star Wars. Yes, that Star Wars. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Three Stages of Legendary Career: Star Wars Style So how do we discuss legendary careers using Star Wars? Well, if you look at it on a higher level, the three stages of having a legendary career follow a Jedi’s progression. There’s being a Luke / Lucy Skywalker stage, where you are just starting out. If you’re lucky and successful, there’s the Obi-Wan stage. And if you are even more successful, and legendary at that, there’s the Yoda stage. Jedi Breakdown Let us explain even further. When you're first coming up, and if you are somebody who is gravitating towards the exponential different as opposed to the incremental better, or want to create, design, and dominate new future market categories, as opposed to just somebody who wants to kind of maintain the status quo, you get identified pretty quickly as being high potential. Much like Luke was as a padawan. If this person is lucky and successful, and becomes a mentor or teacher for other upcoming high potential individuals, they enter their Obi-Wan stage. And if you end up being a legend in your chosen career, much like Yoda, you will have the authority and success that befits the position. The True Reward When I myself was a Luke, I thought that the rewards for being a person with high potential who excels and produces great results was that you get the recognition and fame, as well as the riches that come along with it. But as you progress through the different levels of your career, you realize that while those rewards are worth pursuing, it is not the biggest reward out there. The real reward is you get to a place in your 40s or 50s, where the world acknowledges you, as a champion, as a legendary Luke / Lucy Skywalker, and you graduate. Now, the world grants you the Obi-Wan status. To hear more about the different legendary career and Star Wars, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about how to use category design thinking to drive short term revenue. We talked a lot about what to do in a recession on our last episode, and on this episode, we're going deep on a very specific topic, about how to make the cash register sing immediately. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Short Term Category Design One of the things that we hear about category design is category design is too expensive. Only big companies can design categories, or it takes too long it takes six to 10 years to build a category, we need revenue now. But the truth is that category design can drive revenue for you in the next immediate term days or weeks if you take a category science approach. As we talked about on the last episode, most companies in a downturn compete harder and harder for demand existing demand that is falling. And it's like fighting for the falling demand knife and cutting yourself into shreds. Category design is distinct from Legacy approaches to marketing is actually the cheapest, fastest way to make the cash register sing. Things to Consider What I'm about to share with you is work that call Eddie and I are currently in the process of helping a legendary b2c tech company who is scaling at over 100% a year. In spite of that, they wanted to get really focused, particularly with the economy doing what it's doing on how to continue their triple digit plus growth. First, it starts with an understanding of super consumers. The general idea is that a very small number of consumers, customers, clients, readers, you know, consumers of any kind customers of any kind, typically 10% or less are the ones that are on the bleeding edge of what makes a category go. They're super influential. They're super committed to the category and typically to the brand leader in that category. They also tend to drive a lot of innovation; they also tend to be the ones that evangelize the loudest. So the first step is knowing your super consumers, and observing them. This leads to the second point, which is a genius insight from Eddie, is that a super of one is a super of nine. That is to say, people who are passionate about something, tend to be passionate about several things. So what are the adjacencies that the Supers might also love? There's a whole bunch of categories that they might be interested in. To learn more about how to drive short term revenue through category design, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Welcome to a very special episode of Lochhead on Marketing, where we talk about how to make money in a recession. In times that are challenging, one of the greatest things we all can do is contribute what we can contribute. Given that it looks like we're about to be in a recession, what Eddie Yoon Nicolas Cole, and I aka the Category Pirates decided to do was to write a new mini book newsletter. It’s called How To Make Money In A Recession: Five steps to create demand for your product, service or platform. We elected to make the written version of this free. There'll be a link to it at the end of this show notes. So consider this episode, a mini book audio read.   We are in a Recession Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate, We are in a recession. (Not officially, but it is not looking good.) Stocks are down. Startup valuations have plummeted. Bitcoin and Ethereum have lost more than 50% of their total value since their respective highs back in November, 2021. And sentiment around Silicon Valley is that the next 12-18 months are going to be challenging for companies looking to raise money. But where there is chaos, there is opportunity. Approximately 10% of companies get stronger in downturns. And you can’t be in the 10% unless you do some serious thinking. Through the category lens, downturns are simple to understand—and have a clear path to navigate. When times get tough, businesses, governments, households, and individuals all do the same thing: they create two lists. “Must Haves”“Nice To Haves” Then they start cutting the “Nice To Haves” to lower costs—as a direct response to their revenue / income / buying power shrinking.   The Question Every Business Should Ask Which means the seminal question is: what makes people put some categories/brands/products on the “Must Have” list versus the “Nice To Have” list?  Perceived value. (Everything we value, we’ve been taught to value.)  The difference between a dumb idea and a great one, or the difference between useful products and useless ones is the perception we have based on what we have been taught. (Don’t forget: pet rocks used to be in demand.) The trick is to get your product/service/platform on the “Must Have” list, and to be as high up on the list as possible. Because the higher the category is on the hierarchy of perceived value in the consumer’s mind, the greater the likelihood they will keep buying from you. Which is why savvy leaders market the category in downturns. Because people make their lists by category first, and brand second.   The Net-Positive Effects of Recession Elon Musk was a guest on the All In podcast and summarized the net-positive effects of recessions well: “Recessions are not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve been through a few of them. What tends to happen, if you have a boom that goes on for too long, you get misallocation of capital. It starts raining money on fools, basically. Any dumb thing gets money. At some point, it gets out of control… and the bullshit companies go bankrupt and the ones that are building useful products are prosperous.”  When most people hear the word “recession,” they imagine the housing crisis of 2008 or the dot-com bubble in the late 90s—and all of the businesses that went under as a result. But what doesn’t get talked about enough are the incredible companies that emerged out of these challenging times as well. Google and Amazon both came out of the dot-com bubble in the 90s (as did hundreds of other world-changing companies). And Uber, Spotify, Airbnb, Square, and dozens of other next-gen technology companies were founded between 2006 and 2009, right in the middle of the greatest financial crisis to ever threaten America. Recessions are pressure-cookers that rid the system of businesses failing to live up to the value they are promising society. To hear more on how you can make money even during a recession, download and listen to this episode.   Bio Christopher Lochhead    Links

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let's talk about the big startup downturn marketing mistakes and what to do about it. We also talk about why people who create demand are in massive demand. Lastly, there is the topic about your career, and what to do when the economy goes sideways, both in your business and in your career. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Startup Downturn Marketing Mistake The reality is, it's not just startups who make this mistake. But before that, let's go through the top 10 list of what happens when the recession hits. Number one, the recession hits. The immediate impact of that, of course, is number two, demand falls. So what do most companies do? Number three, they market hard in an effort to catch demand. Remember, when most people say marketing, what they mean is compete in an existing market category for existing demand. So when they do marketing, what they're really doing is demand capture. So when the recession hits to demand falls, three, they market hard to catch, falling demand or some people say catch a falling knife. As a result, number four, customer acquisition costs aka CAC goes up. Number six to nine is just running around in circles, repeating numbers two to four. Until you reach number ten, where they finally run out of time and money. Here's the big learning: He who competes for demand loses, she who creates demand wins. It also happens to be why category design is the most powerful underground skill in business. Most people don't understand that just like you can create and design a product and accompany you could also create and design a market category. Recession through a Different Lens I get into trouble for saying this, but most people immediately assume a negative defensive position in a recession or a downturn. However, approximately 10% of companies get stronger during the recession. In the last week, I have had many conversations with entrepreneurs and CEOs about how to take advantage of the coming downturn. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, but you can't be in the 10%, that gets stronger, and you can't be in the elite companies that actually are able to take advantage of a downturn unless you at least ask the questions. So I'm asking you to consider a different way. Choosing a Different Way So here's the different way and specific as it relates to shrinking demand. So there's three kinds of demand. Number one, as we talked about demand capture. Number two, demand creation. That's why some people call it category creation. One of the stupid arguments we hear all the time is, “well, category design is dumb, because why would we go to a market where there's zero demand, and we have to create it all, when we can just catch demand? Okay? She who creates the demand wins. That's why. Now in a downturn, here's the problem. It can take some time to create demand. People say, “well, we don't have time our revenues falling, we need to generate revenue now.” This is where the third type of approach, wherein we dam the demand. By doing so, you redirect demand from an existing market to a new solution that your product or services provides. To hear more about how to deal with Startup Downturn Marketing Mistake, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive.

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about a critical question: Who are you going to be when the shit hits the fan? As we have talked about in previous episodes, it is starting to look like the business environment could get very hard here. Some people in Silicon Valley are even saying that it could be like back in 2008. Sequoia Capital wrote their seminal “RIP, Good Times” presentation, and its final slide says, “Get real, or go home”. No matter what's going to happen next in the economy, or frankly, the world, it's probably time for all of us to get real or go home. So let's dig into why some people step up, and others melt down in times of crisis. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Signs When I was in my late 20s, and into my early 30s, I was the founding CMO of a company called Scient. We were a leader in the we called E-business Innovation Space, we were one of the very first consulting firms to focus on building E-businesses or Digital Businesses. We did incredibly well, as a matter of fact, the company was founded, I believe, in 98, maybe late 97. By 2000, we had grown to almost 3000 people, which is incredible for a consulting startup, essentially. We were public and had a market cap of about $9 billion. Now, if you were around back then, you've done your homework, and you know the.com bust happened. Like all bad things, they happen over time. It built starting by about February, March, we could feel things starting to get bad. Shortly thereafter, we could feel the rumblings our pipeline wasn't starting to look very good. There was weird shit happening with our customers. And there was a slow takedown that happened from about March, slowly, slowly, slowly, building over the summer, and by the fall, we were in a freefall. Sh*t Hits the Fan Due to all that, we had to do the first ever layoff in the history of the company. It was insanely painful. So when we announced the miss in the projected stocks, we do the layoff. The people we laid off are amazing. They were cheering the company on saying please go forward and be successful sign had an incredible culture. So as painful as it was, the exiting people were, were incredible warriors and supporters. And the people who stayed really wanted to make a go of it. However, people at management seemed to be focusing on the wrong things, rather than discussing how to move forward, given the resources we still had at the moment. This continued until I left the company, and from there the company continued on its freefall rather than picking itself up and starting anew. How People React to Disruption So why do I share that with you? It's a great example of the shit hitting the fan for a company. In my opinion, an executive team unwilling to deal with the reality of the situation, and unwilling to deal with it with any kind of speed is a bad way to go at it. That's why I got so mad and took off, and that's why the CEO of the company fired me. After that, the company vaporized. To hear more how legendary people react when disruption happens in the market, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient,

As you all know, normally there aren’t any guests for Lochhead on Marketing. But today, we have a special episode for tech entrepreneurs and marketers, as we have a dialogue with Megan Bowen and Chris Walker of Refine Labs. Megan Bowen and Chris Walker are the COO and CEO of Refine Labs. They also have an amazing podcast, called The State of Demand Gen podcast. As there have been a lot of bad thinking in marketing, a lot of which stems from old thinking. Chris and Megan have been doing a lot in helping drive the conversation onto new grounds, and making tech companies become in demand again. So if you’d like to hear their thoughts on the matter, stay tuned. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind.   Contributing to the Marketing World The conversation starts with lauding Megan and Chris on the wonderful work they are doing on their podcast, State of Demand Gen. Christopher himself has been a guest before; you can check the episode here. But while Refine Labs has been around for a while, there’s not really a lot of things that people know about Chris and Megan, and what they do. Megan shares that her background has always been in customer success and company operations. For her, Chris is the true visionary and disruptor when it comes to marketing. “What I think I really bring to the table is a different way to think about company building. And I've had a ton of fun becoming a marketer in how we think about acquiring great talent and positioning our company in the eyes of candidates.” – Megan Bowen Chris adds that without Megan, it would’ve been hard to make his ideas become reality.   A Clear Shift in the Market Chris comments that it has been obvious to him and the team that there has been a shift in how people in B2B actually want to buy things. But surprisingly, a lot of companies are not adjusting to that reality because they’re stuck in the old ways of marketing. “That shift sort of goes in line with what some of those topics that you talked about, Christopher. Native Digitals and Native Analogs is one piece of it. So how do people primarily want to engage research, discover, evaluate their suppliers and decisions and make decisions? How do they want to do that? As we start moving into the workforce, there's more, I think you've mentioned, a stat of like, at least 50% of actual decision makers in a B2B buying process are now Native Digitals.” – Chris Walker With this shift comes a lot of new opportunities and approaches to try out. So the slow adjustment of most companies nowadays to adapt to such things is what gives companies like Refine Labs to sort of “pop out of nowhere” and dominate the market.   On Native Digitals and Native Analogs On the topic of Native Digitals and Native Analogs, it seems that S&P 500 CEOs, who are still majority Native Analogs, are not aware that the buying market is being overrun by Native Digitals. According to Chris, those who have noticed have started to create categories and marketing catering to that demographic. But for Chris, that isn’t nearly enough. “I think that it's important to look more holistically at the overall business. So some of the things that power our advantage. We think about our culture and our talent, talent, experience and talent management from a native digital lens. We think about building future products and experiences for customers through a native digital lens. And so when you look at the entire business, not just your marketing, there's a lot of companies that can go out and put nice wallpaper on their marketing. Well, the foundations and stuff is cracking inside of the actual building.” – Chris Walker Megan adds that it’s not only an approach that one should take in marketing, but in other aspects of the business as well. “I think that a core component of any business, being successful and continuing to grow is attracting and retaining the r...

On this episode, let’s talk about some of the smart assumptions we can make about the rest of 2022. Of course, this is based on the numerous dialogues I’ve had in the past months with some of the smartest entrepreneurs, VCs, CEOs, and executives in Silicon Valley. If you’re interested in those conversations, check out Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different in your podcast feed today. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Assumptions for 2022 Without further ado, here are the assumptions that could happen during the rest of 2022: A Recession will happen – Most of the smart people in Silicon Valley and beyond are strategically planning for a recession, both in their business and in their personal lives. If it doesn’t happen, great. But it’s still better to have options should it be the case. Inflation will continue – The US government and the US Treasury trying to grapple with it right now. Wages are also going up, and supply lines are still challenged in many categories and industries. The Ukraine-Russia War will continue, and it will be long – David Gergen (FYD 266) said that he thought they would likely be sort of punch-drunk fighters before this thing ended. But we also had Dmitri Alperovitch (FYD 269), a renowned security expert, say that the war, or at least the major aspects of it, would be over within the month. Though there are still possibilities of digital skirmishes between the two. Regardless, the effects of this war will be far-reaching, and have humanitarian and economic impacts even after the war. David Sacks (FYD 267) says that there might be a GOP landslide in November – Right now, Biden's approval ratings are some of the lowest in history, and Democrats don’t seem to have a way to rally themselves, or show a specific point of view or plan to hold their position. People are Hurting – People are on the edge. You can see it all over the place. People’s mental health seem a little fragile right now. These past couple of years have really taken its toll, and you can feel that fights could break out at the drop of a hat. It will take at least 5 years’ time before Native Analog CEOs, CMOs and C-level executives to understand that Native Digitals are the new category of human – A great example of this is you hear people talking about returning to work. We're not returning to work, people might go back to physical offices, but we're not returning to work native, Digital's want to live in a native digital world. As long as Native Analogs executives do not recognize this, there will be a disconnect with the old and new categories, and those who fail to cope could be left behind. Variations and Market Caps will almost certainly continue to come down – That is what smart VCs are saying right now. So right now, they are “adjusting their thinking”. Given the data they have received over the past 12-24 months, they are expecting that there will be down runs that will happen. As a result of no. 7, raising money will be harder, and going public will also be harder – Most companies may very well have a tough time going public in the relative near term. But that should not discourage those who think that they have a new category opportunity to pursue them. It might just be the thing that helps you gather resources to go public. Cash is King again! (So manage it carefully) – This is also the result of both no. 7 and 8, so wise executive teams are managing their assets carefully. No one ever cost cut themselves to greatness – While it’s all well and good that you are able to manage your resources carefully, don’t be parsimonious. Recessions are not fun, but they can make good companies legendary – It is wise in tough economic times, to look for the growth opportunities to look for ways to make changes, and to look for ways to take your good company and make it legendary.

On this episode, we talk to David Sacks of Craft Ventures, on what every startup leader needs to know in the current business landscape. If you didn’t know, I recently talked with David Sacks about a variety of topics, including business, current affairs, and how the two are interconnected. Even when we don’t always see it. If you want to check that out, go to Follow Your Different episode 267. This episode is a certain portion of that, which I thought bears highlighting here on Lochhead on Marketing. So listen up, and listen good. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. How 2022 will play out for VCs and Startups The conversation starts on how 2021 was for venture capitalists and startups, which saw great growth on new businesses and new deals. Though the question that remains, according to David Sacks, is how sustainable it will be. He notes that the huge growth was caused by certain situations in 2021, and how the public market reacted to it. But it seems that the market is slowly correcting itself, so we might expect to see a “slump” this year. “Well, it's gonna be very different than 2021, for sure. There's a HUGE CORRECTION that's been underway really since November, the public markets started correcting in November.” – David Sacks Part of the huge growth was that there was an enormous liquidity injected into the markets as a result of the government reacting to COVID to act as a stimulus for the economy. The issue lies on the fact that they seem to have overdone it. To correct it, the market has seen inflation rise to new heights over the past months. It will seem erratic for now, but as the demand goes back and the excess stimulus wears off, we will see the market stabilize once more. Consolidations and Mergers One of the things that you often see during this time of sudden rise and slump in the market, is that a lot of acquisitions and mergers happen. It is because company’s valuation tends to drop during this time, so you could probably acquire one for far lower its original, especially compared to the high-rise last year. One example is Salesforce, who acquired Slack on the height of the market boom last year. If they were to buy it at this current market, they might have gotten it for about 75% or less of what they originally paid for. That goes for everybody. On paper, this should be the best time to acquire or merge with new assets. Yet that’s not what always happens because… Prices are Sticky On the other hand, it can be hard to get a lot of deals happening because they are still clinging onto the prices of the past. “One of the reasons why there's not a lot of deals happening right now is because in VC land is because prices are kind of sticky. I mean, all the founders remember the glory days, just six months ago, 100 times ARR. They're still anchored on that. And they don't believe that, like, there's been this giant repricing, and that things could really be at 20 times ARR.” – David Sacks They cling to this because most of them know that all they need is just one VC that is still willing to drink the Kool Aid and pay for 100 ARR, and they’re all set. So there's going to be resistance to these changes and price levels. To hear more from David Sacks and know what most startups need to know now, download and listen to this episode. Bio David Sacks is co-founder and general partner at Craft. He has been a successful founder and investor for over two decades, building and investing in some of the most iconic companies in tech. He has invested in over 20 unicorns, including Affirm, AirBnB, Bird, ClickUp, Eventbrite, Facebook, Houzz, Lyft, OpenDoor, Palantir, Postmates, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, and Wish. David is also co-host of the popular “All-In Podcast” with Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, and Jason Calacanis. David first got involved in the technology industry in 19...

Welcome to a very special episode of Lochhead on Marketing. This episode is based on a recent Category Pirates newsletter that we wrote, which is about Ukraine, the Native Analog and Native Digital war, and what it means for every business person. If you haven’t subscribed to Category Pirates?‍☠️ yet, click the link and check it out. You’ll find a few goodies and mini-books waiting for you there. That said, think of this episode as more of an audiobook than a podcast, as I will be reading the article for you. Without further ado, let’s get to reading. Part I Over the past year, we have written extensively about the bifurcation between Native Analogs & Native Digitals. Native Analogs are Baby Boomers and Gen Xers born anywhere from the 1940s all the way up to the early ‘80s. Today, they range between the ages of 40 to 75, and make up approximately 136.8 million Americans. Native Digitals are Millennials, Gen Zers, and beyond, born between the early 1980s to as recently as the 2010s. These demographics are around 35 years of age on the high end, down to as young as 6 years old, and make up approximately 140.1 million Americans. Much has been written in the past 20 years about “Digital Natives,” but this is a loose understanding of the chasm between these two demographics. When we say “Native Analogs” and “Native Digitals,” we are not talking about age. We are talking about identity. “Native Digital” is not a mindset. It does not mean “some people embrace technology while others do not.” It also doesn’t mean if you’re old, you’ll never “get it.” We created the terms Native Analog and Native Digital to introduce shared language that would allow society to discuss the differences between people whose primary life experience is Analog-first (in the real world) from people whose primary life experience is Digital-first (online). Again, this is not an Old vs Young issue. This is a first-time-ever-in-human-history phenomenon: Native Analogs are the last of a dying breed, and Native Digitals are a new category of human. And from here on out, there will never be another Native Analog generation born ever again. Think about that. Part II Native Digitals grew up integrated with the digital world. They had smartphones before they had college degrees, high school diplomas, or (for Gen Zers) a bicycle to ride around the neighborhood. (“Bicycle? Why? All my friends are online.”) They grew up integrated with the cloud. They don’t know what it’s like to not have the answer to any and every question in their pocket, two taps and a swipe away. The digital world is where they primarily live. (And when parents restrict their screen time, whether they realize it or not, they are removing them from their primary lives and threatening their core life experience.) The Native Analog & Native Digital lens is fascinating in and of itself, but it gets more powerful when changes in the world are viewed and understood through it. For example: nowhere in the media have we seen anyone discuss the Russia/Ukraine war through the Native Analog & Native Digital lens.  Most people think this support for Ukraine “just happened” (the same way most business media think demand for a given business just “happens,” like the weather). It did not. The support was created—in exactly the same way Category Designers create net-new demand out of thin air. Volodymyr’s digital dominance has led to historic pressure being put on governments and corporations to inflict more economic pain on Russia than has ever been levied on any country, ever. It used to be that what happened in the analog world dictated what happened in the digital world—but now, the two have flipped (and most people don’t see this radical transformation happening in plain sight). Digital stories, digital messages, digital photos, digital conversations, and the subsequent digital movement in support for Ukraine that has had catastrophic consequences for Russia in the analog world.

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s ask what is the role of business, beyond just business. Today marks the 5th day into the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the first attack of its kind since Sept. 1, 1939 – the start of World War 2. So let’s talk about how this affects businesses, and how businesses can affect it. Roll Call for Companies According to the Wall Street Journal, the US is still buying 8% of its oil from Russia. On the commercial side, there has been no announcements by companies such as McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, and Papa John’s to name a few, on closure of their branches in Russia, temporary or otherwise. On the tech side of things, there have also been no word from Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, nor from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as well as CISCO CEO Chuck Robbins and Oracle CEO Safra Catz on their stance and plans as things progress in Russia. I'm disheartened, somewhat defeated, and absolutely fucking royally mad about the silence from Silicon Valley on this topic. There are some exceptions, of course. Criticize the man all you like, but Elon Musk made a commitment to keep the Ukraine connected to the internet via his Starlink satellite internet. Less than 48 hours after he made that promise, a shipment of Starlink terminals arrived in the Ukraine. Businesses Getting Involved in War There are those on the web that criticize people who celebrate when big corporations do something in the situation. My response to them is this: “Anyone who supports in any way, a free democratic society, who is being invaded, attacked, and mass murdered is a hero.” – Christopher Lochhead Now, if you wish to join me in making a financial contribution, we took a list of charities helping in the Ukraine(published by NBC News). You can check out that list of charities and I encourage you to crack open your wallet and see if you can make a difference for the people of Ukraine. You can also donate to Doctors Without Borders as they mobilize to help Ukraine and nearby countries that were affected. The Role of Businesses beyond Business As a business owner or entrepreneur, you might be asking – how exactly can businesses help in this situation? Well, imagine what would happen if all the tech security companies pulled the plug on the Russian government and on major Russian enterprise. Imagine if all tech infrastructure companies pulled the plug on Russia. Imagine if all of the SAS application companies, the database companies, the gaming companies, the IT operations companies shut down Russia's digital world, the digital world is as important today as the analog world. if they manage to shut down the Russians government's ability to do things in the digital world, we're going to shut down a lot. Of course, there are certain companies and certain situations where it makes sense to keep doing business. In Russia, for example, communication, and social platforms is critical for Russian citizens to be able to see and hear what their government is doing in the Ukraine. So what leaders do in times of crisis matters, what you and I do in times of crisis matters. If the US federal government will not stop buying Russian blood oil, will we stop doing business with Russia? Will our CEOs put peace before profits? Or will businesses do whatever they want to do? It's easy to be great when everything's great. But what defines our lives is who we choose to be in times of crisis. Bio Christopher Lochhead  We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

On this episode, let's talk about one of the things that drives me the craziest and more importantly, ruins marketing results and careers on a regular basis. That is, why marketing's job is NOT serving internal customers. Speaking of which, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for making our new books into bestsellers at Amazon Books. You can check the whole list Category Pirates mini-books at Amazon Books, and expect more in the near future! Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Concept of Internal Customers is Dumb The idea of an Internal Customer is dumb. Listen to it: Internal Customer. First of all, what does a customer do that an internal department or “internal customer” doesn’t? That’s right, customers actually pay you money. Companies who are so internally focused and direct marketing inwardly, that they are confused as to what it should be targeting is a company destined for disaster. So point number one is this: “There is only one customer, and those are your actual customers.” – Christopher Lochhead You can put whatever modifier in front of customer you want, but customers or consumers and putting a stupid modifier in front of them is well, frankly stupid. What Marketing should be doing That said, what really is marketing? Firstly, Marketing is a leadership function. Its job is to lead the company, lead the category and ultimately design and dominate a legendary category that matters around solving problems or creating opportunities for customers. Second, marketing organizations often get trapped in this feeling of being an internal service bureau. That's ridiculous. Marketing is no is no more of a internal service function than finance than engineering or products. d in this being of being an internal service bureau. HR is not a service function either. It's a leadership function. So the first thing to understand is marketing is a leadership function, whose job is to partner with the rest of the organization in creating, designing, and dominating a market category that makes a giant difference for customers who pay us money. How Marketing works within the Organization Now, what does that mean for how marketing works within the organization? You do it as leaders, as you partner with other leaders. So is Sales Enablement important? Yes, of course it’s important. As a marketing leader, we want the sales organization to love us. Are there a certain set of things that we want to deliver to sales to help them be successful in their job? Of course, there are. But we're not order takers, we're leaders. And we're partners. We're in a co creation relationship. You're in the business of co-creating a legendary relationship. Are there some service elements of that? Sure, there are. But that is not the primary paradigm, the primary paradigm is a co-creation relationship. That's the relationship marketing wants to have with sales, that is to say, both of which should get together and say, what are our objectives for the year for the quarter for the month? How do we partner together to produce legendary revenue with the exact kind of customers that we want? So in that regard, marketing and sales work together, hand in glove. To hear more on how Marketing should be done in your business, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactiv...

On this episode, let’s talk about why most marketing fails, and what we can do about it. Speaking of marketing, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for making our new books into bestsellers at Amazon Books. You can check the whole list Category Pirates mini-books at Amazon Books, and expect more in the near future! Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Marketing Folklore When most people say marketing, they usually have a preconceived notion to what it is. That is, to compete for an existing demand with a better product and a better brand in an existing market category. The reason most people think like this is that it is what is taught in business schools and MBAs. That’s what is said a lot in marketing books and the like. So it has become a belief, almost a folklore, that things should be done as such. Competing for Leftovers The problem with this line of thinking is that it’s a very bad idea. We did a data science project published in the HBr, as well as in our newsletter Category Pirates, and discovered something fascinating. We found that in tech categories, on average, the category king or queen wins 76% of the total value created, as measured by market cap in the entire category. This means, if you’re not doing category design, you’re playing in someone else’s category. When somebody says marketing, what they’re really saying is, we are going to fight for the remaining 24% of the value. The issue now is that most companies don’t realize that they’re only fighting for a small piece of the pie. “Because the vast majority of marketers don't know that that's what they're doing. When they hear the word marketing, they make an unconscious, undiscussed unanalyzed choice to compete in a category designed by somebody else, which only allows for 24% of the value. And that is why most marketing fails.” – Christopher Lochhead Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

This episode is based on some of the thinking in the #1 bestseller: The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche Since Microsoft announced that its purchasing Activision Blizzard for $70 billion, a lot of people have called this stupid. Others said Microsoft overpaid, and other various things. So on this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let's break down why this acquisition is actually a legendary move and examine the difference between acceleration deals in growing categories, and consolidation deals in slow growth to declining categories. Let’s also look at Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard from the future, as opposed to from the present. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Did Microsoft Overpay for Activision Blizzard? Most people think that Microsoft overpaid with the $70 billion price tag on Activision Blizzard. Not necessarily. People tend to look at this as a consolidation deal, where Microsoft buying a company at a decline, which is not. The important point of the deal was to facilitate Category Acceleration. The goal of this deal or purchase is to buy a leading position in a category with a massive future potential. They are not buying people, products, customers, or even the revenue; they’re buying a dominant position in a category with massive growth potential going forward. These types of deals are often employed by Category Designers that are actively pursuing the next Category King. A practice that Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, seems to be well aware of. The Big Play for the Metaverse So why did Microsoft purchase Activision Blizzard? Simply put, Microsoft is making a huge bet on the new Metaverse. For them, the gaming category will be the gateway into getting a solid foothold in the metaverse. Here’s what Satya Nadella has said on the matter: “Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today, and will play a key role in the development of Metaverse platforms” Digital Natives and the Digital Gaming Industry In 2020, the online gaming category in the US reached a peak of 166 billion. Why is that? Well, it’s because of the 140 million Native Digitals in the US alone, 70% of which identify as gamers. Digital Gaming has been a booming business lately that it has far outstripped Hollywood. Also, there are now colleges and universities that offer scholarships to a new category of athletes who play eSports. Yes, Native Analogs. Young people today are getting college scholarships for playing video games. Getting a Head Start on the Metaverse You all probably know about the Metaverse by now, and watched the bizarre presentation that Mark Zuckerberg did. In that presentation, he said Facebook is investing 10 billion on the Metaverse. Microsoft just one-upped them and did 70 billion. Consider this as well: aside from Facebook, most of Meta’s category-defining products and services were not internal projects. Their key brands and properties were startups that they have acquired once the category has proven successful and already dominate as Category Kings. In terms of the Metaverse, Meta might be on to something. Unfortunately, it will take a lot of time to develop and visualize what they want their metaverse to be like. Microsoft, by buying Activision Blizzard, sort of stole the march from them and established an initial goal for their idea of the metaverse, and an existing system to implement it on. In other words, this deal suddenly puts Microsoft in the pole position and the driver’s seat. To hear more about Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard and why it all makes sense, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startup...

On this episode, let’s talk about how to inspire legendary creative marketing people to do their legendary creative marketing work. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Letting Legendary Creative Marketing People Do Legendary Creative Marketing Work Years ago, I was the head of marketing for a red-hot internet company called Scient. We had engaged with a group of creative marketers, designers, and copywriters led by the legend himself, John Bielenberg. At the beginning of the project, this is what I said to him: “Look, I know you guys are standalone, in terms of the incredible legendary marketing creative you guys create. So what I'm asking you to do is go away, and design the most legendary piece of work you've ever done.” In this case, it was a brochure that will serve as “grenade”: it was the kind of piece that when you got it, you knew you got it, and you never forgot getting it. They did just that. So when they came back a week or two to present their work, I asked the question that I always ask, “Do you think what you're about to show us is legendary work?” John smiled and looked at me and said, “Yes, we do,” and he showed us this most legendary brochure that he created. Acknowledge Your Legendary Creative Marketing Team’s Efforts Another thing to address is to let your creatives know that you are aware that their best works don’t usually see the light of day. This is either due to poor follow-through by the higher-ups, or poor feedback from people who weren’t involved in the project, but higher up the food chain. So acknowledge this and then tell them, that once they deliver a legendary creative marketing piece that will blow away everyone, you will fight tooth-and-nail for it to see the light of day. Once they do so, remind them to remind you to not fuck it up. The Takeaway So what’s the lesson here? First, when you're talking to creative people about doing creative work, let them know that you want them to do their most legendary work. Feedback and instructions are good, but it's best to let their creative juices run wild. Second, let them know that you also know that most of their most legendary work has never seen the light of day. This is because most of the companies they worked for or the clients that they had didn't have the courage to execute their legendary work. They didn't have the courage to say to them, once they presented truly legendary work, “Don't let us fuck this up.” Now, here's the other AHA about this. If you as a marketing leader/CEO/CMO get a reputation with the creative people in your company for A) inspiring it and asking them to do legendary work, and then B) with very few modifications, actually execute the legendary work, guess what happens the next time they have to do something creative. They know that you want their most legendary work. Also, they know that if they put the thinking and their heart and their soul and their blood, sweat, tears and whiskey into that work, that you are not going to be the leader who takes that legendary work and lets it get crushed and watered down so that it never sees the light of day. And when legendary creative people know that you want them to do their legendary work and that you're actually going to implement it, guess what? They're going to keep giving you legendary work. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercur...

Welcome to part two of the Native Digitals series here at Lochhead on Marketing. On this episode, we have a conversation with Hannah Grady Williams on how your business can tap into the Native Digitals workforce. For those who are not familiar of what Native Digitals are, give part one of this series a quick listen (LOM 137). Hannah Grady Williams is the Gen Z CEO Advisor, sort of like a Gen Z whisperer for CEOs and executive. She is the author of a new book called A Leader’s Guide to Unlocking Gen Z: Inside strategies to empower your team. If you are over the age of 35, which is a Native Analog, this is a must-listen podcast. Because Hannah has a tremendous amount of insight for how Native Analogs can bridge the gap to work, recruit, and build our companies with a whole new slew of Native Digitals workforce. Generation Differences: Gen X vs Gen Z, Native Digital vs Native Analog When asked if the generation differences also coincide with the category of Native Analogs and Native Digitals, Hannah says that there are overlaps, but they are not completely the same. These overlaps are more on how each generation treats technology. “Well, Gen Z, you think about all the kids sitting around the table constantly on their phones, not paying attention to anything. To you, you think it’s a distraction or something that’s taking my mind and my presence away from the people around me. The way I see it is a door that opens me to experiences I never could have had in my natural environment. As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that distinction of the way that my generation looks at the world.” – Hannah Grady Williams How Native Digitals Use Technology, and Why Analogs Don’t Get It Hannah then talks about the time his brother mentioned what he has learned from Tik Tok. If you are a casual user, you might think that the platform is just all dance and viral memes. Yet there are people who use the platform to share important life lessons and tips they have learned themselves, in digestible, bite-size content. Sadly, most parents’ reaction to someone just spending their time on social media is to just strip their phones or tablets from them. Rather than engaging with them and understanding, they just stop the activity. Because again, to them that is all just distraction. “What they don’t realize, you know, if I’m looking from a Gen Xers perspective, or a Boomer’s perspective, I think of technology maybe the same way as any other technological innovation that might distract you from family time at the dinner table. But the way my generation sees it is, not only are we getting access to an entirely new world of people. It’s actually a portal to a new world. it’s a portal, it’s a new way of thinking.” – Hannah Grady Williams Millennials and Gen Z are the New Category of Humans Hannah states that Native Digitals is a great way of describing the New Age of Humans that we have now. She also thinks that it will become more pronounced once the next generation Gen Alpha, comes around. Hannah then brings up a book called Ready Player One. It is about living immersed in a digital world and treating the real world as the alternative. While the real-world economy is at a downfall, it didn’t really matter to its citizens. As their life is spent in their digital selves, they saw no need to be lavish in real life. While it is an exaggerated version, it does mirror how Native Digitals prioritize their digital lives over their physical ones. You see people buying expensive digital products while in real life, they barely buy new clothes and the like. That’s what Native Analogs should take note this early. Otherwise, they might be left hanging once almost everything goes fully digital. To hear more from Hannah Grady Williams and how your business can reel in the Gen Z and Native Digitals of the world, download and listen to this episode. Bio Hannah Williams’s story began in a blue pickup truck when her father handed 12-year-old Hannah the phone and...

Originally published in ?‍☠️ Category Pirates: It’s not a weekly newsletter. It’s a weekly mini-book. Lately, there has been a fundamental, dare I say, seminal change in the category design of human beings. That is to say, the definition of what a human is has changed. You see, if you’re 35 and up, you are the last of a dying breed called Native Analogs. If you’re 35 or younger, you are the first generation of Native Digitals. Native Digital’s experience life in a digital first way, and an analog way, second. Native Digitals have come of age integrated with the machines. Your smartphone and technology overall are like part of who you are as a person. Most Native Analogs do not get this. Most people are not ready for the fact that everything is moving from an analog paradigm to a native digital world. Wait, haven’t we had this dialogue before? Yes, we did in FYD episode 250. But this change is so radical, that it bears repeating, so we are doing it here as well.  So in this two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, we explore Native Digitals versus Native Analogs, and how it is important to realize that we are shifting to a digital paradigm faster than you think. Category Neglect First off, we start as to why it is important to recognize category shifts like the one we are experiencing now. Most category kings and queens tend to fall into a trap, in which they ignore new categories that may be adjacent or indirectly related to theirs. When a new category arises (seemingly out of nowhere), the incumbent doesn’t topple over because they were unaware of the new category queen. More often than not, they fall because they dismissed what was happening right before their very eyes. It’s not ignorance. It is arrogance coupled with the gravitational pull of “the way it is.” Because the people profiting in the present want things to stay the same. This is called Category Neglect. Category Neglect doesn’t come from people being stupid or lacking sufficient data and resources to spot the headwinds and tailwinds of the future. It comes from a refusal to acknowledge which direction the wind is really blowing. Why do they fall to such a seemingly obvious trap? This happens because the gravitational pull is too strong. A company gets used to earning hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars per year, and thinks it can do no wrong. The company becomes deeply invested in the present. Anything that threatens the way it is now is dismissed. Native Analogs vs Native Digitals One of the most profound shifts happening in the world today is rooted in the ever-escalating debate between generations young and old. It is a shift hiding in plain sight. Just like the Tymshare executives staring out the window at Apple’s cranes building the headquarters of the company that would ultimately put them out of business, most people over 35 years old can’t see this shift happening. Instead, they say to themselves, “Eh, we’ve got nothing to worry about.” As Category Pirates, we feel it is our obligation to sound the alarm when we see rocky shores ahead. Some of us are facing a once-in-a-generation set of headwinds that could not just stymie growth, but sink our entire ship. If those of us over age 35 aren’t careful, this divide could result in one of the greatest instances of Category Neglect. However, those who see this mega shift and act on it, on the other hand, will sail into the sunset a lot of happy pirates, make more money, and make a way bigger difference in the world. With that said, let’s first give a better definition of what a Native Analog and Native Digital are. We’ll also define where their biggest difference lies. There are two types of people on planet earth today. The first are Native Analogs. These are Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, born anywhere from the 1940s all the way up to the early ‘80s. Today, they range between the ages of 40 to 75, and make up approximately 136.8 million Americans. The second are Native Digitals.

In Lochhead on Marketing episode 127, we talked with Al Ramadan, Co-founder of Play Bigger Advisors and co-author of Play Bigger, the book. On that episode, we unpacked the upcoming Rivian IPO. Now that Rivian has gone public, we thought it would be cool to get together again, and unpack what happened through a category design lens. Specifically, how Rivian was able to use their IPO not just as a financing event, but a category-defining event. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Rivian IPO: An Update after the Launch Al Ramadan recaps what Rivian IPO was during the public offering, which had a market cap of $60 billion at the time. This was already a very impressive number, considering that it was still an IPO. What people didn’t anticipate is that after Rivian’s launch, they blew well past that and now sits over $100 billion in valuation. As a result, they are now the third largest automotive company behind Tesla and Toyota. All in all, it is an incredible IPO, and one to observe in the future as it develops. Betting on Potential vs Performance Despite all that, there are those who are still skeptic of what had happen, and consider it as a fluke or a big risk. But it all boils down to betting on the potential of an idea, rather than just prior performance. Right now, some investors are seeing things in a new light. “I think it's hard for investors to understand because that's been just been the way they are. They look at multiples of revenue or multiples of trucks shipped, or all of those other vital metrics within an organization. But the new investors I think, are starting to look past that.” – Al Ramadan Paving the Way into a New Category What Al finds interesting is that currently, 70% or more of the market cap for the electronic car category is cornered by Tesla. Yet Rivian might have to potential to great its own category within it, and be the category king for it. Because Rivian is not just planning on the electronic cars and trucks. They are also including everything else that comes along with it. We’re talking charging networks and stations, dealerships, and the like. It’s taking into consideration the whole ecosystem, as supposed to just that one product. “So if you go into this with the mindset of like, I'm going to value this as an automotive industry as it was over the last 125 years, you're gonna miss big time.” – Al Ramadan To hear more from Christopher and Al and their thoughts and updates on the Rivian IPO, download and listen to this episode. Bio Al Ramadan is a co-founding partner of Play Bigger Advisors and coauthor of the book, Play Bigger. He also co-founded Quokka Sports, which revolutionized the way people experience sport online. Al then joined Macromedia and Adobe, where he spent almost ten years changing the way people think about great digital experiences. At Adobe, Al led teams that created the Rich Internet Applications category and helped develop the discipline of experience design. In the early ‘90s he applied data science to Australia’s Americas Cup — an innovation in sports performance analytics. His work in sailing led directly to the idea for Quokka. He lives in Santa Cruz, California. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, let’s talk about Sales Kick Off. Since it’s that time of the year where most sales, marketing, and executive teams are working on sales kickoff events for the new year and/or a company kickoff event. While most people work on the practical and tactical aspect of things, there’s a strategic question that we need to address. If we get the answer right, it can lead to a very successful sales kickoff and a successful year. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Sales Kick Off Events Like most companies, you are also probably working on this as early as the 4th quarter of the year. If you’re in a well-established company, you probably have all the basics down, in terms of systems, workflows, and all related processes. While those parts are also important, the focus in these kinds of kickoffs is the context that it operates in. Why are you doing this sales kickoff? Is it for something new, or maybe an important change in your company that will affect how you interact with your clients and customers? Why Should I Stay? That said, we have a very unique context going into 2022. You have probably heard about the “Great Resignation”. People have been quitting their jobs to find better work or pursue other careers. Those who stayed are probably getting recruitment emails from competition due to this sudden lack of high-value individuals in certain industries. So heading into 2022, the context of your sales kickoff needs to answer the question, “Why should I stay?” In order to answer that question, you should look on what truly motivates people. The first point is, people who are invested in the company are motivated by a mission. They want to feel like they’re a part of something greater than themselves. That what they do for the company makes a difference. The second point is that they want to feel connected to their colleagues. Granted, this is harder nowadays due to COVID and social distancing. So instead of being physically around people, find a way to align people’s goals, so that they get to interact with each other while having the same mission. This ties to the first point as well. If your company is still on a full remote capacity right now, you can also be creative with technology. Instead of socializing in the pantry like before, set up zoom meetings for your team where you can just talk about the recent activities you have done outside of work. Or maybe share what you have been doing lately, so that other people in the team are aware of your contributions and could help with your struggles. In the situation where we're primarily using a digital first native digital way to do that, think about using the technology and creative ways to bond people to each other into the mission and point of view. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, let’s talk about the problem with most marketing plans, and what you can do about it. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Planning Based on the Past Let’s talk about the problem with most marketing plans: mainly, most of them start with last year’s template. The big problem with most marketing plans is they take last year's marketing plan and they extend it forward. In category design, one of our favorite expressions is to reject the premise. In the end, we challenge ourselves to push and poke and stretch our thinking. Also, just because it worked in 2020 or 2021, it is not evidence that it will work in 2022. More importantly, when you start your planning by rejecting the premise, you create a blank sheet of paper. Crowding Out Innovation It is also difficult to create a different future when the past is your lens. So if a prior marketing plan is the start point for a plan for the future, by definition you're taking the past and figuring out how to re-implement it going forward. That might be feasible for maintaining certain market margins and the like, but it risks crowding out innovation in your marketing plan. We’re also not telling you to reject the past and just YOLO your future. Going forward, you should have a dialogue on what worked and not worked based on the data from the past, find a way to highlight those points, but at the same time look for things that have not been explored in the market. That way, you can produce a breakthrough in a new field or even create a new category out if it, without having to go for broke. Three Pillars of a Great Marketing Plan Once you have rejected the premise and open yourself up to thoughtful data-centric analysis of what works and doesn’t, it’s time to think about going forward. How do you design a marketing plan that creates the future of your choosing? To do so, try to anchor it around these three pillars. Information Wars: This is what sets the strategic context. It’s the combination of ways in which you educate the world about the category you’re designing, and learning from your Superconsumers to accelerate your effectiveness both in the air and on the ground. This is more focused on POV marketing / word of mouth than anything else. Air Wars: In many ways, marketing is “Sales at scale.” Air Wars are the high-level strategic marketing you do in service of the new and different category you are creating in the world. All the while positioning yourself as the leader. These efforts are more focused on demand creation. Ground Wars: This is tactical marketing (often at the point-of-sale and heavily integrated with sales) that supports your strategic efforts marketing the category and driving near-term revenue. These efforts are more focused on demand capture and lead generation. If you want to learn more about these three pillars, check out this Category Pirates article about it. Conclusion So in closing, what would I leave you with? Don't use the past as a template for creating the future. Allow yourself to think in unconstrained, super creative, super innovative ways around “what is the strategic context?” “What's the POV that you are using to drive your category and your brand and ultimately, the success of the company?” How are you scaling through air wars, so that you begin to make your strategic point of view move from being a new thing to an of course. And the ground Wars is all about how you make the cash register sing and drive near-term revenue. And guess what? To succeed, you got to get all three right. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketi...

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we go on a deep dive into category design, community building, to starting a company and becoming a category leader with Sangram Vajre. Sangram Vajre is the co-founder of Terminus. He is also the author of a WSJ bestselling book called MOVE: The 4-Question Go-To-Market Framework. We touch on the different startup marketing topics, including how to avoid the SaaS Valley of Death. We also talk about how to build a scalable marketing and sales model. Most importantly, we talk about how to leverage your competition to build your category. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, the number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Sangram Vajre on his Bestselling Book, MOVE Sangram shares the one question that he always gets when he talks about his book. That is, why did he put THAT specific quote on the cover? The particular quote was made by me, and it read: “Love the guys, but hate this book.” Sangram explains that he has a good reason for putting it up right in front for everyone to see. “I think you and I both know that everybody feels like they're walking on eggshells. They can't say anything. Everything has to has to be politically correct. Everything has to be in agreement. I think people have forgotten a good way to discourse. That it's okay for two people to have completely different opinions. And that’s the point of being people. Otherwise, we’ll be animals eating each other.” – Sangram Vajre Coming in from Another Angle Sangram then explains that while his heart bleeds category design and creation, he believes that not every company should be a category creator. To him, there are some that are not destined to be category creators, and that is fine. They could still be a better company; they just have to approach it from a different angle. That’s where his book, MOVE, comes to play. “There are 99% of the companies out there in the world, who probably are following suit to become a better company. And this book is for them. If you want to build a category, go and read Play Bigger. But if you want to build a great high performing revenue team in your organization, I hope you'll take a look at my book.” – Sangram Vajre Sangram Vajre on Engaging the Community to Create a Bestseller Sangram talks about his process on making this bestseller of a book. He says that he has always believed that without a community, you’re just a commodity. “I truly believe that every company needs to think about building a community before they think about the product they want to build. Because your community is what's going to give you the float that you need to get your business going.” – Sangram Vajre So consult the community, he did. He would send out early parts of his book and asked people for their feedback. Those that gave him feedback, he made sure to acknowledge in his book. So when the book became a WSJ bestselling book, his community who gave their feedbacks are now part of it, which gave his community an even greater sense of belonging. To hear more from Sangram Vajre and how to become a high-performing company in your market, download and listen to this episode. Bio Sangram Vajre is the co-founder and chief evangelist of Terminus. Before Terminus, Vajre led the marketing team at Pardot through its acquisition by ExactTarget and then Salesforce. He is also the author of Account-Based Marketing For Dummies and is the mastermind behind #FlipMyFunnel. Links LinkedIn: in/SangramVajre Twitter: @SangramVajre Check out his book: MOVE: The 4-Question Go-To-Market Framework We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

This episode is based on the top 1% Category Pirates ?‍☠️ newsletter. On this episode, let’s talk about at least three Meta problems with Facebook. How, in light of their recent situation, they managed to launch a new category out of nowhere. The question is, was it a legendary move? Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, the number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Launching Meta There’s an interesting thing that most people don’t realize and has not been reported on the mainstream press. That is, never in the history has a trillion dollar publicly-traded company launched a new category, that is so forward-leaning. So whatever you want to say about Zuckerberg, what he pulled off there was legendary and by the book, at least from a purely category design perspective. That said, given the fact that the new category is the metaverse and the fact that he named renamed and rebranded the company as Meta is genius. When you tie your company name to your category, you have real staying power in that category. The 3 Meta Problems with Facebook With that out of the way, there are at least three very serious problems with this launch. Ignoring the Elephant in the Room Zuckerberg ignored the elephant in the room, and just launched Meta in spite of recent situations developing even as we speak. If you’re interested in this, The Wall Street Journal is keeping an ongoing series on the matter called The Facebook Files. The most glaring one is the recent whistleblower that exposed the company as someone who exploits its users and their data. Yet for Zuckerberg to just get up and launch a new category, brand, and giant demo is incredible, and not in a good way. Pretending that Facebook does not have a self-inflicted existential wound doesn’t make it go away. The fact that he didn’t address it is stunning. It shows how much out-of-touch they really are. Mercenary, not a Missionary Zuckerberg’s announcement made it clear that he’s a mercenary, not a missionary. This is where he drops off on being a legendary category designer. Because category designers, as you know, are always on a mission. While making money, building highly-valuable companies, and being economically successful is what we’re trying to do in business, entrepreneurship, and marketing, most legendary category designers and innovators are on a mission to make a difference. They use their category, and therefore their company and products to do so. If you listen to the Metaverse presentation, it’s 100% about Facebook. They are not solving a new big problem that they have a solution to. There wasn’t a new big opportunity and a way to make a difference for others. Sure, there was an innovation on how VR and the tech behind it was being used, but he never anchored it to why it matters to us. This is because the new category of Facebook’s Meta is not about us, the users. It is solely for them, and how it benefits Facebook. If you listen carefully, it’s all about me, me, me. That is classic mercenary talk. Public Trust Out of the three problems, this one should be the most obvious. If you simply Google around, you’ll find that Facebook is the least trusted social media company. Yet in the whole presentation, he has not mentioned anything about trust, or try to comfort us in anyway. So the question is, can one of the most nefarious companies in history convince the world to bet their digital lives and future on a dubious, distrusted bedrock of technology from Facebook, without even building trust. He didn’t even try. Like the first problem, he didn’t even address it. If you’d like to hear more about the 3 Meta Problems with Facebook, download and listen to this episode. We’ll also go into a deep dive about Meta and the issues surrounding it in Category Pirates. So stay tuned. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.

On this episode, let’s talk about what might be the most important equation in business and in marketing. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, the number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Maybe The Most Important Equation Ever I want to share with you a little bit of math that I learned very early in my career. It was incredibly eye-opening, and has been a bedrock that I have tried to stand on ever since. And the equation goes like this: Results do not equal No Results plus an Excuse. Now, this might seem obvious, but if you look around, you’ll find the contrary to that. You might also think, what’s the harm of having a great excuse when you can’t achieve the results you want? Well, here’s the interesting thing: That mindset can perpetuate. Over time, you’ll start thinking that it’s perfectly okay to not reach the result you want, as long as there was a valid excuse not to do so. Who You Are in Business Here’s the AHA moment in business, entrepreneurship, and in category design: Who you are is based on your results. It may sound harsh, but think about the people that you work with, particularly those who you admire. Chances are, you respect and admire them the most because they can be counted on to produce results. If we use sales as an example, it’s easy to see one’s value for the business. That is, if they hit their target numbers or not. If they do hit their numbers and beyond, they are recognized and rewarded for it. You also gain the reputation as someone who achieves their goals, or if you already have said reputation, it is further reinforced. The reason this matter is, in marketing and category design, there are winners and losers. In every category, there tends to be one category king or queen who gets roughly 70% of the market, and everybody else are fighting for roughly a quarter of it. So train yourself. The excuse doesn't matter when it's on the line. The most legendary people produce results no matter what. That's the mindset. Don’t be Afraid to Ask If you’re a product manager, developer, or engineer, it can be easy to measure goals and objectives. You either meet the requirements, or you don’t. Though for marketing, the goal or objective might not be as clear. If you’re not sure about the goal of your marketing is, don’t be afraid to ask. After that, make sure the rest of your team is clear to that goal. That beats running around doing things that might not even be related to your goal, which wastes time and resources. So to recap: Results do not equal No Results plus an Excuse. Results equal Reputation. Which means you are your results and your results drive your reputation. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about why thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking. Context Matters More Than Content This might be obvious, but it bears repeating: context matters more than content. In any strategy discussion, the context of which is what leads to some kind of outcome or content. Most people, particularly those who are entrepreneurial, have a strong bias to action, which can be healthy and powerful. However, it does have it downsides sometimes. “A strong bias to action means that sometimes, and I know I've been guilty of this more times than I will ever know, we spring to action without doing enough thinking. More importantly, without doing enough thinking and dialoguing around what the context is for whatever it is we’re talking about.” – Christopher Lochhead Accept or Reject the Premise The next piece to think of when discussing the context, is that whether you accept or reject the premise of said context? It could be a product, a service, or and prevalent idea. Here’s what I know. “Legendary category designers, legendary entrepreneurs, creators, and marketers reject the premise. They start by rejecting the premise. So somebody says something and you go, that's interesting. And in our mind, we go, I reject the whole thing.” – Christopher Lochhead Now, you may end up circling back to that premise and either accepting it entirely, or just part of it. Though the reason why starting by rejecting the premise is so powerful, is that all premise, context, and established thinking is based on past experience, insight, or research. Of course, there are many cases where accepting the premise is the wise thing to do. Yet here’s the rub: how do you create a different future, if the premise or context you start with is tied to the past? So we reject the premise, we reject the rules of the past and open ourselves up to a whole new kind of thinking. Listen to the Words In business and marketing, almost every sentence that somebody says to us use “accept the premise” language. Part of rejecting the premise is listening to the words they say. One example is “go to market”. You might ask, what’s wrong with that premise? If you think about it, that premise suggests that there is a market out there, and we need to go and grab it. Which means that you are competing for other businesses that are also going to the same market. Yet wouldn’t it be better to create your own market? That way, you get the lion’s share of it outright, and you don’t have to compete for it. Moreover, the customers/users then come to you, and not the other way around. To hear more about how thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

If you’re a regular listener, you know that we have very few guests on this podcast. That is because I believe that 90% of what we get taught about marketing and entrepreneurship is either wrong or not very helpful. So I want to make sure that whoever we have is legendary, and also very helpful. Well, today at Lochhead on Marketing, you not only get one, but two legendary guests, Dushka Zapata and Dan Roam. Dushka Zapata has been on Follow Your Different, and is one of my absolute favorite people in the world. She’s the author of many legendary books. Her most recent is called The Love of Your Life is You: A step by step workbook to loving yourself. When she's not writing, she has had an extraordinary career as a PR communications executive and coach. Dan Roam is a multi-time bestselling author as well. His most recent book is called The Back of a Napkin: Solving problems and selling ideas with pitchers. In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we talk about presentations, and what the template and architecture of a legendary presentation is. Pay special attention to Dushka and Dan's thoughts on the real reason most people suck at presentations, and what they think you can do about it. The Principle Behind The Back of the Napkin The conversation starts of with a brief introduction of what Dushka and Dan do, besides writing bestselling books. Dushka describes her work as drawing a connection between what executives say and the company’s brand. In essence, she helps people say what they want to say in the simplest terms possible. Dan shares that his work is pretty much the same, in which he draws clarity out of these executive’s ideas. Except that he literally draws them out on whiteboards, paper, and if nothing is in reach, napkins. Dushka then brings up the principle of The Back of the Napkin, and Dan explains it in detail. “Why it's called the back of the napkin is (because) some of the very, very best ideas, whether they're related to business, or organizations, or leadership or anything else come from a simple sketch, (gets) invariably drawn on a bar somewhere between a couple of people who are sitting there talking about their idea. One of them pulls out a pen, and on that napkin on the bar says, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, if it could draw it out, what would it look like?” They draw a triangle or an arrow or a circle. And that becomes the basis of the idea.” – Dan Roam Dan Roam on Thinking Differently Dan was then asked if there were people who told him as a child to stop drawing and start paying attention to the “normal” stuff. He replies that he had a teacher that said exactly that, to stop drawing and pay attention to reading books and whatnot. What these people did not know was that this was Dan’s own way of paying attention and expressing his thoughts on paper. So just because it was a little different, doesn’t make it any less important or valuable. “My teacher said that I drew too much, and I talked too much. And I need to sit down and listen and pay better attention. What that teacher didn't realize is that I was really struggling to learn to read. And the way I made up for it was by talking a lot, and being kind of boisterous. And drawing was not a challenge. I think maybe if we dug just a little bit deeper into what your I think you might be talking about, is a lot of us maybe didn't do so well in school or in formal situations as we might have, because we thought a little differently than we were supposed to. And now we're finding thankfully that the people who think different, kind of people from the island of lost toys, are the ones who actually are the most needed right now.” – Dan Roam Legendary Doodler Dan shares the story of where it all began, and it was a place that we had a shared history together, Scient. During those brainstorming meetings at Scient, Dan would often draw out his interpretations of what others were saying, which in turn gave others a visual representation of that spea...

All of you have probably heard about Theranos by now, and the huge impact it made in the industry. Though no matter the outcome of the trials of Elizabeth Holmes ( Theranos founder & CEO) and Sunny Balwani (Theranos COO), their actions represent a demarcation point for Silicon Valley, startups, VCs, and marketers. If by chance you don’t know this story, I would recommend you search “Theranos” on Google or Youtube and get your popcorn ready, because it is one hell of a story. Short version of it was Elizabeth Holmes offered a technology that could revolutionize healthcare, but it all turned out to be a scam. What made the story interesting is how long Theranos had strung people along, until the inevitable caught up with them and it all crashing down. So in this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s dig into the three major things we should learn from in the wake of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, and how the new line VCs need to walk because of her. Don’t Fake It ‘Til You Make It One of the biggest BS axioms in the industry is “Fake it til you make it”. It promotes the idea that people should project proficiency, even if they don’t have the right skill set for it. There’s actually an episode in Follow Your Different where we talked with Sabrina Horn (FYD 228) on why following this mantra is such a bad idea. So what’s the difference between being a visionary, an optimist, a CEO, or a marketer versus being a scam artist? Let’s be crystal clear about the Difference between these 3 things: Future Vision Current Capabilities Past Performance Is it okay to have a huge vision to have a radical category design, Hell yeah! As a matter of fact, it’s the people who have huge visions, those who allow themselves to be radical and be unencumbered by the present and the past, that create new categories and massive new value. Though it is okay to lie about what your product or service does now? No. N.O. No way. We can’t make promises to customers that we know we cannot keep. The Difference between Category Creators and Scam Artists In our last Lochhead on Marketing episode, Al Ramadan (Coauthor, Play Bigger) and I unpacked Rivian and their new IPO. Though before that IPO, they also had another revolutionary idea, which was the Tank Turn. It was a cool feature to have for your car, and people where hyped for it. Unfortunately, Rivian couldn’t make it happen. They did not have the technology for it at this time. So what did they do? Well, they admitted that they could not do it. No BS, no cover-ups. Just straight-up admission and apology. While it did cause them to take a hit, they actually ended up building trust and affinity between them and the customers and the ideas that they are pursuing. Looking at it now, Rivian is poised to have a massive multi-billion IPO, and it’s all thanks to the trust that they have built up for being radically transparent about their mistakes and overall process. Compare this with Theranos, who did almost the exact opposite in everything. While the initial idea for a compact medical testing machine would’ve been an amazing product, the fact that they strung investors along and straight-up faked results to keep up the facade was abhorrent. Unfortunately, they are not the only ones who seem to operate like this. Due Diligence and Good Governance Matters We cannot lie about what our products and services currently does. Also, legendary companies are radically transparent. The second you know your product is not performing up to task, you have to tell people, regardless of the impact on your revenue and stock. Due Diligence and Good Governance matters. When asked why they turned down Theranos, Bill Maris, founder of Google Ventures, told Business Insider that there were so much misdirection and disconnect in Theranos’ pitch that it did not add up. So they sent someone to try it out, and it didn’t take long to figure out that things may not be what Theranos wanted everyone to see.

The electric vehicle category is a giant new mega category that is completely changing the transportation landscape. Rivian is a startup who has yet to ship a product, yet somehow is pioneering a differentiated category in EVs. It is also on the verge of what will likely be a massive, multi-billion dollar IPO. In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Al Ramadan and I unpack all of it through the category lens. He has been blogging about this lately, so it seems fitting to invite him and have a conversation about it. If Al’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he and I co-founded Play Bigger Advisors, and coauthored the book, Play Bigger together. So sit back and enjoy this dialogue between two category design enthusiasts as we share our thoughts on Rivian’s new upcoming massive IPO. Al Ramadan on Rivian and the Upcoming IPO Al shares his thoughts on Rivian, and what they are doing for the Electric Vehicle category. He describes its founder as something of a combination of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, and thinks he is a remarkable entrepreneur. He then talks about the upcoming IPO they have planned to release around Thanksgiving. “A couple weeks ago, they announced that they're going to do this IPO around Thanksgiving. And it's an IPO, not a spec. All of the other EVs are going out with specs. And the zinger was that the market cap was going to be $80 billion. Bigger than GM, bigger than Ford. But it was just this moment in time where you look at this thing is like, “what, they haven't shipped the vehicle”. And they've valued more than Toyota's entire SUV line and Ford or GM, it just doesn't make (sense). That's just crazy. And so the category designer in me sort of took over and started dissecting all of their filings and I came up with a few insights that I think is worth sharing. ” - Al Ramadan The Potential of the Rivian IPO For something that has not even shipped the product yet, it seems amazing that they are valued so highly. For it to do so well at this point, it must’ve hit all the right notes and laid out its potential to be able to grab the attention of investors and consumers. “What they miss always, is what the real drivers of market cap are. Which is, number one: what's the potential for this category? Number two: do we believe that this company can prosecute the magic triangle company; product, company, and category and earn 76% of the economics? And number three: when we look at their numbers, metrics, financials, etc., are we comforted about the first two things? And if the answer to all of those is that you got a company who's designing a market category, that right now looks like that has the potential of almost infinity.” - Christopher Lochhead Al agrees with this points, and further explains how this new IPO is changing the vehicle industry, and how the transactions and support will be implemented once it comes out. Up until now, most EVs still operate in the traditional car dealership model. Rivian seeks to create a new category centered not just on the cars, but the services provided with it. Reactions to the Rivian IPO One of the things that piqued Al’s interest was how certain people or companies reacted when the valuation for the Rivian IPO went out. One particular instance was Elon Musk tweeting about it, saying that they should at least put out a product before the IPO. It seemed illogical that someone like him would be alarmed by this, especially if you’re perceived as being the king of a certain category. Yet for a brief moment there, it seems that he has shown concern over the matter, and saw a challenger on the rise. According to Al, it’s right that he would be concerned. Because if you look at it, Rivian seems to be taking the Electric Vehicle category and evolving it to something that can make their current category obsolete in the future. While the implementation of which remains to be seen, it’s definitely enough to be concerned about.

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about how to spot a legendary startup / new category idea. It turns out there are a few secret hiding places where these ideas hide, but they’re in plain sight. One of these ideas was shared by Avram Miller in a recent episode of Follow Your Different (FYD 234) when we were discussing his new book, titled The Flight of a Wild Duck. It is a simple, powerful, yet under-used idea for discovering massive ideas for new companies, products or categories, so we are going to talk about it in detail here. As a bonus, I’ll share one of my own as well! So stay tuned to this episode, and enjoy. Avram Miller on Being a Legendary Startup When we talked to Avram Miller in Follow Your Different, we got into the discussions of why a lot of startups seemed to fail. These startups had, on paper, great ideas for products, services, and categories that should have dominated the market. Yet looking back, most of them did not achieve that potential. So what was the culprit? It was time. Specifically, they were too early or ahead of their time. Whether it was due to being technologically early or there’s no demand for that particular idea yet, it was just too early. One of the examples was WebVan.com. It was a startup designed to deliver groceries to your home, and it was launched in the late 1990s. If you think about it nowadays, it makes sense that it would be a successful business. Yet WebVan.com shut its business down in 2001, while the same model today made Amazon a household brand. So if you have a legendary startup idea, one of the things you need to consider is this: is it too early, or just the right time to launch it to the world? Never Stop Innovating Idea no. 2 comes from me, and what I have observed upon past and existing category leaders in their respective markets. As I have discussed here in Lochhead on Marketing, and also at our Category Pirates newsletter, sometimes these Category Kings settle with fighting for a share of the market, rather than innovating and creating new markets for their own. One of the most known examples of this was Kodak and the physical media category, which tried to adapt too little, and too late. Surprisingly, Avram Miller shares in our conversation that Intel’s CEO Andy Grove was also resistant to innovating things early on in Intel’s history, which almost led them to miss out in getting into the chipset business for personal computers. As for a great example in the opposite direction, Victoria’s Secret got left in the dust by Rihanna's line of lingerie called Savage. This was because it moved away from the POV of "be like these supermodels", to more inclusive and being comfortable with their own body. This radically different POV redesigned the category. As most native digitals see exclusivity as elitist and not welcoming, it was also embraced by the market almost overnight. So at the end of it all, would you rather be fighting to stay on top of your current market, or be the King of the Hill in a category that you have created or innovated? To hear more ideas on how to become a legendary startup or innovate your current business, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient,

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let us talk about something that I get asked about all the time. That is, can service firms do Category Design? Simple answer, Yes. I would even say that the most legendary services companies are almost always created or led by a legendary Category Design. Long answer? Well, listen to this episode to find out. The Management Consulting Category Design There was a point in time where there was no such thing called Management Consulting. Remember, everything is the way that it is because somebody changed the way that it was. So, McKinsey and Company is the firm that created and designed the Management Consulting category. The interesting thing is the guy that built McKinsey into what it is today is a guy named Marvin Bower. McKinsey started out as a group of bean counters and accountants doing accounting stuff, and nothing like what McKinsey is today. The Aha moment that Bower had is that he noticed that while clients were paying for accounting services with accountants, and legal services with lawyers, what they often wanted and valued more from their accountant was actually business advice from a trusted source. With that idea, Marvin became the category designer of a new services category called Management Consulting. Marvin Bower as a Language Master Marvin is an incredible kind of master at Languaging. He intuitively understood that in order to create a new category of Services Firm, he had to language it differently. That is to say, you can't talk about a new thing with old language. Under his leadership, projects were not called jobs, they were called engagements. It’s a word that is much more relational than it is transactional. Internal groups within McKinsey with specific industry or functional expertise were not called groups, they were called practices. Bower borrowed a term from doctors to demonstrate a level of professionalism to elevate these “groups”, or now practices within McKinsey. Finally, he made sure that nobody ever referred to McKinsey as a business: McKinsey was a firm. He highlighted the core values that held the company together. Today, there are very few firms who are rigorously committed, some might say consciously committed to the original language that Marvin Bower put into place. All of these distinctions, all of these differences, help McKinsey thrive. It also help to position McKinsey in a new category: not a law firm, not an accounting firm, but this new thing called a Management Consulting Firm. To hear more on how Service Firms do Category Design, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Welcome to a very special episode of Lochhead on Marketing. This episode is based on a recent Category Pirates newsletter that we wrote, which was about Big Brand Marketing and why it doesn’t work. It is also available as a mini eBook here. Think of this episode as more of an audiobook than a podcast, as I will be reading the article for you. Without further ado, let’s get to reading. The Brand Cult A meaningful percentage of marketers, entrepreneurs, and executives are in what we like to call “The Brand Cult.” They’ve been taught the best (aka: “the most well known”) brand wins. Even though the data shows this is not true. Ford spends $2.5 billion per year on brand advertising, with a market cap of $50 billion. General Motors spends $3 billion, with a market cap of $70 billion. Meanwhile, Tesla spends $0, but has a market cap of $700 billion. In 2011, Google spent almost $600 million building and launching a social network to compete with Facebook and Twitter called Google+. If “the best brand wins,” how come Google+ failed? After all, Forbes named Google the 2nd “most valuable brand in the world” in 2020. Comcast spends more than $5 billion on branding and advertising each year. And yet, Comcast has long been considered “America’s Most Hated Company.” There’s even a Wikipedia page dedicated to the company’s inadequacies, titled “Criticism of Comcast.” (United Airlines is a close second, if you ask us.) So if branding and “shouting from the rooftops” is the key to winning the game, how come $5 billion per year can’t solve Comcast’s problems? Maybe they need $10 billion? Though sharing data with a cult member is about the worst thing you can do. That’s because facts are upsetting to feelings—particularly facts that disprove everything you’ve been taught to believe. Well, here’s a fact: Categories make brands. Not the other way around. How The Brand Cult Began In 2011, The Atlantic published a piece titled, “How Brands Were Born: A Brief History of Modern Marketing.” “In the 1950s, consumer packaged goods companies like Procter and Gamble, General Foods and Unilever developed the discipline of brand management, or marketing as we know it today, when they noticed the quality levels of products being offered by competitors around them improve. A brand manager would be responsible for giving a product an identity that distinguished it from nearly indistinguishable competitors.” Note that last sentence. From our perspective, the obvious response and clear “no brainer” solution to being “nearly indistinguishable” is to get different: design a new space, come up with something new, and make others play a game you created. But that’s not what most “marketing & branding experts” decided. Instead, they said, “Let’s ignore the fact there is nothing unique about us, our product, or what we do for the world. Instead, let’s do some branding.” As if sprinkling some kind of magic dust on your “brand” (changing the colors, the font, the logo design, etc.) is going to drive a breakthrough in growth. Or, even worse, “Let’s call ourselves a community. Let’s use big, all-encompassing, undifferentiated language to make ourselves appeal to everyone. Something like, ‘We are an authentic, purpose-driven brand.’” Thus, “the brand cult” was formed—and The Big Brand Lie began. If you’d like to hear the rest of the article, download and listen to this episode. You can also check it out at Category Pirates. Who knows, you might find that you have a little pirate in you as well. ?‍☠️ Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to som...

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about the two categories of Problems and Opportunities that we face, and the questions that we need to ask to figure out what we’re dealing with when an issue or an opportunity arrives. Know the Category of Problems / Opportunities First If you're a business leader or marketing leader, you're an entrepreneur. Of course, your job is to deal with problems and opportunities as they arise. So when any new problem or opportunity arises first, let's think about what is the context of it? What type of problem or opportunity is it? It turns out there's really only two big problems that we face. One, knowing what to do and two, doing it. So when an issue, opportunity, or a problem comes up, it is critical that we ask the questions that we need to ask to understand: “Is this a ‘knowing what to do’ problem, or is this a ‘doing it’ problem?” Most people just jump to problem solving before they know what category of problem they're solving. Of course, solving a ‘knowing what to do’ problem a.k.a. strategy is very different from solving a ‘doing it’ problem a.k.a. execution. So the next time something pops up, ask yourself and your colleagues, is this a ‘knowing what to do’ problem or ‘doing it’ problem? Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about newsletters. Particularly, how to create a successful newsletter. Lately, we’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding newsletters: how to create a successful newsletter. With the success we are having on Category Pirates, I would like to share some of my thoughts on how you can create a successful newsletter yourself. It Is Never Too Late One of the things you’ll hear when you express the intent to create a newsletter (or podcast for that matter) is that there are already a million other newsletters and podcasts out there. If you hear this statement, stop listening, and continue on. Just because someone is already doing well in a field you are attempting to be in, doesn’t mean you don’t do it anymore. It just means you have to take a different approach on getting to the top. The other premise that keeps being pushed around is that people don’t want to read long newsletters. They want soundbites, or easily digestible tidbits of information. Well, we reject that premise, and sought to create a newsletter that we ourselves would want to read. It turns out, other business leaders also love reading it. How to Create a Successful Newsletter That said, here are some tips on how you can write your own successful newsletter. Have a different point of view. It’s astounding how much stuff out there is just a regurgitation of the same thing. Figure out what makes you unique, make that true north, and stick to it. Bring fresh data, frameworks, and insights. Some people just tend to recycle other people’s data and call it “research”. If you want to be a successful, differentiated newsletter writer, do your own primary data research. Write with courage. Don’t write anything that is already being written. When something popular is going on, everyone wants to have a hot take on it to ride along the wave. But if everyone is already writing about the same stuff, why would you write about the same thing? Don’t “curate” recycled stupidities. If you want to include other people’s work in your newsletter, that’s fine. As long as you make sure what you’re curating is high-quality content. Write tight. Don’t write anything you’d see in tier-2 magazines. If your content consists of clickbait-y topics and other nonsense, then how are you different from the hundreds of other clickbait websites out there? You will just be another carbon copy of the same thing. Know who you’re NOT writing for. It is important to know who your audience is. Although, it’s equally important, if not more, to know who you are NOT writing for. Because the worst thing you can do is listen to the wrong crowd. Keep your eye on the ball, not the audience. Don’t obsess about subscriber counts, social media metrics, etc. If you have too little subscribers, it will just bum you out. If you suddenly have an influx of subscribers, it might affect your decision-making and quality of your content. Write every day, regardless of how often you publish. You’ll be amazed on how much ideas can come out of the blue. Don’t waste them; write it all down. Also, it will help you improve your writing skills if you put it to practice daily. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you the newsletter category is saturated and therefore you shouldn’t do it. If you want smart readers, write smart. There’s a difference on writing it so it’s understandable by a huge audience, and dumbing it down to appease the mouth breathers. Do work YOU think is legendary. Minimum viable newsletter is as dumb as it sounds. If you’re going to do something, make it legendary. And here’s a bonus one for the road: Don’t be marketing your shit all the time. This is a big turnoff for a lot of readers, especially those who are looking for informative content. A shoutout or two once in a while is good, but don’t make a habit of it. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down ...

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about how to be more creative and two beats ahead of the rest. I’ve been inspired of late by a new book called Two Beats Ahead by Panos Panay and Michael Hendrix. What I love about this book is these guys are musicians who teach entrepreneurship and how to have an entrepreneurial mind in the musical world, so to speak. This book is about how to take some of the big creating learnings from some of the greatest music artists in the world and apply them in a business context. If you want to hear more from them, check out this episode of Follow Your Different (FYD episode 218) or get Two Beats Ahead here. Though for this one, I wanted to focus on the ideas that have been rattling around in my head and in my conversations with marketers and entrepreneurs. So if you want to hear more about it, stay tuned to this episode. Two Beats Ahead If you haven’t listened to our conversation at Follow Your Different, you are really missing out. Panos Panay and Michael Hendrix are amazing people, and our conversation about the book and their thoughts on business is legendary. One of the things we talked about in the books is that they ask a question. When they do workshops, they ask the CEOs, “who would you rather hire, an athlete or a musician?” I thought this was an interesting question, because musicians, particularly ones that write their own music, usually have a high degree of creativity. Three Takeaways There are three big ideas I wanted you to take away from how I've been taking the learnings from Michael and Panos. Dare To Suck The first comes from a quote from Justin Timberlake in the book: “ I only have one rule in the studio, and that’s this: dare to suck.” I think when many of us are in business jam sessions, whether we are thinking about products or marketing campaigns or new business models and whatnot, we’re in some kind of jam session with a group of people. Our objective is to do some thinking out loud and be creative. Though what tends to happen in these sessions is not about being creative, innovative, and coming up with legendary ideas. It can often be sort of about posturing, looking good, currying favor with the boss, or something along those lines. I think it’s best to not worry about those things and dare to suck. Let ourselves be free and be open. Don’t worry about what we look and take Justin’s advice: Dare to suck. Collaboration As you read through the book, it is painfully obvious that legendary musicians collaborate in a way that is unusual, to say the least. Here’s a quote from the book: “The company that operates more like a band of collaborators than a strict corporate hierarchy has the ability to shape an environment where everyone feels a sense of belonging.” – Two Beats Ahead As someone who collaborates with two highly creative people in Category Pirates, having a highly intense and creative environment multiple times a week as we work on the newsletter has been an amazing experience. When you have a group of people who are committed to doing legendary work, who are willing to suck, and willing to jam with each other like a band would, it can be quite rewarding for everyone involved. The opportunity to be playful and truly collaborative and not give a shit about sucking or how we look is a very freeing thing in business. Keep Creating, Not Editing One of the things mentioned in the book is that musicians just keep creating. When they get into a creative zone, they just keep going and not worry about editing it. The time for editing comes later. I think that’s remarkable as when you think about it, when you have a creative jam session in business, a lot of the time is spent on editing rather than creating. Whenever someone comes up with a new idea, it’s either immediately criticized or shut down. It’s rare that an idea is allowed to be built up by the person who mentioned it or someone else in the session.

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let us talk about the 14 reasons why you should not create a category. You believe in hustling – If you are one of those hustle porn believers, then you believe it’s all about hard work and more hard work. Hamsters in wheels hustle, but they never get anywhere. You Believe that the best brand wins – Microsoft spent billions of dollars putting their brand on retail stores, and had their ass handed to them. Google tried to compete head-on with Facebook with Google Plus, and got their ass handed to them. So if you believe the best brand wins, don't create a category. You believe the best product wins – This mindset means you’re aiming for market share instead of creating one. If you like to change “strategy” often, you should not create a category. If you’re a mercenary, not a missionary – That is to say, you’re only in it for the money. You think “re-branding” will drive growth – When a new CMO comes on board, I always look: is there a rebrand that comes out in the next six months? Because nine times out of ten, when a new CMO immediately rebranded the company, they have their head on backwards or up their ass, You believe in achieving “product/market fit” – There are a few phrases that have done the damage that that one has done because it tricks legendary marketers and entrepreneurs to thinking they should fit their product into a market. There's no legend that ever did that. “Go-to-market” sounds like a smart thing to do – In many ways, category design is about making the market come to you. You think category design is a marketing exercise – If you just want to do a marketing exercise, hire some marketing people to reshuffle some words in your website and call it the day. Category designers are expensive and hard to find – That's true, because they're in massive demand. You think you can win on quality, features, and price – Again, aiming for market share. If you believe that marketing products is smarter than marketing problems – Do you believe that you want to market your products, and not the problems? You probably shouldn't create a category. You think asking customers what they want is the best strategy – There are a lot of people who say that business is really not that hard. Just ask me what they want and give it to them.Well, in a blind taste test, 10 out of 10 people said that bottled water was bottled water, and before Évian, 10 out of 10 people said they wouldn't pay for it. So remember the sage words of Henry Ford: “If I'd ask people what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse.” You should not create a category because creating demand takes a lot more thinking than capturing demand. – It's easy to try and run some Google ads and try to capture demand. But the question is, or the issue is she who creates the demand wins. That's it, folks. Please stay safe. Stay legendary. And the quote I'll leave you with today says, “If you don't think you should create a category, then you probably shouldn't.” Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners.

This episode is based on the Category Pirates  Newsletter.  In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we continue our discussion on Native Digitals and the impact they are having on the way we live, work, and play. You might find this episode confusing if you haven’t checked out the last two episodes (LOM 116 & LOM 117). You should definitely check them out to be informed of what exactly are Native Digitals and their relevance. As for this episode, I will try and re-create some of my conversations with entrepreneurs, CEOs & VCs lately about the biggest sea-change in a very long time that is hiding in plain sight. Though for some reason, most people are not talking about it. Native Digitals vs Native Analogs Best I can tell Native Analogs (people who are over 35 years old) are pretty much asleep to a massive transformation. The fact that Native Digitals are the first generation of humans ever to grow up integrated with technology and have a digital life experience is lost to them. The problem with this is the disconnect between a company trying to move into the digital age, but still have Native Analogs for their CEO. Take for instance the WSJ article about working from home. Now that restrictions are lessening, most Native Analog bosses want their employees to be back in the office. Though Native Digitals think otherwise. “Many CEOs say their companies function best when employees can interact in person. (Though) Workers have indicated in surveys that they want greater flexibility about where and how they work.” – Wall Street Journal So Native Analog CEOs are saying you've got to come back to work. Though a lot of employees, a meaningful percentage of them, are millennials who want to continue working digitally from their homes. Native Digitals are even saying that they’d rather quit than go back to the old office system. So if you’re a company looking to hire after this new normal, working remote could very well be the signing bonus you can offer to these Native Digitals. On Digital Creation vs Digital Transformation The big AHA moment for me here is that this new category of humans are creating a new category of work. They’re not just being transformed digitally. It’s being created anew in the digital space. It’s not just creating an imitation of the office remotely, the remote digital space is their office. So this Native Digital versus Native Analog conversation has been coming up a lot with entrepreneurs and marketers. The reason behind this is it has profound implications for how we build companies, products, categories, and brands. “I think the first thing it means is if you're a Native Analog is that you got to start off by realizing you don't get it and you got to build a bridge to the Native Digitals. It's sort of like if you're a woman, you can empathize about what it might be like to be a man, but you will never truly get it. And of course, the opposite is true as well. ” – Christopher Lochhead In order to work together, we need to build bridges of understanding to really get some powerful things done. Because as somebody who is Native Analog who works with other Native Analogs and a lot of Native Digitals, there's something magical here when the two generations could come together. To hear more on how you can transform yourself to become more digital, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006,

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s have a very different conversation about your career. Here’s how you can take the plunge and achieve your “Personal IPO”. This episode is based on the Category Pirates ?‍☠️ Newsletter. The YOLO Economy Welcome to the YOLO economy. You’ve probably heard this term. It stands for You Only Live Once. That said, there’s certainly something really interesting going on. One of the powerful effects of the pandemic is that it has created a sort of a global existential life set of questions and redesign for many people. Millions of people around the world asking the same kinds of questions: Why do I do what I do? Does my work matter to me? Why do I live where I live? Am I making a difference in the world? How do I integrate my personal and professional life? I've always thought work/life balance was a broken paradigm. You only have one life and sometimes you’re working, sometimes you’re not. There’s really not a clear-cut way of dividing and “balancing” it. It all depends on your preference in the end. According to The New York Times, we are now in this thing called the YOLO economy, and people are saying, screw it and let's go YOLO. Taking the Plunge According to a study by Microsoft, more than 40 percent of the global workforce is considering leaving their employer this year.  Blind, an anonymous social network popular among tech workers, shares that 49 percent of its users are planning to land a new position in 2021. For most people, a good job, nice car, steady paycheck, and a house on the suburbs are no longer enough. “In the words of Loverboy, many are done “Working for the Weekend”. People want agency, choice, freedom, and meaning.” – Christopher Lochhead Your Personal IPO I think as a result of this pandemic, a lot of people are making a shift in their thinking. With all of that said, here are some ideas that might make a difference for you. One is to think about doing what you might call your personal IPO. And this is an idea that Maddie and Cole have been writing a bunch about. It's a strategy for finding deeply meaningful work, living a happy and successful and highly profitable life all at the same time. To those doubting this I say, Why not? Who said we couldn't have it all? And the sort of concept of a personal IPO is how can we successfully take control of our life and career while achieving agency? So let's address three big things: How much is agency worth to you? What are you working for that’s greater than a paycheck? Who is your Archimedes? Archimedes said, “If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world.” You don’t need the whole world to support you. You just need that one supporter, one client, one customer, or that one opportunity. Who is your Auctioneer? Who can advocate for you is your auctioneer. Your auctioneer is probably a friend, mentor, family member or former coworker. Someone who bolsters you with: “You need to charge 10x more!” Although sometimes, you have to be your own auctioneer. You need to dig deep, look them in the eye and say: “That will be .” In order to do so, you need to build your Personal IPO. Change your investor base from people who buy on past performance (your former employers) to people who buy on potential. Simply put, you’re swapping out “value investors” for “growth investors”. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Me...

This episode is based on the Category Pirates  Newsletter.  Welcome to a two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, where we talk about Native Digitals and the profound changes they are bringing to the way we live, work, and play. If you haven’t heard the first episode, why not check it out so you’ll have an idea of what’s going on with Native Digitals. To recap, there are about 140 million Native Digitals in the United States, and we are witnessing a new category of human beings emerge. One that is fully integrated with the technology for whom their digital life is their primary experience of life. That last bit puts companies that make “stuff” in a lot of trouble, because it turns out that most Native Digitals don’t want their “stuff” anymore. Which might put a serious dent on the economy, as roughly 30% of the U.S. GDP is in the “stuff” business. Stay tuned to learn more on how they are affected, and how they can adapt to this new market situation. What Native Digitals Think of “Stuff” Most millennials and Gen Z are what we call Native Digitals. They grew up in an era where they have observed that their parent’s pursuit of “stuff” did not really lead to as much meaning as they would’ve thought. Suddenly, getting a big house, driving a sports car, and having a lot of trinkets and expensive jewelry doesn’t seem like a priority anymore. This might be the reason why 74 percent of Americans now value experiences more than physical products. At the very least, the majority of millennials feel that way. Virtual products are now selling for more than their analog counterparts. This might sound stupid to most people who are Digital Analogs, but you have to realize that their primary experience and interactions are those in the digital space. An example of this is NFTs, which are Non-Fungible Tokens that certain digital artworks now use as a badge of authenticity. Not to mention cryptocurrency, that is slowly creeping into mainstream and becoming a primary “store of value”. Another reason for the lack of desire for “stuff” is that 70 percent of Millennials aren’t in a financial position to buy a house, even if they wanted to. Which means they don’t have a place to put their “stuff” anyways. Younger generations aren’t even prioritizing getting their licenses, which means less demands for cars and other vehicles. Lastly, Millennials would rather travel and have autonomy in their schedule than land a high-paying job. If you were a Gen Xer or a Baby Boomer, those statements would have probably driven you into a fit of anger and confusion. What is happening here is the biggest shift in the perceived value of “stuff”. If you’ll remember, nothing, not even human life, has any intrinsic value (LOM #105: Value is 100% Perception). “Stuff” Companies are in Trouble Knowing all this, if your company is in the “stuff” business, you might be in a bit of trouble. If you’re company is completely analog and doesn’t offer digital goods or services, you’ll probably be left behind. This macro trend is happening in plain sight. If your customers are 35 years or younger, they will progressively spend more time, energy, and money enhancing their digital life, themselves, and their careers through products, experiences, and what our friend Joe Pine, author of Experience Economy, calls transformations in your digital life. So let me say this again. Native Digital people under 35 will progressively spend more time, money, and energy enhancing their lives, their work, their play through digital experiences, products and transformations, not analog ones. Consequently, it's starting to look like analog only manufacturers as we know them today will be an ever-decreasing percentage of GDP. Said another way, “stuff”-only categories are going to continue to shrink. Which means that stuff manufacturers need to innovate around digital products, services, experiences and what Joe Pine calls transformations to go along with their physical stuff.

This episode is based on the Category Pirates ?‍☠️ Newsletter.  Welcome to a two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, where we talk about Native Digitals and the profound changes they are bringing to the way we live, work, and play. In this episode, let’s talk about how these younger folks, 140 Million of them in the United States, are the new category of human. These native digitals are the first to grow up completely integrated with technology. I think it has a profound meaning, and I also think that most people aren’t paying attention.   Native Analogs vs Native Digitals: Perceiving Reality While having my friends and their kids over one time, I’ve realized something different. While my friends and I are enjoying the beautiful sunset on the beach, the kids were doing something else. They were at their phones, talking to their friends or watching something online. Which seemed like a waste of a perfectly good sunset, though they did take a picture to post on social media. This got me thinking and gave me the idea: these kids are Native Digitals. It means that their primary experience of life is within the digital one, and their analog life is secondary. That is to say, the photo or video of the sunset is more important than the actual one, because they can show it off to their network. If you are like me, a Digital Analog, it’s the reverse. Though the insight that I had that morning after that sunset on the beach was quite interesting.   Who are the Native Digitals and Native Analogs? If you are 35 and above, you are most likely a Digital Analog. You value your life outside technology, and are one of the categories of human that exists today. If we are talking about generations, they fall under the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who were born in the early 80s or earlier. They make up approximately 136.8 million Americans. The second category are the Native Digitals. These are millennials and Gen Xers who are born between the early eighties and as recently as the 2010s. The high end of these folks are around thirty-five today and the low end are as young as six years old. Get this, they make up 140 million Americans.   Why is this Important? So there’s the great AHA. There are more Native Digitals right now in the United States. As time goes on, the gap between the population of Native Digitals and Native Analogs will widen. Yet it is our strong suspicion that both category of humans does not understand how profound this change is. It’s not just a normal generation stuff where the older generation has different trends than the newer one. One major difference is that Native Analogs think of technology as an add-on to their lives, and sometimes even a distraction. Whereas Native Digitals grew up where technology is a necessity and deeply tied to their daily lives. Hence why they think their digital lives and personas are more valuable than their physical ones. So why is this important? Because some of the biggest companies that are trying to appeal to Native Digitals are being run by Native Analogs. This causes a disconnect in their ideas, and might hurt their company in the long run, either by further showing their lack of comprehension. Or worse, being late to the punch in creating new categories that appeal to these new humans. It also extends to their company framework. While there are still benefits to having a physical office or venue for work, stubbornly clinging to a full office experience can be detrimental. Especially since the current situation has proved that working remotely is not only viable, but sometimes better. These are just some of the things to consider, and we would love to tackle it more in the 2nd part of these series. So think about this the next time you are looking into the sunset on a sandy beach: which type of human are you?   Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed sta...

Welcome to a special two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, where I answer two of the most important questions in my life and career. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, give it a listen here: 2 Legendary Questions (Part 1). Go on, we’ll wait. Now that you’re all set, here’s part two. Let’s go! The Legendary Question at the End of a Conversation If you are an avid listener of Follow Your Different, you have heard me ask this question multiple times. An old friend and mentor of mine named George Brown got me into asking the same question. It goes like this: “Is there anything else?” Now, why is that a powerful question, you might ask? First of all, if you went to Sales School, you know that there are two kinds of questions if you look at things on a higher level. There’s open probes and closed probes. A closed probe is a question designed to get a specific answer, while an open probe sort of leaves it to the one that was questioned. If you listen to me on Follow Your Different, I tend to ask more open questions. Those are all open probes and they're designed to elicit a lot of information. So generally, when you ask an open probe, hopefully you'll get more information from the person you're in communication with. Is There Anything Else? Now, as to why this particular question is so powerful in a conversation, particularly at the end, it’s like this: Often in any conversation, you get the most powerful information at the end. So when you ask someone if there is anything else, what you’re really saying to them is, “Hey, anything else on your mind?” This can elicit a feeling that they might not have given enough information before, and so it opens them up to share more, which you can then follow up with some close probing questions specific to the new information. You will notice how often that question blows something wide open and when it does. It’s also a good way to keep the conversation focused on a topic you might be interested in continuing the conversation on, rather than getting sidetracked by another topic. Particularly when the person turns the table and tries to turn the tables on you. All right. That's our two-part series on Legendary Questions, starting with “Is this legendary work?”/ “Do you think this is legendary work”, and finishing with “Is there anything else?” I hope you put these two legendary questions to good use. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Welcome to a special two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, where I answer two of the most important questions in my life and career. Are you curious as to what those questions are? Stay tuned to find out. My Favorite Question to Ask You need a bit of back story for the first question. In 2006, I was the head of marketing for a software company called Mercury Interactive. By June of that year, we sold the company for Hewlett-Packard for 4.5 billion dollars, which was a sizeable amount back then. So as part of the transition to HP, our team met with the team in charge of marketing for the announcement of the acquisition. The marketing strategy was being handled by a famous ad agency; one you’d probably recognize if I describe one of their projects. After we made our introductions, the head of HP marketing asked me if I had any questions before they start with the presentation. So I asked them a question: “Do you think what you are about to show us is legendary work?” That question made them pause for a bit, and the head of said ad agency looked at the head of HP marketing and said, “Can we have two more days?” Good on them for realizing that they could do better, but it would’ve been better if they gave it their 100% in the first place. Setting the Bar High So one of my favorite questions to ask at the beginning of any meeting where somebody is about to show you something. On this case, it was ad creative, but it could be anything. It could be a product prototype, a marketing plan, or a category design. It could even be the justification for why we should buy Company X. Whatever the thing is that they're about to present, my favorite question to ask before that is, do you think this work? That is to say, the work they're about to show is legendary. What I learned over time is if you want to set a high bar for excellence in your organization, it's interesting to find out where other people's bar for excellence is. Because if they don't bother to show you their best or legendary self, then why would you want to see it? Now, it’s a different situation when you have something that is a work in progress, and need help in making it legendary. In which case, I ask this question instead: “Do you think we’re off to a legendary start?” Though if you are presenting something that you think is final or close to the final work, you’ll always get the same question from me: “Do you think this is legendary work?” If you want to learn more about my two legendary questions, listen to this episode and check out part two coming soon! Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Welcome to this very special episode of Lochhead on Marketing, on what is the week of Play Bigger, my first book’s fifth anniversary of publication. Recently on Follow Your Different, we had on Captain Paul Watson, who is the co-founder of Greenpeace and the founder of Sea Shepherd. Sufficed to say, Captain Paul is vey mission driven. Some would call him a saint, while others call him an eco-terrorist. What I could tell you for sure is that Captain Paul, like almost every other legendary person, is “kind of crazy”. We also want to share with you something that Churchill famously said, and that is to “Never give up on something you can’t go a day without thinking about”. Now, what Churchill didn’t say is what you should do if the thing that you can’t stop thinking about makes you batshit crazy. Even worse, what do you do if the thing that you can't stop thinking about isn't really something that you think about? It's something that thinks you that is to say, it owns you. So in this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, the fifth anniversary of Play Bigger coming out, let's talk about the difference between being passionate and possessed and what that means. What Comes After Thinking It Churchill once said, “Never give up on something you can’t go a day without thinking about.” What he didn’t say is what you should do if that thing drives you nuts. Is this thing that's driving you nuts? The difference between choosing a passion and being possessed? Now that you’re thinking about it, what if you really can’t stop thinking about it all the time? In the end, all you could do is embrace it and call it your own. What happens after that? What happens if when you share it with people eight out of 10 times, they think you're nuts or you fail? Now imagine if that something causes you to fail 8 times out of 10 for 30 years, then what do you do? It’s daunting, right? So what if I tell you that this is a big part of my story? For me, my something was Category Design. This week is actually the 5th anniversary of my book Play Bigger, which introduced Category Design to the world. What I have rarely talked about is the fact that Play Bigger was my last-ditch effort to try to make category design land. It was my last effort to try to make it have value and impact at any kind of scale for entrepreneurs, for creators, for innovators of any kind. I figured it would fail. I didn't want it to fail, but I figured it would be because 30 years of a two hundred batting average would kind of give that to you. Well, it turns out Play Bigger didn't fail. If you read it or shared it, I want to thank you very much, because your efforts put Play Bigger into the top one percent of books in the business book category. There is No Cheat to Success I wish I could tell you that having a legendary product will automatically lead it to success. It doesn’t. This was also the case when I talked about Category Design before. Entrepreneurs and other business leaders would either misinterpret it as just another marketing or watered-down messaging, which is actually one of my least favorite words in marketing. What also irked me is when Hustle Porn Stars sell you the idea of how to be successful instantly. You just need to follow X, Y, and Z to achieve your goals. Based on experience, it never is as easy as that. Take it from someone who fell for it and have learned his lesson the hard way. “There is no shortcut to success. There's no such thing as a 4-hour work week. All that stuff about hacks and hustle porn, motivational garbage is a lie, and I'm no liar.” – Christopher Lochhead Sure, there are some people who get born rich or born beautiful and there are some people who win the lottery. But success in life is not about that. So I wanted to share with you what it really took, what it took to make Play Bigger and everything that's come since then successful was approximately two thousand five hundred and fifty five days. That's seven years. Play Bigger

These days, we hear a non-stop barrage of career advice. Some of them is good, but a lot of them are not. In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about what might be the only career advice that matters. Relationships, Marriages, and Divorce By now, you may have heard of Bill and Melinda Gates are getting a divorce, and that Jeff Bezos and McKenzie Scott got divorced a couple of years ago. You might be wondering why we brought this up. You see, these people are some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs and biggest philanthropists ever. According to hustle porn stars and business advice gurus, these are the people we should aspire to be. Yet for whatever reason, their marriage didn’t work out. While there is merit to saying that sometimes divorcing doesn’t mean it failed, but just ran its likely course, it does make you wonder. “The reality is if your personal life isn't working, all the money in the world can't save you.” – Christopher Lochhead Living a Legendary Life Which brings us to the second point: the decision about who your significant other or partner is going to be is arguably the biggest decision that you will make. Because when it works, it is the foundation for designing a legendary life. If it doesn’t work, everything just seems out of place. So we should ask ourselves: are we designing our life around our work or our work around our life? While this is not necessarily a binary decision, most people would want to live a legendary life. “I think what most of us want is we want to have a legendary life. And whether we're working or in our marriage, our primary relationship or with our family and friends, we want to have what you might think of as a 360-degree life.” – Christopher Lochhead   Getting Things Right Herein lies the question: is it possible to get everything right all the time? Of course not. Though in general, it is what most of us are trying to do. In that context, our work sits inside of our non-work life. So if you're somebody who's been working too hard, work 80 to 100 hours a week and travel two to four hundred thousand miles a year on a plane, here's a career advice. Ask yourself: what am I working for? We're living at a time of massive personal self-examination that has been brought on by the pandemic. We recently wrote a Category Pirates about this, how people are going YOLO, YOLO being an expression for you only live once. Now is a time for consideration. And I think what these high-profile divorces tell us as somebody who's been divorced myself, is that it's time to consider our work in the context of our lives. Links A Very “Different” Approach To A Legendary Career: YOLO And Achieve Your Personal IPO Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Welcome to a special episode of Lochhead of Marketing. What you’re about to hear are the thoughts of one of the smartest people in Silicon Valley on Category Design. He is the entrepreneur turned venture capitalist Mike Maples, Jr. Mike Maples, Jr. Is the co-founder of Floodgate Capital. Floodgate has led early-stage investments in companies like Twitter, Lyft, and much more. Recently, I had the pleasure of showing up as a guest on Mike’s podcast. Usually after the guest podcast, he does a shorter episode where he synthesizes what he thinks he has learned from the guest. Today’s episode is just that. Listen to Mike Maples, Jr. as he shares his thoughts on category design for entrepreneurs. With that said, let’s get into it. Being a Legendary Entrepreneur “Why do I, as an entrepreneur, want to begin category design at the beginning? Because you want to be 80 percent of a multi-billion dollar market that you created, that you design. And that makes you almost impossible to catch.” - Christopher Lochhead Mike starts off by quoting a quote from the episode. This quote pretty much sums up why someone aiming to be a legend should do category design right from the onset. Legendary companies are born from extraordinary startups building breakthrough products that change the future. Though you don’t always have to start from scratch. Few entrepreneurs and businesses realize that there's a third lever to pull on the path to greatness: creating a category to add to the confusion. Category Design vs Branding Mike is aware that a lot of people are still not clear as to what Category Design is. Some confuse it with branding; some marketing ploy that can help your product resonate without actually changing the product. “Category design could be confused with getting the right marketing slogan or the right three letter acronym like CRM or ERP or some other type of message that will hopefully resonate. Or we make the mistake of believing it's a message you use to describe your business after you've achieved product market fit. But it's far more than that.” - Mike Maples, Jr. Traditional Marketing vs Breakthrough Startup Mike gives a brief explanation of how Traditional Marketing works. Simply put, they are more concerned on fighting for market share of their current category. Think marketing battles between Pepsi and Coke. Conventional Startups tend to think along the same lines. Whereas Breakthrough Startups try to create new categories to dominate in, making sure that they are the Kings of the Category before anyone else grabs a share of the market. In a world of marketing slogans blaring at you left and right, having your own category lets you avoid the need to seek attention to compete. All you have to do is to show people that your new category is worth it, and the market will do the rest. “All of us, including your future customers, employees and any potential believers, live in a very confusing and noisy world. Your startup won't have a chance to get people to remember much about you and why you matter. So you have to be really clear on what you want people to know about you and only you, why it matters and why they should join your cause. The way to do this is not to talk about jargon, buzz words, or what Christopher Lochhead calls why my carbondigulator is better. Category design is about avoiding the comparison game. It's not about being the best, it's about being the only one in the category.” - Mike Maples, jr. To hear more from Mike Maples, Jr. and his insights on category design for entrepreneurs, download and listen to this episode. Bio Mike Maples, Jr. is the Co-Founder and Partner at Floodgate, the host of the Starting Greatness podcast and a Co-conspirator with awesome Startup Founders. Links Connect with Mike! Twitter: @m2jr LinkedIn: in/Maples Podcast: Starting Greatness Website: Floodgate We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners.

With Category Design or Category Creation strategy, we often talk about the distinction between capturing existing demand, and creating new demand. In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about an in-between strategy that category designers use as a powerful tool in creating demand. That is to dam existing demand and redirect it in their own way, like the way a dam redirects water. Damming the Demand Marc Benioff, found of Salesforce.com, used this approach when marketing his new category. Bear in mind that when he launched Salesforce Automation as a CRM, CRM was already an established category. What made Benioff legendary is how he redirected the CRM traffic to Salesforce. All it took was an idea: Sure, you want CRM, but you don’t want one that’s only available on-premise. Cloud CRM is where it’s at. By adding a modifier to CRM, he dammed the demand for the old category and redirected it to his own. He’s creating a difference that did not exist in the minds of the market. Most importantly, he creates a new choice for them. Expanding Your Reach Much like Salesforce, Peloton did the exact same thing and ran away with it. They offered an alternative to boutique fitness in the form of home fitness. Yet again, it’s a choice that the market did not anticipate would have a demand. Peloton harnessed that demand and redirected it to their new category. From there, they expanded it from Spin classes to treads. Eventually, they added home classes for Yoga, Pilates, and other activities usually reserved for group boutique fitness. The use of the term Home Fitness created a demand that wasn't there before. It's like creating the void yourself and filling it up with your own category creation. Tried and Tested in Category Creation It turns out damming demand has been around for a long time. Henry Ford did the same thing with his new category back then. He dammed the demand for a horse and buggy with his new category name. His new innovative category? It was the horseless carriage. The same could be said for Marty Cooper and his wireless phone, which lead to the mobile phone category. “Sometimes, new categories are named by what they are not. And when a category is named by what it is not, the category designer is purposely trying to dam demand.” – Christopher Lochhead While Microsoft did not follow this model, they nonetheless created a new demand from existing categories. They did so by combining their word processor, presentation, and spreadsheet application into a bigger category that is Microsoft Office. Now, you don’t have to buy each software separately, and most consumers expect other companies that offer the same services to also have everything in one whole bundle. So when you’re designing a new category, ask yourself: Where is existing demand that we can dam to drive revenue in the near term? Afterwards, how do we leverage the demand in the existing category to expand the demand of our own category design? Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let’s talk about how to stand out. In many ways, if you want to do legendary marketing, you need to do what the opposite of what most people do. Doing the Opposite As part of the mega category people refer to as Creators, there was something that we’ve noticed: People spend a lot of time telling other people how awesome they are. When you start looking at creator marketing, what you’ll see is a lot of creators just touting their best achievements and how great they are. Ergo, you should consume the content they create so you can share in his glory, or something. So what did we do? First of all, we do very little paid advertising. Recently, our friends at Podcast Magazine ran their annual edition that has a directory of all the top podcasts. What we did was buy a full-page ad in it. Though rather than your usual positive reviews and highlights, we ran it featuring negative reviews. “We ran an ad featuring negative reviews: “Off-putting to some” from The Economist and The Fall. “Annoying host uses profanity needlessly”, and “Very disappointing”. So imagine a photo of myself with those big headlines next to me.” – Christopher Lochhead   Follow Your Different You might be asking: Why do this? John Bielenberg talks about how he’s always looking for the dog with the red hat. In other words, he’s looking for ways in order to stand out. At a time where people are bombarded with information from all sides, people have learned to tune things out. So if they see something that’s pretty much the same as any other information they’ve seen before, they pay less attention to it. Yet if something different suddenly comes along, say a dog with a red hat, you’d immediately notice it. Because it’s new and it’s not something you see every day. So I would encourage people to do the opposite of everyone else and stand out amongst the crowd. “In our case here with this ad, the creator industry is stuffed with what I would call self-congratulatory influencers and hustle porn stars. They are all very busy breaking their arms, patting themselves on the back. So we said, what's the opposite? Well, the opposite is running an ad with negative reviews in it.” – Christopher Lochhead   Things that Drive Us If you’re not convinced or still wondering why we did all this, here are seven key things that were driving us… sort of. It was Funny It’s Different It's Provocative This is a first in #podcasting Category designers force a choice, not a comparison Knowing who is NOT your customer, is more important than know who IS your customer I want to empower all creators to say "fuck the haters!" We share that story with you to encourage you to think in broad and unconventional ways before you're going to take on any marketing or advertising. Ask yourself: “what's the opposite of what everyone else would do here? What's provocative? What's funny?”  You ask yourself, “what is everybody in our industry doing? What is the exact opposite of that?” You don't have to do exactly the opposite. Just map it out and see what others are not doing, and eventually new ideas will probably emerge. As you're looking for those new ideas, start with what's the opposite. Do what John Bielenberg suggests, and go find your dog with a red hat. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the foundi...

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let us talk about some advice for 30 year old marketers. I have been asked this question a bunch of times, so I just put together my response as a LinkedIn post. A lot of people though it was a great list, so I thought I’d share it with you. Making the List As said earlier, this list was originally a LinkedIn post, and it’s a list of practical advice for 30 year old marketers. There were some who asked if it was in a certain order, and one outright challenged me to do so. I did not want to do that because I wanted to present them as ideas. Because what might be important for me might not be for others. Sure enough in the comments, different things on the list resonated with different people. Though there is an argument to be made about creating lists in certain order, so as to elicit something close to a call to action. “It seems we live in a world of prescriptions, where people want to do lists and more and more inane sort of business and marketing advice. You know, the seven things Elon Musk does before breakfast. And we've gotten to a place where a lot of content about business, about self-help, about marketing is very pablumatic and sort of at a prescription level, do this, do that, etc.” – Christopher Lochhead While we do create prescription type articles, mostly on what you should and shouldn’t do, that’s not how we work most of the time. Our job is to give people ideas, and with those ideas, they can come up with different combinations or new ways to approach things. We feel that having something close to a to-do list hinders that process. The Advice for 30 Year Old Marketers That said, here’s the list of Advice for 30 Year Old Marketers, in no particular order: Do legendary work Position yourself or be positioned You're not too young to be a CMO, or start a company Stop giving a shit about what other people think of you, it’s a trap Thinking about thinking is the most important thinking Most marketers have been recruited into the cult of the brand Categories make brands, not the other way around Marketers who create new demand, are most in demand They are called category designers Nobody legendary is working on their “personal brand” The most influential people in the world are not “influencers” Only work on legendary teams If your company is not going to be a category queen, quit Be very careful who’s content you consume 90% of what we get taught about marketing is BS Learn to write Make friends with other Superstar 30 year old’s One day, you might rule the world together It goes by fast, soak up every second Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Welcome to the second of a special two-part series here on Lochhead on Marketing called, “Did the Roaring 2020s Just Start?” In this episode, we talk about the Economy. We believe there is a chance we could be heading into a time of unprecedented economic growth. For a year now, a Categorynado of newness has been gaining momentum. There has never been a higher receptivity to new “stuff”. Now of course I’m no economist, but I thought it would be powerful to connect some dots on some critical data points in our economy through the category lens. This two-part series is based on a recent letter published in Category Pirates, my newsletter with co-pirates Eddie Yoon and Nicolas Cole. Go check it out today! Drawing Parallels Before we get to the 2020s, let’s talk about the roaring 1920s, and the parallels to what we are experiencing today. At the time it was the end of a pandemic, there was an explosion of new technology, and there was a rocking and raging stock market as well as an explosion of new categories. There were also political and international tensions on proving who was the best that drove development. Fast forward to today, and we are experiencing the same thing. Only instead of television and vacuum cleaners, our new categories involve AI, Robotics, and information technology. “That's what was going on in the 1920s. So for example, electric blenders televisions and vacuum cleaners were categories that took off. Now let's think about what's going on in the 2020s. Same thing with the pandemic. Of course, same thing with technology and new categories. Only this time around the new categories are things like AI, video communications, robots, self-learning, robot vacuums, citizen space travel, the electrification of everything and digital Education, telemedicine.” – Christopher Lochhead   Bannister Breakthroughs are Everywhere We’ve talked about Bannister Breakthroughs in part one of the Roaring 2020s, and how we see it all around us nowadays. Strangely enough, the 1920s also had a lot of Bannister Breakthrough moments. There was an explosion of new categories and ideas brought about by the limitation of the pandemic. Electricity became widespread to households, new innovations in the automobile industry drove down prices, which brought about various lifestyle and economic impacts. Mail order became a booming category, and companies like Sears. Roebuck and Co. became category kings in this regard. If you look at how things are today, it is eerily similar yet slightly different at the same time. E-Commerce is booming, and there has been a drive for more efficient electric devices like e-bikes and robo-vacuums. Of course, there’s also Tesla paving the way for developing electronic hybrid cars. Experts are predicting that another ‘roaring 20s’ is in the making. The Wall Street Journal reported that analysts have increased their economic growth forecast for 2021 to 5.95% The last time the U.S. economy hit a growth rate anything like that was in 1984.   Looking at the Tailwinds Let's take a look at some major tailwinds that we can see on the horizon. First of all, cash. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that, “US companies are sitting on the largest pile of cash ever”. Furthermore, according to Investor’s Business Daily, “Nine companies in the S&P 500, including Goggle, Apple, and Microsoft, each hold a net cash of 5 Billion apiece or more. Together, these companies hold a total of $325 billion”. Simply put, there's a lot of cash in corporations sitting on the sidelines waiting to get deployed. On the consumer side of things, consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, jumped 2.4% last month, according to Reuters. The Wall Street Journal reports, “consumer spending has nearly returned to pre COVID-19 levels. The average personal incomes of US households, surpassed pre pandemic levels in September.” Not to mention all the money being pumped back to the economy via the new Bi...

Welcome to a special two-part series on Lochhead on Marketing called, “Did the Roaring 2020s Just Start?” In this episode, we talk about the Bannister Breakthroughs, and how its influence can be seen everywhere today. We believe there is a chance we could be heading into a time of unprecedented economic growth. We’ll get to the specifics of it in part 2, but for this episode, let’s talk about how category breakthroughs can lead to even more category breakthroughs. If we play our cards right, we might be living at the greatest time for new innovation in history! This two-part series is based on a recent letter published in Category Pirates, my newsletter with the legendary co-pirates Eddie Yoon and Nicolas Cole. Breaking Through the Limits On May 6th 1954, a young British land named Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. Before the feat was achieved, this was deemed impossible or only doable under the right circumstances. Yet Bannister broke records and expectations by doing it his way. The Harvard Business Review published a terrific summary of the story: “The four-minute barrier stood for decades — and when it fell, the circumstances defied the confident predictions of the best minds in the sport. Experts believed they knew the precise conditions under which the mark would fall. It would have to be in perfect weather — 68 degrees and no wind. On a particular kind of track — hard, dry clay, and in front of a huge, boisterous crowd urging the runner on to his best-ever performance. But Bannister did it on a cold day, on a wet track, at a small meet in Oxford, England, before a crowd of just a few thousand people.” Roger Bannister’s achievement served as the breakthrough that led to more breakthroughs in the world of competitive running. Only 46 days later, the “impossible” record was broken again. A year after that, three runners broke the four-minute mile in a single race. Much like Bannister, legendary innovators and category designers make the impossible possible. While it may seem mundane now — like Bannister’s four-minute breakthrough, it still serves as a catalyst for others to believe that something impossible could be done. It makes people receptive to the idea that there is a possibility that they can explore which leads to a different future. Creating a Before and After The results of a Bannister Breakthrough or creating a revolutionary category always creates a before and after. People who bear witness to both sides are changed as a result. They either embrace it, or find new ways and breakthroughs themselves. “Category designers, innovators, entrepreneurs, that's what they do. They create a before and after they change reality, they make new possibilities into new realities.” - Christopher Lochhead Category designers create a before and after they change reality, they make new possibilities into new realities. In Rogers' case, he smashed an imaginary what seemed like an immovable milestone. His breakthrough, like all legendary breakthroughs, opened up others to ask, “What else is possible?” Bannister Breakthroughs Everywhere Fast forward to today, where you can see Bannister breakthroughs happening everywhere. With information at our fingertips, you’ll see people come up with new categories to solve things others didn’t know they even needed up until today. For a more relatable example, having a large-scale remote workforce wasn’t deemed possible before. It was always a means for emergency access to work for some, and usually only available for managerial roles. Yet within the span of a year, we’ve seen businesses thrive in full-remote or hybrid setups worldwide. As these breakthroughs continue to happen, just like back in Roger’s days, there are three categories of people: “There are the people who make the change. There are the people who sit there and go, “oh look, something just changed”. And there are people who say, “What the fuck, did something happen?” - Christopher Lochhead

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead talks about value, and how it is 100% dependent on people’s perception. That is to say, nothing has any intrinsic value until someone believes it has value. You can also learn about one of the greatest stories about how an entrepreneur and category designer created value, that is to say, the perception of value for a product that left a lot of people scratching their heads. Gary’s Pet Rock Gary Dahl and his pet rock is an amazing study on how people assign value to something based on their perception. In 1975, Gary Dahl thought it would be funny to sell pet rocks. He never would’ve thought that this funny running gag would sweep the nation, selling roughly 1.5 million pet rocks at $3.95 a pop. Christopher remembers his sister wanting to join in the fad, so he offered to catch her a pet rock himself. “I remember this well. I was a kid at the time and my sister wanted one, and I remember exactly what I said at the time: “Well, if you like, I'll go outside and catch you a wild one.” “- Christopher Lochhead Was it a weird fad? Probably. Yet it wasn’t the first of its kind, and certainly not the last crazy fad people subscribed to. Value is in the Perception While it may seem silly that Gary Dahl managed to sell that many pet rocks, but how he marketed it was nothing short of genius. He packaged it in a colorful box that even had holes so your pet rock can “breathe”. There was even a comprehensive manual on how you can take care of your pet rock, which just adds to the hilarity of it all. Basically, Gary Dahl assigned a value to his pet rocks. As a Category Designer and some brilliant marketing, he made people perceive the Pet Rock as something of value. All due to the story he weaved to back it up. So what does this teach us? For Christopher it means that nothing is intrinsically valuable. That value is 100 percent a perception. “If you're a regular listener, you've heard me and you've heard Jason talking about these new NFTs in the digital space: people selling digital products at extraordinary prices. Jason made the comment that his dad is in the art business and he grew up in that business. In his words, what sells a painting is a story. And so what makes something valuable is that people perceive it as valuable.” - Christopher Lochhead Creating Value Out of Nothing Legendary category designers are legendary because they create new perceptions of value. They establish the belief that something is valuable when that belief did not exist before. So as category designers, the challenge is to change people’s perception about your product or services. If you are successful, you can create something valuable… out of nothing. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead talks about language. Specifically, a concept that most entrepreneurs and marketers don't know much about: Languaging.   Languaging and Creating Context Languaging is the strategic use of words and language to change and create the future. As any category designer worth their salt should know, how you frame a category could make or break them. Having a great context for your category is a must if you want to be ahead of the pack. What better way to add a strategic context than to use statements that will make customers relate to your category. If you do it right, even just one sentence can propel you to the top.   Language and Differentiation Christopher uses MP3s and Apple iPods to make his point. In the early 2000s, MP3 players had already been in the market for almost half a decade. Yet a lot of people were not using them, and a bigger portion of the population doesn’t even know what it was. So when Apple launched the iPod in 2001, they had to find a way to get people to switch from their Walkmans to their new product. To do this, Apple used strategic languaging to distinguish iPod from other MP3 players by calling it a digital music player. That's differentiation. To drive it all home, they have this one-sentence slogan that resonates with consumers. One thousand songs in your pocket. On his first Apple iPod press release, Steve Jobs made it very, very clear that Apple was absolutely designing a new category with its new product. It wasn’t just another MP3 player. He said: “With iPod Apple has reinvented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go. With iPod listening to music will never be the same again.” - Steve Jobs Apple redesigned the category and ran away with it by putting the technology in a context people could understand.   Frame it and Name it It is important to note that language we use to describe something changes the thing, the way people see and value the thing. So what does this mean for category designers? Legendary category designers frame it and name it. Legendary category designers can and do change the future with one sentence. If you start listening for languaging, which you could think of as the strategic use of words and language to change thinking, you'll start to notice it more often. “Remember, a demarcation point in language creates a demarcation point in thinking which creates a demarcation point in perceived value, and action.” - Christopher Lochhead   Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In the last episode, Christopher popped the hood on digital products, more specifically about NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens. As you may know, a 10-second GIF recently just sold for $6.6M. This was due to NFTs. Now, there are other companies and celebrities jumping in on it. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, is now auctioning off the first tweet for $2.5M, as of this taping. Rock band Kings of Leon is set to be the first band releasing a record as an NFT. These cyber collectibles are taking off and having a profound impact. Yet our producer, Jason DeFillippo, has some questions.  Jason is the greatest of all time in podcast producers, and he's worked with Tim Ferriss, Jordan Harbinger and many others. He also hosts one of the greatest podcasts ever, Grumpy Old Geeks. He also has a lot of experience in the art world, as he worked with his dad for a long time.  Jason has an opinion about NFTs, and he and Christopher talk about that, Clubhouse, and a bunch of other fun things. Digital Products have been Here Forever Jason DeFillippo comments about Christopher’s statement about digital products and NFTs being a category-defining moment. For someone who has played online games like Jason, digital products have been around since the early 2000s. People have been buying and selling digital items to use in-game, and there’s even a whole industry built on farming in-game currency for it. As for NFTs, Jason doesn’t see the purpose to all of it other than being a rich man’s game. It’s like buying a pet rock, but at least with the pet rock you get a rock for your troubles. “We had this kind of shit back in the day, 10 years ago, and we would buy digital items, we would buy digital clothes, we would mine gold. It was Bitcoin before there was Bitcoin, and it was just a bunch of nerds sitting around killing orcs. There was a purpose to the NF T's back then, because it was all in-game. Now we have all of the crap that you know was the digital stuff, but no game to play. Today’s NF T is one of those things that to somebody like myself with a highly tuned bullshit detector made my head explode.” - Jason DeFilliippo On Digital Natives Buying Digital Products Christopher asks if it makes sense that native digital people are buying more digital products than physical ones. Jason thinks it is, but it again depends on the purpose of the purchase. It depends on the context of why they bought the item, either to make their digital home look better, or have the best weapon for a game they’re playing. Again, NFTs miss the mark in this regard. Jason thinks that this $6.6M purchase just got overhyped because people are looking for excitement. That, and because it is attached to blockchain. So people who are looking for the next big thing are suddenly scrambling to see if NFTs fit the bill. According to Jason, it doesn’t. “That's the problem with it. It doesn't make any sense. I think it's a fad. This has all of the hallmarks of us being stuck inside for far too long. We need something to excite us. It's on the blockchain. You know, if they could just sprinkle in some AI, we would have like a BS trifecta here.” - Jason DeFillippo Why is Clubhouse a Thing? Christopher and Jason discuss the app Clubhouse, and why it’s even a thing. For one thing, the features it has is already present in various other apps, like Discord and other online voice chat software. What makes it weirder is that it is trying to bring back the feeling of radio, something that podcasts have killed a long time ago. The appeal to some comes from the fact that it is invite-only. Though that in itself is not a unique feature, as Jason points out. There are a lot of apps that can just integrate such features into their own well-established ones. It's why Jason thinks that Clubhouse will come to a quick demise soon. “My buddy John Wall of Marketing Over Coffee was quick to point out that as a creator, there's no value here. First of all, I got to be Live.

In October 2020, a 10-second video clip sold for $67,000. Just recently, that same 10-second video sold for $6.6 Million. This selling of a piece of digital art changed the future… and most people didn’t even notice. This new category design could have profound implications in the art world of art –  and soon, everywhere else! So in this episode, Christopher Lochhead talks about digital-exclusive products, how it can be the next mega-category, and how it can affect your business and brand in the future.   Prioritizing Your “Real Life” As the age of digitization continues to evolve, people find themselves becoming more invested in their digital life. If you’re between thirty or thirty-five, you’re probably a digital native. Everyone below that are definitely digital natives: those who spend most of their time online and connected digitally. The big AHA moment here for Christopher is that digital natives prioritize their digital life more than their physical life. It is almost as if their digital life is their “real life”, therefore it has more value for them. “If you're a digital native, the AHA here is your digital life is more important than your physical life. If you're a digital native, you're having the opposite experience that someone like me. Someone who believes my primary experience in life is a physical one, but it’s supplemented with a rich digital life. But if you're my buddies and their kids, your real life is the digital life and the ocean and the sunset are an interruption to your real life. That was a profound moment for me. I understood at that moment the difference between digital natives and non-digital natives were 180 degrees different.” – Christopher Lochhead   Digital-Exclusive Products as a Mega Category Digital products have been around for quite some time. There are games that sell digital clothes to make your avatar look good or play better. However, this 10-second digital media clip that sold for $6.6 million dollars in an NFTE auction classifies as category design. This new art category design is changing the definition of the category of what it means to be an artist and what a piece of art means in the digital age.  Art is now a new digital category; it's not only physical anymore. Who's to say that other products won't follow suit in the future? “In the past, people would pay six point six million dollars for a painting, not a bunch of zeros and ones. This is a way bigger development than somebody paying a few dollars to buy a digital tractor or a rifle in a video game. Someone paid over six fucking million dollars for some zeros and ones, and those zeros and ones are artificially being restricted. In this case, they paid that money so they'd be the only people in the world to have those zeros and ones.” - Christopher Lochhead All of these circle back to digital natives and how they prioritize things. It is why you see people being reluctant to buy a car but willingly fork over money for a digital vehicle in an app. They want to live out their best lives in their perceived “real life”. “If you're a digital native, your digital life by default is more important and more valuable to you than your physical life. If that's true, it stands to reason that digital native's want to buy shit for their digital native selves and they'll buy things in their digital world that they wouldn't buy in their physical world.” - Christopher Lochhead   Should You Ride the Digital Wave? So what does that mean for companies and their corresponding categories and brands? Well, if you want to stay ahead of the pack, you need to step back and think about the increasing role of people's digital lives in the market. Especially in the new marketing landscape that COVID has wrought, where people live in a digital workplace in a way that they didn't before. “I think we have to ask ourselves: is there an opportunity and or threat for our categories, brands and businesses in a world where people's digital life is their...

This episode talks about the Category Design Scorecard and how you can use it to spot a Category Designer. It also breaks down how you can evaluate a company's ability to create a new category or redesign an existing one. Christopher and his Category co-pirates, Eddie Yoon and Nicholas Cole, just unveiled this new Category Design Scorecard. It is based on a tremendous amount of primary research, and they can't wait to share it with all of you. How the Category Design Scorecard Came to be The episode starts off by explaining why they created the Category Design Scorecard. Christopher, Eddie, and Nicholas wanted something that can distinguish a company that is a category designer or creator from a high growth company fighting tooth and nail for market share in their existing category. We analyzed Fortune magazine's 100 fastest-growing companies list for over a decade. Were there certain things that companies are trying to design and dominate a new category? They were easily distinguishable from other high growth companies due to certain things they said. So we picked the Fortune 100 fastest growers list over a decade. What we discovered as we began to dig into the data are five key indicators. Those five key indicators distinguished category designers from other successful companies. - Christopher Lochhead The Five Components of the Category Design Scorecard Christopher then enumerates the five components of their new Category Design Scorecard, and they are as follows: 1. Category POV Does the company have a clear “Point of View” of their category? Are they able to frame a powerful problem, articulate a compelling vision, and most importantly, communicate the core compromises, trade-offs, and problems inherent to the way the category is today, but in such a way that the consumer/customer will be open to a new and different approach. Category designers have a very specific way of doing it; which is they are going after something that they see as a noble cause, a noble purpose, or a giant problem worth solving. It's either a problem that we didn't know that we had, that they're educating us about, or it's an existing problem that they meaningfully reimagine it in a new context. - Christopher Lochhead  2. Future Category Reimagined and Without Compromise Does the company cast a compelling future — free of any fundamental problems, compromises, and trade-offs inherent to the category as it is today? We've learned a lot from our friend Joe Pine, who is one of the co-authors of The Experience Economy. One of the things that he teaches us is that companies that are successful in doing this transform their customers, transform their partners, and as a result of bringing new things to the world, they generate a tremendous amount of abundance. So the second criteria is, are they articulating a future category in a reimagined way without compromise? If they do, can the future category break new grounds and get us an exponential kind of future? - Christopher Lochhead  3. Radically Different Offer + Business Model How does this new category get delivered to the customer? Is it both through a breakthrough product/service/offer, but also through a breakthrough business model? How does product innovation and business model innovation come together in a way where 1 + 1 = 11?  There has to be something radically different about either the product offer, the business model, or both. - Christopher Lochhead  4. The Data Flywheel Does the company generate data about customer/consumer with demand/preferences that creates a unique opportunity and advantage to anticipate the future of consumer demand and any category shifts? Will this Data Flywheel provide insight into not only how to improve company offerings, but predict where demand for this new category will unfold next? One of the big insights in Superconsumers is a relatively small percentage of the most enthusiastic consumers are customers that drive any category change.

Stories are incredibly powerful. It is legendary. People fall in love based on the stories they tell themselves about each other. People go to war and start countries over stories. Furthermore, when stories are used to design a category and a brand, it creates massive enduring value. In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we talk to the guru of the business of story himself, Park Howell, to educate us on how to construct legendary marketing stories and how story marketing and category design actually come together. Park also shares his fantastic thoughts on nursery rhymes and the Gettysburg address. What Marketers Get Wrong About Storytelling Most marketers are not award-winning screenwriters, they’re not great at long-form content like in Hollywood and Pixar. Park discusses how marketing comes down to just three words, one framework that is built on: and, but, and therefore (ABT). This perfect three-act structure is a complete customer framework that will allow the connection to the customer on an empathetic level and help develop the contrast in their problems. “I've learned that this framework hooks the subconscious of your audience, which is always looking for this fight or flight. It’s a problem-solution dynamic that you are playing to the natural way your audience's brain creates meaning. Now what a lot of people do is they start with the problem in the ‘and’ statement. Start with the aspiration, what is it that your customer wants and then insert the problem in your ‘but’ statement. Therefore, here's my solution on how to help you get that. And the trick here is to have as much contrast between that aspiration and that problem as possible. A short, succinct, and specific contrast. If you do that, your audience will give you all the time you need in your therefore solution.” - Park Howell How to End Up with A Captivating Story Park encourages everyone to start in the middle through the ‘but’ statement and then proceed to answer the singular problem that needs to be solved. Once the singular problem is determined and boiled down, then jump to the ‘and’ statement, the specific audience, and lastly the ‘therefore statement’. Following the ABT framework can lead to amazing and captivating brand and founder stories. He discusses that when somebody articulates the customer’s problem powerfully and effectively, the human brain makes the assumption that the person by definition must have the solution. “A good story can kill a bad product quicker than anything. If you've got a great founder story, well told that has nothing to do with the product or offering, you create a disconnect there. There are a ton of those stories out there that have gone untold, and they are like gold sitting below your feet. You just have to unearth them and tell them well, but it has to tie to your why it is you do and what you do in your business. Huge believer in that.” - Park Howell How Story Marketing and Category Design Unite Christopher and Park discuss how to create legendary stories in context to the use of category design. Park comments one can do this by getting the ABT super focused so nobody can share the same ABT. Along with a little shadow on the category design, this little algorithm tool can help separate and differentiate from the competitors.  Park also discusses how the Gettysburg address and nursery rhymes all used ABT in their brilliant storytelling.  “If you go to the Gettysburg address, you'll see the Gettysburg address is a perfect and, but, therefore. Lincoln steps on stage and addresses the GRA crowd. Exactly two minutes, 272 words. Yet it's one of the most iconic, legendary leader addresses of all time. If you look at it, it's set up in a perfect and, but, and therefore for him to give. He was just a brilliant storyteller. He knew the power of contradiction and consequence, and that's what he was delivering that day. If you look at any nursery rhymer, most 90% of all nursery rhymes are an ABT.” - Park Howell

On this episode, let's talk about producing legendary results in the context of CMO tenure. According to the Wall Street Journal, based on research from Spencer Stewart, the median tenure of a CMO was only 27 and a half months in 2019, which was down from 31 months in 2017. This is in stark contrast to the CEO's average tenure of 88.4 months or about seven and a half years. CFOs have roughly 63 months or nearly five and a half years. Success is about producing legendary results. So on this episode, let's talk about that. Marketing Is A Constant Revolving Door One legendary marketing consultant in Silicon Valley and friend of Christopher says that marketing is now a constant revolving door. CMO tenure is down to more or less two years and across all levels in the marketing department. Covid-19 made matters worse and we ask, what is driving this “revolving door”? “One of them is, everybody in marketing is very busy all the time, very frenzied in a stimulus-response like we're trying to win the activity contest. Success in business is not about winning the activity contest. As a matter of fact, activity does not equal to results. So yes, shave the dog.” - Christopher Lochhead Results Do Not Equal No Results Plus An Excuse The big aha here is results do not equal no results, plus an excuse. Christopher describes sales as binary, you either hit the numbers, exceed the numbers or do not hit the numbers. It is the sole indicator that you are doing well, but this should not be the case for marketers. “As a CEO, you live and die by the numbers. Every quarter, as the head of sales, chief revenue, officer, VP of sales, whatever title it is, head of sales, that's true too. The reality is, that should be true in marketing as well. This sort of leads us to the question, what are the marketing results that matter?” - Christopher Lochhead Marketing Results That Matter There are lots of things that marketing do so in this episode, Christopher discusses the results that matter. There are only three things that marketing organizations should be focused on:  “Number one, design and dominate a category that matters. Number two drive revenue near term midterm and longterm. And number three, create enduring value as measured by market cap or company valuation. We want to be creating the most valuable company in a category that matters.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about the three marketing results that matter, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, let's talk about one of the dumbest social media marketing lies out there: you have to be everywhere on every platform and you need to put out a hundred pieces of content today. This is terrible advice and it will exhaust you and your marketing team and will piss off your prospects and customers. Ultimately, it will not help you become a category queen and king. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Legendary copywriter Ben Settle Category King of History Podcasts Dan Carlin We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Today, let’s talk a little more about your career. My brother from another mother and  co-creator of our new newsletter category pirates, Nicholas Cole has an interesting insight: “you are what you subscribe to.” Christopher thinks he’s right. So in this episode, find out what media Christopher consumes that he finds life-changing. “The content we subscribed to, the content we consume, it affects how and what we think about. Our thoughts affect our actions and our actions affect our outcomes, both professionally and personally.” - Christopher Lochhead F*ck The Hustle Porn Stars If you’ve been a long time listener, you would know that Christopher is not a fan of these hustle porn stars. He does not believe in hustlin’ all your life. Instead, Christopher pushes for being different and legendary. “Porn stars say no one ever worked himself to death. Well in Japan, they have a word for it. It's called Karoshi and it translates into death by overwork. Maybe you can hustle all you want, but there's a difference between hard work and smart work.” - Christopher Lochhead Choose What You Consume We have very limited spaces in our brains so Christopher encourages you to choose what you read and listen to. He gives out a few recommendations such as below: The OGS Peter Drucker - The Effective Executive David Ogilvy New Thought Leaders Malcolm Gladwell - The Masterclass John Wall and Christopher Penn - Marketing Over Coffee Podcast Mike Maples Jr. - Starting Greatness Podcast Paul Martino and Randy Komisar - No Bull: Life-Changing Conversations with Bill Campbell B2B World Dave Gearhart - B2B Marketing Leaders Podcast Brian Burns - B2B Revenue Leadership Podcast Russell Brunson - The Secret Series (Books and Podcast) A Couple of Key Questions Those life-changing books and podcasts are just a couple to think about. Moreover, Christopher is encouraging you to sit down and ask yourself a couple of key questions: “What's the kind of content I love? What do I most want to learn in the next 12 months? What should I stop consuming? What should I start consuming? And remember, be very careful whose ideas you let into your head because your thoughts become your actions, your actions become your outcomes and your outcomes become your life.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about why you are what you subscribe to, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Advertising is a powerful thing in the world of business. Whether you have a start-up or a successful company, you still need an effective advertisement to propel your brand forward. Silicon Valley's secret advertising weapon, Rick Bennett, is here with us today to give pieces of advice about advertising and marketing. Also, he talks about how being wise and having good decisions help us as human beings. Technological Intimidation Rick says that the best thing to do when advertising is to avoid saying anything that a competitor could say. You've got to rebut if a competitor tries to provoke you by saying he's wrong and it's not true. Also, he says that the trick is not to get sued for libel or slander. "You have to use technological intimidation. You can only speak to the technological truth. We don't call someone a liar. We can say, well, this isn't true, and we prove why." - Rick Bennett Rhetorical War Gaming Rick is a master at writing legendary headlines back in the day. Christopher asks him when is the right time to invest in an advertisement after creating a headline and then testing it. He says that rhetorical wargaming using SurveyMonkey to test a bunch of ideas is helpful and also giving a free product to the audience: "Survey monkey is good, but the trick is the giveaway. You need to offer a free product that anybody can log on to and check out your AI. That could be very granular and atomic and just take off." - Rick Bennett How to Function Creatively Christopher and Rick talk about the assault on the Capitol that happened on January 6, where several people died because of the riot. Christopher says that politics was about arguing to solve problems, and now it's just about arguing to continue to argue. Rick agrees, and he says that we can't change anybody's mind, so we have to change the playing field. "One idea that I have is that creativity and genius cannot exist in a state of anger. In other words, you get angry on either side, and you have destroyed your ability to function creatively. Creativity is a curse. That's the way I kind of cloister myself in the pirate cottage here up in the mountainside, and I try not to let anything destroy my creativity as it is." - Rick Bennett To know more about Silicon Valley's Secret Marketing Assassin Rick Bennett, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Rick Bennett specializes in guerrilla warfare marketing. He’s been the secret advertising weapon to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs for over 30 years. Two of his most spectacular successes are Oracle and Salesforce.com. Links: Website: Rick Bennett Linkedin: Rick Bennett We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In 2019, CNBC reported that 27% of Americans “would have to borrow or sell something to pay for a $400 emergency. Further, Nation.com reports in 2018, 4% of American adults reported not having enough food and by July of 2020, that figure had exploded to 11% and they say it will probably continue to increase as the pandemic worsens. Most recently, Pew Research finds that one in four American adults have had trouble paying their bills since the coronavirus outbreak started. So the reality is, this pandemic has exposed how financially vulnerable many of us are. So in this episode, let's talk about your career and how you can become financially free. You Can Turn Your Situation Around Christopher has his fair share of financial struggles growing up. He was raised in a single-parent household and experienced business failure in his early 20s. It was the most challenging financial situation of his life, as he describes. “The goal here is a very simple one to understand when your investment income pays your living expenses, you're financially free. That's a very powerful day in a person's life. So I want to share with you a few things I've learned along the way. It's also important to know I am in no way, shape or form a financial advisor accountant or anything of the, like. I'm just a guy that's learned a few things along the way, and I've been taught a few things by some legendary folks.” - Christopher Lochhead Build A Financial Egg Nest Ultimately, the objective is to build a financial nest egg. The concept is over time, you convert getting paid for your time to getting paid from your investments. In simpler terms, you have to find a way to earn income while you are asleep. As Tim Rhode, founder of One Life Fully Lived, calls it, its horizontal income. “In order to create a nest egg that starts producing horizontal income, you can, A. Lower your expenses or B. Increase your after-tax income. If you do both, then you'll have even more money to build your nest egg.” - Christopher Lochhead Don't Buy Shit You Can't Afford Christopher shares his observation among the younger generation nowadays and gives a reminder, to not buy shit you can’t afford. He also mentions listening to financial planning experts, as they say, credit card debt is a sure-fire way to keep yourself enslaved. “Get out of credit card debt as quickly as you can. Don't buy shit you can't afford and, uh, and save up.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more how to secure your financial future, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Covid-19 and the Nightmare of Food Insecurity Economic Fallout From COVID-19 Continues To Hit Lower-Income Americans the Hardest Tribe of Millionaires: What If One Choice Could Change Everything? Wealth Can't Wait: Avoid the 7 Wealth Traps, Implement the 7 Business Pillars, and Complete a Life Audit Today! The Wealthy Barber, Updated 3rd Edition: Everyone's Commonsense Guide to Becoming Financially Independent Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners.

Many people reached out to Christopher and asked for more episodes on category design. In future episodes, he will dig into a specific category and/or brands, and analyze what's going on and how that can be illustrative for the rest of us. So for this episode, Christopher talks about a buzzy application in the social media world called Clubhouse. Today, let's examine the question: is clubhouse a legendary category queen in the making or a dumb idea? New Hot Category, As They Claim If you check Clubhouse’s valuation, they seem to be doing well. They're valued at a hundred million dollars or more. Clubhouse has done a great job in describing themselves or as we say, describe their category design.  According to their website, Clubhouse is a new type of social product based on voice that allows people everywhere to talk, tell stories, develop ideas, deepen friendships, and meet interesting new people around the world. The Power of Category Design Clubhouse has a very powerful profile but based on Christopher’s experience, the app is “kind of like a webinar scheduling platform with no video that has a shitty UX.” Regardless of our opinion about the app, they did a great job in telling a good story for investors and users. “Clubhouse is doing a legendary job, convincing the world that they are the new, new thing, the new hot category.” - Christopher Lochhead The Studio 54 Marketing If you’ll remember Studio 54, it was the hottest hangout spot for celebrities in New York. Crowds would gather at the door, and people would do anything to get in, yet only a lucky few did. Clubhouse employed the same marketing mindset which made people want to have it more.  “They created scarcity and that's exactly what clubhouse has done in addition to their category design. They're doing Studio 54 marketing. They're creating scarcity. As a matter of fact, when you get on, the only way you can get onto Clubhouse is: an existing clubhouse user needs to invite you.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more if Clubhouse is category creation in action, or not so much, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.

In this episode, let's talk about sales training slash sales enablement. Companies make a very big mistake on sales training. Christopher shares his thoughts about that mistake and how not to do that. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

It is super important to know how social media and the online-world itself work, especially if you're a business owner or an entrepreneur. This holds true because we are living in a digital-first world, where you can search for anything on the internet. Managing your digital reputation is indeed challenging and sometimes complicated. So today our guest, Josh Greene, CEO of The Mather Group, explains how search engines work and what you can do to optimize them for your benefit. Positive Google Outcome Christopher asks Josh what he would advise him to get a positive Google outcome. Josh says that if you are doing a lot of "leading" in an industry, that will ultimately lead to good results in the search engines. For those who are not quite famous, he advises "sending Google a signal" to treat their content a certain way. Entrepreneurs should post and write about themselves (bio) so search engines can recognize them. "If you write books, if you start a podcast, if you have a Twitter feed that lots of people find useful, or if your videos are getting lots of views, all of those things play a big role in what's showing up in the Google search results." - Josh Greene Google Search Ranking System Having a common name is hard when you're trying to get a sweet spot for yourself in a search engine. Christopher asks Josh what are the highest order bits in terms of teaching Google to rank yourself. Josh says that the first thing you could do is take inventory of what your assets currently are and focus on your digital presence: "That's a nice part for people who are very active in their field and sort of well respected because there's a sort of equivalent almost in terms of how Google's algorithm is viewing things." – Josh Greene Social Media Platforms Social media marketing is one of the easiest ways to promote a product or a business. Christopher asks Josh how to decide which social media platform to use if he's only going to invest his time in one or two of these. Josh says that he should consider asking himself first if it plays to his strengths and who's the audience he's trying to reach with it. "So, it could be that you're a fantastic guitarist. Instagram is a nice format for showing off your guitar playing chops. Twitter can be useful because you can curate news to a particular audience that might be following you. And if you're in a particular corporate role, sometimes LinkedIn can be really useful because you don't need to publish a ton to get a lot of eyeballs on something." - Josh Greene To know more about how to manage digital reputations with Josh Greene, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Josh Greene is the CEO for The Mather Group, a digital agency, that helps companies manage how they’re found online, through Wikipedia and Search Engine Optimization, and drives targeted high value leads for B2B companies. Prior to The Mather Group, Greene was the VP of Marketing for both 1-800-PACK-RAT and Zippy Shell where he was responsible for all marketing including online, offline, and the launch of national television campaigns. Prior to 1-800-PACK-RAT, Greene was the Vice President of Member Services for Shop.org where he oversaw membership recruitment and retention initiatives. Additionally, Greene collaborated with NRF’s government relations staff to execute policy and advocacy strategies on behalf of Shop.org members. He also served as a liaison to Shop.org’s Policy Advisory Group, developed industry initiatives, and managed Shop.org’s Ray M. Greenly Scholarship fund. Greene joined Shop.org from Discovery Communications, where he was director of online marketing and business development. At Discovery, Greene oversaw online marketing, direct response television, corporate gifting, and partner programs for DiscoveryStore.com. Prior to Discovery Communications, Greene was director of e-marketing for Time Warner Cable and director of e-marketing for Road Runner.

On episode 90, we talked about how complexity is the enemy of revenue and how to shave the marketing dog down. Now let's talk about what we do once we shaved the dog down. We talk about the powerful marketing execution concept called the multiplier effect. The concept means taking our precious marketing dollars and getting maximum impact for them. “Imagine you're going to make a $10,000 investment in some kind of marketing initiative. The question is how do you make it feel like a hundred or a hundred thousand dollar investment? How do you make it feel like a million or a million? How do you make it feel like 10?” - Christopher Lochhead Disconnect in Departments Once you “shaved the marketing dog down,” you’ll be down to a fewer number of marketing executions. However, there is also a downside to this cut-down. Companies often find a disconnect between the different departments. Christopher addresses this disconnect in this episode. “Legendary marketing makes people feel like the company or the brand is a person. Everything from that person is authentic to them. That is to say, it's, it's rooted in a true North and all of their actions are deeply coordinated and effective.” - Christopher Lochhead Have A Few, Clear Target/s Christopher advises marketers to have a few, clear targets to have a more effective marketing campaign. After this, he encourages marketers to have the multiplier effect mindset.  “So here's how the mindset works. Every execution must multiply the value of every other execution. After you shaved the dog, it's critical to pick an anchor execution for your campaign or your lightning strike.”  - Christopher Lochhead CMOs Should Tie Everything Together The CMOs job is to tie it all together. Christopher advises CMOs their duties and what are the interesting questions to ask when looking at a particular marketing execution. “How does this tie? That is to say, how does this execution multiply the value of the anchor execution? How does this tie and remember, just to underscore it, there can only be one anchor.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about the marketing multiplier effect, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

If you’re currently doing a big initiative, say a new product launch, a new campaign, a sales kickoff or a lightning strike, let’s talk about why you are also, most probably, making a huge mistake. Shit sometimes, gets too complex and we know that complexity is the enemy of revenue. So on this episode, let’s talk about why it’s time to shave the marketing dog. Doing Too Much There’s 99.9% chance you are doing too much in marketing. Christopher candidly shares that sometimes in life, it is not about winning the activity. For contests, as a matter of fact, there is an inverse relationship between activity and results. “I see this a lot in marketing, a lot of activity, a lot of moving, a lot of bands, bouncing and dancing, and there's stupidities in marketing today. I hear stuff like, ‘Oh, you need to be everywhere. You need to be on every channel. You need to be putting out 200 pieces of content today across every channel.’ That stuff is ridiculous. All that stuff is bullshit.” - Christopher Lochhead Where To Shave The Dog Whenever Christopher is doing anything marketing related, he loves to pose the question, “where do we shave this dog?” He encourages every marketer to do a forced ranking of all the activities and choose top 3 (or more) that will guarantee the same level of results from doing a couple. I learned everything I know about design from a couple of legendary designers and one of them is John Bielenberg. He's an incredible business and corporate marketing designer. He has a perspective, he calls thinking wrong. The idea is this, when you do anything creative, ask yourself ‘what is 180 degrees from what everybody else would do? What is wrong? What would be the wrong way to go do this?’” - Christopher Lochhead Activities That Multiply Outcome Christopher also shares another thinking of pursuing activities that multiple the outcomes of another former activity. One should always ask, “does this component of our plan, materially multiply our chances of achieving the outcome we want from this marketing activity?” “Shave the dog. Shave that doggy down. Practice getting everything out. Consider getting even more radical.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more why Complexity Is The Enemy of Revenue and Why It’s Time to Shave The Marketing Dog, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Just because it turned January 1st and we're into a new year doesn't mean anything is going to change unless people make it change. We are all in a cocoon time and it means that we, as marketers, entrepreneurs and category designers can design the future of our choosing. The Future Is Not Like The Weather Christopher poses his observation on some people and how they comment about the future. Some people wish to have a better 2021 but do not think about who is responsible for positive change to happen. “I think it's important to underscore that the future does not just happen. It's not like the weather. People make things happen. The seminal question for all of us is: what kind of future do we want to design?” - Christopher Lochhead The Future, From A Business Perspective Christopher thinks, from a business perspective, that most definitely someone from your category is doing something. They may be working on or beginning to implement something to get to a different future.  “Someone in your category is examining new business models and ideas, new emerging technologies, new product strategies, looking at problems in new and different ways. As a result, discovering potential to either redesign your category or launch a new adjacent category that could change the game dramatically in your space.” - Christopher Lochhead The Future, Designed By Legends In this episode, Christopher cites some noteworthy, legendary entrepreneurs who did massive actions to design their future. He cites Allie Haverstraw, who did extraordinary efforts to help small businesses. He also talks about Eric Jorgensen's legendary story of triumph over extraordinary despair. Lastly, he talks about the main man of 2021 himself, Eric Yuan of Zoom Technologies. “What do I hope you take from examples? This, now, is our time. Those of us who are in a position to make a difference, can make a giant difference because the future needs you, regardless of how you can make a difference. Now is the time in spite of all of the misery that many of us, myself included have been through over the last year or so. I say there's never been a greater time to design the future of our choosing.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about why the future needs you, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

This is Christopher and I just wanted to take a little moment to share a couple quick things with you. First, just big thank you. Thank you for making me and our entire team part of your 2020. The second thing, I know it's been a horrible year for many of us, for me and my family, it's been the most horrible year of all. I also want you to know that I thought about quitting a lot this year, both podcasting and writing. Knowing that you were there, if you sent email or tweets or LinkedIn messages or just knowing you were there, has made a big difference. I didn't know (when I started writing and podcasting) how much the friendships that I would develop with our listeners and readers would mean to me. Even if we've never met or exchanged a message, I just want you to know how much I appreciate you. Thank you because for the last 15 months, it's really been the worst time of my life. Having you with me has made a giant difference. I know you being there has made a giant difference to our entire team. So thank you so much. I also wanted to share a little piece that I put on social media, for those of you who might have lost someone. So I'll just read that to you quickly. If you have an empty chair, this holiday, I'm truly sorry. If you have an empty chair, this holiday, please know that your family does not cry alone. And if you do not have an empty chair this holiday, please remember to tell your friends and family how much you love them. In times like these, it really calls for inspiration and who better to turn to than Winston Churchill. So I thought I'd share this quote with you. If you will, as a toast to 2021, without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning. So I'm going to grab hold of this Macallan 12. I have a little squirt and say, thank you. Bless you. Here's to 2021.

Steven Kotler has written one of the most important books of 202, The Art of the Impossible. One of the things discussed in the book is human evolutionary motivations. As a result, Christopher believes Steven has uncovered a key learning point for marketers, entrepreneurs and category designers. That is: the kind of human you are determines what kind of marketer and category designer you are. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

“Marketing is what you do when you have a shitty product.” Says an ex-CEO/Software Engineer who found himself wrapping his company around the lamppost, with his entire executive team leaving, and his investors getting f*cked up. In spite of many stories like this, there are still a lot of people in Silicon Valley (and in the business world in general) who believe the best product wins and that marketing isn't worth very much. So in this episode, we dig into a research project involving one of the world's greatest violin players and the Washington post. They prove that the power of category design and marketing is actually, almost everything Everything Else is Bullsh*t Most CEOs believe the best product wins. In fact, the CEO we previously mentioned also told Christopher “we make shit and we sell shit and everything else is bullshit.” Christopher narrates his personal experiences with various non-believers of the power of marketing and the importance of category design.  The Social Experiment In 2007, legendary violinist Joshua Bell partnered with two time Pulitzer prize writer, Gean Weingarten of the Washington Post. The premise is Bell would play in Washington D.C. Metro Station and Weingarten would film and analyze what will happen.  This was an experiment about context, perception and priorities. “Here's what you need to know about Joshua Bell.. He has been called an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Joshua regularly plays to massive sold-out crowds. Audiences hang on his every note. When he plays the violin, he tends to make a thousand dollars a minute.” - Christopher Lochhead The Results of the Experiment Bell played with his handcrafted $14 million violin. Weingarten wanted to know if people will be moved by the music of this master? If they were, how would they value the music that he was making? The results will shock you.  “The perception of your product or service is your product or service. Joshua plays and get paid a thousand dollars a minute because they've been told that he's legendary. When people aren't told that he's legendary, hardly anybody gives a shit. So as marketers and category designers, we must never forget. We are in the perception, manufacturing business.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more if marketing is what you do when you have a shitty product, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

According to the January 2018 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person changes jobs 10 to 15 times within their career. If you take it from that perspective, if you’re 25 years old and you are serious in your career, you still get seven chances to do something legendary in your career before you hit the big 6-0. So in today’s episode, we ask, are you wasting your career? Make Every Career Count You get a very few chances to do something legendary, so make them count. Mike Maples of podcast Starting Greatness says “start or join a company worthy of your talent.” Christopher adds that a lot of people make the mistake of trying to sell themselves to a company, instead of you evaluating the potential of a company. “Most people look at this backwards. They look at things like the salary, title, who their boss is going to be, the health care plan, vacation time, the commute. I'm not saying all those things aren't important. They are important. I would start or suggest you start to look, ‘is this company. designing and dominating a giant space?’” - Christopher Lochhead Work For Category Queens Choose the best and the pioneers in their own space. That's how you can make money out of your career. First, you get the job security and assurance that the company is here to stay. Secondly, most companies offer stock option for long term employees, which enables you to build wealth.  “You have to ask yourself, is this company, the leadership, the founder, the CEO, the CMO, the head of sales, the head of engineering —do they have what it takes to design a legendary product company and category at the same time and become the category queen?” - Christopher Lochhead Find Ways To Earn Horizontally  Wise people take a job where they are getting paid to work and they convert that cash into investments. Over time they build a real nest egg. Christopher believes that it is important to find a career that enables you to gain investment opportunities. These investments can later on earn passive income for you. “Convert sweat for cash into an investment that sweats for you.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more if you are wasting your career, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In June of 2020, Netflix announced that it was moving 2% of its cash equal to about $100 million to bolster black owned and black run banks, allowing these banks to lend more. The way this works is pretty simple: when we make deposits in a bank, that allows them to make more loans. More and more corporations and nonprofits are jumping in to join the movement. In this episode, let's go deep on the power of justice deposits. Corporations Joining The Movement After NetFlix’s announcement, Twitter announced its plan to move 1% of its cash or 100 million to community development financial institutions. Costco has pledged to move $25 million in deposits, Biogen has pledged to move 10 million and PayPal announced plans to move 500 million.  “The early adopters in this movement—the justice deposits—have pledged to move nearly $800 million. That is nearly equal to 20% of the current total assets held today in black owned and black run banks.” - Christopher Lochhead Address The Root Cause of Inequality Justice deposits inject capital into banks to banks to allow more Black Americans and minorities to gain access to capital. Aside from this, Christopher discusses on this episode why this is a very savvy marketing move. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, 60% of Americans say that brands should take steps to address the root cause of racial inequality. It turns out, 50% of Americans go further and say brands must actually educate the public about this matter.  “There can be no equality in America without equal access to capital.” - Christopher Lochhead HBR Article About Justice Deposits This episode is a companion of a recent article in Harvard Business Review: “Could Gen Z Consumer Behavior Make Capitalism More Ethical?” It’s a very eye-opening article that we encourage you to read as well. Christopher, together with Eddie Yoon, Pastor Dave Ferguson and Pastor Quentin M. Mumphery collaborated on this research piece.  “What I think this means for CEOs, CMOS and even CFOs, is we need to pay attention. The Next Generation really cares about this stuff. And it's very clear to me, and I think it should be clear to all of us that every company today needs what you could call a conscious capital strategy.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about justice deposits, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Netflix Moves $100 Million in Deposits to Bolster Black Banks Twitter will invest $100 million in lenders promoting racial equality Consumers Want Brands to Take a Moral Stand on Racial Justice Could Gen Z Consumer Behavior Make Capitalism More Ethical? We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, let's talk about why, when you're designing a new category, you need to be very careful who you listen to. Often times, listening to customers is the worst thing you can do. Whose Feedback Matters? Christopher shares one of the things that they discussed in their book Play Bigger, that new categories are often only obvious in hindsight. He further advises that if you're designing a new category, it's critical to be very, very careful whose feedback you listen to. "You don't never forget. Nobody wanted a horseless carriage, never forget." - Christopher Lochhead Breakthrough in Hindsight We should not listen to customers and most people, when we're designing a breakthrough because most people can't see it. Now, when you're doing incremental things, customer feedback is awesome. But in general, most people cannot see a breakthrough, whether they're customers, partners, potential employees, or even potential investors. "You want to talk about your new category in the early stages with people who can engage in what you might think the art of the possible with you." - Christopher Lochhead To know more why you should not listen to customers when creating a legendary category, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

On this episode, let's talk about what the problem with your marketing plan might be in specifically three areas. Number one, calling it a “plan” might be a problem. Number two, it's actually a legendary marketing plan that is about more than just marketing. Lastly, number three, your relationship with your CFO and finance team might be a problem, but I'm hoping it won't be when we're done. Create A Marketing Framework Chris describes what a “plan” entails and how an actual marketing plan should be fluid and should be consistently open for changes and adjustments. He suggests calling it more of a “framework” than a plan. Lastly, he gave some important valuable points on which marketing activities to invest on. “So as you start thinking about planning and budgeting, put things into big buckets, but assume change. That's why calling it a framework might be a more powerful thing.” - Christopher Lochhead Involving Everyone On The Team A marketing plan (or framework) is more than just marketing. Chris describes how you should have a valuable relationship with the Head of Product or Engineering and Finance in plotting your plans for the company.  “Drive a highly cross functional process with the team, interacting with marketing, sales, finance, customer support, and potentially other organizations to gather their input.” -  Christopher Lochhead Develop a Relationship With The CFO Collaboration with other executives within your firm is very important in executing your marketing framework. Chris shares first hand experience as a CMO and how he developed a relationship with their CFO. He has some significant tips on how to adjust marketing investments that ultimately benefit Finance. “If you work well with your CFO, marketing can be a place to park cash.” -  Christopher Lochhead To know more about the problem with your marketing plan, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Most people look at acquisitions through a spreadsheet lens. Of course the financials matter for mergers and acquisition deals, but when viewed through a category design lens, acquisitions look very, very different. In this episode, we break down the differences using the Salesforce / Slack Deal as an example and Google purchasing YouTube way back 2006. Two Types of M&A Deals First one is category consolidation deals, which is usually done in market categories that are slow or have no growth. The second type of M&A deals are category acceleration deals, which happens in early or high growth market categories. In line with this, let’s step back in memory lane, October of 2006, when Google purchased YouTube For $1.65B. YouTube was two years old then with just 65 employees. Many experts said predictable things like “how can Google be so stupid” “they paid so much for a company with little revenue, no profits.” “In 2006, google didn’t buy YouTube’s technology, customers, or revenue or profits. Google was the category queen in Search and they bought the category queen in Video. They bought the #1 position in category. A category with massive potential. Potential, that some others could not see.” - Christopher Lochhead Youtube: #2 Search Engine In The World Legendary new categories are often obvious to most people, in hindsight. To put a fine point on this one: in 2019 YouTube did $15B in Ad sales. Google made a category acceleration deal. They redesigned part of the category landscape on the internet and they've been benefiting as a result ever since then “Think of what could have happened to Google if Microsoft, Yahoo, Disney or someone else owned Youtube? As Internet categories were getting designed and redesigned, without YouTube, Google could have found its ass on the floor in the game of category musical chairs.” - Christopher Lochhead Salesforce $28 billion Deal To Buy Slack After Salesforce bought Slack for $28billion, their stock got hammered down to 11%. In fact, headline of MarketWatch.com is: Salesforce stock drops as Wall Street questions necessity of Slack purchase. “Now there is an epic mega category battle going down for the new distributed, digital workplace. Here’s what they don’t get…Salesforce just increased their odd in this epic category battle.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about How Category Designers Do Acquisitions: Why Salesforce/Slack Is a Savvy Deal, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Salesforce acquires Slack for over $27 billion, marking cloud software vendor’s largest deal ever Salesforce to Acquire Slack for $27.7 Billion Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock  A Decade Ago, Google Bought YouTube — and It Was the Best Tech Deal Ever Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion  We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In today’s episode, we dig into two how two companies approached a viral situation. First, Ocean Spray’s positive trendjack in response to Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video. Second, is how Sherwin-Williams fired an employee who created viral Tiktok videos mixing paints. We ask the seminal question, how can you be more like Ocean Spray? Marketing Wins and Fails When Nathan Apodaca’s Tik Tok video went viral (he was skateboarding, drinking his Ocean Spray, singing Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”), newly appointed Ocean Spray CEO, Tom Hayes took action. It was the trendjack of the year and Tom Hayes took it to a whole new level. It ultimately gave Ocean Spray positive PR.  Now, on the other hand, when Tony Piloseno, an Ohio University senior, who worked part-time at Sherwin Williams created a set of popular paint videos on TikTok, he got fired. What’s worse: Piloseno said he actually pitched Sherwin Williams Corporate Marketing Team the idea of being more active on TikTok with some of his videos.  “Piloseno says it took TWO MONTHS to get in touch with corporate marketing and they ‘basically told me that there wasn’t really any promotions going onso there wasn’t a need to see the presentation.’ %$#@!!!!” - Christopher Lochhead What Savvy CEOs and CMOs Do Do you work for a company like Ocean Spray or Sherwin Williams? If you want to be more like Ocean Spray, how do we do that? Most companies today, if they are smart, they have social media marketing departments trying to create what this guy has created. “Savvy CEOs and CMOs invest heavily in creating legendary digital content. leaders want to share knowledge, they have a point of view, and as a result, they are mobilizing communities, they are creating movements and ultimately, they are growing their category and brands through a thought leadership owned media and earned media strategy.” - Christopher Lochhead Seminal Questions To Ask Christopher narrates one of his conversations with Robert Rosenberg, the former CEO of Dunkin Donuts. He and his team capitalized on one franchisee discovering a potential product, the munchkins and that is a great example providing support to your team.  “This brings us three seminal questions for all of us Marketers, number 1, are you building an Ocean Spray or Sherwin Williams-like culture? Number 2, are you encouraging radical creativity amongst your people and number? Number 3, are you building a digital owned media strategy and capability?” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about marketing fail: Sherwin-Williams Vs. Ocean Spray story, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

At a time when career uncertainty is high and the need for economic security has maybe never been higher, let's talk about three ideas on how you can have a legendary marketing career to 50 and beyond. If you're younger or older than 50, Chris has got some ideas for you in this episode. Ageism In Business During the last episode with Dave Gerhardt, CEO of Privy, there was a question that popped up around the possibility of having a career in marketing past the age 50.  Chris thinks there's ageism in business broadly and certainly, in the tech business as well. He further shares facts from an Harvard Business Review that says, “seven out of 18 top Silicon Valley companies having a median age of 30 or younger.” “In addition, a study conducted by the San Francisco federal reserve bank showed that callback rates for jobs for older people, older applicants were much less. And with women having lower callback rates than men, additionally, more research from Stanford. The Stanford center on longevity says that, contrary to popular belief, older workers are healthy and have a strong work ethic and tend to be very loyal to their employers and are more likely to be satisfied with their jobs than their younger coworkers.” - Christopher Lochhead If You Are Over 50 Some may claim that younger professionals have more energy to fulfill work. However, London Business School published a study which showed that people under 45 were exhausted. So now, Chris advises listeners, ages 50 and above, to become known for a niche that you own.  “You don't want to be just a generic marketing person. What you want to be is recognized as an expert, as a guru, as a Yoda, as a sensei in a particular type or style or approach or discipline of marketing said in a simple way, niche down.” - Christopher Lochhead 3 Ideas For Your Career Number one, ask yourself the Seminole question, “what am I great at that few others are great at, that also delivers the most economic value.” Step two, niche down hard on that superpower skill. Third, name yourself in your niche, claim it and frame it. “Now you know that your personal niche is working for you. You become known for a niche that you own. As that happens, as you age and, assuming you stay current, you do legendary work. You have to produce legendary results. There's no question about it. Of course, you have to build great relationships. So you do those other smart things along with being known for a niche that you own.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about the 3 Ideas To Have A Legendary Marketing Career to 50 and Beyond, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: 5 Ways to Respond to Ageism in a Job Interview Silicon Valley has an age problem Study using fake resumes shows widespread age discrimination When No One Retires Our Assumptions About Old and Young Workers Are Wrong We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, one of the most high profile CMOs in the tech world, Dave Gearhart, aka DG, CMO of Privy is here. We have a fantastic conversation from marketing, planning to category, design, and more. Christopher recently guested on his podcast, which is called B2B Marketing Leaders. In a lot of ways, this conversation is a continuation of that conversation. It's one younger CMO with one older CMO, we'll let you decide who's who. He's also got an awesome new marketing group on Facebook called Digi MG. To know more about how to be a legendary CMO, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Dave Gerhardt is a B2B marketing leader & widely regarded as one of today’s leading brand builders. Prior to Privy Dave was VP of Marketing at Drift where he helped the company grow into one of the fastest growing B2B SaaS businesses of all-time. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, Inc., Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, and Harvard Business Review, and he’s the co-author of the definitive book on Conversational Marketing, which was a #1 new release on Amazon in Marketing & Sales and a top 20 business book in the U.S. He lives in Boston with his wife and two kids. Links:  Linkedin: Dave Gerhardt  Privy Twitter: @davegerhardt The B2B Marketing Leaders Podcast Patreon: @davegerhardt  Privy: Dave Gerhardt  We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter,The Difference, for some amazing content.

This is a super fun episode. Christopher Lochhead talks about what was almost for sure, the most fun marketing trendjack of 2020. On September 25th, Nathan Apodaca was going to work when his truck broke down. He grabbed his longboard skateboard and his bottle of Oceanspray and shot a video of himself going to work, drinking his juice while smiling and singing Fleetwood Mac's classic song “Dreams.” The video went viral and Oceanspray and Fleetwood Mac just pulled off a feel-good trendjack of 2020. Trendjacking In Past Episodes If you’re a long time listener, you might remember Episode 23 with the legendary Paul Maher from Positive Marketing in the UK. He's the godfather of trendjacking. In that episode, we popped the hood on this powerful marketing concept called the trendjack. Moreover, on Episode 26, we looked at how actor Ryan Reynolds and his gin company, Aviation trendjacked a Peloton ad. Ultimately, he sold it for $160 million.  “Part of what got Ryan there was being creative and doing things like trendjacks. A trendjack is a simple, powerful idea, where you look at what's going on in the world of news and you find a creative way to put yourself in the middle of it.” - Christopher Lochhead  The Viral Video Nathan Apodaca’s video has been viewed 61 million times on TikTok alone. His video started to go viral which led people to recreate his video while skateboarding or driving a bike or doing something with movement singing this song, including Mac Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks, herself and other celebrities, and normal, regular people.  “It created an absolute phenomenon on social media. Of course, the company Oceanspray was paying attention. Oceanspray CEO Tom Hayes got into the fun and he recorded his own version of Apodaca video. Now, as all of this was happening Fleetwood Mac's 1977 classic ‘Dreams,’ as billboard says, thundered into the Top 10. Think about that for a second. Fleetwood Mac, 1977 with a top 10 hit, thanks to a viral video from Nate.” - Christopher Lochhead Oceanspray’s Radical Generosity Ocean spray decided to get radically generous and thoughtfully aggressive with this incredible opportunity. They proceeded to buy Nathan a new truck because his truck had broken down and they made sure they got him one that they called “Oceanspray Red.” Of course, they stuffed it with juice.  “Recently, CEO Hayes said ‘we have about 15 billion media impressions.’ You think that's going to help sales. You think that's going to help grow the category and the brand for ocean spray. Fascinatingly, Hayes has only been the CEO for about three months of Oceanspray. So for a brand new CEO to mobilize the company to take action on this, I think is pretty extraordinary.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about Christopher’s thoughts on this recent trendjacking of Oceanspray, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Every time a tech company launches a successful IPOs, we end up hearing a lot of negation from the media. Claims such as “I can't believe this company is worth so much” or “so much money invested it must be crazy because they hardly have any revenue” or “they hardly have any profits or they rent.” So in this episode, Christopher gives us a low-down on why market cap or valuation (the value of a company) is not only a function of financial metrics. He also talks about the crucial role marketing plays to actually help drive market cap. What Really Drives The Value Of A Company There are three principal drivers of a company's value. The first is investors' perception of the size and the growth rate of your market category. The second is the investor's perception of the company's ability to become the category queen. The third is the numbers and metrics in the context of the first two points that validate that this company is actually on a good path. Breaking Down The Three Christopher breaks down the characteristics of these three factors that drive the value of the company. He cites specific examples, such as Airbnb and how they were able to gain a successful IPO through these three factors. “Marketing has to take a leading role here in helping the company articulate its category strategy. Why this category could be very big over time.” - Christopher Lochhead What Does It Mean For You Smart marketers, smart CEOs, smart founders, and certainly smart CFOs need to work together in the very early stages for your investor deck to cover these three factors. Christopher also discussed marketers and their major role in creating the perception of inevitability. To know more about How Marketing Drives Market Cap / Company Valuation, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In today’s episode, Christopher Lochhead's answer addresses a listener question, “what kind of CMO should we hire?” He further discusses what’s the difference between a fighter and a farmer CMO and what you, as a marketer, should keep in mind when you plan to pursue this role. Get Clear On What You Want Christopher discusses two things: first, identify the background of the CMO. This is highly specific based on the company and the current stage of the company and its category. Secondly, Christopher points out that it's very important that the CMO knows who he is, his strengths and weaknesses, and his specific legendary trait.  “What am I legendary at? What am I not? How do I build a team based on that, that multiplies or amplifies where I'm strong and that compensates for my weaknesses?” - Christopher Lochhead  A Fighter Or A Farmer CMO If you have identified where your company stands, that is the best indicator of whether you should hire a fighter or a farmer CMO. Chris gives a specific discussion on the difference between a fighter and a farmer CMO in this episode. “What are the skill sets that you think are critical? That's important, but it's not maybe as important as a lot of people think. Second, are they self-actualized? Self-aware enough to know where they're truly strong and truly weak? Do they have the capability to build a team around their strengths and weaknesses? And probably most importantly, are they a fighter, or a farmer?” - Christopher Lochhead Advice For Marketers Chris shares that if you're a CMO yourself, it is critical for you to figure out how to be self-actualized. It is important to realize, are you more of a farmer? Or are you more of a fighter? “As a marketer, I think you'd have to decide ‘who am I,’ and again, I don't think there's a right answer, but I think you should know. The worst thing you can do as a CMO, or a wannabe CMO is go take a farmer job in a place that requires a fighter or vice versa.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about what is a fighter or a farmer CMO, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Today, we go deep on a big powerful idea called Movement Marketing with a legendary entrepreneur, category designer, and company builder turned venture capitalist, David Sacks, from Craft Ventures.  He's written this blog post recently on this idea and it's a simple, powerful idea that legendary innovators don't just market a company or a product or a service, they create a movement that changes things. Frankly, it's a seminal part of designing and dominating a new category. If you care about changing the future, this episode is pure gold with David.  Two Sections of Marketing David likened marketing to LSAT, having math and verbal exams which ultimately give one final result. He says that marketing has a quantitative side, such as spending money on campaigns to generate x number of leads. It also has a qualitative side, which includes messaging, brand, content, press influencers, among others. “Defining who you are to the world is one of the most important things that a founder can be doing. But the metrics are vague and elusive. So, therefore, because it's hard to measure, I think a lot of founders don't necessarily spend the time on it, they don't really know how to approach it.” - David Sacks Movement Marketing David shares that the founders who built great companies have done more than just “create a company” or even a category. They have created a movement around their company. He wrote a blog post recently on this idea which went viral. He mentioned some great examples of CEO who have done movement marketing such as Elon Musk of Tesla and Marc Benioff of Salesforce.  “What I've tried to do is layout the tactics. This area of marketing is typically called earned marketing because you can't just buy it, you have to earn it.” - David Sacks Capturing Vs. Creating Demand Christopher expounded on what David discuss the parts of marketing and how movement marketing is far from just quantitative and qualitative aspects of marketing. Movement marketing goes beyond capturing existing demand as it creates new demand.  “You're creating a movement to drive a set of thinking around an idea, around a vision for the future, around a problem that hasn't been addressed or viewed in the way that the founder views it. Or you see a possibility in the world, in the future.” - Christopher Lochhead  To know more about movement marketing, download and listen to this episode. Bio: David Sacks is a highly accomplished entrepreneur and investor in internet technology firms. He is a general partner of Craft Ventures, a venture capital fund he co-founded in late 2017. Previously as an entrepreneur, Sacks was the founding COO and product leader of PayPal (acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion) and Founder/CEO of Yammer (acquired by Microsoft in 2012 for $1.2 billion). In 2016, he led the turnaround of Zenefits as interim CEO. In 2017, Sacks co-founded blockchain startup Harbor as incubation of Craft Ventures. His angel investments include Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, Airbnb and Houzz. Links: Twitter – @davidsacks Craft Ventures Crunch Base – David Sacks We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. In this episode, Christopher Lochhead answers the question, what is the most important skill for marketers to have? Sales Skills Christopher shares that his frequent answer to the most important skill for marketers to have is sales skills. He says that a lot of marketing people have no sales experience at all. "Marketing is actually sales at scale." - Christopher Lochhead The Best Marketers Are Salesmen Christopher recounts that the best marketers he know are those who have sales experience even at a young age. "I think legendary marketers, and frankly, legendary executives, for that matter, regardless of what part of the business you're in, have a base level of a solid foundation of sales skills. So if you can't sell one on one, then you can't market at scale." - Christopher Lochhead Marketing People Are A Joke Second prime importance why sales is the essential skill to have as a marketer, is that many salespeople think marketers are a joke. "I know this is harsh, but it's true. And the reason for that primarily, is that many people in the sales organization realize that many marketers suck in front of customers. And if you suck in front of one customer, how can you market to thousands or hundreds of thousands of potential customers." - Christopher Lochhead To know more why marketing is sales at scale, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

As this theme kept on coming up in Follow Your Different episodes, whether he spoke with entrepreneurs or venture capitalists, Christopher decided to finally talk about the purpose of business. Specifically, he dives into what his friend Gil Spencer calls a noble purpose and how noble purpose can tie to building categories companies brands. Mission-Driven and Mercenaries A noble purpose is a cool way of thinking about things that we do hear about in business and entrepreneurship. Sequoia Capital and many others, talks about it a lot. The discussion revolves around this notion of being mission-driven. Are you a mission-driven entrepreneur?  Similarly, Eddie Yoon, who has been a guest many times on my podcasts, shares about the distinction between missionaries and mercenaries.  “People who are on a mission will literally crawl through flaming glass ⁠— if that's even a thing ⁠— to achieve their goal because they're up to something, and no matter how much you pay a mercenary, when the going gets tough, many mercenaries will tap out.” - Christopher Lochhead What Is Your Noble Purpose? Chris shares a few more examples of companies and brands and how their noble purpose differentiated them and allowed them to dominate their categories. He spoke about TOM’s shoes. Another example he shares is about Patagonia, which is an environment-based company. “Regardless of how you think about it, I think now's a good time to think about what's your noble purpose? Specifically, can you tie this notion of noble purpose mission-driven being a missionary to the design and development of your category and brand?” - Christopher Lochhead Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, is a proud supporter of LGBTQ+ rights movement. Vala Afshar of Salesforce shared about their noble missions in Follow Your Different Episode 116. “Now's a great time to think about what's your noble purpose. Are we up to something greater than just making money and believe me, I'm a fan of making money. If you want to use this moment in time to clarify your noble purpose, why not think about how you can tie your noble purpose, to your category design, to your marketing, and maybe even to some level Have activism around topics that you think are important?” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about finding your noble purpose, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: TOMS Shoes  116 Dreamforce Special w/ Salesforce’s Vala Afshar 024 The Difference Between a First Mover and a Category Creator w/ Eddie Yoon We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Today, Chris goes deep on how to design a legendary category, company product, and brand with his super special guest, Michelle Stacy. Michelle is a living consumer product marketing legend, honing her craft with brands such as Gilette, Oral B, Keurig, and now, HydraFacial. Putting Consumers First Michelle spent many years honing her craft at Gillette where she led Oral B. She launched a number of great new products including the Pulsar battery powered manual toothbrush. She was the President of Keurig from 2010 to 2014, where the business grew from less than $1 billion in revenue to 4.5 billion.  Through her leadership, she took Keurig from being a category-defining product to becoming — what we, in tech call — a platform. She did this when they started inviting in the competition to sell their coffee for Keurig machines. Additionally, she's been a board member at iRobot, Coravin (a legendary wine preservation system), and Hydrafacial (Clint Carnell CEO on FYD #160) “I think what always resonates with me is putting the consumer first and trying to think through ‘how do I make an emotional connection between what I want the consumer to buy and the product itself.’ To me, that's where longevity happens around products. When you can get a consumer to fall in love with your product, then you have the opportunity, to as you would put it, become a Category King.” - Michelle Stacy The Keurig Story Michelle started working with Keurig in November 2008, more or less the onset of the global financial crisis. She found herself contemplating if she could ever push forward a premium-priced business given the financial crisis at that time. With consumers in mind and with the right launch plan, they successfully introduced a well-loved product.  “Keurig was actually the fifth single-serve company to market. They're just the ones that got it right.” - Michelle Stacy Creating Momentum In this episode, Michelle walks us through the process of developing and launching Keurig machines. She mentions initially offering this to client-facing businesses, then slowly grew to every home through word of mouth. They also knew that customers do not like to be tied into a single brand of coffee, so they explored tying up with different coffee brands for their K-cups. “In my DNA is the concept of looking at how you create value in every step of your environment so that you're creating value for the consumer, you're conveying value for the retailer, you're creating value for your suppliers that are supplying you with the product. So as everyone benefits within an ecosystem, it creates momentum.” - Michelle Stacy To know more about designing legendary categories and to know more about Michell Stacy, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Michelle is a strong leader whose personal and professional skills have developed over a 35-year career. Keurig, Gillette, and P&G have all benefited from her ability to develop and articulate a clear vision and strategy, build brands, and identify avenues for growth. Michelle’s key to managing and driving exceptional growth has been her ability to create a positive and focused culture that generates high employee engagement, as well as talent for creating company-wide commitment to lead with a higher purpose. A few of the brands that Michelle has impacted include: The Gillette Series Gillette Mach3 Oral-B Oral-B Stages Keurig Links: Michelle Stacy We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

One listener writes: “This is such a confusing time and people are on edge. There's a lot of arguing and mistrust in the US. It seems like we see more people acting out. In our case, we've had some customers behave really badly. When is it okay to turn a customer away?” In this episode, Christopher shares his views on this matter about your right, as a business, to refuse service to customers. What The Law Says The law states that you are allowed to refuse anybody’s service, but you can't do it on the basis of color, race, gender, sexual orientation, and other subjects along those lines. What Christopher advises is to seek legal advice and make sure to have consistent guidelines to enforce on your business, so your employees are well-guided. “I think it's okay to refuse service to Anybody who's being a shithead and we had a situation happen here in the Santa Cruz Monterey Bay Area.” - Christopher Lochhead Kicked Out Due To Bad Behavior  Christopher shares an incident that happened recently in a restaurant in Santa Cruz Monterey Bay Area called Bernardus Lodge where an Asian-American was spending their Fourth of July holiday. A Tech CEO, named Michael Lofthouse, who was also dining in, gave out racial slurs to the family. The restaurant attendant, Gennica Cochran, immediately asked Michael to leave the premises to protect their customers. “Number one, the folks at the who run the Bernardus Lodge have some core values and that in one way or another, whether it was formal or informal, they had communicated to their team, including, of course, Gennica Cochran and that there were certain behaviors they would tolerate. Racism, acting out and being an asshole clearly was something they were not going to allow. Gennica felt empowered to do that. I don't know if she asked for permission. I don't know what she did. But she took action.” - Christopher Lochhead Please Wear A Mask Christopher also shares some of his personal experience with enforcing wearing a mask. He is  a strong supporter of this and he has received some backlash because of being vocal about it “If you don't like me, or you don't want to listen to my podcast, because I'm trying to promote wearing masks in the United States, that's okay. I think whatever the issue is, there comes a time in our lives as people and as business leaders, where we have to be clear about our core values and stand up for them.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about having the right to refuse customers, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: The Right to Refuse Service: Can a Business Refuse Service to Someone? San Francisco tech CEO kicked out of Carmel Valley restaurant following racist rant caught on camera Ford CEO defends law enforcement use of Police Interceptor vehicle Ford CEO Jim Hackett We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

For the first time ever, we are dropping an episode from one of Christopher’s favorite podcast, Marketing Over Coffee, with host John Wall. Recently, they did an episode with the legendary author, Kevin Maney. Kevin, as you probably know, is a multi-time successful, bestselling author. He's one of the co-authors of Play Bigger with Christopher. In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing / Marketing Over Coffee Crossover, Kevin talks about his recent book Unscaled. They also talk about what that means and how powerful it is. And of course, category design and many other things. Category Design and Play Bigger Kevin shares about category design and his co-authored book Play Bigger. He also shares how the book led to the creation of Category Design Advisors. He further discusses his new book Unscaled – how world-changing technologies are taking apart scaled up industries. “We started to go down that road together, the four of us meeting out at Chris's wonderful house in Santa Cruz, California, riding our bikes to the beach in between long conversations. Over time, we tease out this idea of category design, which didn't exist before. We all got together and started talking about this stuff.” - Kevin Maney on planning for the book Play Bigger  Unscaled Kevin describes how he ended up writing the book Unscaled, which was about how all of these new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing and genomics, and these world-changing technologies, and how they're all coming together to allow us to reinvent our current systems.  “We got together with Stephen Klasko, who's the CEO of Jefferson Health, one of the bigger health care systems in the country based in Philadelphia. Steven came out and I took that healthcare chapter of Unscaled to write a, what we actually call a manifesto. It's about 60 pages long, describing how all these new technologies can take apart the old healthcare system, which was really based on taking care of people after they were sick.” - Kevin Maney on his book Unscaled Other Noteworthy Topics Kevin and John discussed a whole lot more noteworthy topics ranging from the IoT in health data, the economics of it all and the rise of telehealth. They also touched on the topic of shifting to online education and the history of IBM. “I tend to look at almost everything anymore through the lens of health, either category design or upscaling, because I do believe that those are the two things that are going to drive technology, and create the most interesting technology companies of the next decade.” - Kevin Maney To know more about Kevin Maney, download and listen to this episode. Bio:  Kevin Maney is a bestselling author, award-winning columnist, and partner at Category Design Advisors (CDA). He co-authored Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets, which gave birth to the discipline of category design. His book The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson Sr. and the Making of IBM is the definitive biography of the man who built IBM. Maney has been a contributor to Newsweek, Fortune, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Strategy + Business, HBR.com, CNN and ABC News, among other media outlets. Additionally, he was a contributing editor at Conde Nast Portfolio during its brief run from 2007 to 2009. For 22 years, Maney was a columnist, editor and reporter at USA Today. He’s appeared frequently on television and radio, including CBS Sunday Morning and NPR, and lectures at conferences and universities, including New York University, UNC in Chapel Hill, and his alma mater, Rutgers.  Links: Kevin Maney.com Marketing Over Coffee: Kevin Maney Talks Unscaled Marketing Over Coffee: Christopher Lochhead on Play Bigger, and Legends and Losers Marketing Over Coffee: Niche Down! We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

In this episode, Christopher answers an email question from an entrepreneur who wants to become an author. We dive deep into the process of becoming an author, from pitching to publishers or agents, to actual writing, to marketing and promoting. He also talks about the pros and cons of self-publishing versus or seeking the help of top-tier publishers. The Process of Becoming An Author Christopher shares the question he recently received: “Did you write a book proposal before getting started on the writing? Or did you write the book first? What were your first steps in acquiring representation, slash a publishing contract?” “It's important to note for Play Bigger, we used an agent and a traditional publisher. For Niche Down, we actually went the self-publishing route.” - Christopher Lochhead Christopher gives an in-depth explanation of his process for both books in this episode. Traditional Publishing vs. Self-Publishing Christopher also touched on the pros and cons of traditional publishing and self-publishing, He shares that publishers handle the publication and distribution of the book, but does not touch on marketing. The author has to promote to boost book sales.  “The other thing about self-publishing, you have a lot more control than you do. When a publisher has your book, you decide what the books gonna look like, the cover art, all that stuff, you decide what kind of paper is going to be used. And of course, the obvious one is you have all of the economics.” - Christopher Lochhead Get The Ball Rolling: Drafting Content Answering another set of questions about content creation, Christopher shares their actual process for Play Bigger. Since the book has four authors, they decided who will have the last say in terms of content. They started with writing outlines from their brainstorming/jam sessions and Kevin Maney writes the draft and the rest gives their feedback.  “What we decided to do was get together in person, which we did at my house for a few days. We had a ton of fun. we brainstormed, we talked, we shared stories and all this. Kevin is the professional author captured all of that.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about how to write a book, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

We are on our 30th episode of the World's First PodStorm! We would like to thank everyone who went through the storm with us! Today, Lochhead on Marketing producers Jason DeFillipo and Jaime Jay joins us and takes us behind the mic. We go deep into the challenges, the wins, and the lessons in creating this PodStorm. We talk about a lot of other matters which you’ll find relatable! Challenges with Production Making a podcast comes with its challenges, even more so if it's the world’s first 30-day PodStorm. Timing is one of the main challenges in production. Jason DeFilippo shares that the hard part was dealing with unplanned life events. He seriously advises anyone to take this into account if they want to pursue podcasting.   Although they faced challenges, this 30-day marketing discussion proved that the Podstorm is a new category of a podcast activity.  “It is basically a roadmap for anyone who wants to do any kind of marketing in their business.” - Jaimie Jay Category Design Christopher mentions that Podstrom is all about marketing and category design. The PodStorm encourages marketers to create their category and to differentiate themselves in a niche that they can own. They discussed further category design and rising above the challenges despite the situation the world is at.  “In the midst of the greatest economic crisis and the greatest healthcare crisis of the modern era, you transformed your business and you are absolutely positioning yourself to be in that 10% that gets stronger as a result of the recession.” - Christopher Lochhead Success of PodStorm Jaimie Jay celebrated the fact that LOM Podstorm gained an 80% increase in listenership. One of the reasons for this series’ success is the format—  it’s quick but is jam-packed with information. “The thing that makes this successful is that they are short. So every day, you can pop it in, get it done, and while you’re sitting there having your eggs for breakfast or outside taking a walk with a dog and you learn something and it is a very laser focus.” -Jason DeFillippo More About Business and Current Events The trio discussed a lot more that is 100% relatable to any businesses. They talk about trying to help companies against recession brought on by Covid-19 and touched on the topic of the murder of George Floyd and the role of marketing in social justice and making social change happen.  To know more about the legends behind the mic, Christopher Lochhead, Jason DeFilippo and Jaime Jay, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Jaime Jay Jaime is the managing director and founder of Bottleneck Virtual Assistants, LLC.  The organization offers professional growth opportunities for ambitious leaders by creating an efficient and systematic approach to identify, hire, and cultivate team members who focus on specific roles and responsibilities. Jaime Jay is the co-owner of Podcast Pilot which handles the technical execution and website for Follow Your Different and Lochhead on Marketing. Jason DeFillippo Jason has been building websites since the early days in 1994 for clients that range from small businesses to million dollar websites for blockbuster films to his own start-ups.  In 1995 a new media company in Santa Monica moved him out to Los Angeles to build the first website for Epson America.  Since then Jason has launched over 250 websites for major corporations like Paramount Pictures, Sony, Warner Brothers, and Disney.  He also created the two time SXSW Weblog Award-winning Blogrolling.com as well as co-founded the global blog network Metroblogging.  He has worked at several startups in San Francisco including Technorati.com and 8020 Media, the publishers of JPGMagazine.com and statistical aggregator Metricly.com.  Currently, Jason is a full-time podcast producer and editor. Links:  Bottleneck Virtual Assistant - World’s First Dedicated Distant Assistant Provider Grumpy Old Geeks We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™!

https://lochhead.com/peanut-butter-lightning-sandwich-a-new-model-for-marketing-execution/ We get a shit ton of marketing messages a day. Some experts say we get 40 to 60,000 messages a day if you include everything — from banners on the internet emails, logos on coffee cups, t-shirts, you name it. Today, let's talk about the typical marketing execution. It's predicated on a model called reaching frequency. It's a very old idea that states the more people see our brand, hears our message, hears our point of view, the better. Let’s find out what peanut butter and lightning sandwich is and why that's a new model for marketing execution. Frequency and Reach If you’ve ever been to Cuba, you’ll realize how much we are bombarded with advertising in the Western world. In Cuba, there are no billboards, no giant signs, no logos in coffee cups. This only shows that frequency and reach are not applicable to everyone. “You are either rising above the noise, or you're just part of the noise.” - Christopher Lochhead Lightning Strike Christopher dedicated one episode of Lochhead on Marketing on Peanut Butter vs Lightning Strikes. Lightning strikes are a concentrated set of marketing activities in a very short period of time, against a very tightly defined audience or target market. “I would rather dominate somebody's mind space for a day or two, then be mostly irrelevant most of the time.” - Christopher Lochhead Peanut Butter Christopher notes the mistake he sees in virtually every marketing plan and every marketing budget. A disproportionate amount of investment and effort is spread equally over time, over product lines, and so forth.  “You can't stand out if you do that. You're going to disappear the noise if all you do is reach and frequency inspired.” - - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about peanut butter and lightning sandwich as the new model for marketing execution, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. яндекс We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter,The Difference, for some amazing content.

During the PodStorm, we're doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. We are now on our last week for PodStorm Q&A and we hope to hear from you if you want us to do more live Q&As! Today, podcast living legend Jason DeFillippo of Grumpy Old Geeks joins us to answer some questions about the importance of internal communications, how public relations and investor relations should work together, and a whole lot more! Importance of Internal Communications One listener asked about Christopher’s thoughts on the importance of internal communications and what function inside the company should own it. He narrated how Steve Jobs is the perfect example of this and how his words “there are no phenomenal products in our pipeline” was a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I think the role of marketing internally is at least equal to the value externally. In some ways more, when people pick up a newspaper or read something online, and they hear, for example, your CEO talking about the company's mission, or talking about a new product that you just launched, and how it's going to transform the category and make a difference to a giant number of people, things along those lines are my favorite examples.” - Christopher Lochhead Public Relations and Investor Relations Christopher shares candidly that IR and PR, Investor Relations and Public Relations need to be deeply connected. Although it is highly unusual to have IR in marketing since it is always in Finance. However, Christopher shares some instances where Finance would find the Marketing team handy. “The best CFO I know are way more than accountants. They're strategic minds. They're great at mergers and acquisitions and operations. So a lot of companies, if they're smart, have a very big, big, big time CFO, and I think that's, particularly if you're planning on going public.” - Christopher Lochhead When do we change the logo? Unless it's ugly and bad, Christopher believes changing the logo is a strategic mistake, particularly in your first six months. It sends a message to a lot of people that you are tinkering with the creative, as opposed to getting deep in the business.  “You don't want to be seen as the moron who's like tinkering with the colors. When there's some big problem that needs to get addressed. Make sure we're getting on with the business at hand. You want to be seen as somebody who's deep in the business, making a giant difference, particularly for the field sales organization, and then the product and engineering organization.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the Facebook Live Q&A with Christopher Lochhead, with Jason DeFillippo, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

During the PodStorm, we're doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. We are now on our last week for PodStorm Q&A and we hope to hear from you if you want us to do more live Q&As! Today, podcast living legend Jason DeFillippo of Grumpy Old Geeks joins us to answer some questions about social cause marketing, lightning strikes, and a whole lot more! What have you learned after Calling For Unity? Christopher shares that he received a number of backlashes after he called for unity on his post A Call For Unity. Likewise, he also received a lot of hugs and support for his cause. This is expected as he believes when try to do something as positive and warm-hearted as possible, you still are going to piss people off. “The reality is when you say anything, topics like racism, or the police, or society or anything that anybody else might consider political, you're going to piss some people off. But that said, what I'll tell you is, I don't think I've ever done anything that got such an extraordinary overwhelming positive response.” - Christopher Lochhead Can you recap, what is a lightning strike? Christopher gave a definition and description of what lightning strike is, for new listeners. We live in a world today where we get between 40 to 60,000 marketing messages a day. Reach and frequency is virtually undoable for anybody today, even the biggest marketers.  “A lightning strike is about ⁠— rather than spreading peanut butter reach and frequency style ⁠— we pick maybe one, two, or at most three times a year, a big company might do one a quarter, but something in that range, where for a few days or a week, we are going to go big. If you are in our target audience, our demographic, you are going to hear from us. You are going to know where they are. The thinking is, ‘I'd rather be deeply present in front of my core audience, my core target customer for a short period of time and own their mind space for that short period of time than disappear into the noise all of the time.’” - Christopher Lochhead CEO and CFO don't believe in marketing The question, which has been asked recurrently, was answered in a different light. Christopher made sure to snide in some personal stories which you definitely need to hear.  “Get out. There's no resolving this. There's no strategy. I've tried this a million times in my life, it's like, we'll just convince these guys to get it with marketing, we'll get them to read such and such a book, or take such and such. They're just some people who think that marketing is bullshit and not worth very much. If you're at a company run by executives like that, you're at a deep, deep disadvantage.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the Facebook Live Q&A with Christopher Lochhead, with Jason DeFillippo, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead shares a secret hack to become a #1 author and podcaster in 13 minutes or less. Basically, the secret hack is to hire a 16-year-old Tiktoker and let her create funny content for you. You can also explore posting provocative poses, drinking provocative drinks, and being in provocative places. If you know Christopher well, you will be certain, there is sarcasm in the above paragraph. Today, he will discuss the real deal on reaching the top of your game. It doesn’t include any secret hack or how-to of sorts, but a real-life narration of his personal experiences on how he did it. No Secret Hack There is no secret hack. In Christopher’s case, he did not experience a major breakthrough or a celebrity moment that kickstarted his career. We usually see influencers who brag about being on the “Oprah List” or have guested on big podcast shows. Christopher advises you that this is not the only way to the top. “In my life, but I've always been somebody that's had to carry a lot of water to get any kind of a result. So the answer that I'm going to share with you today is both not satisfying — because there is no secret — and fantastic at the same time. I'm going to tell you right off the top, it's disappointing and empowering.” - Christopher Lochhead Three Things That Matter There are three things that matter if you want to become a content person. Number one category design. What's the category? What makes you different versus better? So that category design needs to get done for your book for your podcast for you.  Second, you got to do the work. Christopher cites the specifics on this point and third is you have to have a radically generous mindset. No Self-Made People Christopher also talks about how we can achieve success: that is through the help of other people. There are no self-made people because a huge chunk of success comes from customers, fans, family and friends who share your product or service (word of mouth). Aside from word-of-mouth, Christopher also discusses the importance of paid advertising. “There's no secret. You got to do the work. You got to invest. You're going to have to do some paid marketing. Some of the top digital celebrities out there want you to believe that they just became that way with no marketing at all because they have legendary products,” - Christopher Lochhead To listen to the real secret hack to becoming a #1 author and top podcaster, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/eCp9QLs340s In this episode, let's talk about the magic triangle — how the company, the product, and the category come together to make you the category queen or category king in your market category. Product Design Product design is the purposeful building of a product and an experience that solves a problem. Most companies, though, opt for a product-market fit. Christopher believes it a dangerous idea because it insinuates that there's a market out there who would automatically consume whatever is offered to them. “Typically what happens is: entrepreneurs start with a problem or something they're working on or tinkering with, and they get obsessed with the thing. That of course, is the product.” - Christopher Lochhead Company Design Company design is the purposeful creation of a business model, and an organization with culture, a point of view that fits the category. In a recent episode of Christopher about BHAGs, you'll see how a point of view with a big hairy audacious goal can come together and become a powerful motivator, driver, and unifier of culture.  “If you get category design, right, and you lock and load on a provocative point of view, that is deeply rooted in something you care about, such that you, your co-founders, your colleagues, your co-workers, the other executives in the company, etc. are on a mission centered around that point of view, it changes culture.” - Christopher Lochhead Category Design Category design is the mindful creation and development of a new market category. Successful category design will result in the consumers demanding the product from you and crowning you the queen.  “In marketing terms, category design is the ultimate air wars as distinct from ground wars. It's about winning the war for public opinion. It's about teaching the world to abandon something old and embrace something new. Category design builds the profile of the space while drawing attention to the company. Legendary companies market the category first and the company second.” - - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the magic triangle and specific examples for product, company, and category design, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter,The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/Rk9HcOU80Rs In this episode, an incredibly important topic, we discuss how to be a category designer. Moreover, we dig into how to become the person that drives a new strategy for your company and introduces the world to something new, something different, something that makes a giant difference. Category Design: A Discipline Christopher narrates a portion of the book Play Bigger which states: "Category design is the discipline of creating and developing a new market category and conditioning the market so it will demand your solution and crown your company as its King." “A category designer leads a company-wide strategy with the goal of becoming a category Queen of high value, high growth market category of your choosing.” - Christopher Lochhead In the same book, Christopher and his co-authors did research and found out that in the tech space, one company takes two-thirds of the economics. As more and more companies behave like tech companies, more and more companies are taking two-thirds of the market. Category Design: All-Encompassing Category design is a discipline and for many a career. Christopher has mastered this discipline and has become a huge differentiator for his career as a 3x CMO and as an advisor.  “A category designer brings together all the critical functions in a business — the key strategic activities across your company, aligning sales, marketing, product development/engineering, and even HR — with the single focus of becoming a category queen.” - Christopher Lochhead Category Design: The Drivers of Change Category design is a collaborative effort between the CEO and all other Chief Officers of the company. Christopher digs deep into the process and how to go about designing your category. “Now, category designers bring together the whole business. They help create a blueprint, a visual representation that generates a belief that you have a solution to an urgent problem. So they build this blueprint. They are the creators, and at least co-authors, if not primary authors of the provocative and engaging POV point of view that you're now going to evangelize.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about becoming a category designer, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/vzkEJSwqotU Have you ever noticed how people talk about market categories? People involved with the business perpetuate one of the biggest lies in business. As published in a lot of major publications, these “business writers” say market categories are like the weather, we cannot control it. Today, we will dig into why Christopher thinks its a lie standing in plain sight. We're going to talk about how we can actually design market categories and not be the victim of them. This Kind of Paradigm  Christopher cites several examples stating that market categories are not like the weather. Here’s a WSJ story about IBM from Oct 2019:  “IBM’s overall revenue still slipped by 4% to $18.03 billion in the quarter, coming in below Wall Street’s estimates and led mainly by the slowdown in global technology services.” “You and I can't do shit about the weather but we can, in this case, the global technology services market category.” - Christopher Lochhead Here is Why it’s Bullshit There was zero demand for bubble gum until Walter Diemer created both the product and the category in 1928. Today, bubble gum is a $28.9 Billion category.  Another example is the e-sports category. Statista.com cites “in 2018, the global eSports market was nearly 865 million U.S. dollars and will reach 1.79 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Andy Stout suggests that 106 million people viewed the 2017 Worlds Esports competition eSports scholarships grew an astonishing 480% in 2018. The final prize pool for 2016 League of Legends World Championship, was $6.7 million. Before Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce, there was no cloud. In 2019 it was a $266.0 billion category and it’s growing at 15%. Market categories are not the weather. Every category exists because someone designed it. What’s The Point Christopher could give you a million examples. We are living in a cocoon time and somebody is designing or redesigning the future of your market category. The question for you is, is it you?  “Our businesses are not victims, we are not victims of the market. We have the ability to affect how the market categories behave. Legends, by definition, do not accept the way it is.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about why market categories are not like the weather, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/ZNBeBX2n-Io In this episode, let's take a look at Mark R. Kramers's article for Harvard Business Review article entitled The 10 commitments companies must make to advance racial justice. Mark is a senior lecturer at Harvard University. Although Christopher does not agree with Mark’s article in its entirety, he believes these are very powerful ideas worth discussing and advancing inside our companies. Frankly, these commitments should be a must for all business people. Racial Justice On a Marketing Podcast? Mark's list is fascinating and you might be asking why are we discussing this on Lochhead on Marketing. Aside from the fact that its a timely discussion, on a marketing perspective, Christopher believes marketing plays a huge part in creating a culture.  “It's hard to succeed in the marketplace when you go to market a shitty product. it's impossible to have legendary internal marketing and communications built on shitty products and policies. Additionally, we are living at a time of mass scrutiny, your category brand and therefore ultimately your revenue will suffer if you're not viewed as being forward on your skis on topics of race, equality, diversity, and the fair treatment of your people.” - Christopher Lochhead The 10 Commitments  Christopher discusses each of the commitments and cites Mark’s examples, occasionally adding his thoughts, inputs,and views on these matters.  1. Commit to anti-racism personnel policies and racial-equity training. Adopt a no-tolerance-for-racism policy like Franklin Templeton’s, which led to its swift, recent termination of Amy Cooper following her altercation with Christian Cooper,  2. Commit to pay equity. Studies that show closing the racial pay gap would increase U.S. GDP by 14%, or more than $2 trillion. 3. Commit to giving employees a voice. Ensure representation of hourly employees, women, and people of color in all employment policy decisions. Consider employee representation on your board — it’s a legal requirement in Germany and is one reason why its economy recovered more strongly from the Great Recession than America 4. Commit to supporting full participation in democracy. “Mark advocates making election day, a paid day off. He’s right. I’m generally no fan of more regulations for business but I’ll go a step further and say, States should mandate election day as a day off, with pay.  if an employee wants to vote BEFORE election day, they should be given any day in November off to vote.” - Christopher Lochhead 5. Commit to lobbying for good. “Mark says, commit at least 50% of your lobbying expenditures to support bills that improve conditions for communities of color I think this is a cool idea and I also think there are a lot of important causes.” - Christopher Lochhead 6. Commit to paying a living wage.  “The national minimum wage hasn’t been raised in a decade and has not nearly kept up with inflation. This has had a disproportionately negative impact on Black workers, Mark points to research that shows States that have raised minimum wages to $15 an hour have seen their economies grow and thrive. Further, he points to Research that shows that the companies that pay well and offer good benefits and treat their hourly employees with respect are more profitable. Walmart raised entry-level worker wages to $12 an hour and saw productivity rise while turnover fell, generating a net increase in corporate earnings.” - Christopher Lochhead 7. Commit to paid parental and sick leave. “Most women of color cannot afford to take significant periods of unpaid leave from their jobs when they have a child.” - Christopher Lochhead 8. Commit to full health care coverage for all employees and support national health care. He cites research that shows that Corporations spend twice as much providing employees with health care as they pay in taxes. He argues, that it puts U.S; businesses at a massive global competitive disadvantage, Mark argues,

During the PodStorm, we're doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. This is the sixth part of the series. Today, podcast living legend Jason DeFillippo of Grumpy Old Geeks joins us to answer some questions about the gig economy, key traits of a good marketing professional and staging a lightning strike. Gig economy as displaced creative hubs The term gig economy has received a lot more negative heat. Christopher says he agrees and disagrees with Jason’s opinions, as he stated in his podcast Grumpy Old Geeks about the gig economy. Jason also gave a few insightful comments about developing a sense of community and cooperation. “We take responsibility for our career. We take responsibility for our financial security, and we decide the kind of work we want to do, with the kind of people want to do it, we decide where the fuck we want to do that.” - Christopher Lochhead Looking to hire our first marketing person One listener asked what traits should they look for as they are about to hire their first marketing person. Christopher gave a lot of insights here, basically to avoid “suits” and opt for someone well rounded, preferably from Product Development who could help you with Category Design. “I know you're going to hate me for saying this, but it's a well-rounded marketing executive that can put on a scuba suit and can go deep and can put on a wingsuit and fly high. That is to say, air wars and ground wars strategy and tactics. I hate to say this because I didn't come from this background, but generally, those folks are found more in Product Marketing than in brand, or lead gen, or “corporate marketing,” because they tend to have more of a GM General Manager type mentality.” - Christopher Lochhead Lightning Strike, Own Event or Hijack An Event? Should you try to put on your own event planning capitalize on something else in your space, like in a big convention? What are some examples of lightning strike events for small entrepreneurs worth considering? What are other ways to create a lightning strike, especially if your product is a life event product? Christopher answers all of these in this episode.  “The other place to look at for things like this, and I don't normally like to talk about it, because it's a secret that I don't like to share, Quora is one of the most under-exploited marketing opportunities out there. Why more thought leaders aren't on Quora? I don't understand.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the Facebook Live Q&A with Christopher Lochhead, with Jason DeFillippo, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

During the PodStorm, we're doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. We did our first and second one last week. We’re going to share with you our third one in this episode. Today, podcast living legend Jason DeFillippo of Grumpy Old Geeks joins us to answer some questions about marketing and generating revenue in times of crisis, becoming a CMO who is hard to fire and masterminds for executives of color. How do brands figure out what to do and say? Given the current situation of the world, Christopher firmly believes there is no other time than now to make a stand. As he always shares, this is the time to be radically generous and thoughtfully aggressive. He also warns that brands should be prepared to receive a backlash. “I think for a lot of brands, making a public statement right now is a very smart thing to do.” - Christopher Lochhead Brands can do a lot of marketing in a positive light while also driving revenue. He encourages brands to take extra caution too with these efforts, as to not sound insensitive or tone-deaf. “I might feel passionate and want to take a stand or say something or whatever but I am also being more purposely cautious, which is unusual for me. I think it's a good strategy right now. If you're going to step into the mix, so to speak, even if you're trying not necessarily to be controversial, I think it's a good time to be super thoughtful.” - Christopher Lochhead What’s your advice for a B2B CMO? One listener asked for Christopher’s advice, as she is a new CMO in a B2B company. She says she observed most CMOs get fired a lot! Christopher gives out a few pointers to remember, speaking as a 3x CMO himself.  “The first thing is: your entire ability to be effective and successful as a CMO is as a direct result of your relationship with the Chief Executive officer. The second one is one of the main reasons, particularly in the software business, CMOS get fired is they don't make the cash register sing. The third thing is to make friends with the field.” - Christopher Lochhead Mastermind Group For People of Color Another listener asked if Christopher could give reference to a mastermind group for people of color. He fully supports and knows quite a number of African-American entrepreneurs, however he is yet to find a group he could refer to. To hear more about the Facebook Live Q&A with Christopher Lochhead, with Jason DeFillippo, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Christopher Lochhead debunks five marketing lies in this episode of Lochhead on Marketing. He talks about why so much of marketing thinking is actually bullshit. Five Marketing Lies and Why Number one, great marketing is about marketing into an existing market to increase market share. “Most legendary innovators, creative creators, entrepreneurs, social change, agents, and so forth, did not play by the rules. They establish their own rules. They designed a new way of thinking As a result, they created new market categories. They did not compete in somebody else's game by somebody else's rules.” - Christopher Lochhead Number two, marketing is about creating demand.  “The legends did not do that. They created demand. There's a huge distinction between capturing and creating.” - Christopher Lochhead Number three, success comes from building a brand.  “Category makes the brand not the other way around. Success comes from being the company or the individual that designs a new way of thinking about an opportunity, or a problem that creates a category and your brand is valuable based on the power of the category.” - Christopher Lochhead Number four, winning is about beating the competition.  “If you're competing in an existing market, you're in competition. Winning is not about beating anybody. Winning is about introducing the world to a new way of thinking about a problem and therefore a solution. When the world gets your thinking, bam, you stand alone, you become known for a niche that you own and you stand above everybody else, as opposed to competing with everybody else.” - Christopher Lochhead And number five, you're going to win if you have the best product to market.  “As a marketer and an entrepreneur, I would much prefer to have a legendary product and pair that with legendary category design and marketing. That's what we're trying to do. Thinking or betting that all you have to do is have a better product. Not so much.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about specific examples on the five marketing lies and why they are BS, download, and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/7qngxkupxFE Today, in this very special episode, we're going to go deep on one of the seminal, most powerful marketing skills there is — copywriting. To discuss more, we have the OG of copywriting, Cole Schaefer of Honeycopy.com. Pay special attention to a particular legendary idea that Cole shares about how you can use your favorite book or books to transform your own writing. Marketers Should Be Writers Cole believes all marketers should also be writers. He believes this is of prime importance if you want to reach a wider audience. If more marketers would focus on writing, the messages will be a lot more clear, crisp and ultimately, customers will comprehend messages better. “The vast majority of business writing and marketing communication, to be honest, it's just really, really tough to read. I would say primarily because it's just littered with sort of business jargon and buzzwords. I hate to say but kind of like the showboating is what I feel like when I read a lot of brand writing and it doesn't feel that it can be understood by the wider audience.” - Cole Schafer Writing in Third-Person POV Another observation Cole shares is: brands write on a third-person point of view. Whether it is on their website or other communications, Cole says the rationale behind is the mentality of not being pompous. “I think for us, any brand, be it big or small, the goal is for when someone sits down and reads their emails or their website, coffee or anything, we really want to feel like we're talking to another human being. Right?” - Cole Schafer Become A Legendary Writer Cole gives out valuable copywriting advice for marketers or even aspiring writers. From knowing your voice and your audience to rewriting ads just like how David Ogilvy does it, Cole gives a rundown on his personal processes. “I would tell people if whether it's writing or podcasting or whatever, whatever craft you're trying to do, just absorb really really, really good art in that specific field. If you want to become a great writer, don't read bad writing. Pick up a really good book, look up the best writers of all time, start reading there and I think naturally it will imprint on your brain.” - Cole Schafer To know more about Cole and how to become a legendary copywriter, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Cole Schafer likes to live fast, write often, and pet dogs.  He is a thinker, marketer, and writer that has been published in Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine, The Mission, Thought Catalog, and P.S. I Love You.  In addition, Cole is the Founder & Copy Chief at Honey Copy, a creative copywriting agency that helps big brands write valuable "stuff" that people actually want to read.  Links:  Honeycopy We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Today, let's take a look at the role of marketing in driving real, dramatic, impactful, important social change. We dig into topics like the battle against AIDS, the women's movement, and even the founding of the United States of America as actual acts of legendary marketing, and what you might think of as category design. It moves the world Christopher believes that legendary marketing does more than just drive sales. Legendary marketing does more. Marketing a provocative point of view creates a new category of social fabric that drives real societal change  “I would argue to you that the greatest marketers, the most legendary marketers are actually category designers. They introduced the world to new ways of thinking, playing, and working and for major societal change to happen. It requires new categories of thinking, what you might think of as very different points of view, points of view that move the world from the way it is today, to the way we want it to be.” - Christopher Lochhead More on Societal Change From spreading awareness about AIDS, to equality wage for equal work, to the establishment of the United States of America, Christopher carefully breaks down why these are provocative points of view that later on demanded societal changes. He reads several quotes lifted from the actual Declaration of Independence and touches on self-governance, which is timely at the moment of recording, where there is civil unrest in the US because of the untimely death of African American George Floyd. Designing The World of Your Choosing As Christopher believes this is a cocoon time, a time in between pre-Covid19 and post Covid19, he poses a question on what kind of world we would like to design? “So what am I saying to you? Whether it's a legendary entrepreneur, artist, or social change agent? The question facing all of us in the United States, particularly and frankly, around the world, is what kind of country and what kind of world do we want to design now?” - Christopher Lochhead Ultimately, for exponential change to happen, it requires category design. It requires the marketing of a point of view that mobilizes a movement to take the world to an exponentially different future. This is why Christopher thinks a real social change requires category design and legendary marketing predicated on a powerful and different point of view.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links:  African Americans are incarcerated more than 5 times the rate of white people From Kenneth Cole, a New Solidarity Equal Pay for Equal Work Declaration of Independence We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/4t9Z3V-CQEo We are hoping you read Jim Collins two legendary books Built to Last and Good to Great. These are game-changers with insanely great research about businesses. In those books, he introduces the concept of a BHAG, which is an acronym for big, hairy, audacious goal. In this episode, let's talk about why you need, what legendary author Jim Collins calls, a big, hairy, audacious goal. Man On The Moon Mission One of the greatest examples of a BHAG is when John F. Kennedy said: USA is going to put a man on the moon within the decade. It is specific, clear, and clearly big and hairy, audacious at the time. Moreover, it is complete since it has time on it.  “Why does this matter in the context of marketing, in particular, in the context of a category design approach for designing and dominating market category? Well, the first part of achieving the goal is to declare it. When you tie a BHAG to a category design strategy, something amazing happens.” - Christopher Lochhead Microsoft’s BHAG One of the most powerful examples in the tech industry was Microsoft when they were building the personal computer category. They had a BHAG when they called a computer, a PC on every desktop.  “Number one, PC on every desktop is very clear. Number two, by doing that, Microsoft is declaring themselves the category queen because there's an interesting thing, in the minds of the market, in the minds of people, the company evangelizing the category must be the leader or category queen or king in that category. Microsoft, in this case, is evangelizing what they want to happen.” - Christopher Lochhead Are you part of the 10%? At the beginning of this PodStorm, episode number 39, Christopher shared that approximately 10% of companies get stronger in a downturn. Now, he encourages you to adopt that as a possible goal for your company.  “By declaring your BHAG, and making it clear to your people, your prospects, your customers, your investors, and — this one I actually love the most — your competitors, all of a sudden you've planted your flag on something. It becomes very unifying, very focusing. and it motivates your people. Hopefully, it inspires your customers, investors, and partners, and it scares the shit out of your competition. And to me, legendary marketing does all of that.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about Christopher and how why you need a BHAG for your company, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: BHAG  We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/FFag2a148Qc In this episode of the PodStorm, let's talk about some little marketing ideas that can produce legendary results. Christopher shares two stories to depict this: the first, about how legendary guitar brand Fender got 500,000 emails almost overnight during the pandemic, and how Colgate got kids to brush their teeth with ice cream. Fender Got 500,000 Emails During C19 Christopher narrates stories from his friend and copywriter Cole Shaefer of Honeycopy.com about Fender, a legendary guitar company that makes guitars and amps and other various musical equipment.  Recently, they proved that radical generosity and thoughtfully aggressive can produce legendary results. “You need to manufacture guitar players because there ain't no guitar-buying if there ain't no guitar players. So what Fender has done over time is they transform themselves from a hardware company into a software company. In doing so, they built their own data flywheel.” - Christopher Lochhead The hardware company set up a software platform called Fender Play, designed to teach people to play guitar. Listen to the episode to find out what else happened when Fender decided to give access to its software, for free. Don’t Forget About Colgate Another story Cole Schaffer told Christopher happened way back in 2009. Colgate was devising of marketing efforts to get kinds onboard with the whole “brush your teeth twice a day” movement.  “Imagine you're the CEO or the CMO of Colgate, and you're trying to get kids to brush their teeth. What's the opposite of what most people would do? Well, give them ice cream, but that's exactly what Colgate did. So imagine instead of a generic stick inside, it's a stick that looks a lot like a toothbrush. It's in the shape of a toothbrush. It's a wooden Ice cream stick in the shape of a toothbrush with a copy on it that says, ‘Don't forget’, and Colgate started handing out Ice cream, ice cream bars to kids.” - Christopher Lochhead Key Takeaway These are both legendary examples of simple ideas that are very thoughtfully aggressive and radically generous at the same time. So how might that apply to your business? “Think small, think simple, think cheap, sometimes not having much of a budget drives creativity. And ask yourself what is an insanely simple, cheap, thoughtfully aggressive, radically generous idea that we could pull off fast and then go do that?” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about how to devise little marketing ideas with legendary results, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Cole Shaefer Honeycopy Fender wants to teach you guitar (for free) during quarantine How Colgate reminded kids to brush their teeth by feeding them ice cream 024 The Difference Between a First Mover and a Category Creator w/ Eddie Yoon We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

During the PodStorm, we're doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. We did our first and second one last week. We’re going to share with you our fourth part of the Q&A session in this episode. Today, podcast living legend Jason DeFillippo of Grumpy Old Geeks joins us to answer some questions about lightning strikes, taglines, how to launch a new category, and much more. How long does a Lightning Strike Last? Christopher answers this question about marketing lightning strikes: it ranges from a day to a week. He further says that this is a challenge of either rising above the noise or being part of the noise. During a lightning strike, you try to stand out and become undeniable to your target audience  “The key tenants of a lightning strike are maximum impact in minimum time. It's predicated on the premise that you can't peanut butter, your marketing, right.” - Christopher Lochhead How do we come up with a tagline? Christopher and Jason converses nicely about coming up with a powerful tagline. Christopher says the Grumpy Old Geeks have one of the best taglines in over the web: “What went wrong on the internet and who's to blame?” Christopher gives out other examples in this episode. “The vast majority of taglines are complete bullshit. The reason they're bullshit is: they're some meaningless thing. Most importantly, they do not tie often to the brand. Category and legendary taglines are representative of a point of view, centered around the category.”  - Christopher Lochhead When is a good time to launch a new category? Christopher gives out a few examples of companies that successfully launched their categories, such as Zoom. Jason chides in with a few more examples such as Reddit. Ultimately, what is worthy to take note are the megatrends that you could take advantage of to build a new category.  “I think it would be silly not to acknowledge the importance of timing, and to some degree, the importance of luck.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the Facebook Live Q&A with Christopher Lochhead, with Jason DeFillippo, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

During the PodStorm, we're doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. We did our first and second one last week. We’re going to share with you our third one in this episode. Today, podcast living legend Jason DeFillippo of Grumpy Old Geeks joins us to answer some questions about podcasting, creativity and a whole lot more! Podcasting at home Christopher, together with Jason, answers a question posted in Follow Your Different Facebook Group asking if “this is the right time to go podcasting.” Both went into an interesting discussion about content creators levelling up the playing field and why there is no other time than now to start your own podcast. Internet-produced podcasts sound way better now than studio-produced because of readily available internet solutions and movie-grade software, such as Squadcast.fm.  “We've got a little more experienced than they do. I mean, they're used to their million-dollar studios, we're used to a laptop and some software and flying by the seat of our pants. We got to make it sound good. Once you take away their studio, they just don't know what to do.” - Jason DeFillippo Should we start a podcast now? Jason shares the only reason not to start a podcast is because microphones are unavailable. There is no barrier to entry and he believes everybody is welcome to start one to get the industry booming. “The more people that are podcasting, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats, because you're going to know people that have never listened to a podcast before which means that you are going to be out there beating the drum, teaching people how to listen.” - Jason DeFillippo Creativity: Nature vs. Nurture Christopher answers the question about how to be creative under pressure. He had an interesting exchange of conversation with Jason since Jason believes creativity can be taught and there is a formula to follow while Christopher believes it is innate to someone. “At least in my experience, particularly with marketing and category design, often the first idea is directly right and then you have to, sort of, water it.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the Facebook Live Q&A with Christopher Lochhead, with Jason DeFillippo, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/M-ZwX6Qcbmk In this episode of the PodStorm. let's talk about how to discover a category, create massive differentiation, and build a super valuable company, particularly in challenging times. Designed, Not Discovered Christopher gets all sorts of questions such as “how do I know if I have a category?” “I think I might have something, how do I discover a category?” “How do I know if this is a new category?” “How do I redesign an existing category, etc.” The first thing Christopher shares to us is: categories are not discovered. “They are created, they are designed and legendary entrepreneurs, legendary marketers, legendary innovators, teach the world how to see things the way they do. And so that category is not discovered like a new piece of land. It's created, you're bringing something new forward.” - Christopher Lochhead Future of Our Choosing Christopher points out that designing a market category is like choosing the future. Legendary marketers are like visitors from the future, moving the market into a certain point of view they choose, in order to solve a certain problem,  “The first thing I'd point you to, is, what is it the insight that you're differentiating on? What's what we call missing in the market category that you see? And sometimes that missing is giant, we discover some kind of plutonium of sorts.” - Christopher Lochhead Technical and Market Insights In the book Play Bigger, Christopher wrote about his learnings from Anne Miura-ko, Co-founder of Floodgate Capital. He gives out examples to identify and differentiate the types of insights. “What Anne says essentially is that there are two kinds of insight: there's a market insight where you see a missing in a market and there's a technical or innovation insight.” - Christopher Lochhead After identifying what kind of insight you have, Christopher advises that you must be able to explain the problem you are solving to a three-year-old.  “Because clarity of focus, clarity of thinking, clarity of language, is critical if you're going to do pretty much anything legendary.” -- Christopher Lochhead To know more about how to discover and design a category, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/tiY3tLnVud0 In this episode, let's talk about the power of a well-timed stunt to gain attention, rise above the noise, and drive revenue. This is how we get our creative juices flowing. Do something that is maybe a little provocative, maybe a little risque. It should be designed to get a lot of attention, and maybe even drive some PR. Black Friday Sale, Not! Christopher shares about different brands and their provocative stunts. Max Temkin, founder of the Cards Against Humanity appeared on Follow Your Different Episode 60. Max and his team probably are the masters in terms of marketing stunts when they jacked up their prices, on Black Friday Sale. “As a way of sort of doing the opposite of what every B2C company and brand does — and as a way of sort of calling bs on consumerism — they increased the price of Cards Against Humanity on Black Friday, and got a ton of PR for it. People thought it was hysterical. They paid the price. They stood out.” - Christopher Lochhead Sponsoring The Golden Gate Bridge CarsDirect.Com also pulled off one legendary stunt when they sent out press releases about their proposal to sponsor the Golden Gate Bridge. This press release stirred up a lot of controversies and reaction from the media, but they still ended up getting a lot of publicity for it. “Now notice, they put forward a proposal, it wasn't actually happening. By putting that press release out, they caused a tremendous amount of controversy.” - Christopher Lochhead Aliens Will Eat Fat People First Another marketing stunt that got into a lot of controversies is the Ad of 24 Hour Fitness featuring an alien and caption that says, “when they come, they'll eat the fat ones first.”  “Their CEO is interviewed on the news. And he was talking about how they're just trying to have fun and shine a light on obesity and that people need to get fit and healthy and the like. And a lot of people were upset and there was all this kerfuffle again, but what were they talking about? 24 Hour Fitness.” - Christopher Lochhead Christopher encourages companies to be provocative, be thoughtful be potentially willing to piss some people off (depending on your brand). To hear more about doing a marketing stunt, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Follow Your Different Episode 60 - Max Temkin Times Cards Against Humanity Pulled Amazing Publicity Stunts Our Favorite Crazy Stunts From Salesforce Leader Marc Benioff WKRP In Cincinnati - Turkey Drop Scene We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In today's PodStorm episode, let's go deep on how to market with a powerful point of view. POVs can be viewed as a mechanism for distinguishing your brand and most importantly, to design and dominate your market category. As wacky as it might sound, downturns can be very powerful times to do exactly that. To discuss this in more detail, we invited Elie Kanaan. He is one of the most talented CMOS and category designers, who now works as the Head of Marketing for Ogury Europe. One Big Challenge Eli believes marketing a provocative POV is one of the biggest challenges any leader faces.  Aside from marketing a POV, you must also know how to turn that POV into results. He says that a powerful POV starts with the CEO and CMOs should be fully supportive of it.  “I believe there are three different journeys that need to happen within the company that is led by the standard CEO, CMO. First, there's a product transformation journey. Then, there's a marketing transformation journey and there is a sales transformation journey. So for that, the CEO and the CMO needs to get on board, the Chief Product Officer, the Chief Technology Officer, and the Chief Revenue Officer. So those would be secondary, but equally important when it comes to execution.”  - Elie Kanaan Bringing Everyone Onboard In presenting a POV, you need to do remember that everyone must believe and understand, your idea with bring good money to the company. Once this is defined, everybody on the board sees the light aka your powerful POV.  Aside from this, a POV becomes a strategy for the whole company and not some mere marketing message or tactic that you employ for a limited time period. A POV is a fixed lens where a company looks into a problem.  “When we declare a point of view, and we're evangelizing a problem, that's something that doesn't really change. That's it. That's a vision, right? This distinction between a point of view that really points to a true north North, ‘what's the mission’ or on ‘what's the problem we're solving?’ ‘Why should customers care’ ‘Why is this thing a new opportunity’ ‘Why is this thing, a new way of thinking about something that's gonna make a difference for customers?’ As opposed to a message called, ‘hey, this month only buy one, get one free, right?’ That's a message.” - Christopher Lochhead Different Is Non-Negotiable The next thing to do is: you have to convince everyone that your idea is different. Unique is different and hard to copy, but oftentimes, leaders confuse being different to what Eli and Christopher call as a “better drop.” “Our minds have been molded into having a better conversation all the time because of alI the shitty marketing that happened before. I mean, there’s some good marketing that happened, but a lot of the marketing is better. This is one of the biggest pitfalls in creating the category — either on the marketing side or the product or the sales side. The Product Team wants to do better products, the Sales want to sell better features, Marketing have better value propositions. /you know, we always set it together actually, is that better is negotiable. Different isn't.”  - Elie Kanaan To learn more about how to market a powerful and provocative point of view, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Elie, is an engineering mind coupled with a passion for human psychology. His life, career and interests have been a direct consequence of these two attributes. After graduating from Stanford University with a Master in Computer Sciences, he started his career as a developer at Oracle, when Oracle was a small company. Quickly he realized that his calling was in creating and building market categories, mostly with category kings: Client/Server Database (Oracle/Sybase), Business Technology Optimisation (Mercury), Business Intelligence (Business Objects), Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP), and Virtualization (VMware). Elie is now working as a CMO for Ogury, helping them design their category and dominate it....

https://youtu.be/Y0oQrse3rVo It appears that we are in a great time of transition. There is that “before February” and then there is “whatever comes after Coronavirus.” The present moment seems like we're in a cocoon. We are at a cocoon time — an incredible in-between zone — where, in business sense, there is a good chance to have massive winners and horrible losers. Let's talk about the mindset required to become one of those massive winners. There’s No “Going Back” We hear a lot of talk in the media, about opening back the economy and “going back to work.” Christopher strongly believes there is no “going back” to whatever we had, pre-coronavirus. We are currently live in a cocoon and we are facing a lot of changes in terms of how we do work “I think what’s going on here is that almost every part of the way that we live, play and work has the potential, the strong potential to be materially different as result of C-19. I think there are megatrends that were going on anyway that are being materially accelerated,” - Christopher Lochhead The most obvious change is a distance working or working from home. Another industry facing a massive change in the food industry and the supply chain. What’s Likely To Be Different? Christopher encourages you to think about every major component of your work and personal life and consider, what is likely to be different. “You see, there are two headsets out there. There's a strategic mindset of people who say ‘well I’m going to bet on the world, being the same’ and ‘look, maybe somethings are the same.’ Then, there’s another headset that says, ‘we think the world is going to be different.” - Christopher Lochhead Christopher believes there is an acceleration of different niches, which he also calls a Nichenado, an explosion of new innovation, of new categories of new niches. What About Those Differences? Christopher challenges you to ask yourself what you can do to ensure you can design and dominate your market category in the future. He further shares the concept of “backcasting” (as opposed to forecasting) which is a concept of Mike Maples of FloodGate Capital. You can listen to him on Follow Your Different Episode 163. “What were the opportunities? What were the problems created or accelerated by C-19 and how can we be a part of solving them? Most importantly, how do you create the future of your choosing?” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about why we live in a cocoon and how we can create the future of our choosing, download, and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/lEm9N828oRU Today on our Marketing PodStorm, let’s talk about why standing in front of an empty fireplace expecting it to be hot is kind of dumb. You see, oftentimes, CEOs, CFOs, and even CMOs cut down marketing during a downturn. Marketing In Desperate Times We understand that some of our business is in a situation where budget cuts are needed to ensure survival. However, Christopher points out that it is not one of the wisest moves to cut down the marketing budget, especially in times that you need income. “Decreasing marketing investments at a time when you desperately need revenue is like a person who's freezing, standing in front of an empty fireplace, saying 'gee, I wonder when this thing is going to get hot?’” - Christopher Lochhead The Worst Thing To Do  Probably the worst thing that you can do in a downturn is to make your category and brand disappear. This is the time when you have to make your company visible, because the more visible you are, the more people will assume your company is doing great, thus, buy from you more. “I understand many of us, have to make some cut. Be careful, if you weed-wack too much marketing, you won't just cut your weed, you'll cut all your grass. You want to be visible now. You have to find smart, creative ways to make your category and brand super visible now.” - Christopher Lochhead Customers Buy From Brand Leaders Marketing in a downturn creates the perception that your business is strong. It establishes dominance and assurance that you will be here for the long haul. The consistent marketing will create “the fear of missing out” among consumers, which drives sales. “People want to buy from category queens and kings, from category and market leaders.” - Christopher Lochhead Christopher further cites some articles from Harvard Business Review and comments on the big market budget cuts of huge corporations, like Google. He discusses more why he thinks it is a bad idea to do such. To know more about marketing during a downturn, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

During the PodStorm, were doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. Here is the second part of our recording, for Q&A about marketing and category design. We talk about all things ranging from new category creation, how to craft problems positively, and creating demand during a crisis. How to know if you have a new category? As counterintuitive as it might sound, now is a great time to launch a new category. Christopher encourages you to ask yourself a couple of key questions: number 1, “what problem do I solve?” or “do I solve that in a different or unique way?” and “What kind of market insights do you have?”  If you don’t think of it as a problem, maybe you create an opportunity. “Nobody buys a solution unless they see a problem. You might consider asking what kind of insights do you have. One is technical insight. Somebody creates a new algorithm or somebody creates hardware. Another one is Market Insight, for example, ‘I want to be able to hire somebody to do an odd job, takes something from point a to point b, come over and help me with something.’ Do you have a technical insight or do you have a market insight? Regardless of what it is, begin to evangelize that insight, that difference.” - Christopher Lochhead How do you talk about problems in a positive way? Evangelizing a problem in a positive way can lead to mass differentiation and category creation. Christopher advises legendary marketers to frame the problem as deeply relatable. This way, we want to be seen as a hero, mobilizing people to come together to solve said problem. “Here's what  I've learned, what you want to do in the way you talk about problems is, do it such that you create 'us.' You make the problem an enemy, a 'them.' You want to define the problem very powerfully, in a way that resonates with people, and then you say, this aggression will not stand, man.” - Christopher Lochhead How do you create demand in a situation where your revenue is dropping? Christopher chides that this is one tough question. We know many companies are having this problem. He drops a bunch of ideas that although might not exactly answer this question, but hopefully might stimulate some thinking. “The first idea, take a handful of your smartest people and lock them and brainstorm 3-5 things that you go near term to stimulate revenue. If you are in the B2B space, create a white space analysis. What you do, you take your existing customer base, do a quick analysis to find out which of your products and services they are currently using. Once you know what they are using, then you immediately target existing customers. If you’re in the B2C, be visible in your neighborhood.”  - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the Facebook live Q&A session (Part 2) with Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

During the PodStorm, were doing a live Facebook Question and Answer session, every Friday, 11:30 a.m. PST. We did our first one, we’re going to share it with you in two parts. We talk about CEOs who don't get marketing, the relationship between CMOs and CEOs during times of crisis, and more about evangelizing the brand. What do I do if my CEO doesn’t get it about marketing? Christopher shares that very little happens without legendary marketing. He stresses the difference of working on something exponential versus something that is incremental. In marketing terms, the more exponential it is, the more explanation it requires. In that situation, that’s called legendary marketing or category design.  “If your CEO, doesn't get it, QUIT. If your CEO doesn't get it about marketing and isn't willing to be a leader, isn't willing to get out in front and be the company designing and dominating the category and if you cant get your CEO there pretty quickly, its time to get out and go.” - Christopher Lochhead What relationship should a CMO and a CEO have, particularly during a recession? Christopher says that CMO is like the Press Secretary for the President of the United States. He shares quite a few examples, being three times CMO himself who sat in that position during a crisis.  “Strategic communication frames the context for everything that is going on in a company. If the CEO and CMO aren’t working in lockstep, then framing that strategic context is not going to work very well.” - Christopher Lochhead Tell me more about evangelizing the category Most companies have overrotated on brand. The marketing world have oftentimes marketed their brands and not necessarily their categories. He points out that in times like this, companies do not just fight over market share, they fight over a minimizing wallet share.  “Look, I'm a 3x CMO, I think branding is important. However, categories are about customers. When we talk all the time about brands, it is equivalent to a dinner party and talking all about yourself, as opposed to talking about others. Categories, fundamentally are about problems, or opportunities, being experienced by others. That is point A. Point B: with categories, it is the way the human brain works. We first understand the category is, then we start thinking about brands. Hierarchy. Our brain works on, category, subcategory and then brand. For example, drink, whiskey, brand. In other words, if I’m not interested in the category, then I'm not going to be interested in the brand.”  - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the Facebook live Q&A session (Part 1) with Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/3yCPhiRlVuE Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world's Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing. Today, let’s talk about a few, very simple ideas that can help drive revenue for both B2C companies and B2B companies. Get Radically Visible As we are trying to come back and slowly opening up the economy, Christopher encourages B2C companies to get radically visible in their communities. “The way to do that is to be thoughtfully aggressive and radically generous. A couple of ideas, sponsor some shit, food bank fundraiser, any kind of charity fundraiser. Be associated with helping to make good things happen in your community in a way that is very generous and that let’s people know you are back in business.” - Christopher Lochhead Get Practical and Tactical On the B2B side, Christopher shares similar, simple thoughts. He encourages B2B professionals to go back to the old school: cold calling and cold emailing.  “If you are in the B2B space, I highly recommend you get on a named account model because, we could do a whole podcast on it, but the net of this is, when you are on a named account model, your salespeople and your marketing people know exactly who to go after, especially in this case, we’re trying to drive revenue now.” - Christopher Lochhead Final Advice Christopher gives out clear examples of what you can do for your business at this time, whether you are in B2B or B2C. He shares that there are potential buyer avatars out there that are willing to drive revenues for your company.  “Reach out and touch ‘em. Try to do something creative and something radically generous to get their attention and hopefully set up some phone calls.” - Christopher Lochhead Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content. Gain the visibility and control you need in your business: https://netsuite.com/different Turn data into doing: https://splunk.com/d2e

https://youtu.be/itibVmOMixM Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world's Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing. Today, let’s talk about marketing simple aka beware the bag full of doorknobs. Biznobabble A lot of companies communicate and market in very confusing ways. Christopher says a lot of companies share their marketing messages in a “carnival barker kind of approach.” “A lot of companies, even if they are a little more sophisticated, they are still barking a lot at people with a lot of stuff, in the tech world, we tend to speak on Biznobabble.” - Christopher Lochhead One of the things that Christopher likes to do is read on a company's website, specifically the “About Us” and it does show how messed up their marketing messages are. “I made this one up and I placed it in Playbigger, as this is illustrative of the problem: Megatech dingdong corporation is headquartered in San Jose California and as a leading developer and global supplier of innovative highspeed world-class cloud infrastructure platform solutions to global worldwide customers and all industries Megatech Dingdong big data application infrastructure platform solutions are highly scalable, reliable, flexible, secure and powerful, built by world-class team, with a  deep understanding of global communications standards and software and hardware expertise and design architecture development and standard-based social IOT mobile, wireless, container enabled distributed hyper-converged cloud blah blah blah yada yada yada.” - Christopher Lochhead, reading an excerpt of Play Bigger Communicate Clearly Christopher shares that today, particularly now is the time to communicate clearly because when people are confused, the chances of them buying is from minimal to zero. It is now, more than ever, that companies have to communicate in clear and powerful ways “When people are confused, they have to think about it and ‘think about it,’ it is code for ‘I’m not sure’ or ‘I don’t get it’ which is also code for, ‘I’m not buying!’.” - Christopher Lochhead Getting Super Simple How could you get super simple? Christopher advises companies to focus on the problem your company is solving and remember that legends market the problem, not the product. Market one simple product or service to solve that problem and use short, simple and powerful words.  To know more about marketing simple and how to avoid a bag full of doorknobs, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Fedex USA-Brazil Campaign We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world's Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing. In this episode, let’s discuss if you are either part of the noise or how you can rise above the noise with the power of a marketing lightning strike! Reach and Frequency It turns out that most marketing executions are predicated on an ancient idea on reach and frequency. The theory is, the more people who see your marketing efforts, the more successful your company will be.  “The reality is we get somewhere between 40,000  to 60,000 marketing messages a day. Reach and frequency really doesn’t work anymore.” - Christopher Lochhead Christopher shares the idea of a lightning strike. It is taking a disproportionate amount of your marketing resources and execute in a very short period of time, against a small number of targets to get the maximum leverage. Play Bigger: What is a Lightning Strike? Now, let’s talk about how to stand out; An excerpt from Play Bigger reads: “A great lightning strike is a category-defining event. It evangelizes a new problem or an old problem that can be solved in a new way. It tells the world that this company knows how to define the problem and knows how to solve it. It makes potential customers believe that the company has the solution, and makes would-be competitors panic and call emergency board meetings. A strike is an event or coordinated series of events in a small window of time. It can take many forms. It can be tied to a product unveiling or a new round of funding. It could be a manufactured industry summit for the sole purpose of the strike.” Do It Tight The idea for a lightning strike comes from the movie industry. They stir up events to get maximum attention the two weeks before a movie launches. What do you need? Christopher shares the following  Pick a timing.  Get super clear on your target audience.  Make your target list as small as possible. You’re looking for leverage. You want to move your market category to action, by activating the most powerful, influential people in your category. If you get their attention and imagination and you get them talking. The idea is, “if you’re one of our Super Consumers, there is not a chance you’ll miss our lightning strike. You looking to create fast, word of mouth, leverage. Think of ALL of the components of the marketing mix that you use: Ads, PR, Social, Direct mail, email, podcasts, blogs, etc. Do a few legendary marketing executions that combined, will have maximum impact To hear more about specific real-life lightning strikes event, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook,  Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/myKVAJ6nFb0 Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world's Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing. In this episode, let’s talk about, arguably, the most important issue facing your marketing as you go forward powerfully: is your category a must-have, a nice to have or a don’t really need to have? Customers Prioritize Categories When... Christopher shares an important insight from a lot of CEOs and CMOs saying "our problem is that we are too much of a vitamin and not enough of an aspirin.” As it turns out, the more strategic, valuable, and urgent the market perceives a category, the greater the chances these customers will prioritize and buy from that business. “I think there's something very important to understand about what’s going on right now in the economy. We are all in a game of wallet share, much more than a game of market share. Customers’ wallets, as a result of the recession, are much smaller. They are going on a prioritization, deciding what is more important and what they can live without.” - Christopher Lochhead Becoming a Must-have Is Job Number 1 Christopher mentions his observation about the mistake most companies are making as the economy starts to open up. They are evangelizing their brand, not their category. “A brand is about us, is about our company it is about our product. The category is about customers, their problems, their opportunities. Categories are about customers, brands are about us. Right now, savvy marketers are focused on their customers and making their space, their category, critical.” - Christopher Lochhead A Couple of Examples The Washington Post has a very powerful tagline "democracy dies in darkness." They are not hard-selling their brand, services, and company. The Washington Post is laying down a point of view about democracy and evangelizing this point of view results to elevating the value of Free Press.  “By evangelizing the category and keeping your brand more on the background, you also elevate your brand above everybody else in the category because, in the mind of the consumer, the company or the person evangelizing the category must be the category queen or king.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about how to make your market category a must-have, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter,The Difference, for some amazing content.

https://youtu.be/2AGtzxRtxWM Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world's Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing. In this episode, let’s talk about what is possible: it is possible to emerge from this downturn as a stronger business because this recession is not going to stand, man! The HydraFacial Story The legendary Peter Drucker once said: “the entrepreneur always searches for change, response to it and exploits it as an opportunity.” As hard as it is, particularly in this unprecedented time, legendary leaders are looking for opportunity and in many cases, they are finding it. Christopher Lochhead conversed recently Clint Carnell, CEO of HydraFacial at Follow Your Different Episode 160, and Clint shares how they are dealing with the current C19 crisis, through radical business transformation. How To Deal With “Ambush” Last year was HydraFacial’s best year ever. When C19 hit, their entire category got stopped. Clint describes this as “being ambushed.” What do you do if this happens to your business? “First of all, you summon your entrepreneurial spirit and you get, what my buddy Eddie Yoon call, thoughtfully aggressive and radically generous.” - Christopher Lochhead HydraFacial partnered with a small company and they created the world's first reusable cotton mask,  infused with copper, which has natural anti-bacterial properties. Second, they entered the ventilator manufacturing business. Lastly, their call centers were converted to “helplines” to support the community during this crisis. Roaring Out This Recession Walter Frick in an article he wrote for Harvard Business Review cited amazing facts and figures that prove it is possible to turn your business around this recession. “Recessions of 1980, 1990, and 2000, 17% of the 4,700 public companies they studied fared particularly badly: They went bankrupt, went private, or were acquired. But just as striking, 9% of the companies didn’t simply recover in the three years after a recession—they flourished, outperforming competitors by at least 10% in sales and profits growth. A more recent analysis by Bain using data from the Great Recession reinforced that finding. The top 10% of companies in Bain’s analysis saw their earnings climb steadily throughout the period and continue to rise afterward. A third study, by McKinsey, found similar results.” - Ranjay Gulati, Nitin Nohria, and Franz Wohlgezogen, Roaring Out of Recession  Christopher believes that you can come out of this downturn stronger when you commit and believe you can be a part of that 10%.  To know more about Christopher and why this recession will not stand, download, and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links:  How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward, Walter Frick, Harvard Business Review We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

Today, let's talk about why the future needs you and frankly, why the future needs some legendary marketing. Entrepreneurs, pay attention to this episode because the future needs you and your innovations to move the human race forward. Going Back To How It Was We hear a lot of discussion about how the business people plan to reopen businesses and how the entire workforce will get back to work. Christopher candidly gives his viewpoint for this: there is no going back to how it was before.   “I think frankly, there is nothing to go back to. It's not about going back to work, it is about creating the future and I think that is where legendary marketing comes in.” - Christopher Lochhead What Greatest Marketers Do Christopher says the greatest marketers over time are the ones who move the world from the way it is now, to the way they want it to be. Further, he shares that legendary marketing is about making an exponential difference as opposed to creating an incremental change. “I think we are witnessing the very beginning of the creation of a new future. Much is going to be different as we move forward. Work, the way we knew it, is different, Society, the way we knew it is different. I think people’s priorities are going to shift. I think what they value is going to shift. I think, therefore, what they are interested in buying is going to shift.” - Christopher Lochhead The Power of Entrepreneurship As a strong believer in the power of entrepreneurship and innovation to move the human race forward Christopher shares that most legendary marketers in the world have done exceptional work in doing exactly that. “I think as we come out of this crisis there is a chance that we will begin to see the emergence of a whole new set of technologies, services, products and categories that design a more human future, frankly, a world that works for more of us, in a way that it never did before.”  - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about Why The Future Needs You and more information about Christopher, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter,The Difference, for some amazing content.

We have is a very special free form conversation with Eddie Yoon, author of Superconsumers. He is also the category design guru to the Fortune 500. Recently, we collaborated on an article for Harvard Business Review “5 Ways to Stimulate Cash Flow in a Downturn.” In this episode, we bring that article to life as we talk about two big ideas: how to be thoughtfully aggressive and radically generous. Innovations Through Adversities Christopher and Eddie share some stories about what is currently happening in the US. Christopher acknowledges the fact that the figures during daily briefings are not just numbers, they are people who have friends, families, and relationships. “I just feel deep sadness and concern right now for all small businesses and large businesses. I think a lot of innovations will come through it, as it always does in adversities but this is one of those I cant wait to be on the other side of it.” - Eddie Yoon Thoughtfully Aggressive, Radically Generous Christopher shares how they have been thinking and researching the book they are working on and how these two ideas started to resonate with people in this time of crisis. “We have a unique opportunity now to be radically generous, best we can and that can be financially and thoughtfully aggressive. Some of our businesses are threatened. Most businesses are down in meaningful ways. As business leaders, we got to navigate through this the best we can.” - Christopher Lochhead Eddie shares that in a time of uncertainty, we don’t know what is going to work. However, if we lean into being radically generous, and thoughtfully aggressive, we'll be fine throughout this. “When you're in a crisis, you got to keep it simple and I think these principles are not that simple, but they are emotional. That's the key part, cause sometimes in fight or flight, your brain doesn't always work. Emotions are what you can hold on to and that's something people can use to discern. Is it a radically generous thing or not? Am I being a chicken or should I be more thoughtfully aggressive about it?” - Eddie Yoon No Best Time To Launch Than Now For companies and brands who got caught up in the planning stage of launching a new product, Christopher and Eddie give advice that there’s no best time to launch than now. “I think, that self-awareness is the thing that makes me feel comfortable. Category creation and design is the ultimate growth strategy. You should be doing it anyway.” - Eddie Yoon To learn more about how to be thoughtfully aggressive and radically generous. and more information about Eddie Yoon, download and listen to this episode Bio: Eddie Yoon is the founder of EddieWouldGrow, LLC, a think tank and advisory firm on growth strategy. Previously he was one of the senior partners at The Cambridge Group, a strategy consulting firm. His work over the past two decades has driven over $8 billion dollars of annual incremental revenue. In particular, 8 of his clients have doubled or tripled in revenue in less than 8 years.  Eddie is one of the world’s leading experts on finding and monetizing superconsumers to grow and create new categories. He is the author of the book, Superconsumers: A Simple, Speedy and Sustainable Path to Superior Growth (Harvard Business School Press, 2016). His book was named as one of the Best Business Books of 2017 by Strategy & Business. He is also the author of over 100 articles, including “Make Your Best Customers Even Better” (Harvard Business Review magazine, March 2014) and “Why It Pays to Be a Category Creator” (Harvard Business Review magazine, March 2013). Additionally, he has appeared on CNBC and MSNBC and been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Forbes and has been a keynote speaker in the U.S., Canada, Kenya, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, the UK and Japan. Eddie holds an AB in Political Science and Economics from the University of Chicago. Having been born and raised in Hawaii,

In this episode, we have a thoughtful conversation about how to create and execute what Marketing guru and entrepreneurial podcaster Jeremy Ryan Slate calls “A Small Pond PR Strategy.” We dig into why you should go small before you go big. Small Pond PR Strategy Jeremy is the host of Create Your Own Life Podcast and owner of firm Command Your Brand Media. He is on a mission to help entrepreneurs get their message out though podcast guesting. Likewise, he also helps podcasters become more profitable. He is also spreading the word about Small Pond PR Strategy “You have to figure out what’s your small area. Honestly, one of the best ways that I found to do that is: start writing press releases to promote to the area because they're hungry for news and you got to tell them about it.” - Jeremy Ryan Slate Start Small Before Going Big Jeremy shares that oftentimes, people disconnect with their local community and focus on targeting big-time media outlets such as Forbes or INC. It is the belief that a featured article from these big media will move the needle.  “If you shoot right for that stuff, you have to realize that there are stairs to get in the media and you have to know how to actually get up those stairs and actually get your local areas for you. So, by saying that its a small pond, what I mean is, everybody has a small community group or whatever it may be that they are a part of.” - Jeremy Ryan Slate To cite an example, Jeremy shares he did an exchange with Rotary International, where he spoke in front of 30 different groups in Peru. He was promoted via the newsletter. This is a great avenue to become an opinion leader in a certain field. Maximize Press Releases Jeremy also shared about writing press releases and tapping community newspapers. Christopher also said local bloggers who have an enthusiastic following is also a good medium.  In writing press releases, Jeremy advised to ask these questions: “What’s newsworthy about our business? If you don't have a reason your different, or reason that the media should care—an interesting statistic, an interesting achievement, something that you're doing to help the community.”  - Jeremy Ryan Slate To learn more about Small Pond PR Strategy and more information about Jeremy Ryan Slate, download and listen to this episode Bio: Jeremy Ryan Slate is the founder of the Create Your Own Life Podcast, which studies the highest performers in the world.  He studied literature at Oxford University and is a former champion powerlifter turned new media entrepreneur.  Specializes in using podcasting and new media to create celebrity and was ranked #1 in iTunes New and Noteworthy and #1 in the business category, as well as ranked # 78 in the iTunes Top 100. Jeremy was named one of the top 26 podcasts for entrepreneurs to listen to in 2017 + 18 by CIO Magazine, a top podcast to listen to by INC Magazine in 2019 and Millennial Influencer to follow in 2018 by Buzzfeed.   The Create Your Own Life Podcast has been downloaded over a million times.  He’s also a featured writer for Influencive and Business.com, as well as a contributing editor of New Theory Magazine and Grit Daily.  After his success in podcasting, Jeremy Slate and his wife, Brielle Slate, founded Command Your Brand Media to help entrepreneurs get their message out by appearing as guests on podcasts and to help podcasters be more profitable. Links: Jeremy Ryan Slate Twitter: @jeremyryanslate We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Extraordinary times call for legendary leadership. In this episode, we talk about why your brand will be defined by what you do during coronavirus. This is a moment of truth. What leaders do in moments of truth define who they become and what happens to our brand. “I think people are going to remember what you did or didn't do during this crisis. How companies treat humanity during this crisis will have a long term impact.” - Christopher Lochhead Focus on People Christopher had been speaking with entrepreneurs about the discussions they should focus on to make a difference during this coronavirus crisis. First is: focus on people. He shares about an Australian CEO who discussed with his people how they can make the most out of their cash on hand and accounts receivable. Half the people would rather get half of their salary than getting laid off. “I think legendary leaders are open about these things and talk to the people about them. Try to do it in a way that is humane as possible and that extends your cash runway as possible.” - Christopher Lochhead Focus on Customers Now is the time to make a difference with customers. Christopher cites an entrepreneur who runs a gym. Rather than making a decision amongst him and his executive team, he asked their customers, if they want to cancel their subscription, do they want to pay half. A good 80 percent of their customers came back and said “we want to keep on paying you at the full rate.” In addition, they're doing a lot like what other legendary people in the health and wellness and fitness industry are doing, they are putting a lot of content on the internet. “By being open real with people, they have endeared themselves to their customers in a very, very powerful way.“ - Christopher Lochhead Focus on Humanity What are we doing for humanity? Now is a great time to be radically generous. In fact, the company Dyson produced a new type of respirator in 10 days and have been supplying 15,000 for this pandemic fight.  “We have to ask ourselves what do we have to contribute? It might be money, it might be other things. it might be expertise. In our case, we have a podcast to contribute, so we’re doing that.” - - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about Christopher’s thoughts on how a company’s action during this crisis will affect their brands, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: James Dyson designed a new ventilator in 10 days. He's making 15,000 for the pandemic fight We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Extraordinary times call for legendary leadership. Because of the Coronavirus, shit is getting very weird. As Hunter Thompson said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turns pro” which is why it’s time to become a Digital Leader and over-communicate. Primary Mode of Communication In times of crisis, people need to both see and hear from their leaders. Former navy seal and former Chief of Staff for 4-star General Stanley McCrystal, Chris Fussell was on FYD episode 38 and he made a comment on digital leadership in an article he wrote on NY Times.  He made a comment on “digital leadership and said “first, don’t hunker down. Second, demonstrate candor.” Christopher thinks this is good advice especially in times like this, the only way people are experiencing their leaders is digital. “Going forward once we get through this crisis, it is very clear, digital communication will become, if it is not already, the primary way that your employees hear from you and see you.” - Christopher Lochhead Leaders Are Not Overcommunicating Christopher observed that CEOs, CMOs or any business leaders at the moment are not communicating much. This to him is a big mistake. He shares that Fussel and McCrystal are right on, from a tactical point of view. He also encourages leaders, not only to improve public speaking skills but to get comfortable with technology such as Zoom.  “I don’t think you can be a leader anymore unless you’re a digital leader.” - Christopher Lochhead To cite an example, Chris Fussel talked about McChrystal doing daily briefings. He couldn’t take a top-down approach on communications that he needed to be front and center with all of his people and so he started daily briefings using video and audio. Becoming a Digital Leader As a CEO, CMO, of business leader the first a-ha here is that you can’t be a leader unless you’re a digital leader. Since its the only way for people to experience you, you must get comfortable with technology. Make the necessary upgrades on your hardware such as microphone, camera, among others.  Consider having daily CEO briefings. Learn how to motivate your employees and ask the tough questions. Be radically candid and keep in mind, LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN.  To hear more about Christopher’s thoughts digital leadership and overcommunicating. download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: What 9/11 Taught Us About Leadership in a Crisis, NY Times Radical Candor Using the Next Recession to Change the Game How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward, HBR Roaring Out of Recession, HBR Seize Advantage in a Downturn, HBR Advantage In Adversity: Winning The Next Downturn We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Coronavirus has created and is still creating both horrible human and economic costs, around the world. However, it is during these times, where real leaders stand up and become legendary. Extra-ordinary times, call for legendary leadership. The difference in marketing can make in these tough times, is incalculable. In this episode, let’s talk about why Marketing is the Leadership Department. The goal is to share ideas but most importantly, to spark dialogue and thinking amongst you and your colleagues, Let’s Face It Let’s state the obvious. We are likely heading into a downturn: revenues are likely coming down, as well as budgets and spending. Both private and public enterprises are definitely affected. “From a human perspective, the coronavirus is going to cause more loss and suffering that’s just where we are at.” - Christopher Lochhead Marketing as Leaders As this is the perfect time for marketing leaders to stand up, here are some of Christopher’s thoughts on how to make  it legendary. 1) Real leaders stand up If you’re a CEO, please think about leading your company and your category through marketing. If you’re a CMO, please think about yourself as the personal press secretary for your CEO. In challenging times, the CEO and CMO want to be stapled to each other because marketing sets the tone for the company “Marketing unifies all communications and spokespeople.” - Christopher Lochhead On the offensive side, legendary marketing in bad times can drive the agenda for the category and position the company to gain a meaningful category share. 2) Now is a good time to do some good If you or your company is in a position to help, see if you can. Let’s all try and be kind to each other. This is the right time to ask ourselves if we’re doing all that we can for our people. This epidemic is going to affect us in one way or another. “I know of several high-profile Silicon Valley tech companies that are donating technology, money and/or resources, of one sort or another to try and help with this situation.” - Christopher Lochhead 3) Look to make smart budget cuts / re-allocations Use this situation as an excuse to stop doing any activities that don’t give returns to the company. Most marketing plans have at least 20% of stupid in them. Cut more than you think you have to. Measure twice, cut once. 4) Practice radical transparency Now is the time for clear, plain decisive language with your people, customers, partners, and investors. It is attractive, endearing and it makes people want to help this troubled company because the most legendary leaders are radically transparent. 5) Get thoughtfully aggressive Research from Firms like McKinsey and Bain, published in places like the HBR suggest that the pathway to success is “Act fast, make changes or cuts if needed, then be thoughtfully aggressive, ahead of the recovery. The research says: Between 9%-14% of companies (depending on the study) actually outperformed competitors by at least 10% in sales and profit growth Aim to be one of them! 6) Evangelize the category Evangelize the problem. Most of your competitors will cut big M, marketing and over-focus on “demand generation.” That will open the door for you to grab category, POV leadership, We are all focusing on demand generation right now. That will probably open the door,   “CEOs often say to me, ‘Our problem is we are too much of a vitamin, not enough of an aspirin’ In downtimes, you want to make sure that people think that your category is a must-have, not a nice to have” - Christopher Lochhead 7) Drive short-term revenue Get your 5 smartest marketers and your 5 smartest salespeople in a room for a day. Brain storm short term campaign ideas. Pick the simplest, quickest to execute ideas and get busy driving the pipeline and the cash register To hear more about Christopher’s thoughts on why marketing is the leadership department, download and listen this episode.  Bio:

Did you know, one of the top reasons why CMOs and marketing leaders get fired is: the sales force thinks they are a joke. In this episode, we talk about why it is important for marketers to become great at sales. Marketing Is Sales Scaled If you think about what marketing is, it is actually selling at scale. Christopher thinks that in 30 to 90 seconds, a marketer should be able to lay down a point of view that captures the imagination of the audience. If you can't, you have a serious “sales” issue. “I think, as counterintuitive as this might sound, the number one skill set required to be legendary at marketing, is to have a black belt in sales.” - Christopher Lochhead Spend Time in The Field Christopher thinks that as a marketer, you should spend a disproportionate amount of time in the field. If you spend time with customers, you get a pulse on their problems and what opportunities are out there.  “When you spend a lot of time in the field, the needs of the category sort of get into your bones, into your soul. It also enables you to have more empathy for both customers and your sales organization.” - Christopher Lochhead Train and Set Goals As important as getting adequate sales traning and gathering first hand information, marketers should also set a goal to become a requested person during sales calls. This means that you get the approval and respect of the sales force, which in turn means you are a legendary marketer.  To add, Christopher provided mentioned The Ziglar Show Podcast (Kevin Miller), The Brutal Truth about Sales & Selling (Brian Burns) and book What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School (Mark McCormack), as great resources to improve your marketing skills.  Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, we have a thoughtful conversation about how to turbocharge your pipeline and drive revenue with Ryan Deiss, founder of DigitalMarketer.com. He has some provocative and engaging thoughts around what marketers can and should do to drive revenue today. We talk about the 8 stages of digital marketing and common mistakes marketers do within these stages. How To Get Attention Ryan shares that other than creating substantial and valuable content, companies should advertise. Facebook and Google ads are his recommendations because it represents 86% of the total digital ad spent annually. He also points out the importance of having the right offer, at the right time.  “You have to do great content marketing and then you have to pay to get this great content, noticed.” - Ryan Deiss 8 Stages of Digital Marketing One of the biggest problems companies do today is: they take a prospect too quickly from “interest” to “HEY BUY NOW.” Ryan teases out, exactly, what marketers need to do to own the whole process from interest to purchase and beyond. The 8 stages of digital marketing are as follows: Stage 1 - Awareness Stage 2- Engagement Stage 3 - Subscription Stage 4 - Conversion Stage 5 - Excitement Stage 6 - Ascencion Stage 7 - Advocacy Stage 8 - Promotion He discusses each on this episode with easy to digest, real-life examples. Playing The Blame Game Ryan also discusses the importance of owning these stages, as this is similar to the customer value journey. Most of the time, Marketing passes leads to Sales, which expects them to close the deal. Sales, on the other hand, know the importance of diligently following the stages and reverts back to Marketing. He proposes that every company identifies what stage a certain lead is at and work their way around, encompassing other departments such as Product and Customer Care.  “That is what it takes to win today. The companies that do it, they're just gonna be the ones who will win and the ones who complain this is hard, they will lose.” - Ryan Deiss To hear more about the 8 stages of digital marketing, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Ryan Deiss is a best selling author, founder of multiple companies collectively employing hundreds around the globe, and one of the most dynamic speakers on marketing in the United States today. He is the founder and CEO of DigitalMarketer.com and Founder and Managing Partner of RivalBrands.com and plattr.com. Ryan is the creator of the “Customer Value Optimization” methodology and have introduced and popularized many of the digital selling strategies that modern companies now take for granted. Additionally, he is also the founder and host of the Traffic & Conversion Summit, the largest digital marketing conversion conference in North America. Links: Linkedin: Ryan Deiss Twitter: @ryandeiss Digital Marketer We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, let’s talk about the strategic lens required to make marketing decisions. Marketing Decisions Marketers, over and over again, continue to make this big mistake: they come up with marketing decisions without having a discussion around its context. Context, in terms of the “lens” they will use to come up with the decision.  “If you’re a regular listener and if you know me, you know one of my favorite expressions is, thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking.” - Christopher Lochhead Overly Simplistic Lens When people go and make a decision, they have an implied assumption that everyone on their team are on the same page. This holds true in different types of teams, whether its a department or a board room discussion.  In marketing, in particular, people use different kinds of lenses. Christopher points out that most people, even seniors executives, board members or giant public companies, use an overly simplistic lens in making a decision. “Do I like it or do I not like it? Essentially the same lens that they use for naming a cat.” - Christopher Lochhead Strategic Thinking Christopher emphasizes that asking the questions whether you like something or not like something is just the same approach to naming a pet cat. This shouldn’t be done, especially when we’re talking about picking a category or designing a creative campaign or anything in between. Hence, he is proposing the following lens when coming up with a marketing decision: 1) When you’re looking at any kind of marketing strategy or execution, ask, is this legendary? 2) Does this, execution, strategy or campaign enable us to design and dominate our category? 3) Does this decision drive near both term and long term revenue and customer loyalty? To hear more about how to make marketing decisions, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Every big decision involves a group of people.and so, in business, if you’re going to do something legendary, whether its a strategy or a campaign, it will be a group decision. In this episode, Christopher Lochhead shares why it is a legendary business trait to be able to get people to disagree and commit. Everybody has a Marketing Opinion Recently, Christopher had a discussion on with legendary tech executive Elisa Steele on Follow Your Different Episode 129. She talks about the power of being able to disagree and commit. She also talks about the importance of being a consensus builder. “Getting people to disagree and commit is one of the most important skills an executive can have. Why? Because everyone has a Marketing Opinion.” - Christopher Lochhead CMO’s get a lot of “HELP” from internal stakeholders. Debate, discussion, and disagreement are GOOD, when you are working on strategies, creative ideas, campaign ideas or category design. However, consensus is BAD. “If everyone agrees, by definition it sucks. If someone isn’t scared, upset or at least concerned, it’s probably not legendary.” - Christopher Lochhead How Do You Get In Front of This Christopher advises that from the 1st meeting, tell the people involved the following: 1) we want to do something legendary 2) we want to generate legendary ideas/creative "ideation stage" 3) and when we decide, we are going to execute like “a pack of speedy, crazed wolverines:” It is essential to lay upfront during the first meeting that the objective is not to please everybody but to create a strategic desition that will reap legendary results. It is also important to address who is the final decision maker. Strategic Decision Over Consensus Addressing these concerns from the very beginning will definitely receive negative responses from a lot of people, including some board members or senior executives. Christopher says that “this is okay.” We are aiming for strategic decisions, not consensus. It would be nice to acknowledge that businesses need “feedback.” However, it would also be better to get everyone’s commitment that they will support and execute the final strategic decision. Be firm on expecting everybody to commit, even if they hate the decision or the direction taken. This trait would separate legendary leaders from the ordinary ones.  To hear more about why it is a legendary trait to learn how to disagree and commit, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead asks the question, “is your marketing plan radical enough?” Most marketing plans are predictable, uncreative and safe. He will share today how to do away with your usual marketing plan and craft a radical one. 3x CMO Being an advisor to a lot of companies, Christopher shares how he has been part of creating, reviewing and critiquing a lot of these companies’ marketing plans. He further says that there are three things about these marketing plans: they are predictable, uncreative and safe.  Safe as in, most CMOs are more concerned with making their “internal customers”  happy. The reason behind this is that most CMOs are trying to keep their jobs. Ultimately, this ends up in mundane marketing plans.  “The longer I do this, the more I think that, if it’s legendary, its probably radical, at least in some way.” - Christopher Lochhead 3 Ideas For Radical Thinking Our job, ultimately in business is to be a leader, who enables our company to design and dominate a giant category that matters. The goal is to earn 2/3rds of the economics in a space that we created. “That in my opinion that, is the real job of the CMO, CEO and the entire C-suite. So I urge you when building or evaluating a marketing plan, ask yourself: Will this plan enable us to design and dominate a giant category that matters?” - Christopher Lochhead The second idea is that, do we have a radical way to evangelize our category POV? Legends market the category, not the brand but this is one of the common mistakes marketing leaders make. “You want them to buy into the thinking and to the language. and as they do that, they'll see things the way you do and your new way or different way of doing things will become the defacto standard. What you're really creating is this fear of missing out” - Christopher Lochhead Lastly, ask yourself: what’s a radical way to generate leads and drive revenue? Legendary CMOs design the category for the mid-long term and drive revenue in the “ASAP, right now” term. 3 Questions Again, to recap, here are the three radical ideas to consider before creating a marketing plan.  1) Will this plan, enable us to design and dominate a giant category that matters? 2) Do we have a radical way to evangelize our category POV? 3) What’s a radical way to generate leads and drive revenue? To hear more about creating a radical marketing plan, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

This special episode of Lochhead on Marketing is the actual conversation of Christopher Lochhead and Carrie Palin, CMO of software company Splunk, during their appearance at Hypergrowth San Francisco. Carrie shares how she spearheaded the category creation of Data to Everything and brand re-launch of Splunk. Splunk at Hypergrowth Christopher Lochhead and Splunk CMO Carrie Palin were invited to speak at Hypergrowth San Francisco to talk about creating a new category and brand. Drift organized this awesome business and marketing conference. This conversation is a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes of a very successful, super high-growth company like Splunk. “At Splunk, we’re very proud of our culture. We’re very proud of our history. There's something we call Splunkiness.” - Carrie Palin Splunk is a publicly-traded software company worth $20B and they have recently launched a new category called Data to Everything. They have also relaunched their brand, changing their logo from green and black to orange and pink.  Rough Start Carrie shared that her forte is in demand generation and she found category creation and branding to be quite challenging. She notes that aside from having a great branding team, she had great bosses who believed in her vision. It was a rough start for Carrie, as three days into her new role, she received a piece of unfortunate news about her ailing father. It was one of the challenging events of her life but she acknowledged that Splunk CEO and President had been supportive of her grief. “Splunk stuck with me. They treated me like I’ve been there 20 years versus 3 days. Four months after that, it was crazier than I ever anticipated. Now that was through that, I know that it was absolutely the right place for me to be.” - Carrie Palin On-boarding the BOD Carrie shared amazing stories on how she on-boarded the Board of Directors with her ideas. She gave a lot of weight on conviction and commitment to the Board.  “Listen to your data. Turn your data into doing, which is exactly what our clients are doing. They’re doing really incredible things.” - Carrie Palin To hear more about How To Create a New Category & Brand w/ Carrie Palin, CMO of $20B Splunk, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Carrie Palin has been Splunk’s Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer since 2019. Prior, Ms. Palin served as the Chief Marketing Officer at SendGrid, a digital communications platform company acquired by Twilio, from 2018 to 2019. From 2016 to 2018, Ms. Palin served as the first Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President at Box, a cloud content management company. Ms. Palin served as the Vice President of Marketing for IBM’s Cloud Data Services and Analytics Software Division from 2015 to 2016. She also previously spent over 15 years at Dell leading various marketing organizations. Ms. Palin holds a B.S. Communications degree from Texas Christian University. Links: Twitter: @carriepsandstad Linkedin: Carrie Palin Splunk Drift Hypergrowth We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

On episode #023 with Paul Maher, we popped the hood on the secret marketing / PR black art of Trendjacking. Recently, actor Ryan Reynolds (aka Marvel’s Deadpool) who also owns the brand, Aviation American Gin, just pulled off the trendjack of the year. Let’s break down the 8 reasons why this was a legendary trend jack. The Peloton Ad The Peloton Ad shows a rich couple, with the husband, giving his thin wife an exercise bike. There was a public uproar as reaction to the ad. In fact, Business Insider reported: “Peloton's nightmare before Christmas: $1.5 billion vanished from its market value in 3 days amid holiday ad backlash.” Additionally, Busines Insider reported “backlash over a holiday ad that has been widely panned as sexist, tone-deaf, and dystopian.”  This forced Peloton to cut the cost of a monthly subscription to its workout apps. Trendjack of the Year Actor, celebrity, and owner of Aviation American Gin, Ryan Reynolds, pulled off, what Christopher claims, as the trendjack of the year. What he and his team did was, they inserted themselves into the controversy around the recent Peloton Bike Ad. For less than $100K, they hired the actor who played the wife and shot a response ad. "The ad is funny. It captures what it's like to break up with somebody. It’s a real jab on Peloton and they never even mentioned the name Peloton." - Christopher Lochhead 8 Reasons Why It’s Legendary They found a way to trendjack the biggest Ad flop of the year Radically FAST: They acted in a matter of days. Aviation’s response is pitch-perfect. People loved their response as opposed to the original,  which was way off-pitch.  Radically creative. In the ad, she has clearly left her husband who bought her the Peloton. The ad was built to be viral. It was posted on social media, starting on Ryan Reynolds's Twitter. This was a move that is virtually impossible for their major competitors, such as Beefeater or Tanqueray, to pull off. They did it in “less that $100K.” (NY Times) This ad made them the good guys. Yahoo reports: “Ryan Reynolds says he hired actress from viral Peloton ad because backlash can be 'alienating'” “This example begs the question: how can we be radically smart, radically creative and radically fast to trendjack the news to build our brand and category?” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about Ryan Reynolds Legendary Peloton Trendjack For Gin Brand, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Aviation American Gin New York Times: Peloton’s Cringe-y Ad Got Everyone Talking. Its C.E.O. Is Silent. But the “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds describes how he found a way into the conversation. AdWeek: “Greatest Sequel Ever” Business Insider: Peloton's nightmare before Christmas: $1.5 billion vanished from its market value in 3 days amid holiday ad backlash Yahoo: Ryan Reynolds says he hired actress from viral Peloton ad because backlash can be 'alienating' We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter,

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead takes listeners on an exercise in developing their eye for category creation and category design. Category Design is a new level of thinking in business. It is a whole different approach to marketing and Christopher stresses its importance in building a legendary business. See Things Differently Kevin Mainey wrote in the book Play Bigger, that “category design is a new lens on business. Once you have that lens, you see things in a very unique way.” However, listeners often ask Christopher how can they specifically apply these to their businesses. In this episode, Christopher uses a recent story in the WSJ as an example of how category design is powerful force, that most people don’t know is there. He breaks down a recent story about Google buying FitBit, with the hopes of assisting listeners on how to develop their eyes and ears on category design lens. Google Buys Fitbit: A Category Design Example Headline: Google to Buy Fitbit, Amping Up Wearables Race By Rob Copeland and Patrick Thomas Updated Nov. 1, 2019 Sub-head: Deal to acquire maker of wearable fitness products for $2.1 billion extends Google’s reach in consumer electronics Wearables is a niche in the consumer electronics mega category. Google reached a deal to buy wearable fitness products company Fitbit Inc. FIT 15.53% for roughly $2.1 billion, a move that intensifies the battle among technology giants to capture consumers through devices other than smartphones.  Category name before company name, its an example of the fact that people need to know what it is, before knowing who it is. The second sentence is framing the category battle. For Google, the deal marks a further push into health. as it faces regulatory threats to its massive internet-search and advertising business. Underscoring Google moving into mega category of health tech, then stating Google’s category king positing in search. It also puts Google in renewed and direct competition with Silicon Valley neighbor Apple Inc., which in the past week said rising sales of wearables and related services were becoming a bigger driver of its business. Framing the competition in new wearables category and wearables category growth. Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. will spend just a sliver of its $121 billion cash hoard to branch out with Fitbit’s products. Alphabet’s $2.1 billion bid was for $7.35 a share in cash, a 19% premium to Fitbit’s closing price Thursday and more than 70% above where the stock was trading last week before deal talks were first reported by Reuters. Speaks to the premium price category queens get in M&A. Fitbit shares rose more than 15% to $7.14 on Friday, while Alphabet’s shares ticked up slightly. The deal lands at a moment when Google and other tech giants are under scrutiny on a number of fronts over their competitive practices and dominance of certain businesses, “certain businesses” means categories. This points to the domination category queens achieve. including through acquisitions. But the Mountain View, Calif., company continues to expand aggressively. Translation: moves into new categories through internal efforts and M&A. Founded in 2007, Fitbit makes so-called wearables, or watches and bracelets that primarily track health information like heart rate. Such products have fascinated Silicon Valley Speaks to early adopters embracing the category. where technology executives of all ages proudly wear rings and other devices to track sleep and “hack” their own personal performance. Wearables (category name) have proved far less popular with the broader public. Google several years ago launched a brand of smart glasses that attracted as much ridicule as buyers, and Snap Inc. likewise got a lukewarm response to its hyped Spectacles line. Speaks to the trouble the “wearables” category have had breaking past early adopters to hit a main-stream tipping point. This is normal in the early days of a category. Also note,

In this episode, Christopher tackles an article that appeared in Harvard Business Review which he co-wrote with Nicolas Cole and special guest for today, Eddie Yoon. Eddie is the author of Super Consumers and is considered a Category Design Guru of Fortune 500. Today, we will discuss the thinking behind the article, specifically about the power of data flywheel and how high-growth companies used this to stay on top. Frustration with Misinformation Eddie discusses the reason behind writing this article with Christopher and Nicolas. Basically, it was sharing the same frustration about companies commensurate misinformation or misunderstanding on becoming the first-mover versus category creators. “I just think, not only are they being misled, companies are in the relentless pursuit of being first. Let’s think about how to actually build a sustainable advantage at a category queen.” - Eddie Yoon Furthermore, Eddie shares how he has observed this everywhere and that he is hopeful that people would take that energy that’s been misdirected to “being first”, towards building a flywheel. Missionary vs. Mercenary Eddie shares they did tons of analysis which basically asks “what’s your motivation for creating a category, are you a missionary or a mercenary?” He says that mercenaries see the economics and they try to shortcut what is the fastest way to get to 76% to get the valuation. On the other hand, Missionaries are those who care about the product and the category being screwed up and would work towards improvement. Eddie further discusses where radical differentiation would come in along with the transformational outcomes. He also says radical generosity is behind this. Data Flywheel Eddie shares the study they conducted for the article. Basically, he looked at 10 years worth of Fortune 100`fastest growing company list. He determined if he can identify fast-growing companies between those that were truly category creators. The markers he used were great product, service, company and data flywheel. “If you are growing in a very specific way, if you have this flywheel, your valuation is meaningfully higher. You have 5x market cap for every dollar in revenue.” - Eddie Yoon To hear more about The Difference Between a First Mover and a Category Creator and more relevant information from Eddie Yoon, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Eddie Yoon is the founder of EddieWouldGrow, LLC, a think tank and advisory firm on growth strategy. Previously he was one of the senior partners at The Cambridge Group, a strategy consulting firm. His work over the past two decades has driven over $8 billion dollars of annual incremental revenue. In particular, 8 of his clients have doubled or tripled in revenue in less than 8 years. Eddie is one of the world’s leading experts on finding and monetizing superconsumers to grow and create new categories. He is the author of the book, Superconsumers: A Simple, Speedy and Sustainable Path to Superior Growth (Harvard Business School Press, 2016). His book was named as one of the Best Business Books of 2017 by Strategy & Business. He is also the author of over 100 articles, including “Make Your Best Customers Even Better” (Harvard Business Review magazine, March 2014) and “Why It Pays to Be a Category Creator” (Harvard Business Review magazine, March 2013). Additionally, he has appeared on CNBC and MSNBC.  The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Forbes has quotes several of his pieces. Eddie has been a keynote speaker in the U.S., Canada, Kenya, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, the UK and Japan. Moreover, Eddie holds an AB in Political Science and Economics from the University of Chicago. Having been born and raised in Hawaii, he went to the Punahou School in Honolulu. Eddie lives in Chicago with his wife and three children. Links: Harvard Business Review: The Difference Between a First Mover and a Category Creator Eddie Yoon Nicolas Cage

Today is another special episode of Lochhead on Marketing as Paul Maher, Founder of Positive Marketing (UK) joins us to talk about Trendjacking Marketing and Public Relations. His firm, Positive, won the SABRE Award for Best-earned Media Agency in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Trendjacking Paul Maher discusses the secret black art of marketing, PR, communications, and media called the trendjacking. This PR strategy is widely used nowadays as marketers aim to position themselves to become consistently relevant to their market. “Trendjacking is all about how do we take what’s happening in the news and attach ourselves to that, use that as an advantage to become an expert, to become known, to position ourselves effectively.” - Paul Maher Christopher and Paul have worked in several projects in the past and have actually the promulgators of trendjacking when they diverted a mergers and acquisition news of a competitor in the past. Seven Secrets of Trendjacking 1. BE POSITIVE  The news happens anyway, why not be in it? Category leaders make rather than observe the news. 2. BE PROVOCATIVE To do this you need to recognize the very definition of news is what you DIDN’T know, or as William Randolph Hearst, the biggest news baron of the pre-Facebook world famously said, ‘WHAT SOMEONE ELSE DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW’. Get creative and find out who does not want to know what you want to say. 3. PREDICT (IT’S CALLED A NEWS CYCLE FOR A REASON) As well as great content, you need great timing. To know when is the optimal time to drop your bomb, you need to read patterns and become a news junkie, not an expert on everything from Celebrity Diets to Robot Brain Surgery, but at least stay across what’s going on in your sector. Preferably twice or more a day. Alternatively hire help, in the form of an agency or consultant who will. 4. PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE Set the trap and give yourself options. So perhaps have a set of pitches for each eventuality. England’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnston, also until recently one of the UK’s highest-paid newspaper columnists wrote two versions of an opinion piece, one for and one against Brexit. This way he hedged his bets and prevented a last-minute rewrite, we do this often for clients who want to trendjack major Government data announcements, such as Non-Farm jobs, GDP, etc. This brings us to. 5. BE PROMPT - ONLY EARLY BIRDS CATCH WORMS As a former journalist, dealing with hundreds of inbound calls each day, I would react to the ‘News no one else wants you to hear’ positively the first time. I also understand the second time a fresh angle is pitched, it is just plain old. Many of those who work on flagship news programs start their day earlier than the rest of the world. As the news rolls 24x7 it makes sense to make that early morning call or speak to Planning Departments the night before you drop. 6. BE PRAGMATIC - ORIGINAL BUT READY TO FLEX YOUR ANGLES Ambitious and original trendjackers are luckier trendjackers. Flip your angle, be more counter-intuitive, find the perfect image to accompany your trendjack. Smartest of all, chalk up your failures, wait for the news cycle to roll around and point to a ‘Told you so’ prediction when it does. We regularly issue ‘Open Letters’ to regulators, government bodies or even the entire tech industry when we scratch on a trendjack, just SO WE CAN GO BACK. Predictions are hard, especially in the future. So better to make them early and forget those which don’t come off. 7. BE PERSISTENT Recognize these perennial stories? They are not going away. Users disappointed by tech outage Record good/bad holiday retail sales Sales of hot new thing break records CEO under pressure from board members Employment figure up/down last quarter Notice how predictable these stories are? Not succeeding the first time is to be expected, but more is more. Remember there are a lot of newspaper pages to it and an infini...

Christopher Lochhead discusses differentiation or differentiators of a brand, product or company. He further shares what legendary marketers do, makes their marketing better or makes it different? Differentiators We often hear this word a lot in marketing: differentiation. Christopher poses the question when speaking about a product or brand differentiation, is it really different or is it better? In reality, when most CEOs, CMOs, entrepreneurs and product investors say differentiators, what really comes out of their mouth is better. Christopher however, believes making a difference is the better choice. True Differentiation Christopher suggests a brainstorming session with people in order to determine true differentiation. Create a list of “what makes you different.” Step back and look at your extensive list and tick what makes you different. “If you have a list of 50 differentiators out there, if five of them are truly different, you'll be doing well, I think.” - Christopher Lochhead Why does this matter? It matters because different forces a choice, and better is a comparison game. Legendary marketers want to own a position where they can’t be easily knocked off. They prefer the perception of being unique, distinct, hard to replace and as someone who solves a problem and creates value. The “Better” Game Christopher cites Pepsi as the top contender in this “better” game. They run a series of campaigns comparing themselves to Coke. However, this still proves to be ineffective. “The problem with this better game is, whatever you’re comparing yourself better with, ultimately, is the thing you’re giving power to.” - Christopher Lochhead One of the legendary things that category designers and creators tend to do is to never talk about competitors. Exactly, for this reason, the different conversation, forces a choice. Fundamentally, marketing is about distinguishing oneself. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

In today’s episode, Christopher Lochhead dives down deep into the power of colors and how it affects your brand marketing. In a world where almost all brands are Blue (and some are red), how do you make your brand different and stand out? What’s With Color Blue? Christopher recently represented a tech company with a stand-out logo, it's color pink and orange. According to this company, 70% of B2B company logos are blue. Christopher researched this claim and indeed found out, 33% of the world’s top brands companies are blue. Some 29% are red, 28% are black or grey and 13% are yellow or gold. “A big part of doing legendary marketing is standing out, being different, being unique. Then for the most part, if you’re gonna be blue, you’re not going to stand out and frankly if you’re gonna be red, you’re probably not gonna stand out, too.” - Christopher Lochhead  Colors and Lack Thereof  One of the guests of Follow Your Different David Rendall, Ph.D., author of Freak Factor, is one unique example. He embraced the color pink. In fact, he wears pink shirts, pink suits and even his eyeglass frames are pink. As a public speaker, he wears pink not only to stand out but to send a message to the world that its okay to express oneself and let go of what others might think of you. Another example is Max Temkin, the creator of Cards Against Humanity. He shared that he has no eye for color so he just went with black and white, with a distinct font. “If you think about brands how many brands do you know that actually are strategic in their use of color?” - Christopher Lochhead An Underexploited Opportunity Legendary companies and legendary brands stand out because they are different. Color is an underexploited opportunity to stand out. Christopher encourages marketers and designers to think strategically about color. “If you are involved with the re-brand or brand launch, I would encourage you to take a look at all of the brands in your near-space categories and hold it against the wall and look at what they look like [against your brand]” - Christopher Lochhead. Christopher further asks, “how can you use color as part of your brand, as part of your logo to stand out? Ultimately, he asks what color or colors can you own? This is a great opportunity to gain a strategic advantage over the competition. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links:  Follow Your Different - Max Temkin Follow Your Different - David Rendall Vowels Advertising We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

From time to time, we will bring on guests to go deep on a topic in a particular field. Today’s guest is Tom Schwab, founder of Interview Valet. As we celebrate International Podcast Day, we will discuss the power of podcast guesting and why it is a strategic component of legendary marketing today. Connecting with People Tom stresses the importance of podcast guesting, especially for business executives, authors, and entrepreneurs. He believes exposure brings opportunity and podcast guesting is one of the most intimate and targeted ways for customers to know somebody. “I love podcasts because its a way to really connect with people. You’re not yelling, you’re talking with them. They're choosing to listen to you.” - Tom Schwab Mainstream Media vs. Podcasting Tom discusses how powerful podcasting. He says it should be a major part of one’s content strategy. In mainstream media, aside from the cost to advertise (television, print, and radio), one acquires a limited time and limited space, unlike in podcast guesting, where it reaches hundreds of thousands, overtime. “You're tapping into an audience, getting that like and trust, getting introduced by someone,  they already know. The other thing too is, if you do a live speech, it’s really hard to repurpose that content. If you do a podcast interview, you can do the transcript to make blogs.” - Tom Schwab Christopher agrees with Tom, as he speaks based on experience. He mentions how he appears on different mainstream media and only get to share a portion of his thoughts for a few seconds. “Podcast interview is an easy and scalable way to really go deeper. People will understand you and what really drove you, why you got into the business. People should know they could like and trust you. That’s really hard to do in a 30 sec clip or a little Facebook ad.”  - Tom Schwab The Golden Age of Podcasting Tom cites Harvard University and the conference that they organized last year on podcasting. They call this time as the Golden Age of Podcasting and there is never the best time to explore podcast advertising other than at the present time. Christopher also shares that there is a lot of whitespace opportunity in podcasting. He believes that there is a high value for sponsors because podcasts provide a high level of intimacy in terms of getting to know the guests through a conversation. “I think today, brands want to know the heart behind it. Those people that can get out there early and explain that, not in an ad but in an actual conversation. To me, that's where you can really build up a lifetime value of a customer.” - Tom Schwab To hear more about the power of podcast guesting and more relevant information from Tom Schwab, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Tom Schwab knows how to build an online business. He’s done it successfully several times and now helps others find online success with podcast interview marketing. Marketing at its heart is starting a conversation with someone who could be an ideal customer. Tom helps thought leaders (coaches, authors, speakers, consultants, emerging brands) get featured on leading podcasts their ideal prospects are already listening to. The Interview Valet system then helps them to turn listeners into customers. The author of Podcast Guest Profits: Grow Your Business with a Targeted Interview Strategy, Tom is also Founder/CEO of Interview Valet, the category king of Podcast Interview Marketing. Links: Linkedin - Thomas Schwab Interview Valet We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

Christopher Lochhead shares an excerpt today from his first book, Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets about the importance and the power of a point of view. He shares to us why legendary marketers opt to sell a POV, rather than sell a product or service. Market the POV, not the product! Legendary creators and designers, market the point of view or POV, not their product and services. When companies show consumers the idea or the problem that they envision to solve, consumers will most likely become interested in the products and services around that idea. “Its counter-intuitive for most marketers, innovators and CEOs. We think what we're doing in marketing, is marketing a product with features and maybe, benefits. When in reality, category creators and designers market the POV, because once people subscribe to your way of looking at things, they are going to be interested in what you have to market.” - Christopher Lochhead POVs are timeless POV is the company’s true North. It doesn’t change over time, unlike messaging. Companies such as Salesforce or American Airlines have consistently focused on their POV. These are companies who have anchored their business to a point of view, about what they stand for in the world. Messaging is Tailored POV for an Audience Christopher cites examples on how messages are tailored POVs for an audience, idea or a trend. He shares how they train an entire company on how to deliver their POV. Employees watch a 10-min presentation on thePOV of the company. The ultimate goal is for the employees to be able to deliver the POV. Play Bigger Chapter 5 Here is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of the book Play Bigger: "Stories have always been an industrial-strength force in human progress, from the epic poems of Homer to the tales of Marco Polo, Shakespeare’s historical plays, the novels of Ayn Rand, and biographies of Steve Jobs. Stories alter perspectives and exert influence. When traders on Wall Street consider a stock, they often ask, “What’s the story?” When pitching a venture capitalist, entrepreneurs get funding when they craft a great story, and now a cottage industry offers pitch training. Raw information reaches us on an intellectual level, but stories reach into our hearts and our pants. Decades of brain research have demonstrated that stories have a more lasting impact than facts. One 1969 Stanford study, “Narrative Stories as Mediators for Serial Learning," showed that students remembered six to seven times more words embedded in a story compared to random words. [i] In the 2010s, Paul Zak, a professor at Claremont Graduate University found that character-driven, attention-grabbing stories actually increase oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin is an empathy chemical, and it motivates cooperation and understanding—quite important when trying to convince someone to, as Apple used to say, think different. “My experiments show that character-driven stories with emotional content result in a better understanding of the key points a speaker wishes to make and enable better recall of these points weeks later,” Zack wrote. He added a swipe at the way too much business has been conducted for far too long: “In terms of making an impact, [storytelling] blows the standard PowerPoint presentation to bits.”[ii] That’s why category designers tell a story. We call that story a point of view, or POV. After you come up with an aha of an initial market or technology insight, and after you discover and define the right category, you have to craft the story about the category that you’ll tell. You need a powerful POV. A POV tells the world you’re a company on a mission, not a missionary company looking to make money any way it can. It frames the new problem that your category identifies and sets you up as the answer. When someone can articulate your problem, you believe that person must have the solution. It’s why Bill Clinton won two presidential elections by c...

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead talks about a giant topic in business today, personal branding. He further shares the difference between a brand and a person. Moreover, he discusses why legendary executives and marketers don't give weigh to personal branding much. Personal Beef with Personal Branding Personal branding has become a giant issue in business today. It seems like people cannot fire up their social media, such as Linkedin and even Amazon, without personal branding. The idea started around the late 80s or early 90s and has become effed up overtime. Christopher lays out his argument on the difference between a brand and a person. People have a mental connection with a brand while with a person, people develop relationships. “I have a very different relationship with my friend Sue Barsamian. She’s the most effective exec I know. Guess how much time she spent thinking about and working on her personal brand? Zero!” - Christopher Lochhead Developing A Reputation Sue Barsamian was the guest on Follow Your Different Episode 083. She has a solid 36-years in Silicon Valley, working with Startups and multinationals such as HP. Christopher shares that she has zero efforts in maintaining a personal brand, instead, she aims to develop a reputation. Silicon Valley respects Sue for producing legendary results and creating massive value. Moreover, she dominated her own niche: “Legendary Enterprise Tech Executive, who scales.” In developing a reputation, Christopher poses the following questions: “What’s your personal Niche Down? Where are you going to focus your talent? What results are you going to produce? Who are the kinds of people you want to surround yourself with?” - Christopher Lochhead Rethink this Personal Branding Bullshit Christopher encourages everyone to re-think this idea of personal branding because he believes that what people prefer is a reputation. “Reputations come from producing legendary results. Personal branding, by definition, is contrived and inauthentic.” - Christopher Lochhead People would best be deemed as a person of character, who produces results and is doing legendary work. In conclusion, Christopher advises everyone to spend zero time on personal branding and focus, instead, on the following: 1) Your personal Niche Down - what niche do you want to be known for owning 2) Producing legendary results - people who produce legendary results are highly sought after in business. They are unique by definition and they hang out with people who also do legendary things. 3) and making a difference. “Because in my experience, people who do that, get the most valuable thing in business: a reputation.” -Christopher Lochhead To hear more about why personal branding is bullshit and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Follow Your Different Episode 083: Sue Barsamian We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life.

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead talks about why the company that frames and markets the problem, the most effectively, wins. To illustrate, he cites a music company, m, and ho they recently pulled something off in the marketing and PR point of view. Frame the Problem, Not the Solution Wise marketers and category creators have a strategic way of creating legendary marketing. One of these is framing the problem. This strategy is a sure-fire way to win a category. “When the world agrees with you about the problem that you solved, and thinks about the problem, exactly the way you want them to, then they sort of have an ‘a-ha!’” - Christopher Lochhead. Case In Point: Kobalt  One illustration of this point is a recent article about Kobalt. Kobalt is a music technology company, which recently raised $200 million in VC funding. TechCrunch featured Kobalt in a two-part series. Christopher highlights a part of the article stating “changing the way the music industry does business and putting more money into musicians’ pockets in the process.” What blew Christopher’s mind off is the title of the article: “How Kobalt is simplifying the killer complexities of the music industry.” Why is this headline, mind-blowing? Christopher believes that Kobalt’s PR team presented their company in a very effective way since TechCrunch featured them. The reporter Eric Peckam, needs to believe that there are “killer complexities” in the music business and that these need to be “simplified.” “They [Kobalt] are evangelizing their problem and in this case, their getting the media to write a headline at the top of the homepage, with the exact framing of the problem that they want.” - Christopher Lochhead As Christopher describes it, this is a legendary category design PR. Once people think that you get their problem, they connect the dots and infer that you have the solution. “If you want to be moving your company forward, evangelize the problem. Spend a lot more time marketing, talking about the problem than the solution.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about how to Frame the Problem and Win and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: TechCrunch: How Kobalt is simplifying the killer complexities of the music industry We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

In today’s episode, Christopher Lochhead talks about why courage is a critical ingredient for legendary marketing and category design. He poses the question: “What does it take to make legendary marketing happen?” and he shares some except his book Niche Down to answer this. Break From The Pack What does it take to break from the pack? The pack, which usually means the general public, the people who think and does the same kind of marketing. What do we need to enable us to design a category and from then, execute to dominate that category? On Christopher’s second book, Niche Down, co-writer Heather Clancy wrote some very important pointers in creating a category “I hope you find it informative and inspiring as it relates to summoning the courage to actually do something legendary, design and dominate a category.” - Christopher Lochhead Excerpts from Niche Down Heather Clancy wrote in the book: Category design actually requires going against that pack mentality. Humans have a primordial need to feel safe in numbers. We get a lot of positive feedback from being the same as others. Our challenge to you is to break from the pack. Free the creative part, the innovative part,the legendary part of you — and let that part be different. Our dream is that you harness the exponential power of what makes you different versus the incrementalism of just being better. Because it is being different that makes a difference. And we know how tough that can be. “Kermit The Frog” famously sang: “It’s not easy being green.” Bill Walton, the NBA legend commiserates: “In life, things go wrong. In life, things collapse….People try to drag you down and people try to say ‘No’ to you.” He goes on to posit, “I want to live in a world of ‘Yes’.” Of course, there will be a lot of “losery” along the way.  To be legendary is to be ready for setbacks, disappointments and failures. Because shit happens. Sometimes, life can be crushing. We’ve both been crushed more times than we can count. It’s okay to be a loser. We all are. Failure is our teacher. Failure is our friend. Failure is our coach. Failure gives us humility. Failure gives us grit. Failure gives us a foundation. Losing is an essential ingredient for being legendary. Every time we lose we have a choice. Give up. Or, take the loss head on, learn from it and execute like a badass legend. It Takes Courage to be Legendary What Heather and Christopher are trying to communicate is the "emotional or psychological” barrier in doing legendary marketing. To put it simply, it takes a lot of courage to be legendary. Courage is moving forward in pursuing your plans, even though a lot of evidence states it won’t work. Christopher cited his other podcast, Follow Your Different as an example. Regardless of what the experts in the podcasting industry were telling him — that business people will not listen to a long-form, unedited conversation podcast — FYD has become a top 200 overall charting podcast in the United States. “If you believe in the problem you're solving and you believe in your vision, then go with it. Be different, stick to it and have the courage to be legendary and execute like a badass legend.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about Category Creation Courage and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.

In most industries, product-market fit is an unquestioned gospel, even in Silicon Valley. On the contrary, Christopher believes that product-market fit is a dangerous idea. Why? Because legendary marketers create and design their own category, as opposed to competing in an existing category. Product-Market Fit In the tech startup world, achieving product-market fit is often considered a major milestone. However, Christopher argues that product-market fit is one of the most dangerous ideas in business today. “The problem with product-market fit is that language can trick marketers into thinking that what you’re doing is building a product and you’re trying to fit it in a market.” - Christopher Lochhead Legendary creators are not looking to “fit” into a market, instead, they want to stand out. Standing out means to design their own market category. Category King and Queens Christopher cites some of the category kings and queens of today. Think about Jeff Bezos, he is equated with the term eCommerce, just as we equate Pablo Picasso with Cubism. We also have Sara Blakely of Spanx, who created her own category of Shapeware, not just trying to fit into the girdle category. "Think about the most respected entrepreneurs, creators, and innovators. a huge part of why we all respect them is because they broke or took new ground." - Christopher Lochhead Some other great examples are AirBNB, which presented a new idea and experience for tourists and travelers. Another one is Evian, who deviated from the idea that water is free. Red Bull also dominated their energy drink category, as opposed to hydration drinks, where Gatorade was category king.  “The greatest innovators teach the world to think differently. With a fresh idea, a new take on an old problem or by solving a problem we didn’t even know we had.” - Christopher Lochhead Where the Challenge Lies The challenge of product-market fit is, it can trap inventors and creators into thinking that they can test their product and service to people and f they consume it, they equate it to the future success of the product. If these people do not consume the product intuitively, then they can just go back and work on the product. This is in opposition to Henry Ford’s mindset who said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Moreover, even Steve Jobs has the same ideas on product-market fit, saying “customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.” “The big ah-ha here is that there is a massive distinction between fitting into an existing market category and competing versus creating your own new market category.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about why Product-Market Fit Is A Dangerous Idea and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Quora: How do you define Product-Market Fit? Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead talks about how marketers strategically use language. Legendary marketers create a new language that educates the world on how they want their product or service perceived. Customer’s adaptation to that language is also a great tool to measure success. How People Perceive Us Christopher recently had Lee Hartley Carter on Follow Your Different Episode 099. Lee and her firm specialize in language strategy. We can infer that marketers pay very close attention to the use of words. Christopher reminds us that the usage of some phrases undermines a person’s credibility. Some examples include phrases such as “don’t take my word for it” or “let me be honest with you.” “Legendary Marketers and Category Designers know that a demarcation point in language creates a demarcation point in thinking, which creates a demarcation in action, usage, and consumption.” - Christopher Lochhead Create New, Powerful Language Christopher discusses how legendary marketers use language to create new thinking that educates the world. This language teaches customers what they do, why it matters and how to value it. Some important examples are Starbucks and their “Double Grande Latte” instead of medium coffee. Another one is selling “pre-owned vehicles” versus “used cars.” Moreover, cloud-based software benefitted greatly with the usage of “on-premise software" Indication of Success It’s far too common to hear at almost every other coffee shop other than Starbucks — customers are asking for Grande or Frappe. Customers adapting to a new language is a great indication of success. “You know you’re winning when customers start using your language, parrot them back to you, and they use it in the competitor’s stores.” - Christopher Lochhead Christopher stresses Lee’s point, marketers need a language strategy! Category creators and designers create a new language to create a demarcation point in thinking, action, usage, and consumption. To hear more about don’t take my word for it and more relevant information about language strategy from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

In today’s episode, Christopher gives us a rundown on why he thinks committees kill legendary marketing. Why is so much marketing, shitty? Christopher Lochhead candidly shares his honest observation on the industry today: a lot of marketing efforts suck. Aside from bad creatives, much of this onslaught of marketing stems from their inability to make a difference in designing and dominating a market category. Who’s to blame? Christopher says its the committees. “This is probably true for most major initiatives in business, but it’s especially true in marketing because, fundamentally, legendary marketing is about leadership.” - Christopher Lochhead To become the leader in your space — the category queen — a company must define and dominate a market niche. This not only holds true in tech companies but for almost all industries today. To dominate a market, every company’s objective should focus on building the company that wins, with a clear point of view on problem-solving. The problem with committees  A famous automotive engineer and businessman, Charles Kettering, once said: “If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.” Why does committees hinder legendary marketing? “The problem with most committees is that they are focused on process, not results.” - Christopher Lochhead Committees generally try to incorporate everyone’s “feedback,” spend time “socializing ideas” and analyzing data. In the end, they are trying too hard to make everyone happy. Committees strive to be collaborative and ensure that all constituents have a say. More issues with committees A structural problem with many committees is that a lot of people can say no, while at the same time, they are not clear about who can say yes. By definition, if everybody agrees, that's not a legendary idea. “As a result, committees produce a compromise. They settle on the ideas that everyone could agree on. Not legendary ideas.” - Christopher Lochhead Additionally, people involved in committees are oftentimes not subject matter experts themselves, which further leads to mediocre marketing efforts. “It's not about what people like, it's about what's gonna work. Particularly what's gonna work through the lens. Will these help us design and dominate a giant category that matters and take 2/3 of the economics?” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about committees kill legendary marketing and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founder/CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Book: Play Bigger Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead talks about the powerful, surprising winner-take-all realities of categories and why you want to be the category queen/king in your market. Christopher layout facts and data on category creation economics that you’ll find beneficial for your business, whether you’re in the tech industry or not. Winner Takes All In Christopher’s first book Play Bigger, they wrote about a research project they conducted on thousands of tech start-ups from 2000 to 2015, determining the market cap or valuation. Specifically, they wanted to know the percentage of the total value goes to the leader or category queen. In reality, one company gets 2/3 for the entire market category. “The study shows that category queens earned 76 percent of the market capitalization of their entire market categories.” - Christopher Lochhead Christopher’s good friend, Bob Evans said: “every company is a software company.” Tech company dynamics are now applicable to non-tech companies. VCs “Me Too Strategy” Christopher quoted a portion from his book Play Bigger. VCs oftentimes fall for the Me Too strategy where every firm would invest in some company in an emerging category, thinking it will succeed just like the first one who did. “In Silicon Valley, we’ve watched venture capitalists (VCs) increasingly adopt a category king investment philosophy. Paul Martino of Bullpen Capital notes that VCs used to have a “me-too” strategy.  If a start-up hit it big and opened up a hot new category, the many VC firms in Silicon Valley assumed that there was room for a lot of winners in that category.” - Christopher Lochhead, Play Bigger Furthermore, Paul Martino tells us "it’s now apparent that one company wins big and dominates a healthy c0ategory, and the rest struggle, get acquired or perish. That means that as soon as one company appears to be the category king, the smart money competes to invest in that company, bidding up its value.” Category Creation is the Ultimate Strategy Christopher’s friend and category guru to Fortune 500 companies Eddie Yoon wrote for Harvard Business Review on the financial impacts of category creation. He reported that “top 20 firms in Fortune‘s 2010 list of fastest-growing companies received $3.40 in incremental market capitalization for every $1.00 of revenue growth. Half the top 20 companies grew via category creation. Wall Street exponentially rewards the category creation companies, giving them $5.60 in incremental market capitalization for $1.00 in revenue growth.” “No matter how you want to look at it, the bottom line is category kings take the vast majority of economics and are massively rewarded for becoming the category queen of the space.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the category creation economics 101 and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher advised over 50 venture-backed startups. He is a Venture Capital Limited Partner and a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO, entrepreneur. In addition, he co-authored two bestsellers: Niche Down and Play Bigger. After he flunked school, with few other options, Christopher started his first company at the age of 18. He was a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard, in 2006, acquired that company for $4.5 billion. Further, he also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD. Christopher was the founder/CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient. He also served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Christopher loves his family and friends. He thinks the Ramones are legendary and loves riding the mountains and waves of Northern California. Links: Book: Play Bigger Category Creation Is the Ultimate Growth Strategy Fortune‘s 2010 list of fastest-growing companies Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners.

In this episode. Christopher Lochhead talks about what your real product or real service is. He discusses why product development and marketing should team because the perception of your product is your product. Marketing Defined One CEO, who is also a good friend of Christopher, once stated that “Marketing is what you do when you have a shitty product.” He was telling Christopher about their competitor who had a significantly inferior product but is, at that time, out-marketing them. Additionally, quite a lot of people in Silicon Valley also think this way. Wikipedia defines marketing and product as such: “In marketing, a product is an object or system made available for consumer use; it is everything that can be offered to a market to satisfy the desire or need of a customer." “I actually don’t want to disagree with Wikipedia, but I do want to propose a different perspective. Your real product, your real service, is people’s perception of your product and service." - Christopher Lochhead The People’s Perception of Your Products Christopher asserts that your product and service is not your product, but what people say it is, think it is and feel about it. He thinks that what other people say about the product or the service, is the truth, regardless if we think of it as true or not. He cites examples such as Harley Davidson and Jack Daniels. These brands may not be the most efficient in performance or the most premium whiskey available, but they have made a mark in the minds and the hearts of consumers. In fact, they are considered category kings. However, Christopher also cited instances when people's perceptions of product change, such as that of Facebook and Boeing 737 MAX. They can fix their products but the perceptions will take forever to change. The “Perception Manufacturing Business” Christopher believes that we are in the “perception manufacturing business.” Further, he mentions that not only does the perception of the product more important than the product itself, but it is also actually what the developer is building when he builds and market the products. "You don’t make products, you make perceptions about products. That is why legendary marketing is equally important to building legendary products.” - Christopher Lochhead In conclusion, Christopher says that product engineering, product development, and marketing need to come together. They must realize that they are in the “perception manufacturing business.” “It is ludicrous to say marketing is what you do when you have a shitty product. Marketing is what you do when you have a legendary product and you want people to perceive it as such.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the Perception of Your Product is Your Product and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher advised over 50 venture-backed startups. He is a venture capital limited partner and a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO, entrepreneur. In addition, he co-authored two bestsellers: Niche Down and Play Bigger. After he flunked school, with few other options, Christopher started his first company at the age of 18. He was a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard, in 2006, acquired that company for $4.5 billion. Further, he also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD. Christopher was the founder/CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient. He also served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Christopher loves his family and friends. He thinks the Ramones are legendary and loves riding the mountains and waves of Northern California. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead shares two eye-opening stories about Artificial Intelligence in Marketing. First is about Nike buying an AI marketing analytics company and second, Chase Bank using AI to write marketing copies. He further discusses how these two leverages technology to produce massive results. Nike Acquires AI Startup Tech Crunch reported that Nike announced its acquisition of the Boston-area startup Celect. This is to help Nike beef up its predictive analytics strengths. The startup’s tech focuses on delivering data insights based on structured and unstructured retail data. "What we do know is Nike spent a lot of money to get their hands on a company that specializes in crunching a shit ton of data, of many thousands of customers, to anticipate their needs going forward." - Christopher Lochhead Christopher noted that this move of a giant brand has never happened in the past. In conclusion, this proves that analytics plays a huge role in Marketing. AI provides marketers data on customer’s wants and needs — even before they do. "What kind of big data analytics and AI are we using to understand our market categories and what might we do in this area?"  - Christopher Lochhead AI Machines Outperforming Humans AdAge published an experiment that they conducted about the bank company Chase. They compared the advertising copies written by humans versus that of AI technology. The result is: AI outperformed humans — with higher consumers clicking on the copy written by an AI machine. “The folks at Chase Bank entered a five-year agreement with this company Persado to use machine learning to write their ad copy.” - Christopher Lochhead The Implications of AI Marketing  Legendary marketers should always be experimenting with both the art and the science of marketing. “We're gonna see more companies benchmarking the two — whether ad headlines and copy, logo design and a lot of other creative things. What many of us in marketing thought technology wouldn't touch — are now being touch by that.” - Christopher Lochhead As the lines of Science and Art blur, Christopher calls out to fellow Creative professionals to stay in tune with technology. Never be complacent about our jobs because AI is coming to replace everything. The best action to do at the moment is to leverage this technology and not to resist it. “Leverage the science and be super strategically creative at the same time.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about Artificial Intelligence Marketing and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher advised over 50 venture-backed startups. He is a venture capital limited partner and a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO, entrepreneur. In addition, he co-authored two bestsellers: Niche Down and Play Bigger. After he flunked school, with few other options, Christopher started his first company at the age of 18. He was a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard, in 2006, acquired that company for $4.5 billion. Further, he also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD. Christopher was the founder/CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient. He also served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Christopher loves his family and friends. He thinks the Ramones are legendary and loves riding the mountains and waves of Northern California. Link: Nike buys an AI startup that predicts what consumers want Chase Commits To Ai After Machines Outperform Humans In Copywriting Trials We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

The difference between Marketing Strategy and Tactics, oftentimes, confuses most people. In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead talks about some of the pressing questions people have on strategy and tactics. Quoting Dushka Zappata  A good friend of Lochhead, Senior Communication and PR Executive Dushka Zappata⁠ helps shine a light on this confusion marketers have about strategy and tactics. She has 20 years experience in the tech industry and she amassed 140 million views in Q&A site Quora with her writing⁠. Strategy Dushka Zappata answered the distinction between strategy and tactics. According to her, strategy answers the question “why?” To give an example for this, one may ask, "why are we doing this, why do we think it's a good idea?” “For strategy, the answer should be a blend of data, understanding of trends and creativity.” - Dushka Zappata Tactics She further continued that tactics, on the other hand, answers the question “how.” This pertains to questions such as, “how will we get this done," "what are the actions needed" and "what will get executed⁠." Working on your marketing strategy and tactics need not be confusing. To be clear, strategy answers, “why,” and tactics answers, “how.” To hear more about Marketing Strategy vs. Tactics and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

Christopher Lochhead discusses some of his marketing ideas timely for a potential (we hope not, but economists say otherwise) recession. Here are 7 recession marketing ideas for our listeners that you might want to consider for your business. 1. Never Let A Good Recession Go To Waste! History proved that recessions are the impetus for change. With change comes both threats and opportunities. Ordinary business people usually panic and focus on threats. However, legendary marketers focus on both. Recessions are a great excuse for taking action, especially those that should have been taken anyway. “Get on your recession planning now! Do not wait for the recession to happen. Get on it, regardless of whether or not we’re going to have a recession. They are great excuse to tighten up shit on your ship!” - Christopher Lochhead 2. Assume you can’t raise any more money Recession talks are best paired with the assumption that there is no money available for lending ⁠— no more VCs, bank loans, operating lines or rich uncles. If you do raise equity or debt, expect that your valuation or market cap is likely coming down, so you will have to give up more equity to raise VC. Likewise your costs to service loans or operating lines is going up. “Focus on your cash and remember that paying customers are your best VCs, your best bankers.” - Christopher Lochhead 3, Measure twice, cut once Go through your marketing plans and budget with a magnifying glass. Christopher advises to categorize every single investment ⁠— either one time or on-going investments ⁠— into three buckets: must do, good to do, nice to do. “Do not have more than a 3rd of your investments in ‘Must Do.’ Find at least 10% of your investments that you can cut now. If you want to get aggressive, find 25%. Plan to cut or re-deploy at least 5%, no matter what happens – recession or not.” - Christopher Lochhead  4. Brainstorm short-term ways to increase revenue Come up with some packages or offerings you can promote to your best customers now. Brainstorm around 25 ideas on how to increase revenue immediately. Ideas that aims to provide customers with an incentive to buy more from you right now are the key to this before they start cutting back spending hard. 5. Market & Sell Into The Whitespace Get a list of all of your existing customers and figure out which customers, own / use which of your products and services. This is to identify the white space or which customers are not users of all of your offerings. 6. Consider a competitor trade-in. Recessions are a unique opportunity to destroy your completion.  7. Double Down on Your Category This is an area you should focus on a recession. Chances are, most of your competition is going to panic and they most likely will over-cut marketing. Take advantage of the lower cost of marketing and go hard on content marketing, especially in social media. “Your prospects and customers will be hearing less noise. Take advantage of this, to evangelize your category point-of-view. Become more visible, while your competition is hiding under a desk, asking for their mommies.” - Christopher Lochhead Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com

This is Christopher and I sure hope you are enjoying some of the first episodes of Lochhead on Marketing. I want to tell you about a special offer we’re making and why. Radical Generosity I am not a fan of self-promotion (which may sound crazy, coming from a three-time marketing guy), so I have thought about how I’m going to market and promote the podcast. On one hand, I wanted to do some marketing that would feel comfortable without the overly self-promotional crap. This brings us to my buddy and co-conspirator on category creation and design and legendary marketing, Eddie Yoon.  He has this powerful idea: that legendary category designers practice “radical generosity.”  If you think about the word ‘creation’, in a lot of ways, you could argue creation is about bringing something to the world and Eddie says if you wanted to create a design category -- having a radical generosity mindset matters. We’re Gonna Spend A Bunch Of Money Legendary category designers and creators come from a place of generosity. So, to promote this podcast, I am going to spend a bunch of money.  Rather than buying a ton of ads, I thought I might include you. I’m doing it in a way that is radically generous. Here's the offer: I’d love it if you will rate and review Lochhead on Marketing, take a screenshot of that review, email it to blackhole@lochhead.com. For the next 7 days, I am going to make a $20 donation to four of my chosen charities.  We will publish on our website with full transparency, how much money we raise and how much money we gave away as a result of you participating in helping us market the new marketing podcast. The Beneficiaries What I’m asking you to do is rate and review the podcast, share it on social media and email us at blackhole@lochhead.com. Once you do that, we will drop $20 in one of the following charities: 1. As we all know, I love animals. American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is one of my chosen beneficiaries. 2. Frontrow Foundation is a charity that works with people, often kids, who are facing life-threatening conditions to give them one legendary experience. 3. If you’re a regular listener, I'm sure you know how much I love 1LifefullyLived.org. Founded by my buddy, Tim Rhode, this nonprofit has tried to put together programs and content around life planning and design, financial planning and design, and entrepreneurship. They try to do this as close to free as possible. 4. The fourth one is a non-profit called DonorsChoose. This is an extraordinary organization that allows school teachers around the country, to tell people what they need and people can go ahead and fund those things for their students and their classrooms.   So thank you so much!

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead discusses why category creation is the new growth strategy for legendary marketing. Great companies do not focus on incremental growth, rather, they focus on being exponentially different. These leading companies introduce people to new businesses and provide them with new ways of doing things. Making A Different Future Legendary companies shape our lives and design a different future. They are on a mission to make the future different. Further, these companies create something exciting ⁠— a new way of living, thinking and doing business ⁠— category creation. Through category creation, these companies are pioneering the way to the future. “Many times they are solving a problem we didn’t know we had—or a problem we didn’t pay attention to because we never thought there was another way.” - Christopher Lochhead These legendary companies make ordinary companies run for their lives. These ordinary companies want to profit from the world for offering it the same set of products and services. Big Es and Small Es Lochhead cites different big enterprises as well as small enterprises as an example. Huge companies now started as small when they changed our way of thinking. Companies such as AirBNB, Google, Amazon, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and Salesforce not only created great products⁠—they created a good company and a great category. “They had to courage to stand on their own to create a new category of products / services they niched down. And by designing a different niche, they got to own it.”  - Christopher Lochhead Category First, Brands Come Second Categories make the company, not the other way around. In relation to this, if we carefully examine big brands, there are no legendary companies in a bad category. There will be no customer-recall of brands if these brands are not tailored to cater to a category. “Brands only matter if they dominate categories that matter. Category design is a new lens, play with it!” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about Category Creation as the new growth strategy and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead looks into the age-old marketing approach of peanut butter marketing and why it is not an applicable strategy in today’s world. Instead, he introduces us to the concept of lightning marketing, as mentioned in his first book “Play Bigger.” PB and Lightning Defined In Lochhead’s book “Play Bigger,” he defined the terms Lightning Strike and Peanut Butter marketing. With the traditional Peanut Butter approach, marketers spread the marketing and PR across all sorts of markets⁠—over a long period of time⁠—with the hopes that somewhere, somewhat, the message would “stick.” “Peanut butter marketing does not break through in this era of ca-co-pho-nous media and never-ending swarms of new start-ups seeking attention. A lightning strike must overcome the noise.” - Christopher Lochhead In today’s society⁠—where ads are all over social media, television, radio, and print media⁠—most people consider Peanut Butter marketing as noise. This definitely calls for a different kind of approach, hence, a lightning strike. “A Lightning Strike is an event meant to explode onto the market, grab the attention of customers, investors, analysts, and media, and make any potential competitors crap their drawers. It is the full concentration of the company’s resources on a high-intensity strike.” - Christopher Lochhead, Play Bigger Ground Wars and Air Wars Lochhead quotes more information from his book, this time, about ground wars and air wars. Air-wars⁠ is a campaign to change potential customers’ minds so they would consider buying from the company. On the other hand, ground wars refer to more hand-to-hand work such as lead generation, sales, calls, and closing deals. “Some companies know they need both air wars and ground wars to move their target’s brains so they then move their buying patterns. Lighting strike gets air wars off with a resounding bang. One of the best strikes is to hijack an event⁠—an industry conference or trade show⁠—where a good number of the target audience will be gathered.” - Christopher Lochhead, Play Bigger It is a Company Event Lochhead further shares that the most important thing to understand about a lightning strike is: it’s not a marketing event, it’s a company event. It becomes a forcing function for every part of the company. “Once the work is done to define the category and set up the vision, the lightning strike is meant to show the world that the category and vision are real, imminent, and inevitable.” - Christopher Lochhead He gives further advise on strategies when to best employ the lightning strike approach. To hear more about Peanut Butter vs. Lightning and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

Retailers or B2C market often uses the term mystery shopping. It is a concept to understand the customer’s journey in your services. For the fifth episode, Lochhead tackles the importance of mystery shopping for your company. Embracing Mystery Shopping Retailers employ the concept of mystery shopping⁠—where they pay someone to visit their store and document their experience. This is also applicable to online retailers as they commission mystery shoppers to test their website. It is important for marketers to look into the “funnel” and the “journey” because the key trick is simplifying the process. “I think it’s really critical whether you are in B2B or B2C, that we embrace the idea of Mystery Shopping.” - Christopher Lochhead Third-party participation is not always required for mystery shopping. Any individual can check their own websites and see how easy it is to navigate on it. Marketers should consider this in improving the overall buying experience. How hard is it to buy from myself? Lochhead discusses the importance of mystery shopping⁠—whether its for B2B, B2C, digital or physical. These companies should be able to identify how easy or hard it is to do business with their company. Further, Lochhead advises even the CEO or business owners themselves, to regularly mystery-shop. In doing so, they will be able able to experience first hand what their customers. This is a good ground to see what needs improvements as well. “Mystery Shopping always uncovers one or two, often small changes we could make to incrementally increase our sales.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about Mystery Shopping and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead discusses the 5 traits of legendary brands⁠—different, stands for something, point of view, consistent and prioritizes category creation. We’re positive marketers will learn a lot from this mindset-oriented podcast! 1. Be Different   Legendary brands are unique, interesting and groundbreaking. Marketers must continuously ask themselves how to become different from their existing competitors. “When you hear most CEOs, CMOs, entrepreneurs, business people, talk about their differentiators⁠—most of what comes out of their mouths is a comparison from their competition⁠—as opposed to a distinction from their competition.” - Christopher Lochhead 2. Stand-up For Something Moreover, legendary brands have a mission, they stand up for something. Interestingly, more legendary companies of today are committed to creating more impact in society. It is often called a “double bottom line”, where they also build projects with a social or human impact. “You got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” - Christopher Lochhead quoting singer/songwriter John Melencamp 3. Point of View  Legendary brands have a point of view. A company should have a true north that they believe in. A lot of brands have provocative POV and it has proven to skyrocket their revenues, especially when they associate with personalities who have strong positions and opinions. 4. Consistency Because POVs don't change, this brings us to the fourth trait, which is consistency. Legendary brands do not deviate from their core, but they can evolve and embrace new things. “Legendary brands are consistent, their colors, their point of view, and if you will, the place from which they come stays the same.” - Christopher Lochhead 5. Category First Arguably, for Lochhead, the most important trait of a legendary brand is category-first. These brands do not attack the category, in fact, they promote it. They help improve the category by expanding and leading the category in different ways. “Most legendary marketers know that categories make the brand, not the other way around.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the 5 traits of legendary brands and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

On today’s episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead delves into the concept of category creation. He discusses why legendary entrepreneurs, CEOs, and marketers see category creation or category design as the new approach to winning. What is it? Category design is a new management discipline that is focused on creating and monetizing new markets. Moreover, Lochhead sees category creation or category design as a radical differentiation of oneself. “Winning today is not about beating the competition. The most legendary entrepreneurs, CEOs and marketers are the people who invent a whole new game by defining a new market category, developing that market category and ultimately executing, so that they dominate it over time.” - Christopher Lochhead  Distinguishing Oneself Legendary marketers and innovators refuse to be in comparison to what came before them. Due to this, customers look at legends as unique, or someone who broke or took a new ground. Most importantly, legendary marketers want others to be compared to them. They are the agenda setters. They’re the ones defining the game and the rules. Moving the World Legendary marketers educate the world about an idea or a problem. Therefore, they provide a solution in a completely different way. They also have the ability to create value and urgency around the idea or problem. “When the world accepts your point of view about a problem and solution, you change everything. That is what category design is about.” - Christopher Lochhead Lochhead also discusses the fact that categories are everywhere. Further, he states that category comes first and the brand comes second. According to him, “category is the human filing system that we have, so we can relate to things and most importantly, value things.” In the end, Lochhead poses the question any marketer should ask oneself, “are you playing someone else’s game or do you have the courage in creating and designing your own category?” To hear more about category creation and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

For the second episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead dives into what makes Legendary Marketing, legendary. He discusses the 10 attributes of legendary marketing ⁠— which range from creating demand, dominating a niche market to leveraging technologies and changing the world. 1. Creates Demand Rather Than Capturing Demand In all imaginable areas⁠—books, conversations, podcasts or discussions⁠—marketing is described as “having a market and capturing the demand to increase revenue and growth for your company.” Legendary marketing, though, is more interested in creating new demand. They are focused on setting that agenda. 2. Designs and Dominates a Giant Category That Matters Legendary marketing design and dominate their own categories. On creating this demand, they position themselves as unique and distinct. They may also opt to create a new category or sub-category of an existing market category. “When you’re the first in a new category, people are drawn towards you.” - Christopher  Lochhead 3. Creates a “Before” and “After” Legendary marketing creates a distinct before and after. When a customer experiences legendary marketing for the first time, the expected initial reaction is “Wow, I just saw something! That's incredible!” That is Legendary Marketing. “Remember the first time you heard Netflix, it presented a provocative idea which is: why do you have to go to a video store if you could go to a website?” - Christopher Lochhead 4. Mobilizes People to Think and Act in New and Different Ways Legendary marketing is not just about evangelizing a product. It is about mobilizing people into action and getting them to change their actions. This would mean hundreds of people for small enterprises or even millions of people, for big multinational corporations. 5. Causes Competition to Have Emergency Board Meetings Rick Bennett, the marketing assassin of Silicon Valley says that his advertising campaigns aim to freak out the competition and manage the psychology of the bad guys. This is one of the attributes of a legendary marketing campaign. “When the competition sees this, how are they going to react and will they have an emergency board meeting?” - Christopher Lochhead 6. Makes You Think “I Wish I Had Done That!” Millions of businesses fail because they are undifferentiated. Christopher says legendary marketing focuses on finding their own niche and dominating it, regardless of how simple or basic their product or service is. “There is a bakery that scaled to 250 locations and sells franchises because they niched down. Its called Nothing but Bundt Cake. You’d say, that is such a simple idea, they niched down. Instead of being a generic bakery that fails, they dominated its niche market that they created.” - Christopher Lochhead  7. Creates New, Enduring Value Over-Time It is a must for any CMO, C-level executive or anybody in Marketing—as well as entrepreneurs—to create enduring value, which is measured by employees, customers, and investors, partners and even the ecosystem. 8. Leverages New Technologies Technology today allows marketers to know, in real-time, what’s resonating to the customers and what's not. A lot of data is now readily available for companies to ensure we attract the right customers and build relationships with them, in a measurable way. “If you’re a marketer, you would want to be a technology genius ⁠— understanding these technologies and specifically how they can impact, attract and retain and build long term relationships with customers.” - Christopher Lochhead 9. Makes a Giant Impact Outside and Inside Legendary marketing creates an impact both internally and externally. Legendary marketers believe to inspire both customers and employees. “The most important thing marketing does is inspire your own employees to do legendary work, to build legendary products and services and take care of customers.” - Christopher Lochhead 10. Changes The World The greatest marketing inspires.

It’s an awesome day to be legendary! This is the first episode of our new podcast, Lochhead on Marketing, hosted by our very own, Christopher Lochhead. In this episode, he talks about who is this podcast for and what sets it apart from other marketing podcasts. Join us as we define what makes this podcast, different⁠—ultimately, what makes it legendary! Who’s Who in Marketing Entrepreneur and VC partner Christopher Lochhead is an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups. He is a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and co-author of two bestsellers: Niche Down and Play Bigger. To add, he a dyslexic high school drop-out who started his own company at the age of 18. Christopher sees his setbacks as his springs to success—the farther he’s pulled down, the higher he is launched to the top. “I have a unique perspective in working with early-stage companies, being an entrepreneur myself. Since then I have done a lot of advising and investing and I focused a lot on podcasting.” - Christopher Lochhead Who is this podcast for? This is the podcast for the pirates, dreamers, and innovators⁠—those who want to introduce the world to new ways of doing things. These people want the world to be different. They want to explore what it takes to produce legendary results. Basically, this podcast is for anybody who wants the world to be different. Entrepreneurial marketers, Founders, CEOs—of course, CMOs and business leaders who want to design and dominate their own market categories—would benefit highly from this podcast. “This is for people who give a sh*t about winning! People who want to create the game, not play someone else’s.  People who want to move the world from the way it is, to the way they want it to be” - Christopher Lochhhead What more should you expect? The show Lochhead on Marketing will examine the strategies behind what makes legendary marketing, legendary. Moreover, this podcast will share not only the strategies but the mind-set required for winning. Most of the episodes will be short and practical and will have simple take-aways. “Having some marketing savvy, particularly around designing and dominating categories is an incredibly important skillset, regardless where you are in the C-suite” - Christopher Lochhead Who is this podcast for? It will be for both B2B and B2C markets, especially now that these two concepts are merging in terms of marketing ideas. We will feature technology as well, as it is one of the key drivers of the industry. Technology enables marketers to be precise in measuring reach and accessing new mediums, just like podcasting. To hear more about who this podcast is for and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!