Posted by Ellie Mirman on Thu, Aug 05, 2010 @ 10:06 AM
Earlier this week I flew down to sunny (aka sweltering hot) Orlando, FL to speak at the Online Marketing Summit. It was a great event (sadly I had to miss the second half, but the first half was fantastic) and I wanted to share my presentation with those who couldn't make it.
I had been wanting to talk about the role of content and how central it is to every marketing activity. Content is a key part of our (HubSpot's) marketing strategy, whether it's for getting found online by more prospects, converting more of those prospects into leads, or converting those leads into paying customers. This presentation reviews each piece of that marketing process and how content fits in at each stage. Enjoy!
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Tue, Jul 27, 2010 @ 09:23 AM
While reading a recent article by our CEO Brian Halligan on HubSpot's startup culture, it struck me how important transparency is to the success of an organization. Frequently transparency is touted as a key component to a great company culture. But perhaps just as importantly, transparency is a great means of professional development.
HubSpot has not been particularly formal when it comes to professional development. Not because we don't value professional development, but because we have some pretty big fish to fry and other - less formal - means of frying them (or learning better frying methods?). When I started, I spent the first half of my first day reading The New Rules of Marketing & PR while I waited for my computer. There was no formal training, just throwing me into the ring. These days we've got the HubSpot Fellows program which is a great professional development initiative, albeit sadly short and not as in depth as I'm sure us crazy-type-A-hungry-learners would like.
The greatest professional development we've had is our transparency.
Before HubSpot, I definitely underrated transparency. It's certainly cool to know what the CEO is thinking about or what the engineering team is working on. But it's even more valuable to have the kind of understanding about the problems the CEO is trying to solve or how the engineering team develops a product. (A subtle but important difference.)
At a typical job, you might have a particular project or two that you work on. You are focused on your one project and don't have much exposure to what others are working on or thinking about. At HubSpot we have more than enough work on each of our plates, but that doesn't stop us from commenting on what Brian is writing on the wiki or going to an engineering team sprint planning meeting and asking questions about the development of an application. Transparency allows employees to participate in many more projects and learn about much more of the business. It's the best professional development program there is - and a much more practical approach to learning new business skills.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Mon, Jul 12, 2010 @ 09:07 AM
In the Boardroom
I've been reading Founders at Work, which is a collection of interviews with startup founders about their early days. So far it's been an interesting read, and there's something particularly unexpected about the interview with Lotus founder, Mitch Kapor.
Mitch was very inexperienced in business when he got started at Personal Software (his first company) and Lotus. Not only that, be he was risk-averse and avoided conflict - two things I don't typically associate with an entrepreneur. He made a lot of mistakes as a result of his inexperience and lack of mentors. But he also just stuck to his values regardless of "the way the world works" and how dirty business can be. He tells the story of Lotus's second round of VC funding when the investors tried to take advantage of them because of their inexperience:
The investor didn't want to take any risk. It was absurd. They only do this because they can get away with it, because they have the money and you need it and "fuck you." ... I was just pissed off about this for a long time. They were supposed to be our investors, they were supposed to be on the same side, but they were highly adversarial and totally willing to take advantage of us.
Mitch almost walked out of that closing meeting but the investors backed down. He stuck to his values no matter the consequences it would have on the business, but it did work out for him and the company.
On the Court
Again and again, in the interviews with these successful startup founders (particularly the engineers among them), they were adamantly committed to sticking to their values. In My Personal Best by John Wooden, which I also just started as part of my HubSpot Fellows "Learning Leadership from the Legends" class, John Wooden also talks about sticking to your values of being the best you can be and doing right by others. He tells a story of being benched for an entire basketball game that his team was losing and the coach refusing to put him, one of the best players, into the game. There were greater team lessons to be learned and it wasn't all about winning the game.
On the Streets
As a funny coincidence, this same advice of doing good business also came up on the HBO show Hung in the season 2 premier when Ray's neurotic first-time pimp, Tanya, gets advice from a fellow pimp on how to make Ray loyal to her. What's the advice she gets? Take care of Ray when he needs it the most. Do right by Ray no matter what. And then he will be loyal, always coming to her for all his... pimping needs.
There are, of course, successful people who do not stick to altruistic values in business. But, as Mitch puts it,
The most important thing for me is, I don't want to work with someone who says, "Just help me make the business more successful." I want to work with entrepreneurs who are personally passionate, committed, and believe in what they're doing. Not all entrepreneurs are like that.
And it's the passion to make something great, not just make money, that gives entrepreneurs the drive to succeed. Succeed at making something great.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Fri, Jul 09, 2010 @ 09:15 AM
Turns out zombies make terrible temps. The good news, though, is that with inbound marketing you can generate tons of qualified leads so you can don't need to hire any zombie temps. The other interesting news is that regular makeup can turn any marketer into a decent zombie.
Check out the video below to see our zombie temp in action. (And catch my cameo at the end, acting totally disgusted with our zombie temp.)
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Wed, Jul 07, 2010 @ 08:30 AM
I recently read Seth Godin's newest book, Linchpin, and not only loved the book but also found that it so shockingly well described my office. So much so that I've started recommending it to recent grads interested in marketing, alongside Inbound Marketing and The New Rules of Marketing & PR, of course.
Below is a combination of summary and favorite tidbits from the book.
Linchpin is Purple Cow for people. In short, be remarkable.
The premise of the book is that the lizard brain, one of the most primitive parts of our brain, is in charge of survival instincts and keeping us out of danger. When translated into our complex world, though, this means that we confine ourselves to our self-made boxes and do not innovate. A linchpin is someone who acknolwedges the fear of the lizard brain but continues to create art to share with the world. It is ever more important, in the new age of the internet, to become a linchpin rather than a cog in the wheel of a factory.
We've been taught to be cogs in a wheel, workers in a factory. But we can choose to break from that mold to create art.
Instead what we should teach in schools is to (1) solve interesting problems (answer the question "What should I do next?" - a question that Google cannot answer) and (2) lead. The new American Dream is (or should be): Be remarkable. Be generous. Create art. Make judgment calls. Connect people and ideas. "If you can be human at work (not a machine), you'll discover a passion for work you didn't know you had. When work becomes personal, your customers and coworkers are more connected and happier. And that creates even more value."
Act like a cog in a machine and you will be treated as such. Linchpins acknolwedge fear and create art anyway. Linchpins have a passion for creating and spreading art.
Linchpins create art that draw people to them and make people (customers, employees, employers) loyal to them. They create great art that makes people cross the street to get to them. Fear is what holds us back. And it's not that linchpins do not have fear. Rather, they feel the fear, acknowledge it, and proceed.
A cog in a machine is always waiting to get instructions. Even if you have a job that is typically like a cog in a machine, you still don't have to treat it that way. "If he waits for a job to be good enough to deserve his best shot, it's unlikely that he'll ever have that job." Linchpins create art, give gifts not because they have to, because if they did, it wouldn't be a gift, it would be a job.
"Passion isn't project-specific. It's people-specific. Some people are hooked on passion, deriving their sense of self from the act of being passionate... People with passion look for ways to make things happen."
Linchpins get things done.
The resistance (the lizard brain) keeps us from actually shipping a product. One case is in the form of thrashing when it's time to ship - surfacing all sorts of objections at the end of a project that delays us and keeps us from actually finishing anything. Instead, thrashing should be done at the beginning of a project when it's a lot cheaper, and should limit the number of people thrashing as much as possible. Some common manifestations of the resistance are: playing "devil's advocate," relying on deadlines to get things done, always juggling multiple projects, compliance disguised as humility. Seth calls out the sprint/scrum process as a great way to battle the resistance and GSD. "Successful people are successful for one simple reason: they think about failure differently." You become a winner by getting good at losing.
Being a linchpin requires good judgment and passion.
Seth calls out the importance of passion multiple times, explaining a two-way relationship between art and passion - passionate people create art, the freedom to create art inspires passion. Note that it's a lot easier to bring passion to your job than to find a job that matches your passion.
The Seven Abilities of the Linchpin
Linchpins do 2 things: (1) exert emotional labor (2) make a map. Linchpins have 7 key abilities:
- Provide unique interface between members of the organization
- Deliver unique creativity (requires domain knowledge, position of trust, generosity to contribute)
- Manage a complex situation or org (requires map-making and clear judgment)
- Lead customers
- Inspire staff
- Provide deep domain knowledge
- Possess a unique talent
Still having trouble being allowed to be a linchpin?
- Note the difference between the right answer and the answer you can sell. Ideas might be shot down not because they're bad but because the wrong person tried to sell it. If you have a controversial idea, you can trigger the resistance in other people.
- Focus on making changes that work down (customers & employees), not up (management). Use that to earn the trust and respect of those above you.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Fri, May 21, 2010 @ 03:38 PM
Today I had the great pleasure of speaking at the National Small Food Manufacturer's Conference in Omaha, Nebraska. It was my first time visiting Omaha (it's surprisingly cute!) and also my first time being around food manufacturers.
It was a fantastic time - I particularly enjoyed dinner the first night where I got to chat with some attendees who were true entrepreneurs, building their own businesses and launching their own lines of food products. I hope they learned from me as much as I did from them! (And I hope they take some of their expertise and start blogging!)
Below is my presentation. I have the audio as well that I will hopefully add to the slideshow in the future.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Tue, Apr 06, 2010 @ 08:30 AM
Last week I had the fun opportunity to fill in for the oh-so-provocative Karen Rubin by co-hosting HubSpot TV. It was a pretty perfect week in marketing for me, with lots of news on Facebook and email marketing! Check out the full episode below or on the HubSpot blog.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Mon, Jan 18, 2010 @ 07:03 AM
The New York Times had a great article a few days ago with an interview with SunGard CEO on their flat organizational structure. A lot of the points really resonated with and reflected life at HubSpot. Though I may have not thought about this when looking for a job, I realize that the organizational structure - and seeking out a flat organization - can really impact my happiness level and personal growth. Some favorite snippits from the interview:
"Top-down organizations got started because the bosses either knew more or they had access to more information. None of that applies now. Everybody has access to identical amounts of information."
This typically gets reformulated at HubSpot in relation to the changing nature of learning and purchasing in the business world due to the Internet. Of course, the Internet puts information at everyone's fingertips. On top of that, it's the employees who are in the muck of things that really can understand the challenges of the business and their users and can come up with great solutions.
Conde discusses Yammer as their collaboration tool of choice, allowing them to distribute valuable information across the organization straight from users to every single employee.
At HubSpot, I see our wiki allowing for incredible conversations and a flattening of the organization. How better to participate in a conversation with our CEO or VP Engineering or Partner Program Manager if you work in Sales or Engineering or Customer Support? Our challenge now is getting all the new employees to embrace the wiki and feel comfortable enough to jump into these conversations.
"If you start micromanaging people, then the very best ones leave. If the very best people leave, then the people you’ve got left actually require more micromanagement."
Micromanagement stifles your top performers, and top performers will go where they can truly achieve. At HubSpot we talk about being cathedral builders - where everyone is contributing to this greater vision that is common to all of us. Not only does this make us excited and driven to achieve this goal, but also - in the absence of strict managers - we are all aligned towards the same, business-changing end goal. You open yourself up to creative solutions and new ideas to tackle your goals.
"My advice to young people is always, along the way, have a sales job."
I cringe at this at first, because I would hate to be in Sales. But I get the point here. At least in my interpretation, this is about being responsible for driving real business results and being able to articulate the value of what you're selling - whether it's a product or yourself - to a skeptic. Obviously the CEO of SunGard is likely to be a smart cookie, but he really does point out a lot of the truly important things to an organization - the people and their qualities that lead to success. Focusing on their intellectual curiosity and reasoning processes and writing ability, for example, shows that it's about getting the right ingredients as opposed to trying to reformulate a pre-packaged meal. It's very cool to see this coming out of such a huge organization from which you might expect something a little more traditional and up tight.
Read the full interview with SunGard CEO Cristobal Conde here.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Sat, Jan 16, 2010 @ 05:44 PM
Today I drove out to Worcester to speak about Marketing Transformation and The Future of Marketing at the UR Enough Workshop at Holy Cross University. Below is my presentation - enjoy!
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Mon, Dec 28, 2009 @ 09:01 AM
Whenever I get into a conversation about the meaning of life, I immediately roll my eyes. I honestly can't stand that conversation because it seems so irrelevant to me. In my opinion, there is no singular meaning of life and it's not worth our time and energy to discuss it.
Instead, focus on what you can do with your life.
Funny enough, this thought was sparked by a book I just finished, Brazen Careerist. It's a book by blogger/writer/advisor Penelope Trunk on the topic of career advancement. The book and her blog are interesting reads.
One part that really stood out to me was a study she mentioned by Princeton professor of economics Alan Krueger. The study showed that "when it comes to workplace success, it doesn't matter if your get into an Ivy League school, it matters if you apply. Those who applied and those who got in had the same amount of success beyond those who did not apply." The takeaway? "What matters is ambition and self-image, not getting the best grades or having the best test scores."
What I love about this study - and generally what is shown in the book - is that what matters in life are your goals and your ambition to achieve those goals. It's not about WHY you're here, but WHAT you do while you're here.
The book has lots of similar thought-provoking bits. It's nothing so revolutionary that you'll fall out of your chair, but it certainly kept me engaged and kept me thinking. It's a quick and easy read and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in "career development books".
Photo credit: miss blackbutterfly