Posts Tagged ‘Custom Publishing’
Top Ten Soft Skills
27 Jan 2010
by James Meyers
Too often, when companies are looking to fill an open position, they become overly focused on the “hard skills” and experience of the candidate’s resume. Where did they go to school? What is their degree? How many years of experience? Where have they worked? And probably the most flawed barometer of all: What is their current or desired compensation?
While it’s true that all of these questions are important, I’ve come to the realization that hard skills in most cases should account for no more than 40% of the hiring evaluation process particularly if you’re in the agency business.
At Imagination, we’ve always lived the Einstein quote, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. That framed quote has hung on my wall for more than twenty years and was not only the inspiration for the name of our company but a credo that has served us well in hiring new talent.
With that in mind, here is my “wish list” of The Top Ten Soft Skills that we look for in every prospective new hire.
- Passion: The most important of all soft skills. You either have it or you don’t. If you don’t have it for custom publishing, custom media, working in a highly creative, high energetic, demanding environment where our customers’ needs always come first, you can’t work here!
- Personality: Our people need to have an outgoing personality. We work with clients everyday and they like working with people they like and respect. Everyone likes to be around people who make them feel good, who they respect, who can laugh and who can light up their day!
- Relationships: This goes closely with personality. Our best, most successful associates love and nurture relationships with our clients, our teammates and oh yes, did I mention our clients? For them, happy clients are the only measure of success!
- Listening: Clients expect our associates to listen and engage with them to find the best solutions that will exceed their objectives and expectations. From listening can come opportunities to grow and to identify and correct potential issues. The inability to listen to clients is the number one cause of missed opportunities!
- Curiosity: We look for examples of personal curiosity as a sign that prospective candidates can break out of the comfort zone, question why things work or not and will pursue activities that will lead to self-learning and new ideas!
- Initiative: It’s critical that a successful marketing agency like Imagination is filled with associates who take the initiative to get things done, to make a difference, to do whatever it takes to achieve our client’s goals. We look for associates who are constantly demonstrating their initiative rather waiting for direction or approval!
- Confidence: The most alluring trait I love to see in our associates is self-confidence. Self-confidence is earned and present when we have put in the work and gone the extra mile to achieve success. People are drawn to self-confident people but are turned-off by arrogance. Self-confidence is earned. Arrogance is assumed and cannot be tolerated in any organization!
- Presentation Skills: When an associate has passion, personality and confidence, they are usually exceptional presenters because those characteristics make all the difference in making a presentation electric!
- Flexibility: Behind passion and the ability to create and nurture relationships, flexibility is key in today agency environment. Everything is changing everyday in marketing and with our clients so if you’re not flexible you’re not going to be happy or successful. Like listening, flexibility is key to winning new opportunities!
- Innovation: Last but not least, we always look for examples of innovation in our associates. Rarely that means coming up with a new idea that’s never been tried before. Usually innovation comes from the curiosity I spoke of earlier. Being aware or what’s working or not working for others and adapting the best ideas to benefit our clients and our company is what we look for. Remember, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”!
Of course it’s extremely rare to find all of these characteristics in every candidate but a few times we’ve come very close. Some, like passion, are more important than others but I’d say that unless a prospective candidate can demonstrate at least five or six of these soft skills, they probably aren’t going to be a good fit for Imagination Publishing or any other successful marketing agency.
By the way, if you think you have all of these soft skills, our door’s always open!
2010: It’s A New Year for Business!
4 Jan 2010
by James Meyers
It’s finally here. The first workday of 2010. Like many of you, I’m not sorry to see that 2009 is gone and behind us. It was a year filled with struggle, fear and doubt for all business executives and owners. Growth strategies were thrown out the window and replaced by a hunker-down mentality that froze most businesses in place.
Some good came out our struggles though. We were forced to trim all the excess out of our organizations, processes and budgets. We looked at things we’ve always done and said “why are we doing this, why do we need it, and what return am I getting on my investment?” This not only helped us survive, but it positioned us to be better prepared to take advantage of opportunities us the economy begins to recover.
Now is time to move forward. To rebuild momentum and implement smart business strategies that will propel us into a new era of profitable growth.
Like all business owners, I’m committed to looking forward and not back and I’ve decided to share my thoughts, failures and triumphs on a daily basis through this blog.
As the founder and CEO of a successful custom content agency, I have the opportunity to interact with the key business executives of major corporations and trade associations across the country on a daily basis. Respecting business confidentiality, I’ll share with you the moods and trends that I see emerging as well as the strategies and tactics that I deal with in running my own company.
I hope that by sharing my businesses experiences with all of you that we will connect and find inspiration together so that 2010 can be a year of growth and success for all of us.
Happy New Year!
Imagination Named Best Place to Work
21 Oct 2009
by James Meyers
I have an overwhelming sense of pride in being named one of the top six publishing companies in America to work for by Publishing Executive magazine. When I started Imagination nearly fifteen years ago, my goal was to create a company where people could feel good about coming to each day. A place where they could do great work, enjoy their co-workers, grow, learn and feel free from the limitations of big corporate surroundings. We’ve managed to accomplish our goals together and it touches my heart to have such a great staff around me. Here’s to the Imagineers!
They’re Partners, Not Clients
24 Mar 2009
by James Meyers
Over the past several years, Imagination has come to understand the importance of customer relationships to insuring business success. During the early years of our custom publishing business, we successfully grew the company by focusing intensely on driving new business opportunities. While the strategy worked, we too often found ourselves needing to replace lost clients. In the newspaper business, we called it churn. Often times it was because the client’s budget was cut, or a personnel change at the client or they decided to try something new. Like the time a client decided to eliminate their very successful custom magazine in order to pay for sponsoring seat cushions at the Super Bowl. They did it one year and the custom magazine was gone, the Super Bowl sponsorship was gone, the great ROI was gone and soon after the CMO was gone too.
Occasionally, our intense focus on developing new clients caused us to underestimate the opportunities that we had with existing clients. Eventually, we realized that our best opportunities for growth came from clients where we had moved beyond a client/vendor arrangement to a valued partner relationship.
For years, we had used terms like customers and clients to describe our relationships but the reality was that they weren’t really relationships because they were based on “I need something and you can sell it to me” rather than a much more intertwined partnership. And it’s true partnerships with partners who understand, value and are willing to invest in custom content and publishing services that are they key to long-term success for both parties.
Like every company, we began 2009 unsure of the effects that the global recession would have on our business. We’ve seen some losses but we have more than made up for them with new business opportunities from existing partners and new clients who were seeking the full range of strategic custom content strategies that we provide. We take pride in the fact that many of our largest partner relationship have been in place for more than five years and that our business with them has consistently grown. In the end, isn’t that what a successful relationship is all about? The opportunity for both parties to grow by understanding each other’s needs and expectations while working together in a spirit of mutual respect and trust.
Business relationships don’t happen on day one. It takes time to develop and nurture a partnership so that both sides benefit from the relationship over the long run. We’re proud of our partnerships with some of the world’s leading companies and trade associations.
Small Business Optimists
16 May 2008
by James Meyers
For the second week in a row, I attended an industry conference where digital strategy and community engagement were key topics of discussion. This week, it was the Warrillow Summit —an annual gathering of B2B companies who are targeting small business owners. This is a market that Imagination knows well, not just because we were once a small business, but because we help several of our clients—including Wells Fargo, Xerox and MasterCard—create custom media for small business customers.
The Warrillow Summit is an invitation-only event which helps insure the attendees are marketing decision-makers at some of the largest companies in America. The conference sessions were lively, informative and on-target while the networking opportunities were plentiful and relevant.
Best of all, the attitude of the attendees was very positive; most of the marketers I talked to are seeing increases in their business with small business customers. How can this be, amid fear and obsession about recession that I’ve recently experienced at other conferences and throughout the media?
Can it be that small business owners don’t have time for a recession? They’re too busy running their businesses and looking for new opportunities to grow. Small business owners are optimists at heart and continually see opportunity while others see danger and constraints. As I listen to big business managers on cable, business magazines and newspapers, I only hear about problems, concern and cutbacks. When I talk to small business owners, I hear them talk about growth.
At this week’s Summit, I heard exciting stories about how B2B marketers are using digital media to reach and engage small business owners who are hungry to gain and share information with fellow business owners and suppliers. The key to engaging this audience, and every audience, is a continuous stream of relevant content and the opportunity to share comments, best practices and recommendations.
Dan Nye, president of LinkedIn, the business social network delivered the keynote address and announced that LinkedIn currently has 22 million members and will exceed 30 million members by the end of 2008. Today, small business owners make up more than 3 million of LinkedIn’s users providing a community where small business owners can network, prospect and engage with each other.
All of us in the publishing and content world should act more like entrepreneurs and look for the opportunities to grow that are all around us.
From the Chairman
16 Apr 2008
by James Meyers
In the last decade, custom publishing evolved from relatively simple printed newsletters and magazines to sophisticated custom media delivered in print and online. Marketers research their targeted audiences and create custom content that adds value and encourages customer response.
Print publications continue to evolve and are highly effective, particularly when personalization and customization allow for more targeted message delivery. And the Internet as a driver of marketing initiatives fosters community, delivers rich media and creates social engagement. Customers can engage and participate in dialog with marketers, subject matter experts and with other customers. The Internet has opened the door for increased response, long-term engagement and higher levels of customer satisfaction. Sophisticated online tools allow marketers to measure response and analyze the needs and habits of their customers as they consume, engage and participate in content-rich custom media.
As always, high-quality content is the critical component for a successful custom-media program. That is where traditional publishers, like the members of American Business Media continue to have a real advantage. ABM members understand how to produce content that fulfills readers’ expectations, and the members of the Custom Media Committee are experts at producing content that can be delivered in a targeted manner. The result is content that encourages readers to take action—content that produces the ROI that every marketer seeks.
This microsite is a community for individuals who share an interest in custom media. Custom media providers, marketers, subject matter experts and journalists are encouraged to contribute thoughts, news, case studies and other information that will contribute to the site’s growth and usefulness. I strongly encourage you to participate in one of the many ways that are available to you on this site.
I look forward to engaging with you on a wide range of topics about custom media.
It’s Time
5 Apr 2008
by admin
Greetings fellow ABM Custom Media members and other interested visitors! I’m writing today from American Business Media’s Spring Meeting in Palm Springs.
The buzz here is, of course, the rapid, nearly astronomical growth of digital media and its effect on traditional print business publishing. Clearly, the tone here is one of concern. Advertising revenues are down due to the mortgage crisis, rising fuel and food prices and an economic slowdown. But there’s more to it than that. There’s a tangible fear in the air over what the seemingly unending desire by marketers for anything digital means to their businesses.
Some want to ignore it and seem to think it will go away. Others want to embrace it but aren’t sure how. David Calhoun, CEO of Nielson issued his warning in his keynote address that this time “you’re not going to be able to budget your way to success. Today, we live in a world where customers and your readers are totally in control because of the Internet.”
The message is clear: we need to open our minds to the possibilities offered by the digital age. We need to join the conversation, embrace it fully, add value and expertise as expert content providers and be ready to change course at a moment’s notice.
Years ago, before I started Imagination, I worked as senior vice president for the __Chicago Sun-Times__. I once heard a senior newspaper editor say, “Our job is to give the readers what they don’t know they want and what they need to know.” That notion struck me as shortsighted then—today it strikes me as downright ridiculous!
To all of my fellow ABM members, I can offer only one painfully obvious piece of advice. It’s time for you to join the conversation!
