Tiger Team Marketing - TT Blog

Email Resolution #1

12/30/2015

Just a quick post to say that I'm going to try to stop being such a girl when writing business emails. I think I may be undermining my authority? I hope you'll like this Slate article as much as I did. I'm sorry to say that it hits just little too close to home. Too bad there's not a plug-in for Outlook.

Brains & Beauty

11/9/2015

Happy Birthday Hedy Lamarr. Great Google Doodle in her honor. The ultimate feminist. Beautiful & brilliant. Patent holder & movie star. She was the co-inventor for frequency hopping & spread spectrum - wireless technologies that would ultimately would become Wi-Fi.

"I know why most people never get rich. They put the money ahead of the job. If you just think of the job, the money will automatically follow. This never fails."

WFH - Honest.

11/3/2015

To which of these twelve struggles can you relate?

I'm one of the lucky ones who frequently work from home. I have a small staff to support my efforts. As I write this, the eponymous Tiger is drooling on my mouse pad. His single responsibility is to catch mice. He is an independent worker who does not follow directions well. His success is purely based on good looks and charm. But I digress.

Unlike some, I am generally not distracted by the need to clean the house or check my social media accounts. The quiet of a home office, the awesomeness of Skype, and 4 different work / client e-mail accounts are great productivity tools.

With that said, that's an awesome list. Thank you Playboy!

"So Just What is a Tiger Team?"

4/30/2015

Wild Cats
Over coffee recently a prospective client asked me about the origin of the company name. In my career I’ve led countless Tiger Teams. Great results can be achieved simply by rolling up one's sleeves, working together, and just getting it done. So, because you asked:

“A team of specialists in a particular field brought together to work on specific tasks.”
Oxford On-line Dictionary
"Originally, a team whose purpose is to penetrate security, and thus test security measures."
US Military Jargon
"The latest limp-dick business euphemism for low-paid cubicle slaves working overtime (unpaid) on Boss Man's faux-important "project."
"Gag-worthy term applied to suck-ups eager to stay late in order to snap crumbs from Boss Man's stingy hand."
Urban Dictionary
"Wild, dangerous or aggressive marketing."
Prospective client
"A group of experts brought together to solve a problem or complete a project. Gets it done despite “business-as-usual” constraints."
"Expert marketing services for organizations with limited resources, limited know-how or limited sales results."
Tiger Team Marketing

Scott Adams

Horsing Around with MailChip

4/7/2015

Monkey Business
I'm a volunteer on the board of a 300 member equestrian group. Our team was struggling to sign-up attendees and volunteers for our big horse show & fundraiser. Not surprisingly, we were not meeting our goals with frequent and wordy email "blasts". We needed a better approach, I wanted to try out MailChimp, so I took the reins & ran with it. In a 4-week period we created & sent out a series of targeted emails to chapter members - with great results.

Stats:

Email opens: 36% to 49%
Click-throughs: 2% - 6%
A 12% year/year increase in show participation

Spring Newsletter

Marketing 101
This was a successful email campaign. The graphics and copy were designed to engage a well-known audience. Each email had a "value proposition" and "call to action". Instead of blasting out a page of text, our goal was to give each recipient a reason to care - and to participate. A great percentage did just that. Clearly, there's a big difference between email marketing and email blasts.

For a Great Cause
I'm not an email design maven. The layout could certainly have been better. It was a fun project, a labor of love and a great learning exercise for Tiger Team Marketing! As a side note: Our chapter contributes part of our fundraising dollars to Horses' Honor - a sanctuary for abandoned or abused horses.

Find the River, Then Build Your Boat

3/26/2015

"Strategy is buying a bottle of fine wine when you take a lady out for dinner. Tactics is getting her to drink it."
Frank Muir

I've been thinking a lot about strategy vs. tactics. It's a simple concept that many entrepreneurs don't understand. In my experience, they often take the "shoot now, aim later" approach. This is not necessarily a bad thing but sometimes leads to thrashing and busy work, to no effect. It is challenging to see the forest for the trees.

My advice is simple:

Determine your strategy by looking at the big picture. Step back and ask yourself what business and personal success would look like in 3 years. 5 years.
Identify the tactics that best move you forward in that direction. Take those steps, be focused, measure success and keep marching.

Make it real. Stay true to your goals. Move if forward.

Then Start The Journey!

Sun Tzu had a lot to say about military strategy & tactics in the venerable book "The Art of War". It's typically a must read in every university for every discipline. My favorite because it truly speaks to any small business:

"Strategy without Tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without Strategy is the noise before defeat."

A Little #Paradigm Rhyme

3/16/2015

So. In honor of #Cisco at #SXSW
Where today they were showing #IoT at it’s best
Here’s a #Tiger Team blog & a #socmedia test.

Now that the #BYOD fad is losing its zest
#Sensors are mainstream, #RFID is at rest
It’s #IoT this - #IoE that – one big #Internet cluster-fest.

Don’t we all have an #Internet fridge & trashcan?
Which are now just components of our home #WLAN
Shopping lists sent to our phone via quick #FIFO scan.

The #Internet of Things equals #adjacencies galore
EG there's an IoG in the vineyard next door
Is #IoT already a commodity as with switching before?

So like that old law where in two years we want #Moore
The market needs an #inflection-point on which to soar
How about climate change, a new invention please, #Al Gore?

Detected. The topic, the movie, the technology - it may be a great way to hype IoT - hopefully it turns out to be a lot more. Just sayin'.

#TooManyHashtags

The Year of Blogging Honestly: Day 6

False Spring or Real Change?

3/15/2015

The weather has been beautiful this month. Typically we get a few weeks of "false spring" in February and then March reminds of that winter is not quite over. Not so much this year. Like everyone else, I loaded up on plants (drought tolerant) and potting soil (organic) at Home Despot. With a little help from the Tiger Team staff, I re-planted a few old water troughs.
With temps in the 70s and 80s, it's impossible not to think about climate change. Talk about keeping it real. Recently I discovered the David Suzuki Foundation web site. There's a list of the little things anyone can do to make a difference. Given that our congressional leadership are cynically denying science, I appreciate having a way take personal action. It may be small, but not insignificant. Happy Sunday.

The Year of Blogging Honestly: Day 5

The Life if Pi

3/14/2015

Everyone is geeking out because it's Pi day. Twice today we get 10 digits of Pi: 3.14.15 9:26:53. I'm not a math geek (probably because Mr. Rettig threw a book at me in sophomore algebra) so no big deal here. However it's the perfect day to recommend "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel - a thrilling story, great read and a gorgeous movie. Plus the tiger is pretty sweet. Definitely in my top 10.

The Year of Blogging Honestly: Day 4

The View from Here

3/13/2015

It's party time. We’re celebrating 12 years of running a successful small business. This is an aha moment. It’s been such an integrated part of our life, Centerline Farm hardly seems like a business. It was built around a dream of living out in the “country”. Based on a passion for all things equestrian. Somehow it turned into a community of people who share a love of horses, the sport and the adventure.

Like many small business owners, at first, we were in way over our heads. The learning curve was ridiculously steep. We bootstrapped the farm, as we turned potential into reality. Sometimes it really sucked. Now, most of the time it’s simply great.

Here’s the point. Lots of businesses are a result of one’s avocation. However getting from that passion to a “day job” is a gigantic leap. For some, it never becomes full-time, and that’s OK. Regardless, to grow from avocation to successful occupation, the small business entrepreneur must start by doing these 5 things:

Determining their goals
Describing their customer
Defining their products
Developing a plan
Then doing it, adjusting it, doing it again

My advice. Start out by keeping it simple. Take a couple of hours to brainstorm and write it all down on one page. Then, get some help to move it forward.

With some good luck, smart choices and lots of previous business experience we were able grow Centerline Farm into a profitable and fun business. We’ve downsized a bit – but it’s still a joy. And what I realize now, the most important thing is learning how to do this: Keep it real, be true to yourself, and live the moment.

Let’s get the party started.

The Year of Blogging Honestly: Day 3