On What Are You Competing — Operations, Product & Customer Knowledge?

There are a lot of people in business. A lot of people competing for the customer’s attention. (And given the pandemic, there are even more).

So, how do YOU stand out?

To begin the process of becoming recognized for something and cultivating a competitive advantage, see below and identify the business strategy that suits you and your organization best.

What’s Your Strategy Style?

You DELIVER. Period.

1. If your strength is operational leadership, you have penny pinching, manufacturing and distribution systems down to a science, and your competitive advantage is YOUR superior ability to deliver. To compete around operational leadership, you want to ensure that your product supply is on lock, and that your customer service leaves no room for error. Your forecasting system should be completely organized and buttoned up, so that demand management leaves minimal margin for error. Your operational leadership is your competitive advantage strategy made possible by valued relationships with vendors & manufacturers, and a proven systematic approach to both manufacture and distribute. Yay for you! You Deliver. Period. …

The Journey of Launching Freedom At The Mat Online

Quarantine was thrust upon us all. At the beginning of the COVID-19 onset pandemic, I was extremely busy with work, and exercise (even created a routine that included 3x weekly bike rides, and 3–4x weekly yoga (to offset the snacks)).

Then the dust settled.

I was stuck — with me. As a single woman, I had the privilege of looking at me, inside and outside daily. And with time, I began to see this as an opportunity, and accepted the invitation to grow.

Like many creatives, I shifted energy into creation mode. We were able to create in a space where there was no limit on time or creativity. So, although I was still teaching at NYU and managing marketing for Omerge Alliances’ clients, I began to lean into my yoga practice more and more as an escape. …

With the live events industry going bust during the COVID-19 global pandemic, many industry professionals have wondered HOW to take their experiences live. As a 25-year marketer, producing live events (concerts, trade show events, custom and sponsor events) since 1996, designing virtual events at this time felt easy and intuitive as it was always about the customer and the core experience. Here are 4 quick pieces of planning advice I’ve found helpful in making the pivot.

1. Let your customer’s needs guide your content strategy.
   Your customer is your North Star. No matter if the event is live or virtual, you are programming an event to attract the “attention” of customers. Time and money spent is attention. Customers choose how they spend their time every day. With less money floating around these days, attention is EVERYTHING. Outside of work (and for some, even while at work :)), they spend time with various forms of media and entertainment. Events fall into this vast bucket. So, do you know what this means?? You have to fulfill a void in their life. Are they seeking pleasure, information, edutainment or other? If you’re programming an event, it is your job to know what your customer wants, and deliver it to them. …

Why making time & space to cultivate your mental & emotional wellness matters

Today is my sister’s birthday. She died on February 11, 2019.

As a sister, you are kinda obligated NOT to air out your sister’s dirty laundry. You know — out of respect for your sibling and family pride. However, as I reflect upon her life, I’d like to share pieces of her story that I think she, being open hearted and very generous, may be ok with others knowing if it would help someone.

Sherilyn “Bootsie” Joyce Scott was a spirited, fiesty, fun, smart and very pretty girl in North Memphis (Tennessee). A high school majorette with legs for days in a 2–parent household, she even got a car at age 16 (pretty cool for a black girl in the 1960s) and was quite the desire of the many boys. …

The present is all we know for sure and serving makes you feel a part of a greater whole.

Right now, the world is filled with fear.

The rhetoric by leaders meant to provide hope is unnerving, because the answers are not tried and true, and info is shaky at best.

Yet all the while, some people are losing their lives, while others are losing their loved ones. And there is no rhyme, reason or understanding of when or how to push through this. …

Brands need to give and not get right now

NOTE TO BRANDS: We’re all out of work. We’ve all lost $ in stock market. All our kids are at home. We’re all stuck in our homes, fearful of anyone and everything.

So, you know what this means? Many of us are not working. And because no one’s working, our paychecks are affected. Given uncertain paychecks, spending is decreased. Pretty clear line on this. Period.

There are many people, including restaurant owners, fitness teachers, event producers & technicians, plumbers, mechanics, and pretty much any one whose work is with their hands who simply may not be working at all for the next month or two. For those of us who transact work via keyboards, we may feel a little more economically stable — but not much. The fear (+forced at home child care) is crippling all of us, resulting in significant productivity loss. The fear is also impacting many of us psychosomatically thereby causing us to feel we may be sick when we are not, or causing us to be sick, when we normally would not be. There is indeed a direct correlation between mind and body which we should all be cautious about. I could digress, but I won’t. Getting back on task, this is a time for brands and brand managers to really think about what their customers need, more than EVER, and give to their true needs, not what we want them to have, or in the spirit of giving to receive something in return. …

Becoming your best self with the opportunity of social distancing.

On an everyday basis, we interact with people and forces of nature.

Now that we can’t, there is only one thing holding us back from living our fullest lives — OURSELVES.

Without the distractions of coworkers popping by our desk, time spent in traffic or on the train, someone taking too long in the store, holding the elevator doors too long or going here and there to get something, we have a splendid opportunity before us— to be.

Being is showing up. Being is presence. Being is loving. Being is reaching for the deepest crevices inside you to create the life you want to live, on your terms. …

4 ways to build trust before your yes (to love or anything).

Before we love someone, buy a product, or use a service, trust is the underlying currency.

Sometimes we defer our trust to others, because we don’t trust ourselves. We think they know “the way” more than we do. But, truly no one knows “the way” for our lives greater than we do. Sometimes we give away our trust too easily — think of how we blindly get into Uber taxis, meet for coffee with a stranger met on Tinder, book an Airbnb in a foreign country. …