Author: David Childs

Monster: Your Billion Dollar Ideology

by David Childs in Alignment, Blueprint, Uncategorized

In a time when we’re increasingly bombarded with messages telling us “you can be anything you want,” Monster – Your Billion Dollar Ideology offers a counter-intuitive evidence-based response to founders and companies who will listen. You can only become great when you first discover and leverage of your true self. Everything else is a distraction, or worse.

You’ll discover:

  • How to understand who you are based on evidence and aligned subjectivity
  • How to understand the gap between the ideal you and your current pragmatic reality
  • How to get better at being you by mobilizing your executives, staff, stakeholders and market

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Cultural Alignment and Controlled Growth

by David Childs in Alignment, Blueprint, Business Retreat, Storytelling

Our relationship with Somatic HVAC started in 2012 when they were looking to change their name and rebrand. We have watched them grow from 8 people all the way up to where they are today at 60. It is great to watch a company become stronger year after year.

Growth never happens by accident. In December 2017 we were contacted again by Gilbert and Patrick to help them define their core values and strengthen their culture. We happily took on the challenge and began a six-month intensive quest to engage with their team, their clients, and various stakeholders. The truth of a company is spread out through many people and it is key to identify and communicate with them.

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Scale up and dominate your Industry

by David Childs in Alignment, Blueprint, Case Study, Storytelling

“How do we know who we are? What if we’re believing our own BS?” This is one of the first things Christian Chia said to me. He has a great point and it is one we take very seriously. In fact, when we rebranded our own company we worked with an outside agency for the same reason.

OpenRoad is BCs largest vehicle retailer and they intend to keep growing, for this to happen alignment became of critical importance. They have over one thousand employees and over twenty vehicle brands each with their own store, management, and teams.

What is the grand vision for the company? What are they going to rally around? What makes them different and why do customers buy from them when they could easily go elsewhere? All of these questions point to what we refer to as a companies Core Brand Concept. This is that little bit of magic that makes each company unique. Let me explain. OpenRoad sells the same cars, in the same city, with the same sales training, same stores, and the same prices as their competition. Imagine that!  With this in mind, they have grown faster than almost all their competitors and in the span of twenty years earned the top spot in regards to the number of locations.Read More

Get the most out of working with agencies

by David Childs in Alignment

There’s an old Chinese saying: “hire the one you trust and trust the one you hire,” that has an added layer of significance when your company is considering working with an external marketing agency on a job. As I’ll show you, following a few essential steps can drastically increase the odds that you’ll have a successful working relationship with an external agency and ideal results.

As a former lead of several global Fortune 500 marketing teams – including with PepsiCo, Pfizer and Unilever – I was often tasked with picking the right external marketing agency for projects, such as TV commercials, posters, product launches and other marketing initiatives. It was my responsibility to get the best outcome on a tight schedule.

After many successes and a few sleepless nights, I found that the following mix of approaches dramatically elevated the trust we placed in the agencies we worked with and increased productivity, saving us valuable time and money in the long run.

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If you want team alignment – include them from day one

by David Childs in Alignment, Blueprint, Business Retreat, Case Study, Revitalization

Genesis is one of BCs largest, privately held security companies. As they approach their 20 year anniversary it became important to align the company executives and do a complete brand refresh.

To reconsider their brand we first needed to work with a core team who represent their entire company of 500+ people. Each person chosen brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into what the company stands for. While the marketing team know much about relating to the outside world it is key to include finance, operations, and other departments who have deep knowledge of how the company got to this point. This is true alignment. The company strategy is built by working with this team and building tools for them to communicate with their sub-teams.

As they went through our process many truths were discovered about who they are and where they are going. This retreat was an opportunity for each team member to share how they are going to move the company forward and set Genesis up for another 20 years.

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Revitalization and leveraging your past

by David Childs in Alignment, Blueprint, Revitalization, Uncategorized

Updating your brand after 20 years is not for the faint of heart and needs to be taken very seriously.  First of all – what’s the point?  There needs to be a deep and compelling reason to challenge everything you have and push forward with a new face to the world.

The key starting point with us is always the same.  Don’t tell us who you think you are and where you think you’re going.  Conventional wisdom wants us to believe that the first thing out of your mouth is correct, your past doesn’t define you, and you can be anything you want.  Really!  If this is true why go to school?  Just snap your fingers, watch The Secret five or six times and there you have it – you now own Apple.  Well that was easy.

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Brand Storytelling

by David Childs in Alignment, Blueprint, Case Study, Launch, Storytelling

Telling stories has become a strategic priority within direct and indirect brand marketing initiatives. Through social media and content marketing stories, there are opportunities to emotionally engage customers in ways that extend to offline brand experiences.

The attraction is not as measurable as many marketing initiatives with a push for sales and an ROI. Rather, this kind of communication speaks the truth of a brand, infuses it with personality, empathy and shared values.

Storytelling is about showing how your company’s actions demonstrate your promised brand experience. It is about attracting like-minded customers, employees and strategic partners.

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Give a Little Bit of Heart and Soul

by David Childs in Alignment, Storytelling

One thing that we always create for our clients is a clear, visual, Core Brand Concept. This is the birthplace of the brand strategy and all marketing & communications to come.  This shows the boiling point, common denominator, feature shared by staff / stakeholders / client, and depicts their relationship one another.  What makes each company tick is unique.  The model has a few key contributing factors; your products & services, beliefs & core values, what your clients are actually thinking, and what problem you solve for them. Your brand is a combination of all of these groups.

To truly understand the nature of your companies brand you must first examine what got you to where you are. Here are the three starting points; 1. you, 2. your stakeholders, 3 your clients. Deeply understanding your motives by looking for evidence in your past can really shed light onto where you’re going to end up.  As we have found time and time again – your past dictates your future. The more you understand about your thought process, your stakeholders thought processes, and of course your clients then the more you can actively control your outcomes.  If one or all three of these things are a mystery to you then the inevitability of your future can move away from your control.

Digital Dialogue Interview

by David Childs in Storytelling

Digital Dialogue is great series put together by Bosco Anthony that centres around thought leadership. Bosco has a long list of interesting people that have been on his show including interviews with Mark Brand and Brian Scudamore.  I spent Sunday morning with Bosco putting together my segment for next season. He is a very thoughtful and intelligent chap who really takes the time to do his research and shows a genuine interest in all his guests.

It was a an interesting experience and I look forward to seeing the final result in the next few months.

Have a look at some of the previous interviews here.

The laid back approach to his interviews really helps you to get inside the guests heads and learn how they think.  If you are in business and looking for some insight this is a great way to start.  Lots of rich content from people who are active in the entrepreneurial space.