The Parallels of Corporate CEOs and Pro Sports Coaches
“If you don’t win, you’re out of the game” seems to be the nation-wide sentiment among major league ball club owners towards their leaders. Sports, it’s a business, and the level of tolerance for non-performance has decreased to near zero. The average tenure of an NFL coach is now 3.5 years, less than half the average tenure of a corporate CEO. Both are in the “hot seat” tied to business goals with wins and losses that translate into hundreds of millions of dollars, and there are many parallels between these positions.
For the past few years, I’ve been following major league coaches as a source of inspiration. What makes them great, their individual styles, the impact they have on their team and how they handle the media. While CEOs were struggling with the pressure of going public, Pat Riley was one of the first in sports to create a stylish personal brand. The camera spent as much time on him as it did on his players. Riley used this in negotiating his position with the Miami Heat, and to attract some of the league’s best talent. Brilliant.
The statistical analysis and gut instinct that every coach uses on draft day isn’t necessarily what ensures a winning team. They have to have impact to create a team of star performers. I recently had lunch with an ex-star player who talked about locker room style, post game tapes and how debilitating one of his old coaches could be. His performance did not peak until he was under the mentorship of Coach Coughlin. Tom Coughlin, who ends every team download with an inspirational quote, was his game-changer.
Inspirational quotes may seem rather soft for a team of testosterone-filled tough guys but, like all great leaders, coaches live by them. One of my favorites was spoken by the legendary Tom Landry, “Leadership is the ability to get a person to do what he doesn’t want to do in order to achieve what he wants to achieve,”Good to remember in those Monday morning executive meetings.
Clear vision, the ability to motivate and good gut instinct are among the qualities shared by great CEOs and coaches. There are a few differences though. It’s acceptable for coaches to stomp and scream and spit. Don’t think I’ll spit.
Linda Passante, CEO, The Halo Group
A Guide To Determining Advertising Budgets
As we enter the 2013 planning quarter, our most frequent client conversations are centered on the annual marketing communications budget. For most companies, what they would like to invest in marketing communications and what they can afford are two different dollar amounts. So determining the annual marketing communications budget and how to most effectively allocate that budget is a key CMO responsibility that requires market insight, proper evaluation of marketing activities and some creativity.
The brand’s goals, its current market position and specific challenges, as well as competitive activity, should all be considered so that no one method should bind a company. And because there is no single method of determining a proper marketing communications budget, the process can be an in-depth and difficult one. However, a fairly simple and commonly used method that we refer to as a first step is determining the ratio of advertising expenditures to projected sales.
This annual report, created by Schonfeld & Associates, Inc. and featured in Ad Age, is a valuable resource. We use it as a discussion guide and to help prevent our marketing wish list from getting way out of proportion.
You can download the full 2011 list with the top 200 industries HERE.
- Linda Passante, CEO, The Halo Group
Internet Week New York
Internet Week is described as a “week-long festival celebrating NYC’s thriving internet industry and community”. It’s a chance for digital start ups, agencies and people to come together and discuss the industry. It was created as a way to show the world that the New York community could compete in the digital space. As David Karp, CEO of New York based Tumblr, put it: “New York is way cooler than Palo Alto”. We aren’t arguing with him on that.
What do you think? Can New York be the next Silicon Valley? Did you go to Internet Week this year. We want to hear your thoughts.
Don’t forget to check out how #IWNY trended on Twitter (brought to you by Visual.ly)
