Talking About Marketing

In this bonus episode of "Talking About Marketing", Steve Davis and David Olney list and briefly discuss their Top 5 books of 2023 for you to consider reading as we head into 2024. They also list the Top 5 most read marketing blogs of 2023 and the Top 7 most listened to episodes of Talking About Marketing, just in case you missed one that's proven popular with other listeners. Have a Happy, Produc...

In the latest episode of "Talking About Marketing" with Steve Davis and David Olney, we explore the intersection of art, leadership, and AI in the modern business world. Our special guest, David Gauci, a veteran in the theatre scene and founder of Davine Productions, shares insights on finding one's unique voice in the performing arts and beyond. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking to carve o...

In this blockbuster episode of the Talking About Marketing Podcast, Steve and David Olney delve into the intriguing world of mind-changing strategies and powerful principles for business success, drawing inspiration from an unusual source: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Titled  What Would Arnold Schwarzenegger Do? , this episode embarks on a journey through David McRaney's enlightening book,  How Minds Ch...

In this seventh episode of the third series of  Talking About Marketing , we start by reflecting on just what it is that holds so many of us completely helpless against the attraction of those social media channels. Just why do we keep that phone in our hands when we have decent movies to watch or people to talk to or children to play with? Will Storr has an answer and it revolves around our dire...

In this fifth episode of the third series of  Talking About Marketing , we start by going back to basics with the teacher who taught David Olney how to walk with his cane. That teacher's name is Roley Stuart, and as we'll discover, his practical, firm approach to teaching principles has helped David navigate the world with independence and confidence ever since. In this episode, we look at what le...

In this fifth episode of the third series of Talking About Marketing , we focus on some sobering insights from the world of social media. They come from one of Steve's LinkedIn contact, Jessamyn Hayden McLachlan from Felt Brand Stories, in the wake of the Adelaide Hills Winter Reds festival. In the Perspicacity segment, we continue our focus on David Sandler's Sales Submarine, this time the fourth...

In this fourth episode of the third series of  Talking About Marketing , we start with some glittering insights from the world of Barbie. Yes, Barbie is a toy but some of the principles raised in the blockbuster movie give pause for thought. In the Principles segment, Oscar Wilde returns with the mystery of a Green Carnation in his lapel. Yes, this links to our wish to create marketing worth talki...

In this third episode of the third series of  Talking About Marketing , we start with the first of three insights from the new biography of Oscar Wilde entitled, Oscar. His reflection towards the end of his time in Reading Gaol that his life will now be dedicated to tragedy, offers the artistic version of something shared by one of our clients, Emanuel from Flinders Run Wines. In the Principles se...

In this second episode of the third series of  Talking About Marketing , we turn our attention to acknowledging the inner potential we all have, individually and in teams, when it's time to embark on new tasks or projects or opportunities. To that end, David mines the work of Kathryn D. Cramer. For the Person segment, however, Steve taps into the work of Bill Bryson, who has thoughtfully mined the...

In this first episode of the third series of Talking About Marketing , we turn our attention to the all important task of writing words that "sell". But before we help you gain fame for your sales prowess, we begin with Marcus Aurelius' warning words about fame itself. In our mailbag, Steve is drawn into his broken record-like reminders about how clunky and miselading many Google warning emails ca...

How much does AI really understand? How much have we made ourselves its slave through our social media usage? And what does this mean for our marketing efforts? In this final episode of the second series of Talking About Marketing, we turn our attention to the endeavour of human craft as well as our proclivity for finding the laziest way possible to do things with AI. David Auerbach is a writer, t...

It's one thing to be good at marketing. In marketing, you choose the areas to fish and select the right bait and plan the finer details of your fishing expedition. However, if you get a bite, can you land your prize? This latter part of the process is called Sales. In this episode, we discuss David Sandler's 49 rules of sales. According to summaries.com , the rules can be divided thus: Rules 1 - 6...

Continuing on from our discussion in episode 6, The lost art of delayed gratification , this time, David and Steve ponder the challenges we all face when the marketplace is full of businesses and media working overtime to be "novel". Despite needed to do some ethical gymnastics, they stumble upon a marketing mix that might help you have your cake and eat it too, without selling your soul (or your...

How do you get through to your customers and potential customers in this era when pleasure is not only expected but still leaves them jaded? It's hard to be novel and the star of the show these days, for any more than Andy Warhol's famed "15 minutes" because all of us are saturated with pleasure triggers. Professor Anna Lembke pulls the curtains back from this phenomena in her book, Dopamine Natio...

Why do smart people do dumb things? This is the question posed by author Keith Cunningham and discussed by David and Steve in this episode. One hint might relate to how much time smart people spend each day actually thinking. It's an interesting discussion that might just help give you the edge in life and business. Steve also picks up an unexpected insight from the book, Chokepoint Capitalism . I...

If you're a founder (or you work for one), you will find this episode helpful if you've had to navigate that point in a business at which a founder's personal abilities and capacities are overrun by the demands of growth in the business. It is at this point that founders need to make some profound adjustments to avoid their business imploding. This crossroads is typically met when an enterprise re...

We do tend to think of heroes as solo champions who save the world. But no hero (or business leader) is an island. Even the iconic hero, Superman, relied on Lois and Jimmy to get him out of tight scrapes when the likes of Lex Luther weakened our superhero with Kryptonite. In this episode, we reflect on what historical stories about heroes and leaders on the battlefield can realistically teach us a...

Would you join a community build around your brand? If you're anything like Groucho Marx, you'd refuse to join any club that would have you as a member, which is why this episode might make some uncomfortable and challenging listening, re Belonging To The Brand. This book by Mark Schaefer, offers community as a new frontier for marketing to explore, but it's a high stakes option where people will...

This is an important start to our second season. Through the Marketing Rebellion book by Mark Schaeffer, we are all reminded that we control only a small slither of our branding efforts. Customers rule the world. We explain in more detail, along with poking fun at stuffy branding agencies, making notes about the upcoming change to Google Analytics, and reflecting on whether or not the University O...

Don't you wish you could weave some words and have people fall under your spell? In the Principles section, David explains how author, Blair Warren, has compiled a list of 27 words that will achieve this end. Is this hocus pocus or does it have substance? You're about to discover it's the latter! Meanwhile, following our remininiscing about the infamous "ants" TV commercial recently, we're returni...

All the research says empowered employees make a huge and positive impact on businesses but the concept scares the living daylights out of owners and managers. That's why, smart speakers and authors like Josh Bernoff and Stan McChrystal, change the language to terms like Strategic Alignment And Customer Obsession. It's more palatable to the C Suite! We unpack this in the Principles section of the...

Joe Polish is a highly capable marketer, but he surprised David and Steve by inserting the word "grateful" into his mantra that we should approach networking, relationships, and business, with a blend of being useful, grateful, and valuable. in situations, I initially struggled with why he sandwiched grateful between useful and valuable. When I wrote about value in my blog post, in terms of adding...

Not everybody feels comfortable "selling". In fact, most of us feel darn right uncomfortable at the thought of "working someone" so you can get them where you want them. But, of course, that's all based on a fairly narrow definition of selling; the forced selling of a huckster. In reality, every time we want to "advocate" for a choice of restaurant or TV show, or recommend a book, or strive to hol...

There are times you simply need to destroy what exists in order to replace it with something better We go back to 2015 to start this episode of Talking About Marketing , in which we consider whether we should burn social media down and develop new strategies for marketing in the social channels. The discussion centres around an insight from Forrester Research in 2015 that stated, "social ads aren’...

In this episode of Talking About Marketing , we discuss how to be clearer and more engaging in our communication; in short, writing without BS. It's funny how fluffery creeps into business writing, whether that's internal messages, emails to clients, or advertising.  Instead of being one human talking to another, some switch flicks inside us when we try to write in business settings and suddlenly...