[go: up one dir, main page]

Reading time: 2 minutes
Aristotle said “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation... [it] is not an act, but a habit.” Excellence doesn’t come from luck, but from effort and planning and while there is a lot of hard work involved, anyone can achieve greatness with time.
With this in mind, we want to help you on your way to greatness. Check out our Delivering With Excellence infographic now, and watch the video below. We’ve also put together a couple of handy hints to prepare you on your way.  

Stay organized

Organization is the starting block of excellence. While it’s tempting to jump head-first into a new project, it’s important to make time to plan it out. Use Google Docs to create shared timelines and assign tasks so everyone involved can access and update accordingly.

Communicate
Have you ever worked on a job where you ended up in meetings about meetings about meetings…? While it’s important to touch base along the way, there are better ways to track progress like one-to-one catchups or detailed scheduling, leaving everyone more time for the important stuff.



Resource
A new project means a fresh start. Allocate staff resources early on to ensure workloads are balanced. Give everyone a portion of the project to own - pressure makes diamonds, and it will make everyone feel more invested.

Don’t stay in a dead end
If your initial idea or thought process isn’t working, don’t be afraid to try a new one. Sometimes a new approach or a new way of thinking is the best course of action, even if it means abandoning something you’ve already spent time on.

Be bold
Your client knows their industry better than anyone, but you know yours. So don’t be afraid to take charge and offer new suggestions and ideas that they may not have considered, the worst thing they can say is no.
Watch the video below for more information - see you on the path to excellence!





Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Reading time: 3 minutes
As an agency, pitching is one of the most intimidating challenges you can encounter. We’ve all experienced it - the butterflies in your stomach, sweating palms, the slight shake in your voice that you hope the client doesn’t notice (they usually don’t, we promise). The best way to face up to a pitch with confidence is to arm yourself with the tools to prepare successfully. With this in mind, check out our advice below to help you get pitch-ready, then visit our online pitch guide, for even more advice and information.


Practice, practice, practice
Some might say over-rehearsing a pitch will make you sound robotic. The solution to this? Even more practice. When you know your material inside-out, you can rehearse the delivery and inflection as well. Don’t worry about sounding rehearsed, it’s a worse feeling to walk out of the room and suddenly remember an important point you forgot to mention.




Record yourself
Incorporate this step into your rehearsal. While it might seem mortifying to see yourself on video, it helps you to think critically and notice any mistakes you might be making - Are you talking too quickly? Are you speaking tangentially? Are you speaking loudly and clearly enough? The camera never lies.




 
Don’t be afraid to use notes

Reading from a script won’t lead to a compelling delivery, but if you find you get a little lost it’s okay to have a couple of key notes or stats on a card to prompt you. We’re not in school anymore, and no one is going to accuse you of cheating. It will help to steady your nerves and keep you on track.

Read the room
It’s important to match the tone your client sets. They might be in a joking mood, or they could be walking in after a horrifically stressful morning. Just be warm and engaging, but don’t try and force a laugh if they’re not biting. You’re there to inform, not to entertain.
Prepare to answer questions
So you’ve nailed the delivery, what now? Getting your side of the information across is half the battle. Before you set foot in the room for the pitch, try and anticipate any questions the client might have. It helps to rehearse your pitch with someone who hasn’t worked on it to see if they have any questions - that way you won’t fall victim to privileged insight.

Breathe

It’s the oldest advice in the book because it’s the most effective. Make sure to take deep breaths if you start to feel nervous, sip water, and don’t go in on an empty stomach. Try your best to relax and enjoy the process and the rest will follow.
For more advice on perfecting your pitches, whether it’s preparation, content, delivery, or even follow up, check out our online pitch guide, and watch the video below.



Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

By: Kevin Prior, Product Marketing Manager, Actions on Google


Every year, the leading agencies and brands meet in the south of France at the Cannes Lions Festival to celebrate and learn about cutting-edge technologies and creative work. The festival inspires the next wave of innovation that can break through and reach increasingly discerning consumers. The Google Assistant team is showcasing new ways to interact with your customers: by assisting them to get things done.

We’ve seen people’s expectations change driven by an even more curious, demanding, and impatient consumer,  and to rise to these expectations we need to not just help consumers find the information they want, but also help them do more with it. This is where the Google Assistant comes in.


To show how your brand can—or how you can help brands—reach new customers in assistive ways, we’re on the beach at Cannes with a set of creative Actions our partners built for the Assistant, to help their customers get things done in new devices and contexts. We hosted a panel on the subject earlier this week – check it out here.


In our beach huts, you’ll see how Actions can help a customer plan a trip with Lonely Planet, or help customers complete a step-by-step recipe with Tasty--all powered by voice and visuals, in assistive context with the Google Assistant. Apply a little sunscreen and drop by to try them yourself, or see our full schedule at Cannes to meet the rest of the Google team.


We’ve been fortunate enough to also work with leading agencies that have already built for the Google Assistant as some of the early adopters to experiment with our platform. Rehab, for example, built Safari Mixer, a playful game where people can invent a brand new animal by combining the head, body, and legs of various animals.


We caught up with a few agency partners to share some of their thoughts on building assistive experiences for voice:

Should brands be investing in voice-enabled devices already? Why?
“This type of experience will provide far richer data about their customer needs and preferences because the strong intent and behaviours that voice assistants support. This will help brands: respond faster, develop better products, improve marketing, responsive pricing and even savings in supply chain.” -- Rob Bennett, CEO, rehab

“Absolutely. Voice is here to stay and it's a great fit for many use cases. By being early adopters, brands have the opportunity to cement customer behaviors NOW, before there are many more competing Actions. Once customers establish their behaviors, they're really hard to break later on, which is great for brands that act now.” -- Tony Chen, Co-Founder & COO, Conversable

How should brands think about their presence in an Assistant ecosystem in relation to the rest of their digital presence?
“If a brand were a person, what does it look like, and what does he or she say? The Assistant connects a voice to a brand, and with that creates a promise of human behaviour. This is a golden opportunity to create a layer of digital interactivity that will reflect the values the brand stands for.” -- Sander van der Vegte, Head of MediaMonk Labs, MediaMonks

 “Think conversationally. If a consumer were sitting next to you on a park bench, what conversation could you have with them that they would leave thinking they really enjoyed that discussion, that person, and they can't wait to see them again.” -- Brandon Kaplan, CEO, Skilled Creative

Can voice and conversation enable new use cases for brands and their businesses? If so, why?
“Voice conversations unlock many use cases where it's unnecessary or inconvenient to type or tap to complete a task. That might be the case where you're in the kitchen and your hands are dirty, but you can ask for the next step in a recipe as opposed to scrolling on your phone. Or you might be in your car and unable to type.” --  Tony Chen, Co-Founder & COO, Conversable

 “Voice enables new use cases for brands because it is hands-free and on-demand. It allows users to ask for exactly what they want, rather than navigate a screen to find an answer.” -- Patrick Miller, Chief Innovation Officer, Deeplocal

“Absolutely. Think about the context in which you’re engaging with a voice-enabled experience -- it’s typically when a user cannot or does not want to access a screen, like when you’re in a car. Brands have never really had the opportunity to speak to their customers while they’re on their way to the grocery store, or in that moment they realize they need gas, and voice-enabled experiences now make those moments accessible." -- Amanda Felson, Director of Partnerships, Assist

What challenges do brands face in this new age of voice-enabled experiences? How can they navigate them? 

“Don’t push products directly. A voice service or utility should provide users with a benefit. Sometimes that benefit is making it easier to buy or order something but try to think bigger. Brands should be trying to help consumers: solve a problem or achieve an aim.” -- Rob Bennett, CEO, rehab

“Because the ecosystem is still so new, getting started with voice-enabled experiences can seem like a daunting task. We would encourage brands to begin with the low-hanging fruit— the simple questions that they have immediate answers for. From here, they can then moderate the questions that are being asked and develop solutions for those queries.” -- Patrick Miller, Chief Innovation Officer, Deeplocal

What are you most excited about for the future of these voice-enabled devices and experiences? Where do you foresee this ecosystem going?

“We foresee a world where your voice assistant knows your preferences, as do your 3rd party brand assistants in their area. They will be able to make personalised recommendations and can pick up a conversation or interaction you’ve had on another platform from your home speaker, to your car or even in-store.” -- Rob Bennett, CEO, rehab

“We see family gaming as a big opportunity, and also Assistant supported commerce will change consumer behavior - i.e. buying in the car and on-the-go will increase.” -- Adam Marchick, Co-Founder & CEO, Alpine.AI


Knowing full well that brands are interested in how they can get ahead of the curve for this new age of assistance, we also launched a new website that can help you navigate the fundamentals in building for the Google Assistant, supported with case studies from WeMo, Akinator, and SongPop.


And if you’re an agency already building Actions, we’d love to hear from you. Just reach out here and we’ll see if we can offer some help along the way!





Reading time: 2 minutes
Attending an event is a great way to further your specialist knowledge, gather new insights, and get a fresh perspective on your industry (while taking a welcome break from the office). But have you ever considered using the day as an opportunity to meet and recruit new customers?
The people you meet at an event have the potential to become some of the most valuable on your roster. After all you have a built-in conversation starter. Whether it’s the subject matter of the day, the venue, or even the quality of the coffee at the refreshments table, you don’t have to lead in with a cold open but instead begin to create a real connection.


Chances are if they’re attending the same event as you, the person you’re speaking to already has a baseline subject knowledge of your industry. So, you can skip the explanations and get straight to the nitty gritty.

This all sounds great, but sometimes making the leap from polite small talk to conversion is easier said than done. That’s why Google has put together a helpful video and infographic to help you utilize an event as a tool for customer recruitment. This covers everything from preparing for the event itself, how to network on the day, right through to carrying out successful follow-up afterwards. You’ll never attend an event the same way again.



Check out our infographic and video to discover more top tips on winning leads from events.

Download the infographic here

Check out the video below:



Labels: , , , , , , , , ,