Veteran marketer and entrepreneur Chris Jacobs joins London, Ink consulting team

 

Potomac, MD – September, 2009, London, Ink, a marketing and communications consulting and services firm headquartered outside of Washington, DC, announced the addition of Christina Jacobs to its team of marketing consultants and project managers to meet the demands of the company’s growing client base.

Jacobs, whose background includes marketing management posts at Nextel, MCI and CoStar Group and AMS, is also co-founder of Girls in the Know, the popular and fast-growing online service that provides subscribers with exclusive offers from premier spas, salons, restaurants, designers and events.

“Chris has been a great addition to the London, Ink team,” said London, Ink founder and President Bob London.  “Not many people combine such deep practical marketing experience and expertise with an entrepreneur’s sense of innovation and resourcefulness.”

Jacobs provides on-demand marketing consulting, project management and implementation for a range of London, Ink clients—which supports the company’s lean, on-demand business model and enables clients to receive top-notch, cost-effective marketing support.

“Working with London, Ink gives me a combination of an interesting and engaging work experience with a high degree of flexibility, schedule-wise,” said Jacobs.  “It’s clear that the on-demand model works for clients as well to help them focus their budgets on the right priorities.”

“London, Ink is already known for pioneering the ‘Virtual VP of Marketing’ concept which provides experienced project-based resources on-demand for organizations that need an injection of strategic marketing horsepower,” continued Bob London.  “Having more consultants like Chris means that London, Ink can serve a broader range of client needs with various levels, areas of specialization and price points.”

About London, Ink

 

London, Ink (http://www.londonink.com) is a marketing and communications consulting firm that helps early-stage and established organizations define and prioritize their products, services and marketing initiatives based on what the market needs–or doesn’t need.

 

In pioneering the Virtual VP of Marketing concept, London, Ink president and founder Bob London works with companies who aren’t ready for the cost and commitment of a full-time marketing executive to assess their market opportunity, determine the strategic options and develop a practical go-to-market plan, including market awareness, customer acquisition and retention, prospect “nurture” campaigns and targeted education programs.

 

Bob London has successfully managed marketing initiatives with annual budgets ranging from the $150 million network television launch of MCI Friends & Family (back when network tv really meant something) to under $25,000.  His work and writing has been profiled or covered by the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Miami Herald, USA Today and Marketing News (the AMA’s flagship magazine).  Bob recently spoke at the nationwide Unintentional Entrepreneur series.

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By Bob London

This week another one of my ideas came to life in the form of Wedding Futures (http://www.weddingfutures.com), a site that “enables couples to quickly and easily select and register for stocks and mutual funds as wedding gifts.”

I love the idea and want to state that I’m not claiming that I was the first to have it–or that someone beat me to it.   But in the course of pursuing my hobby of humor writing, one of my jokes (in the form of liner notes made over the years that could some day turn into essays) was about couples being able to register for a CD at SunTrust or to have wedding guests make a payment towards the couple’s cable bill.

This is not the first time that one of my humorous, improv-type or ’stranger than fiction’ concepts has turned into reality.  I’ve written about black box recording devices for automobile (since announced in NYC taxis) and professional sports franchises allowing sponsors to name the teams (subsequently a soccer team was christened the New York Red Bulls).

The point is that buried amidst the out of the box, mix and match, sometimes obtuse thinking are genuinely valuable ideas.  I’m not one for typical brainstorming sessions, but  would venture to say that taking a humorous or even exaggerated view of a problem could result in a viable solution.

Bob London is president of London, Ink, a Washington-DC-based marketing and communications consulting firm and writes business-related humor on the side at B0b-servations.com

By Barg Upender, CEO of Mobomo and Bob London, President of London, InkIt’s been more than four decades since Michigan State University Professor E. Jerome McCarthy theorized that marketing contains four basic elements: product, price, place (distribution) and promotion, also known as the “Four Ps of Marketing” or the marketing mix.

Amazingly, despite the unprecedented upheaval and transformation in marketing strategies, techniques, channels and tactics during the last forty years-not to mention marketers’ penchant for postulating all manner of new philosophies, methodologies, rules and acronyms–the Four Ps of Marketing have remained unchanged.

But perhaps now there is good reason to revisit and refresh marketing’s Four Ps: the emergence of “applications” or “apps” as a new means for organizations to acquire, retain or otherwise engage customers and prospects.

What are “Apps”?

An app is a small, self-contained computer program that provides value or engagement to a mass or targeted audience in a community, marketplace or platform.  Think of Scrabulous for Facebook; WeatherBug for the iPhone; NBC’s Saturday Night Live widgets; or the Wall Street Journal’s reader for the Blackberry.  Apps are commonly grouped via their method of distribution and/or platform:

• Mobile apps: Designed to leverage the unique characteristics of mobile audiences and smartphones, such as the need for location-based information or lightweight, portable versions of larger, more complex services such as Salesforce.com
• Community- or platform-based apps: Those that are developed exclusively for and can only be used on a particular site such as Facebook; and
• Widgets: Portable apps that can reside on multiple third party sites and blogs.

The App explosion

The proliferation in the use of apps by large and small businesses, as well as non-profit and government organizations is well-documented.  Apps have been developed by brands of all stripes as standalone marketing tools or to target fast-growing, communities such as Facebook (350,000 apps used by more than 70% of Facebook’s 250 million users¹) or the iPhone (65,000 apps available; 1 billion downloads in first 9 months²).

And due to their ability to achieve low-cost global or geographically-targeted distribution; their relatively inexpensive development; and rapid time to market-as well as their virtually unlimited potential for creating unique and valuable user experiences-apps have only begin to reach their potential as a new category of marketing tool.

Let’s examine the explosion of one type of app: mobile.  The transformation of the mobile web landscape is reminiscent of the original trajectory of the World Wide Web.  Very quickly, the consensus shifted from “Why does my company need a Web site?” to “Why don’t we have a Web site yet?”  That shift was caused by the reduced cost of developing sites, their practical and proven use in engaging customers, the increase in available bandwidth; and technological advances that helped organizations deliver more useful and relevant user experiences.

The same phenomenon is occurring today with mobile apps: A recent New York Times article reports that nearly half (48 percent) of phone users shop for apps more than once a week and about the same number (49 percent) report using apps on their phone for more than 30 minutes a day; the cost of developing mobile apps has dropped dramatically; and technological improvements are enabling more speed and a better user experience.

 

How do “apps” relate to Marketing’s Four Ps? 

Apps can deliver some portion of the product experience; promote the brand; place themselves wherever customers are; and/or be priced to stimulate trial or engagement.  But while “apps” combine elements of each of the Four Ps, they’re neither fish nor fowl–they don’t neatly fit into any one category.

In other words, apps are not products, promotions, channels or pricing strategies.  But an app can have some or all of these elements.  Apps are…well, they’re apps.  Simply put, apps have become a box you check in your marketing plan, right next to the other Four Ps.  It’s hard to imagine a new brand launch, Hollywood film, ad campaign or even a fundraising push occurring without the question being asked, “Should we develop a mobile or Facebook app for this?”

Let us know what you think: Do apps deserve their own slot in the marketing mix pantheon, right alongside the traditional Four Ps?  Please join the discussion in the ‘comments’ section at the bottom of the following page: http://www.mobomo.com/blog/is-it-time-to-add-apps-to-marketing-4 -P-s

¹   Source: Facebook

²   Source: Apple

About the Authors

Barg Upender, Founder and CEO of Mobomo, LLC

Barg is the CEO & co-founder of Mobomo, a leading mobile application development company focused on developing applications for smart phones in the consumer and enterprise markets. Mobomo has deep expertise in Apple iPhone, Google Andoroid, Palm Pre, RIM Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian OS. Barg is a serial entrepreneur and technologist with 20 years of experience in commercial software product development. Barg was founding partner of web development firm Intridea and he founded and sold Concentric Methods, a biomedical software development company.  In 2009 Barg was named by Washingtonian Magazine to its list of Washington, DC’s Top 100 Tech Titans.

Bob London, President of London, Ink

Bob London is president and founder of London, Ink, a marketing and communications consulting firm that helps organizations define and prioritize their products and services based on what the market wants - or doesn’t want - to buy. In pioneering the Virtual VP of Marketing concept, Bob works with established and early-stage companies who aren’t ready for the cost and commitment of a full-time marketing executive to assess their market opportunity, determine the strategic options and develop a practical go-to-market plan.  Bob’s work and writing has been profiled or covered by the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Miami Herald, USA Today and Marketing News, the AMA’s flagship magazine, and he recently spoke at Network Solutions’ Unintentional Entrepreneur series. For more information, please visit www.londonink.com.

Shockingly breathless coverage of Charlene Li’s “more social engagement = better financial results” report despite incomplete assessment of correlationships.

By Bob London, London, Ink, www.londonink.com

I’m amazed and disappointed at the breathless coverage and even more misguided buzz/spread regarding Charlene Li’s recent report correlating big brands’ “social engagement” with “financial results.”  I am not a research guru but here is my take from the perspective of a business owner and consumer of business media and social media.

At the heart of the issue is that so many readers/bloggers, eager to find proof that social media strategies have an actual return on investment (ROI), have circulated, shared, posted, tweeted about the study as though it proves a causal effect between more engagement and improved financial results.  It does not, IMHO.

But I can understand why people read (or scanned) the report this way, because while Ms. Li did include the disclaimer that there is no causal relationship between more engagement and improved financial results, she certainly positioned that point as an afterthought or aside.  Taken as a whole, the entire report is written and packaged in a way that I find very misleading.

The report states there is no causal relationship; you just have to read it carefully.

The word “causal” appears only three times throughout the original material, and in each case it is used as a disclaimer to indicate that there is not a causal relationship, meaning that more engagement leads to improved financial results.

• On the Altimeter (Ms. Li’s consulting firm) web site (http://www.altimetergroup.com/2009/07/engagementdb.html):

Note that we are not claiming a causal relationship…

• On page 7:

While these findings do not necessarily imply a causal relationship…

• And on page 15:

While (Senior VP of SAP Community Network Mark) Yolton can’t yet prove a measurable causal relationship between customer engagement and the company’s financial performance…

There is some major conclusion jumping going on here.

But looking at context of each excerpt above, Ms. Li jumps to a pretty big conclusion by saying there is a correlationship (ok, I’ll agree that there might be one), but that–and here’s where I take issue–what that correlationship is about.

Ms. Li’s correlationship examples:

Note that we are not claiming a causal relationship (rest of excerpt) but there is clearly a correlation and connection. For example, a company mindset that allows a company to be broadly engage with customers on the whole probably performs better because the company is more focused on companies than the competition.

While these findings do not necessarily imply a causal relationship, (rest of excerpt) they still hold powerful implications. Social media engagement and financial success work together to perpetuate a healthy business cycle: a customer oriented mindset stemming from deep social interaction allows a company to identify and meet customer needs in the marketplace, generating superior profits.

(rest of excerpt) One of the newest channels SAP is using is Twitter.com/saplistens, a channel where SAP invites consumers to “Talk with us. We want to learn.” (Senior VP of SAP Community Network Mark) Yolton emphasized that this reflects the overall culture of the company, one that values the ability to listen well. While Yolton can’t yet prove a measurable causal relationship between customer engagement and the company’s financial performance, (rest of excerpt) he believes there is a correlation. “It’s more like branding— our activities reflect an attitude of the company that is more engaged, a company that values the opinions and viewpoints of the many different voices of customers and suppliers.

This is a surprisingly incomplete consideration of all possible reasons behind any such correlation.  Ms. Li is way to quick to focus exclusively on highly speculative point: engagement indicates customer focus; customer focus is a characteristic of successful companies.  A good research report will examine as many such points as possible and make the case for the one they believe is most accurate.

Many other possible correlations/causes not examined in the report.

But there are many other reasons behind such a correlation.  Here are just a few:

• Financially successful companies have more profits with which to experiment with social media investments.
• Because they are financially successful, these companies have the management latitude (i.e. permission) to make these experimental investments.
• Financially successful companies are more confident about their better balance sheets and income statements and, therefore, more confident putting themselves out into the social media for reactions/response.
• As pointed out by Ben Kunz in a comment on the Altimeter site, “9 of the 11 companies mentioned as mavens are technology-driven companies, prone to engaging with customers online.  To use them as exemplary case studies may bias the findings.”

There are many other possible types of correlationships, but the point is that when you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.  The source of such a report and those who propagate its findings across the web need to be taken into account as they have reasons to believe the correlation between more social engagement and improved financial success.

Bob London, president of London, Ink, serves as a Virtual VP of Marketing for organizations that need hands-on, interim leadership in marketing strategy, planning and execution.  London, Ink is a full-service, on-demand marketing and communications consulting firm based in the Washington, DC metro area, that develops and implements marketing and communications programs for mid-size and growing businesses and non-profit organizations.  For more on London, Ink please visit www.londonink.com or contact Bob London at 240 994 7644 or info@londonink.com.

Great info from destinationCRM.com and supports why companies should consider solutions like e.SSENTIALS from London, Ink, a fixed-price bundle of online/social marketing programs.  See e.ssentials.net for more info.

Given the state of the economy, Lamba writes that social networking is a relatively low cost solution that could help in fostering, “steady communication with existing partners, and clients as well as incubating new relationships” — a function both desired by consumers networking with friends and with employees in the workplace. The aforementioned IDC social networking survey, in fact, indicates that the majority of social networking users list communication as their number one reason for usage of such sites.

http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=51944

Announcing e.SSENTIALS, from London, Ink: A new, fixed-price online marketing program including development of five essential initiatives: marketing database, e-newsletter, Google AdWords, search engine optimization & social marketing presence.

Potomac, MD, December 11, 2008-London, Ink, (www.londonink.com) a full-service, on-demand marketing and communications firm, today launched e.SSENTIALS, a fixed-price program of online marketing services for small- and mid-size businesses and non-profit organizations.

Designed to meet the budgeting predictability requirements of small- and mid-size organizations, the London, Ink e.SSENTIALS program includes the development and execution of five essential online marketing deliverables for one fixed price.

The London, Ink e.SSENTIALS Program Includes:

• Marketing Database: Compilation of an organization’s key contacts, including prospective, nurture (long-term), and existing customers/clients and partners. Regularly communicating to a house list can be the most cost-effective way to for an organization to maintain or increase mindshare-a critical step towards being “short-listed” when prospects are ready to buy.
• E-Newsletter: Development of a web-based newsletter template that will be emailed to one or more segments of the Marketing Database, plus execution of one prototype e-newsletter.
• Google AdWords/Analytics Test: Development of a test of the Google AdWords pay-per-click online advertising program, the world’s leading online advertising platform.
• Web Site Search Engine Optimization Audit: Assessment of content, page titles and other factors for search engine “friendliness” and recommendations for immediate enhancements.
• Introductory Social Marketing Program: Development and implementation of a program that leverages free distribution of an organization’s message, via at least one of the following tactics: company/product blog or leading social networking sites.

“Running any business today without online marketing tools such as database marketing, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising and basic social marketing, is like making an omelet without eggs,” said London, Ink president, Bob London.  “These tools are lower cost and easier to measure than traditional marketing tactics, but too often they fall off the priority list due to a lack of resources and expertise to properly plan, implement and maintain them.”

“Now with e.SSENTIALS, London, Ink provides small- and mid-size organizations with a practical, cost-effective and low-risk way to implement these fundamental programs as they enter 2009.”

What about Content?

The e.SSENTIALS program leverages an organization’s existing content, such as news releases, white papers, articles and other subject matter or thought leadership content.  New or additional content can be created for an additional fee.

How is the e.SSENTIALS Program Priced?

The fixed-price, all-inclusive cost of the London, Ink e.SSENTIALS program is based on the size of the organization by annual revenue.  Please contact London, Ink at essentials@londonink.com or 240 994 7644 for more details.  The cost of the program is billed monthly in five equal amounts.

“Teaching Organizations to Fish”

In addition to the development and execution of the above programs, for an additional fee London, Ink will provide training for managers and staff on how to continue to leverage and maximize the above tools.

Additional details are available at e.ssentials.net.  To sign up for this program or to learn more, please contact Bob London, president of London, Ink at essentials@londonink.com or 240.994.7644.

About London, Ink

London, Ink is a full-service, on-demand marketing and communications firm based in the Washington, DC metro area, that develops and implements marketing and communications programs for mid-size and growing businesses and non-profit organizations.

Bob London, president of London, Ink, serves as a Virtual VP of Marketing for organizations that need hands-on, interim leadership in marketing strategy, planning and execution.  For more on London, Ink please visit www.londonink.com or contact Bob London at 240 994 7644 or essentials@londonink.com.

London, Ink Previews Latest “Executive Perspectives” E-Newsletter Here: http://tinyurl.com/62h83p.

Let me just say that since we are in an economic downturn/recession/bust/depression, money-saving or cash-raising ideas that before may have seemed tacky or ill-conceived now deserve another look.

That’s why I decided to try and raise money for an expensive home improvement–my new flagstone patio—by selling something I call Brick Sponsorships.

Here’s how I got the idea:  Just before breaking ground on our new flagstone patio my family and I were at a local park when something I saw immediately struck me as an innovative albeit potentially controversial way to save some coin.  The park’s developer had taken contributions from local families and businesses who in turn got, as a permanent, tangible representation of their gift: a brick engraved with their names.

These bricks, hundreds of them, formed the border around the play area and sent an overall message of community involvement and certainly gave the donors a nice warm feeling not to mention another way to lower their Adjusted Gross Incomes.

But at their essence the sponsored bricks helped the developers defray the cost of the park by a few thousand dollars.

Could this same approach be applied to private, residential projects such as my new patio? For the answer, let’s review an excerpt from a conversation with my neighbor Mac regarding the possibility of becoming a Charter Brick Sponsor for my patio:

Me: Mac, have I told you about a great new opportunity?

Mac: What’s that, Bob?

Me: Well, a limited number of our friends, neighbors and family have a special, once in a lifetime chance to see their legacies permanently and elegantly enshrined in a highly visible area while also helping beautify the neighborhood!

Mac: (Suspiciously.) Tell me more, Bob.

Me: Well, you know that Monica and I are planning a new flagstone patio out front, right?

Mac: Right.

Me: And you know how many people come by in a given month, from our friends and family, their kids, our kids’ friends, neighbors, my parents, Patti’s folks, Patti’s book club, the poker gang, the FedEx guy and too many door to door solicitors to count?

Mac: Yes!

Me: Well, you and a select number of other individuals have a unique chance to have a beautiful, high–quality, U.S.-made brick with your name and message placed around the edge of our patio!

Mac: Really!

Me: Just think of how many people will see your name! Mac, this is the most unique way I’ve ever found to get your name out there in a high profile, quality fashion without the high costs usually associated with other marketing programs.

Mac: Yeah!

Me: You know the Greene’s a block over?

Mac: That new family from Columbus?

Me: Right! They’re in for three bricks! One for themselves, one for their kids and one from his parents in honor of their new house!

Mac: Is that so?

Me: They’re absolutely certain that their investment in these permanent, high quality pavers will result in more rapid awareness and acceptance in the neighborhood!

Mac: Bob, this sounds…expensive.

Me: Mac, you’d be surprised how affordable a brick sponsorship can be. But first let me tell you about our sponsorship levels:

Our most affordable package is Terra Cotta, which includes your name and message on one brick, plus a full color photo of your brick that you can proudly display in your home. This picture can easily increase your reach by 30% - 50% depending on the traffic through your home and specific room placement!

Our next option is Grande Terra Cotta, which gives you three bricks for the price of two. Think of what you can do with three bricks, Mac! You can honor different family members, resell this exclusive opportunity to your parents at a price you determine, or use two or even three bricks together to display an even longer message! Of course this options comes with a photo as well, in beautiful panoramic mode!

Our highest value option–and quickly becoming our most popular, is the Founder’s Club, which gives you the unbelievably distinctive opportunity to engrave your name and message directly onto a 2 foot square piece of flagstone! You can select either a perimeter slab or one towards the center of the patio, to maximize visibility. Which options sounds best to you, Mac?

Mac: Bob, I don’t know how I’d ever choose.

Me: Well, before you choose, there’s one more thing: If you order today I can guarantee your brick will be in place by the holidays–which guarantees an extra 30% viewership by virtue of the increased Christmas, Hannukah and New Year’s foot traffic on our patio!

Mac: Wow.  I just have one question, Bob.

Me: Shoot!

Mac: Have you taken your meds yet today?

 

Question on LinkedIn Answers: “What should a B2B marketing department do to improve the results it’s generating?”

http://www.linkedin.com/answers?viewQuestion=&questionID=336562&asker ID=9584467&browseIdx=0&sik=&report.success=vfLh7ZiQxNtkwQoO3efsNN1zA gQ8WXmCT24lKBBmlHq_pfcN7JydQUoVP_zdv4b8

Response from Bob London:

Great question–which begs several precursors: (a) what are the goals? (b) how are “results” defined? (c) what measurement tools are in place today?

Probably safe to assume a B2B marketing department is charged with generating demand (leads) and in many cases educating/priming the market while positioning the company as a thought leader.

Here are some ways in which a B2B marketing department can improve results and not get lost in the characterization that “we’re not sure what marketing does relative to the business.”

*Philosophical/Management*

• Commit to the challenge of contributing ROI for the overall marketing budget–so that the department pays for itself at least 15 - 20 times over each year.
• Exert internal marketing leadership–take on the business’s longstanding challenges/dilemmas, whether it’s “why do we churn customers?” or “why don’t we know which marketing programs work and which don’t? or “where is our most profitable 3-year growth going to come from?”
• Improve accountability–measure everything that moves (and everything that doesn’t for that matter). Every weekly update should include a review of 30 days previous results and forward projections. Integrate all systems (CRM, marketing automation, accounting) that will provide an end to end view of the data.
• Assume a budget of zero (regardless of how uncomfortable this may feel)–then implement programs in order of priority and results. This will force you to orient the marketing budget and department around the company’s goals.
• Listen to the rest of the organization–don’t bump heads with it.

*Tactical Suggestions*

• Devote/redirect as much budget as possible towards lower cost, online lead gen and thought leadership initiatives. For each business challenge, ask the question: how can we address this via online strategies and channels vs. traditional. This will make the entire budget work harder on a dollar for dollar basis since it will be easier to track results.
• Every B2B marketer should use Google AdWords; at least do a significant test using .05% of your total annual marketing budget. Do not run a generic ad pointing to your home page; rather offer a white paper or other valuable subject matter content, and point the ad to a specific landing page dedicated to that offer.
• Optimize your site content so that it shows up in targeted searches for whatever you are marketing.
• Make sure you are using some form of prospecting/hunting to bridge the gap between lead gen programs and sales. Prospecting (i.e. outsourced or in-house telemarketing) serves as a lower cost way to qualify leads as well as gather market data on prospect hot buttons and what competitors/ substitutes/alternatives your prospects are using.
• Implement a simple but formal prospect nurture process whereby you treat every inbound inquiry as a long-term suspect and stay in touch via e-newsletters, white paper offers and webinars.
• Have an intern or staffer collect all stray business cards that have not been entered into the marketing database and enter them as part of your nurture process.
• Have an intern or staffer mine LinkedIn for prospect names using company names and job titles. Relevant contacts should be fed into an outbound teleprospecting process to qualify; interested contacts should then be added to the nurture process.
• Add a “living” FAQ section to your site and regularly publish your answers to client/customer questions. Your answers will invariably include relevant keywords that can bolster your natural/organic page rankings on Google, et al. Also, we all tend to get the same questions from multiple people, so rather than rewriting the answer each time or searching your hard drive, just send the link to your blog/site where your answer already resides.

Hope this proves helpful!

Best regards,
- Bob London

Bob London
President
London, Ink
On Target. On Site. On Demand.
www.londonink.com

Greetings, fellow corporate anthropologists.  Today we examine the origins and behavior of the dreaded one-brained, ten-legged, five-Blackberry-wearing entity known as The Corporate Entourage.

The first documented entourage occurred immediately after the appearance of the first sycophant in the year 800 B.C.  The charismatic corporate warlord, Bossus Overthetopicus, began traveling with five eager underlings everywhere he went in a specially designed chariot with third row seating.

Gradually these teams of toadies began taking on the characteristics of their leaders, such as emulating the boss’s style of dress, favorite watering hole, gait, font preference and salad bar choices—practices that continue to this very day.

Today it is commonplace for executive assistants to reserve seats at an event for “one adult and five sycophants, and please make sure we get the special entourage rate.”

Here is what you need to know about having an entourage:

• Building an Entourage  According to the trade publication, Brown-Noser Monthly, every entourage should be composed of the following personality/skill types:
• Yes Man/Woman While every entourage member must be skilled at flattery, bootlicking and general suck-uppery, it is important to have one person dedicated to this task as well as to documenting Best Practices in Brown-Nosing to help train new members.
• Bag Carrier/Heavy Lifter  One sycophant must be strong enough to literally carry the boss’s luggage while also mastering the delicate skill of removing metal objects from the boss’s pockets while he’s on the phone in the airport security line
• Sergeant-at-Arms  Another critical role is to keep other members of the retinue in line during potentially tricky or chaotic situations, such as the “which way should we pass the cookie plate” conundrum that often occurs towards the end of a business luncheon.
• Subject Matter Expert (SME)  Of course someone must know more than anyone else in the room–since we know that’s not the boss–and be able to quickly supply relevant factoids, sound bites and counter-arguments during critical meeting junctures or dramatic “Perry Mason” moments.
• Groomer (AKA “Body Man” in political circles)  This critical role keeps the boss’s person free from debris such as lint, stray eyelashes or dandruff flakes and keeps a comb and travel-size can of mousse at the ready at all times.
• Joining an Entourage  If you are an aspiring or budding brown-noser, you must know where to find opportunities.  Look for top billing lawyers, particularly litigators who by definition require support teams to carry all those heavy files.  Also well-known for having entourages are sales executives (usually VP and above—everyone else is busy actually selling).
• Entourage Succession Planning  The most insecure bosses will have a well-defined Entourage Succession Plan in case one of their sycophants gets killed, for instance, by a runaway luggage cart while racing another bootlicker to the curbside check in.  Also check job boards for Entourage Internships, even though one can only imagine the ignominy, drudgery and humiliation of being a sycophant to other sycophants.
• Faking the Entourage  Bosses in the early stages of entourage-building must be resourceful.  One story emerged during the 1990’s telecom run-up in which an EVP of Business Development kidnapped three bewildered mailroom staffers from their loading dock smoking break and tossed them into his black Ford Excursion (a favorite of entourages for its 12 passenger seating and resemblance to a Secret Service transport) rather than attending his meeting without the appearance of a full complement of parasites.  A number of firms also offer “Rent-a-Suck-Up” services similar to the “Rent-a-Mobs” hired by public affairs firms to create the appearance of widespread support or opposition to an issue.

So the next time you see what appears to be a violent game of musical chairs breaking out in an airport lounge, don’t be alarmed.  Chances are it’s just an entourage fighting over the closest seat to the boss.

 

 

Bob London is president of London, Ink LLC, a full-service marketing and communications firm and serves as a Virtual VP of Marketing for growth-stage companies that need hands-on project-based leadership in marketing strategy and planning.  What is a Virtual VP of Marketing?  Click on http://www.londonink.com/wordpress/?p=22 to find out more.