Marketing and a Javelin, nothing in common?

Apparently not. Marketing is an essential area within any business. And javelin throw is an olympic athletics discipline that consists of throwing a kind of spear as far as you can. With that in mind, it seems impossible to connect such different things.

Although some Marketing researchers may discredit me for the following statement (and I’d understand it), I’ll do it anyway:

“In my opinion, if you know how to execute a good javelin throw, you can also launch a successful marketing campaign.”

A javelin throw consists of four stages: the preparation phase, the acceleration phase, the throw itself, and the monitoring phase. When you have to launch a marketing campaign, you can consider the same stages: a preparation phase, an execution phase, the launch itself, and the monitoring of the campaign.

In the preparation stage, the athlete runs forward at a lower speed than the rest of the throw with the javelin positioned above his head. This stage entails the initial thrust. As a marketer, your campaign should have an initial preparation stage in which the aim is to define the objectives and to form a general vision before actually creating the campaign. From now on, as Marketing is a broad area, I’m going to focus on communication for the sake of simplicity in a short article.

PREPARATION STAGE

The most important thing to consider in this stage is the business objective of your communication campaign. It has to be measurable, as for example “increase sales volume” or “increase ticket size”. This is critical because you can only ensure good executional decisions, such as which communication channel you should use or what your message should look like, if you have set a clear objective. The athlete also has a sport objective which can be, for instance, classifying for an international competition, which requires a minimum mark. That would be the objective that the athlete wants to reach.

Based on this objective, you can make other key strategic decisions: who your target audience should be; what behaviour change you need to get from your target audience; and what type of immediate response you want to elicit from your audience. This allows the marketer to understand what the best executional approach may be in terms of the most appropriate type of message and media. The athlete follows the same process in deciding the optimal balance between speed and strength based on the mark he/she needs to reach. 

PREPARATION STAGE

Once you’ve set your objective, you can enter into what can be called the execution stage, which represents the acceleration phase of the athlete. During this phase, the objective shifts from preparation to getting yourself into the best possible position to throw.

In this phase, the athlete runs sideways, and has seven steps to position himself and the javelin correctly and to achieve the highest speed at the end, just before the throw. During this part of the execution stage is when the marketer should determine the exact details of how to reach the audience, how to tell their story to connect with emotions, and the balance of channels and budget needed.

ACCELERATION STAGE

Connecting again with the athlete’s experience, the final score of the throw depends heavily on the balance of speed-strength I have mentioned before: the faster you can run and control yourself to put the needed strength at the end of the shot, the longer your shot will be. The word “control” here is important. Your optimal speed is the maximum speed at which you can control the shot, not your maximum speed. It’s easy to apply this to the communication campaign: companies don’t have unlimited resources, and due to this scarcity, they need to find a good balance between them; that is, allocating resources, as well as the athlete does with his/her strength and speed. The word “control” in companies remains with the same importance. Marketers have to consider carefully the reactions to their campaigns, which is beyond their direct control. Here is when the possibilities and disadvantages of digital social media come in. It makes your company lose some control over the scope of a campaign due to the two biggest powers of this new tool: immediacy and scale.

As I’ve said before, the athlete has seven steps to adapt the perfect position to execute the shot. Before launching a campaign, seven steps should also be considered as a checklist to ensure that your campaign has everything it needs to gain a strong response. Although that doesn’t mean that it’s actually going to happen. These seven steps are the following ones:

1. It's visual and surprising
2. It matches your brand / value proposition
3. It has a clear message
4. It connects with the emotions of the audience
5. It's directed to your target audience
6. It's simple
7. It's launched at the right rime

THROW ITSELF

And then, when the acceleration stage finishes, it’s the turn for the throw itself. The most important thing here is the angle. Unfortunately, there’s no optimal angle. In athletics, it depends on two main factors: first, an external factor which is the wind, and secondly, an internal factor which is your own conditions; that is your personal speed-strength balance. The objective is to throw the javelin with an angle that minimizes the friction between the javelin and the wind and maximizes the lift of the javelin in the air. Usually this angle varies from 30 to 40 degrees.

When launching a communication campaign, there are also factors that affect the campaign. First of all, external factors such as the stage of the industry in its life cycle, the competitors, consumers’ trends, etc; and secondly, internal factors like the company’s resources. Depending on that, the marketer should decide to launch the campaign at one or another angle. 

THROW ITSELF

But one common quote among athletes is that the throw is not over until the javelin is stuck in the grass. That also applies to a marketing campaign. What I want to point out here is that as any action, the measurement of the results is an essential part because otherwise you won’t be able to learn from any of those actions.

Research has shown that if you finish the shot before the javelin is stuck in the grass, you automatically and unconsciously divert forces from the course of the javelin. That’s why you have to look forward at the javelin while it’s flying and until it’s in the grass. Almost the same thing happens in a marketing campaign, where you should focus on every executional detail throughout the campaign and always monitor the results of your campaign in terms of, for example, sales, response, etc. 

MONITORING STAGE

As athletes, we expect to throw as far as possible; as well as marketers expect to reach the maximum of their target audience with the campaign. But when the shot is completely finished, that is, when the campaign is over, you cannot do anything to change the scope you have achieved. However, as the javelin is stuck in the grass, your communication has stuck your company on your consumers’ minds and the only thing you can do then is hope for this positioning to be aligned with the value proposition of your brand.

I want to finish this article with a quote by Les Brown that can be applied to almost everything you do in life:

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

Reasons to believe in sportspeople as managers

Why do companies value sportspeople when selecting a suitable candidate for a managerial post? What difference can they make to an organisation, if at all?

Today I would like to comment on what I believe to be the two most powerful qualities that can influence a prospective employer when a sports-minded person applies for a managerial position. Let’s see how we can make a difference in today’s organisations.

First of all, think about the ability to deal with pressure. As an athlete, one experiences plenty of stressful situations and spur-of-the moment decisions that can change the course of one’s career. I have certainly found it character-building to have to work under pressure. It is like learning a new language. The more you practise, the more comfortable you are with it.

In 2008, I was at the Spanish Championships in Almería (Spain). During the whole two days, another athlete and I had a tough and demanding competition until the last event: the 600m. We were only 17 and both of us had the chance to surpass the Spanish Record, which was nearly 20 years old. At this point, the race wasn’t about doing your best, but about adopting the best strategy. The winner would be the Spanish Champion and would own the Spanish Record.

Speaking from experience, I can assure you that what you feel hours, and even minutes before the race is pressure. The race started and we positioned ourselves at the back of the race. The speed and the rhythm were not important, the crucial thing was knowing the right moment to change, our strategy. Because we were running so slowly, the pressure of when to change the speed increased, but 400m from the finish line, I was the first to make the choice. At the end of the race, I realised that that was not maybe the best choice; but no one knows what could have happened otherwise. My rival had enough strength at the end to overtake me and we ended up with an insignificant difference of 5 points on a score of 4,076 vs. 4,081 points. We both beat the Spanish Record and we always remember this competition as the best we ever had between us. We both started learning what pressure really was that day and we continue to experience it in many competitions. 

 

This experience is very valuable within an organisation. We are now prepared to overcome a crisis in a company with the same composure as if it was a normal day, and we are used to have only one chance after months or years of work to perform as best as we can. In any project, there’s always the D day and the H hour where you, as a manager, have to excel. And here is when the nerves and the pressure come in; therefore, an athlete can provide that “extra something” at such moments in any position of responsibility.

However, it’s not only in such a crucial moment as this that a sportsperson can make a difference. Let’s move onto the second topic of today: short term – long term vision. As I’ve mentioned above, the last moment is important, but only as important as the work that has been put in to arrive at the final point.

The manager’s job has a lot to do with planning a sports training program. As athletes, we set objectives at the beginning of the season, and we design a “plan to get there” with our coach. This plan is made by focusing first on the long-term (what we need to achieve) and then in the short-term (how are we going to do it). Both visions are equally essential.

A manager with a sports background is able to have these two views: the ability to recognise where the company needs to go (L/T) and set objectives based on that, and the steps needed to get there (S/T) and over perform the D day at the H hour, when the pressure appears again.

It’s common in organisations that unexpected things appear at the end of the process. Many managers feel frustrated when it happens and don’t know how to overcome these difficulties. Every day, sportspeople experience unexpected things that place obstacles in their way and their reaction to these small failures is what determine their final success. This is another thing that athletes can provide companies with, because as Kobe Bryant says:

“Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.”

  

Do companies work as live music concerts?

A few weeks ago, EADA sent us to their residential centre in Collbató (near Montserrat) to take part in the second module of the Master in Management. This time, the whole thing was about presentation skills. We were told to prepare a five minutes presentation about any topic we felt interested in and could be also professionally interesting for our classmates. I thought that was a perfect occasion to put this blog into practice. That’s why I tried to make the presentation between some connection between the business world and another totally different world.

Since I remember, I’ve always wanted to play the guitar. That’s why when I was 18 I decided to start learning on my own. However, the responsible for this love for music is, actually, my father. Many years ago, he founded a company that offers lights and sound for shows. In addition, as I mentioned in the last post, I studied Industrial Engineering; therefore, I’m also in the world of infrastructures. And nowadays, I’m studying Business in EADA. Probably you are wondering what the link between these three things is.

Well, last summer I went to a concert where my father’s company was putting the sound and the lights and I had the chance to be in the backstage during part of the concert. He showed me everything and I don’t know how, but we ended up talking about the similarities between what we were seeing and the organization of a company. It was then when I realized that you can learn how a company works just by looking at different things in life.

 First of all, when you have to produce a concert, you have to think about the power that you’ll need, and you estimate this considering the expected people that will come and the space you’ll have. As well as in this process, when you design a company, you need to do it according to a specific production level, based on a forecasted sales level.

Secondly, there’s the structure, where we stick everything. In a concert, as well as in a company, the structure needs to be modular. That means that your design has to be easy adaptable to any production level without having to redesign the whole plant. This can also be applied to the electric system, because each machine has to have its own electric system. Imagine a company where a machine’s breakdown interrupts the entire production; that would be unacceptable. And here is when the modularity comes in.

Once you have a well-designed structure, you need to communicate within the concert (or within the company). In a concert, each member of the band has a speaker through which he/she can hear the mixture that he/she particularly needs. For example, the singer needs to hear his/her voice really well, but also a little bit of the guitar and the drums. The different components of the group represent the different departments of a company, where the exchange of information is crucial. But this internal communication has to be the exact amount of information needed. Why? Because less drives to lack of coordination, but more complicates the processes. Ultimately, each department needs to monitor its own information, but also some from the interrelated departments. The point is that, as the players, each department needs the perfect mixture of information.

Until here, we have designed the entire infrastructure, but the work hasn’t finished yet. We are missing the best part: the concert itself!

During the live concert, we need to consider that people have paid for listening to music with a quality similar than the one in the CD. That’s why the technicians have to assure that the mixture that people receive (which is not the same that each player listens) is perfect. This mixture is the interface between the band and the people, which in a company could be the marketing or the sales guys.

However, thinking that the most important thing is the sound could be a mistake. At the end of the day, people have paid for more than listening to music; they have paid for the whole experience, which is our value proposition. My advice is to stop thinking about products, and start thinking about experiences.

And finally, once you have the whole infrastructure and the value proposition that you want to offer to your customers, you need to also consider how you are going to manage the relationships and roles between your employees. A lot of companies often forget about these things but, as time goes by, the most successful companies are the ones that care about all their stakeholders. In a concert, you need to manage with very different people, such as technicians, musicians, fitters, etc. The importance of keeping the role of each one is critical.

Put yourself in the conductor’s position. You don’t have to show how to play the guitar; your role is to take the best out of everyone to achieve the greatness of the whole. And this is what the manager’s job is about, not anything else.

As a summary, I want to point out what I consider the three most important things of this article.

• To consider the importance of the foundations of the company, in order to be able to adapt to any change in the future environment (most competitive advantages come from change!!)
• To seek the perfect mixture of information for each department to achieve efficiency
• To look at experiences, as the value proposition of any product

I want to leave you with this quote by Braine Lee:

"The great leaders are like the best conductors - they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players."

PS. Here you have a link in case you want to take a look at my presentation.

Music and Business Presentation

The reason why (or why not?)

First of all, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Clara Remacha Corbalán and the reason for writing this blog has been a sum of feelings, experiences and connections that I have experienced since I started an International Master in Management in EADA Business School in Barcelona this last September.

The idea of this blog is to connect things that I’m studying in EADA  with my own life experiences. And by my life experiences I mean real-life situations that I have had in areas such as sport, retailing, education, music, events, etc. I want to point out how management is not only in the business world. It’s everywhere. And since I began these studies I’ve been making this kind of connection in very different situations and places. That’s why I want to share it with whoever wants to learn that management is in everything and that everything is about management.

To draw a context to all these thoughts, let’s write something about me. This is my story:

I’m a girl from a small village near Barcelona and I graduated last year with a degree in Industrial Engineering, and a minor in Management. Now, as I have already mentioned, I’m studying an International Master in Management in EADA Business School. I have always wanted to do engineering with the long-term objective of studying a Master in Management so that I could understand not only the technical aspects of industry, but also to gain the management capability to be a good manager. But this was just through study, and I haven’t found the point of them until now, when I feel that I can apply it to my own career and life.

I’m also a professional athlete, specialising in the heptathlon, which is an athletic event that consists of seven tests: 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin throw and 800m. I’ve been doing that since I was 12 due to the recommendation of my primary’s gym teacher (thanks a lot by the way), and by now, I’ve been running for F.C.Barcelona for more than seven years.

I’ve been Spanish Champion twice, silver medallist on ten occasions, and bronze medallist once; but I’ve been a medallist in all of the Spanish Championships in which I have participated. I have also represented Spain in some international meetings, and I have held Catalonia’s Hexathlon Record since 2008.

In addition, I have been giving private classes in an academy for many years and so education is another of the fields in my day-to-day life, as retail, since my mother owns a wine business in my village, and music, since my father owns a lights and sound company that provides any event with all the necessary infrastructure.

When EADA granted me the Master Elite Sports Scholarship I felt responsible for making the most out of the Master but it has being an easy task since I love what I’m doing at the moment. That’s why I’m opening this site.

I’ll try to make connections between the business world and the situations I’ve experienced in my life, and through it, I’m sure that I will learn a lot and I’ll gain a lot of real experience and deeper understanding of the reality, which, at the end of the day, is, as Jack Welch said, the ultimate competitive advantage.