Rounding up the latest in sales research and innovation.
January 19, 2022
By Rachel Smith
Welcome to Maestro’s monthly news roundup. We’re bringing you the best and boldest of this month’s sales stories and research from around the web.
Alison Beard of Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast spent some time speaking with Amer Kaissi about the tricky combination of ambition and humility that good leaders must possess. Kaissi is the author of Humbitious: The Power of Low-Ego High-Drive Leadership. He shared that a key differentiator of humble individuals is that they believe they can always become better people than they already are.
“It’s really about thinking about any opportunity in which you interact with others as an opportunity to improve yourself rather than an opportunity to prove yourself,” said Kaissi. Leaders with this growth mindset create psychological safety for their team, fostering growth for everyone.
Another HBR piece from January 2022 discusses what courageous leaders of today do differently than their peers. Today’s successful leaders, similar to what Kaissi mentioned, display openness and humility, put principles first, and focus on making environments safer for others.
There is a reason that these modern-day-leader traits might be difficult to achieve. It’s based on the “mismatch theory,” which is the idea that something that was once useful for survival has not evolved quickly enough to match our modern environment. Remember, we’re just cavemen with laptops. Back when we were being hunted by saber-toothed cats, being physically strongest and most aggressive did make someone the best leader.
What’s interesting is that even Kaissi believes that being humble is not always an appropriate leadership attribute. When there are extreme threats (hurricanes bearing down, warfare, saber-toothed cats attacking), that’s not the time to display humility. Those are the situations when our caveman leadership skills of strength, aggression, quick decision making, and immediate action come in handy.
Sometimes being bold is not about where you are, but where you aren’t. On Black Friday, when most companies were in the midst of their largest social media campaigns, cosmetics retailer Lush pulled the plug on four of their social media accounts.
The company cited concerns over social media’s harmful effects on teens as the reason for their decision. CEO Mark Constantine has said that he is happy to lose millions of dollars from these accounts in order to make a difference in the mental wellbeing of young people.
A month and a half later, Lush is sticking to its guns. Their Facebook and Instagram accounts, on which they had more than 10 million followers, were last posted to on November 26th with the message to “stop scrolling and be somewhere else. We want to engage with you in places that look after you and your mental wellbeing.”
Lush’s move is especially bold given that, according to a recent Accenture report, social commerce is expected to grow three times as fast as e-commerce in the coming years, going from $429 billion in 2021 to $1.2 trillion in 2025. This trend is largely driven by digital-native Gen Z and Millennial consumers who, by 2025, will make up 62% of global commerce spend.
HubSpot’s latest State of Marketing Report shows that social media has now pulled ahead of websites as the number-one channel used for marketing. And video is still king of content, maintaining its number-one spot for the second year running.
If you need some visual inspiration for your own content, whatever form it might take, check out HubSpot’s overview of 21 brand style guides. If like me, you’ll spend an insane amount of money on magazines like Communication Arts or UPPERCASE, you’ll definitely want to take a look.
Finally, since we’re now nearly two years into Zoom meetings, HBR strongly suggests that you stop using some truly annoying phrases. You might even want to commit to cutting these expressions as your New Year’s Resolution. C’mon, given the current pandemic situation we all know we’re not going to the gym.
Annoying Phrase: I’m giving you 10 minutes of your life back!
What It Sounds Like: I just wasted the last 50 minutes of your time.
Instead Try: Thanks for being so productive! We’re done 10 minutes early.
Annoying Phrase: We’re going to wait 5 minutes for everyone to join.
What It Sounds Like: Good job being on time, sucker!
Instead Try: Let’s take a minute to write down our objectives for this meeting—not to share, just to keep us focused.
Annoying Phrase: You’re on mute (usually said by everyone at once).
What It Sounds Like: Seriously, Bob? You’ve had two years to figure out the mute button. Get yourself together.
Instead Try: If you’re talking, I can’t hear you, and I want to know what you have to say.
Annoying Phrase: We’re building the plane while flying it.
What It Sounds Like: There’s no way this is going to work. We’re all going to die.
Instead Try: Here’s what we know, and here’s what we need to figure out.
Are there any other phrases from 2021 you wish people would stop saying? What about bolder phrases you’re planning to adopt? Maestro would love to hear about it!
Take a bold step toward higher sales—reach out to us at mastery@maestrogroup.co to schedule your training!
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