Category: Uncategorized

We got a call today. Help!

The fourth this week.

A company is struggling to attract candidates for a job they need urgently.

Resumes are trickling in, nothing exciting.

Can you help? Is there anything you can do to increase our chances?

The good news is absolutely. And you can too.

You only need to make a switch.

The job market has changed in recent years in many ways, and the significant change is the difference in power dynamics between employer – and employee. The major takeaway should be that you need to start looking at your potential employees as potential customers.

Here are a few How To’s:

• Focus on your employee-client, not on yourself. Who are they? How do they view themselves? What are their aspirations? What would make them feel important? Needed? Productive?
• Research your unique selling proposition: what are you offering that nobody else can? Why should they come to work for you?
• Generate interest and curiosity.
• Tailor your tone to your target audience. Are they Anglo-Saxon? Between the ages of 20-30 or 30-40? Tailor your writing accordingly.
• Responsibilities and requirements should be short and go into professional detail rather than general descriptions.
• Add positive descriptions about you that may seem obvious (we call this the “Ikea factor”).

Now, let’s take a look at the job description that failed to bring good candidates:

The job description the company posted on LinkedIn:

About X
X is a Software that is a….(here comes a dry description of the company’s product)

What do we expect from you?
As an Account Executive, it will be your responsibility to manage the full sales cycle from leading the pipeline and closing the sale.
You will be responsible for inbound prospects, qualifying leads… and successfully closing sales

Responsibilities:
(Here comes a list of ten bullets)

Requirements:
(Another list of ten bullets, including the ubiquitous “, can do attitude,” “excellent social skills,” and “exceptional organizational skills”).

Now see what we changed it into:

Are you a people person? Are you fascinated by tomorrow’s technologies? Then your place is with us. (we are starting with the candidate).

We are looking for an Account Executive who will lead our most important asset – our customers. This is an opportunity to work with companies at the frontier of technology… (we make the candidate feel important to the company)

With us, you will be in a company that puts you first in every way: starting with a renowned onboarding and training program followed by advanced sales processes and outstanding compensation programs. (we generated curiosity: what is this training process? What are those outstanding compensation programs? They probably have large sales bonuses…)

If you have a consultative approach to selling (i.e., looks to form a dialog with your customer so you can provide a genuine solution to their needs) and have a history of exceeding expectations and cultivating great customer relationships – this job is for you. (we went into professional detail)

X is an equal opportunity employer that pledges to not discriminate against employees based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, marital status, or disability.

If you have special needs that require us to accommodate your application and review process, please don’t hesitate to let us know. (the “Ikea effect”: companies are required by law to be equal opportunity employers, but stating it projects a positive image).

Make this mental switch for all your communications with potential and existing employees. Contact us to learn more about effective employee branding.

We publish great content every week to help startups navigate the marketing arena. Sign up to learn more.

Ghostwriting gets a bad rap. A reveal of a public figure using a ghostwriter is usually met with disdain. People feel misled, cheated, and fooled. Some say, rightfully so. But here’s another truth.

In today’s world, ghostwriting plays a crucial role in the relationship between a company and the public. In an online environment, where the written word is golden, key players are required to connect with their audience through content. And a lot is at stake if they fall short.

That’s where ghostwriting comes in. It provides a voice for those who don’t know how to speak or write and allows their truth to be heard even when they don’t have the skill of articulation.

We sat down with our head ghostwriter to find out more about her industry and what she feels about this line between connection and deception.

How did you get into writing?

I got into writing as a child. I still have my journals from that time and they are my biggest treasure. I continued to write throughout high school and college – also taking writing courses in foreign languages. I started my career as an event planner traveling from Hawai’i to Las Vegas to Florida for events. The switch to writing professionally happened when I immigrated to Israel and saw an opportunity.

Why do people hire a ghostwriter?

I think people hire a ghostwriter because they feel daunted by the task of putting the right words on paper (or on the screen 🙂 Either because of lack of experience, patience, imagination, time, or all of the above.

How do you prepare to write in the place of someone else?

I pay attention to the way they talk. I look at things they have written before if any. I ask them what their goals are, what tone of voice they feel the most comfortable with. My goal is to give a physical form to their vision. It’s not about me, but about them. Their thought and ideas. What do they want to tell the world?

Do you find ghostwriting a more difficult form of writing?

Quite the contrary. Sounding like someone else is easy. Whereas sounding like one’s own self is a challenge. It’s easier to conceptualize another person in my mind – than to conceptualize myself.

Is it hard to be writing under someone else’s name and not receive public recognition?

Not at all. I once read that submitting your work is like getting on the stage, taking your underwear off, and asking for opinions. When my name isn’t on a piece of writing, I feel more confident. I feel free. Whereas when my name is on it, I feel like I am baring my soul. Anonymity creates a degree of freedom and safety, which can create better writing.

Some people think that ghostwriting is like cheating, do you agree?

Not at all. I wish there was ghost-painting and ghost-singing. My biggest fantasy is singing opera in front of a mesmerized audience. But even when I sing pop, people run away. Singing is not a talent of mine. And I don’t have the voice for it. If someone could sing for me, the way I imagine myself singing, I’d hire that person. Ghostwriting is empowering someone else while staying authentic.

Contact us and start being heard.

More startups, higher risks, accelerate technology development – same talent = The perfect storm.

Let’s face it- it’s an employee market. Israel holds the title of Startup nation, but Israelis themselves – including your employees have a high fear of startup failures (a recent international study found that Israelis rank third at 60.2% among developed countries in the ‘fear of startup failure) and while there are multiple contributing factors, the outcome has the potential to cripple the industry; Employees are being more selective than ever when perusing employment opportunities.

So your top priority is assuaging those fears. What does that mean to you, the startup?

Here are the top 3 Myths preventing a CEO from seizing the next big hire:

1. Marketing is just for attracting potential investors and customers.

FALSE – The majority of CEOs still think that marketing is only for business development and long as this thought process continues, startups will continue to struggle to find high-end employees.

The time to develop your marking strategy – including employees – is when you draw up your business plan. From then on, you need to create an online dialogue (mainly through social media platforms where your future employees hand around ), showing your company’s growth, direction, and vision.

You don’t have to lie and pretend to be more than you are – employees know that you’re a startup – but you need to convince them that your company is moving upward and is on track for success.

2. A CEO doesn’t need to develop their personal LinkedIn page.

FALSE- Learn about a CEO, and you’ll have all the information you need to know if their business venture has potential. The buck stops with you, and your future employees want to know if they should invest their career trajectory in you and choose your company to add to their resume (yes- that is very important to them) and that you are the one they should put their trust in. Show them that you take your position as a CEO seriously, the drive to take it all the way, and the expertise to see it through.

3. There is no such thing as employee branding

FALSE – Your potential employees have the luxury of being the ones to say no to you, and with the uncertainty of joining a startup, you have to give them something worth the risk.

Where do you brand your startup and yourself? Instagram is an excellent place to start. It’s a great platform to portray the environment of your company, the ‘emotional side’ if you will.

Facebook is also a good platform to use to tell potential employees about your company, for example, customer and employee stories, and more in depth content about your product, market, vision.

Abandon employee branding and watch your competitors steal all the talent.

NB: When interviewing a potential hire, keep in mind that the interview goes both ways. Potential employees spot a red flag a mile away, so be respectful; if you are running late to their meeting – let them know, encourage questions, and respond to them in a timely fashion.

It was back in 1996 when Bill Gates famously declared “Content is king.” We have heard it repeated many times since then – it has become a constant in our marketing lives. But the role of marketing has changed, especially in the last few years. It has, for example, finally and rightfully earned a place at the boardroom table.

If Marie Antoinette were alive and a board member today, she would have said “Let them eat content.” She would have said that because content alone is not enough for success – it isn’t the bread and butter of marketing.

Let me put it in perspective for you.

This morning at our daily meeting at Cognis, we discussed the day ahead, writing some content together, then distributing the rest among ourselves.

• For one customer, we decided to look up the latest headlines in their booming industry and write a post about the vast potential lying ahead of them.
• We had a long back-and-forth composing a new LinkedIn InMail for a customer.
• We then split up, one of us creating the script for an upcoming end-of-year promotional video, another corresponding with a colleague in Germany, a third drafting web copy for a new website, and a fourth working a new brand frame.

All the while we were texting customers, potential customers, and each other.

So many different “content types,” so many different purposes.

Going back to the cake analogy – for us at Cognis, content is like the baking powder of a cake. It helps websites, blog posts, emails, and ads rise to their full potential. It’s a critical ingredient regardless of the type of cake we are baking – chocolate, orange, banana, pecan.

We follow good writing practices. We strive for originality in thought and brevity in words. We apply precision and patience. But there’s more to marketing than great writing. There are other ingredients we must and do use. How do we know the best recipe?

Our pastry chef – a.k.a. the human element – is the actual king. It tells us whether our customers and their end-users are best served with bread, cake or something else depending on the industry, company positioning, buyer persona, the vision, and the mission.

Yesterday Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp went down, and the whole world so it seems, was in chaos.

After sitting together in the office and discussing our personal experience and that of our customers, we came to the following conclusions:

1. Don’t put your social media eggs in one basket; bring LinkedIn and Twitter into the mix.
2. For important and urgent stuff – don’t depend solely on social media. For example, keep using newswires to send out your news releases.
3. Wean yourself off Facebook: move your contacts and their important information to your phone and back it up daily, not only to the cloud but also to a local hard drive, like the one on your phone or your PC.
4. Move your communications from Facebook to emails, text messages, and phone calls. We think you should keep text messages to a minimum whenever possible to keep the human touch in your communication. Don’t have time to talk? Maybe you’re doing too much.
5. Sales: this is where it hurt. Companies that depend on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram for sales were frozen and panicked. The lesson? Post your website address and phone number in bold on all your social media outlets. Also, send your customers to your website occasionally so they are familiar with it and know they can communicate with you through there.

One last note: for us, this outage wasn’t that bad; it was actually good because a lot of background noise was silenced for a few hours. So maybe we should silence the beeps on our phone and check our social media once every two hours – or even six.

Let your business acquaintances understand that they should pick up the phone if they have a pressing matter.  And between us, – when was the last time you received a WhatsApp message that was really, seriously, urgent?

We get asked this question a lot. The answer is that Cognis is an outsourced Marketing Manager, which means two significant distinctions:

We are Managers

We manage new websites, create specifications, hire the designer and developer, and ensure the project ends on time and within budget.

We search for a PR company in the DACH economic area and a digital agency in Germany, hire them and manage their work and payments.

We decide what social media platforms are right for the company echo system and strategy, should we do paid campaigns; how much money we should put into them, and whether they were successful or not.

We research international IP lawyers, what events we should participate in next year, the effect of GDPR on the Company’s business, new competitors, investors, and anything else the CEO or business development manager doesn’t have time to do.

We move fast with the Company, changing markets, products, and strategies on the fly.

We always see things from your point of view

Our strategy is your strategy, and when we manage the work – it is always from your point of view.

What is suitable for us now, social media or a PR company? Is the PPC campaign working like the digital Company says it does?  Are we spending our resources wisely? Do we need an inside designer? Should we spend so much money on Hubspot, or is there a hack we can use until the next funding round?

(By the way, this is also the reason we never take a referral fee from sub-contractors, so our customers don’t have any doubts where our loyalty lies).

So if it’s too early for you to get a full-time seasoned marketing executive or your current executive needs some help, that’s where we come in.

For more information, you are welcome to get in touch @ info@cognis.co.il.