Welcome to this week’s The Sunday Brief.  Like every week, I had a hard time selecting just three top picks of the week.  On top of the many great reads I found during the week, I learned about someone I consider to be a remarkable young man and I want to share what he taught me. So, this week, I offer up my top four picks, instead of the standard three.

1.  My top pick of the week is Modern Marketing Is About Human Connection – Not Robots by Tony Zambito I really like this post as it echoes my own personal beliefs about what marketing is “supposed” to be.  Marketers around the world talk about relationship marketing and creating a connection. We have moved away from speaking about changing buyer/consumer behaviour. In reality that is what we are still trying to do.  Now, let’s look at content marketing. I still believe it is a great tool, but so many marketers approach it from a checklist perspective that is is loosing meaning for many.

Zambito, points out quite accurately that buyers notice when you are pushing to hard and when you have become robotic in your actions. This is a must read for marketers in my opinion and that is why it is my top pick of the week.

2.  Speaking of being less robotic and thinking about things from a human perspective, my next pick is about that young man I mentioned above. In 7 Lessons in Leadership from an 8 Year Old, you will learn about Ben Hamilton, a young boy who saw something he didn’t like and how he took action versus waiting for someone else to do something about it.

It is really quite humbling to realize that an 8 year old is demonstrating more leadership than most of the adults in his community.

3.  While posted a few months back, I came across this post during the week and quite liked it.  Need New Customers? Get Happy Employees, by Michael Brenner  reinforces the importance of having engaged employees.  Report after report conclusively demonstrates that engaged employees result in organizations performing better.  This is a direct correlation to the bottom line.  Despite this however, organizations, including governments, fail to take actions to truly engage employees.

Brenner gives some good insight and steps to take to help increase employee engagement.  Definitely a good read.

4.  My last pick is Insights from Coca-Cola:  Let your Customer be the Star of the Story from the We First Blog. Again, Marketers will talk about what we should do versus what we actually do.  In this interview, Coca-Cola shares how they build relationships and promote sustainability by talking about others.

For those brands that actually practice what they preach, the results are wonderful.  A great read/listen. Well, those are my top picks from the previous week. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did.

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