Eric Gulino

Non-Multitasker. Wine Drinker. Growth Strategist.

[egulino]

Give Your Clients More

When a friend asks you for a favor, there’s something inside you that wants to be helpful and give them the time and energy they’re asking for - and if you truly value the friendship, you go above and beyond. People really do like / desire to be helpful and generous, but it seems we often hold back when it’s for people we don’t love deep down inside our hearts. Yes, loving on people who we aren’t in a personal relationship is hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s not what we SHOULD be doing. 

Complicated Relationships (Clients)

Namely, I’m talking about clients. Client relationships are complicated. Sometimes our clients are wonderful and we gladly want to go the extra mile for them. Other times we get stuck with less than great clients who often make our lives stressful, confusing and unenjoyable. As a result, we withhold some of the good that we could (and should) be giving them. 

How Generous Are You? Really.

How generous are you with your time, advice, flexibility, network? Do you ooze generosity or do you always hold back, staying just within SOW? Have you found yourself too eager to submit a change order when a client wanders just outside of scope? How about saying “no” to things that are easy and quick simply because it’s not convenient for you or because you aren’t capturing extra compensation?

Great Service

We all know how to recognize great service from just plain ol’ service. The universal mark of great service is care. It’s so easy to see when someone cares greatly about the experience they are providing. In our business, we owe it to our clients to give them extra care. Our clients are really more like partners, not one-and-done customers. 

One Week Challenge

We’re all responsible for making our relationships (personal, professional or otherwise) as good, meaningful and valuable as possible. And aside from my wife and friends, the people I spend the most time with are my clients and colleagues. It’s easy to support my colleagues - they do the heavy lifting on much of the work my clients ask of me, but for some reason I’ve always struggled with being generous with my clients. Have you? Together, let’s take on a one week challenge to give more to our clients, not because it’s good business, but because it’s just the right thing to do. 

This week, let’s together look for those opportunities to give our clients more, asking nothing in return. It’s always good business to take great care of our clients, even if it doesn’t immediately pay off in dollars and cents. We have a chance to elevate the quality of business, not just as individual organizations but socially as well, to be a culture that loves to take care of each other’s interests. 

[egulino]

The Biggest Wine Brand Misstep

Wine prices to the average consumer seem arbitrary. We (the insiders) know they aren’t. End price is a reflection of everything, the land, the farming, the labor, the barrels, the glass, the label, the insurance, the marketing and a little bit extra to make sure we can do it again next year. What many wine brands don’t understand is when a consumer pays for a bottle of wine, there’s an expectation about value that is set in the consumers mind. It’s impossible to separate this cost / value expectation and this is the biggest misstep of wine brands today. 

It’s Not About Money

Sure, tons of wine brands are making other terrible marketing mistakes, but value proposition is at the very top of the list. I am talking about value, not discount, affordability or cheapness. This is a problem we all face on a daily basis. We often get the greatest value from the items that are the most financially inexpensive and the most expensive. The mid-range is usually a sea of unmemorable sameness. Let me illustrate with the idea of a wrist watch. One of the cheapest watches you can get (financially cheap) is a Casio G-Shock. I happen to love these watches because they are virtually indestructible. They do their job of giving the time flawlessly and accurately. They are incredibly easy to maintain, fit everyone, and blend in pretty easily aesthetically. As you can see, they offer incredible value. I also love Omega watches. They have an amazingly robust and colorful history. Omega watches are equally well-built, designed to last many lifetimes. Actually, that’s one of the very important reasons for buying one, is the historical significance that some pieces carry or that a piece you pass to your children will inherently carry. They don’t require a battery. They are made of premium, durable materials. They are thoughtfully designed and assembled by hand. An Omega can also be worn with any attire. And they are expensive, very expensive compared to the Casio G-Shock. It’s easy to tell the value story of each brand, Casio and Omega. And the value story doesn’t start with price. It’s much more difficult to tell the value story of a Fossil watch, or a Citizen watch. These brands fall somewhere between Casio and Omega. Price is often the first consideration that leads someone to a Fossil or Citizen watch. The same problem plagues many wine brands and the people responsible for marketing them. 

Making Value Personal and Specific

When it comes to price, this is the typical consumers first guiding parameter after they’ve selected a region or varietal. We all know that they often buy based on the label right after they’ve selected a price range. But you know what turns a one-time customer into a raving fan? Value. What value are they getting from that wine brand? A consistently enjoyable experience? A sense for an attention to detail and quality? A unique story that resonates with them? A brand that reflects their own personal identity? These are important values and when a consumer feels like their purchase was packed with value, they’ll re-buy again and again. Wine brands are missing this point, or maybe they just aren’t listening. It seems that many wine brands rest all their value on retail price (which as we’ve just outlined isn’t really a value parameter) or on where the wine originates (Napa, Rioja, etc). These are commodity characteristics. Value needs to be unique to each wine brand. Is there a particular practice in the wine making process that your brand is especially passionate about even though it may seem mundane? Try leveraging that into a value statement, because it is one. Maybe you utilize an emission-free electric tractor to move fruit during harvest - that says something about what you believe and that’s a value that a consumer can align with. Maybe you choose to toast your barrels in-house because your obsessive about the barrel aging process. That’s a value that can be quickly explained and can give your brand a new unique story to tell. 

If Cola Can Do It…

Value doesn’t have to be proprietary either. Consider Coca-Cola. Their unique value and mission is to provide a “moment of happiness”. Coca-Cola doesn’t have a patent on happiness, but they’ve leveraged this position in every way from the marketing, to the packaging, to the events and charities they support. Sure, there’s many things that give Coca-Cola value, the important thing is that the value they offer is easy to explainer (and remember) and is told repeatedly every opportunity possible. You’ll never see Coke put out marketing about the unique filtration of their water, or the way they handle the blending of their ingredients, because they know the value they are serving is about happiness and that’s what resonates with their consumers. 

Make Raving Fans

Wine brands have so many more wonderful values to use as a podium. It takes careful research, planning and execution to effectively deliver value, but once you give your consumers an undeniable piece of value, and can keep delivering on it without fail, you’ll have raving fans around you in no time.

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies, internal marketing and creative teams, and wine and spirit brands on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter@ericgulino and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

5 Ways to Get More From Your Marketing Team

Here are 5 ways to help you get the most out of your agency relationship. Marketers and managers alike want more for their investment and resulting performance (good or bad) often is determined by the strength of the relationship. These can easily be applied to teams that have internal marketing, advertising or creatives resources as well.

1) Invest to Reap Gains 

Pay your agency on time. But beyond that, make sure you invest in them. Make sure they feel like they aren’t a whipping boy. When an agency feels love, appreciation and as though their client is right there in the trenches with them, they pull out amazing work. It’s a natural response that people love helping those who are generous and grateful. Invest with a new level of generosity of your time, appreciation, and information into your agency and the gains will come faster and bigger than you expected. 2) Have a Vision 

You hired your agency for a reason and that’s probably already made known to them, but remind them often of the destination they are supposed to be aiming for. Constantly and consistently paint that same vision for them. Agencies love coming up with new ideas, but that can be a distraction many times, so remind them of what specific problem they should be solving and the finish line they need to be running towards. Nothing is worse that not being able to communicate a clear vision to your agency. It results in wasted time, bad ideas, lost opportunities and piles of burnt cash. 3) Set Clear, Written Expectations

If you don’t tell your agency what you expect of them (operationally, strategically, creatively) then you’ll be fighting an uphill battle with your entire marketing effort from the very beginning. If you have expectations around how quickly you need communications from your agency and if you prefer email over a phone call, set those expectations in writing early on. Same goes for strategy and creative. If you expect multiple comps for each ad, make sure you tell them ahead of time that you expect to see a specific number of comps for every ad. Or if you have expectations around how you prefer to be billed, put it in writing at the very beginning. Never expect that your agency is reading your mind all the time. They aren’t. They are building ideas and work that will get results. 4) Trust and Listen 

If you aren’t trusting and listening to your agency, why did you hire them? Every single person at your agency knows that if they aren’t truly helping your business then they aren’t far off from being fired. They work diligently and passionately to find ways to grow your business - even if you don’t like the ideas or work, know that they aren’t in the business of making things you like. That’s what artists do. Agencies create ideas and assets that are made to achieve a specific goal. Yes, you probably know much more about your individual business than anyone at your agency, but don’t be mistaken, your agency has a much broader, more encompassing, realistic view of business than you do. They have multiple levels of expertise, experience and incredible amounts of data to pull from. Trusting and listening to your agency is everything. If you aren’t doing this, then end the relationship immediately and go alone because there’s absolutely zero point in spending the money on a highly skilled and experienced team if you aren’t going to trust and listen to their advice. 5) Live What You Preach 

 You want work delivered on time? You want near immediate responses? You want a variety of ideas? Live what you preach. If you’re all about responsiveness, be responsive to the things your agency needs from you. Don’t delay in providing your agency feedback, reviews and approvals. You want a variety of executional ideas? Then provide a variety of goals, guidelines, messaging options, etc. Don’t ask anything of your agency on the operational level that you aren’t also willing to submit to. People at agencies don’t like working weekends, same as you so give them the tools they need as quickly as possible to meet reasonable and appropriate deadlines, specifications and goals. 

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies and internal marketing and creative teams on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter @ericgulino and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

No Fear Lifestyle

What are you afraid of? What makes your heart start to race in fear? What keeps you from living freely and enjoying the moment instead of running the doomsday scenarios over and over?

I’m mostly afraid of the crazy, most ridiculous scenarios that if actually happened would affect the entire world, not just me. I’m not talking about a extinction event meteor strike, or massive worldwide flood, I’m most fearful of man-caused events like nuclear war, mass enslavement, chemical weapons, etc.

But I have no control over these things. They might happen, they might not, but there’s nothing I can do either way to prevent or cause them from happening. It’s an irrational fear I have of something terrible happening that will cause life as we know it to unravel. Maybe it’s all fueled by the doomsdayer, Walking Dead, survivalist society that us in the U.S. in particular are living in. If there’s nuclear war, and it breaks out in Los Angeles, I’m dead. But so is everyone else in Los Angeles. It’s simply unavoidable.

To live a no fear lifestyle, I really need to ask what I am afraid of and why. I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of dying though. As a God-loving, Jesus following person, death isn’t bad. It’s actually great. Heaven is waiting. But the getting dead in the problem for most Christians like me. Car crash, cancer, drowning, it’s all terrible and the process of dying isn’t something that anyone in the world looks forward to. When people talk about fear of death, I don’t have that - rather I have a fear of getting dead.

Like most people, I’m truly afraid of missed expectations. I am fearful that things won’t pan out the way I hoped, that my family will be forced to live in an unsafe world, or losing the freedom to live a quiet, good, meaningful life. There’s so many circumstances that will allow this type of life to have room to flourish, so what am I really afraid of? Just Hollywood apocalypse events filled with danger around every corner where no one is capable of helping anyone else and everyone is only looking out for their own survival? This is a crazy lie. Even in the worst of world circumstances, people always rise to the occasion to help each other. To live a no fear lifestyle, I’ve had to really come to terms with how silly and irrational my fears are and let them go so I can focus my energy on what’s real, what I can control, and where I can give back.

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies and internal marketing and creative teams on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter @ericgulino​ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

New Year Reset

Truly honestly, being still drives me crazy. I don't like doing nothing. I don't strive for the country club lifestyle of leisure. Being productive at home, in my hobbies, or at my work is important to my mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. So how have I been managing the last week of basically being forced to chill out and be still? Actually very well thank you very much.  These 2-3 weeks at the end of the year are always incredibly slow for me. Clients are wrapping up their year too and wanting little to nothing to do with me, and as a consequence I end up year after year having basically nothing of any significance on my plate come December 20th until January 7th. Each year I use this time to focus on the other immediate and unavoidable needs: Family, Christmas, eating, New Year's Eve, drinking and finally trying to sleep.  Typically I also spend a good portion of this time traveling. My wife and I usually ring in the new year in Key West with some close friends of ours. This year because of some personal matters, we did not attend and stayed home instead. Without the distraction of endless parties, tourist activities, sunburns and catching up with friends, I had some real quality time this past week to look backward at 2015 and forward into the new year with some goals and insights for how I hope 2016 shapes up.  More than anything, I plan on refocusing the major parts of my life (home, work, relationships, hobbies) on what really matters. Let me explain: how do you decide what is important? I can tell you that 2015 was a year of important = whatever is the loudest, brightest most attention hoarding thing at any given moment. That could have been a mechanical issue great or small with the car, an agenda-less conference call, a friend's persistent text messaging or Madison clawing at my face around sunrise on Saturday. I am determined that 2016 be different and here's some of the amunition I've gathered to help me succeed: 1) Do more with less. I think Bruce Lee said something like "it's not the daily accumulation that is good, but th daily reduction and simplification that brings peace" - something like that. The idea I'm holding onto is that it's not about filling my life with more meetings, more imunncessary expecations, more responsibilities, more possessions, more people, more commitments, more work, more more more. It's about accomplishing more, doing a better job, giving my best effort and attention to the few things that actually hav worth, that are actually important.  2) Busy living. 2015 went by way too fast and I didn't stop to savor moments that I should have. I was too concerned with looking / acting / striving to be busy at work or in my social life because what ineffective people (that's the majority of living humans) default to as valuable is being busy. You know you see the multi-tasking soccer mom with the big SUV and think she must be really fulfilled because she's got so much going on in her life, or you compare yourself to the co-worker who seems to be favored by management because they "work so hard and put in the time" even though they might be complete inefficient and probably minimally effective, yet you still allow yourself to believe that that's the kind of behavior you have to mirror in order to get ahead. I'm not going to follow that ill-fated, foolish thinking. I'm going to focus on being busy living, not being busy being busy.  3) Discerning. I believed that everything that I was told needed my attention actually did. Not in 2016. This year I will be carefully discerning what is important, meaningful, truthful and valuable for myself. I spent 2015 not deciding for myself if what was put infront of me actually needed my attention and that's no good way to live, love or work. They say if you don't take control of what's infront of you, someone else will. I don't anyone else having more control of my joy, satisfaction, goals or purpose than I do, so 2016 will be a year of careful, deliberate and proactive discernment.  There's so much that I am looking forward to in 2016 and I am hopeful that it will be an even better year than 2015. The past year was wonderful, but I identified some areas of my own behavior that hindered it from reaching its potential. Small changes in my actions and outlook should have dramatic effects for the coming year.  I wish you and your family the best health, joy and peace in 2016!

[egulino]

Sommelier Level 1 Thoughts

A Little History First

Needless to say (so why am I saying it?) the sommelier profession is on fire. Maybe it’s because millennials are all now discovering wine, or maybe it’s the film SOMM that’s causing all this attention on what has otherwise often been thought of as a snooty, pretentious, unnecessary profession. Well, I fell victim as well. 

In 2005 my girlfriend (now wife) was working at a highly awarded fine dining restaurant in southern California. After her first couple of weeks there she came to find out that anyone who was a server had to become a sommelier within 3 months of their employment date to stay on. “What’s a sommelier?” We both wondered. A little research gave us a simple answer: a server who specializes in wine. There’s more to it than that, but that was enough for us at the time. 

Some time passes and about 2 years later I meet some people very involved in the wine industry in California. I start to meet some collectors and even some critics and I start to get the wine bug. I am mesmerized by the whole story of wine, from it’s roots in Bible times (Jesus’s first recorded miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding) to it’s necessity for survival in the dark ages. I start to drink some wine while in Europe, not really by choice - it’s practically unavoidable in many small towns. But I had no clue really what I was drinking. I knew it was red or white and that was really the extent of my knowledge. 

As I started working at the executive level in advertising, I realized how much I didn’t know about wine in some uncomfortable situations - like extravagant dinner’s with client’s who were looking to me to show them a high-quality good time. I remembered that strange french word, sommelier, and decided to do some homework. That’s when I came across the Court of Master Sommeliers. In 2014, I decided that I’d pursue the education and certifications the Court of Master Sommelier’s offers not as a road to a different profession (I’m very happy not working late nights and weekends on the floor of a restaurant) but as a way to aggressively learn about wine and put myself through a great challenge. 

Taking the First Step

I registered in February 2015 for the Sommelier Level 1 Exam being held in December 2015. It was a perfect scenario for me. It was far enough out that I would be able to properly prepare for the experience and it was also local, just 2 miles from our home which meant no travel, hotel and extra stress. 

After registering for the exam, I furiously searched for insight on what the exam would include, how it would be conducted, how difficult it would be and what I needed to do beforehand to prepare. The most common and glaring advice from everything I could get my hands on was that this is not an exam for people who aren’t very experienced wine drinkers or servers. The Court as well as many of the people who have taken the exam and passed recommend that you have 3 years of wine service experience. At the date of registration I had exactly 0 days experience. Many people also recommended that a firm understanding of French wine theory be had. I knew the French made wine, but that was it. I couldn’t name a single producer or vineyard. At this point, I realized that I probably would need to study something, but what? After registering for the exam, you receive a 214 page study guide. Each page has 3 power point slides on it and with very high level information on them. So we’re talking about 600+ slides. As I started going through the study guide the weight of what I didn’t know (which was basically everything) hit me. 

Study, Study, Study

I quickly located the best resources for studying for this exam: The Wine Bible, The Wine Atlas, Great Wine Made Simple, The Wine Encyclopedia, Service and Sales for Wine Professionals and bought them all on Amazon. I then signed up for a membership with the Guild of Sommeliers as they have a massive online library of resources. I put my head down and started to study as much as possible why still maintaining my life, full-time job, church, friends, marriage, etc. 

It made most sense to me to focus primary on France, and then within France, Bordeaux and Burgundy. After that, Italy, Spain, Germany and then Portugal. I started to expand into the New World wines, but felt lost by the breadth of the information. Part of me was convinced that if I just nailed France and Italy down that I could go to the crash course and pick up enough to pass the exam. I am glad I didn’t end up following that thinking because it would have never worked. To help out those looking for some direction on what to study at this level, I would focus primary on the major grape varietals and the major regions in which they are grown. Then I’d add country classifications in and that would help you get 60% of where you need to be at this level. Example: Do you know Where Hawkes Bay is? Do you know the major grape varietals grown there? Do you know the classifications in that region? How about the same for Otago? Chablis? Pomerol? Rioja? That’s mainly where I’d focus first. Then you can move onto some of the more gritty details. 

I also took a little part time job at a local wine bar. This was massively beneficial. I got to taste so many wines, learn so much about service, pairing, working with guests and how to think on my feet. It’s hard work, but that really paid off and I am so glad to have had the opportunity! 

Exam Day

The exam was held locally for me, Laguna Beach, at the Montage Resort - a world class venue for this type of thing. There were for Master Sommeliers there to administer the course and exam. Everyone was business casual, except for the Somms who were fully suited and polished. There were 100 candidates present, seated at tables of 5 facing the front of the room where there was a small podium and a large projection screen. We had a water cup, spit cup, and 4 empty wine glasses in front of us along with our course manual. They wasted no time. Right at 8am, instruction began and it was very, very face paced. After each break, we’d come back into the room to find our wine glasses contain both red and white wine and we’d conduct a tasting exercise for each then move back into the theoretical instruction. 

I am glad I did so much prep, even if it wasn’t intended to help me pass, because it allowed me to follow the discussion and insights the Somms were sharing. If I hadn’t done the prep, I think most of the time spent there would have been confusing, over my head and unenjoyable.

On the last day, at 4:00 they started the final exam. I was delighted by the first 10 questions, I knew them well. But as the exam went on, I realized just how much I still didn’t know. I tallied up all the questions I absolutely knew the answers to and the wind came out of my sails: 33. That wasn’t enough to get the minimum 43 to pass. I used up the entire amount of time and tried to find the best answer for the remaining questions. I turned in my exam, feeling defeated. 

About 45 minutes later, we were all invited back in to the room. The Somms passed out a glass of Champagne to everyone and we took our seats. “Many passed, but not everyone. The pass rate is typically 80% for this exam, but we were a little lower with this group. If you didn’t pass, don’t take it too seriously, that happens. Study and come back again in 90 days and you’ll pass then. I’ll read the passes.” And then the names started coming followed by applause. Then, my name was read and I was shocked. I couldn’t believe I passed, but couldn’t contain my delight and shared a congratulations with my table-mates.

Now What? 

The most common question I’ve gotten since passing is: Now What? Am I going to work in a restaurant? Leave my job and work for a winery? Pursue the next level? The answer is, at least for now, nothing. I am not going to do anything other than enjoy the knowledge and the feeling of accomplishment. I think I will continue to pursue the next level in 2016, but I need to do much more study and wine tastings to get to the level that’s required. As for professionally, no restaurants for me. I have really enjoyed working with the folks at FiveVines, but I don’t see any career in the hospitality business. I love my weekends and hate working late nights, so this probably won’t be a road I pursue. 

I did this for the challenge and to have a greater enjoyment of wine. So far, the time and financial investment has paid off and I am so glad I did it. 

[egulino]

For Winners Only

Winners are the ones who are doing things better than everyone else. They are the ones who aren’t conforming. They take a different approach and they separate themselves from the people who don’t want to win. Unfortunately, too much of our society believes that falling in line, going with the flow, following the mediocre majority is what success looks like. We’re told every day to just follow the instructions, obey the rules, do what we’re told, even if these aren’t aimed at becoming better, or truly becoming winners.

Lots of companies and marketers today say they are different, say they are better, say they are more proactive, say they are more creative, but talk is cheap and few companies are actually doing what they say. The companies and brands that walk the talk are the winners. Disagree? Let’s look at the outdoor apparel and supply company Patagonia. 

The company is in a crowded and competitive space, but they are often viewed at the premium brand and consumers are willing to pay handsomely for their products. What is Patagonia doing differently? How are they winning? 

First, they don’t follow conventional wisdom when it comes to their marketing strategy. They separate themselves from the losers by always keeping the purpose of the products front and center. They exist to supply the adventures and outdoor enthusiasts with no frills, thoughtful, well-made apparel that’s going to allow them to get more out of their outdoor experience all while being aligned with protecting those outdoor spaces their consumers want to experience. Instead of hiding behind what materials are used to make their products, regardless of their negative impact on the environment, like their competitors do, Patagonia had a Footprint Chronicle for everyone of their products. Their commitment to transparency encourages the consumer to be mindful about the products they buy and it’s easy to know what kind of environmental impact you are making when you purchase a product that isn’t trying to hide anything. Every other brand is running away from this type of thinking allowing Patagonia to only snatch up more market share.

Second, they stand by what they preach. They don’t just talk about making a great product, both in function and in quality, the actually do both and the deliver. When things go wrong with their products, they don’t make a big fuss, they just do right by the customer and deal with the issue that’s really at hand: the product and the trust the consumer has in the brand. They break the conventional wisdom that most marketers have when creating a product and then dealing with the consumers in a live marketplace. Instead of focusing on profits or marketshare are the primary objective, they focus first on the promise behind the products and make that their key success metric, both in the development of the product and the marketing of it. They also never lose sight of what the best marketers in the world know: make a customer once and then make them a customer for life. By doing right by the customer time after time, Patagonia has a loyal customer base that will continue to buy for years and years - increasing the lifetime value of their patronage. Lots of mediocre marketers focus too much and the turn and burn mentality of just keeping fresh customers coming in, instead of trying to maximize their existing customer base. But only brands that have earned trust can be successful in this area.

While it’s almost cliche to now reference him, Steve Jobs was right about how to bring a great product to market: “First, figure out what will be best for the consumer, then engineer everything to that. Work backwards. It doesn’t work when you start with a product and try to sell 8 or 10 billion of them.” The amount of truth here is incredible. Just because there an idea that seems good, doesn’t mean it’s a winning idea. Break the conventional rules when it comes to product, brand, technology development and start on the other side - what’s best for the consumer. 

In Ryan Holiday’s book, The Obstacle is the Way, the story of Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban is told through the lens of the process. “Don’t think about winning the SEC Championship. Don’t think about the National Championship. Think about what you needed to do on this drill and this play in this moment. That’s the process. Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.” The truth to be grabbed here is that focus is the key. While every other company is dreaming of dollar signs, or teams are dreaming about the future wins, the real winners are focused on the present, the very moment at hand and getting to work. They aren’t just “making plans” and pretending that’s doing the job, they are actually executing. Holiday goes on to say, “Great entrepreneurs are never wedded to a position, never afraid to lose a little, never bitter or embarrassed, never out of the game for long. They may slip at times, but they don’t fall.” With a determined mind and never-dying spirit, the great companies of the world do the unconventional, they don’t give up, they don’t randomly change course, they don’t chase shiny objects. 

So where are you personally and professionally? Are you doing the things that separate you from the mediocre majority and doing the unconventional? Winners are few, but that’s because they think, act and respond differently than everyone else. It’s easy to do what everyone else does. It’s hard to do something different. But that’s what it takes to win. 

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies and internal marketing and creative teams on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter @ericgulino​ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

Less Is More. More Is More.

I've recently been doing some post-summer cleaning, both at home and at my work. The cleaning has included the simple things like dusting and organizing, deleting some old files on the computer and general cleaning of furniture and windows. It's also included some bigger processes though.

In my office, there have been these giant bookcases mounted to the wall. I've put a couple of items on these shelves, but generally they've been empty. Bookcases and shelves have recently caused me some anxiety. They start as empty and reflect that the owner is also empty. When shelves are filled, they reflect that the owner is full. They might be filled with books, showing that the owner of those shelves is highly educated or they might be filled with photographs showing how full the life and relationships are of the person that set them on the shelf for display.

But for me, empty shelves beg for stuff. They call out constantly that something be put there, displayed, stored or jammed away. I don't like that. I don't like accumulating stuff for the purpose of just putting it on a shelf. So a ripped the shelves off the wall. My office is bigger, ready to be filled with ideas without something constantly calling me to put physical things on a shelf for no real purpose. A desk, chair, lamp, computer and two visitor chairs are now all I have in my office and it feels great.

The reduction has continued at home, mainly with my closet. I've decided to get rid of 50% of my wardrobe. Not an easy task when you are trying to downsize. It’s hard to let go of things that “might” be useful in the future, or things of sentimental value. I think it would have been a lot easier if I didn’t have a wardrobe at all and had to start from scratch. I think it’d looks something like 5 t-shirts, 3 dress shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 1 pair of pants and 2 pairs of shorts. But this seems like a pipe dream right now as I stare into a wardrobe much larger than that.

What I am realizing is that this isn’t a physical process of optimization and elimination, it’s a mental one. When my mind can be optimized and I can make the mental sacrifices necessary, the physical space around me will become optimized, cleaner, more efficient. More purposeful.

I absolutely want more, but I want more of the right things. I want more time, more freedom, more control, more peace, more enjoyment, more laughter, more relationships, more life. And this small process of trying to eliminate things to make space for the more I want has been a challenge, but one worth taking on. I am looking forward to seeing results creep in as I make room in my mental and physical world. 

[egulino]

Motivation is Foundational

Recently, a major research group released their study on the best companies to work for in America. It occurred to me that the best companies to work for in America have one obvious common thread - they produce the best work in their given industries. They either produce the highest of quality product of any of the competitors, have world-class service, provide innovative solutions or surpass their consumers expectations by leaps and bounds. 

Is there a connection between being an organization that people love working for and the overall success of the company in their mission? I think so. This got me thinking about how marketers work and specifically how the key decision makers in marketing get results. 

  Motivated people produce desired results no doubt. But the source of the motivation is what I think is most interesting. When the list of the best companies to work for is considered, it appears that a commonalty exists in the way (and how) employees are motivated. The breakdown looks something like this: 

1) Belief in the product / service. One of the companies listed was actually a non-profit organization. Believing in the ultimate goal probably motivates people on a level that is hard to achieve any other way. 

2) Monetary. Making money is why most of us make an active choice to go to our workplaces each morning. Getting paid well makes that choice even easier.

3) Comaraderie. Having good relationships with co-workers and managers is critical. It's more than obvious that people who can't stand their co-workers aren't happy and aren't generally good employees resulting in lower productivity and higher turnover. 

4) Ownership. When individuals feel that they have control of their work, the ability to do their best work and give it direction, they push themselves and their team members to achieve more. 

5) Mobility. Let’s not over analyze this - if an employee has a clear career path laid out in front of them, they will continue to work hard and invest more than just time into realizing that upward mobility. Having a roadmap and plan for advancement is an incredible tool for motivating a team!

This year’s top 10 places to work in America all hold these motivators as organizational values - meaning they don’t passively happen or are created by employees spontaneously. These are things that top leadership has recognized as a pathway to success for not just the individuals that work for their company, but for the company itself.

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies and internal marketing and creative teams on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter @ericgulino​ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

Be Clear. Demand Clarity.

“Disappointed, extremely disappointed.” - This is the worst thing I could ever hear from anyone in my life. When my family or friends or colleagues or clients say they are disappointed in me, there’s no worse or heavier feeling in the world. 

But recently as I’ve begun working on some very exciting new projects, both personal and professional, I’ve started to see that there’s a super effective way to never hear those words again and to never feel disappointed in others. It all starts with expectations, but more specifically, it starts with being absolutely clear about expectations. 

“You can't expect everyone to have the same dedication as you.” ― Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This is the problem I face on a regular basis. I am super passionate about the things I put my energy and time into. I expect the people who are working towards the same goal have the same fire inside of them, but I’ve learned this is futile. There is no one like me, which means no one will have the same exact level of intensity and dedication on all the same exact initiatives as me. So #1: Stop having unrealistic expectations of people. 

The next way to freedom I’ve identified has everything to do with communication around expectations. Let’s start with a very simple and innocent example. 

Person 1: “When will you be back?” 

Person 2: “I should be back a little later this afternoon.”

This quick exchange is doomed for both parties. Here’s why: First, person 1 doesn’t explain why they are asking when person 2 will be back. Here’s some more detailed alternative inquiries: 

Person 1: “I am trying to schedule between you, me and Mike for this afternoon. What time will you be back so I can schedule that meeting?” 

OR

Person 1: “I am planning on leaving here in 45 minutes. Are you coming back before I leave or should I lock up?” 

OR

Person 1: “If I need something urgent from you before 2pm, should I call you directly or will you be back before then?” 

These are much more clear ways of communicating. There is clarity surrounded by the expectations that were a little more difficult to identify in the earlier inquiry “When will you be back?”  Person 2 bears responsibility to be clear as well. Their responses could have looked something like this:

Person 2: “I am just going to run a few errands. I don’t expect it should take longer than 2 hours, so I plan on being back by 2pm. If it takes longer, I will call you with an update.” 

OR

Person 2: “I am going to be back before 1:30, absolutely. Is there something you need from me before or after that time?”

OR

Person 2: “I am unsure exactly what time I will be back. I will be unreachable though until 3:30pm, so any urgent matters will have to wait until after 3:30 when I am available - I will also be able to update you on my return time after 3:30pm.”

Being clear is just as important as demanding clarity from others. I try my best to not allow vague answered from people around me. I push back when someone says “I will have an answer to you by 9 or 10 tomorrow.” Is it 9am or is it 10pm or what? I don’t let these ambiguous replies walk away freely. Just as I need to be clear with others, I need others to be clear with me. This kind of detailed communication can sometimes come across as controlling, but the reality is it gives freedom to everyone involved since expectations have been set and clearly communicated. 

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies and internal marketing and creative teams on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter @ericgulino​ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

What do I do?

This is a question I have been dealing with a lot lately. “What do I do?” The answer is actually very difficult to grab onto because what I do isn’t a clearly defined by a role, or a normal job or even something most people understand.

I work behind the scenes. This is the best way for me to setup the context for what I do. I am not the star in front of the camera. I am not the lead guitarist on stage. I am not the celebrity CEO. I work behind the curtain, behind closed doors, in the places no one is looking.

I am not the inventor or creator. I am a guide. I am window. I am a map. I am a flashlight. I am a compass. I am a coach. I encourage and empower the inventors, visionaries and entrepreneurs to make waves, to make real measurable impact in several ways, generally two: cultural and financial. 

I help an idea become a company. 

I help a company become a brand.  

I help a brand become a cultural influencer. 

I don’t always start my role or process in the same stage - this all depends on who has hired me, for what reason and what their current situation looks like. Sometimes I help my clients through multiple stages of growth, other times just for a short season. When a company or individual hires me, the are hiring me for my experience working with all different types of companies, world famous brands and startups, and all kinds of different problems.

It’s taken me a long time to be able to finally say what it is that I do - and this discovery and clarity have given me a lot of freedom. I have found that it’s incredibly empowering to not just describe your title or daily routine, but what it is you do outside of your current employer or position. I’m grateful to have identified this and embraced it fully.

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies and internal marketing and creative teams on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter @ericgulino​ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

A Broken Client / Agency

This past week I had a conversation with a client that didn’t go well. They were upset, my team was upset and I was caught in the middle. My agency hasn’t been working with this client long, maybe three months, but those three months have reminded me about what agencies go to work on their clients for everyday and how important it is for agencies to find the right kinds of clients (or for companies to hire the right agencies). 

GET ON THE SAME PAGE

Agencies like mine, full-service, creative marketing shops have one purpose: solve problems and meet challenges to help our client grow. When we step outside of this, we aren’t accomplishing our mission and we aren’t at our best. This is ultimately the core reason this conversation didn’t go well last week. Our client has been giving us project after project that are two things: undefined or ambiguous, and aren’t centered around the idea of growth. The reality is our client also has the ability to execute each of these projects, from a bandwidth and skill perspective, but they’ve chosen to employ my agency because in their opinion, it seems to be easier this way. 

WHAT WE DO It’s become obvious that our client doesn’t really need an agency, they need a production shop. They need someone who won’t do the critical thinking, who won’t ask “why” and try to optimize the solution, no - they simply want someone to take their orders and give them exactly what they asked for. Here’s the rub: once given what they asked for, they realize it’s not the best solution and they blame the agency. 

DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP This isn’t a special or unique story. It happens with agencies everywhere, everyday. The question both the agency and the client need to constantly ask is: Is this leading us toward our objective? If the client is looking for only production work and desires little to no consulting or thought-leadership, they probably don’t need an agency and should move on to find a solid and reliable production shop. If an agency is finding it frustrating to complete the work because they aren’t being invited into the process the are the best at, solution finding and problem solving, they need to quickly recognize that the relationship may not leading in a productive direction and review the scope of work with the client so that proper expectations are set.

INVEST IN LEARNING I find it interesting that there are so many marketers out there who employ agencies and spend millions and millions of dollars with them, yet do not have any interest in learning how to get the most out of their agency with whom they are spending so much time and money. If you decide to spend the time and money purchasing a Ferrari, wouldn’t you spend the time learning how to drive it to enjoy it fully? Agencies bare some responsibility here. They need to be upfront from the beginning of the relationship on how they work best with their clients, inviting them into a process of learning as well as teaching. You don’t just need another agency. You need an agency who knows how to meet your needs, but you also need to understand what that agency can and can not do for you, what they are best at and when they are outside of their expertise. 

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies and internal marketing and creative teams on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter @ericgulino​ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

You Work Too Much

Today I had lunch with my cousin, for the first time ever. He's about eight or nine years younger than me and grew up in Colorado so we didn't have much of a relationship growing up, make that zero relationship growing up. I think I literally have been in his presence only 12 times. So it was interesting to sit down, one on one and share a meal. First, the meal. It was a mediocre meal at best. We are at this little gem of a location but terrible execution and service were oozing out the doors. I should have know. So the food, not great - pretty disappointing truth be told. Oh, also I've been sick with a cold which made everything extra worse. Onto the important stuff, the conversation. So my cousin is a smart guy, but lacks any real world professional experience and is trying to break into the advertising / marketing game. He wanted to pick my brain, I of course would do anything to help someone who wants to be in this line of work, especially family. He asked me some great questions about how to make connections, what firms to check out, etc, but then he asked a question I had a really hard time answering: "do you work a lot?" I had no clue how to answer this. I know exactly what he's asking but this goes against so much of what I believe to just answer it the way he expects. He's really asking how much k work relative to 40 hours per week - which as you know is a meaningless number to me. Before I could even comprehend the words to say back, I had to get him to understand what he's really asking. He's really asking about lifestyle, not about how many hours plus or minus 40 a week I work. He's been trained by the world to think of work as an amount of time in the neighborhood of 40 hours a week and that the amount greater or less than that is "how much" someone works. This thinking is old and wrong for today's world. If the amount of time worked is asked I assume the question is about lifestyle (maybe this doesn't apply to jobs that are more manual labor focused?). Ask I started to prob at his original question, I saw the lights start to come on, dim, but on. I saw that I was rattling his worldview of professionals a bit. I finally found the right reply to his question, which simply was "what does a lot mean?" He didn't like that I replied to his question with a question, but the lights became a little less dim. I didn't let him answer my question and instead proceeded to explain that I have no idea if I work a lot or not. I said that I work as much as I want to at any given time. I love what I do, so if I feel like spending 70 hours this week working on something, it's no big deal, just as if I decided to spend 8 hours this entire week, it's the same. My metric is more about productivity than about volume of time. I love being productive. I love when I can walk away from a day and feel like I accomplished something. That to me is the ultimate metric for success and satisfaction. It all points back to lifestyle. If you feel like you work too much, you probably have a lifestyle imbalance.

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies and internal marketing and creative teams on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter @ericgulino​ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

Knowing When It’s Wrong

I go to work and fight for ideas all the time. Sometimes it’s my own idea I am fighting for, other times it’s my co-workers or clients ideas. I work in an agency environment and we are constantly looking at new ideas, old ideas, broken ideas, successful ideas and trying to get to the best solution for the problem at hand. Marketers and agency folks are passionate people, high energy, high stress and that can lead to many “intense” conversations and meetings. I call these battlefields. This is when two or more ideas fight each other out. There can be only one winner, and the winner is the one that gets to see the light of day. Sometimes I really struggle with pride here - I often find that my opinion gets wrapped up with my ego and I can’t let a stance go. I am a believer. But often, our beliefs and ideas might be wrong. I’m trying to get to the place where I am ok with being wrong and letting the right thing win. 

[egulino]

LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW

All of a sudden, you snap-to and realize that you haven’t heard single word of the last 30 minute lecture on the irony of Freud’s obsession with cigars. All you know is that the ocean kept changing. You could stare out the window for hours at the same endless blue and never see the same thing. And never get bored of it. When you come home from it all and think about what the classes were for you realize they are basically like walking by a restaurant, stepping up to the window to read the menu and then believing you have a full understanding of the experience that awaits inside. You don’t. How could you? The classes aren’t the point, they simply make a foggy, ambiguous introduction to some of the most beautiful and profound experiences you will have. 

[egulino]

I Embrace the Failures

Here's a little change of pace for you all - I'm going to get slightly personal, so if that's not for you, click away now. 

OLD CHAPTERS

I'm transitioning in a lot of ways right now. My physical location is changing next week as my wife and I move just a few miles south from where we live now, but leaving the physical building we've called home for four years. As we pack, I've started to think a little about how we got here. The past two years has had many transitions - to be honest, many more than I would have preferred. I've chased dreams, left companies and co-workers I love, joined new companies and grown close to new co-workers, started a crazy journey towards foster care, started a company, gained new hobbies, developed new passions, reluctantly left some old passions behind and gotten older in the process. Some of my biggest regrets have been not being more transparent and honest about my goals, my desires and my weaknesses. All in all, I count most of the past 2 years as failures, but I've embraced those failures because they've lead me to new places I didn't expect. 

WISDOM GAINED

One of the biggest and ongoing transitions for me over the past 2 years have been professionally. Two years ago today I was working for a great little ad agency I still have tons of respect for. I felt like I was an important and valuable member of a great team of exceptional people. But I wanted more. I wanted more responsibility, more influence, more control and more meaning from the work. I pushed for it but my pushing was misperceived by many to be an attitude of pessimism and doubt. I was told that I was trying to "outsmart the system" and that there was something "negative" about me that was wearing on the team.

_ Lesson #1 learned: take stock often of yourself to see how others might perceive you. Self awareness is critically important to growth professionally and personally. _

It was this point when I started to do some serious thinking about where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. I felt that at this point in my life it was the best time to take a major risk so I decided to pursue my passion and see if there was any way to make it a success. Long story and a lot of stress and heartache later, the result was that this pursuit was either completely mistimed or just not a road to be travelled. 

Lesson #2 learned: pursuing a passion and making it a livelihood is not for the faint of heart. It requires an incredible about of will power, dedication, endurance and help from those around you. Do it, but don't have any misunderstandings about what you're getting into before you jump.  

So I ended up working with another great team in the agency world. This time, I was working with my wife. Going to work everyday with my wife was both a blessing an a curse. The blessing was in the amount of time we got to share together. I really felt like we grew a lot closer on several levels. The curse was in the fact that there was no more space between us. We talked about work when we got home from work. We talked about work on the weekends. All of our friends were people from work. Work was inescapable. It was our entire lives. 

Lesson #3 learned: balance (whether you believe in work-life balance or not) is critical when it comes to your relationships. 

There was so much I learned to love about my work at this new agency, but that all came to a screeching halt when I learned that the job I was hired to do was not really what the partners wanted me to do in the long run. They hired me for a skill and knowledge set that I had spent many years developing, but didn't want to employ any of that experience. Rapidly, I became handcuffed in that job and with a very reluctant and saddened heart, left a job where my co-workers had rapidly became family. The whole situation panned out well in the end, but it was something I didn't expect or desire. 

Lesson #4 learned: careful about how the expectations you have regarding things you can't control. If you aren't the one in control of your destiny, remember that change and change of plans should be your real expectation. 

Again, I find myself at another transition. I consider carefully at this stage if the agency work is something that I am not cut out for. Should I do something radically different? No. Deep down, this is what I know. This is what I am good at. This is something that when I am in my sweet spot, I am expert in. A good friend of mine had long wanted me to work with him and so after a couple of phone calls and meetings, I joined him and a young team at a new agency. This time, my expectations are different. My goals are different. My attitude is different. This time, I am looking at success differently. The last few major profession transitions have been plagued with failure, but this time I am embracing the failures. It's been almost 6 months since making this last transition. The future is brighter than it's been in a long time professionally. I am also working on some personal professional projects which I hope will continue to grow and mature, but if they fail, there's going to be some great lessons learned. 

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Eric Gulino is a advertising and marketing veteran with experience with world-class brands in automotive, technology, wine and spirits, hospitality, finance and medical industries. He consults agencies and internal marketing and creative teams on strategy, workflow, process and executional excellence. Contact him on Twitter @ericgulino​ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgulino

[egulino]

WINE WEDNESDAY: 2012 Joel Gott Cabernet Sauvignon

2012 Joel Gott 815 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

The Basics: 

Wallet Damage: $16

Amount of Booze: 14.5%

Type of Wine: Cabernet Sauvignon 

Went into my belly: January 20, 2015. No decanting. 

How it Smelled:  

The only thing I could see at first was those two guys standing in the flooded cranberry field for those Ocean Spray cranberry juice commercials. Once my nose got ahold of this, it was cranberries up and down. It’s that kind of tart, dry smell that has a bit of spice and almost a rubber element to it. Digging a little deeper past the cranberries comes a a cherry pie, but the kind of cherry pie that has canned cherry filling. Just beyond that is a little bit of the sweet honey-like aroma of a super rip cantaloupe. It’s subtle, so dig deep! 

It Tasted Like: 

The first thing I noticed was how bright this wine is. It’s super clear and sharp on the first taste. There’s a big cranberry play here again, tart and sour. The mid pallet is getting a ton of oak, which isn’t out of play, it actually works well with the cranberry vibe, but that’s all the good I have to say about this wine. It’s down hill from there. The problem is the finish and the last bit of liquid right before. It’s bitter. It’s rubbery, like the taste of chewing on a rubber band. As you swallow, it’s spicy and hot on the back of the throat, and not in a good way, like in a cheap tequila kind of way. The finish is short and uninteresting. When you end a wine with these flavors and experience, it takes all the enjoyment out of the initial good-impression. 

  Acid/Sweetness: 

We’ve got a really dry, crisp and acidic wine. Sharp as a tack. 

Body: 

The tannins are for real on this wine. Really serious, you can feel them fizzing all around. Medium+ alcohol that doesn’t seem to heavy handed until it hits your throat. Coming in at 13.9%, it’s not at the high end, so I believe the high-alchol feeling comes from poor wine making or a crop that was off. 

  And So:

I won’t be revising this wine again anytime soon, although, I do think some of the foundational elements are ok and I am curious to see if 10 years doesn’t anything to help this wine out. I suspect the result won’t make much of a difference. Not a wine I would recommend and so I will give it 70 points.