Peter LaMotte (EVP of GeniusRocket) has been on the winning team for each of the first 3 Wom Slams.

In the spirit of “making everyone else better,” Peter shares his insights on what contributed to his team’s victories.

At the request of Jeremy I wanted to share, in my opinion, what were the keys to the success of my last three WOMSlam teams.  Of course at this point I should paraphrase from the financial world to say “past performance is not indicative of future results”.  Which in short means, I may just be lucky. Regardless, I think these are three good tips to WOMSlam success. 

Listen for your answer: The client’s goals are the only thing you need to worry about.  The chances that you are going to discover a marketing weakness in their 5 minute introduction that they haven’t thought about is very slim, so make sure your suggestion is entirely focused upon their stated needs and goals.  I have seen a few teams over the past few WOMSlams slip into marketing consultant role and try and over diagnose problems that the client isn’t either worried about or interested in having solved.

Ask the right questions: Maybe you think this is cheating, but let the client tell you what they want to hear.  A few strategic questions may result in the client telling you exactly what they are looking for.  If nothing else they may tell you something that gives you a serious advantage. In the last WOMSlam the client told us who they “really” wanted to change the hearts and mind of, and they were much more specific than they were in their introduction.   Also, because they were in the medical industry, they told us that any suggestions we made had to be HIPA compliant.  That one piece of information eliminated at least half of the other teams’ suggestions from being viable.

Keep it simple: Remember, the whole point of the WOMSlam is to suggest very cost effective and simple marketing solutions.  All the people at WOMSlam are successful and proven marketers, so in many cases you have to scale back what you would “like” to suggest and give only what fits the bill.  Jeremy always asks “what can they do tomorrow,” so your suggestions have to be so simple that they can launch the initiative right away with little to no cost and effort.  If your suggestion is going to require research, focus groups, or traditional marketing preparation, it probably is too complex for what the client is looking for.

So those are just the three things I keep in mind when I try and analyze the needs of the WOMSlam client.  However do keep in mind that no two clients are really the same, and every team is different.  In the end, the most important things is that WOMSlam is a great opportunity to network, and a great way to see how some of DC’s best marketers and business people creatively address many of the same marketing needs we all have.