B2B Reads: Speak with Clarity, Taglines, & Brain Limitations

In addition to our Sunday App of the Week feature, we also summarize some of our favorite B2B sales & marketing posts from around the web each week. We’ll miss a ton of great stuff, so if you found something you think is worth sharing please add it to the comments below.

Learning To Speak With Clarity
Whether you’re having a one-on-one meeting, speaking at an industry, or just shooting the breeze with friends or family, communicating with clarity shouldn’t be overlooked. It ensures that you’re delivering the right message and, more importantly, that the other party gets that message loud and clear. Thank you, John Rampton, for the great read.

Here Are The Habits Of Employees Who Lead Without The Title
If you squint a little and look off of the organization chart, you’ll see a small group of individuals leading without the benefit of title or formal authority. They’re busy driving collaboration, cross-silo problem-solving, innovation and strategy execution. Thank you for the great read, Art Petty.

LinkedIn to B2B Marketers: It’s Time To Build Your Brand
B2B marketers are known for relying on lead generation and account based marketing. But the data shows that they should spend more time building brand awareness, according to a study released by LinkedIn’s The B2B Institute and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute at the University of South Australia. Thank you for the great read, Sabrina Sanchez.

It Really Isn’t About The Numbers
When we miss the numbers, we panic, we whip ourselves into a frenzy of activity to do more–all in service of making the numbers. The challenge is we become slaves to hitting the number, often forgetting to understand what the numbers mean. Thank you, David Brock, for the great read.

The Quick Path From Negative To Positive Emotion For Leaders And Teams
You might think action follows feeling, but there’s more to it. You have to be committed to sadness to feel sad and smile at the same time, even if the smile is fake. Research shows that smiling elevates happiness, frowning makes you sad, and scowling makes you feel anger. Thank you for the great read, Dan Rockwell.

How Smart Leaders Help A Team Work Better Together
Does your team get derailed by miscommunication, hurt feelings, customer service challenges, or another department’s dropped balls? These common relationship breakdowns don’t surprise effective leaders and smart leaders know it’s not a matter of if they’ll happen, but when. Here are four ways to make a team work better together by planning for breakdowns. Thank you, Karin Hurt and David Dye for the great read.

How To Write Your Own Firm’s Tagline
Let’s start with a critical note, though: don’t worry about perfecting a tagline on top of a lousy positioning. The really hard part is capturing the actual essence of your positioning, long before you do the fun work of writing the tagline. Thank you for the great read, David Baker.

How Executive Should- and Shouldn’t – Engage With Customers
After talking with B2B executives about their engagement with major customers in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the vast majority told us that they were very involved, to great effect. However, after interviewing their sales account managers, a different tale was being told. Thank you, Christoph Senn and Noel Capon for the great read.

Your Brain Has Limits. Simple Ways To Extend Your Mind, According To Science
From her new book, The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, here are five key insights about the extended mind, embodied cognition, extending our minds with physical space and social interactions. Thank you, Annie Murphy Paul and the Next Big Idea Club for the great read.

Leverage Passion or Pay? How To Stem The Talent Exodus
Not all of the exodus is due to a newly booming job market offering more opportunities. Much was spawned by employees having lived through a global pandemic, evoking the questions about all aspects of their lives and the qualities they were searching for. Thank you for the great read, Alaina Love.