The Bill Matassoni Show, Season II
(Not To Be Confused With Season III, Which Is Also Being Released)
We just released new episodes of The Bill Matassoni Show, Season II (31 episodes overall).
Below is an excerpt from one of the episodes. Because it is taken from a video episode, it may not be as polished as our usual edited text in emails. I think it is more beneficial for you to see Bill's actual words versus the edited version. To see Bill's entire conversation, please refer to the training program on StrategyTraining.com.
"The first two years of my career at McKinsey were crucial... When I was hired, they mentioned that if things went well, I'd be a partner in two years. Well..., it takes eight years to make partner at McKinsey if you're a consultant, a regular consultant.
So two years went by, and all of a sudden, I got a phone call Saturday morning saying, "Bill, we just elected you to be a partner at McKinsey." I was surprised, but a lot of good things had happened.
One of them was Ron Daniel, the managing partner. Ron pretty much left me alone... When I joined McKinsey, I asked, "Is there a job description?" He looked at me and said, "No, there's no job description. That's why we're hiring you. If there was a job description, we would have hired some PR pro or some guy from Procter & Gamble. You figure it out." But he did it in a nice way.
Ron was the most personable guy in the world. If you had to draw a picture of what the McKinsey managing partner should look like, it was Ron Daniel. He was, what, six foot four, something like that. Pamela [Bill's wife] loved him because..., he didn't just remember Pamela's name, he remembered her sister's name. Ron was just wonderfully social.
But he gave me a lot of confidence. It wasn't just, "Write the job description." He said, "Go out and do whatever you want to do. Figure it out." I'd be leaving McKinsey's offices on Park Avenue at six o'clock to catch the plane to London and see him in the elevator. He'd ask, "So where are you going?" I'd say, "I'm going to London." He would say, "Great." He didn't ask me why I was going to London.
... I was just this new kid on the block. He was happy I was getting out of the office and doing something. He really let me go, and he let me work with any practice I wanted. He didn't say, "Work with the strategy practice. Don't work with the organizations practice. The strategy practice is the important one." He didn't believe that.
... He wanted me to make the choices and find my part of McKinsey where I could make something happen.
So, Ron let me go. He rarely interfered with anything I was doing. I would check with him, and he was interested, but he wanted me to have my head because I was either going to make it, or I wasn't, on my own. ..."
- The Bill Matassoni Show. Season II, Episode 4
Bill had the benefit of a wonderfully varied career in marketing (and strategy) for over 50 years. You can imagine what being able to learn from someone with 50 years of experience as a senior leader in some of the top organizations in the world, including as a senior partner at McKinsey and BCG, can do for your career or business.
In season II of The Bill Matassoni Show, we're back in this wonderful house. This is the house that Bill and his wife, Pamela, bought about 30 years ago. It's a classic mid-century modern house that Philip Johnson designed. It looks like a Bond house in some ways.
Bill is back to share some of the best marketing and business strategy secrets he picked up along the way.
By far, the biggest theme of Bill's career is how do you sell ephemeral things.
How do you sell the soft stuff? Because Bill’s career, not by plan, has been selling soft stuff. He headed marketing for United Way of America. How do you sell philanthropy? More importantly, how do you sell secondary demand for philanthropy? It's easy enough to get somebody to give. But how do you go after the bigger givers who think seriously about philanthropy?
Bill’s first job out of Harvard Business School was to sell people on treating their high blood pressure. How do you convince people to treat a disease that’s not curable? Treat a disease that requires behavior change (no salt, lose weight, maybe give up some of their favorite foods, all those things), and keep them on that regimen. That's a tough sell. You learn how to sell high blood pressure treatment, you learn how to sell, you learn how to market.
Bill was worldwide head of marketing and publications (including McKinsey Quarterly), and brand, as a partner at McKinsey for 18 years. And later for six more years at the Boston Consulting Group.
How do you sell top management on strategy consulting?
How do you sell million-dollar engagements? Engagements that cost three, four, or five hundred thousand a month. What are you selling?
And then later on, after Bill retired from McKinsey and the Boston Consulting Group, he joined a firm called Tapestry, which really figured out how to use marketing in multi-stakeholder environments. It's one thing to use marketing in somewhat simple markets where there's a company, there's a competitor, and there's a customer. But what happens when you have all sorts of other players, regulatory agencies, government, and patient advocates, all those players are in the system, too. Can marketing work there? Bill thinks it can. And the experiences Bill had in the last part of his career proved that to Bill.
All of those things, to Bill, are ephemeral things.
Whether or not you sell blood pressure treatments, if you learn the principles of how to sell ephemeral things, just imagine how much easier it is to sell whatever else you might be offering.
So, Bill had an incredible career, and you can have a front-row seat to learn from him.
If you are an Insider or Legacy member, to access the first 31 episodes, click the button below.
The Bill Matassoni Show Season 2 (Insiders & Legacy Members)
If you are not a member yet, to access The Bill Matassoni Show, Season II (plus Season I and other advanced programs), enroll below (scroll down to membership options and select Insider or Legacy).
www.strategytraining.com
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Also, if you are a senior leader or running a successful business, you have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to become a co-author in a book with Bill Matassoni. Learn more here.