The Bill Matassoni Show
Season II
(Not To Be Confused With Season III, Which Is Also Being Released)
We just released five new episodes of The Bill Matassoni Show, Season 2 (20 episodes overall). Below is a small excerpt to give you a preview...
"You didn't pick people on the basis of their seniority at McKinsey. It was, after all, a meritocracy. So, I ended up working with senior guys, junior guys. Guys with great ideas. It mattered. But also guys with courage. People who were willing to speak out on some subjects.
And Peters was a rebel. At McKinsey, he didn't consult much. He was loud. He didn't dress properly. The first time I met him, he was in an executive washroom ..., and it looked like he was trying to take a shower in the sink.
He had just gotten off a plane from Germany.
He said: "Hi, I'm Tom Peters."
I said, "Hi, where are you coming from?"
"I'm coming from Frankfurt."
"So, what were you doing over there?"
"I gave a speech."
"How did it go?"
"Great, great!"
And that was Tom Peters. It was an incredible relationship. And Tom gave me a lot of credit for the success of "In Search of Excellence." Why? Because I decided that I was just going to run with people who seemed to be exciting and had guts.
And, by the way, I had a lot of partners coming to me saying, "I don't think we hired you to spend a lot of time with Tom Peters." I said, "You didn't hire me for any reason. I'm going to figure this out." And Peters and I made history. The best-selling business book... Five million copies."
- The Bill Matassoni Show. Season II
Episode 17
Everyone thought that strategy practice
would help set McKinsey apart.
Yet, it was the organizational design practice
with partners like Tom Peters.
Bill had the benefit of a wonderfully varied career in marketing (and strategy) for over 50 years. You can imagine what being able to access 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 you and your 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 increadible career, and you can have a front-row seat to learn from Bill.
Get Started
If you are a member, access the first 20 episodes here or click the button below.
The Bill Matassoni Show Season 2 (Insiders & Legacy Members)