Pip Decks

Want to learn how to market an inherently ‘dull’ offering? Try applying the Toilet Paper Rule, this week’s card of the week! Work out if you’re a ‘low interest’ offering: do customers engage with your product for leisure? If not (like toilet paper), this tactic’s for you! 1. Condense your value proposition into the shortest, purest amount of text possible. 2. Come up with visual shortcuts for that value prop. Just like how Andrex use puppies as a visual shortcut for ‘softness’. 3. Not only does this lower the cognitive load on your customers (for an already-dull product), it can also make for far more interesting copy and videos. This week's #PipCOTW is a short form of The Toilet Paper Rule from Brand Tactics.  #Brand #BrandStrategy #LinkedInTips

We are #hiring someone to lead our customer community and social media. It's a hybrid role between community building / social media marketing / customer research! If you are a stellar writer, content producer, prolific typer, a good conversationalist, with bags of curiosity, empathy, patience and ambition - with.a sprinkle of comedy in your bones... this role could be for you. Fully remote, predominantly async, and full autonomy to do your best work with generous benefits such as private healthcare.

We're #hiring a new Social Media & Community Manager in Greater London, England. Apply today or share this post with your network.

Want to see how Pip Decks' fully remote, async team stays connected? This week’s card of the week is one we use every day. Daily Sharing helps us see what everyone’s working on without needing a synchronous stand-up meeting. 1. Choose a suitable shared channel and automate a message: “What are you working on” or “What’s your main priority today?”. (Tip: we also ask “What’s something you were glad about yesterday?". This sparks a lot of great conversations about shared interests!) 2. Remind everyone, this should take no more than a minute to complete. 3. Encourage conversation around what people share. We also pull out interesting topics from these threads for a regular ‘Show & Tell’ meeting so we can nosy into each other’s work in more detail. This week's #PipCOTW is a short form of Daily Sharing from Team Tactics. #Teamwork #ManagementSkills #LinkedInTips

Want to know what really matters to your audience? Find their 'Watering Holes' - this week's card of the week. Watering holes are the places your target audience naturally gathers to chat, share and learn. Instead of guessing what they care about, go where they are and listen. 1. List some phrases you believe your audience associates with the topic at hand (e.g., jargon, techniques, tools, magazines, courses). 2. Add to your list: words they use to describe themselves (e.g., dog love, founder) and people they might follow (e.g., influencers, authors). 3. Search online for these terms to find ‘leads’ to follow. Add modifiers to your searches: best, worst, reviews, advice, problems, tutorial, community, etc. 4. When you find a useful watering hole, hang out there. Read, learn and record your observations. 5. Use any ‘insider’ language you learn when talking to your customers, and make note of any potential new audiences or platforms where your product or service might be popular. This week's #PipCOTW is a short form of 'Watering Holes' from Innovation Tactics. #Innovation #LinkedInTips

Don’t let risky assumptions derail your project! Try one of our Founder’s favourite tactics, Assumption Map - our card of the week. Prioritising assumptions is critical to navigating uncertainty in any project. Pinpoint the riskiest and most unknown assumptions to ensure your team focuses on what truly matters. 1. Draw your assumption map with two axis: Certainty (unknown to known) and Risk (low risk to high risk). 2. As a group, write down all your assumptions about the project in hand, and agree where they sit on the map. Ask: "How risky would it be if this assumption is wrong?" "How well do we currently understand this assumption?" 3. Prioritise the assumptions that are both risky and uncertain. 4. Transform your high-priority assumptions into testable hypotheses, guiding your next steps. By testing your assumptions, you can increase certainty and decrease your overall risk. This week's #PipCOTW is a short form of Assumption Map from Workshop Tactics. #Workshops #Facilitation #LinkedInTips

Ever felt like your brand or team’s words don’t match their actions? It’s time to align what you say with what you do, using our card of the week: ‘Plainly Put’. This simple yet powerful exercise helps you define a purpose that you can live up to every single day. And when everyone’s aligned, work just flows. 1. List all the ‘official’ answers to the questions: “What is our purpose? Why do we exist?”. 2. Ask everyone to list the categories of work they do – anything that takes significant time or effort. 3. Reality check! Work together to match each item in the ‘What we do’ list to an item in the ‘What we say’ list. Add missing items as you think of them, then circle any items in either list that don’t have a match. 4. Now you can see how well what you say matches what you actually do. With this in mind, work together to rewrite your purpose in plain language that a child would understand. 5. Test out your plainly put purpose with people outside your group to see if it makes sense to them: “What we do is pretty simple. We _______.” 6. Share your purpose! Find ways to celebrate when people live up to it and encourage others to follow their example. Now your words match your actions: you mean what you say, and you say what you mean. This week's #PipCOTW is a short form of Plainly Put from Strategy Tactics. #Strategy #LinkedInTips

Employee accountability is not a personality trait. It's team-playing behaviour that you can select for and nurture. And when you do, it creates an environment where people can learn, grow and feel accomplished in their work. Here's how.

Do people seem to ‘zone out’ during your part of the presentation? Learn how to keep them glued to your slides with Movie Time, our card of the week! Facts and figures alone won’t win over your audience – your story needs to be visual and engaging. What will they *see* in their minds while you talk? 1. Start with the key concept or main point you want to get across. Find a movie moment that helps them 'see' what you mean. Look for action. Ask: where are we? What’s happening?  Find emotions - what’s at stake for the people involved? 2. Now you’ve ‘set the scene’, your audience is ready to listen to the point you’re making. Tell them: what’s changed? Why does this matter? What do you want them to think or do differently now? 3. Get into the habit of movie-checking your own writing. At the end of a paragraph, ask yourself “what’s the movie playing in their heads now?”. If the answer is “none”, you’re not telling a story. By framing your information as a narrative, you'll make a lasting impact that sticks with your audience long after the presentation is over. This week's #PipCOTW is a short form of Movie Time from Storyteller Tactics. #Storytelling #LinkedInTips

Delegation is a great tool for busy leaders. But it can be hard to know what to delegate, and how. Well... not any more!