🎙Podcast : How to optimize your planning and boost your learning in agile mode? (french audio)

English transcript

Hello and welcome to this new episode of Miss Agilité Marketing podcast. I'm delighted to be back with you to talk about 2 topics that are very dear to me: Agile Marketing & Efficiency.

For those who don't know me yet, I am the creator of Agilité Marketing. My mission: to help marketers and entrepreneurs spread their wings with advice based on agile marketing, serene marketing and creative marketing.

Today, I decided to share with you how, thanks to agile marketing, I have optimized my job planning and how I integrate new knowledge in booster mode. Whether it's knowledge from trainings, readings or podcasts for example.

Are you ready? Let's get started!

Welcome to the world of VUCA. You have probably already come across this acronym in one or another content. To put it simply, it describes our world according to 4 adjectives: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Sexy, right?

This concept illustrates the increasingly frequent and sometimes unpredictable changes that our world is experiencing. We don't need to look far for examples. Just think about COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, the economic and energy crises or the new technologies that multiply (I promise I won't talk about ChatGPT, you must be drunk since a few weeks).

So, how do we work in all this? Is it still realistic to plan marketing campaigns on the long term without knowing what new change will happen to us! Very little for me! Personally, I've opted for efficiency. And not for effectiveness.

And if you're wondering what the difference is between the two, it's simple. Effectiveness is getting to your destination and efficiency is finding the best way to get there. It is by being efficient, not effective, that we can be profitable because we will optimize our resources to produce the desired result. This is also agility!

Back when I was doing what I'll call traditional marketing, I regularly had problems. I remember campaigns where delays piled up, the mulitplication of useless meetings, projects assigned to me without asking, my to-do list growing out of control, frequent interruptions that ruined my concentration, and so many other things. Sometimes my work day was like this (aggressive electro sound). You get the idea!

As a result, I was not happy, frustrated not being able to reach my goals and, above all, no longer in line with my values of creativity, curiosity, enthusiasm and fun.

I had to find a solution to my condition.

While searching through books on marketing, professional development and business organization, I discovered Agile Marketing. And since that day, a transformation has taken place.

I'm not going to give you a detailed course on agile marketing methodology today. That will be for a future course.

For now, just know that the principles of agile marketing include: collaboration, responsiveness, functionality and autonomy.

So here's how I've optimized the way I work since developing Agilité Marketing platform.

First of all, I plan my time agilely. No more long to-do lists that only serve to end the day frustrated at not having been able to cross off all the little lines I wanted to.

Today, I use the free application Notion to manage my days, weeks, months and year. Nothing is fixed, everything evolves. Of course, my annual objectives are defined as well as the mission of my company and my target.

For the rest, I plan as I go along. First by breaking down my annual goals into monthly milestones. Again, no details. Based on the monthly milestones, I define my weekly tasks. I usually do this on Friday PM for the following week.

And every day, I work with my diary in which I write down very specific and therefore more detailed things. By repeating this pattern, I now know exactly how long it takes me to write an article, create a podcast, edit a video, write a newsletter, etc. And I am never late again.

Since a large part of my job is creating content, I have a content calendar for my articles, videos and podcasts and a calendar for my social networks. There, I break down my themes, my copys, my visuals. These calendars are updated every week, based on the results of previous content. So I don't have a detailed calendar for 1, 3 or 6 months.

Since my prospects and customers are the focus of my job, I need their feedback to define the best way to reach them. If I see that a type of content is not generating the expected interest, I stop it. I then adapt my content & social media strategy no later than the following week. I simply collaborate with my followers based on the interactions and performance indicators I set for myself.

It took me a few days to set up this system. I evolved it as I went along. But since then, I am much more reactive and efficient.

As far as learning is concerned, it's the same. Before, I used to learn a lot of things without being able to memorize them, and without being able to remember them when I really needed them.

From now on, I don't learn anything that is not immediately useful to me. No more books that are just interesting or hyper theoretical trainings.

Did you know that even when you are super focused, you only retain 10% of what you read ♦ 20% of what you hear ♦ 30% of what you see? If you see and hear at the same time, it can go up to 50%. That's why video training is a hit. But to learn even better, you have to "do". That is to say, process the new information, use it in a concrete case, and put it to your own use. This is now my way of learning. And since I create content, it's even more natural. Since I can share with you the new things I learn through articles, podcasts like this one or videos like the one on my YouTube channel.

So if you want to learn something new, which is common when you work in marketing, make the information yours. You could, for example, create a mindmapping of this podcast if elements seem relevant to you or set up an agile system to manage your schedule in the days to come.

Do nothing, and you'll soon forget the content of this program.

And for the agilitators who want to take action, beware! You may become more efficient, faster, more organized and above all, more fulfilled in your daily life. I warned you.

Here we are at the end of this program. I hope you have enjoyed it.

Before leaving, you can leave me a comment to tell me what new idea you feel like putting into practice. It's always a pleasure to read you.

I'll be back soon for a new episode. Until then, dear agilitators, don't forget to subscribe to the super newsletter for even more tips via my platform agilite-marketing.com. And above all, keep spreading your wings!