What We Do

William Leider & Associates is a consulting firm. Our primary focus is to assist mid-size organizations in the areas of:

• Social Media Marketing;
• Strategic Planning; and
• Cultural Change.

We function as change agents; strategists, advisors; analysts; sounding boards for CEOs and other senior executives. Everything we do centers around delivering actionable, execution driven results. We are highly creative, but we are not theorists. We help you push the envelope, but always in ways that improve productivity and profits.

Social Media Marketing:

Social Media is not a fad. It is here for the foreseeable future. It is, however, misunderstood and misused by most people and organizations that attempt to employ it. People tend to become immersed in and overwhelmed by the technology. The time needed to actively engage in Social Media seems, to most, impossibly invasive. As a result, the improvements it has helped make thus far in areas such as brand recognition, market share growth, increased revenue and profits have been marginal and difficult to measure.

Yet Social Media continues to grow. Exponentially. Managements cannot ignore it. More and more consumers are influenced by it. Understanding and mastering the behaviors, skills and platforms of Social Media are undeniably necessary because consumers are changing the way they form relationships, build trust and make buying decisions based on the effective uses of Social Media.

Mastery of Social Media is not about technology. It is about behavior. Our understanding of effective Social Media behavior is second to none. And because technology and platforms comprise the tools needed to execute behavior, we also have a strong knowledge of Social Media technology.

Our Social Media practice includes these areas:

• Social Media marketing strategies – from development of new strategies to analysis and recommendations for in-place strategies;
• Effective Social Media behaviors – both organizational and individual;
• Platforms;
• Tools;
• The integration of Social Media marketing with all other forms of marketing; and
• Cultural adaption (changes) needed in attitudes and behaviors to create and sustain successful Social Media marketing initiatives.

Strategic Planning:

Strategic planning has been pushed aside in the literature, of late, because of the buzz around new technologies associated with the Internet and telecommunication. It remains, however, as vital to sustainable growth, profitability and long-term success as it ever was.

We have developed a proprietary, Vision and Values based plan structure to assist management in creating what we call “execution driven” strategic plans that become the living, day-to-day foundations for running the business and achieving ambitious goals.

Our approach to Strategic Planning is based on these principles:

• Solid plans begin with a genuine, compelling, clearly expressed Vision. A company’s Vision becomes its North Star, a guide to help determine whether strategies, opportunities, allocations of resources are driving the organization where it needs to go, or are expensive distractions. We have witnessed that consistently through more than 20 years of planning experience.
• Organizations function best when its leaders articulate, define and communicate, to everyone in the company, the organization’s Core Values. It then becomes possible and essential to hold everyone accountable for living those Values – expressing them through everyday behavior in every facet of the business, from the grandest to the most mundane.
• Strategies and tactics that are aligned with an organization’s Core Values have the greatest chance of succeeding. Strategies that conflict with Core Values not only fail, they drain energy and resources in the process.
• Every strategic and tactical element in the plan must name someone who is responsible for its achievement. Responsibility and accountability are essential to success.
• All strategic and tactical elements of the plan should have time requirements for their completion. Without that, accountability suffers and the chances of success diminish.

In helping organizations develop their Strategic Plans, we typically work with the CEO, President and his/her direct reports. Our process consists of some one-on-one meetings/interviews followed by a planning retreat. We then publish the plan, circulate it among the participants in the planning process, refine it, publish and distribute it.

Using a similar structural approach, we also offer more limited programs to help senior executives define, articulate and communicate their Vision and/or Core Values.

Cultural Change:

All significant plans, programs and goals mandate change, for both the organization and the people in it.

This is true for both Social Media marketing initiatives and Strategic Planning. Ambitious plans require breaking from tradition, moving into new areas, adopting, learning, abandoning old habits and obsolete skills and learning new ones.

Successful Social Media Marketing is about learning and adapting to how people behave differently to achieve traditional objectives: to connect, engage, build trust, form relationships (whether transactional or long-term) and transact business.

We assist management in the area of cultural change and adaptation by:

• Assessing the company’s culture, attitude(s), aptitude and willingness to make the behavioral changes needed to succeed in Social Media Marketing;
• Developing Social Media Marketing strategies that are aligned with what the organization’s culture (people) are capable and willing to learn and do: and
• Developing high-level programs and processes for senior management designed to foster and sustain the cultural changes needed for successful execution of Social Marketing initiatives.