James Kyd has always been fascinated with human behavior and how companies, brands and products connect with people.

After working for IBM for more than 15 years and serving as CMO of one of New Zealand's largest tech companies, Tait Communications, James now works as the Global Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing at Xero. Much different from the global powerhouses of his previous workplaces, Xero creates cloud-based accounting software that makes life (and numbers) easier for millions of small business owners around the world.

At Xero, James invites employees to challenge his perspective on everything. "As leaders, [we must create] a psychologically safe environment — [that means] being open about where we're at and who we are, and enabling our team to challenge us on what we're doing and engage in a true conversation with anyone in the business," James says.

James believes challenger brands require what he calls "economic marketers." Without limited resources, you have to focus on the marketing campaigns and messaging that will have the most impact on your business.

How do you determine what resonates most with your core audience? Appeal to emotions. According to James, "If you can ensure there's an emotional connection — something that captures the human spirit and emotive side — you're going to be more powerful in what you're trying to communicate.”

Empower your customers, don't let past trends define your business's path, and stay true to your brand's vision and mission. James advises letting that vision live out through every employee, whether they're a sales rep or the CMO.

"Some of that challenger brand status comes by what our people do every day and we don't need to see or recognize it — it's just who we are and how we are," James says.

Featured Challenger👨 Name: James Kyd

⚙️ How he challenges: James is the Global Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing at Xero, a company that develops cloud-based accounting software for small businesses. He is disrupting the antiquated accounting industry by showing small businesses around the world how easy it is to manage the financial aspects of their business with new technologies.

📊 Company: Xero

💎 Key Quote: "Some of that challenger brand status comes by what our people do every day and we don't need to see or recognize it — it's just who we are and how we are."

🔍 Where to find James: Twitter | LinkedIn

Challenger Wisdom 💡 Create a psychologically safe environment for all employees"As leaders, [we must create] a psychologically safe environment — [that means] being open about where we're at and who we are, and enabling our team to challenge us on what we're doing and engage in a true conversation with anyone in the business. I love when my team might challenge me on if I'm living our values right and getting their perspective and responding to it. That's the kind of effort that is ongoing and kind of relentless. I don't think you can ever take your eye off it, but it does pay massive dividends if you can get it right or at least get on that road."

💡 Challenger brands need to be ‘economic marketers’"As a challenger brand, I think you have to be [an economic marketer] because we don't have all the resources that some of our competitive set or potential competitive set do have. So, I think what you have to do when you're not gifted with all the resources in the world is just to get clear with where you can have the most impact with what you do have. Really think about what it is that's going to resonate and make a difference for you and your business, and then make sure you're investing in those things."

💡 Ensure your marketing has an emotional connection"If you really go back to core biology, the inner parts of the brain — the paleo brain — is driven around those fight and flight mechanisms, which are tightly linked to emotion. So we're emotional creatures first, rational second. And for us as marketers, and I think business leaders, if you can ensure there's an emotional connection — something that captures that human spirit and emotive side — you're going to be more powerful in what you're trying to communicate or get across from the start."

💡 Performance marketing isn't the best in the long run "Another way we look at it from a marketing point of view often is creating the brand and the performance side of marketing. I think that's a dangerous track to fall in and such a simplistic view, and that's where we're seeing a lot of brands go in the last 10 years, where the CMOs have been driven to performance marketing all the time. While that gives you some really great spikes of growth and performance, you lost that emotional connection. I think those brands tend to become weaker over time and resonate less with their audience."

💡 Be confident in the value that you do (and don't) add"If you think about [how small businesses operate] and the fact that they're following their passion — their core role is not to do finance, accounting or invoicing. It's to know our place and figure out how we can connect to them meaningfully, so it makes their day or their business more beautiful, and gives them more confidence, but not try to overstep what we do and be more respectful about the value we add and what we don't add."

💡 Always ask yourself, ‘What do we have to lose?’"The other thing for us is — especially as we go into new markets and even some of our growing markets — keep reminding ourselves, what do we have to lose? We're small, we're growing and our marketplace is huge. We shouldn't ever fall into a mindset of predicting what has gone before, because that will limit us both in how we perform in marketing, but even what we do with our product and our initiatives. We've got to hold on to the vision and what's right for longer term growth and what value we know we can deliver to markets, and keep those things really cool. I think that enables us to be different in many ways."

💡 Prospects are likely already on some kind of customer journey"As we've seen in a lot of research and data, we have a far more informed consumer set, whether you're in B2B or B2C … you've got to realize that even as a salesperson approaches a prospect, it's highly likely they're already on a journey with your brand. Often, of course, marketing helps create those opportunities and pass them to sales, so that sales group needs to be really connected to what messages the brand stands for and how someone's going to have been exposed to that so that they can keep delivering and engaging on that promise and realize how they contribute to that journey."

💡 Deliver content in the most impactful ways possible"What we've started to do is experiment with how to deliver content in a more impactful way. So last year, we ran a global online event called Xero On Air … and that was all about delivering really short, impactful, high-quality content to our audiences online in video format. … One of [our] key learnings is how, if you strive to be impactful and clear in your messaging, you can really compact things down and then just empower that community to follow up with all the other assets."

Top quotes from the episode:Guest name: James Kyd

Quote #1

"That's what great companies do — they empower the creative side of the people in their business and the brand, and then they apply rigorous data and rationalization to it as well. That's the combination that I think works really well."

Quote #2

"Some of that challenger brand status comes by what our people do every day and we don't need to see or recognize it — it's just who we are and how we are."

Quote #3

"Leaders must be motivated by the experience and the overall customer journey, not just their part, and encourage their teams to go that way."