A Better Business Doctrine – Part 1: Assholes are bad for business.

Every doctrine has to start somewhere. Even this one.

Want to boost your repeat business, get tons of free referrals, acquire bunches of new customers and get lots of positive buzz for free? There’s a pretty simple way to do it that doesn’t have to cost you a whole lot. Can you guess what it is?

Simple: Purge your company of assholes.

In fact, let me share item #1 in my Better Business Doctrine with you real quick. Are you ready? Here we go:

The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.

That’s it.

A simple example, from the friendly skies.

Does this seem like common sense? Of course it does. And yet here we are, routinely forced to endure a passive-aggressive or plain argumentative jerks who would rather exercise their “authority” than provide customers – even stressed out customers – with pleasant experiences. Why is that? Let me answer that question: Because companies are still hiring assholes.

Let me give you a few examples just from the past week:

1a. The Continental flight I was on last week

Flight Attendant (sternly) to a passenger in the process of turning off their iPad, just not quickly enough: “SIR! I need you to turn that off right now!” (Stares angrily at passenger until the device is turned off, and walks away, visibly annoyed.)

This probably happens to flight crews 20+ times per day. Every time a plane pushes off from the gate and prepares its approach, passengers in the middle of a song, of a paragraph, of a game of Angry Birds or Brick Breaker take an extra 10-30 seconds to “comply” with the “please turn off your electronic devices at this time” announcement on the PA. I get it. It probably gets annoying after a while. But guess what: You’re a flight attendant. Asking people to turn off their electronic toys comes with the job. You don’t have to be an asshole about it. Case in point:

1b: The Delta flight I was on the following day

– Flight Attendant (with a smile, jokingly) to a passenger so absorbed by what he was reading that he missed the “turn off your electronic devices” announcement and kept his Kindle going: “Good book?”

– Passenger, sensing that he was the object of the flight attendant’s attention, looks up from his device: “I’m sorry?”

– Flight Attendant, nonchalantly points at the Kindle: “Good reading?”

– Passenger, smiling back: “Yeah. Very!” (Gets it. Laughs. Starts to look for the “off” button.)

– Flight attendant: “You can turn it back on as soon as we’re on the ground.” (Walks away. Stops. Turns around.) “The book. What is it?”

Passenger answers. Flight attendant repeats the title as if to remember it, nods as if interested, and returns to his station.

The difference between the two isn’t training or pay. It isn’t corporate policy or procedure. It isn’t even company culture. The difference between the two occurrences is this:

One of these flight attendants, at some point during the course of her day, week, month, year or career, decided to let her asshole flag fly. The other one didn’t.

The basic impact of an asshole on your customers

How every asshole on your payroll affects your brand equity and impacts your business on a daily basis.

The impact of just one asshole’s behavior in a customer-facing role doesn’t stop with the one customer they treat poorly. Ten rows of passengers witnessed the exchanges on both flights, and I can guarantee that the ten rows on the Continental flight (30 passengers) were not impressed, while those on the Delta flight surely were. The ramifications of this are simple:

Whatever shot Continental had at influencing these 30 people to develop a preference for flying its friendly skies, for being more loyal, for looking to book future flights with them first, just flew out the window, not because of price, not because of delays, not because the plane was dirty. The price was great. The plane left on time and was impeccable. Continental did everything right except one thing: Someone there allowed an asshole (and probably more than one) to take on a key customer service role. Delta, on the other hand, scored some points.

And just to be fair, I’ve run into my fair of assholes working for Delta too. Few domestic US airlines seem immune to this phenomenon these days, except for perhaps Alaska Air, whose service and hiring practices, to my knowledge are still impeccable.

That said, my experience with Delta flight crews this week was stellar, and not just because of this little anecdote. (Expect another post about what else happened very soon.) The difference between the two airlines for me was limited to my experience, as it is for all of us. Before the recommendations and the word-of-mouth and the marketing, our own experience shapes our bias.

Every positive experience creates positive associations with a brand, while every negative experience creates a negative association with a brand. More positive than negative = positive bias, preference, even loyalty. Consistent negative experiences (especially those that repeat themselves, like frequent delays, rude employees, apathetic managers, or being talked down to by an unprofessional asshole) = negative bias, preference for your competitors instead of you, and cynicism towards your brand.

The wheels of this mental equation – more emotional than empirical – start turning every time the thought of your brand comes up, and you need to understand it isn’t linear. The way we process the negative and the positive isn’t as balanced as you might think. For whatever reason, until you have grown into a loyal fan of the brand, the equation tends to be heavily weighed towards the negative: What you did right six months ago – or for the last thirty years,- doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you did wrong yesterday or just last week. That’s part 1 of how the mental math of brand experiences work. Part 2 is this: People will easily forgive incidents and accidents: Lost luggage, no available upgrades, long lines at the counter, mechanical problems, etc. Those things are out of your control, and once the anger and frustration subside, they’ll get it. Those negative impressions will evaporate. But one thing customers won’t forgive of any company: Being deliberately treated badly by an asshole.

Just as being an asshole  is a choice, – especially when dealing with a customer – hiring an asshole and keeping them on staff is also a choice. Because of this immutable fact, every company bears its part of responsibility in the hiring and promoting of assholes. Customers instinctively understand this, which is why when they run into one of your company’s assholes, they don’t blame the asshole for treating them poorly, they blame you. They blame the brand. The negative association they take home with them isn’t with that person (whose name and face they will forget inside of a week), but with you. Your assholes are faceless. All customers remember is the context: You. Your company. Your brand. The asshole just goes on being an asshole day after day, happy to have a job that pays him – even rewards him – for being a complete raging asshole all day long.

At the end of their shift, what you have to understand is that assholes in your employ don’t lose customers. You do. You spend your resources bringing them to the cash register, and every asshole on your staff spends all day making sure they never come back.

For this reason if none other, choose and evaluate your employees carefully.

The impact of just one asshole - amplified by social media

The real cost of letting assholes poison your brand from the inside.

If you are in business and have employees, let me be VERY clear about this: You are always only one asshole away from losing your best customer. The more assholes you have on staff, the faster and more often this will happen.

Not only that, but assholes tend to turn off, not only the one customer they happen to be unpleasant to, but everyone within earshot as well.

And today, ladies and gentlemen, “within earshot” isn’t just the ten rows on the plane or the ten people in the store waiting to check out. It is also potentially the hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Twitter users who might get a glimpse of that negative experience and be turned off in turn. Even millions, for that matter. (See previous 2 images, inspired by David Armano’s “Influence Ripples” theory (Edelman), below:)

David Armano's "Influence Ripples" (Edelman)

Let me give this a financial angle for you: Over the course of a year, one asshole on your staff, just one, can invalidate every dime your company has spent on advertising, marketing and PR. That’s the real liability of assholes. For small businesses, an asshole might only cost you $10,000 in wasted marketing, messaging or brand positioning. If you’re a bigger company, the same asshole (or a whole army of them, which is more likely) could cost you hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted marketing and brand management dollars.

That was part 1 of that equation. Part 2 is measured in lost revenue from disappointed customers taking their business elsewhere (your competitors thank you), lost revenue from all of the net new customers delighted customers would have recommended you to (but didn’t, because your assholes chased them away), and so on.

As a result, the higher the proportion of assholes to caring professionals a company has on staff, the more likely it is to have to spend more and more on marketing (with increasingly diminishing returns), while customer retention falls flat and even starts to dip into the red. Assholes aren’t just bad for customer service or your brand’s image. Assholes are bad for business. They are a counter-current to your hopes and dreams. They are the cancer that first weighs you down, then eventually makes your brand begin to fail, then wither, then die.

So let me repeat today’s lesson: The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.

Don’t believe me? Ask Zappos. If you have never heard of Zappos, they sell shoes on the internet. That’s it. Well… LOTS of shoes. So many in fact that Amazon bought them for a pretty penny. Not only that, but Amazon decided not to make any major changes to Zappos’ leadership or culture. They left Zappos alone because the model works well just as it is. What’s Zappos’ secret? The customer experiences they create are stellar. Why are they stellar? Because Zappos pretty much has a “no asshole on staff” policy. Their hiring practices focus on this, and for good reason: They know that a happy customer is a loyal customer.

The simple truth (and we all know this) is that happy customers are good for business. In fact, no. They are GREAT for business: The happier a customer is, the more likely it is that they will come back, spend more, spend more often, and recommend you to all their friends. This is what you want. This is what makes businesses insanely successful. This. You don’t have to invent the iPad to be a huge success. Zappos just sells shoes on the internet. Virgin Airlines just flies people from airport to airport. Intercontinental Hotels (disclosure: client) are basically just… hotels. We’re not talking space walks or time travel, here. Your favorite restaurant, your favorite coffee shop, your favorite mechanic, none of them necessarily reinvented the wheel, right? They didn’t win a Nobel prize for revolutionizing their industries. No. What they did was this: They figured out that a happy customer is good for business, so they focused on that. They earned your trust, your respect and your loyalty. Want to know how they did that? By giving you theirs.

Let me let you in on a little secret: An asshole doesn’t think that way. An asshole doesn’t think about happy customers. He doesn’t care about happy customers. An asshole only thinks about himself: His own mood, his own frustrations, his own personal dramas, his own power trips. An asshole doesn’t give anyone their trust, respect or loyalty. Assholes just don’t think that way. And that is precisely the rub: No matter how well you pay them, you can’t make assholes give a shit. And that is bad for business. Very bad.

A fork in the road for every organization:

Do you know one way to make sure your customers are always happy? Only hire people who want your customers to be happy too. People who want to be helpful, who want to fix problems, who take pride in making someone’s day better instead of worse. People who genuinely want to see the company do well. People with pride and self respect and ambition beyond their own bank account or advancement. Do you think this is too hard? It isn’t. Just hire better.

Want to guess how to guarantee that your customers will not be happy? Hire assholes to take care of them. (It works every time.)

That’s your choice: Door A or Door B.

Door A: Hire super nice, helpful people and your business will soar.

Door B: Hire assholes, and your business will forever struggle to stay afloat.

Every time you run into one of your employees (or candidates) and he or she acts like an asshole, I want you to think about that. I want you to think about how much harder you want to have to work to make your business successful once they start pissing off every customer and client they come in contact with.

Taking a step back so you can see your entire business now, how many assholes do you really want on your payroll, and how many customers do you want to put them in front of? Pull out a piece of paper and write down a number. Do it. Write it down. How many assholes do you want on your payroll?

Next to that number, write down how many assholes you have on your payroll now. Go through your mental org chart, and start counting them in your head. When you’re done, write down how many assholes you know are in your company right now. If that number is higher than the first number you wrote down, you have some cleaning up to do.

In closing, let me leave you with the top 5 ways to make sure that your company starts becoming asshole-proof.

Top 5 ways of asshole-proofing your company:

1. Don’t hire assholes. They are bad for business, and they breed inside organizations like weeds.

2. Don’t promote assholes. The only thing worse than an asshole is an asshole with authority (including the authority to hire and promote assholes when you aren’t paying attention).

3. Give your current assholes the “opportunity” to go work for your fiercest competitor. Do this immediately. Make sure the door doesn’t hit them in the ass on their way out.

4. Once removed, replace your former assholes with nice, smart friendly people. (They’re out there and they want to work for you, but your assholes probably already turned them down. Go find them and invite them back.)

5. Reward all of your employees for NOT being assholes.

That just about takes care of it for today. Any questions?

Inspired (in a good way) by conversations with Julien Smith, Geoff Livingston, Keith Burtis, Chris Brogan, Kristi Colvin, Tyler Durden, Jeffrey Jacobs, Peter Shankman, among others.

*          *          *

And in case you haven’t picked one up yet (or your favorite client seems to be having trouble figuring out how to bring social media into their organization), you can pick up a fresh copy of Social Media ROI at fine book stores everywhere. If you have sworn off paper, you can also download it for iPad, Kindle, Nook or other e-formats at www.smroi.net.

(Click here for details, or to sample a free chapter.)

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Open letter to UPS.

Dear UPS,

I don’t mind when you try to deliver a package after 8pm instead of… you know… typical delivery hours. I get it: Your driver had a busy day and he is working extra long hours to make sure I get my package today instead of tomorrow. I can’t fault you for going the extra mile. Kudos to you. I appreciate it.

But here’s the thing: When the note you leave on my door says that you will come back AFTER 5pm the next day to try again, at least TRY to stick to that little scheduling contract between us that you took the time to draft. See, I rearranged my schedule to make sure I would be here when you said you would be back. The least you can do is keep up your side of the bargain, right? … Right?

But this is what you just did: On 4/14, you tried to deliver a package after 8pm, taking a chance that I would be there. The note you left on my door said you would come back on 5/15 after 5pm. Check out the circled “FRI” (Friday) and “After 5:00” boxes in the image below:

Today is 5/15, so I made sure to be here by 4:30 pm, just in case you were a little early. Here is what my watch said ten minutes after getting home:

But guess what: You had already come by. When did you knock on my door, UPS? 2:00pm? 3:00pm? 4:00pm? Weren’t you supposed to come by AFTER 5pm? What’s the deal?

Your new note (see below) says you will try for the third and final time on 4/18 (MON) between 2pm and 5pm. See the checked boxes in the image below:

My question to you is… when exactly should I be here waiting for you on Monday: 8am? 10pm? Should I wait for you at all? Does Monday really mean Tuesday? Or tomorrow – Saturday?

This wouldn’t be a big deal if it didn’t happen regularly, and not just to me.

So… UPS, while I enjoy your cool “logistics” ad campaign, I want to bring to your attention the reality of your… “logistics” out here on the receiving end of your business, courtesy of CollegeHumor.com:

(If the video doesn’t play for you, go watch it here.)

Do you think that video would have been made if it weren’t a widespread problem? Maybe something you should look into?

And yes, just in case you were wondering, I have nothing better to do than play “wait for the delivery man” with you all day.  All week, even. Know what I mean? Me and tens of thousands of increasingly annoyed customers looking at FedEx instead of Brown.

Why are we all looking for an alternative? Because every time you waste our time AND don’t deliver on your most basic promises, you give us a reason not to trust you… and to stop doing business with you. I really want to like you. I do. But you’re making it pretty hard. Think about how many people and businesses you turn away like this every day. Every week. Every month. Every year. How much is this inability to keep your word, this chronic “let’s annoy our customers as much as possible by not delivering when we say we will” really costing you? Think about it.

So here’s an idea: Either make sure you deliver parcels when you say you will, or, if you can’t work that into your “logistics,” just leave the date and time blank on your delivery notices. The operational lesson here: If you can’t figure out how to deliver on schedule yet, at least do us the courtesy of not wasting our time.

Kthxbye.

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Care or die: Because customer loyalty isn’t really rocket science.

If you don’t care about your customers (or as Gary Vaynerchuck would say, “if you don’t give a f*ck about your customers,”) you are wasting your time with social media.

Your customers aren’t wallet with legs. They are people, and here is the thing about people: People prefer to do business with people, companies and brands they like; people, companies and brands that make them feel good; people, companies and brands they trust; people, companies and brands they feel a connection with.

I don’t care how good your content is and how many people visit your site. Keep telling me how many fans and followers you have, and how many unique visitors your website gets. That all sounds great, and yeah, it looks pretty swell on paper. But the reality of your situation is this: If you don’t care about your customers, they will sense it, and they will return your apathy.

Do you know how to inspire loyalty in your customers? I’ll tell you: It isn’t by training them to expect 20% off or by sending them coupons in the mail. It isn’t by sending them rebate checks or making every tenth drink free. You inspire loyalty in your customers by demonstrating your loyalty towards your customers. That’s right: You have to give before you can receive. You, as a company, have to set the tone, and the only way to do that is to give a shit.

I walked into a Staples yesterday to buy a cartridge of ink toner. The plan: $22. I also walked out with an i-Omega portable hard drive and a few 4GB thumb drives for Red Chair. The outcome: $100+. You know how that happened? Simple: From the moment I walked into that store, its employees greeted me with smiles and treated me like they would a friend. They didn’t try to sell me anything, they didn’t push me towards any upgrades, and none of it felt contrived. They just seemed to care. Not only did the store increase its yield in this instance (and not by a mere 10-20%), it also ensured that next time I need something for the office, I will shop there instead of online or across the street at one of their competitors’ locations.

Staples loyalty verdict: Very high.

Compare that with my latest experiences at Bloom (a grocery store), where none of the people who work there even bother to make eye contact with me.

Bloom loyalty verdict: You must be joking.

Social media is not just another set of marketing channels for companies to push content and messaging. Sure, you can use it as a marketing channel (in moderation) but the power of the space is to scale those 1-1 interactions customers have around brands and the experiences they foster. Companies whose leaders and employees care tend to shine in Social Media. Companies whose employees and managers don’t care, even when they produce decent content, go nowhere in the space.

As a quick illustration of of what I mean, let us turn to Twitter: The marketing world’s 140-character “what the hell are we supposed to do with this channel” puzzle du jour.

I am going to show you two examples now. One of a beverage company that cares about its customers, and one of a beverage company that cares mostly about itself… and even talks to itself, though mostly to pat itself on the back for being like, awesome. You decide which is which.

Incidentally, it might be worth noting that one of these two companies has kind of struggled to acquire its 46,000 followers on Twitter over the last 2 years or so. The other has well over a million. Guess which is which. (Hint as to why: One focuses on customers and the other focuses on itself.)

Also, in case it wasn’t obvious, nothing says “I don’t really give a shit about you but heck, maybe you’ll buy something anyway” like an auto DM on Twitter. Don’t know what I am talking about? Here are some examples:

My favorite thing about those automated “hi, I really care” little nuggets of gold is the fact that so many of them get cut short: Look at the @Retail_City and @jobpsalms auto-DMs above. Okay, Job. I’ll “try to keep it REAL” if you d…

Way to make a good first impression in a SOCIAL medium. As executives, employees, brand ambassadors and representatives of your respective companies, do you walk around with a recording of yourself at parties and industry events? When someone shakes your hand, do you step aside so an assistant can hand them your card and deliver a 140-character sales pitch? When a client or customer walks up to you and says “hey, I’m glad I ran into you. I have a problem with the thing I bought from you,” do you respond by handing them a brochure and walking away? Of course not. So why is it that so many companies think that this is acceptable behavior in the social media space?

Give a shit. It really isn’t that complicated. If you just do that, if you start there, everything will fall into place. If you don’t give a shit, and you show it by monologuing with “content” and selling all day, guess what: You’ve already lost to the guy in your industry who takes the time to actually shake hands, and makes time for real dialog. It was always this way, but the integration of social media into the business world has amplified the effect: If as a company, you demonstrate daily that don’t give a shit about your customers, they will return the favor by not giving a shit about you. The implications are simple: The more customers care about you, the more likely it is that you will have a good quarter. The less they care about you, the more likely it is that you will have a lousy quarter. Some things, you can’t automate or outsource. Your relationship with customers is one of them. That applies to the web as well as the “in store” experience.

So here’s a thought: Instead of spending so much time working on your “content strategy,” your “digital strategy” and your “social media strategy,” why don’t you focus on your “we give a shit” strategy? Try that for a month and see what happens. Trust me, the “content,” “digital” and “social media” will take care of themselves. You will barely be able to keep up – and that will be a good thing.

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Back from Dubai.

I wanted to write an epic post about my experiences in Dubai last week (and I may yet), but instead let me just say this, because it’s on my mind:

It’s a big world out there. Those of you trying to be the next Seth Godin, the next Tony Robbins, the next Peter Drucker, you’re wasting your time. They’re all great people. They know their stuff. And they are very good at being Seth Godin, Tony Robbins and Peter Drucker, but you’re chasing the wrong dream. You’re wasting your time. And you’re acting like a complete jackass trying to be something (and someone) you are not.

Let me explain. I spent last week listening to two three types of people:

The first had problems they needed to solve – How do I get more customers? How do I keep my customers from abandoning me? How do I grow my program? How do I bring more investment into my country? How do I secure 5% more market share? How do I change perceptions? How do I accelerate adoption of my technology?

The second had ideas, some of which might very well solve some of the problems brought up by the first category. These were smart, intuitive, compassionate, clever little entrepreneurs with warm smiles and dependable handshakes. People who watch and listen more than they speak. People who solve rather than sell. People who care more about results for their clients and customers than their own fame or status. I like those guys. We get along. We find in each other a common trait, and every meeting feels a lot like running into an old friend.

And then there was the third type. The salesmen. The people selling crap nobody needs. The guys who talk more than they listen. The guys who haven’t had an original thought in over a decade but still think their limited view of the world is more relevant than that of a 20-something tapped into his demographic. The guys who can step off a jumbo jet, spend less than 24 hours in a foreign country – most of which they spent hiding in their hotel rooms – and tell everyone there how to fix all their problems. The guys who think that because they wrote a book twenty years ago, they are now infallible one-man think tanks. The guys who start believing their own PR, or their own “press,” as they say. Here’s a reality you need to come to terms with: If you started off selling bullshit, your bullshit doesn’t magically turn into gold a few books and a couple of decades later.

Be careful what you decide to sell today, boys and girls, because you might still be selling it twenty years from now. And what you sell ends up defining you a lot more than you realize.

Don’t put all your eggs in the celebrity consultant basket. That gig isn’t what you think.  Don’t go there unless you want to reach the end of your “career” as a punch-line. There’s far less money in it than you think, and no dignity whatsoever. What’s worse is this: Instead of being the guy who spent his career solving problems for the first category of person I mentioned here today, instead of creating legitimate value, you end up spending the best years of what could have been a fruitful career selling something that people don’t need: Your “personal brand.” Put a lid on that little ego trip right now, before it swallows you whole.

What you should focus on is this: Being the second kind of person mentioned above. The kind that listens more and speaks less. The kind that cares about doing a great job. The kind with an eye for positive change. The kind that doesn’t spend every waking moment trying to sell themselves to conferences, to publishers, to CNN, to whomever might be dumb enough not to see through the shameless self-promotion. It doesn’t mean you won’t speak at conferences and won’t be published. It doesn’t mean you won’t get to travel to cool places every few months if that’s what you want to do. What it means is that if you focus on being that second type of person, if you focus on improving the lives (and businesses of others) instead of focusing on improving your brand, status and personal myth of success, you might actually get it all. Everything you’ve ever wanted. And as a bonus, you won’t spend the next twenty years being a parasite.

The world needs you to stop focusing so much on yourself and to turn that brilliant little mind of yours outward instead of inward. Every company in the world is struggling right now. Companies in every country, from the US to Senegal, and from Australia to the Emirates are looking for help, for solutions, for insights. The last thing they need from you or anyone else is more bullshit. There’s already more than enough of that for everyone to choke on ten times over. They need real help. They need that second category of person: Problem-solvers. Dependable helpers. True partners. Be that. That’s where the value is, not in selling your “personal brand,” your trademarked 10-rules or 20-step program, certification or cookie-cutter ROI calculator. The value of that is zero. Zip. Stop it.

Instead, try this on for size: Get off the “I want to be a social media rock star” train and start helping. I swear your career prospects will improve FAST. Not only that, but you will rediscover how good it feels to be part of something bigger and greater than “me, Inc.”, to see your efforts improve the lives of other people, not just your own. True success comes to those on this path, not on the other. Starting as soon as you can wrap your head around this idea, focus on solving real problems. If they involve social media, great. If they don’t, so what? It’s a big world out there. Social media and the US fishbowl are only a very small little sliver of it.

Think bigger. The world needs you to.

 

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Ads vs. reality: The fast food stink test.

Source: http://www.boredpanda.com

This. Is. Brilliant. Every time someone does a piece like this, I find myself grinning ear to ear.

First, some attribution: The piece, published by www.boredpanda.com is tagged as a guest post by Dario D., who first published his images on his own site www.alphaila.com. I recommend that you check them both out for the full feature. Well worth a few minutes of your time.

The premise (from Dario):

So, I went to some fast food places (I won’t say “restaurants”, just “places”), and picked up burgers/tacos, so I could compare them with the ads.

I brought the “food” home (different stuff over 3 nights), tossed it into my photography studio, and did some ad-style shoots (with pictures of the official ads on my computer next to me, so I could match the lighting/angles/etc).

The result, of course is a set of gems (go see them all) that includes this other killer side by side dose of reality:

source: http://www.boredpanda.com

Dario goes on:

Don’t ask me how this advertising is legal. […] I happily pitch the idea that lawmakers are committing a crime against us people by allowing us to be continually insulted by this advertising […]  in defiance of human perception.

He has a point. The pictures don’t lie.

Compare this kind of advertising to anything else: Cars, candy, clothing, drinks, watches, laptops, tennis rackets, video games, etc.. Most products, when depicted in photographs used for marketing purposes are pretty close to what you can expect to get. In this particular industry, however, not so much.

Remember the scene from the movie “Falling Down,” back in the post Reagan 1990’s, in which Michael Douglas’ character (as mentally imbalanced as he may be) throws a fit over this very affront to human intelligence. Fast-forward to 04:06, towards the end of the clip to see what happens. Take a look:

If you have time, watch the whole scene from the beginning. It’s a classic.

The lesson here isn’t that false advertising exists, or that fast food companies are sometimes unethical with their marketing. The lesson is this: Promises matter. The degree to which customers’ expectations are met is the currency by which a brand’s worth is measured. In the era of social media, global word-of-mouth, and in markets where the abundance of choices can send yesterday’s market leaders careening into a pit of obsolescence, the foundations upon which you build your brand’s future cannot be based on institutionalized broken promises. Breeding cynicism about your products is just not good policy.

Now apply this thinking to your business. Put your marketing through the same test. Does it pass muster, or like these images above, is there a gap between promise and delivery?

Now ask yourself this: Which do you believe is the better choice to build a sustainable brand: Disappointing customers, or delighting them?

PS: Social Media “gurus,” consultants and “certifying bodies,” take a long hard look at what you are selling, and how you are selling it.

Cheers,

Olivier

Additional resources: This post’s grandaddy (click here).

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Love: How the essence of a brand fuels its purpose.

Buying a product. Bringing it home. Taking it out of the box. Pressing PLAY. Turning the first page. Pulling the cork. Clipping-in. Hitting the ignition. Biting into the first slice. Slipping into it. Walking into the new store. Spraying it on. Plugging it in. Connecting the pieces. Reading the owner’s manual. Shifting up. Writing your name on it. Clicking SEND on the order form. Taking it for a spin. Just looking at it. Sharing it with a loved one. Holding it in your hand.

It should always feel like this.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a restaurant, a retail store, a website, a bank, a doctor’s office, a manufacturing plant or a creative firm; ask yourself this: Is the work you are doing today going to have that kind of effect on your customers? On your clients? On your fans?

Is your work really going to connect with the people you are doing this for?

Are they going to fall in love with it? Is it going to impact their lives? Is it going to inspire them? Make them smile? Wow them?

When they talk to their friends about you, will it be with awe? Will they be singing your praises?

Are you a lovebrand? (Incidentally, check out Lovemarks.com. Interesting little concept.)

If not, stop what you’re doing. Put your pen down. Look around you. Think about why you’re there, sitting at your desk. Think about the project you’re working on. It could be a product launch. It could be a new menu. It could be a new floor display. A promotion. A party. A speech.

It could be anything.

Remarkable always hits the mark. Lovebrands always win.

The key to becoming a lovebrand is simply to love your customers first. I mean… seriously. Love them. Fall in love with them.

I’m not kidding.

Read Peter Drucker’s words in this post about purpose.

If you’re a coffee shop, love them enough to give them the best cup of coffee they’ve ever had. If you’re a retail outlet, give them the best shopping experience they’ve ever had. Love them like you love a best friend. Do what you know will make them happy. Get to a point where you truly feel joy and pride when they love what you’ve done for them. When it enriches their lives. When you truly become part of it in some way.

Everything you do should be for them, not for you.

What you do, what your company is about, how you design your products, how you interact with your customers, none of it isn’t about like. It’s about love.

Either you’re involved in a wonderful love affair with your customers and clients, or you aren’t.

That is what fundamentally sets great brands apart from the rest of the crowd: Love.

Talk to a graphic designer about their Mac. Talk to a driver about their BMW. Talk to a photographer about their Canon lenses. Talk to a foodie about their favorite dessert. Love.

So, once again…

Buying a product. Bringing it home. Taking it out of the box. Pressing PLAY. Turning the first page. Pulling the cork. Clipping-in. Biting into the first slice. Slipping into it. Walking into the new store. Spraying it on. Plugging it in. Connecting the pieces. Reading the owner’s manual. Taking it for a spin. Just looking at it. Sharing it with a loved one. Holding it in your hand.

It should always feel like this.

photo copyright olivier blanchard 2005

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Stand Out.

Word to the wise: If you don’t stand out in some way, you’re done.

You might be able to exist, you might manage to survive, but that’s all you’ll ever have to look forward to. You can be a one-man show and still be corporate. Don’t do it. Don’t waste your time being just like everyone else. Don’t waste your soul on being average.

Give yourself more credit. Everyone has strengths. Everyone has talents and abilities. Not using them every day even in some small way is such a shame it ought to be a crime. (And it’s bad business to boot.)

Whether you’re a photography studio, a web design firm, a sports magazine, a sportswear company, a triathlon shop or an antique furniture store, you either stand out, or someone who does will come along to wow your audience and steal your business right from under your nose.

Trust me on this: you can’t afford to be average. Even if you’ve based your entire business model on the lowest price-points, on bare-bones bottom-line imports, you have to take your uniqueness as far as humanly possible… and then some.

Yes, even accounting and financial services firms can stand out. Restaurants. Retail outlets. Breweries. Day care centers. Schools. Law offices. Graphic design firms. Janitorial services agencies. Manufacturing plants. It doesn’t matter. Your industry and specialty are irrelevant. Anyone can stand out.

Here’s a tip for you: The best way to stand out in a crowd is simply to stand for something. Producing the most useful online content for your users. Making it easy for your customers to get information on products before they shop. Providing your clients with the best after-sale service in the industry. Brewing the best cup of coffee in the world. Turning boring shopping experiences into something fun and enjoyable. Returning calls faster than anyone else. Being the easiest company your customers have ever had the pleasure to do business with.

Business models are just templates, folks. They’re the framework. Marketing, advertising, branding, PR, all of these things are great, but remember that you can customize your business all on your own too. From packaging to billing to the way you answer the phones. From the grade of toilet paper you stock in your bathrooms to the way you hire new talent. From the corners you will never, ever cut to the crazy ideas you decide to put stock into. From the stand you take on community issues to the tone of the dialogue you foster with your customers. It is all in your hands.

Stand for something. Stand out. Be extraordinary, if only for a year, if only in the eyes of a handful of customers. If only during the course of a single phone call.

Be memorable.

Be worthy of note.

Don’t ever, ever, ever settle for safe or average or just good enough. Not in the big things. Not in the small things.

Know who you are and who you want to be as a person, as a company, as a brand, and just do it.

No one – let me repeat this – no one is standing in your way.

Now go out there and conquer something.

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Where Do Brands Go To Die? Part 2: The Diagnosis

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at what it takes for business managers and CMOs to come to accept that their brand is in trouble. We also discussed why it is often difficult for them to admit that they need help, and how to get over that fear-driven reflex.

Today, we are going to look at the next step in fixing a broken or distressed brand: Diagnosing the problem – which usually involves hiring a specialized firm, agency or individual with the skills, insight and experience to help you navigate through this crucial step. (If you screw this one up, everything that comes later is based on either false or incomplete assumptions – or both, so this isn’t a part of the process you want to entrust just anyone with.)

I apologize in advance if what we discuss today seems… really basic. If your brand is doing great, you probably already know this stuff. It’s common sense. It’s unlikely that you’ll learn anything new here today. But for those of you with tanking brands, going back to basics is where you need to start, so here we go:

Priority Number One: Securing the right partnership.

We’ve established that performing surgery on yourself while you’re crashing probably isn’t the best idea. You probably want to look into hiring outside help to guide you through the steps and make sure your brand rescue doesn’t end up in a complete ass-backwards disaster. (Remember that you didn’t get in trouble by being particularly good at making all the right decisions: Be humble, be smart, put your ego(s) aside, and hire a professional.)

How do you find the right person or firm? Well, once you’ve established that they aren’t in the yellow pages, you ask around. If that doesn’t work, hit the marketing and brand development blogs. Find out who the practitioners are. It’s a small community. There may only be 100 such individuals or organizations in North America, so you won’t be overwhelmed with choices. Once you’ve narrowed down your search to this level, read their blogs and e-books. Look into what they have done for other companies, who they’ve worked with, and what kinds of recommendations they are getting. If they strike a note with you, then it’s time to make contact. If not, keep looking.

Ideally, they will be in your part of the country, but if they aren’t, that’s okay too. Business travel is a part of life nowadays, and collaborative tools make it easier than ever to work remotely as well. As the world keeps getting flatter, distance becomes less relevant each day. What is most important is finding the right fit.

Speaking of fit, here are a few questions you will want to ask yourself during the interview process:

1. Does this person or firm know what they are talking about? Do they know what they’re doing? Or is all that chatter just posturing?
2. Will this person be able to work with my staff, my bosses, and our outside agencies (PR, ad, etc.), or be a giant pain?
3. Does this person or firm fit into my budget?
4. Does this person or firm have a specific method for measuring our improvement and performance right from the start?
5. Does this person appreciate the importance of delivering short term results, not just mid-to-long term results?
6. Is this person there to sell me services, or actually deliver results?

I can’t stress this enough: You want every question to be answered by a resounding YES. If your brand is in distress, 3 out of 5 won’t cut it. Not even 5 out of 6 You can’t afford to settle for “good enough” with this type of project. Not if you want to get your brand/company back on track now and… well, actually save it.

This is your litmus test for separating a good firm, agency or practitioner from the right one for your current situation.

And if you’re lucky, the one you pick won’t already be booked solid for the next six months. (Cross your fingers.)

Beginning the diagnostic process: Finding out what is actually eating away at your brand.

Okay. Now that you’ve partnered with the right talent (hopefully) and everyone has gotten acquainted, it’s time to get busy. The process typically begins with an immediate 360-degree analysis of your business and of your industry: Who buys your stuff and why? Who buys your competitors’ stuff and why? Who loves you and why? Who hates you and why? How do you engage with your customers? How are you not engaging with your customers? Which marketing tactics work for you and which ones don’t (and why)? If you used to be the market leader once, what changed? What do your employees think about your company and your products? How does this impact core aspects of your business like innovation, talent retention and sales? The list goes on, but you get the idea. Common sense stuff right? You would think. Except if your brand is in the tank, none of this may be all that obvious to the people making decisions, is it.

The trick here is two-fold: 1) You have to know what questions to ask, which isn’t always obvious when you are knee-deep in running a business every day, and 2) You have to understand exactly how to measure performance (including but not limited to R.O.I.) and put the data in the right context for each one of these elements. This type of brand mapping is one of the key components of the diagnostic step. We’ll get more into some of these in Part 3 of the series. (Like a puzzle, the analysis is composed of MANY parts, but don’t worry: It isn’t that hard to put it all together fast if you know how.)

For now, let’s tackle the first layer of the onion. The question here is simple: If you could boil down your brand’s problem to a thirty-second assessment, what would it be? To make it easy on you, I have listed the four most common answers below. There are more, but let’s keep it simple.

Here, then, are the four most common scenarios that lead to the distress and eventual death of a brand:

1. Fading brand Relevance: Many companies either go through severe downturns in relevance. Maybe you were the “it” company in your market ten years ago, but fresh newcomers have shoved you aside. Maybe you’ve grown too big and complacent. Maybe you have lost touch with your customers’ needs and fans’ expectations. In these cases, a weakened brand can drag a business down and kill it.
2. Failure to achieve brand relevance: Many companies simply never manage to transition from being a business with a logo to being an actual brand. They just haven’t found their voice yet. Their purpose. Their place. They are little more than an “also in” company. They manage to scrape by, but with budgets shrinking and new players gaining market share, time is running out.
3. Brand implosion: You talked a good game, created inspiring and engaging marketing and PR, got people all excited about you… but you didn’t keep your promises. Customers are outraged. Your name is mud. Your customers are leaving you for your competitors. Game over?
4. Brand-rich, cash-poor: Everyone loves your products and what you stand for. Your customers (fans) have made you part of their lifestyle and you get fantastic reviews across the board. Still, the balance sheet is in the red and you can’t keep your business afloat. Maybe you’re upside down on business loans, or your next round of funding dried up. Maybe your P&L is a disaster, or your parent company has lost interest in you. Whatever the case may be, your business is dying in spite of having created a true lovebrand. How do you save yourself?

In some cases, a sick brand may be looking at more than one of the above problems (most likely a coupling of either #1, #2, or #3 with #4).

More often than not, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out which of the above issues an ailing brand is dealing with. That being said, beware the hasty assumption: One symptom or scenario can hide another and distract you from your problem’s root cause. (One of the most immediate benefits of a properly administered 360 analysis is that it will either confirm or re-frame that initial assumption for you.)

Example: Company XYZ’s leadership is convinced that they are in situation #1 (fading brand relevance), and at first glance, they appear to be right. But as the 360 analysis starts to take shape, it becomes clear that the reason why the brand’s relevance has been fading for the last six years is because their customers are angry about a number of things, like inconsistent product quality, lousy customer service and frustrating warranty/exchange policies. Brand XYZ is actually in a #3 scenario (brand implosion), not a #1 scenario. The message got muddled because company XYZ hasn’t done a very good job at listening to its customers’ opinions (which is a topic we will revisit in the next couple of installments). The lesson here is obvious: One very nagging symptom can easily distract everyone and hide the true cause of a brand’s woes. Fail to render the correct diagnosis the first time, and your entire treatment will be worthless. This kind of mistake so late in the game can cost a brand a lot more than just time and money.

Note from the above example that if your brand practitioner only lives in the Marketing world, his/her usefulness will be… limited. A 360 analysis involves every department in the company, not just marketing (or traditionally “brand” related) functions.

Just like a good doctor makes sure to treat the disease rather than the symptoms, an experienced brand practitioner knows how to properly diagnose and treat the root cause of a distressed brand’s troubles as opposed to its more superficial problems.

Cause and Effect: Starting the process of connecting the dots.

As an added layer of complexity, brand practitioners don’t just have to concern themselves with the what and how questions, but also the why: “Why is this brand failing? Why are this company’s customers jumping ship? Why is its customer service so lousy? Why are its products not as popular as they once were? Why has the main topic of conversation shifted from design and user delight to price? This is the next layer of the 360 analysis: For every action, there is a reaction. If we can identify the reactions (sales slumping, customers switching to a competitor’s product, increases in returns or warranty claims), we can work our way back to the actions that brought them about. It takes a little bit of detective work, but the beauty of the 360 analysis mechanism is that it makes the process pretty swift.

As a bonus, the action-reaction relationships can be pretty easily mapped for the client. As we’ll see in Part 5 (making sure the brand doesn’t suffer a relapse), this mapping/clarifying process actually being delivered and taught to the client is absolutely fundamental to the success of any brand rescue endeavor: Once business managers fully understand the relationship between their customers’ behaviors and decisions made internally by their management team, they will be able to make inspired choices and effective course adjustments on their own once the brand practitioner is gone. A big part of helping a brand recover from a serious crisis involves teaching its stewards how to take better care of it in the future so it never happens again.

A Common Pitfall before we adjourn.

Far too many firms, agencies and consultants settle for a two step process in helping a client address a problem: Step 1 – Identify the problem. Step 2 – Address the problem with a specific solution: A new ad campaign. A new series of press releases. A new promotional campaign. Prettier packaging. A celebrity endorsement. This works well enough if you’re looking for a quick fix. A band-aid, if you will. But as soon as the campaign is over, as soon as the promotion ends, as soon as the big sale is over or the expensive celebrity spokesperson moves on to their next gig, what have you really gained? You may have enjoyed a spike in interest, a spike in sales, even, but you end up right where you started: Condemned to keep the campaign engine running constantly, which in your case may be little more than slapping lipstick on a pig. If your brand finds itself in a state of distress, chances are that you have already been playing this game for a while. We’ve already been over this in Part 1. More of the same isn’t what you want.

In order to see real traction, you have to go a step further in the process: Not just identifying a problem, but understanding what created it to begin with. Understanding the root cause. Understanding the why. Tracking the actual cause of that 7% drop in sales. That 12% drop in market share. That 30% drop in customer retention. You have to look deeper. You have to be able to map cause and effect, and answer not only what and how, but why. Then and only then, can you move on to the next step: Coming up with real solutions – the kind that will help your brand gain real momentum – rather than buying sales and influence for an all too finite amount of time.

Next week, in Part 3 of this series, we will go over how to use the 360 analysis employed during the diagnostic phase of the process to a) develop a treatment to get your brand back on track, and b) prioritize the elements of this treatment to start enjoying results immediately.

Cheers!

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BrandBuilder post number 1,000 – Let’s talk about leadership

I agonized for a few days over what kind of brilliant advice I should share with you on this 1,000th post since the launch of the BrandBuilder blog before finally realizing that no. 1,000 is no different from 999, 1,001 or 356. So no more pondering, no more worrying about writing an epic post (the time for that will come again in due time), and no more waiting around for inspiration to strike. Today, instead of talking about social media, brand management, who does what well and who does what poorly, let’s just talk a little bit about leadership. Corporate leadership, that is.

And instead of doing all the talking, I will let people with a whole lot more experience than me give you some tips about how to become a better leader. Great stuff that transcends the typical leadership quotation mill.

Anne Mulcahy – Former CEO of Xerox

In a crisis, you have the opportunity to move quickly and change a lot – and you have to take advantage of that.

Change doesn’t happen if you don’t work at it. You’ve got to get out there, give people the straight scoop, and get buy-in. It’s not just good-looking presentations; it’s letting people ask the tough questions. It’s almost got to be done one person at a time.

There’s not a lot of room anymore for senior people to be managers. They have to be leaders. I want people to create organizations that get aligned, get passionate, get really inspired about delivering.

Stories exist at every level of the company. Whether it was saving a buck here, or doing something different for customers, everyone has a story. That creates powerful momentum – people sense that they’re able to do good things. It’s much more powerful than the precision or elegance of the strategy.

I communicate good news the same way I do the bad news. I thank people and make sure they feel a sense of recognition for their contribution. But the trick is always to to use the opportunity to talk about what’s next, to pose the next challenges. Where do we want to go? How do we want to build on it?

Margaret Heffernan – Author, The Naked Truth

Nothing kills morale like a staff’s feeling helpless. This often plays itself out when there are rumors of a new strategic shift or a major personnel move, or worse, when the papers are littered with bad news about your company. A big part of boosting morale is about constructing a haven of logic that offers individuals shelter from any storm. At its most basic, leaders have to communicate their awareness of business conditions and place their plans in that context. Each time [a CEO outlines] a future that comes true, he demonstrates his own competence and reinforces trust.

The happiest people aren’t the ones with the most money but those with a sense of purpose – a sense that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves. At least some of this has to derive from work. The purpose of a business, then, must be explicit and go beyond boosting the share price or fulfilling some bland mission statement. People want to believe that they are part of something meaningful. The sense of purpose doesn’t have to be grandiose or revolutionary, merely credible and anchored in values.

Purpose is achieved through goals, and the acid test for any leader is defining the appropriate ones. Too small, and celebrations soon ring hollow. Small goals breed cynicism. But too-big goals produce helplessness. Although it can be temporarily thrilling to rally around a big corporate slogan like “kill the competition,” the reality is that employees can’t do it alone and they can’t do it quickly.

Alignment between corporate goals and personal development has never been more critical. The more unpredictable the outside world, the more urgent the personal quest for self-determination. What employees look for in leadership is a sense that their personal journey and the company journey are part of the same story. When these goals aren’t aligned, employees tend to whine with others, eager to share their sense of anger and injustice, polluting morale. The only way to combat this and get back on track is proper feedback. Give employees the tools to influence their own fate.

Get a life. Keeping morale high is like being on a diet: It requires constant effort and is never over. New ideas, stimuli and motivation come from all around you. It’s the larger life, after all, that gives purpose to the climb.

Alan Deutschman – Senior Writer, Fast Company – writing about how IBM builds new businesses

Look for opportunities that can become profitable [billion-dollar] businesses in five to seven years. You’ll probably find them by talking to customers rather than to brilliant researchers in the labs, who are are looking further ahead.

J. Bruce Harreld – IBM

You want to celebrate failure because you learn something. You need some level of security to say ‘I screwed it up,’ and be comfortable that you won’t be fired.

Marcus Buckingham – Author, Break All The Rules

Turn anxiety into confidence. For a leader, the challenge is that in every society ever studied, the future is unstable, unknown, and therefore potentially dangerous. By far the most effective way to turn fear into confidence is to be clear – to define the future in such vivid terms that we can see where we are headed. Clarity is the antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.

Effective leaders don’t have to be passionate, charming or brilliant. What they must be is clear – clarity is the essence of great leadership. Show us clearly who we should seek to serve, show us where our core strength lies, show us which score we should focus on and which actions we must take, and we will reward you by working our hearts out to make our better future come true.

See? Told you these folks know what they’re talking about.

Thanks to Fast Company‘s March 2005 issue for providing much of today’s content. (I have quite the collection.)

Cheers.

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And on the eighth day… (A word-of-mouth primer)

So as it turns out, WOM (word-of-mouth) is at least twice as effective at influencing purchasing decisions as most forms of marketing (from PR to advertising). (Source: Nielsen)

And the beauty of Social(ized) Media platforms like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and Seesmic, is that – as connection and conversation engines, they enable, accelarate and amplify WOM.

So a) WOM is important, and b) WOM is also at the core of the crucial lateral action (peer to peer engagement) we discussed a few weeks ago. (Go here to get a recap. It’s worth the five minutes.) So even though it hasn’t been a buzzword in a couple of years, let’s bring back some much needed (and deserved) focus on it now.

Okay, here’s roughly how you create WOM out of thin air:

Step 1: Create or do something great. Not good. GREAT. (Seth Godin would call it remarkable. My kids would call it awesome. Some of my triathlon buddies would call it sick. Fred would call it rad… but he’s… well, Fred. Or Barney. Or something.)

It could be a widget. It could be a dish. It could be a work of art. It could be an act of rebellion or courage… or both. It could be a book or a song or a speech. It could be the way your customer service reps answer the phone, or how quickly your technicians can fix a problem for your customers. It could be new packaging for ketchup or a new all-natural zero-calorie sweetener. It could be a smart and edgy TV show. It could be a completely selfless act. It could be nothing more than a simple, subtle, five second memorable experience at a drive-through or at the checkout or when you walk into a public restroom. It could be a new flavor, or an old, forgotten one. It could be a social program. It could be that extra smile or one percent effort. It could be simply acknowledging customers and conversation participants on Twitter. It could be anything… as long as it is remarkable. Awesome. Sick. Rad.

As long as it is better than anything else that remotely comes close to its category – assuming there is one yet.

As long as anyone who gets to experience it is so amazed, pleasantly surprised, or otherwise affected by what it did for them that they’ll get excited about telling their friends all about it… and the cycle will repeat itself over and over and over again.

The more unique it is, the better. The more iconic, the better. The more revolutionary… um, okay. You get the idea.

People don’t get excited about boring and mundane and same-as-always.

Safe, good enough, okay and not bad don’t live in WOM’s zip code.

Step 2: Oh… wait. That’s it. Never mind. There is no step 2.

Technorati Tags: word of mouth, WOMMA, WOMBAT2, marketing, WOM

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Real Social Media R.O.I. – Part 4: FRY Metrics

Before I wrap this Social Media ROI discussion together for you with a neat little bow, I have to give credit where credit is due: I didn’t come up with this stuff all on my own. I adapted this simple methodology over time to meet the needs of clients who needed real, actionable, simple metrics to determine whether or not their marketing activities were hitting the mark or not.

The real credit belongs to Microsoft for introducing me to these concepts back when I was working in the Distribution Channel. (Big shout-out to @robmoyer and Lisa Williams, by the way, without whom I would have never learned this stuff.)

Originally, F.R.Y. (Frequency/Reach/Yield) wasn’t meant to be applied to Social Media (or any media, for that matter). But as it turns out, it adapts super well to just about anything, so I kind of lucked out by being exposed to it in the first place. Pretty handy stuff, really, when you grasp just how portable it is.

Anyway, you guys have been very patient, so I won’t drag this out any longer. Here is the wrap-up of this week’s R.O.I. discussion with a basic overview of F.R.Y. (You’re going to love how easy this is):

So let’s recap:

Frequency Increasing sales revenue by shortening the interval between transactions.
Reach (breadth) Increasing sales revenue by increasing net new customer count.
Reach (Depth) Increasing sales revenue by helping customers buy deeper into the product line.
Yield Increasing sales revenue by driving customers to want to increase their average per transaction spending.

Getting comfortable with this effectively kills the argument that SM has no real ROI dead. As in: “Yeah? Well how about a mouthful of F.R.Y. there, Mr. social media skeptic?”

Bullet-in-the-head dead.

As in let’s move on and get back to work – at least those of us who know what we are doing.

Does any of this change the way you should engage with your customers? Not one bit. Does any of this make your engagement strategy any less honest, transparent or authentic? Absolutely not. All we are talking about here is giving skeptical (or even full-bore Social Media-agnostic) executives a real end-game ROI they can understand and get behind so you can get the okay to launch a kickass social media practice and blow everyone’s socks off. That’s it.

Oh… and make you accountable for results, which ought to weed out about 99% of so-called “social media experts” whose expertise in using Social Media is about on par with their expertise in eating sushi. (And just as valuable to their unfortunate clients.)

Aside from that last comment, the beauty of F.R.Y. is that it is simple, specific and highly adaptable. Social Media, PR, Advertising, Product releases, incentives campaigns… It plugs into everything. F.R.Y. is the ultimate app. for R.O.I. measurement. Once you understand how it works, you can apply it to just about anything.

One final note:

Do you know what’s really, really cool about this? You didn’t have to spend $400 to attend a Social Media e-seminar. You didn’t have to send a P.O. Box 3 payments of $39.99 plus S&H for a super top secret DVD filled with “Social Media Secrets the pros don’t want you to know”. You didn’t have to fly some overhyped blogger to your HQ to have them regurgitate some tired Social Media For Dummies presentation for a mere $15K per day. This stuff is WAY too basic to warrant that, and unlike many “consultants” jumping into Social Media these days, I wouldn’t feel right taking your money for sharing simple business advice without actually helping you implement it.

Yet, far too many companies get suckered into paying “social media gurus” substantial bank to essentially do little more than flap their mouths and state the obvious without ever delivering any actionable advice. Don’t become one of them. If all you want is a great motivational speaker, buy a set of Tony Robbins CDs. He’s good and you’ll get your money’s worth. But if you want to help your business – and I mean REALLY help your business – make sure you don’t fall into the Social Media “expert” trap: 99% of them are basically just motivational speakers with a Social Media theme. Find someone who knows how to a) measure real ROI and b) tie those metrics to engagement programs. Anything less than that is a waste of your time.

Thanks for hanging out this week. As always, feel free to comment or reach out to me. Have a great Memorial Day weekend. 🙂

Inquiries:
Tel – 864.630.7398
Inquiries@thebrandbuildermarketing.com
Twitter – @thebrandbuilder

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How a single question can turn your business around today.

Design For Users‘ Kristi Colvin (@kriscolvin on Twitter) had some pretty powerful brand management advice recently that is well worth sharing here. Check this out:

“The heart of a brand, like that of an individual, is vulnerable. It must be both soft enough to prove genuine caring, and strong enough to withstand scrutiny and adversity. But it is your core offering – not your products and services – and if you aren’t in touch with and know what’s in the heart, establishing lasting relationships with customers will be difficult or hit and miss. Do you want a shallow relationship with the people that interact with your brand, or a sympathetic bond that can withstand conflicts?“

The connection between brand loyalty and a healthy bottom-line being what it is, I can’t really think of a better question to ask a CEO or brand manager every time they come to a strategic crossroads.

In other words… This type of introspection isn’t just something company execs should go through once a year or at the start of every new business cycle, but rather every single time a decision needs to be made within the company.

(I am already hearing the question germinating in your brains: What if hundreds of decisions have to be made every day? My answer to you is simple: Once a day or a thousand times per day, there is no difference.)

If you’re looking to save time, feel free to distill the question down to its core: “What would our customers want us to do?”

You just can’t go wrong with that kind of mindset.

Look at it this way: There is absolutely no decision anyone can make within a company that this question cannot be applied to. None. Why? Because every decision you make impacts your relationship with your customers. The software you use. The way you answer the phone. The speed with which you respond to complaints. The way you design your website. The way your product is packaged. The way you treat your vendors and partners. The people you hire. The people you promote. How clean your bathrooms are.

Everything.

Every time you are considering a new hire, ask yourself: “What would our customers want us to do?”

Every time you are considering cutting cost out of your model, ask yourself: “What would our customers want us to do?”

Every time you are about to respond to a crisis, ask yourself: “What would our customers want us to do?”

(Ideally, you want to be able to ask them directly, but that will have to be the topic of another post.)

Once you get into the habit of addressing every question, every problem, every crisis in this way, life gets a whole lot easier. Suddenly, you find yourself not needing to set up so many meetings. You find your reaction time greatly enhanced. You find that taking your ideas to market takes a whole lot less time.

You also find that you don’t have to work quite so hard to earn more business (new and repeat business).

Again, from Kristi:

“Engaging people from the heart of your brand, being vulnerable and forging true and lasting customer relationships are what will keep companies alive and thriving through good times and bad times.”

This isn’t touchy-feely rhetoric. This is as real as it gets. It’s how Starbucks used to do it. It’s how Zappos does it. It’s how the next generation of firebrands will do it.

And if you still aren’t convinced that what you read here today makes good business sense, here’s another question you might want to ponder: If you don’t do what’s best for your customers today, what will your customers do?

Everything you do either gives your customers a reason to do business with you or do business with someone else. There are no neutral-impact decisions.

Don’t give the other guy a chance to eat your lunch.

Don’t give the other guy a chance to earn a better reputation than you.

Don’t give the other a guy a chance to write your eulogy when you finally find yourself circling the drain in what used to be your market.

Even if you don’t buy the whole “higher calling” thing we’ve been talking about lately, understand that your customers are constantly judging you and THEY care. Being better, friendlier, easier to do business with is just good business. Treating your customers like cattle when so many other choices exist for them now will get you nowhere fast.

Have a great weekend, everyone! 😉

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You say Brand… I say ‘Brand’.

Vintage Coca Cola mural in Greenville, SC

The topic of “what is a brand” or “what do we mean when we say brand” comes up pretty often, so I am always on the lookout for a clear explanation of the term… or at least an explanation that can help frame it for people who aren’t 100% clear what brand really is. (Is it a logo, symbol or mark? Is it a promise? Is it a marketing gimmick?)  Depending on whom you talk to, you might get a completely different answer.

This time around, let’s have Tom Asacker share a few insights on the subject:

“A brand is not a logo, and branding is not a communication strategy. A strong brand is a strong bond, and branding is your business.”“To those with a dated, mass-market mentality, branding is still all about image and awareness. It’s about tag lines, logos, cute little animal mascots or clever jingles. It’s about spending megabucks on Super Bowl commercials, hiring celebrities to sing your corporate praises, and covering cars with advertising banners. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that awareness is unimportant. (…) But, does well-known equal strong? Not any longer. The rise of the global economy [and] the rapid adoption of the Internet have ignited commercial innovation, and put an end to those days forever. Today, like just about everything else, brand logic has been turned on its head.”

“And please, don’t get hung-up on the word brand. Today, the word brand is shorthand for the gut feeling people have about something, some group, or someone. It’s a kind of Platonic Ideal, which stands for the essence of a business, school, organization, person, or even place. If you add up the tangible and intangible qualities of something – the gestalt – and wish to represent the meaning and distinctive character this greater whole conveys to its audience, today we call it . . . brand.”

“Think of your brand as a “file folder” in your audiences’ minds (not a perfect metaphor, since memory is malleable, but stick with me anyway.). When they’re exposed to you (e.g., through advertising, design, a salesperson, word-of-mouth, etc.), a feeling is immediately filed away in that “brand file folder.” As time passes, much of what your audience has filed away – the details – will become inaccessible. However, they will remember where they stored the folder: in the front (positive feelings) or pushed to the back (negative feelings). Given the sheer volume of brands trying to find a place in your audiences’ overloaded “brand file cabinets,” you must not only get their attention and be relevant (a file folder labeled with your brand name), but you must also get it placed in the front of their file cabinet (elicit strong, positive feelings of intense personal significance).

“(…) Despite what the Madison Avenue folks may tell you, the strength of your brand lies not in the fact that you own a folder with your name prominently displayed on it. Repetition does not create memories, relevance does. The strength lies in your folder’s position in your audience’s file cabinet (the emotions that linger in their memory). The strength lies in the bond! So make your brand about feeling, not just familiarity. Make it about shared values and trust. About honesty, vulnerability and presence. A brand is not simply a promise. How can it be, with everything changing at breakneck speed? A brand is a living, breathing relationship. Revel in the messy world of emotions and create a brand that’s about leadership and differentiation; about customer insight and radical innovation; and about clarity of purpose, passion and a sense of humor.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Wow. Is it really Friday already?

Technorati Tags: brand, Tom Asacker,customer service, marketing, advertising, creative, authenticity, branding

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Don’t let “branding” kill your brand

Words of genius from Damon Dimmick, over at UX Magazine:

“When corporate marketing departments dream of brand design, they only dream as far as they need.

The expensive and time consuming process of extending the brand into an interactive concept is usually pushed off until it becomes absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, by the time some serious rethinking is required, a lot of people have gotten stuck in the mud of static branding. It’s completely natural for companies to resist straying from the handful of predefined styles that were never meant to address web forms, widgets, calendars and menuing systems.

Of all the arguments for modifying brand attributes to better suit a digital experience, the most compelling is this:

The way users feel about their experience is inseparable from the way they feel about your brand.

This maxim holds true for brick-and-mortar experiences as well as for digital interactions. A restaurant with great food but incredibly long lines and a bad wait staff will experience brand damage. The user experience is bad, and people will look elsewhere. The same thing will happen if your users get baffled by confusing menus, hard-to-read text, and perplexing layouts. The user experience is bad, and people will look elsewhere.

The way a user feels when they come in contact with a brand interaction point will implicitly shape their image of the brand itself.

This realization is a powerful tool for user experience professionals and can help snap clients and peers out of static thinking.”

It is helpful to remember that even the most accomplished companies have become experts at modifying brand attributes to suit interactive experiences. This is done without sacrificing brands, but rather by extending them.

Amen.

Read the rest of the article here. And for a deeper understanding, check out Jack Spade’s third brand precept (yesterday) and Bruce Lee’s advice on fluidity vs. rigidity (last month). If you’re starting to spot a common thread in our discussion topics, you might be on to something. 😉

Have a great Tuesday, everyone.

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Brand advice from Jack Spade

Jack Spade’s words of brand wisdom from an old issue of Fast Company finally made their way to me again last week when I found a box of old issues in my garage. Jack’s advice is as relevant today as it was then:

1. The bigger you get, the smaller you should act.
Even if you have 10,000+ employees and offices on all seven continents, never, ever start thinking or acting like a big company. Once you become corporate, you become detached from your customers and there’s no interest in that.

2. Never believe anything you have done is successful.
Challenge yesterday’s assumptions every second, every day. Understand that no matter how good they may make you feel, last year’s successes are in the past. Your job is to build your company’s next successes. No company stays relevant long by resting on its laurels, so don’t.

3. Brand consistency is overrated.
The brand doesn’t have to look the same, but it has to feel the same. An element of newness and surprise is important for any brand.

4. Brands should have some mystery.
Customers should never understand the whole picture of a brand.

5. Your people are your product.
They are the vehicle through which everything happens, and they define what you put out.

These five points probably aren’t the sort of thing being taught in most business schools. On the contrary, if these subjects are even addressed, I’ll bet that in most cases, the exact opposite is still being preached as gospel: Brands have to be consistent. Capitalize on your successes. Brands should be crystal clear. Yadayadayada.

The truth is that there is no cookie-cutter methodology. Look around. How many major brands are crashing and burning even though they play by the rules? (Perhaps BECAUSE they play by the rules?)  All you can do is build up your toolbox with old and new ideas, with conventional and unconventional wisdom… and learn how to use the right tools in the right circumstances in the right way. The rest is just about inspiration, vision, and fun.

Act small. Look forward, not back. Know exactly who you are. Make sure to always keep things fresh. Don’t lay all your cards on the table. Care. Focus on human needs.

Not a bad start.

Now take these little bits of advice and see if they apply to your company. Which ones apply? Which ones are you missing the mark with?

Welcome to a whole new work week. 😉

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How to fix your business, starting immediately

Okay, so… you need to go here and read this.

If what Guy writes is news to you, welcome to a whole new world of happy customers and business bliss. Really.

If what Guy writes describes what you’re already doing, then you are on the right track.

Either way, your business will be a whole lot better off in 2009 if you follow those simple recommendations.

🙂

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The rigid brand conundrum: How to branch off when your brand is rock solid?

http://wray-mccann.com

The question came up yesterday in Orange Coat’s virtual salon de the: Can a brand become so strong that it can no longer truly evolve? (That isn’t the way the question was framed, but that is how I understand it.) Here are some examples:

Bob Dylan- folk singer: This clearly hurt him when he tried to transition past the folk audience.

Possible business case example: McDonald’s trying to introduce higher end menu items that are, on their merits, good but don’t fall within the McDonald’s brand.

or

Hunter S. Thompson- professional consumptionist: By the end, Thompson became a caricature of himself spending more time eating, drinking, and drugging than doing good work. By most accounts, he squandered some of his talent at the hands of trying to live the life of the Hunter S. Thompson brand.

If you are looking to give your brain a hernia, you can read my reply here. Or… you can read the abbreviated version right here instead. (Your call. Just don’t call me at 3am looking for a bottle of Tylenol. I won’t answer my phone.)

Note: You DO want to read Bear’s post. Just don’t read my 10,000 word comment at the end of it.

So first of all, let me answer Bear’s excellent question: YES. Absolutely. Brands can and do become as unchangeable as George Washington’s portrait on the One Dollar bill.

BUT that this is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be a very good thing. It is the just reward of all enduring superbrands. The Seventh and final state of brand exaltation, just before ascending to brand Nirvana, in fact. In plain Anglais, this is what happens to really BIG, Iconic brands like, oh… let’s see… McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Nike, Chanel, Starbucks, Porsche, etc. So we aren’t exactly talking about struggling/failing startups here. The lack of rigidity is a result of their immense global success: These brands stand for something so specific, so “core,” so universally understandable that they have in a way become immutably framed as the embodiment of… whatever it is they represent. (Fast food, cola, athletic gear, fragrance, coffee, sportscar.) They don’t need taglines. They don’t need to explain themselves or reinvent themselves. They just are… what they are: McDonald’s. Coke. Nike. etc.

What happens when one of these brands attempts to branch out or make a change? Usually, it fails. Miserably.

I’m sorry McDonald’s, but you can’t really get into the premium sandwich business. Coke, your premium drinks won’t work either. Nike, forget trying to get into the formalwear market and Armani won’t try and shake up the world of athletic apparel. Chanel, if you start selling deodorant, you’re done. Starbucks tried the music kiosks a few years ago, remember? (Fail. Stick to coffee. You aren’t a music store.) Porsche, please don’t try the SUV/crossover thing again. Ever. You might as well start making station wagons and sedans. What are you thinking? Let Jeep take care of the off-road stuff for ya. You belong on the road and the racetrack.

Brand erosion starts with that kind of nonsense: One day, you’re the “it” brand in a specific category, and the next, you’re half-assing in five different categories. It doesn’t work that way… unless either Steve Jobs or Richard Branson happen to be your CEO.

So what’s an iconic rigid-as-a-statue brand to do? Are such superbrands condemned to an existence of repetitive tedium? Are their brand managers condemned to an autopilot existence? The answer is of course no. I, the mighty BrandBuilder, hold in my very pink brain the solution to all of your rigid-as-marble brand conundrums. Have yourselves a little taste of superfly how-to-do-the-thingamajig thingie:

1. Sub-brand Kung Fu: If your brand is inflexible but you want to try something new, create a sub-brand that will carry the new idea for you.

Canon does this with its L-Series lenses, identified by the little red disc around one of the bezels. You can buy regular Canon lenses, or you can buy the L-series lenses. Specialized does the same thing with its bikes, shoes and accessories with a premium sub-brand called “S-Works”. This type of strategy allows rigid brands to branch out without running into brand misalignment or erosion issues.

If Cartier or Chanel wanted to create a mass consumption brand, one designed to help them scale to mass market without hurting the premium cachet of their “real” brand, they could for example create edgier, more affordable Cartier-Street or Chanel-Pink Labels. Give some of the proceeds to charity, tweak the logo, the copy, the image, etc. get all social media happy, and target a younger crowd without having to worry about having sold out. McDonald’s could use this technique to create a line of healthy meals that people would truly embrace as genuinely un-Mcified. They haven’t really done that yet.

To some extent, but in a more subtle way, BMW also does that as well with its various series with their own quality and design features and specific pricepoints. It’s a great way to clearly and safely segment and compartmentalize different quality levels within a brand.

Bonus: If the sub-brand fails, the parent brand can distance itself from it and walk away, unscathed. (“Oh yeah… that Green Label thing last year? Ha. Funny you should mention that. It was just a fun little experimental project. We tried but it didn’t make it. Oh well.”) Same with the second option:

2. Create a whole new microbrand: Some ideas are so unique that they deserve an identity all their own.

When Microsoft decided it was going to get into the game console business, the powers that be smartly went completely off the brand reservation with the non-Microsoft “X-Box” branding. They did the same thing with ZUNE, giving it its own look, feel, identity, presence, etc. These aren’t Microsoft sub-brands. They are unique, stand-alone brands that happen to belong to Microsoft. Very smart.

Another example: Lexus and Toyota.

Sub-Brands, offshoots or independent micro-ventures can help contextually rigid brands branch out into new markets without suffering an identity crisis, brand erosion or loss of relevance. Rigidity isn’t bad… as long as you understand the value of it and know how to work around it when you need to.

Have a great day, everyone! 🙂

image credit: Christopher Wray-McCann

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Premium Brands have always been recession-proof. Until now.

Building Real Value vs. Creating Sales Incentives

As you all well know, I am a big fan of Tom Fishburne’s work both as a cartoonist and as a marketing honcho. @GabriellRossi pointed me to this post via Twitter yesterday, and it struck a cord (as Tom’s posts tend to do).

Here’s what Tom had to say about the seeming pandemic of brand erosion:

“Value is of course the theme of the moment, and marketers are all scrambling to add more “value” into their marketing plans for 2009. I met with a retail buyer last week, and tried to convince her that there was still a role for premium brands in a recession. I shared my opinion that a recession simply heightens the urgency for premium brands to prove that they are meaningful enough to command a premium.”

The retail buyer disagreed. She said that premium brands had two and only two choices in this economic climate. Either increase price promotions to compensate for the premium or permanently lower the price so that there is no longer a premium at all. Merry Christmas.

I think it will be important for brands to be responsive, but not reactive, to this economic climate. Make sure that your brand has renewed meaning for consumers who are genuinely struggling, but that doesn’t mean that you have to start behaving like private label.

Thank you Tom.

See, back in the day, premium brands (dare I say luxury brands) hadn’t fallen into the mass market trap. Exclusivity bred value, and value guaranteed minimum price-points which in turn validated the brand’s position in the market. In plain English: Premium brands weren’t trying to scale. They didn’t want to compete against the middle and low-end brands for wallet share. When a company starts pimping out its products to every distribution outlet it can find, it’s just a matter of time before it’s available at Wal-Mart. (Which is precisely what happened to Levi’s a few years ago.)

You can’t be ‘premium’ and be on everyone’s wrist, Grasshopper. Every time I see a sixteen-year-old wearing Gucci, someone is hammering another nail in the once premium brand’s coffin. (For more on that topic, check out this little ditty.)

This topic came up recently during a conversation I had with Brains on Fire’s Spike Jones the other day. We were talking about brands, and Spike asked me point blank if I still thought that (blankety-blank brand) was still relevant and true, or if it had ‘sold out’? My reply was that it was still true to its roots. He didn’t agree, so I asked him why. His answer was simple: One day, while shopping at a massive bargain warehouse, he saw a bin of products from that brand just sitting there on clearance.

At one time, that premium and highly technical lifestyle brand had embodied the very spirit of adventure and extreme outerwear. Now, by virtue of sitting there in a bargain bin next to $3 family packs of some no-name Tupperware knockoff, the brand’s value evaporated. Poof. Just like that.

I can’t argue with that. It’s as clear an illustration of brand erosion as I could have ever conjured up myself: From the summit of Everest one decade to the bargain bin of a massive discount chain the next.

Brand death 101. Somewhere along the line, some hack of a brand manager decided “hey, if we got out of this specialty niche thing, we could scale like crazy!!!”

Yeah. And if Bang & Olufsen really had any marketing savvy, they’d be selling $75 stereos in Radio Shack too, right? *sigh*

When those of us in the business of building (or rebuilding) brands hear traditional marketing folks talk about building value through marketing plans, we just shake our heads at the familiar idiocy of the notion. A brand’s value may be communicated through Marketing, sure, but it isn’t created there. The value, folks, does not live in the marketing. It lives in the product. It lives in the customer’s interaction with it. It lives in the company’s customer service. In its quality control. In its billing department. In the spirit from which the product was first sparked and then painstakingly perfected.

The only people in the world who will ever try to convince you that a brand’s value is created through marketing plans are marketing people. Advertising execs mostly, but all branches of the marketing profession are guilty of perpetuating this decades-old farce. Stop falling for it. It may work great for breakfast cereals and air fresheners, but premium brands are a completely different animal. (And by Premium brands, I don’t mean J-Lo, the fragrance.)

Listen. The difference between Cartier and Armitron isn’t in the Marketing. The difference between Oakley and Ironman sunglasses isn’t in the branding. The difference between Ford and BMW isn’t in the advertising or the incentive programs.

Building value through marketing plans is called “selling”. It isn’t building value at all. It isn’t even really marketing. You can call it that if you want to, if it makes you feel better, but in the real world it is called promotions. (And yes, there is a BIG difference between marketing and promotions, just like there is a HUGE difference between marketing and sales.)

What this silly retail buyer Tom mentioned is concerned with is selling – as in selling as much of whatever she puts in her store as she can, as fast as humanly possible. That’s her business model. She couldn’t care less what brands she carries as long as they sell well and fast and get people in the door. Premium to her means highly profitable and fast-moving. Is there anything wrong with that kind of model? Of course not. But it just doesn’t jive with premium brands because premium brands – in order to remain so – cannot scale like Colgate or Capn’ Crunch cereal: Once premium is everywhere, it ceases to be premium.

Which is why premium brands fall into a different business model from the one embraced by Tom’s brand-agnostic retail buyer who can’t tell the difference between building value in the B2B space from building value in the B2C space.

Why Premium Brands are allergic to our discount culture

Where do I want to buy my premium coffee? Not at the local 7-11. Where do I want to buy my premium quality mountain climbing shell? Not at K-Mart. You get the drift.

Specialty stores are where premium brands thrive. If you’re Cervelo or Specialized, you want to be in real bike shops and triathlon stores and not Dick’s Sporting Goods. If you’re K2 or Rossignol, you want to be in real ski shops, not Wal-Mart. If you’re Cartier or Yves St. Laurent or Brooks Brothers, you want your own store. Your own retail space. Your own premium environment where your customers can get the full experience of your brand.

Speaking of your customers, are they looking for good deals? Sure! Of course they are. But they don’t want 20% OFF sales. They don’t want 2008 closeouts. Not if you’re a Premium brand. Never.

If you’re a premium brand and you want to discount a product to help the sale along, you do it discretely. Without eroding the value of the product or your brand. Without insulting your customer’s tastes. If they are about to walk out without buying what they came to look at, (assuming you care) you discretely tell them about your members-only sale. The one that nobody is supposed to know about. You’re doing them a favor now because they’re a valued customer. Because they’re special. Because you have that kind of personal relationship with them. You ask them to keep it on the down-low. Shhhh. Nobody knows about this. You wink at them and smile as you hand them their receipt and premium branded bag. You say their name as you thank them and wish them farewell.

And of course, when they get home and unwrap the thing they bought, the French bottle of perfume, the Swiss watch, the Italian pair of jeans, the English hand-made shoes, when they feel it in their hand, when they touch it, smell it, wind it, button it up, the value is right there in the experience. The experience which started in the store and continues every time they look at it, use it, share stories of it and inspire their peers to go buy one as well. When they open a magazine and see a premium glossy full page ad for the thing they bought, for the brand it embodies, they feel the value once again. They smile, confident in the knowledge that their premium brand, that the premium price they paid for it, that the value they assign to it are all safe and sound. And thus, all is well in the world.

What they don’t want is to get an email a week later telling them that the watch they just spent $5,000 on is now on sale for $1,300.

I don’t want to see my Canon EOS 1D in the glass case at Best Buy. I don’t want to see Hermes scarves hanging from a rack at Target. Mont Blanc pens shouldn’t be sold in 3 for 2 bargain packs at Staples.

When you start catering to everyone, you end up catering to no one.

As exemplified by Spike’s reaction to the brand we shall not name, once a premium brand sells out its authenticity, its exclusivity, its specialty in exchange for sales volume, it dies. Period.

There is zero value in being a sellout. None. Zip.

There is, however, always value in being exclusive. In being special. In being rare and hard to get. So if you are responsible for a premium brand or product, next time a Marketing professional (inside or outside your organization) mentions building value, make sure you’re all on the same page.

Have a great Monday, everyone! 🙂

PS: You can read more about the nature of premium brands here.

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Defining your purpose: Love is the lifeblood of your brand

Buying a product. Bringing it home. Taking it out of the box. Pressing PLAY. Turning the first page. Pulling the cork. Clipping-in. Hitting the ignition. Biting into the first slice. Slipping into it. Walking into the new store. Spraying it on. Plugging it in. Connecting the pieces. Reading the owner’s manual. Shifting up. Writing your name on it. Clicking SEND on the order form. Taking it for a spin. Just looking at it. Sharing it with a loved one. Holding it in your hand.

It should always feel like this.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a restaurant, a store, a website, a bank, a doctor’s office, a manufacturing plant or a creative firm; ask yourself this: Is the work you are doing today going to have that kind of effect on your customers? On your clients? On your fans?

Is your work really going to connect with the people you are doing this for?

Are they going to fall in love with it? Is it going to impact their lives? Is it going to inspire them? Make them smile? Wow them?

When they talk to their friends about you, will it be with awe? Will they be singing your praises?

Are you a lovebrand? (Incidentally, check out Lovemarks.com. Interesting little concept.)

If not, stop what you’re doing. Put your pen down. Look around you. Think about why you’re there, sitting at your desk. Think about the project you’re working on. It could be a product launch. It could be a new menu. It could be a new floor display. A promotion. A party. A speech.

It could be anything.

Remarkable always hits the mark. Lovebrands always win.

The key to becoming a lovebrand is simply to love your customers first. I mean… seriously. Love them. Fall in love with them.

I’m not kidding.

Read Peter Drucker’s words in yesterday’s post about purpose.

If you’re a coffee shop, love them enough to give them the best cup of coffee they’ve ever had. If you’re a retail outlet, give them the best shopping experience they’ve ever had. Love them like you love a best friend. Do what you know will make them happy. Get to a point where you truly feel joy and pride when they love what you’ve done for them. When it enriches their lives. When you truly become part of it in some way.

Everything you do should be for them, not for you.

What you do, what your company is about, how you design your products, how you interact with your customers, none of it isn’t about like. It’s about love.

Either you’re involved in a wonderful love affair with your customers and clients, or you aren’t.

That is what fundamentally sets great brands apart from the rest of the crowd: Love.

Talk to a graphic designer about their Mac. Talk to a driver about their BMW. Talk to a photographer about their Canon lenses. Talk to a foodie about their favorite dessert. Love.

So, once again…

Buying a product. Bringing it home. Taking it out of the box. Pressing PLAY. Turning the first page. Pulling the cork. Clipping-in. Biting into the first slice. Slipping into it. Walking into the new store. Spraying it on. Plugging it in. Connecting the pieces. Reading the owner’s manual. Taking it for a spin. Just looking at it. Sharing it with a loved one. Holding it in your hand.

It should always feel like this.

photo copyright olivier blanchard 2005

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What really makes A-list brands different – and recession-proof.

The difference between winning and just being in the game – Thinking about ‘NEXT’ instead of just ‘NOW’:

Some words of wisdom from Tom Asacker:

“When they asked Wayne Gretsky, arguably the greatest hockey player of all time, what made him more successful than other players, he replied, Most players tend to play where the puck is, whereas I play where the puck is going to be. Or as the professional trend-spotter may explain, Gretsky smartly followed the “drift” or “general course” of the puck. Now, to anyone who has played a game in which hitting or catching a moving object is essential, Gretsky’s insight is absurdly obvious.

And to anyone who has developed a successful business from the ground floor up, so is trend-spotting customer behavior (regardless of the fact that major corporations spend a ton of money to frequently have it done for them). Because the truth about trends – and staying ahead – is that it has nothing to do with the future. It’s about being intimately involved with your audience today! Being part of the dynamics of change now!”

This is something that I have found profoundly lacking in Corporate America, with, of course, some notable exceptions. That elite club of A-list brands seems to always be the same: Apple. Whole Foods. Starbucks. Virgin. Volkswagen. Canon. Target. Nike. Pixar. Disney. On a smaller scale, you can probably find local, regional, and niche brands that seem to always be a step ahead of the game. Pioneers. Innovators. Trend diviners.

Interestingly, the only difference between companies which, like Wayne Gretzky, focus on where the puck is going to be instead of where the puck is now is frame of mind. Actually, no. Let me rephrase that. The difference is twofold:

1. These companies’ leaders makes a conscious decision to be forward looking. To be where the puck will be. (As Microsoft’s Rob Moyer told me earlier this year, “we live in 2008, but we’re already thinking about 2018.” Perhaps not the greatest example in light of Vista’s less than stellar year, but Rob was talking about “the cloud,” which is a completely different thing.) Being where the puck is going to be requires a conscious and deliberate decision to be there, not as an occasional thing (quarterly planning sessions and whatnot) but 24/7/365.

2. These companies’ leaders make sure that the companies they run atually operate in a forward-looking manner. Take Apple for example. Did Steve Jobs create a business culture that simply waited to see what competitors were going to make before releasing an “i-” version of it? Nope. Apple forged ahead with brand new products or entirely new interpretations of existing products they decided to push through a radical evolution. i-Pod. i-Phone. Apple looked 5-10 years into their own future, saw what types of products they thought people would want to own and play with, and they designed them. Whole new concepts, whole new interfaces, whole new hardware, software, accessories, etc.

How lackluster management can (and will) destroy a brand, while inspired leadership creates market icons:

So to recap, the difference between brands that always seem to dominate markets and those which struggle to remain competitive is simply this: They attract and empower a certain type of leadership – Visionaries. Pioneers. Innovators. Folks who, like Wayne Gretzky, look at business as an organic, fluid entity. Folks who seek new ideas. New points of view. New ways of transforming their business into tomorrow’s indispensible brand, not just today’s.

Struggling or slow growth companies instead tend to rely almost exclusively on the health of their P&L to make strategic decisions. They tend to hire people with exactly the same type of experience everyone else in their organization already has instead of cross-pollinating their culture with insight from other industries. They also mostly live in a frenzied cubicle version of Groundhog Day, where every day blends into the next and very little ever truly changes. At every level, risk-adverse managers (not leaders) talk about “incremental growth” instead of shooting for game-changing growth.

And without a game-changing growth frame of mind, you are setting yourself up for failure. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. And that someday may be a lot closer than you realize.

I was reminded of this yesterday, as “the big three” automakers were on Capitol Hill, begging for help from taxpayers. The question that bounced around in my head was simple: How did we get here? How did it come to this?

The question, of course, was rhetorical. The problem comes down to leadership. What is Apple without Jobs? What is Virgin without Branson? What is Ralph Lauren without Lauren?

Who drives the vision of a company? Of a brand?

Who creates the company culture that either forges ahead with innovation and genius (like Apple) or decides to play it safe?

Who watches trends, invites customers to participate in the product ideation process, and decides to lead the way? (Or conversely, who decides to ignore serious global energy and environmental challenges for years and puts all of their baskets in ever-larger gas guzzling SUVs?)

Who decides to pump out product after product that no one really cares about?

Let me tell you something: Put someone in a car for ten minutes and they’ll tell you everything they love and hate about it: The seats feel weird. The dashboard is too busy. The reading light is in the wrong place. If I buy this truck, I’m going to spend more on fuel each month than on my mortgage. There’s no mp3 plug-in. The interior is too plain. There’s no place for my daughter to stow her toys. The seats won’t last with my two labs. I can’t put a bike rack on the roof because of the way the trunk opens. There’s no room in the trunk for my guitar. Where the hell are the cup holders?

We’re talking about simple anthropology here: Who are you building this product for? A demographic? A set of statistics? Or maybe… people? People with hobbies and lifestyles and passions? People who look to your product to fit into their lives like the perfect puzzle piece. The kind that blends style, utility, value, and awesomeness? (Yes, “awesomeness” is a word here.) Are you just building products because you need to produce something that fits in a specific category, or are you building products that people will crave and want to show off because they complement their lifestyles so damn well?

Translating all of this to Detroit – How the American auto industry could have saved itself every day for the last five years:

Since we’re on the subject of American automakers, here’s a bit from a post I wrote earlier this year, long before the credit collapse on Wall Street:

There is a clear absence of imagination in the auto industry, at least in the US. derivative designs create an “also-in” design culture that offers no clear value to anyone. Sure, I can get excited about Aston Martin or Bugati’s latest supercars, but when I look at cars I can actually afford – the middle of the bell curve – what am I left with? Where is the sexy, smart, well designed sub-$20K car with great gas mileage and suite of electronic interfaces I have been asking for? Where are my power outlets for laptops and media player recharges? (Real outlets, not cigarette lighter outlets.) Where is my built-in hands-free system for my phone? Where is my media player plug-in?

Identity development needs to become part of every new car design – not just at the brand level (a BMW is a BMW /a Mercedes is a Mercedes) but at the level of the individual model. Scion has adopted the concept 100%, but its designs look like someone got a hold of ten-year-old early concept drafts from 2-3 automakers and actually turned them into production cars without making any changes. (Right idea: Unique models for unique uses, but horrible execution: Not a whole lot of curb appeal, and heinously derivative designs – most still look like Korean knockoffs of competitor’s designs.)

Invent something smarter than a cool cup holder. Like a built-in passive cabin ventilation system for really hot summer days. Or a slot for a portable hard drive inside the dashboard. Or a fully insulated trunk compartment for laptops, cameras and other electronics. Or accessible + concealable storage compartments for passengers. Or a new seat adjustment interface. Or yeah… a better cup holder.

Think, guys. Dream a little. Invent something that brings value to the market. More importantly, make your brand, your designs and your every conversation with us, the people who should be dreaming about driving your cars, stand for something. Give us something to desire and crave and get excited about.

This really isn’t brain surgery. If you want to be the kind of company that seems to score more often than everyone else, you have to commit to doing things differently. You have to commit to understanding where the puck is going to go next so you can be there to hit it first.

You have to be willing to be that company. You have to be willing to both recruit and empower innovative, visionary talent. You have to get out from behind your four walls and actually reach out to the world outside. The more time you spend in your office doing the same thing over and over again, the less opportunity you have to discover what will make your company great next quarter. Next year. In the next decade.

And please, do us all a favor and stop blaming the “economic crisis” on Wall Street for every business failure. The big three were already losing ground last spring, long before the Wall Street meltdown several weeks ago. Why? 1) Rising gas prices, 2) uncertainty about the future (buying a car is a big investment), and 3) for the most part, boring, uninspired design. Check out this interesting little US auto industry time capsule from back in April to understand how we really got here. (Again: Don’t blame Wall Street for poor leadership.)

For automakers, being where the puck was going to be instead of where they thought it was wasn’t too much of a stretch: Climate Change + Rising energy costs + seeing the beginning of the end of oil = START FOCUSING ON FUEL EFFICIENT VEHICLES. This would have meant opportunities for new mechanical design, opportunities for new aesthetic design, opportunities for new user interface design, and yes, an opportunity for automakers to redefine their brands for the next decade plus – all things they desperately needed. Surprisingly, some of the most highly paid executives in the world couldn’t do something as simple as that.

To be fair, Japanese automakers in the US market haven’t been doing too hot either. (Even fuel efficiency can’t make up for bland design and an absence of ca-ching value, but at least they get the fuel efficiency part.)

Still don’t believe me? Let the numbers speak for themselves: Even as every American Automaker was experiencing a frightening drop in sales, some foreign brands which focus on design and value were doing extremely well:

BMW: The highest-volume luxury-car seller in the U.S. market managed to generate an increase of nearly 10 percent in April sales of its BMW and Mini brands. The company said that a raft of new products launched this spring – BMW M3, X6 and 1 Series, and the Mini Clubman – helped its April results.

Mercedes-Benz: C-Class models posted a 34 percent gain for April and a 38 percent jump for the year to date. Mercedes-Benz also bucked trends and posted increases for its SUVs, both the M-Class and GL-Class models.

Subaru reported record sales for April (a gain of 22 percent over year-earlier levels).

Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) reported a double-digit increase in sales for April with 23,760 units sold in the U.S., a 12.8 percent increase over previous year.

Meanwhile, most American automakers were looking at double-digit declines in sales back in April compared to same month sales a year before. (Chrysler: -23%. GM: -16%. Ford: -12%.) The only American models with growth were either those which offered superior fuel efficiency or those which offered very clear value.

Simple.

Yet…

Alan Mulally, Ford president and chief executive officer, whose total compensation in 2007 was $21,670,674 (salary, bonuses, the Company-recognized expense for stock options and other stock-based awards, as well as all other compensation) couldn’t figure out what most ten-year-olds in the US could clearly figure out from either riding in a Ford or just… you know… being part of the conversation. -12% already back in April

General Motors’ Chief Executive Rick Wagoner’s salary and other compensation rose 64 percent in 2007 to about $15.7 million. The GM compensation committee cited significant progress over the past few years in reducing the automaker’s health care cost burden, increasing growth internationally and improvements in its cars and trucks in the 2007 awards to executives. -16% already back in April

Robert Nardelli, Chrysler’s current CEO (you may remember him from his days at Home Depot, from which he managed to very publicly walk away with a $210M exit package) hasn’t discussed his compensation package for 2007, but we can infer from the 10,000 jobs he cut in his first year that it must have been hefty. -23% already back in April

My point: These guys couldn’t read the writing on the wall? Really? They couldn’t figure out what anyone behind the wheel of a car – let alone someone with a modicum of marketing savvy – could plainly see?

They couldn’t, for one instant, even try to play where the puck was going to be? Or at least hire someone who could help them play there?

At that level in the game?

Watching them begging for cash on Capitol Hill is just sad. And scary. How many companies today are run by executives with the same myopic management style? The same lack of vision? The same absence of insight? And the same looming problems? Executives who, in spite of every tool at their disposal still won’t take the necessary steps to redefine their markets and ensure their companies’ success through the next decade or two?

Leadership matters.

The choices companies make (or choose not to make) matter.

The right combination of vision, focus and drive matters.

Now more than ever.

If you own or manage a business, the choice is simple: Either learn to play where the puck is going to be (and choose to be there), or follow thousands of other lackluster companies down the path of obsolescence and failure. That’s it. Those are your only two options in today’s economy.

If the latter doesn’t appeal to you (and it shouldn’t) but you don’t know how to transform your business into a forward-looking one, find someone who can help you. More often than not, you probably have a small group of talented people inside your organization who can give you guidance and help you make the best out of the current reality. If you don’t, hire someone with the right blend of talents and skills. (I know a few, so get in touch and we’ll get you hooked up pronto.)

Before I move on to my projects for the day, let me leave you with one last thought to tie all of this together (again courtesy of Tom Asacker):

“Easy times are the enemy, they put us to sleep. Adversity is our friend, it wakes us up.”
– The Dalai Lama

Time to wake up. (Hey, better late than never.) Have a great Thursday, everyone. 😉

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