You Don’t Own Your Brand Anymore

/in /by

Guess Who Does

If you’re spending a lot of money to develop your brand through advertising or a nifty website, you might want to rethink that. You don’t control your brand anymore, so trying to create or enhance it with slick images and thought-provoking tag lines could just be a waste of valuable time and money resources.

A couple years ago, Sun Microsystems theorized that we are no longer in the technology or information ages, but that we are now in the Participation Age, and that the hallmark of the Participation Age is Sharing.

Nobody likes to be told what to do, so their narrative hasn’t spread widely, but I’ve sure jumped on board – I believe there is no question we’re in the Participation Age, and that the central driving force in our economy is Sharing of ideas, resources, schools of thought, and commingling of those into new products, services, and conversations.

There is nowhere to hide anymore. Information is one of those things that is too easy to share now for anyone to try to keep it to themselves or pretend that one thing is actually another. That’s where the brand problem comes in. If the brand you’re putting in that slick brochure isn’t the same brand the admin, dock worker and VP have in your office, you’re in trouble. The Participation Age will expose you because your customers and employees will be sharing openly and freely about your real brand, the one they experience, not the one you put in that brochure.

So I guess I’m being a little coy in saying you’ve lost control of it; what has really happened is that you’ve lost control of pretending what it is. We can no longer market “family friendly” hot dogs and treat our employees like indentured servants, Who we SAY we are and who we REALLY are had better match up, because if they don’t, the conversation our clients and employees are having on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and a dozen other places is going to make the difference glaringly obvious.

Participation comes from Sharing, and Sharing comes from Community. People have more access to information sharing communities than ever before. Iran thought they could control their brand, but Twitter made it impossible – the real brand came out through their “customers” and “employees”.

The best we can do is to influence our brand by 1) creating a community for our clients to talk with others, and us, and 2) being an active part of that conversation. We cannot afford to say “Pay no attention to the man behind the green curtain” as in the Wizard of Oz. Who we are has to match what we do.

We should be actively involved with our customers, letting them know all the great things we do for them and influencing our brand by ensuring they know we’re listening and are working on their behalf. It’s easy to throw stones at the unknown or those at a distance. Companies that know this have come down off their high horse and have joined the Sharing party to actively engage with their customers on a level playing field. And surprise, surprise, these are the companies that are most in touch with what their customers really want from them.

Everyone knows the story of Zappos shoes working themselves into the conversation on Twitter. They didn’t do it just because it was intriguing, but they understand that when people see that the brand they talk about is the same brand they live in their offices, it creates community and connection that is stronger than any slick brochure Zappos could ever put on the street.

What are you doing to make sure you’re in the conversation with your customers and your employees about your brand? They’re already out there sharing it – you might want to get involved and influence what they share.

Start with this question – “What are you buying from me that you don’t even think I know I’m selling?” You’ll make more money in less time with questions like that. And you’ll actually have an impact on the brand that you no longer control.

What an old guy told me that changed my life.

/in /by

The Time, Money, and Energy Conundrum – When I was just starting out, a creepy old guy (about my age – mid-50s) told me life had a built in problem. He said “The problem with life is this.

When you’re young, you’ve got all the time and all the energy to enjoy life, but no money. When you’re in your middle years, you’ve got all the money and all the energy, but no time. And when you’re retired, you’ve got all the money and all the time, but no energy.”

He then went on to say something very profound. “The key to a good life is to figure out how to have all three at once – you’ll make a lot bigger impact in the world around you if you can figure that one out.”

Lifetime Goals are foundational for figuring out the Time, Money, and Energy conundrum, for a very important reason. The definition of a Lifetime Goals is:

A goal which can never be checked off.

A true Lifetime goal can never really be fully completed – there is always something more you can do to make it better, more complete. Any goal that can be checked off as complete is not a Lifetime Goal. Been dreaming about that house on the spit of land at the edge of the lake with the thirteenth tee behind you? That is not a Lifetime Goal – it can be checked off, and once it is, it will no longer be motivating.

The red herring we’ve been fed is that the accumulation of junk is the same as Lifetime Goals. “My lifetime goal is to have $5 million in the bank, a Mercedes, a 6,000sf house, and a nice boat.” No it isn’t. Making money is not an empowering vision, and a goal realized is no longer motivating. This is just making money so you can check off the accumulation of junk. Wouldn’t get me out of bed for three minutes in the morning.

If you’re initially motivated by those things and obtain them, you’ll be sorely disappointed if you don’t have a bigger reason to have them than just having them. The old bumper sticker from the 80s – “He who dies with the most toys wins.” – was wrong. No, he who lives with the most motivating Lifetime Goals wins.

I believe every one of us was made to do something significant with our lives. Have you figured that out for yourself yet? If you’ve got a burr in your saddle or a blue flame coming out behind you for something that really excites you, you know you’re on to something. And everybody is going to want to be part of your life. Nobody runs to catch a stopped train – get yours moving and watch what happens.

You can solve the time, money, and energy conundrum and have all three at once, and make a lot bigger impact in the world around you.

Retirement is a Bankrupt Industrial Age Idea

/in /by

Retirement is a really bad, bankrupt, industrial age idea that was never a good idea in the first place. It was invented by big businesses to steal the best 40 years of our lives so they could discard us when our good years were all behind us.

What makes it so wrong? A few very important ideas:

1) A goal realized is no longer motivating.

Retirement is a goal that can be realized, and once it is realized, it’s not what we were promised. In the Industrial Age, the average life expectancy for men after retirement was 18 months. No longer motivated. Out to pasture. Stick a fork in them – they were done.

Men are beginning to live longer after retirement, but for reasons connected to Lifetime Goals – they’re finding meaningful things to do after they stop going to work every day (or choosing to continue going to work).

2) The very concept of retirement teaches us to put off doing anything really meaningful and substantial with our lives.

I heard it hundreds of times growing up from future pasture-geezers still in their 40’s – “When I retire, I’m going to….[fill in the blank.] What a horrible way to live – always hoping for a future time when you’re actually free to do something with your life.

3) The other really bad notion of retirement is that you’re supposed to work until your 65, then begin enjoying life.

The not so subtle message here is that work and play do not mix, and that you are really supposed to live two lives – your work life, and your meaningful life (shouldn’t work be meaningful, too?). And the ideal way to do it is to live your work life first, and hope you have time left to live your meaningful life afterwards, when you have no energy left to do so.

Wealth is the freedom and the ability to choose what to do with my time.

The retirement game teaches us you won’t be free until you retire. What a load of crap. Stop living for a future that never arrives. Don’t be that guy who, when you’re gone, others say “Too bad he didn’t get to enjoy his retirement.”

Lifetime Goals give us something to begin to enjoy today that we find meaning in, the rest of our lives. Do you have Lifetime Goals that you’re already living, without any need to be retired to get after them? Life should be meaningful, fulfilling, and satisfying today.

Tomorrow never comes. Carpe freaking diem already.

The Best Sales Tactic Ever, Isn’t a Sales Tactic

/in /by

The funniest things go through your mind when riding a bike on switchbacks up a mountain. It came to me today while slogging up the hill that something a client of mine and I had talked about last week riding up the same mountain together was pretty important. Sales people and business owners really don’t get it.

He related that he had been at a gathering and a friend introduced him to an insurance guy, then promptly walked off, leaving my friend with a guy who oozed “sales pitch”. Sure enough, the sales pitch came almost immediately.

My friend was polite but cut in and made it very clear that he was not the least bit interested in insurance of any kind, that he was totally happy with his existing insurance of every kind, and didn’t need any second opinions at this time of any kind. The insurance guy nodded, then went on for 20 minutes about his great insurance. My friend finally had to make up an excuse to get out of the conversation and move on.

If this insurance guy had understood the best sales tactic ever, my friend would have had no annoying story to tell me. What most sales people and most business owners do not understand is that our job is enter other people’s worlds, not get them to enter ours; to meet them where THEY are at, not where we want them to be.

Drawing people into “my world” is what we all want to do. Let me tell you how great I am, how great my product/service is, and how great you would be if you just jumped into my world with both feet and bought my stuff. I know what’s best for you, so I’ll ignore what you’re saying and keep on recruiting you to enter my world.

What if we took the opposite approach? What if we said to ourselves, what does that person want and need, without regard to what I’m selling? What if I was simply willing to enter their world, to mentally and emotionally meet them where they live, not where I live? This is the essence of servant-selling. Serve, don’t sell. We all want to buy stuff, but none of wants to be sold stuff. Serve me where I am at, regardless of your product/service, and I just might be interested in buying from you.

Here’s the simple, but incredibly challenging “sales tactic”. It comes from the book, The Power of Purpose, by Peter Temes, (the subtitle, “Living Well by Doing Good” is my life vision). This isn’t a sales book, but should be. Peter says the highest tier, Tier Three of “thinking” is “What does the other person I’m talking about think and feel about themselves, and how can I help push them forward in that?” Tier Three thinking does not focus on what I feel and think, or even what the other person feels and thinks about ME, but only where they are and what I can do to help push them forward right there.

Start purposing to enter other people’s worlds, and apply Tier Three thinking to everything you do. You’ll be surprised how hard it is to stay focused on the needs of others (it was very revealing to me how self-focused I am). It will also be the most powerful way to break down barriers, make a friend, and put someone in a position where they want to buy from you.

If you start entering other people’s worlds, meeting them where THEY are at, and do it with the right motive, you may never have to sell anything again. People will be too busy buying from you.