Introduction I have compiled these 21 way-finders with an eye towards speed of consumption resulting from a quick-read. We’re all busy and continuously trying to ‘map-to-internet-speed’. You nor I have the time to belabor exhaustive diatribes. As a result we get and stick to the point and offer a brief justification for each points’ validity. When you see us use the term, ‘brand’ in reference to your company, large or small it is intentional.
We feel that most entrepreneurs do not see their project or company as a brand and instead become too deeply emotionally and financially invested to maintain the necessary objectivity. If when you hear the term, ‘brand’ you thought, “oh they must mean MICROSOFT or APPLE or some other bigger entity” you have located your first blind spot that this brief work attempts to reveal. Most seasoned, successful business builders understand this truth… “it’s the brand stupid”. If you think it’s about anything other than the positive emotional association and affinity your ideal clients or consumers experience when they hear or see your brand identifiers, you’re doomed to fail or doomed to remain small as a revenue producing concern. Brands that achieve lift-off and built by entrepreneurs who are interested in only one thing… “what will the ideal client or consumer buy repeatedly and what do we need to do to be their top-of-mind choice every time they experience the need or want our brand’s product or service satisfies”. If you think it’s about anything other or you’re motivated by any other desire; wealth, self-aggrandizement, popularity, visibility, you are sure to be bested by the professional business builder who solely asks, “how can we make it sell better, 2 quicker, faster while our brand serves better than anything else in its category”
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S 2 Introduction 4 Section One: The 7 Self-Limiting Factors 14 Section Two: The 7 Hidden Whys 24 Section Three: The 7 Optimizations 34 The 100 Client Challenge
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Section One
The 7 Self-Limiting TITLE OF THIS CHAPTER Factors
SHALL GO HERE
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7- Alchemy
1Entrenchment
6- Scope
2- Fashion
3 -Confusion
5- Also-Ran
4- Dilution
1-Entrenchment We repeatedly encounter brands that are so focused on their past and/or current success that they are incapable of writing their next success story. It's either former glory or current success that results in Brand Entrenchment… The definition of "entrenchment" is "to place within or surround with a trench especially for defense", or “to place in a strong defensive position in an attempt to establish soundly" As a result, such brands stay comfortably entrenched in their historical posture tightly tied to their core business and historical methods of marketing and selling their product. Short-term, bean-counter thinking says that this is wise and supports its conjecture with comments like, “We’re focused on what makes us good at what we do”, all the while setting themselves up for failure as the future passes them by and they remain entrenched in their historical cocoon.
Entrenchment was a great 1990’s concept, but at today's internet-fueled rate of change, while you're digging your trench, a young start-up is announcing you're the dinosaur that your customers should be too embarrassed to patronize because you're so 2015.
The Limiting Factors
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2-Fashion Every year, four times a year, fashions change to the benefit of the brand(s) selling the 'hottest fashion' Brand naturally want to be 'in' fashion or 'hot‘… However, being too focused on moving with the latest consultant-fueled, design-trend risks you slowly committing brand suicide. Brand Suicide, for example, is what happened to Janet Jackson during the 2004 Super Bowl. One minute you are atop the world and then next your brand is forever damaged and undesirable (oddly enough the exact opposite is still true for Justin Timberlake- neither of us has time to wonder why, but avoiding this sort of cataclysm should keep us all awake at night). Each attempt to follow any fashion trend should be clearly justified by the identification of "customer need". Upon realization that your brand is wellpositioned to meet that customer need and not currently doing so, proceed with caution. The result… While others brand continuously chase the herd, yours will constantly speak to true "customer need" in an authentic manner. This more than anything will continuously strengthen the relationship between your brand and its current and future consumer base.
The Limiting Factors
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3-Confusion The brand's identity is in the eye of the beholder… We frequently see brand owners creatively ‘go-it-on-their-own’ and do something ‘wild, crazy or unusual’ in an attempt to ‘go viral’. This is even more seductive with the explosion of Instagram and Snapchat which both promise instant virality and in Snapchat’s case a forever missing trail of evidence (until the FBI or some major criminal case secures precedence to seize that information and brings into the realm of discovery every participants bad, under-the-influence behavior). This rarely strengthens their brand and instead typically confuses the consumer or their existing clients thereby weakening their brand's perceived value Tactical moves such as this create confusion in the minds of both their existing consumer audience as well as the potential audience for the brand’s product or service. The net effect is not zero, but usually a negative factor that further erodes their brand’s market position by making them look undisciplined or desperate in the eye of the discerning consumer and market watchers.
The Limiting Factors
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4-Dilution Brand extension (allowing your brand to be spread across a number of products or disconnected channels) can result in what we’ve termed: Brand Dilution‌
Brand Dilution results when the brand is spread so thinly across multiple media and platforms without an overarching idea to tie all of its appearances together. Remember the "Duck Dynasty" craze that hit a few years ago? I recall walking through the aisles of major retailers and finding an untold number of T-shirts, trinkets and trash proudly adorned with the faces of the whitegray-bearded, Duck Dynasty cast. Although I'm sure it was profitable in the short-term, there is now little interest in buying the next round of products put forth by Duck Dynasty because the brand has become so diluted in the marketplace. Recovering from this state is difficult and requires either a re-affirmation of the brand's original messaging (tagline) or a complete brand reboot; both of which are expensive and time intensive.
The Limiting Factors
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5-Also-Ran Are They Trying To Be Like You or Are Your Trying To Be Like Them? We are continually amazed by brand whose entire focus is to be 'Be-LikeMike' (if you remember the old Nike Air Jordan's ad campaign).
Yes mimicry is the best form of flattery, yet wouldn't it be preferred to be the brand leader others try to mimic versus being the one who defines itself by competing against an industry leader? If you are one of many, instead of setting the standard others are judged by, your brand may have inadvertently entered the "also-ran" category. The way you'll know this has happened to your brand is when you can only compete on 'price" and even then you lose out to the offshore, lowest quality provider. Do you remember who came0 in 2nd at the 2015 Kentucky Derby when AMERICAN PHAROAH started it’s run toward the Triple Crown? ‌Neither do we.
The Limiting Factors
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6-Scope “It is in self-imitation that a master first shows himself.� Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Brands rarely define their scope as a means of self-limiting (what they will allow themselves to do) their behaviors. Every start-up knows the battle of limiting it's brand's scope until is secures a significant posture in the marketplace. More established companies would do well to heed this same behavior, but often allow their brand to 'creep' beyond its 'best-in-category' scope resulting in potential Brand Dilution or Brand Confusion. Deciding to become world-class in your core competency is the key to restricting your brand's scope and protecting your brand reputation, internal financial resources and talent capital. A clearly defined brand scope, empowers a brand can resist the temptation to lose sight of its Brand Intention. Adopting a laser focus on one's brand ethos will help move its positioning, marketing and selling into a more timeless posture.
The Limiting Factors
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7-Alchemy “We’re all still trying to turn common elements into gold… There are varied definitions of the term Alchemy that help us depict the opportunity presented in our Brand Optimization model. The definition we embody is, “a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve the transmutation of the base metals into gold…”
This promise of this definition fueled medieval entrepreneurialism and its spirit continues to fuel the pursuit of wealth creation today through the combination of common elements to produce a unique product or service. Brand Alchemy then is the combination of the 21 keys found herein into a customized action plan that results in your brand ascending to new heights and finding new and unique ways to ‘wow’ your Ideal Client or Consumer. These 21 keys (when combined into a unique formula for creating mass brand adoption) produce the momentum we speak of later in this work. We encourage you to leverage all 21 keys by determining the value or standard of each for your brand to then begin the optimization process. With each tweak, these variables will provide valuable feedback that once understood will result in explosive growth as overlooked limitations are removed from your brand promise delivery.
The Limiting Factors
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Section Two
THE 7 HIDDEN WHYS… TITLE OF THIS CHAPTER
SHALL GO HERE
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7Momentum Mystery
1-Mirror Imaging
2-1st Time New
6-The Swift Race
3-Failure Is Likely
5-Viability
4Unlimited
8- We See Ourselves in the Mirror of the B rand We Buy... Are you your brand?
If you answered yes, then you correctly perceive the brave new world in which we as product and service marketers find ourselves. Whether your brand is Apple Computer or the local independent coffee shop, success is the result of potential consumers identifying with the brand founder, what they appear to stand for and what benefit(s) their product or service delivers. If you answered no and instead mentioned “my product” or “my service” or “my company” is the brand then I encourage you to look closely at the identity that your consumers associate with your product, service or company name. Whatever they associate with any of those three, needs to be fully analyzed and understood to grow and remain relevant in a time of increasing rapid, unforeseen change. As you define the promises your brand is making to your market space, understanding what people see of themselves in your brand is a master key to accelerating the mass adoption curve.
Who sees themselves in your brand? Some folks are Chevy people, others drive Fords. Although these "I'd rather fight than switch" feelings are more civilized in 2016 than they were in the days of AMC's Mad Men's 1960's, people still either see themselves in your brand or they don't. Understanding the brand promises that resonate most with your ideal consumers will ultimately determine the rate at which mass adoption of your brand will occur. The degree to which you master attracting your ideal consumers to what they see in your brand that represents themselves will ultimately result in mass adoption of your brand’s products or services or a slow, debilitating loss of your invested capital. 15
The Ys
9- You're Either New or Setting The Standard By Which Others Are Judged... Do you possess some innovation or marketing framework that makes you 'stand-alone" in your respective market space? We recommend that you critique yourself along these lines so you can weather your market's initial indifference to your product launch or inevitable withering criticism as you succeed. Your ultimate goal must be to stand-alone in consumers' minds as the sole solution for the problem your brand is promising to solve in the consumer's life. Some brand leaders have either been the status quo or accepted their market share as same for so long that they are unable to objectively critique themselves. This inability to see themselves through their customers' eyes causes them to react versus proactively chart a course toward brand stability. We often finally see brand leaders react when their prospective and existing customers brand dis-interest becomes clearly measurable in the area of 'flatsales' or emerging competition that gains market share seemingly overnight in their market space. By simply asking and answering the “Stand Alone Innovation� question you position your brand as better than and different that all the rest. What comes next is your defense of an actual defensible perimeter that can define your marketing messaging and authenticate your social media voice. Your prospects and clients will see you differently and expect to pay more for that perceived difference, thereby enhancing your brand’s perceived value in its marketspace.
The Ys
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10- Failure Is A Certainty, Success Is A Rarity 80% Of Businesses Started Fail Within The First 18-months Of Operation... FORBES offers two commentaries on the success and failure rates of business start-ups. Of 100 business start-ups, 80% of them are statistically destined to fail in within the first 18-months of operation. Of the remaining 20% or 20 out of 100, only 4 are destined to survive until year 10. The question(s) we recommend you ask yourself are, “What can we do to succeed rapidly within the first 24-months of operation?” or “What can we do to re-trigger a 24-month growth curve” to ensure our long-term viability as an entity?” Although we realize there are many factors that contribute to business failure, including under capitalization, leadership inexperience and market indifference, the primary reason for failure from our perspective is lack of brand adoption by a large enough segment of the targeted audience for a product or a service. Peter Drucker is famously quoted as having said, "All Business Is Innovation And Marketing, The Rest Is Just Commentary" Lacking in either of these two categories: marketing or innovation will certainly cause your brand to languish and ultimately become an also-ran. Optimizing one or both of these variables will rapidly make you a recessionproof market leader. 17
The Ys
11- Brands Are No Longer Limited ‌ To Their Core Products Or Services Brands are ideas‌ Ever see a Nike logo on something other than a shoe? Of course you have... In fact much of Nike's $30.6B brand revenue is due the extension of the idea of its brand (Just Do It) across a myriad of other products worldwide through numerous channels. Brands are typically deployed first via the most organic channels available and then begin to 'extend' into other potential lucrative The question for your brand is, "How quickly can you distill your brand virtues into battle cries that can create value in other settings atop other products?" In doing so your core products or services are strengthened while your brand's overall perceived value and ubiquity will be increased.
There's secret sauce herein that when used properly can have significant impact with the addition of a corresponding social media campaign.
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The Ys
12- Viability World-class Execution From Launch To Exit Strategy The Best At 'Execution' Always Wins… In every game, at every level, the best at “brand promise delivery” wins. Excuses are understood, but not tolerated today's fickle global marketplace. You make an implied promise with every message your brand emanates. Failure to deliver on these promises, even in the smallest matter results in consumer disconnect and alienation. The bad news… Most of this promise delivery failure happens in the consumer's mind in the quiet of their experience while on their mobile device. The failure and its resulting effects may never even be made know to you; other than in ‘poor-sales-due-to-bad-word-of-mouth' and limited adoption of your brand's products or services. The fix? 1- Identify every implied promise 2- Master it’s delivery through processes optimization 3- Beg the consumer to feedback the instant they feel you are not flawless in your brand promise delivery.
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The Ys
13- The Race Is To The Swift … Not Necessarily The Well-Capitalized A- From Anonymity to Indifference If you’ve been in start-up mode you know this progression very well. You start out completely anonymous because no one even knows about your great idea until your crowd-funding effort hits social media. Despite the oohs and ahas of friends and family, you go live much to the indifference of the rest of the planet Earth. This is when many who are emotionally unprepared begin to talk about how lonely the entrepreneur’s life can be. Yet the seasoned founder knows this is merely the ‘quiet-before-the-storm’ or the ‘death-knell-that-you’re-not-yet-ready-accept’. No matter… the seasoned and the uninitiated press-on in hopes of receiving, ‘Recognition’. B- From Indifference to Recognition
Then it begins to happen… You get a critical mention in the media or someone in a chat rooms says something nice and all of a sudden there is some organic traffic that might be more than a curiosity blip on the success radar. Next you start to make some sales and receive some additional media attention suggesting that you might be part of the new ‘hip & cool’ in your respective market space. All of sudden, it happens… You’re hard work is recognized and you start to have a bit of notoriety both personally and professionally.
The Ys
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13- The Race Is To The Swift … …Not Necessarily The Well-Capitalized C- From Recognition to Mass Adoption Then it really happens… Someone says something to someone and they tweet out how hip and cool you are and it spreads like wildfire. In addition to feelings of nausea, mixed with light-headedness you start to experience Mass Adoption. It’s the equivalent of going viral and getting rich quick all in the same span of time with little psychological preparation. Is this how it always happens…? Well no, but the media feeds us and feeds upon this type of narrative because it’s romantic and it keeps our attention on them while they’re ‘on-air’. For the rest of us, it usually takes 3-5 years of hustle and bustle to hopefully have enough investor value to take a real salary and solicit the next round of investment. Sure miracles happen, but for most of us there is a grueling period of unappreciated work before success comes into view. Yet regardless of success’ timeline, one maxim that still holds true is: speed to completion still rules the day. So regardless of whether the media-hyped-darling start-up raised 7 figures in minutes and you’re boot-strapping it with funds your friends and family couldn’t afford to lend, s/he who finishes first in serving the client, finishes best and lives to serve another day. Adoption
Recognition
Indifference
The Ys
Anonymity
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14- Master The Mystery: Momentum There is a speed at which, an aerodynamically sound, multi-ton piece of composite alloy will fly around the world at record speeds assuming it satisfies the laws of physics that pertain to “Lift”. If the principle of “Lift” validates aerodynamic design when sufficient velocity is achieved, then increased sales revenue validates a brand’s optimization. We arrive at this seemingly obtuse (hard-to-initially-understand) conclusion by seeing our brand as a private jet that we will use to achieve the highest altitude and farthest reach with the least fuel and crew possible. Our goal is simple: flawless design, maximum velocity, quickest speed to cruising altitude and farthest range possible to achieve maximum success. The key to realizing this dream of brand flight… momentum.
In the same way that private jet travel has become an example of the mastery of a complex set of variables such that there is little room for or error before, during and after the experience called: flight. brand achieve momentum by optimizing every process until there is not only ‘lift’ or ‘flight’ but ‘momentum’ that allows a cruising altitude to be achieved and maintained. There are a set of variables that must be mastered to achieve momentum and they differ to some degree across brands and their products or services, however, so few brand leaders are working to optimize these variables that once you begin optimizing yours you will climb past your competitors to a new altitude where the traffic is minimal. Momentum is often seen as a mysterious occurrence understood by a rare few who are entrepreneurially gifted. There is no mystery, only rightly applied mechanics consistently applied with ever-increasing effectiveness. Mastering Momentum is learning to do the right things as a habit while continuously looking for ways to improve what’s-already-working. When the brand’s leader internalizes this performance standard, it reverberate into every aspect of their 22 business and leadership team. The Ys
Section Three
The 7 Optimizations
TITLE OF THIS CHAPTER SHALL GO HERE
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7- The Game Is…
1-360° Perspective
2- Tell Yourself Truths
6- Crack The Code
3 Illuminate Negative
5- Find The Silver Cord 4- Bypass The Noise
15- How to Get A 360 -degree Perspective… Get Out & Away From The Box We suggest that you not only become an ‘out-of-the-box-thinker’, but you also get-out-of-and-away-from-the-box’. Once you are removed from the box (the box = your business) you will be able to see what your prospective customers see as obvious "gaps or fails" in your brand's promise delivery. To get your prospective customer's 360-degree perspective some have said "you must walk 1,000 miles in their shoes." We merely suggest that you know his/her world at least as well as they do.
This will often result in prescriptions for change so stark and potentially controversial to the status quo that you might at first feel uncomfortable. Yet, it is in this place of discomfort is that you will find ahas that your competitors have yet to discover and that your prospective customers/clients are desperately looking for. We all are unable to see the forest-for-the-trees, but if we are removed from the ‘box’ the forest seemingly creates we can see a 360-dregree view of every challenge or opportunity available to our brand.
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The Optimizations
16- Just Tell Yourself The Truth We all lie to ourselves a little‌ What truth is your brand telling you that you're unable to allow yourself to hear, but to your prospective clients it is painfully obvious? "I don't look fat in this" "I haven't gained more than a few pounds"
"I'll make the money to pay for it before the first payment comes due" and a host of other small lies soften reality's blow. Each little white lie lets us feel a little bit better about what is actually a downward spiral resulting ultimately in our unforeseen physical death as a human being. Sound too harsh‌? Well it is, but to get through an average day we do everything possible to avoid thinking about dying. Despite the fact that everything we do from eating, to breathing, to making more money is an attempt to out-run death's impending grasp, we rarely want to acknowledge the harsh truths that will allow us to truly change advance forward. We could end this point right here and let your mind wander to every intrinsic improvement you need to make s in your brand's promise delivery. However we offer only one additional thought... While telling yourself the truth, allow your ideal customers an opportunity to do the same and you will save yourselves years of frustration and financial under-performance.
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17- Have The Guts To Illuminate The Negative Love is blind… Entrepreneurs, will fail as many as 10 times before they experience breakaway success. Blind love of their product, service or business model is often a common denominator. This Blind Love is dangerous… David M. Corbin author of Illuminate admonishes us to not only become aware of the negatives that may hold our brand back from stellar performance, but to actually highlight those negatives with the intent to learn every lesson possible from their banishment from our brand’s history and future. Although most entrepreneurs would be ready to fight if you said they were too-in-love-to-be-objective about their brand, all would, after some prodding, acknowledge that it's impossible to be objective once you're "in love". To re-open your eyes and come out of the fog of blind love, start by looking for “what's wrong” to give birth to what is right . We understand the pain of incessantly looking for flaws in your baby, but if you don’t find and solve them first, your competitors or worse your prospective customers will at your personal expense.
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The Optimizations
18- Don't Shout ...Bypass The Noise If Your brand Isn’t Optimized, It Will Be… It Will Be Mobile content delivery now pervades every nook and cranny of our lives and it's 360-degree access to our world is just getting started. We’re beginning to see the initial impacts of the Internet of Things (IoT). The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects—devices, vehicles, buildings and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity—that enables these objects to collect and exchange data via mobile, wireless networks. This definition is code for: “you-now-live-in-a-world-where-everythingelectronic-and/or-GPS-able- feeds-back-data-on-your-every decision-andmovement”. The digital noise around us and the resulting conversation within us is already deafening. Sadly, the volume of that noise will increase ten-fold as the (IoT) further invades everything around us. From wearable tech to your ever-emerging smartphone technology, it is becoming impossible for brand of any size to trust that their message will somehow 'breakthrough-the-noise’ to hold your attention long enough to trigger your buying decision. It's daunting enough to think that your refrigerator will auto-order milk from the grocery delivery service. It’s terrifying to think that your refrigerator could critique your nutritional choices and track data on how quickly you ate those last two pieces of birthday cake. As big data swallows us all, only optimized brand will have a snowball'schance of being the brand the consumer organically recalls. 28
The Optimizations
19- Find The Silver Cord That "Links -It-All-Together " By The Way, We’ve Found It… We've found that the Silver Cord “that-links-it-all-together” is the consumer's ultimate 'why'. The consumer’s ‘why’ is what attracts them to your product or service in the first place. Yet, often brand leaders get lost in the features and benefits of their product or service and forget that unless the consumer cares, “who cares”! Although most consumers are too proud to say it so out loud, they are desperate to be heard and served by someone who actually cares about them personally. To become known as the ultimate, mobile-optimized concierge is the ‘holygrail’ many fast-growth brands seek. However, consumers reject most well intentioned start-ups because they can ‘smell-a-phony-a-mile-away’. Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to resonate with the willingness to serve and then measure your "Promise Delivery" feedback so that eventually you are out-performing your promises and delighting your brand fans.
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20- The Task Is: ‘Crack-the-Code’ The Code Is Crack-able… …once the variables and their syntax are understood. Yes this is computer speak from the 1980's, but it's still relevant today. 1- Define the variables that make up the code, 2- Place them in the proper order 3- Test the value of each variable until the program runs 'bug-free' or in this case the Code is Cracked. Once you understand the variables of brand optimization and how they can or need to be aligned the process of increasing revenues becomes a science versus a crap shoot. Do we know how to do that… Yes we do… actually you do too… You’re just too forest-for-the-trees in your business pursuits to have or take the time we do to figure it out and turn it into a formula. By the way, that is what people pay us for and why they continue paying us…
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21- The Game Is Stand -Alone Innovation Launched Via Breakthrough Marketing In an upcoming book I’ll talk more about this ‘secret sauce’ I call ‘Stand Alone Innovation’, but for our limited purposes here I’ll give you just enough to clarify my point. As I mentioned beforehand, Peter Drucker reduced ‘business’ down to two critical variables: innovation and marketing. Our point is that with innovation that makes you stand-alone in your market space combined with a marketing message or methodology that causes you to cut through the noise... you and your brand win. Now your knee-jerk conjecture may be, “Well isn’t that we are paying our R&D folks and our agency or in-house marketing team to accomplish”? In response we say, “I dunno… is that the task you assigned them or did you just leave it up to them to keep you relevant and make more money this quarter?”
We find that typically it’s the latter and when we change the questions and the C-suite changes the directive(s), both R&D and Marketing come alive with a focus that fuels and confirms the concept of Brand Optimization or as we say, “Brand Optimized”.
Stand-alone Innovation
Breakthrough Marketing 31
The Optimizations
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