Category: a slice of STRATEGY

Pure, unadulterated strategy: marketing, brand positioning, & entrepreneurial wisdom. New trends with staying power. Old standbys with inarguable value.
What to embrace, what to avoid, and what to attempt — with steady discernment.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

How to Parlay Your Personal Brand into Your Business Brand

Posted on by Red Slice

This is the number one brand challenge I hear from small business owners. “But so much of my business is tied up in my own personal reputation and who I am. How do I ensure the company builds its own brand, independent of me, so I can expand?”

Take a tip from Warren Buffett, who announced his heir for Berkshire Hathaway as an unknown 39-year old named Todd Combs. He is quoted in the WSJ as saying, ‘He is a 100% fit for our culture. I can define the culture as long as I am here. but we want a culture that is so embedded that it doesn’t get tested when the founder of it isn’t around.”

A culture that is embedded. Ah, Warren: a financial and branding genius.

Companies do this all the time, so it’s not as hard as you think. The company brand reflects the values and philosophy of the founders, but in a way that applies to the corporate entity. See Disney, Nordstrom, McDonald’s, Facebook, Microsoft, Nike, Wendy’s. Many of these companies end up with very strong brand stories about their founders’ passion and values and serve to further attract customers.

Here are some tips on how to inject your personal brand into the DNA of your business so that it lives on even if you are not at the helm:

1) Depersonalize: The biggest thing about personal brands are the values and attributes that the founder shows as a human being. Take those and make those the values and attributes of the company as a whole and how you do business. If your own reputation and image is based on honesty, integrity and straight talk, then bake those attributes into your company’s standard operation procedures, policies and visual identity and make sure they live somewhere that the entire company can see. Turn what you are known for into what your company is known for. I also call this “operationalizing your brand.” If people come to you because you are the type of gal who always returns calls the same day, then make that a company policy that any call is returned within 24 hours, no matter who received the call.

2) Document: You can’t measure and manage to something that is just inside people’s heads or inherent in only your own personal actions. How is that repeatable? Once you develop your values, mission, and the brand attributes for which you want to be known, write them down. Revisit this brand playbook periodically – it may need to evolve as you grow. This playbook can then start to inform all of your brand communications: visual, verbal and experiential. This is the whole premise by which I consult with my clients and why I wrote my book. Ya gotta WRITE IT DOWN if you want to standardize it.

3) Hire Right: Warren Buffett and others understand that brand informs culture, and culture informs how you hire and who you hire. Do you recruit people intentionally who understand and embrace your brand? (Hint: if it is not documented anywhere per #2 above, that’s your first problem) Or do you just hire the marquee names and checklist of skills on their resume? I recently heard a recruiter talk about how they hire by the Iceberg principle. Meaning, above the waterline, you look for the right skills and resume from a candidate. But it’s the skills below the surface – if the person embodies your brand, culture and values – that matter even more to success and longevity of the company. She said more often than not, the problems occur because of misalignment on these “below the water” soft skills and attitudes. If you have personal values and a reputation that is the number one reason people do business with your company, then you’d better make damn sure you’re hiring people who reflect that same work ethic and brand. See Mr. Buffett’s quote above. Use your brand strategy to guide hiring decisions – not just to decide upon your colors or packaging.

Photo credit: Brooke Lark, Unsplash

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

What do others see in your brand?

Posted on by Red Slice

Wow! A writer for Gnosis Arts Microtank assessed the Red Slice brand recently in a very complimentary piece called The Science of Branding. You should check out all parts of this series, as it’s very interesting in terms of how branding works in the human brain. This Part 2 talks about 6 modern branding approaches:

  • individual branding
  • attitude branding
  • emotional branding
  • iconic branding
  • no-brand branding
  • mindshare branding.

How do others interpret your brand? Is it the image you want them to have or not? Brand lives in the minds of customers and all we can do is try to influence that perception visually, verbally and experientially – across everything they do. But they have the final say. Someone I worked with recently has a very feminine logo and website look and feel, and I was shocked to find out that ideally, she’d like to work with executive males. Talk about delivering the wrong message to the wrong audience! Her ideal clients may have visited her site only to be turned away by what what they saw, or to decide that she wasn’t for them.

Red Slice was listed as an example of both emotional and iconic branding. The writer of the article got it right when he talked about me going for that emotional connection with Red Slice. He correctly interpreted the red apple standing out from the sea of green apples as something to be desired (differentiation). I help clients create a brand and messaging that will stand out from the crowd, connect with customers and delight them. Working with my design team at Karo on this site, I wanted to convey “fresh, juicy, irresistible” and the writer assessed this accurately based on the imagery of all the different pages. However, he also saw some “sexiness” and “forbidden fruit” in some of the imagery and experience that I never saw before. Being so close to my own brand, I had not seen this and it was unintentional. But  that aspect of “attracting” your audience still works for my business, in my opinion. Businesses want brands that people can’t resist and that they talk about. While I don’t believe a “sexy” brand is the answer for every client, I do try to find some aspect of sizzle in what they do for their target audience!

They also talked about the importance of this consistent experience carrying over to my well-designed Facebook page. That was, again, by design. You want to convey the same brand message in everything you do. Thanks to Socialbees for a great job translating my brand and design to Facebook. Love them.

It’s worth it to get some objective opinions about your branding and what it is saying. But do this carefully, as to many opinions can really muddy the waters. You want to make sure you are asking people who are close to your target audience or who know how to give objective brand opinions. As I mention in my book, asking your 21 year-old nephew what he think of a your brand, which is designed to appeal to 50+ year old women might not yield the best insights for you. Miley Cyrus is a branding phenom for her target demo, but I can’t stand her. And I’m not supposed to – she’s not meant for me.

Seek out an objective brand audit from a prospective target customer, a loyal current customer, a trusted partner or a branding expert. You may be surprised that you are saying something you don’t mean to say – or not saying something that you think is coming through loudly and clearly.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Why should I talk about your business?

Posted on by Red Slice

Loved this recent post by Seth Godin about why ideas spread. This directly relates to benefits and why people should talk about your company, your cause or your brand. What is in it for them?  Do you know why they should care/recommend/buy? And if you do, is your brand set up to address it so they  know?

It’s one thing to know in your own mind why your business is so fabulous, your services so irresistible, your value so awesome. It’s another to connect the dots for your audience through your tone, words, visuals, elevator pitch and customer experience so that they will also know and understand. That, ladies and gents, is good branding.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Microsoft finds the brand sauce…finally

Posted on by Red Slice

I’m pleased as punch about Microsoft’s new branding directions lately. They are finally starting to connect on an emotional level with some consistency across their consumer products. Hurrah!

OK, I’m not on drugs: I know they don’t necessarily have the rabid fans of Apple. but they are making strides for a company that has previously made all their consumer products feel disconnected (and with poor, confusing names, I might add – but that’s for another post).

After their success with Windows 7 “My Idea” campaign, which showed how users just want technologies to fit our lives and be what WE need them to be, they continued those efforts with Bing. Presenting Bing not just as another Google, but as an alternative to every search engine by being more about finding the right answer versus “search overload proved effective, believable and got people talking.  Bing is indeed a different experience from Google. May not tear Google die-hards away, but their point was not to do that. It was to provide the alternative to those looking for one; for those who were not getting the experience they wanted from Google.

Now Microsoft will be launching it’s brand new Windows 7 phone. A bit late to the party? Hell yes. But from all accounts, I’ve heard this will be pretty sweet indeed. And they were smart about it. Their brand campaign will not be about “another smartphone:” It’s not about competing with the existing phones on the market – Blackberry, iPhone, and Android – but about turning the entire way we look at all smartphones on its head. According to a recent article in the Puget Sound Business Journal. it’s a commentary on our “culture of mobile distraction”. Ads will show horrible predicaments caused by people lost in their phones, texting, playing games, etc and the consequences of that. Then it will present Windows 7 phones as being able to “get you in, and out, and back to life.”

When others zig, sometimes you have no choice but to zag.

Microsoft knows they need to stand out. They need to be a bit edgy, a bit devil’s advocate, because they are lagging in this market. But I for one feel like their brand efforts are finally going in the right direction and are beginning to uniformly stand for something: making technology work for us, not the other way around. We shall see if this new brand effort actually delivers on its promise.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

What you never want a customer to say about your business

Posted on by Red Slice

We’ve talked a lot here at Red Slice about “walking your talk” and living your brand inside and out. Here is one newspaper article quote you never, ever, EVER want associated with your company and brand:

“Chevron’s rhetoric and the public image that they put forward is very different from how they’re actually operating.”

This is from a recent WSJ article citing Chevron’s new ad campaign. The campaign attempts to answer critics head-on and evoke almost an anti-industry message. In an industry where most advertising shows generic, almost fairy-tale images of “frolicking children, serious scientists and splendid vistas of mountains and rivers”, Chevron is going head-on to address what oil companies should and shouldn’t be doing on a moral level. Headlines like “oil companies should support the communities they’re a part of. We agree.” and “Oil companies should put their profits to good use” abound in this campaign.

But are people buying it? Apparently not all of them, as indicated by the quote above.

Don’t make a claim unless you can really support it. And if you really want to make that claim in order to remain competitive, then ensure you modify your practices, policies, products or personnel to back up that claim. There are no shortcuts. Do what you say, say what you do. That’s how you build a strong brand over time.

Do you think oil companies can effectively change their brands over time? If so, how?

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

How to write an email that gets ripped open like a 5 year-old’s birthday present

Posted on by Red Slice

Do you get frustrated sending emails to potential clients or partners that never get opened or fall into the ether? I sure do…

We’ve all been there: we spend hours poring over every word and line of a carefully crafted email only to click Send and wait like a lovelorn teenager by the phone. Cue crickets chirping.

Wouldn’t it be great if your emails were received like candy on Halloween, and recipients couldn’t wait to get their greedy little hands on the content? Hells yeah.

Well, Mike at Toilet Paper Entrepreneur just shared how to make it happen.

I’m loving this amazingly generous video gift he recently shared about how to use behavioral influence techniques in your email writing. The video walks you through an actual email he created for a  client. I learned so much from the video about little tips and tricks to engage readers, cut through the clutter and genuinely build rapport. If any of you are doing emails for business development, partnerships – or even for your loyal community – this is really Must See TV.

Some tips he shares (there are many more):

  • starting your email subject line with a lower case letter increases opens and builds familiarity
  • The technique is based on how we want to be communicated to as humans. You want to Identify, Involve and Include.
  • The sole purpose of the subject line is to arouse curiosity so they open the email
  • In the first paragraph, position the problem you want to solve. In the 2nd, build a relatable story. In the 3rd, tie into the emotion. In the 4th, evoke a positive response by offering a “pain escape”.” And then lay out the solutions you offer.
  • Repeat a key phrase throughout to make it stick and drive home a benefit

Enjoy and please share.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

What the $%^&#! are you waiting for?

Posted on by Red Slice

I met someone the other day who told me she wanted to get into acting. So what did she do? She got involved behind the scenes instead. Her plan was that she’d “fall into” being used on-set and on-camera by understanding the behind-the-scenes operations. Luckily, one time she did get asked to be a stand-in on set (a pretty cool paying gig that helps you get used to being on camera and on-set).

Bless her heart. How comfortable to want the rewards without taking the risk. And how easy to put the risk of failure on someone else (“But no one ever noticed me back there!”)

If you want to act, act. Don’t just be an extra, don’t be a production assistant….take some damn acting classes,  get professional headshots and start auditioning for any and every role you can. If you want to start a jewelry line, start a jewelry line. Take a course, experiment with some designs, and see if you can start throwing living room parties or snag a booth at your local farmer’s market. If you want to launch your own consulting business, launch your own consulting business. Leverage the skills you’ve spent time, sweat and money developing, package them up into some irresistible offerings and just start networking.

Don’t say, “Well, I do this but one day I’d really like to (BLANK).” Start with “I’m a (BLANK) at heart, but I pay my bills doing X.” A big part of claiming your expertise is confidently embracing that you are something. Once you start leading with that, you’ll be surprised at the referrals or opportunities that can come your way.  I am a writer, an actress and a branding consultant. That is what I am. That is what is in my blood. Do I get the occasional, “Oh you’re an actress! Have I seen any of your work?” Sure I do. But my answer is, “Probably not. I do a lot of theatre and the occasional short film project” (like I did this past weekend). But you know what? I am in plays. I am in short films. Ergo, I ACT! Just because my face is not plastered across tabloids or I don’t have a multi-million dollar movie deal with Scorsese (how sweet would that be?!), I still act  Fame does not equate to doing the activity.  I’ve never been to the Olympics either – does that mean I’m not “really” a skier?

When I opened my brand consulting business, I had to consciously stop defining myself by what I was and start embracing who I had become. No more, “Well, I used to be a Silicon Valley marketing director but now I’m doing my own thing.” It became, “I am a branding consultant with almost 20 years experience with clients large and small.”

No one is going to cast/hire/buy jewelry from someone who is not really committed to it. Why would they spend their money on someone who is not really quite sure they can deliver? Confidence and moxie attracts.  You have the talent, the skills and the drive. If you don’t get out there and claim your space, who is going to do it for you?

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

What’s your “hook”? If you don’t know, how will your customers?

Posted on by Red Slice

Telling your brand story is sort of like a newspaper article: it’s all about the lead. Some folks may call this the “lead offer.” What does your business hang its hat on? When customers have that certain need or desire that certain experience, is it your company that comes to mind first?

Having a lead offer doesn’t mean you can’t have secondary messages. I often use the example of Nordstrom and Walmart. Nordstrom leads with a customer service and quality offer; Walmart with one about lowest prices.  Does this mean Walmart is rude to their customers? Heck no. It just means that when you are looking for low prices, they want you to think of them. If you are thinking of a good customer service experience first, then maybe you should go elsewhere.

Recently, Delta announced they were going to start leading their brand story with “service” not “size.”  After acquiring Northwest Airlines, they became the largest player by traffic – until United recently merged with Continental.  So now Delta is switching stories and focusing their budget on service: new flat-bed seats, video on demand and upgraded facilities in key markets.

United may decide to focus on size for a while in terms of the benefits it provides to customers: more routes, more convenience to get where you want to go, a larger network, etc.  (Sidenote: big is only a relevant claim if it benefits a customer in some way and makes their life better, offers them more access, etc. Big for “big’s sake” just becomes chest-thumping.) We will have to see how the United-Continental brand story shakes out.

What do you lead with? Can you articulate the main offer you want to be known for? Please share in the comments. Service? Selection? Style? Convenient locations? Cutting-edge technology solutions? You can’t be everything so pick the main offer, the main place where do you want to “fit” inside your customers’ brains and build up from there.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Philanthropic Giving: Business Model or Brand Message?

Posted on by Red Slice

As mentioned in a previous post, giving back to the community and maintaining responsible business practices are really hot for consumer loyalty right now. I personally hope this trend continues into perpetuity, as businesses have amazing reach and leverage to make a difference in the world. I pray this is not just a fad.

I read a sidebar in the WSJ today about businesses following in the footsteps (no pun intended) of Toms Shoes. For every pair of shoes they sell, they give one pair to a child in need. Pretty cool. While this may add extra costs or eat into margins, its also the reason why many loyal customers continue to support Toms – and they get ton of great PR around it. The WSJ article states that a July survey by Cone LLC found that 19% of adults would switch brands – even to those with higher prices – to support a cause. That’s pretty powerful, especially during a recession.

Toms passes the extra costs onto consumers, who don’t mind paying it because, hey, they need shoes anyway and want to help people in need at the same time. Now many start-ups are mimicking this concept in small ways. The article cites Warby Parker who gives money to a nonprofit called Restoring Vision or every pair of glasses they sell. And a necktie retailer called Figs donates school uniforms to children in Africa for every tie sold.

While profit margins and growth may be slowed because of this, the companies seem to be trading off brand loyalty and attracting a  certain kind of loyal customer for the long term. That’s pretty smart, if they can keep it going. But I wondered if this is a business model shift or a brand shift? Obviously, you have to tweak your pricing and fulfillment to make this happen, so it does impact the business model and how fast you can grow. But it also ties so closely in with the “soul” of the company and what it stands for – and that is a brand decision if you ask me. It’s promoting a value to attract customers who share that value – which means it’s about a promise and a targeted message. All branding decisions.

Whatever you call it, I like it. And I hope it continues. But maybe that is because I am the type of person they are trying to attract. If someone is striving to make ends meet and cares about price, they are not the target audience for these companies.

Does that mean businesses who engage in this practice always need to be targeting a more affluent customer? What do you think?

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

The brand strategy “recipe” plus thoughts on the personal branding gold rush

Posted on by Red Slice

Two juicy audio nuggets for you, loyal readers. One is a great interview with Amber Singleton Riviere of Upstart Smart Radio (a fab resource for entrepreneurs) on what exactly is included in a brand strategy. We also discuss the all-important difference between a brand strategy and brand and marketing tactics.

The second is our frank audio discussion on the new personal branding gold rush. Seems more and more people are building businesses out of their personal brands. We also talk about things like transparency, niche communities, self-expression, and the importance of authenticity and value.