Fabian Geyrhalter's Blog, page 5

How to Trust Your Decisions as a Startup Founder

This post has not much to do with branding, but it is a topic that I know a lot of startup founders are secretly struggling with, regardless of age, and it puts a huge bump into their road to success. Let’s change that.

I run a brand consultancy that advises new ventures on a distinct and definite brand direction to take. We name new ventures – from any vertical – that don’t have a single customer yet. We create a fictitious target audience and we craft a name to work for them. A name that will soon be used by thousands of actual customers worldwide. We do not use focus groups, instead we base the direction on brand strategy and insights we craft and collect during the process. If the name works within our criteria we go for it and there is no turning back. Referencing Henry Ford’s famous quote – “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” – most focus groups will pick the safe option, the option that feels most familiar, an option that may not look into the future enough to have the biggest impact (For more on that, see my thoughts on TopGolf).

The minute I let go of questioning my decision, of needing proof of concept, bigger and more innovative ideas keep emerging and my clients get just as energized as myself by the opportunity to do big thinking that will immediately be implemented into their brand strategy and subsequent launch. It’s the magic moment where creativity gets delivered with confidence and is met by trust.

With experience sure comes confidence, but also with writing regularly. I learned that the more I write (for this blog, but also for Inc, Entrepreneur and others) on my subject expertise, the more it forces me to analyze my daily observations. I translate them into a firm opinion that I can send to an editorial team, knowing that thousands of people of all levels of expertise (like yourself) will soon read it and I can not have any regrets. There is no looking back. In the beginning I was literally refreshing the comments field every minute to wait for the big backlash to happen, but then I realized it does not work that way.

All it takes is trust in yourself and trust in your decisions. That trust is crucial to anyone, but for founders it is of higher importance as it directly affects the success not only of themselves, but of their startup.

As a startup founder you have to be the ultimate leader: You lead your co-founders to believe in your vision, the product, and in yourself. Then you lead investors to put money into an intangible idea, but really they too are investing in you.

Your startup, in the end, is built more on you trusting your own decisions, and conveying that to everyone around you, than it is on your idea or your product. Definitely not the added features that you spent weeks perfecting. Scrap that. Instead, perfect the most important asset of this startup: Yourself.

Start by doing this: Next time you contemplate, you take a lot of time to form an opinion, you ask everyone for their thoughts, you start to implement tests to gain big data…Stop! Step back, make a firm decision, deliver it with confidence and move on. Big things will happen.

Trust me.

3 Brand Lessons to ‘Trump’ Them All

There is something very sincere we can learn from ‘The Donald.’

This article was originally published as part of my column in Inc.

A long time ago, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t ever touch upon politics in my writing. I broke my rule back in February when I was interviewed by The Washington Post on Hillary Clinton’s brand, comparing its legacy to that of McDonald’s. I sure broke my rule nicely. So here I go, breaking all my rules in one sentence, yet again:

There is something very sincere we can learn from Mr. Donald Trump.

Before you hit the comments field in rage, let me explain. ‘The Donald’ is quintessential branding in the making, and we can all witness it live, night after night.

I recently came back to Los Angeles from a three-week European vacation. As I left the U.S. for my trip, I started worrying that Trump would become the center of every conversation I’d have with friends and strangers alike. From answering the ‘Do Americans really like him?,’ the ‘Could he really become President of the United States?’ and, of course, the most dreaded, ‘What do you think’? In the end, the conversation only came up once, and instead of my expected response, I found myself somewhat defending the idea that is Trump. I was shocked.

It turns out I am actually fascinated by the Trump persona and brand, even though politically and intellectually I would like to remove myself rather far from his viewpoints. The fascination comes from something truly mesmerizing, something that has nothing to do with the political Trump brand. New and steadily growing ventures alike can utilize these 3 lessons I learned from Trump to turn into better brands — even if they otherwise grunt at the TV and look the other way when ‘The Donald’ disrupts their dinner:

1. Be A Frank Brand

A Donald brand is a Frank brand. It’s confusing, I know, but you cannot refrain from looking in awe at this man’s candor. If anyone, it should be Mr. Trump that reads off perfectly crafted scripts and not answer any unvetted questions, yet he walks on stage and goes off-script within seconds. Despite everything that comes out of his mouth (and much is met with regret by many on his team, not to mention his wife), it is his candor that makes him feel different, honest… a true go-getter. He defines showmanship through a very unique personality — raw and uncensored. That’s what today’s voters and consumers alike are aching for in both people and brands: being truthful and having the guts to give it to me straight. The days of scripted press releases are numbered. How can your brand make that switch? Clearly if Trump draws a crowd that way, your brand can achieve the same (without the drawbacks) if you speak your mind to an audience that thinks alike. By eliminating some, you will earn many others.

2. Craft a Hit – Then Hit Repeat

Rolling Stone quotes Gwenda Blair (Author of Donald Trump: Master Apprentice) saying “It’s all he does, the bragging and the repetition: It’s called branding, and he’s relentless at it.”‘ Over and over again you will hear the same statements about his money, the other — the bad — rich folks, and China with a bit of ‘bad Obama’ and taxes we should be getting from foreign companies sprinkled on top. Step and repeat. Fear of getting boring? Look at Nike’s Twitter bio today. What does it say? ‘#justdoit’ – and that’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing new — and that’s just fine. If the message was crafted with its audience in mind and is well received by that audience, stick to it. Relentlessly. Seek your hit and start playing it like Trump.

3. Turn Surreal Into Real

Though we may often think of Trump as far removed from reality (and his voters), he has found an audience of blue-collar working class citizens who deeply connect with him — a man who lives with a self-proclaimed and oft-questioned 2014 income of $362 million. Herein lies the magic from a branding point of view: his life is surreal, but he translates it into a reality that his audience can relate to. It’s quite magical. Marketing in and of itself is a very surreal form of communication. You assume a lot about your audience while being stuck with the point of view of an advertiser or business. Once you hit the green light on an E-Blast, a magazine ad publication or a Facebook post, you witness surreal turning into real. The more you think like the ones on the receiving side, the more real it will become. And that’s where you need to be: part of reality as a real, honest and truthful brand.

Indeed, being uniquely and truly yourself, not worrying about the haters, repeating the best stories and the ones that connect are all part of what makes great brands.

As for Donald, he may not become the next President of the United States, but he sure makes for a grand brand spectacle we can all learn from. In moderation, of course.

‘This Black Friday, We’re Closing All Our 143 Stores’

See grain. Go against it.

In a wonderful promotion that goes straight to the heart of its brand, outdoors consumer product brand REI (Recreational Equipment Inc) decided to remain closed this Black Friday. It will instead pay its employees to spend the day outside. An idea that is so nuts for a big retailer, that will lose important revenue on the biggest revenue generating day of the year, that would never go past any Board of Directors or Shareholders…that it makes for the perfect promotion for REI to pull off.

That is the question I always ask startups as I help define their brand strategy. What is it that makes you so unique and how can you leverage your uniqueness to gain hearts?

REI is a co-op. It is owned by its members, its shoppers, by all of us. If anyone, they are uniquely able to ‘#optoutside.’ A genius move that goes deep into the heart of the outdoors brand and its loyal audience: “While the rest of the world is fighting it out in the aisles, we hope to see you in the great outdoors.” Opt Outside. The revenue that they will (likely) lose that day, they are gaining in lifelong, renewed, love by its members. A love that is worth every penny (used solely as a metaphor) of their Black Friday losses. Money can’t buy what this strategy will give back to their brand.

What is your takeaway?

Well, what is your startup uniquely able to do? Define and follow it to connect with your audience in deeper, more meaningful and plenty of profitable ways. Oh, one more detail: Have the courage to execute upon it.

With a full-fledged campaign on its heels, which you can view through its web site, I leave you with two videos that sum up a brand doing it right: