Jeremy Miller's Blog, page 37

Seven Mistakes That Screw Up Your Brand

We all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. But some mistakes can really screw up your brand.

Are you committing any of the seven mistakes that really screw up a brand?

1. Ignore Your Values

The pressure to perform is intense, and sometimes you may look for a shortcut to hit a short term goal.

But short term gains can create long term pains.

If you ignore your values to achieve a short term goal or to overcome a crisis, you may crash your brand.

Your company’s values are the glue that holds it together. They form the bonds of your culture, attract the right people, and help you serve your clients.

What does your business believe? What are your morals? The more you know and understand your values, the better you can protect your brand.

2. Too Focused on the Exit

Steve Jobs said, “I hate it when people call themselves ‘entrepreneurs’ when what they’re really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business.”

Are you building a business to cash out, or are your building a brand? Brand building focuses on building a business that can transition through the generations.

The exit is all about you. The brand is all about your customers.

3. Selling At All Costs

No one wants to be sold.

No one wants to deal with pushy sales reps and over-the-top marketing campaigns, but that’s what so many brands do. They push, push, push and talk, talk, talk.

Sticky Brands build relationships. They engage their customers upwards of three years before their products and services are needed. That way their customers know, like, and trust them, and they call them first when they have a need.

Take off your sales hat and focus on your customers, build lasting relationships with them.

4. Out of Date Website

I have argued this points many times before. An out of date website is a sign of an out of date brand.

It’s a sign of neglect. If you haven’t updated your website design in four years, I have to ask. Why don’t you like your brand?

Sticky Brands are constantly polishing and improving their marketing collateral. The work is never done.

5. Bland, Boring, and Blue

A third of the top 100 global brands are blue. Brands like P&G, IBM, Facebook, GE, HP, Ford, and Samsung all use blue as the primary brand color.

Blue is a pretty good color. It connotes a company that is trustworthy, established, and secure. It’s the color of big, old, and professional.

As a result, a disproportionate number of small- and mid-sized companies default to using blue in their identities too. They assume blue is a better branding choice because it signals they are like the big, established brands.

That may be true, but blue is average. If everyone else is blue, pick another color. Make your brand visibly different!

6. Being “Good Enough”

This mistake really gets to me.

We all work with plenty of companies that do a good job. They are efficient, effective, and deliver good value for the price. But good is not enough. Good is average, and average is not worth bragging about.

What makes your company unique or special? Find it and own it. Bake it into everything you do.

Be better than good — be the best in your business, and your brand will be hard to beat.

7. Losing Sight of What’s Most Important, Your Customers

To paraphrase James Carville, “It’s the customer, stupid.”

Your customers are the only reason your business exists. The CEO might sign the paychecks, but it’s your customers that make that possible.

As companies scale and grow they risk “losing the plot.” This means thinking something that doesn’t matter one iota to your customers should be important. Or vice-versa.

Sticky Brands are built by putting their customers first. They are intensely focused on serving and delighting their customers.

Take this opportunity to innovate, challenge the status quo, and win. But always keep in mind what’s most important: serving your customers.

Busy Is Not a Badge of Honor

The most common response to “How are you?” is “Busy.”

It’s a strange response, but so common in our hurried culture. Busy has become a badge of honor. We reward people who work 80+ hours a week. We reward people who don’t take breaks or time off work. We reward people who forgo sleep. We reward people who say, “I’m busy.”

But is being busy productive? Or more importantly, is being busy healthy? I am learning it’s not.

I burnt myself out twice over the past year — in October and February. This was a real wake up call, and forced me to acknowledge the way I was working wasn’t working.

I maintained a frenetic pace writing and launching my book, Sticky Branding, while serving clients and trying to run my business. I wasn’t just burning the candle at both ends. I was carving up the candle and finding ways to light it in the middle too.

The pace caught up with me, and in both circumstances my body shut down. It was a rather surreal experience. The last time was on February 20th, the day before my birthday. I’d taken the day off to go snowboarding with some friends, but had to call it quits mid-morning. I felt like I was developing the flu, and didn’t have the energy to keep going.

I headed home, and proceeded to sleep from Friday evening to Monday morning straight. When I got up on Monday I was refreshed and recovered. My body basically took over, and made me take a break.

At the time I thought I was doing the right thing. I told myself, “This is what it takes to create a bestseller.” I achieved the goal, but it came at a cost. Between October 2013 to January 2014 I worked six days a week and took a total of three vacation days. All I did was work.

I was cramming in as much as humanly possible into one activity, and letting everything else slip: fitness, diet, friends, family, life.

No matter how productive you are you can’t fit 80 hours of work into 40 hours. Inevitably we end up working longer and sacrificing more to keep up with our obligations. In my case I stopped taking vacations and days off. I turned down two family trips, because I was “too busy.”

Following my February burnout experience I have been challenging the notion of “busy.” Busy is ingrained in our culture. We hold it up as a badge of honor, but as a client from Poland recently said to me, “The United States is like a labor camp with good food.”

He’s right, and that’s sad.

Busyness is a question of lifestyle and productivity. You don’t get better without breaks. For example, you don’t get strong by doing just one exercise. There’s only so many bicep curls you can do at a time, and after a while doing too many becomes counterproductive.

The same goes for work. We are rewarded for working long hours and doing the same thing over and over again. Work is the proverbial bicep curl. What else are you prioritizing in your routine?

Productivity is dependent on your energy, and that’s drawn from a variety of factors: diet, sleep, exercise, diversity of work, diversity of experiences, personal relationships, and more.

Busy is not a badge of honor. Talking about how busy you are should be a warning sign. What are you sacrificing for your busyness, and is it worthwhile?

I am shifting my approach to work. Health, fitness, and family are not sacrifices. They are priorities.

What about you?

Find Your Best Ideas In Nature

If you’re looking for a breakthrough idea get into nature. Get your team away from their desks and routines, and go find a place that feeds their creativity.

This week I had the pleasure of facilitating a marketing strategy session in Mont Tremblant. The environment was spectacular. The air was refreshing and invigorating. The space we worked in was energizing.

The experience reminded me that where you work shapes the outcomes.

Boardrooms Are Stagnant

Great ideas aren’t found in a boardroom, but that’s exactly where most teams do their brainstorming and thinking.

Shake things up. Get your team out of the office and into nature. The benefits are immediate:

Unlock your creative brain: The boardroom is mired in routine and expectations. Getting into a new space places your team in a mindset to be more receptive to finding and sharing ideas.
Lots of little breakthroughs: A-ha moments are the result of lots of little breakthrough ideas. When you’re immersed in nature and in your creative brain you achieve a lot more little breakthroughs faster.
Increased energy: Being close to nature is energizing. It gives you that added boost to work longer and harder on an idea. It helps your team be more productive in a very concentrated period of time.

By breaking free of the routines of the office you get to better ideas, faster.

Go for a Walk

One of my techniques to kickstart creativity is to send people for a walk.

According to a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology walking increases creative output by 60%. And when you walk and talk in a beautiful setting the ideas come even faster.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t very cooperative for our group on Monday, but I made a point of going for a vigorous walk to start my day. It was cool and rainy, but it felt great.

If the weather is cooperating send your team out for a walk. Break up into pairs and assign them a question or topic to discuss. You never know what they will discover, but walking and talking gets the creative brain working in overdrive.

Natural Light Is Energizing

One of the downfalls of boardrooms is their lack of natural light. It makes sense. Boardrooms are great for projectors and screens, which don’t work well with lots of natural light.

Hold your planning meetings in a place with tons of natural light. It will elevate your team’s energy and spirits.

I experienced this with the team on Monday. Often times people are looking for caffeine and sugar at 2pm to keep focused. Not this time. We were going strong all day long. If I had to chalk this up to one factor it was the natural light.

The Space Sets the Tone

My client, Tremblant Living, ran their strategy session in one of their properties in Mont Tremblant. It was a stunning log house.

The space was ideal for a creative meeting. The house had floor to ceiling windows that provided tons of light. We had large rooms to spread out and discuss ideas, and a big dining room table that functioned as a boardroom table.

The space really accelerated the creative juices. We could have held the session in an office, but we achieved so much more by being in the right location.

Kickstart Your Creativity in Nature

Nature is all around you. You don’t have to travel far to find a special place to hold a meeting.

The next time you’re looking for a breakthrough idea, pack up your things and go find a nice place to work. It will accelerate your creativity and help you find better ideas.

The Possibility of Personality

Virgin has Sir Richard Branson. Facebook has Mark Zuckerberg. Salesforce.com has Marc Benioff.

Each person is not only a CEO, they are a symbol. They function as the “human face” at the helm of the brand, and their personality and public persona shapes their company’s brand and its perceived values. And it’s these people that customers identify with, get to know, like, and trust.

Who is the face of your business?

Humanizing your company can be an immense competitive advantage. It immediately differentiates your firm from everyone else, because it provides a person who embodies your brand.

A Person to Know

Companies are a collection of people, but we know individuals. The corporate brand is a partial stand in for the personal connection. It creates a shorthand for what a company is and what it represents, but there’s only so far the corporate brand can go.

You need a leader. Who is the person that will personify your brand? Who is your platform builder?

One of the best examples of this is Mitch Joel and his role at Twist Image, now Mirum. He is fabulous rainmaker and spokesperson for the brand. (Twist was acquired in May 2014 by WPP, and consolidated into a new digital marketing agency called Mirum.)

Mitch explains, “We made a decision in the very early days [of Twist Image] that a human face would best suit the company’s brand. And that happened to be my bald face. Out of all of us it was me because I was a content creator and I enjoyed it. It’s something I really like doing.”

Mitch has the DNA to be heard. Prior to joining Twist, he was a journalist and an entrepreneur. He’s written two bestselling books, Six Pixels of Separation and Ctrl Alt Delete. He’s a sought after professional speaker with big name clients like Google and Walmart. And Mitch blogs seven days a week, podcasts weekly, and writes for a number of newspapers and magazines.

But Mitch is more than a spokesperson who is an executive in a company. His position was strategically architected into Twist Image’s brand and business strategy.

Mitch says Twist Image manages three brands:

Twist Image: The digital marketing agency
Mitch Joel: The persona or the human manifestation for the brand
Six Pixels of Separation Content Platform: The blog, podcast, speaking, books, Facebook page, and all the other content touch points

The three brands work in harmony. Mitch was the face of the company, the content is the platform and vehicle for connecting with a large audience of influencers, and the business delivers client services.

Create Space for the Personality

A platform builder like Mitch Joel will grow their personal brand and their platform no matter what. It’s in their DNA. They are naturally drawn to the spotlight and will seek it out.

Similarly this is an opportunity for you and your company. If you find a platform builder in your midst — a talented communicator that embodies your brand and its mission — the question should not be how to manage them. The challenge is how to empower them, support them, and integrate them into your business.

The platform builder’s natural desire to connect with people and be heard creates an immense opportunity for your business. They can generate a significant amount of customer interaction and brand awareness over time. And they have the ability to humanize your brand, and reach out and connect with people at a deep, personal level.

The challenge is how to harness their talents and integrate them into your corporate brand. This will include a combination of strategy and evolution. If you spot the talents of a Platform Builder in your midst, you’d be a fool to ignore them. That Platform Builder just might be the golden goose who puts your company on the map.

A Personality Adds Depth

By no means do you need to add a face to your brand. Lots of companies operate successful brands without an identifiable person that is associated with the brand. But imagine the richness a personality could add to your brand.

Look what Steve Jobs did for Apple, or Sir Richard Branson does for Virgin. These individuals add a human quality that cannot be replicated through marketing or advertising.

Take the plunge. Break free of the confines of marketing, and add a human face to your brand.

Family Business Is a Competitive Advantage

Being a family business can be a source of competitive advantage — provided you’re proud of being a family business. I have long held this belief, but until recently lacked the hard data to validate it.

The belief was first seeded while working in my family’s business. When I joined the company my parents had taken deliberate steps to disguise that we were a family business. My mom, for example, used her maiden name at work. The fear was “family business” did not signal professional.

I disagreed with this approach. I saw being a family business as a source of competitive advantage. My parents had created a successful company, we had a great working relationship, and we were building a business that we were proud of. These were ingredients that not only benefited us, they benefited our customers and employees.

I reversed my parents approach to marketing, and made it obvious in our website, PR, and communications that we were a family business. It was a source of pride, and I thought it helped to differentiate us from the giants of our sector.

I couldn’t validate the impact of marketing our brand as a family business, but I saw the benefits anecdotally. It was a conversation starter, and led customers to be inquisitive of our heritage. It also signaled trust, because people knew who they were dealing with, “The buck stopped with the Millers.”

The belief was reinforced further as I worked with other family businesses. Again and again I came across family’s that were building remarkable brands — brands that were highly recognizable and transitioning through the generations. In fact, fifty percent of the companies featured in my book, Sticky Branding, are family businesses.

But even though I personally identify with the value of family business, I regularly come across people who perceive it as negative. For example, I got visibly agitated in a workshop a few months ago when the facilitator said, “I hate working with family businesses. They’re all f**ked up.” I took great exception to his proclamation and called him out on it. He may have had a bad experience, but by and large I find more successful family businesses than unsuccessful ones.

The challenge was the debate was hear-say. We were arguing from our personal experiences, and anecdotes don’t settle arguments. So I was so tickled this week when I came across the facts.

Ernst & Young and Kennesaw State University’s Cox Family Enterprise Center studied 2,400 of the world’s largest family businesses. The researchers published a fascinating report that highlights a few key insights:

76% of the companies studied refer to their enterprise as a “family business” in corporate communications.
64% of the respondents said that being a family business helps to differentiate them from competitors.
64% said being a family business improved the reputation of the company with customers.

The researchers also discovered that the business was a source of pride for the family. 68% of the respondents said the family strongly identifies with the company, “It is part of who we are.”

The family business brand radiates inside and out. It’s the cohesion of the family unit and its relationships with customers, partners, and employees that builds a remarkable brand. The family isn’t simply building a business to sell. They are building a business to grow through the generations.

And this fits very well with a quote by Steve Jobs, “I hate it when people call themselves ‘entrepreneurs’ when what they’re really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business. That’s how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company that will still stand for something a generation or two from now.”

What do you think? Is family business a source of competitive advantage or not?

3% Rule: Engage Customers Before They Need Your Services

We are all well versed in how to handle a customer with a need. Even if you’re not a professional salesperson, you can sell to someone who needs your expertise.

The challenge is the percentage of companies in your marketplace who are proactively shopping and looking for your expertise is small. Approximately three percent of your market is buying at any given time, the rest is not.

I call this the 3% Rule (which I discuss in detail in my book Sticky Branding). It’s a model to segment your market into buying groups.

The 3% Rule: When People Buy

The model is presented in the image at the top of this page. The triangle represents your marketplace and includes anyone who can buy your services: prospects, current customers, past customers.

The 3% Rule divides your marketplace into five buying segments:

3% are active buyers. These are the people and companies that have a need and are actively shopping for vendors. They want to make a purchase in the next thirty to ninety days. These are sales leads.
7% intend to change. These prospects have a need, but aren’t proactively searching for options. A well timed cold call or marketing campaign can be very effective on this segment, because they are receptive to new ideas.
30% have a need, but not enough to act. This group is not buying. They may look like and act like prospects, but they won’t make a commitment. They have other priorities. Until the need becomes more pressing, they won’t make a purchase.
30% do not have a need. This segment of the market do not have a need for your products and services, and are not receptive to any marketing messages. They may have just made a purchase, they may be too small, or they may not be ready for your services.
30% are not interested in your company. There is a segment of the market that do not fit your brand. Basically, these companies are never going to choose you. They may be loyal to the competition. They may have had a bad experience with your firm. They may use alternative options. Don’t sweat it. Just recognize that this dynamic occurs, and your brand can’t be all things to all people.

Two Modes of Marketing

The 3% Rule demonstrates that there are two modes of marketing:

Top 10%: Marketing to people and companies who have a need for your services right now, typically described as “inbound marketing.”
Lower 90%: Marketing to people who don’t have a need for your services, but will some day.

The first mode is where companies feel the most confident, and it receives the lion’s share of the marketing budget. The challenge is much of that marketing investment is ineffective, because it falls on deaf ears.

Paul Emond, CEO of Versature, sums up the situation nicely, “When people aren’t in the buying mode, they don’t want to be sold.”

The second mode of marketing is the opportunity. Rather than trying to engage people when they have a need, engage them earlier in the Lower 90%. Establish the relationship and develop rapport before they’re ready to buy.

Create an opportunity where your customers know, like, and trust your company long before they have a need. That way they’ll skip right over the inbound marketing messages, and call your company first when they have a need.

Sticky Brands Are Built In the Lower 90%

Sticky Brands engage their market early and often.

They focus a significant portion of their marketing resources on the Lower 90%, build relationships, and secure their place as their customers’ first call when they’re ready to buy.

Sticky Brands are built in the Lower 90 Percent, because they understand the importance of relationships. Their brand is not based on aggressive marketing and pitching. It’s based on a personal connection where their customers know them, like them, and trust them.

That relationship separates Sticky Brands from average brands. When your customers know you, like you, and trust you, they will call you first. And that’s the best place to be in the buying cycle.

An Out of Date Website Is a Sign of an Out of Date Brand

An out of date website is one of the first telltale signs it’s time for a rebrand.

Your website is a very visual component of your brand, and often your customers’ first impression of your business. It’s where you tell your company’s story, how you portray your products and services, and how you differentiate your business from the competition.

When your website is out of date, it’s obvious for all to see. You can see it in the design. You can see it in the layout. You can see it in the functionality.

But these visual issues are just the tip of the iceberg. An out of date website can signal it’s time to polish your brand.

A Brand Has a Shelf Life

Every brand has a shelf life. Typically a brand needs a tune up every three to seven years, depending on the industry.

For example, the consumer electronics and fashion industries change faster and more frequently than the construction and industrial sectors. Regardless of the industry, we all face the pressure to evolve our brands to remain relevant.

Corporate websites follow a similar timeframe. Corporate websites tend to need an overhaul every two to four years. In the third year the website starts to look dated, and by the fourth year it’s looking dilapidated.

Imagine what a dilapidated website says to customers?

Three Signs Your Website Is Passé

There are three very obvious visual markers that a website is out of date:

Fonts are small and hard to read. Screen resolutions have improved dramatically in the past five years. New websites are being designed with 14 to 16 point fonts.
Website does not resize for mobile devices and tablets. This one is critical. Not only are you driving away mobile users who cannot read your website, you’re driving away Google. Google’s latest algorithm update, Pigeon, penalizes websites that are not mobile friendly.
The images and layout appear dated. Fashion and tastes change, and you can visually spot the layout of a website designed in 2015 versus 2012 versus 2009.

These visual symptoms may initiate the need for a website redesign, but don’t stop there. This is your opportunity to reevaluate your brand and determine if your value proposition and brand strategy is current too.

Go Beyond the Website Project

As you initiate a website project take the time to examine the structural elements of your brand:

Positioning: Where does your brand play, and how does it win?
Differentiation: How do you present your business in a unique and compelling way?
Value Proposition: How does your company deliver value, and how do you portray that in your marketing?
Storytelling: How do you share your story and engage your marketplace?
Marketing: How does the website integrate into your marketing strategy and move the sales needle?

Your website is a tool. How are you going to use your website to gain the most benefit for your business and brand?

Customers Persuade Themselves: The Power of Positive Mind Chatter

Your customers’ own thoughts are more powerful and influential than what you say.

According to Dr. Richard Perloff, an expert in persuasive communications, “People’s own mental reactions to a message play a critical role in the persuasion process, typically a more important role than the message itself.”

This is an important finding, because how you make your customers feel is more important than the arguments you deliver.

The Voice Inside Your Customer’s Head

Have you ever tried to sell a product or service you know will deliver real value for a client, but they just won’t buy?

You share the facts. You prove the ROI. You demonstrate the value.

But no matter how sound your arguments they just don’t act. It’s almost dumbfounding to see a customer lock into their old ways when you clearly have the better solution.

As frustrating as the sales process might be, there is a fascinating psychological response taking place. The customer is not hearing the messages that you are delivering. You’re being drowned out by mind chatter — their inner dialogue.

Customers Recall Mind Chatter Over Messages

According to Dr. Perloff, when you receive a persuasive message you are more apt to recall your mind chatter than the message itself.

You remember your internal arguments for or against the message you received. You remember how the message (or the deliverer of the message) made you feel.

Try a little experiment. Listen to a politician or an activist that you disagree with — the more controversial the better. Listen to their argument as you would normally. Let them rile you up a little bit and get under your skin.

A day or two later jot down some notes of what you recall from the program. If you check back to the facts you will likely find the items you remember the most vividly were the ones that sparked the most mind chatter. And those memories will likely be biased by your mind chatter too.

That’s the power of your inner voice. It influences what you hear and what you remember.

Create the Conditions for Positive Mind Chatter

From a branding context this research has important implications. It’s not what you say, it’s the total customer experience you create that matters.

The words are secondary. You are creating the conditions to quiet the voice inside your customer’s head so they can receive the messages you are delivering.

This is achieved across multiple fronts:

Positioning: How your brand is known in the marketplace
Visual Identity: How you present the brand and the feelings you create
Brand Storylines: How you engage customers in conversation and build relationship
Culture: How your customers interact with your team and the experience they receive

All aspects of your brand work together. The more you can positively engage your customers across multiple fronts the more likely you can create positive mind chatter for your brand.

Speak to the Inner Voice

You can’t convince someone to buy if their internal voice is screaming disagreement. And you can’t persuade someone who doesn’t want to be persuaded. This is the fundamentals of persuasion.

Customers persuade themselves. Play to this in your own brand, and tune your marketing to speak to your customer’s inner voice.

How to Speak Your Customers’ Language

Speaking in the language of your customers will accelerate your sales and make your brand more engaging.

It’s that simple. Cut out the fancy words. Stop trying to develop creative ways to describe your value proposition. Just describe what your company is, what it does, and who it serves simply, succinctly, and in your customers’ language.

Nothing will accelerate your brand more than speaking with clarity.

You’re Not Starbucks

Starbucks is a world renowned brand with a language unto itself.

Walk into any Starbucks and you will hear customers saying things like “tall Pike,” “venti half-caf vanilla latte,” “iced caramel macchiato,” and it goes on and on.

Starbucks is a big brand, and over the course of thirty years they have trained consumers to understand a whole new language.

Developing a new language for your brand might sound like an exciting opportunity to differentiate your company. But the downsides of using unique ways to describe your products and services are incredibly high:

When a customer doesn’t understand, they don’t buy.
It takes a long time to educate your clients on a new language.

These two challenges are exacerbated if your business operates in a competitive marketplace. If you slow down the customer, or worse yet confuse them, you risk losing them to competitors who speak clearly.

Three Steps to Learn Your Customers’ Language

To speak the language of your customers you’ve got to learn it and master it.

1. Listen

Your customers may not be an expert in your business, but they’re an expert in their own.

Every industry has its own lingo. Your customers approach problems from their perspective and experience. They have a way of talking about their business, their clients, and their services.

Take the time to understand the language your customers use and adapt it to your business.

How do your customers describe your products and services? What words and phrases do they naturally use?
How do your customers refer to your competitors?
How do your customers describe their products, services, and approach to business?

A fast and effective way to gain these insights is to interview your customers. Get inquisitive about their business. Find out how they approach problems. Ask them to describe how they deliver value. Ask questions and listen.

As you listen take note of the words, phrases, examples, metaphors, and stories they share. This is their language. Adapt it into your own.

2. Interact

You can’t learn a new language if you don’t use it.

I studied French through middle school and high school. I can conjugate vowels, but I can’t speak a word of French. I didn’t use it.

Immerse yourself in your customers’ environments. Interact with them in their terms. The more you “talk shop” with your clients the better you will become at speaking their language.

Every marketer should get in front of their customers too. It’s a best practice for marketers to ride along on sales calls and get in front of customers monthly. Great ideas are found in the field, not the boardroom.

3. Feedback Loops

Build feedback loops into your marketing.

For example, I use Win/Loss Cards™ to test my brand messaging. These are simple surveys used by sales reps and marketers to test how a message works in real time. Following a client meeting they fill out a survey on what worked, what didn’t work, and other qualitative details.

The Win/Loss Cards™ help me understand if a message is working or not, and where to refine it.

There are lots of other ways to gather customer insights. Pizza Nova, for example, has an outbound call center that calls new customers the next night. They want to know how they performed, and the calls help to reinforce the brand.

Feedback loops build upon the listening tools used when you’re delivering your marketing. Stay vigilant and keep asking, “Are we communicating clearly? Are we speaking in the language of our customers?”

Communication Is Deliberate

Communicating powerfully is deliberate. It takes work to refine your messaging and speak with authority.

But there’s always a beacon of where to go — your customers. Listen to your customers. They’ll teach you how to speak their language.

If It Ain’t Broke, Break It!

In 1789 Benjamin Franklin wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Talk about a timeless quote. But what’s becoming even more evident is the pace of change is accelerating.

The playbook that made your company successful may not translate well over the next decade. As branding guru David Aaker writes, “A winning strategy today may not prevail tomorrow. It might not even be relevant tomorrow.”

This is your reality. Embrace it! What made you successful won’t make you successful.

In a few weeks I am speaking at the Family Business Symposium. My advice is simple, “If it ain’t broke, break it!”

Industries Are Fracturing

We can’t predict the future, but we can clearly see the pace of change is accelerating.

As I look over my shoulder I’m blown away with the pace of change over the past fifteen years.

We transitioned from a business world dominated by office towers with phones and faxes to a world where consumers have better tech than companies.

Information is ubiquitous. High speed internet is in your pocket. You can work with anyone anywhere, and you can make a great living working as a solopreneur in your home.

As a result, industries are fracturing and changing.

I saw this in the recruiting sector. In the nineties an average permanent placement agency in Canada had revenue in excess of $15 million. In 2015 the average size of a perm placement agency is less than $500,000, and it’s staffed by people working from their homes or executive office centers.

And this reality tracks through almost every sector: manufacturing, professional services, financial services, hospitality, and more. Everyone has a story of how their business has changed.

Don’t Wait for Change

There are two types of business:

Those who are forced to change.
Those who change before their time.

Guess which ones are dramatically more successful?

To write Sticky Branding (the book) I conducted a comprehensive study of how small- and mid-sized companies are growing incredible brands. Again and again I came across examples of companies that were bucking the trends of their industry and growing very profitable businesses.

A primary difference is their approach to change. The Sticky Brands are innovators. They see the pace of change in their industry as an opportunity and embrace it. They change before everyone else. They try new ideas before everyone else.

It’s an attitude, “Conventions be damned. If it ain’t broke, break it! Let’s find better ways to do things.”

How Will You Approach Change?

I am really looking forward to my talk at the Family Business Symposium. It’s a timely topic, especially for family businesses.

In my presentation I will show you how to embrace change to grow your business through the generations. I will showcase how successful family businesses have been forced to reinvent themselves, and how they overcame significant obstacles to grow into Sticky Brands.

Symposium is one of my favorite events of the year. I learn as much from the participants as I do from the speakers. The conference is on May 20 to 22, 2015. Let’s meet up there.