Positioning

Is Your Brand Intentional or Unintentional?

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In my last post, “Make Your Elevator Speech Distinctive,” I said I’ve become known as “the guy who helps his clients raise their fees by up to 2,000%.” That’s true. People refer to me as the 2,000% guy all the time.

It’s important to note, though, that my 2,000% “brand” or “promise” had to be invented. That is, I had to dig through my projects and study the facts, after which I discovered this result I’d been producing but hadn’t been advertising. If I hadn’t dug, the market wasn’t going to come up with that fee-raising benefit on its own.

You could call my 2,000% moniker a feat of intentional branding. I manufactured it, and pushed it out there through my materials, networking, workshops, and speeches.

At times, though, I’m not sure we have to work so hard coming up  with a brand. Sometimes a brand finds us. Call it unintentional branding. I have a story about that kind of branding, too.

I wrote the first edition of my problem-solving book, “Accidental Genius,” ten years ago. At the time, I was 37 years old, and let me tell you: For the first 37 years of my life, no one ever called me a genius. Not once. Enthusiastic, yes. Creative, yes. Funny, yes. A genius? No.

When “Accidental Genius” was released, that changed. Suddenly, people were calling me a genius right and left. Since the book came out, I must have been called by that name five hundred times.

Understand, I’m not knocking it. Every time I’m called a genius, I’m grateful. But here’s the thing: In the ten years since that book came out, I’m no smarter than I was the previous 37. If anything, I’m not as bright as I once was.

The word, though, became associated with me through repetition. 25,000 copies of my book were sold with my name and the word genius on the cover. I gave speeches where I talked about ways of accessing your genius. I did dozens of interviews where I talked about how people could have “a genius moment.” The association was unintentional, but it stuck.

My questions to you, then are these:

  • What happy branding accidents have happened in your career?
  • How have you been tagged by your audience in ways you didn’t expect?
  • Is there a brand growing around you that you’ve been ignoring or resisting?

Make Your Elevator Speech Distinctive

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When people ask what I do for a living, I can’t help but smile. I tell them the following: “Consultants and entrepreneurial companies hire me to help them increase their fees by up to 2,000%.”

I must have delivered that elevator speech a thousand times, and every time it’s gotten me that treasured response: “How do you do that?”

I didn’t always have a good speech. I used to talk about how I made people memorable or compelling or made them stand out. Now, there’s nothing wrong with saying those things. I still say them. But I was uncomfortable making claims without supplying facts to back them up. So I went hunting for the facts.

Using the freewriting technique I teach in “Accidental Genius,” I typed into my computer as fast as I could for a couple of hours about who my clients were, why they hired me, and how I’d helped them. I wasn’t straining to find the exact right thing to say. I was merely talking to myself about my business while doing a freeform information dump.

One of the things I wrote about was what had happened once my clients adopted the positions I created for them. Did  they become  famous? Find more prospects? Work on better  projects? If so, where was the proof? What were the facts?

I happened upon fees. A client who used to charge $1,000 for an engagement, now charged $20,000. Hmm. A second client, who used to charge $350 an hour, now made $25,000 a day. Huh. A third client, who had been asking $3,000 for a keynote speech, now commanded $20,000. Hah. A pattern was forming.

I was a positioning consultant and writing coach, sure. But I was also the guy whose work helped clients “raise their fees by up to 2,000%.” My assertion was an attention-grabber, in part, because it wasn’t based on some notion I cooked up. It was based on facts.

The right facts make you distinctive.

When people ask me about creating their own elevator speech, I tell them to first list as many facts as they can about their business. Facts about their clients, process, services, products, results, philosophy, guarantees, and background, among other things. Obvious stuff. A long undifferentiated list.

I then ask that they look through that list for distinctive facts. In other words, which items on the list stand out? Which are interesting? Which are unusual? Which tell a story?

When looking for distinctions, some people freeze up. They think that finding distinctions is a special skill. It’s not. Most of us already know how to do it perfectly. We could do it in our sleep. It’s no harder than when we talk about a movie.

If a friend asked about a movie you just saw, you wouldn’t hesitate until you found just the right thing to say. You wouldn’t recount every scene. Instead, you’d head straight for something distinctive:

  • “It’s about a robot that travels back in time to protect its inventor.”
  • “It’s a horror film in 3-D.”
  • “It’s based on a play that won the Pulitzer.”
  • “It’s the new Daniel Day-Lewis film.”

Finding business facts to talk about is no different. Let yourself experiment. Look over your fact list, search it for distinctions, and write elevator speeches around those distinctions:

[For a business development consultant] “I design sales pipelines for small businesses that bring in, on average, an additional two hundred thousand dollars in revenue during the first six months alone.”

[For a productivity consultant] “Organizations like HP and Proctor & Gamble hire me to set up their employee rewards programs.”

[For a fitness trainer] “For eight years, I was a Marine Lieutenant. Now I teach people how to be as fit and tough as a combat Marine.”

The purpose of an elevator speech is to get the right people interested in you. It’s to start a conversation.

You may not find the proper speech right away. As you do more projects, come back to the exercise and add facts and distinctions to your list, and see how those might change the elevator speeches you’ve written.

Do You Take the Credit You Deserve?

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I teach consultants how to write case studies. As part of that work, I ask that they describe the results of their projects. Here’s where many consultants hesitate. Why?

One group can’t talk, because they’re under non-disclosure agreements.

A second group doesn’t know the results. They do their piece, and don’t check back to see how the project as a whole progressed.

Then, there’s a third group.

The consultants in this group know the results of their work, but they don’t want to talk about them for a simple reason:

They think that to claim even partial credit for a project’s success means that they needed to be its main player. In other words, if they didn’t create the project, set its strategy, and handle its implementation, they pull back on parading their role. They feel they had to do it all.

Here’s what they’re missing, and what I’d like you to always remember:

You can be an important player on a project without having complete control over its outcome. Your contribution can still be crucial, even when you’re surrounded by a team of crucial contributors.

Talking about this idea reminds me of one consultant I worked with. For an hour I asked him to talk about the results of his projects. He hemmed and hawed. I kept pushing. Finally, when he saw I wouldn’t back down he told me something crazy:

A major technology company had hired him, because their product development team was stuck. The team’s direction had grown fuzzy. Teammates were fighting each other.

Through a few group sessions, this consultant helped the team right itself. They clarified their roles, came to agreements, set goals, and got moving again.

Months later, the team came up with a new product. I won’t name this product, but believe me, you know it. 75% of you reading this post own it. Time Magazine called it one of the three most innovative products of the year. The product has made the company billions of dollars, helped its stock price soar, and brought it wild market share .

Yet this consultant didn’t want to speak about it.

He said, “I didn’t invent, design, manufacture, or market the product. I didn’t have any direct hand in it. My client did all that.”

“Yes,” I said, “but without your contribution none of that may have happened. Or, if it did happen, it might have taken longer and cost the client a ton of money in lost sales.”

How, then, would you ethically handle such a situation? How do you take credit for your contribution, without grabbing too much of the limelight?

Here’s what I suggest: When writing about your own success stories, once you’ve explained your involvement in a project and are ready to talk about results, say the following:

“Due in part to my efforts, here’s what happened . . . “

Then, talk about revenues raised, costs cut, buzz created, and all the other results the organization enjoyed.

By using the phrase, “Due in part to my efforts” you’re letting listeners know that you’re not claiming credit for the whole initiative. You’re just rightfully taking credit for a piece of the whole. It’s a communications technique — and business philosophy — that you, your clients, and your prospects will appreciate.

The Right Position Makes Enemies

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The other day Audible sent me an email advertisement that read, “Rants & Raves: 25 Books that Have You at Extremes.” It featured audio books that had each received a considerable number of listener ratings on both ends of the rating spectrum: admiring five-star reviews and damning one-star reviews.

These bestsellers were polarizing. Each had thrilled some customers and enraged others.

For example, a five-star reviewer used “The 4-Hour Work Week” to start his own software company and live “my life as I want it.” A one-star reviewer thought some of the book’s practices “deceptive and unethical.”

A five-star reviewer said “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” is “universal in its appeal” and moved him to “good tears.” A one-star reviewer called it “a nauseating patchwork of cliché that inspires only suicide.”

In a write-up for “Exit Ghost,” a five-star reviewer called author Philip Roth “the greatest writer of all time,” and said Roth has taught him more “about my country then from any politician, history book, or New York Times’ editorial.” A one-star reviewer compared listening to Roth’s novel as “akin to root canal at the dentist.

The Audible advertisement illustrates a lesson for those of us trying to position a book, a business, or a concept: If you create something that strongly speaks to one kind of person, you’re likely going to turn off people who don’t fit that group. It’s to be expected.

In his book “PyroMarketing,” Greg Stielstra makes a similar point in talking about mushrooms:

“I hate mushrooms. I can’t stand their texture, their appearance, or their flavor. Yet – despite knowing full well they are a fungus – many of my friends and relatives love them. And what’s more, they love them for the very same reasons I hate them. They love their texture, their appearance, and their flavor. If you removed the qualities that make a mushroom a mushroom, your attempts to pacify the haters would alienate mushroom lovers. Making a mushroom less ‘mushroomy’ won’t attract both groups.” (p. 78)

The way to sell more mushrooms, then, is not to tone them down. The way to sell more mushrooms is to find those people who adore them for exactly what they are.

Jerry Garcia also used food to draw a parallel between Grateful Dead fanatics and the rest of society. Garcia compared the Dead to licorice. Some people wouldn’t touch the candy. But those who liked it, really liked it.

Know what makes you, your service, or your product valuable and different, and don’t back down from it. Get it out to the people who will love you for it.

Prepare Mexican food for Mexican food lovers. Write romance novels for romance novel readers. Create shooter games for people who stay up 24/7 playing shooter games.