Your Brand

Get What You Want By Finding a Spot That’s Unoccupied

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When I was nine years old, I fell in love with baseball and dreamed of playing first base. To aid me in my dream, my dad bought me a first baseman’s glove. When my friends and I gathered after school for an informal ball game, everyone knew to stay away from first. That was my spot.

Then something happened to change that.

The Little League season was starting up, and I decided to join the local team. During tryouts, the manager told us kids to run onto the field and man the position we most wanted to play. I of course sprinted towards first, but was in for a shock.

Five other kids had beaten me there. Apparently, each of us had the same dream. The manager told us that to win the job we’d have to compete with one another. Before he held the competition, though, he scanned the rest of the field.

Every position had at least one kid occupying it; that is, except for catcher. No one had claimed that spot. “Who wants to catch?” the manager asked. “We need a catcher.”

Baseball on HomeAll of us froze. Catching was the sport’s most thankless position. As a catcher, even when the temperature outside hit 95 degrees, you still had to wear a helmet, chest protector, shin guards, thick metal face mask, and heavy padded glove. A hundred times a game, you needed to squat low and bolt back up. What’s more, foul balls stung you and base runners knocked you down. No one wanted to play catcher.

Which is why I was surprised when I found myself jogging towards home plate to pick up the catcher’s mitt laying there. “Good,” the manager said. “Levy will catch.”

What happened? Why did I suddenly toss aside my plan to play first base? It was out of dread. Although I’d never seen those five other kids play, my nine-year-old self was certain they were better than me, and I didn’t want to be embarrassed.

If the story ended there, it would be one of failure. But it doesn’t end there.

As a catcher, I learned how to block the plate, snag pop-ups, calm jittery pitchers, and in other ways be a credit to my position. At the season’s conclusion, I was selected –- as a catcher –- to represent my team in the All-Star game. I ended up playing a sport I love while excelling in my role.

What’s all this have to do with business? My becoming a catcher marks the first time I can remember using a strategy that has since become a cornerstone of my consulting work.

That strategy: To get what you want, find a spot that’s unoccupied.

Finding an unoccupied spot is at the heart of business positioning. After all, if you have unlimited money, talent, and connections, your business can go head-to-head with anyone in the world. If you don’t have copious resources, though, it’s best to pick a narrow-yet-important position in which you can dominate.

Finding an unoccupied spot doesn’t just work for positioning your company. It’s also a strategy that can help you write books, give speeches, and reach the media.

I’ll give you an example.

A month back, a friend (Thanks, Dan!) sent me a media query from a “Fast Company” magazine writer doing an article on how to be a good conversationalist. Getting quoted in that article would help my business. I knew, though, that dozens, maybe even hundreds, of experts would be answering that writer’s query. How could I stand out from among those other respondents?

I thought about positions. More precisely, I asked myself, “What are those other respondents likely to say?” (Which spots will be occupied?). Then I asked, “What can I say that’s different?” (Which spots will be unoccupied?)

When I thought about what the other respondents might say about being a good conversationalist, I came up with advice like “Be interested in the other person” and “Listen more than you speak.” It’s not that that advice is wrong. In fact, it’s great advice. It’s just that I’ve heard it before, so if I repeated it, I’d lower my chances of making it into the article.

Once I thought about what others would likely say, I came up with a few points about good conversation that were true yet more unusual. I emailed those points to the writer. You can see the resulting “Fast Company” article here.

What for you is the takeaway?

Whether you’re positioning your business, or creating content for a book, post, or speech, begin by asking yourself what the audience expects. If you only give them what they expect, they have no reason to listen to you.

Try finding a spot that’s unoccupied. One that’s valuable yet surprising.

 

 

Look At Your Business As If It Were a Book

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Coming up with a persuasive marketplace differentiator for your business can be difficult.

One reason why: Since your business is your livelihood, creating its differentiator seems like a life-or-death decision. You tense up, thinking: “This differentiator of mine has got to be a one-of-a-kind, revenue-generating winner. Otherwise, I’m sunk.”

Trying to complete such an overwhelming exercise naturally shuts you down. The differentiator you come up with is weak. Or, you leave the exercise with no differentiator at all. What to do?

In the past decade and a half, I’ve created differentiators by the hundreds. One of my secrets: I play with how I see a client’s business. I look at it in different ways.

I even pretend that my client’s business isn’t a business at all. Instead, I pretend it’s a book.

Whether you realize it or not, your business is indeed a lot like a book.

Like a book, it has a main idea. It’s “about” something. That main idea may be sharp and distinct, or it may be broad and commoditized. It may be easy for people to talk about, or it may be fighting with other ideas, so talking about it is hard.

Your business is a book.As I study a business, I think, “Right now, what’s the main idea here, and what are all the pieces of philosophy, facts, and stories substantiating that idea? If this business had a table of contents, what would the chapters be called and in what order would they fall?”

While I’m examining things, I look for storylines that are buried, or that hadn’t been thought of before. I ask myself, “If this new storyline were brought to the fore, how would that change everything? Who would be the  readers for this new ‘book’? What would they be buying? How would they talk about it to friends?”

Consider trying this exercise for yourself.

Pretend your business is a book. Into which category would it fit? What would be its title? What about its main idea? Could you tweak that idea to make it stronger? Could you change the book’s meaning by moving a subordinate idea up front? Could you combine a series of subordinate ideas into something new and valuable? What would its cover look like?

Keep playing with the “book of your business” until you have a much stronger book than when you began.

Consider, then, how you could incorporate these rewrites into real life.

The Best Brand Story is Often Informal

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Sometimes your best brand story isn’t the one you think it should be. It’s one of your throwaway stories; an informal anecdote everybody else loves, but you don’t think twice about.

I’ll explain.

I recently stopped by a pet food store. Outside sat a brand representative at a table full of a type of cat food I hadn’t seen before.

I asked the rep what made this cat food distinct from the brands inside the shop. She told me an intricate story about single-source proteins. I kind of got the gist, but not fully.

I asked where the food was made. Here’s where things changed. She said, “It’s made in Thailand. Why it’s made there is interesting.” She then told me a story.

One of the brand’s chief investors is a man who travels the world, and wherever he goes he brings along his pets — 25 cats.

During a trip to Thailand, he ran out of the food he customarily feeds his cherished cats, so he tried the local pet food. His cats wouldn’t touch it.

Disgusted, he visited a nearby food manufacturer; one that had no experience with pet food. They had only ever prepared food for human beings.

He told the manufacturer his dilemma, gave them a rough recipe, and offered to pay if they’d make a few dishes for his cats.

Obviously, the manufacturer didn’t know how the dishes would turn out. Still, they agreed to make them. The result?

All 25 cats loved the food. Couldn’t get enough of it. They enjoyed it so much, in fact, that the man contacted an entrepreneurial friend in the United States, and they started selling the Thai-produced cat food here.

I asked the young lady if that story was a formal part of the brand’s sales pitches and marketing materials? She said, no, it wasn’t a story reps were required to use. She had heard it from the head of sales, and thought it quirky and memorable.

I took a few sample cans of the cat food, and thanked her.

When I returned home, my wife asked about the cans. Do you think I talked about single-source proteins? No way. I said:

“Let me tell you the story behind this cat food. There’s this well-to-do man who travels the world, and everywhere he goes he takes along his 25 pet cats. Can you believe that?  Anyway, one day he and his cats were in Thailand and . . . “

For us  — as consultants and thought leaders — what’s the takeaway here?

In conceiving your brand story, don’t let your thinking become narrow and buttoned up. Make your mind bigger.

Yes, the people in your market need to know your value proposition, but they want to know other things, too. They want to know about you and your philosophy and how you started and what you’ve done and what you plan on doing and what drives you.

Don’t straightjacket yourself by thinking only of terse stories that demonstrate monetary value. Instead, think of all the anecdotes that bring your brand to life. The stand-up-straight professional anecdotes as well as the bed-headed informal ones.

You never know which type will take your market by storm.

(This post was inspired by a comment made by my pal Nick Corcodilos about my previous post. You can read that post and Nick’s comment here.)

How You Tell a Brand Story Matters

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Sometimes it’s easier to learn positioning and branding lessons when we look outside our field.

Let’s look at a lesson from the world of fast food. Then we’ll see how it applies to our brands as consultants and thought leaders.

A few days ago, I was eating at my local Quiznos sub shop, and a sign inside the store caught my attention.

The sign is hard to miss. It’s affixed to a barrier separating the food-preparing staff from customers. To place an order, customers more or less have to peer over the sign. Given such prominent placement, it must say something important, right?

Its headline: “The Quiznos Story.”

Now, that headline might not mean much to you, but I’ve got to admit — as a positioning and branding geek — when I first read it my curiosity was piqued. In my world, the word “story” carries weight.

Sometimes story refers to a business’s brand story, and how the business delivers value through a big differentiating idea or striking promise.

Other times story refers to a business’s backstory, which tells us why the business began in the first place, and how what it does is important in ways that go beyond merely making money.

Whatever kind of story being used, when you see the word in a marketing context, you know you’re likely going to find out about the brand’s core idea or competitive advantage.

What’s more, the brand will probably tell its story entertainingly, so you’ll share it with others.

I continued reading.

The sign’s first line taught me three facts about Quiznos: 1. It began, not as a franchise, but as a single store. 2. It started thirty years ago 3. It originated in Denver.

So far, so good. I could picture the company’s birth, because the scene was established with facts. Facts are concrete and fashion explicit images in the mind.

I was ready for the payoff: How is Quiznos different? What intriguing point would I share with my wife and friends? (“Stella, I was in Quiznos today. You want to hear something cool?”)

Here’s where the story sputtered.

The sign’s second line mentioned “BOLD IDEAS,” which threw me. I enjoy Quiznos’ food and atmosphere, but I never think about the experience as bold.

The third and fourth lines explained what Quiznos considered bold: “Great Tasting Food,” “HIGHEST QUALITY INGREDIENTS,” and “FRESHLY-SLICED MEATS, CHEESES & VEGETABLES.”

I felt duped.

Here I was excited to learn what separated a brand I enjoy from the rest of the pack, and what I was fed was a surface story that – excluding the part about thirty years ago in Denver – could have been trumpeted by any competitor.

For a sub shop to say it believes in great-tasting food, consisting of freshly-sliced quality ingredients, is like a automobile manufacturer saying it believes in building cars that drive forwards and backwards. Or, a computer maker bragging about how its machines can connect to the internet.

The story Quiznos told may be true, but it wasn’t told in a way that would make a dent in anyone’s consciousness. I’m guessing few customers have read that sign fully or remember what it said if they did.

What can we as consultants and thought leaders learn here?

How we tell a marketing story matters. If we tell people only what they know and expect, they’ll ignore us.

What our brand story or backstory needs is . . . a context . . . an insight . . . a promise . . . a substantiation . . . a frank detail . . . an unexpected bit of color . . . that forces our audience to look anew at what they thought they already knew.

For example, if you’re a consultant whose main message is about helping organizations “change” and “accelerate results,” you’re not giving your audience any reason to consider you over a competitor, because you sound like hundreds of thousands of other consultants.

Your language is too general. There’s nothing for us to picture. Your message needs a meaningful difference and specifics.

You need to tell us things you know, but we don’t. Doing so will make us sit up and take notice. We may also be intrigued enough to call you so we can find out more.

If you’d like to try your hand at creating a brand story that people will remember, consider the following three questions:

1. What do you know that (most of) your market doesn’t know about your subject?

2. What do you know that (most of) your market doesn’t know about your company?

3. In answering the first two questions, what ideas and stories did you discover that your market would find equally surprising and valuable?

Your answers can serve as the basis for a draft of a brand story that is fresh, exciting, and uniquely yours.

“A Cheer for The Boom!”: The Grateful Dead’s Timely Lessons for Building a Business Following

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“The two drummers settle in behind their kits. One sends out a cosmic boom from a bass drum, and we in the audience feel it as much as we hear it. A cheer for the boom!”

— David Meerman Scott & Brian Halligan
“Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From the Most Iconic Band in History”


If you take a look at the one hundred bestselling rock ‘n’ roll singles of all time, you’ll see songs by celebrated performers, like The Beatles (“I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and “Hey Jude”) and Nirvana (“Smells Like Teen Spirit”), as well as songs by one-hit wonders, like Zager and Evans (“In the Year 2525”) and Mungo Jerry (“In the Summertime”).

What you won’t see on that list are any songs by The Grateful Dead. No “Truckin” or “Casey Jones.” You won’t even find the group’s highest charting single, “Touch of Grey.”

The Dead obviously didn’t suffer from that lack of a multi-multi-multi platinum single. Their commercial accomplishments, not to mention the adulation of their followers, have eclipsed the success of most other performers on the list.

How did they do it?

Many fans, of course, would point to the group’s music as the sole reason for their success. Others believe that The Dead elevated themselves from gifted musicians to cultural icons by helping to create an uncommon way of life around their music.

Two people who have studied The Dead’s music and culture-building methods are social media gurus and Deadheads, David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan.

David, of course, wrote “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” and “World Wide Rave” (full disclosure: David is a friend and client).  Brian, who authored “Inbound Marketing,” is the CEO and co-founder of Hubspot.

Together, they’ve written a book called “Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From the Most Iconic Band in History,” which ships from Wiley next week and will be in all stores by early August.

In the book’s introduction, David and Brian call The Dead “one huge case study in contrarian marketing. Most of the band’s many marketing innovations are based on doing the exact opposite of what other bands (and record labels) are doing at the time.” A few contrarian examples:

  • While other bands protected their songs from illegal taping by fans, The Dead set up “taper sections” at their concerts, where fans could openly record music. Later, the fans would share copies with other Deadheads, as well as with people who had never experienced the music before. The pool of Dead fans grew exponentially.
  • While other bands saw touring as a money-draining evil that only served to get word out about their albums, The Dead turned the model on its head and built up their live shows into their primary revenue-generating vehicle. In many ways, the 45s and albums now served to promote the shows.
  • While other band treated their fans as an undifferentiated mass, The Dead would accommodate the niches in their fan base. For instance, one niche, referred to as “The Spinners,” enjoyed whirling to the music during a concert. Rather than ignoring or having them ejected, The Dead erected speakers in the concourse, so that the Spinners could congregate there and gyrate without restriction.
  • While other bands left the responsibility (and profit) of selling concert tickets to the venues they were playing and to other middlemen, The Dead built their own mailing list and sold tickets to fans directly.

The book cites forward-thinking strategies like these, distills them down to their essence, shows how businesses are using these strategies today, and then teaches readers how they might use these ideas in their own business to build an active following.

I’ve seen only the first couple of chapters of this book, but I know David well and have seen his ideas change lives. And, though I’ve never spoken with Brian, I’ve heard raves about Hubspot. I’m guessing, then, that this book should go to the top of any serious businessperson’s reading list. I’m certainly going to read my copy with pen in hand, so I can jot down notes on how I might use the tactics in my business.

A final note: To promote the book, David and Brian have scheduled a “Follow the Band Book Tour” (hashtag #GDbook).

That is, they’re going to be doing book signings and virtual events as they follow Furthur (fronted by Dead musicians Bob Weir and Phil Lesh) and Rhythm Devils (fronted by Dead musicians Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann) to  Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Las Vegas.

The book tour starts on July 26th and ends on September 22nd. To find out more, visit David’s blog, webinknow.com.

Charlene Li's Best Blogging Tips (Told in Under a Minute)

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If you’ve read  “Groundswell,” you know Charlene Li is one of social media’s smartest and most interesting writers. On Wednesday, she was at Book Expo America promoting “Open Leadership” — her new book that’s already hit #1 on Amazon in the category of “Leadership.”

I asked Charlene for her best blogging tip. As soon as she gave me one, she instantly thought of a second tip, equally as important. Here are both:

David Meerman Scott's Best Blogging Tip (Told in Under a Minute)

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Yesterday, at Book Expo America in Manhattan, I met up with my client and friend, David Meerman Scott. David was there to sign galleys of his new book, “Real-Time Marketing & PR,” which hits bookstores this November.

I asked David for his best blogging tip, and this is what he said:

Jonathan Fields' Best Blogging Tip (Told In Under a Minute)

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Tens of thousands of people read Jonathan Fields’ blog, “Awake @the Wheel,” each month. I asked Jonathan for his best tip on building a blog’s readership:

Want to see some examples of Jonathan’s own flagship content?

Go to his blog and scroll down until you see thumbnails of his two PDFs, “The Firefly Manifesto” and “The Truth About Book Marketing.” Download and study them, and pass them around to friends and colleagues.

Think, then, about following Jonathan’s sage advice. What pet concepts of yours might be turned into flagship content that gets passed around?

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.