Making my debut as a Built to Lead blogger, I have one insight to share from a client building session this week. Johnny, Doug and I (the “newbie” Built to Lead Builders) were working with a very cool client team. They are in business to help other businesses sell more. They are a professional services firm that specializes in prospect lead development, sales support, and augmenting inside sales resources. These days, in the teeth of a business downturn, they help their clients fix their number-one problem: TOO LITTLE REVENUE.
How relevant is that? Hello? Anyone out there need more revenue?
Our client wants to be the absolute best in their business, and thereby sell more themselves. They do NOT want to be the biggest. Instead they’re going for quality. They have this weird idea that they can dominate a commodity category by being a little weird. A little strange. A little different. Our client likes to compete in commodity categories. Most of their competition have fallen asleep; they’ve become indistinct; the SAME.
Undifferentiated.
Boring.
As a guy who’s spent most of his career in marketing, I can tell you that that’s exactly the place NOT to be. In the middle of the pack, hidden from view. Why? Because if you’re not different, you’re dead. On the way to slow death, or a quick one, depending on the category. Why? Because if you’re not different, say good-bye to profits. Your pricing plans collapse under the weight of clients and prospects who have so-o-o-o many choices, and nothing to lose by going with the lowest bidder.
It’s an auction, and you’re the shortest guy there. Good luck.
The marketing leverage of the strongest brands in the world is set firmly on the twin foundations of RELEVANCE for a sharply defined target market, and DIFFERENTIATION from every competitor. Relevance is your path to revenue. Differentiation gets you margin, as in profit margin.
In my experience, most companies make the mistake of obsessing about relevance and ignoring difference. Bad move. Slippery slope. DOWN. Eventually OUT.
Be different. In fact, be dramatically different. Otherwise, it’s curtains.
All of this was hard enough to do in the old days when most businesses shipped product. These days, as the economy has shifted to services, even for manufacturers, it’s even more difficult. Your “product” is your people. Your “brand” lives and breathes and walks out the door every evening.
How’s your brand doing?
Are your people heading out the door each day tired, but energized? Satisfied that they got the chance to shine with your customers today? Looking forward to teaming up tomorrow with colleagues who are also friends to think up new stuff and drive more revenue? Respected as individuals by the Poobahs?
Or are they exhausted, drained, and glad to be gone? Heading to their families, hobbies, sports, or ANYTHING that lights them up?
This is for all you businesspeople out there. As a friend likes to say, “DON’T miss this. This is HUGE!”
LOVE makes you different.
How would you like to compete against anyone who’s people LOVE their work? LOVE their companies. LOVE their colleagues. And, especially, who LOVE their customers.
Oh yeah, who might even love their Poobahs?!
Purpose, passion, and a plan. These are the difference makers. In a service economy, you can’t do it any other way.
LOVE Co. wins. Every time.
Are you in LOVE?
Are your people? With what?
Are your customers? With whom?
Why?
BUILT TO LEAD 
Chet here…
Thanks Jim for getting out of blog purgatory. What an opening serve. Can’t wait to hear more from our resident marketing guru. You and the band of “newbies” …
So much more to come…
Thanks Chet…you see where I get my inspiration from!
As I’m sure you appreciate, this message applies especially to Built to Lead. Some have tried to tame this “mustang” of a company by suggesting it become more acceptable to the ears of corporate “mules”. Uh, thanks for the suggestion, Bob, but it is what it is and we are what we are. Live with it, or hire a mule skinner.
Looking forward to the journey with the Band of Builders!
Today was LOVE-Com 3. Man I love this team.
Much was REMEMBERED from 2 weeks ago. We heard very cool stories about how personalizing the choice to COMMIT versus just comply had improved performance. And how thinking about the WHY had contributed to doing more little things to help the team with an EXCITED SENSE OF PURPOSE because it would make the team a little bit more magic.
And then the question came up, “so what inhibits us from doing this ALL the time? from REALLY committing and going ALL OUT?”
Finally someone uttered the four-letter “F____” bomb and everyone’s heads nodded in silent agreement.
This is the F-bomb that no one talks about. We pretend it’s not there. And we dare not show it. But it’s our predominant motivator. It ruins team chemistry, and disrupts real communication. It causes CEO disease — why teams don’t talk to their leaders. It’s the number one cause of stress and the leading killer, heart disease, in every sense.
Today we talked about FEAR. Go through all the blogs and you’ll see that at BUILT TO LEAD we talk about FEAR a LOT. It’s one of the root causes that saps performance, life, magic, creativity, inspiration, and dreams from every leader and every team. It’s also a root cause behind why we let our SYSTEMS take over and make mules of ourselves and our teams.
FEAR tells us to hide our weaknesses. It catastraphizes situations that threaten our security to tell us we will DIE. We shirk the OUTSIDER to preserve a sense of community, attempt to control the FUTURE to achieve a false sense of clarity, impose the wrong kind of order & rules & systems to avoid the potential for CHAOS, and avoid asking the “why, Why, WHY” of life to escape the notion that we may never leave a legacy or live a life or real purpose.
Until we are RELEASED FROM THE POWER OF FEAR, we will never be able to TRULY look deep into the eyes in the mirror, to peer into our own hearts and who we really are. AND we won’t be able to REALLY listen to what others are saying, or NOT saying.
The irony was that the more LOVE-Com was willing to enter into their deepest fears, they began to popcorn realizations of why their fears needn’t control them. AND why making a conscious effort to UNDERSTAND the DEFINITION AND NATURE of fear may lead to TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY to IMPROVE PERFORMANCE as their eyes are opened to BETTER LISTEN TO AND SERVE THEIR CUSTOMERS.
This team at LOVE-Com is not only cool but gaining COURAGE. Their exercise this week is for each member of their team to consider what fears tend to inhibit their performance, and how better understanding that fear could actually lead to PRODUCTIVE ACTION that could IMPROVE their own performance AND the chemistry of their team.
What fears are holding you back?
What weaknesses are you afraid of being exposed?
What are you missing as you try to listen to others?
Why?
Why?
Why?
More next week. . .