Just a short video we produced the lack of randomness in the experience we have with customers and our people!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALDWZ7oa-4g

Hope you enjoy……your thoughts?

There have been a lot of kind words said to me this last week. A huge thank you. I called the book “Hang On” because thats what a lot of people are doing right now along the whole continuum of business. At the one end, you’ve got people who have stalled, are confused and lost. Some look like ‘bunnies in headlights.’ They are struggling with this new way of doing business. They either deny it or ignore it, in an attempt to bide some time to work out what really is going on.

Then at the other end, you have people who do understand it as best we can. They are moving the majority of their communications from broadcast to social both with customers and employees. They are engaging and connecting in a dynamic fashion that, frankly, is a breath of fresh air.

Most of the words from the book were crowdsourced. They are words already finding comfortable slots in the business language thats evolving. There are some, even a few months after its completion, that I would love to include; obsessive, connection, excess, ecosystem, trouble and many more.

As we approach the launch party, well a few glasses of wine and a little networking, it would be great to hear your views on the eBook both good and well, not so good. Its fine I can take it. I’m going to be talking a lot about business community, relationship, connections, authenticity, co-creation and collaboration over the next couple of years. Its important to start that process here.

So if you have any comments, please share with me, what words were most inspiring, which ones I really could have left out. What arguments I should have included and generally lets start the discussion. It would be just fabulous to get some viewpoints. Go on comment below…..

Thanks

Value has shifted. What we valued in the past isn’t necessarily what we value now! It, perhaps, distinguishes itself slightly differently. It’s led to some huge value gaps in what we offer as brands and what we expect as customers. Some thoughts:

Emotions – In the design of the product/service. We forget about individuality, self expression, trust, transparency, community and what we feel.

Marketing - The difference between what the marketing says and actually what the product/service does. I really don’t want to be ‘sold’ to I want to ‘take part ‘ in your brand.

Price – We don’t demonstrate value well especially if we are more expensive. What is the extra value? Brands then get miffed because no one buys and then reduce prices. Customise it and tangibly show the extra value.

Monolithic brands – Complacency or arrogance? Whatever we call it, just because you have been around a long time, doesn’t mean I will buy it. Where’s the value in that?

Innovation – ‘Look at us’ has been replaced with ‘look at’ what we are doing. Value now isn’t in the existing product/service, its moved to how we are constantly changing it, re orientating it.

Seek out the value difference in our products/services rather than hiding the sameness. Value is not what we generate, but the impact we have in our business community assembled around our business.

It’s easier to maintain the status quo and kill a business, than to change it. The term ‘don’t disrupt for disruptions sake’ just doesn’t hold anymore. Who gets to say that anyway, the boss, who often can’t see the wood for the trees?

Unless you do something, you don’t know whether it will work. Often its the things you can’t see that are the aspects that will cause you problems in the future. Disruption is about finding innovation and innovation is about constantly finding new, improved ways of doing stuff.

Do you spend you’re time fixing things rather than disrupting the core? And what is more healthy; consistently being disruptive, or consistently holding onto what you’ve got? Expect to, in the future, be leading highly talented people who live in creative chaos, rather than the trudging towards synergy.

There needs to be overall coherence to your business but not the routine of sameness. Disruption can bring your brand’s character alive and stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit we all desperately need. Your business is a bubbling cauldron (or it should be) of ideas, thoughts and messing about with ideas. That’s being disruptive.

If it isn’t broken, disrupt it. If you don’t someone else will! Guaranteed.

Despite what we may think, humans need systems and structure. We know groups of people best perform when there is a set of boundaries in place covering expectations, behaviours, beliefs and how things will work. But why do they have to be overbearing, cumbersome and bogged down in irrelevent detail? In their purest form, systems are meant to make life easier when in reality, they tend to double your effort without doubling the rewards.

Systems should demolish barriers, clarify reasoning, promote agility. And, systems must encourage integrity, reputation and calm. A seamless and graceful movement of information, people, money and product. Humanising our systems results in our businesses being centred on the well being of our people.

Take that document you are working on now. Look at it. Can you cut its wording by 30%? Can you cut the number of processes involved without compromising its purpose? Is it a ‘dry’ read, or actually an exciting one? Its the same for the proposal document as it is for the financial procedures. Punch your system in the middle and re design it for the future of your business.

A shift is a shift only if it sits in reality and that’s what’s happened in marketing. Mass marketing is redundant. It used to be about reach and recognition accompanied by the blind faith that some customers would drop out of the bottom. Marketing these days is all about reputation and credibility. Let me simply explain:

Reach – Your companies profile, its market share. Broadcast was used to reach and hit millions of customers. It was about casting the net as wide as possible and occasionally you’d catch something. Sprat to catch a mackerel was the term.

Not only is this just not affordable anymore, its intrusive and interruptive. It sends a message but the wrong one. Reach is not about banging out something anymore hoping its right, where’s the economic sense in that. Reach is the complete opposite, its focused. Focused on your influencers. Its not hitting the millions. It’s the 10’s, 100’s or, if you’re fortunate, 1000’s of people in your community. The people who are fans on your company Facebook pages. The followers you have on Twitter and, just as importantly, those people on the database that are your advocates.

Recognition – You’ve heard the old saying; everyone knows the Ford brand but not everyone wants to drive one. The worst situation you can be nowadays is if people think indifferently about your brand. In essence recognition can engage the many but impact the few.

Recognition is approaching that influencer list in bite sized chunks by communicating your values, ethics and distinctive way of doing things. Its better to have a small group of people attuned to your very brand’s soul than have lots of people who are absent from you.

Reputation – The real differentiator. Influence a number of influencers and your marketing strategy is not just powerful but well on its way to being tremendously effective. Reputation is about making a remarkable impression on the people that matter.

Reputation is closely linked to credibility. You do not gain credibility by mass marketing anymore. You gain it by being transparent, trustworthy, open and by sharing. Powerful marketing now comes in having a freemium model.

I’ll be talking more about this in Exeter on the 27th May. Book here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/509178968