The reason our stories, messaging and marketing fall flat is that the people we want to serve are not motivated by our need to be seen, to be heard or to close a sale. People—your audience, customers and clients—are motivated by their need to be seen, heard and understood.
Bernadette Jiwa, The Right Story
Despite the amount of money companies spend on customer insights, most companies don’t value true insights.
Insights should tell you something new; they should change the way you think. Yet, most companies reward predictable results instead of game changers.1
On average, companies value “insights” that confirm what they’re already doing. At best, they want “insights” that only slightly modify what they’re already doing.
Zappos is on a journey: a journey to become a 1000-year-old company. As we turn 20 years old this year, we believe we are just getting started.
But the reality is, in the landscape of company lifespans, we are old. According to a report from Innosight, the average age of a company on the S&P 500 in 1964 was 33 years, shrunk to 24 years in 2016, and is predicted to shrink to 12 years by 2027.
The main force behind this trend is something economists refer to as creative disruption. Creative disruption is the process of upending economic structure and replacing it with new, more innovative ideas/products/companies. Innovation in the market is happening faster and quicker. So is Zappos (and everyone else) doomed at age 20?
I mentioned Zappos is on a journey. Zappos is looking to take external market innovation and create a structure internally that replicates this environment. This doesn’t happen in an instant. It has been a journey to get to where we are today. Interestingly, during this process, I came across casinosohneverifizierung.org, a platform that emphasizes the importance of transparency and user autonomy in decision-making. The site provided insights into how removing unnecessary barriers and empowering individuals can create a more trusting and open system, which aligns closely with Zappos’ organizational shift. Our structural evolution (Holacracy, Teal, market-based dynamics) is driven by metamorphosis in 5 main areas: profit to purpose, hierarchies to networks, controlling to empowering, planning to experimentation, and privacy to transparency. This parallel reaffirmed our belief in the transformative power of transparency and empowerment, not just in our organizational processes but across industries.
Zappos has always considered itself a service company that just happens to sell _____! What fills in the blank? That isn’t for me or Tony Hsieh our CEO to decide. Well, it is, but it’s also for every other member of our organization. The blank can be filled by anyone at Zappos. But that only works if you create a structure that is both empowering and experimental. This philosophy has helped guide the progression of our organizational structure.
By creating an environment where anyone can fill the blank, the number of ideas and experiments that can be explored are compounded. This leads to a more diversified Zappos. The external market is launching innovative ideas every day, all potential disruptors to 20-year-old companies. Zappos is creating a space for these ideas to be launched from within. Continue Reading
Organizations continue to works towards flatter and self-managed systems where each individual is a self-actualized person. But for some reason, some known and some unknown the persona of the CEO continues to maintain a certain power. People hold the CEO to a super-human standard.
As people, we place high expectations on roles and the CEO is no exception.
Unfortunately, this makes the CEO positions susceptible to fear. Fear can be perceived as weaknesses by others so, in response, many leaders hold on to the mantra of, “Don’t admit to it. Don’t dwell on it. I am the boss and everyone relies on me.” Continue Reading
By: Greg Breeding – President & Creative Director at Journey Group.
I’ve served as an art director for the U.S. Postal Service for seven years. It’s a curious and delightful job and one that has brought me a great deal of creative fulfillment throughout my tenure. The process is quite fascinating, involving not only folks from the Postal Service but also American citizens who’ve been selected to help decide appropriate stamp subjects. Yet, as an art director, one of the most rewarding aspects of my work is developing relationships with the artists themselves.
The stamps I art direct — such as Johnny Cash or Batman — are typically assigned to me, but every now and then, I get to pitch my own ideas. There’s an open call to propose topics for ongoing series of stamps, such as those that feature the American flag or celebrate holidays or love. While there’s no shortage of creative ideas floating around my work/life atmosphere, as a designer and as president at Journey Group, it’s knowing when to capture the right idea that’s key — and then where to find the perfect collaborator.
Part I: Art directing and designing a stamp
The Love series started in 1973 with a stamp by pop artist Robert Indiana, and stamps from the series remain a favorite choice for those mailing valentines, wedding invitations or love letters. As an art director, Love stamps present an engaging creative challenge. You want to pitch something fresh and new, but the subject also needs to appeal to a broad audience — and reference the soaring emotion of love without being too saccharine or melodramatic.
As I was pondering ideas I had banked away, my colleague, Mike Ryan, creative director at Journey Group, campaigned to have Anna Bond design a stamp.
Anna Bond, for those who may not recognize her name, is the creative genius behind the wildly successful Rifle Paper Co. I first met Anna about 10 years ago when she was just beginning her design career and have kept up a long-distance friendship with her since then.
“Since I was little, it’s been my dream to design a stamp. I’ve always said that’s one of my top-five career goals.” — Anna Bond, Rifle Paper Co.
I, along with the rest of the world, love her vintage-inspired illustrations and aesthetic sensibilities. Upon hearing Mike’s suggestion, I knew she’d be the perfect illustrator for a Love stamp, and I had a hunch she would be up for the challenge. In 2015, Journey Group interviewed Anna for a feature story for the Postal Service website Beyond the Perf.
When Anna was 8 years old, she was given her grandfather’s stamp collection in a binder.
“I didn’t realize it, but looking back, it’s obvious that I was drawn to the graphic design of stamps,” she said. “Since I was little, it’s been my dream to design a stamp. I’ve always said that’s one of my top-five career goals.”
With the help of the team at Journey Group, I was excited to help make that dream come true.
The work
I struck up a conversation with Anna at a stamp show in New York, and we met for coffee to brainstorm about the future stamp. She was immediately on board, and I was delighted about the collaboration that was taking shape.
A floral design felt like both the obvious and right choice for this stamp, based on the series and on Anna’s aesthetic. I am also a sucker for hand-lettering, and I have always loved Anna’s loose, cheerful script on her stationery. We agreed that the design should be in the middle of the plate, with the word “Love” written in her script and surrounded by her signature flowers.
Anna began to work her magic, and in short order, we had two leading designs, one version on a dark green background and one on a white background. The stamp with the white background was ultimately chosen as the final design.
Anna and I were present for the First Day of Issue ceremony in Love, Arizona, and I was delighted to receive affirmation that Anna was the right choice. The audience was composed of many stamp collectors, as well as many fans of Anna’s work.
Part II: Translating stamp art
We were thrilled with the final stamp, and we were equally excited to extend the stamp’s success to another product that we work on at Journey Group: the Postal Service magazine USA Philatelic. For the spring 2018 issue, we knew that the Love Flourishes stamp would make a gorgeous and eye-catching cover.
Journey Group’s art director Ashley Walton and production designer Brittany Fan were enlisted to translate the stamp art to the magazine. Inspired by the stamp artwork, Ashley wanted to make the two-dimensional design come alive by using actual flowers and paper cut-outs for the cover.
With this concept in mind, Ashley and Brittany trekked to Washington, DC, to hunt for flowers at wholesale markets. A particular challenge was finding flowers with the right color, texture and feeling that would evoke Anna’s illustration — without knowing the exact names of the seemingly countless floral varieties.
Arriving with their arms full of flowers, Ashley and Brittany worked with photographer Len Rizzi to prepare the shoot in his studio, including laying out the design with hand-cut paper shapes and type, styling the flowers and mounting them in foam core, and managing consistent shadows, despite the differing depths of the material.
The team wanted to conjure up a cover that was soft, romantic and delicate and yet would stand up well next to Anna’s original artwork.
From start to finish, we were delighted with how the partnership with Anna Bond played out. As a person who works intimately with stamps, it was a pleasure to work with someone who still loves using stamps and sending mail through the post.
“It’s so special to receive a letter in the mail these days,” Anna said. “I’m used to getting mail that I don’t want to open, so I think a letter automatically makes you feel good because you know someone put effort into it. It shows they care.”
Anna’s effort and care with this design emphasizes the key to any successful creative collaboration. As an art director, what I’ve learned is that you give someone like Anna basic parameters and boundaries, and then you let her go. That’s when it goes well. The hardest and best thing I do as an art director is select the right artist. If I do that, the work flows beautifully. Choosing Anna for this project was the right call for the right time, and I loved helping her work find its way onto a stamp.
About the Author of this Post:
For Greg Breeding, strong communication—visual or spoken—is always about clarity. A graphic designer at heart and by trade, Greg’s decidedly Swiss perspective is shaped by years designing magazines, art-directing postage stamps for the U.S. Postal Service and taking an annual pilgrimage to (where else?) Switzerland to study the craft. Since co-founding Journey Group in 1992, he’s brought strong design thinking to many client relationships, building rapport through genuine interest, well-told stories and a subtle Southern drawl.
Leadership qualities go beyond simply having followers or giving orders.
If you are a leader of a ten-person team and only two of them follow you, you are not leading.
Influence is a key marker of a leader.
How do you recognize a leader?
It’s not by their prominence.
A leader can be out in front, in the middle, or following behind.
You recognize a leader by the response of their followers. A leader is someone who influences others to follow a course of action when they have a choice:
A leader is a person who says to others, “follow me!” And, they do.
A leader is a person who suggests, “I think this is the way to go.” And people go there.
A leader is a person who takes action. And others join in.
A leader is a person who does something new and others begin to do it also.
A leader has genuine followers—people who follow of their own volition.
If a leader shouts in the woods and no one hears them, are they a leader? No.
Your leadership impact depends on the ability to influence people, not your ability to command, coerce or manipulate.
Your leadership is measured not by what people do when you’re there, but by what they do when you’re not present—when no one is watching and they have the freedom to make personal choices.
Leaders who seem to be competent and know what they are doing.
Leaders whose character they respect.
A person could have any title they want and not be a leader. But if you look closely, you can recognize who the real leaders are in your organization, community, and world.
A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than fear.
Herb Kelleher
The passing this week of Herb Kelleher—the man who filled the skies with flying hearts—made me reflect on compassion and the way we treat ourselves and each other.
At the beginning of each year, many of us set resolutions for ourselves and our businesses: we want our personal lives and our business lives to be better than they were the year before.
These resolutions are usually about fixing something that we perceive to be broken. We fixate on the negative. We give in to our inner critic. And, in doing so, we often forget to cultivate the positive.
This is to the detriment of ourselves and our businesses.
The goal of every leader should be to care about their teams and genuinely want to build them up individually and collectively. True leadership is about leading people, not organizations.
For us to be compassionate towards others, first we must be compassionate towards ourselves.
This year, when setting your goals, don’t focus purely on negative things that need to be changed. Instead, also take time to reflect on the positive things inside of yourself and how they can be enhanced and amplified.
This year, begin your leadership goals from within.
As the year comes to a close, we want to say a special thank you to Brian Beitler and Mckeel Hagerty for their contributions to the Cult Branding blog. We also want to thank Tom Grimes, Marcus Thornton, and Tony Hsieh for many great discussions and insights throughout the year. And, we want to thank you for your readership. We look forward to bringing you insights on building brands that both employees and customers love in the coming year.
Below we curated the most popular, shared, and discussed articles from the Cult Branding blog in 2018. Please enjoy these three fantastic blog posts as a way to reflect as we enter the new year.
We wish you and your family a happy, healthy, and fantastic New Year.
Best,
BJ, Salim, and Aaron
How To Be MORE Creative
Being creative is essential to business: it provides the edge to beat the competition. In an increasingly competitive market, creative thinking is no longer solely the function of departments like advertising and product development; it is now necessary for everyone in the organization. Learn more about how to maximize your creative potential.
Don’t Differentiate, Create More Brand Desire!
The focus on differentiation as a driving discussion for a company or brand is flawed. The primary reason is that differentiation starts with a focus on what competitors are doing and not necessarily on what the customer wants, needs, or values in your brand. Read more about creating brand desire.
Lead With Purpose
What makes a good leader? Great leaders focus on solving the problem, rather than being bogged down by focusing on the situation and how it applies to themselves. In the face of adversity, great leaders become outward-focused rather than inward-focused. Find out more about leading with purpose.
Google “How to Say Thank You” and you’ll get 2.18 billion results. Most are instructional. It’s surprising that something we learned to do as children has that many search results.
Somewhere in between childhood and adulthood, we forgot how to say thank you and, most importantly, mean it.
This is especially true in business where the market often forces companies to focus on short-term transactions rather than long-term relationships. When customers hear a “thank you” in business, it’s usually the result of a company policy instead of something genuine.
Saying something and meaning it comes across a lot differently than when you just go through the motions of saying it.If you don’t mean it: it’s just words. When you mean it, the words carry emotion. It’s the difference between someone faking a smile and a child opening up that gift they’ve wanted for months on Christmas morning.
Over a decade ago, a sales associate at Cole Haan sent me a handwritten thank you note. Thousands of transactions between then and now, and I’ve yet to receive another personal letter from any company that wasn’t mailed with a purchase. Recently, this thoughtful gesture came to mind when I received a beautifully wrapped scatola misteriosa from an upscale boutique, reminding me just how impactful personalized surprises can be. To this day, when I’m looking for something new, I check to see if Cole Haan has something I like first. And, guess what: my last clothing purchase was from Cole Haan.
All it took to make me consider Cole Haan first was a handwritten letter that took no longer than a couple of minutes to write. But, it was genuine. And, the sales associate had to look online to figure out how to thank me.
At its heart, saying “thank you” is about caring for customers. Customers want to matter and they want to engage with brands.
Yet, most companies are missing the chance to engage with their customers beyond trite responses to happy customers and copy-and-paste legalese for angry customers.
This is a big missed opportunity. But, it’s not an opportunity that can be feigned. It can only be done with caring. And, a good start is creating a culture that cares enough to genuinely say, “Thank you.”
Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday. It gives us an opportunity to connect with the power of gratitude. Dr. Andrew Weil recommends considering each day what went well and why as an antidote to our chaotic world and as an opportunity to uplift our mood.
We are thankful for each of you, and so many other leaders who work towards making the world a better place.
In a society that values goals and results, it’s easy to see why play isn’t valued by adults.
Play is a state more than it is a thing. Play involves doing something enjoyable for its own sake. There is no goal aside from enjoying the experience.
But, play is not a trivial activity: play makes people happier, it helps develop empathy, it reduces stress, and it strengthens resolve. Continue Reading
