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Be A Better Brand Manager: Be Willing To Look Within

An integral part of building a successful retail brand is having a dedicated core of customers who love your store so much that they can’t keep themselves from recommending it to their family and friends.

What inspires this behavior?

Many brand managers are stymied by this question. They fall into an all-too-common mistake, acting as if their customers were an alien species of life, prone to completely incomprehensible behaviors that can’t possibly be understood, much less predicted.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

September 8, 2020 by BJ Bueno

10 Ways You May Be Boring Your Customers and Employees

companies often don’t realize they’re boring their customers and employees.

You’re probably doing many things right. But if you’re not careful, it’s easy to fall into habits that result in customers and employees becoming disinterested.

Interesting businesses aren’t just talked about more frequently in the media. Their businesses are alive. Energy flows throughout their organizations into the heart and minds of its customers.

This open exchange between business and customer continually breathes new life into the enterprise. It also helps to grow the business.

Here’s a list of ten things companies often unintentionally do that bore their customers and employees and what interesting companies do differently.

September 2, 2020 by BJ Bueno

How One Need Motivates Your Employees AND Your Customers

Human beings have a powerful, instinctive need to belong.

Abraham Maslow was the first to highlight this basic human need. After people meet their physiological and safety needs, they seek a sense of love and belonging. And, when the need for belonging goes unmet, humans become unhappy and behave in unhealthy ways.

The need to belong influences your enterprise both internally and externally.

August 25, 2020 by BJ Bueno

Searching for Status, Discovering Everything Has Changed

Everything has changed—on the surface. Underneath, the unconscious motivators that drive consumer behavior remain the same.

If we stand here now and look back into the mists of time to the very first days of human commerce we’ll discover that business owners have always wanted the answer to a single question: what makes consumers act the way they do?

One of the factors that drive consumer behavior, consciously or otherwise, is meeting individual needs. You’re familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the model that tells us that we are all in possession of certain innate needs that must be met in order for us to enjoy optimal physical and psychological health.

July 28, 2020 by BJ Bueno

Brand DNA: Understanding Customer Motivation

Our approach to understanding customers is founded on what we call the Brand DNA. Brand DNA is the root of developing all long-term strategies and short-term tactics. The Brand DNA consists of three interlocking parts:

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Jungian Archetypes
The Cultural Story

July 21, 2020 by Aaron Shields

Sell The Dream, Create Evangelists

Evangelism stems from understanding that brands are co-authored experiences between the customer and the company.

We are big fans of great books.

One of our favorite books is Guy Kawasaki’s Selling The Dream.

In Selling The Dream, former Apple software evangelist Guy Kawasaki lays the groundwork for what it takes to drive passion.

July 7, 2020 by BJ Bueno

Advertising Isn’t Just For Customers

People must be motivated by a deeper Cause....I believe that people don’t come to work to earn money for themselves and the company. They come to work because the product does something worthwhile, and this is what gets people inspired. —Bill George

People must be motivated by a deeper Cause….I believe that people don’t come to work to earn money for themselves and the company. They come to work because the product does something worthwhile, and this is what gets people inspired.Bill George¹

With increasing competitive pressures from existing businesses and industry disruptors, corporations have turned to place greater emphasis on satisfying their employees to maintain or gain a competitive edge.

This has resulted in everything from Google-esque compensation packages to creating—or more often attempting to create—cultures and business practices based around unique core values, all in an effort to engage and retain employees with more than a paycheck.

May 26, 2020 by Aaron Shields

How Short-Term Wins Can Lead To Long-Term Failures

short term wins don’t necessarily translate into long-term company health.—

Can the sum of a row of many victories over many years be defeat?General Löwenhielm in Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast

New customers! More revenue! Huge ROI!

Immediate, positive results are attractive and addictive. It’s easy to understand why: People get praise from their bosses. The current market rewards quarterly capitalism with most investments currently being held somewhere between four and eight months—a big change from the average holding of over eight years during the 1960s.¹ And, many people’s jobs depend on these immediate results.

May 20, 2020 by Aaron Shields

The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Company Vision

A vision gives you clarity on what you should and shouldn’t do. It forces you to stand for something instead of being for everyone. And, it gives you the confidence to make those decisions: when you have a vision you believe in, you’ll have the emotional wherewithal to fight for what’s best for the organization over the long-term, not just today.

Having a vision isn’t just about trying to achieve the vision. It’s about turning your company into the type of organization that has the potential to achieve the vision.

March 16, 2020 by Aaron Shields

How to Become Great by Giving Up

Being Great Requires Giving Up Being Great At Something Else

Piglet: If everybody were like everybody else, how boring it would be. The things that make me different are the things that make me, me!
Eeyore: Stand tall.
Piglet: You’re in a class by yourself.
Eeyore: Be proud.
Piglet: You’re not like anyone else. No doubt about it, you’re second to none ‘cause you’re the one and only one. Piglet and Eeyore, “You’re the One and Only One,” Winne the Pooh: Sing a Song with Pooh Bear

It often seems like companies are doing everything to try and get customers to do more.

But, when a company tries to do everything, it excels at nothing.

Since companies only have a limited number of resources, this usually involves trying to improve their category weaknesses, which inevitably draws focus away from their strengths. And, by improving their weaknesses to match the competition and focusing on winning share of mind for their improvements—and ignoring their strengths—they just end up looking a lot like the competition.

January 24, 2020 by Aaron Shields

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