How to Become a Cult Brand

THE BIG IDEA: Certain businesses excel at fostering undying, cult-like following among their customers. Our study of Cult Brands reveals seven rules any business can follow to attract loyal customers.

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Some customers have a religious devotion to a particular brand. They may go so far as to permanently scorch their skin with the logo or image of the brand they love.

While this may appear extreme to you, fifteen years of research into Cult Brands has shown us that the psychological reasons behind cult followings illuminate the drivers behind customer loyalty in any business.

So even if you don’t aspire to have customers tattoo your logo onto their heads, if you’re interested in creating loyal, profitable customers, there’s a lot to learn from Cult Brands.

Cult Brands create emotional experiences that lead to feelings of belonging, a sense of shared consciousness with a group of people. The customers of Cult Brands often feel like part of a family instead of consumers of a business. This is a powerful, emotional connection.

Apple, Harley, IKEA, Star Trek, Zappos, MINI, and The Motley Fool all invite their customers into their clan.

So how do they do it?

7 Rules for Cultivating Customer Loyalty

We’ve identified seven core rules that all Cult Brands tend to share. These rules are the fundamental tenets that all Cult Brands consciously or instinctively follow as they do business.

Keeping these rules in mind makes it easier to decide how to grow your business and foster loyalty.

The Seven Rules of Cult Brands provide a framework for ongoing business success. As you read through each rule, think about ways you can apply it to your organization.

Rule #1: Differentiate

Cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead summed up the challenge facing today’s marketers: “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”

Your customers are driven by two simultaneous desires that appear to be diametrically opposed to each other. They want to stand out from the crowd and be a unique individual while simultaneously wanting (and needing) to be part of the crowd, receiving the social support and approval of like-minded individuals.

How do people meet these opposing needs? By belonging to a group they identify as being unique, often outside of mainstream society.

If you’ve got a home, you need furniture. The community of people who need furniture is considerable. But the community of people who need furniture with minimalist charm and serious organizational capacity (and enjoy quirky Swedish names) is smaller and distinct—just different enough to make IKEA irresistible to legions of their fans.

Your customers want to be part of a group that’s different. It’s that simple.

Rule #2: Be Courageous

Even in the face of doubters and critics, Cult Brands dare to be different—and succeed. Cult Brands are successful because they are wholly unlike every other company in the marketplace.

Cult Brands believe in themselves, their products and services, and their customers. They want to challenge conventional wisdom and transform it when given the chance. Willing to take significant risks, the people behind Cult Brands are fighters and leaders, not quitters or followers.

When Whole Foods started in 1980, there were less than six natural foods supermarkets in the United States. Today, the natural and organic foods market is estimated at more than $28.6 billion.

Cult Brands, however, don’t waste their time or energy worrying about who is following them. Their attention is focused on how to better serve their customers.

Rule #3: Promote a Lifestyle

Cult Brands sell more than a product or a service. Customers want more than just things; they are seeking experiences.

Experiential purchases are more meaningful than material purchases. As such, all Cult Brands sell lifestyles. They develop and sell “the tools” that help their customers pursue their dreams and celebrate distinct lifestyles.

Cult Brands remove barriers for their customers. The would-be musician no longer needs to shell out thousands of dollars for expensive instruments and equipment. They just need to download the right apps onto their iPad, and they’re ready to rock.

Apple promotes a creative lifestyle that facilitates self-expression. Jimmy Buffett celebrates life as a party. The Life is good Company promotes a laid-back weekend BBQ with friends.

Your customers have aspirations. Those aspirations are powered by emotions. If you can support your customers in the realization of their aspirations, they will associate their positive emotions with your business.

Rule #4: Listen to Your Customers

Cult Brands focus on serving the wants and needs of the customers they have. They have the ability to listen to their customers’ discontent and create solutions that build strong, enduring loyalty.

By listening, Amazon.com discovered that the high cost of shipping interfered with how often their customers made purchases. In response, they launched Amazon Prime in 2005, a program in which members enjoy unlimited free two-day shipping in exchange for a yearly fee.

It’s an initiative that has been more successful than anyone could have ever imagined. Over 20 million people are Amazon Prime members. The typical Amazon Prime member buys as much as 150 percent more than non-Prime members. It’s a powerful example of the results of listening.

Respect your choir. Listen to them. Value their opinions. Reward them. Never ignore an enthusiastic follower of your business. Remember that all core followers want to believe, but first, they need to see miracles in the form of unexpected gifts and surprises.

Do extraordinary things for your choir and they’ll become incredible brand evangelists.

Rule #5: Support Customer Communities

Cult Brands know how to build strong, ongoing relationships with their customers by developing and supporting customer communities.

Cult Brands aren’t afraid to use today’s profits to support customer communities to generate powerful, long-term goodwill for their businesses and their brands.

When possible, they establish social events that reflect their missions. MINI created their annual Take the State tour. Life Is Beautiful puts on their popular Music Festival each year.  Harley supports HOG Rallies worldwide. (We attended their 105th Anniversary event in Milwaukee and recorded the magic.)

Rule #6: Be Open, Inviting and Inclusive

You don’t have to earn your way into a Cult Brand by proving you’re cool enough. Cult Brands take it as a given that you’re already cool enough.

Cult Brands welcome customers of all ages, races, creeds, and socioeconomic backgrounds with open arms. They don’t discriminate against anyone who doesn’t fit into an idealized customer profile. Everyone is welcome.

Cult Brands prove to their customers that they are indeed open and inclusive by helping to fulfill the deep human needs that we all share, including belonging and self-esteem.

Rule #7: Promote Personal Freedom

Deep inside every human being on this planet is a need for freedom.

According to Abraham Maslow, the feeling of freedom is a bridge to self-actualization: we want to be able to grow and express our own unique identity and worldview without fear of consequences.

Harley promotes freedom on the open road. Vans promotes freedom from convention. Linux promotes freedom of information. Apple promotes creativity and self-expression.

Cult Brands are empowering and expansive. When customers engage with a Cult Brand, they come away feeling like they can do more, and do it more effectively.

Tapping into the Forces Behind Customer Loyalty

Integrating the Seven Rules of Cult Brands into your operations expands the number of ways you can tap into the forces of customer loyalty.

Consistent application of these principles will strengthen the bond you have with your existing all-star customers, while simultaneously creating new customers.

As your customers deepen their emotional connection with you, their loyalty will grow. Your organization will become stronger, more resilient, and more differentiated.

Oh, you’ll probably become more profitable too.

July 6, 2018 by

The New MEdia: Battling for Recognition in the Age of Sharing

The media industry is bifurcated into two distinct worlds: the struggling traditional segment that longs for a simple, more profitable past that will never return; and the vibrant entrepreneurial segment that is reinventing commerce before our eyes.
Justin Smith, CEO Bloomberg Media Group, 2013 memo

It‘s true: we’re in a period of rapid invention that is changing business and leaving antiquated models in the dust. But, the businesses succeeding aren’t reinventing commerce; they’re returning to an old form of commerce where individual customers matter more than demographic groups.

Technology allowed businesses to become bullies: it enabled them to tell consumers what to think and at scale.

But, technology has a way of always returning to human nature: people want to feel like they’re part of a community and be heard–not to be told what to want.

Instead of adapting to the empowered customer and using the human characteristics that new technology has enabled, most businesses have become like Stuart Larkin–the MAD TV character obsessed with attention–shouting, “me, me, me,” and hoping that if they’re loud enough and crazy enough, people will pay attention.

And, many think they’re on the right track with the attention they received. But, attention is easy; mattering is hard.

Businesses are still using old metrics by counting attention in the form of likes and views. But, likes and views don’t correlate to sales. The reason is simple: attention ≠ meaning.

People don’t care about most of their followers or friends on social media. They’re less likely to care about a faceless business. What they do care about is recognition from their followers and brands. They want to be heard, they want to be recognized, and they want to be understood.

These should be your goals because people care about their me more than your me.

It’s the expectation in the new MEdia.

Mattering to customers can no longer be ignored. In the future, businesses will no longer be able to ignore mattering to their employees.

The successful companies in the future will create brands that customers and employees love. They will create meaning.

In short, they’ll be human.

June 29, 2018 by

What Great Leaders are Made of and How They Get That Way

I’m a big fan of the “Freakonomics Radio” podcast. I highly recommend it, in particular an episode titled “What does a CEO actually do?” I love the question because it’s cheeky and because I’m sure many people wonder the same thing but are afraid to ask.

The show’s guests – which included a lot of biggies – had some fascinating answers. For instance, Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo., which owns major snack brands like Lay’s, Ruffles and Tostitos, sweats the small stuff:

Host: I have one gripe about chip bags, especially for the single-serve. It seems to me very suboptimal to have the only opening at the top, where you have to jam your hand in there, and you can’t really see what you’re getting. Wouldn’t it be better to have a bag that just laid out all the chips on the package, like a nice picnic blanket or something? Have you ever thought about that?

NOOYI: Well, imagine that you’re walking around, eating your bag of chips, which a lot of people do. How would that work? If you open out the Lay’s too much and a gust of wind comes by, you’re going to see a lot of chips flying. We have to worry about all these little practical things.

Jack Welch, the GE legend, focused his answer on an old school hardball approach to team-building.

“A baseball team publishes every day the batting averages. And you don’t see the.180 hitter getting all the money, or all the raises. You don’t win with a gang of mediocre players in business or in baseball. … Treating everybody the same is ludicrous. And I don’t buy it. It’s not cruel and Darwinian and things like that, that people like to call it.”

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, simply said: “What do I do? I do everything Virgin.” That’s a quirky and possibly profound answer. He didn’t say he does everything at Virgin. (I listened twice.) He specifically said he does everything Virgin. What that means is anyone’s guess, but I took it to mean he infuses the company, top to bottom, with the Branson way of doing things. And who can argue with success? Branson’s style and Virgin are a perfect match.

The key to great leaders: Character, character, character … and habits

But then success in leadership is often contextual. Eisenhower was the right type of leader for his time and place, Branson for his, Jobs for his. But it’s never just contextual. People may be born with the talent set to be a CEO, but the very best are the ones who, as David Brooks once wrote, wrestle with and polish those inner talents daily. They’re the ones who do the unglamorous work of honing their character – constantly shedding unproductive habits in favor of better ones. They’re the ones who make learning a daily ritual and a personal mantra. They’re the ones who are willing to look at something that’s working perfectly well and ask “Is there a way to do this even better?” or “Is there something here we should stop doing?”

Great CEOs also, in my experience, get out of the echo chamber of their own minds and build their worldview by having their thinking regularly challenged. They make it a point to build others up. They build trust networks of people who keep them honest and humble. They challenge themselves over and over again. They exercise, meditate, eat well, pray, play, ponder and seek solitude. (For a great read on solitude’s role in leadership, I recommend “Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude” by Raymond Kethledge and Michael S. Erwin, which was one of my favorite books of 2017.) Most of this work (except the playing part, of course) is not fun, sexy or easy but as the saying goes, “If it were easy, everybody would do it.”

Leadership: It’s not just for CEOs anymore

In the end, leadership can’t be faked and is not accidental. It arises from who you are and how you develop yourself. The tools of leadership are available to us all. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a CEO, parent, village council president or football coach. Intentionally building yourself into whom you want to be is one of those keystone habits of a good and wise life. Do that and no one will ever ask what you do or who you are.

They’ll already know.

Onward and upward.

Postscript: I’m fascinated by what makes great leaders tick, and if you’re reading this, I assume you are, too. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this post and on what you think makes a great leader. Thank you for reading.

McKeel Hagerty is CEO of Hagerty, the world’s largest membership, financial services and media organization for collectible vehicles and owners, and an in-demand speaker on business success, leadership, and personal growth. McKeel is a hands-on leader who truly cares about cars, collectors and the employees of Hagerty. In 2016, he was elected global board chairman for YPO – the world’s largest CEO organization whose members run companies that employ 16 million people and generate $6 trillion in annual revenues. Among his focuses was encouraging lifelong learning among leaders as a key to sustainable business growth.

June 22, 2018 by

Putting Archetypes to Work in Your Organization

How do you put archetypes to work?

Start at the center.

The center is unique for each organization.

Your strengths hint at it.

Your organization’s passions point you in the right direction.

The forces that drive your customers to do business with you provide invaluable clues.

This center should be expressed in your ultimate vision, your core values, and the language of your corporate culture.

How will you know when you’ve found your center?

Your heart will awaken.

Your employees will come together as teams. Innovation will increase by the passions of the men and women guided by archetypal forces deep within them. Your stakeholders will observe it. Your customers will hear the call to adventure.

Remember: the more archetypal, the more essential, and the more human your center is, the more cohesive your organization will become. And, the more easily you’ll attract customers who want to join forces with you.

Onward!

June 8, 2018 by

Your Business Archetype

When you uncover your business’s archetypes you get to know the DNA of your organization. It is from these fundamental symbolic images that all of the desired behavior for employees and customers spring.

When you know your archetypes, you can ensure consistency in your culture and your branding.

Your understanding of archetypes:

  1. Uncover the symbolic images and emotions that best express what your business is about in the context of your customers’ and employees’ lives.
  2. Determine the humans needs your customers and employees are trying to fulfill when your archetypes are active in their minds.

These key insights can transform the future of your business. With this understanding, your team can find creative ways to consistently play and express these images and needs in ways that are meaningful to your customers and your employees.

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P.S. Listen to our discussion on the future of retail with SAP’s Global Vice President’s Nancy Case and best-selling author Scott McKain: Retail Relevancy: Distinction Trumps Differentiation.

June 1, 2018 by

How Leadership Archetypes Really Work

Archetypal-Leadership
THE BIG IDEA: There are seven behavioral patterns that characterize distinct leadership styles. Becoming aware of all seven will help inspired leaders identify their strengths and provide additional options based on the context of the situation.

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You don’t have to spend much time in executive meetings to observe that there are different ways of moving people to action.

Tom, for example, tends to give his employees commands. He’s coercive in his communication, patriarchal. “Do what I say” is the sentiment behind his statements.

Linda, in contrast, is authoritative. She has a clear goal in mind that she shares with her team. She gives her team the freedom to find their own way to achieve it. She leads others by saying, “Come with me.”

In our work with executive leaders, we’ve observed a set of common patterns of behaviors, or archetypes, that C-level executives tend to exhibit. Psychologist Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership revealed six distinct styles. The following archetypal descriptions coincide with Goleman’s findings.

Meet the Ruler

Tom (above) is an example of the Ruler style of leadership. The Ruler is generally driven by power, status, and certainty. The Ruler demands immediate compliance. This style works well in difficult situations like company turnarounds and with problem employees.

The Ruler often comes off entitled, arrogant, and authoritarian. This coercive style was the default archetype in past generations of executives. In modern business, however, the Ruler archetype inhibits creativity, autonomy, and psychological freedom—vital ingredients for cultivating a thriving corporate culture.

Meet the Visionary

Linda (above) personifies the Visionary archetype of leadership. The Visionary is authoritative as opposed to authoritarian or dictatorial. With this style, the leader has the confidence to be led by a compelling vision, but doesn’t seek control over employees. The Visionary provides freedom to employees to determine the best path to actualize the vision. This style works especially well when the organization lacks clarity and direction.

Although the Visionary style works effectively in most situations, it doesn’t work, Goleman observes, when the team is more experienced than the leader. In such cases, employees may perceive the leader to be out-of-touch or arrogant.

Meet the Mentor

The Mentor archetype of leadership is akin to the role of a teacher, trainer, or coach. Trust is vital for this archetypal style to manifest, for employees must trust and believe in the leader’s ability, authenticity, and intentions. The Mentoring leader helps build the employee’s character, competencies, and other dimensions of personal development.

This coaching style requires constant feedback and an environment where employees are committed to improving and addressing areas of weakness. Cultures that support self-actualization needs can best capitalize on the Mentor archetype. However, when the culture doesn’t support growth and its employees are unwilling to change, the Mentor’s ways will be resisted and resented.

Meet the Athlete

While virtually all leadership styles are achievement-oriented, the Athlete personifies this focus to an extreme: the quintessential over-achiever. The Athlete strives to be the best, to push himself to the limits, and so he demands the same unequivocal high performance of his employees. Unlike the Mentor, the Athlete expects employees to be self-directed.

The Athlete’s passion for achievement can have a positive impact on highly competent, self-motivated employees. The Athlete can, however, create resistance in other employees who may feel overwhelmed and pressured outside their comfort zone.

Meet the Servant

The Servant style demonstrates an ability to inspire others to action by putting people first. Leaders that employ this humanistic style demonstrate empathy, the ability to listen, self-awareness, and strong organizational skills. The Servant exemplifies the primary quality of Collins’ Level 5 leadership: humility. Participative by nature, the Servant is culture-oriented with a talent for team building. The Servant improves morale, fosters emotional bonds, and seeks to create harmony.

The Servant, however, may not offer sufficient critical feedback and advice, which can promote poor performance and create uncertainty for employees.

Meet the Ambassador

The Ambassador exercises a democratic style of leadership that strives to bring people together, giving all employees a voice while building consensus. This approach can be useful in generating creative thinking by allowing a diversity of perspectives to enter the discussion. A natural peacemaker, the Ambassador demonstrates a high level of social intelligence with charm and strong listening skills.

In attempting to establish harmony and stability, however, the Ambassador may foster an environment that produces endless meetings and directionless employees.

Meet the Shapeshifter

The Shapeshifter is faceless. It is able to take on all of the above archetypes without exclusively identifying with any of them. The most effective archetypal leadership style depends on context. The context might include market conditions; the stage of development of the company; the corporate culture; organizational objectives; and the situations, abilities, and stage of development of individual employees and their teams.

The most skilled leaders are Shapeshifters. Outperforming leaders don’t just use one of these leadership styles; they’re skilled at numerous and possess the flexibility and adaptability to shift between styles as needed.

Remember: you are not defined by any of these archetypes, and yet you have the ability to express all of them through you.

How to Become a More Effective Leader

Each leadership archetype has its strengths, but each also has a shadow element that can lead to poor performance. The key to improving your ability to effectively actualize the positive aspects of these leadership archetypes, according to Goleman’s research, is growing your emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is a set of skills. All skills can be learned. The core competencies of emotional intelligence include self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill.

Goleman’s team has found that emotional intelligence, not cognitive intelligence, is the defining characteristic in outperforming leaders. We find this to be a fascinating area of study and we encourage executives to learn more about how emotional intelligence can transform their ability to get results and to improve their organizations.

Google has developed an extraordinary program on how to build emotional intelligence through mind training exercises. The program is called Search Inside Yourself.

Based on decades of scientific research from the world’s top psychologists, neuroscientists, and coaches, it is one of Google’s most popular programs within their organization. And now, Search Inside Yourself is publicly available. We invite you to check it out.

May 25, 2018 by

Creativity In The Workplace

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.George Lois, Damn Good Advice

When Leon Battista Alberti declared, “A man can do all things if he will,” he condensed the ideals of the Renaissance into the figure of the Renaissance Man—a person with knowledge of a wide range of subjects. Since then, knowledge has become very specialized and having the breadth of knowledge in the wide range of subjects embraced by Renaissance Men is impossible.

The Renaissance man still walks among us, but we now call him groups. A group can have a collective knowledge that far exceeds the knowledge of any individual.

Brainstorming, invented by advertising executive Alex Osborn, was designed to maximize effective and creative group problem-solving. Research on brainstorming initially failed to show an increase in the number and quality of ideas when compared to individuals working alone; but in the last two decades, research has revealed that brainstorming can be productive if the procedures guard against impediments that naturally occur like conversation being controlled by a limited number of individuals and shared data being disproportionately represented. When small groups of individuals attempt to collectively arrive at a solution through discussion, great solutions can be uncovered.
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May 18, 2018 by

Ten Tips to Make You and Your Team More Creative

Ten-Tips-to-Make-You-and-Your-Team-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.

By following these ten tips derived from our creativity workshop, you will increase your creativity and help your company get ahead.
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May 11, 2018 by

How To Be MORE Creative

Bright background
THE BIG IDEA: Creativity doesn’t happen in a flash of insight; it’s the result of a lifetime of learning.

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Most businesses isolate creativity to specific parts of the organization; they treat it as if only a chosen few can tap into the mystical force of creativity.

Part of this stems from a belief that only some departments can benefit from creative thinking. But, great businesses know that creative solutions can come from anywhere within the organization.

The other part is the result of the way we believe creativity happens: in a flash of insight that only happens to a chosen few.
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May 4, 2018 by

Break Down Silos and Build Strong Teams

Breaking down silos can spark innovation in unexpected ways.
Gillian Tett, The Silo Effect

You’ve seen it before: team members thinking about themselves more than the team; Every man and woman for themselves; a business composed of silos rather than being a cohesive organization.

Silos create inefficiency, waste time, prevent the business from achieving its vision, and hinder innovation.

So, how can you help create a cohesive team?

Here are three ways to break down silos and rally your team to success.

1. Create a Unified Vision.

Create a vision for your team that ties into the brand’s overall vision. Ask your team members to be involved in this process. Inspire them to take ownership of the business. Don’t make it complicated: create a vision that team members are passionate about and where everyone buys into its success.

An inspiring vision that everyone buys into will transition people from a “me” mentality to an “us” mentality.

2. Motivate and Incentivize.

Successful leaders identify what motivates each of their team members–it will be different for different people. Incentivize accordingly.

Motivation encompasses a wide variety of tactics including shared interests, individual investment in growth, shared voice, and positive words of encouragement. Incentives and praise should be designed to eliminate the “it’s not my job” attitude and encourage input, teamwork, and productivity.

3. Collaborate and Create Using the Six Thinking Hats Method.

The best method we’ve found for facilitating collaboration is Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. de Bono developed a simple and effective way to facilitate more collaboration and creativity during meetings by utilizing different perspectives.

Each hat represents a different perspective. Each team member wears each hat in turn. For example, “Okay, let’s put on our White Hats. Jim, you’re up first.”

Here’s a brief description of each hat:

White Hat: The neutral White Hat offers objective facts and figures and is used near the beginning of the meeting to establish relevant facts and information about the issue to be discussed.

Red Hat: The emotional and intuitive Red Hat is used to get people’s gut reactions to an idea or when you want the team to express their emotions freely.

Black Hat: The cautious Black Hat is used when you want to get the critical viewpoint of an idea or situation. The “devil’s advocate” hat helps decrease the chances of making a poor decision.

Yellow Hat: The sunny and positive Yellow Hat helps identify the value of ideas and plans. The Yellow Hat helps counterbalance the judgmental thinking of the Black Hat.

Green Hat: The creative Green Hat comes on when you want to generate fresh ideas and new directions. This is a very powerful hat that each player needs to wear.

Blue Hat: The organizing Blue Hat sets objectives, outlines the situation, and defines the problem at the beginning of the meeting and returns at the end to summarize and draw conclusions.

Remember, these six hats represent perspectives, not people or personalities. For this method to be used efficiently, each person in a meeting can and must be able to wear each hat in turn.

Breaking down silos is not an easy task for any organization but avoidance is detrimental.

A unified vision, the right motivation, and collaboration provides team members with a clear purpose and means of accomplishing the ultimate goal. There is nothing more powerful in any organization than having all employees pushing fiercely in the same direction.

April 27, 2018 by