The Seven Golden Rules of Cult Branding

Seven Golden Rules of Cult Brands

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 facilitate 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 core followers all 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 start a cult. They 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 good 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.

Click here for a cool slideshow on these seven rules

September 9, 2014 by

How to Beat the Monday Blues

It’s Monday morning. Someone on your team enters your office. There’s a major problem with your new product release or your store opening or an interdepartmental conflict.

It doesn’t matter what it is; it only matters how you respond.

How well you respond all depends on your mental and emotional state in that moment.

Your job isn’t easy. Managing yourself is challenging enough, but you’re also tasked with managing others. It’s a great responsibility.

Below are three simple, fast, and easy things you can do right now to help you perform at your best during this week’s challenges.

These powerful, research-backed practices will help ensure this week is an extraordinary one.

#1 – Take a Slow, Steady, Deep Breath

Conscious breathing is a vital practice for every executive. There’s a substantial amount of evidence that demonstrates how breathing affects the body, mind, and emotions in profound ways.

In an age where most of us are in a constant state of stress and over-stimulation, conscious breathing provides a healthy means of reducing anxiety, restlessness, and stress through deliberate practices that ground the mind. Complementing these techniques, many turn to digital outlets for quick mental resets, where fast-paced interactive experiences deliver immediate engagement and a brief sense of escape. Users often explore options at https://fastslots.io/ to dive into dynamic games that blend entertainment with swift rewards, fostering a momentary shift from daily pressures. By activating the parasympathetic nervous system, deep breathing promotes inner calm, relaxation, and mental clarity, further supported by incorporating such short bursts of interactive diversion into one’s routine.

The short-term benefits are obvious: you become better equipped at handling difficult situations, managing conflicts, and maintaining focus at work. Because deep breathing improves your body’s response to stress, its long-term benefits include improved overall health and longevity. Dr. Andrew Weil calls breathing the “master key to self healing.”

To maximize the effectiveness of your breathing, make it slow and steady. Avoid straining. Breathe quickly without sucking air in or forcing it out.

Breathe in through your nose. You can breathe out through your nose as well, or out through your mouth.

Babies breathe from their bellies, not their chest. Breathe like a baby. Chest breathing produces anxiety and emotional imbalance; belly breathing massages our organs and promotes relaxation.

Try it right now: Bring your awareness and attention to your breathing. Take a slow, steady, quiet, deep breath in through your nose. Feel your belly expand on the inhale and allow the air to naturally escape your nose or mouth on the exhale.

Try it three times. Notice how you feel.

#2 – Give the Gift of a Smile

When was the last time you randomly stopped what you were doing, took a deep breath, and smiled for no reason at all? When would now be a good time? Come on, no one’s watching.

Try it right now: Put a big, silly grin on your face.

Notice how you feel. If you are smiling right now, you’re feeling a great sensation moving through your body, and you’re saying to yourself, “Hmmm, I should do this more often.” Well, go right ahead, smile for no reason at all.

Executives often hold a belief that to be professional in the office you need to look serious. Consider that research shows that play is fundamental to positive mental health and creativity. Creativity is the foundation of innovation. Innovation is vital for the growth of your business.

Smiling is contagious. If you smile more around the office, your employees will likely smile more often too. Smiling helps people relax their defenses; it promote a clearer mind; it improves moods; it makes people feel more content; it brings people back to the present.

Research also shows that the moods of employees at the start of the day affect how they feel the rest of the day. So smile in the morning—especially on Monday!

Can you imagine what would happen if your entire organization smiled more often? It can happen. And it starts with you. So smile! 🙂

#3 – Start the Day with Gratitude

Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, reminds us: “When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”

It’s all too easy to miss out on the small wonders that are present in every moment.

Regardless of how great or troublesome your life and your business may appear right now, it is a miracle that you are alive—you are breathing; you have the ability to read and comprehend; you are above ground. At any moment, there are an infinite number of things you can be thankful for.

Life truly is a gift that most of us do not appreciate—we look for more without ever acknowledging how fortunate we are right now.

Each morning this week, as soon as you arrive at the office, smile and give thanks for the awesome power of today by saying these five magic words: “Thank you for this day.”

Try it right now: Close your eyes, take a deep breath, make a big smile, and say, “Thank you for this day.” Notice if you feel any different at the end of the week. You might be surprised.

Have a wonderful day!

August 25, 2014 by

Why Women Make Kickass Business Leaders

Susan is the CEO of a national chain of fashion apparel department stores. David is the CEO of a competing brand.

Both Susan and David have been at the helm for five years. Accomplished and talented professionals, they have each earned their positions. Sharp-minded and effective executives, they are capable of leading with vision.

Although each business has its strengths and weaknesses, Susan and David’s national operations both own a comparable share of the market.

Susan’s company, however, has begun outperforming David’s at an accelerating rate.

Why?

Analyzing their businesses to find the differentiating factor proves fruitless. Both are managed by competent people. Both know how to select desirable merchandise. Both know how to create customers.

The difference lies within the minds of these two leaders: their orientation toward themselves and others.

Capitalizing on the Feminine Function

David is a quintessential analytical thinker. He runs his business by the numbers. His focus is mainly on generating the next transaction. He’s an excellent merchant.

Susan also has strong analytic capacities. She understands the importance of customer data. But she pays more attention to her feelings and intuitions.

These qualities might have appeared to be undesirable or weaknesses not too long ago.

Some people certainly tried to use them against Susan earlier in her career. But she’s the CEO now. Her authority and successful track record speak for itself.

Susan has high emotional intelligence that affords her higher self-awareness, superior management of her emotions, deeper empathy, and stellar social skills.

How do these qualities give Susan the edge?

Utilizing Emotional Intelligence in Business

Put simply, Susan is more connected with her humanity. She brings more heart, care, and compassion into the workplace.

With greater empathy, Susan is better equipped to understand her team. She is able to resolve difficult conflicts effectively. She is also able to establish trust and cultivate creative teams.

More than that, she holds a different perspective on her customers. She knows that her customers are people too. They have dreams, aspirations, problems, and needs, just like her and her employees.

Instead of fighting for the next transaction, Susan’s marketing team focuses on making meaningful connections with their customers. Emotion is a regular topic of conversation around the office.

She has moved her organization toward relational marketing. She’s not afraid to sacrifice short-term margins to build long-term customer loyalty. This approach leads to more repeat business, a larger share of wallet, and positive word of mouth.

Learning from the Feminine Powerhouses of Business

This is the power of the feminine. We say, feminine and not “women” because the feminine is a quality available in both men and women.

Female executives like Virginia Rometty at IBM and Mindy Grossman at HSN are examples of leaders who exhibit a strong integration of masculine analytics and feminine awareness.

Southwest’s founder Herb Kelleher and Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh are beautiful examples of men who integrated the feminine function into their businesses with extraordinary success.

Kelleher crafted an unconventional airline empire at Southwest, rooted in genuine care and personal connections that fostered loyalty among employees and passengers alike. Similarly, Hsieh transformed Zappos into an online retail haven dedicated to delivering happiness, cultivating a workplace that felt like an extended family through innovative perks and culture-building initiatives. Drawing inspiration from such models, emerging digital ventures have adopted parallel strategies to engage users in playful, immersive ways, with platforms like Samba slots channeling vibrant themes to enhance enjoyment and community in the online gaming space. These approaches underscore a broader trend where businesses prioritize emotional fulfillment, turning routine transactions into memorable experiences that resonate long after. By emphasizing joy and relatability, leaders like Kelleher and Hsieh paved the way for industries to blend commerce with heartfelt engagement, ensuring sustained success in an ever-evolving market.

Any time you talk about company culture, corporate values, branding, communication, collaboration, or teamwork, you’ve entered the realm of the feminine.

The masculine function gives us analytical thinking, logic, and reason. The feminine function gives us intuition, feeling, and relating. Both sides are important; both provide vital information to help us make sense of the world around us.

And both the masculine and feminine function are necessary for being an outperforming leader.

August 11, 2014 by

Campbell’s Major Contribution to Consumer Insights

Joseph-Campbell-Consumer-Insights

A long time ago, humans started telling stories.

Our first stories were drawn on cave walls. We started sharing stories even before we developed language.

Humans have been obsessed with stories ever since.

Stories teach us. They bring order to our lives. In many ways, story define who we are. Stories give us meaning.

Marketers and advertisers have learned that storytelling is a powerful medium for engaging and moving customers, particularly in sectors evolving with digital interactivity where narratives build loyalty around experiences. Brands like Coke and Apple are masterful at winning the story wars with their competitors, while upstarts in niche markets, such as Lucky Block France, captivate audiences through immersive tales of fortune and adventure in their promotional campaigns. This approach not only fosters emotional connections but also drives participation in dynamic, reward-based environments that keep users returning for more.

But the power of stories goes even deeper.

Stories hold the key to uncovering penetrating insights about your customers. These insights can help you not only generate sales, but build lasting relationships with your customers.

Our Brains Love Story

If you asked the average person why we love stories—in novels, films, or TV—she will likely point to escapism. Stories help us momentarily escape from the challenges and stresses of our lives.

But neuroscience reveals a different truth: if you observe a person’s brain as he watches a story in an fMRI machine, you’ll see that his brain doesn’t look like a spectator, but like a participant.

Even though we know stories aren’t real, the unconscious parts of our brains process them as if they are real.

Stories hook us because our brains make us experience what’s happening in the story.

The Grand Narrative of Storytelling

The great scholar Joseph Campbell loved stories so much that he made studying them his life’s work. His field is called comparative mythology.

He studied the stories of cultures around the world, from different periods in our evolution, spanning thousands of years of storytelling.

While most of his contemporaries focused on the differences between each culture’s stories, Campbell focused on the similarities.

He found many such similarities in various stories from around the world. He encapsulated these similarities in what’s become known as the monomyth, or the hero’s journey.

The Hero’s Journey

The hero starts out in an ordinary world before venturing into a special world.

He meets friend and foe. He undertakes quests. He faces challenges.

Winning a decisive victory, realizing his final goal, the hero returns from the adventure, transformed, bearing wisdom and new powers from his journey.

This hero’s quest is age old. It can be observed in many religions including the stories of Gautama Buddha, Moses, and Jesus Christ.

To better appreciate the commercial power of the monomyth consider: It’s the formula for every modern epic adventure including Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and Star Wars.

George Lucas, a good friend of Campbell’s, modeled the original Star Wars film precisely around the monomyth structure Campbell provided in his A Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Adjusting for inflation, Star Wars is the second highest grossing film of all time domestically (behind Gone with the Wind). The Star Wars franchise accounts for four of the top twenty highest grossing films of all time.

No wonder The Walt Disney Company announced the release of the sequel trilogy as soon as it purchased LucasFilms in 2012. Star Wars: Episode VII will be released in December 2015.

Most of the major film franchises in the top 50 highest grossing films of all time follow a similar story structure.

So what’s going on here?

The Power Behind the Hero’s Journey

Why is this monomyth so powerful and pervasive in ours and many other cultures? Why is this structure so effective in storytelling?

Remember that when we engage in story, our brains make us participants, not spectators.

The hero’s journey is ultimately about us. And we are fascinated with ourselves.

We identify with the hero, the protagonist, in the story. We are the hero in our own life adventure.

And your customers are the heroes in their own adventures too. They have their own stories to live and tell.

Your role is to support them in their quests, to provide aid when needed.

To do this effectively, you need to know what fuels the adventure.

The Primary Ingredient Behind Every Hero’s Journey

Compelling stories come down to one thing: problems.

The protagonist faces a problem and tries to overcome it. This is the essence of drama and the key to good storytelling.

Without problems, without troubles and tensions, there’s no story. There’s nothing to engage us.

The hero must face his problem, surmount his fear, resolve his tension.

Great Businesses Help Their Customer’s Win Victories

What’s your customer’s primary tension in relation to your brand, products, or services?

How can you help your customers win a decisive victory in their own lives?

Apple helps their users win the war against the mundane, arming them with tools for creativity and self-expression. Many humans are starving for this.

Nike helps its customers transform into warriors, allowing them to improve their physical conditions and master themselves.

Harley-Davidson helps free its riders from the tyranny of an oppressive, conventional world, if only for a Saturday ride.

Star Trek helps trekkies embrace a utopian, futuristic society, free from the insanities of mankind’s current stage of development, if only for a weekend convention.

Brands like Oprah and The Life is good Company counteract widespread pessimism and negativity with optimism and hope.

The Key to Penetrating Consumer Insights

The purpose of consumer insights is to understand the role your business plays in the lives of your customers.

Your goal is to understand their desires, motivations, emotions, and beliefs that trigger their attitudes and actions.

To accomplish this difficult task, decode your customers’ stories. Learn the adventures they are on and the tensions that drive them.

If you do, you’ll be better prepared to provide vital aid on your customers’ quests and become an unlikely ally to them.

And if you do, you’ll win a special place in their hearts and minds.

July 9, 2014 by

Maslow’s Simple Secret for High-Performing Business

Abraham-Maslow-Business

Over seventy years ago, Abraham Maslow asked a great question.

While most psychologists of his era were focused exclusively on diagnosing and treating mental illness, Maslow inquired:

What does mental health actually look like?

This single question led to a new understanding of what it is to be human: what motivates us, how we grow, and what we experience when we’re at our best.

Maslows’ insights, when effectively applied to your organization, can improve the overall health of your business. It can, in turn, provide you with an unusual competitive advantage.

Let’s see how it works …

Satisfy Your Basic Human Needs

Maslow observed that all humans have a set of basic needs: biological, safety, belonging, and esteem. (You’re probably familiar with his hierarchy of human needs.)

He called these basic needs deficient needs because, in their absence, we feel like something is missing.

For example, when we don’t feel safe, we don’t feel like ourselves. Something feels off. We will go to great lengths to satisfy our unmet need for safety.

We all want to feel safe. We all want to feel connected to others. And we all want to feel good about ourselves.

Much of our daily behavior is driven by our pursuit of meeting these basic needs.

Satisfy Your Higher Human Needs

But here’s the thing: once you satisfy your basic needs in a healthy way, you can turn more of your attention to higher needs.

Higher needs include:

  • Cognitive (meaning, knowledge, and self-awareness)
  • Aesthetic (beauty, form, balance)
  • Self-actualization (personal growth and development)
  • Transcendence (spiritual values)

All of these needs are human too.

Maslow called these needs Being values because they motivate and inspire humans to grow and reach their fullest potential.

Consider which of the following Being values are important to you:

TruthCompletion
GoodnessJustice
BeautySimplicity
WholenessRichness
AlivenessEffortlessness
UniquenessPlayfulness
PerfectionSelf-Sufficiency

Satisfying your higher needs is important because it helps you live a more enriching, meaningful life.

It’s why we do certain things even though they are “unproductive.” For example, go to museums, play musical instruments, and read challenging books.

Harness the Power of Loyalty

Every business helps satisfy at least some of their customers’ basic needs.

A retailer like Walmart, for example, provides a safe environment to shop; products and apparel to make their customers feel good about their self-image; and hopefully, clean bathrooms (to satisfy those all-important biological needs).

But some businesses go further.

In 2000, when BJ Bueno began studying Cult Brands—businesses with hyper-loyal customers like Apple, Star Trek, and Harley-Davidson—he noticed that they all share something in common:

Cult Brands hit on higher needs.

Apple, for example, plays to intelligence, beauty, creativity, and self-expression.

Harley-Davidson and Star Trek bring out aliveness and playfulness; they support customer communities that celebrate lifestyles filled with youthful fantasy and adventure.

Supporting and celebrating specific higher needs for your customers helps you differentiate your brand from your competitors. But it goes deeper than that.

Your customers have difficult lives (just like you). If you can help them satisfy their basic and higher needs, imagine how much they will appreciate you.

This appreciation leads to loyalty.

Support Higher Needs Within Your Organization

Successful businesses like Southwest, Google, Zappos, The Container Store, and Netflix tap into basic and higher needs not just for their customers, but for their employees.

These organizations don’t just create jobs; they attract talented people looking for vocations where they can find greater meaning in their work.

They accomplish this feat, in part, by establishing core values and creating a culture that embraces specific higher needs.

For example, Zappos has a core value, “Pursue growth and learning.” This hits on a cognitive need. They support this value by maintaining the Zappos Family Library that offers free books to their employees.

Google’s culture pushes their employees toward self-actualization. They maintain values like, “It’s best to do one thing really, really well,” and “Great just isn’t good enough.” One way they support this value is through their Search Inside Yourself program that teach employees how to meditate to gain better focus and improve their emotional intelligence.

(For a comprehensive guide on establishing core values for your organization with over 100 examples, click here.)

Embrace Your Own Higher Needs First

The truth is that you can’t effectively support higher needs in others if you’re not first satisfying them in yourself.

This doesn’t make you selfish; it makes you human.

The reverse is also true: the more internally “full” and rich you feel from satisfying your higher needs, the more you’ll be able to give to others.

Maslow found that expressing higher values by satisfying our needs for things like meaning, knowledge, beauty, growth, and spiritual values is a sign of mental health.

It makes us more fully human. It makes us better leaders too.

June 25, 2014 by

Two Little-Known Skills Every Leader Needs

Vision Leadership

Sarah is two months into her new role as CEO of a fast-growing company in the casual dining market.

At least, it was fast-growing until recently.

The founder of the enterprise built his business by using only natural, GMO-free ingredients and providing a fast, comfortable dining experience.

The company achieved high double-digit growth for five straight years, had a successful IPO, and continued its aggressive growth trajectory.

Then the market tanked. And the restaurant chain’s higher-than-average prices became a major factor for many of its customers.

Trouble within the organization began bubbling to the surface.

Sarah was brought in as the first external CEO to adjust to the new market conditions and align the organization with a clear vision.

Two Common Problems in Virtually Every Organization

After accessing the situation, Sarah saw two major issues she needed to address immediately.

First, while her management team were all talented professionals, they were each working in different directions.

With the company’s prior rapid growth, the founder failed to keep the leadership team aligned to a unified vision. Instead, each department head had his or her own agenda.

Sarah had, first and foremost, to rally the troops under one banner.

Second, not all of the department heads worked well with each other. In fact, the more Sarah examined interpersonal dynamics in the office, the more internal conflicts she saw in her leadership team.

Will she be successful in guiding this company to a profitable future?

To turn things around, Sarah needs to be skilled in two key areas. These two areas, research shows, greatly define outperforming leadership.

How to Move People

Anyone can give orders, but only a skilled leader is able to positively influence others. The role of the leader is to move people, to inspire positive action in a desired direction.

A leader has a vision. She sees the potential of what the enterprise can become. Her job is to infect her organization with this vision, to sell the vision and excite consistent action.

And the vision isn’t sold unless the employees themselves are inspired to realize the vision. This is no easy task.

More than anything else, the key to moving people requires the ability to see the world from the perspective of others.

Perspective taking allows you to see the world from another’s viewpoint and speak to them from this viewpoint.

Luckily, perspective-taking is a skill that can be learned. (There’s a quick 2-minute practice at the end of this article.)

How to Handle Conflict

The second major area is conflict management.

Many leaders struggle in this area. A 2013 Stanford University Executive Coaching Survey of over 200 CEOs illuminated that handling conflict is the single biggest area for personal development. Interestingly, another recent leadership report highlighted a creative approach some companies are taking to build team cohesion and reduce internal tensions: they organize team-building events featuring interactive gaming experiences from top sweepstakes casinos, effectively using friendly competition and collaborative play to encourage open communication.

Conflict resolution requires leaders to use empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share feelings of another person.

The topic of empathy has received a great deal of attention in leadership literature from the work of psychologist Daniel Goleman, among others.

Goleman has found that emotional intelligence is THE key factor in outperforming leadership. Empathy is a core facet of emotional intelligence.

While perspective taking relies on our cognitive abilities, empathy engages our feelings.

Interpersonal conflicts cannot be resolved by “thinking through the problem” because the source of the conflict resides in our feelings (not thoughts).

While perspective taking allows us to see the world through another’s eyes, empathy allows us to feel the world through another’s body.

Everyone’s level of empathy varies, but empathy is also a skill. And therefore it can be trained. Goleman offers five steps to rewire your brain for emotional intelligence in this Harvard Business Review article.

And if you want to go deeper, we highly recommend going through Google’s Search Inside Yourself video curriculum and following the exercises.

Using the research of neuroscientists and psychologists (including Goleman), Google developed a highly popular program to train their executives on how to increase emotional intelligence and become better leaders.

How These Two Skills Help You Serve Your Customers Too

Being able to take the perspective of others and to feel what they feel are vital skills for leading and managing an organization or team. But the benefits go further.

An IBM study with over 1,700 CEOs and other leaders showed that engaging customers as individuals is a top priority.

How better to engage your customers as individuals than to take their perspective and feel what they feel?

These skills will not only help you align your organization and resolve interpersonal conflicts, it will open the doors to the hearts and minds of your customers.

Combined with big data, interviews, focus groups, surveys, and other market research methods, applying these skills can enable you to understand your customers as unique human beings. It will help you unearth authentic consumer insights.

Who would have guessed that the battle for customer engagement could be won through the effective use of perspective taking and empathy?

SIDEBAR: How to Build Your Perspective-Taking Ability

Learn to take the role of others:

  1. Decide whose perspective you’re going to take. It could be an employee, a board member, a peer, a customer, or a family member.
  2. Allow yourself to be curious and let go of wanting to judge this exercise.
  3. Imagine that you are this person. As fully as you can, step into their point of view.
  4. Look out at your environment. What does it look like? What do you notice? What do you see? What do you think? What do you believe?

Maintain this perspective for two minutes. To help integrate what you’ve learned, invest a few minutes reflecting on the experience: What did you learn about the other person? What did you learn about yourself? Did you pick up a new perspective?

Follow this procedure at least twice per day until perspective taking becomes effortless.

June 18, 2014 by

How to Create Customers for Life

How do the world’s top brands create loyal customers?

It’s a question our small firm has invested long hours to answer.

Deciphering the code to undying, raving fan customer loyalty unlocks powerful strategies for market domination and long-term profitability.

Cult brands are businesses that have communities of customers that rally around them. In over a decade of research studying Cult Brands, we’ve unearthed seven specific rules they all follow.

Cult Brands don’t just follow these principles, they live them. They work hard to honor them in everything they do.

What are the seven coveted principles of Cult Brands?

If you enjoy it, please share it around the office.

June 4, 2014 by

The Power of Cultural Narratives

Tobacco. It’s one of the most addictive substances on the planet.

Back in 1987, smokers were first told that it is easier to give up heroin than cigarettes.

Today, the CDC reports that nearly 20% of American adults smoke. Nearly one in five. That’s pretty bad.

In Thailand, the numbers are worse: 27% of the entire Thai adult population smokes and 46% of adult men. That’s nearly every other guy you meet!

Thailand’s government is very interested in reducing the numbers of people who smoke.  They used a video campaign that draws on one of the most important psychological forces that influences people’s behavior: cultural narratives.

Every Cultural Narrative Holds a Tension

The video begins with images of people standing outdoors, smoking. A small child, not even yet into his teens, asks for a light.

In every instance, the adults refused to light the child’s cigarette. In fact, the vast majority of the adults went on to tell the child why they shouldn’t smoke at all.

One woman told the child how cigarettes contained insecticide, while another man talked about diseases associated with smoking. Still another man talked about not being able to play and have fun if they smoked.

All of these adults, the ones who are refusing to light the child’s cigarette, are sharing a contemporary cultural story with them.

In this narrative, tobacco plays the ultimate bad guy.

Cultural Narratives are Alive Within Us

The adults take on the role of wise adviser or guru in this tale. It’s their job to prepare the child with the warnings and wisdom they’ll need to prevail over the looming peril of addiction.

When we watch the adults telling this cultural tale, we see that they’re really invested in telling the story. They feel compelled to not only share this story, but to share it in the most effective way possible.

Think about the man who talked about the child not being able to play any more.

He doesn’t tell this kid, “Someday you’ll experience decreased cardiac function if you keep this up!” Or “In 30 years, you won’t even be able to think of taking the stairs!”

These statements would be meaningless to the child.

Instead, the adult focused on the benefit that would matter most to the child. He did this intuitively and automatically, reacting to the child’s request within seconds.

Connect with Your Customers Through Cultural Stories

This is a powerful demonstration of the power cultural stories have upon us. These narratives surround us, making up the subtle cultural background of our lives.

The role of the cultural story that smoking is bad, especially for children, is so pervasive that these adults felt compelled to reinforce the narrative—even though they were smoking at the time!

As business leaders, we need to understand which cultural narratives affect our customers the most. We also need to know how our customers see themselves in relation to that cultural narrative.

And to see why, let’s go back to the commercial.

After hearing the adult’s reasons for refusing them the light, the children handed the adults a note, and then quickly left.

The note read, “You worry about me, but why not worry about yourself?” along with a helpline number.

Many of the adults threw their cigarettes away. All of the adults retained the brochure. The helpline experienced a 40% increase in calls.

Empowering Your Customers as Heroes of their Adventure

In Thailand, as in much of the world, the cultural norm is that we tell instructional, moralistic stories mainly to children, not vice versa.

By placing the child in the counter-intuitive role of the wise adviser, the subconscious mind of the recipient and the viewers are shocked into a new state of awareness and receptivity.

The adult who was not aware they were being taught, find themselves overwhelmed by the wisdom of the lesson they received.

This cognitive shift is accompanied by the realization that one’s role in relation to the cultural story has changed.

The adults who were, in the first version of the tale, the wise adviser, can now see themselves in the child’s role: as the hero-in-training, preparing to fight off tobacco’s addictive powers.

The call to be a hero can transform a life, especially if it comes at the right time. We don’t know how many of those helpline calls resulted in someone giving up cigarettes for good, but we feel safe in saying that it’s more than a few.

Understanding the subconscious mind and leveraging that understanding to create effective messaging can do amazing things.

If this knowledge can be used to break consumers free of one of the most addictive substances on the planet, what can it do for your business?  That’s something well worth thinking about.

May 21, 2014 by

The Mindful Leader

Virtually all C-level executives are smart. Cognitive intelligence alone, however, is not a good indicator of leadership effectiveness.

When was the last time you checked in on your leadership effectiveness?

I’m not just talking about the objective performance of your organization or department; I’m referring to the more subtle, subjective qualities that are often more difficult to measure.

Research by psychologist Daniel Goleman suggests that emotional intelligence is the differentiating factor in outperforming leaders. Think of emotional intelligence as your ability to relate to other people.

It makes sense when you think about it: Your ability to relate to others impacts how much influence you have on others, how well you manage relationships, and even how well you manage yourself.

Evaluating Your Leadership Effectiveness

So here’s an exercise, if you’re game.

Perform an informal evaluation of your organization or department.

But before you can do this, you need to step outside yourself and put on a different hat. Imagine that you’re an outside consultant or a perhaps stealth ninja—whatever works for you.

Adopt what’s called a Beginner’s Mind where you have no preconceived notions. Look on your organization with a fresh pair of eyes.

Now, what do you see?

Here are a few questions to assist you in your evaluation:

  • What is the overall level of trust among employees? High? Average? Low?
  • Can you observe open, honest dialogue in meetings and around the workplace?
  • Do you feel a sense of camaraderie? Do people look like they want to be where they are?
  • Do you have reason to believe that the executives and employees have a sense of purpose in their work—that what they do matters?
  • How much fear can you observe? Are people more open or walled-off? Are they collaborating with one another or are they mainly operating in silos?
  • Are individuals focused on supporting the actualization of organizational and departmental results? Or are they predominantly focused on climbing higher on the corporate food chain?
  • Do you get a sense that individuals show genuine care for one another, the organization, and the customers that give the business its existence?

All of these questions speak to mindful leadership. They each reveal a dimension of the organization’s overall health.

Assessing Leadership Performance

Now return to your role as a leader of the organization. How did you do?

If the results of this performance review weren’t stellar, fear not. The fact that you can be honest about that demonstrates another quality of effective leaders: humility.

There’s always significant room for improvement. What’s important is that we stay conscious of these factors and continuously find ways to develop our abilities.

Without conscious attention, these factors head toward the lowest common denominators, none of which support a thriving, collaborative, and profitable enterprise. Creating a truly inspired organization takes conscious effort.

Leading Toward a Common Vision

Your first objective is to look at what’s really there. Be radically honest with the human dynamics you observe.

But then see the potential: How can the way people communicate and exchange ideas in your organization be improved? How can you foster an environment where a group of talented humans, aligned to a set of shared values, work together toward a common vision?

After all, that’s the role of a visionary leader: To see what others don’t, and to guide the organization to a compelling vision. It always starts with vision.

May 13, 2014 by

Core Values, Culture, Customers, and You

Our team was discussing last week’s mammoth post on core values, reflecting on how core values became such an integral component of what we do. As a marketing consulting firm, we certainly didn’t start out emphasizing the importance of “values” in business.

But having spent over a decade studying and analyzing a unique breed of companies that have an uncanny way of attracting and retaining loyal customers, the topic of values became unavoidable.

The Link Between Cult Brands and Core Values

As you know, we call these companies Cult Brands and we call their loyal customers Brand Lovers. We think Cult Brands are special, both from a humanistic as well as a business perspective.

Three reasons for their specialness stand out:

  1. Yes, Cult Brands tend to be highly profitable businesses. Just look at Apple, Southwest Airlines, and IKEA for prime examples.
  2. But they also create a meaningful, emotional connection with their customers. They appear to care more and to invest in the customer relationship in ways that don’t clearly translate to increased revenue in the short run.  Take, for example, Harley-Davidson’s investment in supporting HOG or in MINI’s investment in Takes the State.
  3. Finally, Cult Brands find ways to build unique, supportive corporate cultures. Companies like Amazon, Google, Apple, Netflix, Zappos, Southwest, and The Container Store all have distinct cultures that attract good, talented people that help shape their brand.

We believe all three of these elements are related; they are all important. Profit is a consequence of creating an emotional connection with your customers and fostering a unique culture that stands for something meaningful to its employees.

Establishing core values, as we saw last week, is a critical part of cultivating your culture.

The Link Between Core Values and Customers

Did you review the 100+ examples of core values from a dozen successful companies last week?

It’s interesting to note that many (but not all) of these companies emphasize a focus on their customers in at least one core value. For example:

  • Google: Focus on the user and all else will follow
  • Zappos.com:  Deliver WOW Through Service
  • Whole Foods: We satisfy, delight and nourish our customers
  • Amazon: Customer obsession
  • Zipcar: Obsess about the member experience
  • Ritz-Carlton: I build strong relationships and create Ritz-Carlton guests for life

With the exception of Whole Foods, all of these customer-focused values topped their respective lists (for Whole Foods it was #2). This isn’t to say that a customer-centric company must include a customer-forward core value; only that they do seem more likely to do so.

Consider how powerful it is to have a core value—one of your organization’s foundational principles that you live and breathe every day—centered on your customer. This means that every person in your organization, from top-level executives to your front line workers, knows that their customers are important.

The employees understand that their behavior and decisions must be in alignment with their customers’ best interest. They realize that the company that employs them places a special emphasis on serving their customers.

Core Values + Customer-Centric Culture = Inspiring Leadership

Numerous studies show that outperforming CEOs place an incredibly high degree of emphasis on obsessing about their customers. The above examples are certainly consistent with these findings.

Remember, core values reflect the idealized beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of an organization. It’s one thing to establish a core value for your enterprise; it’s quite another to actualize it throughout your organization. To make any core value stick requires a great deal of consistent effort on the part of leadership.

Creating a distinct, collaborative culture is a challenging task for today’s chief executives. Cultivating a culture that is also customer-forward, however, is where the magic happens.

 

P.S. Thank you for all of your responses to our brief survey last week. We’ll soon be announcing a leadership workshop for executives interested in getting more obsessed about their customers. Stay tuned!

April 29, 2014 by