Category: reputation

Still trying to brand yourself? That must hurt…

I’ve been enjoying the articles posted by Matthew Prince on PandoDaily from the WEF in Davos over the last week. But the one that got me in the right place at the right time is the one where he described how Paddy Cosgrave, inspired by the desire to make something happen in Ireland, created the F.ounders conference.
How did this hit me? It focused on how someone stood up and created a reputation that he can carry anywhere he goes. Not a brand; a reputation.

As I have said before: Personal Branding is all about you, closed source. Everything has to come back to the “I” that’s not in team (although there is a “me”, so a person can still screw up a team).

Taking what you have, and giving it to others to advance everyone, that builds reputation.

Are you building a personal brand or a personal reputation?

The Nomenclature Problem (or "What's in a name?")

Someone walks into your store. They say hello, poke around the racks, ask a few questions. Then they walk out.

Now, if I asked you, how would you describe that person?
Customer? Visitor? Yes?

I have been asking this question in preparation for some session for a group of motivated partners and employees in Singapore and Bangalore. As I prepare the presenter slides (not the dense textbook slides the participants get – thank you Garr Reynolds!), I keep correcting the words, typing customer to describe a visitor who is not.

When you and your teams discuss deep topics like conversion rates and transaction abandonment (WAKE UP! NO MEDITATION!) does the group classify non-buying, real people as  customers or visitors?

The label customer should be reserved for those visitors who complete the transaction and provide the revenue/information to the company whose online application they are interacting with. This means that the customer is the visitor who has bought into the entire online application experience.

A visitor becomes a customer only when they are happy with:

  • The Business
  • The Design
  • The Presentation
  • The Delivery

Where in the four areas has your application let the company down before?
If you asked a random visitor why they haven’t become a customer, what do you think the typical answer would be right now? Next week? A year from now?
Then ask your parents (or your spouse, if you’re brave) to use your application. You must show incredible restraint during this exercise (I suggest a remote operated camera and 6,000 miles of separation) to stop yourself from leaping in and telling them what to do,  shaping their experience and guiding them to your expected and desired outcome.

Can they do it? Would your parents or spouse become a customer?
When you look at your online applications tomorrow, use beginners mind to truly look at what you are doing in the four key areas. If you find yourself shaking your head and saying that this doesn’t make sense, put yourself in the visitors’ shoes.
You may ask yourself if the application you provide to support your business is truly improving the visitor experience.  What you have a strong chance of finding is that your application is designed for customers at the expense of visitors.

When a visitor doesn’t complete the tasks you defined for them to reach the goal of becoming one of your customers, what do you call them?

And do you know what to do next?

Branding, Authority, and Reputation: A Parable

On a fine July day, a local man runs into a neighborhood bar carrying a stack of pamphlets, and wearing the hat announcing a new service. His beaming smile and easy attitude made the rest of the patrons want to listen to him.

“I have seen the greatest new thing in the history of our species,” he started. “A man in this very town has created a simple potion that, when taken once a month, allows your teeth to gleam, your farts to smell like rainbows, and gold coins to appear instantly from your fingertips!”

The crowd surged around him, listening to his spiel. They were spellbound, and chattered amongst themselves enthusiastically.

Then a local Man of Prestige entered the bar and listened for a few minutes. He shouted down the smiling pitchman and, with a sarcastic sneer on his face, said, “That’s Crazy Joe’s stuff isn’t it?”

The crowd stopped shouting and started murmuring.

“Crazy Joe has been tinkering in his garage for years,” the Man of Prestige started to say, not repressing his mirth. “One of his potions turned his dog into a three-legged, one-eyed rabbit with a rat-tail. His family has left him, and he is living on hand-outs.”

The Man of Prestige made his final point: “Why would you by something from a failure like Crazy Joe?”

The murmur had turned into a beehive buzz. Then someone shouted, “Look! It’s Crazy Joe!”

As Joe walked into the bar, expecting the welcome of a returning hero, he was met by jeers and shouts of derision. The crowd occasionally looked to the Man of Prestige to ensure he was still laughing.

“Drinks on me!”, Shouted the Man of Prestige, and the crowd followed him to the other end of the bar for their free gift for believing in his opinion.

Joe was near tears. His pitchman was in shock. After a moment, Joe spoke up. Looking at his pitchman, he said, “C’mon. I’ll buy you a drink.”

They sat at the empty end of the bar as the Man of Prestige regaled the crowd with tales of himself and his ventures and investments. They watched in disgust for a few minutes, then Joe ordered two shots of scotch for each of them.

A few seats down, two strangers from another town sat. They had no idea who the Man of Prestige was, or why he was so quick to dismiss this great idea. They sat, quietly watching Joe and his pitchman shoot down their drinks, take one more forlorn look to the end of the bar, and get up to leave.

Then, they watched in incredulous disbelief as Joe create three solid gold coins from his index finger to pay for the drinks.

The strangers gaped as Joe and the pitchman walked out, then looked back to the gabbling madness surrounding the Man of Prestige, all of whom were oblivious to the great thing that had just happened.

The strangers jumped from their stools and ran off after Joe and the pitchman, pulling money from their pockets as they ran.

Peter Kim's discussion of Social Media Marketing and Scalability

If you are interested in the area of social media marketing, head over to Peter Kim’s blog and check out Social Media Marketing’s Scalability Problem. The post is excellent, and the comments are the kind of conversation that needs to be had in this area.
The best comments so far:

The interesting thing is that this post is nearly two months old. And without realizing it, that’s about the time I started writing about conversation and community, branding v. reputation, and how the content-based advertising algorithms are failing the social media market.

I agree with the commenters and Peter Kim that there is a scalability problem when you are trying to have a conversation. that’s why companies rely so much on branding. However, if you take the time to build a community, you don’t have to scale your own conversation, as you will have the community willing to build your reputation.

Conversations and community happen around the reputation of brands, people, and products. And where there is a gap between the branding message and the reputation conversation, that’s when the greatest problems arise.

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