The Engaging Brand

How to start a small business

......buy a big one and just wait!

This is one of my favourite quotes from Why Most Things Fail but if I remember rightly it may have been Gary Hamel who is quoted in the book.

The problem is that communication breaks down, functional walls build up but it doesn't have to be that way...

• Remember it is all down to the people you hire......
• The goals you set and how you promote
• Remembering the passion of why the business was created
• Remembering that employees are humans first, roles second
• Remembering that customers are human first, customers second
• When faced with big decisions, refer to your values

How to build a small company.....do these things everyday.....it is so easy to forget why you started the business when you bogged down in form filling. You may only employ 1 or 2 people but still all of these things are vital.

 

Win a Signed Copy of Sir Terry Leahy's Book

On last weeks Engaging Brand podcast I interviewed one of the giants of retailing Sir Terry Leahy.

He has kindly offered to give one lucky Engaging Brand fan a chance to win a signed copy of the book.

So ahead of how you can win it, I thought I would share some quotes I made from the book 

• Profit follows it does not lead
• "Give me fruitfil error any time, full of seeds bursting with its own corrections" Pareto
• It is much better to trace the product then assign responsibility than give responsibilty for the design of the process
• Organisations are terrible at confronting the truth it is so much easier to define your version of reality
• Decisions that involve no risk are not decisions that will enable your business to grow
• A balanced organisation needs both feet on the ground.
• Victory is worthless if you betray what you stand for!

So for a chance to win the signed copy....anyone who blogs about the show, retweets the this post, likes the post on Google +, stumble upon, facebook or leaves a review on iTunes will all go into a prize draw.

The competition will end on 4th July 2012.

It doesn't matter where you live...the book will come to you! Good luck!

 

Are Human Filters Better than Digital Filters?

Memories are the fuel of the future and yet that fuel is changing in its composition. We are moving from memories passed down through stories, through the generations. Stories which had a personal element, stories which had the sentiment attached.

Now when we want to know about history, wikipedia or Google seem to be the first destination.

Does a digital filter work better than a human filter? I think not.....again what we mustn't do is abdicate to technology....losing that human touch that connected the generations.

Digital filters are great as a starting point.

Digital filters are still created by humans and therefore still subjective

Digital filters gives us a prism to look through...which is great but people add that personal element that brings history alive. Think about this

Doesn't Anne Franks diary bring the war alive more than a wikipedia entry...because its personal.

I suppose what I would like is that we use digital filters to spread all our personal stories to enhance not replace our human filters....

3 Simple Gamification Ideas for Your Brand Strategy

How does a bank get its customers to trade their free checking accounts for checking accounts that charge a monthly fee? According to the Chicago Tribune, it turns the process of switching accounts into a game.

That's what Extraco Banks in Waco, Texas discovered when they decided to phase out their free checking accounts. Extraco sent a postcard to their customers with a link to a game that guided them through the process of switching accounts and gave them some pointers on how they could avoid monthly fees, score free cash, and ultimately win the game.

In the end, Extraco was able to get 14% of its customers with free checking accounts to switch to premium accounts. This kind of conversion rate is unheard of in the banking industry in similar situations. People are, needless to say, very unlikely to give up their free checking accounts.

 Companies have been puzzling for years about how to get Millennials interested in what they have to offer. Suddenly, it appears as though major businesses, including MTV, have learned the secret: gamification.

According to brand strategists at MTV, young adults have been playing games their whole lives, and they're always up for a challenge, even if it involves spending a little bit of money. And that's part of why gamification works so well for companies who are trying to target a young adult audience. If you want to reach recent college grads and their fun-loving parents, here are a few gamification ideas for your brand strategy:

1. Let customers earn points, badges, and rewards

Airline companies have been building brand loyalty for years by allowing their customers to earn points when they fly that will ultimately allow them to take trips for free in the future, once they've accrued enough points. This is a gamification strategy, and it works. So, let your customers earn points each time they do business with you or use one of your services. Additionally, you can benefit from offering them badges and rewards like free shipping or gifts once they've accrued a certain number of points.

2. Use progress bars

Progress bars let your customers know how close they are to receiving an award. For instance, LinkedIn uses a progress bar to encourage its users to completely fill out their profiles. Once their profiles are 100% filled out, they receive some of the benefits of having a premium LinkedIn account. Likewise, you can use progress bars to keep customers engaged. For instance, if you would like your customers to become members of your rewards club, you can use a progress bar on your online rewards club form to encourage customers to fill it out completely. Once they've filled it out completely, you can provide them with some kind of savings or free item. 

3. Try out leaderboards

If you want to add an element of competition into your overall gamification strategy, you'll love leaderboards. This strategy motivates customers to vie for a prominently displayed spot at the top of the leaderboard on your site. You can use a point system to calculate who makes the cut on your leaderboard. Receiving public recognition in the form of a conspicuous spot on your leaderboard is definitely an incentive for many people to keep doing business with you and earn more points.

The gamification ideas mentioned above are some of the most commonly implemented. If you want to learn more about what you can do with gamification, there are a number of TED Talks and a few online tutorials on the subject that will further help you start using gamification to your brand's benefit. Gamification is a relatively new phenomenon, and it's still evolving as businesses learn more about what works and what doesn't. So, stay educated and informed, and keep your customers engaged with gamification!

Katheryn Rivas is a freelance education writer and blogger. She loves to dabble in a variety of education topics, although her main interests include online learning and trends. She welcomes your comments at katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

 

Tom Peters on 7 Steps to Sustaining Sucess

Tom Peters has been a huge influence on me. As a leader, as a write and possibly most of all as a presenter.

I do many speaking gigs a year and the one thing I try and do is bring energy, bring ideas, bring inspiration - for me it is not about selling me, it is about getting the audience to leave with their head fit to explode with questions, ideas, inspiration - why? Because that is how I feel when I see Tom Peters speak.

I love this slide he uses..Simple and yet so true

7 Steps to Sustaining Success

 You take care of the people.

The people take care of the service.

The service takes care of the customer.

The customer takes care of the profit.

The profit takes care of the re-investment.

The re-investment takes care of the re-invention.

The re-invention takes care of the future.

(And at every step the only measure is EXCELLENCE.)

 

Are Our Minds Becoming Obese?

The more we eat and the less we exercise .......the more we risk obesity.

Therefore take this idea into the social web.....the more we consume, the less we participate or use that information....do our minds become clogged?

I wonder....

Do we need a fitness program for our mind....

• Ensuring a good mix of nutritional content to stimulate the mind....from all different genres, parts of the world etc
• Ensuring that we use what we take in....after all if we don't then those brain cells are wasting

It may sound a daft idea...but just think....we are now able to consume more information than ever, but that doesn't make us better....healthier.....only if we burn up that consumption by putting our ideas into action does it become healthy.

Podcast 390 - Sir Terry Leahy on Management and Retailing

This week's The Engaging Brand podcast covering social media, business ideas and brand marketing tips, is ready to download.

Sir Terry Leahy is credited with turning round retailing in the UK. He led Tesco from a struggling business to a global force, through 'simply' putting the customer first.

He joins Anna Farmery to discuss the  Management in 10 Words, a book in which he reveals the experiences that shaped his business philosophy. 

• How the 10 Words have come from both his early life and also through the experience of leading a successful retailer
• What he learned from writing the book.
• Truth - why business is bad at confronting reality and why the truth is vital.
• How the way a corporation thinks is so vital to success
• How being led by the consumer created a new culture and more value for shareholders and customers
• How the customer can be incorporated into the business strategy and even save you money!
• How to assign responsibility to put the customer first
• The 5 stages of getting something to happen
• How technology should free to people to human not replace them
• How data is only valuable if you use it to create customer loyalty and how marketing should use data
• How and why Tesco created Clubcard and what data is for...
• The paradox of the abundance of choice and the need to help customers make choices
• How to learn from competitors rather than dismissing their weaknesses

 I love to hear your thoughts so email me, anna@theengagingbrand.com, join me on twitter, leave a message at The Engaging Brand Fan Page or join me on to discuss it on Google+

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Why technology is about freeing humans to be human

So often people see technology as replacing human interaction. Now I love social media, I love social networking but technology is not replacing the need for humans.

For me technology is freeing the human beings in your organisation so they can spend their day...well 'being human'

Three questions for you

• Is your strategy on social marketing about making it easier for the customer to know who you are?
• Is your strategy for humans to use the technology not for the technology to replace the human interaction?
• Is your strategy aimed at freeing humans rather than replacing them?

These are important questions in order to have a social business model which generates value for both the shareholders AND the customers.

How to Get the Best Out of Yourself

When I coach I see people with so much potential, who are almost scared to fulfill their dreams. It saddens me because whether we fear failure or success, those are just words......don't let words trap you.

1. Write down what you want to be remembered for - could be as a person or at work - talk about yourself as the third person and the value you brought to the world. Keep that legacy statement near....maybe read it just before you got to bed each night.
2. Create 3 objectives which will take you nearer to that person you have just wrote about.....don't be soft, give yourself realistic yet stretching targets.
3. Create some milestones which you want to achieve over the next year - they are there to keep you on track BUT also to tell you to celebrate the progress you are making.
4. Share them with someone you trust and ask them to talk to you about what you are doing to achieve them. Sharing brings commitment.
5. Take responsibility for your own success. Einstein had many rejections, many job applications turned down...but he knew it was up to him to find a way.
6. Learn...I don't mean take night classes or exams especially, I mean read. We all get stuck in a rut and we need to keep refuelling our ideas. It can be blogs, e-books, magazines, podcasts...there is just one key point; don't read the same day after day, read outside your comfort zone.
7. Be honest. I tell the story of Dad saying a mirror is a managers greatest tool. If you can look in that mirror and know, truly know that you have done everything....even on the bad days, you feel good about yourself. It is not about how you want to be seen, it is how YOU ARE SEEN.

It's a funny world we live in, a world where micro-celebrities seem to show that you don't have to work hard, just be beautiful. There are two things to remember

• People like Kim Kardashian...work really, really hard at maintaining that personal brand. We may not agree with what they stand for...but never overlook the work.
• To be remembered doesn't necessaily mean earning a billion dollars.....it is about living your values day by day.

Success is ours to define and ours to achieve. We can blame other people for how they stand in our way...a bad boss, a non supporting partner etc - or we can find a way through.....

that is the difference between living the life you want...or living the life you get

How Einstein Would Use the Social Web

"Imagination is more important than knowledge"

The view of Einstein, someone who knew a thing or two about ideas. For me, social media has over the last few years done two things

1. Brought the ability as Tim Berners Lee hoped that "any person could share information with anyone else, anywhere". Of course there is a need to filter but social media gives knowledge the chance of life - but always remember it is humans that bring that knowledge to life.
2. Brought value to imagination. Social media such as You Tube, podcasting, crowdsourcing are all stimilus for imagination.

But 

If Einstein is right...we have a challenge.....as brands - again be it personal or business - do we value imagination? I still think not.

For instance companies give information or share knowledge but do they use social media to stimulate imagination?

• The emotional side of branding is vital, and the emotion can be stoked by stimulating imagination.
• From a personal point of view....how much do you stimulate imagination from those around you? As parents, as friends, as team member, as family....we have the ability to release imaginations - but do we?

When I think about social media, I wonder how Einstein would have used it.....posting knowledge...maybe a bit...but in the end I think he would show us his imagination.

So E=MC2

Engagement = Motive Creative Power!