Originally posted on December 31, 2004
Bruce Mau, a designer, thinker, articulator, and massive change provocateur, has a lot of ideas on a lot of things. His Incomplete Manifesto for Growth is a list, an incomplete one at that, of 43 ideas to get you beyond thinking differently but doing differently.
As 2010 turns to 2011, the message of doing differently is one we should all heed. The first incomplete ideal is featured below. Heed and enjoy.
As 2010 turns to 2011, it's time to revisit my favorite Brand Autopsy posts from the past year. Revisiting vintage posts is year-end tradition having started with my favorite posts from 2004 and 2005 and 2006 and 2007 and 2008, and 2009.
I began the year giving Starbucks some tough love for over-reaching in measuring the impact of MyStarbucksIdea and closed the year with more tough love for the company because of their ho-hum Starbucks Digital Network.
In the middle of the year I published a business book masquerading as a screenplay with the title of, TOUGH LOVE. This ebook (and paperbook) tells the story of a rags-to-riches entrepreneur who confounds his relentless critics to build a global iconic brand. His fortunes dramatically reverse until he learns life rewarding and business saving advice from unlikely sources. Injected throughout the storyline are breakout business lessons and thought-provoking business advice.
Business books have always received lots of digital ink here. For 2010, I summarized many worthwhile business books in 300 words or less. Biz books getting this treatment included: TRADE-OFF ... PRICELESS ... THE BUSINESS TREE ... FASCINATE ... SUCCESS MADE SIMPLE ... THE MESH ... and RESONATE.
Sir Wilton Norman Chamberlain III was also dusted off for some dreadful dramatic readings of popular business books including LINCHPIN and SWITCH.
We also had some fun with the Tom Peters book, LITTLE BIG THINGS, by doing a slideshare presentation that adheres to the "Peters Principles" of Powerpoint. Additionally, we awarded DIFFERENT and THE WIN WITHOUT PITCHING MANIFESTO with Novel Piece Prizes.
Throughout the year we got serious with posts like Crisis as a Turning Point and In Between Aspiration and Action. Plus, we shared some thought-provoking quotes from the likes of G.K Chesterton, Gary Hamel, Morris Chang, and Henry Ford.
And we got goofy with the "Haul Video" trend and got silly (but totally serious) with a Fluent Talk on Stuttering.
Thanks for being along for the ride this year. For those who have been riding shotgun with me since 2003, MUCH THANKS for being a long-time reader.
The NOVEL PIECE PRIZE award recognizes excellence in business book writing. The first recipient was Youngme Moon. The second recipient is celebrated below...
Why do service firms ranging from ad agencies to consulting businesses to creative professionals succumb to the pitch process of giving away free ideas in order to win new business? This year's recipient of the Novel Piece Prize in Business Strategy Luminance answers that question as well as provides a framework for all types of businesses to use in order to profitably gain new business and new customers in the book, THE WIN WITHOUT PITCHING MANIFESTO.
Blair Enns, business development advisor to marketing communication firms, believes creative professionals have become addicted to the frenzied adrenaline rush of the pitch presentation. According to Enns, this is counter-productive to beginning working relationships with clients because "at a time when we should be conversing, we are instead cloistered away preparing for the one-way conversation called the presentation."
Writing in THE WIN WITHOUT PITCHING MANIFESTO, Enns derides the practice of service firms giving away free ideas in proposals and presentations to prospective clients as flawed. He equates such an arrangement to that of a doctor and a patient. "A client," writes Enns, "asking for unpaid ideas in a written proposal is like a patient asking for diagnosis and prescription from a doctor he refuses to pay."
Enns contends clients, in many instances, come to service firms with self-diagnosed problems and with surgical procedures already identified to help restore their business health. Unfortunately, Enns says, "[service firms] are far more likely to proceed with such a flawed approach than any medical practitioner." Enns urges services firms to "view the act of prescription without diagnosis for what it is: malpractice."
To orbit the new business pitch process hairball, Enns instructs service firms to develop a "Deep Expertise" by making "The Difficult Business Decision" of choosing a tightly-focused specialty. From there, firms must "articulate that focus via a claim of expertise" and "work to quickly add proof" to the claim. Then, service firms must diligently work to achieve a "true thought leadership position" and use its earned expertise to "trigger in the client the idea that perhaps his performance in a certain area could be improved."
Enns readily admits it isn't always possible to derail the pitch process. In those situations, Enns advises service firms to "gain the inside track" because the "default assumption should be that somebody always has the inside track." According to Enns' strong position, if a service firm cannot derail the pitch process nor gain the inside track, the firm should walk away from the potential business.
The most widely applicable business lesson from THE WIN WITHOUT PITCHING MANIFESTO involves pricing power. Undifferentiated services firms, like undifferentiated products, have no pricing power because abundant alternatives exist. The simple business rule is: the more crowded a market, the more likely low price becomes the differentiator.
According to Enns, "winning while charging more is the ultimate benefit of effective positioning." The more selective a firm is in what they do (positioning), whom they sell to (prospective clients/customers), and how they deliver services (proof of expertise), the greater pricing power a firm will enjoy.
Please join me in celebrating the work of Blair Enns as the recipient of the Novel Piece Prize in Business Strategy Luminance for 2010.
A huge hat tip to Drew McLellan for finding and sharing this tasty nugget of business wisdom from Walt Disney...
Since this blog began in December of 2003, I've awarded and celebrated the best business books from the past year. The Brand Autopsy blog archives include award winners from 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007. (Instead of award winners in 2008, we shared a collection of worthy reads [2008].)
We're changing things up this year with the introduction of a new award to recognize excellence in business book writing. It's called the NOVEL PIECE PRIZE and the first recipient has just been awarded.
The Brand Autopsy Marketing Practice has decided to award the Novel Piece Prize in Marketing Luminance for 2010 to Youngme Moon for her analysis of heterogeneous homogeneity in maturing product markets .
Why do so many businesses focus on eliminating the differences between products in their competitive set rather than accentuating those differences? This year's recipient of the Novel Piece Prize in Marketing Luminance developed a theory which can be used to answer that question as well as provide strategic guidance to improve the marketing of any product.
Youngme Moon, the Donald K. David Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, formulated a hypothesis to illuminate the destructive business practice of commoditization. Writing in her seminal book, DIFFERENT: Escaping the Competitive Herd, Youngme, theorizes "the more fierce the competition, the stronger the firm's commitment to differentiation should be." However, as Youngme posits, "companies have gotten so collectively locked into a particular cadence of competition that they appear to have lost sight of their mandate—which is to create meaningful grooves of separation from one another."
Youngme's findings reveal businesses today have become masters of imitation, producing dissimilar product clones resulting in product categories marred by "heterogeneous homogeneity." This herd competitive mentality produces "an explosion of choices, but those choices are meaningless to many of us."
According to Youngme Moon, achieving true differentiation "is rarely a function of well-roundedness; it is typically a function of lopsidedness." Deviance is the difference-maker and continuously approaching decision-making from a lopsided point-of-view will help businesses design products and programs to succeed "in a world where conformity reigns but exceptions rule."
Please join me in celebrating the work of Youngme Moon as the recipient of the Novel Piece Prize in Marketing Luminance for 2010.
The Austin Police Department arrested my attention last week.
While returning from a short jog at my gym, I noticed one police car parked sideways in the half-full lot. I also noticed two police officers looking at the front windshield of cars in the parking lot. Occasionally these officers would write something on a piece of paper and slide it under the windshield wiper of a car.
I thought to myself, "Hey, this can't be right. Getting a ticket for an expired registration sticker while parked at the gym isn't fair." A closer look revealed something else.
These cops were looking inside cars for easily seen valuables beckoning burglars to steal. So instead of writing tickets, these cops were placing friendly warning signs on cars letting people know their cars are potential targets for a burglar.
This was an act of great customer service because delivering customer service is about reacting to what a customer does, says, or doesn't do.
Picture a holiday shopper entering a store with their hands full of bags. Great customer service for an employee is to recognize the harried shopper and ask if they can put the shopper's bags behind the counter.
Great customer service also happens when an employee responds to a question someone asks about a product on twitter.
And, great customer service happens when a police officer takes the time to relay a friendly warning to a citizen who didn't hide their valuables in their car while parked at the gym.
Silence can be heard. It was heard at the Word of Mouth Marketing Summit 2010 when Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, known better together as NPR's The Kitchen Sisters, gave a presentation on the Art of Storytelling.
About halfway through their talk, Davia & Nikki stopped talking. People in the audience also stopped. They stopped fiddling with their iPhones and laptops but they didn't stop listening to the silence. Instead, people started listening with their eyes as they focused on Davia & Nikki on stage.
After a good thirty-seconds of silence and with every eye in the audience focused towards the stage, Davia said, "Silence brings people together." (It sure did.)
Sam Harrison, writing in his book, ideaSELLING, sells us on using silence when presenting and pitching to clients. After sharing a pitch to a client, Sam says we should, "Listen up. Be quiet and wait for the decision maker to speak. If there's a pause, resist the urge to fill the void. Stay silent and listen. You're about to hear something important. Maybe you'll get the go-ahead. Or you'll hear the objection or obstacle you must address to gain approvals."
After years of blowing his trumpet and filling space with sounds, Miles Davis learned to play silent notes. He learned silence could be just as loud as sounds from his horn. "Don't play what's there, play what's not there," is the music maxim Miles followed and it's a communication maxim you can follow.
