Face It. The Value of Listening is Often Underrated.
Over the 30 plus years I’ve been helping organizations with their branding issues, I’ve found that the first in-person meeting is crucial. There is no match for having a face-to-face whether in a room or via video to discover not only what the real opportunity is, but if in fact if you can partner with the client to make that a reality. Reading situations and people to understand not only what is said but also what is unsaid is critical. Startups and established companies alike often miss the real ‘why’ or do not understand their audiences’ true motivations. Asking some hard questions and listening carefully can reveal if there are hidden roadblocks to success before the creative process begins.
A brand differentiates you and can engender preference and loyalty. As Jeff Bezos has famously said “It’s what people say about you when you are not in the room.” Many organizations rebrand to enhance or reposition themselves in order to capture more market share or change perceptions. New businesses hope to break into new categories by inventing and then marketing their new brand. Today every brand needs to interact with their audience in authentic and consistent ways and that requires various degrees of creative investment. Wanting to build a website or a brand identity or create a brand name before there is a solid business case is one of the most pervasive problems I encounter in meeting new business prospects. My face-to-face meeting is to understand not whether there is a brand or creative opportunity, but if in fact if there is a business opportunity as they are one and the same. Asking the right questions at this stage will reveal what the future opportunity might be, and it should also tell you if you and the client can work together effectively.
Most importantly, the opportunity has to be based on market needs and have good proof of concept based on listening to the audience. Take the case of Casper, a mattress company that invented a new way to sell mattresses. The founder Philip Krim specifically looked for a category that had remained unchanged for years and was not leveraging online selling. He believed his mattress in a box with risk-free trial purchasing and delivery would change in the way people (particularly young urban people in apartments) would buy a mattress. Erin Griffith’s article in Fortune reveals Krim initially aspired to be the "Warby Parker of mattresses’" but more recently with new products like pillows, sheets and dog beds, and a $75 million investment by Target, he states they want to be the "Nike of sleep." Their whole business model and online interface supports their brand proposition – a simple, friendly and low-risk way to find what for most people is a tricky and very individual proposition – the rejuvenating value of a good night's sleep. Casper is also a company that continually does their research, listens closely to their customers and is able to pivot, recently opening bricks and mortar stores in strategic locations to expand and include other demographics that want to touch and try before buying.
Another disruptive thinker, Ford’s CEO Jim Hackett came from Steelcase, a furniture company that embraced design thinking to create workspaces that were less about furniture and more about what humans need to be motivated and productive. At Ford he changed the way new cars were designed by asking what car buyers might want in the future. Hackett’s instructions to his research and design team were to stop trying to devise a new set of features for drivers writes Jerry Useem in Fortune..."Instead, they were to go home, reflect on complaints they had about their own cars, and return with stories." This resulted in a different way for the team to think not only about what could a car look like, but that what people really wanted. It was less about a vehicle and more about an extension of their lives – a different way to ask why?
Cowbell Brewing is a Canadian company I worked with even before there was a product to taste. One of the first things founder Steven Sparling said was, "I know the world does not need another brewery but I believe we can build an economic driver in our community…it will just happen to sell craft beer.” It was this powerful answer to my why? that drove all the brand decisions. The proposition of bringing jobs and purpose to a small, rural town while presenting it in an entirely new way inspired the name Cowbell Brewing and the tagline, Where Craft Beer Rings True. In the pioneer past, farmers hung a cowbell on their lead cow so they could keep track of their herd location. Cowbell has led more than 170 workers, more than half of them under the age of 30, to find a reason to stay, or to come to the small town of Blyth, Ontario, and broke their attendance projections in the first three months of opening the stunning new, state-of-the-art destination brewery. The excellent award-winning beer continues to pour off the shelves in retail with people enjoying the quirky but real stories from the town’s history featured on the cans that I gleaned after a face-to-face conversation with the town’s historian.
I’ve cited some success stories. What about the failures? I’ve met lots of founders, CEOs and Marketing Managers. The ones that stand out did their homework, had a solid business or marketing plan, and of course the passion and drive that is always palpable in the first face-to-face meeting. The failures were those that did not understand who their true audience was, or lacked the consumer research to support their hypothesis, or in some cases, couldn’t answer my questions or explain their ‘why.’ It is easy to say your product will be different, but if you can’t clearly substantiate that early on, no amount of marketing will succeed. Although as a service provider, it is tempting to take a client for the revenue alone, it will not end well if you don’t have the confidence that there is a real need for what the client has to offer. Understanding what the audience wants extends beyond creating a logo or digital property - it is about forecasting what problem will be solved or what unmet need is an opportunity and delivering that in the very make-up of the product - the brand.
Here are are the questions I use in the face-to-face meeting. Listen carefully but also observe how they are delivered!
Why? (why now - why this product or service?)
What? Can you see/try the product or service? Is there a business plan?
Competitors. Are they truly different? Is this difference sustainable? (for how long?)
Who? Who is the target market?
How? Do they have Investors or a budget? The infrastructure and the team to deliver on their promises?
Can they move quickly? (Can they pivot? Is it scalable?)
Do they believe in what they are doing? (Do they have any skin in the game?)
What does success look like? (Sometimes it is not always about the money.)
What are they really selling – what’s the value proposition? (What problem does this solve for the audience?)
Can you work with them? (Do you like them? Do you believe in their vision? )