On Words and Business

Who knew the Luciano Pavarotti was such a marketing genius? Check Chris Guillebeau’s Art of Non-Conformity article about the famous tenor’s secret to success. He did it for his audience, it was all about giving.

It might seem to make sense in his profession and not others.  But it’s an interesting exercise to figure out how it applies to each of our own businesses. And that it’s possible even without a Twitter account (although he sure got more exposure through his work than the average desk jockey does).

How will you give to your audience today?

Some businesses have a compelling story to tell.  You may not know the origins of that story, but it’s clear in what the company is and what it stands for. If you had to imagine how the company came to be from what it stands for now or if you had to imagine what the founders were like from what their companies look like today you would probably come very close.

Think L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer. They both happen to be stores that sell outdoor gear and are named for their founders. Even if you don’t know much about the founders or how the businesses came about, if you’ve experienced either company you can probably make a reasonably good guess about the story each business tells for its customers.

That’s good storytelling. It’s a little bit branding, too, but I argue that the success comes from the underlying story.

What lessons can other companies, especially those in other industries, take away from this?

What is it with the Aussies? I’ve never been to Australia, yet I find myself time and again drawn to the thoughts of Aussie business people via their blogs or websites.

From this distance (it’s approximately 10,100 miles or 16,200 kilometers from Boston to Sydney) it seems to be a place of immensity and extremes. Luckily for us, it also seems to be a country that fosters business and sharing.

Stretch yourself with this new blog from the land of the golden wattle, the emu, and the walkabout.

Starting with the end in mind. It’s one of those things that makes intuitive sense when someone talks about it, or recommends you do it–for your business or for your life. Yet it’s usually elusive for most of us.

Creating long term goals, making 5 or 10 year plans, or even spending the time to try to figure out what you truly want to be doing in the future seem like pipe dreams. Oh, some make plans, write up goals, and then set them aside to gather dust. No one means to do this. It’s just that when the engame is far off in the future, or when the tasks it would take to get to where you want to be are challenging, it’s difficult to maintain focus and energy for the journey.

This is especially true for those of us with just “regular” lives, we work every day, we talk to our boss and set our yearly goals, we live our everyday lives perfectly happy. Nothing wrong with that unless you aren’t on the path you want to be on.

People do it every day–set long term goals and reach toward them. The easiest example is an athlete who trains for the Olympics. That takes years of daily dedication, focusing on the future when in the present you’d rather be doing something else. For a goal there is no guarantee of reaching.

Is your life where you want it to be? Is your business where you want it to be? If not…what are you going to do about it?

These days, social media and mobile apps get all the attention from the marketing set. Not to say that we oldsters aren’t joining the party, but when it comes to making it look easy, both of these are pretty much the purview of the younger set, the Millennials.

But guess what…according to Nielsen (in this report on Marketing Chart) Boomers’ use of Twitter jumped 469% in 2009 (there was nowhere to go but up!). 80% of Gen-Xers use tools like Facebook and Twitter. The Greatest Generation, those over 65, are a different story when it comes to the social media and mobile bandwagon. They are a bunch who like email, though, so you can still reach ‘em online.

Go forth and market…

Want to create a social media policy but don’t know how? Want to make sure your existing policy passes muster?

Check out Social Media Governance, a website with over 100 policies from companies like the BBC, FedEx, and Sun Microsystems. In addition, there are links to over 100 research reports about social media policy, some of them free.

A great resource.