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16: Creating Your Brand Halo Storybook

View the warning on the contents page regarding "facts" presented by this author.

After getting off to a false start in the previous chapter, the author returns to the notion of the brand storybook, suggesting that it consists of four components: a "brand me" story, a "business brand" story, a "people brand" story, and a "brand bite," which he means to discuss in the present chapter.

Your Brand Me Story

The author pauses to consider the concept of "unique." It's a word often used incorrectly in marketing to suggest that a given product is somehow different from alternatives when, in fact, it is not. A person however, can be unique, and the author asserts that people cannot help being unique. We are all individuals, all distinct from one another.

(EN: I don't buy that, either. There's a great deal of similarity among people, and many even attempt to normalize themselves, to fit in with the crowd, with a few touches of individuality that are depressingly conventional and imitative. Moreover, the few things about a person that make them truly unique are often inconsequential to our interactions with them. For brands and people alike, being "unique" in the whole of the world is less significant than being different from the other options that are convenient to another person, and being different in a meaningful way rather than a trivial one.)

But continuing in this vein: the author suggests that a person's uniqueness comes from the history of their experience, and the story of their lives so far; or it may come from people whom they have encountered in their lives, or even those whom they never met but from whom they have taken inspiration; or it may come from their achievements.

(EN: And for that matter, the author cites some examples that again underscore the lack of uniqueness. The rags-to-riches story that many executives tell about themselves is as trite, campy, and overused as a Horatio Alger novel. The fact that you admire a given person doesn't make you different from the millions of others who also admire them. And likely the significant things you have done have been accomplished by many others as well. As much as it chafes the western notion of individualism, "unique" is fictional, and even the notion that a person represents a unique combination of common qualities is mathematically improbable.)

Whatever story you choose to tell, it should be told with passion and conviction - it's a story, not an inventory, and must be credible and compelling. But at the same time, it must also be honest and earthy: people are keen at detecting falsehood and exaggeration, and are not impressed by pompousness and arrogance.

This is especially true of brands: people are media-savvy, accustomed to grand claims and false promises by companies who want to have a good PR image in spite of the character evident in their routine behavior. A good first impression is important, but it must also be a true first impression.

Your Business Brand Story

The story of a brand has nothing to do with sales revenue, growth strategy, or produce line development: it is what the brand stands for: its reason for existing as an organization, in terms of the service it provides to the customers and the benefit is delivers in a grander sense.

Chances are, the person who started a small business was motivated by something other than the financial rewards of doing so: they aspired to achieve a specific goal. They may have been guided by their own desire, or motivated to provide a service to others. The founder may have seen a need that was unfilled, or saw a way he could do it better than others who were currently doing it. In some instances, perhaps he felt he could do it more ethically than others.

Attachment to popular causes can provide an emotional boost to a brand. The author cites research that indicates a high percentage of people would be more inclined to do business with a firm that is more socially or environmentally responsible, had a deep commitment to a cause, supported the same causes as themselves. The same is true of individuals who recommend a product to others, or who choose to work for a company.

(EN: Studies about consumer preference for firms based on causes have been debunked. A large percentage of people claim, when responding to a survey, that they favor firms who are responsible, but their buying behavior does not agree: they haven't a clue whether the brands they use are socially responsible, and do not seem particularly concerned when making a buying decision. It's true that some percentage of customers are motivated to purchase from firms that support popular causes, but the practice is nowhere near as dominant or prevalent as such studies suggest.)

Your People Brand Story

The notion of "people brand" shifts to the internal audience: the perception that the employees of a firm have of the company they work for and the role they play within it.

(EN: Skimming ahead, this section seems a bit muddled and strays into recruiting and HR management practices rather than telling a "story" about the brand itself. It's likely an important topic, for reasons that should be obvious, but not quite the same species as the other birds in this cage.)

Many companies pay lip-service to the importance of their employees as a critical element in the success of the firm, but few firms carefully manage the way in which they engage with them. Their people are treated as serfs or equipment, used to accomplish tasks. And while management wants them to be happy, or at least pretend that they are, and occasionally throws them a bone, the principle that drives day-to-day management is "shut up and do as you are told."

It is, or should be, self-evident that if you want customers to have positive feelings about your brand, the people with whom they interact should also be enthusiastic. The author refers to "surveys" that indicate the increased productivity of staff who are engaged.

As to anecdotal evidence, there is plenty: firms such as Virgin Airlines and Southwest Airlines, whose relationship with their employees is atypical, also have dramatically higher levels of productivity and customer satisfaction than competitors whose relationship with workers is stiff and adversarial.

Companies recognize that having a good story about their employees is very valuable to their recruiting efforts: more candidates seek positions at companies that are believed to be good places to work, so the firm has to pay less to advertise openings, can offer lower salaries, and can select qualified individuals from a larger pool of talent if it can sell the notion that it values its people.

But more and more, job-seekers realize that the rosy picture painted by the HR staff is a lure, and that once they accept a position and become part of the rank and file, they will be treated quite differently. It's much the same tactic as bait-and-switch advertising, and its effectiveness has worn thin as companies fail to live up to their promises.

The example of Enron is dredged up, whose written statements about treating employees with fairness and respect was a bitter irony when their behavior was revealed. While this may be an extreme example, surveys have reported that over 75% of workers feel their company's statements about their workforce are disingenuous and meant to impress investors and the public, but did not reflect the actual conduct of management in regard to employees.

So above all, your story has to be authentic. Even if it is not an epic story, full of superlatives, it has to present an honest depiction of what a job candidate can expect when they accept and offer and become an employee. Just as false advertising creates a lot of one-time customers who won't repurchase, so does false advertising create a lot of short-term employees who will not remain, and who will warn others away with a voice more credible than your own.

The degree to which firms seek to appeal to workers changes with the tides of the economy: where unemployment is low and good people are hard to find, they are more cautious about their behavior. When the tide turns, they become much less attentive. But in general, the author feels that society is tolerating imperious behavior of employers less and less: people do not hesitate to change jobs, knowing their skills are valued, and even in a "down" economy, candidates are looking for more than a paycheck.

Specifically, the author identifies a handful of qualities that appeal to job candidates:

On factor that is absent here, and has been absent for a few decades, is money. Traditionally, firms recognized that people work for money, and figured that money was the sole incentive for workers. It remains very important for workers to earn a fair wage for their profession, and the amount of money they are paid figures highly into their sentiment about work, but it is no longer considered the most significant factor: the story of a professional who left a high-paying job for one that offered a lower salary but had more appeal for non-financial reasons is no longer unique.

As to crafting a "people story," the author recommends considering the points above and weaving them into the story of what it's like to work for your firm - the leveraging this story, not only to attract candidates, but to boost morale. (EN: The latter also serves as a checkpoint - if employees balk at the story you tell, that's a sign that it's just not true, and you must either amend the story or amend your ways.)

The author returns to the importance of honesty in your "story." While it's not uncommon to put your best foot forward in attracting candidates, you have to level-set in the selection process. The individuals whom you choose to hire will discover the truth as soon as they accept an offer, and if it is different from what they have been told, they will not stay aboard for long, and will speak of their experience.

It's fairly common, during interviews, to go over each of the requirements of a job to give a candidate a realistic notion of what is expected of them, and to back out if they feel they cannot deliver. But it is equally important to provide a detailed description of what they can expect of you. Your goal should be to select a candidate you can retain for the long term, and to succeed at that, you must be willing to let a qualified candidate walk away.

While hiring good people is fairly simple, keeping them is much more difficult, as evidenced by the high rate of turnover in most businesses. Too often, this is merely shrugged off as part of the culture, or dismissed as having something to do with the fickle nature of people - and the firm does not accept and responsibility, nor does it see the need to make any improvement.

It's also important to consider that the "damage" suffered when a good person leaves a firm is less significant than the damage done before they leave. A disgruntled and disenchanted employee is not a good representative of your brand, and does not make service to their employer their top priority.

(EN: This calls to mind the common practice of firing an employee who is job-hunting, or refusing to accept the two-week notice. On one hand, the firm has little incentive to retain a disgruntled worker and wants to avoid the damage they might do while they feel little loyalty to the firm - but on the other hand, it is missing the opportunity to learn what the firm has done to chafe them and improve its own behavior.)

The proper way to retain good people, maintain their morale and loyalty, is simple: to live up to the expectations you set when they were a job-seeker.

Your Brand Bite

The "brand bite" is a phrase that communicates a company's values. It's similar to the notion of the "elevator speech," which provides a thirty-second statement that communicates the brand - it should be done in a single breath, short enough to print on a tee-shirt.

It is typical for companies to describe their business un a functional sense: asked "What does your company do?" the response would be along the lines of "We make elevator cables." And while that is informative and accurate, it misses the opportunity to communicate something about your brand.

Recall, again, that brand isn't the product you make - any number of companies make the exact same product. What makes you different? And it may have nothing to do with the product, but the value it delivers.

At the same time, it must be intelligible: some have suggested using it as a teaser, figuring that the sound-bite catches the interest of the listener and causes them to ask follow-up questions to get more information. But that seldom ever works: people are more frustrated than engaged by an answer they do not understand, seldom ask follow-up questions, and leave without an understanding of what you do (and no interest in finding out). The author refers to this approach as a "non-starter."

A positive example tells the querent exactly what you do, sometimes in terms of the benefit you deliver rather than what product or service you make. Rather than saying "we manufacture analgesics," you could state "we help people deal with pain." The latter approach accomplishes three things better than the former:

  1. It provides an intelligible answer. Few people will recognize the term "analgesic", but everyone knows what pain is.
  2. It arouses curiosity rather than smothering it. The querent is more likely to ask "how do you do that?" than "what is an analgesic?"
  3. It suggests what you can do for them. The querent is more likely to think "I have pain sometimes, perhaps you can help me" rather than "I need analgesics"

These qualities differentiate the brand bite from advertising slogans and strap-lines, which tend to be more oblique, artful, and uninformative. Evocative phrases such as "where do you want to go today?" or "just do it" or "it's everywhere you want to be" work well in a larger context and tie together several messages to a single theme, but do not function as a brand bite.

Some random bits of advice:

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