Understand What You Brand
December 10, 2009 by Nate Winter
Author, salesman and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar had a good way to determine if someone was a successful life insurance agent: ask them how much life insurance they had. If the person owned little or no life insurance, Ziglar concluded that he wasn’t successful. His reasoning was “If this guy isn’t willing to buy life insurance for himself, how can he persuade someone else to buy it?”
We can see the spirit of this anecdote in other familiar aphorisms:
- Practice what you preach.
- Put your money where your mouth is.
- Lead by example. (Often used in the military)
- “This above all: to thine own self be true.”-- Shakespeare
- “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”-- Gandhi
- Never trust a skinny chef.
We’ve heard all these before. So what can we learn from them?
As an agency guy, I deal with new brands and products all the time. And it comes as no surprise that the best work comes from brands that give the agency team an in-depth experience of the product. Yes, we need to eat at your new restaurant. We need stay at your new luxury hotel. We need to work out at your new gym. And although it's a nice perk, this experience isn't about getting free stuff; it’s about identifying with the customer by sharing in the product experience.
You’ll identify the subtle, yet poignant truths about the product, instead of harping on the obvious product benefits that the audience has heard a thousand times. Communicating the subtle and unique facets of the product is what breaks through the clutter and resonates with the customer-- particularly the most loyal ones.
It’s important to form a personal experience with the brand and understand the nuances of the product that are most relevant to you. Using a personal example can be an excellent sales technique: “I know what you mean. When I was choosing my own life insurance...” You identify and empathize with your customer.
Advertising great Leo Burnett once collapsed during a meeting due to low blood sugar. In response, someone rushed out to get him a chocolate bar. Still laying on the floor, Leo said faintly, “Make sure it’s a Nestlé’s” because he believed in loyalty to his client and its product.
Burnett's loyalty is pretty heroic by today’s standards. And he demanded that loyalty from the rest of his agency, too. Someone caught eating a Hershey bar at the Leo Burnett agency would likely have been fired.
These days, you can’t fire someone for using a competitor brand’s product. But supporting the competition definitely calls a person’s loyalty into question and it prevents him or her from fully knowing the brand they work for. There’s some level of insight that is unachievable without an intimate experience of the product. These insights are especially important in this economy, where it may be easier to increase business with your loyal customers than to attract new ones. Find out what the loyal customers love about your product and speak to it-- you’re certain to get a response.
And this isn’t just a lesson for the sales and marketing departments, either. Understanding the customer’s relationship with your product can lead to breakthroughs throughout your company, from customer support to new product development to internal communications and beyond.
But on its most basic level, the Ziglar anecdote is about believing in what you do. It’s such a warm-fuzzy idea that it kind of sounds cheesy, but the satisfaction of believing in what you do provides an emotional benefit to you. And it builds passion. When speaking to others, your passion comes through. It may be tough to pinpoint, but people pick up on it and will react favorably.
How Pomegranate Stacks Up
This article isn’t meant to be preachy-- more to remind us all to rejuvenate our relationships with our own products and brands. So in the spirit of taking one’s own advice, let’s look inward and do a quick audit on how Pomegranate practices what it preaches.
I think the most obvious example would be our belief in our talent. The same people that do our client work also work on in-house Pomegranate projects (like this blog). We hold the Pomegranate brand to the same high standards that our clients hold their brands. So we use the same people.
I think the “creating value” aspect our brand, is another good example of something that’s not just lip service. “Creating value” is a navigation link on our website with a page of copy explaining it. A conversation with Pomegranate CEO Grant Powell about any topic will probably find its way back to “creating value” one way or another because Grant believes strongly in creating value and infuses the company with this idea.
Even the Pomegranate business model was designed to create additional value for our clients. We trust our talent to work efficiently and deal directly with clients in a professional manner. This trust allows us to eliminate layers of management that slow down processes, add cost and sometimes kill great ideas.
Those are a couple examples, but what do you think? Where does Pomegranate deliver as promised? And in what areas do we fall short? Please add your comments below.
