Monthly Archives: December 2015

Delving Into The Dark Side

Posted on by

“Human beings are built that way” Rob drawled. “They can be lured to the dark side so easily. ‘Course it doesn’t hurt if he thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.”

Once again, our brand guru fueled on grits turned my mind around before I sat down.

Rob, I said, “What are you talking about? I know the new Start Wars opened last night but somehow I think it is something else you’re trying to convey.”Yin Yang & Dark side

“Fletch,” he said, that string of movies always has a fair amount of concern about the dark side so naturally I was talking to Rick about how that gets used in his direct marketing business and that led to politics and, well, that’s when you came in.”

“Okay,” I replied, “so the roadmap here is dark side to direct marketing to politics. Is that right”

Rick piped up and said, “That’s the short and not so sweet of it. Basically he’s saying that the way folk’s minds work it is really easy to get to them with the dark side not to mention that he thinks folks like Chris and I are experts at using photos and copy to exert an outrageous influence over most prospects.”

Kate, ever the pragmatic sales expert cleared her throat. Everyone swung to look at her.

She sniffed and said, “Don’t you all know by now when he’s about to spring one of those tar baby stories on you? He’ll lead you right down the primrose path and then snicker when he gets you to fling him into the briar patch. Don’t you know that’s where he grew up? He understands Brand because he has more than a nodding acquaintance with the dark side.”

You could hear the clock on the wall behind Gail ticking it got so quiet.

Gail, our writer/editor/campaign builder said, “Could you spell that out a little more for me?”

“Sure,” Kate said. “Name an iconic brand. I’ll bet you come up with Apple and Starbucks and maybe Google and a handful of others. Can you tell me one that set out to be an icon? Can you tell me one that had a mission statement that set them apart?CAn you tell me one that doesn’t have some contribution from the dark side?”

Rob said, “She’s right. All of them fell into it. In fact the iconic Apple commercial that ran in the 1984 Super Bowl had a suit filed against it by the estate of George Orwell. The commercial is considered to be one of the best of all time but it nearly did not get aired. The board of Apple wanted to kill it. Fortunately, that was a case of the dark side not winning. The agency defied a direct order to sell the time that had been purchased in the Super Bowl. They drug their feet long enough that the only thing left to do was run the commercial. That commercial got flung in the briar patch but still got aired.

Some people claim that Apple was introduced with the line “Think Different. Not so. The Think Different campaign came years later. That was in 1998. Originally, Steve Jobs was to be the voice over on the commercial but he felt people might believe he was an egomaniac. Right.

The dark side is always with us. It is a part of every brand. Theah’s a Chinese symbol that really makes it clear. Everything has positive and negative aspects. At the core of both the light and dark sides is dot of life spun up in the ongoing battle which describes the reality of any idea or company or organization. It is messy. There is always a dark side. It can be the basis of the brand or its downfall.

You can’t go all the way to the dark side or the light. Too much of either and you will crash and burn. The power is in adhering to the key precepts and acknowledging what got you here.

The Takeaway:

Brand is being perceived for a few key precepts by yourself, your employees, your customers and the general public. Brand is developed by those knowing full well that nothing is perfect and that there is always a dark side.

 

Jerry Fletcher’s blog recaps conversations with clients, prospects and the unruly mob of business development professionals he consorts with. They discuss marketing that works from solopreneur to enterprise level. Jerry Fletcher is the ringleader and “Watson” of the dialogue. Sign up for the blog and other publications at: www.JerryFletcher.com/Profit.html

Jerry has been researching and implementing small business marketing that builds businesses, careers and lives of joy for 25 years as President of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. Learn more at www.JerryFletcher.com

Schedule a personal appearance. Jerry speaks internationally on Networking, Marketing and Contact Relationship Magic. www.NetworkingNinja.com

 

 

Pick A Card, Any Card

Posted on by

“I just finished my beginning test of a software program that can digitally capture a full variety of brainstorming, planning and project tracking approaches with both words and pictures” I said to the assembled crew.

Ultimate Consultant Marketing Formula

Chris, the Digital Director in our midst said, “You must have liked it or hated it or we wouldn’t be hearing about it!”

I agreed saying, “I liked it. It is not as fast as sticky notes and white boards but it has the advantage of being saved in a form that a group can work with even if they are geographically and time separated.”

Rick asked, “What is it called?”

“Cardsmith,” I replied to our direct marketing expert. I told my friend Ron about it. He speaks on planning and project management all over the country. His e-mail said:

I love my sticky notes and this adds to the usefulness.

One thing it does better is making the sticky-note planning accessible to remote locations… and thus the one thing it does worse is removing the in-room collaborative MESSY brainstorming benefits. I think it might limit what people are willing to “post” as a “good-enough-to-see-daylight” idea.  

But it has a solid use and I think it offers some great opportunities for delivering and controlling shared work items.

Thanks for calling my attention to it. I’m going to play with it a little.

Kate our resident sales doyen asked, “So how does it work?”

“The best analogy I can give you is if you had a deck of 3 x 5 cards and you were trying to figure out how to organize something whether it’s a sales meeting, a book, a team building a product or even how to structure a complex web site. You’d jot something on a card and put it on the table, do the same for the next major step and put that on the table in relation to the first.”

Gail, our writer and editor said, “this sounds like a piece of software that was part of an offering to Mac users that were writers I once looked at. I was set up so you could structure a story arc for a book or a TV show and add cards to fill in plot data and character sketches. The whole system was based on a manual system that used 3 x 5 cards!”

“Exactly,” I said. “But this product is more flexible even in its fresh-baked version. For instance, you can put the cards in relation to one another side by side or above and below one another or even arrange them in a spiral if that floats your boat. The best part, as Ron said is the ability to keep everyone in a team on the same page. One consultant I know claims it has improved his productivity by several orders of magnitude!”

The Takeaway:

Cardsmith is worth a look if you ever get involved in planning or process management of any kind that requires keeping track of lots of connecting information. It adds productivity at low cost with a minimal learning curve.

 

Jerry Fletcher’s blog recaps conversations with clients, prospects and the unruly mob of business development professionals he consorts with. They discuss marketing that works from solopreneur to enterprise level. Jerry Fletcher is the ringleader and “Watson” of the dialogue. Sign up for the blog and other publications at: www.JerryFletcher.com/Profit.html

Jerry has been researching and implementing small business marketing that builds businesses, careers and lives of joy for 25 years as President of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. Learn more at www.JerryFletcher.com

Schedule a personal appearance. Jerry speaks internationally on Networking, Marketing and Contact Relationship Magic. www.NetworkingNinja.com