BERKONOMICS

Credit Dr. Mark Goulston with this headline.  Mark teaches that there is a process to innovation that can be summed up with these four words.  In fact, he states, that’s exactly how Steve Jobs described his “aha moment.”  So let’s paraphrase Mr. Jobs as we describe this process.

Jobs was invited to Xerox Parc research facility and – against the better judgment of the research coordinator – shown three projects the engineers were working on.  The first of the three was a rough cobbling together of a graphic user interface, complete with a crude “mouse.”  Jobs hardly remembered the other two.

“Whoa,” he must have thought when seeing that GUI for the first time. “Wow!” he states in later recounts was his intense impression.  “Hmmm” – that could be the future of computing everywhere, he says he thought immediately.  “Yes!” he must have said to his colleagues as soon as he was away from the facility.  His vision for the Macintosh and later for all that followed came from that “Yes!” moment, defining what would become one of the most valuable companies on earth with a single “aha” moment.

[Email readers, continue here…]  This is a process that you and I can use.  Think for a moment.  Have you ever had such a game–changing “aha” moment in your business life?  And if not, could you recognize it as a defining experience as Jobs did?

There are many examples of great advances in technology or industry from such aha moments.  But it is as much a skill to be developed as an accident of fate.   Discipline yourself to notice things that not only interest you, but draw deeply into your emotional self as you see them for the first time.  And when you do spot such an anomaly, “whoa.”  Slow down to absorb what you’ve seen and how you are reacting to it.

Your “wow!” moment follows if you can identify why you stopped to look, and connect that with your reason for excitement.  “Hmmm.”  This could be important and lead to something big for us. “Yes!”  I know what we can do to change the world with this.

It’s a process that is repeatable, even if the time this happens is rare, perhaps as in Jobs’ case, once in a lifetime.  But isn’t it worth making this a skill in your inventory of skills?  Perhaps the result is not a game–changer, just a great lift for the business.  Or perhaps it is the beginning of everything grand to follow.

We’re talking about brand strategy here.  Not advertising, and certainly not an easy grasp for amateur marketers.  So how developed is your company’s brand?  Is your message clear, concise and consistent?

There is a process used by professionals to get to clear messaging.  It starts with “discovery,” the process of finding the strengths of the company in the minds of all stakeholders.  That requires careful questioning, accumulation of results, and then the creation of a strategy for making a message reflect these advantages.

Branding a cow seems so much easier.

We start with our intended audience, asking ourselves who we are talking to, what we need to say, and how we are going to say it.  We want our audience to know what we stand for in the fewest, most memorable words.

[Email readers, continue here…]  Think of this as our core message.  We define (clearly) what we give (our core attributes) and then why it matters, or what our audience gets (the benefits).

A good brand strategy then lists supporting arguments for both the give and the get.

Once we have done this, we should be ready to create our audience–facing message, which we know as advertising.

Very few of us have conducted a brand strategy effort, and much of our advertising reflects this, with wasted ad dollars spent as we nibble around the core message and miss targeting the primary “get” message in our ads.

You can follow the steps outlined above and attempt to define your core message, or seek help from a professional.  It seems that most often, this extra effort to define brand message would be cheaper and much more effective than our present attempts at “spray and pray” advertising today.

Or you can hope your present advertising is effective – and concentrate on learning a new skill at the ranch.

Customer empowerment is moving so fast nowadays that many of us are running to just catch up.  Yet if we don’t or can’t, it is a sure thing that someone else will.

Blame the Internet for this rise in customer expectations.  But don’t close your eyes to the fact that your customers have grown to expect your products or services in the form of…

‘WHAT I want, WHEN I want, and WHERE I want.’

Especially for those of us producing forms of media for consumption, from books to movies to music to games and more, our customers expect delivery in the form of bits over the Internet upon demand, usable on a multitude of devices, and sometimes stored in the cloud at no additional cost.

For those producing physical products (atoms, not bits), Amazon and a few others have set the bar of expectation that already includes one–hour delivery at a cost and for certain items in many urban areas.  At the very least, two–day delivery has become the minimum expectation to virtually anywhere.

[Email readers, continue here…]   If you provide services rather than products (neither bits nor atoms), consider offering discounted rates for remote phone or video appointments if applicable, for open appointment times if not possible, and for early booking of time if neither works.

As to selection (WHAT I want), do not be surprised to see your customers moving you to find ways to use 3D printing and other mass customization tools to create unique products without inventory cost to you – and certainly moving you to consider “additive manufacturing” (3–D printing) as a new norm for some or many of your products.  Be ready:  remote 3–D printers may soon make “WHERE I want” common for some products produced locally on demand.

If you are not considering these demands and your responses already, surely someone else is.  Be an adaptive business leader.  Create strategies to lead in areas where new technologies can give you a competitive edge.