April 26, 2017 · 1:03 pm

A Lesson From Junior

I’m a fan of NASCAR, specifically of its top tier, now called the Monster Cup Series. For my non-gearhead friends and readers, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, preferably in person (bring earplugs!).

      NASCAR.com

Some big news came out of the NASCAR world yesterday and it prompted a thought that is applicable to any of us in business. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is retiring after this season. Only 42, he’s been NASCAR’s most popular driver ever since his dad died on the last lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001 and leads an enormous fan base known as Junior Nation. Full disclosure: I’m a member. He’s really the spiritual leader and one of the last remnants of the NASCAR of old. As a USA Today article on his retirement stated:

A kid of means sent to work in an auto dealership by his father until he began racing, Earnhardt Jr. spoke the language of the fan, in a Carolina accent pleasing to the grassroots folks, was sponsored by a beer company and projected enough hell-raiser vibe to endear himself to the masses. A historian of the sport, he cited the exploits of Cale Yarborough or Richard Petty or Darrell Waltrip with a sharp recollection of fan and provided a generational and cultural bridge for NASCAR.

In other words, Junior isn’t corporate, is authentic, and because of that, is beloved. That’s really a lesson for any of us. Consumers adore personalities but only if they believe that what they’re seeing isn’t an act. Any of Junior’s interviews will show you that he’s real. His language is sometimes salty, often grammatically incorrect, and is definitely not the creation of some media trainer’s badgering. Consumers can tell when a brand is inauthentic just as any of us can see it in a person.

This is why I rant sometimes about engaging in conversations with and not in advertising to our consumers. It doesn’t mean boasting about how “real” you are but it does mean defining what your brand means and sticking to it. The definition should be expressed in the language of your consumer and be relevant to why they’d engage with you in the first place. It means participating in social interactions with your fans, not in demanding or leading them.

I guess I’ll need to figure out where my driver loyalty heads next. It seems that NASCAR needs to figure that out as well. As a long-time fan, I’ve watched them migrate from their Southern roots and identity to something much more vanilla, at least that’s how I see it. Junior is the last bastion of the old, authentic NASCAR. Wherever they go next, I hope it at least half as real as he is. Now ask yourself if you’re “being real” too.

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April 24, 2017 · 12:43 pm

Writers And Editors

I frequently collaborate with other consultants on both projects and proposals. While our skill sets often overlap in some areas, generally we bring different things to the project. One thing I’ve noticed about the process is that some of us are writers and some of us are editors and I think it’s important for any business to have a mix of both. Here is why.

Writers create things. Those of us who think we can write (and I hope 2,000+ blog posts show you that I can!) are right-brain oriented, in my opinion. We see things or hear things and are moved to put our own spin on them. When it comes to business, we can look at or listen to a situation and ideas begin to germinate. In my case, it’s often analyzing the situation at hand and synthesizing a plan based on situations from the past. Sometimes a totally new concept emerges and I write it up as fast as I can because ideas are butterflies – they are beautiful but fleeting.

Editors, on the other hand, seem to be more left-brained. They can take a writer’s ramblings, see the central idea, and make it better. How? By asking questions raised by the writing and demanding answers. They can add structure. Since the ideas are not their own, they have neither a vested interest in protecting anything written nor any insight into what’s being communicated if it isn’t on the page. I think while we need t be passionate about our creations in business we also have to understand that our ideas need to be understood by our audience. Editors make that happen.

As a writer, I’m happy to be edited because a great editor can make me look better than I am. Writers make connections between things and editors make those connections more clear. To a certain extent, writers “do” and editors “help”. And to be clear, I don’t think one is necessarily one or the other. I like to think of myself as a writer who can edit. On these collaborations I referenced, I will frequently put out the first draft for the team but once that’s out there, everyone becomes an editor, refining the proposal or project until it sings.

So where on the spectrum do you fall – more a writer or an editor? Do you have both or your team?

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April 21, 2017 · 10:17 am

A Matter Of Trust

If you’ve eaten recently you might want to wait to read today’s Foodie Friday Fun. As always on Friday we look at something going on in the food world and attempt to broaden the lesson beyond food. Today’s topic is food-tech. I’m not talking about the robots who are making burgers or pizzas (we’ve already visited with them). Today it’s the food itself and how technology is changing the very nature of food.

Specifically, I want us to think about food made in the lab. Not new flavors of Pringles or the latest batch of Triscuit varieties. I mean things such as chicken and beef made in a lab with cells from living animals. Yes, such stuff exists and while it still costs about $9,000 a pound to make, in five years the scientists believe they’ll have the costs down to be comparable to what we now pay for chicken.

I’m also talking about GMO‘s – genetically engineered foods like the “impossible burger” that “bleeds” yet is made from plants or the apple that won’t brown when cut due to a gene beings removed. There are next to no studies on if these foods are safe over the long term nor are the few regulations able to keep up with the fast-changing developments in the field. So what we’re left with is “trust me”, and that’s something any of us in business need to think about.

Do I think consumers are begging for apples that won’t brown? No, but I do think there is ample evidence that they want their food to be safe as well as to know where it comes from and how it’s made. That same principle applies to your business as well. Consumers will trust you up to a point. In the case of food, they believe that the FDA and other governmental organizations are protecting them (which is laughable but another topic). In your case, it might be that you’ve built up trust over a number of years. In fact, trust is one of the most important assets a company or brand has. When it’s lost, as in the case of the Volkswagen diesel fiasco, the company risks disappearing. There are many excellent pieces how brands are losing trust – I’d encourage you to read this one as a start.

From my perspective, food companies should spend less on developing GMO’s and more on transparency. Educate us, don’t feed us stuff that might not be safe. Build trust. Sound like a plan?

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