CHAPTER 3

Examining the Principle of Character

The Botany of Your Company

Approximately 17 million people visit Amazon.com’s website every day.¹ On May 10, 2012, visitors experienced something unexpected. Unlike most other days, when the Amazon home page contains shopping recommendations based on a customer’s browsing and purchasing habits or the latest bestselling books, on this day it displayed a handwritten letter on a parchment scroll. It almost looked as if the home page had been taken over by a group of cyberhackers. But it hadn’t been hacked. Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, had written it.

“Dear Muggles!” the letter began. Bezos was announcing to Kindle owners, Amazon shoppers, and Harry Potter fans everywhere that the Harry Potter series of books, in e-book format, would soon be available for free in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Some might call it cutesy, pop-style marketing, but this wasn’t the first time Bezos had spoken with his customers directly. In fact, he does it quite often. Even a company as large as Amazon is willing to do offbeat things to communicate specific aspects of its character—that it is passionate about books and reading, for instance—to its customers.

You see, Bezos doesn’t care how his message resonates with people looking for the cheapest product or wanting to save $2 on something they can buy elsewhere. He’ll get those customers anyway; they’re shoppers. Bezos is more interested in connecting with the customers who share similar character traits with Amazon—those who have the potential to become loyal to Amazon and the ability to increase profits over the long run. Amazon has created an authentic character, and the company takes great strides to perpetuate a few key points it wants to stick with its key customers. Are you trying to resonate with all of your customers, or the right ones?

Throughout my work coaching and mentoring more than 700 entrepreneurs and solo professionals, many of whom are building their personal brands to support the sale of their products or services, I quickly realized that character is just as important as the content they provide. I also realized early on that certain rules have to be followed—almost religiously—if an individual wanted to build and grow a strong personal brand. As my focus shifted from entrepreneurs and small businesses to larger companies, I saw the principle of character being used by some of the most successful large companies, such as Amazon, Apple, and Harley-Davidson. Furthermore, they are all Evergreen because of it!

THE POWER OF TELLING A GOOD STORY

Branding experts love to say that good branding is all about having a story. And it is true. Stories are, indeed, one of the most effective ways to make a business stick in the customer’s mind. Look at any business that has been even remotely successful, and I’m willing to bet that you know quite a bit about its backstory. Let me give you an example.

These two guys got their start putting together computers in a garage, and they started one of the largest and most successful companies ever. Do you recognize them? I’m sure you do. You instantly know that I’m referring to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, two of the three founders of Apple, because of a single line of backstory.

Chip and Dan Heath’s must-read book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, suggests that stories are one of the most important elements of any message that you want to stick. In business, this could not be more true. But the story itself is only part of the equation. Let’s look at another example. What comes to mind if I mention a teenage kid who was bitten by a spider while on a school trip to a science lab and woke up the following day with the ability to climb buildings and swing from rooftop to rooftop? With a single line of backstory, you instantly know I’m referring to Spider-Man. How? Because this story involves a unique and well-developed character.

Fascinating characters are the crux of most compelling stories. They are the reason great works of fiction are so memorable. Authors take care to hone the backgrounds of their characters and ensure they are consistent with their actions in the story. Avid readers, in turn, discuss character development and are pleased when authors spend time developing their characters. Getting back to business, let’s take a deeper look at our first example.

Apple has always positioned itself as a company that invites its customers to “think different”—a company that challenges the status quo. And even almost forty years ago, when the two Steves were in that garage, they understood that an “us vs. them” position was critical to both their story and their business success. Jobs also understood the principle of character. He made this statement in a 2004 Businessweek interview:

When I got back here, Apple had forgotten who we were. Remember that “Think Different” ad campaign we ran [featuring great innovators from Einstein to Muhammad Ali to Gandhi]. It was certainly for customers to some degree, but it was even more for Apple itself.…You can tell a lot about a person by who his or her heroes are. That ad was to remind us of who our heroes are and who we are. We forgot that for a while.²

Character is the cornerstone of effective branding and one of the most critical components of an Evergreen business. Do you know who you are?

Remember, you are your own company’s author. You are the one who can define its character and articulate other details to tell a vivid, engaging, and memorable story about your company. Don’t leave this process up to the marketplace. Use historical and other tidbits to help make your character more refined, your story more compelling. When well crafted, this story will become part of the lore of your organization. Are you writing your company’s story, or is it being written for you?

BUILDING THE CHARACTER OF YOUR ORGANIZATION

Companies that are able to develop and live by the character they define connect with their customers on a deeper and more meaningful level than those that don’t. Customers who are connected with an organization will feel a sense of purpose or belonging when they do business with it. This is where customer loyalty begins—long before the first sale is ever made. It is counterintuitive, because most companies think loyalty is something that happens after the sale. But what if you could do a lot of the heavy lifting before a customer even becomes a customer? Sounds good, right? So how, exactly, do you go about building the character of your organization?

In Simon Sinek’s fantastic book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, he argues that most companies employ marketing practices—promotions, coupons, discounts, and the like—that, in essence, aim to manipulate the customer. Truly great companies, on the other hand, take a different tack: They aim to inspire the customer. Inspired customers spread the word about a company and tell others. They are more prone to trust and believe what a company says and does, and they are more likely to remain loyal.

I can hear you now. “That sounds great, Noah, but I sell life insurance. Do you have any suggestions about how I can inspire my customers?” Sinek suggests that companies must start, as the title claims, by asking why. Why does your company do what it does? Sinek presents a concept that he calls the Golden Circle. He challenges you, the reader, to articulate your business model, starting at the core of the circle and defining why you do what you do, then (moving to the surrounding ring) defining what you do, and finally (moving to the outer ring) defining how you do it. As Sinek suggests, everything you do starts with asking why.

I agree with Sinek’s premise, and would add that your content—shorthand used to describe what you do, sell, or provide—is really secondary to why it is that you do, sell, or provide that thing. To illustrate this concept, let’s take a quick look at two companies that took differing approaches—and achieved wildly differing results.

Starting with “What”—a Failed Strategy

Many companies believe that what they make, sell, or provide is the most important component of their success. And sometimes they focus on this belief to the exclusion of everything else. Rewind a few years. What if you thought a new tablet would become an instant success if it was capable of supporting Flash (a technology Steve Jobs vehemently disagreed with, by the way)? What if it additionally had the ability to multitask on a handheld device? What if it also offered a gyroscope, a magnetometer, and an accelerometer? Would these features give the tablet a leg up on the already-established iPad? One company thought so.…

In 2011, after more than $205 million had been invested in research and development, BlackBerry Ltd. was preparing for the launch of its first tablet, the PlayBook. But BlackBerry had a problem. Executives within the company disagreed about the product’s target market. Who would actually want to buy this thing—this product that had already been built? This was a major operational blunder from a company that, for a short time, had dominated the mobile world with its e-mail platform.³ While BlackBerry executives were bickering about who would buy the PlayBook, they should have been spending the time to figure out who the company was—or, more precisely, why it was doing what it was doing.

Starting with “Why”—a Winning Strategy

Given the previous example, doesn’t it make sense to truly understand who you are as an organization, why you do what you do, and ensure that you are able to effectively communicate these values at every opportunity and customer interaction with your company? It not only makes sense, but doing so will drastically change your business. Let me show you how.

When you, as a customer, buy a product or use a service from an organization that understands the principle of character, you almost subconsciously step into a role very closely associated with the character of the company from which we are buying. So when you buy an iPhone, for example, you’re not just buying an iPhone. You’re stepping into an association with the “us vs. them” character that Apple has carefully created and nurtured over the years.

Finding the Sweet Spot

When a company is able to match how it sees itself with how it sees the customer, and with how the customer sees the company, an awesome synergy occurs. This is the power of character—where customer loyalty starts. This is the sweet spot. Companies that recognize this sweet spot—and that spend their time, money, and resources focused here—waste very little money on how they communicate with or market to prospective and existing customers. They waste far less money on customer acquisition adventures. And when a company defines its character, it has a simple, one-question diagnostic tool it can use to measure any outward communication with prospective or existing customers: Does this [fill in the blank: advertisement, e-mail, tweet, letter, etc.] match how we want to be seen and perceived by our customers?

Do you see why Apple is a great example? Apple has never been in the product business. It’s been in the business of selling the character of Apple. Buying your first Apple product is a bit like eating the forbidden fruit. Once you’ve had a bite, you’re hooked. And this happens because Apple is so clear about who it is and how it wants customers to see the company. This allows Apple to tailor messages specifically toward the customers it is trying to reach. Marketing is no longer guesswork.

BlackBerry might introduce a device that’s able to multitask better than the iPad. Microsoft might introduce what it coins as a “game-changing tablet” loaded with new features or a third camera. Google might introduce a gizmo loaded with features that blows away anything Apple has ever created. We might even buy those products, but they won’t win our loyalty too easily. Customer loyalty isn’t won or created through content (the thing your company does, sells, or provides). Loyalty is created through careful application of the principle of character and the principle of community. Your content merely supports the root structure of a towering Evergreen.

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN CHARACTER AND CARICATURE

Have you set up your Facebook profile? I’m not talking about your business for a moment, I’m asking about you personally. Are you one of the 1.28 billion users who is using Facebook?⁴ The problem with Facebook is that it has become somewhat of a vanity-publishing platform for hundreds of millions of people—a soapbox, if you will. Each day I watch hundreds of acquaintances—some I haven’t seen in ten, fifteen, twenty, or more years—share everything about their lives. They share pictures, status updates, when they are home (and when they’re not, to the praise of burglars everywhere),⁵ what they ate for dinner, when their dog had bladder stones removed, and when little Billy threw his peas on the floor. My wife refers to Facebook as Bragbook. She remains one of the small number of people left on the planet who refuses to set up a Facebook account. She has a point, because while many people are living their lives and using Facebook as a tool to stay connected, many others are living a secondary, more virtual, Facebook life. Facebook allows people to fictitiously engineer the way in which they present themselves to the world and how they are perceived.

Perhaps I’m being overly cynical and harsh. After all, Facebook has become one of the primary ways in which people stay connected. It also allows companies to engage with existing customers and reach new customers through platforms like Facebook for Business. Most companies, though, like most people, tend to put their best “face” on Facebook. My friend Samar Bechara, a technology consultant from Lebanon, says, “Facebook is for socializing like pornography is for love. A fake, cheap substitute for the real deal.” It’s a fantastic analogy, and it’s hard to argue with him. Instead of settling for using Facebook as a tool to seduce your customers, use it as a tool to engage your customers.

Here’s my advice for an organization that wants to use the legitimate communication advantages that Facebook for Business has to offer: Stop spending so much time presenting what I call the “Facebook You” and start seriously developing the “Real You.” So many marketing teams fail to grasp this one important point. If a company spends time and money trying to sell customers on a glorified representation of who it actually is and what it stands for, those marketing efforts are almost all guaranteed to fail. That’s not character; it’s caricature.

In Japan, there are two popular terms used to describe this phenomenon. The Japanese refer to it as omote-ura. Omote (the public face) refers to the way a company or person wishes to be seen by the outside world. It’s seen as a mixture of reality, myth, and lies. Ura (the private face) is the reality behind the omote.⁶ Is your company presenting its true character, or a caricature of how you want to be perceived by the outside world? Beware: If you are presenting a caricature of how you think the market wants to see you (your omote), you’ll never build authentic customer loyalty.

The same marketers who tend to fall into this trap frequently tout concepts such as “transparency,” a common buzzword in the marketing world. The problem with transparency, however, is that companies and experts alike haven’t truly defined what it means—and how it can help grow a business. I’m not in a position to attempt to resolve this issue here. I can tell you, however, with a great degree of certainty, a few things that transparency is not. It’s not about sharing every detail about your company, regardless of security and confidentiality issues. It’s not about designating a group of employees or hiring a social media team whose sole mission is to respond or engage the moment someone gives your brand a nudge or mention on the Web. It’s not about being reactive.

Let’s consider an alternative—being proactive, which all Evergreen companies are. The “Facebook You” representation of your brand doesn’t work because it isn’t authentic to who you really are, and why you really do what you do. As such, this approach will only get you so far. Customers see right through companies that only take part to push offers in an effort to stimulate sales. Sure, you may generate some “likes,” and you may encourage some limited engagement, but this is not an effective strategy for building a following of loyal customers. Rather than creating a caricature of yourself, don’t you think it makes more sense to figure out who you actually are, thereby allowing your prospects and customers to connect in a more meaningful and impactful way?

ARTICULATING THE “REAL YOU”

Let’s now focus on a simple process for learning more about who your company really is, what exactly you stand for, and the type of brand personality you want customers to associate with your organization. From there, I’ll show you how to marry those key character attributes to what it is you actually do. I’ve helped numerous companies make tremendous strides in their marketing and loyalty efforts by simply helping them clarify their authentic character—and once they do, sparks fly, results increase, and their success is dramatic. But before we turn to how your company can apply these practices, let’s take a quick look at two successful examples that have already demonstrated how this idea works.

Learning from Zappos

Zappos, an online retailer that specializes in shoes, has taken great care to embed its character within every aspect of the shopping experience. Whether or not they purchase items, visitors can’t help but walk away from their interaction with the site having a strong impression of the company. Here’s one way Zappos does it: Nearly every pair of shoes available on the website is accompanied by a video created by a different Zappos employee who describes the shoes in great detail, from the tread on the bottom to those little plastic tips on the ends of the shoelaces. These videos successfully communicate two things about Zappos employees: They are as passionate about shoes as they are about the customers’ shopping experience.

At the same time, these videos present the company’s key character traits, the main one being that Zappos is the most customer service–friendly company on the planet. It’s also the happiest place to work, because pleasing the customer is the number one goal. These key points are communicated through each and every interaction and message. Get the idea? Now, how could you ensure that you are always enunciating your character traits in everyday interactions with your company?

Learning from Jamie Oliver

When sous chef Jamie Oliver was discovered and given his own cooking show by the BBC in 1997, he became known as “The Naked Chef.” This was certainly a clever, attention-grabbing name for a decent-looking, late-twentysomething chef with a unique approach to preparing simple, fun, and healthy meals—and he quickly attracted millions of fans in the United Kingdom. Oliver’s rise to celebrity chef stardom eventually brought him to the United States, where he found even greater opportunity. Oliver has executed crusades against everything from the fast-food industry to the poor nutritional quality of food served in school cafeterias.

Controversy sells. Oliver has become one of the most influential food personalities in the world.⁷ He has also become the second-richest author in Britain.⁸ Likewise, Oliver’s personal brand has exploded. Today he’s a household name, with his branding on everything from pasta sauce to noodles and pots and pans. Let’s take a behind-the-scenes look at how Oliver’s marketing team orchestrates this phenomenal success.

In Jamie Oliver: Fresh Retail Ventures Brand Guidelines, a page with the heading “Our Values and Personality” details precise rules that must be followed for communicating on behalf of the Oliver brand. It reads: “Jamie is known for his warm personality, strong beliefs, and enthusiasm for sharing knowledge.”⁹ It goes on to characterize his personality as “honest and challenging—being direct, open-minded, and genuine; passionate and inspiring—true excitement and love for food and healthy living; approachable and fun—unpretentious, accessible, and playful, encouraging everyone to have a go.” A few pages later, under the heading “Tone of Voice,” it’s explained that words must be “filled with Jamie’s easy warmth” and that “copy should always be a balance between purpose and passion, sharing knowledge and opinions in a truly engaging way that resonates with all people.” This is exactly the sort of clarity you need in creating your own corporate character.

Bringing These Strategies Back to You

It doesn’t matter that you’re not one of the most influential food personalities or the second-highest-paid author in Britain. The same type of clarity that Oliver’s marketing team articulated in their branding efforts is required for your business—regardless of its size, what industry you’re in, or how many employees you have. This clarity is accessible to any kind of business and will have dramatic impact on the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and your ability to build relationships with your customers.

The process of clearly articulating the character of a business makes communicating easier for everyone within the organization. It also helps mitigate the chance that people will muck things up. This is precisely why companies create brand guidelines. So now let me ask you a question: If you’re a small business, let’s say with twenty or so employees, what distinguishes your business from your competitors? Don’t you think clarity about your character would make everything—from in-store customer service to the way the phones are answered—work just a little bit better? Of course it would! And these are the things that help you retain customers and create greater customer loyalty. There’s no sense fixing how customers are greeted or how the phones are answered if it’s incongruent with the character traits you’ve presented and the expectations you’ve built about your brand. Let’s work on creating your character now.

CREATING YOUR CORPORATE CHARACTER

Does your company have a mission statement or a value proposition that encompasses the core of what you do? In skyscrapers everywhere, gorgeous bronze plaques adorn the walls of companies with words that are supposed to describe the essence of who those companies are, how they do what they do, and why they do it. The problem is that most missions, values, and visions don’t match the day-to-day actions of the employees of the company. The reason is that most mission statements and value propositions are created based on what the company thinks the customer wants or expects to hear, and most actions that are intended to carry out those words are done so haphazardly.

By contrast, when your corporate character is in alignment with the words in the mission statement on your office wall, and when the day-to-day actions of your staff are similarly in alignment with your character, you create an organization-wide cornerstone for providing greater customer service and connecting with customers on a deeper and more meaningful level. Your goal must be to move away from generating transactions and toward creating connections. You want customers to accept who you are. And in so doing, you want to be able to influence them and their decisions.

Every brand has personality, but most companies aren’t sure what that personality is and how to consistently communicate it with customers at every point of interaction. On the pages that follow, you’ll find a starter guide to creating your company’s persona. Most branding experts will guide you through a process of answering questions such as, “If you were a car, what would you be?” Or, “What kind of movie is your company?” That line of questioning can be somewhat helpful, but I believe there’s a more effective way; it’s the same way I help my own clients.

There is a five-step process that I use to build a company’s character. These steps also, in my opinion, articulate the most important components of a strong corporate character.

At this point I’d like you to roll up your sleeves and try a few short brainstorming exercises. You can do these exercises with your team, as a group, or by yourself. As you make your way through these exercises you’ll start to see how this process builds a rich, fascinating character unlike any you’ve likely considered. As you follow the five-step process, you can write down your answer to each question or simply ponder the question.

Step One: Develop Your Origin Story

In this day and age, your customers are continuously bombarded by information and messages. It is all too easy for them to forget what your company does, and how it does it. Remember, stories resonate and stick—so tell them! If your company started in a garage, then say so. Build a rich and complex backstory about your company and communicate it to your customers. No detail is too small. Your customers want to know, and this story will help create a connection. Start by answering the following questions:

•   Who started the company?

•   When was it started? Where? How?

•   Why was it started?

•   What were the original visions or aspirations for the company?

•   What traditions has the company maintained since it began?

Take a moment now and write a paragraph or two about your company. Don’t overthink it. Just write about your company using the answers you gave to the previous questions.

Step Two: Define Your Superhero

People want to do business with people and companies they like and trust, but more important, they want to do business with people who fascinate them. Superheroes fascinate us. It’s the reason we remember the backstories of the human beings who became Spider-Man, Batman, and Iron Man. Imagine your company as a superhero. By building your company’s core message and vision around the personality of a larger-than-life character, you’ll resonate on a much more meaningful level with your ideal customer.

Not all characters have to be superheroes in the literal sense. Many companies have been successfully built on the persona or personality of real-life “heroes.” Consider characters such as Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Orville Redenbacher, or Richard Branson from Virgin Group. I’m not saying you need to rush out and create a mascot or put your owner’s face on everything. Far from it. The main thing to remember is this: The personality of your character must be perpetuated through every employee, every piece of marketing, and every bit of customer communication.

Above all else, however, your company’s character needs to be fascinating. Boring people don’t command our attention or respect. Companies are no different. We are attracted to certain people because they excite and fascinate us. We’re attracted to certain companies because they make us wonder, What are they going to do next? The character of Apple fascinates people. So does that of Southwest Airlines, Harley-Davidson, and Disney. When was the last time you saw people lined up at the Microsoft store, or heard a friend confess that she was up late scouring the Internet for leaked photos of the latest Windows Phone? My point exactly.

In step one of this exercise, you created a paragraph describing the origin story of your company. Now I want you to create a superhero and write a narrative about your company that excites and fascinates both customers and those working within your organization. Typically, most companies describe themselves in a pretty bland manner. Your origin story needs to include a character that’s larger than life. This is the mythology of your legend. Bruce Wayne dedicated his life to avenging crime because he witnessed the murder of his parents as they exited the theater on that fateful night. So what’s your reason for providing amazing health care, or tire rotations, or gourmet hot dogs, or accounting services? What makes you unique?

Try this. Ask yourself the following questions about your company:

•   What is your superpower?

•   What does your organization do better than anyone else?

•   What challenges did your organization overcome to get where it is today?

•   What failures did you experience along the way?

•   What adventures did you have?

•   What are your likes, dislikes, or pet peeves?

Now try writing a simple paragraph about your company that’s actually exciting. And don’t draft the typical “About Us” copy. Have a little fun. If you want to see a fantastic real-life example, take a look at the website for the accounting firm of Macias Gini & O’Connell LLP (MGO).¹⁰ Accounting—and, by extension, accountants—are boring, right? If you concur with this traditional typecast, think again. These guys are anything but boring, and they’ve taken great strides to make sure you know it. They’ve built a really fascinating character for the typical accountant. Take a look at all the benefits of being boring—and then ponder how you can jazz up your image.

Step Three: Build Purpose for Your Character’s Actions

The next step in crafting your character is understanding your company’s purpose for doing what it does. Define your raison d’être. Anytime you communicate with your customers, you must have strategic intent. If you don’t have a valid reason to communicate with a customer, don’t do it. If your message has excess verbiage that doesn’t serve a purpose, lose it.

Whatever you do, or whatever you say, it must be consistent with who you are and how you want to be known—but most important, it must have a purpose. In Chapter 1, I said that most companies spend time trying to game and manipulate things (like figuring out the best time to send an e-mail) without first deciding if they have something purposeful to say. Every time you communicate with your customers make sure to put your messaging through a “smell test.” Smell it! Does the message match up with who you are, and how you want your customers to perceive you—or does it stink like thinly veiled manipulative marketing? Giving purpose to your character is about adding context.

Spend a few minutes answering the following questions about your company:

•   Who are you and what do you want to be known for?

•   What are the key points you want customers to associate with you?

•   What’s your larger-than-life purpose? For example, is it to build products that change the world?

•   Who are your enemies? (They might be competitors or bigger issues, such as poor design.)

•   What rules do you live by?

•   What kind of legacy do you want to leave?

Challenge yourself to truly consider your reasons for doing what you do. Now write a paragraph that summarizes that raison d’être.

Step Four: Create an Avatar of Your Character

Now that you’ve built a fascinating backstory and persona, and articulated your purpose, it’s time to create an actual avatar of what your character looks like. Specifically, I want you to describe the person who has lived, or is living, this fascinating story. Here are a few questions to get you started:

•   Is your avatar male or female?

•   How old is he or she?

•   Where was he or she born?

•   What type of education does he or she have?

•   How would you describe your avatar’s personality?

•   What words would you use to describe his or her tone of voice?

•   What does your avatar do on the weekend or when there’s free time?

•   How would your avatar’s friends or family members describe him or her?

I’m sure you get the idea. You can continue to ask questions about your character’s personality type until you have a clear vision of this avatar in your head. Then try writing a description of your avatar in 100 words or less.

Step Five: Translate Your Vision to the Voice of Your Customer

Imagine that your company’s character and your ideal customer met today for the first time. Could you write a conversation that might transpire between them? Peter Drucker wrote, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product/service fits him and sells itself.”¹¹ This exercise is about gaining that level of knowledge and understanding.

Ask yourself the following questions:

•   How would they introduce themselves?

•   How would they describe themselves to each other?

•   What would they talk about?

•   What would the conversation be like?

This exercise might seem like an easy one to skip over, but I’ve seen some incredible results when people have spent time on this step. So why not give it a shot? Try this: Craft a fictional conversation between your corporate character and your ideal customer. If they don’t have anything to say to one another and there are moments of awkward silence, then I’m afraid you have more work to do. But don’t worry. In Chapter 6, we will discuss at length why you need to articulate your ideal customer’s character (and how, strategically, you should go about this process), so for now, just take a stab at capturing the two voices and the gist of their dialogue.