Be A Salmon During Re-Branding

With the impending downturn of the global economy, how will you be re-branding yourself? How would you redefine your business, your profession and yourself?

In negotiations, will you continue to negotiate downwards instead of upwards? The contemporary approach would be slide down and meet the client in the perceived ‘middle’. What about the other way around? Can’t we lead the client to a higher price point? If you provide high actual and perceived value, then pricing becomes less of an issue.

In other words, would you buck the trend and defy gravity, challenging the rapids like salmon fish are wont to do. Their naturally strong homing instinct lead them back to the exact place where they were born to spawn. Returning to one’s roots can be a useful exercise in resilience, perseverance, and determination. Most salmon are born in fresh water, move to the sea, then return to fresh water.

The principles of marketing are Price, Place, Product and Promotion (Philip Kotler). To this, I add Positioning and Purpose. What is the relevance and purpose of your business? Which need does it fill? How is your business positioned?

According to Forbes Magazine’s, one of the top-earning musical entertainers of 2010 was the eccentric/eclectic Lady Gaga (just behind Beyonce). These are the marketing strategies of Lady Gaga. Go mainstream or stream off?

Do you wish to up-scale or down-scale? Become bigger, or play it down? Down-sizing is the favourite strategy of mega-corporations and even Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). When the market is flooded with available, skillful and experienced staff – wouldn’t this be the best time to hire? Instead of slowing down your business rate, generate more power and momentum in your selling and marketing. Go for expansion instead of reduction. Be dynamic instead of static. Be uncomfortable, not comfortable.

Swim upstream!

The Art of Pairing Up

In the early 1990’s, I had the honour of meeting Singaporean wine connoisseur Chng Poh Tiong at a luncheon hosted for journalists. He mentioned the fact that many wine-drinkers had not dared experiment with drinking wines with local foods. Why not pair a Chardonnay with Hainanese chicken rice (a simple but beautiful dish to sample when you are here for the F1 Night Race)? Or, a Northern Indian curry dish with a cabernet sauvignon? Why is it always the simplistic approach: red meat with red wine; white meat with white wine? Rose wine must, probably, confuse many neophyte winophiles – drink it alone and by itself?

This led me to think about the concept of pairing. If we can pair up wines and cuisines, then how can we extend and expand pairing in our relationships and pursuits? If pairing clothes is complicated at times (as in fashion), can you imagine how relations – both professional and personal – can turn out when we pair up carelessly and impulsively?

Racing or training solo may be a straightforward task. However, once you pair up with a partner, you have a responsibility and obligations to look after and look out for your companion. Father-and-son team ‘The Hoyts’ race together in endurance races, including the Ironman triathlon. The fact is that the father is doing most of the work towing his son on a dinghy (while he swims 3.8K), rides with his son perched at the front of his bike, and pushes him in a wheelchair during the marathon. However, it is a strong testament of fatherly love for his son.

When racing in a relay, how do you pair up your members? Who passes the baton or champion-chip to whom? Who swims, rides and runs requires discernment and decision. Pairing is, thus, crucial to gaining time over the competition as it can be a strategic move. You choice of partners in adventure races also matter, as you are as strong as your weakest link (partner, injuries, health, and fitness).

I intend to meet an Australian couple, Sue and Andrew O’Brien who are, incidentally authors at next weekend’s Gold Coast Marathon. This couple has run eight marathons over eight countries over eight weeks and will be speaking at the race-fair.

Sponsors have a marketing budget and marketing campaign in mind. Who they pair up with has to maximise their marketing spend. Thus, it is challenging to get them to become key or main sponsors in new sporting events. There is doubt, concerns and apprehension over untested companies and events. Trust becomes the currency and denomination of partnership and commitment. Therefore, pairing decision is dependent on the relationships built through frequent face-to-face and online contact – what we know as ‘touch points’. When companies have a Facebook page or Twitter page, they are hoping to initiate pairings with current and potential consumers that lead to future ‘top-of-mind’ consumer decisions. When we click the ‘like’ button, we have begun the pairing process.

In business, the various relationships we initiate or get into have implications and consequences if we are unaware of the unspoken and unassertive. Many issues emerged after a professional relation matures; disagreements lead to conflicts and prejudices. Partners take up positions of offence or defence; as such, there are forces of struggle within and without, and customers and colleagues notice the incongruence.

Leadership Lesson: When did you last pair up professionally? What would you consider before you enter an alliance or partnership? Which are the implications of partnering with friends and family in business?

Leadership Branding (Redux)

We have spent the past two years of this blog focused on your unique brand of leadership – be it, direct or indirect approaches. To lead others around you is to express and assert your influence.

What about leadership branding? How do you brand your leadership? Applying Philip Kotler’s principles of marketing, what are your Promotions, Product, Place and Price? How about brand equity, brand value, brand positioning, managing brands, and rebranding? Leadership is about solving, serving, and supporting. Each dimension of your leadership style and philosophy has sub-sets to them, to which I propose: Positioning, Purpose, Prediction, and Providence (if all else doesn’t work – pray!).

Reeves Lim Leong of INGENS – a consultancy for branding and marketing research – offers us his professional perspectives:

1) Soft power. The ability to exert power and authority yet maintain the respect of brand followers. This is a principle from philosopher Lao Tzu.

2) Empowerment. Brand leadership empowers people to take their destiny into their own hands.

3) Influence. Listens to people's needs and the brand reflects these in action and communications.

4) Reproduction. Ability to reproduce and energise brand ideas and make it larger than the originators. Social networking empowers this form of idea virus or reproduction.

5) Love Leadership. I am sure you are quite familiar with this. A leadership brand takes people's love for life and exudes it. It allows for leadership that steers through the very same conduit.

Leadership Lessons: How will you express your leadership brand? What do you do to re-brand your style of leadership? How do position yourself around others? How will you lead with purpose?

Enhancing Your Value: Staying Employable in 2011 & Beyond

A look at job advertisements may be a startling revelation: How is this New Economy everyone is talking about going to impact us? Armed with an arsenal of digital equipment, how will we brave the new world order that is driven by compression technology and information overload, and assured by a false sense of virtual communication?

Why is it people are not going anywhere with the abundance of education and qualification? A fresh graduate – of the Generation Y status - may be disillusioned that his/her degree may not be fully recognized for immediate employability. Generation X may have enjoyed the fruits of its labour, while Generation Y struggles to establish its identity. Thus, Generation Y opts for more aggressive, digital platforms to build their online identities and branding. Social media becomes a means to actively network and build degrees of connections. The lure and allure of being a successful, home-based entrepreneur (or designer of a runaway, bestselling, iPhone or iPad apps) or workplace intrapreneur become the de facto and de rigueur standards for ascending the social ladder. So, is this high-technology approach also high-touch?

Generation X is not resting on its laurels, for it cannot afford to. Once you are past 35 years old, your perceived value may be diminished. Although it is not appropriate today to ask personal data like age (for it is deemed discriminating), we know the reality is a dark cloud of pessimism that can ill afford disenchanted, jaded, cynical, disenfranchised and lethargic employees. Unless you thrive on paranoia, and do something about it – it is business as usual – which is not a good sign. Business as unusual is the new norm: passionate, driven by purpose, collaborative, and focused on value.

Perhaps, it is time now to rebuild one’s branding and value. Using marketing principles of Positioning, Product, Price and Place as guideposts, how do we enhance our value? How do we create attention, and become attractive despite our unavoidable laughter lines and age spots? How do we promote our wisdom of hindsight, and integrate our insights with our foresights.

We need to engage our mindsets for a future of possibilities. We should possess a positive, open-minded attitude and activate our skills and knowledge. If experience matters, how do you use it to perform with mastery those skills that you used to be valued for? Demonstrate the skills and expertise you have, so these do not become redundant and retired like sunset industries and professions.

What does not attract - distracts us. What does not add value, devalues us. Choose.

Leadership Raw and Unbridled!

I was watching K.F. Seetoh host Makansutra Raw – where he pops in unannounced to the best eateries in Singapore and gives his informed commentaries and critique. Raw is being prepared for the camera-crew, and being measured by a paying customer. I observed that more than half of the hawkers and restaurateurs were extremely camera-shy and averse to being filmed. Here was a golden opportunity to be filmed and assessed by a fair and friendly food critic and yet, they vehemently refused to consider the opportunity for publicity. I call this is the Star Trek ‘teleportation’ moment – Beam me down, Scotty! It is real, raw and unscripted. One can only be as genuine as one can be; it cannot be contrived, rehearsed and pretend.

I wonder if the level of fear was equated with a lack of education about business tools? Retailers enjoy walk-in, sell-by-itself status; fine when you enjoy popularity, and positive word-of-mouth marketing status. It is when customers stop coming to your stall that incurs their deepest worries. Are they worried that a critic might call their bluff? Stop serving bad food and raise the bar of quality. Not every business is designed to last; that is why fly-by-night businesses have short live-spans. It is deliberate, tactical and deadly. Long-term business requires strategies, deep thought, living by a credo of values that attract and attach customers to us.

How ready are we for the incessant assaults of the world? How fully prepared are we for the next challenge that is flung our way? How do you anticipate the changes in your career and business? How do we stay raw and ready as leaders within our teams?

*****

Last night, I decided to run a half-marathon (with nutritional support) instead of a fast ride. I made a good decision, as I tested out my race pace on my K-Swiss training shoes. I ran about 4:50 min/K for the first 11K and then 5:10 for the next 10K. My target pace would be 5:45 min/K for that would be within my prescribed race-day, running heart rate. As it was humid, I had to ensure adequate hydration and I made my necessary but time-consuming, drinking-from-the-tap stops. It was not my best pace for a stand-alone marathon, however it was the pace for my dream Ironman marathon. I am aiming for four hours, and less for this flat course. If my riding legs hold and I pace myself well, I should be able to make a crack for it. Time to decide which running shoes to put into my Run bag…