On a Mission
A day with Mike Harris
Stand for Something
Building trusted brands
The Upside of the Downturn
Ten Management Strategies
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On a MissionTuesday 15th June 2010 I’ve just spent the day with Mike Harris, one of the few people ever to grow three multi-billion pound businesses from scratch. Mike transformed the world of banking as the founding CEO of Egg and Firstdirect. His current business, Garlik, has Tim Berners Lee (The Inventor of the World Wide Web) on the board. The first question Mike asked me was probably the most challenging I’ve ever faced: “Win or lose, what is the big game you would love to play in the next 3-5 years?” He then told me that from his experience, whilst every financial business does not necessarily have to be an iconic brand, to be successful, it does have to behave like one. At the heart of an iconic brand is a promise of a valued experience to all who touch the organisation, a promise that must be kept consistently, day after day. For example, Mike said that at Firstdirect, he and his team built the brand around a promise of “heroic customer service that left people feeling totally taken care of”. The brand experience was the heart of his company, the driving force behind its culture. He leant over to me and told me that he feels that Strand Financial’s business is all about leaving people feeling ‘buzzed’ from the energy of ideas. This, over the next few hours, translated into our mission which doubles as our elevator pitch: "Strand Financial is a specialist branding and communications consultancy that works with financial services organisations. We ignite our clients' brands, illuminating their points of difference, enabling their messages to spread like wildfire and leaving them, their customers and their partners feeling inspired". The point is that you don’t need to be Virgin or Apple to create a brand promise, which shapes every action you take and gets you out of bed every morning fired up. Your brand promise can include the relentless search for new ideas to meet appropriate (and currently unmet) needs and wants of customers. Essentially, as Mike says, “it’s about creating a brand experience and a culture that is addictive, infectious and, ultimately, irresistible”. Your mission must also be authentic. It's an overused word but in the post credit crunch world and in a world of social networks where all of an organisations' actions and motivations are laid bare, only those companies who have a strong customer focused mission and mean it will achieve trust, confidence and re-kindle ambition. Recent research shows that there is still much to be done. 72% of customers were unable to match more than 15% of financial services organisations by their brand values or mission statements. This month, I’m looking forward to taking on the brand differentiation challenge at Communicate Magazine’s financial marketing and communications conference. Along with Charlie Stott, senior strategist, Wolff Olins and Ian Ewart, head of marketing, Barclays Wealth, I’m tackling the question as to how individual financial services organisations can stand out from the crowd and create their own space. You could say I’m on a mission! Stand for SomethingSunday 13th June 2010 I read a great blog by Seth Godin that echoes what I have been saying for a long time, that you need to stand for something and have a cause. You also need to have a clear view as to what you don’t stand for. Here is what Seth has to say: “People and brands and organisations that stand for something benefit as a result. Standing for something helps you build trust, makes it easier to manage expectations and aids in daily decision making.” Failure to do so, means that you and your thoughts are blowing with the wind, trying to please everyone all the time. As I wrote yesterday, this is a time for leadership. Seth riffs: “You can't be the low-price, high-value, wide-selection, convenient, green, all-in-one corner market. Sorry. To really stand for something, you must make difficult decisions, mostly about what you don't do. We don't ship products like that, we don't stand for employees like that, we don't fix problems like that.” You need to stand for something, have values and beliefs that really matter to you and to your customers and deliver your promises consistently. Stand for something, live your brand every day. |
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