Banco Hipotecario of Argentina, a bank that specializes in mortgage loans, agrees to pay close to $1 million to sponsor popular soccer team Racing Club, and decides NOT to put their logo on the jersey.  Why?  Well, it just happens that the bank's slogan (and brand message) is: "Creating Owners".  The owner of the jersey, says the bank, is the team, and therefore it's only fitting to leave it free of advertising.  Brilliant.  That's what I call living the brand.

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Photo Credits: waferboard

Go to a restaurant and order a Coke.  If the restaurant doesn’t carry Coke, the waiter will then ask you: "is Pepsi OK?"  I’ve heard this hundreds of times through many years and haven’t once heard anybody make a big deal about it.  Most likely, the answer is: “sure, that’s OK”. 

The moral of the story: just because people know your brand doesn’t mean they’re going to buy it.  Coke has one of the highest, if not the highest, brand awareness in the world, however that doesn’t stop diners from being perfectly OK with having Pepsi instead. 

Having people know your brand is just the start.  Getting people to become upset when they can’t have your brand is the hard part, and what you need to strive for.  Think about your favorite teenager and what her reaction would be after finding out that you just bought her the wrong brand of sneakers. 

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If you're part of the carb. counting crowd Winn Dixie has great news for you!  Now you can grab a one pound bag of fried pork fat and enjoy it guilt-free. Isn't marketing great sometimes?

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A couple of weeks ago I visited the Brazilian city of Manaus and took this picture of the bridge that is being build between the mainland and the small locality of Iranduba. 

Most of my Brazilian friends, pointing out that there was nothing on the other side, were quick to dismiss the project as a white elephant dreamed up by corrupt politicians so that they could enrich themselves. 

Given the nature of Brazil’s regional politics, there could certainly be an element of truth to that.  On the other hand, however, maybe the reason why there is nothing on the other side is that people can’t get there in the first place. 

Perhaps, once the bridge is built, Iranduba’s real estate will become more valuable, residential and commercial development will start, and with it many new, profitable businesses.

The bridge is a vivid metaphor of the vision successful entrepreneurs have always shown:

• Where others saw just a vast expanse of swampland, Walt Disney envisioned an amusement park so great that millions of people from around the world would flock to. 
• Frederick Smith, the founder of Fedex, was once told that nobody would pay $10 to have their mail delivered overnight.
• Martin Cooper, after successfully testing his first cell phone prototype, knew that his new invention would one day give millions the freedom of mobile communications; others, however, could only see a ridiculous contraption the size of a brick.

The world of business is full of successful entrepreneurs who were repeatedly told that there was nothing on the other side, but went ahead and built the bridge anyway.

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Pollo Tropical now caters...weddings.

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Boca Juniors licensed store in Ezeiza international airport, Buenos Aires.  Boca is one of the world's top sports brands and it's been licensed to manufacturers of hundreds of products (including wine and beer!).

     

Click here to download:

Licensing_a_powerful_sports_br.zip (551 KB)

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I found this video of Aerosmith’s recent visit to Lima, Peru.  It shows Steve Tyler, the legendary vocalist of the band upon his arrival to the hotel as he pauses to snap pictures of the hundred or so fans that had congregated outside the hotel to welcome them. 

This small gesture may seem trivial but it really is not.  Do you really think that Tyler, a veteran rock star who has performed for millions of people around the globe was so impressed by the handful of screaming fans that he felt compelled to produce his camera and start taking pictures?

Of course not.  So, why did he do it?  To make his fans feel special… 

By holding that camera in his hand and pointing the lens to the fans what he is really saying is: you are the rock stars, I respect you and I thank you for your support.  This kind of gesture explains why Steve and his bandmates are still hot after more than 40 years in the music business, while many others have disappeared after 15 minutes of fame. 

Steve Tyler, at 62 and a multi-millionaire, could most certainly slow down or even retire, but he and his band are still out there, playing their hearts out in every concert and giving their fans more than they ask for, every time. 

Passion for what you do and respect for your customers: are you delivering that?  Are you treating your customers like rock stars?

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I'm not a big fan of Maradona, but you've got to respect the fact that with him, unlike other celebrities, what you see is what you get.  I like this video clip because it underscores the importance of being true to yourself when building your personal brand.

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A few years ago, during a trip to Bentonville, Arkansas, I had the chance to visit Walmart's first store (originally called Walton's 5-10), and picked up this leaflet containing Sam Walton's 10 rules for building a successful business.  Pearls of wisdom, straight from the man who built the world's most successful retailer out of nothing.  Here they are (all of them are great, but I especially like #7, #9 and #10):

Rule 1: Commit to your business
Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you — like a fever.

Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners
In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in your partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3: Motivate your partners
Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners
The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your associates to know what's going on, they'll know you really don't consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business
A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free — and worth a fortune.

Rule 6: Celebrate your success
Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm — always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"

Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking
The folks on the front lines — the ones who actually talk to the customer — are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.
   
Rule 8: Exceed your customer's expectations
If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want — and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses — apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.

Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition
This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running — long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer — we've ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.

Rule 10: Swim upstream
Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.

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I read and enjoyed the original Presentation Zen but felt that something was missing. While the book did a great job at explaining the planning and delivery stages of effective presentations, it didn't offer much about the actual design phase.

While some praised the fact that Presentation Zen was not "a book about making slides" I actually did want a book that could teach me how to make attractive, clear and effective slides. Presentation Zen Design is that book.

In it, you will find actionable, how-to advice on topics like: choosing the the right font, working with color, creating attractive visual compositions, using images and video, and other tips and techniques to improve your slides and create powerful presentations.

The book is also vintage Garr, with plenty of references to Japanese culture, and interesting parallels between Zen principles and aesthetics and presentation design. Garr's personal brand also shines through his choice of images and sample slides, which make Presentation Zen Design part how-to manual, part coffee table book.

For best results I would highly recommend reading both the original Presentation Zen and Presentation Zen Design, as both books complement and support each other.

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