On Saturdays I often find myself folding laundry and landing in front of the TV to catch up on some guilty pleasure reality TV. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve found myself tuning into “The Next Food Network Star” to see how the field of cooks and chef’s has whittled itself down.
For those of you not familiar with this show, a diverse group of cooks and chefs vie for fame, stardom and chef-fulfillment as the next Rachel Ray or Bobby Flay on the Food Channel and land their own show.
It’s About Brand Power
Every week you get to watch the judges (food network execs, marketers, stars, etc) critique the finalists. And what you see and hear most is their focus on the finalists “brand power.” Do they have the personality for TV, do they have enough brand power to launch a line of cookware? What’s their authentic story? Are they likable? Then somewhere toward the end of the list is “is their food good?”
What I find most interesting is how intensely each of the judges digs and looks for the real essence of each finalist. Sometimes these evaluation sessions sound almost like therapy.
All this digging into each finalist’s potential “positioning” and “finding their voice” is not easy. In this post by Bob Tuschman, one of the judges and the General Manager of the Food Network, you’ll get a clear idea of what these folks are looking for in the next star. And Bob should know because HE’S the one responsible for my laundry folding addiction to his Saturday morning lineup of Giada, Barefoot Contessa, Paula Deen and Bobby Flay — yeah, that’s sad. So, if anyone would know what it takes to get people excited about food celebrities – Bob Tuschman knows.
Branding Lessons From the Food Network
- A great brand requires long hours of reflection. The judges spend hours reviewing video and information from behind the scenes. In addition to this, they spend even more time with each finalist to really understand who this person is and to understand that special mix within them that has star power. It’s almost as if they don’t want to have the next major star slip through their fingers just because they didn’t dig long and deep enough.
- You might have to “train” your brand. It’s clear to me that great cooks and chefs are everywhere, but people who can cook AND shine on TV and in print are one in a million. A powerful brand is like a diamond in the rough. It might require polish, practice and training to really make it shine. In other words, great brands may start out as ok brands — that just need some polish.
- Your brand has to be ON all the time. When I use the words power brand I’m referring to the responsibilities that I think few of us realize go with a strong personal brand. You have to BE YOUR BRAND at all times. People see through a persona and straight to the person. An audience will only connect and invest in an authentic brand. As soon as a brand falters – its equity suffers.
So the next time you’re folding laundry or just vegging check your local listings to find out when you can catch the “Next Food Network Star” and watch it for the food and for what works in building a personal brand.
I just got a Google Alert that “Strategy Stew” was named one of the “Top 50″ blogs by Evan Carmichael! Although I wonder if he was referencing DIYMarketers because he talks about its being Free to join. Either way, I’m psyched that Strategy Stew was mentioned along with some of my favorite blogs like
There are 46 more fun sales blogs to check out – see what tips you can pick up from each one!
I’m not making the bed today.
That’s only relevant if you know that I make the bed EVERY day. It’s a pattern. When I make the bed, it makes me feel like at least that first part of the day is “in order.” And there’s something very comforting about order — or at least the feeling of order.
Comfortable Patterns Yield No Surprises
Brains like pattern and order. It makes for an efficient day. But opportunities and miracles hide just beyond the pattern. And that’s what I’m after today. Today I’m doing things differently just because I’m interested in seeing what I’ve been missing.
What to do differently today:
So I bet you might be running a little short on ideas on what you could do differently. No worries – here are some I’ve plucked that you can use.
- Spice Up Your Blog: Assuming you are blogging. And if you’re not – would you just go to Wordpress.com and start one. Seriously – it will take like 5 minutes. Lisa Barone has some terrific ideas. Vow to implement at least one today. I’m already going “off topic.” See. It’s working.
- Focus on ONE social networking site this week and ROCK IT. Facebook is the TOP social networking site according to HitWise and Marketing Charts. Other than your personal updates — are you really using Facebook to it’s full potential? Do you have a fan page? I’ve just recently made a commitment to actually write comments ON my fan page and not just fill it with articles.
- Don’t take yourself TOO seriously. Why not check out your horoscope prediction from “The Onion” and laugh for about 5 minutes. Then go and read the horoscopes for friends and family. I also like to read the horoscopes for my son — which are funny because he’s only 10. It was even more hilarious when he was an infant. “Your financial situation takes a turn for the worse….” just sounds too funny when applied to a child.
So there you have it – some brain candy and ways to change it up a little bit.
Have you ever changed it up and what have you found as a result?
It’s been a while since I’ve done an article round up. This week I’m including some of articles that have interesting marketing ideas in them for you to think about.
The first is my book review of “Flip the Funnel” on Small Business Trends: The “duh” of an idea here is to spend more effort and energy on the customers you have than on the ones you don’t have. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go looking for new business – just don’t go bringing on new customers only to mistreat them and ignore them and take them for granted later.
Social networks and social media have to evolve. And John Jantsch’s article “The Future of Social Networks is Vertical” sounds like the most logical place for it to go. The idea here is to observe how cluttered the social media space is and notice how people have been creating vertical groups. There was a study out there somewhere that said that we really aren’t capable of managing more than 500 relationships – and based on our natural segmenting behavior – that appears to be true. Maybe we will evolve to higher numbers as technology helps out — I think that number might be something like 1500 – but that’s a stretch. What do you think?
If you want to see the cutting edge of social media, mashable’s weekly list of trends is the place to go. Check out this week’s “22 Essential Social Media Resources You Make Have Missed” you can build a year’s worth of content just reading this list and adding your expertise to it WOW.
Industrial firms might finally be getting on board (whew) with online marketing. Marketing Charts has a great study summary with “Industrial Firms Step Up Online Marketing” I’m not sure why they wait so long for everything. You’d think business to business, industrial technical type people who are so stingy with marketing dollars would be all over online marketing. Go figure.
OK – so check all these out and let me know YOUR ideas!
One of the things that drives drove me nuts about the LinkedIn profile was that I couldn’t figure out how to customize the section where all the web sites were.
The default looks like this:
And I want it to look like THIS:
Here’s how to make that happen:
1. Sign into your account
2. Go to your profile
3. Make sure you’re in the “edit profile” tab
4. Scroll down to the sites section and click on “edit”
5. In the first right hand column click on the arrow and scroll over to “Other”
6. You can enter your actual blog name or do what I did — DESCRIBE your blog or web site. This way people will know the benefit or value of information that’s there.
I want to thank PROBLOGGER for the article that taught me to do this!
Do you have multiple phone numbers? You know – work, home, work cell, personal cell, etc? If so, then Google Voice can be the answer to your prayers. Head on over to www.google.com/voice and get yourself — yes — one more number and then forget the rest.
Google Voice is a virtual VOIP system. You can make calls from your computer (like Skype) and you can download the Google Voice app for Blackberry, Android and iPhone and make Google Voice calls from your mobile device.
Rather than adding one more “feature” article to the mix, I’m going to simply list some great round up articles that you can refer to and learn more about the technical details of Google Voice.
- Getting Started With Google Voice (technologizer.com)
- Top 10 Google Voice Hacks and Tips (taragana.com)
- How to start over with Google Voice? (scripting.com)
Here’s a little intro video as well
I’ve gotten all kinds of good advice lately — but this little piece of insight has really helped me tighten up my positioning and differentiation strategy in an unexpected way.
Patti Renner (That Landing Page Lady) is my FAVORITE copywriter. And for good reason — she has these low-tech, low-cost ways of getting into the head of her target audience that really works wonders.
About a month or so ago, she and I were having lunch and I was bemoaning the state of a web site project I’m working on. Then she asked me if I had a sketch book.
“What?!” I said. ”What’s a sketch book got to do with profiling my ideal audience and figuring out a cost structure and an offering?”
Patti says that a sketch book; with all those blank pages, literally frees your mind to just draw, write, cut things out, paste things in and generally gives you brain a place to laugh and play. ”This kind of low-structured freedom will help you get deeper into the mind of your audience and give you the ability to interact with your material in a much more powerful way than on the computer.”
OK. Miss Smarty Pants. I’m going to give it a shot. So – let me show you my sketch book and give you a peek inside how it helped me focus my marketing ideas.
You can get pretty fancy with sketch books, but I opted for the bare bones version at the office supply store. Depending on how seriously you take your notes – you can opt for a fancy hardback sketch book from a book store.
Bring Your Audience to Life
I decided to cut out pictures of what I think my audience actually looks like and then I just wrote in what they might be thinking. I also found examples of copywriting, tone and style that I really liked and cut those out as well. This would give me actual examples of writing that I could use to inspire my articles and copy.
Here’s the deal. The action of looking through the magazines, choosing pictures, tearing or cutting them out, pasting them into the book and then writing and interacting with them activates completely different areas of your brain and allows you to access more emotional trigger points that your audience may have.
Build a Dream and Live in It
Another benefit I got from flipping through magazines and tearing out pictures was that I got to identify exactly the design type and style that I liked. After all – these magazines paid millions in research and design and all I had to do was pick what I liked. Picking out elements, graphics and colors that appealed to me will make my interaction with my designer a breeze. This way I can tell her what I want, why I want it and actually give her examples that she can reference.
In this picture – I actually printed a demo from a WordPress theme I was considering using. Then I started inserting potential categories and links as I would customize them. This saved me oodles of time in trial and error and saved me money in buying a theme that might not have worked.
You Can Take it With You
Since the sketch book is low-tech, it doesn’t require electricity or wi-fi 
! I take it everywhere I go, it allows me the ability to brainstorm no matter where I quickly and quietly.
Overall, I’ve been thrilled with my experience with the sketch book that I intend to use one for every project. Give it a try and see what opens up for you!
Would YOU hire someone that has a consulting or freelancing business on the side?
In the past, many employers would say “No way!” After all, if that person is focused on THEIR business, they won’t be focused on mine — right?
WRONG!
There are HUGE benefits to hiring marketers, copywriters, designers and other professional freelancers on full time while they continue to run their own freelancing business on the side. Here are just a few:
- They have their own established brand. This is perhaps the biggest mind-shift employers will have to make. And it’s key. Hiring on an expert in a field will bring additional value to your brand. One manufacturer actually hired a reigning beauty pageant winner as an international sales rep for her region because it brought visibility for their brand.
- They come as pre-selected and pre-approved Experts.They have clients that have chosen them for something — in fact, it’s probably the same reason you’ve chosen them. Having them engaged on other client projects (during their own time, of course) will bring new ideas to YOU.
- They are current on the hot trends and technology. Having an active freelancer as an actual employee actually guarantees that this person hasn’t stopped and will not stop learning and applying the latest in methods and technology that are in their field — as opposed to employees who only work for you and don’t really have a need to explore new things because they are currently not required.
- They are great time managers. If you have a person on your staff that has clients to take care of when they are NOT working for you – you’d better believe they will get the MOST out of their work day with you. They are more likely to be focused just on your projects during the time that they are with you — so that they can focus on their other clients when they are on their own time.
All of these reasons presume that the person you’re hiring is running THEIR business on THEIR time using THEIR equipment. I’m not saying that these people should use your time, money and resources to build their own business instead of contribute to yours.
I am saying that in the world of work, your company stands to benefit in multiple ways from hiring individuals who have an established business and client base.
So why would these people need a job anyway?
Well, they may not actually need a job for the reasons you might think (the money). They may want a job because as a freelancer or independent business owner or service provider, it’s easy to get wrapped up in simply delivering service and as a result, you get stuck in a rut. It actually helps to do work for others and experience another business day-in and day-out. This helps the employer and it helps the freelancer improve their offering.
Overall – if you’re considering hiring someone who has been on their own for awhile — remember that this is a person who has decided to take their future into their own hands and NOT wait for someone to GIVE them a job — they’ve taken on the entrepreneurial spirit to CREATE and build something. Why not have them help you do the same?
Related articles :
- As companies hire again, more jobs go freelance (msnbc.msn.com)
- Laid-off Workers Can’t Find Jobs; Start Businesses (abcnews.go.com)
- When a freelancer changes the game (sethgodin.typepad.com)
I got to this video from Emanuel Rosen’s Facebook post this morning. If you’re not familiar with Emanuel Rosen, he’s the author and guru of all things “Buzz”.
It’s only 45 seconds long – but WOW – it’s the most engaging powerful 45 seconds of pure self-expressed joy I’ve seen in a long time.
It made me think of how attractive your business could be if you approached each day with this much self-expression and gratitude. And it reminded me how often we approach the day complaining about those pesky “customers” who keep you from doing what you really think you should be doing or want to be doing.
If that’s the case for you? Then it’s time for a mental and strategic re-set — don’t you think?
Here’s an exercise I just learned that has really helped me get out of my funks and into a more powerful and engaging business attitude:
- Find a friend or business associate you can talk to openly. Look for a person who won’t be swayed by your negative attitude and will be there to simply listen and ask good questions such as “what are you thinking? How does your body feel right now? What’s your attitude about this?” The objective is to get you to spill everything out into the open. If you don’t have that person available – you can do one of two things — close your office door and just talk to yourself ( you’d have to be pretty secure to do that) or simply write it all down on a piece of paper. But really write it all down until you are empty and have nothing more to say about the topic.
- When you are done and have nothing more to say, you will notice an empty space. Wait for it . Because if you don’t — you could miss it. The mental chatter will come back and if it does – keep talking and writing. When it’s done – you will be able to create and choose a better way to be.
That’s all there is — if you’re wondering how you will know that you are in a better place — just take another 45 seconds and watch this video — that’s what it looks like.
Don’t settle for less.
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If you haven’t had the chance to follow the online buzz today — it’s all about Google’s creative and interactive Pac Man home page.
If you haven’t been on Google today (does that actually include ANYONE?) head over there now — Google.com (not iGoogle – but Google) and I didn’t include the hyperlink because after today it will be gone, so don’t bother.
The point here is Google’s very fun, simple, yet powerful branding practice of adjusting their name to suit all kinds of holidays and distinctive days. They follow historical days and creatively adjust their logo to suit.
Today is the 30th anniversary of Pac Man and true to form Google has recreated their logo so that you can actually play Pac Man by clicking on the “insert coin” link. Now you can bring back those Pac Man memories or actually try out that vintage game you’ve heard your folks chatting about with their friends.
Needless to say — as if Google needed a viral phenomenon — it’s been all over Twitter and the web.
It’s got the Buzz going and I’m curious to see what happens to their stats of how long people spend on Google “Googling” at the Pac Man logo instead of searching for their terms of interest.
The Buzzing has been all over the web today. So in how can we create that natural kind of buzz about our business that Google has done with this one?
- They consistently surprise is with their creativity. Their logo re-creations are a sweet surprise when you land on Google in the morning. They make us smile.
- This logo is interactive and emotionally connects us to the past. This logo does two things that previous re-creations hadn’t; it engages the audience to play AND in the playing takes them back to a time when they were young — or — gives the younger audience the opportunity to experience video games from the past.
Great move Google!
