Creating the All-Important Value Proposition

Successful companies make promises in value propositions—and keep them.

What is a value proposition? I define it as a statement showcasing uniqueness. It becomes the focal point of all communication and marketing efforts to enhance branding and sales.

It is a simple definition. You can find more complex, comprehensive and intimidating definitions aplenty online. But your value proposition should cut to the chase.

Value propositions are not just for sales. They can serve other important purposes internally, like identifying improvement opportunities and encouraging service continuity.

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You Gotta Have Heart

Is it possible that we as consumers can actually love a brand? For me, it’s an interesting question.

You hear consumers use the “L” word all the time:

• “I love Starbucks—just the smell of that place is intoxicating.”
• “I love my Ford truck—man, it hauls that load!”
• “I love my insurance company—and when they send me that late premium notice, I get goose bumps!” (Okay, that’s never been said.)

But yes, it’s true. The best brands are loved. Truly loved. Not just “liked.”

Because whether or not you’re aware of it, the brand is a relationship that can evolve into incredible lifetime value for companies.

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Work Your Brand

Somewhere in the remote Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, a 101-year-old great-grandmother is making you look bad. Her name is Panchita, and by the time you finish your morning blog rounds, she has already cleared brush, chopped wood and made tortillas from scratch. And here’s the best part: She’s not alone. People across the world are focusing on creating more of a healthy lifestyle. Joggers take to the streets, others go to the gym, and more people than ever are eating a healthier diet. Why? Taking care of your anatomy produces positive rewards.

The same is true for your brand. When’s the last time you examined it? Are you keeping it healthy? Are you feeding it on an ongoing basis? If you work with it, it will work for you—just like your body.

When you want to improve your lifestyle, you go to your doctor’s office. When you want to improve your brand’s “anatomy” and learn how to leverage it going forward, you come to Brand Camp.

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Einstein, Lincoln and Carroll: Still not crazy after all these years.

“Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.” — Albert Einstein

In other words, beware trusting your future to false conclusions drawn from real facts. If he hadn’t died in 1955, I’d swear Einstein was describing what passes for common knowledge or collective wisdom these days. Consider the following:

• Omega-3 fatty acids top every healthy eating list, single-handedly driving salmon to the top of the healthy eating food chain; except a massive recent study found they also create two and a half times the risk of men getting aggressive high grade prostate cancer ().

• Dark chocolate in modest amounts is great for you; until a recent study found so are chocolate milkshakes, milk chocolate, chocolate drinks – and the more the better!

• Wine was discovered to be good for you, delighting oenophiles everywhere and driving sales of resveratrol supplements sales through the roof – until a recent study found beer works just as well, delighting sports fans everywhere. Read more

Going Up—The importance of an “elevator speech”

Can you describe your brand accurately? Can you do so in the amount of time it might take for a short elevator ride?

Only those who truly understand what makes their brand unique can deliver what’s sometimes called an “elevator speech”—that is, a descriptive couple of sentences that are clear, succinct and framed from the perspective of the customer. Not only should you be able to deliver this elevator speech, but so should everyone in your company.

Give it a try—it may be harder than you think. Ask those you work with what they might say too. In most companies, the answer will be different from person to person and department to department. If you find a dramatic divergence in answers, it may be time for some inside marketing so you can ultimately deliver a more powerful, consistent marketing message to the outside world as well.

We’re not talking about developing a clever ad campaign or a memorable tag line. In reality, those things should ultimately flow from some of the insight gleaned from a good elevator speech. Instead, the goal is to answer one of the most common questions in the book, “What do you do?”

To craft a truly engaging elevator speech you need to answer two basic questions:

1. What do we do better than anyone else?
2. How does it benefit the customer or client? Read more

Zoo: Make Our Pet Project Your Own

Just before Christmas, Peter shared with blog readers five ideas to unwind. The Aartrijk humans—and probably a lot of clients and other friends—heeded the advice. When that happened, we, the members of the Aartrijk Zoo, sprang into action. We figured out how to surf the web, and started communicating with each other. We chatted about all kinds of stuff, including a post Mariane wrote a while back about supporting our communities.

While we were wandering online, we came across the Mozilla Firefox Challenge and its support of a fundraising drive by actor Paul Rudd to help Rolling Dog Farm. The farm, in northern New Hampshire, rescues and shelters disabled animals. Every animal that arrives at Rolling Dog Farm gets another chance to have a safe and loving home. Its residents include blind dogs, blind horses, deaf dogs, blind cats, and animals with other neurological and orthopedic disabilities.

All of this got us thinking. It’s easy to talk about contemplating what’s important and about giving back. But talk is cheap (unless you’re not on an unlimited cell-phone plan, but that’s another story.)  So without getting any of my fellow zoo-mates in trouble (Peter is the one who made one of us Chief Security Officer), we put a plan in place for our own “pet project.” (ha ha, get it?)

We created our own fundraising page. And we started sharing on Facebook. We scavenged around the offices and cobbled together a donation. Because I lost an eye to cancer and because I live in Norther Hew Hampshire, I can relate to the animals at Rolling Dog Farm, so I made a donation of my own. We’d love for you to donate, too. Every little bit helps. Read more

5 Holiday Thoughts

Admit it. You tried to cram four weeks’ worth of work into the first two weeks in December.

Doesn’t matter if you were successful—the holidays now are here. It’s a great time to unwind, although you may have to work at it. Here are five ideas to do that:

Idea #1: Get to know the family again. Unplug the technology schmutz, turn off the cell phone, close that flap on the iPad—even move away from the TV. The family is the only thing you have that’s permanent in life.

Idea #2: For half a day before January 3, get out the office, get out of the house, and get out of the box you’re in. Take a pad of paper and pen with you. Jot down some ideas about where you’d like to go in life and business. Big ideas, big ideals, big things. You might sketch out some pictures of where you’d like to be with your firm, your job, or yourself. You might come up with a to-do list (tactics) after you think big (strategy).

Idea #3: This holiday season, make an effort to actually talk with people—in person! (I posted about that amazing concept earlier this year.) Read more