In our December Newsletter we talked about “The Power of a great Guarantee in your business”. If you missed that article, click here to download. This month we look at the power of creating a clear and compelling Positioning Statement in your business

To be effective, a Positioning Statement should quickly and clearly achieve some or all of the following…

a) explain who you are or what you do,

b) promise some specific functional, emotional or financial value that is
compelling to your target customers,

c) clearly differentiate you from your competitors,

d) make you memorable…and,

e) make an emotional connection with your target customers.

1) When Dairy Queen wanted to reposition themselves as more than a soft ice cream store in order to grow their “share of stomach” and to be less seasonal, they added burgers, dogs and fries to their menu. The challenge, then, was to reposition themselves in their customers’ minds in a way that didn’t take away from their traditional strength in dairy.

One possibility would have been to change their actual name but this would have been a hugely expensive disaster. What they did do was to create a very clever and catchy Positioning Statement to explain who they now were. The statement…”Dairy Queen…HOT EATS…COOL TREATS!”

2) When Honda first entered the North American motorcycle market they wanted to clearly differentiate themselves from the Motorcycle Gang segment and they did it brilliantly with this simple Positioning Statement, “You meet the nicest people in a Honda!”

3) Years ago, Hallmark Cards did research that showed that nobody looked at the back of a greeting card to see who made it. They didn’t care! And if nobody cares who made it, it’s impossible to create brand preference and customer ownership.

So, Hallmark came up with an emotionally powerful Positioning Statement that got both card purchasers and card recipients looking at the back of the card before they even read the message inside. This Positioning Statement that made them the preferred brand and the market leader was…“When you care enough to send the very best!

4) Creemore Springs Brewery in the sleepy little town of Creemore, Ontario clearly and whimsically differentiates itself from the “big guys” and makes emotional connections with their target customers who long for a simpler, less stressful lifestyle, with the statement, “100 years behind the times”.

5) There are so many more great examples. Smuckers Jams have become memorable, promise quality and poke fun at themselves with the statement, “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.” And Oscar Meyer has kids all over North America singing, “I’d rather be an Oscar Meyer Weiner.”

Then there’s some Positioning Statements that just don’t work! The stupidest one that I’ve ever seen was from a paper towel company that came up with this one; “We care about the same things you care about!”

How comforting that there’s a paper towel company out there that actually cares about your mortgage, the cost of your kid’s braces and whether or not your car will make it through the winter. This is just goofy!

For years American Express positioned itself as “the” credit card with the statement, “Don’t leave home without it.” when, in fact, over 25% of all merchants in the world did not accept American Express cards because payment was too slow and AMEX took too big a percentage.

I found another “goofy” Positioning Statement just last month. The Bank of America…”Embracing ingenuity”. What the hell does that mean?

What clear, compelling and memorable Positioning Statement could your business create that will explain, promise, differentiate and make powerful emotional connections with your target customers?

2. The 10 Secrets of Effective Implementation:
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3. Bits and Pieces:
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Here are a few random bits and pieces that I came across over the last few weeks that you may find interesting, amusing or bazaar.

The year-end US College football Bowl Game phenomenon may now have officially gotten out of hand. Remember when there was just the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl?

Well, believe it or not, on December 31, Idaho State played Boise State (I bet you didn’t even know that Boise was a state!) in the Humanitarian Bowl! Just picture an event where the principle objective is for 26 guys to go out on a field and knock the hell out of each other being called the Humanitarian Bowl!
We’ve all heard of Chief Executive Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Chief Financial Officers and even Chief Information Officers but here’s a new one for you. One company has just announced their new CRO…Chief Restructuring Officer. Now, doesn’t that sound so much better than “Hatchet man”?
Overheard at a holiday season cocktail party, “Time is a great healer, but a lousy beautician!”
After all the corporate dishonesty that we’ve been through in the last year, here’s one you’ll really like. I recently shared a ride up to Whistler, BC with a gentleman who owns a number of Tim Horton and Wendy’s franchises. I asked him if he had ever met Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, and if the real Dave was congruent with his public persona.

The answer…"yes” he had spent time with Dave and “yes” Dave was the “genuine article”. He told me that had often heard Dave say, when asked by his people how to handle a situation, “Just do the right thing!” We miss you Dave!

4. Here's a tip on "Coaching and Training" your staff that you might find useful:
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Several years ago, as a retailer of ladies fashions and gifts, I knew that regular, on-going training of our 60 staff was essential to our success. We scheduled monthly training meetings and ended up canceling many of them because three days before the planned session I couldn’t think of what to talk about.

Every time we cancelled one of these sessions we were communicating powerfully that training didn’t matter, that product knowledge didn’t matter, that improving our skills and performance didn’t matter and, ultimately, we were communicating that our staff and even our customers didn’t matter.

At some point it occurred to me that while I was a “training disaster”, we were doing a lot of one-on-one staff coaching, every day, as specific situations came up. So here’s what I came up with that could be helpful to you. I decided that one-on one communication would be called “coaching” and when we all came together as a group, it would be called “training”. And here’s the beautiful part…our coaching would “feed” our training. Here’s how it worked…

Every time a situation came up when one of our staff clearly needed on-the-spot coaching on a particular subject we simply asked the question, “Do the rest of our staff need to know that?” and if the answer was “Yes”, we made a note and put it in a “Training File”. Then, each month, a few days before a scheduled Training Session, we pulled out the “Training File” and right there was most of the stuff that we needed to cover…and we never had to cancel another session.

Did it work? Well we won seven awards of excellence for service and marketing innovation in just three years, including being chosen Canada’s Outstanding Innovative Retailer by the Retail Council of Canada.

And now, as a business speaker, my presentation on “The 8 Essential Steps To Finding & Keeping The Best Staff!” has helped thousands of retailers, manufacturers and service providers.

5. Our Meeting Planner "Tip of the Month":
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When setting up a room for a meeting or conference, tape off the back few rows with masking tape. This accomplishes two important things…

First, it encourages people to fill up the front seats, which creates a much better dynamic in the room. It’s more difficult to deliver a great speech when the first three rows are empty. The connection between the speaker and the audience is somehow broken…and energy is lost.

Second, if all the back seats are filled first, latecomers (and there are always latecomers) have to walk all the way up to the front during the speaker’s presentation, disrupting and distracting the audience. When the back few rows are left empty, the latecomers simply slip into a back row seat with no fuss and no disruption.

6. Our Gold Nugget for January:
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More great places to dine and a wonderful website to visit when planning a special trip or romantic getaway!

My friend David Biltek, who uses our insights of Human Marketing to redefine and constantly reinvent his very successful travel agency business, Travelhandlers in Grande Prairie, Alberta, has sent along a follow-up to my recommendation of the special tasting menu offered by the Queens Landing Hotel in Niagara-on-the-lake, Ontario.

David adds these recommendations…

The tasting menu at the new Peller Estates Winery dining room…also at Niagara-on-the-lake.

In Vancouver, Lumiere is a Relais & Chateaux Gourmand* restaurant that David says offers the most interesting food that he has ever experienced with the exception of his third recommendation which is…

The world famous Wickinnish Inn in Tofino, British Columbia, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. David says “the Wick” has a fabulous restaurant, spa, a wonderful beach to walk on and not much else…a great romantic getaway! It is also a Relais & Chateaux affiliated property.

*Note: Relais & Chateaux is an affiliation of absolutely wonderful, independently owned inns and restaurants around the world that embrace the highest standards for food, service and accommodation. Relais & Chateaux's website which describes locations around the world, is worth exploring when you’re planning a special trip or romantic adventure!

7. Are you creating a "Winning Brand" in your business?
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What is a Brand? Defined most simply, your “Brand” is what people think of you. A Brand is a promise that you will deliver a consistent set of values, qualities, standards and experiences that your target customers want in their lives.

One of the world’s leading hotel chains has just booked me to speak to their management and marketing team on “Creating A Winning Brand!”

I stay in hotels around the world about 200 nights a year and in the process have discovered huge differences within many hotel brands. In Asia, a Holiday Inn will likely be a five star property, while in Cincinnati it may be a “tear down”. There’s no consistency, no confidence, no trust and consequently…no Brand effectiveness!

I was in a magnificent, uplifting Westin Hotel on the river in San Antonio, Texas last year and one week later in a depressing Westin Hotel in Atlanta that felt like a prison on a bad day! Once again, no Brand consistency.

Some hotel groups do get it! The 4 Seasons, Ritz Carlton and Fairmont Hotels are outstanding examples, as are the Relais & Chateaux properties... but many do not.

The three steps to creating a Winning Brand in your business are DECIDE, DELIVER and COMMUNICATE.

First, DECIDE who your target customers will be and what Brand Experience you will always deliver.

Specifically, decide what “promises” your Brand will make about the Value that you’ll always deliver and the Values that you’ll always live by…and finally, decide the Brand Personality that you will create.
Next, DELIVER what you promise! Every product or service you offer, every policy you create, every person you hire, every decision you make affects your Brand. In fact, everything you do, every day, either delivers your Brand Experience, or it damages your Brand.
Finally, effectively COMMUNICATE your Brand Experience. Many businesses think of their Brand Communication as the advertising and promotion that they do but, in fact, everything you do communicates a message, good or bad, about your Brand. There are literally 100’s of ways that you communicate who you are and what you stand for, but they fall into seven main categories…

- How you look in every part of your business.
- How you sound in every part of your business. "You are what we speak!"
- How you and your "products" serve and perform.
- The price you charge communicates powerfully what you think you're worth.
- How and where you advertise and promote.
- How you care for each other and our planet.
- How your business "feels" when people interact with your Brand in any way.

- So, there you are; three steps to creating a Winning Brand in your business…DECIDE, DELIVER and COMMUNICATE! For more information on our Keynotes and Seminars click here.