How to Grow your Business !!! #2

How Ideals Power Growth & Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies

from Biz Group blog 8/12 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz 11/13

Joy, Connect, Explore, Pride, & Impact.
The Author provides a framework – he calls the Ideal Tree – a series of steps to identifying, using & evaluating your brand ideal:
• Discover an ideal in of the five fields of fundamental human values
• Build your culture around your ideal
• Communicate your ideal to engage employees & customers
• Deliver a near-ideal customer experience
• Evaluate your progress & people against your ideal
The model is simple – perhaps overly so – but the examples he provides, are rich in content & insights.

The Struggle. One of the struggles I had with the book is, he starts with a detailed case study of the company Method. As I had no personal experience or knowledge of this brand, 30 pages on how they have bought their brand ideal to life really switched me off. I felt I was reading a story about Method – which was actually quite interesting, but I got lost in their company. He takes you through all five steps with Method and then does it again with deep dives into each step, highlighting some of the other 50 brands.

What I got from the book: Continue to build your business focusing on your purpose – the reason why you are in business, and hopefully you can link it to one of the 5 human values. I can immediately think of local brands or companies I work with in the UAE do this – e.g. THE One – is about saving the Planet and investing into communities.

Goal. To get into the minds of your customers, you need to help change their lives for the better. What do you offer that will do that? Then pull all your marketing efforts & communication in line with this offering. Every communication should start with your ideal in mind. Great brands or companies that want fast growth should begin with their people and culture – get that right from the inside out, and the rest will be possible. Measure your progress and be prepared to say no to something that doesn’t fit with your brand ideal.

From the list of Stengel 50, their Brand Ideals and the link to Human values – I selected a few brands to share in the following format:

Brand – Values – Mission
Apple – Exploration – to empower creative exploration and self-expression
FedEx – Reliability – to deliver peace of mind to everyday interactions
Google – Exploration – to immediately satisfy your every curiosity
Mercedes Benz – Pride – to epitomize a life of achievement
Pampers – Joy – to help mothers care for their babies’ & toddlers’
Red Bull – Impact – Red Bull exists to energise the world
Visa – Freedom – Visa exists to provide the freedom to people to follow their passions
Zappos – Eliciting Joy – to delivery happiness through “wow” service.
Verizon – Connection – to connect people with one another and the content that is most important in their lives

If you are a brand or marketing professional, this should be added to your ‘must read’ pile. From a business owner’s perspective, I felt the Author reinforced some fundamental principles we learned from other authors. However he had the evidence to justify the thinking from some great brands – to better understand it.

Comments: Do you know other examples of companies with outstanding values?