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One of my favorite weekly newsletters is written by Roy Williams of Wizard of Ads fame. If you are in sales and marketing and don’t subscribe to the MondayMorningMemo, I highly recommend it. But this week’s edition has life application beyond any advertising campaign you might be developing.
I think Mr. Williams’ message has insight on how we interpret and present ourselves to the world as individuals – not just for businesses. His question of whether to “differentiate” or “conform” can be used to to evaluate how we see and relate to others. In other words – how we get along with those around us. The person who insists on always being different and “special” might take heed that there is a cost of not fitting in. The person who always conforms to his or her surroundings might be reminded that each of us have a uniqueness accompanied by gifts that are meant to season the world around us.
But I’ll let the true Wizard speak from his observations as an advertiser.
Differentiate or Conform?Chronic problems in business are usually the result of binary thinking. “It’s either this way or that way. It can’t be both.”
Strangely, the answer is almost always “both.”
“Should I try to attract the price-driven (transactional) customer, or should I go for the (relational) customer who cares about something other than price?”
Both. Create and schedule ads that speak convincingly to the question of price. Create and schedule other ads that speak of important matters beyond price. Just don’t try to do both in the same ad.
“Should I manage with strict policies, procedures, methods and systems, or should I empower my employees to make decisions on their own?”
Both. Systematize the 90 percent of your company’s activities that are recurrent so that your employees have the freedom to humanize and customize the 10 percent of your activities that are ever-changing and unusual. A company without freedoms is a sweatshop. A company without policies, procedures, methods and systems is a country club for unproductive employees.
“Should I promote an exclusive brand and risk the manufacturer betraying me by allowing my competitor to sell that brand for which I’ve created all the demand, or should I create my own in-house brand so that I can remain in control of it?”
Both. You need the credibility of established brands to lend strength to the new brand you will introduce. Advertise both, but never in the same ad.
“Won’t this make me seem unfocused?”
No. You must get on board with proven procedures. You must also do your own thing and go your own direction. It’s not only possible that you do both, it is essential.
Mechanics across Europe began building cars in 1886 and each time they built a car it was different. More than 2,000 different garages built and sold cars one-at-a-time before Henry Ford’s 1913 introduction of the first moving assembly line employing conveyor belts. Henry popularized the concept of interchangeable parts. It was efficient. It also made him the richest man in the world. By 1923 Henry Ford was personally earning $264,000 a day. He was declared a billionaire by the Associated Press.
More than 17,000,000 Model T’s rolled off Henry’s assembly line and you could have any color you wanted as long as it was black. The inefficiency of building cars one-at-a-time forced the other 2,000 garages to sell their cars at about $2,500 apiece while the price of a reliable, new Model T was only $849.
Soon the other carmakers got on board and America became an automotive Wonderland.
But we always take a good thing too far. Fifty years later, General Motors decided to take this idea to the next level. “Instead of designing 5 different brands each year and retooling our machinery to build Chevrolets, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Cadillacs, why not just put a different interior package and grille and taillights in the same, basic car and sell that car under 5 different names?”
A Chevy Cavalier is a Pontiac Sunbird is an Oldsmobile Firenza is a Buick Skyhawk is a Cadillac Cimarron.
A Chevy Nova is a Pontiac Ventura is an Oldsmobile Omega is a Buick Apollo is a Cadillac Seville.
A Chevy Caprice is a Pontiac Catalina is an Olds 98 is a Buick Electra is a Cadillac DeVille.
On the surface, this looks like exactly the same idea that made Henry Ford rich. The problem with the “platform engineering” introduced by GM in the late 1970s is that it eroded the distinctiveness of their brands. Two decades later GM was forced to close Oldsmobile and a few years after that, Pontiac fell as well. Analysts speculate whether Buick or Cadillac will be next.
Conformity is essential or you will not be efficient. Differentiation is essential or you will not be special.
Jordan Peterson, a Canadian Psychologist, has become a viral sensation because of his media interviews and YouTube presentations on practical and controversial topics covering personal growth and healthy relationships like child-rearing, marriage, the meaning behind religion, friendship, personal responsibility, equality, and gender issues (from assumptions about toxic masculinity to transgender studies). Based on consuming a number of those interviews and presentations, I started reading 12 Rules with a definite expectation of a clear, pithy, and practical path to self-improvement. After all, don’t all of us know, any book with a set number of secrets, principles, rules, precepts or irrefutables will include some common assumptions, a few surprises, and always, in an easy-to-digest style? That leads to my recommendation that you read the 12 Rules, though it is seasoned with a warning and wrapped in a book review!
Read it. Or listen to it. Sooner than later. As in, your next book. Peterson is so brutally honest (one of his rules is to tell the truth or at least not lie) that you can’t help but be a little more forthcoming with yourself and others in the reading. He is so willing to go against popular culture and the PC ethos of academia that you’ll feel a bit like a bold and strong bulwark against the fickle winds of enlightened conformity. He is so versed in not only his field of behavioral psychology but also philosophy and religion and literature and history that you will feel smarter whether or not you understand every word of the book. He is so down-to-earth practical that your are going to be challenged to take responsibility for your personal life and the way you interact with others—and help those others while doing so.
The second rule, treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping, is case in point. Peterson uses statistics and studies to shine a spotlight on the sad truth that many people treat their pets better than they treat themselves. For example, it is more likely that a person will fill a medicinal prescription for their cat or dog than they will for themselves. His argument sparkles as he warns us in this chapter:
You need to articulate your own principles, so you can defend yourself against others’ taking advantage of you. You must keep the promises you make to yourself, and reward yourself, so that you can trust and motivate yourself.
That quote alone is worth a five-star review and recommendation. But there are still a couple of warnings!
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