Does the age of a company really matter?

People like to talk about how old their companies are as points of difference from their competitors. As if being around for 30, 40 or 50 years will make the difference when people choose between the top options.

That's a nice, safe, rational belief. And if people made decisions rationally, promoting the age of the company would be a real differentiator.

But people are not rational.

According to some studies, up to 90% of all decisions we make are emotional. We may rationalize our choices after the fact, but emotions are driving the machine.

If age of the company really made the difference, people would be flocking to Sears and Kmart this morning instead of hopping online or heading over to Walmart or Target. That won't happen, of course, because Sears and Kmart have lost their relevance.

Relevance is what matters.

In every business category, whether B2B or B2C, service-oriented or manufacturing, people want to know that the products and services offered are relevant to how they live.

If you solve problems for your audiences, you have relevance.

If your solutions don't match the world around us, it doesn't matter if your company has been around for a day or a 100 years.

It’s Spring. Time to Weed Your Brand.

Spring at my house means crazy combinations of things growing in my yard and flowerbeds. Some are flowers that somehow survived the winter, even though they are technically annuals and should have lived only one glorious year. Some are perennials that we expected to return. And others are a mélange of weeds and various sprouts.

These plants are not coordinated in any way and grow randomly and somewhat frustratingly wherever they like.

I find many brand portfolios resemble my yard in the spring: odd collections with a few purposeful placements, a few hangers-on, and a handful of items that randomly showed up over time. Why not use spring as the time to do some brand management?

Just because it grows doesn’t mean it fits

I’ve worked with a large number of brand managers who looked at their roles as two- to four-year engagements where they intended to make their mark and move up in the company. That meant launching new products and brands. It did NOT mean affecting anything that came before them. The typical result is a dysfunctional brand portfolio that makes things tough for consumers.

There are plenty of case studies on bad brand extensions like Coors Water, Colgate’s Kitchen Entrees, and Frito Lay Lemonade because it’s easy to spot the major offenders. But people forget that micro-extensions are just as dangerous: the shampoo in 30 varieties though only six sell with enough volume to justify the calories spent to get them to market. These are annuals that were beautiful for one season and should have died, but they showed up the next season and no one had the heart to get rid of them. If they’re no longer a match for the brand, or simply add color but no value, they need to go.

Build the plan but enjoy the surprise visitors

Admit it. Most of us really, really like the little things that blow in from nowhere and bloom into something pretty. Recently, Kohl’s found itself the unexpected beneficiaries of Candace Payne’s wildly popular Chewbacca Mask video. The brand took advantage of the positive vibes being given off by the video (some 152 Million views worldwide and counting) and rewarded Mrs. Payne with gift cards and gifts. Count that as a major win for the retailer and an excellent job of capitalizing on a sudden new flower. Now it’s back to the plan.

This is not to say that Kohl’s can’t continue the conversation involving “Chewbacca Mom” but it would be a mistake to change the whole program to reflect a mega-viral video.

Sometimes you just have to kill the weeds

Some companies make it hard to kill products that don’t work, or get rid of the ones that came in with an acquisition but no longer fit the brand. These are the weeds in the brand portfolio—and they have to go in order to let the good stuff shine through. Just like vines growing in the flowerbed, it can be easy to mistake weeds for healthy products, but they get in the way and choke the life out of the brand.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple and began to turn the company around, among other things he killed off the weeds: laser printers, the Newton PDA and accessories. He simplified the portfolio so it could be amazing.

I hear plenty of people say they want their brand to be like Apple, but very few want to take the bold step of killing off products in the portfolio that seem to make money but actually drain the company of needed calories that could be better spent building something spectacular.

Be purposeful and enjoy the beautiful results

Every brand manager and company executive has a choice in what grows in the portfolio. But since there never seems to be a perfect time to reflect on what’s working and what isn’t, let this spring be the time you look things over. Have a plan. Weed accordingly. And be willing to trim some products that take on the appearance of good health but in reality suck the life out of the brand. In the end, you’ll have a stronger brand, build better brand tribes, and have the resources to continue your passion.

Could Your Brand Benefit From Personalization?

I work with a wide range of companies each year, from small mom and pops to Fortune 50s. A common thread, whether working on organizational health or brand strategy, is authenticity and humanity. Everybody wants it. Everybody talks about it. So why then do so few companies truly deliver in this area?

In many ways we can blame the convenience of email, which has done much to make communications simple, fast and easy, but has also added to the distance between people. Let’s face it, it’s often more convenient to send a quick email than to pick up the phone or even walk down the hall and have a conversation. I think we’ve lost more than we know by opting for convenience.

Before it’s B2B or B2C, it’s people to people

There are plenty of stories of famous people who wrote notes to those who touched them in some way, from Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, to John Lennon and William Faulkner. The common theme that makes the notes memorable is that the person writing the note was under no obligation to write it, and usually the person who received the note was pleasantly surprised or genuinely shocked to receive it.

I get surprised responses on the notes I write by hand. Why? Because so few people take the time any more.

 A friend asked me not long ago whether she should write a thank you note following a job interview, or simply send an email. My response was simple: write the note. I get many hundred email in any given week. I may get one handwritten note in a month, if that often. Which do you think I remember?

Personalization makes good business sense

I worked with a local triathlon shop for a few years to help them turn around their store after a particularly bad breakup between partners. The store’s reputation had taken a hit and they had virtually no money for traditional advertising and marketing. So we focused on the small things: we worked hard to rebuild positive comments on social media, we trained employees to improve the personal in-store experience and we added handwritten Thank You notes as a regular part of the process.

Notice that nothing in this list is particularly unique or difficult to execute. But the combination is rare enough these days.

In the triathlon world, new people enter the sport every week. From a retailer standpoint, that means people show up with the same questions and the same bewildered looks day after day. This can be frustrating for staff who are often seasoned athletes with years of competitive training and performance behind them. So we trained everyone in the store to think like a newbie—someone who isn’t in stellar shape, who doesn’t have all the right gear and who is probably intimidated by the thought of wearing compression gear in public.

This meant connecting on a human level and getting excited with the customer and for the customer. Most of us could use a few more people in our lives who share our interest and excitement in anything.

It also meant not focusing on the sale and, instead, focusing on the person in the store that day. We helped the staff see that by being genuine, accessible and willing to provide the right information for the right level of interest and energy, they could build relationships that far outweighed any one sale.

Finally, we implemented a simple policy of sending handwritten Thank You notes to everyone who bought a bike at the shop. Nothing complicated. Nothing convoluted. Just a note that said something like “thank you for choosing us to be your triathlon shop. We’re working on your bike to make it perfect for you. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to call or stop by.”

Competitive triathlon bikes run from around $1,500 to beyond $10,000. And each bike is tweaked to uniquely fit each rider, which may add a week or two between the time of purchase to the time of delivery. When you’re the buyer, every day without your bike seems like an eternity. By sending handwritten notes after purchase, the store reminded each customer that the customer was important and the shop was working diligently on their expensive baby.

Personalized and growing

It’s always difficult to track the impact of soft skills like training in personal service and handwritten notes, but in the case of the triathlon shop, they saw a dramatic turnaround in positive feedback on social media, they grew their customer base in the ever-important newbie and avid athlete segments (who tend to purchase the most gear and ask the most questions), and saw a steady 20% annual growth for three straight years in an industry declining 10% annually over the same time period.

Anecdotally, the shop regularly heard back from customers who said they had never gotten a handwritten note from any store before—regardless of the size of the purchase. Those same customers said they had told several friends about their experience.

Think about that for a moment. In this day and age of antisocial media, consumers tend to tell two to five times as many people about negative experiences as compared to positive experiences. And yet this local shop had fans spreading the good news. Why? Because it was personal. It was human.

It really is the little thing that matters

I coach executives to keep things simple, especially in communications inside their organizations. Because most of us think the worst before we think anything positive. So a simple nod of thanks, looking someone in the eyes, using their name and talking about what matters to them not only breaks through the negative fog many companies are in, it helps employees and customers alike see the authenticity they so desperately crave.

Try it for yourself. Take a few minutes this week and hand write a note of thanks to someone around you. There are plenty of people worthy of your time, trust me on this. Chances are good that you’ll both be better off for the time you spend.