Impact Quotient

Do you typically assume that people are paying attention when you speak?

The key to being understood is to raise the impact quotient of your message.

The higher the impact quotient of your message, the less repetition is required to enter into declarative memory.

The higher the impact quotient, the bigger the scene painted on the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory in the dorsolateral prefrontal association area of the brain.

Roy H. Williams

Need help raising the impact of your message?

China - A Case Study in Success, Sacrifice & Core Values

A lesson for all business owners.

By Craig Arthur

The first question we ask when talking with a potential new client is…
"How will you measure success?"

The answer determines their North Star. (the destination) Together we can then start planning how to get there. And part of getting there, is deciding what to leave out. What to sacrifice.

The recent Olympics is a good case study.

Every athlete participating decided years beforehand what they wanted to achieve. Their North Star. It could have been:

    * a gold medal
    * any medal
    * to make the finals
    * to make the team

Regardless, all had to make sacrifices. They gave things up to achieve success.  But let us look beyond the athletes, to host country China.

China was on show to the world. It too could achieve success by demonstrating to the world its point of difference.  So how did its leaders answer the question, "How will you measure success?" By building the games around 3 core values.

    * Efficiency
    * Precision
    * Team Work

On all three core values China won Gold, and set world records. And just like Michael Phelps and Stephanie Rice, China can now parlay their winning performance into big business dollars.

But to achieve success, China made sacrifices. People raved about the efficiency, but said it was lacking fun and atmosphere.

That didn't matter. Atmosphere was not how China was measuring success. And China understands you don't need to please everyone to be successful.

Now to London. How can they possibly compete with China's performance? How can they impress and be different?

There is talk London will build their games around the core values of Fun and Atmosphere. To do this they will have to sacrifice efficiency and precision. The exact opposite of China. We call it Counter Branding. A smart move. I hope they do it.

So what are your core values?
What is your North Star?
And what are you prepared to sacrifice to achieve it?

Are you ready to go for gold?

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Answer This Question...

“Is a sale closed with a hand shake or on the delivery of your promise?” - Mandy Elliott, Kelly Services Townsville

Your reputation is determined by your answer.

How Strong is Your Brand?

Sorry... Name Recognition Isn’t Branding

By Roy H. Willams

“Getting your name out” isn’t worth much when there’s no mental image attached to your name. Unaided recall and top-of-mind awareness are excellent ways to measure name recognition, but they don’t tell you anything about the strength of a brand.

York, Lennox, Rheem, RUUD, Carrier, Bryant, Trane, Armstrong, Friedrich and Fedders are leading brands of air conditioners; you’ve probably heard of some of them. But do you have significant feelings about any of these companies? Although their executives would never believe it and their advertising agencies would violently deny it, these companies’ branding initiatives have failed.

But each of them thinks they have a strong brand.

Branding is much more than name recognition, a color scheme, a logo and a slogan. Brand essence is the complex mental image summoned by a name, even when that name is heard only silently in the mind. (Unlike a mere visual image, a mental image is a complex composite of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, opinion and mood.) Brand essence is everything a brand stands for in the heart of the customer.

What does your brand stand for in the heart of your customer?

Click to read more ...

When Learning... Open Your Mind

"I am paid shocking amounts of money because I write ads that bring in customers. Yet when I attempt to describe how to sell art, for example, the lesson quickly degenerates into a discussion of what is 'true' art, versus artists who 'sell out.' The emotions and opinions of the unlistening student bubble over the top and out the ears and any lesson is instantly ended." – Roy H. Williams

Marketing to Employees

5 Strategies to Attract & Retain X & Y Workers
By Craig Arthur

"As business owners, we now need to create a business that is attractive to both customers and employees." - Craig Arthur

When I speak with business owners about their “Limiting Factors to Growth,” finding and retaining good people is always in the top three.

Last week I was invited to a presentation titled “Managing a Multi-Generational Workforce,” by Rhonda Thorburn, the regional Director for Kelly Services, Australia.

As a rough guide, below are the year brackets that determine the generations.

• Silent Generation: Born between 1922- 1945
• Baby Boomers: Born between 1946-1960.
• Generation X: Born between 1961-1980.
• Generation Y: Born between 1981-2000.
  

How to attract and keep good people is a growing problem for all businesses, across all industries, especially so when we talk about Generation X and Y.

So how do we specifically attract and retain these younger employees?

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Strategy - The Secret to Advertising Success

"Impact in advertising today is 80 percent strategy, 20 percent copy. This makes it nearly impossible for good copy to compensate for weak strategy." - Roy H. Williams