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Business lessons from “Green Lantern”

June 24, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

Yeah, yeah, the movie sucked. If you haven’t seen it yet, save yourself $10 and add Green Lantern to your Netflix cue, instead.

Still, business owners can learn one important lesson from the superhero in green tights — or more specifically, from Ryan Reynolds, the actor brave enough to don that silly costume.

In the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, the cover story is entitled “Why I’m Obsessed with Ryan Reynolds,” and it’s written by Reynolds himself. (Okay, it’s probably written by his publicist, but you get the idea.) It’s a meant to be a self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek ode to the actor who got his big break in a forgettable sitcom called Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.

Reynolds takes on the voice of a reporter, writing about his career in the third person. He manages to reveal a lot about his background, struggles and eventual success without sounding like the typical, self-absorbed movie star. Take this passage, for instance:

“As child actors go, he was somewhat unusual. He was never arrested for soliciting a prostitute outside a church or finishing up a weekend of hard partying with a messy stabbing death. Instead he maintained a fairly normal life, playing sports, going to school, and spending time with his family. Much of this is due to the fact that he was a somewhat unsuccessful child actor.”

Then there’s this little gem:

“After moving to Los Angeles at the tender age of 19 — armed with only $600 and a rape whistle — he quickly established himself as one of Hollywood’s most dynamic and immensely talented waiters.”

Here’s a guy who makes something like $10 million for a few months’ work, yet he manages to sound like someone you’d actually enjoy hanging out with. By contrast, a lot of small business owners manage to leave just the opposite impression when they describe themselves in press interviews or their website’s “About” page. It’s a tricky balance, trying to sound serious and successful without coming across as pompous or arrogant. Likeability is crucial in building business relationships, and nobody likes a braggart.

That’s why humor is a brilliant device for talking about yourself without seeming full of yourself. If you’re having a hard time getting it right, ask your spouse or your best friend how they would describe you if they were giving a toast. That’s the kind of tone you’re going for — heartfelt and sincere, yet light and upbeat.

Writing about yourself in the third person is a good exercise, or imagine that you’re answering a reporter’s questions about your career. If all else fails, hire an actual reporter or consultant to tell your story for you. A few really good paragraphs won’t cost much, but they’ll likely pay dividends well into the future.

(Publicity still from Green Lantern, copyright Warner Bros.)

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We Who?

June 21, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

Don't be a nameless, faceless "we"

Sweeping generalizations are usually a waste of time, but here’s one that’s worth carving in stone: A small business should never hide behind “we.”

We is faceless, generic, bureaucratic and impersonal — everything that a small business does not want to be. We is the kind of pronoun you use to shift blame or protect your anonymity. We is for Walmart, Warner Bros. or some other giant corporation where interchangeable, middle-aged men in suits make decisions by committee and focus group.

Small business, by contrast, is all about personality and connectedness. Whether you have a shop on a Main Street or a virtual storefront on the Web, customers want to put a face on your business — and they can’t do that when you’re hiding behind a “we.”

Case in point: This morning for SmartBrief on Small Business, I was trying to write a little item that featured a company called Ebookling, which helps authors publish and promote their e-books. I like their business model, and the site is written in a light, cheeky tone that I find appealing. I was intrigued enough that I clicked through to their “About” page in order to find out more. “Hey, I’m a writer,” I thought. “Maybe this is someone that I’d like to work with in the future.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the someone that I was looking for. Instead, I got a very corporate-sounding overview with phrases like:

  • “Ebookling is…”
  • “Our aim is…”
  • “We hope to provide…”
  • “If you have any questions … shoot them along to the Ebookling staff”

The Ebookling staff? When I read that, I envisioned hundreds of drones toiling away in cubicles. If I want a big, impersonal publishing site, I’ll just go with Amazon.com, thanks.

I mean absolutely no disrespect to the folks at Ebookling; I just wish I knew who they were.

What’s your background? Why did you start the business? What drives you? What do you hope to accomplish? What are you all about? Those are the questions that every small business should be answering in order to create a connection with their customers.

Answer with a name. Answer with a photo. Answer with an “I,” not a “we.”

(Photo by flickr user victoriapeckham)

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Repetition kills communication — I swear

June 13, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

I’m always on the lookout for good commCursing marketing marcom copywritingunications research, so I was intrigued by this report on the purported benefits of swearing.

Researchers at Keele University asked students to hold their hands in ice-cold water while repeating either their favorite swear word or a more G-rated term. The result: Foul-mouthed students could tolerate the cold an average of 40 seconds longer than those who chose a more socially acceptable word.

Keele’s Richard Stevens speculates that swearing triggers circuitry in the part of the brain that processes emotions such as anger and fear. By activating a fight-or-flight response, the amygdala appears to increase the heart rate and decrease sensitivity to pain.

But here’s the rub: As you swear more often, the words lose their “emotional potency,” and the physical response stops kicking in. Swear words become ho-hum, as far as the brain is concerned. That torrent of profanity barely registers anymore. “$%#!,” says your mouth. “Yawn,” says your brain.

What’s the takeaway for marketers? Once again, science reinforces what your English teacher tried to tell you: It pays to choose your words carefully. If profanity can lose its punch, imagine how easily your copy can lose its kick. All those flowery promises about “exceeding expectations” or “providing the highest level of customer service”? At this point, your customers have seen it a million times, and the words mean exactly nothing. “Yawn,” says their brain.

This is a case where censorship is a good thing. Cut out the marketing jargon as if it were the foulest of four-letter words. You wouldn’t swear at your customers, would you? (Not to their face, anyway.) I would argue that boring them is just as rude and unforgivable.

(Photo by flickr user joshjanssen)

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The problem with business (super)models

June 8, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

Chances are, you know someone who’s at least mildly afflicted with body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD. No matter how strict their diet or how intense their workouts, they can never be happy with how they look. Some psychologists believe the rise in BDD can be attributed in part to the impossible ideal of physical beauty that we get from the modeling industry. (Let’s face it, no matter how often I hit the gym, I’m never going to look like Antonio Sabato Jr.)

Don't distort your business imageThe funny thing is, some entrepreneurs suffer from a similar affliction — business dysmorphic disorder, for lack of a better term. Facebook, Groupon and other fairy-tale startups are the supermodels of the business press, and venture capitalists are the tastemakers who decide what a beautiful business plan looks like. Instead of cheekbones and chest measurements, we obsess about pre-money valuations and product/market fit. If you don’t have a billion-dollar exit strategy, it’s easy for a lifestyle entrepreneur to feel ugly and unloved.

When hyper-growth is the model that gets all the “oohs” and “ahs” and catcalls, some entrepreneurs try to project an image that doesn’t really fit. They tell their story in such a way that they look bigger or more ambitious or more aggressive than they really are. After all, isn’t that what customers want?

In most cases, I think the answer is no. Big and fast-growing is what the press wants. It’s what venture capitalists and policymakers want. But customers generally want to deal with someone that they’re comfortable with, someone they can relate to.

When telling your story, don’t be ashamed of humble beginnings or modest ambitions. Don’t pretend that your business is the sum of your life. Resist the urge to create a myth. Instead, acknowledge the help you got from others, or the boost that you got from dumb, blind luck.

How does that look in practice? Take a look at Tim Berry’s account of why he started his business:

When I left a good job at Creative Strategies and started on my own, in truth it was not because of something I wanted to build, not because of a creative vision, but rather because I thought I could make enough money to keep my family whole and do what I wanted.

In other words: “I was running away from boredom, not building castles.”

Humble, charming, open — this is someone that you want to cheer for and someone that you’d consider doing business with. It’s not the kind of story that gets you in front of VCs or onto the cover of Fortune magazine, but it’s precisely the kind of story that attracts new customers.

And that’s a model worth emulating.

Filed Under: Communications, Lifestyle Business Tagged With: , , ,

When disaster strikes, tell your story

June 7, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

fire extinguisherPsychologists say talking through your feelings is a good way to recover emotionally following a disaster — and maybe economically too, as it turns out.

In case you missed it, Bruce Buschel has a heart-rending account of the Memorial Weekend fire that shut down his new restaurant, Southfork Kitchen, just when things were starting to look good for the summer season. Buschel is careful to count his blessings — no injuries, quick firefighters, good insurance and the like — but his pain is apparent in every sentence. Take these, for instance:

Behind the stainless steel wall, in the cavity behind the ovens, inside the fire-rated dry wall, spreading to the two-by-six wooden studs, something was smoldering. Behind the steely façade, in the fatalistic part of the psyche, somewhere between my heart and my wallet, something was smoldering all right.

For any small-business owner who’s endured a tornado, flood, fire or some other disaster, that smoldering anguish is something you can surely attest to. But the shock of recognition isn’t limited just to entrepreneurs. In the days after Buschel’s blog post, dozens and dozens of ordinary readers reached out with condolences, advice and support. When Southfork reopens — and we can only hope that day will come soon — the restaurant will no doubt enjoy new reservoirs of goodwill.

The irony is that Buschel may have squandered some goodwill earlier this year with a series of earlier posts that seemed to attack the PR industry. I noted at the time that he had lost control of his narrative, veering into an ugly and very public shouting match that did nothing to advance his business.

Through it all, Buschel kept blogging, got back to his original narrative and rebuilt his brand. Now that he’s opened a vein and shared the pain of his restaurant fire, only the most jaded cynic would continue to bear him any ill will over the earlier dust-up.

Thanks to his candor, transparency and eloquence, Buschel has more than regained the love he might have lost earlier — proof that good storytelling is not only therapeutic, but also redemptive.

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Biography building block #2: Characters

March 25, 2011 By rjones 1 Comment

Compelling characters make business biographies come alive

Note: This is the second installment in a series on writing your “business biography.” Part I, which focused on origins, can be found here.

Is there anything worse than a story with flat, uninteresting characters? (Admit it, you sat through Star Wars Episode I out of a sense of duty, not because you gave a crap about Queen Amidala.)

If your business biography is going to keep customers coming back for repeated sequels — i.e., shopping trips — then you need to convey a vivid sense of who you are and what you’re all about. When customers want nameless, faceless efficiency and everyday low prices, they’ll go to Walmart. As a small business owner, you can’t compete with that, but you can offer something that no one else can: a little piece of yourself.

This is why the “About Us” page is one of the most critical pages on your website. It’s where you connect with customers on a human level, get them involved emotionally, and make them feel like they have a stake in your success. Your characters come alive even more with blogging, tweeting, and other social media tools. In other words, anywhere that you can infuse your company with personality and humanity, you’re helping to set yourself apart from the competition.

There are two objections I hear all the time when I’m working with owners to “flesh out” their business biography with more interesting characters.

  1. “I’m not comfortable talking about myself.” Hey, I get it. As a nice Baptist boy, I was likely to get my mouth washed out with soap if my mother caught me bragging. But there are ways to get around this hangup. My favorite tool is self-deprecating humor. It’s hard to be accused of bragging when you’re poking fun at yourself. Plus, there’s nothing more human than a character with faults. If you’re a serious professional who doesn’t take yourself too seriously, you’re instantly more likable than a boastful know-it-all.
  2. “I’m not that interesting.” See, you’ve already learned to be self-deprecating! But seriously, no good story has just one character, so if you think you’re a little “flat,” you’ve got the perfect excuse to shine the spotlight on your supporting cast. Wegmans, the mid-Atlantic grocery chain, does a great job of this. More than 30 different employees contribute posts to the company blog, adding plenty of personality to a fairly boring retail category. Or check out the bio blurbs at MAKEaDEAL, where the entire team gets to share their hobbies and “the best deal you’ve ever gotten” — perfect for a name-your-own-deal shopping site.

Take a look at your “About” page and ask yourself how much personality you’re conveying. Better yet, use some friends as a focus group. Do they get a sense of who you are just from your copywriting? If not, ask them what they like best about you that you’re failing to convey through your website.

In business, as in cable TV, it’s always good to live by the motto, “Characters Welcome.”

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Building blocks of a business biography: Origins

March 22, 2011 By rjones 1 Comment

Robert Remini, Life of Andrew JacksonBack in my grad school days, I had the privilege of serving as a teaching assistant to Robert Remini, the distinguished historian who wrote prize-winning biographies of Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster, to name a few. He’s the one who taught me that good storytelling isn’t just for novelists and filmmakers. Whether your genre is history, biography or business writing, many of the building blocks remain the same.

In honor of Prof. Remini’s upcoming 90th birthday, I thought I’d start a series on what makes for a compelling business biography. Your story, after all, is what sets you apart from every other business operating in the same space. Who you are, where you come from, the obstacles you’ve faced — those are  the swirls and ridges of your unique company fingerprint. You want to leave those fingerprints on every page of your website and every customer interaction, letting people know exactly who they’re dealing with and turning every purchase into an interaction, not just a transaction.

A good story needs a good beginning, so let’s make origins the first building block of your business biography. We’ll get to your personal history later in this series; for now, let’s focus on the origins of your company. You’ll want to answer two primary questions:

  • Why did you start the business? What was your inspiration? What did you hope to accomplish? TOMS Shoes is a compelling brand because founder Blake Mycoskie constantly tells the story of how he was moved by the plight of shoeless children in South America. Maybe your story isn’t quite that inspiring. Maybe you “just” needed the money. But again, the question is why? Were you laid off from your job? Divorced by a cheating jerk? Every origin story has its own drama. The key is to find it and communicate it effectively.
  • How did you start the business? Unless your last name is Bush or Hilton, you probably struggled to turn your idea into reality. Maybe you took night classes, held down two “real” jobs or mortgaged the house. All those things make for a great story, so find a way to let your customers know. Sweet Leaf Tea does a great job of this, putting a “scrapbook” on its website with photos and captions that explain the founders’ struggle. (Pillowcases for tea bags? A delivery van with 200,000 miles on it? We can all drink to that.)

Think there’s nothing interesting about your origins? Maybe you should get a second opinion. We’ve lived with our own stories for so long that it’s often hard to identify the dramatic arc. Tell your story to someone else — a spouse, a consultant, even a customer — and ask what they think is interesting. MAKEaDEAL on the iPhone

As a reporter, I’m constantly stumbling across businesses that are far more fascinating than they first appear. Take a company called MAKEaDEAL that I recently wrote about for SmartBrief. They have a smartphone app that could change the face of retailing by allowing customers to request low-price bids from multiple merchants when they’re ready to buy a specific item.

It’s a cool technology, to be sure, but what I really love is the company’s why and how. Founder Todd Chipman isn’t some college kid looking to be the next Mark Zuckerberg. Instead, he’s a husband and father who noticed a rash of small-business closings on the main street of his hometown and started to think about ways that technology could change the marketing equation. Rather than selling out to venture capitalists, he sold his vintage car and bootstrapped the company through more than two years of development, using local pizza parlors and other small businesses to test his prototypes and work the bugs out.

Here is a link for Chipman’s MAKEaDEAL site, and this is a link to Foursquare, a competing service. Now ask yourself this: Which company would you check out first? If the origin story behind MAKEaDEAL tempts you to go find out more, then here’s a final question for you:

Why aren’t you using the power of origins in your own business biography?

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Whose story is it, anyway?

March 4, 2011 By rjones 1 Comment
Don't let critics drive you off-course

Don't let critics drive you off-course

A wealthy seaside resort town. A prominent local businessman. A mysterious stranger. Drama, intrigue, and murder.

Sounds like a Hollywood script, doesn’t it? Well, there’s no murder involved — thank goodness — but all the other ingredients are part of a potboiler going on over at nytimes.com.

Last week I wrote about Bruce Buschel, a first-time restaurateur in the Hamptons who got zero media placements out of his $4,500-a-month PR firm. When Buschel blogged about his frustrations, his post generated nearly 80 responses — many of them angry missives from PR practitioners who accused him of being an ignorant, impossible client.

Buschel ended his original post hinting that his next entry would explain how Twitter turned around his PR woes. Well, he posted again yesterday, but it wasn’t the Twitter story his followers were looking forward to. Instead, Buschel reprinted an entire comment from a single, unknown critic, then proceeded to pick it apart line by line, justifying his own role in the PR fiasco and damning the industry that had let him down.

It was such a rambling, angry, self-destructive rant that I half expected him to mention his “tiger blood” or “Adonis DNA.”

I’ve been a longtime fan of Buschel and his blog, but this particular post could go down as a textbook case of the dangers of  social media. If you’re an entrepreneur active with blogging, Twitter or Facebook, there are several important lessons here:

  1. Stay in control of your story. Buschel is a great blogger because his story is an adventure, a quest, an autobiography of a man taking a leap into the unknown. As readers, we can’t help hoping that he will overcome the odds and write a happy ending for his entrepreneurial story. But when he veers off-course for an ongoing debate with the PR industry, that storyline gets lost in all the back-and-forth sniping.
  2. Ignore the critics. When you open yourself up to comments, inevitably there will be some people who take pot-shots at you. Ignore them. They don’t matter. Your audience is emotionally invested in you, so they are predisposed to take your side. Their sympathy can even work in your favor, as long as you avoid getting down in the mud. Remember: The only critics that matter are your customers (and even then, a debate is almost always counter-productive).
  3. Proving a point doesn’t improve your business. Buschel just might be right in this debate, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. The state of the PR profession has absolutely nothing to do with the bottom line at Southfork Kitchen, and alienation is a high price to pay for vindication.

This whole saga proves again that the potential of social media is matched only by its pitfalls. As Uncle Ben told Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Use the power of social media wisely … or risk getting caught in a web of your own making.

Filed Under: Communications, Social media Tagged With: , , ,

Even do-it-yourselfers need a pro sometimes

March 3, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

If you’ve spent even 60 seconds reading writingthis blog, you know that I’m a big fan of DIY marketing. I firmly believe that Web 2.0 gives entrepreneurs all the tools they need to build a brand by telling compelling stories directly to their community.

But let’s face it: Just because you have a fancy toolbox, you’re not automatically a master craftsman. Heck, I own a hammer, an electric screwdriver and a level, but I wouldn’t try to build my own kitchen.

I thought about this again the other day as I was reading a blog post by a social media expert who’s been named a “top 100 blogger” by one of the many groups that publish such rankings. He’s got helpful content and an active community, but his spelling, grammar and syntax are beyond bad. I’m sure he’s a smart guy, but he comes across as sloppy and disorganized in his posts. As a potential customer, I’m left to think: “If he’s this unprofessional with his own stuff, why would I entrust him with my stuff?”

(I’d love to give some specific examples, but inevitably someone would recognize the material, and word would get back to the blogger, and he’d go all Charlie Sheen on me. But trust me, it’s bad. And you know it happens because you’ve seen it too, and I’ll bet you had the same reaction.)

This isn’t about feeling superior. We all have different skill sets and different types of intelligence. I happen to be strong verbally and analytically, but I’m the first to admit that I suck at math and mechanics and team sports; that’s why we have CPAs and repairmen and ESPN.

As an entrepreneur, it’s important to recognize your own weaknesses and do your best to make up for them. If you know you’re bad at things like grammar, syntax and spelling, here are some things to keep in mind:

  • Different mediums have different rules. Twitter is very forgiving, Facebook somewhat less so. Blogging requires the highest level of polish, so spend a little more time before hitting that “Publish” button.
  • There are tools to help you. Instead of typing directly into a publishing platform, try starting with Microsoft Word, which generally does a better job of flagging possible errors with those red or blue squiggly lines. For even greater certainty, try inexpensive Web tools such as Grammarly.com or PaperRater.com.
  • There are people to help you. Yes, I do communications consulting, so this probably sounds like a shameless plug. But unless you’re writing for a very large audience and a lot of money is on the line, hiring a pro might not make a lot of sense. Instead, try approaching a writing instructor at your local college and asking if there are any students who would be interested in proofreading for you.

What do you think? Are there any options I’ve forgotten? How do you make sure you’re presenting your most professional image to the world?

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When everyone’s a storyteller, who needs PR?

February 25, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

If you have a great story and you still can’t get any good PR … maybe you need to reconsider your definition of PR. No PR gatekeepers

That’s my takeaway from this week’s New York Times blog post by Bruce Buschel, who hired a $4,500-a-month PR firm to publicize the opening of his new seafood restaurant in the Hamptons. Buschel had no lack of good stories to tell:

  • He was pioneering sustainable seafood in the Hamptons
  • He was sourcing wine and produce locally
  • He had snagged a chef with a Michelin star

As if that weren’t enough, Buschel himself is a great story, with a background in filmmaking and Off Broadway musicals.

So many stories, so little time. And yet, according to Buschel, with just a few weeks left before opening day, his high-priced PR firm had failed to line up a single article about Southfork Kitchen. Needless to say, there was finger-pointing, soul-searching, and eventually a parting of the ways. Here’s what Buschel learned from the experience:

What I have finally come to understand is that P.R. people are paid to twist reality into pretzels and convince you that they are fine croissants. At some point, they actually believe their own concoctions.

Harsh? You bet. But Buschel is hardly the first entrepreneur to feel betrayed by a PR campaign gone awry, and he certainly won’t be the last. In fact, disappointment with professional PR will probably only grow, and the reason is simple:

As gates disappear, gatekeepers are increasingly irrelevant

Think about it: Traditional media outlets used to serve as gatekeepers to the public consciousness, and PR professionals used to serve as gatekeepers to reporters and editors. You had to pay one gatekeeper to put you in touch with another gatekeeper who listened to your story and decided if it was worthy of a public telling.

But media doesn’t work that way anymore. The Internet is like one big bonfire where the whole world gathers to be informed and entertained. If you have an interesting story that you tell consistently and well, the Web grants you unfiltered access to a whole world of listeners.

Buschel thought he needed a paid PR campaign to create buzz for his restaurant, but with a blog and a Facebook page and other social media channels, Southfork Kitchen was already as buzzy as a soccer stadium full of vuvuzelas. Why pay $4,500 to add a kazoo?

Filed Under: Communications, Marketing Tagged With: , , ,
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