One of the challenges in managing brands is to find the right balance between investing in developing the asset and delivering a positive return. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about a product, corporation or community. The tactical choices may be different, but the challenge is the same.

Profit or Growth? is a book authored by Bala Chakravarthy and Peter Lorange. The underlying premise of the book is that you do not have to choose between the two options, but can simultaneously pursue both through continual renewal and internal entrepreneurship.

In the context of a community, this means you can pursue sustainable economic prosperity without having to tax residents to a degree that their disposable income doesn’t keep pace.

The authors argue that growth and profitability can often be opposing forces. In a community context, an example would be population growth requiring an increased investment in services (e.g. building/expanding schools) that are funded by an increase in local taxes. Growth means more job opportunities so it is hard to characterize it as a bad thing. But, growth needs to be funded and when it translates into increased taxes it’s easy to see why some people might oppose progress. The authors would characterize this as a “performance dilemma” that needs to be addressed.

Four Strategies For Cost Effective Growth

Strategy #1 – Protect and Enhance the Core

This strategy requires a focus on continually improving the efficiency and effectiveness of current operations and assets. Think of it as a strategy to drive increased productivity so every tax dollar delivers improved value to residents. This is a proactive strategy. Think about all the programs funded by taxpayer dollars and determine how to reduce the transactional costs starting with the most expensive and working your way down to the least expensive. Imagine how many more initiatives the same amount of tax dollars could fund if waste was eliminated from the currently funded programs. Getting more value from the taxes currently collected is just smart.

Strategy #2 – Transform the Core

This strategy requires an objective assessment of what is genuinely working and what is not. You need to define which programs are providing real value in a cost efficient way and which are serving a small group of constituents and doing it poorly. Cost per resident served is a good metric to evaluate. If programs are judged as necessary, but cost per delivery is too high, then corrective steps need to be taken to ensure the tax dollars invested meet a minimum target return. This can be done through a productivity increase or an increase in the number of residents served. The solution will vary by program, but every program should be expected to meet a minimum performance criteria to ensure taxpayers they are getting value. This doesn’t mean every program must provide a positive Return on investment. There are some social programs that may be funded because from a societal perspective it is simply the right thing to do. But, every program can have a target performance measure it is expected to meet that drives efficiency into the service delivery. I appreciate how challenging this strategy is to execute because of the political pressure exerted by special interest groups. But, just because it is challenging doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be a priority and addressed. Programs that are judged to be ineffective should be evaluated for de-funding. Organizations receiving grants to deliver services that are judged to be inefficient should be put at risk of losing the grant to an Organization that can serve more people with the same grant dollars.

Strategy #3 – Leverage the Core

This strategy is about identifying operational strengths and focusing on finding cost sharing ways to deliver superior performance. In communities this can translate into exploration of public-private partnerships to deliver services previously only supported by government. It can look like consolidation of administrative services that ensure developed competencies in one area are applied across as many programs as possible. One specific example is a competency in managing federal funds. This tends to be a real skill set and can be reapplied across departments/programs within government that are supported by federal funding. Rather than reinventing the wheel, a training initiative can be developed with the intent of exporting talent from the department/program with high competency to departments/programs that can benefit from the expertise. Another example is to identify the people in government with unique capabilities that are key to efficient delivery of services and ensure their career path is not at risk with every political Administrative change.

Strategy #4 – Build the Core

This strategy is all about building competency. Hiring the right people with the right skills to manage program delivery can make a huge difference in productivity and cost. This is a strategy that can benefit from collaboration between the private and public sector to ensure best practices in the private sector are transferred to the public sector. The public sector can also help by making specialized skills available to the government on an as needed basis. Imagine if your local government had access to apolitical experts on process design and could tap into that expertise to help identify improvement opportunities. The performance gains could be impressive. It would be an effective way to help determine what work could be eliminated and how to lower cost while simultaneously improving service levels.

Discussion

The fact is at any point in time several of the strategies will be required to ensure results. In my mind, the key is to have a purposeful improvement process in place that identifies and eliminates non-productive work as well as incentivizing increased productivity. It is a constant battle to keep cost down and service levels high. But, the results can be to simultaneously deliver better results for more people with no increase in tax revenue. They have to be mutually exclusive outcomes. Cost effective growth is achievable. It just isn’t practically simple.

What Are Your Thoughts/Experiences?

I would love to hear stories of where you achieved improved productivity without a cost increase. What were the key drivers of success? Are there best practice local governments that we can learn from or at least can improve our optimism that cost effective growth is possible? What are the barriers to success that you see or have experienced?

More Resources on Strategy

If you would like to read additional posts about strategy and strategic planning, click HERE.

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It is rare that I find a presentation that positively impresses me. Even rarer if I agree with most of the content.

I want to share a series of presentations on branding I think are worth the time to look at. Idris Mootee, CEO of Idea Couture, authored the presentations four years ago. I recently tripped across them when doing a Google search.

The first thing you will notice is that Master Class week three is not listed. It is a module on luxury branding (http://www.slideshare.net/imootee/luxury-brand-marketing-keynote-germany). It was interesting, but I felt it was very narrowly cast and not as directly reapplicable in place branding as the information in other Master Class modules.

The second thing you will notice is that the modules are authored from a consumer packaged goods perspective. Please view that as a positive. It is often easier to understand the concept as it apples in the CPG context and then explore ways for reapplication in place branding.

Of course, the key is to understand it is the principles you need to focus on reapplying. Don’t get confused by the fact that the tactical expression of those principles will be different. Too many practitioners feel that branding communities is so tactically different than branding products or corporations they fail to see the similarities. While it is definitely true that branding a community is not the same as branding soap, I can assure you with confidence branding a prescription pharmaceutical is also different than branding soap. But, at P&G I came to appreciate how the principles of branding pharmaceuticals and soap (or paper, or cosmetics, or any of the P&G portfolio) are the same despite differences in tactical execution.

Master Classes

http://www.slideshare.net/imootee/brand-masterclass-week-one

http://www.slideshare.net/imootee/brand-masterclass-week-two

http://www.slideshare.net/imootee/brand-masterclass-week-four

http://www.slideshare.net/imootee/brand-masterclass-week-five-developing-brand-strategy-l

http://www.slideshare.net/imootee/brand-masterclass-week-six

http://www.slideshare.net/imootee/brand-masterclass-week-seven

Discussion

The better branded our communities are, the more competitive they will be for capital attraction, retention and expansion. The principles of branding go beyond simple promotion and image management. They include product development and identity creation. In the world of economic development this translates into a strategic framework for making forward looking decisions around asset creation, infrastructure investment and public policy reform. It is important to have a viable plan on where you are taking the community’s brand in order to assure sustainable economic growth and vitality.

For perspective, 20 states represent 80% of our Nation’s GDP. If the communities in those 20 states were able to become more competitive through successful reapplication of private sector branding principles, our Nation would in turn be more competitive. If economic development professionals in all 50 states sharpened their place branding mastery, the economic benefit could be huge in the aggregate.

That is the underlying premise behind the Strengthening Brand America Project. I think the Master Class series created by Idris can help move the peanut forward and I hope you take the time to review the information they contain.

What are Your Thoughts?

Did you find anything in the presentations that struck you as new or specifically applicable to your community’s efforts? Which of the principles have you has success in reapplying to your local efforts? Which have given you a challenge when you’ve tried to reapply them? Which do you feel are just too different that reapplication is not realistically plausible? Leave a comment, and let’s get a dialogue going on the tactical translation of product and corporate branding principles to the branding of communities. Also, let me know what you think of the Master Class series.

Full Disclosure

I am a new fan of Idris Mootee and have no business relationship with either him or Idea Couture.  I am simply impressed by the information in his Master Class presentation series and happy to recommend it to you on the basis of the quality content.

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Check Out My Free eBook On Strategic Planning

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I recently encountered a situation where a reader submitted a comment to a guest blog post that amounted to, in my opinion, a character assassination of the author. Since it added no educational value to the content of the post, I opted to reject publishing it.

But, it did get me thinking about the principles that should guide decisions an whether to accept or reject a comment.

Examples

The Blog Herald [hot link to http://www.blogherald.com/policies/] – This blog uses spam filtering and then reviews all comments after posting to delete those that violate their principles. I like the simplicity of their statement.

“We do not delete or censor comments unless they have content that:

• Is abusive
• Is off-topic
• Contains ad-hominem attacks
• Promotes hate of any kind
• Uses excessively foul language
• Is blatantly spam”

I readily admit I had to look up the definition of ad-hominem, but wasn’t surprised it means personal attack.

American Cancer Society [hot link to http://www.cancer.org/cancer/News/ExpertVoices/page/Blog-Comment-Policy.aspx] – The ACS has a little more extensive set of rules, but is also easy to understand.

“A comment will be deleted if it contains:

• Hate speech
• Profanity
• Defamation to a person or people
• Name calling and/or personal attacks
• Marketing copy that promotes services or products
• Comments that include links to URLs or email addresses
• Comments that infringe on copyrights
• Spam comments, such as the same comment posted repeatedly on a profile
• Other comments the ACS team deems inappropriate”

EPA Greenversations [hot link to http://blog.epa.gov/blog/comment-policy/] – This blog has a short, but comprehensive list of exclusion criteria.

“We reserve the discretion not to post comments that:

• Contain obscene. Indecent, or profane language;
• Contain threats or defamatory comments;
• Contain hate speech directed at race, color. Sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, age, religion, or disability; or
• Promote or endorse services or products. (Note that non-commercial links that are relevant to the topic or another comment are acceptable.)”

The above is just a sampling of links you get when Googling “blog response etiquette”. There are also links that provide valuable advice on how to think through a policy to manage blog responses. I was very impressed with the quality of information and ease of finding it.

My Proposed Policy

The Strengthening Brand America Project is a community of practice dedicated to catalyzing the transfer of branding knowledge from the private to public sector. Much of this knowledge is experience based, so my goal is to have minimal constraints on comments. The driving principle is that the comment should contribute to the educational value of the discussion. I also don’t want to discourage links to supplemental references to deepen the reader’s understanding of a subject; in fact I’d like to encourage it. In addition, I think it is an appropriate quid pro quo if somebody wants to share a link to their company or blog in exchange for the gift of their knowledge. With that in mind, here is what I am thinking makes sense as a policy for the Strengthening Brand America Project.

A comment will be disallowed or deleted if …

• It is judged to add minimal to no educational value.
• Is abusive in any way including personal attacks.
• Promotes hate of any kind.
• Uses excessively foul language.
• Is found to contain meaningful inaccuracies.
• Is judged to be fear based versus fact based.
• Is judged to be spam.

Note, links to secondary resources that deepen the reader’s understanding of the subject under discussion or to a URL that provides more information about the credentials of the author (e.g. company website, blog, profile page) are encouraged.

What Are Your Reactions or Builds?

I would love to hear your perspective about the proposed policy and any experience you would be willing to share regarding management of comments. What are the kinds of circumstances you find common? How do you handle a situation when you reject a comment and that person doesn’t take no for an answer?

Pay it Forward

If you have a Facebook account, become a fan of Strengthening Brand America. If you are a LinkedIn user, join the Strengthening Brand America Group. If you like twitter, follow BrandAmerica to keep track of updates on this website

Join The Strengthening Brand America Project

Take a minute and register. It is free to be a member. To make it easy, here is the link -http://eepurl.com/gVltn 

Check Out My Free eBook On Strategic Planning

http://strengtheningbrandamerica.com/blog/2012/03/new-ebook-on-strategic-planning/

The end of a month is always a time when I review the performance statistics for the Strengthening Brand America Project. I approach it with a mixture of both apprehension and excitement. Apprehension in case the data suggests a slip in interest. And, with excitement because I am always curious to see which topics garnered the greatest visitor attention that month.

As a reminder, the Strengthening Brand America Project is a community of practice. It is focused on creating an educational experience. The goal is to connect private sector marketers with economic development professionals to explore the reapplication of proven product and corporate branding principles to the branding of communities for capital attraction, retention and expansion.

The underlying hypothesis is that by making local communities more globally competitive for capital investment, in aggregate our Nation becomes more competitive.

I want to thank everybody who has participated to date and would like to encourage you, the reader, to help share the link to the Strengthening Brand America Project with your network. The more people participate, the richer the educational experience. As a community of practice, we are wiser than any one of us alone.

Visits Trend

I thought you might like to see the visits data from the start of the Project through the end of March 2012. I am genuinely appreciative of the interest and support, and believe the trend is heading in the right direction. But, I also know there is a long way to go before the vision of positively impacting our Nation’s competitiveness is realized. Your continued support in participating and helping to create awareness is important.

Top 5 Blog Posts in March

New eBook on Strategic Planning – This free eBook provides a perspective on how to create effective strategic plans to guide local community development. Strategic planning is a cornerstone of good branding. The eBook discusses it in the context of the emerging shale energy industry. But, any community interested in accelerating economic growth can use the process described. I have received a number of positive emails about this eBook. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to check it out. If you like the eBook, please share it with your local economic development professional team and elected officials.

Interview with Bob Skaggs, President and CEO of NiSource – I am working to create a series of interviews with executives across a wide range of industries. The better economic development professionals understand the needs of business executives, the better choices they can make to improve their community’s business climate. NiSource is deeply involved in the emerging shale energy industry, and industry that has important implications on our Nation’s ability to move toward energy independence.

Is Advertising a Waste of Money? – This discussion argues investing in advertising without a sound strategic rationale is always a poor branding decision. “Don’t blame the tool, blame the fool.” The comments from readers of this post are excellent and well worth the time to review.

The Only Limits Are Those of Vision – This post explores the need for brand builders to be able to articulate a brand vision and then accept the responsibility to consistently communicate that vision across all organizations involved in bringing it to life. The better people understand what you are trying to achieve, the better they will be able to support your brand.

Improve Your Communication Skills – Having a great idea is only half the equation for success. You also have to be able to communicate the idea in a way that others are compelled to support it. This post provides some important tips on how to create a winning presentation for your proposal. This is a key skill for any brand builder who wants to be successful.

Discussion

The Strengthening Brand America Project needs your on-going support in order to achieve its goal. There are three easy ways to help –

• Become a member. It is free to be a member. You will receive a monthly newsletter that keeps you informed on the Project. The plan is to build a sufficient member base that we can negotiate discounts on relevant services and make them available on a “members only” basis. The companies I have talked to so far have all asked for a membership number to determine if it is worth their effort to offer a discount. Consider becoming a member and help us provide this value added service. It is easy, just click HERE.
• Share the Website – Since the information is provided free, there is no money to advertise the website so word-of-mouth is critically important to build awareness. It would be great if you would share the Strengthening Brand America website link with people in your network that would find the information relevant.
• Share Your Knowledge – The value in a community of practice is to learn from as many people as possible. Every perspective helps add value. When you read a post that you find interesting, take an extra second to leave a comment. You can share your experience, raise a question, make an observation or even simply share a link to an article you feel is relevant.

I am very excited about some enhancements to the Project we are working on for 2012. I am also excited about a series of posts I am planning to write that will share my personal observations about China. I’ll be visiting the country later this year.

Once again, thank you for your on-going participation and willingness to share the Project with your network.  Leave a comment, I’d like to hear from you.

I have noticed that there has been a lot of discussion on the definition of brand and branding lately in the LinkedIn Groups I frequent. In part, I am not surprised. The advent of tools to help communicate directly with people has resulted in a revisit of the classic four P’s definition. The tools have shifted the focus from product to consumer. And with that shift comes an important change of perspective. It moves from product performance to consumer experience. To be clear, this is not a new concept. It is more like a pendulum shift in emphasis.

My Working Definition

Over the years, I have shifted my language to defining a brand as a promise. It sets an expectation of an experience. This shift makes it easier to explain the fundamentals to business people not schooled in branding terminology. They readily understand that when you make a promise it is good business practice to keep it, and that breaking promises is a certain path to business disaster.

The response to this definition has been overwhelmingly positive from business managers wanting to better understand how to use branding as a key strategy for accelerated success. It has received a mixed reaction from academics that prefer to stick with the traditional product focused approach discussed in innumerable textbooks used by MBA programs.

Where To Start

With small and medium businesses I find articulating the brand promise is often a challenge. It typically isn’t something that has had sufficient thought. Most of the focus has been on start-up challenges and branding has been a second priority.

Kevin Keller’s points of parity and points of difference model is a helpful tool to identify the unique value proposition of a product or service. I encourage you to read Kevin’s work. I think he is one of the brightest brand strategists of our time. His model encourages a comparative assessment to determine what he calls points of parity and points of difference. I describe points of parity as the ” ticket to entry” to compete in a category. These are attributes you need to ensure your product or service delivers to a degree similar to the competition. Points of difference are where a competitive advantage exists. My twist on Kevin’s model is that I call out both positive and negative points of difference. My rule of thumb for a point of difference is a statistically significant positive delta between the perceptual score for your product/service versus the scores of a relevant competitive set. Positive points of difference need to be maintained and the advantage expanded. Negative points of difference should be evaluated closely and you should invest in eliminating the competitive disadvantage of the most important. Neutralizing a disadvantage makes it a point of parity.

Market Research Matters

How do you know what your points of parity and points of difference are? How do you know if you’ve expanded the advantage you have with your positive points of difference and closed the gap on your negative?

The answer is to execute a quantitative market research study that asks respondents two important questions with respect to a list of defined attributes.

The first question is – “How important is this attribute to your capital investment decision (or purchase decision)?”.

The second is – “How well does the location (or product/service) perform on the attribute?”. The second question is asked for your location ( or product/service) and typically a set of 3-4 direct competitors so you can compare relative scores.

The market research firm will then calculate the statistical significance of the scores. Typically, it is calculated based on a 95% confidence interval (only 5% probability of being wrong). I like to have an 80% confidence interval because my experience suggests 95% is too restrictive, and frankly in business better than 50:50 odds is generally a blessing. Using an 80% level will result in more data points meeting the statistical significance test giving you more insight into relative differences.

Listen Hardest To Those With Experience

Armed with the quantitative assessment of the perception of your location (or product/service) relative to the competition you are now in a position to better determine what your promise is. My strong recommendation I to pay the most attention to the perception of respondents already doing business in your location, or who already have. Experience with your product/service. They have the most realistic view of your location’s (or product/service’s) relative strengths and weaknesses. Plus your goal, generally speaking, is to find more capital investors or consumer/customers who match the profile of those that have an experience with your location/product/service. Make the right promise and you should attract people with similar wants, needs and desires.

At a minimum, you know not to try and promise something the data argues is a negative point of difference for your community/product/service versus the competition.

Hopefully the above help up better understand what a brand is and how you can go about identifying a brand promise.

Discussion

Think about the definition of a brand as a promise.  What are the implications on your current approach?  Does it bring up any new thoughts or considerations?  Are you keeping or breaking your promise?  Is your promise relevant, competitive and authentic?  Could your promise be even stronger?  Let me know your thoughts.

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Take a minute and register. It is free to be a member. To make it easy, here is the link -http://eepurl.com/gVltn 

Check Out My New eBook On Strategic Planning

http://strengtheningbrandamerica.com/blog/2012/03/new-ebook-on-strategic-planning/

I have been fascinated with storytelling for a while now. The more I study the subject, the more convinced I am that structure matters and a good template can go a long way to helping you effectively tell your story.

Don’t get me wrong; a boring story that is well structured is still a boring story. But a good story formatted correctly can become a great story. So what is a structure that works?

Model

One model I have been playing with lately describes a story as four acts.

Act 1 – The set-up

Act 2 – The Conflict or Challenge

Act 3 – The Resolution

Act 4 – The Call to Action

Conceptually, this is an easy model to follow. But, it is challenging to execute well. One text I can wholeheartedly recommend is “Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth”. His research on the art of story telling is unparalleled. It opened my eyes to the underlying structure of telling a good story.

The four-step model above is not the same as Joseph Campbell’s classic hero’s journey. For perspective, one big difference is the inclusion of a call to action. This is a business specific consideration. It is included because telling stories in the world of business is intended to create a value exchange.  I tend to like the model because it is easy to implement for business communication.

I am sure you’ve heard the phrase that every play has a beginning, middle, and an end. This is called the “dramatic curve”. If you have had formal sales training, you may have been exposed to the dramatic curve described as problem set-up, product/service solution and sales close.

The set-up provides context. For example, “When looking for a site to expand your business the choices can be overwhelming and the data can be confusing.”

The conflict or challenge is a statement of your target’s need. To continue the example, “Sorting through the morass of information takes time, time you could be spending on solving business problems. You know how important selecting the right location is to the future of your business, but you begrudge the time it takes from solving today’s issues.”

The resolution is the description of your product or service as the solution.

The call to action is a relevant step that moves the reader toward an investment decision. It isn’t always a “sales close”, it may be a registration for additional information or an appointment to speak with a representative.

Ideas on Use

One of the first areas I have successfully used a story telling model is in writing electronic releases. I never understood why the structure of a traditional press release carried over into the electronic realm.

In case you are not familiar with electronic releases, they are business communications that are submitted to distribution services like PR Newswire or Business Wire. Traditional press releases are authored for reporters to get them interested in doing a story about your news. Electronic releases are authored for your target consumer and should be designed for that purpose. That is where the model comes into play.

You can also use the model when you think about structuring blog posts, promotional pieces and any other communication tactic you intend to share with your customer.

Five Tips

• Listen – Know your audience, their attitudes, beliefs, needs, and concerns.
• Be Personal – Build stories that respond to your audience’s specific needs.
• Encourage Interaction – Include a way for your target to interact with you. Examples would include registering for more information and providing feedback through a comment.
• Continue to Listen – Encourage feedback on your story and make appropriate adjustments to enrich your story and improve the reception.
• Think Around The Corner – The story you tell today should set the stage for the next chapter you will tell tomorrow.

Discussion

It will likely feel awkward at first to use the model as a guide to writing your business communications. But, it gets easier over time. Your biggest challenge may actually be convincing your Creative Agency (if you have one) to adhere to the model. They will argue it restricts their creativity. In my opinion though, it increases the odds your message will actually be heard. My advice is to stick to your guns and insist the model be used. You will find the consistency over time will make a meaningful difference in the impact your communication has on your target audience.

If you have a Facebook account, become a fan of Strengthening Brand America. If you are a LinkedIn user, join the Strengthening Brand America Group. If you like twitter, follow BrandAmerica to keep track of updates on this website

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Check Out My New eBook On Strategic Planning

http://strengtheningbrandamerica.com/blog/2012/03/new-ebook-on-strategic-planning/

Whatever the situation, to be successful requires a well conceived, aligned strategic plan and excellence in execution of the resultant tactical action plans. Without a strategic plan to guide decision-making, communities are like corks on the ocean rising and falling with each economic wave.

Occasionally, there are disruptive events that test the strength of any strategic plan and need to be addressed. It can be the loss of a major employer, the devastation of a natural disaster, or the unexpected emergence of a brand new industry.

I authored this eBook with the latter in mind. The emergence of the shale energy industry in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays is creating a disruptive impact on many rural communities in the nation’s Appalachian Region. A Region that has a history of suffering through boom-bust cycles related to the emergence of new industries (lumber, steel, and coal). My assessment is that in each case, the Region had an opportunity to leverage the new industry as a springboard to sustainable economic prosperity, but due to a lack of adequate strategic planning became a victim of circumstances.

Through my work with the Nemacolin Energy Institute and with Ohio’s Enterprise Appalachia Program, I have had an opportunity to talk with a wide range of people from both the public and private sector about the shale energy industry. I am absolutely convinced the difference between success and failure in creating sustainable economic prosperity for the communities impacted by the emergence of this exciting new industry is a function of the quality of the strategic plans that are in place and the disciplined approach to using those plans to guide local decision-making.

Foundational Models

This eBook leverages two proven successful models and attempts to integrate them into a reasonably easy process that can be implemented locally (with or without professional facilitation).

The first model is the OGSM process. This process was initially developed by Monitor, a globally recognized consulting firm. I have used the model on a number of occasions and found it to be an excellent way of driving choices and providing clarity on what the plan for success looks like. Monitor has a great article on its website titled “Dynamic Strategy Implementation: Delivering on Your Strategic Ambition”  that is worth reviewing. The authors cite three common reasons for strategic plan failure – 1) failure to create sufficient action plans, 2) failure to adapt the strategies to respond to major changes in the situation, and 3) failure to resource execution properly. It is important your community leaders talk through how to avoid these classic traps and implement policies/procedures that avoid the missteps and help ensure your chances for success.

The second model is the rural wealth creation modelwhich is a project of the Ford Foundation. The model defines seven forms of community wealth – financial capital, natural capital, social capital, individual capital, built capital, intellectual capital and political capital. The goal for a community is to ensure that a broad definition of wealth is used in guiding strategic decision-making.

The hybrid model in the eBook challenges you to use the rural wealth creation definition of wealth as a framework to assess the impacts of the shale energy industry on your community and then communicate the strategic choice implications within the OGSM framework. I believe this approach provides you advantages in the strategy design-to-deployment process. While authored with the shale energy industry in mind, any community that wants to proactively manage its economic prosperity in a way that helps ensure sustainability can use this hybrid model.

To be clear, the model in this eBook is not the only way to create a strategic plan for your community. But, it is a way I can confidently share with you. If you opt to use a consultant or Agency to help facilitate the strategic planning process for your community, chances are they will have their own trademarked approach. While it may get you to where you need to be, I would encourage you to make following the process in this eBook as a requirement of your RFP. They can adapt they approach to this model rather easily, and you will be certain that at the end of the exercise you will have a strategic plan with secondary action plans you can be confident in. As a heads-up, most consultants will be familiar with the OGSM model, but may not be familiar with the rural wealth creation model.

The eBook

Strategic Planning For Communities  [Note, in the eBook the special color text is a hotline to a resource.  Please use the resources for an even better understanding of the subject.]

Discussion:

I authored this eBook to help provide some guidance on how to address the community impacts of the shale energy industry. It is not intended to be a definitive manual for either economic development professionals or community leaders. But, I think it will serve to connect you with some solid resources to help you better understand what to expect and start you down a productive path that will lead to a strong collaboration between your community and the shale energy industry.

Because the information is provided at no cost, I need to rely on word-of-mouth to create awareness of the eBook as a resource. Please share the link to this blog post with your colleagues and anybody you feel might benefit from reading the eBook. If you opt to pursue the suggested strategic planning process, consider sharing the eBook with every member of the leadership team or task force that will be managing it. That way everybody will start of on the same page. If you have suggestions for additional aspects you would like to see information on, please leave a comment with your suggestions. I will be building out this new section throughout 2012.

In the near future, I plan to add as many interviews, best practices and resource links as possible. I would love it if your community is in the process of working with the shale energy industry that you consider leaving a comment that shares your learning and/or insights. Together, we are smarter than any one of us and this is intended to be a forum that harnesses that knowledge.

One caveat, it is not my intent to create a venue for controversy. All comments are reviewed for their educational content before being approved for posting.

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I spend most of my time now counseling economic development organizations on how to reapply corporate and product branding principles to positioning their communities for capital attraction, retention and expansion. My hypothesis is that better branded communities will in aggregate help create a stronger national brand for America. One area I am asked about fairly frequently is accessibility on the Internet.

The Challenge

Most communities have some level of Internet visibility. But, many are not getting the full value from this communication. In part, because they do not have a well conceived strategy and in part, because they naively subscribe to the philosophy of “Build it and they will come”.

Why is an Internet presence important for your community? If you are not in the economic development profession (or even if you are), you may find it interesting that Development Counsellors International (DCI) has conducted national research among corporate executives and found that for the capital investment decision 76% of the time a short list of locations to take into due diligence is created without ever speaking with your local economic development professional. That implies that 76% of the time your community’s image determines if it is included or excluded from the consideration set.

If companies are not speaking with your local professional, how are they doing their first pass evaluation of potential locations? In the majority of cases, they are conducting online research. Consequently, I believe ensuring your community is visible on the web is a mission critical objective. If you are in the private sector and have some expertise in Internet marketing, I encourage you to take a look at your local Chamber of Commerce website and offer any suggestions you might have to improve it. The help will be genuinely appreciated, and you might help make a difference in your local economic performance as a result.

The Path To Success

Fundamentals are important, so here are some tips on how to create an effective online presence.

Have a Purpose

Here is a timeless analogy, people do not want a 1-inch drill bit, they want a 1-inch hole. Visitors to your website are looking for a solutions to their problems.

If you try and create a website that is a little bit of everything, it will fail. It is important your website is focused on meeting the needs of a specific target audience and that it delivers the solution to those needs. Often websites are designed to satisfy the egos of the Organization’s leadership rather than deliver value to the target audience. This is always a mistake. At P&G, our mantra under A.G. Lafley was “The Consumer is Boss”. Everything we executed was designed with our target consumer’s needs in mind. Management’s measure of success was how well we met consumer needs, because they knew that satisfying our target consumers was the key to sustained success. The same is true whether you are promoting toothpaste (Crest) or your hometown. The purpose of your community’s website should be to meet the information needs of a potential capital investor and/or visitor. This purpose should guide all design and content choices.

Create Credible Content

It is important your website be more than simply an aggregation tool. It should also provide unique value. Nobody knows your product, company or community better than you do. It is important you help provide authentic perspective and insight to the visitor. The better you can make the experience, the more likely your website will achieve engagement resulting in repeat visitors. When promoting a community this is very important because the decision to make a capital investment (or travel plans) is rarely made spontaneously. You want to have the visitor reengage to learn more as he/she moves forward in their decision process and the need for additional information grows.

One of my pet peeves is websites that have broken links or out of date information. Whatever content you decide to include, commit sufficient resources to update it when required. Keep your content relevant by keeping it current.

I also believe you should provide counsel to the visitor about the data presented. If the data is not broadly projectable, explain the constraints so the visitor can make an intelligent assessment. It has been my experience that this type of contextual information is not only appreciated, but raises the overall credibility of the content on your website. It sends a strong message that you care about truly meeting the needs of your visitor versus simply “selling” them on your product, company or community.

Be Interactive

The real value of the Internet is the ability to engage with a visitor. Yet, so many websites avoid interactivity, or limit it to a Contact Us approach. Risks not withstanding, the more engaging you can make your website the more value it will deliver. Think in terms of adding capabilities that allow customization of the visitor experience so they can get to the information needed to address their need with as little wasted time as possible.

This is why blogs are so popular. They allow levels of interactivity visitors appreciate. Blogs involve the visitor and can provide a sense of your product, company or community character.

But, blogs are not the only interactive tool you can consider. You can include surveys to provide visitors with a way to share how to improve the value of your website. Chat forums are another good way to provide an opportunity for community participation. News feeds, letting visitors post their stories, and value added services like newsletters are all ways to help stay engaged.

Actively Prune

It is important you measure the performance of your website. If visitors are not interested in a section, evaluate why. If you determine it is not adding value, prune it. There is no reason to maintain information that your visitors do not access. Remember, it is all about meeting the needs of your visitor. If they do not find something valuable, either find a way to make it of value or eliminate it.

Make it Easy

Design matters. Your website should be visually appealing and simple to navigate. The more intuitive you can make it, the better received it will be. My strong bias is to design your site based on a solid understanding of the purchase decision. In my mind, the goal is to help facilitate that decision, so make it easy for the visitor to find the right information at the right time.

This is an area where professional help is valuable. Contracting with a designer can take your website from good to great. Considering the importance of an Internet presence, it could be funds well invested.

Be Strategic in Use of Social Media

I have posted on social media before. My main message is to have a reason for whatever you decide to do. Supporting a social media effort just for the sake of not missing out on something is a waste of time.

For more on the subject of social media, you may be interested visiting this link – http://strengtheningbrandamerica.com/blog/category/social-media/

Discussion

I have found that so much of being successful online is learned from the proverbial school of hard knocks. What are your thoughts on the keys to creating a great Internet presence? What tactics do you find most useful for engaging website visitors? What are some of the more successful strategies to drive website design or social media use?

I’d love feedback on the StrengtheningBrandAmerica.com website.  It uses WordPress, so if you have any suggestions on plug-ins that we should consider that will make your experience better, please share.

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I’m often asked about how you determine what the right promise is. After all, a product, company or community can promise many things. How do you figure out what the right thing to promise is?

Every Agency has its own trademarked process. They’ll share examples of how their approach  consistently delivers a winning answer to the question. But typically, the best approaches follow four simple steps.

4 Step Process to Defining a Brand Promise

Step #1 – Understand the current users of your product/service or the companies doing business in your community. Develop insights into why they prefer your offering versus the competition. These insights are critically important to successfully defining your brand promise. Many times this foundational step is cut short or glossed over altogether. Avoid the tendency to assume you already know the answer. Take the time to dig deeper. Approach the exercise with an open mind and don’t go into it with a pre-conceived notion. If you are not genuinely willing to listen and learn, then you are not ready to begin the journey.

It is important to understand what the important frustrations they face and desires they have. What do they believe related to those frustrations and desires? How well do they believe your product/service/community addresses these needs?

Step #2 – Create a list of potential promises you can make based on the insights you generated from step #1. You should be able to articulate which insight underpins each promise. Think in terms of completing this sentence – One of the key reasons current users select my product/service/community is they believe _____________, therefore if I promise people ____________________ they too will preferentially select my product/service/community over the competition.

Step #3 – For each potential promise, create a 1-page promise statement. At the top of the page clearly articulate promise. Then answer the question of how selecting your product/service/community will make their life better. There are three broad categories you can consider to answer the question. You can think about offering a new benefit that the competition doesn’t offer or focus on. You can offer a new combination of benefits that resolve a trade-off people know they would typically make today. Or, you can offer a new level of benefit. Now write three reasons to believe the promise is authentic.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example so you can visualize what a 1-page concept statement looks like. Take the scenario of a mid-sized community with a growing base of OEM manufacturing companies. In step #1 your research turns up that the ability to rapidly get parts delivered is mission critical to the success of the just in time production strategy they have built their profit structure around. As a result, you decide one promise you might make is that your location has multi-modal access capability that provides important redundancy in delivery options to ensure consistency in parts availability.

Promise – If you locate your business in our town, you have the assurance of knowing the risk of your production line being idled because parts can’t be delivered from your suppliers is minimized.

Reasons To Believe –

• Our town is located next to a multi-modal hub that provides access to air, rail, road and water delivery services.
• The three manufacturing operations in our town source parts from around the world and have never had to shut down production because available parts could not be delivered.
• The local College has a degree program focused on operations management and logistics training providing you have access to a labor pool of people skilled in just in time production management.

Note, at this stage the concepts are not written in promotional language. They are written in a factual and straightforward manner. Conversion to promotional language takes place after you’ve decided what the promise should be.

Step #4 – Test your promise statements. This can be done either through qualitative or quantitative market research (or a combination). The objective of this step is to identify the best statement of the bunch. Typically, bet is defined as the promise that is capable of creating the greatest level of interest to purchase. In the above case of the mid-sized community it would be determined on the capability of a capital investor wanting to select the community as a location to include in the short list of options taken into due diligence.

However, just identifying the best statement of the bunch is not sufficient. You must also determine if that promise is sufficiently compelling to create enough purchase intent to achieve your growth goals. If the answer is no, then your work is not done and you will need to repeat the process. It is rarely smart to invest behind promoting the best of a poor set of choices.

Discussion

Hopefully I have helped demystify the exercise of defining a brand promise. For most people, this is not work that is done routinely. As a consequence it is often smart to hire an Agency (or consultant) with a proven track record of success in facilitating this process. You can check their trademarked approach against the four steps described above. That will help you get past the bells and whistles so you can better evaluate how robust their approach actually is. In fact, I think it would be totally appropriate to author your RFP around the four steps to ensure you get value for your money. Beware of any Agency (or consultant) that proposes a solution without having done a thorough job of listening and learning (step #1). Regardless of their experience, your situation should be assumed to be unique until proven otherwise and they should approach it as such. If not, the process will be off on the wrong foot right out of the gate.

What is Your Experience?

If you have managed a process for defining a brand promise, how was it similar or different to what is described above? What did you find worked well? What problems did you encounter? If you could do it over, how would you improve the process you followed? How hard was it to get people on your team to suspend personal biases and let the data lead their thinking? While described simply above, defining a brand promise is as much an art as a science and experience with the process matters. Sharing your experience will help add some real world context to the discussion.

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At Procter & Gamble, written and verbal communication skills were heavily coached and great communicators were highly valued throughout the Company. I thought it might be helpful to reach back into my career and share with you some common mistakes people make in communication. Mistakes that P&G worked very hard to train out of their future leaders. If you avoid these mistakes, you should find your communication skills improving.

Some Typical Mistakes

• Giving too much detail. This is one I still struggle with. There is really no need to demonstrate how smart you are. It is not important to give 10 reasons why something is right to do. The more reasons you give, the more likely your conversation or presentation will get sidetracked. Private and Public Sector decision makers only care about the 2 – 3 most important reasons they should align with your point-of-view. In fact, the more reasons you provide the less confident they will believe you to be.

• Not answering the question that was asked. Sometimes we are so anxious to convince somebody that they should agree with what we are saying that we don’t take the time to listen. There is an old saying worth paraphrasing – God gave you two ears and one mouth, use them in proportion. If you don’t understand the question, clarify before attempting to answer it. If you need time to collect your thoughts, repeat the question. Don’t allow a question to get you too far off on a tangent. Answer the question and then get back on track. Try not to be defensive, and definitely don’t start defending your point until you truly understand the question being asked.

• Putting too much information on a handout or chart. Don’t allow the people you are talking with to turn their attention from you to reading a detailed handout. You make it easy for people to get sidetracked when you put too much information in front of them that is not truly relevant to your presentation. Highlight only the most important points you need to make.

• Not being responsive to the person/people you are speaking to. It is important to know your audience’s preferences for receiving information. Anticipate the data they need and be certain to present it in a format they are used to. It is more about effective communication than demonstrating your creativity. Watch their body language when you are talking. If they are nodding to what you are saying, move on. Be flexible and find a good balance between demonstrating your personal conviction and a willingness to be open-minded. It is important people feel that you are genuinely interested in finding the right solution rather than being right.

• Winging it or not taking care of the basics. You must be prepared and thoroughly understand your subject. I am often amazed at how often people do not do basic research on the internet to determine what is known about the subject matter. Another common mistake is to not declare what the meeting purpose is right upfront. It is important people know what you are looking to get from them. Also, share the agenda for the meeting with people so they know what to expect and can comfortable waiting to ask questions knowing information is coming up that may be relevant. And always summarize next steps to be certain agreements you thought were reached in fact were.

• Don’t bluff. It is perfectly fine to admit you don’t know an answer to a question. If it is an important question you can get back to the person with an answer. You are not expected to know everything. In my opinion, bluffing implies you do not respect the other person enough to be transparent. And, if you are caught bluffing it is the kiss of death from a trust perspective.

I am certain the above is not a comprehensive list. But, I think it is a good list. And, if you are making any of the above mistakes adjusting your behavior will definitely improve your communication skill.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Improving your communication skills is one of those never ending challenges. I always replay every presentation in my mind right after I give it. I always find things I could have and wished I had done better. What tips do you have for people working on improving their communication skills? What have you learned that you can pass on?

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