Sixteen years ago (tomorrow), a wide-eyed, naive, shoot-for-the-moon, dreamer was given the greatest gift a person can receive. To hear the simple words “I do” from his soul mate. That dreamer was me.

Most of the time, that day seems like it was just last week … but when I think about all that has happened in that span of years, it amazes me that I’ve been able to get from day to day …€” considering everything that goes on in my life. Two handsome boys, multiple career changes, ten years of building a company, clubs, community involvement, house projects, three homes in two states on two coasts, good times, bad times (just like vows predicted). WHAT A RIDE!

In a nutshell, none of the best moments would have happened without the tolerance and unconditional love of my wife. She’s my “rock”, my “right hand”, my “muse” … my “HB”.

P.S. Yeah, this post was a tad personal for a business blog but I needed another tally mark in the “Top Dogs” category.

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“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
…€” Walter Bagehot

Do you have naysayers in your life telling you how to brand and market your company based on comments like “that’s just not how it’s done!”?? I recommend that you “have a blast” taking Mr. Bagehot’s advice!! I know I do!

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The “extreme two percent” occurs in almost everything we do.  For me, this realization affects much of my decision making.  Let me give you an example. 

At a restaurant 96% of the time the wait-person is, for the most part, courteous, honest, helpful, etc.  BUT, 2% of the time they’re sooooo awesome, I feel compelled to give them a huge tip, tell their immediate boss before I leave and then write a letter to the owner of the restaurant letting them know that their entire staff could take lessons from this gem.  Hang on, you say, “what about the BOTTOM 2%”?  Yep, you guessed it, they get an equal share of my attention … but not in the good way.  Sure I know that people have bad days and just don’t feel up to giving that extra little ooomph, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.  I’m talking about the service being so bad that it qualifies as being in the bottom two percent of ANYthing.  If we’re in a service industry, even on our worst days, we should be able to give mediocre service despite our own personal situation.  How often should service people TRY to be in the top 2%?….. I say 100% of the time but  expect to only get there (surprise) 98% of the time!

Want to hear an example of what constitutes as “the bottoom 2%”?  Check out Michael Ports post about Trumba.

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A la Nick Usborne (in his classic book Net Words) we use the term “velocity” to describe the power of taglines.  What’s a tagline you say?  Some call it a slogan, some call it a memory hook, some call it a motto … think “Just do it”.

Velocity, in this case, is a combination of two attributes;  MORE information and emotion and LESS words and letters.  The farther you take each of these attributes, the more velocity you get.  So, let’s look at “Just do it”.  There’s a huge amount of emotional energy and meaning behind just 3 words and 8 letters.  WOW!  From a velocity perspective, this could be the best tagline on the planet.  No wonder that when you bring up the topic, most people will use this as the example that first pops into their mind.  Coincidence … I don’t think so.

BUT, if we’re going for short, what about one word taglines?  Some examples:

• Hewlett Packard: Invent
• Honda: Thinking
• United Airlines: Rising
• Hertz Rental Cars: Exactly

Let’s Compare Honda’s “Thinking” with Apple’s “Think Different”.  There’s something about the combination of two or three words that adds nuance and extra meaning.  It’s the juxtaposition of those two special words that adds one of the key elements to the velocity of the tagline … information.  Don’t get me wrong, if you’re going to go short for the sake of making things easy to remember then using a single word works.  It’s just not  fast enough for my liking.

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Does EVERY employee in your organization impact the effectiveness and development of your brand? … even the Janitor?  If you didn’t have an instantaneous, leap-out-of-your-seat, outloud, tip-over-your-bowl-of-Cheerios, “YES” as a response, then you may need to re-think how you’re permeating your organization with a correct understanding of who you are.  Here’s a great post by Olivier Blanchard commenting on a recent BrandXPress post on how to “Brand through employee engagement”. Read it … Love it … Live it!

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Well, she taught me a lot, but one of the more important bits was to “not worry about what other people thought of me”. However, she has always lived with a standard of (as Spike Lee would put it) doing “the right thing” at all times and at all costs… which would be another one of her top 10 lessons. Other people aren’t as good at that as Mom.

What if you were a highly public official (like my Mom was for most of her life) who (unlike my Mom) got caught up in a scandal? Or, more commonly, what if you were an executive who was making a highly visible career change. My question is “does the concept of branding” really come down to the personal level? Can you develop and guide the brand of an individual? And, if so, would it really make a difference in an individual’s life? The answer is, indeed, YES!

Ask George Keyworth if he has a branding problem right now! Maybe a call to William Arruda is in order.

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I think I’ve heard that before!

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