Guy Richards / Ordinary Life with a Brand Strategist

#11 / Marketing a Service

How to market a service for Mike F. In NYC across from Trump.

#11 / Marketing a Service from Guy Richards on Vimeo.

#10 / What I learned at Convene...outsourcing or leadership?

This clip is about what I learned from a man who buys declining manufacturing businesses and turns them around.

#10 / What I learned at Convene...outsourcing or leadership? from Guy Richards

Webisode #5 / Teaching an Entrepreneur

This short webisode illustrates an unorthodox view of creating an entrepreneur.

Webisode #5 / Entrepreneur from Guy Richards on Vimeo.

Webisode #4 / Work For Free

Here is a webisode on the benefits of free work.

Webisode #4 / Lunch with a King of Africa from Guy Richards on Vimeo.

Trendsetters cause market reactions

Every market has a group of trendsetters.

Trendsetters cause market reactions. Good and bad.

Good market reactions cause market share growth.

Market share growth creates opportunities.

 

…as a brand leader you can use opportunities to influence those around you. Employees, vendors, competitors and those who pay for what you do.

Your brand is like a pair of binoculars

Your brand is like a pair of binoculars; it's only worth its weight when focused in.

Brand opportunity...Leadership or Followship?

Opportunity comes and goes, but the person who grabs it succeeds.

Tonight my wife screamed…”SPIDER,” and I had to quickly take hold of the opportunity, find something to swish it with before that little spider was under the baseboard and gone.

It had me think how all opportunity is the same way.

When opportunity comes, we…

1. Identify it
2. Weigh it out
3. Go after it or do nothing

I have realized that the brands that grab the opportunity, risk and all, are the brands that lead the market.

The brands that wait or always pass by opportunity are the ones that automatically claim followship.

Sustainability, the creative and the gatekeeper

So many good and innovate products never get global, national or even regional distribution. It’s as if the creators of these great products are at war with the channel distribution gatekeepers.

The channel gatekeepers understand that profitable sustainability is what is needed, but the creators reject this mentality because they do it for the love of using their gift to make great things. Not to gouge people. Well, that’s at least how creatives see it.

What would the market look like if these two could agree a little?

Little Wins

When you can continually win it creates excitement, even if it’s a small win. It’s because small wins are the footprints that lead to the desired “big goal.”

When we potty train our kids we reward with cookies as they keep their pants dry. The small win is getting through a day with dry pants, the “big goal” is making them self sufficient. Drug rehabilitation centers celebrate the small goals of day counting and milestone coins to help people live a life of sobriety.

The psychology is that if you can help a person focus on the step in front of them, before they know it they will be at the top of the staircase.

Momentum and the Snowball

Your business is like a snowball headed down a hill. The tighter the business systems and focus, the easier it is to catch momentum over time. The little flakes that the snowball pick up on the way are like small wins for your business that build it into a boulder.

But if you don’t pack the core of your snowball it will fall apart before it has the opportunity to catch momentum.

In short…pack your snowball tight!