Transform or Inspire – Messaging to Start a Movement – Part 2

Oct 19, 2016 | Breakthrough Marketing

(This is a continuation of a multi-part post on igniting and leading a market Movement.  To start at Part 1, go here. )

Purpose or Movement Messaging, as I describe in Part 1 of this series, must either transform or inspire a business issue or society.  With the 4 types of message, inspiration or transformation, business or societal, we see how this message reaches above market context, to provide an even bigger purpose to our messaging.  In this post, I will show how my Viewpoint framework can be extended to also define a Purpose or Movement message.

Let’s take a quick look at the KJR Viewpoint framework as described in detail in my book Launching to Leading.  The Viewpoint framework tells a story that starts in the customer’s current reality, taking them in three steps to a Brave New World.  The Viewpoint Story wheel is shown graphically here:

                                      The Viewpoint Story Wheel

Our Viewpoint Story always goes something like this as described on page 68 of Launching to Leading:

• Act 1: One or more things in your world have changed and left you in today’s new reality.
• Act 2: If you depend on the expected solutions X and Y, which were built for the old reality, you will be left with unmet needs and/or missed opportunities.
• Act 3: What if you had an unexpected approach to X that was a re-imagined solution for today’s reality that looked like this.
• Act 4: Then you would end up in a transformed future state where you would solve problems and capture new opportunities in this transformed future state.

We can now build a Purpose or Movement message from extending this framework. Our Movement Message is built by the either cutting out steps 2 and 3, the how of the story, or by focusing strictly on the the transition between steps 3 and 4.  Let’s call these type T and type I Movement messages respectively, for Transformation and Inspiration.   These paths are shown in this modification of our Story Wheel:

The Viewpoint Paths to Inspiration and  Transformation

Now this is all starting to seem a bit theoretical, so let’s take a look at a couple of well know examples, one a which is an Inspirational/Society message and the other a Business Transformation one, Nike and Salesforce.com

Nike – Just Do It,  A Inspiration Movement Message

It may not seem obvious, after all of these decades, to not take the Nike Just Do It message as being a Movement starter.  Nike though, changed not just an entire industry and but our society with their Movement messaging. Let’s construct the Nike Viewpoint Story –

The story goes something like this.  Fitness is more important than ever.  However, before Nike, we were used to using generic “gym shoes” or “sneakers”, as specialized shoes were the purview of competitive athletes.  Nike said, our approach is to sell you the shoes that champions use, we all deserve the innovation and power of the Nike Brand.  With Nike, as our name means, everyone is a Victor!  Then 17 years after the launch of the Nike brand, they summed the movement up with the inspirational and now ubiquitous slogan, “Just Do It”.  Just Do It inspires us to be our own champion, how poetic, beautiful and inspirational.  Note, they did not go for the transformational message, which may have been as dull as “From Fitness to Victory…”

Salesforce.com – The End of Software, a Transformation Movement Message

Salesforce.com is one of the business success stories of the last 20 years. Founded in 1999, Salesforce.com now has a market cap of over $50 Billion.   They were the first of a long series of Software As A Services successes, and nearly every day in Silicon Valley, you hear the echos of entrepreneurs saying, “we will be the Salesforce of X”.  Let’s examine Salesforce.com’s Viewpoint Story –

The Salesforce.com story went like this.  The world has changed, we’ve entered the Internet Era, and must run our business at Internet speed. (Remember, this was 1999!).   However, if we continue to deploy old style Enterprise software, we will be subject to long slow and risky deployments. What if we took an approach where we use the Internet, and “cloud computing” (inserted into the story a few years later) , where your solution provider does the hard work for you?  Then you could operate your business at Internet Speed, and win and compete.  Salesforce.com summarized this transformation as “The End of Software”.  They drove this platform message for more than a decade with their ubiquitous end of software logo. Rather than explain the details, they simply said this!.

We’ve now seen two examples of Purpose or Movement Messaging.  In the next post, we will dive deeper into how to build your own Movement Messaging.  Until then, here’s another inspirational quote:

Don’t underestimate the power of your vision to change the world. Whether that world is your office, your community, an industry or a global movement, you need to have a core belief that what you contribute can fundamentally change the paradigm or way of thinking about problems. – Leroy Hood, Biologist and Inventor of Automated DNA Sequencing machine

Thinking BIG – Four Types of Messaging to Start a Movement – Part 1

Oct 17, 2016 | Breakthrough Marketing

You have a successful product line, you are a known leader of a meaningful market parade, sales are growing, and so is your valuation.  To quote a famous t-shirt brand, “Life is Good”.  Congrats.

THEN you raise the big round, make the big acquisition, start to worry about upstarts who are beginning to nip at your heels.  Or maybe the sales team needs to call higher, but feel they still are stuck at a functional level in the org.  Or maybe the messaging across products is straining for consistency and impact. There must be another step to your mission.

Of course, it’s time to start a movement. Time to say goodbye to your Flashmob and your Market Parade. But Movements are BIG and require new thinking.  It’s no longer about value, but it’s still about value.  It’s no longer about context or Viewpoint, but it’s still about context.  But to reach the next level of market leadership, it’s now about Market Transformation.  And to transform the vary market you exist in takes bold new messaging that is above the current context of the market, and seeks to enable and empower , to transform and inspire.  And not just your market, but the way we do business or even the society we live in.

In the last section of Launching to Leading, I introduce Purpose Messaging as the key to Igniting a Movement.   In the book, I suggest that up to 40% of your messaging in this phase should be dedicated to Purpose Messaging, and use the examples of Salesforce, Google and Zappos to demonstrate this. We also take a look at how Zuora is starting to build a movement. However, the book ends without any real guidance on creating Purpose Messaging.  This series of posts are meant to show how to build Movement Messaging.

First, it is helpful to understand the 4 different types of Purpose, or Movement Messaging.  Simply put, Movement Messaging can either be focused on Transformation or Inspiration. And it can seek to effect either Business specifically or Society more generally.  The four types of movement messaging are Business Transformation, Business Inspiration, Society Inspiration and Society Transformation, as shown in the following diagram:

Four Types of Movement Messaging

Let’s take a look at some examples and how they place on this framework. Many of these examples are mixes of the above, but all can be places somewhere on the diagram by weighting their focus.

• Example 1: Salesforce, “The End of Software” – A Business Transformation, enabling the adoption of Software as a Service instead of packaged software.
• Example 2: Zuora, “The Subscription Economy” – A Business Transformation, enabling the move from  purchase to leasing, everything!
• Example 3: Zappos – “Delivering Happiness”- A Business Inspiration, you are empowered to focus on happiness first, product and service are secondary to satisfaction
• Example 4: Nike – “Just Do It” – A Society Inspiration, you are empowered to play like a champion
• Example 5: Google – “Accessing the World’s Information” – A Society Transformation, everyone is enabled to find everything

These examples are mapped on our framework here:

Movement Messaging Example Mapping

As you can see, highly effective Movement Messaging can be built in any of these four quadrants.  Movement Messaging is all about purpose, it enables andempowers as it transforms and inspires.

In our next post, we will discuss how to develop your Movement Messaging as a natural extension to our Viewpoint Parade leadership framework. Until then, I leave with this short quote from Zappos Founder Tony Hseih:

“Stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion.”

For part 2 of the series, see here.

Politics, The End of Truth and What B2B Marketers Can Learn…

Sep 22, 2016 | Breakthrough Marketing

(Authors note: It’s no secret among my friends and family that I have a preference between the two candidates in this election.  However, I have tried to keep politics out of my business communications, and this blog will NOT try to be a case for voting for either of what I consider the worst pair of major party candidates I have seen in my lifetime.  Instead, I want to focus on what the current campaign can teach us about B2B marketing, so here goes nothing, wish me luck)

The 2016 Presidential campaign is something different than we have ever seen in my lifetime of voting, which dates back to the Reagan Era.   The cover story of the most recent September 10th edition of the Economist is entitled, “Art of the Lie: Post Truth Politics in the Age of Social Media”.   The economist observes of Mr. Trump, “He inhabits a world where Barack Obama’s birth certificate is faked, the Clintons are killers, the President founded the Islamic State, and the father of a rival was with Lee Harvey Oswald before he shot John F Kennedy” .  The article goes on to observe that Mr. Trump is not alone in his “Post-truth politics”, witness everything from the claims of the Brexit campaigners, to the justification of the massive “purge” of enemies in Turkey, and Putin’s post-truth that the people of Crimea were begging for the Russian annexation.

Facts, it seems in today’s political environment, mean little compared to what Stephen Colbert so elegantly coined in 2005 as “Truthiness”.  Colbert in an interview with the esteemed satire site The Onion, defined Truthiness as “What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.’ It’s not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There’s not only an emotional quality, but there’s a selfish quality.”

Without getting too political focused, we certainly need to ask, if Truth is so subjective, and Truthiness can sway voters, what then, about the facts.   Well, as Mark Twain popularized, there are 3 kinds of lies, lies, damn lies, and statistics.  We have seen both sides of every argument use statistics to support their case.   Traditionally, a fair and unbiased media would sort fact from fiction, truth from lies.   Today’s highly bifurcated media, seems for the most part,  to be talking to the converted, not fairly reporting the facts and exposing the lies.  And while fact checking sites expose mis-statements, it seems for many in the media, truthiness is more important than facts.  Time will tell how the American voters judge this.

So, then, what can B2B marketers learn?  In my book, Launching to Leading, I argue that B2B marketers must tell their story with consistency, ferocity, and veracity.  In many ways, consistency and ferocity are dimensions of believe-ability.  If I say things enough, and with conviction, they become believable, or even dare I say, “truthie”.   However, truthiness without veracity is short lived in B2B markets.  Buyers, voting with the investment of money and time, are far more discerning than voters in the voting booth. They will demand facts and proof, not just truthiness.  In B2B markets, claims without factual backing will be a fantasy claim that buyers will, after time, dismiss and ignore.

On the flip side, facts without conviction and ferocity, will sound like statistics and even lies.  Secretary Clinton is fabulous with facts.  She can go deep on policy and is a self described wonk.  And while she may well have the facts on her side, she often lacks “truthiness” , the conviction and ferocity that delivers not only facts, but connects with the listener.  Mrs. Clinton reminds me of many of the technical CEOs and finders I know.  They have the facts on their side, but lack the ferocity and boldness of claims to convince the market.

In less than 2 months, we will know the result of the US election.  Truthiness may win the day.  Facts may not matter.  Time will tell.  But B2B markets are much harsher judges.  You must have facts AND truthiness behind your claims.  In politics, we may see that consistency and ferocity, without veracity, will be enough.  In B2B markets,  you need all three.

See you in the voting booth and in the marketplace!

Ken