Ready, Fire, Aim

Before you go any further, ask yourself some honest loyalty questions.

If you are unable to answer yes to every question, you should rethink your motivation.

•  •  •  •  •

This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

Stop piling it on

Do an inventory of your business book collection, business email subscriptions, self-improvement Facebook pages you’ve liked, and people you follow on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Quit buying business books you’ll never read.

Quit listening to podcasts.

Quit reading blog posts.

Quite surfing LinkedIn and Twitter for the next brand loyalty nugget.

How much brand loyalty information do you need before you can convince yourself you’re confident in your brand loyalty convictions?

•  •  •  •  •

This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

Fear is a Liar

We admire legendary corporate cultures. Companies like Apple, Harley-Davidson, Southwest Airlines, and of course, Disney, come to mind immediately.

If we are honest with ourselves, would we say, deep down, we’ll never be as good.

i mean, seriously, how could we possibly create world-class brand reputation that actually manifests itself as organizational vibrancy?

We can’t.

And we believe the script we tell ourselves.

What if i challenged you to .think .differently?

To imagine being able to draw up cultural blueprints; to architect a foundation that you can’t wait to show and tell others about.

This book illustrates the three foundational brand loyalty building blocks for world-class corporate culture.

It’s just a dream and a drawing, but guess what?

Now you have a drawing.

You never had a blueprint before.

You’re welcome.

•  •  •  •  •

This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

The Law of Emotional Brand Connections

Emotion trumps everything.

Customers cannot comprehend the quality of your infrastructure, your equipment, your employee training, or your supply chain.

All the customer knows is how you make them feel.

Your brand is your reputation.

Your brand is the first thing your customers (and employees) think of when they see you or hear your name.

Brand loyalty has one mission, to enhance and enlarge your reputation.

If this seems obvious, then can we state the obvious? Every touchpoint your organization has is an opportunity to wow your customer. Touchpoints aren’t meant to meet expectations, they’re met to exceed expectations.

Imagine what would happen if every employee, at every customer touch point, wowed your customer.

Imagine if this happened half the time.

Imagine if it happened less than half the time.

The key to exceeding customer expectations is paying attention to details the customer doesn’t expect you to pay attention to. The low expectation is often driven by an industry standard or your own organization’s reputation.

Maybe you have a competitive product because of quality, price, or both. What happens when a competitor one-ups you? They lower their price or improve the quality?

What happens if they launch (and sustain) a customer service renaissance that catches you unprepared to culturally address.

•  •  •  •  •

This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

Become the Brand Loyalty Category

Lead the category or be the category?

Striving to lead your industry isn’t entirely bad if you’re ok with waiting for someone else to beat you to the next breakthrough.

Why does that sound ridiculous?

Why is it important?

Because some ridiculously important (some would say game-changing) events have happened, are happening now, and will continue to happen.

It’s called disruption for a reason.

Waiting for it to happen can destroy an organization (and sometimes an industry).

Making it happen can launch competitive immunity and have your competition scrambling to recover.

Remember how the music industry let Napster reinvent music file sharing?

Music executives got blind-sided.

As if that wasn’t enough, the music industry never saw a computer company coming either.

Apple, iPod, iTunes, and now, Apple Music.

Apple is a category of one.

The music industry had their chance to become the category.

Kodak had their chance too, but they held so tightly to film, they suffocated themselves.

How does this train of thought affect Disney Brand Loyalty?

We want every Guest to feel like we love them.

Nothing less, nothing more.

Pure love.

Literally, until death do us part.

Imagine if your customers felt you deeply loved them.

Love involves trust and an overwhelming positive emotional connection.

Your products and service obviously need to be competitive for the demographics you are aiming for. The only thing that drives intense customer loyalty is consistently delivering on a promise your customers believe only you can make, and delivering on your promise in an emotionally connected way.

When asked would you recommend this product or service, your customers only say “definitely”. They never say “probably” or “most likely”.

Only definitely.

Why?

Because you aren’t leading the category, you are the category. And your customers love you for that.

•  •  •  •  •

This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.