Brand in a Fortune Cookie

This is the beginning of my keynote titled “The Shortcut to Brand.”

I remember, just like it was yesterday.

I’d done a keynote for one of Michael’s public events.

We were sitting in a Chinese restaurant celebrating.

They brought us fortune cookies.

Mine said, “A wiseman knows everything, a shrewd one everyone.”

Michael looked over his glasses and said, “That’s true as far as it goes…What you know is important… Who you know can really matter but the single most important thing to building a business is who trusts you!”

I’ve never forgotten what he said.

That’s the day I found the shortcut… the shortcut to brand.

That shortcut is trust.

Brand, the way I see it, is an expression of Trust

You are going to have a brand whether you want one or not.

It is the sum total of everything that group of people that are aware of you think, feel and believe about you.

It is how they will remember you.

It is what they will call you.

It is how they will refer you.

Michael taught me about trust.

I’d like to pass along just a little of what I’ve learned from him

Jerry Fletcher

That is a true story. It happened that way. It changed how I thought about my advice for building a business.

The opening I used before was a signature story I called “A String of Pearls” which was all about how I made a leap of faith in the middle of the night after my board had rejected me.

It’s a good story, and I still use it to emphasize the power of Networking.

But that AHA moment with Michael shifted my focus.

I started reading and investigating the subject of Trust. I read every book I could find on the subject. I was lucky enough to run into an author of one of the few books that had substantiated ROI research included. I met him at an National Speakers Association Convention before his book came out.

His book, in part, provided information for keynotes in South America.

More importantly, it pushed me into looking at who you must trust in today’s world:

• Trust yourself. It sounds simple, but it isn’t. All of us have that little voice in our heads that questions our decisions. At its worst, it drops verbal barbs when we least expect them causing the little grey cells to become partisan and lob Molatov word cocktails over the aisle. But the fact is, you must trust yourself just to get on with life. So, suck it up, Bunkie, nobody but you can hear that little voice. You can shout it down or reason with it or refuse to listen or all the above. Start with the little things and move up to the big ones. It works.

• Trust your company. If you run the company that is usually easy. But if you are lower in the hierarchy it may be more difficult. Usually, in the C-suite there is not a lot of trouble embracing the goals, objectives and approaches. At a manager’s level because you are not privy to the reasoning that went into the decisions made, you may want to ask about that. You can accept the answer if one is forthcoming or just soldier on. It is up to you. But I will guarantee you that if you don’t trust you will slowly come to hate your job and in doing so, fail.

• Trust your staff. From the supervisor level up in most companies you will have staff even in those that claim to be “flat” organizations. Regardless of what level you serve, you need to give your direct reports all the information you can to allow them to use their skills in your support. Fail to do that and they will fail you. But trust is reciprocated and as is reported in the book I noted above can increase ROI as much as 130%. Trust them and they will trust you and the company and workers will enjoy higher profits.

• Trust your customer. That is a relatively new idea. Yes, there are companies that have been known for this such as Nordstrom’s. But in today’s world it has become impossible not to yield more power to your customers and prospects. They are an integral part of the business and have the ability to make or break you due to the power and immediacy of social media. Treat them right and they will forswear competitor’s products. Treat them right and they will wait for you to develop matching products. Treat them right and they will become your best sales people.

The more I spoke about Trust, the more people asked me about Brand.

I’m not the fastest mind around. It takes me time and repetition to pick up on things.

I tend to handle Q&A after I’ve concluded a speech as it has proven to be more conducive for the audience to hear a completed piece than to interrupt it. It also gives the person with a question (a customer) a situation where they can be more specific and not have to tell everyone in the room what concerns them or cause them to be embarrassed by “what they didn’t get.”

Over the last three years the frequency of questions about Brand soared whether I was speaking about Trust, Networking or what I came to call 30-Second Marketing (my most popular topic).

I saw the pattern and began speaking on Brand. The "Shortcut to Brand" incorporates the “Fortune Cookie Aha!” Story, elements of “30-Second Marketing,” and closes with the latest version of the words that end “String of Pearls:”

Careers, Businesses and Lives of Joy are all built one gem of a contact at a time.

One contact pus another and yet another until you have a string of them…each a unique and memorable personality adding to all the others.

Reach out to the pearls that trust your brand.

Reach out.

Renew the contact.

Each of you is an asset for the other.

Each of you enhances the value of all.

Each of you, your brand…is a pearl on a strings of pearls.

Author in Source Title

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for Trust-based Brand development, Positioning and business development for independent professionals on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com
DIY Training: www.ingomu.com