What We Believe
Archives: Business Building | Self Improvement
Last week I spent a day in Colorado with ETR Publisher, Matt Smith, getting clarity on our mission and vision with Early to Rise. We looked ahead to the future, to the year 2015 specifically, and planned for what the business will look like at that time.
A question we kept coming back to was how would we describe Early to Rise?
Eventually Matt remembered something he had read on the Early To Rise website. Perhaps you’ve clicked through to this page. It’s our “About Us” section, and as Matt read it aloud to me, we agreed that there was very little either of us would change.
Below you’ll find the complete About Us page reprinted. We didn’t write it, but it seems to be taken from Michael Masterson’s book, Ready, Fire, Aim. We owe him a debt of gratitude for putting our beliefs into such clear, straightforward prose.
As you read the “What We Believe” section below, realize that Matt and I are dedicated to this vision. It’s going to be an incredible journey from here to 2015. We hope to help over one million people by that time, and we hope you’ll be one of those folks.
Following the description of Early to Rise, you’ll get a related article from Verne Harnish, author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. In “The Brand Promise”, Harnish shows why it’s essential to differentiate your business from the competition, and to do so in a short, concise description. But words only go so far, and as Harnish recommends, it requires a specific level of dedication to your brand promise for business success, a level of dedication I promise you we have here at ETR.
Thank you for being part of Early to Rise,
Craig Ballantyne
Editor
Early to Rise
About Early to Rise
By Craig Ballantyne
At Early to Rise we wake you up every day by giving you inspiration and practical advice on how to accomplish your goals.
Whether you want to start your own business, become CEO of the business you work for, achieve your most treasured personal goals, or increase your wealth… we will be here to help you.
When you receive our daily issues, you will see — immediately and clearly — that Early to Rise is not like any information service you have run into in the past. It is not self-help. It is us helping you.
We search out the most interesting leaders in these areas, and we bring them to you — up close and personal.
Our goal is to provide you with specific, actionable strategies to accomplish all your goals, one day at a time, with the confidence of knowing you are following the advice of true experts — men and women who have done it before.
What We Believe
- We are small-business advocates because we are a small business – and because small businesses are the driving force in every free market. In this country, small business is responsible for half of economic growth and two-thirds of new employment.
- The financial media is not the place to go for serious advice. It is foolish to go by what The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and other mainstream outlets tell you.
- When it comes to starting new ventures, Ready, Fire, Aim is our motto. Get your product and marketing plan ready – and then launch it. Money loves speed. Take action. Get something started. Once the cash is flowing, you can fine-tune both the product and your marketing, and keep making them better.
- The best way to become wealthy is not by working for someone else and contributing diligently to a 401(k). Real wealth is accumulated by owning revenue streams that you control. We are big advocates of developing second and third incomes. We devote a good deal of our advice to showing you how you can bring extra cash into your life.
- The Internet has opened up a huge window of opportunity for small entrepreneurs. The window will be closing soon. But there is still time to learn how to profit from it. We are specialists in this area. We will have programs – very good programs – that you can take advantage of.
- We believe in setting goals, but we also believe that 90 percent of the goal-setting programs sold these days are not worth the paper they are printed on. We will have programs based on what we have personally done. They worked for us. They will work for you.
Putting It All Together
Life is full of opportunities – chances to be smarter, happier, richer, and more successful. If you keep your eyes and ears open, you’ll recognize them. But that is not enough.
You have to keep your heart open too, and block out the natural tendency to come up with a long list of good and rational reasons why you shouldn’t seize the day.
Stick with Early to Rise and you will succeed. When you do, we’ll still be there with you. To congratulate you and show you new ways to build on your success.
If you like the thought of being good at everything you do and enjoying all of life’s experiences… Early to Rise will give you the kick-start you need. A better, brighter, fuller, and happier future is at your fingertips.
The Brand Promise
By Verne Harnish
Motek promises to make their customers “Heroes.” Advanced Circuits guarantees the “Quick Turnaround” of custom printed circuit boards. Rackspace promises to deliver “Fanatical Support.” FedEx is promising “peace of mind.” Southwest Airlines has been delivering “low fares” from the very beginning. McDonalds has gone back to “speed.”
What is the promise you’re making to your customers that both really matters to them and makes you different from your competitors? Would it be obvious if I went to your website or looked at your marketing materials? This Brand Promise decision is at the heart of an effective strategy to differentiate your firm from the competition. And your devotion to delivering on the promise must be maniacal and complete or the promise becomes an empty slogan.
KEY DECISION
Think back to when Federal Express burst on the scene in the early eighties. What was it that made Fred Smith’s new company such a sensation? The answer: It got packages where they were going by 10:30 a.m. the next day, no ifs, ands, or buts. That was Federal Express’s come-on to a world that previously knew only the Post Office. It was FedEx’s measurable brand promise.
Their 10:30 a.m. deadline was much more than a marketing slogan. It was the key decision that drove all others. To make the promised arrival time, FedEx knew it needed to get its planes out of Memphis by 2 a.m. To get the planes in the air on time, FedEx needs me to get my package to the station at Dulles Airport by 10 p.m. Backing up even further on the time line, the FedEx box nearest my home has a 5:15 p.m. pickup time to allow those orange-and-purple trucks to complete a route and get to the airport.
From the first business plan Smith wrote and up until quite recently, the company’s strategies and tactics existed simply to deliver on this one measurable brand promise. (Nowadays, Smith’s delivering on a somewhat different brand promise, but more on that later.)
Determining a brand promise is a fateful moment in the life of any company. Choose the right one – the one your customers respond to, the one you can track and execute day after day – and you win. It’s truly that simple. Choose the wrong one, and you’ll probably flounder for years, never quite hitting your goals. So, how do you choose the right brand promise for your organization?
MAKING HEROES
Ask yourself, what is your customers’ greatest need? Not their wants – they’ll “want, want, want” you to bankruptcy if you let them! What you’re looking for is what really matters to the customer that also demonstrably differentiates you from the competition.
Take Motek, a supplier of software systems that run large distribution centers. What the heads of these distribution centers personally need are promotions out of these corporate equivalents to Siberia – its hard to get visibility when you’re miles from where the real corporate action is at headquarters.
This is why Ann Price, CEO of Motek, has nailed their “hero” promise. Take a minute and go to www.motek.com and click on the Heroes button in the upper left hand corner of the website. Price literally measures her company’s success by the number of promotions her customers receive and she advertises this fact, hiring magazine-quality cover photographers to create the pictures you see on her website!
And while you’re at it, go to www.4pcb.com, www.weldaloy.com, www.rackspace.com, and www.EagleU.com and study how these firms highlight, communicate, demonstrate and execute on their brand promises. Some of them are not the most elegant sites you’ll see, but they communicate a clear message.
EVERYTHING CHANGES
Now, if you’re an observant consumer, you probably know that Federal Express isn’t touting delivery at 10:30 a.m. as a brand promise anymore. Why? Because things change, and that includes brand promises.
In many ways, Federal Express lost its brand promise due to its own success. Today, there are many shippers making overnight delivery claims, even the U.S. Postal Service. Delivery by 10:30 a.m. is now merely table stakes, meaning you have to deliver on this promise to just be in the game.
FedEx’s latest brand promise, “peace of mind” raises the stakes. The measurable deliverable is the customer’s ability to know where his or her package is at all times. FedEx figured this out several years ago, and quietly spent a billion dollars a year making sure that customers big and small had the necessary terminals installed to handle this new tracking capability. They handed out disks containing the necessary software like so many AOL freebies. Now the brand promise is being sold via the marketing slogan, “Relax, It’s FedEx.”
Please note that Federal Express hasn’t stopped guaranteeing delivery at 10:30 a.m..; they’ve just upped the ante. They deliver early AND their tracking gives you peace of mind. In a couple of years, it’ll probably be early delivery AND tracking AND…well, something else, as the previous brand promises become mere table stakes. Just like Federal Express’s, your once-revolutionary brand promise will someday become table stakes, and probably sooner rather than later. Start working now on the next value-added improvement. If you don’t, somebody else will beat you to it.
TWO KEY ARTICLES
There are two “must read” articles to help drive a brand promise. The first is Jim Collins’ (famous author of “Good to Great”) HBR article “Turning Goals into Results: The Power of Catalytic Mechanisms” – you can download the article at www.jimcollins.com (click on Library then Articles). The second article is one I wrote entitled “The X Factor.” Go to www.fortune.com and search on my last name Harnish – you’ll see it in the list – I promise!
[Ed. Note: Verne Harnish, also known as the "Growth Guy", is the author of "The Rockefeller Habits" and publishes a monthly column in Fortune magazine. You can sign-up for Verne's insights here where you'll discover what today's leaders and top entrepreneurs are doing in their businesses to succeed in today's turbulent economic climate and to build cohesive teams dedicated to the achievement of the company's BHAG.]
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Tags: business, goal setting, internet business, marketing
I’ve got some homework to do. “What We Believe” and “The Brand Promise” are both so clear and simple in expressing what we owe our customers. It’s time to review and revise my own promise and goals. Great post! Also, thanks for the article recommendations.