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Ari Weinzweig: Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading – Book Signing at #brandcampu

Ari Weinzweig will have his first Michigan book signing for his new book at Brand Camp on Friday, October 8th! You don’t want to miss it!!!

The new series, Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, aims to define a new kind of workplace in the 21st century. Part 1: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business, reveals some the ‘secrets’ and early history of Zingerman’s success. The book outlines 18 important ideas including: the power of a well-written and communicated organizational vision, the real purpose of a mission statement, and the benefits reaped from developing a culture of positive appreciation. There are no miracles or get-rich-quick schemes between these pages. Just lots of sound advice on how to develop the tools and work habits that greatly increase a businesses’ odds of success, whether you’re selling food, fixtures, furnaces and everything in between. In this introduction to the guiding principles of the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, Weinzweig shows how 100-year-old anarchist ideas can become the core of progressive business building in the 21st century.

As a business leader, Weinzweig roots his philosophy in the writings of the early 20th-century anarchists he first studied as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. The writings of activists who argued against a central organizational authority and advocated for putting power in the hands of individuals have contributed to his new theories of leadership and service. A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business explains why treating individuals with respect and helping them to pursue their dreams and passions actively engages a successful team. In chapters on visioning, positive appreciate and sustainable profits, the book illustrates how giving employees more choice leads to success. Allowing every member of the team to participate in the process of making the crucial decisions that sustain the organization and has been a cornerstone of Zingerman’s approach for three decades.

This new series will appeal to anyone interested in the history of business in America or leadership in the 21st century. A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business shows how a business with the words “love” and “care” in the mission statement can achieve both profitability and community engagement while striving “to enrich as many lives as we possibly can.” ¬

For more information about Zingerman’s

Quotes:

[Zingerman’s is] “the coolest small company in America.” —Inc. Magazine

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Perception vs. Reality: Which Defines your Personal Brand?

Is your brand built on perception or reality? The purpose of this post is to separate the truth between the two. As personal and corporate brands can we reap the benefits of our perception, which is ultimately our reality or is reality greater than perception.

Brand Promise vs. Brand Guarantee

Perception (Brand Promise)

Every successful brand has a brand promise, it’s what is communicates to its customers that it plans on delivering. Brand promise is theory. The value of brand promise only comes when there is execution. One of the worst examples of brand promise is BP Oil - ‘Beyond Petroleum’. With the oil spill in the Gulf did BP live up to it’s promise?

Reality (Brand Guarantee)

What is more compelling than the brand promise? It is the brand guarantee. It is what the brand actually delivers on. A brand guarantee is the brand promise that you have delivered on in the real-world. Most personal and corporate brands have to deal with what is called the reality gap. (Reality Gap = Brand Guarantee – Brand Promise). The truly great brands minimize or eliminate the reality gap.

Brand Guarantee: Gary Vaynerchuk – He is a hustler. He isn’t a social media expert and doesn’t claim to be one. In reality he demonstrates his hustle: produces winelibrary.tv video post daily which has translated into a Sirius Radio Show, he is working on his second book, and the list goes on.

# of Followers vs. Reach

Perception (# of Followers)

What is the value in having a large followership in a social network like Twitter? Is influence measured by number of followers alone? No. If you have 50K followers does this mean influence? The answer is that it depends. People with large followerships like Chris Brogan and Brian Solis get opportunities and their ideas can spread faster because of what is behind these numbers. What is behind these numbers are followers that were earned the hard way through consistency and creating great content.

Reality (Reach)

Even though Chris Brogan has 100K followers how many people respond to his call to action particularly when it is targeted at a specific market. This video by Brandtailers illustrates Chris’ reach with a charity tweetup at Wahoo’s for lunch.

Reputation vs. Character

Perception (Reputation)

The perception of a brand is a reactive approach for reputation management in guiding the values of your brand versus character development. Perception is setting up Google Alerts with the propionate keywords and feeling that you proactive in your brand management philosophy.

Reality (Character)

Character development is much more important than reputation because reputation isn’t necessarily accurate it can be incorrect based upon data. A strong reputation however can be ruin overnight if the person’s character isn’t strong. A person with strong character and a poor reputation can have his/her reputation restored the reverse isn’t true. (e. g Tiger Woods & Roger Clemens)

Win-Win vs. Give-Give

After having a conversation with CD Vann I wanted to illustrate this point as she shed some light on the Give-Give proposition. Most business deals are based on the pseudo concept of Win Win.

Perception (Win-Win)

In business one of the classic cliques is let’s create a ‘Win-Win’ but most people don’t live by this creed. In business we all have an ulterior motive for doing what we do.

Reality (Give-Give)

If we all have a ‘Give-Give’ attitude the end result will be that you create an environment where both sides benefit.

ComcastCares vs. Frank Eliason

One of the great social media stories of customer service is Frank Eliason formerly known as @Comastcares.

Perception (ComcastCares)

When Frank was @ComcastCares he had approximately 44K followers and was the classic example of customer service was the new marketing and how Twitter was the vehicle.

Reality (Frank Eliason)

Frank left Comcast in August of 2010 and is now @FrankEliason and has under 4K followers. Does this mean that Frank has lost his magic? Does this mean that Comcast customer service in Twitter will cease to exist? The answer to both is no. The reality is that there is a halo effect from working with a big brand. In the long run I believe Frank and Comcast will both be successful.

Disruption vs. Genius

Perception (Disruption)

When you standout and are different people don’t always appreciate the way you think, the way you solve problems, or the value you bring to the table. Being disruptive in this context is not a negative attribute just a misunderstood one.

Disruption Talent: Steve Jobs. He gets removed as CEO of Apple then is brought back to save his beloved company.

Reality (Genius)

In reality a disruptive talent is just expressing their Genius to people that don’t understand it. As a culture we are conditioned to be average. To stay the course of least resistance doing what has always been done or what is safe. The Genius is the person that connects their passion to someone ‘s problem and a business model to help someone outside of themselves.

In the end is your personal or corporate brand based on perception or a reality?

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Twitter and (the illusion of) Free Speech

Last week I was on the periphery of a social media storm. One of my colleagues, Anthony Rotolo, wrote a blog post surrounding an incident on Twitter that involved (mildly) negative tweets, employees from two different companies in hot water, and public relations people in turmoil. There are stories in the news almost daily about someone who has gotten themselves into trouble for tweeting something offensive. The problem is there are so many different ways to be offensive and people that could possibly be offended.

As a result of the incident mentioned above, I have seen people a) protect their tweets and b) change their Twitter bios in order to add disclaimers that say ‘these tweets are my own and do not reflect the opinion of my employer.’ Watching this situation unfold got me to thinking. Who is really free to say whatever they want, no holds barred, on Twitter? Answer: hardly anyone.

This is the bottom line: you are always representing something when you tweet. You are either representing yourself or the entity that you work for. If you work in social media, you are most likely representing both.

Here’s a few things to keep in mind as you tweet:

If you work for a company

  • Know your social media policy. Follow it to the letter. If something goes wrong, you can be sure that the policy will be looked to as a point of reference when considering any action.
  • If there is no social media policy in place, ask for guidance. Simply the fact of asking the question might bring the topic to the fore and precipitate a social media policy being instituted. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
  • Know who your company works with. Who are your compaany’s partners, suppliers, distributors, etc? For example, if I worked for The Capitol Grille, I probably wouldn’t want to repeatedly send negative tweets regarding Red Lobster, since they are both owned by Darden Restaurants.

If you are self-employed or a student

  • Consider who you want to work for. Most students will go to work for an organization, public or private, after graduation. All individuals who are self-employed need customers or clients. In addition, you may need partners, suppliers, etc. Don’t tweet negative comments regarding these potential employers, partners, customers & clients. You never know when it could come back to bite you.
  • If you feel constrained, consider maintaining two accounts. I have seen this happen when students want to portray a professional image to potential employers, but still want to interact authentically with friends. You can either protect your more personal tweets by locking your account, or use a twitter handle that doesn’t reveal your true identity.

Social Media Professionals

  • Check your attitude at the door when responding to negative tweets. You are representing your employer and every person you interact with on twitter should be seen as a valuable potential customer. If someone ticks you off, take a deep breath, go for a walk around the block, or whatever it takes to be able to make a response with a clear head. Now is the time to maintain a consistent voice.

Everyone

  • Think before you tweet. If you think it might be cringeworthy, it probably is. I know that thinking twice before hitting send has personally saved me from some regrettable tweets.
  • Don’t tweet under the influence. (You fill in the blanks)
  • Every tweet you send is building on your personal brand. Are you enthusiastic? negative? cynical? opinionated? Most of the people who follow you on Twitter don’t know you personally. You are being judged entirely on your tweets. Make sure you are representing yourself the way you want to be regarded.

This post may seem overly wary and cautious, especially coming from someone who works in social media. However, with a certain level of comfort comes complacency. All of us who have been on twitter for a while can use a reminder that this is not a cocktail party with our friends, this is a public platform. For all the free flow of information that twitter represents, we need to be realistic and cognizant of where the rubber meets the road. One hundred forty characters may seem like a little thing, but they can mean the world if they cost you your paycheck.

As with any paradigm shift, the behavior changes first and then the culture follows. A very wise colleague of mine has pointed out that the expectations of employee conduct have not yet evolved to include practical social media guidelines. Until this evolution takes place, it’s best to proceed with caution.

Have you ever regretted sending a tweet? How do you feel about having to censor yourself on Twitter, or don’t you bother? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

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Our Connected World by the Numbers

There are approximately 6.5 Billion people on the planet and we live in a hyper-connected world where we are increasingly communicated via online. As you continue to map out your digital footprint think about the Facebook, Twitter, internet connectivity, and mobile device usage is impacting personal brand.

  • 6.5 Billion people on the planet
  • 1.73 Billion Internet Users in 2009
  • 75 Million Twitter Users
  • 50 Millions Tweets Sent per Day
  • 126 Million Blogs on the Internet
  • 90 Trillion Emails Sent in 2009
  • 2.3 Trillion Text Messages Sent by 2010
  • 75% of Internet Connected Homes Use Social Networks (61% of all U.S. Households)
  • 28,800 Hours YouTube Video Uploaded per day.

Raw numbers alone are useless. These stats are being provided for you to determine their true impact to you and your personal brand.

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Brand Camp ’10: Registration Back Open!!! (Limited Seats) – Room Change

Good News!!!!

Due to the overwhelming demand for Brand Camp ’10 our team has worked hard behind the scenes to accommodate the demand. To address this issue and to provide an opportunity for as many people who are interested in attending we were able to change rooms.

However there are limited seats available, once these seats are sold we have exhausted all options.

Listed below are the Voices you have the opportunity to hear:

Speakers

  • Hajj Flemings – Founder/Principal of Brand Camp University
  • PR Sarah Evans - President of Sevans Strategy/Founder of #journchat
  • Ari Weinzweig – Founder of Zingerman’s Deli
  • Lynne D. Johnson - SVP of the Advertising Research Federation
  • Peter Shankman – Founder of Help A Reporter Out (HARO)/The Geek Factory
  • Wayne Sutton – Marketing Strategist at TriOut
  • Cd Vann – Founder of unGeeked e’Lites Retreats
  • Olivier Blanchard – Principal at Brand Builder Marketing

We look forward to seeing you at Brand Camp ‘10

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