CHAPTER ONE - THIS WAY PLEASE
“The heart has its reasons, which reason knows nothing of.”
Blaise Pascal
MY CHATTY CABBIE
At 4.30 am one dark Monday morning, the taxi I’d ordered to take me to the airport pulled up in front of my apartment building. I opened the back door, flopped into the seat and we pulled away from the curb and into the pre-dawn quiet of Sydney’s streets. Immediately, the cab driver smiled at me, introduced himself as Abraham, and struck up a conversation.
He was chatty
Marvellous.” I thought.
All I wanted, at that unholy hour, was to be home in my warm bed, not speaking, and certainly not hurtling towards the airport with a talkative taxi driver. But I was raised to be polite, and so Abraham and I talked for the entire 25 minutes of that drive.
When we arrived at Sydney Airport, I took out my credit card to pay the fare. Without taking it, Abraham asked:
“When are you coming back?”
“Tonight,” I said.
“I’ll pick you up,” he replied, “so you don’t need to wait in line for a taxi. And you can pay me then.”
As I attempted to process this profoundly surprising offer of service, Abraham continued.
“Do you like Lebanese food?” Without waiting for my reply, he said, “I will have dinner waiting for you.”
At this point, I wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not. But, I went with it.
“Ok.” I said. “See you tonight.”
And Abraham sped off into the early morning Sydney traffic.
TOO GOOD TO IGNORE
When I returned to Sydney that night, there he was—my chatty cabbie, waiting for me. He was dressed in a suit and had a big smile on his face, as though he was welcoming home a close relative. And he had brought enough delicious-smelling homemade Lebanese food to feed my whole family three times over.
At the time of writing, that was six years ago.
Since then, I have used Abraham whenever I need a taxi. And so does my extended family, and many of my friends. Yes, they choose a taxi over an Uber! Abraham has developed such a strong customer base that he is always booked out.
Now, each time I get off a plane and into Abraham’s cab, I feel at home—long before I arrive at my apartment. For that, I’d pay a premium. His brand is just too good to ignore.
It’s a great story, right? But let’s think about this a little.
If ever there was a cluttered marketplace, it would be the tangled, beeping world of Sydney taxis and ride services. Sydney has the greatest number of taxis per person in Australia, and now with the growing number of Ubers and similar services, you have an extremely competitive environment. If your heart’s greatest ambition is to start a taxi business, find somewhere else because there’s just no room for you here. And yet, Abraham has managed to create a specialised service in a commoditised and cluttered market. He has no website, no social media and no email list. Abraham has none of the modern-day “essential” tools we associate with building a brand in today's world. He does not even have a logo! But, he has people lining up to use his service and he has more than enough work to support himself and his family.
BUILD A BRAND THAT MATTERS
Whether he realises it or not, Abraham has created a brand that his customers have connected with deeply—a brand that matters and makes a difference in their lives. A brand they love.
We live in a time where more and more people are creating their own brands. With incredible technology at our fingertips, and previously unimagined access to the global marketplace, starting your own brand has never been easier. You can start with an idea on Friday, build your brand assets over the weekend with services like Upwork and Squarespace, and start selling on Monday.
But at the same time, the world has become cluttered, the competition is more intense and people’s expectations are much higher. And so, while starting a brand has never been easier, building a brand people love has never been harder. But there is a solution. You have to build a brand that matters.
In this new era, brands that are leading the way foster a deep and long-lasting relationship with their customers built on the foundation of the things people love. These leaders are dedicated to building a brand that truly matters to people and, ultimately, a brand their customers will be loyal to and love.
NINE TIMELESS BRAND QUALITIES PEOPLE LOVE
When it comes to creating a brand, you have a choice. You can either go in hard with fads and trends to seek instant popularity, or you can concentrate on enduring qualities that people will always care about. The nine qualities described in this book are timeless. They’re not gimmicks or quick fixes, but qualities that have always mattered to human beings, and always will. They’re characteristics that used to be more common in business, that were fundamental to great brands people cared about. They’re qualities we should never have forgotten.
In his book Rework, Jason Fried sums this up very clearly:
A lot of companies focus on the next big thing. They latch onto what's hot and new. They follow the latest trends and technology. That's a fool's path. You start paying attention to things that are constantly changing instead of things that last. The core of your business should be built around things that won't change. Things that people are going to want today and ten years from now.
Jason Fried
Fried, who has built numerous well-loved brands, underscores the key to building a brand people will love today, tomorrow, and for a long time to come. Focus on things and qualities that people will always love.
Truly well-loved brands share a common DNA, which I believe can be described in the following nine essential qualities. And it’s these qualities that you will need to embed within your business in order to create a brand people will connect with and care about deeply. Here they are, foolishly simple, but highly influential: Significant, Heartwarming, Helpful, Generous, Convenient, Interesting, Personal, Attractive and Patient.
Throughout the nine chapters in the book, we’ll take a deeper look into each of these essential qualities to show you how to make sure your brand is one people will love.
But first, let me explain what I mean when I use the word “brand”. It’s a concept that has many different points of view and definitions. So in order to be clear, let me give you my very simple definition so you know what I mean when I talk about a brand.
I define “brand” with the words—perception or reputation. It is that straightforward. Your brand is simply what people perceive it to be. It’s what others think and feel about your business and your products. In other words, your brand is your reputation, nothing more and nothing less. It cannot be reduced to your logo and visual identity like some people do when they use the word brand.
Continuing with this definition, if your brand is your reputation, then branding is everything you do that shapes people’s perceptions—how people think and feel about you and what you do. Of course, this includes your visual design, but it encompasses everything you do.
Staying with this definition, if branding is about shaping perception, then marketing is about shaping action. They work hand-in-hand and are powerless without each other. Perception influences action—what people think and feel determines what they do.
ATTENTION AND LOVE
There’s a lot of talk about attention being the most important asset in building a brand in today’s cluttered market. Attention is notoriously hard to secure as the market becomes increasingly crowded with new brands. Attention is vital, but it’s only the first step along the path to success.
First you need people's attention, but then you need their devotion. While attention keeps your brand in the mind of consumers, love keeps your brand in their hearts. Attention alerts people to the fact your brand exists and is worthy of checking out, but love makes your brand irresistible.
Think of the brands you truly love and tell me you don’t find them hard to resist. When your brand is embedded in people’s hearts you create loyalty beyond reason, as Kevin Roberts in his book Lovemarks taught us more than a decade ago. But instead of “loyalty beyond reason”, I like to think of it more as loyalty inspired by a different type of reason, as Blaise Pascal pointed out centuries ago when he wrote, “The heart has its reasons, which reason knows nothing of.”
I like to think of attention and love as the two interconnected movements essential for building a successful brand. Movement one is outward as you aim to get people’s attention. Movement two is downward as you seek to win their hearts. Great brands consistently move out and down, and these are the two movements you will need to master if you’re to build a truly successful brand.
THE BENEFITS ARE ENDLESS
When you build a brand people love the benefits are endless. When people love something they can’t help but share their experience with others, and they will inadvertently create a community of self-appointed volunteer brand advocates. Motivated by their love, your customers will passionately talk about your brand, show off your products, and proudly share your content with their friends and family. They will pay less attention to what the competition offers and many will stop comparing on price. And in no time at all they will develop a deep loyalty fuelled by reasons of the heart, not of the mind.
Building a brand people love is not complicated, but it will require dedication, intention and resolve. And the good news is, if Abraham could build a brand people love in one of the most commoditised and cluttered markets imaginable, then so can you. He did it with good old-fashioned customer service and hospitality. How will you do it?