Ep. 2: Transcending the Average

0:02
all right ladies and gentlemen great to be with you here this afternoon good
0:08
morning good afternoon maybe even a good evening for you I’m Dan seawald you
0:14
might know me from such programs as the deliberate Innovation and also the
0:20
deliberate way I’m going to be here with you today bring you a really awesome program so we’re going to get ourselves
0:27
started here in just one moment um what I’m excited to be able to bring
0:32
with you today is our second episode really the best one
0:39
um the deliberate ways you might know is both a philosophy and also a podcast and
0:45
our intentions to explore in each and every episode The systematic way the
0:51
great problem solvers great thinkers performers athletes business Minds go
0:56
about doing things a little bit different from the rest so by uncovering
1:01
these obvious ways and maybe sometimes not so obvious ways how people who are
1:07
transcenders the Renegades the rule Breakers how they operate we can learn a
1:12
thing or two we can apply those insights to our very own personal and
1:17
professional worlds so I’m excited to to have you a part of this and with that I
1:24
have a super fascinating guest with me today now I’m going to tell you all
1:29
about Stan Bernard but when I think of rule Breakers deliberate innovators transcenders I think of people
1:36
just like Stan now if you haven’t met Stan before you’re going to meet him but let me tell you a few things about Stan
1:43
Stan is one of the most established and well-known experts in the world of
1:49
competition Consulting now you may not know a lot about competition Consulting but you’ll hear a little bit about it he
1:56
is also the author of The recently published book called Brands don’t win
2:01
which has got 10 National and international book awards and he’s been
2:07
recognized as having the number one Business book of 2021 and it also into
2:13
2022 so Stan not too shabby I’m gonna hold your book up we’re not selling them
2:18
out the door but you can go out and get yours when you’re ready I’m excited for us to talk about it now when Stan’s not
2:24
out selling best-selling books he’s working with Fortune 500 clients he’s
2:29
the founder of a company called Bernard Associates where he does that type of competition Consulting work and you know
2:35
Stan has been all over the world including in Pennsylvania I know you
2:40
probably think that is where the world starts and stops um in Pennsylvania he was at the Wharton
2:45
School of Business working as a senior fellow and today he lives in the Washington DC area doing all sorts of
2:53
amazing and intriguing work stand awesome to have you here and I can’t wait for us to chat
2:59
excellent Dan pleasure to be here talking to you today yeah and for our folks who are listening
3:05
um we have a couple things for housekeeping just to let you know first off you have a chance to have your say
3:10
we’re gonna have a little bit of q a um you’ll have a chance to be able to put in whenever you like in LinkedIn
3:16
live a q a or a question for us to do q a we’ll have it moderated so drop them
3:22
in as they come to your mind because there is no moment of inspiration better than the one that strikes you so we’ll
3:28
we’ll bring that in we’ll also be spending a bit of time together today probably no more than 20 of the hour
3:36
whatever the hour may be for you so if you go off to grab some lunch and come back you may have missed the whole thing
3:42
so have your lunch have your snack have your morning coffee if that’s what you’re having you don’t want to miss out
3:48
on what we’re going to talk about here today now Stan I I got to start off with
Brands Don’t Win
3:54
my first question for you and I have to be a little provocative your book Brands don’t win
4:02
it’s a pretty controversial title if you ask me because I mean I grew up learning
4:07
graduate school undergraduate school and business branding wins recent trout Seth
4:13
goaden Peter Drucker it was all about building sustainable durable band Brands
4:19
and you’re telling me now that Brands don’t win what’s this all about get us started and tell me a little bit about
4:25
this uh this real provocative idea that you put out in your book well the title Dan is actually meant to be provocative
4:32
it’s meant to challenge the assumption that most businesses and business professionals have which is the only way
4:39
to compete and win in business is branding well I’m here to say that unfortunately
4:45
most of those businesses and business professionals have been brainwashed wait
4:50
did you think you said brand washed I said brainwashed that was pretty good branding yeah so the idea is that most
4:58
people believe that branding is the only way to compete okay and what I mean by Brandy um everybody knows pretty much
5:05
that these types of companies use the traditional branding Playbook or product
5:11
playbook in which they create a brand then they differentiate the brand based
5:17
on Superior features and benefits over their rivals and then they support it with lots of advertising promotions
5:23
sales reps well I’m here to tell you that there is an alternative in fact a better way to
5:29
compete than branding and that is what I refer to as the trans singer system and I’ll talk more about
5:35
the transgender system but um many of the best and leading
5:41
companies in the world such as Nike Starbucks apple Amazon and many others
5:46
actually do not play The Branding game they use branding but that’s not how
5:51
they win they basically create and play their own game
5:58
so this is a true paradigm shift the idea that you don’t have to play the
6:03
same branding game that by the way is 3 000 years old I mean branding was used
6:09
by the ancient Greeks and 800 BCE in the Agora Marketplace in Athens okay and
6:15
we’ve been using this same identical game for over 3000 years put that in
6:21
context Dan I mean people don’t use the iPhone one and that’s only 15 years old and they certainly don’t use landline
6:28
phones or eight-track tapes and yet we’re using a system for competing and virtually every company on the planet is
6:34
doing this the I thought they would even use the iPhone 7 anymore right exactly man it’s lost but let me let me pause
Starbucks and Branding
6:41
you for one second Stan because I I like what you’re laying down I’m picking it up but let me you mentioned Starbucks
6:47
for example um you know how do we work the Midtown Manhattan for a number of years I
6:53
couldn’t go a block without somebody proudly walking by with their Starbucks cup of coffee with the logo the brand
7:01
emblazoned on it like it wasn’t a regular cup of coffee if you didn’t have Starbucks it was a point of Pride that’s
7:07
branding isn’t it so Starbucks actually tried to win with branding for the first 16 years of its
7:14
existence from 1971 to 1987 they had the Starbucks name
7:19
the iconic Nordic siren logo and of course their branded coffee cups everybody knows the Starbucks brand
7:28
but they weren’t winning they were only adding one store per year so in 1987 Howard Schultz bought the
7:34
company and he said I’m not going to play The Branding game I’m not going to try to differentiate my
7:41
dry roasted coffee I’m going to totally change the game he changed the game with three words
7:46
the third place he said I’m gonna make Starbucks the third place between home
7:52
and work in America this is why of course you have a Starbucks on one side of the highway on the way to work on the other side of the
7:58
highway on the way home from work he was basically saying we don’t want you to Simply grab a cup of coffee we want you
8:05
to grab a chair hang out enjoy staying at Starbucks on
8:10
the way to work on the way home from work and his three-word what I call campaign agenda very much like
8:16
politicians the third place he basically everything they do supports
8:21
that campaign agenda so it’s not just a marketing slogan okay because the transgender system that I’ll discuss
8:28
it’s a full corporate system company-wide system that everybody has
8:33
to believe in and align to and communicate so that’s why Starbucks has
8:39
extremely comfortable chairs they spend more on training than they do on Advertising promotions and despite that
8:47
they actually sell more coffee in the U.S despite the fact that Dunkin Donuts
8:53
actually spends three times as much on Advertising promotions Duncan um Starbucks sells twice as much coffee
8:59
well you definitely see duck and they’ve they’ve gone into even rebranded Duncan just to call it Duncan to transcend
9:05
Donuts but coming back to Starbucks for a moment um Schultz I mean he’s usually a lot as
9:12
being a real Visionary but if I remember correctly he worked for Starbucks so he
9:17
was one of the guys inside but he didn’t last that long tell me a little bit more
9:23
I don’t know how much you dug into to Schultz and Starbucks it’s a curious one yeah in fact it’s one of the case
9:29
studies in my book Brands don’t win one of the 16 case studies Schultz actually worked for Starbucks
9:34
for a number of years he was actually the head of marketing at one point in the early 80s when he was working for
9:40
Starbucks he went to Italy to look at how different people drank coffee in different countries it was in Milan and
9:46
espresso coffee bar and he realized that it was really a center of community
9:52
that people would go to this to the coffee shop in Milan their favorite coffee shop on the way to work on the
9:58
way home from work and they knew everybody and it was very collegial and they hung out as opposed to an American
10:04
types of coffee shops where you know people would literally grab a cup of coffee and go right so he came back to
10:11
Starbucks management and proposed the idea let’s let’s make more of this concept of what he referred to as the
10:17
third place and Starbucks management said no no way no way well I’m gonna I’m
10:22
gonna guess Dan like that’s Starbucks sold coffee that’s that was their thing
10:28
and that’s not easy to Pivot from so I don’t I can’t imagine there were that reception although today you’d never
10:34
know it you would never know it by looking at something you know this is this is what’s interesting because Schultz then came back in 1987 years
10:43
later and said I am going to I believe so much in this concept of the third place I’m gonna buy Starbucks so he
10:51
bought Starbucks and instead of adding one store per year which is what they were doing because
10:56
they couldn’t quite frankly differentiate their dry roasted coffee there were so many coffee shops in the Pacific Northwest and as many people
11:02
know Starbucks coffee is not the best coffee on the planet wait hold on don’t say that I know so what did he do
11:09
they’re okay if you like burnt coffee so he then basically in executed on this
11:16
agenda the third place making sure his stores were in strategic locations corporate hubs malls
11:23
um centers um he also made the stores much bigger so he really Americanized the Italian
11:29
concept and he made it so they were so welcoming the Baristas were trained everybody you know in the all the
11:36
employees were there to welcome you and as a result over the next 20 years
11:42
they went from adding one store per year to adding 1350 stores per year that’s almost four
11:48
stores per day wow they became the dominant player in coffee chains in the world with 31
11:56
000 stores across 80 countries the next biggest competitor is one third
12:02
of their size you know they don’t stand up I I have to just sorry to interrupt you a couple things that I heard you
Transcenders
12:08
mentioning and I’m curious your take on are these defining characteristics
12:13
Schultz went outside of what the norm was he he went outside of the coffee
12:19
shop he went outside the industry went outside the country he also was curious he was looking at what’s out there which
12:26
sounds easy to do but when you’re steeped in your pattern of thinking and
12:31
that’s your job it’s hard not to be an expert it’s hard to look outside but um I’m
12:36
curious defining characteristics are there other things that you think not just about Schultz but but about the
12:43
so-called transcenders that you feel stand out uh that that really are kind of like those markers you’d look for
12:49
yeah so transcender professionals and uh and by the way they don’t have to be the CEO
12:56
of the company they can be at any level the company any function any Market I’ve seen people
13:01
in you know lower you know um you know supply chain jobs legal
13:08
regulatory product development all types of people can become transcenders I think there’s two different types
13:13
there’s the trend centers that are natural trans centers Schultz Jeff Bezos and many other people like that are
13:19
absolute natural transcenders and then you have others that learn to become
13:24
transcenders over time okay so for instance in my workshops I will train people on the transgender system and
13:31
maybe maybe I’ll take a step back and explain what I mean at a high level with the transgender system is so people
13:36
understand it so in the transgender system you don’t win by Leading with your brand
13:43
okay and you don’t use the traditional product Playbook instead you use a political Playbook use the same type of
13:51
Playbook that you you as presidential candidates use so for instance in 2008 Obama didn’t lead with vote Obama he led
14:00
with the word one word campaign agenda or game as I refer to it of change
14:06
and then he followed with the brand he was the brand so if you believed in change then and were inspired by it then
14:13
you would vote for Obama because he was the change candidate that was his positioning and everything Obama did was
14:19
about change his policies whether it’s Health Care Iraqi War policy monetary policies they
14:25
were all about change the way he ran his candidacy was all about change he relied
14:31
heavily on the internet and volunteers unusual at that time
14:36
and of course his background has changed so everything he did was about change so if you believed in change he was the
14:43
change agent you voted for him and of course we saw the same thing happen in 2016. everybody knows Trump’s forward campaign
14:50
agenda or game make America greater yeah he could have said vote Trump because he was a known brand
14:57
but he didn’t he led with make America great again and then if people believed
15:03
in and were inspired by that then he would follow with vote Trump right so
15:08
these companies do the same thing well let me ask what just to peel that back for a moment yeah it’s sort of like
15:15
the traditional parlance I would have called that positioning where you want to be in the position of somebody’s mind
15:21
we want that that subtle place to be lodged in to think about make America
15:26
great or change and to be associated with that candidate or that product that brand Etc is that not positioning or
15:33
yeah help me understand that one a little bit so this is where again the
15:38
transcender system is different in virtually every way from the traditional product Playbook and here’s an example
15:45
so that is the idea of creating an agenda is actually not positioning per
15:51
se it’s called cognitive framing it’s based on cognitive science the idea is you
15:57
force people to look through your frame of reference if they look through your
16:02
frame of reference so for instance if people would want to look through the frame of reference in the case of Obama
16:08
change or Trump make America great again or in the case of Starbucks the third place then they will see what you want
16:15
them to see Starbucks wants you to see a store that’s welcoming that’s got comfortable chairs and couches nice
16:22
music plenty of space free Wi-Fi you know welcoming at Baristas Etc so then
16:28
you then basically play your game but it’s called creating the agenda or
16:34
cognitive framing then you follow with the positioning of the brand you don’t
16:39
lead with it so here’s the very important difference Dan in the traditional model brand was the
16:47
lead actor in the transgender system it’s a supporting actor you still use branding
16:53
we still Starbucks absolutely uses its branding cups its brand and name it’s its logo but they don’t win with
16:59
branding and they don’t lead with it they lead with an agenda which is the game that the company plays and it’s not
17:06
just a marketing sales slogan it’s a corporate wide way to compete and win so
17:13
I see a couple of things are a really important distinctions here is that I like your point the brand you know we
17:20
always LED with brand brand is still there it’s still important but it’s not the single most important thing that’s
17:27
right so I’d love to get Seth Godin on I have them right over I do not have them right here but there are a lot of people
17:34
built their careers on that um I do want to hold that thought for one second Stan because
17:41
um I want to remind folks you have an opportunity to ask questions put them out there we’ll moderate them when about
17:46
you know five eight minutes answer so will pause so you have your say but I do
What Changed His View of Branding?
17:52
want to just kind of wind back a little bit a little bit of a pivot for us um before we we you know went live we
17:59
had a quick conversation about your own personal experiences I noticed you
18:04
didn’t have a traditional Northern New Jersey accent and uh I know you’re originally from Tennessee and uh we
18:12
talked about your experiences in your childhood how that kind of shape even this kind of like this this process your
18:19
your approach tell us a little bit about like what happened you’re a child that absolutely disrupted the way you thought
18:27
about branding and Leadership well it wasn’t a traumatic childhood
18:32
I’ll tell you that but um I was a big Vanderbilt fan okay
18:38
Commodores Nashville Commodores I was the ball boy for the Vanderbilt basketball team for eight years my father started the national Commodore
18:44
Club etc etc so we were a huge band of fans but every year we go to the Alabama football game versus Vanderbilt and
18:50
literally by halftime we were getting blown out you know usually it was 31 to 3 or 28 nothing or whatever it was and
18:56
the game was over and so I remember at seven years old I asked my father I said why does
19:02
Vanderbilt every year lose so badly to Alabama they’re both playing the same
19:07
game of football why are they why does Vanderbilt always lose and he said to me well
19:13
Alabama’s led by Bear Bryant at that time who was the winningest coach in football until recently Nick Saban who
19:19
surpassed him the current Alabama coach and my father said he basically Bear Bryant seems to have a system where he
19:26
uses player Recruitment and Player Development to win the game before he
19:31
even plays the game and that really stuck with me because from that point forward I was not just
19:38
watching games to see who won I was watching to see how the teams how they
19:44
won not just who won how they won and I realized in sports As I Grew Older that
19:50
there were systems for winning obviously power Bear Bryant later Nick Saban with his two-word agenda of the
19:58
process at Alabama okay that football team as you know he’s won seven national titles the most they’ve done okay yeah
20:05
they’ve done okay Bill Belichick his mentor used the system basically do your job three-word
20:12
agenda okay um and you can go on and on Moneyball and baseball that helped the Cubs help
20:18
the Sox help the Astros all win World Series right so I knew there were winning systems in
20:23
sports so when I went to business school at Wharton I basically would say to my
20:29
marketing Professor you know I see you’re teaching branding but what are the other ways to win besides branding
20:34
what are the other systems for winning because I know there’s multiple systems in sports and he looked at me like I was from Mars right I got to Bristol-Myers
20:42
Squibb which is a consumer Products Company pharmaceutical company Etc very heavily focused on branding and again
20:48
when I was a brand manager they said you know I said hey I see that there’s one approach you’re using here it’s only the
20:54
only approach you’re using is branding trying to differentiate our brand um let’s talk about other ways other
20:59
strategies for winning and they looked at me again like I was for Mars so I at
21:04
that point realized I wanted to create a winning system for business which
21:10
ultimately over the last 35 plus years I have developed the transgender system which I describe in detail in the book
21:16
Brands don’t win but it’s all about using a political Playbook you create
21:23
your agenda that is you create the game it’s a game that only you can win
21:29
you then communicate the agenda tell the marketplace over and over what your game is so that they see it through your
21:35
frame of reference or your game and they play your game and third you Champion the agenda with
21:41
three different excuse me four different types of winning actions okay so that’s all I’ll explain in the book it’s a
21:47
simple system but the most important thing Dan is if you just want to compete then brand you
21:54
have plenty of you know company it’s like playing brand Checkers because most you know most companies and most people
22:00
are brainwashed but if you want to win then transcend use the world’s most powerful system the
22:08
train Center system for winning so I’m gonna let me unwind this a little bit and we’re going to take questions and
22:13
I’m gonna ask one more question and then turn it over to other folks I have a host of other questions that I’d like to
22:19
ask you Stan but I want to give some air time to others as well um so my the question I have before we
How To Make Sure People Hear You as a Transcender
22:25
take others you know this idea about being a transgender or a rule breaker somebody
22:32
who who kind of challenges the orthodoxies and the Norms of the way things are done it’s not easy it’s not
22:39
easy I mean you give the example like Howard Schultz was successful and and it was happily ever after but there are
22:45
plenty of examples where people have you know tried to change a game and they got beaten up for it
22:52
um you know Steve Sasson Kodak famous story about him having discovered the DSLR and they said let’s shelve it
22:59
um there’s a lot of other examples out there in the social space Social advocacies Sports where they were
23:05
dismissed it’s not easy to be a rule breaker how do you if you are one of
23:11
these folks who are changing the way the game is played how do you make sure that that people hear you
23:16
um yeah so you’re not just a footnote because nobody likes to to challenge convention truly we talk about it in
23:22
hindsight how do you do it yeah this is a great question um first of all let me distinguish
23:27
between rule breaking and Rule making yeah in the transgender system you’re not
23:33
rule breaking you’re making the rules because you’re creating a game only you
23:39
can play and win so again getting back to Starbucks it was all about having the the nicer bigger stores and the right
23:45
locations with the right training of their employees Etc so they were creating the rules
23:51
that made other companies as well as the rest of all their stakeholders regulators and others
23:57
follow their game and play their game okay so that’s an important distinction these are rule makers they are playing
24:03
the game now you talk about it not being easy it’s not easy initially
24:08
okay to change the mindset because quite frankly as I said earlier you know
24:13
people have been doing branding and using this model for 3000 years virtually every executive every professional business professional has
24:19
either been taught or trained it’s all about money with branding so the first thing you have to do is be open-minded
24:25
enough to accept that there’s got to be more than one way to compete I mean think
24:32
about that we go to Starbucks and you can order any one of a hundred and
24:37
seventy thousand different types of drinks have you ordered all of them yet not yet I’m working on it I’m working on
24:44
it but when it comes to competing you walk into the store and you there’s only
24:49
one way to compete it doesn’t make sense so I think first of all people have to
24:54
just we have to debunk that myth that branding is the only way to win so that’s the first part that and quite
25:00
frankly when I do my workshops that’s one of the most important pieces is to get people just to look through the
25:06
frame of reference that I’m providing them which is you don’t have to look through the brand the very limited brand
25:12
frame it’s almost what I call the brand jail you have to break out of the brand jail shake off the brain cuffs and
25:20
basically you know get to where you’re not brand washed I want to I want to play on your analogy for a minute
25:25
because there’s a lot of brand prison wardens and prison guards out there protecting for example uh you know just
25:32
something that I saw literally the other day yesterday at a conference for
25:37
investors they’re they’re these are private Equity Venture funds and every
25:44
company that presented there was a formulaic approach of looking at their customer acquisition model and their
25:50
cost and they said we have to look across everybody exactly the same which begged the question for me if you’re
25:56
measuring everybody with a consistent standard it does make it easier and it’s you really don’t want to Veer from that
26:03
they’re going to Rebel they’re gonna push back if you’re challenging the common metrics the common language it’s
26:10
not easy um it’s more than not easy it’s it’s it’s it’s sort of rehabituating people
26:15
into thinking and doing things differently um what works how do you how do you
26:20
break those habits to get people to look at it differently even if somebody says Stan I don’t love your transcender
26:26
system or the language that you’re using the fundamental premise that there’s more than one way to do things the way
26:33
they’ve always been done is absolutely vital but it’s not easy what are you
26:38
finding from your experience how do you get those prison guards to open up the doors
26:43
yeah you know it’s such an important question because I you know quite
26:48
frankly this is one of the most biggest challenges and opportunities I have with clients which is how do you get people
26:55
to break out of habits okay because we all know we’re most
27:00
humans do not like change however that’s and we know there’s an adoption curve for everything okay for
27:07
all different types of products Technologies including the training center system so it starts with having somebody or
27:14
some people at your company that are willing to say you know what I’m tired of missing sales projections
27:21
I don’t like the fact that we had a failed product launch I don’t like the fact that I’m constantly reacting to
27:27
another competitor and I’m willing to change what we’re doing so that I get
27:32
better results I get successful product launches I meet sales goals and exceed them so that’s where it starts you have
27:40
to be willing to say okay I’m not going to continue doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same
27:45
result which of course is the definition of insanity according to Einstein right so I have found that there’s always
27:52
groups of people within companies big or small whether it’s a one-person company all the way up to you know 100 200 000
27:58
member companies okay there are going to be people that are tired of playing somebody’s else’s game
28:05
they’re tired of losing and so they are open and open-minded to trying something
28:11
else to get a different result so I am usually called in by those types of
28:16
people now they can be any number of different types of people it could be the senior executive it could be a
28:22
junior marketing person it could be a competitive intelligence market research
28:27
product development any number of people that say you know what I wanna I wanna
28:32
win because the transgender model is not about competing because that’s what the
28:38
brand model does the brand model allows you to compete so if you just want to compete continue branding okay but if
28:44
you want to win and more importantly if you want to dominate then you have to be open to trying a new
28:52
system and this is a very simple concept which is you play your own game I mean how many people don’t like to oh
28:58
I mean I can make the rules they love it when they actually see this system and they see the case studies and examples
29:04
of how you can create and play your own game people get excited they get excited
29:10
and they know hey I can win with this I don’t know how to play this game you’re
29:16
you’re you’re seeing the sums of other people and I did promise I was going to
Audience Questions
29:22
moderate a couple of questions we had a couple questions that have come in one was what about if you’re bound to a
29:29
larger institution and you need to follow the rules as a medical provider
29:34
this is the biggest challenge that we have when we’re playing the insurance game now that’s I hear that all the time
29:42
from from Healthcare professionals they gripe about it’s like it’s not the way it used to be you trained as a medical
29:48
doctor many years ago as I recall um how do you answer that like it’s that
29:53
this is a tough situation that’s right so so I have actually done Consulting
29:59
for you know uh product Healthcare products companies pharmaceutical biotech or physician groups hospitals
30:06
insurance companies I’ve basically played all over the healthcare landscape as well as outside the healthcare
30:12
industry many times and again it’s the same thing you have to change the game we have to come up and play a game only
30:18
can win and so we are seeing some versions of that so different search instances medical groups are coming up
30:24
with concierge medicine that’s one model that they’re using to basically play the insurance or stop playing the insurance
30:30
game they’re basically saying we’re not going to play the insurance game I mean my physician just this past year said
30:35
you know what I’m not doing the insurance model at all I’m going to become concierge she’s charging me you know a fee up front but here’s what we
30:42
offer okay that’s one model others are basically getting bigger medical groups they get such big specialty groups or or
30:48
primary care groups that they can then out compete quite frankly against insurance companies because there’s so
30:54
many Summit Health in New Jersey Z and exactly exactly my belief is and I tell
31:01
my I tell my kids this and I tell my clients this find a way to win there’s always a way
31:08
to win so that’s what I do working with clients is to find what is the game or
31:13
the approach and what I refer to as the campaign agenda that you use to win in
31:19
your respective business field there’s another question that came in
31:24
Stan a little different one that you might have heard a couple times before I know I have I work on the commercial
31:31
side and we’re dealing with legal and Regulatory who are paid to say no how do
31:38
I deal with people who have no vested interest to help me play a different
31:43
game I purposely in my workshops in my
31:49
seminars my trans center workshops seminars business war games I purposely make sure that legal Regulatory
31:57
Compliance any of those types of groups are always represented usually at the
32:03
highest levels okay because what I find is their their knee-jerk reaction would
32:09
be oh no we have to play by the existing rules but when they go through these workshops
32:14
and I show them examples of how companies like a Nike like an Amazon like an apple and these other companies
32:21
how they’ve changed the game legally compliantly following regulations
32:27
and they basically have forced that game not only on the marketplace and
32:33
competitors but they’ve also focused their game in a way so that regulators and lawyers and others have to play the
32:40
same game this is this is and I will tell you I get some it’s funny I get some of the best ideas for agendas from
32:47
lawyers and Regulators it’s really funny and they they see it so once you see
32:53
this a big part of this is seeing that the transcender world is round it’s a
32:58
little like oh once we saw a picture of the Earth as round from space right every most everybody pretty much
33:05
everybody said oh I get it the world’s around just about that’s right just about it’s the same thing here once you
33:11
see it you can’t go back to branding you can no longer go back to playing the
33:18
same exact game that this every single company pretty much on the planet uses whether they’ve got a product technology
33:24
service for the last 3000 years no people will then ultimately see it it’s
33:30
like the light bulb goes off and they can’t go back I I hate to say this but we only have a
Speed Round (Rule Maker or Rule Follower)
33:37
little bit of time left so right I want to change the game that we’re playing right now sorry I had to bring that in
33:44
um we’ve just been conversing uh some questions we got a couple questions from the audience but I want to play a quick
33:50
speed round 30 seconds and what I’m going to ask you is is the person I’m going to introduce
33:57
and I’ll give you a bunch of people are they a rule maker are they a rule
34:03
follower and you can even say they’re a rule breaker but let’s say rule maker versus rule follower you ready go all
34:10
right I’m gonna put the first one out there for you first one Jeff Bezos you’re on the clock
34:17
transcender um he basically created his own game
34:25
his game was customer Obsession he never played The Branding game you’ll see you won’t even see the name Amazon on the
34:31
side of the trucks that are delivering your packages today look at the trucks they won’t have the brand name Amazon on
34:36
them I think I know it’s a customer Obsession everything they do everything they do is aligned to customer session
34:42
every metric eighty percent of their measures are customer metrics okay they basically
34:49
Focus solely on customer session they do it better than anybody else in the world
34:54
their Prime program delivery program changed the game it’s considered the most devastating internet program in the
35:00
world for competitors everybody basically had to respond to Prime all right yep I’m gonna throw another one
35:08
out to you yeah this one okay Jeff Bezos everybody knows Jeff Bezos here’s what’s a little more Arcane Harry Hammer carry
35:16
Hammer fashion are you familiar with it you ready yeah Carrie Hammer actually changed the
35:22
game in the fashion industry um in night in 2014 she basically was
35:28
showing her clothes on a New York uh Council fashion runway and at that time
35:34
her clothes were meant for professional middle-aged women quite frankly and the models that she put her clothes on uh
35:41
these young very thin 19 20 year old women didn’t fit Lily and it figuratively didn’t fit for her so she
35:48
basically said you know what I’m not going to play the same game that every other fashion designer does I am going to change the game my game is going to
35:55
be Role Models not runway models she then proceeded to have female Executives
36:00
philanthropists and even a woman who had autism
36:06
um who was one of the models she also had a quadruple amputee that was a model she had a woman in a wheelchair that was
36:13
a model she basically was saying hey it’s not about the runway it’s about real life so her five-word campaign
36:19
agenda was Role Models not runway models she changed the game in the fashion
36:25
industry not runway models I love the play on words with that all right I got another one for you another one a little
36:31
more Arcane um Hans Neiman the chess player
36:37
he uh based on what I understand uh he actually is a rule breaker
36:43
yeah tell me tell me more or tell us a little bit more yeah so he’s admitted to cheating in chess uh he has also had
36:51
numerous reports uh indicating that he has cheated particularly in online chess tournaments he’s like an earpiece or
36:57
something with a little signaling device yeah and so to me that is that is breaking the law okay and I want to make
37:04
a distinction between it’s not making another game it’s that’s breaking the game that’s breaking that’s breaking the
37:09
law okay breaking the rules breaking the law of an existing game whereas transcenders do not do that transcenders
37:16
you create a legal ethical compliant game and then you win that game
37:22
interesting that this is a really important distinction because I I like to think about you have to know the way
37:28
the game is played so you can break the rules but you still have to have a playing field where everybody’s at least
37:34
in agreement about what the the legalities and rules are so it’s an interesting distinction yeah but I I
37:41
don’t even I would say instead of knowing the rules if you’re knowing the rules that means you’re following somebody else’s rules
37:47
and I will tell my clients if you are basically following somebody else’s rules you’re playing somebody else’s
37:53
game and by definition you’re losing so the idea is create your own game you
37:58
create the rules again making it legal ethical compliant but you create your own game you create your own rules and
38:05
you force everybody else to learn your rules that’s the mindset difference because the transgender system is not
38:12
just a system it’s also a mindset all right I got one more for you as time
38:17
allows let’s go into the world of monarchy or x-monarchy Prince Harry what
38:23
do you think about him you know you almost can’t separate him from his wife Meghan Markle so there’s a
38:30
lot of Duo um clearly I think people would agree that in the UK that they have broken the
38:36
monarchy’s rules right um they’re quite annoyed about it it’s yeah I’m lit by these rules it’s right
38:43
that’s right you talk about that’s about his rules oriented as you can get right
38:48
um very true but at the same time I don’t necessarily see the game that he
38:53
and his wife are playing I don’t see a campaign agenda I don’t see a consistent game so I would say there are more rule
39:00
Breakers than uh transcenders right so they’re not actually that that’s an interesting point I’m glad you made that
39:06
one because I I wasn’t sure are they playing a different game or maybe they have a game where just it’s totally
39:11
opaque to everybody yeah and and this is this is important it’s it’s not you know it’s not just not playing by somebody
39:17
else’s rules just because you don’t play that that doesn’t make you a transcendor yeah transgender has to play their own
39:23
game where is I don’t see that with Prince Harry at this point gotcha all
39:28
right Stan I mean it’s hard to believe it’s been 40 minutes but what I’m going to ask you is last couple of thoughts
Practical Application
39:35
people like to walk away with practical application what are a couple things that I can do right now
39:42
um maybe I’ll go do a training maybe I’ll be in a workshop maybe I won’t but I want to walk away with one or two
39:48
tidbits of things I can think about or do right now what are a couple of practical takeaways you can give people
39:54
okay um let’s let’s go with two the first one is the three-step transcender system
40:01
um I describe it in detail in the book obviously you can read the book but the three steps of this you create the
40:06
agenda find a game that only you can play and win for your company and your products second communicate that agenda
40:12
internally so that you get full alignment so everybody understands it every single strategy every single
40:17
action every single metric aligns to it and then Champion agenda with several
40:22
winning actions cross-functional cross-disciplinary cross Geographic the
40:28
second thing I’d suggest to people is this this is very simple and that is when you communicate your campaign
40:35
agenda use five words or fewer the reason for that is that it turns out
40:42
we have lost over the last 20 years 43 percent of our short-term memory
40:48
where did we leave it yeah well we lost it the iPhones and and other devices that
40:55
we rely on we used to be a remember seven plus or minus two chunks of information or digits right for the last
41:01
20 years we’ve lost and and we’re now down to four basically four plus or minus one chunk of information
41:07
so if you want people to remember and more importantly repeat your agenda over
41:13
and over and over again like in the case of a political election change in the case of Obama or make America great
41:18
again in the case of trump you make sure that it’s ideally honestly
41:24
forwards or fewer because some people can’t even remember five words so that’s what I’d recommend
41:30
um in terms of communicating it’s it’s the simple way to think about this is the elevator pitch that’s the
41:36
traditional way you have several floors and you give your brand messaging in the
41:41
transcender world you have the elevator clothes wait hold that elevator
41:46
forwards keep it simple keep it simple keep it concise I like that so forwards
41:53
not even five words and and repeat it over and over this is a big difference
41:59
in traditional marketing we say don’t don’t you know change the marketing every three six months a year
42:05
commercials Etc no don’t do that in the in the Transcendent World in transcender world you repeat your agenda over and
42:11
over again everybody knows Nike’s agenda from 1987. three words
42:16
just do it just do it stand you have been an incredible guest
42:23
and to borrow your expertise I’m going to say the same thing deliberate deliberate deliberate do things very
42:29
deliberately innovate in a deliberate way all right too many words too many too many I’m gonna narrow it down but
Concluding Thoughts
42:37
first of all big thank you for for you coming joining sharing your wisdom you laid some wisdom down on us deeply
42:43
appreciate it I am going to put the book up there Brands don’t win I like the Simplicity of the cover on this too very
42:49
very nicely done simple but also effective big thank you for for coming if anybody
42:55
would like to reach out to Stan you know where you can find them LinkedIn the source of all things business these days
43:03
but for us we’re glad to have you here we will be hosting our next episode
43:09
coming before the holidays the Christmas and New Year’s holidays and you’re not
43:14
going to want to miss that one it’s all about deliberate facilitation how do you do things in a delivery way that other
43:21
people aren’t to be able to get an incredible output in your next Workshop or event so come on you’ll see some
43:27
stuff about that coming up but in the meanwhile big thanks again to Our Guest signing off for now take care everyone
43:34
and have a great rest of your week take care bye