055 The Invisible Touch – Today's Best Battle of the Brands

The Second Key: Brand

To understand the irony of Harry Beckwith's section with this same title, you have to look at the copyright date.

The book was first published in 1976 and updated in 2000. If there's a more current version of THIS book (he has several other terrific books too), I'm not aware of it.

Look What Happens When Brand Doesn't Equal Quality

Mr. Beckwith's example of great branding in THIS section of his book is Yahoo! the search engine company. He regales us with stories about how great the branding is, even though its search results are not as quick or thorough as Dogpile, Excite, or Alta Vista.

HUH?

Right: Who the heck are they?

If you've been on a computer as long as I have (bought my first PC in 1983) and on the Internet as long as I have (gosh I'm sounding SO old – but the Internet hasn't been around that long… but do you remember when CompuServe, AOL, and bulletin boards were about all we had?), you remember these search engines and more. Once they were strong, not they're hardly even here (if at all).

Yahoo! was MUCH bigger than any of the others even though it was slower and would freeze.

And you learn, when using multiple search engines, that in fact they are NOT all the same.

Google admits to indexing about a trillion pages and it knows that it's just scratching the surface. There is NO WAY that it can keep up with all the information pouring into just the World Wide Web every day (to say nothing about the rest of the Internet).

So, what happens when Brand is all smoke and mirrors or hundreds of millions of dollars poured into institutional advertising to build a brand? When the next big brand comes along and can do things better AND can build a huge name for itself, a company like Yahoo! goes under.

Look What Google Is Doing Today

Google is By Far the largest search engine (but so was Yahoo!). People use the word as a noun AND as a verb, such as "I googled it." It gets 66% of the searches and business uses it almost exclusively.

But YouTube is a search engine for what IT has. And eBay is its own search engine too. And look at all the people who aren't using search engines to find things: they are going much more directly when they use their cell phone apps and go directly to the results, bypassing Google.

So what is Google doing? Coming out with its OWN phone (DROID) running on its own software. And from what I read, Garman may be put out of business since the Google Maps feature will allow driving directions right from the Google phone.

Google – one smart company that has a HUGE brand recognition but which is also building quality even more quickly than it builds its brand name.

Don't be lulled into thinking that the largest brand will always be there: what about Sears and KMart – you think Walmart is invincible, think again and you'll understand why Wallmart works so hard to maintain its dominant position.

And How Can You Relate This To YOU In Your Service Business?

Figure out what YOU do best and build around that. Get the word out and make raving fans of those who know, like, and trust you.

Niche down so that you aren't perceived as all things to all people (translation: not strong enough in any area but a generalist in many).

Find what you are passionate about and great at and build that as your business (once you've done some research to determine there is a market for what you will be offering).

Just like a huge cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, large companies have difficulty changing course as quickly as a nimble entrepreneur. Find what you want to work on and pursue it with vengeance… others won't know what hit them until it's too late.

Best,

Charlie Seymour Jr
Blogging, Podcasting, Consulting

PS: You can find me here:

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Charlie Seymour Jr is an entrepreneurial evangelist and marketing-success coach helping individuals and companies (up to $100MM) explode their success through online and direct-response marketing. He specializes in blogging, podcasting, photography, video, and Facebook applications. Visit his blog at http://bit.ly/24eYTO to learn more about his successes.

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Fallacies of Marketing

055 The Invisible Touch – Today's Best Battle of the Brands