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    Fresh Passion: Get a Brand or Die a Generic
    Fresh Passion: Get a Brand or Die a Generic
    Fresh Passion: Get a Brand or Die a Generic
    Ebook288 pages3 hours

    Fresh Passion: Get a Brand or Die a Generic

    By Michael D. Brown

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    About this ebook

     Houston, TX
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGreenleaf Book Group
    Release dateJan 1, 2013
    ISBN9781608324125
    Fresh Passion: Get a Brand or Die a Generic

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      Book preview

      Fresh Passion - Michael D. Brown

      passion!

      1

      GET A BRAND OR DIE A GENERIC®

      Quotable Notables: Peter Drucker, Steve Jobs

      Brownie Point: My Life as a Frontline Prisoner

      Your Perfect Day Worksheet

      Become a Distinct and Competitive Brand or an Extinct Generic

      A Brief Summary of Personal Branding

      Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves—their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.

      —PETER F. DRUCKER (1909–2005)

      Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.

      —STEVE JOBS (1955–2011)

      QUOTABLE NOTABLES: PETER DRUCKER AND STEVE JOBS

      Peter Drucker was a highly regarded business thinker who popularized the term knowledge worker and helped major corporations such as General Motors adapt their organizational structure to the knowledge economy, which took root after World War II. He understood that business was increasingly relying upon the talents and capabilities of individuals.

      Steve Jobs was one of the original founders of Apple, one of the world’s most successful and innovative technology brands. Always known as a maverick thinker, Jobs resigned in the mid-1980s to found NeXT Computer, a company whose technology was critical to developing the World Wide Web. Jobs rejoined Apple in the late 1990s and helped the then-struggling company achieve unprecedented success with products such as the iMac, iPod, and iPhone. Jobs was a true visionary whose aspirations allowed him to succeed despite significant obstacles and have benefited the entire world through technological advancement. His name still has the ability to inspire innovation and create customer experiences that are unmatched. Through innovation and a tireless focus on delivering a unique customer experience, Jobs took what otherwise would have been a generic high-technology company and turned it into a lifestyle accessory for hip, computer-savvy people, especially those in the creative fields.

      BROWNIE POINT: MY LIFE AS A FRONTLINE PRISONER

      I would like to share with you the story of my difficult time as a multi-unit manager of frontline employees at a Fortune 500 company I will refer to as Majestic Suites, a period I like to call my frontline prisoner days. I think this story is a great example of both why Fresh PASSION is so important and how it can make the difference between having a dead-end career and having a career that maximizes your professional and personal potential and allows you to realize your perfect day (more on that shortly).

      Remember, when your brand is stale and dull, it will sit ignored in the marketplace while consumers (i.e., the people who will ultimately determine how well you succeed) will fight over the fresher, more exciting brands that are available. By the time someone selects your brand, out of desperation, lack of choice, or budgetary constraints, you will have died a generic death.

      As I will explain in detail, the Majestic Suites unit at the Little Rock International Airport had fallen into disarray and was not representative of what you would expect when you enter a business that is a perennial member of the Fortune 500.

      After about a week on the job, the other managers and assistant managers started to tell me about how things really worked at the airport. This was after I signed an oath in blood that I wouldn’t tell the unit’s general manager, a man I will refer to as Mr. Wallace Wright. A small sampling of the problems I heard about included a 400 percent turnover rate, ethical issues, several quarters of missed sales targets, expenses that were 30 percent over budget, and customer satisfaction scores that were in the toilet. We were using a temporary agency on a permanent basis to staff the stores and concessions.

      Wallace (all these years later I still cringe at referring to him on a first-name basis, as if we were buddies) wanted us to increase sales and customer satisfaction scores, and most important, slow the bleeding with employee turnover, including the temporary employees who were leaving at an alarming rate. I was certainly up for the challenge and believed that I could help turn things around.

      After about a month on the job, employees started regularly coming to me and saying things like, Michael, you are much too smart to be working here, why are you here … you can do so much better someplace else. I was determined to make a difference, despite Wallace’s authoritarian, heavy-handed style. He came to me one day and stated that I had the highest sales and the employees liked working with me. Despite this positive comment, I was still determined to get myself out of this situation. These were some of the darkest days of my life.

      Wallace said in a staff meeting that the employees complained that they couldn’t get assistance from any manager except Michael, but he didn’t ask what I was doing to assist them. He stated that my sales were 40 percent higher but did not ask how I got them that way.

      Instead, he said the employees didn’t up-sell, didn’t take care of the customers in a timely manner, and were not happy when I wasn’t at work. He went on to say that I should be training employees to perform at all times, even when they were working for other managers, and that I was a poor leader. I started to tell him how I motivated people and how I ran my shifts differently, which was a BIG

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