Branding Non-profits

In this day and age, non-profit organisations like charities, trade associations, special interest groups, and clubs can ill afford to ignore branding. To reach a critical sized audience and membership, you need systems and processes to be in place. You need to also market your organisation for it to gain greater clout and reach so that it can better achieve its purpose. Just passion alone would not cut it.

Branding Insider, one of my favourite references for branding thoughts, highlighted 7 points of branding non-profit organisations. Here are the key lessons:

Tor read the rest of the story Click :
http://coolinsights.blogspot.com/

The Brand Called You

No matter what you're doing today, there are four things you've got to measure yourself against.

First, you've got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague.
Second, you've got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value.
Third, you've got to be a broad-gauged visionary -- a leader, a teacher, a farsighted "imagineer."
Fourth, you've got to be a businessperson -- you've got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes.

It's this simple: You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else.

Quoted from Tom Peters

To read the full article go to :
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/brandyou.html

Innovation and Dumb Questions

Innovation is a low-odds business—and luck sure helps. If you believe that success does owe a lot to luck, and that luck in turn owes a lot to getting in the way of unexpected opportunities, you need not throw up your hands in despair.

One way to finding creative solutions is by asking questions. Better yet, ask dumb questions.

"How come computer commands all come from keyboards?"

Somebody asked that one first; hence,

the mouse.

You'll be surprised at the insights you can get to.

Learning how to Sell

"He had done nothing to sell me on his business,

yet

he had given me the most powerful sales pitch of my life. Because his sole concern had been my welfare and the success of my business."

-Jim Penman, on learning how to sell
(Quoted from Tom Peters)

Tom Peter's Success Tip #69 : Do Unto Others

The goal of EVERY action, EVERY meeting, EVERY project:

MAKE OTHERS SUCCESSFUL!

Can you honestly say that the questions you asked at the very last meeting you attended were...directly & unequivocally...about making others successful?
(As opposed, say, to protecting your department's turf...or your own turf.)
Considering your next meeting, work assidiously on other's success. Evaluate each comment-suggestion you make in that direct light.

Consider this advice in the exact terms it is stated:

I EXIST TO MAKE OTHERS SUCCESSFUL...AND THIS IDEA ANIMATES MY EVERY WEE & AND GRAND ACTIVITY.

The glory of falling

In business, you reward people for taking risks.
When it doesn't work out you promote them-because they were willing to try new things.

If people tell me they skied all day and never fell down,

I tell them to try a different mountain."

— Tom Peters quoting Michael Bloomberg

Why do I love Freaks?

1. Because when anything interesting happens...it was a FREAK who did it
(period)

2. FREAKS are fun. (Freaks are also a pain.) Freaks are never boring.

3. We need FREAKS. Especially in feaky times. (Hint: These are freaky
times, for you & me &the CIA & the army & Avon.)

4. A critical mass of FREAKS-IN-OUR-MIDST automatically make us-who
are-not-so-freaky at least somewhat more freaky. (Which is a Good Thing in
freaky times - see immidiately above.)

5. FREAKS are the only (ONLY) ones who succeed - as in, make it into the
history books.

6. FREAKS keep us from falling into ruts. (If we listen to them.) (We
seldom listen to them.) (Which is why most organizations are in ruts. Make
that chasm.)

Quoted from Tom Peters

COMPETITORS

"The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world;

no,

the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before;
he doesn't do the thing he ought to do,
and
so the expert isn't prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot."

—Mark Twain, quoted by Tom Peters

Punishment/reward

Reward excelent failures,

Punish mediocre successes

www.tompeters.com

Success - A definition

SUCCESS means never letting the competition define you,

instead...

you have to define yourself based on a point of view you care deeply about.

Tom Chappell

Re-imagine tomorow's organizations

I decided a couple of years ago that organizations were... NOT WHAT THEY HAD BEEN. They were not "enterprises to do dull stuff as we'd always known." They were... AND I'M KEEN ON THIS... Itinerant Potential Machines. That is, enterprises that will... RE-FORM THEMSELVES...to do...WHATEVER IS NECESSARY... WHENEVER.

Here's what I wrote :

TALENT POOL TO DIE FOR. Youthful! Insanely energetic! Value creativity! Risk taking is routine! Failing is normal if you're STRETCHING! Want to "make thei bones" in "THE REVOLUTION." WELL REWARDED! Don't plan to hang around for 10 years! (Let alone 20.)

TALENT POOL PLUS.

Seek out and work with WORLD'S BEST/NO LESS as needed. (It's usually needed!) "We aim to change the world , and we need gifted colleagues - who well may not be/probably will not be on our payroll."

"Don't be affraid to make mistakes"

BRASSY-BUT-GROUNDED-LEADERSHIP I.

Say "I don't know"...and then Unleash the TALENT! have a vision to be DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT! Don't expect the Company to be around forever! We'll scrap Pet Projects...and change course 180 degrees...and take a big write-off in the process: NO REGRETS FROM SCREW-UPS WHOSE TIME HAS NOT YET COME; GREAT REGRETS AT TIME AND $$$ WASTED ON "ME-TOO" PRODUCTS!

BRASSY-BUT-GROUNDED LEADERSHIP II

"Visionary" leaders matched by Leader with shrewd business sense. "HOW DO WE TURN A PROFIT ON THIS GORGEOUS IDEA?" Apreciate "market creation" as much as or more than "market share growth." ARE INSANELY AWARE THAT MARKET LEADERS ARE ALWAYS IN PRECARIOUS POSITIONS. ANS THAT MARKET SHARE WILL NOT PROTECT US IN TODAY'S VOLATILE WORLD FROM THE NEXT "KILLER IDEA, KILLER ENTREPRENEUR."

Quoted from www.tompeter.com

"The way they do things"

ALLIANCE MANIACS : Don't assume that the best lies within. "Work with a shifting array of state-of-the-art-partners.

TECHNOLOGY-NETWORKS-FANATICS

Run the whole company and relations with all outsiders. On the internet... at internet speed. Reluctant with those who don't share this vision.

POTENTIAL-MACHINES-ORGANISMS

Don't know what's coming next! But are ready to jump at any opportunity. Especially those which turn "The Way We Have Done Things Here" on its head.

Quoted from www.tompeter.com

Profesional Service Firm (a.k.a. PSF)

The idea here is simple. AND (I think) PROFOUND:

1. "We" - ALL- "need to figure out something else to do"

2. We...MUST ADD INCREDIBLE VALUE. (period)

3. We must be...PREPARED TO POUNCE.

4. We must be ...ITINERANT POTENTIAL MACHINES...SUPER-PSF's.

(Professional Service Firm)

That's it. (PSF = Everything)

Quoted from www.tompeter.com

In business, Forget Formulas

"Business success formula literature" in numerous books published by bestselling authors claim to have isolated the promised land of outstanding performance. Such books naturally appeal to managers who are constantly on the lookout for a way to deliver great results. Yet for all their appeal, for all their attractive words and inspiring promises, they are deeply mistaken. Wise managers should see these blueprints and formulas for what they are: At best, they provide comfort and inspiration by repeating commonsense bromides. At worst, they can be dangerous, diverting managers' attention from the real nature of competition, which invariably involves probabilities under uncertainties.

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THE BRAND (The Story!)

(The Dream!) (The Love!)

It All Adds Up to … THE BRAND. (The Story!)

In the end, it is all about CHARACTER!

Futurist Rolph Jensen, head of the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, puts it more oceanically: “We are in the twilight of a society based on data. As information and intelligence become the domain of computers, society will place more value on the one human ability that cannot be automated : emotion. Imagination, myth, ritual—the language of emotion—will affect everything from our purchasing decisions to how we work with others. Companies will thrive on the basis of their stories and myths. Companies will need to understand that their products are less important than their stories.”

Mr. Jensen, has a point

“WHAT’S THE DREAM?” When Kevin Roberts took over as Big Boss at Saatchi & Saatchi, he had a dream: Nothing is impossible. To be revered as a hothouse for world-changing creative Ideas that transform our clients’ brands, Businesses, and Reputations.

Quoted from : Tom Peters