The Non-Profit Toolbox » verbal branding

Video And Google Juice

Tom Beach — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:32:26 +0000

YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine

One of the benefits we offer to sponsors and speakers for the Non-Profit Toolbox is video. We use the video interviews to promote our events, workshops, speakers and sponsors. We use video from the event so people that couldn’t make it to the event can see what they missed and learn about the topic presented. It is one of the most powerful benefits we offer – search juice.

So what does that mean to you? Not much, unless you’d like to be found easier on the web.

Stephen Melanson spoke at our June meet-up about verbal branding. We did a video interview before the event and videoed the presentation. We posted the videos on YouTube (the second largest search engine behind Google), transcribed the audio portion and used it in the description, and embedded the video into our blog.

Here is what it’s done for Stephen:

It’s on the first page of Google Search for Verbal Branding
A Video and blog post of the video is on the first page on a google search for Stephen Melanson
The video’s are in 3 of the 1st four positions on a YouTube search for Verbal Branding
The videos are now embedded in other blog posts

Did any of the videos go viral? No. Did they greatly improve his search rankings? Yes they did, quite a lot. We met Jane B Ford ( who speaks and blogs for us) yesterday and she told us that because of the videos and blog posts she now owns the first page of google search for her name, which she didn’t before.

Video, if used properly, can be a very important tool in your marketing mix.

Join us for our next Networking for Non-Profit Event in August!

Four Key Concepts of Verbal Branding – Stephen Melanson

Tom Beach — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:15:29 +0000

Stephen Melanson, from Melanson Consulting, gave a great presentation on Verbal Branding and the Networking for NonProfits Fun Night Out on May 6, 2010. This is part 6 of his presentation.

A transcript follows the video:

Here’s how I teach people in the beginning. You develop your one or two ideas that truly tell the marketplace you are different and better, the best option hands down. The plain language test is you might tell what your name is, you certainly are telling them what category the business or the nonprofit is in, and then you know what, plain language we’re different from our competitors, here’s why. Reasons number one number two, one is better than two by the way but two fine. Here is the crazy test. Now you don’t say this unless you really want to. You might choose to do that. The crazy test you tell them your name maybe, you tell them what category you’re in, and if you don’t use us if you don’t support us you are crazy, here’s why. It’s actually a different filter if you think of it that way. How would you dominate the marketplace, how would you absolutely marginalize the competition? Why they are crazy to not use you. Do you know? I do. Do you? You need to develop that.

By the way it’s OK to speak normally, you can talk about the weather, you can talk about the sports, you know, whatever you feel like. Don’t do this, never mind hello we’re different. Don’t bash people over the head with your positioning, you’ll get to it. There is a moment in every interaction when somebody says, that magic moment, they either ask you literally, what do you do? That’s one, don’t miss that. But there is always a moment, don’t miss that part. Because this turns into this, and that’s not what you want people to remember, that’ll become your brand. That person who was rolling around on the floor fighting, that’s not what you want.

OK very quick, I’m almost done. Verbal branding platform, now we’re talking this, about it’s actually done, you literally have a verbal branding platform now. Here’s the vision. You know what it actually is? It’s a platform to think and speak, that’s what it is. Thinking comes first, if you don’t know what to think you will not be able to say it, and you will not be able to unify your team around it, however large the group is. It’s a platform to think and speak. That’s what you push out through the organization and remember where I started the very beginning I said simultaneous improvement of sales culture and brand density, and I’ve explained brand density.

I’m even going to add management modeling I call it. How does a manager or a leader make a decision? Well if you don’t know who you are in a marketplace, if you know what your positioning is, what do you base your decisions on? Simultaneous improvement, all the sudden these become integrated as well, based on one platform. Everyone is all the sudden going in the exact same direction. Do you know how hard that is to do? It’s very hard, but it needs to be done as best possible. One platform. One platform of one or two ideas at most or it’s not branding anymore.

I’ll guarantee that the brand that you develop, if it’s done decently or very well is the way this the way to sell ,is the way to raise money. Ever heard of Occam’s Razor? Who’s heard of Occam’s Razor? Look it up on Wikipedia if you want. Occam’s Razor there’s a couple ways they describe it, the simplest solution is what is usually the right answer. Ever hear of that? Maybe you’ve heard that said that way. That’s called Occam’s Razor, it’s a scientific principle. But it’s appropriate for talking about because if it is not simple it will not work, period. That’s why I’ve designed verbal branding the way I have because I try to work with companies of all sizes but the larger the organization the harder it is to unify. If it isn’t simple it will not work. And then you have all the other criteria that talked about.

Couple quick reminders, no elevator pitches, ever, please do us all a favor and yourself most importantly, forget about it, forget about it. Do some ritual, throw it down on the ground and burn it. I don’t know. Do something with it but don’t ever use an elevator pitch again. You’ve got five seconds and two concepts at most. That’s how to position and will lead your conversation in the correct direction. One or two positioning ideas only, different and better use that as a filter. Why are we different and better? Different and because of that difference a better option. And you always want point, if there is more than one person around, it doesn’t matter how many. Always point the results of that work internally first, so you can then push out the marketing messages through spoken, electronic, whatever goes on in your organization.

I’ll finish with this. Patrick Lencioni , if you’ve ever heard of him. He is a recognized guru for teamwork. He wrote the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Have you ever heard of that book? Good book. “If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.” True.

That’s me, thank you very much for your time.

Join us for our next Networking for Non-Profit Event in August!

Creating A Foundation for Your Brand – Stephen Melanson

Tom Beach — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:44:36 +0000

Stephen Melanson, from Melanson Consulting, gave a great presentation on Verbal Branding and the Networking for NonProfits Fun Night Out on May 6, 2010. This is part 5 of his presentation. As you work on creating your Verbal Brand, you are actually creating a strong foundation for your brand. Stephen gives a couple examples how this works in this video.

A transcript follows the video:

Alright, very quickly. Verbal branding is also a redefined foundation for the development of brand itself. You must add a spoken criteria to your branding effort, and I’ll show exactly what I mean. Geico, everybody knows the Geico commercials, right? Fifteen minutes can save you fifteen percent. Now if somebody said to somebody at Geico, “Hey why should I why should I care about you”? And that’s the question when you’re asked what he’d do at an event like this or any where you go, “Hey what do you do?”. Do you know people are actually asking you? They want to know if they should care about you. That’s the question. Hey, who cares about Geico? Well you should care about us for that reason, because fifteen minutes will save you fifteen percent. That’s the reason. That’s an idea that has spoken criteria. Fidelity, are you familiar with the “Turn” kind of brought out their new marketing campaign? Turn here. Hey who cares about Fidelity? Turn here, that doesn’t make sense. See there’s no logic there, there’s no conversation a logic, right? So Geico can advertize that way, and they can say it. Spoken criteria to their branding effort. Fidelity, I guarantee you I know, that their field people to not answer the question why should we work with you, they do not say “turn here”. Anybody disagree? Hey who cares about Fidelity? Turn here. It doesn’t work. So they are losing capability in the productivity of their brand. Believe it or not, as famous as they are, they probably spent a zillion dollars on that.

Alright, very quick I’ll show you this, traditional branding or traditional marketing campaigns is a vision that the company will have or the organization. Let’s pretend that the circle there is the campaign and it’s meant to go out into the marketplace. Right, sounds fair enough, and as a vision that it hits the market in a very dense complete uniform way. Well strangely, there’s really are these really odd things that happen every single day. Direct spoken interactions. So this campaign hits these bumps in the road, presentations, selling, networking, partner, referral… All these things are spoken interactions. Right? Well the bad news is that they have not been accounted for and there is total chaos in organizations having to do with the spoken interactions part of their business or their nonprofit. Total chaos, and this blows a huge massive holes in the productivity of their brand and by the time the brand hits the marketplace there’s all these holes in it and it’s like Swiss cheese. And guess what, all that effort blown right out of the water. That’s not good, that’s not a good result.

Add a spoken criteria, and this is how to do it, so the positioning can be said naturally. If you ask me what I do, I say I teach Verbal Branding. If you look on my business card, it says I teach Verbal Branding. If you look at my web site it says I teach Verbal Branding. That’s all I ever talk about. Even if you ask me details for two hours, it doesn’t matter, still talking about verbal branding. It’s all a spoken logic. So, instead of this, you create density internally. I want to make sure I mention this, I don’t care if there’s one person, or two, or ten, or ten thousand, create a natural spoken criteria for the understanding of the brand internally first. Non-negotiable, and then push it out into the marketplace and all the sudden these get filled in and the next thing you know you do in fact have a dense brand out in the market. What do you think of when you think of Volvo? Safety, that’s it. You can say it, it’s logical right? Walmart is cheap. That’s how they operate, that’s how they advertize, that’s what people can say, it all makes sense. It’s all the same. That’s what your brand should look like. I call it density branding literally. It unifies sales and marketing and culture internally because everybody understands why you’re different and better than the competition. Imagine that, they can say it, they can write it. By the way the interaction between a person outside with you whether spoken or if they read your Web site or marketing slick for instance the dynamics are essentially the same. They have to become curious right away there ought to be the brand in context I talk about, mostly the same.

Describing Is Not Branding- Stephen Melanson

Tom Beach — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:00:30 +0000

Stephen Melanson, from Melanson Consulting, gave a great presentation on Verbal Branding and the Networking for NonProfits Fun Night Out on May 6, 2010. This is part 4 of his presentation. As I listened to the presentation I could hear myself making this exact error that Stephen describes.

A transcript follows the video:

Here is something that I want to make sure you also remember. I hope you remember some of these things forever, because they’re true. I know that they’re true, you can fight with me all you want. Describing is not branding. Everybody describes, describes, describes what they do and it’s feels like your doing your very best job and it might be so that you are doing your worst. Describing is not branding, you need to position versus the competition describing as you get down into the weeds of everything you do and offer. It feels good, it feels like you are doing a good job. Hey I was so on my game today now I’m going to Starbucks and taking the rest of the day off. Well actually you lost the deal and you can’t believe they didn’t call you back. It’s because you described everything in detail rather than position versus the competition to be different and better. The more you describe, the more you sound like the competition. See that guy in the back? That’s you. We’re going to marginalize the competition.

What I’m going to show you right now, I get as much or more feedback about this than anything I ever teach anybody. How do you actually marginalize the competition and have it be real? This is how, that big guy in the back is you, that little guy in the front is your competition. We don’t want to be all that mean to them but we sort of want the attention that they get we want it for ourselves. We want to get that money, sponsorship, identity, all the things. Here’s my Pyramid again but if you notice, I’ve left the tip where the positioning goes outside of what I’ve highlighted. I call this the ninety five percent rule. Ninety five percent, listen to this, think about this, ninety five percent of what everybody does is ninety five percent the same as their competition, and that’s conservative.

I call it the “of course” category. People use this immediately after I teach it to them, even before their positioning is developed. They start using this anyways, and it works. Hey do you do X Y and Z something that’s down at the lower level? Of course we do. Of course we do. Everybody that does our kind of work does that. Do I train salespeople? Of course I do. That’s not my best offer to you. Whatever is down the lower level you can say and legitimately so. When asked “Do you do it?” “of course”, and that’s all our competitions offering you, well you know what that’s not that great. Does that make sense to you guys? Of course we do it. You can marginalize, if not eliminate your competition by using this of course category because this ninety five percent rule is real, it is true, it is indisputable. See I don’t always say things exactly right even though I do verbal branding. But if they want what you’ve offered them at the tip of the pyramid, you’re the guys to work with. Everyone else is the same, you’re different.

Keeping Your Brand – Stephen Melanson

Tom Beach — Wed, 26 May 2010 10:00:05 +0000

Stephen Melanson, from Melanson Consulting, gave a great presentation on Verbal Branding and the Networking for NonProfits Fun Night Out on May 6, 2010. This is part 3 of his presentation. In it he explains how Verbal Branding can help you keep your brand even through long meetings.

A transcript follows the video:

So let’s say you have this beautiful Verbal Branding concept and because we know that people are going to be genuinely curious about it because you built it that way. That will happen if it’s done correctly. They are going ask you what you mean, they will be genuinely curious. But the reason you’re still branding is because all you’re doing is telling them more about the one or two concepts you just told them. You see? You’re still talking about your brand, you’re still talking about why you are different and better, you have not lost your brand yet and you’re three to five minutes into the conversation. Trust me by that amount time most times your brand is gone for most people and most organizations. But now we’ve changed that. But here’s what happens, they are so intrigued that they want to have you in for a meeting. So we want that.

But there’s a problem with that. Maybe it’s a two hour capability meaning or even an hour doesn’t matter. Anybody want to guess what the problem with that is? You’re going to have to tell him all the stuff and you may very well was your brand. Because remember what I said, and I need you to remember this. Even after a two hour meeting, people are only going to remember one or two things about you regardless. End of story. You need to know that going in, and you need to handle the interaction accordingly. In fact this two hour meeting they were talking about they might just as likely remember less, because you’ve given them so much information. Does that make sense. So we’re branding here. By far the best way to get attention and to sell is to brand yourself as different and better during any interaction.

Here’s the rule. So we’re talking about some details that might come up down below the top portion of this pyramid, this is the rule. Those details are important if they relate to your differentiation, or they are not importance. Now please understand I’m not saying they’re not important intrinsically. I’m saying from a branding standpoint they are not important unless they relate to your brand at the top. The accounting function of a company or an organization is critically important, but will it help you sell? No. Ok? That’s the rule. So and it for a simple reason, if it doesn’t relate to the reasons why different and better, then from a sales and development and fund raising and sponsorship basis they are not important those details. But here’s the really, really, really good news. Is that the positioning at the top of the pyramid, the reasons you developed that makes you different and better, give value, add value to all those mundane details.

Here’s a couple examples. This is a real client from awhile back a real non-profit their job was to create educational curriculum. Ok? They’re positioning offer was proven results and sustainability. That’s what they were offering the marketplace. Now I’m going to call out one thing. I used the word offer very advisedly. If it is not an offer to the marketplace, it can’t be verbal branding. It can’t be a slogan that doesn’t mean anything to anybody. It has to be an offer. Ok? So here’s how this works. Does that non-profit have flexible programs, yes, but their competition does too. Do they do training, yes, but their competition does too. Very experienced? Of course they are. But their competition is too. All these things their competition probably has, probably talks about and it levels that playing field. However, because they are offering results, proven results, and sustainable programs that will last after they leave. That makes those details more important and more valuable to the client. That’s the logic of this pyramid. What conversations do they want to have? Well, if they talk about some of those other things without it being in the context of their brand, then they’re going to lose sponsorships and money and attention all the things we want. But if they have the conversation based on those two ideas, that’s the conversation they need to have. Does that make sense?

Ok. A marketing firm, gee this reminds me of strangely of Lisa Morrissey’s company, a marketing firm. What’s their positioning offer? That they will help clients re-advertise, listen to this, re-advertise at every client touch. Could be spoken, could be the Web site, could be an inbound phone call, could be an outbound phone call, could be a newsletter, it doesn’t matter. This marketing company will help their clients re-advertise at every single client touch. Ok? So does that marketing company do research? Yes, but so does the competition. Are you following this? Are you following the logic? Do they do competitive analysis, an internal audits of all sorts of things? Yes, but the competition does too. Why are they better? Because of what was at the top. What conversations that they need to have? That they will help their clients re-advertise.

Verbal Branding Presentation – Stephen Melanson

Tom Beach — Tue, 18 May 2010 11:12:32 +0000

Stephen Melanson gave a great presentation on Verbal Branding and the Networking for NonProfits Fun Night Out on May 6, 2010. This is part 1 of his presentation. In it he covers what Verbal Branding is and how it works.

A transcript follows the video:

I’m going to talk to you about Verbal Branding and Verbal Branding as you see are new literally unique in the world as far as I know branding applications. And the goal is as you see there. To simultaneously improve sales culture, what I refer to as Brand Density, and there is even more to it than that. But I’ll talk about everything. I have about twenty minutes with you, I’m going to teach you everything I can in twenty minutes about Verbal Branding. I hope you find it interesting, and I think you’ll find it interesting that you can apply some of these things starting tomorrow for your non-profits.

Now here’s what I believe should keep you awake at night. Your brand being diminished every single day times every single person regardless of how many there are in your organization times every conversation they have. Now I don’t make that up just to make a point I work with a lot of different kinds of companies and firms and organizations. This is the scenario that I see everywhere I go regardless of the situation. So it might now start keeping you awake, but this is what I see everywhere and this is to be avoided obviously for your brand. Now I do work in a specific area of branding. Branding is a huge topic as you know. There is what’s called the identity elements, logos, tags lines, the name of your firm or organization, the colors and the imagery on your Web site, things like that. Those are all identity related, I don’t do any of that work. I do what called positioning, and here is my very simple definition of what position should mean to you in my opinion. How are you different and because of that difference better than the competition whoever the competition is. This is what I use for a definition regardless who I’m working with and it works every time.

The gap in the branding marketplace is a spoken application. Believe it or not in the branding world, full service branding companies do all sorts of work for their clients, they never actually deal with what people say every day to people outside their organization. That’s the work that I do. Again, Verbal Branding is a spoken application, literally a spoken robust application, for this thing that I call brand positioning and that’s what it’s called in the marketplace.

So here’s what’s at issue and everyone will be all relate to this. What conversation do you want or need to have when you speak to somebody? How many conversations do you think you’ve had in your entire business or nonprofit life? Most people say, oh five hundred, ten thousand, things like that. Right? Actually there’s only, two you’re either the same or you’re different, there’s no middle ground. And you should know that when you’re in the field and you’re talking to people there’s only two options, you’re either the same or you’re different from your competition. That’s what goes on in the mind of the consumer. Does that make sense?

OK, now to something I call conversational dynamics, but before I go into that in a little bit of detail, I want you to know this. This is why my best tips and I hope you remember it forever. When you tell someone your name, when you tell them what category your business or your firm is in, your non-profit, here’s what I have to say. No one cares. Ok? No one cares, isn’t that awful? No one cares but it’s true. Nonprofit about X Y or Z, CPA firm, attorney, branding consultant, guess what I don’t even care that I’m a branding consultant. So I never tell anybody that because I know that they shouldn’t care because I don’t even care. I care what my positioning in the marketplace is. It’s totally different and what I’ll tell you and I see everywhere I go is that people sell quote, unquote sell or try to raise money based on category. Listen to what people say in maybe even listen to yourself and you’ll realize that what happens is they’ll tell you what category of business they’re in and then they’ll go about talking about the positive attributes of the category alone and they have not positioned themselves for differentiation in their competitive space. Start listening for that and you’ll hear it everywhere, ninety nine percent of the time. That’s to be avoided.

Conversational dynamics let’s get back to the Verbal Branding. Memory, no matter what you do, people will only remember a couple things, period. End of story. The people that you speak to tonight, if you remember anything about what some people have said to you that’s a good sign, but it’s usually one or two things at most. And the most common thing that happens is, you’ll talk to somebody and you’ll basically not remember anything. This is the single most important thing that I ever tell anyone and it’s a branding issue. So I teach Verbal Branding. I don’t care if you remember my name, I literally don’t want you to remember my company because that doesn’t matter at all. If you remember that I teach Verbal Branding, I win. So if you know that this is true, and I guarantee it is, I have twenty seven years of experience in the field myself and I’ve studied this scientifically, there is a bunch of research out there. This is literally true and if you totally absorb this starting today you’ll start to change the way you communicate with people starting tomorrow. So please remember this, it’s the single most important thing I ever tell anyone.

South Shore MA - Networking for Non-Profits

About Elevator Pitches – Stephen Melanson

Tom Beach — Tue, 11 May 2010 10:32:18 +0000

I’ve always been told that networking is a very important skill to grow business connections, find sponsors and meet prospective donors. By far most of the networking experts I’ve met talk about the importance of the “elevator pitch”. Stephen Melanson’s presentation of verbal branding at the Networking for Nonprofit’s Fun Night Out was illuminating. Here is a quote from the presentation:

“Please remember an elevator pitch might be the single worst idea in the history of modern society. Feel free to fight with me on that one.”

A transcript is below the video.

OK, curiosity, who wants to help me out? When I tell people I teach verbal branding, what do you suppose people say to me? Unbelievable, you guys are good. Literally true, and it happens about 99% of the time. Now the reason I bring this up, is because this is part of the dynamics of a conversation we’re talking about verbal branding right now. The conversational dynamic of curiosity is a non-negotiable for you to raise money, to get sponsors, to everything you want to do. If people are not genuinely curious when you tell them what you do that means your brand needs to be better. It must be more interesting and people must be curious, genuinely curious, to hear more immediately. Ok, that’s a conversational dynamic.

Context, who’s heard of Gentle Dental? This (part of) is our country that’s almost everybody. This is a perfect — perfect example, of context and we’re talking about branding. You know something, they drill your teeth too. Right? They hang things out of your mouth, you’re in an uncomfortable position in the chair, ready to run down the street. Right? But their context is that they’re gentle. It makes them different and better than the dentist down the street. You need that. I need that. The context of what you’re offering it should have value. I’m going to talk more about just a couple minutes. But them drilling your teeth is more valuable to the consumer, than the guy down the street, or the lady down the street, because they’re gentle, ok?

Managing interactions, this is where the rubber hits the road. I use this pyramid shape, and you’ll see that this makes sense from a logic standpoint and by the time I’m done with people this is all they think about is the shape and organizing their interactions around it. It’s two things. It’s everything about an organization and I mean everything. Most important at the top, lest important at the bottom. It’s also a conversation of any length and that’s how we’re going to treat it right now. Different and better, remember my definition? How are you different and better than the competition. Period, you need those ideas, or you lose in sponsorships and money and identity and all the things you want. One or two concepts at most, that’s the rule and I give you five seconds to be able to tell somebody how you’re different and better. Can you guys do that right now? Maybe?

OK, five seconds, now who’s heard of an elevator pitch? I’ve talked to some or you already about this. Who has not heard of an elevator pitch? Everyone’s taught the elevator pitch. Right? Please remember an elevator pitch might be the single worst idea in the history of modern society. Feel free to fight with me on that one. And I’m totally serious about it. It is exactly the wrong way to do it. It’s exactly the wrong mind set and you should avoid it for the rest of your life, do everybody a favor, mostly yourself. Here’s the thing, here’s the three reasons why an elevator pitch, I’m just going to tell you real quick. To long, thirty seconds is what most people are taught. Way to long, that’s a crazy long time to introduce what you’re doing. Way to long, people are already gone five seconds in. They also are not oriented towards positioning versus the competition. They are always description oriented and describe what you do, wrong way to do it. But the most important reason is that is not the leading edge of a strategy to go through the rest of the interaction. I don’t care if it’s five minutes or five days.

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Verbal Branding – Stephen Melanson

Tom Beach — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:00:30 +0000

What Makes Your Organization Unique?

The Non-Profit Toolbox’s Lisa Morrissey sat down with Stephen Melanson, President of Melanson Consulting to talk about Verbal Branding. Stephen will be the keynote speaker at the Networking for Non-profits meet-up May 6th at the South Shore Science Center. Verbal Branding consists of two main areas: 1. the spoken application for brand positioning, and 2., creating a redefined foundation to build a brand up from it’s foundation. Most organizations need to build their brand down through their organization so all public interactions express a consistent brand message.

Highlights from the interview are below the video.

Stephen works with all types of organizations. Today he is working with financial service organizations. He sees a need in the Non-profit sector to use verbal branding so organizations can differentiate themselves from other similar organizations.

Steve recently worked with the British Consulate’s Economic Development Division to teach them verbal applications and skills to manage conversations. The head consulate said that verbal branding has fundamentally changed the way they think and feel about what they offer the market place. He also worked with Sovereign Bank with similar results and feedback.

Verbal Branding works to help retain customers and donors. It is a way to think and speak about your organization.

Stephen gave three verbal branding tips:

Forget about your elevator pitch – they are not effective and more about sales than a strategy, brand and organization’s positioning
You should only have one or two positioning ideas or concepts about your organization.
Orient and drive all your education on branding internally before directing it outside the organization.

At the end of the video Stephen takes Lisa through a verbal branding exercise for The Non-Profit Toolbox in just two minutes!

Join us May 6, 2010 for a fun evening of networking at the South Shore Science Center.

There will be education, cocktails, prizes and a chance for your Nonprofit organization to walk away with a cash donation! For more information click on the link below.

: South Shore MA – Networking for Non-Profits