Ordinary
Brilliance
It takes ONE MINUTE to read this mini- newsletter on how to use your "ordinary
brilliance"
to discover the secrets of solving life & business challenges.
Authenticity: Your Advantage Over The
Big Guys
I got a powerful message last week
about the power of authenticity. I attended the Green
Business Conference in San Francisco, and Paul Ray,
coauthor of the best-selling book, The Cultural
Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World,
gave a compelling presentation.
Ray shared that if you own or work
in a small, socially responsible business, you have a
big advantage over the “big guys,” the Fortune 500-type
corporations. While not every big business is “bad” and
not every small business is “good,” the public does not,
in general, place much trust in the big guys. Enron,
WorldCom, and Tyco are just a few examples of big
companies that lost the trust of their employees,
customers and communities.
I always feel a bit sad when a
favorite company, like Ben & Jerry’s or Celestial
Seasonings, gets bought by the big guys. I believe the
product and company culture will probably change.
When we’re smaller, it’s easier in
our marketing with both customers and prospective
customers to share who we really are. We can share about
our staff, our processes, our materials and why we
operate the way we do.
Authenticity, Ray said, is not so
much about our actual products or services, but rather
it is mostly about the claims we make and the evidence
that proves those claims. So be transparent, tell
stories about how you treat your customers and your
employees. Share about what you do in your community and
how you minimize the environmental footprint of your
business. Your web site is a great place to do this for
almost no cost, because you can easily add pages.
You want to establish that you and
your company are, in fact, good people to deal with. We
all want to be treated honestly and fairly. And we’ll do
repeat business with businesses that walk their talk,
whose performance matches their claims.
For example, I recently interviewed
Joseph Cincotta, of LineSync Arcitecture for my Be Real
Revolution community. On his web site at
http://www.linesync.com/web/linesync1.html (Studio
Profile - History) Cincotta tells us how his firm treats
employees: “Employees enjoy setting their own hours,
mid-week ski passes, and a congenial working
environment.” That sounds like a lot better working
conditions than at the huge architecture firms in New
York.
Or take the example of a client of
mine who has staff profiles on his web site that share
not only what each employee’s duties are in the
business, but some personal information about their
families and hobbies. We learn that the office manager
also is a mother, grandmother and huskie dog lover and
the doctor’s assistant is a
native of Western North Carolina (a rarity in this land
of transplants!) who enjoys traveling, gardening,
reading, and re-decorating houses. They become
more real (authentic) people to us.
With all the advertising hype of
claims that don’t pan out, it’s refreshing to realize
that being real can actually help your business thrive.
So go ahead and take one step today to be more authentic
in your business or career. I think you’ll be pleased
with the response.
©
2009 Anne Alexander, all rights reserved in
all media
Reprint permission policy.
Anne
Alexander
Small Business Growth Architect
Authentic Alternatives, Inc.
Pisgah Forest, NC
828-348-0474
Contact me
here.
|
Working
with Anne, I have cut the time from order to shipping by
66%, which has let me focus on customer service and
product develop-ment. This has allowed me to grow my
business at a 50% rate in the last three months. This is
my best year ever and I look forward to continued fast
and profitable growth.”