The Immutable Self: Business Style Meets Marketing Strategy
April 16, 2013
From the Book
The following is content from my forthcoming book, The Honeycomb: An Unconventional Model for B2B Marketing, published here with permission from Syncopate.
Music to Read By: The Flaming Lips, Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
There is this great line from a movie called Dead Again. Anyone remember that movie? Cozy Carlisle (Robin Williams) says, “Someone is either a smoker or a nonsmoker. There’s no in-between. The trick is to find out which one you are, and be that. If you’re a nonsmoker, you’ll know.”
I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam.
Cozy’s point is that we often don’t know who we truly are. In the absence of self awareness, we adopt attitudes, behaviors and beliefs based on who we think we ought to be rather than who we truly are. The styles we adopt are almost entirely formed by exposure to outside influences. If we’re lucky, these influences are aligned with our true nature. If we’re not so lucky, we’re looking at a mid-life crisis. The trick is to find out who we truly are, live with it and love it. If you’re a smoker, be a smoker. If you’re not, then you’re not. Get it?
When it comes to marketing (because this is a book about marketing) it’s important to understand that every business has an immutable self. Early in their development, companies spend a lot of time trying to find themselves. They try on different business strategies, messages, brands and campaigns like so many sweaters, hoping to land on the one that just feels right. This is a natural process. It doesn’t mean that the self has not developed; it simply means that the self has not been discovered and nurtured to its full potential. But when the true, immutable self is discovered and nurtured, everyone feels it. Not only is all the potential in a company unlocked, but people simply feel better about where they are and what they’re doing. Everything is easier and progress happens with less friction. People might even feel a little nervous – a little exhilarated. They might feel like they’re having fun.
“If you’re a nonsmoker, you’ll know.”
I own a marketing agency. Companies hire our firm to help build brands and drive leads. But through the years I have learned that we can’t do our job very well if the client hasn’t found themselves. In cases where the client has an identity crisis, we have a choice: we can take their money anyway and hope for the best, or we can help them discover their immutable self so that we can get on with marketing strategies that will actually work. We always choose the latter; I would argue that’s the single reason we tripled in revenue during the recession as most other agencies were whacking people left and right.
I’ll talk a lot about the immutable self and the concept of obsession later in the book. But for right now, I want to focus on one aspect of the true and singular self – business strategy.
Business strategy can take many forms and operate at many levels, but I only care about the most elemental level when it comes to marketing. How do you keep score? In my oversimplified view of business (because I am a simple man from Alice, Texas) companies can only be successful if they pursue a singular strategy and measure it with a single score.
Companies must either execute a market share strategy designed to capture a position of leadership in their market segment, or a profit strategy designed to provide maximum return on investment to shareholders. A company simply cannot do both and expect to succeed at either.
“The trick is to find out which one you are, and be that.”
More on that in my next post.
All Business is Personal 