May I add my voice to the chorus in praise of Steve Jobs?

Beyond brilliant, beyond insightful, beyond courageous, the man is a mass of contradictions, the combination of which, I believe, begins to explain his genius.

And, this genius provides a lesson of incredible power to every entrepreneur, or aspiring entrepreneur, on the planet.

Artist and engineer; Buddhist and hard-nosed businessman; visionary entrepreneur who has built large and resilient companies; optimist and pessimist; rugged individualist who appeals to the masses; prickly, difficult leader who inspires enormous loyalty among his troops; the ultimate opaque manager who has guarded his privacy and secrecy, even while providing the world with the tools of transparency.

It is this ability of Steve Jobs to hold completely disparate ideas and values in his mind at the same time, synthesize and then act upon them, that is one of the keys to his genius.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald is quoted as saying: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

And, Steve Jobs has not just functioned…his satori leaps of genius have redefined the technology landscape forever.

Of course, it is also Mr. Jobs’ ability to embrace such conflicting priorities that has bedeviled the competition. He has NOT been consistent, nor humble, nor predictable. One never knows what drummer he’ll be listening to at any given time, and this has made him a fearsome and successful competitor.

He has listened to his gut, and gone against conventional wisdom not as a habit, but when he felt it was right. His sensibilities and individual take on issues are all that was important.

They say, in brain research, that while the right and left sides of the brain hold different kinds of important skills and intelligence, it is the cerebral CORTEX — that which integrates both sides – that defines true intelligence.

If that is so then I believe Steve Jobs’ entire being is a cortex: he regularly integrates disparate knowledge, opinions, methods and actions to arrive at quantum leaps of genius.

It is the corporate manager who must be consistent, meet projections, squeeze out independent thought and innovation in the service of meeting company priorities.  The entrepreneur can go with his or her gut, can assimilate new ideas quickly and act on them, can bounce between conflicting priorities to come up with a new reality – thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

Now of course, one’s gut must be right.  Many have followed their independent certainty straight into oblivion.  But, that is a chance that entrepreneurs have accepted with their job… Steve Jobs epitomizes that entrepreneur’s genius. And, perhaps it is in understanding it, following his lead, yet at the same time rejecting it and doing the exact opposite, that just might lead us all to success

Topping my pile of books to read this weekend is one recommended to me called “The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking” by Roger Martin.  I am hoping that it will begin to explain Mr. Jobs’ sequential entrepreneurial successes…and may provide a roadmap for we more minor players, who still have the will to achieve breakthrough innovation and success.

In the meantime, hats off to Steve Jobs: his entire career has been one marked by courage, independence, and brilliance.  May his last act embody the same qualities, and may he continue to lead the way for us all.

by Ralph Palgia

We all know Facebook is right now for dealerships around the nation the #1 choice when trying to engage with customers off-site, next to the biweekly or monthly ownership email marketing “blast” (my God do I hate this term “blast”) and/or dealer newsletter provided by IMN, Outsell, 3Birds Marketing or OnStation.

But I could discover throughout my held trainings and seminars that we as dealers very rarely know about the motives of consumers, why they are following us or a brand – why do they like us? What make fans and followers click?

A recent conducted research of Co-Tweet and ExactTarget came closer to provide an answer. The following motives and answers will possibly help dealerships to adjust their engagement level on Social Media Networks. It will help us further in creating new approaches to “catch” potential customers’ attention.

Here are the Top 10 Motivations for Consumers to “Like” and Follow a Brand and on Facebook:

1. 40% want to receive discounts and promotions

2. 37% want to show support for the brand/company to thers

3. 36% hope (want) to get free samples, a coupon (a.k.a. freebies)

4. 34% want to stay informed about the activities of the company

5. 33% want to get updates on future products

6. 30% want to get updates and information on future sales

7. 27% like to get fun and entertainment out of it

8. 25% want to get access to exclusive content

9. 22% mentioned they were referred by someone to follow this brand/company

10. 21% want just to learn more about the company

Wow, would you have guessed it. Consumers actually like to receive update and information on future sales!

And by the way, don’t feel bad when you do not have too many interactions, shared thoughts and ideas or provided feedbacks from your “fans, followers and likes”.The survey found out that indeed only 13% want to interact directly with the company.

So, my suggestion would be: Take the numbers, share them with your sales and management team and start to tailor a Facebook Marketing plan around the findings.

Happy reading, planning and executing…

By AllBusiness.com

Early branding of a small or emerging company is key to business success. It is the quickest way for your company to express what it is and what it can offer. Inaccurate branding of a new business can make it difficult for people to grasp why the business exists in the first place.

For startups and small businesses, branding can often take a backseat to other considerations, such as funding and product development. This is a mistake, as a company’s brand can be key to its success. Dollar for dollar, it is as important and vital as any other early steps.

One software management company, temporarily named TallyUp, decided to invest in a branding overhaul. Its flagship product, a software suite that tracks and runs bonus incentive plans, needed a clear identity and platform to appeal to its target audience — primarily financial executives. The name TallyUp, while somewhat descriptive, didn’t capture the level of sophistication needed to attract the appropriate clientele. TallyUp hired a branding consultant, who recommended the name Callidus (Latin for “expert and skillful”) to effectively communicate its positioning in an instant. The new name communicated a similar concept but on a completely different level. Callidus positions the software product correctly.

A brand is a company’s face to the world. It is the company’s name, how that name is visually expressed through a logo, and how that name and logo are extended throughout an organization’s communications. A brand is also how the company is perceived by its customers — the associations and inherent value they place on your business.

A brand is a kind of promise. It is a set of fundamental principles as understood by anyone who comes into contact with a company. A brand is an organization’s reason for being and how that reason is expressed through its various communications media to its key audiences, including customers, shareholders, employees and analysts. A brand can also describe these same attributes for a company’s products, services, and initiatives.

Apple’s brand is a great example. The Apple logo is clean, elegant, and easily implemented. At a certain point in time the company began to use the apple logo monochromatically (as opposed to the rainbow stripes), signaling a new era for Apple. Smart branding allowed the company to clearly communicate a change in direction while continuing to build its reputation. Think about how you’ve seen the brand in advertising, trade shows, packaging, and product design. It’s distinctive and it all adds up to a particular promise: quality of design and ease of use.

For startups and small businesses, branding can often take a backseat to other considerations, such as funding and product development. This is a mistake, as a company’s brand can be key to its success. Dollar for dollar, it is as important and vital as any other early steps.

One software management company, temporarily named TallyUp, decided to invest in a branding overhaul. Its flagship product, a software suite that tracks and runs bonus incentive plans, needed a clear identity and platform to appeal to its target audience — primarily financial executives. The name TallyUp, while somewhat descriptive, didn’t capture the level of sophistication needed to attract the appropriate clientele. TallyUp hired a branding consultant, who recommended the name Callidus (Latin for “expert and skillful”) to effectively communicate its positioning in an instant. The new name communicated a similar concept but on a completely different level. Callidus positions the software product correctly.

A brand is a company’s face to the world. It is the company’s name, how that name is visually expressed through a logo, and how that name and logo are.

by Dan Berne

Do you have a clear view of your brand strategy? Do others in your company as well? What about your channel partners? Because execution of Brand Strategy involves such visible elements as logos, product design, advertising, packaging and other materials, it can, and should, have a wide-reaching impact. Too often brand elements are developed within a narrow viewpoint. For example, packaging may communicate functional advantages over the competition, but fail to effectively reflect the brand persona. Your brand architecture may be clear to the internal divisions who are developing your products, but confusing to customers at point-of-sale.

The execution of your brand strategy is seen and evaluated from four major viewpoints:

• Internal
• Your Customers
• Your Channel
• The Market

Each of the above has different criteria by which it is going to measure the success of your brand. If you develop your strategy from only one point of view, chances are you are going to stumble. The more you view your brand strategy from each of these viewpoints, the better informed it will be.

Think of these viewpoints as four panes in a window, providing a holistic a view onto the world.

Let’s take a look at each window pane.

The Internal View:

Your brand strategy starts with your business strategy, what you are trying to accomplish in the market and how your brand can help you. From this viewpoint, you want to ensure that employees at all levels understand what your brand stands for. If your employees don’t get this, how can you expect them to design products and services that support your brand positioning. Does your brand have a central organizing principle? Senior managers should be clear about where their products fit within the brand portfolio. Does your company have a Master Brand with multiple sub-brands? If so, what is the relationship of each to the Master Brand? If the answer is “they are all equally important,” then you may want to re-evaluate how each sub-brand is serving the greater whole. You also want to be clear as to who has ownership of the brand strategy and each of the elements. Are those in charge of designing new products, developing advertising and PR, packaging and other POS materials meeting on a regular basis to ensure effectiveness of brand execution?

The Channel View

Issues with brand management are often spotted by your channel partners. Have you communicated your brand strategy to them? Does it make sense to them? Can they distinguish it from your competition? Are they even the right channel partner for your brand persona? Perhaps you want to market a computer desk designed specifically for the busy mom. Is that better sold at an office supply store or Pottery Barn?

Can your channel partners shelve your products in line with your brand strategy? If they do, does it provide you a competitive advantage? Think outside the box here. For example, let’s say you market personal journals. Is it more compelling to place these in the stationery aisle or on an end-cap with travel items? Do their salespeople know what your brand stands for and can they communicate it? Effective brand strategies take the role of the Channel into account, and bring in channel partners early on in the process. This includes the development of programs and promotions that sell your products to and through your distribution partners. Think how much easier it is for a channel sales rep to communicate your product benefits and key value propositions when they’re integrated with an overarching (and easily internalized) brand identity. This is where channel sales turns into true channel advocacy.

The Customer View

At the end of the day, brand is about choice. And your customers cast the votes. Coke or Pepsi? Nike or Adidas? Ford or Toyota? Getting customers to notice, choose and stay loyal to your brand requires that you understand not only the features and functions that they need, but that you understand the underlying emotional connections you need to make all along the customer experience lifecycle. Each brand element, particularly product design, packaging, messaging and other point-of-sale materials, needs to convey a functional and emotional message to your customers.

How do you discover the emotional cues that will connect with your customers? By and large, you will not find this in your customer segmentation data or in typical focus groups. I know. I’ve looked there many times and it’s not to be found. Rather, look for this with ethnographic studies or other forms of deep conversations with your customers, particularly those who are extreme users of the types of products and services you market. Reframe your view of the customer experience by seeing the larger environment that the customer is in. For example, let’s say you make personal desktop items, such as laptop computers and printers. You can design these as individual products that stand-alone. Or you can take into account that space is a premium for your European and Asian customers, and design a suite of products that are stackable and collapsible. You could design a printer that works vertically as well as horizontally. You could even design the entire home office workspace, with maximum space utilization as the goal. Your customers will know that know them and had them in mind when you developed your products.

The Market View

Can the Market understand your brand positioning versus the competition? Does it know what you stand for beyond making a profit? Or is it a bit muddy because your value propositions and product personalities overlap? Does the Market view your offering not only as competitive, but as unique, so that you command a premium price? If you are a leading or competitive brand, your competition will continually adjust its positioning to flank your marketing efforts.

Are you keeping up with what is going on in the market around you? Are you keeping your brand promise fresh? If the Market seems fickle at times, it is because it is so much easier to de-value a brand than to build it up. For the Market to reward you, it must see that your brand promise is unique and compelling to your customers, and that every element of your products and services seeks to uphold that promise. You are seen as having a brand truth that extends beyond the bottom line to what your company really stands for. It’s usually something intrinsic. You are seen as a consistent innovator, one who is willing to re-invest in the products and services that deliver on the brand promise, rather than merely commoditize through cost reductions.

The Big Picture Window

Finally, as you step back and look at all four viewpoints, where do you have the biggest opportunities and the biggest gaps? If for example, customers can distinguish your brand offering from that of your competitors, if only they knew about you, then you need to focus on those brand elements that will increase awareness and consideration. This sounds obvious, but once I was working with a product experience team, who knew that their biggest business challenge was to get customers to be aware of their offering, and to choose it over the established competition. Yet they focused all of their resources on refining their set-up and install experience. Why? It was simply that the people in the room had the most expertise in that area. It was akin to losing one’s wristwatch in the bedroom, but searching for it in the hallway because the light is better there.

So take a look through all four panes of the brand window. The more information you have through each pane, the more complete you’ll be when developing your brand strategy.

By Crunch42

Here’s a list of ten common website problems. If your site does some of these no-no’s, you might want to consider getting it a touch-up, if not a facelift.

1. The site looks amateurish and/or parts are broken.

Recent studies have shows that people form an opinion of a website within the first three seconds of looking at it. If you’re trying to sell a product or service, you should put your best foot forward.

Your website doesn’t have to be a work of cutting-edge art, but it does need to look good. Remember, it’s the first impression your business is making on the potential customer.

2. The site doesn’t ask viewers to do something.

If you’re selling a product, you need to ask your viewers to click a link to buy the product. If you’re selling a service, you need to ask your viewers to submit a form and contact you to get a free quote (or whatever). If your site is a free information resource, you need to ask your viewers to create an account in order to access the information.

And you need to spell it out for your viewers.

This doesn’t mean that your site’s content should consist entirely of one link that says “Click here to buy now”. However, that link should be on your site somewhere, and the rest of the site should lead to it.

And sometimes it helps to have that link on more than one page of your site presented in more than one way.

3. The navigation links are confusingly named.

Your navigation links should be short, descriptive, and specific. Not long, poetic, and vague.

For example, if you have a page that contains your contact information, the navigation link to it should say either “Contact”, “Contact Us”, or “Contact Info”. It shouldn’t say “My Information” (which is vague), or “Concerning an Address” (which is long and vague), or “Reach Out” (which sounds nice but is vague).

Sometimes space or visual design considerations will force you to use less-than-optimal navigation link names. Just do your best to work with what you have.

Body text links can be longer than navigation links. Sometimes a whole sentence is a more effective body text link than a single word would be.

4. The information on the site is obviously dated.

If you go to a website that’s still promoting a series of events that happened last year, how much will you trust the rest of the information on that site?

Obviously, it’s time for a change. You can either make the change yourself if you know HTML, or hire a web designer.

You can also get and learn some software such as Nvu (free) or Contribute ($149) that allows you to easily make website changes without having to know HTML.

You can have a web developer create a “content publishing system” and integrate it with your site. This is the most expensive solution, but it’s also the most customizable and easy to use. And you can use it from any computer–not just your own.

Some people also use “blogs” (web logs, a kind of mass-produced content publishing system) to keep their events listings up to date.

DIY RESOURCES (links pop up):

• Nvu … a free tool for making changes to your website yourself. (Nvu Tutorial)
• Joomla or Mambo … two free content management system (CMS).
• Blogger and WordPress … two blogging tools.

5. The pictures on the site aren’t “optimized.”

You shouldn’t just take your unadulterated digital camera or scanned pictures and post them online.

You should first crop them, resize them smaller, color and level-balance them, and then optimize them for small file size.

If your site is full of huge pictures that take forever to download and look bad once they do, forget about viewers sticking around or forming a great opinion of your offerings.

DIY RESOURCES (links pop up):

• Irfanview … a free image viewer that you can use to crop, resize, color and level balance your digital camera pictures and scans. (Windows)
• Photo Crunch … costs $8 and allows you to optimize (compress) your JPEG (or JPG) images for fastest possible download speed. Very easy to use. (Windows)

6. The body text is too dense.

Reading text on a computer screen is harder on the eyes than reading from a piece of paper. The font shouldn’t be too small or too large, and the typeface should be one that’s easy to read on a screen.

For maximum readability, blocks of body text should be 12 to 15 words long, and 3 to 5 lines long.

What you’re reading right now is set in sans-serif, which is a very common body text choice. “Style sheets” were also used so that the line-spacing is set a little higher than usual. The font size is based on your standard browser font size.

Break up sections of text with headers. Headers are good because they allow people who “scan” web pages to quickly find what they’re looking for. They’re also great for search engine optimization of your key phrases. Headers should be in a different type style than your body text so it sticks out.

Consider bold-facing the most important parts in each section of body text. This greatly helps people who scan web pages rather than read them.

DIY RESOURCE (link pops up):

• CSS Reference … lots of tutorials and reference materials on using Cascading Style Sheets to format your text. Of particular interest are the pages on “CSS Text” and “CSS Font”.

7. The site is hosted on Geocities or another free service.

There’s nothing wrong with free hosting if your website is of a personal nature, but if your site is for your business, you need full-service (paid) hosting. Free hosting generally puts other businesses’ ad banners on top of your site, and is slow.

Avoid it. Here’s some great hosting.

Similarly, if you need a SSL security certificate, avoid free or shared ones. Private ones are available for as little as $20 a year these days.

8. The site is down or can’t be found.

If your site can’t be found by anyone, what good’s it doing you? If the problem is that your site is constantly down, consider a new hosting service.

If the problem isn’t of a technical nature, then website marketing including search engine optimization and directory submissions can do wonders. So can links to your site from other sites. And don’t forget classifieds, postcards, and email (but don’t be a spammer).

9. There are navigation links at the bottom of the page but not at the top (or vice versa).

The majority of the people who visit your website probably won’t make the effort to scroll down to the bottom of your home page.

Therefore, it’s very important to have navigation links appear at the top of your site so they’ll be visible to viewers without them having to do any scrolling.

It’s also a good idea to repeat your navigation links at the bottom of the page. These are usually done as text links rather than image links. These allow people who have reached the bottom of the page a way to get around your site without having to scroll back to the top of the page first.

10. The body text is too colorful and there are textured or picture backgrounds.

The body text on your site should usually be black on a plain white background. Occasionally you can have other colors (if there’s good contrast). Header text should be a color that stands out.

If you have a texture or a picture behind your words, it makes the words hard to read.

You should strive to make things as easy for your users as possible, so get rid of the textured or pictorial background or put it in areas where there’s no foreground text.

DIY RESOURCES (links pop up):

• Color Scheme Generator … a fun Flash tool that lets you test out different color combinations and also see how they look to colorblind users.
• Color Schemer … another online tool for generating color schemes.

Summary

All the good advice in the world won’t make a difference if you don’t act on it.

So send yourself an email right now. Title it “WEBSITE TO DO LIST”. In the body write down all the things you need to do (or hire someone else to do) in order to make your website more effective and profitable. Send it to yourself.

Do you want us to take a look at your website and let you know what changes we’d recommend in order to make your site more effective and profitable? We promise to be thorough yet kind. Request a free website usability review now.

by Peter Gorenstein and Farnoosh Torabi

Warren Buffett is worth $45 billion. That wealth isn’t only a factor of savvy investing and good business — the “Oracle of Omaha” is also known as a penny pincher. Buffett still lives in the same Omaha, Neb., home he bought in 1958 for $31,500.

Follow his frugal formula, and you too may wind up with a lot more money than you ever dreamed.

This week Financially Fit covers five tips to build wealth and success.

1. Live Below Your Means.
Being wealthy isn’t just a product of your salary or investment prowess; it’s learning how to save.

“We can make a lot of money, you can make a little bit of money, but the second you spend all the money is when people get into trouble. Saving is the key to preserving your wealth,” says Ed Butowsky, managing partner of Chapwood Capital Investment Management, a firm that manages money for wealthy individuals.

As many Americans realized during the booming real estate market, just because you think you can afford something doesn’t mean you should buy it. Keeping an eye on your bottom line will pay dividends over the long term.

2. Bounce Back From Defeat
With nearly 15 million workers unemployed right now in the U.S., it’s easy to get discouraged. Don’t! Most successful and wealthy people have overcome obstacles and failure along the way. Steve Jobs was ousted from Apple when he was 30. Today, he’s a billionaire and a legend. Plus, after getting fired, he created another billion-dollar media company, Pixar.

“Bouncing back from defeat is something all great achievers have. They have this undying belief good things will happen and will continue to happen,” says Butowsky.

Take Michael Jordan. “His airness” was cut from his high school basketball team. Motivated by the rejection, Jordan became a star the next season. The rest is history.

3. Self-Promote
Regardless of the profession, the rich and successful tend to have a strong sense of self-worth — key to skillfully navigating an upward career path. Mark Hurd, who was ousted as CEO of Hewlett-Packard in August, couldn’t be kept down for long. Using his business skills and connections, in September, Hurd was named president of Oracle. (Hurd and Oracle founder Larry Ellison are known to be close friends.)

4. Have Street Smarts
Bernie Madoff lived the high life for decades, scamming unsuspecting clients, with a money-making formula that proved too good to be true. Only afterward did we learn that with a little due diligence, most clients could have easily uncovered the fraud.

But it’s not only the swindlers and the con men you have to watch out for. Many times, friends and family take advantage of the rich. Whether it’s a handout or an investment idea, Butowsky advises his high net worth clients that in most cases, it’s wisest to just say “no.” The best way to do that: have someone else do it for you.

“You need to really set up a wall between you and your family,” he advises. “If you don’t want to give them (family or friends) money … saying no is probably a good idea.”

5. Buy Cheap
The rich can afford to splurge, but that doesn’t mean they do.

John Paulson, a billionaire hedge fund manager, bought his Hamptons “dream house at a bargain basement price,” according to Greg Zuckerman, author of the Paulson-based book, “The Greatest Trade Ever.” The story has it that Paulson eyed the home while it was in foreclosure. Finally, on a rain-soaked day, he purchased the home on the Southampton town hall steps. He was the only bidder.

On New York City’s Upper East Side, Michael’s— The Consignment Shop for Women— has been a bargain-hunting destination for more than 60 years. “We have a good percentage of women who can afford to shop on Madison Avenue but really like the idea of saving that money,” says proprietor Tammy Gates.

From Chanel to Gucci and Louis Vuitton, the store specializes in high-end designer merchandise for a reasonable price. Speaking of her clientele, Gates says, “they’re wealthy for a reason. They recognize that bargains keep people wealthy. Paying top dollar when you don’t have to doesn’t make sense.”

by Ivan Raszl

In this post you can read the second chapter free from the book The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning, written by Bob Gilbreath, Chief Marketing Strategist at Bridge Worldwide.

The book introduces a new marketing model (Marketing with Meaning) that people choose to engage with and ultimately improves their lives. In a nut-shell, the book shows that the most effective way to earn the trust and attention of today’s cynical customer is to add meaning to their lives instead of bombarding them with meaningless messages. Please let me know if you’re interested and would consider writing a review on your blog.

What marketing with meaning can do for you

What if we started over? What if we threw out the textbooks and the flowcharts and rose above the snazzy jingle, the celebrity bribe, the empty sizzle, and the ad accost? What if we stopped trying (and failing) to be all things to all people and instead tried to create some- thing of meaning? What if we stopped interrupting people to tell them how great our products are and actually did something to prove our greatness?

I believe that in a world in which consumers can actively choose to avoid marketing, the only way to win is to create marketing that they actively choose to engage with. Akin to the industry-altering significance of direct marketing in the 1950s and permission marketing in the 1990s, marketing with meaning is the next logical step in an evolutionary process. If direct marketing was about approaching strangers individually, and permission marketing was about turning strangers into friends and friends into customers, marketing with meaning is about improving customers’ lives through the marketing itself.

Direct marketing was widely adopted in the 1950s, thanks to bulk postage rates, cheaper mailing materials, and the use of some of the first computers available to businesses. The concept offered several unique benefits as compared to broadcast media like print and radio: companies could reach out more specifically to the individual house- holds that most interested them, they could include much more information by mail, and they could begin to measure the responsiveness to individual offers, a breakthrough in judging return on marketing investment. For consumers, direct marketing by mail or phone brought some added value—it provided more relevant messages and offers, along with some freedom to ignore the sales pitches altogether. But the industry also abused people’s phone lines and mailboxes at an early stage. No wonder the term junk mail was first used in 1954.

Permission marketing, as mentioned in Chapter 1, is the brain- child of marketing maverick Seth Godin, and it succeeded in tilting both the advertising playing field and the relationship between marketers and consumers in the people’s favor. Permission marketing is what created (and continues to drive) the expectation that we shouldn’t, can’t, and won’t simply interrupt people with marketing via e-mail or phone unless we first ask them and are given their permission to do so. Permission marketing represents a distinct improvement over the traditional “tell and sell” approach to marketing, but in many ways it has made our jobs harder, as it has fueled consumers’ desire and motivation to opt out of marketing altogether.

Marketing with meaning is the antidote to opting out; it adds value to people’s lives independent of purchase—which, as it turns out, is far more likely to win their business. It’s marketing that is often more meaningful than the product it aims to sell. It’s Samsung, providing not 1 but 50 eight-foot electrical charging stations for cell phones and laptops at LAX and JFK (with Dallas–Fort Worth, LaGuardia, and Orlando next in the queue). It’s Charmin, underwriting restrooms in Times Square, providing, shall we say, a much-needed service in exchange for the opportunity to connect the toilet with the tissue in people’s minds. It’s a company that makes matches—a commodity, to be sure—that partners with a grill company and sponsors a “stop, drop, and roll” fire-safety program in elementary schools, creating marketing that is far more meaningful than the simple flame the match produces.

What can marketing with meaning do for you and your business? Our research at Bridge Worldwide and dozens of successful projects for our customers show that the more meaningful people find your marketing, the more they’ll be willing to pay for your stuff, the more of an investment they’ll make in it emotionally, and the more motivated they’ll become to spread the word. This means that you’ll be improving your customers’ lives, your bottom line, and the world at large.

Admittedly, the word meaning carries some baggage; some people believe that it narrowly suggests cause marketing or that it calls for the abandonment of conspicuous consumption, neither of which is true in our use of the word. Here, meaning translates to “personal value.” What people find meaningful is very personal, and this chapter will demonstrate, in particular, how marketing your brand can be meaningful in different ways, to various degrees.

Of course, this suggests that meaning can vary from person to person, which is frankly part of the point—your brand probably has a unique target market that’s different from mine. A teenage boy finds a sexy, funny viral video amusing, while the rest of the world turns up its nose. A person with diabetes becomes deeply engaged with articles about how to manage her disease, while the rest of the world has no clue to—nor any interest in—what an A1C is. Although meaning can vary by brand and target, I have found in our work with clients that true marketing with meaning has two consistent traits:

1. It’s marketing that people choose to engage with. It involves creating something that people find is worthy of their time and attention, rather than continuing to look for ways to cleverly (or not so cleverly) interrupt them.
2. It’s marketing that itself improves people’s lives. Many a marketer goes to bed at night, proud to support products and services that add value. Indeed, they may remove tough stains, put a smile on faces, or enable priceless purchases, but we too often utilize the old interruption approach to present these products and services to our customers. Instead, we must create advertising that actually adds value—without necessarily forcing a sale.

An initial fear for some is that the idea of “meaning” is too high level and far away from the dollars and cents that people are most concerned about during this difficult economy. Brands feel pressured to go back to traditional TV commercials with product-benefit and value messaging to connect with price-sensitive buyers. But practicing meaningful marketing is at its heart about understanding consumer needs and delivering value through the marketing itself.

As you will read in the chapters ahead, free samples and offers are strong examples of meaningful marketing, but in today’s economy people are still responding to cause-related campaigns and sustain- ability messages. The new bottom line for consumers is that they expect more from their brands on many levels—and this model will help your company bring marketing itself into the value equation.

The best way to illustrate the value of meaningful marketing is to look deeply within pioneering brands that are charting a unique but consistent course. Dove, Nike, Burger King, and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America are but four examples of major brands that are executing this new approach in truly significant ways. They have abandoned interruption, created marketing that people choose to engage with, connected with them in a variety of innovative new forums, and successfully launched meaningful campaigns that have positively affected both their numbers and the quality of life of the people they’re targeting.

Reinventing Beauty Gives a Lift to Dove’s Bottom Line

In 2002, in the face of slow growth, diminishing market share, and eye-opening research that revealed that more than 50 percent of women say that their body “disgusts them,” Dove stopped talking about soap for its own sake, quit perpetuating a beauty myth that was potentially damaging to girls and women, and started a movement to help improve self-esteem.

In lieu of the size-one fashion models who have come to be expected—and ignored—in advertising, Dove’s original “Real Beauty” campaign featured real women of all ages, sizes, and ethnicities in print ads, online banners, and Times Square billboards. Its marketing featured people such as a 90-year-old woman, with copy that asked the question: “Wrinkled or wonderful?” In what would later become the “Campaign for Real Beauty,” Dove crashed the stereotypes of beauty product advertising forever, creating a national debate among women about what beauty is and what it means. The initial success of the campaign fueled the brand to go further into the digital realm, creating a Web site and mobile-enabled billboards where consumers could con- tinue the discussion with others and download tools to help moms and mentors talk with girls about accepting and celebrating themselves. Then Dove took the campaign viral.

In 2006, its Canadian agency, Ogilvy Toronto, created a time-sped video to dramatize the process that beauty-product advertisers go through to turn a simple woman into a Photoshopped fashion model, ending with: “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted. Every girl deserves to feel beautiful just the way she is.” On October 6, 2006, the agency released the video, called “Evolution,” on YouTube with no other support or fanfare. Traffic began to build, and a week later, Good Morning America featured it. Free views and
free press coverage continued unabated for months. According to Maria Mandel, executive director for digital innovation at Ogilvy, the video has achieved over 500 million views—and counting.

This cost Dove little more than the price of the video’s production, a mere $50,000, in comparison to the $1.3 million to air a single 30- second ad once during the American Idol season finale. Not to mention the fact that a consumer who chooses to engage in meaningful marketing is obviously more open to the message than someone who is likely to use the bathroom, get a snack, or TiVo through a commercial break.

In summer 2007, even the old guard of advertising recognized the campaign with its highest honor, a Cannes Grand Prix. But the Dove Real Beauty advertising campaign did more than win eyeballs and creative awards. It drove the company’s business, resulting in double- digit sales growth for this 54-year-old brand in 2005 and 2006. And it made an impact on society by igniting a debate about our culture’s definition of beauty, shining a spotlight on how the media’s portrayal of it affects the confidence and well-being of our daughters, wives, and sisters. It made real women feel better about themselves and their bodies. And the Dove Self-Esteem Fund is now working to affect the lives of 5 million girls by 2010 by creating articles and videos for girls, moms, and mentors and free workshops (with a discussion guide and DVD) that schools and other organizations (including the Girl Scouts) can use. While Dove’s products work well, the marketing the company created is doing nothing less than improving the world.

Marketing with Meaning: The Model

To create meaningful marketing, you must first determine what makes people tick—what’s genuinely important to them and what they aspire to. Specifically, you need to uncover which of their needs remain unmet—not just in the laundry room or at the grocery store, but in their larger lives. These are what I call “higher-level” needs. If we’re honest, we all know that the detergents and deodorants we are buying now get the job done just fine. So what do people really want? Richer experiences and deeper social connections—ways to improve themselves and to make a positive impact on the world.

People will spend $5 a cup to enjoy a Starbucks experience, $20 to personalize a Heinz ketchup bottle, and hundreds of dollars for personal carbon offset credits. A good online banking service can instill confidence in one’s financial choices, even if the terms of the account and the interest rate are exactly the same as those at the bank next door. Hybrid cars offer a relatively minor improvement in gas mileage and take decades to recapture their incremental cost—yet sales of hybrids are up 500 percent in the past year alone because peo- ple perceive that they are better for the environment. These are the kinds of higher-level benefits that many brands aspire to provide, yet they can do so only by intimately understanding how not just their products and services but their marketing satisfies potential customers’ unfulfilled needs and fits into the overall experience of their lives.

As a road map to help marketers meet these higher-level needs, I have created a new marketing model, the Hierarchy of Meaningful Marketing, which is the product of more than two years of research and my nearly two decades of experience both as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble and as chief marketing strategist at Bridge Worldwide.

The hierarchy presents the three tiers of meaningful marketing— Solution, Connection, and Achievement—as a tool that will help you accu- rately identify your customers’ needs and begin thinking about how your marketing can fulfill these needs at the corresponding levels:

• Survival needs (food, shelter, safety, and clothing) = meaningful solutions
• Attachment needs (love, belonging, friendship, family) = meaningful connections
• Esteem needs (confidence, creativity, problem solving, respect for and by others) = meaningful achievements

The Hierarchy of Meaningful Marketing uniquely aligns and combines Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a brilliant 60-year- old sociological snapshot of consumers’ higher-level needs, with the brand equity hierarchy, a familiar tool that marketers use every day to determine where their brand stands in the hearts and minds of consumers.

In case Maslow’s theory is not top of mind, in the 1940s, the American psychologist spent time studying the healthiest 1 percent of the college population as well as exemplary figures such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, and Frederick Douglass. He discovered two important things. First, people are programmed to continually create new needs and strive to satisfy them. This programming is what keeps us going even after we have won a Nobel Prize or made a million dollars, and it is responsible for much of the remarkable progress in the world. Second, he found that there is a common and predictable progression of these needs among all people, starting with survival and safety and moving toward higher-level social, esteem, and achieve-
ment needs as the more basic needs are met.

In Marketing 101, we learned that strong brands stand for something more than product features and benefits. Brands like Coca-Cola and BMW are worth far more than the factories that produce them and the raw materials used to make them; their real value exists in what they stand for in the hearts and minds of consumers. Like Maslow’s model, the brand equity hierarchy begins with a base level of benefits and attributes that describe what the product is and the problem it solves. It gradually ladders up to higher levels of meaning to include values, character, and a single, powerful equity statement. The pyramid shape of both models helps to connect basic needs with benefits, and so on.

Both Brands and People Seek Higher Meaning

The Hierarchy of Meaningful Marketing

The Hierarchy of Meaningful Marketing marries consumers’ higher-level needs with the corresponding brand features, resulting in three tiers of marketing that are increasingly meaningful to consumers:

• Solution marketing. Like the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, solution marketing covers basic household needs and benefits, for example, helpful offers, money savings, and hard rewards for purchase.
• Connection marketing. This represents a significant step toward building a bonding relationship between people and brands. It matches closely with Maslow’s love/belonging category, providing benefits beyond the basics of information and relevance to include something that is of deeper importance in the consumer’s mind, i.e., social outlets and creative expression.
• Achievement marketing. This corresponds to Maslow’s pinnacle of self-actualization by allowing people to significantly improve their lives, realize a dream, or positively change their community and their world.

Once people can feed and clothe themselves, they can focus on forging healthy relationships, and then on changing the world, be- cause they aren’t worried about where their next meal is coming from. Similarly, when you as a consumer aren’t as motivated by a 50-cents- off coupon—mainly because 50 cents won’t make or break you—you become more responsive to marketing that aligns itself with your goals of connecting with like-minded people, expressing yourself creatively, and/or positively influencing the community around you.

The higher the level of marketing (with achievement being the highest), the higher the need it satisfies (esteem needs being the highest), and conversely, the higher the need, the higher the level of marketing it requires. This is not to say that marketers of basic goods and services are exempt from creating marketing with meaning. For them, the opportunities to create marketing whose meaning tran- scends what they’re selling are limitless.

The description of each of the three tiers typify the ways in which these needs tend to manifest in people and are the focus of the next three chapters (Chapter 3, “Meaningful Solutions”; Chapter 4, “Meaningful Connections”; and Chapter 5, “Meaningful Achieve- ments”), each of which contains dozens of real-world case studies from name brands that have made great strides in their journey toward marketing with meaning—often to significantly increased sales and shareholder satisfaction.

What Meaningful Marketers Know

1. Meaningful marketers never push. They invite prospective customers in by creating marketing that appeals to the higher unmet needs in their overall lives.
2. Meaningful marketers know that most of our basic needs are satisfied by the products and services we already buy. But that is not to say that the marketers of these basic products are exempt from creating marketing with meaning—on the contrary. If you sell a commodity, the need and opportunities for you to create marketing whose meaning transcends your product are limitless.
3. Marketing itself must improve consumers’ lives and accomplish something of intrinsic value, independent of the product or service it aims to sell, whether or not people actually ever purchase it.
4. More meaning = more money. (The longer equation is more meaning = more loyalt = higher prices = increased sales, but the net result is the same.)

Chris Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images

No. 1 Carlos Slim Helú & family

Net Worth: $74 billion ↑
Source: Telecom
Citizenship: Mexico

The world’s richest person for a second year in a row, the Mexican telecom mogul is also the year’s biggest gainer, having added $20.5 billion to his fortune and widened the gap between him and No. 2, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, to $18 billion. A 19% rise in the Mexican stock market, a stronger peso, and successful mining and real estate spinoffs from conglomerate Grupo Carso all contributed to the astonishing increase. He also merged his fixed-line telecom company into America Movil, Latin America’s largest wireless carrier; the Slim family stake in that holding accounts for 62% of his net worth. He has other holdings in retailer Saks and the New York Times. Recently unveiled a new building for his Soumaya Museum, which houses his vast art collection. It is open to the public for free.

Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

No. 2 Bill Gates

Net Worth: $56 billion ↑
Source: Microsoft
Citizenship: U.S.

Microsoft mogul, futurist and America’s richest person has, with help from billionaire buddy Warren Buffett, convinced nearly 60 of the world’s wealthiest to sign his “Giving Pledge,” promising to donate the majority of their wealth to charity either during their lifetime or after death. He is no longer the planet’s richest person, but that’s because he’s given away $30 billion to his foundation. The Gates Foundation, the world’s most influential charity, tackles tuberculosis and polio and funds famine-resistant crops to fight hunger. He is calling for a higher sense of urgency in AIDS vaccine development and also pushing for better tools to rate teacher performance. Gates holds 70% of his wealth in investment fund Cascade, dabbling in everything from autos to hedge funds to Mexican Coke bottler Femsa; the rest of his wealth is held in Microsoft stock.

Jemal Countess/Getty Images

No. 3 Warren Buffett

Net Worth: $50 billion ↑
Source: Berkshire Hathaway
Citizenship: U.S.

The venerable investor’s Berkshire Hathaway climbed more than 15% over the last year, adding $3 billion to his fortune. The 80-year-old is still hunting big deals:

“Our elephant gun has been reloaded, and my trigger finger is itchy.” Along with bridge partner Bill Gates, the Oracle of Omaha is coaxing America’s richest to pledge half their fortunes to charity. “Too often a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse and long-standing friends.” Buffett faked breathing problems when he was 12 so he could move back to Omaha from Washington, D.C., where his father was a freshman congressman. He had read every book about investing in stocks in the Omaha Public Library by the time he was 12. He met value investor Benjamin Graham at Columbia; bought textile firm Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, and transformed it into massive holding company: food, insurance, utilities, industrials. Buffett acquired railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $26 billion in 2009.

Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images

No. 4 Bernard Arnault

Net Worth: $41 billion ↑
Source: LVMH
Citizenship: France

The Lord of Luxe easily retains title of richest European. Fortune surged by $13.5 billion as shares of his luxury goods outfit, LVMH, rose by more than half over the past year thanks to strong demand for luxuries like Dom Perignon champagne, Cognac Hennessy, Tag Heuer watches and Louis Vuitton accessories, particularly in Asian markets like Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City. The group acquired 20% of Hermes last year; Arnault insists he is a friendly shareholder but Hermes sees it as hostile. In March the Bulgari family transferred its majority holding in its brand to LVMH in exchange for LVMH shares and board seats. LVMH fired Christian Dior designer John Galliano after he apparently made anti-Semitic remarks. Renaissance man also owns yacht builder Royal Van Lent, a hotel in Courchevel; has stakes in French retailer Carrefour and French tour operator Go Voyages.

ZUMA Press/Newscom

No. 5 Larry Ellison

Net Worth: $39.5 billion ↑
Source: Oracle
Citizenship: U.S.

The Oracle chief sits atop a fortune that is $11.5 billion bigger than last year thanks to a 30% jump in the software company’s shares. In November Oracle won a mud-slinging copyright infringement court battle against German software rival SAP worth $1.3 billion. SAP is contesting the outcome. Oracle has acquired 75 companies over the years worth $40 billion, and figured out a way to turn a profit on its latest big buy, Sun Microsystems, in 2010. One of the highest-paid executives in the U.S., Ellison reaped $960 million in compensation in the past five fiscal years, mostly from exercising stock options; he recently cut his salary to $1. An avid yachtsman, Ellison spent a decade and over $100 million on his quest for the America’s Cup, which he finally won in February 2010, beating Swiss rival (and billionaire) Ernesto Bertarelli. He is bringing the America’s Cup to San Francisco in 2013. Intends to give 95% of wealth to charity.

Lefteris Pitarakis/AP Photo

No. 6 Lakshmi Mittal

Net Worth: $31.1 billion ↑
Source: Steel
Citizenship: India

Net profits at his ArcelorMittal, world’s largest steelmaker, were up 18-fold to $2.9 billion in 2010 due to recovery in steel demand and higher margins. Group spun off its stainless steel unit into Aperam, a new listed company, and also acquired Canadian miner Baffinland Iron Mines. Funding a 377-foot sculpture called ArcelorMittal Orbit in London’s Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympics. Europe’s richest resident who lives in London, he bought Alderbrook Park, a 340-acre country estate outside of the city, where he plans to build an eco-friendly country mansion for a reported $40 million. Daughter Vanisha acquired stake in Roc Capital Management, a New York hedge fund. Daughter-in-law Megha owns German fashion house Escada.

Cabalar/EFE/Newscom

No. 7 Amancio Ortega
Net Worth: $31 billion ↑
Source: Zara
Citizenship: Spain

Amancio Ortega stepped down as chairman of Inditex, the $15.8 billion (sales) fashion company, in January; he still gets 87% of his fortune from his stake in the publicly traded firm. The company, which operates under several brand names including Zara, Massimo Dutti and Stradivarius, has 5,000 stores in 77 countries.

Ortega also owns properties in Florida, Madrid, London and Lisbon, a horse-jumping circuit, a stake in a soccer league; and has interests in gas, tourism and banks. Railway worker’s son, he started as a gofer in a shirt store. With then-wife Rosalia Mera, also a billionaire, started making dressing gowns and lingerie in living room. Daughter Marta works for Inditex.

Newscom

No. 8 Eike Batista

Net Worth: $30 billion ↑
Source: Mining, oil
Citizenship: Brazil

Brazil’s richest man is gearing up to take over the world. Making a play for foreign investors, Batista announced this year the opening of an office in New York and his intention to list some of his companies on the London Stock Exchange. Through his holding company, EBX, Batista controls businesses spanning mining, shipbuilding, energy, logistics, tourism and entertainment. After months of discussions, he was triumphant in February in taking control of Canadian gold outfit Ventana. Two-thirds of his fortune comes from OGX, the oil and gas exploration company he founded in 2007 and took public a year later. He says the company will start producing oil this year. In rare recent setback, his planned IPO for his shipbuilding business (OSX), meant to be the world’s largest IPO in 2010, was a disappointment and has had a lukewarm reception in the Brazilian market. The son of Brazil’s revered former mining minister, who presided over mining giant Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, got his start in gold trading and mining. Onetime champion offshore powerboat racer; formerly married to Playboy cover girl. In media interviews he’s been warning Carlos Slim Helú that he’ll soon take his spot as the world’s richest man, but he still has a ways to go.

Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo

No. 9 Mukesh Ambani

Net Worth: $27 billion ↓
Source: Petrochemicals
Citizenship: India

His oil and gas conglomerate Reliance Industries, India’s most valuable company, just forged a partnership with BP, selling 30% stake in 23 oil blocks in India for $7.2 billion and forming a marketing joint venture. The deal is being touted as one of biggest foreign investments in India. He’s also betting on shale gas, having bought stakes in three American energy firms for $3.3 billion last year. He and wife Nita host parties at their recently completed 27-story sky palace in Mumbai, but have yet to move in permanently.

Matthew Bowler

No. 10 Christy Walton & family

Net Worth: $26.5 billion ↑
Source: Wal-Mart
Citizenship: U.S.

Widow of John Walton inherited her wealth after the former Green Beret and Vietnam War medic died in an airplane accident near his home in Wyoming in 2005. Now world’s richest woman, she got an extra bump in her fortune because of her late husband’s early investment in First Solar; shares up nearly 500% since 2006 initial public offering. But bulk still comes from her holdings in Wal-Mart, the retailer founded by her father-in-law Sam Walton and his brother James in 1962. Today Wal-Mart has sales of $405 billion, and employs more than 2.1 million people. The philanthropist supports museums, education and organic gardening.

by Darrell Zahorsky

Trend watching has emerged in big business as a discipline of business management and a popular topic among top media publications and futurists. Small business can benefit from trend watching, too. This week’s feature is on the hottest trends for business of all sizes.

Trends are far easier to observe than time. Timing of entering into a growing trend market can be costly if the trend has yet to enter public consciousness. My personal experience in timing a trend came in 1993, while trying to explain the Internet to advertising executives who had no idea of its existence. The best time to enter the market is when the trend is entering mass awareness so educating a market is less expensive. The following 4 trends were selected for longevity, market awareness & potential profitability.

Hottest Trends in Business

Youth Market: The Y generation is a market force to be reckoned with. This power is why a small-town pop sensation, Avril Lavigne, can go from obscurity to the 5th most searched word on the Internet and move to the number 2 music spot on Billboard’s Top 200 charts. This power is also, why the auto industry can expect peak numbers from 27 million teen car buyers, and 4 million new buyers, a year for the next 8 years.

A quick, trend-spotting technique is to take a stroll to your local magazine rack. You can get a fast take on a market by looking at the thickness of the publication. Computer & business magazines, Red Herring and Fast Company, have thinned from an absence of advertisers. Take a look at the huge size of Muscle Magazine and Muscle & Fitness as the teenage bodybuilding markets have grown, so has the advertising.

Opportunities: Serving the teen auto aftermarket with customization should be hot. Try the Classic Driving School, a unique, teen driver training experience with a Porsche. Youth sport supplements should continue growing but with fierce competition. Look for avenues in fitness mixed with extreme attitudes.

Green Power: The environment trend has been around and been a struggle for many companies, such as automakers with electric cars trying to capitalize on the green awareness. The care of Mother Earth is still a big concern of society. According to a recent Harris Poll, over 74% of American adults believe in the global warming theory. Over 73% of U.S. citizens approve of the Kyoto agreement for countries to limit their carbon monoxide and greenhouse gas emissions. Although, the United States has not signed the accord, countries like Canada, that have accepted, the accord will be a watch place for the impact.

Opportunities: This trend will be supported by businesses reducing reliance on oil & gas with new forms of energy like wind power. Wind power experienced a 1.7 billion dollar increase in new equipment during 2001 (American Wind Energy Association). Also, look to companies helping companies reduce energy consumption with new forms of energy saving products. For example, one small business is profiting from installing energy efficient shipping doors for corporate shipping operations.

Quality of Life: The wellness and health trend shows no sign of slow down since it’s early infancy during the 80’s fitness movement. This trend is the convergence of rising health care costs in all developed countries, the aging of the baby boomer, the desire to keep our youth, and growing life expectancy.

Paul Zane Pilzer, world economist & entrepreneur; predicted with accuracy, the U.S. Savings & Loans crisis, foresees the wellness industry will be worth a trillion dollars by the year 2010. Wellness encompasses: looking good, feeling great, being healthy, and fighting aging and disease.

Opportunities: A wide range of products and services such as; botox and energy drinks, to nutraceuticals & wrinkle creams, to serve this large and steady trend. The energy drink market alone grossed $275 million in 2001, more than doubling the profits from the previous year.

Internet: The Internet meltdown was a period of shakeout for capitalists wanting to make a quick million. At the beginning of the century, many companies were formed to take advantage of the birth of the auto industry. Only a handful of players emerged to become household names but opportunities were plentiful in the area of; building roads, suburban communities, and restaurants. The Internet represents a similar venue.

Internet usage continues to grow. Pollster, Ipsos-Reid’s, Internet usage survey shows 72% of Americans have gone online at least once during 30 days in the past year. Canada has the second largest usage penetration with 62% of Canadians online. With increased usage comes more online spending. According to the Internet measurement firm, comScore Networks, total online spending in 2004, grew by 26 percent to a record level of more than $117 billion.

Opportunities: With billions of dollars of goods sold online, many businesses will need assistance in website rebuilds and search engine optimization. Look for growing markets in e-learning and online gaming. Don’t forget computer security. Gartner Group estimates only 35% of small & medium businesses have disaster recovery.

The impact of these long-term trends will continue to shape markets and industries. For new entrepreneurs, gauge the market closely. If you are expanding a business, look for complementary markets to those you are currently serving. For existing businesses with no growth plans, observe and plan for how these trends may impact your industry.

Excerpted from “The Book of Business Wisdom”
Edited by Peter Krass

Sam Walton 1918 – 1992

Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, grew up poor in a farm community in rural Missouri during the Great Depression. The poverty he experienced while growing up taught him the value of money and to persevere.

After attending the University of Missouri, he immediately worked for J.C. Penny where he got his first taste of retailing. He served in World War II, after which he became a successful franchiser of Ben Franklin five-and-dime stores. In 1962, he had the idea of opening bigger stores, sticking to rural areas, keeping costs low and discounting heavily. The management disagreed with his vision. Undaunted, Walton pursued his vision, founded Wal-Mart and started a retailing success story. When Walton died in 1992, the family’s net worth approached $25 billion.

Today, Wal-Mart is the world’s #1 retailer, with more than 4,150 stores, including discount stores, combination discount and grocery stores, and membership-only warehouse stores (Sam’s Club). Learn Walton’s winning formula for business.

Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don’t know if you’re born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you — like a fever.

Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in your partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It’s the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3: Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren’t enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable.

Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. If you don’t trust your associates to know what’s going on, they’ll know you really don’t consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we’re really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free — and worth a fortune.

Rule 6: Celebrate your success. Find some humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm — always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don’t do a hula on Wall Street. It’s been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition. “Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?”

Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines — the ones who actually talk to the customer — are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.

Rule 8: Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want — and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don’t make excuses — apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: “Satisfaction Guaranteed.” They’re still up there, and they have made all the difference.

Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running — long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation’s largest retailer — we’ve ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.

Rule 10: Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you’re headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.