WATCH FOR TRG
New Business Tools
Over the next weeks the TRG team will undertake to present one new business tool per week on our website, with a re-organization into categories by mid-year.
Each tool will be focused on a named aspect of business development and/or management. Each tool will offer methods, formats or sequences of consideration to matters of concern to you, our readers.
The opening item will be the first part of a series devoted to the “Leadership Deliberation” process. Our TRG “Guiding Principles of Deliberation” will present key elements in the sequence of thought, discussion, decision and action designed to move an enterprise forward.
Future Subjects of Tools will include:
* Branding and Associated Media Relations
* Guidelines for “Break-out Team” Activities
* The Strategic Development Sequence
* The “TRG Project Spec-Sheet” Model
Each tool has been designed in response to our clients and “Agenda” newsletter readers needs over the years. Your input is requested as to which Tools might be of interest to you.
Requests will NOT create any form of obligation on the Reader who makes the suggestion, but will help us understand which subjects are of general interest.
Your input will help our team select the areas of focus in this effort over time. To view those tools already on our website please go to: TRG Leadership Archive Tools
The first of the new TRG tools will be posted by Wednesday, September 7, 2011 in the early a.m. with a new TRG tool each Wednesday for the next several months.
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The Regis Group, Inc.
102 North King Street | Leesburg, VA 20176 |
September, 2011
BRANDING 101
It’s not enough these days that they know your name, it’s how they feel about you that counts!
By Richard Earle
Regis Senior Associate
When I first started writing advertising copy, nearly 40 years ago the objective was quite simple: to make consumers remember your name, and hopefully, the benefits of your product.
Procter and Gamble’s Tide detergent, which I Supervised for several years, got your clothes cleaner/whiter/brighter. That was it. The consumer’s feelings were not considered that important, although some of us thought they were.
Today, name recognition and unique benefits are still important, but feelings trump all! Hence, Branding!
Outgrowth of “Positioning”
Branding is an outgrowth of something called “Positioning”, which was first introduced by Jack Trout and Al Reis, the owner of a marketing strategy agency.
Proper positioning results from the following technique:
1. Review all the benefits that products in your category possess. They all should be what consumers really want.
2. Find the one that none of your competitors are talking about.
3. That would become the benefit on which you would base your Positioning Strategy.
Trout and Reis liked to quote a lyric by 20s jazz icon Fats Waller: “Find out what they like and how they like it and let them have it just that way.”
Creating an Aura
Today’s consumer needs so much more. With the advent of social media, the desire of most consumers is for a more personal connection to products. To achieve this requires that you concentrate on your "aura". It should be an expression of your core values; an almost spiritual component: a Brand Essence or AURA! Everything you do or say must contribute to it.
Today, in these tough economic times, your corporate Brand Essence should say you are unique, solid, adapted and competitive. And that you are not going away.
Branding for a product or service should promise that using either enrolls you in a unique lifestyle; you become a member of a club. Your connection is rarely about the utility or great taste or other promised benefit of the product or service.
The Creative Brief
Devising a Branding Creative Brief for any corporate entity or a product can be a stimulating process.
This should be a facilitated group effort with a marketing team, and anyone else intimately involved with the product or group in a leadership role.
Since we are adding a strictly emotional element, we divide our efforts into two categories: left and right brain, and next month in Part II, we will discover how the different sides can be applied to Branding a product or service, or for that matter, your entire organization!
Watch for Part II in the October Agenda. This article is an excerpt from the August edition of "Effective Executive". For the full article visit TRG In The News
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Focus on the Future
Guest Predictions:
Phil Morphew
Guest Predictions is a regular feature in which we ask leaders in a number of professions a set of questions that affect us all.
Phil Morphew,
CEO Indiana Primary Care Association
Phil Morphew is a former TRG Associate. Morphew is currently CEO of the Indiana Primary Care Association since August, 2009. He is a graduate of the Indiana University School of Business, and holds a Masters degree from Dartmouth College. Previously, Phil was CEO of Health Care Excel (1979-2001). He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zimbabwe. Phil resides in Indianapolis.
Q: What changes in your professional environment in the past 3-5 years have you found to be the most beneficial?
A: The Affordable Care Act, if fully implemented (and that is presently a pretty big “if”) may result in significant growth of community health centers as the locus of primary care. Community health centers deliver superior quality primary care at a lower cost, and do so in medically underserved areas.
Q: What changes have been the most troubling to you?
A: The polarization of perspectives we see in national politics seems to be a reflection of polarization at the local level. I am troubled by our apparent growing inability to hold civil conversations about our differences.
Q: How will globalization affect your professional area in the near term?
A: If we can be open-minded as a nation, globalization could lead us to examine health systems in other parts of the world, particularly in Europe, that have resulted in better outcomes (lower costs and better health).
Q: What significant challenges might be anticipated in your professional area in the next few years?
A: Significant growth of community health centers will challenge state primary care entities and their member entities to keep up. We will be particularly challenged to find enough doctors and nurses to meet the expanded demand.
Q: What are the greatest challenges confronting young professionals in Western culture today?
A: The two greatest challenges are posed by the ongoing rapid evolution of information technology, and ever-present information overload. Health professionals are now expected to remain current in IT, and to use advanced technology routinely in providing the best possible care. This means the efficient exchange of health information in electronic format, accessing latest clinical research and practice guidelines, ensuring that all available information is gleaned and considered before reaching an appropriate determination, and communicating with other professionals and patients in real time.
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Marc Chinoy
President's Letter
...And now for something completely different...
Next year TRG will be 20 years old. At the end of last year, we did as we urge that our clients do, by forming a new three year plan. As an outcome of the resulting plan, in September we will start the roll-out of a new tool weekly (on Wednesdays in the a.m.).
Our intentions are explained in the Newsletter to the far left. So tune in on Wednesday, September 7th for the first tool.
p.s. A reach into an expanding group of our friends for new BizSpeaks (Below) was one of the Objectives under our internal “WWW Outreach” Goal.
Later,
BizSpeak!
Winner of the Month:
Dr. David Stewart, Co-founder, Loudoun Holistic Healthcare Practice, Leesburg, VA
Factory Medicine
Definition:
Healthcare practiced to an arbitrary (aggressively tight) timetable, with neither flex nor exception.
Related Terms:
Assembly line medicine; Robo-med
"The Eye Clinic has evolved into “Factory Medicine,” working patients to a punch list against the clock."
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