Nance Rosen Blog

The top three fatal errors you can make as a leader are:

1. Failing to leverage your market position
2. Negotiating with irrational forces
3. Not articulating your vision with vigor

This “don’t” checklist works for business, consumer and personal brands. The deadly dangerous part is this: you have to be right with all three rules if you want to succeed in your category. Do one wrong and your headed for #epicfail or a descent to 99¢ Only Stores (or whatever your version of marketing Hades is).

You may recall this paragraph from a prior post of mine. I dissected the Republican presidential candidates on their bizarre embrace of death as a vote-getting strategy.

Death remains a bizarre platform because conservative Republicans /Tea Partiers like to tout their “pro-life” agenda, which seems only to cover women who are pregnant, and not when they (or anyone else) is not.

Republican debate audiences get weirder and weirder in their outbursts. A few weeks ago they were applauding for death to anyone who cannot afford health insurance. This last week in Florida, the audience booed a solider serving in Iraq – a man who is sacrificing his safety to ensure our freedom. The sticking point is that he is gay. As of last week he can be gay in the military. Actually he was gay before the DADT rule changed, but he would have lost his right to serve had he not waited before he sent in his video question to the candidates.

Candidate Rick Santorum addressed the audience with an ”abstinence for all” rule. “There should be no sex in the military,” he pronounced. Once again, the anti-life theme: no sex, no babies. At least they are consistent. (By the way, if you don’t know Santorum, just Google him.)

The Democratic Party is even weirder. US President Obama insists on not leading the nation. He compromises until he is so bendy, he could star in Cirque de Soleil. His is reaching so far, that he is now promoting a job plan that was fundamentally the Republican agenda until he took it, and now they reject it!

Why is this first son (as nearly all US Presidents are) so taken with hand-me-downs? Has he had a speech where he hasn’t credited Republicans with half or more of the ideas he propounds?

This couldn’t be bipartisanship – that’s when the two sides work together. Leaders have to learn when irrational forces – like speculation, such as the mob fever that caused the tech boom bust or the mortgage for all turned foreclosure for many – is simply not a sustainable trajectory.

Yet President Obama seems bent on self-congratulations that while ineffective, he has been wildly reaching across the chasm to the people who have said – out loud –that they will do anything to take down his presidency. This is not a handshake across the aisle; this is a free fall into the abyss.

Why did he fail to leverage his political capital and instead play so long a delay game, that he gave the Tea Party its grand entrance in the congressional elections two years after he won his job?

And, why does the president only use the bully pulpit and call for our attention and action, when the airwaves and our brains have been stocked full of whatever the Republicans have propounded?

For example, last week Republican Michele Bachmann came out against ALL taxes! Now that’s both completely irrational and very compelling! Even the third of the country that is so impoverished they can’t buy food much less pay taxes swoon when they hear there is a magical pot of gold that will pay for roads, schools, police, firefighters and the salaries of congressional representatives – like Michele Bachmann!

We had to wait for Warren Buffett and Mark Cuban to say that as billionaires they want to pay more taxes? That’s what President Obama waited for before he recommended that secretaries pay a lower tax rate than their hedge fund bosses?

Leaders must seize the day, everyday. They don’t have time for small talk about big problems. They don’t suffer fools.

It’s time to shout or get out.

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The top three fatal mistakes you can make in marketing are:

1. Underrating your competition (and failing to create a competitive advantage)
2. Misunderstanding what your target market (audience) will buy and why
3. Failing to repeatedly deliver a crisp, clear, consistent and compelling message

This “don’t” checklist works for business, consumer and personal brands. The deadly dangerous part is this: you have to be right with all three rules if you want to win your category. Do one wrong and you’re headed for #epicfail or a descent to Dollar Tree (or whatever your version of marketing Hades is).

As the US presidential race kicks into high gear, consider how death itself became the central and winning branding element for the Republican and Tea Parties. This is true for candidates’ personal brands and collectively the parties’ brands.

Here are just a few of dozens of examples that are teachable moments for us (and the Democratic Party, which we take on next week).

1. Death is a competitive advantage

When leading Republican candidate for president Rick Perry touts Texas’ executioners as being the most prolific in the land, he clearly beats the competition. Texas leads the nation in killing death row prisoners by a landslide. It alone is responsible for 38% of all executions in the US. Texas governor Perry leads in the national polls.

2. Death connects positively to the target audience

Ron Paul, the leading vote getter in the California Republican straw poll, won it by a landside with a whopping 45% of the vote. In fact, Ron Paul is a medical doctor, but he promotes a strict interpretation of personal responsibility even in the face of someone he cherishes dying of a treatable illness. His campaign manager Kent Snyder just died of pneumonia because Snyder was unable to afford medical insurance on his salary, and the Ron Paul campaign wouldn’t provide it.

Paul is now famous for promoting death from illness or accident as a “personal freedom.” At the televised Ronald Reagan library debate, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Paul, “What should we do if a thirty year old man gets a life-threatening illness and doesn’t have health insurance?” Paul replied: “Freedom is all about taking your own risk.” Blitzer then asked, “Should society let him die?”  The studio audience yelled “yeah” and applauded.

3. Death as a crisp, clear, and consistent message

Running strong with governors and other key endorsers, Republican candidate Mitt Romney put death in the crosshairs two ways. He proposes an increase in the military budget for war and defense, paid for by decreasing the budget for Medicare and Social Security, the safety nets that many seniors need to survive in their declining years.

Romney stays on message. Even though:

1. Fifty-four four- and three-star generals and flag officers sent a letter to Congress in support of a $58 billion budget “for civilian tools of international development and diplomacy.” There was not support for more military spending from these experts.

2. The Economist reports the US already accounts for 60% of all global spending on military. By contrast China ranks second in the world’s biggest defense budgets, spending just $76 billion compared to $693 billion in the US budget.

Death takes a holiday

Perhaps if the Republican and Tea Parties take the executive branch in the next elections, we will celebrate the Mexican holiday: Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead.

Don’t dilute the message

Of course, we first heard these parties test the use of death as a way to rouse voters against healthcare coverage. Republican-Tea Party stars Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin first attacked the administration’s insurance plan because they said it contained “death panels” in its charter. They purported that the bill included a provision that doctors tell grandma she isn’t entitled to healthcare and therefore would be left to die.

No slinging around those death panels threats now. Why? Because death turned out to be the winning issue with voters, even those who are living in their cars, waiting in food pantry lines and lining up for MASH-style medical care in major cities across the country. These impoverished people, along with the middle-class and wealth-class, seem convinced that death is the answer to life’s current economic problems.

Marketers aren’t ethicists. We are superb at:

1. Positioning against competition
2. Leveraging what drives consumers to buy, and
3. Crafting messages that consistently and relentlessly drive a sustainable, persuasive campaign

Right now, the Republican Party and the Tea Party are doing a superb job. They seem to know what the Democratic Party doesn’t. The brand death sells big today in America, and there’s lots of ways to incorporate it into policy statements.

Next week: what can we learn from the flailing Democratic Party!

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If you’ve job hopped a lot, you’re in really good company. The average person changes jobs 11 times within 32 years, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Hence, your average tenure at one workplace will be slightly below three years, as reported by economist Chuck Pierret who has followed 10,000 workers since 1979.

So much for the gold watch or golden parachute! Because you will frequently bounce from one job to another, you’re more likely to win an Olympic gold medal than vest in a company’s pension plan.  You have heard this before. You are “You, Inc.” You alone have the responsibility to prepare yourself for your future. And, it will be a bumpy ride.

You’re going to need personal resilience and strong relationships to help you between jobs, more than any other skills or abilities that can land you a job.

According to the American Psychological Association, resilience is the capacity to cope with traumatic and stressful events in life. This includes the ability to feel the pain of loss, and not curl up and want to die. Almost all change is loss at some level, so resilience is a life skill.

Supportive relationships are key to resilience. Meaningful, trusted friendships are something to build now, before anything happens. If you only reach out to us when you hit bottom and the pizza boxes are blocking the door, we might not work very hard to come in and console you. And, 500 virtual Facebook friends won’t do you much good. You need real friends. If you can’t remember, friends are people you see or speak to, share experiences with and meet for a meal.

Resilience also means you can manage strong feelings and resist impulses. When you feel wronged, it’s okay to indulge a revenge fantasy. It’s not okay to act on that fantasy. You may have sacrificed your personal life, worked long hours, or gone to extraordinary lengths to keep a project or client on track. That doesn’t mean you can throw any of that in the face of the person who’s letting you go. Reframe your dedication or contribution as simply those which you needed to do in order to keep the job as long as you did.

You also need to maintain a positive view of yourself, despite what’s happening on the job, or off it. Only a calm mind allows you to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out. Control your self-talk. Speak to yourself in encouraging words. Celebrate small triumphs on the way back up.

The great thing about expecting endings is that you can prepare for them. All great business leaders start with the end in mind. From the onset, they ponder various ways they might exit their going concerns: sell, franchise, move online, move offshore, and so on.

Lance Armstrong starts every race with the end in mind. He doesn’t get on his bike and wonder where the finish line is. He doesn’t hope the race will never end.

Choose an icon you like – maybe a big red bouncing ball or a sleek yellow road bike. Keep it where you can see it. You just might need a reminder of what you are likely to face, so you can prepare and succeed.

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Are you one of the unhappy employees costing the US economy $300 billion in lost productivity each year?

Workers are producing less quantity and producing less quality since the onset of the new American depression, a mental health epidemic whose onset is now tracked to January 2008 by both Gallop and Harvard researchers.

Employees sit woodenly at their desks, listlessly stand behind store counters and artfully dodge ringing phones at a call center, because they aren’t emotionally engaged in their company’s survival. That’s per a 2010 study by James K. Harter. In other words, a significant number of workers are cheating the time clock by doing little more than showing up. They also do a good job of not showing up. Absences, sick days, and other leave time are consistent problems.

According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which tracks 1,000 people of all ages and various pay grades, employees report feeling angry, frustrated, and otherwise unmotivated.

No wonder Labor Day is celebrated with a day off.

While the usual suspects, such as teens and seniors working for survival wages at fast food and other “service” jobs are angry, they are joined by an unlikely segment of the workforce.

So-called knowledge workers: engineers, scientists, and senior managers also report feeling disgust, disdain and frustration with their employers, according to researchers and authors of The Progress Principle, Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business school and Steven Kramer.

Reviewing 64,000 specific workday events among 238 professionals in seven companies, Amabile and Kramer pinpointed the single greatest determinant of depressed workers, and perhaps the depressed economy.

The issue is “not making progress” on meaningful work. That inability to take projects and move them forward is the single most defeating, mind-numbing and perhaps heartbreaking experience on the job.

Turns out it’s not salary, bonuses, promotions, titles or any of the wage, benefits or perquisites that raise the spirits and work ethic of the American worker. It’s the access to tools and systems – and freedom from the hassles and other impediments to progress – that empower employees and set free their desire to create or produce.

So here’s what you can do. The next time you’re having a difficult time going to work or staying at your job, think about your happiness. Identify the best project you have and make a case to your supervisor or colleagues for what it means to the bottom line. Then, ask for what you need – or be resourceful and find what you need.

When you understand that you get ahead by doing great work, and you focus on creating the pathway to doing it, you get more than a checkmark on your to-do list. You get back your pride, well-being and maybe even your smile.

If it’s good for you and good for your company, thanks. You’re doing good for the whole economy and that’s good for all of us.

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If you earn 10-15% less than someone who does the same job, you’re paying the price of being less attractive.

The average cost of being ugly is $230,000 out of your paycheck, over your working lifetime.

Deduct another significant chunk from your salary if you are obese, but only if you are female. Fat women earn about $14,000 less per year than their average-weight sisters, or about 12% if you are Caucasian and 7% if you are African-American. On the other hand, remarkably thin women earn $2,000 more each year than the average woman on the job.

While fat men get a pass, thin men pay a hefty price. Their salary averages $9,000 less per year than their average or big-boned brothers.

When you compare a man 6’ to one 5’5”, you are talking $5,525 in added income for the big guy. But it’s still a game of inches for a man 5’10” who earns $950 less in annual pay on average, versus the six-footer. Taller women make 5-8% more than average women, for every three extra inches they tower above the ordinary.

Blonde women earn $870 more on average than brunettes and redheads. Bald men to the tune of 63%, report earning less than guys with a full head of hair.

While most of these personal statistics are clear-cut: taller, fatter, blonde or bald for example – apparently, even ugly is pretty easy to agree on. Over half the people rated as ugly were given identical scores by more than half the respondents in a study cited by Daniel S. Hamermesh, a professor of economics at the University of Texas, Austin in his new book, Beauty Pays.

How you look directly affects the outcomes in your life. It’s a fact of life that people prefer to buy from better looking sales representatives. Jurors’ decisions favor good-looking attorneys. The electorate leans toward photogenic political leaders.

The reasons may come down to how you were handled from the get-go. Cute babies get more attention from their parents. Adorable toddlers are, well, adored. The legacy of attracting positive attention breeds a certain kind of social ease, a charm that lasts a lifetime.  Being well loved may also prevent you from overeating or being careless about your grooming habits.

All these qualities lead to the real reason we like attractive people more: they are self-confident. We intuitively believe that if you like you, then we should like you, too!

How can you add “attractive” to your personal brand? It’s pretty simple. Change what you can control.

Posture matters. People who put their legs up on a desk or otherwise pose in an aggressive manner – chest puffed out or leaning forward – actually change their own neurochemistry. Such posing raises your testosterone by 20% and lowers your stress hormone by the same amount. That looks like self-confidence. Of course, you can’t walk around pretending you’re Superman all day, so actually being buff would cut down on the posing and the extra weight. Get to a gym.

Face the facts. Men with facial hair are viewed negatively by 60% of business people. About the same percentage of directors appreciated women wearing make-up. For either gender, an attractive face-framing haircut goes a long way. Get a makeover or at least, a good hair stylist. If you’re bald, think Bruce Willis or Samuel L. Jackson, not Clint Howard.

Of course, it’s not perfection but self-love and self-confidence that trump any cosmetic change – including plastic surgery according to current studies.

I recommend this exercise to my clients. Create a list of everything that makes you feel confident – the family and friends who adore you, the work that you excel at, and the skills, interests, qualities, beliefs and values you have that give you a sense of security, purpose and joy. Keep the list where you can see it, and add to it regularly. Fill a journal with notes of that appreciation.

That will buoy your self-confidence, which helps us appreciate you. After all, wealth is all about getting your assets to appreciate.

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No, I’m not talking about how to manage your stock portfolio. I am talking about structuring your day to be successful.

Cutting-edge neuroscience data is about to be revealed in a new book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney. A collection of recent, rather shocking studies prove that as the day goes along, you increasingly suffer from decision-fatigue – and quite literally pay the price.

Simply put:

Buy in the morning when you are sharp. Sell in the afternoon when others aren’t. To do otherwise, is to put yourself in harm’s way.

Should you be alarmed if things don’t go that way? Yes, because there’s what I call the Jenga effect, as you load one decision on top of another. Jenga is the game where you create a tower of wood pieces and start to pull them out one by one. Inevitably, the tower will fall.

What’s particularly unsettling? There is not a single decision you make that doesn’t lead to your potential ruin, known as “ego depletion.” Over the course of a day, you simply run out of steam to recognize what’s best for you and your organization. As your cognitive resources run out, you witlessly succumb to the forces around you.

Your brainpower gets worn down with every simple and complex decision you make. Every decision takes an equal toll when it comes to depleting your ability to decide anything.

Here’s an example. On your way into work, you stop for a brace of caffeine. The barista asks, “Coffee or tea?” OMG. This is where it starts – unless of course, you already had to decide which outfit to wear, and whether it would be news or music as you commuted. Decisions, all of them, count.

The brain-saver tip? Have lots of easy to follow routines. Work it out so you can answer the barista, “The usual.” Otherwise, you begin to exhaust the complex biological processes that are a necessary part of quality decision-making. No kidding. Every single decision draws down brainpower.

There’s another shock in the new neuroscience. Every time you invoke your willpower, you deplete your store of it. Stifle a yawn? You might give away too much in the next negotiation. Refuse a pastry before the meeting? You might undermine your determination to refuse a bad deal.

Your brain has no size meter! Using your energy to refuse small treats like a candy bar negatively impacts your ability to draw a hard line on big temptations, like caving in on price or delivery schedule when a vendor is being particularly persuasive. It works the other way, too. You might decline a great deal, because you’re just too tired to do the math.

Adding to the downside risks of your average day? A hit of glucose from a donut spikes your clarity (wheee!), which then crashes after the quick fix (kaboom!). Think protein and complex carbs in small doses throughout the day so your brain gets sustained levels of glucose.  Stock the house and meeting room with healthy food, so there’s no willpower needed and no mood swings, either.

But, eating well isn’t going to save you from decision fatigue and ego depletion.

Multi-tasking over long, hard days and using your authority to decide even small issues (should we order business cards today?) whittle away your good sense (we can wait another day!). Add in the often-necessary suppression of natural impulses, like ignoring your desire to answer the call of hunger, thirst, sex, using the restroom or taking a nap, and you become more prey than predator.

Hence: make your buying decisions early in the day. Schedule selling and big meetings later in the day – on those days when you are able to sleep in.  As “four hour millionaire” author Timothy Ferriss, the internationally successful designer agnes b and me, a leading communications coach have found: night owls enjoy an unfair advantage over early birds. That is, if big meetings are scheduled later in the day.

My personal brand has always had a “you can call me til 3 AM” vibe, and only emergencies or a time zone issue overrides my desire to put pillow over head when the rooster calls. And from now on, I won’t even try to fake being awake when a client calls my mobile at 8 AM and asks, “Were you sleeping?” I won’t feel caught. I’ll feel smart.

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Michele Bachmann got photographed with crazy eyes on the cover of Newsweek. She also revealed she is a “submissive wife” to a “godly husband.”

Those “gotcha” moments can brand you in an instant. Although, apparently not always in a deleterious way, at least in Iowa if you’re running for president of the United States. Bachmann won the first contest among Republican candidates there last week.

Iowa is the state where they deep fry butter in batter and call it a snack at the county fair. They also grow a lot of corn. I think we know what’s going on in the arteries of Iowans.

Who else can we brand in an instant? Step right on up.

Just kidding. Nothing could be less accurate than knowing a few facts, and branding someone for life. Michele Bachmann and Iowa aren’t the little that we know about them.

Even you can’t brand yourself in an instant

You have to answer a whole lot of questions, delve into your most life-forming experiences and sift through your body of work. And, that’s really just to get a running start on the authentic you. It doesn’t begin to work on what your target market needs, and why they would want it from you.

This weekend, I spoke to another group of Hollywood screenwriters about creating their personal brands. I knew they wanted me to do some version of a carnival act, where I guessed their brand on sight. At most, they wanted to answer a question or two, and have their branding expel from their mouths or mine.

It just doesn’t work that way.  The kind of impression you get or give in an instant is probably closer to the distorted reflection of a funhouse mirrors than real branding that reflects the highest and best use of you. Of course, once you have your branding nailed down, you do communicate instantly because you are doing it intentionally.

Until now, you may have relied on our impression of you to define your life and work. For example, employers post jobs. Then, you turn your resume inside out to match the description of the ideal candidate.  Or, you launch a new business based on an article that calls out: “Ten new business ideas you can start with no money from your couch!” Why that’s me, you think. I have no money! I have a couch!

A more strategic approach with long term benefits would be to set aside some time to understand 1) who you are, and 2) what meaning you want to have in our lives. Then, use your online and on-ground appearance and behavior to clearly, consistently and compellingly show us exactly what your brand is.

Here are some navel-gazing questions to get you started on your personal branding. When you were younger – before we all started to tell you who you were:

1. What did you want to do when you grew up?
2. Where did you want to go?
3. Who were your role-models?
4. What was your favorite way to spend time?
5. What was the saddest thing that happened?
6. What events gave you the most joy?
7. If you were a super-hero, what super powers would you have?

This is how I start out most of my personal branding intensives, along with 93 other questions.

You see there is no instant branding. At least none worth living out and about, for the rest of your life.

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Peter Shankman of HARO (Help a Reporter Out), has an interest in SnapGoods, where you can sign up to rent out your rarely used electronics. Robin Chase of ZipCar is profiled in Inc. this month because she founded BuzzCar, a service that allows French people to rent their cars to neighbors.

In Santa Monica, Writers Junction co-owners and siblings Jay Gibson and Eileen Gibson Funke wanted a quiet place to write but dreaded the isolation inherent in the profession. So they created a shared workspace they rent out by the day. It’s ideal for writers who need a real place to go once the coffee shop thing gets old. Plus Jay and Eileen can host profit-making events for their community. I recently spoke on personal branding to their screenwriter “tenants” and will do it again this coming Sunday.

Strength coach Jon Torerk at BioMechanix in Los Angeles wanted to build himself an elite facility to train in. So he created an industrial/zen-style super gym where contract trainers pay a small fee to bring their clients. It’s got the exact equipment that professional athletic gyms have, plus video games, movies, a conference area, kitchen and even a place to nap. And, Jon can work out whenever he wants.

This is a new take on “follow your passion.” It’s more like “share your passion.” Or, build it and they will come. “They” according to Seth Godin, are your tribe. The basic concept is seeing that your taste, desires or stuff are probably really attractive to other people like you.

What’s great is that you can afford more and better stuff when you share. And, there’s a fun quotient here. Something good happens inside and out, whenever you are with your tribe, even if just one aspect of your lives brings you all together.

Warning: this is not a business concept for only children or people with poor boundaries. You have to be able to play well with others. You must set clear rules and standards for the behavior of your clients. You also must have the right apps or check-in/check-out procedures to keep track of what’s going on. And, make sure you are making money.

Good people skills

Your personal brand plays into this business scenario. You must have good people skills. You must be generous in nature. You must be able to bear the bent edges or spilled coffee, or whatever dings are going to happen in a shared environment.

You like-ability is going to be part of the sell as well. Successful shared services, equipment or space business begin with positive buzz from people you know. In this business model, without others you are nothing, or at least you make nothing.

Elliot Erwitt is a photographer and filmmaker who was getting lost in Los Angeles until she found that sharing her home with other people’s dogs was the ticket to a great business concept. She’s someone you like instantly. It helps that she sends home professional quality photos of your dog at play and rest. Her business Citizen Kanine has a great Facebook page that documents the field trips and activities of her pack. She also alerts a very large group of followers about dog-friendly and dog-saving tips. For example, oleander is poisonous and a lot of it grows in the neighborhood.

So, look in your closet, bookshelves, garage and backyard. Think about what you have and would like more of – or better. Consider what your friends always admire about you (or what they borrow). Spend some time appreciating yourself. Maybe you’re really patient with grandparents and they love how you play piano. Or teenagers always come to you for advice. A clubhouse concept may fit perfectly in your living room.

Something is bound to bubble up that you can put on loan, for hire or in some way share for profit. Given the current financial markets’ roller coaster ride, it really might be best to invest in yourself and the stuff you like at this time. You might find out what you’ve got is as good as gold. Maybe better.

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