Clark Withers

So it’s been a while since I’ve let you all into what’s going on in this part of the world. Since I’ve been writing again (Although you only see 1 post there is a lot more coming, I promise) I’ve been trying to develop and refocus to reach the audience that I feel I can help and encourage the most. With that, although I will be aiming to help business owners and market developers I’m also going to begin to focus some of my writing on the importance of relevance in today’s ministries and the ability to use what we have available to do this. So anyway on to the check up!!!

• Since Christmas I’ve been in a growing number of states both with work and some with pleasure. (Ok let’s be honest…even the work is pleasure) I’ve had this growing opportunity to reach out to people across lines that a year ago I couldn’t have dreamt that I’d be able to reach out to. I’m also able to learn from and pour into ministries from a much more vast circle than I ever thought possible. God’s been doing some awesome stuff with this!
• Media Procast, although this has been on the WAY back burner for a while now there are some cool things that the team is cooking up and I’m looking forward to share with you a bit more about that as we get closer, and as the guys we’ve got cranking along come up with the solutions that will take it to the next level.
• WAVE,I never even expected or dreamed that I would find such an awesome team to work with. Every project that I do I see the members of our team take it to the next level and we’ve gotten some incredible projects currently in the works. As some of these come online up here in the Capital Region I’ll be highlighting those as well!
• I’ve learned more about myself over the past 6 months of travel and am finding myself constantly stretching to do a better job at everything I do. I don’t want to just get it done, I want to reach the best levels of excellence that I possibly can. I’m also learning every day more and more about how different ministries work. Such an exciting process and I’ve gotta admit it stretches me to the point of discomfort but not too far.

A while back, as I was sitting at my local coffee shop I watched some district managers come in and literally pull all of the local ties to the community out of the store and throw them in the garbage… It might not have struck this blog if I hadn’t actually watched them throw them in the trash can straight off the pin board, but I guess better that it did as it spurred me to think of the cost of a customer.

I’m going to start with using myself as an example at this particular coffee shop. In a normal week I go around 5 times a week minimum to send emails, make calls, meet with clients etc. It’s a very central location, has great coffee, the people are great, and I get to meet interesting people on a daily basis, not to mention I have built a community around me of people that I work with and around anyway. I prefer it. So in a normal week I typically just get a cup of coffee, around $2 per trip, so around $10 a week… Not a lot… But wait… At least 2 times a week I have 2-3 friends/colleagues  stop by just to hang out for a bit and catch up… They don’t get a cup of drop coffee, they get the “good stuff”. Let’s say $4 a cup… All of the sudden we’re looking at another $20 or so a week. Also at least 2 times a week I’ll meet a client here, who will also get a cup of something, let’s average it out at $3 a cup. So now we’re up to around $36 a week in revenues. And that’s just me. $1,872 a year.

Let’s go a bit further… In the last 6 months or so I’ve turned a few other people into regulars, but for the sake of this let’s just say 2 a year become regulars… That means, that in the first year if they drive me away they also drive away approx. $5,616 worth of revenue. Compound that a couple of times and they have basically capped their own performance by simply disrupting their customer base.

Over time we have a tendency to forget how we got where we are if we aren’t careful, and this can lead to a dangerous road of self erosion. We must remember where we came from in order to remember why we’re headed the direction we are. I challenge you as you work towards your goals to bring it back to the why. Why is your organization where it is? What uniquely qualifies you to bring about the mission you’ve been called to bring? At the end of the day, I challenge you to bring it. Solely, simply, bring it.

Everyone, no matter what they do or who they are, is involved in a brand, in their brand. People that are in sales not only communicate the brand of those they sell for, but also communicate themselves as a brand, and as an image. So what does that mean? A brand is an instant recognition of the atributes of what it represents. It’s more than just a logo, and more than just some great art that is thrown to and fro. When great branding hits home it tells a story and immediately conjures up the feelings that you want it to. It brings to life the images it’s designed to, and it communicates not only where you are but where you are headed. Google’s branding extends far beyond the logo you see on the homepage, it is built into the simplicity of  everything they do. Gmail… Youtube… Blogger… They’ve all been tweaked  and worked with in order to instill the google brand. Even the unseen narratives, such as the simple user-interface on youtube points to Google. Though you might never “know” that it’s one of google’s companies, once you do it makes perfect sense… It fits into what they have put forth.

So what do we do to create brands that unify our companies? our visions? our callings? We must focus in on what it is we have that makes us different from those around us. We must figure out what the heart of our brand truly is. Sometimes it’s something as simple as a physical element, but many times we must tap into the intangibles within our organizations. My challenge to you this week is that you would begin tapping into the intangibles of your brand and begin formulating the things that are keys within your brand. As you do this try to figure out how these things affect the entirety of what you have going on, both good and bad. I firmly believe when we begin to do this we will begin to truly build a brand that lasts.

Many times when I’m meeting people and getting to know them I have a tendency to ask them what their dream is. I like to know what it is that drives them, what people’s passions are. In this, more times than not, people exchange what their dream is for what their dream job is. People substitute what they love for what they love to do, and although it’s good to know what you want to do, if you’re not careful what you love to do can many times lead to frustrations and barriers in getting to what you truly love. This isn’t because people necessarily have ill intentions in what they love to do or that what they love to do is outside of their passions but I think many times we don’t realize the correlation between what our passion is and why it’s our passion. The 3 things we need to remember when we look at this is what drives us, why it drives us, and what actions connect with it. When we know these 3 things, in this order we begin to head in the direction of our true passions without being dissuaded from the direction we should be aiming for.

So what drives us? Each of us have different things that drive us. We all innately want to make an impact. I think we all in some form or fashion want to feel as though we are serving, and servicing a greater good. However, there’s much more that goes into what drives us. It’s what we view as our talents and our abilities. It’s what we have seen and done that has impacted OUR lives. Each of us has a unique DNA worth of experiences that create within us these passions. They create these driving needs for us to fulfill things and fill gaps that we have seen within our own lives.

Ford for example created not the car, but the ways to make the manufacturing process in order to truly make automobiles feasible. He was able to take the next step from his passions, to why they were his passions. I’m sure he had this inward drive to simplify things, to make them available to those around him… My question is what was his why…? What was it that took his abilities, and connected them to the world in such a unique way that he changed the way transportation was viewed? The “why”, I’m finding out, seems to be the connection point between our passions and our impact. When we tap into this “why” we begin to answer the question of the actions connected to the passion.

If we were to get to the actions before looking at the driving forces or why we have them it’s like going straight to the olympics for the 400 yard dash without learning how to walk or how to run. It’s connecting the dots, from realization to action, that makes the action so powerful. This is the period where we are being prepared for the action we will realize. But once we have been prepared, that’s when we must take action. I could easily write a book on each of these but know this… The action is just as important as the why, and even the drivers. Once we know where our passions are, and why they are what they are, then we must focus our attention on preparing ourselves to utilize our gifts and abilities in ways that drive our passions. The road sometimes is as clear as mud, but we must press forward all the more to allow God to sculpt our way and work through us. It’s in these times that our passions will bring us to action. It’s scary, if it wasn’t I’d fear that we weren’t dreaming big enough or going hard enough.

My challenge to you today is to begin this journey, or if you have already begun take the next steps… Focus not on what you want to DO but rather what you are passionate about, and why you are passionate about it. Then allow those things drive what action you might take. You might be surprised at what actions might be the right ones…

What are your passions?

In business, just as in life, there is a cyle. This cycle in some way affects every business, and although the cycle might be longer or shorter but it exists. I’ve seen some companies try to beat it, to try to skip steps or jump back and forth to “infuse youth” so to speak in their companies, but many times when a company does that it’s because they are not able to make the adjustment from one step to another successfully. The steps that I see that exist are simple…”Look what we can do” followed by “Look at what we are doing” and finally “Look what we’ve accomplished”

Where though, should we be as an organization when we are saying “Look what we can do”? This is the point where we have gotten ourselves fully functional, and we are sure of our own abilities. If we reach out and say this prematurely then we can not only damage our reputation but we can destroy our chances of growing beyond this to the next steps. We must be careful each step of the way that we are fulfilling what we say we can do in order to continue down the path that we are headed.

Once we have reached out and shown people what we can do there comes a time when we begin to focus on what we are doing. This is where the road begins to shift. People are no longer examining us to make sure we can do what we say, but rather taking a look at what we are doing. They’re taking a look at our clients, to see the work we are producing and seeing what is actively going on around us rather just within us. This however is when we should already be thinking bigger and badder than before. As an organization this is when smart companies stretch themselves further, so that we are constantly growing in our abilities.

Finally, after we have figured out what we can do, and begun doing it… At some point we reach a point where we should be able to say “Look what we’ve accomplished!” This is the exciting one, because we not only have done something that is worth being talked about, but what has been accomplished through it is worth looking at. This is where every organization, whether church or business, should strive to be. It is here that the work’s meaning truly shines through. When we truly start firing on all cylinders and we reach this point we have made it full circle around to be able to once again say “See what we can do!” only this time… We mean it. We’re not testing the waters but we’re running after it at 100 miles an hour.

My challenge to you is this. In your company, in your church, in those you lead… What can you do? What are you doing? and What have you accomplished? Try to answer these questions on an ongoing basis and I firmly believe you will find yourself pushing towards all new levels of success.

So tell me… What can you do?

What would this world look like if we all stopped doing whatever it was that we did just to get by and started truly pursuing our passions? Why don’t we? Why is there this constant fear that we won’t be able to make it happen? Just a thought for the day. Stop doing and begin starting. Push towards your dreams, whatever they are. The start is more important than the how… Stop thinking and start doing!

This has been going through my head for a few weeks now, as I’ve started doing exactly this. More about it next Tuesday when I release a full post on it, but I wanted to throw this out there…

Start!

Lately I’ve been building a good number of clientele doing web design, marketing strategy, and all around helping people build platforms. In doing this I keep learning more and more the importance of impact. The impact we have is in direct proportion to the connection we have with people. Luckily, through the use of technology, this bridge between the “us” and “them” of this world has become easier and easier to bridge. In working both with my own platform as well as those of clients of mine, I’ve seen first hand how you can build a following and impact. Through blogging, facebook, twitter, as well as other “social media” and real media outlets you can begin to build true impact with those you connect with and build ways to continue to reach out to those around you.

As you look at your business, those that you impact, and those that you want to impact. Examine what it would take for you to become the specialist in their eyes. Look at what it would take to be able to connect one on one with the tribe you are building and allow them access to the wealth of knowledge you already have. In building your platform the most important thing you can do is to give people something they can use, something that gives them a reason to join with you. Think how much better off we would all be if we stopped thinking about how much we can make and started instead thinking about how much we can give. I would be willing to bed that each of our platforms would be increased, and with that we would see our own impact and income grow. My challenge to you is to figure out how you can add value more to those around you, and what steps you must take to grow your platform.

So… What does your platform look like?

Too many times I speak with business owners, or managers who want to boost revenues in a down economy, but they don’t actually want to change anything. We talk about what they currently have going on, and different ones might have different levels of branding and marketing in place, but one thing that I run into more often than not is this thought process…|it’s not working now, i want you to help me make it work, I don’t want to change what I’m doing, I want what I’m doing to begin to work| Truth is, whether you admit it or not there are some times when you think the same thing, whether subconscious or not, we all face it. This is the first obstacle we must tackle in working with organizations to get them to the next level is find out why this thought process exists and what we must do to change it.

The thing that people feel however is that if something’s not working then they have done something wrong, and when they want you to make what they are doing work, they simply have this innate need to know that they have in fact been doing it right and everybody else has done it wrong. Truth be told many times no one is “at fault”. There have been times with my own branding and the way I went about things where at I felt like I was beating my head against the wall and not getting anywhere. I’ve learned however, over the past month or so that it’s not about being right, especially when it comes to business development. Things change so rapidly in today’s technologically driven market that it’s impossible to know the right mix of branding, marketing, and sales for tomorrow because we don’t even know what tomorrow will look like. The key is bringing simplicity to the organization and driving a culture that allows and accepts change over time. The healthiest organizations in tomorrow’s economy will be those that can rapidly adapt to new technologies, while not changing the principles that the business is built on.

As business owners, creatives, free lancers, whatever you do, I challenge you to take a look at your organizations culture, take a look at the way things are. Ask yourself how hard it would be to change when there is a dramatic shift in technology. (Because there has been one going on for the past 10 years and will continue constantly) We always need to be changing, but even more importantly we always need to be WILLING to change. This willingness to adapt is what creates the innovation within an organization to make it start reaching for the next level rather than just stepping up to keep market share.

What are you willing to change?

Lately, in taking on different jobs to make a living, and being able to dig in and develop my passions in different areas that are beginning to create the income I need to continue to do that I’ve been thinking heavily on brand complexity, and how companies diversify themselves in their branding, and how others still maintain 1 steady brand across everything they do. When looking at it I look at the difference between brands like Proctor & Gamble and General Electric. 2 of the largest companies in the world they both host very diverse portfolios of products that extend world wide in impact and reach, both have incredible amounts of time and effort built into their marketing efforts, and yet they both have focused in very different strategies. GE has focused on their large brand, and built it to be one of the most recognizable brands in existence. P&G however has over 70 individual brands listed on their website, many of which have HUGE brand recognition; Gillette, Oral B, and Old Spice just to name a few.

Large organizations that carry 1 brand across many units do so many times to create a sense of having a big team, and having a position of being a market leader. GE is currently number 6 in the Fortune 500 boasting revenues of $151,628,000,000. They aren’t just an industry leader, they are THE industry leader when it comes from energy, electronic development and many other items in different industries. They have an impressive organization and one of the best single brands in the world. They know how to do a brand right.

Proctor & Gamble however with over 70 brands is number 27 in 2011 with $79,689,000,000 in revenues. Still not a small feat, however they have chosen to go about it a slightly different way, managing varying brands across different industries and lines. When you look at a company that has learned how to successfully utilize different brands in one organization P&G has it made.

Whatever your branding strategy, plan it for your company. Your brand rises and falls based on the choices you make in selecting how to distribute it. Always focus on simplifying the brand, maximizing the reach, and getting rid of the clutter. Simplicity is more complex than it looks.

Tell us about your brand…

So this is the first time I’ve had a Thursday Check Up in a long time… especially on Thursday, but a lot going on and I wanted to let you in on it!

• Yesterday we officially launched JeremyDuggins.com. I’m so excited to see what is going to happen through this website as well as through Jeremy in his writing abilities. It’s also the first step in some awesome stuff I’m doing being able to put the time I’ve spent learning wordpress over the past few years to work. Working with people to build blogs, as well as websites and personal branding.
• This week I’ve begun officially taking work doing some web-development, as well as branding building strategies for using social media to start real conversations rather than just using twitter and facebook to “shout at people”.
• I’ve been working on developing some audio/video stuff for a few awesome churches here in town working with our incredible WAVE team. Love these guys, and so blessed to be able to work with them! If you have a church, and you want to see what we do and how we do it please… Send me a message!
• I still don’t want to go into too much detail here yet, but a little surprise coming, and one of the reasons I’ve been slower working on my writing here is because I’ve been writing a book. This book is focused on product design and branding. I’ll let you know more soon!
• Over the next few months I’ve got trips lined up it looks like to about 5 different states, so to say the least… It’s gunna be busy, but I’m gunna love it.