In roughly four short years, Lady Gaga, the eccentric pop star phenom has become a household name by building an iconic brand that has resulted in earnings of nearly one hundred million dollars last year. Although she came from a fairly well off family residing in New York, as a teen she throw it all away despite her parents’ wishes and decided to pursue her passion of music and singing.
A young Gaga, (born Stefani Germanotta) moved out of her parents’ house, promised herself she would not ask for any financial support from her parents, and spent her teenage years singing, waitressing, hustling and grinding in cabaret clubs trying to find her niche. She eventually signed a record deal with Def Jam Records, but was later dropped. She finally obtained a deal with Interscope Records, who released her best-selling album, The Fame in 2008, and the rest is music history.
What can small business owners learn from Lady Gaga’s business journey? We can learn that your brand is not just about your logo, products and services, it’s the personality of your business. Think of your business as a person and how it would think, feel and interact with customers.
Here are the Lady Gaga lessons that small business owners can use to build a powerful brand and spark gigantic growth:
Be Touchable Your business must not only be online, but you must now have a mobile presence as well. Bill Gates said “by the end of 2002, there will be only two kinds of businesses: those with an Internet presence, and those with no business at all.” Even if you’re already online, you must not make the mistake of only communicating about your products and services, you must also be connecting with existing and potential customers. Lady Gaga posts to facebook and tweets to her fans about five times daily. She interacts with fans by not just announcing her products, but sharing her personality, photos, inspiring them to support causes, and most of all thanking her fans who she calls her “little monsters” for their continued support. It is no surprise that she has more twitter followers (over 20 million) than anyone on twitter.
Stand for Something Small businesses should focus not only on selling their products or services, but story-selling. Story-selling is when a business shares in a compelling way its purpose, vision, and reasons for being in business. You must touch your customer’s hearts before you touch their pockets. Think of companies who built their businesses around powerful causes like TOM’s Shoes (shoes for needy children), Ben & Jerry’s (promoting philanthropy with profits) Kenneth Cole (AIDS Awareness). When your business stands for something, customers will feel good about supporting your business because it touches their hearts.
Gaga has been a vocal supporter of bullying, gay rights, particularly she was a huge advocate for the end of the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gay recruits. Gaga has successfully created a cult-like following from her fans because they feel like she is one of them. Fans (her customers) can identify with her story of having been bullied as a youth, kids called her ugly and made fun of her big nose. Gaga constantly sings to her fans believe in yourself, be who you are, and they embrace it with every song purchase.
Create a Community Small business owners must replace the word “marketing” with “engaging.” Engaging is what a business does before, during and after the sale. Effective engaging means staying on your customer’s mind in a way that’s not annoying. Use social media tools (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin) to offer customers tips, videos and articles that are helpful. Online shoe retailer, Zappos.com, who was recently bought by Amazon for $1.2 billion, increased shoe sales by 10% simply using online videos to showcase and describe their shoes. Lady Gaga interacts with her “little monsters” daily by announcing new songs, videos, products and social causes she supports. Her fans view her actions not as marketing or selling, but engaging or helping them believe in themselves and stand up for social issues.
Be Authentic Small businesses need not rely on product gimmicks, or short term sales tactics, but instead should focus on long term brand authenticity. Customers at times may fall for gimmicks and purchase products, but eventually gimmicks become stale and the business who relies on them will not have a loyal following once the hype burns out. One of the reasons Gaga has a consistent loyal following is because fans know she is real and authentic. Fans believe she does not go home and take off her costume and become a totally different person. Gaga in her own words stated, “Gaga’s always been who I am. Me and my hair bow, we go to bed together. She sleeps where I sleep.”
Small businesses must be touchable, stand for something, create a community, be authentic, but most of all Grind for Greatness!
University and college Faculty members across the nation are well aware of the historic fact that the average student cannot stay focused during a lecture for more than 20 minutes without being distracted. For today’s Generation Y students (born between 1980-2000), that widely accepted statistic may have fallen to about 10 minutes.
Campus life administrators are also experiencing challenges of student engagement, specifically participation for school related and community events. The traditional method used to engage students is to create flyers, tell a few student leaders, send out an email, cross their fingers and hope that students will show up for an event.
Today’s students grew up on interactive technology and expect entertainment-style communication. What can faculty and campus life administrators do to attract and engage today’s hyper-busy, easily distracted, and always connected students?
Here are the 5 rules that will help faculty and staff effectively engage and connect with today’s students:
1. Be Energized: Students will feed off a Faculty member’s passion and enthusiasm for the subject. They can also tell when an instructor is just going through the motions. The result will be bored students who can’t help but tune out. Faculty members must remind themselves they are professionals and being a professional means that they must consistently perform regardless of how they feel. If students are disengaged in the lecture, its time for the instructor to be like jumper cables and spark the class with energy, and remember, a dead battery can’t charge a dead battery.
2. Be Relevant: Use current events, music, television, work or real-life experiences that are relevant to the lecture and help students understand the lesson. For example, a marketing professor titled his lesson “The Lil Wayne Marketing Effect.” Given Lil Wayne’s music popularity, this will definitely capture students’ attention and prepare them to absorb the lesson.
3. Be Fun: Fun makes it interesting. If it isn’t interesting, it’s not going to be given much attention. When its fun the student will discuss it in conversation with friends. However, Faculty members must not attempt to be comedians, instead show a funny video that still relates to the lesson. If you attempt to be a comedian and fail, students will judge you and use your “not cool” label to justify tuning you out. Campus life administrators must make things funny and think like Super Bowl commercial advertisers when marketing events to students; Make school and community event advertisements funny, short and original.
4. Be Practical: Faculty members must connect what students are learning to “real-life” as much as possible. Include demonstrations with workplace scenarios, or have students work in groups on related case studies. For example, a business class could include a case study analysis of a current event business situation that could spark class interest and discussion.
5. Be Connected: According to a recent university study, students spend about three hours per day texting, and roughly one and half hours per day on Facebook. It is imperative that Faculty members and campus life administrators use Facebook, Twitter and text messaging to connect with students by posting assignments and making event announcements. Faculty members should set up Facebook groups and use the groups to spark class discussions, encourage students to ask questions, and allow students to post and make comments. Campus life administrators could increase their student participation rates by sending out text message reminders instead of emails before events and sponsor contests via text message (95% of text messages are read vs.5% for emails).
A recent survey by JBG International Success Academy, a performance training and research company, asked two hundred managers, leaders and working professionals in six states and ten countries to share statements they made, or heard others communicate that were considered untactful and made others defensive.
Here are the top 50 statements as a result of the survey:
1. “That’s not my job”
2. “Why can’t you do it”
3. “I’m here to work, I’m not here to make friends”
4. “I’m busy can you get all of this”
5. “I’m right, you’re not”
6. “You don’t know what you’re talking about”
7. “I’ve told you how this is done before”
8. “I don’t work for you”
9. “He’s not pulling his weight”
10. “I’m always the one doing the work”
11. “Just do your job”
12. “What have you been doing all day”
13. “He did it, not me”
14. “This is your fault”
15. “Do it or go home”
16. “I’m busy”
17. “You don’t pay me enough”
18. “No place could be lousier than this”
19. “Well, I just assumed… [insert anything here]”
20. “They should be happy to have a job”
21. ”I don’t have time to babysit you”
22. “Its your baby now”
23. “That’s not how we did it at my old job”
24. “Thats not how we do it around here”
25. “Don’t expect me to bail you out”
26. “There are several unemployed people waiting for your job”
27. “I’m not here to be nice to people”
28. “I’m not paid to think”
29. “Why do I get the all the dirty work”
30. “You do know I can get a college intern to do your job for free”
31. “Sorry…I can’t. That wasn’t in my job description”
32. “We don’t look for creativity in our employees”
33. “I am busy”
34. “I can only do this job”
35. “No one appreciates me”
36. “No one listens to me”
37. “I didn’t sign up for this $#% !”
38. “You’re all alone on this one”
39. “What the customer doesn’t know won’t hurt them”
40. “She/he just got the job because they are (fill in the blank) with the boss”
41. “I don’t know” (with no follow up)
42. Hold that thought, I will get back to you” (NOT)
43. “Yes” to everything …. and then not delivering
44. “Why me?”
45. “I don’t work for you I work for the organization”
46. “We already tried that, and it doesn’t work”
47. “You’re wasting your time”
48. “Don’t worry. I will take care of it” (fail to follow through)
49. “I don’t have time to talk to you”
50. “Told you so”
Every year, at the start of the New Year is the time most people get excited about their New Year resolutions or goals, from saving money to losing weight or starting a business.
According to researcher John Norcross, roughly 50% of the population makes resolutions, however by February, people are backsliding and by the following December, most people are back where they started, often even further behind.
Why do so many people not keep their resolutions? Are people just weak-willed or lazy? Research shows that of all the people who make New Year resolutions less than 25% actually succeed and of the small few that do succeed the reason they succeed is because they focused on one or two clear goals and developed plans of action that keep them focused almost every day. So the key is to determine clear goals like how much weight will you lose, or how much debt will you destroy. The goals must also be supported with a strategy or plan of action that you can work on every day or at least every week. No more excuses and no more games, get an accountability partner to remind you of what you said you were going to do. Now Grind for it like crazy. Remember, its not the year that must change, its YOU. Grind for Greatness!
According to a recent Gallup Poll survey, roughly 70% of employees across the country either dislike their jobs or don’t really care about the work they perform on a daily basis. However, most must still come to work everyday to pay bills and take care of their families. But just because they come to work does not mean they are giving their best performance. Their bodies may be present at their desk, but their hearts and minds are far from their work.
What does this mean for managers, leaders and business owners? Lost productivity, lackluster customer service (if employees don’t care about their work, they won’t care about customers) low morale, and ultimately lower profits.
Managers and leaders must understand that employees need a reason to come to work and bring their best performance. That reason has to be more than a paycheck. If not, managers and leaders run the risk of creating “paycheck employees,” who only come to work for a paycheck, or “transactional employees,” who only perform work they are paid, nothing more or less and won’t do more unless they are paid more.
Listed below are three actions managers and leaders can take immediately to create a workplace environment where employees are engaged and want to give their best performance:
1. Connect with employees on a personal level
This does not mean you become best friends with employees or learn their deepest secrets. It does mean knowing what’s important to them, including family, advancement, job security, or going back to school. It also means knowing their personal goals, hobbies, interests, and what they ultimately are working for and trying to become as a working professional.
There is a successful hotel manager in Las Vegas who accomplishes this by taking new team members out to lunch. During lunch, she asks one of the most important questions a manager or leader can ask, “what are the two most important things to you?” She then takes a mental note of their response or writes it down and places it in their employee file for future reference.
2. Deliver praise and recognition weekly
Workplace morale is just like a muscle, it must be exercised at least weekly to stay strong and healthy. I recently conducted a leadership seminar in New York City and when I informed the audience about how much they should praise and recognize employees, one manager responded, “What! That means I have to start making stuff up.” This manager thought the paycheck and just having a job was enough praise and recognition for his employees. Now of course we should not make things up, we must be genuine with our feedback. It may be helpful to think about praising and recognizing the ”small stuff.” For example, a few ways to recognize mediocre performers is noticing their positive attitude, perfect attendance, willingness to work late and improve, or praising small incremental progress toward achieving their goals.
3. Positive reinforcement
Managers and leaders often do not recognize their employees until they underperform or do something wrong. However, when their employees do things well, they say things such as, “they are paid to do those things anyway.” The most effective leaders understand why we should praise and recognize employees for doing what they are paid to do anyway; we want them to keep doing it.
Can you imagine going to a professional football game and watching a team score a touchdown and nobody clapped? Suppose the audience’s response for not clapping was “they are paid millions to do that anyway.” You would be hard-pressed to attend such a game because the audience will clap to encourage the players to keep doing what they are paid to do. Managers and leaders must have the same mentality of football fans and clap for their team players so they will keep performing desired behaviors and stay inspired to bring their best performance to work everyday.