The differences between saying, doing and being

I’ve recently been involved in two unrelated ideas that I am calling “moment in time” networks.  The premise is that an unrelated group of people, who under normal circumstances would have no reason to be connected and communicate, connect up because they share the same moment in time (and usually geographical location).  They don’t necessarily want to have a long-term relationship longer than that moment in time, but do want someone to “talk” to during this moment in time.

One of the key difficulties of any of these Moment in Time Networks is building enough trust in a short period of time that people are willing to communicate in a meaningful way.

Often extreme stress or tragedy will break down the barriers to trust very quickly but his is not the foundation of a network.  (think like getting stuck in an airport for days because a volcano has erupted)

What about a business person traveling alone in a city with no one to have dinner with?  What about a plane load of people on a long haul flight, all sharing the same destination?

So how do we do it?  How do we bring together people for a short term, no strings attached network session where the only common element is being at the same place at the same time doing basically the same thing?

Have you had real life situations where you have connected (or wanted to connect) with people because of a specific event or shared experience?  How would you make it better?

There is a small gelato shop on Queen St in central Auckland that knows it’s not just about the Gelato.

Giapo Gelato was founded in January 2009 and, according to Lance Wiggs, had a bit of a rocky start.  I didn’t know Giapo back then but I would say they have come a long way.

This isn’t a praise great Giapo post; I could do that on their Facebook page.  I want to examine why Giapo works for me.  In a word, Theatre.

The owner, Gianpaolo Grazioli, knows he’s not just selling gelato, he’s selling an experienced wrapped up in emotion.  For him, the experience is the product.   And he does this very well.

Don’t get me wrong, the physical product is incredibly important.  Giapo still uses 100% natural products (mostly organic),  pure mineral water and only organic A2 milk.  Some of these things, like the mineral water, actually go beyond what you can taste and are purely because they care for the quality of the product (and like to be able to market it that way).

But once you get past the physical product, which any good business could produce, you get into the core of Giapo in my opinion – Theatre.

Setting the scene

Walk in the door and even before you can ask, generous samples are on a stick and offered across the counter.  And they keep coming.  Try this one, it has organic plums.  Try this one, it’s made with pure organic chocolate.

Gaipo works very passionately to set the scene in other ways as well, through building a vibrant online community that includes Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and uStream.  You can even get an online list of the flavours available, updated at 10:30am each day.

Working the Crowd

Gianpaolo himself plays to the audience and makes them feel special.  Once someone has tried a few flavours, he’ll get that person to tell everyone else in the shop what it tasted like.  He will ask your name and then introduce you to other people in the crowd.

Character Development

He will always great you with a huge smile that you would swear he is hugging you at the same time.  When I stopped in recently, he even introduced me to his father who happened to be in the store that night and told me about his wife who was soon to give birth.

Leading the Audience

On a recent visit, I saw a woman come in and order a peach smoothy.  Instead of just taking the order and passing over the drink, Gianpaolo pushed back. “that won’t taste very nice, you want to add another flavour”  She hesitantly took his advise and loved the drink.  The extra flavour didn’t cost any more and in fact it probably cost Giapo to put it in, but it was the right thing to do.

Get the audience involved

He has a karaoke machine that he roles out on Wednesday nights so patrons can swap a cone for the microphone for a song or two.  I have heard that he occasionally brings people behind the counter to let them make their own.

Leave them wanting more

This comes back to the actual gelato again but it’s important enough to repeat.  I have yet to walk out thinking that wasn’t a great product.  I liked some flavours or flavour combinations better than others, but I have always wanted to go back.  Compare that with Dennys where I leave with a sense of dread imaging that I may have to return again some day.

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Lance had a point back in Feb 09.  If the quality of the actual product is not great, then you will struggle.  But a quality product is easily copied by your competitors.  You need something else.

Giapo is much more than just a Gelato shop.  It’s a theatre.  It doesn’t sell tickets or have big name actors from Broadway or the West End but in its own little way it puts on a show to rival Disney World’s best productions.

Is it a perfect performance every time? No.  Does every character continually play their part? No.  Could the lead actor walk away and still have a great performance? Probably not.  But at least it knows that it’s about more than just flogging good ice cream.

Has anyone figured out how Harvey Norman has managed to thumb its nose at all of us (and there are many) who use the internet to research a purchase before going in store?  I must disclose that I partially know the answer to this question since a family member was a senior person there until recently, but I can’t help but ask the question.

The only useful page on the NZ Harvey Norman site (www.harveynorman.co.nz) is the contact us page.  Even that doesn’t bother to give me a map link.

There is nothing else there.  No list of what I can see if I came in store.  No mention of the “offer of the week” that they seem to shout about on TV.   No information that tells me the Harvey Norman point of difference.  Forget about actually buying online, there are SO many things they could be doing to help me buy from them in store.

I particularly mention Harvey Norman for two reasons.

1. How they deal with their customers in the online channel is so bad, and
2. I know they are generally good once you get in store.

If they were bad all around, I would understand it but I know that most of their staff are very well trained and usually very helpful (OK, not every staff member is perfect all of the time, but you get the idea).

The concept of Cross Channel shopping, online to in-store has been well proven (back in 2004 – http://www.clickz.com/3418001) and increases each year (as high as 89% in some sectors in 2009).

Why have such a disregard for how we want to buy.  This actually works against the other advertising because it removes them from the consideration set that they are trying so hard to get into with the TV & print advertising.

At one level, they seem to want their brand to be about helping you buy through knowledgeable staff and great service.  Then they present an entirely different brand at the first step of the buying process.

Anyone else know of some New Zealand customer facing companies who seem to have a similar double life of good offline but abysmal online?

There are lots of online posts written about “how to successfully market yourself (or your company) on Twitter”.  Most of them have some gems of information but there is one that I think often get’s missed out or at least poorly explained.

Find Yourself and Be Yourself

Sounds simple enough but it’s actually quite a bit to think about.  In the same way that ‘being yourself’ is probably different in front of your friends as in front of your mother-in-law or in front of your boss, being yourself on Twitter is something unique.

If you are a person on Twitter, you need to ask yourself what do you want from it.  Is it just a way for you to ramble on about whatever comes to mind or do you want to try to add value to the lives of your followers by offering info and thoughts that are informative or entertaining enough for them to Re-Tweet?  If you are a rambler, stop reading now because you have already found yourself on Twitter.  I will never follow you and neither will most people unless they are your closest friends, trying to sell you something, or want you to follow them.

If you’re considering adding value to the lives of your followers then you fit into a category more closely aligned with what a company or organization should want to do, build positive brand equity.  You can dig much deeper into this but let’s keep it simple for now since we are talking about “Finding Yourself on Twitter” and not the strategic purpose of Twitter within a corporation.

So as a brand equity building person or organization, you are in effect selling yourself on Twitter, thus the need to know who you actually are and how to effectively and appropriately behave that way.

If you are an established consumer facing brand, this may seem easy in theory because you will probably have some marketing communications documents around somewhere that talk about your brand promise and ‘tone of voice’.  In practice, how does this brand promise personally relate to your Twitter following?  How does the tone of voice fit with how people expect to interact on Twitter?  If your brand is American Express?  If your brand is Playboy?  If your brand is The Vatican?

Then there is the question of how true is your brand promise to the reality of the customer experience anyway, but let’s leave that one as the subject of a future post.

Figuring out who you are as a single voice representing yourself or your organization is critical.

The intention of this post is not to give you all the answers but to get you thinking.  That said, all blog posts now a days seem to need a list of ‘how to’s so there is what I think:

1. Start with your brand promise but think about how it relates to people interacting with you through Twitter (fast, democratic, personal).
2. Watch and listen to others in your space for a little while to see how they are behaving.  You don’t have to follow them like sheep but it pays to know what everyone else is wearing at the party.
3. Listen, listen, listen to everyone but stay true to your brand.  Once you know who you are and how you want to act, stick with it.  Live by the sword and die by the sword if you need to but don’t be wishy washy (especially easy trap for organizations with multiple people Tweeting on behalf).  This is not just Twitter advice, but sound business advice.

As a final watch out for Brand Managers representing their company on Twitter, remember it’s the company talking not you.  Unless the company is you or you’ve actively decided to wrap the brand around a person, don’t let your personal mojo overshadow the voice of the organizations brand.

Take Home Message: Figure out who you are, be yourself and stick with it.