Creating Mindshare & Market Share in Tough Times (Tech Coire Event Review)

I went to my first networking event in the Sacramento area last night sponsored by Tech Coire. I recently joined Tech Coire on the advice of a HR recruiter. I am glad I took the advice. The group was very well rounded. Not everyone there was a techno geek. There were the techno geeks there for sure, but there where bankers, businessmen, VCs, CPAs, and geeks. Good mix of people and the networking opportunities where great. About 100 people there at the event which in my mind is just right for networking.

The guest speaker was the primary draw for the night. I think if the guest speaker was Linus Torvalds the bankers and CPAs would not have shown up. But the guest speaker (Libby Gill) had something to say to everyone. "Branding, Branding, Branding". There was a good interaction with the group and her presentation. She knows how to involve the group in her presentation which made the presentation very informative, hands on, and fun.

Libby first showed us several brands and the characteristics of great brands. Then she gave five strategies make brands great: Live and breathe your Brand, Stand out from the Herd, Craft a "Sticky" Message, Blast your Brand, and Expand your Brand.

Characteristics of a Great Brand

• Authenticity
  
• Reliability
  
• Consistency
  
• Deliver your Message, Make it clear
  
• Confirm Credibility
  
• Connect Emotionally
  
• Motivate the buyer
  
• Create consumer habits
  

Live and breathe you brand

You need to figure out what the core business purpose is and make your brand shout that message. This is not a trivial task for many people. It takes time and introspection. You need to write down your values, beliefs and passions. What is your real purpose of the company. Once you do that take a survey. Ask someone you trust will be honest with you. Ask them the following question, "Describe me to someone that does not know me." The hardest part about this is just keeping your mouth shout, your ego at check and your pen moving.

Stand out from the herd

Identify your ideal customer. Now how do you reach you ideal customer. What motivates them? Next who is your primary competitor? What differentiates you from your primary competitor? What are your unique selling points? You need to stand out. Take your uniqueness and flaunt it. Make the forefront of who you are. Take your liabilities and create assets from them. A great example was what Libby did for Dr. Phil. At first his handlers wanted to diminish his big bald head. Her idea was to create an asset from the liability. So the brand became a close up shot of him and his big head.

Craft a "Sticky" message

You need to have a good elevator pitch and tagline. This is when the talk became interesting as she let people interested in putting themselves out there give their Tag Line. Everyone then got to guess what they did. No company name just the tagline. After a minute or so of guessing and comments, you then got to give a short elevator pitch to see if your tag line matched.

So how did "Get Social Centered" do? Not to bad. Many people picked up that Yoly was a social media aggregator. After the presentation and several people came up to me and talked about the idea. So in those terms it seemed to have worked.

Make sure the your website fits the brand. The website should be visually appealing, clean, simple, one message and give the visitor a call to action. Testimonials on the site are great and you need to be boastful about you/your company.

Blast your brand

Social Media (Yoly's sweet spot J ) is where it is at now. Use the social media sites don't let the social media sites use you. Check out the previous post about Engage PRs webinar. She basically said many of the same things that were said in the eBig webinar. Although she did bring up knowem.com. It is a place where you can reserve names on several social media sites. Looks like another tool to integrate into the Yoly technology.

Expand your brand

This last strategy I think is what many people forget. You cannot ignore your brand. You need to continually improve on your brand. Kaizen your brand. Follow the customers' needs as they change and adjust to their needs. Another great example of a disaster of thinking they were following the customers' needs was Coke/New Coke. Need a say more.



This was great event with good conversation and great mix of people. If you are in the Sacramento area next month come and join the next Tech Coire meeting. I know I will be there.