I was perusing the past “Overheard in the BrainsonFiresphere” posts and the one that I keep coming back to is when Greg Cordell, our Chief Inspiration Officer, said that (paraphrasing) “Your competition isn’t those other guys in your industry. Your competition is life.”

There is so much marketing-speak out there about how “we can differentiate you from your competitors” because “yours is such a crowded industry with so many noisy messages.” And you know what the companies do that preach this? They just make that market more crowded and even noisier. What a bunch of hooey. (Sorry for the strong language.)

What happened to finding the soul of a company? What happened to compelling storytelling? What happened to mystery?

People are constantly telling us that they “want to be the Google of X.” Sure, I understand what they’re saying, but shoot higher. I remember reading one of Papa Seth’s books in which he talked about a huge banner in the web offices of Wal-Mart that read, “You Can’t Out-Amazon Amazon.” But I have a different point then he does: Don’t try to out-Google or out-Amazon or out-Nike your competition. Instead, find the soul of what makes you who you are and let your identity reflect it transparently – all the way to the core.  That’s where the ArborWear’s of the world come from. Do you think they try to out-Carhartt Carhartt? No. And Carhartt is petrified of them.

Now it’s your turn.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 at 11:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Other posts by Spike.