Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Burn Bridges: Become Player in New Economy

Players, as opposed to employees and nowhere business owners, take on no protective coloring.  They put themselves out there in a bold, clearly defined manner.  This was how it went even before the new economy.  Those I am what I am aka Popeyes included Steve Jobs, Marlon Brando, Ronald Reagan, Tom Wolfe, Eleanor Roosevelt and Lenny Bruce.

The new economy is binary: You buy in/You don't.  Since the new economy is so different from the old seemingly linear one, we either are buy-ins or we're not.  If we are buy-ins then we have to signal that clearly, ranging from how we present ourselves for jobs and new business to how to do the work.  There's no middle ground.

I found that out in the last few weeks.  A lot of business has been coming through my little shop.  Dollar signs danced in my head.  I defaulted back to some old-economy tone, language, and techniques.  That wasn't what clients wanted.  That wasn't why they came to me.  They wanted the tone, language and techniques of social media even when it was a print assignment.

I learned: Burn those bridges back to that world in which we were once successful.  Trying to hold on impedes our current success.  Scary?  Of course.  But I found out it's damn the former success tactics, full speed ahead in business as a conversation.  Incidentally, here is my ebook on that Download SavingSoulsJaneGenova.  It's had more than a million downloads.  I had forgotten what everyone else was learning.

Another one of those Change or Die tales: Donatella Versace

Can the Versace brand survive?  This year the company may lose $44 million.  But Donatella Versace is optimistic that it can return to profitability sometime in 2011.

Mmmmm.  The photo of Versace in NEW YORK Magazine makes her a dead ringer for the infamous Cat Woman of Manhattan who has had many too many cosmetic procedures.  Also, her thinking wouldn't pass muster in Logic 101.  According to Amy Odell in NEW YORK Magazine, Versace bases some of her bullishness about the company on the fact that she beat Cocaine.  While that's admirable, that has little correlation with the resurrection of a brand which might be out-of-tune with the times.

My hunch is that Versace joins the conga line of old-line businesses which can't change enough to survive.

See Wal-Mart - Think America

Americana is Wal-Mart, not Coca-Cola.  A poll by Vanity Fair/60 Minutes found that most of those interviewed [48%] perceived that Wal-Mart most symbolized America. 

I have a hunch that's because we budget-strapped citizens are all shopping there.  No supermarket can beat the food prices in a Wal-Mart SuperCenter. 

I also have a hunch that when the economy picks up and we're over the trauma of near-death experience in the financial system, we will shift from viewing ourselves as Wal-Marters.  Our symbol for who we are could become Petco.  That's because we have become a nation of absolute animal lovers.  Couples now include in their divorce proceedings who gets custody of Fido and Muffy and in their estate-planning for the four-footer's ongoing care.

Altoids Brander Liz Smith Rides Out of Dodge - To Where?

We still don't know where Liz Smith, who helped make Altoids totally cool, is heading.  What we do know is that she has a track record for risk-taking, e.g. leaving secure job at Kraft for the company which was having fun with Altoids.  In FORTUNE, Jessica Shambora reports Smith is only saying she's departing her president post at Avon.  The current Avon chief executive officer Andrea Jung ain't going anywhere so it's clear Smith wasn't movin' on up.

You go, girl.

More trouble for brands? - Mandatory disclosure of ingredients

Brands are in trouble as private label eats into market share - and profits.  The trumping of price over brand mystique is not expected to end when the economy recovers.  Private-label manufacturers have brought up quality of their offerings to at least good-enough.

For that very reason, brand giants such as Procter & Gamble are opposing pressure for mandatory disclosure of all the chemicals in their cleaning products.  They contend that competitors could create knock-offs, selling their versions much more cheaply.  Leslie Wayne reports in THE NEW YORK TIMES that the argument isn't eliciting a lot of sympathy from those who want the whole ingredient story.  Currently laws require labeling of chemicals known to be a threat. 

But society has been there before.  Some of the biggest health and environmental hazards have come from products whose dangers were not fully understood at the time.   In addition, some chemicals may be of threat to certain people and not others.  For example Chemical X may be potentially hazardous to those predisposed to asthma.  Consumers want the access to all information so that they can do their own research and determine if the risk outweighs the benefit in their specific situations.

Sweet Spot for Kraft

Cadbury could be the Sweet Spot for Kraft.  That old-line company has been becoming very much new-line with Chief Executive Officer Irene B. Rosenfeld, who had also turned around the chips business at Pepsico.

In the U.S., for example, sweet sales, even of premium brands, have been skyrocketing.  Hershey has probably never done better.  Ironically, the more U.S. consumers wring their hands about their weight the more comfort sweets they pop into their mouths.  Tip: If you want to purchase a franschise, forget Weight Watchers.  Go for the sweet spot.

A second advantage of the Cadbury purchase is that it will expand Kraft's reach around the globe.  It really is a global village and one in which the number of sweet-lovers grows and grows.  Gum chewers too.  Cabury also has the Trident gum brand.

Full Disclosure:  I used to be employed full-time at Kraft when it was staid and smug. 

Find Our Voice aka Personal Brand

"I sound like everyone else."   

Whether it's the field of writing or the Darwinian struggle to find a job/client/customer in this tough marketplace, this is no country for sound-alikes.  It's imperative for us to find our voice or what management expert Tom Peters calls a "personal brand."   When writers or professionals I coach for career transition confess "I sound like everyone else," I ask "why."  The fact that they're bringing this up means that they are aware of this and sense that it's a liability.

The answers:

"I don't know who I am, not really, not professionally."

"It's been easier to mimic other voices, other successful identities.  But that doesn't work any more."

"I would have to struggle to find another voice."

"That's what successful people did in my generation.  We studied a model and herd-like imitated.  That's how we landed good jobs.  That was then, of course."

So, how do we create our own unique identity or, as consultants W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne call it, a "Blue Ocean Strategy?"  Chris Anderson calls it a long tail. I like to think of it as My Niche.

Here are some recommendations:

• Break open to the world.  We see how much diversity there is and that can give us the courage to take our place in it vs. the protective coloring of the prevailing models of success.  As I came of professional age, the dominant voice was Tom Wolfe.  I grabbed on and, of course, got no where.  The world only needs one of those.

• Experiment.  We can try out new approaches after we liberate ourselves from all those people supposedly or actually judging us.  A useful read on how to stop that is any book by the inner-game expert W. Timothy Gallwey.  His most recent is "The Inner Game of Stress."  In a nutshell, Gallwey teaches the zen of hitting the tennis ball coming at you, not the one you hit or missed yesterday, not the one your enemies and supporters are watching you hit.  Yes, it's that focus on the now or being in the zone.   In the now, we can try and fail, try and win. 

• Use a low-cost tool such as blogging or tweeting or podcasting to find out what voice we create resonates out there.  It took me about four months of blogging to discover that audiences cottoned to my earthy street-smart Jersey City, New Jersey sound and fury. 

• Do immediate course correction.  The zeitgeist keeps shifting and very rapidly in 2009.  If we're not connecting, we probably have to adjust our tone and content.  A useful read on the need to spot problems as well as being stuck and fix all that pronto is "Confidence" by Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Kanter. 

The payoff of a clear professional identity is enormous.  Of course, that means that not every audience, editor, employer, client, and customer will consider us.  But, I promise you, enough will.  And soon enough they bring along their friends through word of mouth and mouse.

Will It Be Private-Label Hollywood as well as publishing?

"The cratering of films with big stars is astounding."  This is what producer Peter Guber told Brooks Barnes at THE NEW YORK TIMES.  At the movie box office, names like Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, and even John Travolta aren't selling.  It remains to be seen if Brad Pitt's will bring home the bacon again with "Inglourious Bastards." 

Could this mean that we really are shifting into a private-label universe where talent and actual performance trump brands?  Maybe.  And not only in Hollywood.  Those big names which the publishing empires Conde Nast and Dow Jones leverage aren't paying off like the old days.  So bad it has gotten that Conde Nast brought in management consulting company McKinsey and Company for a reset and Dow Jones, contends its head Rupert Murdoch, will charge for all online content.

I feel it in the ghostwriting business.  Authors want to interview diverse potential ghostwriters, not just a few and not just those associated with famous leaders.  They are looking for old-fashioned qualities such as the ability to listen and to mirror their mindset and voice.  They have noticed that the star ghostwriters tend to write the book they want to write not the one the author intended to.

Has the worldwide downturn been a purge?  In a sense.  It shone the light on how there might be nothing behind brandnames, even in packaged goods.  P&G has been losing market share to private-label, so much so that it has made a "basics" Tide, which only had come in a premium pricey brand.

How to navigate a private-label marketplace?  Here's a complimentary ebook which might start you thinking in ways that sell you, your abilities, your products, your services, and your cause Download SavingSoulsJaneGenova.

"The Firm" - Mystique or Red Flag

McKinsey & Company is known everywhere as "The Firm."  And, The Firm is receiving lots of attention in the media - e.g. NEW YORK Magazine, THE NEW YORK OBSERVER, because Conde Nast chose it to do what consultants are supposed to do: Guide a turnaround in bad times, guide an expansion in good times, and make every personnel cut bullet-proof legal.  It's estimated that The Firm pulls in plenty monthly from the client.  That could hit the $2 million mark but is usually in the high six figures.  The Firm frequently requires about three months to do its assignment.  If it can, it will try to analyze other tasks to perform for that client.

McKinsey's powerhouse as a brand may have given others the idea to apply the term "The Firm" to other premium brands - or even to their own business.  For example, in his article in the current edition of NEW YORK Magazine on Goldman Sachs, Joe Hagen refers to the investment bank as "The Firm."  On the website for public relations agency The Dilenschneider Group, several times the organization refers to itself as  "The Firm."

Like every other branding strategy, using the concept of "The Firm" can prove profitable.  However, it can also incur a backlash and take on negative connotations.  Suppose if the Conde Nast assignment done by McKinsey is not assessed to yield profitable outcomes?  Then the media could deride McKinsey as "The Firm."  Also, in this era of sensitivity to cost, McKinsey's premium billing could be positioned as a throwback to the old order of capitalism. 

Since Goldman Sachs is being attacked in the media, including the still-influential ROLLING STONE, "The Firm" might be exactly the wrong term to employ to refer positively to a company or to oneself. 

Incidentally, the novel titled "The Firm," about a crooked operation fronted by a law firm, already has lent a taint to the term.

Instead of "The Firm," I recommend clients refer to themselves as "boutique" or even "shop."  

Toyota Defaults into Mea Culpa - Maybe not smart PR

When thrown for a loop, frequently we take the flight to safety.  And safety in the auto industry operating in North America is to default into a mea culpa.  No surprise, Toyota North America, whose U.S. sales fell 38%, has done what all of Detroit is doing: Saying it's sorry for taking its eye off the market. 

That's what its North America chief Yosimi Inaba noted today, reports THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.  But, maybe that was dumb public relations.  It might have been smarter to skip that road more traveled and zoom in with positive news. 

Think about it.   Suppose I tried to drum up business in a down market by saying I was sorry that I didn't reach out to customers enough or wasn't appropriately imaginative enough.  My hunch is that wouldn't exactly create a pull force. 

Far better would it be to make a positive announcement about a new client or a new strategy that is boosting client conversion rates 24%.  Even better might be to announce a gimmick such as a guarantee of X results or client doesn't have to pay.

When scared, I tell those I coach to lean into the fear enough to knock it down.  Then be smart.