Teach Your Mentees Well

Image by ecancermedicalscience on Flickr.com, (cc) some rights reserved.An early mentor of mine has Stage 4 lung cancer.

“Surgery and radiation are not options,” he explained in a sad but good-humored group email. “No cure is likely.”

Carl—not his real name—taught me as much about writing during the first year of my career as I learned in four years of college. 

He unsaddled my sentences. Humanized my tone. And taught me, memorably, to “pique” not “peak” someone’s interest—and the power of an offbeat and unexpected word.

Carl made it clear, through example not finger-wagging, how to make professional communications more personal—and make personal communications more persuasive. 

That was more than 30 years ago. But Carl’s lessons have stuck with me, reinforcing how early experiences in our careers can stamp lasting impressions on our lives.

Never underestimate the power of setting a good example: Teach your mentees well. 

Learn from Apple: Reward the Congenial Wheel

What my iPad looked like in October, dropped from a 13-inch-high tabletop.

I love Twitter. But some days, “angry birds” (vexed Tweeters with axes to grind) clog my feed with their grousing: 

@Cantankerous: Waiting in line for 12 minutes at Home Depot. Why won’t they open another cash register? Aaaaargh!

Some of that is healthy venting. But, increasingly, another motivation has emerged: “If I bellow loudly enough, someone from the company will give me something.”

That’s too bad. Because there is another way, and once again Apple is leading the way: Reward the congenial wheel, not the squeaky one.

I accidentally dropped my iPad last October, shattering the glass. Rather than kvetching about Apple’s product quality on Facebook and Twitter, I went to an Apple store (on the advice of friends), with my tail between my legs, and humbly said:

“Man, I really screwed up. Can you help me?”

The Genius Bar specialist did. In fact—to my amazement—he replaced my broken iPad for free, even when he had no obligation to do so. And he did so graciously.

I later learned—and it was confirmed recently in this article—that Apple “geniuses” have that latitude. (Apparently, just once for every customer.) And it is totally at their individual discretion.

I had a similarly co-hospitable customer experience at my local branch of Chase this week. (And if you’ve ever read Mental Shavings, you know I don’t have warm feelings for banks.) 

I once commented here, mutedly, that marketers should start shifting advertising budgets to customer service. I’m ready to shout that sentiment now. Then everyone can be a congenial wheel.

What’s a 10-Letter Word for Pulse-Taker that Begins with “Q”?

Photo by Terry Ballard via Flickr.com, (cc) some rights reserved

Take a poll, and its unlikely that many people would rank Quinnipiac as the country’s top university. 

But when it comes to conducting polls, the small, private school (“resting in the shadow of Sleeping Giant Mountain” in Hamden, CT) has few peers. 

In fact, it’s hard to make it through 24 hours during election season without hearing Quinnipiac’s vaunted polling institute mentioned prominently in a news story. 

As it turns out, the polling institute began as a class project in the late 1980s, but it rapidly grew into something much more: a powerful brand-builder (and development tool) for the school, whose reputation and enrollment keep growing in lockstep.

If you’re a small company fighting for attention with much larger competitors, take a lesson from Quinnipiac: Stand for something unique and let the attention come to you. 

Before you can build a brand reputation, you have to have a reputation for something to build your brand upon. 

Yes, You Can Reinvent Yourself in 2012

“This concludes your holiday season. We now return you to your regular grind, already in progress.”

A friend of mine posted that on Facebook last night, triggering a flurry of perpendicular thumbs. And I’ve already traded early-morning notes with several clients who feel the same way.

So if you need some added inspiration for all of those those resolutions you made over the holidays to “reinvent yourself,” consider this:

Just one year ago, Fab.com was a failing gay social network site. Today, refashioned as a flash sales site for fun, high-end design (and designer) merchandise, FAB has exploded to more than 1.5 million members, and has “VCs beating down our doors to give us money.”

The transformation didn’t just happen. It required the courageous decision to let go of what wasn’t working, and to embrace what really made the founders of FAB tick: making people smile with great design.

Lesson learned: Even if you’ve already broken your resolution to drink less coffee in 2012, you can still keep your promise to reinvent yourself.

You can click through Fab.com’s inspiring story here in just two minutes or less. It just might be the best two minutes you invest all year. (Well, at least so far this year.)

My Brand of the Year is a Flop (Or Is It?)

Fiat aimed to sell 50,000 Fiat 500s in the US this year. So far, only 17,444 have been driven off of Fiat/Chrysler lots.

Online antagonists delight in those gloomy stats, saying the vehicle is way too small, way too expensive and way too Euro-pretentious to succeed in America.

As one comment-board critic howled: “Why on earth would I buy a tiny pile of crap for $25,000 when I could get a decent Camery [sic], Accord, or Sonata for around the same price?”

Adding fuel to the flamers: The head of Fiat USA was fired earlier this year due to the sub-compact’s subpar launch.

Here’s what they are all missing: The Fiat 500 is a cute, fun and sexy alternative to Smart (“too dull”) and MINI (“you see them everywhere”) for design devotees and young, urban professionals.

No, it’s not a car that most people will like; but it is one that its adoring fans love. (“Finally a car I so want to get!”)

That’s the kind of brand-oration that powers marketing success stories—and why the Fiat 500 is still my brand of the year.

MINI sold just under 25,000 cars in its first year in the US. The FIAT 500 won’t be that far behind. The brand suffers from undersized infrastructure and overblown expectations, not a lack of love.