Business Identity
Part of any marketing plan has to be working out your business identity. This isn't your name or the name of your company or your profession - it's who you are.
To determine your business identity, ask yourself "What is special or unique about my business? What sets this enterprise apart from others in my field?"
For example, you could be "the cheapest one" but I wouldn't recommend that. Price is down around number 5 on the list of factors determining a Customer's selection of a vendor (number 1 is frequently a personal recommendation from an opinion leader - someone the Customer listens to says that you are the best or your product or service is the best).
A service business doesn't have a warehouse full of widgets to sell and it's not a sandwich business ("Oh you don't like that sandwich? Sorry - I'll make you another one, alright?"). In a service business, if you cease to provide the service that you say you'll provide then you have nothing - it's all about telling the Customer what you'll do and then doing it. Do what was said would be done and strive to do it better - get it completed sooner or get a better than expected result. Do this because satisfied Customers pay their bills and enthusiastic Customers make recommendations to their friends and people they do business with.
To determine your business identity, ask yourself "What is special or unique about my business? What sets this enterprise apart from others in my field?"
For example, you could be "the cheapest one" but I wouldn't recommend that. Price is down around number 5 on the list of factors determining a Customer's selection of a vendor (number 1 is frequently a personal recommendation from an opinion leader - someone the Customer listens to says that you are the best or your product or service is the best).
A service business doesn't have a warehouse full of widgets to sell and it's not a sandwich business ("Oh you don't like that sandwich? Sorry - I'll make you another one, alright?"). In a service business, if you cease to provide the service that you say you'll provide then you have nothing - it's all about telling the Customer what you'll do and then doing it. Do what was said would be done and strive to do it better - get it completed sooner or get a better than expected result. Do this because satisfied Customers pay their bills and enthusiastic Customers make recommendations to their friends and people they do business with.
So what is a business identity?
Here's an example: do you remember the Soup Nazi on the Seinfeld TV show? He had incredibly delicious soup and he had strict requirements for Customers - line up here, state your order then move here, and more. If a Customer disobeyed the rules, the Soup Nazi would yell "No soup for you!" and refuse to serve that Customer. Soup Nazi wasn't the name of the store or his slogan or his motto - it was his business identity. It was the store with the great soup and the authoritarian rules - he was the Soup Nazi.
Whether you decide to create a business identity or not, you have a business identity. You might be the chatty guy or the place where they always make you wait, always on hold. You might be the friendly place or the store with the biggest selection. You might be the cleanest restaurant ever.
Here's the good part: You can decide on your identity and get the agreement of your staff and promote whatever you've decided upon at every opportunity and it will be so. The past has nothing to do with anything, there is no other determining factor of any consequence - You create your business identity.
"Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today, and you make your tomorrow." - L Ron Hubbard
Since you're creating an identity either deliberately or inadvertently, it's best to choose what you want to be and put that out there, right? Of course. Is there a way to see how your business is perceived by others so that you can put out the business identity you want? Yes, there is.
It is the ARC (or lack of ARC) that Customers and the people your business deals with experience when they visit, phone, email, encounter or otherwise interact with anyone at your business.
ARC stands for Affinity, Reality and Communication. Affinity is liking, how you get along. Sally and Jeff have been going out for a month and it seems they are together all the time. Reality is agreement, the shared experience of people. Fred and Billy were both in the Marines and they seem to communicate a lot of information between themselves in very few words. Communication is by words, voice tone, attitude, facial expression - the whole gamut of ways that people transmit thoughts and ideas from person to person - originating from one person, crossing a distance and arriving at another person to produce a duplication of what began at the first individual.
Consider ARC to form a triangle but not an equilateral triangle - communication is the most important of the three sides.
Taken together, A R and C comprise Understanding.
From A DESCRIPTION OF SCIENTOLOGY, section entitled AFFINITY, REALITY AND COMMUNICATION at the What Is Scientology website http://www.whatisscientology.org :
"The interrelationship of the triangle becomes apparent at once when one asks, “Have you ever tried to talk to an angry man?” Without a high degree of liking and without some basis of agreement there is no communication. Without communication and some basis of emotional response there can be no reality. Without some basis for agreement and communication there can be no affinity. Thus these three things form a triangle. Unless there are two corners of a triangle, there cannot be a third corner. Desiring any corner of the triangle, one must include the other two." See http://www.whatisscientology.org/html/Part02/Chp04/pg0159.html for the full text on ARC.
Here's an example: do you remember the Soup Nazi on the Seinfeld TV show? He had incredibly delicious soup and he had strict requirements for Customers - line up here, state your order then move here, and more. If a Customer disobeyed the rules, the Soup Nazi would yell "No soup for you!" and refuse to serve that Customer. Soup Nazi wasn't the name of the store or his slogan or his motto - it was his business identity. It was the store with the great soup and the authoritarian rules - he was the Soup Nazi.
Whether you decide to create a business identity or not, you have a business identity. You might be the chatty guy or the place where they always make you wait, always on hold. You might be the friendly place or the store with the biggest selection. You might be the cleanest restaurant ever.
Here's the good part: You can decide on your identity and get the agreement of your staff and promote whatever you've decided upon at every opportunity and it will be so. The past has nothing to do with anything, there is no other determining factor of any consequence - You create your business identity.
"Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today, and you make your tomorrow." - L Ron Hubbard
Since you're creating an identity either deliberately or inadvertently, it's best to choose what you want to be and put that out there, right? Of course. Is there a way to see how your business is perceived by others so that you can put out the business identity you want? Yes, there is.
It is the ARC (or lack of ARC) that Customers and the people your business deals with experience when they visit, phone, email, encounter or otherwise interact with anyone at your business.
ARC stands for Affinity, Reality and Communication. Affinity is liking, how you get along. Sally and Jeff have been going out for a month and it seems they are together all the time. Reality is agreement, the shared experience of people. Fred and Billy were both in the Marines and they seem to communicate a lot of information between themselves in very few words. Communication is by words, voice tone, attitude, facial expression - the whole gamut of ways that people transmit thoughts and ideas from person to person - originating from one person, crossing a distance and arriving at another person to produce a duplication of what began at the first individual.
Consider ARC to form a triangle but not an equilateral triangle - communication is the most important of the three sides.
Taken together, A R and C comprise Understanding.
From A DESCRIPTION OF SCIENTOLOGY, section entitled AFFINITY, REALITY AND COMMUNICATION at the What Is Scientology website http://www.whatisscientology.org :
"The interrelationship of the triangle becomes apparent at once when one asks, “Have you ever tried to talk to an angry man?” Without a high degree of liking and without some basis of agreement there is no communication. Without communication and some basis of emotional response there can be no reality. Without some basis for agreement and communication there can be no affinity. Thus these three things form a triangle. Unless there are two corners of a triangle, there cannot be a third corner. Desiring any corner of the triangle, one must include the other two." See http://www.whatisscientology.org/html/Part02/Chp04/pg0159.html for the full text on ARC.
ARC generally flows from the top down in an organization. The boss is antagonistic and demanding so his secretary talks to the Dept Heads in a hostile and unreasonable way so the Dept Heads talk to their people using threats and duress and so on.
Changing this identity is easier than it might appear. Wrong approach: "Tell those #%!!&# down in shipping to be more friendly with the Customers!" A better approach: "We're starting a Customer follow up campaign and asking our Customers how they would rate their experience dealing with our company on a scale of 1-10 for three criteria (1) speed of service, (2) quality of result, (3) overall impression. There will be bonuses paid for high ratings as follows..."
Your company's past doesn't determine your future in business - YOU determine your future.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." - Henry David Thoreau
WHAT IS SCIENTOLOGY?
http://www.scientology.org/
CHECK OUT DIANETICS FOR YOURSELF
http://www.dianetics.org/
WHO IS L. RON HUBBARD?
http://www.lronhubbard.org/
BUY A COPY OF DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH, READ IT AND USE IT. HAVE YOUR OWN INFORMED OPINION.
https://secure.bridgeinc.us/cart/enteraddress2.php
SEE FOR YOURSELF. READ A SCIENTOLOGY TEXT. APPLY IT.
Scientology recognizes that man is not just so many vials of chemicals fortuitously combined into a remarkable stimulus-response machine. Scientology views man as a spiritual being with native capabilities which can be improved far beyond what is generally believed possible.
READ THE SCIENTOLOGY HANDBOOK ONLINE
http://www.scientologyhandbook.org/
Take care, be well, have fun,
Tom Jacoby
Emanation, Inc - NumberOneOnTheList.com
The L. Ron Hubbard quotation above is
© Church of Scientology International. All Rights Reserved.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard.
http://www.scientology.org/
CHECK OUT DIANETICS FOR YOURSELF
http://www.dianetics.org/
WHO IS L. RON HUBBARD?
http://www.lronhubbard.org/
BUY A COPY OF DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH, READ IT AND USE IT. HAVE YOUR OWN INFORMED OPINION.
https://secure.bridgeinc.us/cart/enteraddress2.php
SEE FOR YOURSELF. READ A SCIENTOLOGY TEXT. APPLY IT.
Scientology recognizes that man is not just so many vials of chemicals fortuitously combined into a remarkable stimulus-response machine. Scientology views man as a spiritual being with native capabilities which can be improved far beyond what is generally believed possible.
READ THE SCIENTOLOGY HANDBOOK ONLINE
http://www.scientologyhandbook.org/
Take care, be well, have fun,
Tom Jacoby
Emanation, Inc - NumberOneOnTheList.com
The L. Ron Hubbard quotation above is
© Church of Scientology International. All Rights Reserved.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard.
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