After 63 years, Honest Ed’s is more than a store; it’s a well established and successful brand. Its architecture brings together vision, voice and benefits that together provide the inspiration and personality of a lasting brand. That is why, year’s later, Honest Ed’s remains memorable, instantly recognizable and has an emotional community-based appeal and relevance.

Successful brands are unique and beyond compare; they are instantly recognizable and build an emotional connection with their customers. A great brand should be distinct, exude personality and resonate loudly with a lucrative set of customers. Simply put, brand is the personification of your product or service, enabling customers to engage and build a relationship with it.

Are your customers still following a trail back to you decades later? If not, make 2012 your first step in building a lasting brand experience to delight your customers.

by Ken Tencer
Originally published as a Special to Globe and Mail Update, Wednesday, Dec. 07, 2011

With Dyson’s new bladeless fans, generation of kids will be denied the chance to stick pencils through screens to see what happens when they touch fast-spinning blades.

For any other reason, you have to love the British-based company because its innovations are so obvious yet so breakthrough.

• Safe, bladeless fans that move air without all the rumbling and rattling.
• Technology patterned after jet engines.
• Dual-cyclonic vacuums that suck up more dirt, more efficiently.
• Airport hand driers that actually work.

Why were these products not developed sooner? Did no other company listen to generations of frustrated consumers? Or were the former market leaders simply too afraid to cannibalize existing products and markets by introducing something truly innovative?

Dyson’s success is a lesson to all business leaders: Don’t be afraid to make yourself obsolete, or someone else will do it for you.

For most companies that’s easier said than done. I used these words while co-chairing a recent innovation conference in New York City, and I heard the groans from the audience.

I have heard their thoughts out loud too often:

• “We are the market leaders. We are too big to fail.”
• “Our technology dominates the market, no need to worry,” said the buggy-whip maker to his horse.

Too many great companies have disappeared because they resisted change instead of embracing it. We may now be watching the demise of yet another giant, in photography company Eastman Kodak Co. The incredible thing is that Kodak actually saw and invented a future when digital photography would replace film. But somehow it managed to resist it. As analyst Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank told The New York Times: “The big story here is that their core business — the yellow box business — got cannibalized by the digital camera, which ironically they invented.”

The “good news” for investors is that Kodak is now soundly and strategically focused on digital-printing technology (in an increasingly paperless world?). I don’t mean to pick on Kodak, as it is not the first company to resist change, and it won’t be the last.

So where do we turn to find an example of an industry successfully making itself obsolete? Look at autos. Car makers recognized it was only a matter of time before the traditional combustion engine model gave way to newer, cleaner technology. So over the past decade they have gradually introduced us to the future, in the form of clean diesel, hybrid and now fully electric engines.

Each of these introductions started small, with expensive pioneering products sold to early adopters. This is how the industry developed its ability to introduce alternative technology, test demand, optimize production, and manage the transition. Today auto makers have a clear understanding of their market and possess the production capacity to ramp up a full-scale transition – fully cannibalizing the old combustion technology – without endangering their revenues.

The car industry didn’t just stay ahead of the curve – it created and managed the curve. If more of Dyson’s vacuum-cleaner competitors had shared that kind of vision, they wouldn’t be sucking air.

Some people are easy to avoid hiring because they give glaring hints that they’re unprofessional by doing things like treating your receptionist rudely or showing up an hour late to the interview.

But many experienced entrepreneurs find that there are other folks, who, while polished, can eventually undermine a company culture. Some of these folks provide subtle signs that many bosses miss during the interview process. Others may essentially be good employees, but react poorly to changing circumstances at a company.

Here are five types of employees that can undermine your company—and what you can do to stop them.

1. The entitled crowd

These employees expect the company to function in a paternalistic way, taking care of their every need. They expect constant ego boosts, 9-to-5 hand-holding and compensation that far exceeds their contributions. Sometimes, they may just be inexperienced workers who lack the maturity to realize that a promotion isn’t due to them within three weeks of starting work (or at all if they don’t earn it)—and you may be able to help them adjust their expectations. But mid level folks and above who show these tendencies could be harder to reform.

Amy L. Crawford, owner of Crawford Consulting Group, an HR advisory firm in Davie, Fla., recalls the situation of one mid-career employee she encountered. This worker expected her employer to pay her for a day when she couldn’t make it to work because of a flight delay on a personal trip.

The constant demands of entitled employees can wear you out. If you want to avoid hiring the entitled type, ask interviewees questions about how they handled past work situations where they were given little direction, says Crawford. Those whose answers suggest a lack of resourcefulness may not be able to function well in an entrepreneurial company that can’t provide them with round-the-clock support and nurturing.

2. The finger pointers

In these employees’ minds, it’s always someone else’s fault when things go awry. There are no gray areas, in which they, too, may have had partial responsibility for a problem. As a result, it will be hard for you, as a boss, to get them to get involved in preventing a snafu from happening again.

To sniff these folks out, ask prospective hires to tell you about a time when they had a conflict with another coworker and how they resolved it, advises Crawford. An interviewee who tells a story about a conflict with another employee “who always did things wrong” may be prone to blaming others.

3. The double-talkers

Simply passing a criminal background check doesn’t mean someone is honest. David Cohen, an owner of Cyril’s Bakery, a supplier of frozen bakery products to the food service and retail industries, recalls an employee who went to such lengths to cover up mistakes that he constantly told “lies on top of lies”–creating endless confusion and stress.

One way to spot folks who are less than forthright is to speak directly with an interviewee’s past bosses, rather than a hand-picked list of references, to confirm that the information on their resumes has not been distorted, says Crawford, who has advised Cyril’s Bakery. Another strategy: During job interviews, ask several questions about how applicants have handled or would handle particular situations likely to come up in your business—and pay attention to whether they answer in an inconsistent way.

Some companies find it helpful to use personality tests such as the ProfileXT assessment or the DiSC Personality Test to get a better picture of interviewees, Crawford says.

4. The change resisters

If normally supportive employees are resisting innovation at your company or seem to be privately convening behind closed doors to gripe, it may indicate that they are worried about what’s ahead. You may need to improve the flow of communication with them to put to rest any fears they have about what a change means for them in order to put the behavior to rest.

“There’s a fear factor whenever we try something new, whenever there’s change in a company and change in a position,” says entrepreneur Ken Tencer, co-author of The 90% Rule and CEO of Spyderworks, a branding and innovation firm in Toronto and New York. “Oftentimes, owners can overlook that.”

You can help your team get back on track by talking openly with employees and providing any training they need to adapt to the changes taking place, he says.

Tencer adds, “As entrepreneurs, we take a lot of risk and have our own fear factors.” It’s essential to realize that your employees may have similar ones when encountering new situations, he says.

5. The boss who can’t let go

You probably don’t want to hear that you may be your company’s own worst enemy. But if your company has grown rapidly, you may lack the skills you need to run it now. If your investors are signaling that you need to step into a different role and bring in an experienced CEO to run the place, listen carefully to what they’re saying.

“I think that’s pretty hard,” says Tencer. Your investors may not be right, but if it turns out they are—and you continue to hang on to your role—you may prevent yourself from harvesting the full value of your business when it’s time to cash out.

Elaine Pofeldt is an independent journalist specializing in entrepreneurship whose work has appeared in TheAtlantic.com, BNET, Crain’s New York Business, CBS Moneywatch, Good Housekeeping, Inc., Working Mother and many other publications. A former senior editor of Fortune Small Business magazine and editor of its website, she does editorial consulting for online and print publications.

The answer: use social media to bridge the gap between you and your customer. We all talk about continuously engaging with our customers by finding new ways to strengthen our relationship with them by coming up with new and improved products and services. Well, we have never had a better tool to research and get true insight into what customers think, feel, want, lack or need than social media. It provides us an open, one-to-one communications channel with hundreds of thousands of people! And it does it through an open, engaging and immediate response vehicle.

Consider how social media has innovated customer research. The way it used to be was you would offer an incentive to people, corral them in a room, expunge their opinions and hope they were honest and not just there to make a quick buck. Social media has advanced this process and subsequently the way an organization gets their market research. Now you go to where the opinions are housed, and since there is rarely an incentive or a filter, you know within social media that you are getting honest opinions in real-time. A great example of this is Dell Computers, who has used social media to innovate their brand strategy, and their online presence has positively affected their revenue. The millions of dollars in sales achieved by Dell’s social media strategy, is really attributed to them simply making a known online presence and listening to what is said about them within social media.

Social media need to become part of your organization’s day-to-day operations – much like earlier technologies, such as, faxing and intranets, had to be implemented in order to innovate your operations for the goal of survival. Social media is not just a tool for web companies residing in Silicone Valley, it is a tool for every start-up, entrepreneur and established company to positively exploit in order to better themselves.

This is an exciting time for organizations of all shapes and sizes, but this is really just the beginning. Ultimately, the true litmus test will be how companies not only embrace social media, but how they creatively use it to foster the next wave of innovation within their organization, within the industry and maybe to a larger extent society. On second though, maybe the initial question should be, how could an organization not use social media to innovate?

The good news is that the days of cold calling are behind us.  With the proper use of social media, we can now move to what has been coined, ‘warm calling’. Warm calling is the effective use of your social media tools to enable people to know you, without ever having met you in person.  In business, this is a priceless resource.

We all like to do business with people that we know, or know of.  By taking the time to properly manage your on-line profile, join and participate in groups, add comments or content, maximize your company website’s functionality and utility, your immediate and relevant business world gets to know about you, your competencies and point-of-view. The goal is to become a thought leader, influencer and trusted advisor by creating a relationship with your audience through social media. By ensuring that your communication is true to how you  perceive, and want your brand to be perceived, you will be creating ‘top-of-mind awareness’. Your audience will naturally begin to gravitate to your product and offerings as they begin to ‘know’ you.

Now that your audience trusts you and doesn’t see you as simply a ‘marketer’ they are more willing to be receptive of your message.

Then, when you pick up the phone to call somebody for the first time, the reception is a warm, engaged … “Hey, I really liked what you did for company ABC or I valued your thoughts on…”

In the new cyber world, perception, more than ever, is reality.

Invention is the creation of new ideas for products or processes. For example, the original formula for Coca-Cola was the invention of a pharmacist by the name of John Stith Pemberton. Although he invented what has since become the world’s most popular soft drink, in my opinion, he was not the company’s greatest innovator.

Why? Because, during Permberton’s lifetime, Coca-Cola was not truly commercialized. He did recognize that his concoction was both ‘delicious and refreshing’, but he could not see the true potential for his invention. Ultimately, he sold it through a limited distribution channel primarily for medical purposes.

Not until Asa Candler purchased the company did the drink begin its journey into becoming one of the worlds most consumed products. And therein lies the essence of innovation. Innovation hinges on the commercialization of the invention, not the invention itself. It is the translation of an invention into a marketable product or service.

Asa Candler saw the potential for Coca-Cola to be more than just medicinal syrup. He envisioned Coca-Cola as a refreshing and delicious drink people could enjoy all the time and began to market it aggressively. Big on advertising, Candler distributed thousands of coupons and promoted the drink through various Coca-Cola trademarked items from calendars to clocks. It is largely because of Mr. Candler’s aggressive marketing that Coca-Cola became what it is today.

Another of the company’s true innovators was a man named Biedernharn who installed bottling machinery in the rear of his store and began to sell cases of Coca-Cola. This eventually led two businessmen to secure the rights to bottle and sell Coca-Cola throughout the U.S (History of Bottling, The Coca-Cola Company*). This bottling system is still the business model used by the Coca-Cola Company. The company sells the syrup to bottling companies who mix the syrup with carbonated water and sweeteners and sell the final product to retailers (The Coca-Cola System, Our Bottlers, The Coca-Cola Company**).

In the company’s 125 year history there have been many more innovators that have built and added to the success of that original medicinal syrup. True to the 90% Rule’s philosophy, they continuously developed new and creative ways to push the product and build the brand…the next, logical step forward. It is this type of belief in and commitment to innovation that is critical to every organization’s continued success.

Remember, to be innovative you need to have audacity – a willingness to challenge assumptions and conventions. With audacity and entrepreneurial thinking, Candler and Biedernharn (and those that followed in their footsteps) thought in unconventional ways, challenged the norm and changed the world’s perception of sweet syrup.

-Ken Tencer

*http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/ourcompany/historybottling.html

**http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/ourcompany/the_cocacola_system.html

I didn’t want to leave this thought about selling something unaddressed because at the end of the day, the generation of profitable sales and a strong bottom line is everybody’s goal. The thing is, success comes much easier when you sell the right stuff to the right people. That’s why understanding your core business, your customers and your culture must drive the process of entrepreneurial thinking and innovation.

Too many people believe that sales are an investment and marketing an expense. Nothing could be further from the truth. That’s why the road we take—this process—leads to better marketing to grow more sales more effectively. If you make a product, provide a service, charge one group of people to buy what you sell and look for ways to let more people know about your product, then you are already a marketer. But not until you have connected marketing and sales and invested equal amounts of thought and development in them do you open up the opportunity for your company to evolve as a great marketer and seller.

What’s more expensive?
• Attempting to sell your products to disinterested or irrelevant prospects and throwing away buckets of money speaking to a blank wall (because marketing was never asked to figure out who to sell what to)?

• Or honing in on a smaller, more qualified group of prospects who are keenly interested in buying what you sell (because marketing figured out who they are, where they are, what they want and how to talk to them)?
Obviously, focus on the latter and build a lasting, mutually beneficial relationship with loyal customers.

We have all been on the receiving end of selling efforts devoid of any marketing intelligence. For a number of years, I received telemarketing calls from a company that assured me that they would get me top dollar if they sold my house. I lived in an apartment at the time. Oh, and there’s that memorable call I received from a credit card company asking me why I had cancelled my gold card. Answer: Because they had issued me a platinum card. Obviously, nobody in the sales silo was talking to the marketing silo.

Siamese twins
Marketing 101 clearly sets out:

• The purpose of marketing is to develop a product or service; identify and qualify markets and customers; map the road to market; and define and create effective communications.
• The purpose of sales is to develop customer relations; deliver the force behind “closing sales;” provide important market feedback; and directly impact the top-line (and middle-line) gross margins.

Everything I ever needed to know about selling … was
learning how to identify, find and keep customers.
-Lillian Vernon, Catalogue retailer

The key is in the integrated thinking that connects sales and marketing. They are Siamese twins, not unrelated silos. First, it’s important to ensure that the collective thinking throughout the company understands that investing in marketing is as important as investing in sales. Together they are a significant point of leverage; separately they offer little leverage.

-Ken Tencer

Experts say one of the biggest crises facing businesses is the imminent succession wave, as thousands of baby-boomer entrepreneurs prepare to retire and pass their companies on to other people.

The risk is real. Whether you’re planning to transfer your business to your children, to your employees, or to strangers, there are huge pitfalls. How do you, the owner, let go? How should you structure the share transfer? And how do you manage transition in a way that will minimize disruption to employees and customers?

While every succession event is different, there is much to learn from entrepreneurs who have already been through the process. One such entrepreneur is Hank Gelderman, the burly, 58-year-old owner of Gelderman Landscaping in Waterdown, Ont. Although his transition isn’t complete, Gelderman’s grounded-but-flexible approach proves succession isn’t a matter of luck.

Gelderman Landscaping was founded by the late Jan Gelderman in 1955. Hank Gelderman took over his father’s business at age 21. With an instinct for growth, he developed a secure niche tending to condominium properties in the Mississauga-Burlington suburban corridor of Toronto, and he stabilized the firm year-round by moving it into snow-plowing services. By 2005, the company had 30 trucks and more than 60 employees.

By 2005, Mr. Gelderman started thinking about retirement. “I was ready to slow down,” he says. “I didn’t want to work my butt off until 60 or 70 and then drop dead.”

But none of his five children showed much interest in the business. Then a son-in-law, agricultural consultant Nathan Helder, expressed interest in buying shares in the family firm. Mr. Gelderman told him there was only one share available: Was he interested in taking over the whole company?

Mr. Helder, then 31, did not expect the offer – he was happy with his job and he was only looking to invest. But he respected his father-in-law’s achievements, and he had always enjoyed talking business with him on their annual vacations. “I didn’t know anything much about Gelderman Landscaping,” Mr. Helder admits, “but I thought, ‘Wow, what an opportunity.’”

Mr. Gelderman then approached his most senior staff member to ask if he was interested in buying the business. The employee turned down the offer. Then Mr. Gelderman and Mr. Helder canvassed the company’s two most senior staff to get their buy-in if Mr. Helder were to take over. “I was thinking, ‘if they aren’t on board, what chance do I have?’” Mr. Helder says.

Then it became a question of how to manage the transition to balance Mr. Gelderman’s needs with Mr. Helder’s inexperience and lack of funds. Over the course of a year, working with an accountant and a financial adviser, Mr. Gelderman hammered out a plan:

- Mr. Helder would join the company and work his
   way up to president over a five-year period.
- Mr. Gelderman would adopt the title of chairman
   and gradually delegate responsibilities
   as Mr. Helder proved himself.
- By 2011, Mr. Helder would begin buying shares
   from his father in law. The share
   transfer would take 13 years.

The beauty of the deal was in the details. For instance, the company’s value was determined as of 2005, and the two parties agreed it would increase 2 per cent a year subsequently. Growth beyond that would accrue to Mr. Helder, rather than adding to the total value of the firm. That solved a common problem in which successors buying shares over time have to pay more for the company if they are successful in building it up.

Of course, no plan survives contact with reality. When Mr. Helder joined in April, 2006, Mr. Gelderman suggested he start working on a crew, become the crew leader, then move up to supervisor. Mr. Helder was willing to learn the business from the ground up, but he didn’t want it to take too long. He agreed to perform every job at the company, from pulling weeds and pushing lawn mowers, to answering phones and dispatching crews, in order to gain experience and the respect of the current Gelderman staff.

After four months, Roy, the operations manager, concluded that the succession plan was moving much faster than anticipated and suggested Mr. Gelderman step aside.

Mr. Gelderman agreed: “We need one leader, not two.”

Over the next few years, as Gelderman Landscaping grew, it needed more office space. When Mr. Helder asked Mr. Gelderman to give up his smaller office, again Mr. Gelderman agreed. “Did it bother him?” Mr. Helder asks. “Yes. But did he fight me? No.”

“I delegated myself out of a job,” Mr. Gelderman admits. He says his decisions were all based on a consistent mantra: “What’s best for Gelderman Landscaping?”

No matter how you structure succession, Mr. Gelderman says, the secret is simple: “You’ve got to let go. If you don’t want to let go, don’t go into a succession plan.”

Like his father before him, Mr. Gelderman resisted telling his successor what to do. “Let him make his own mistakes,” he explains. “I learned to wait for him to come to me for advice, instead of shoving it down his throat.”

Mr. Helder admits he made mistakes, but says he has learned from them. At one point Mr. Helder realized he was moving too fast to try to adapt the company to changing market needs. “One thing I learned: Don’t forsake the past. Do not forget your current customers that have been with you for a long time. Do not take them for granted. We thought past history was enough, but it wasn’t.”

Similarly, Mr. Helder realized he had to spend more time nurturing his staff. “These people have a lifetime with the company. As the company moves forward, we’re going to the next level, and I have to remember to help them with it. I can’t discredit them for their experience.”

The secret to successful change, he adds, is small steps. “Instead of big changes, you make a lot of little changes.”

To make succession work, clearly both parties must learn to plan for the worst, adapt for change, and learn what to let go of and what to hold on to. In the end, Mr. Gelderman says, success is a choice. “There’s an old Dutch saying:  You either desire it whole-heartedly, or you don’t.”

The 90% Rule™ illustrates how entrepreneurial thinking can inspire innovative and sustainable growth in your organization. And you certainly don’t have to be a BIG organization to put their five-step program into action and benefit from this way of thinking.

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You want it to make as many friends (customers) out there in the market as it can. A relevant brand is one that is speaking to the right group of people, saying things that they relate to, that will prompt them to buy, and that says it in a way that is different from the competitors. Understanding your relevant brand is essential to building a base from which you can strategically diversify from.

-Ken Tencer

*Adapted from an interview on The Business Coach, Episode 77 on Business Expansion Strategy at http://www.profitguide.com/podcast/532–podcast-77-business-expansion-strategy