“Mass advertising can help build brands, but authenticity is what makes them last. If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” – Howard Schultz

John Moore, one of the authors of The Passion Conversation, shared some interesting thoughts about what he calls “Talkable Brands.”  Those are the brands with so much passion in their fans that they talk about them…a lot.

Here are three things he suggests every talkable brand has:

Talkable brands are Original
The more obvious you are, the more talkable you become. Being obvious is about expressing a company’s unique personality, not just for one day, but every day a business is in business.

Talkable brands are Informational
For word of mouth to happen, someone needs to gain some knowledge from either personal experience, or through conversations, or directly from the brand. The best way to deliver word of mouth information is through stories. Three enduring stories that you can use to spark word of mouth are: (1) Improve a Life, (2) Right a Wrong, and (3) Make Good Better.

Talkable brands are Cultural
Company culture starts with your people. It’s people who will make your brand talkable. Competitors can replicate your product, your programs, your services, but they can never replicate your people delivering your product, programs and services.

Your fans are your best avenue to more listeners.  Give them the motivation of compelling, relevant content, and they’ll tell everyone they know.  The biggest challenge isn’t the fans, it’s your understanding of compelling, relevant content.

“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“What am I doing wrong?  Why am I not communicating well?”

I’m in a meeting talking about a group of people who are having a hard time coming to a decision.  One of my best people and I are debating back and forth about whether we should let the group come to their own conclusion, or just tell them what’s happening.  I feel like I’m speaking in German while he’s talking French.  We have to reach a conclusion about this issue, and he’s framing it as a choice between telling them what to do or letting them make their own choice.

If you’re a boss, supervisor, manager or leader, you’ve probably been in a similar position.  You try to get your message across, but you’re just not communicating.  It’s one of the biggest frustrations we can have.

Suddenly, with a blinding flash of the obvious, I realized the problem.  We’re debating about an either/or choice, when there’s another option.  Being an expressive person who occasionally has no safety valve between brain and mouth, I blurted out, “Leaders gotta lead.”

This is one of the most difficult principles of leadership. You’re there, not to boss people around and tell them what to do, but to lead.  That means making the hard decisions, and yes, even pissing people off occasionally.

I guess the real skill is in knowing when to make the tough decision and when to keep quiet.  I’m not sure I’ve mastered that skill.

A leader realizes  there are always other options, and it’s rarely an either/or option.   Being a leader means focusing on doing the right thing rather than doing things right.  Either/or is a case of trying to do things right, and that my not be the issue at all.

Leaders must lead.

“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel.  If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” – Sam Walton

 Mel Cooper is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.  I was doing some work for one of his stations in the Vancouver, BC area, and flew up to meet him.  When he took me on a tour of the station he introduced me to everyone around, and had something good to say about each individual.  He passed along compliments, and gave credit to most of them.  Not only that, but he is just plain fun to be around.  When we finally got around to talking business, he quickly painted a vision of what he was looking for in a new station he hoped to launch.

Mel understood one of the unspoken laws of leadership: If you’re a leader, people follow you because they want to, not because they have to.

People throw the word “leader” around like it’s a title that comes with a certain job.  Every CEO or GM isn’t a leader.  It’s the ones that care about their people instead of looking at them as assets for improving shareholder value that are the true leaders.  The ones with a vision for the future and an understanding that being a leader is something you earn, not something you’re given.

I’m fortunate enough to have known several true leaders in my career.  Every one of them was someone I wanted to be around, and would have walked through fire for.  Every one of them inspired their people to do more than the others.  Every one of them was like a graduate degree for me.  Oddly enough, every one of them was different in style, unique to themselves.

Another unspoken secret of leadership is that you don’t have to have a title to be a leader.  There are often people at a station who don’t have a grand title, but are the ones people go to for advice, or gravitate to naturally.  They’re often as important to the success of an organization as the CEO.

I talk a lot about leadership because I believe it to be one of the key factors for success in the future.  It doesn’t matter how many stations you have or what kind of return you bring, it’s not going to help when media fragments more and more.  Leadership, however, especially visionary leadership, will.

Sam Walton has it right.  Mel Cooper has it right.  If you make the people around you believe they can do anything, and accomplish great things, they will.  I’ve never understood why more people who want to lead don’t understand that.  It’s free, and you just have to practice, practice, practice.  Start recognizing the contributions of those around you, and let them know you recognize it.  Just start with telling one person a day what their value is to your organization.  Soon you’ll be doing it naturally…and you’re down the road to becoming a leader.

“After my family, the people I love most are the one’s I work with.” – David Salyers, Author, Remarkable

“Wow, I thought, that’s an amazing point.” I was watching David Salyers, Vice President of marketing for Chic-Fil-A at the 2014 CMB Momentum conference. He was talking about the culture of his organization, which puts a huge emphasis on including living it every day. And that culture has everything to do with people.

He told us how Chic-Fil-A puts an emphasis on going beyond thinking about what we want from our people, to what we want for our people. I read the “love letter” he wrote to his employees, and again bells went off in my head. They let their people know, every day, by how they act, that they love and respect them.

“How do my people think about me?” I wondered.

Believe me, I’ll be making that line of thinking a part of my leadership.

I hear about “culture” from a lot of radio stations, but none of them have ever come this far in designing the organization around the culture. Culture means “how you will act,” not “how you will be.” It’s about behavior, not about a way of “being.”

Chic-Fil-A cultivates a culture that isn’t meant to be just for “Chikin’” but instead for any organization that wants to be…well, Remarkable!