SMM: What is your take on Ted Talks as it relates
to marketing efforts?
JH: I will never do a Ted Talk, it’s not my audience.
If you want to feel good, feel better about yourself,
by all means, go do a Ted Talk. If you want to move
a product, if you want to move services, go to where
the people are and go to where your customers are.
For most businesses, doing a Ted Talk isn’t where
your customers are and isn’t where you’re going to
make the greatest impact. Focus more on the impact
inside your business and where you want to make
changes. It’s a wonderful place for people hanging
out and feeling better about themselves and I wish
them luck, but that’s not where most business issues
are going to be solved.
SMM: I’ve heard you say, “Be yourself in
everything you do”. Should this apply to
marketing efforts as well?
JH: When you look at the essence of a brand, a
brand is two things. It’s something we put on a cow
and occasionally, a horse. That’s where the word
brand came from, from cowboys who turn their
cattle lose along with other cattle from around the
area across the range and then you rounded them
up and you basically put a brand on the side of a
bovine, it was identification of ownership on the
side of the cow. We eventually transferred it over
time to that being representative of a company.
When you look at the essence of what a brand is,
it’s not the logo, it’s not the colors, it is a promise
delivered and you can only deliver what you are.
So you should concentrate on being yourself, on
being who you are. Be the biggest, baddest version
of that, in order to have the biggest impact. If you
say that you’re something else other than what you
are, you will eventually be found out and be a fraud.
SMM: As a former CMO, what are the top three
marketing tips that every Entrepreneur needs to
follow?
JH: Number one is to focus. To find out the key
things in your business that drives the things that
are most important to the value of your business and
the value of your customers.
Number two is kill squirrels. In the movie Up, they
go on an adventure to Paradise Falls. During this
adventure, they run into this dog names Doug, and
Doug is a talking dog. Doug runs up in the movie
and says, “Hi, I’m Doug the talking dog. My owner
and my master has outfitted me with this collar that
allows you to hear my thoughts, so I’m speaking to
you and you can hear me. You seem like a very nice
person. I like you very much.” All of a sudden, he
looks away and he yells, “Squirrel!” because he’s a
dog, right? He’s distracted by squirrels and
throughout the movie, all the dogs who can talk are
always in the middle of something and then they’re
distracted by squirrels. You have to kill squirrels in
your business. They come up to you all the time.
They twitter here and there and they distract you,
so you must kill squirrels. The third thing I would
say is to listen. Take time every day to listen to what
your customers and employees are saying about
your products and service. Listening is one of the
greatest leadership skills there is and Leaders need
to spend more time listening.
SMM: Why have you dared marketers to think big
and act bigger?
JH: Because I’m sick and tired of us losing. We’ve
gotten really good at cutting things and that’s what
most Marketers have been having to do for a number
of years as well as most business people, to cut back
on their businesses. We’ve become the experts of the
world at being lean and trim, so now it’s time for us
to start to grow and that’s what it’s about. Even in
my most recent book, I put pages of crowd sourced
excuses that people had heard in meetings. Whether
it’s not in the budget, or we tried that once before and
it didn’t work, or we should wait, rather than just
doing it. That’s what the book’s about, w R