PM360 March 2010

COMMON SENSE

BUILDING A REMARKABLE BRAND IS A NEVER-ENDING PROCESS

By Bud Bilanich

I JUST FINISHED TRACY CHEVALIER’S new book, Remarkable Creatures. If you don’t know Tracy Chevalier, you should. For my money, she is one of the best novelists writing today. Her first book, Girl With a Pearl Earring, was a mega-bestseller made into a movie starring Scarlett Johansson. In Remarkable Creatures she tells the story of two women fossil hunters in early 19th-century England. Her protagonists are a middle-aged spinster and a young girl. Both are committed fossil hunters. Here is how Elizabeth Philpot, the spinster, describes committed fossil hunters:

“Hunters spend hour after hour, day after day, out in all weather, our faces sunburnt, our hair tangled by the wind, our eyes in a permanent squint, our nails ragged and our fingertips torn, our hands chapped. Our boots are trimmed with mud and stained with seawater. Our clothes are filthy by the end of the day. Often we find nothing, but we are patient and hardworking and not put off by coming back empty-handed…Those serious about fossils know their search is never over. There will always be more specimens to discover and study, for, as with people, each fossil is unique. There can never be too many.”

I love this passage. It describes—in wonderful prose—my thoughts and beliefs on the importance of committing to your work. “Often we find nothing, but we are patient and hardworking and not put off by coming back empty-handed.” That’s exactly what I’m talking about when I tell my coaching clients, “Stuff happens. The stuff that happens, good or bad, isn’t what’s important. What is important is how you react to it.”

Persevering
It’s great advice for building remarkable brands too. Don’t be put off by a day in which you come back empty-handed. We all have those. Successful product managers choose to believe their hard work will pay off in the end. They commit to taking personal responsibility for their brand.

It’s been almost 40 years since I first heard of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. If you’re not familiar with it, Maslow suggested that all human beings have a series of needs they strive to satisfy. He arranged these needs in a pyramid. According to his theory, safety is the first and most basic human need. It is at the bottom of the pyramid. We all strive to remain safe in an uncertain world—we all want to live another day. Security is next. Once we are reasonably sure we will survive this moment and this day, our needs move to developing a sense of security, one in which we feel that our lives and quality of our lives will remain constant. Affiliation is next. Once we feel safe and secure, we search for meaningful relationships in our lives. Recognition is next. Once we feel safe, secure, and valued by others, we crave recognition—in the form of praise, promotions, more money. Self-actualization is at the top of the pyramid. Maslow says that after our safety, security, affiliation, and recognition needs are satisfied, we turn our attention to what he calls self-actualization, a state of being all that we can become.

Ever-Evolving
Maslow suggests that we human beings can never be completely self-actualized because as soon as we reach one goal, we realize there is always something more to accomplish. Think of your brand this way too. It can always become something more; there will always be more to do, more to accomplish.

The common sense point here is simple. Commit to taking personal responsibility for the brand you manage. Set high goals for your brand. Do whatever it takes to meet or exceed those goals. React positively to the setbacks, problems, and negative people and events in your life. Keep at it. Don’t let a day when you come back empty-handed in your quest for building a remarkable brand get you down. Get up the next day with optimism in your heart and keep working toward creating a remarkable brand for the product with which you have been entrusted.

Bud Bilanich, The Common Sense Guy, is a success coach, motivational speaker, author, and blogger. He helps his clients apply their common sense to achieve the career and life success they want and deserve. He has written five books on career and life success, which are the basis of his Common Sense Success System. For a free introductory DVD, go to www.CommonSenseSuccessSystem.com. PM360 readers can also get a free subscription, worth $97 annually, to his weekly ezine Common Sense or download a free copy of his 25 Audio Tips for Career and Life Success.