The Law of Focus: How to Avoid Direct Competition (part 3 of 3)

The Law of Focus: How to Avoid Direct Competition (part 3 of 3)
Click on the title to watch the video on YouTube.
Full transcript to the video:

Sing: "Aint nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Aint nothin’ like the real thing."

Hi, this is Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants. Welcome to the third video of a three-part series in which I describe how to avoid direct competition in business by applying the law of focus. These three videos are intended for people with sales growth, customer loyalty, and referral generation on their minds.

In the first video, I describe how competition could be any alternative a customer considers instead of spending their money on the goods and services your company offers.

In the second video, I discuss the first example of two real companies that emerged from being stuck as small-time generalists to become thriving specialists after applying the law of focus.

Example Two: the figure-skate boot maker.

Imagine yourself the parent of a teenage girl who loves figure skating. Still growing, your daughter has outgrown and outworn her figure skates. She needs a new pair. You and your spouse join her in wanting the best.

It takes little asking around to learn that the best figure skates are not purchased as skates at all, but as special-ordered blades attached to custom-made boots. Your daughter would not be happy with anything less.

The best figure-skate boot maker, you learn, operates a small shop a five-hour drive away. The boots cost plenty; reputedly worth every penny.

The figure-skate boot maker occasionally visits the ice rink where your daughter’s figure skating club provides ice time. So, with an appointment booked, your daughter has her measurements taken. Weeks later, you take the family on a car trip to pick up the boots. This is how you get to meet the proprietor.

The company started with its founder who, in addition to being a talented technician, has always had an entrepreneurial twinkle in her eye. She drew on experience repairing shoes and boots plus purses and leather gloves; even some saddle work and bridlery.

It was only after she had custom-made a few pairs of figure-skate boots, then discovered that every one of those customers was thrilled and referring friends, that she began to recognize the potential in focusing on this market.

In time, a steady flow of new customers came to her for custom-made figure-skate boots. They were willing to pay top price for work that she could perform well. As the volume of figure-skate boot orders remained steady and grew, she could perform even better and her operation became ever more profitable. She found it invigorating as an entrepreneur and decided to make it her business focus.

Within two years, her focus on figure-skate boot making allowed her to leverage her technical expertise as well as her business sensibilities. She hired one new person every three months.

The law of focus requires a company to narrow its scope to widen its appeal. This figure-skate boot maker, like the figure-skate blade sharpener, exemplifies how the law of focus, applied intelligently, can help an independent small business to fulfil its true potential. They continue to succeed as their integrated marketing and brand management position them as must-see specialists.

Like the blade sharpeners, the figure skate boot makers stoke great word-of-mouth with sharp advertising. Their advertising is steady, targeted, and articulates authentic key messages to the right people in the right media. The margin of uncertainty is nicely low. Living up to reputation, each company consistently provides excellent service to a growing share of a geographically-dispersed specialty market.

It remains important to be adaptable while serving the target market. This includes accepting what might be called “also” business that complements the company’s focus. Tightly-focused specialists often earn nice profits from a healthy volume of “also” business that they attract because of their strong, clear reputation.

I believe that every independent business has potential to be fulfilled, sometimes better than key people are aware of. Despite company founders typically investing much time, energy, money, and creativity in their venture, there can be an indispensable role for an outside expert to play – the role of a consultant – in helping to ensure that the founding vision comes to fruition as well as it can.

On that theme, let me state this clearly: Better for a business to focus on what makes it irreplaceable to its target market than to decide what its brand promise ought to be.

I serve clients who want to ensure that their independent small business fulfils its potential in alignment with a clear mission or purpose and core values, serving a well-defined market. Applying the law of focus intelligently complements this, helping to avoid direct competition while potentially thriving in a distinct market niche. Check out my related articles at the links below.

Serving independent small businesses in Canada and the USA, I am Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants.

Sing: "Aint nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Aint nothin’ like the real thing."

Related article – Marketing Tip: Avoid Direct Competition:

http://www.articulate.ca/AvoidDirectCompetition.html

Related article – Three Reasons Why Independent Businesses Need Authentic Key Messages To Succeed:

http://www.articulate.ca/IndependentBusinessNeedKeyMessages.html

Related article – Authenticity Rules: A Reality Check for Creative Advertisers :

http://www.articulate.ca/AuthenticityRules.html

The Law of Focus: How to Avoid Direct Competition (part 2 of 3)

The Law of Focus: How to Avoid Direct Competition (part 2 of 3)
Click on the title to watch the video on YouTube.
Full transcript to the video:

Sing: "Aint nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Aint nothin’ like the real thing."

Hi, this is Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants. Welcome to the second video of a three-part series in which I describe how to avoid direct competition in business by applying the law of focus. These three videos are intended for people with sales growth, customer loyalty, and referral generation on their minds.

In the first video, I describe how competition could be any alternative a customer considers instead of spending their money on the experience your company offers.

I also raise six questions about customer experience. Good, reliable answers could help your business to avoid direct competition and become better known as the go-to source for a distinct, valued customer experience.

Imagine your company humming along nicely, generating and delivering on a healthy, growing volume of business for happy customers, many of whom keep coming back; many bringing or referring others to you.

In this video, I’ll tell you about the first of two real small, independent companies that came out of difficult times after narrowing their scope and sharpening their key messages to expand their success. That is, after they applied the law of focus.

Each had early success followed by difficult times. Each emerged from its difficult times more focused and less concerned about competitors. Their eventual success has been unmistakably, authentically earned and a result of becoming more widely known for one distinct, essential strength.

I live near the ocean, so let me use nautical terms for what happens during those difficult times that catalyze the transition from small-scale success to real thriving. Key people learn to recalibrate their compass, navigate a better route to success, keep the wind in the sails, and manage on-board resources effectively for the journey to long-term, resilient success.

Example One: the figure-skate blade sharpener.

Imagine yourself the parent of a teenage girl who loves figure skating. You see the good friendships, personal discipline, physical fitness, and other benefits to your daughter – including her happiness. You and your spouse cover most of the costs.

When your daughter was younger, you would take her skates to a local sports store for sharpening. You liked how they would take special care with the spikes at the tips of figure-skate blades.

Even so, you have since learned from your daughter’s friends, their parents, and her skating coach that a certain shop in a nearby city is the best place to go for sharpening.

Those inexperienced with figure skating cannot tell the difference. Figure skaters themselves exude their gratitude for great blade sharpening. That, you learn, comes from this shop an hour’s drive away.

At first, you feel skeptical. Then, you opt to go to the shop in question yourself.

There, you learn not only that this place sharpens an impressive volume of figure-skate blades, but that people from much further away send their skates. You recognize some skaters whose parents make family car trips out of dealing with this place. You see couriers come and go. You even meet the shipping and receiving clerk – somebody whose full-time job is to traffic skates in and out of this shop.

When you meet the owners, you learn a little more about the business. The shop’s history also includes locksmithing and custom machining. They still sharpen lawn-mower blades, knives, and such.

It took some time before they noticed that skate sharpening kept bringing people from near and far willing to pay top price. Customers would book drop-off and pick-up appointments from other cities – most remarkably for figure skate blades. The market for sharpening figure-skate blades held the most potential if they chose to focus on it.

After too many mediocre years as a generalist shop, competing with too many other generalists, they made that choice. The time to focus on operating as a specialty shop had come.

Soon after your return home, you learn that figure skaters who get their blades sharpened at this one shop comprise an elite segment of the regional figure-skating community. Your daughter has become one of the lucky ones, her love of skating strengthened. That you paid top price becomes merely incidental.

Now, what does this tell you about how to get any small business to succeed like that? Here’s a hint: Say the word “sharpening” in the dressing room and every customer of this shop – mostly the top skaters on the rink – instantly know where to go for the best. That’s the law of focus in action.

Sing: "Aint nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Aint nothin’ like the real thing."

Independent small businesses can emerge from challenging times to better fulfil their potential by applying the law of focus. See the third video in this three-part series for more discussion about this, including the second example: another real, thriving company that pulled itself out of tough times. Also, see my related articles at the links below.

Related article – Marketing Tip: Avoid Direct Competition:

http://www.articulate.ca/AvoidDirectCompetition.html

Related article – Three Reasons Why Independent Businesses Need Authentic Key Messages To Succeed:

http://www.articulate.ca/IndependentBusinessNeedKeyMessages.html

Related article – Authenticity Rules: A Reality Check for Creative Advertisers :

http://www.articulate.ca/AuthenticityRules.html

The Law of Focus: How to Avoid Direct Competition (part 1 of 3)

The Law of Focus: How to Avoid Direct Competition (part 1 of 3)
Click on the title to watch the video on YouTube.
Full transcript to the video:

Sing: "Aint nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Aint nothin’ like the real thing."

Hi, this is Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants. In this three-part series, I discuss how independent small businesses can emerge from challenging times to better fulfil their potential by applying the law of focus.

These three videos are intended for people with sales growth, customer loyalty, and referral generation on their minds. If you are concerned about market position, client retention, and the overall success of an independent small business, then pay attention.

The law of focus, applied intelligently, can help any business to become known as the go-to source for the customer experience that defines its brand.

When any experience triggers an emotional response, the intellect or logical capacity of the person feeling that emotional response typically weakens – often to the same extent as the strength of the emotion.

Consumer psychology, emotion, and logic are involved when a company thrives. That thriving itself can define its market niche. To the attentive eye, it can also reveal the ideal client profile and wherever adaptation is needed.

Successes and failures provide useful guidance to those who pay attention, who can then conduct business adaptively, innovatively, and realistically in the presence of competition while remaining authentic.

Now, about competition: Imagine that you are the owner/operator of a Chinese restaurant in North Bay.

You could view all other local Chinese restaurants as your competitors. After all, they could take away business from you when people who want to eat Chinese food go to their restaurants; not yours.

You could instead view the owners and operators of local Chinese restaurants as a mix – from colleagues to competitors.

You could also choose to view all local Chinese restaurants as a distinct business community within the local culture.

Now, imagine this: After a soccer championship game, one group of a dozen people decides to go a restaurant to celebrate. Various restaurants are suggested. Why would they choose your place? Your sechuan eggplant hotpot? Your dan-dan noodles?

After some discussion, they choose the local Mediterranean place for their celebration feast. Not your restaurant. Not any Chinese restaurant.

Next year, it could be any one of the other places considered, or a newcomer. With one trip to the grocery store and one trip to the liquor store, it could be a backyard barbecue instead of any restaurant.

Your restaurant competes with every option that a dozen people after a soccer championship would consider for their celebration.

To get that business next time, your restaurant has to be the hands-down winner in enough people’s minds before the group even decides to go out after the game. That’s how to avoid direct competition.

See my article Marketing Tip: Avoid Direct Competition. It uses the soft-drink industry for examples. You can find a link to the article below.

If you were a plumber in Saskatoon, you might view the local plumbers on a spectrum ranging from associates to adversaries. This could be an accurate perspective.

Even so, the do-it-yourself approach with tools and tips from the local hardware store might actually be your top competition, any day of the year. This leads to an important question.

Under what circumstances does your ideal client buy your services? When they come back for more, why do they do that? What gets them to refer others to you? That’s three questions.

Thee more: For what is your company best known? Why do people bypass your competitors to buy from you? When people buy from you – first time or returning – what does it mean to them?

In any industry, in any city, when people responsible for marketing and brand management gather good, reliable answers to these six questions, by paying attention to their market, and in so doing pay attention to patterns in the thoughts and feelings expressed about the experience of being their customer, they enable themselves.

They enable themselves, through their authentic understanding of the customer experience, to express that experience in the words of the people who loyally pay their company for that experience.

They enable themselves to identify the traits, values, and needs of other people who would pay for that experience if they knew that it was available to them and how to get it.

They enable their marketing and brand management efforts to articulate authentic key messages to the right people through the right media.

They enable their companies to match supply and demand effectively and efficiently because they follow the guidance of their target market to be known as the go-to source for a distinct customer experience.

Sing: "Aint nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Aint nothin’ like the real thing."

In the following videos of this three-part series, I describe how two real independent small businesses applied the law of focus to narrow their scope, sharpen their key messages, and expand their success. Check them out. Also, see my related articles at the links below. I am Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants.

Related article – Marketing Tip: Avoid Direct Competition:

http://www.articulate.ca/AvoidDirectCompetition.html

Related article – Three Reasons Why Independent Businesses Need Authentic Key Messages To Succeed:

http://www.articulate.ca/IndependentBusinessNeedKeyMessages.html

Related article – Authenticity Rules: A Reality Check for Creative Advertisers :

http://www.articulate.ca/AuthenticityRules.html

A Consultant Is As A Consultant Does (part two): Why

A Consultant Is As A Consultant Does (part two): Why
Click on the title to watch the video on YouTube.

Full transcript to the video:

Hi. My name is Glenn R Harrington.

In the prior video, A Consultant Is As A Consultant Does (part one), I answer the question what does a consultant do. In it, I discuss what consultants do so you can tell when the term consultant correctly applies to somebody’s work. Before we move on to address why and consider an example, here is a brief summary.

A truly client-focused, results-oriented consultant has the adaptability and professional acumen to act as a coach, as and when appropriate, and to play the role of advisor, as and when appropriate – how ever best advances the client’s goal. He or she then remains involved in fulfilling the client’s goal as appropriate to foster success, and steps aside as the client becomes independent.

In the role of advisor, a consultant must ask questions to gain needed information – often many questions; some penetrating; some maybe difficult to answer. Consultants often also conduct interviews, studies, or experiments to comprehend the client’s situation fully and to test ideas aimed at fulfilling the client’s goal.

When acting as a coach, a consultant asks open-ended questions. This helps to determine guiding values as well as appropriate involvement for the client in the process of addressing the business challenge. Open-ended questions also help to guide the client in implementing needed changes as they are integrated into business operations.

After gathering information, analysing the situation, considering various options to address the problem, and recommending a solution, the time comes to implement the solution. Then, a good consultant remains involved as needed, perhaps as a day-to-day project manager or as an on-call trouble-shooter, until he or she is no longer needed. This is what a consultant does, or ought to do, as a consultant.

An important follow-up question arises: Why? What is the consultant’s mission or purpose in service to his or her clients? The actions of a consultant inevitably answer the question why. Let me give an example.

I only recognized myself as a consultant after I had played the role several times. One early example arose in 1989, before internet dating had fully taken root. A friend of mine had decided to start an introduction service.

By asking him open-ended questions, I helped my friend to develop his business plan. Once he had tentatively completed it, I questioned him further. Then he asked me, “What do you think I should do?”

I suggested that he conduct his business in a way that differed from what he had been imagining. He knew that I understood his vision for this new company. So, instead of resisting the fundamental changes I suggested, he accepted them as better ideas. Actually, he became eager to conduct business in a way that integrated my input into his original vision. The business concept now clicked like it hadn’t before.

Let me be more specific.

In those days, the internet was not integrated into most people’s daily lives. My friend placed a classified ad in the local weekly Pennysaver newspaper.

I suggested that he supplement the print ads with postings on local bulletin board sites or BBSs. In those days, many early adopters of the internet would go to a local BBS to discuss any postings that interested them. BBS postings were cheap or free. My friend loved the idea and followed it to good effect.

He rented a downtown office, which he painted and furnished nicely. He would interview clients-to-be in the office. On the basis of these interviews, he would introduce them to others.

I suggested that he visit the homes of his new clients and interview them there. This would allow him to learn more about them and make his introductions to his other clients more authoritative. He took this not only as good advice on how to conduct his business but also as an indication that he didn’t need to lease and furnish office space at all.

He broke the lease, returned the furniture, ran the business from home, and saved thousands of dollars. He also got more complete, authentic knowledge of his clients and improved the quality of his introductions. The boost in overall effectiveness and cost-efficiency was significant and lasting. His business would really thrive.

I believe that every independent business has potential to be fulfilled, sometimes better than key people are aware of. Despite company founders typically investing much time, energy, money, and creativity in their venture, there can be an indispensable role for an outside expert to play – the role of a consultant – in helping to ensure that the founding vision comes to fruition as well as it can. This is my answer to the question why.

As I mention in the prior video, part 1, my expertise includes clarifying concepts. As a consultant, I serve clients who want to ensure that their company, department, or project fulfils its potential in alignment with a clear mission or purpose and core values, serving a well-defined market. My clients embrace the possibility that an outsider in the role of a consultant can help them to do this.

Next time you meet somebody whose business card identifies them as a consultant, you should have a better sense of what they do. Ask why.

I am Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants.

A Consultant Is As A Consultant Does (Part One)

A Consultant Is As A Consultant Does (Part One)

Click on the title to watch the video on YouTube.

Full transcript to the video:

Hi. My name is Glenn R Harrington.

If you have ever heard a conversation like this, then you are in good company:

 • “What do you do?”

 • “Oh, I’m a consultant.”

 • “A consultant? But what do you actually do?” 

Some people think of consultants as basically on-call workers, though the term contractor or temp might better apply. There are many people with the title Consultant on their business card, but who are actually sales reps. Some people believe that a consultant is basically a sort of advisor or coach.

If somebody tells you that he or she is a consultant, then you should know what it really means. You should also be able to tell whether the term consultant correctly applies to their work.

I have served as a consultant professionally since 1996. My expertise includes clarifying concepts. Let’s see if this discussion clarifies how to identify a consultant by their actions.

Is it coaching?

A coach guides an individual by asking open-ended questions. First, the client must identify the potential that he or she wants to fulfil. The coach then gets the client to identify how to achieve that potential. With further questioning from the coach, the client then identifies limitations affecting the achievement of their goal and how to deal with them. The coach also gets the client to identify how to recognize success. A coach would then use reminders, citing the client’s own values, to support the fulfilment of that potential.

A business or executive coach typically acts as a guide and accountability partner for the client. If difficulties must be endured or risks taken, then the client must take them on by choice.

It is easy to find a coach quick to assert that her or she is not a consultant. Intrinsic to coaching is the idea that a client does not fully invest in the process of achieving a goal, nor fully own the outcome, unless the process and the achievement originate with himself or herself. Thus, without advising, coaches get their clients to commit to their own decisions, actions, and results. Advising has no place in coaching per se.

In contrast, an advisor does not coach. Rather, an advisor first assesses a situation, gathering information and distinguishing important facts from the unimportant. He or she then aims to analyse the situation accurately in context. Next, an advisor contemplates resources available, limitations, and opportunities while considering various options to define and achieve success. With enough information gathered and enough options considered, an advisor then brings his or her expertise to bear in prescribing how their client ought to pursue success.

Some people would suggest that the description of an advisor that I just gave applies to a consultant. Having served as a consultant professionally since the first business day of 1996, I do not accept that. The role of an advisor – even though many who play that role call themselves consultants – ultimately means telling the client what to do. Consultants do this also. Yet, the role of an advisor excludes working with the client to ensure success.

There are people who pay advisors to study their situation, then report their findings and recommendations, who then find themselves unable to do everything recommended. They still have a troubled project or department or company. Now they also have instructions to solve their problems that might seem impossible to follow.

Likewise, there are people who turn to a coach for help then wish they hadn’t. For example, they come away from their coaching sessions feeling burdened. A coach’s questions require turning to yourself for the answers. That can be tiresome. Also, it can feel like an enormous burden to take on the responsibility to create success solo, or to lead the creation of success in an organization that has problems.

As a consultant, I assert that the client should not feel suddenly abandoned with a set of hard-to-follow instructions. Nor should a client feel obliged to pioneer new ways of doing things single-handedly in an organization whose people are set in their ways while those very ways sustain the problem.

Success is especially hard to achieve when it starts with impractical disruption. That is why a truly client-focused, results-oriented consultant forges a working partnership with the client to ensure that the whole process from diagnosis to prescription to action and success is realistic.

I view a true consultant as having the adaptability and professional acumen to act as a coach as and when appropriate, and to take on the role of advisor as and when appropriate. A truly client-focused, results-oriented consultant coaches and advises however best advances the client’s goal. He or she then remains involved as appropriate to foster success, and knows when to step aside as the client becomes independent.

Now that we can distinguish a consultant by what he or she does, and what a true, diligent consultant ought to do, an essential question arises: Why? What is the consultant’s mission or purpose in service to his or her clients? What facet of a consultant’s mission or purpose harmonizes with his or her clientele to foster win-win outcomes? My next video, A Consultant Is As A Consultant Does part 2, addresses this question with an example.

I am Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants.

What is a brand? Why should I care?

What is a brand? Why should I care?

Click on the title to watch the video on YouTube.

Full transcript to the video:

Hi. My name is Glenn R Harrington. I suppose you already know the answer to the question, What is a brand?

If you were to ask many, many people whether they know what a brand is, you would find that almost everybody answers yes. Indeed, many would find the question weird or strange, as if you had asked them whether they know what a head is.

The notion of a brand, like knowing what a head is, seems intuitive, as if everybody knows or should know, and asking about it seems out of place.

However, sticking with anatomy for a moment, most people do not know what a pineal gland is or what a pineal gland does. Once a person learns what a pineal gland is, and how it works, there is a good chance that that knowledge is taken as interesting; easily integrated as useful in self-care toward a happy, successful life.

How does this relate to what brand is or of why you should care?

Think of the singers in a choir. Just before the choir leader gets them all to start singing together, every singer in the choir believes that he or she knows the first note to start the song. When the choir leader gives the cue to start singing, every choir member sings the first note with some certainty that the first note as he or she sings it is correct. Even so, in the next moment, many in the choir adjust their pitch.

Of course, a choir does not sound right til every singer sings together with the rest; everybody on pitch. This often requires singers to adjust their pitch in those first seconds, even though they felt certain at the outset that they would sing the correct note.

I am discussing the notion of a brand to allow you to find better harmony with others, and, like I said about understanding the pineal gland, to take the knowledge as interesting for easy integration into brand management toward a successful business, career, or project.

Consider the branding of livestock. This was particularly important when the land now known as the south-western USA had been taken from the aboriginal people and put to use as grazing land by cattle ranchers.

Early ranchers could not separate their herds on such vast lands with fencing, so they branded each animal with a distinct symbol to identify their own herd. This way, herds could mix and ranchers could count on each-other not to make meat of another rancher’s livestock.

When a brand is burned into a steer’s hide, the scar remains indefinitely. It might change somewhat over time. Still, it is a simple, distinct impression burned into flesh that lasts.

Outside of livestock identification, this is important to understand about the brand of a business, charity, or other kind of venture: A brand is a simple, distinct impression in the mind that lasts. It typically forms on the first impression. It can then be validated or further moulded on subsequent encounters or simply with the passage of time.

There is my answer to the question, What is a brand?

Some people believe that a brand, like the scar burnt into the hides of livestock, is simply an identifying symbol. Others would define a brand more broadly as a name and look, such as the name Coca-Cola together with that particular shade of red and that trademark way of rendering the company’s name. A brand generally includes these but is not defined by them.

It is more accurate and more inclusive to say that market perception defines a brand, rooted in direct personal experience, then connected to public opinion – reputation.

Of course, it is also possible that an impression formed in the mind becomes confused on subsequent encounters. This raises the question, Why should I care?

Remember when Kiss took off their make-up? Remember when a national chain bought-out your neighbourhood independent grocery store? Remember when your local community credit union got acquired by a big, regional credit union and became more like a bank? Each of these exemplifies how a market – from Kiss fans to people loyal to the local community credit union – found change foisted upon them.

These brands changed fundamentally so that market perception had to change. Despite brands being personal perception connected to public opinion, sometimes the tail can wag the dog.

Consider this: You can never step into the same river twice. Flowing water is not static. The height and the width of a river vary. The speed of the flow varies. Yet, the name and location of a river might not change for many, many years. A river is dynamic. Brands are like this.

Even though people might hold fixed opinions or feelings about this brand or that, a brand can be dynamic and changing. Yet it can also be strong and reliable. Here again arises the question, Why should I care?

People tend to appreciate consistency and reliability. For example, if you go to a hair stylist and find that your hair is washed at a different sink each time, or maybe your hair is cut in a different chair each time, you might not like that. If you’re like most people, you’d find comfortable familiarity in having your hair washed at the same sink every time, and your hair cut in the same chair every time. This preference for consistency and reliability applies with brands, because brands are rooted in direct experience and we all prefer to repeat the familiar, the pleasant, and the comfortable.

For a brand to generate loyalty and steady profits, reliability and good value are important. Meaningful differentiation from other brands, too. Changing with the times is essential, then, while accommodating people’s preference for comfort and familiarity. These apparent contradictions make managing a brand an on-going process.

Stewarding market perception takes time and effort, plus attention to the market and awareness that every occasion when people encounter a brand can validate, confuse, or adjust how the entity behind the brand may be perceived in or out of sync with its mission or purpose.

Consider the pineal gland. Everybody has one. It’s small. It’s important. Few people know much about it. Now, do you want to find out more?

There’s something else important about brands: Sometimes, all you need is a brief introduction to intrigue you into pursuing more complete discovery. Watch my Joe’s Hotdogs videos to pursue that idea further.

I am Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants.

Stimulate the economy? Pay off public debt? Okay.

A letter to the popular, long-running CBC Radio show As It Happens, February 26, 2012:

Albert Einstein has been quoted as saying, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” This came to my mind when I listened to the segment of your show on Friday, Feb 24 in which you interviewed an economist about applying the federal Goods and Services Tax to all sorts of transactions currently exempt from the GST, particularly food.

The man you interviewed, a University of Toronto professor of Economics, had evidently been educated in the same economic paradigm that has dominated for the past century. His proposal to apply the GST to everything struck me as clearly reflecting the same corrupt economic thinking that permeates the global economic crisis now underway for about four years.

For Canada's federal and provincial governments to get us out of this mess, we do indeed need economic stimuli, debt reduction, and job creation. However, this does not make it necessary that we consent to everything we do or eat being taxed; nor does it necessitate exploiting the Alberta tar sands to the max, for example. Rather, we need a new and altogether different kind of economic solution - one that comes from an altogether different kind of economic thinking.

According to University of California Riverside Economics Professor Mason Gaffney, author of The Corruption of Economics, Henry George not only prescribed a clear, logical, and hugely popular solution to such pervasive, systemic economic problems as we currently face but also triggered a massive effort to deny his logic and permanently change the paradigm of economic thinking to exclude the solution that George proposed now 133 years ago.

In his best-selling book Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy, George proposes the elimination of all taxes, tariffs, and duties to be replaced by a single tax on the unimproved value of land and natural resources. If implemented as prescribed, George's proposal would stimulate the economy, create jobs, allow governments to pay off debts, and relieve poverty.

This brings to mind another quotation of Albert Einstein: "Men like Henry George are rare, unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form and fervent love of justice."

Let's abolish sales taxes, payroll taxes, et cetera, and instead implement George's single tax now.

- Glenn R Harrington, Victoria BC