Thou Shall Not Copy

If there’s one prob­lem in all adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing, it is the sheer fact that there is too much com­pe­ti­tion out there. Every­thing just seems to look like every­thing else. If one copies another com­pany let alone another company’s pro­mo­tion, it only serves as a reminder of one’s competition!

You don’t want to remind your prospects about your com­pe­ti­tion, do you?

So, don’t copy them — or as Earl Nightin­gale once said, “Don’t copy, cre­ate!” Be unique. Be orig­i­nal. Be spe­cial. Be dif­fer­ent. In fact, be so dif­fer­ent that, if pos­si­ble (and it is), your name or the name of your firm as well as the ser­vices you deliver become generic in the minds of prospects.

Have you ever heard a doc­tor say: “Take two acetyl­sal­i­cylic acid tablets and call me in the morn­ing”? What about facial tis­sue, cot­ton swab or adhe­sive ban­dage? Of course not. It’s Aspirin, Kleenex, Q-​​Tip and Band-​​Aid.

And that’s not all. Xerox, FedEx, Vel­cro, Kwik Kopy and Quick Lube also stick like glue in the mind. How is this pos­si­ble? While there are many rea­sons for this, the first one is the fact that many of these firms cre­ated not only a new prod­uct but also a whole new cat­e­gory to place them in.

I’ll talk about “cat­e­gories” in the next com­mand­ment. For now, let’s stick to the idea of “unique­ness.” This con­cept might seem a lit­tle far-​​fetched for the type of prod­uct you offer, but in real­ity it really isn’t.

As expressed ear­lier as well as strin­gently taught in my con­sult­ing prac­tice, top-​​of-​​mind aware­ness is the great­est key to mar­ket­ing suc­cess in all types of busi­ness. Top-​​of-​​mind aware­ness is a process by which an “anchor” in the sub­con­scious of prospects has been cre­ated and through which you posi­tion your firm or prod­uct above all other choices in the mind.

For instance, when decid­ing to find out about the type of prod­uct or ser­vice you pro­vide let alone when decid­ing to buy what you offer, your name, the name of your firm, and/​or the name of your prod­uct must come to your prospects’ minds instan­ta­neously. How is this done? Well, there are sev­eral ways to accom­plish this, but let me share at least two of them with you.

The first and most impor­tant is names. Does your com­pany or ser­vice name intrin­si­cally reflect the type of ser­vice you offer and does so instan­ta­neously? If not, you might want to recon­sider renam­ing your com­pany or service.

For exam­ple, if I told you “Kwik Kopy,” you will auto­mat­i­cally think of a com­pany offer­ing quick copies! You might say, “Yeah, but that’s only for big chains with big bud­gets!” Peo­ple have told me this many times over. My answer is, “But how do you think they became large chains anyway?”

Today, it astounds me to see com­pa­nies with names that mean absolutely noth­ing, such as acronyms (like “DFG Enter­prises”) or names that do not reflect the com­pet­i­tive advan­tage if not at least the nature of the business.

If you are a com­puter net­work con­sul­tant, are you “Mike Fortin Con­sult­ing” or “Prac­ti­cal Tech­nolo­gies”? What’s bet­ter: “John’s Dryclean­ers” or “Spot­less Clean­ers”? The name of your firm should sug­gest what you do, what you offer and how you are dif­fer­ent from the com­pe­ti­tion in just a few words.

This gen­er­ally requires a great deal of cre­ative effort. In my con­sult­ing work when I am refin­ing a firm’s cor­po­rate iden­tity, some names will pop instantly into my mind while oth­ers take more time and effort. So, here’s a help­ful hint.

Try writ­ing down as many names as pos­si­ble — at least 20 — and pass it around among friends, fam­ily, and acquain­tances. Ask them what pulls them the most. Look for the “Aha’s!” or the “Wow’s!” These are the ones you want.

If not, either you will have one that sticks out, or words from a com­bi­na­tion of a few of your names that can be used won­der­fully together. Lis­ten to what your peanut gallery has to say, but also read between the lines.

In other words, many will tell you what they think looks best, but remem­ber that your goal is not to look bet­ter but to get busier. So clue in on their facial expres­sions when they read your names. Ask them a few hours later what stuck in their minds and not just the ones they liked best.

How­ever, I must point out that there are excep­tions to this rule. For exam­ple, you are prob­a­bly self-​​employed or home-​​based, and do not use a fic­ti­tious name. You may also be lim­ited finan­cially, since repo­si­tion­ing a firm with a new name is some­times expen­sive — par­tic­u­larly if you’re already estab­lished in the mar­ket­place. In these cases, a sec­ond tech­nique can help.

It is to add a tagline to your name. A tagline is a small sen­tence, prefer­ably five words or less, that com­ple­ments your name and says it all in one sin­gle swoop. I’m sure you’ve heard of “Enjoy the Ride (Nis­san),” “Fights Cav­i­ties (Crest),” “Kills Bugs Dead (Raid),” or “The Midas Touch (Midas).”

You can do this with almost any name. For instance, a self-​​employed com­puter tech­ni­cian added some flair to his name by using a tagline in all his mar­ket­ing pieces and cor­re­spon­dence, which read: “John Smith, Solu­tions Made Sim­ple.” An inte­rior designer, Glo­ria Tess­man, now mar­kets her­self as “Glo­ria Tessman’s Glo­ri­ous Inte­ri­ors.” A busi­ness eti­quette con­sul­tant calls him­self “Brian Whe­lan, Where Pro­to­col Meets Profits.”

In either case, whether you have a unique name or not, try to add a tagline to your name, and choose one that truly com­mu­ni­cates all that you are.

Make sure to use your tagline in all your com­mu­ni­ca­tions, pro­mo­tions and sta­tionery. Addi­tion­ally, every sin­gle nook-​​and-​​cranny of your oper­a­tions — even breath­ing! — should become some kind of mar­ket­ing process in itself.

Remem­ber to look at every aspect of your busi­ness, whether it’s answer­ing your phone, writ­ing your invoices, mail­ing your brochures, even hand­ing out your busi­ness cards. Every busi­ness activ­ity should empha­size in some way your unique­ness through your spe­cial name or tagline. Use them!

For exam­ple, do you have an answer­ing machine mes­sage that says: “Sorry, but I’m not here to take your call right now”? Ugh! Don’t do that. Make your machine work for you. Change it to some­thing like…

“You’ve reached Terry Craw­ford, the ‘Teacher’s Teacher.’ I am out of the office right now cur­rently teach­ing another suc­cess­ful ‘How to Make Mega-​​Profits Teach­ing Cor­po­ra­tions Part-​​Time,’ designed for col­lege teach­ers. If you wish to leave a mes­sage or would like to receive my free report, ‘Eight Ways to Make Classes Cook for Cash,’ give me your name, address and tele­phone num­ber after the tone in case I need to con­firm your address. Thank you for call­ing the ‘Teacher’s Teacher!’ (Beep)”

In the above exam­ple, sev­eral other com­mand­ments are fol­lowed. We will deal with these aspects in greater detail fur­ther in the book, but for now just real­ize that every­thing you do must become a part of cre­at­ing top-​​of-​​mind awareness.

You don’t need a huge bud­get to make this work. Once you’ve got this down, use it in all your com­mu­ni­ca­tions. You have to live, sleep, eat and breathe your new name and tagline — espe­cially with your “Ele­va­tor Pitch,” which I will dis­cuss later on. For now, don’t copy. Make your­self unique!

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

• How to Capture and Captivate Attention
• The Real Problem With The Flaw of Attraction
• Two Shining Stars in an Age of Darkness
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