The one word that describes you

What is the one word that describes you?

Many years ago I have been fascinated with the book Positioning authored by Al Ries and Jack Trout. A few years ago we were fortunate to bring in Ries and had him do a seminar in our country and a couple of years ago I had the privilege to attend Jack Trout’s seminar held in Singapore. These two gentlemen are not just good authors they are good speakers too. And you might have thought that their concepts and business hypothesis may have worked some two decades ago but is irrelevant today well Jack Trout recently came up with a new book entitled: Repositioning and together with Steve Rivkin attempts to prove us wrong.

“Minds cannot cope,” says Trout and I believe him. This is now the age of over-communications. If the same authors insisted that the 70’s was an era of information overload, today can be branded as the era of information megaload and here are some statistics to prove the point:

• More information has been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000.

• The total of all printed knowledge doubles every four or five years.

• One weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person in England was likely to come across in a lifetime.

• More than 4,000 books are published around the world every day.

• The average white-collar worker uses 70 kilograms of copy paper a year – twice the amount consumed 10 years ago.

And they said that once computers become personal and affordable it will usher in the age of the paperless office. What the “experts” fail to realize is that once personal computers fall in to the hands of ordinary lay people like you and me the likelihood of having an “office-less” situation becomes more real as more and more people begin to work at home.

Everyday the Web grows by a million electronic pages, according to Scientific American adding to the million pages already available online.

• By the time a child in the UK is 18, he or she has been exposed to 140,000 TV commercials.

• In Sweden the average consumer receives 3,000 commercial messages a day.

• 11 countries in Europe now broadcast well over six million TV commercials a year.

• Television has exploded from a dozen channels to a thousand channels in the western world.

And here is the point I would like to say.

With all the available information around us, the service or product you offer has a bigger challenge of registering in the minds of your consumers.

What is the one-word description that would personify you in the minds of your clients? Consider the following examples from famous brands and the one-word feature they represent so you can get the picture.

• Toyota = Quality

• BMW = Drivability.

• Volvo = Safety.

So what’s yours? And the more I think about this concept the more I think about its application to you and me.

When your name is mentioned what is the one-word picture that could describe you?

Reliable? Efficient? Fast? Slow? Unreliable? Late? Jerk....?

Maybe it’s faithful? Dedicated? Committed?

I hope it’s not: Scheming? Manipulative? Liar? Cheat? Serial adulterer?

I hope it’s Respectful. Humble. Admirable. Patriotic and above all, godly.

Our people may not believe 100 percent we say but they certainly believe 100 percent they see the things we do.

God bless you.

(Francis Kong will do a repeat of his highly successful “Culture of Personal Excellence on March 3, 2010 at the SMX Convention Center. For further inquiries contact Inspire Leadership Consultancy Inc. 632-6872614 or 09178511115)