Make Some Noise

The Unconventional Road to Dominance

Ken Schmidt

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781501155635
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

The former director of communications at Harley-Davidson and one of the most sought-after speakers in the world reveals his exhilarating, innovative approach to creating customer loyalty and marketplace dominance. Ken Schmidt is a wanted man. His role in transforming Harley-Davidson Motor Company—one of the most celebrated corporate success stories in history—led business leaders all over the world to seek his guidance. After all, how many companies can get their customers to tattoo their logo on their arms?After having worked with more than one thousand companies worldwide, Schmidt is ready to share the secrets that spurred Harley-Davidson's remarkable turnaround. An avid motorcycle enthusiast, Schmidt harnessed his passion for riding to create his famed Noise Cubed Trilogy—the three questions he asks every one of his clients. They assess a company's positioning, competitiveness, and reputation, and are the key ingredients for any successful corporation: What do the customers your business served yesterday say about your business when they're talking about you to prospective customers? What do you want them to say? What are you doing to get them to say it?In Make Some Noise, Schmidt shares his full-throttle approach for businesses and individuals alike. Anyone looking to become more competitive and grow customer loyalty can learn from the case studies and experiences he shares. From a nondescript heavy construction company, to the most high-end "luxury" gas station in America, to Apple, and to his own personal landscaper, Schmidt illustrates how the answers to his trio of questions will yield a course of action to stand out in today's marketplace.

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CHAPTER

ONE

What Kind of Noise Are You Making?

Don’t get too comfortable. Not yet. We’ve got places to go.

Before we can start discussing what it’s going to take to make your business (and you) a dominator instead of an also-ran, you’re going to need to get a quick, real-world read of where you stand right now and what you’re up against. And I need to show you that the people most important to your professional life—like your customers, prospects, investors, fellow employees, everyone you need on your side—likely don’t see you the way you hope or believe they do. So we’re going to hit the road and take a short, virtual, eye-opening field trip.

The good news is, I promise this will be fun and way cooler than those god-awful excursions you remember from your school days, because—and this is the better news—rather than bouncing along in a yellow bus (see: grumpy driver, buzz-killing chaperones, irritating loudmouths, etc.) we’ll be riding two-wheelers. As in motorcycles. As in see? I told you it’ll be fun. And by the way, you won’t be riding as my passenger; you’ll be on your own bike.

Even if you’ve always sworn you’d never ride a motorcycle or believe yourself incapable of it, or you think your mother would kill you if she found out what we’re up to, or even if you’re the world’s biggest wuss, please play along anyway and live a little. I guarantee nobody’s going to get hurt and that you’re going to get a huge kick out of your ride, remember it, and benefit from what it’s about to teach you. The same goes for experienced riders. So come on. Let’s go before someone chickens out.

The first part’s supereasy. I want you to imagine, right now, that you’re sitting on an awesome motorcycle. But there’s a simple rule here: It can’t be a Harley-Davidson. (I know. Bummer!) That shouldn’t be a problem, though, because there are millions of great bikes out there. You’re on one of them right now, so relax for a minute and soak it all in. See in your mind the wheels, fenders, gas tank, motor, handlebars, and all those shiny dials and gauges. Pretty cool, no? Now zip up your leather jacket, tighten down your helmet’s chin-strap, and cinch up your gloves—we ride safe, even on imaginary bikes—because this is about to get good. By the way, that leather looks great on you. Seriously.

With your hands on the grips at the ends of the handlebars and both feet flat on the ground, lean your bike just a bit to the right and push back the kickstand with your left foot, as you would on a bicycle. There you go. It’s way lighter than you thought it would be, isn’t it? And supereasy to balance. Now, see that button next to your right hand grip—the throttle—that says START? That doesn’t need an explanation. Push it. Woo-hoo! Listen to that engine sing! Twist the throttle a few times to savor that powerful, high-pitched howl blasting from your exhaust pipes. Woo-hoo again! Your heart’s racing already and we haven’t moved an inch! (Mine is, too. I love this stuff.)

Directly in front of your left foot peg (about where the pedal would be on a bicycle) is a lever; that’s your gearshift. Push it down and you’ll hear a satisfying “ka-chunk” as first gear engages. There it is! You’re officially pregnant and there’s no backing out now! Here. We. Go. Twist the throttle a bit to give her some gas, lift your feet onto your foot pegs, and . . . you’re off! Hey, you’re good at this! Now crank the throttle harder and feel that awesome rush of wind in your face as you accelerate, make some wide, looping turns, then race through the gears. This is what it’s all about, baby! And it’s about to get way better.

Follow me now. A quick turn onto this narrow back road will take us into the boonies a bit where we can take this ride up a few notches (and, remember, learn some things about your current competitive situation, in case you’ve already forgotten). Let’s see: No traffic whatsoever? Check. Gorgeous canopy of tree limbs over the road? Check. Curvy twists in the road following a stream? Check. Beautiful horse farms and freshly cut hay you can smell as we blast past? Check and double check. I don’t need to tell you how great this is because you already know.

There’s not an intersection or stop sign in sight, so don’t be afraid to open that throttle some more and enjoy the buzz. Go on, amigo, let it rip! That’s the way! You’re really moving now, laughing inside your helmet, feeling your heart working double-time in your chest; soaking in the sights, sounds, and smells; gliding through sweeping turns then onto this long, pool-table-smooth straightaway that’s stretching out before us. It’s gut-check time! Catch me if you can! Watch your speedometer climb as you go faster and faster and faster and

STOP!

Dream’s over (for now). It’s time to learn.

You have just one second to answer this question: What manufacturer’s name was on the bike you just rode? One thousand one . . . Time’s up. Oh, come on! You shouldn’t have to think about this! But you don’t know, do you? Which means you don’t need to know.

Here’s why: Your imaginary bike’s brand name—and everything it represents—wasn’t important to any part of your riding experience. So you didn’t think it through that far. You just know you were riding a great bike that was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing and having a blast. If I told you that the bike you just rode was a Kawasaki or a Honda, Suzuki, Triumph, Yamaha, or any other famous make, you’d be cool with that, because each of those companies is synonymous with fine motorcycles that nobody would be embarrassed to own.

Since you probably didn’t assign your imaginary bike any differentiating visual or tonal cues, you couldn’t tell the difference between what you were riding and the gazillions of other equally great bikes you’ve seen over your lifetime. Anyone who happened to look up from the sidewalk or heard you zoom past likely didn’t know who built the bike you were on, either, because just like you, they can’t tell the difference, even at a short distance (trust me, even people who make their living selling motorcycles often can’t tell them apart if they can’t see the logos on the fuel tanks). And they all sound identical don’t they? That high-pitched engine whine—“RHEEEEEEEEE!”—that’s a pleasure to the ears announces clearly, in every language on earth, “Motorcycle!” It just doesn’t announce who built it.

Okay. Time for some more fun. Only this time, we’re going to turn the tables a bit and take a quick virtual ride on a Harley (black T-shirt optional). Let’s see if anything changes. Again, throw your leg over, grab the bars, lower yourself into the seat, and check out the accents, gauges, and gadgets. Everything is right where it should be and familiar to you now. So zip up your jacket, lock down that helmet, and cinch those gloves because it’s time to burn some gas. Stand her up, flick the kickstand back, and notice that it’s just as easy to balance between your legs as your prior ride (you thought it would be a lot heavier, didn’t you?). Grab your right hand grip, thumb the start button, and—whoa! Listen to that deep rumbling engine thumping to life! Ba-BOOM-Boom! Ba-BOOM-Boom! Ba-BOOM-Boom! What a completely different sound! She means business, so it’s time to let her loose. Vámonos, muchacho! Follow me!

Kick her into gear, give her some gas, and see what she can do. The combination of that deep, throaty-sounding engine and the wind in your face is completely intoxicating, no? It’s making you feel powerful—like you’ve become a different person. Don’t deny that!

I know another great road that’s as amazing as the last one, so let’s get to it. Go ahead, rev that engine and let it roar, just to make sure the folks on the sidewalk know what’s coming (as if they don’t know). Look at them looking at you. Feels good to be noticed, doesn’t it? Now imagine your mother’s stunned face—oh, dear God!—if she happened to look over from her car just now and recognize you. We’ve got places to go, so hammer that throttle and smile as you blast past them and leave them in your dust. Don’t be shy, man! See if you can catch me. Bury that throttle, watch your speedometer climb higher and higher, and

STOP! (Sorry.)

Those people on the sidewalk, still-shocked Mom and, likely, anyone else within hearing distance of you and your bike, knew precisely who built your machine without having to think about it. Or even see it. That deep, rumbling noise blasting from those exhaust pipes has been Harley’s calling card around the world for well over one hundred years. But unlike the noise from all other bike makes that screams, “Motorcycle!” your bike’s noise has a name attached to it. Everyone recognizes it immediately. It’s distinct, powerful, memorable, and commands attention. It’s a noise that makes pictures appear in your mind. It’s a noise that says, “This is different than everything else.”

It’s the noise of a dominator.

And it metaphorically just taught you my greatest lesson about competition. Your business is like one of the bikes you just rode; it makes noise. (The same lesson applies to you personally: You make noise, too.) What kind of noise are you making?

Of course, I’m not talking about engine noise or any mechanical sounds your company makes while doing whatever it does. Nor am I referring to any sound your business uses, like your ad jingles or any background music that plays on your website or when callers are on hold.

I’m talking about your real, bankable noise, which is made up in large part by your reputation and everything that word implies. Your noise is what the people most important to you or your business—customers, potential customers, employees, suppliers, investors, media, and people in the communities where you operate, your boss—say about you. It’s what precedes you and stays behind after you’ve left.

Your noise is also every association, thought, and feeling your important publics have about you and everything they see and hear that reminds them of you and only you. And it’s the pictures that form in their minds when they think about you or hear or see your name mentioned.

Your noise is what makes you different from businesses—and people—you’re competing against who do the same things you do. It’s what attracts people to you and makes them prefer you over others. Or not. It’s what pads your bank account or leaves you nervous at the end of the month when the bills come due.

Your noise is either instantly identifiable, memorable, and meaningfully differentiating or it’s the same buzzing drone your competitors are making, leaving you indistinguishable and one of many in a crowd, as with the first bike you rode today that nobody could identify. RHEEEEEEEEE! The bottom line is, your noise determines whether you’re a dominator or a struggling also-ran. You with me so far?

Quick experiment to further prove my point: If you were to tell some friends that you just took a ride on a Honda, they’d probably light up and say, “Hey! Way to go!” But if you told the same friends that you just rode a Harley-Davidson, they’d react way differently, wouldn’t they? As in, “Whoa! You?!” Or, “When you getting tattooed?” Because Harley-Davidson means something to everyone, everywhere.

Think about it: despite the obvious fact that Harley-Davidson and its competitors are all manufacturing and selling the same thing and it’s very hard for nonowners, otherwise known as potential customers, to tell one company’s products apart from the others (especially when their engines aren’t running), everyone—you, me, and your mom included—believes Harley-Davidson is night-and-day different than everyone else in the market. And we all believe that, even if we’ve had no actual experience with motorcycles, based on what we’ve heard others say about the company, its products, its dealers, its customers, and its approach to business. Period. You know this despite the fact that you can’t recall the last time, if ever, that you saw a Harley ad or some other paid promotional tool. You just know this.

So let’s connect the dots here: do you know how a potential customer views the players in your industry or market, your business included? I do. The same way those people on the street saw you on the non-Harley bike. They know—everyone knows, without even having to think about it—that just as the bike industry is full of great businesses that make, distribute, and sell great but indistinguishable products and/or services, your industry or market is, too. All they know is what they see, hear, expect, and experience from businesses just like yours that go to market and promote themselves and their look-alike products and services the same way their competitors do. You’re one of many, lost in the crowd. RHEEEEEEE!

When look-alike competitors are all saying and doing the same things, potential customers—and even current ones—can’t tell the players apart and assume they don’t need to. You can think of a million examples of this (and if you can’t you’ve never chosen a plumber . . . Realtor . . . gas station . . . ). Meaning those potential customers would be content to buy from any of them. Which means nondistinguishable competitors typically struggle and, worse, resort to “low price” to generate attention. And we all know that ain’t good.

So I’ll ask again, now that we’re on the same page: What kind of noise do you make? Is it attractive and instantly recognized as yours? Or is it a static, droning hum, indistinguishable from sound-alike competitors? What are the most important people in your life saying about you right now? What are they saying about your competitors? Is one of your current customers making beautiful noise for you by telling someone who doesn’t know you yet that she should be doing business with you and telling her why? Or are you simply meeting that customer’s base-level expectations, leaving her with nothing to remember and discuss?

As you’re thinking about your competitive environment—the businesses and people you’re competing against—you’re coming to the realization that you’re all pretty much interchangeable, aren’t you? Just imagine how much that dynamic would change if one player in your industry or market (that’d be you, Sherlock) changed its game to make itself noticeably dissimilar from its competitors, made vocal advocates out of its important publics, and started making a different noise than the others. That competitor would clearly stand out, wouldn’t it? And be more successful. And worry less.

You see—he said, stepping up onto his soapbox while patriotic-sounding music rises in the background—here’s the thing about all of this that’s so frustrating: These days, it’s safe to generalize and say that all businesses, yours of course included, are really quite good at what they do. It takes an amazing amount of talent, creativity, and entrepreneurial drive, to say nothing of Herculean courage and saintlike patience, to run any business anywhere. It’s not easy! The things we invent, design, create, manufacture, make, bake, sell, construct, service, install, and everything else we do—while running at one hundred miles per hour at all times—in the name of commerce? It’s astounding what businesspeople are doing, how well they’re doing it, and how much better they’re doing it this year than last. We’ve all enjoyed the benefits of this and have learned to expect nothing less.

And look at the backbone of the business world, small businesses. When you see statistics showing that there are twenty-eight million small businesses in the United States alone, that means there are at least that number of leaders possessed of those rare gifts in the last paragraph helming them. And millions more like-minded and talented lieutenants on their leadership teams. Combined, these people are keenly focused on busting their butts to build the kind of work cultures that enable them to do that thing they do well so they can keep their doors open and their phones ringing.

With all of these tremendous positives going for these millions of businesses, though, there’s one hugely uncomfortable nugget of truth that’s working against the lion’s share of them (music abruptly stops): They flat-out don’t know how to compete. I’m talking about damn near all of them, from brain surgeons to tree surgeons. From carpenters to accountants to restaurants and to farmers. From booking agents to bookstores. From machine shops to car dealers to repair shops to junkyards.

How else does one explain the utter lack of marketable differentiation between players within industries and markets? Or the fact that pretty much every time we come in contact with a business, we’re satisfied with what we get but remember nothing positive about it? Or can’t even remember who we did business with last week and last month? Or the simple U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics stats that tell us that roughly half of the businesses that start this year will be dead within five years and nearly two-thirds will be gone within ten? Or that so many businesses are struggling to survive? And worried about their future? And unable to invest in new growth opportunities?

I’ve learned—and have yet to meet anyone who can disprove it—that what separates dominators from also-rans in every facet of every industry in the business world isn’t what competitors are producing, providing, and/or selling. Or the methods used to produce, provide, and/or sell them. Or “the people” (quotes intentional) behind making that happen. No matter how great any of these might be nor how frequently this stuff gets promoted. Nor is it where business gets transacted or the prices being charged.

Dominators crush also-rans because they make the most noise in their market. Which means dominators know how to compete. Which means they:

Make it a business-wide, leadership-driven priority to ensure that they are noticeably different from their competitors—even if they’re all doing the same thing or selling an identical product ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Introduction
• Chapter One: What Kind of Noise Are You Making?
• Chapter Two: Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear
• Chapter Three: Truth in Packaging, Italian-Style: Managing Position and Narrative to Dominate
• Chapter Four: Your Market Didn’t Change and Neither Did You. But We Sure Did.
• Chapter Five: Beware Brain Pain and the Coal Mine Canaries of Commoditization
• Chapter Six: Why and How Businesses Lose Their Competitiveness
• Chapter Seven: It’s About to Get Loud; Your Journey to Domination Starts Here
• Chapter Eight: More Road Work Ahead
• Chapter Nine: Using Noise Cubed as Your New GPS
• Chapter Ten: Tools to Lighten Your Load and Simplify Your Journey
• Chapter Eleven: Say What You Do. Do What You Say. Start Here.
• Chapter Twelve: Behold the Indefensible Weapons of Mass Attraction
• Chapter Thirteen: Grab Your Helmet (and Cape) and Rally the Troops. It’s Time to Fly.
• Chapter Fourteen: You’ll Know Noise Cubed Is Working for You When . . .
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Index
• Copyright