How to Be a Market Maker
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Transcript of How to Be a Market Maker
ICROSSING POV:
HOW TO BE A MARKET MAKERWritten by David Deal, Vice President, Marketing, iCrossing
February 2013
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Do you aspire to be a successful marketer, or do you want to be a market maker ?You can be a successful marketer by executing all the marketing fundamentals professionally – launching websites that reflect your brand, responding to your customers, and being present on all the right social spaces. Market makers do all those activities, but they strive to do something else: inspire people to act, to believe, and to live their lives differently. Marketers sell things; market makers change the world. One type of market maker, known as a creator, inspires action by developing products and services that reflect a personal vision, as Steve Jobs and Body Shop founder Anita Roddick did. A second type, known as a catalyst, inspires by curating and sharing ideas of other people, as exemplified by the careers of author Guy Kawasaki and Ahmet Ertegun, who founded Atlantic Records. But you don't need to unleash the iPad or be a best-selling author to be a market maker. You just need to develop traits such as having passion and a willingness to take some risk in your life. This point of view discusses inspirational market makers and shows you how you can act like one.
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"I found the inspiration to be a market maker from an unlikely source: Cornflakes with John Lennon..."
I found the inspiration to be a market maker from an unlikely source: Cornflakes with John Lennon, an episodic memoir written in 2009 by acclaimed rock critic Robert Hilburn. As he reflects on his career rubbing elbows with the likes of John Lennon and Bob Dylan, Hilburn explores the difference between a professional rock star and a true artist. Here is how Hilburn makes the distinction between professionals and artists:
Much of what we call popular music, whatever the specific genre,
results from hollow professionalism – the sound of musicians and record
producers pretty much working within the conventional boundaries of the
day, recycling whatever ideas and styles are most likely to sell records ...
The most extreme pretend pop is the whole American Idol phenomenon.
The memorable artists help us explore our emotions, either through their
intense originality or by looking bravely at their own deepest fears and
grandest dreams.
To be a true artist, he writes, "You need enormous talent, fierce ambition,
an original vision, and an unyielding toughness."
Substitute the phrase “market maker” for artist, and you get what I’m driving
at. I believe marketers can elevate themselves to the role of market maker by
bringing our own personal imprints to what we do. Steve Jobs, Guy Kawasaki,
Anita Roddick, and Ahmet Ertegun are four shining examples.
Artists Who Inspire
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Steve Jobs is the kind of market maker we might call a creator. Creators are directly involved in the development of products and services for a company. Creators have a vision for how the world should work and are bold enough to impose that vision on those around them through the products and services they develop.
By now Jobs's life is so well known it plays like the plot of a movie we've
all seen hundreds of times (and, of course, we'll soon be able to see a real
movie about him): his explosive early years at Apple, when his company introduced a new vision for fusing design, user
experience, and computing; the exile from Apple, when he founded the revolutionary Pixar Animation; and his glorious
second act as CEO of Apple, when the company completely disrupted industries ranging from music to telecommunications
by introducing wave upon wave of innovative mobile devices that changed how we consume content.
Throughout his storied career, Jobs, more than anyone, humanized technology. So great was his impact on popular
culture, that upon his death, his image graced the covers of publications ranging from The New Yorker to Rolling Stone.
Macs came along when personal computers were widely perceived as the province of a nerdy few. Apple did something
that still seems astounding: turned an impersonal computing device into something warm and desirable. (My family
still owns our clamshell iMac from the late 1990s – even though we don't use it anymore, we just love having it around
because with its sleek cover and aqua green finish, it looks like a piece of art. With the iPad, Apple essentially made a
computing device a natural extension of our sense of touch. The iPhone transformed the mobile phone from a boring
utility to a playful toy that we can't do without. In fact, half of all Americans now say we sleep next to our mobile phones.
And of course Apple helped disrupt the entire music industry through
iTunes and the iPod – liberating music from the limits of analog
and empowering consumers to make music part of their mobile
lifestyles. As Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times wrote,
"With Apple's iTunes and iPod, [Steve Jobs] revived the
single, put music libraries in fans' pockets and posed a
challenge to brick-and-mortar record stores and radio."
Record companies, betting on the long-term success of the
compact disc, failed to respond to how Apple was helping
to turn consumers from album aficionados to snackers
of individual digital downloads. The music industry is still
trying to catch up.
Jobs’s legacy at Apple is so astonishing that it's easy to
overlook what he accomplished by founding and developing
Pixar. Pixar would eventually do far more than create high-
quality blockbuster entertainment. Pixar changed movie making.
Pixar movies taught Hollywood how to gracefully fuse technology,
Creator: Steve Jobs
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humanity, and storytelling. The Pixar team created movies that somehow turned animated objects like toy cowboys into
fully realized characters injected with humanity. In doing so, Pixar made it cool for anyone to enjoy a family film: single gay
male urbanites, suburban parents, children, teens too self-consciously hip for Bambi – to name but a few demographics.
Pixar has touched. Pixar launched animated movies that children can enjoy again as fully-grown adults – and that adults
can enjoy for the first time without children in tow. By contrast, even Disney classics like Snow White and Pinocchio are
forever remembered as animated family movies that children appreciate the most.
Watch Steve Jobs deliver the 2005
Stanford commencement address >
As Brent Schlender wrote in a Fast Company recollection of Steve Jobs,
Pixar upended the entire business model of animation. Although Jobs's
contributions to Pixar were more financial than creative, the company
succeeded because Jobs recognized that at its core, Pixar is a content
company, not a creator of computer animation.
But market makers don't always bankroll visionary companies or launch new
products. As a onetime Apple employee named Guy Kawasaki demonstrates,
you can also influence behavior by acting as a catalyst for someone else's
creations.
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Guy Kawasaki is the market maker as catalyst. Catalysts make their mark by unearthing original ideas that someone else created and using their influence to expose those ideas to a broader audience.
Kawasaki taught everyday people how to become marketers. And now he's
acting as a sort of Stephen Covey or Dale Carnegie for the digital era by
showing marketers how to influence others by injecting everyday values
into their work. If you've ever Liked a Facebook page to support a brand,
contributed to a program like My Starbucks Idea, or given a shout-out to
your favorite restaurant on Yelp out of your sheer love for the place, you're practicing the kind of consumer evangelism
that Kawasaki helped popularize.
Kawasaki cut his teeth in the business world working for a jewelry company "counting diamonds and schlepping gold
jewelry around the world," as he told the New York Times. In the jewelry industry, he learned how to sell and "how to
take care of your customers." He would really make his mark from 1983 to 1987 when he joined Apple and became
chief evangelist for the Macintosh computer, a role that entailed him convincing technologists to write software for Mac
products and to convince others to start using Macs.
His mandate from Steve Jobs was, "Get me the best collection of
software in the personal computer business," as he would write
in Selling the Dream: How to Promote Your Product, Company, or
Ideas – and Make a Difference – Using Everyday Evangelism in 1991.
After Apple introduced the Macintosh via an iconic Super Bowl ad
in January 1984, "Initially many people condemned Macintosh and
Apple as losers," he wrote. "Macintosh didn't have software. It was
cute and easy to use but flaccid. It was a joke computer from a joke
company." Kawasaki's job (and that of the evangelists who preceded
him) was to popularize the Macintosh. Here's how he did it:
The software evangelists did more than convince developers to write Macintosh software. They sold the Macintosh
Dream. The software developers who bought into the Dream (and only some did) created products that changed
Macintosh's principal weakness – a lack of software – into its greatest strength – the best collection of software for
any personal computer.
When IBM attempted to unseat Apple with its PCjr personal computer, IBM failed miserably. According to Kawasaki, IBM
failed because it sold a product, whereas Apple "evangelized a dream of improving people's productivity and creativity."
Catalyst: Guy Kawasaki
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As Kawasaki is the first to tell you, he did not create the title of marketing evangelist. (The title existed before he joined
Apple.) But he certainly defined evangelism through practical application, and in doing so he learned the difference between
evangelism and sales. He would later make the distinction this way: "Sales is rooted in what's good for me. Evangelism
is rooted in what's good for you." And Apple's success, rooted in a loyal following among passionate user groups, was a
testament to his work.
Kawasaki became a public figure after he started teaching others about the art of evangelism by speaking, and writing
best-selling books such as the aforementioned Selling the Dream, in which he put a stake in the ground by defining
evangelism in ambitious terms:
Watch Guy Kawasaki discuss the art
of enchantment >
Evangelism is the process of convincing people to believe in your
product or idea as much as you do. It means selling your dream by
using fervor, zeal, guts, and cunning.
He was an early adopter of digital, using a popular blog, How to Change the
World, as a launching pad to build a brand via social media (although he would
later turn his attention away from blogging and focus on using platforms like
Google Plus and Twitter to share content via social media).
Throughout his career, Kawasaki has epitomized the role of idea curator. As
a founding member of Garage Ventures, he's seeded start-ups. He launched
Alltop, an online newsstand that curates best social media and news on the
web. If idea curators are "the new superheros of the Web" in the words of Fast
Company, then surely he's the first of the great superheroes. Here's how he
describes his role in his ebook, What the Plus: Google+ for the Rest of Us:
By necessity I became a curator, which means that I find good stuff
and point people to it. Curating is a valuable skill because there is an
abundance of good content but many people don’t have the time to
find it. The best curators find things before anyone else does.
This is not to say that as a curator, Kawasaki lacks a personal vision. In his
latest book, Enchantment, he articulates a clear vision for how marketers
can build enduring relationships through our personal values and behavior.
As I wrote when I reviewed Enchantment in 2011, Guy wants marketers and
entrepreneurs to aspire for something more ambitious: changing the world
one person at a time through behavioral attributes such as trustworthiness
and likability. In other words, being a marketing evangelist starts with building
personal trust and treating other people with respect. Focus on values and
the great marketing and communication skills will follow. For instance,
communicating with clarity and brevity is not just good marketing but also
reflects deeper values of respecting other people and their time.
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Guy's personal appeal even influences his two most recent books What the
Plus and APE: How to Publish a Book. What the Plus is ostensibly an in-depth
look at the Google Plus social media platform, but he really offers a manifesto
for people to treat each other with respect on social media. He urges people
to treat their social sites as their homes and respect the sites of others as
well. APE, published in December 2012, is a guide to self-publishing, and
as you might expect, the book contains in-depth tips for how to write, edit,
design, and market a book. But whereas some pundits might focus on the
mechanics of self-publishing and marketing, Kawasaki also discusses the
importance of an author's personal behavior as a factor in helping a book
succeed. In a chapter that describes how to build a personal brand, he and
co-author Shawn Welch write, "Likeability is the second pillar of a personal
brand. Jerks seldom build great brands."
He goes on to write, "If you want people to like you, you have to like them
first. This means accepting people no matter their race, creed, net worth,
religion, gender, politics, sexual orientation, or your perception of their level
of intelligence. It means not imposing your values on others."
Kawasaki is like a Trojan Horse: you read his ideas expecting to become a
better marketer, and then he slips in thoughtful advice about how to be a
better person. He does so with credibility because he links personal likeability
and values to successful marketing.
By celebrating and promoting the talents of those around him, Guy Kawasaki
is an evangelist in more ways than one.
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A Creator as Crusader: Anita RoddickWhenever I buy a package of Archer Farms Fair Trade Tierra Del Sol
at Target, I sense Anita Roddick smiling from above. Like Steve Jobs,
the founder of the Body Shop falls in the creator category of market
making because she was directly involved in the development of a
product. But it's not her products that changed us – it was the way
she inspired consumers to buy with a conscience. With her staunch
support of fair trade and opposition to animal testing on cosmetics, she showed the world that a business
could do good and make money at the same time. When she died of Hepatitis C in 2007, Michael McCarthy
of The Independent wrote, "She did, indeed, change profoundly the way we look at the world, by changing
the way we looked at business, and seeing the scale of what that could do."
Roddick was born in a bomb shelter in England during World War II, and before
founding the Body Shop lived a free-spirited life of social activism and world
travel. She originally trained as a teacher at Bath College of Higher Education until
she "hit the hippie trail" of world travel, where she got exposure to Third World
economies and living conditions. She considered herself a social activist when
she met and married Gordon Roddick, a Scottish poet, who became her business
partner on ventures including the shaky operation of a restaurant. Her life changed
dramatically in 1976 when her husband decided to take a few years off to ride a
horse from Buenos Aires to New York.
She launched the Body Shop
in London to help support her
family while her husband was on his quixotic adventure. Her cosmetics
store was launched on a shoestring budget with zero advertising. Her vision
was to sell quality skin-care products made out of natural ingredients and
packaged in refillable containers – without the condescending hype that
characterized cosmetics (especially for women).
From the start, she embedded social responsibility into the Body Shop's
business charter. She refused to sell products that were tested on animals,
going against a standard practice of animal testing in the 1970s. And here's where she demonstrated a stroke of marketing
genius: because she lacked a marketing budget, she used her anti-animal testing stance as a way to generate PR for her
store. In doing so, she quickly developed a base of customers who agreed with her views. "Her cruelty-free cosmetics sold
like hot cakes," wrote McCarthy in The Independent. "She may have stumbled upon the notion of ethical consumerism, but
she made two discoveries about it: it was great for business, and it could enable business to change society."
Watch Anita Roddick tell her
inspirational story >
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As the Body Shop grew in popularity – expanding to 20 locations in Europe and Asia by 1984 – so did the scale of her social
campaigning. In 1985, she used shop windows of her stores to promote the Greenpeace Save the Whales movement –
"the first explicit tie-in between products and causes," according to The Guardian. She and the Body Shop actively lobbied
against animal testing in other businesses, which led to the banning of testing of cosmetics on animals in Britain in 1997
(and across Europe after her death).
Her adoption of fair trade practices was nothing short of revolutionary. Instead
of buying her cosmetics ingredients at the lowest prices possible from the
commodities markets, she sourced raw products from exporters from developing
countries in order to promote their economic growth. For instance, after visiting
local farms in Nicaragua in 1998, she started importing sesame seed oil from 130
farmers in Achupa, Nicaragua, which helped the town rebuild from Hurricane
Mitch. After she learned about Amazonian tribes protesting against a hydroelectric
project that would have flooded their lands, she agreed to buy Brazil nuts (used
to make moisturizers and conditioners), which created revenue that the tribes
needed to protect their lands.
Had Roddick been performing pure acts of charity in her trade practices, the Body Shop would have become a charming
story about doing good but nothing more. The reason her fair trade practices spread to other businesses is that the Body
Shop flourished because of them. Because Roddick cleverly and loudly drew attention to her practices, she attracted
consumers who felt that buying her products contributed to a greater good. Owning a Body Shop skin moisturizer meant
helping to protect a rainforest in Brazil.
Eventually, so many businesses would become interested in fair
trade practices that a Fairtrade International Organization would arise
in order to secure better deals for farmers and workers and certify
businesses that follow fair trade practices. What's more, Roddick
made it not just acceptable but desirable for companies ranging
from Ben & Jerry's to Starbucks to espouse practices of corporate
social responsibility as part of their business growth models. Today
her spirit lives on through the growth of the B Corps movement in
the United States, through which corporations such as Patagonia are
certified for adhering to best practices in corporate accountability.
For instance, one of the reasons Ben & Jerry's was certified as a B
Corp member is that the company devotes nearly half of its cost of
goods sold to helping smaller suppliers.
The Body Shop would eventually expand to more than 2,600 locations globally and generate about $1 billion in annual
revenue, and Roddick remained a passionate activist to her last days. After being diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2004, she
became an active lobbyist for public funding to stop the disease – which was just one of many causes she championed.
Guy Kawasaki would characterize her as "the quintessential evangelist" – selling not just a product, but also a dream for
making the world better.
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The Catalyst as Taste Maker: Ahmet ErtegunWhat do you have on your Spotify playlist right now? Chances
are that Ahmet Ertegun had a hand influencing the music you've
chosen. As founder and president of Atlantic Records, Ertegun
signed and nurtured musicians who shaped the sound of modern
popular music, ranging from Ray Charles to Led Zeppelin. I initially
thought of him as a catalyst when I began researching this white
paper. But in fact, He is a most fascinating mix of catalyst and creator. He had enough musical talent to
write one of the first hits recorded by Ray Charles, "Mess Around," which was important to the development
of modern soul, and he was in the studio singing and helping to produce the song "Shake, Rattle, and Roll,"
an enormously important song that helped launch modern rock. But he himself understood that his real
talent was not being a musician but finding and developing them.
The son of the Republic of Turkey's first ambassador to the United States, Ertegun
developed a passion for jazz early on, assembling a huge collection of jazz records and
traveling to Harlem and New Orleans (something sons of ambassadors in the 1940s just
did not do) to find musicians he discovered on wax. In 1947, he founded Atlantic Records
with Herb Abramson. He had zero business experience but possessed passion and
determination to uncover great music. Robert Greenfield's eminently readable biography of
Ertegun, The Last Sultan, recounts how in the early days of Atlantic Records, Ertegun and
his business partner borrowed a car and crisscrossed the "crowded, smoke-filled juke joints
and roadside honky-tonks in the Deep South where the smell of spilled whiskey and beer
and the overwhelming funk of sweating bodies on the dance floor made it hard even to breathe." They trudged through
muddy fields to segregated sections of town to uncover musicians like Blind Willie McTell, Professor Longhair, and Ruth
Brown. They developed a network of scouts in clubs and concert halls in major cities, too.
One of his artists was Ray Charles, who, under Ertegun's tutelage in 1953, launched
the genre of music we now know as soul through his song, "I Got a Woman." During
that pivotal year, Ertegun and Jerry Wexler helped an artist named Big Joe Turner cut
a song, "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," that is generally regarded as the precursor of rock.
Writes Greenfield, "In the short space of six months, Atlantic had released two songs
that would define the future of the record business in America. 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'
helped begin rock and roll. 'I Got a Woman' established soul.” Atlantic, under Ertegun's
leadership, played a phenomenal role in desegregating American popular music.
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Throughout his career, Ertegun would have an active hand in developing and promoting the careers of musical giants
across several genres. In the 1970s, Atlantic rescued the Rolling Stones from the brink of financial bankruptcy and
elevated the band to mainstream cultural icons. His personal commitment to Led Zeppelin – not only signing them to
Atlantic but hanging out with the band all night amid post-concert backstage debauchery – helped propel a band that
dominated and influenced modern hard rock. When he died after tripping and hitting his head backstage at a Rolling
Stones concert in 2006, his loss was so widely felt in the music world that Led Zeppelin eventually reunited after 25 years
to play a benefit concert in his honor.
Watch Ahmet Ertegun's
induction into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1987 >
Ahmet Ertegun's greatest gift to music was his eye for talent and the will to
mold that talent into wildly popular music that broke through different genres.
He and legendary Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler "could hear the
talent in its rawest form before even the talent knew what it wanted to do."
But he did more than find talent – he shaped it. He played the music of Bessie
Smith and Ma Rainey for Ruth Brown to teach her blues and develop her
singing style. He actively collaborated with Ray Charles in the studio in 1953
and pushed him until Charles found his break-through with "I Got a Woman."
An important distinction needs to be made: he was not a tastemaker or
molder of talent just because he loved music and he wanted to make a ton
of money (although music and the creature comforts that come with wealth
were important to him): he loved his artists. As Neil Young said at a tribute
to Ertegun held in 2007: "Ahmet was our man. I just hope today's musicians
have someone like Ahmet taking care of them."
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The Five Traits of Market MakersA Turkish jazz freak who launched the world's most memorable recording artists. A globe-trotting hippie who
taught big business how to do good for the world. A visionary who humanized technology. And a passionate
venture capitalist who has energized everyday people to become evangelists. What do they all have in common?
Five traits stand out – traits that any of us can cultivate: passion, having a personal north star, an ability to
surround themselves with talent, personal eclecticism, and risk taking.
PassionSteve Jobs best exemplifies a trait common to all market marketers: a burning passion.
Steve Jobs "put passion into products," noted James B. Stewart in one of the many
heart-felt tributes to Jobs written in the aftermath of his death in 2011. In his acclaimed
biography, Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson describes the moment when Jobs unveiled
iTunes to jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who turned out to be an indifferent audience:
"Watch what it can do!" Jobs kept insisting when Marsalis's attention would wander. "See
how the interface works." Marsalis later recalled, "I don't care much about computers,
and kept telling him so, but he goes on for two hours. He was a man possessed. After a
while, I started looking at him and not the computer, because I was so fascinated with
his passion."
Isaacson also recounts the time Jobs decided to make a major overhaul to the design of the iPhone as the project neared
completion, telling designer Jonathan Ive that "'I didn't sleep last night because I realized that I just don't love it' ... Ive, to his
dismay, instantly realized Jobs was right."
In fact, Jobs expressed his passion for design in every aspect of his life. He personally supervised the construction of an old-
fashioned brick factory-style building for Pixar, and according to Brent Schlender, if the colors of the custom-made bricks
were not distributed evenly enough, Jobs made the bricklayers tear apart the bricks and start over. (But those exacting
standards also had a down side. When people failed to live up to what he wanted, he could be brutal and insufferable, as you
can read in Ben Austin's Wired August 2012 cover piece, "Do You Really Want to Be Like Steve Jobs?".)
All the market makers profiled in this white paper demonstrate passion. Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, was
passionate about human rights, and, in particular, women's rights. The entire premise behind the Body Shop was selling
cosmetics without sexism and eschewing the cult of youth. Guy Kawasaki is passionate about injecting enchanting values
and practices in the work place – and if you've ever worked with him, you know he has an equally strong zeal for clear, simple
communication. Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records, was so passionate about music that he sometimes lived in
the studio with the artists on his label.
A Strong North StarAll market makers possess a strong north star – a raison d'être, or a reason for being. In other words, they all stand for
something. Steve Jobs stands for brilliant design and innovation. Guy Kawasaki stands for consumer evangelism. Anita
Roddick symbolizes ethical consumerism. Ahmet Ertegun is the consummate music man (by contrast, music impresario
David Geffen was renown more for his business acumen when he created Asylum Records and Geffen Records in the 1970s).
Sometimes the raison d'être takes time to reveal itself, which was certainly true of Guy Kawasaki. "I was never told, 'OK, you
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go get XYZ to write software, and they in turn will get more customers to buy your software and buy Macs'," he said in an
interview with Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell. "We never thought it through that much. That's what happened, but that was
not the plan." Similarly, Anita Roddick once famously said about the early days of the Body Shop, "We recycled everything,
not because we were environmentally friendly but because we didn't have enough bottles. It was a good idea. What was
unique about it, with no intent at all, no marketing nous, was that it translated across cultures, across geographical barriers
and social structures. It wasn't a sophisticated plan, it just happened like that."
By contrast, Jobs and Ertegun seemingly revealed from Day One, long before they even became famous. But all four of our
market makers have made their marks.
An Ability to Surround Yourself with TalentGuy Kawasaki exemplifies another trait common to market makers: they surround
themselves with talent. Consider Enchantment: in each chapter, he invites guest
authors to provide their own personal stories of enchanted marketing, which
makes his book more collaborative and genuine. Similarly, What the Plus! relies
on guest authors for some key chapters. Similarly, Steve Jobs was surrounded by
enormous talent, people who became famous in their own right – superstars like
John Lasseter at Pixar, Jonathan Ive at Apple, and Guy Kawasaki himself. Atlantic
Records succeeded not because of Ahmet Ertegun alone, but because of Ertegun and visionaries like Jerry Wexler, Tom
Dowd, and Herb Abramson. Anita Roddick might have been the face of the Body Shop, but the brand would not have
succeeded without the talents of its anonymous network of franchise operators.
Living an Eclectic LifeAnita Roddick personifies a third major characteristic of market makers: they are
eclectic people with many interests beyond their careers. She was a world traveler,
environmentalist, and activist long before the Body Shop came along, and she remained
actively involved in many causes such as Children on the Edge, an organization she
founded. Guy Kawasaki is a successful writer, speaker, and venture capitalist – oh, and
an active family man and a self-described hockey addict. The clean and simple design of
Apple's legendary products reflected Steve Jobs's personal interests in Buddhism, and
iTunes was a direct reflection of his love of music. Ahmet Ertegun was one of the founders of the New York Cosmos soccer
team when he wasn't busy running Atlantic Records. The success of market makers in business reflects a natural curiosity to
learn and experience the world around them.
Taking RisksAhmet Ertegun was a market maker in the truest sense of the word. He was also a risk taker –
and a willingness to take risks is the fourth major attribute of market makers. Market makers are
willing to try and fail. Founding a pop record company in the 1940s was in fact an enormous risk:
there were no rules, no best practices, and no mentors from which to learn. When Ertegun and his
business partners attempted to get the business off the ground in its early days, Ertegun nearly
went broke, and Atlantic nearly went out of business. And we all know about the risks that Steve
Jobs took, not all of which worked, such as the NeXT. The Body Shop had no reason to succeed:
Anita Roddick had zero business experience and was taking on a well-entrenched industry. Guy
Kawasaki left the comforts of Apple to essentially create his own brand. Their willingness to risk
reflects their ability to dream.
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How You Can Be a Market MakerYou can inject the spirit of the market maker in your own job, every day, by finding ways to challenge people to think differently and, as Guy Kawasaki implores, make their lives better. Here are four ways:
1. Get involved in product developmentInserting yourself in product (or service) development means more than creating the right message or marketing program to
execute. I mean actually getting involved in the process of developing the product or service: doing the research into the wants
and needs of the customer and asking bold questions such as, How can we truly make a difference in our customer's life?
Tools exist to help you do so – for instance, user personas, popularized by Forrester Research to help you create customer
profiles, or linguistic profiles, created by iCrossing to understand consumer wants and needs based on their search needs.
Becoming the owner of audience insight inside your organization (or business unit, or department) is key. It does not matter
whether you sell ice cream cones or professional services: you can find a way to influence people – to really have an impact
on their lives – starting with understanding your audience and figuring out how to make their lives better.
2. Be a thought leaderAnother effective way to be a marketer maker is to become a publisher of your own vision, which is what thought leadership
is all about.
The explosion of social publishing platforms – Wordpress and Tumblr, to name a few – make it possible for you to create your
own imprint with practically zero barrier to entry. (Blogging is the route I've chosen.) If you don't fancy yourself a writer, then
express your vision with sight and sound – that's why Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube exist.
You can also work through your employer's own social media and thought leadership
programs – and I assume any enlightened company has one now. Contribute to your
company blog and let your community manager handle the heavy lifting. Nominate
yourself as a speaker for SXSW and other events.
Embracing the role of thought leader means being bold enough to leave a personal
imprint on everything you do through your vision and ideas, even when you are not
publishing white papers or delivering speeches. For instance, years ago, I was in
charge of creating the agenda and managing a meeting of creative account teams
for a services firm. Running an event is a hard job, but you can wield enormous influence through the role. For me, exerting
influence meant shaking up the agenda by bringing in successful producer and musician Dave Stewart to appear. The choice
of Dave Stewart reflected my personal belief that creativity and fresh ideas were shaping the future of digital advertising. In
a session that was jarring, shocking, and never boring, Stewart showed everyone in the audience what the creative process
looks like from the inside out and challenged everyone in the room to think differently about their jobs.
Dave Stewart was the kind of speaker who creates discomfort. The staid marketers and even the more forward-thinking
creative types listened in stunned silence at times as Dave shared with us some of the more controversial work he's done. I
knew I was on to something with Dave after the presentation when attendees walked up to me and almost unanimously said,
"He made me think." A market maker should provide an experience that makes you think.
16© ICROSSING, INC., A HEARST COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
3. Be a social catalystIf you flat-out lack the time and energy to be a thought leader,
then you can still play the role of catalyst by empowering other
people – your fellow employees – to inject fresh ideas in your
company. Social media has given rise to a new era of employee
empowerment. You can become a powerful catalyst by helping
your employees to unleash their ideas as Guy Kawasaki does.
Even with the advent of social media, most major companies view
branding as the province of the top executives and the marketing
team, never to be really trusted in the hands of rank-and-file
employees. But as Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research wrote in his
book Empowered, companies like Best Buy are waking up to the power of their own employees to represent their brands and
are giving them tools to do it. Among the best corporate social catalysts are Intel's Ekaterina Walter and Ford's Scott Monty,
who have used their positions as social evangelists to open up the cultures of the companies they represent. (That's exactly
what I've been asked to do at iCrossing, and as I explained to PSFK in 2011, I'm excited and energized to be playing a role
in the change occurring across many industries.)
Being a social catalyst is not a mysterious process. Again, tools exist to help you – such as social media guidelines and
strategies (which you should assign yourself to create). Many of those tools can be found for free across the social world.
For instance, here is a link to iCrossing's. And here are 200 more from other organizations. Go ahead. Download and adapt
them for your needs.
4. Have a north starWhat do you stand for – better yet, what do you want to stand for personally? Great
leadership? Innovation? The most creative idea person anyone has ever seen? Having a
north star is often known as personal branding.
My personal brand comes down to the power of writing. My job has many facets –
developing relationships with influencers, social media, managing a relationship with one
of the world's great music moguls, and creating thought leadership among them – but
when I die, I want to be remembered for being passionate about writing. I live for writing
like no other part of my job. And I make it a priority to help everyone I work with become
better writers. If I can help you be a better writer, I'm having an impact on you that goes
beyond selling a product or service.
Having a personal north star is not the same as being a social catalyst or thought leader.
Steve Jobs believed in the power of elegant, simple design. He imposed his beliefs by
building and running companies, not by publishing books or writing social media guidelines. But not everyone is Steve Jobs.
You and I can make our north stars shine more brightly when we embrace thought leadership and empower others to unleash
their ideas.
Your personal brand can be aligned with your corporate brand. iCrossing CMO Tari Haro embraces "connectedness"
(developing close relationships with others) as both her personal mission and iCrossing's. "I believe in the power of
connectedness," she states simply on the iCrossing website. What is your north star?
17© ICROSSING, INC., A HEARST COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Market Makers Hall of Fame
Jeff BezosHas completely disrupted industries ranging from retailing to publishing
Ahmet ErtegunInfluenced the face of popular music
Phil Knight"Just Do It" made personal achievement cool for everyone; helped launch modern-day cult of sports celebrity
Anita RoddickLaunched capitalism with a conscience
Sir Richard BransonAnyone who can make flying on an airplane sexy belongs on this list
Steve JobsEmbedded technology in just about every aspect of our lives
MadonnaShaped the look and style of the MTV Generation – and constantly reinvents herself
Oprah WinfreyHer Book Club was the ultimate taste maker
Walt DisneyInvented family entertainment
Guy KawasakiHelped turn consumers into marketers
Jim MurphyMade technology sexy to CMOs
Mark ZuckerbergHas helped redefined how we socialize
18© ICROSSING, INC., A HEARST COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Find Your GodsI encourage you read Corn Flakes with John Lennon, but if you lack the time, at least review the section, "Some of the
Superficial Artists," where Hilburn discusses Bob Dylan's three ways of categorizing artists: "the natural performer, who does
the best they can within their limits onstage; the superficial performer, who shouldn't be on stage in the first place because
they've got nothing original to tell you; and the supernatural artist, who, in Bob's words, 'is the kind that digs deep and the
deeper they go, the more gods they'll find.'"
You can be an outstanding professional and remain squarely in the realm of the superficial for the rest of your life. Or you can
develop a personal vision and commitment to change other people. You can be a market maker.
The choice is yours.