Without action, all you have is a missed opportunity.

People like to say they got lucky. And sometimes, what happened was simply that, blind luck. In my experience, more often than not, it is something much more than that.

Preparation in anticipation of something happening is a big part of being lucky. If you are ready for something to happen, you know what to do the moment it shows up, right?

Similarly, we rarely know when something great is going to happen. But when it does, we can act. If opportunity doesn’t show up, we have potential, but when the opportunity presents itself, we have to be ready to act.

Why is action important? Someone prepares for a long time, and then opportunity arrives, but they stand transfixed, and take no action. Has that ever happened to you? Opportunity knocks, and you are prepared, but you are afraid to act, or hesitate just a little too much?

Action is the part missing from this quote. Opportunity and preparation without action is like standing on the dock next to you ship, as it prepares to sail away. To me, that is not a pleasant thought. I’ve let it happen to me too many times. How about you, have you let your ship sail without you?

Action is what you get when you avail yourself to the opportunity and do something. Action is where you use all the actions and all the things that you have prepared, in anticipation of the chance. Together, preparation and opportunity, with action, yield luck.

Without action, all you have is a missed opportunity. Is action starting to sound a little more important? All the preparation in the world is useless if you fail to act. Having opportunities galore is useless if you fail to act. Taking action is that important.

What is branding all about?

If you spend any time in marketing circles or reading about marketing, you will bump into the word “branding”. Branding is one of those concepts that is a bit vague, at least for the non-marketer small business owner. So today we’re going to look at “what is branding” from the small business perspective.

We’re also going to tackle the question of whether branding should matter to small businesses — or whether it’s something only large corporations should or can afford to care about.

What is Branding?

There are thousands of definitions of “branding” or just plain old “brand.” One of the best definitions of brand I’ve seen is from the Samsung. To them, a brand is “what sticks in your mind associated with a product, service, or organization — whether or not, at that particular moment, you bought or did not buy.”

That seems a good informal way to describe a company’s brand. Under that definition, many things can contribute to a brand.

Does a picture pop into your mind about a company, such as its logo or colors?  Think about the logo, such as Coca Cola — recognizable the world over, executed in its distinctive curvy script in white against red. And when you see it, do you imagine the effervescence of a Coke, the dark color or how it tastes?  All of those things may run fleetingly through your mind when you want something to drink.

Sometimes it’s not the logo but another visual that comes to mind — even packaging. For instance, I couldn’t tell you what the Tiffany logo looks like, but the instant I see the iconic Tiffany blue box, I know which company we’re talking about. Certain attributes immediately come to mind, such as high quality jewelry and luxury home goods — things no one actually needs, but so many desire.

Or perhaps it is the company’s approach to customizing its product. Mention the name Starbucks and immediately coffee comes to mind. Now, I don’t even like Starbucks coffee (too strong and burnt tasting to me) but when traveling I will always look for a Starbucks.  I know I can expect a certain level of quality. The coffee will be fresh — not a stale witches brew.

But it’s more than coffee I think of — it’s that I can get it the way I want it.  No matter where I am, Starbucks will have hot, steamed low-fat milk to cut the strength. I can ask for a Cafe Misto (the Starbucks name for cafe au lait) made half with steamed milk, and half with brewed coffee. And I will get it — even though it’s not on the menu.  Why? Because Starbucks aims to give you coffee gussied up the way you want it.

So when you ask the question “what is branding” — it is something that triggers associations in our minds.  Branding is about creating an identity. It’s what sets one company apart from another. In short, it tells us what we can expect from that company.  It’s about the perception people have of the company.

Branding (a verb) is doing those activities and communications, large and small, that create and reinforce a brand, i.e., what a company is known for.

Your branding (a noun) is all the elements that make up a brand, whether logo, packaging, colors, reputation for customer service, reputation for customizing customer orders without complaint, speed, self-serve options, low price, high quality — whatever.

To start your branding exercise today, you might want to consider placing your advertisement and write-up at JustClick.SG, Hello FM, Campus Rock and Poppy TV. You can contact them via email to justclicksg@gmail.com for a free consultation. Meanwhile, just click to check out the below digital portals.

JustClick.SG - Singapore Consumers' Choice 

http://www.justclick.sg/

Hello FM - The Listeners' Choice

http://www.hellofm.sg/

Campus Rock - The Readers' Choice

http://www.campusrock.sg/

Poppy TV - The Viewers' Choice

http://www.campusrock.sg/

Bootlicking is annoying and Bootlickers are inefficient

These crazy lickspittles are pretty annoying and they are everywhere. Unfortunately, they are the ones who come up faster than an efficient developer to an extent. But once they reach that extent, they cannot go any further from that unless some miracles happen. Inefficiency cannot be hidden or morphed for a long time – it would expose itself and manifest in several forms. One such form is bootlicking.

How to spot a bootlicker

He would act as if he is a brainless sheep and would proudly be a “yes man” to his boss. He believes bootlicking can get him to the top as he knows he would not be able to sustain due to his lack of skill. He would expect the same bootlicking behavior from his sub-ordinates towards him or his boss. He cares nothing for the quality of the product but would singularly focus on his career alone. He would take all the credits for all the work that the team does.

There would be no sense of real ownership in him. The sense of ownership and dedication according to these inefficient managers is to stay up late in the night at the workplace thereby pretending to people that they are hard working whether or not you have real work to do. They would have scanty respect to technology or code. They are first class actors who would act as if they are interested in technology and architecture. They strive to gain a name without contributing for it. Their interest and the effort stops when they get what they want – just the name. They think they are adept at sales and marketing but deep inside they know that they would suck at that.

Inefficient Managers – A horrific trend

Only a good soldier can be a good captain. Unfortunately in many organizations the manager would have been the incompetent developer who has sucked credits due to others. This leech of a person has moved up in his career through such unethical means. How do you expect such a person to be ethical in conduct ? How can you expect such a person to reward a competent developer ? How can such a leech even think about technology or be loyal to the product ? His principle of project management would be based on lies and deception. 

To his boss, he would efficiently lie about the “amazing competitiveness” of a totally incompetent developer while he will make attempts to eclipse the credits or visibility due to a highly competent developer. He would speak as though coding is unimportant and would focus more on mere gimmickry, process / methodologies or other such escape points. He would negate the product support calls and would fight to prove that a reported bug is invalid rather than fixing the problem on priority. This sort of an incompetent manager would stress more on ass-on-seat time rather than the quality of the work. He would tend to reward those who personally surrender to him or pay heed to whatever nonsense he puts forth. Being a sheep himself, he expects everyone in the team to become a sheep. And this would kill creativity and the interest of any able developer.

These managers feel that keeping quite and maintaining absolute silence is the best way to negotiate. They are silent even when asked about a problem, a risk or a due date. They cannot think on their own and require the help of a star resource to tell them all that and guess what – this star resource would later be hammered and nailed to an extent that his future in that organization would not be so interesting. The incompetent manager would strive so hard to establish the myth that the future of all other able performers are under his discretion. Also, these managers would expect their subordinates to bootlick.

Inefficiency leads to bootlicking

A star performer would focus on making his work speak. He would not pretend as if he knows and would be happy to accept when he does not know a thing or two. He would hate bootlicking and would get pissed off at pretense. These are some of the signs of an efficient developer. The bootlicker would be the opposite. There would be no sense of loyalty on the product. There would be no sense of ownership either. He would believe that bootlicking is the only way for salvation and would adhere to all the crap that the organization imposes. Well, the culture of the organization has to be followed – there is no compromise. But bootlicking is not a part of the culture in any organization. Also not suggesting changes to the existing culture is a sin by itself. 

The inefficient developer would not venture to speak out before an efficient developer for the fear of being negated. Obviously inefficiency has to be negated but that is something only an efficient manager can deal with. Inefficiency and fear to take responsibility are the two things that contributes to bootlicking. A bootlicker is not an asset to the organization. He is a dreaded liability and should be evicted from the organization. Generally inefficient bootlicker would tend to find escape points to avoid from work. And these escape points are not plugged by an inefficient manager. These people can switch loyalties once their boss goes out of power. They would not have a sense of belonging and would plague the entire team.

If you run a company or if you are a person who can decide on behalf of the company, get rid of these bootlickers at once. They are self centered criminals who do not have any basic ethics towards their work. They while away their time in an organization bootlicking their boss and pretending as if they are busy analyzing or “innovating”. There would be no outcome from these people whatsoever. Even if it is there it would be minuscule but they would expect a huge credit for a tiny contribution. Such elements are a cancer and should be eradicated at once. An organization should further take steps in preventing such cancer from recurring.