Community Discussion - What does becoming a 10x brand mean for you/your business/your clients?

[Christy-Correll]

This week on The Moz Blog, Eric Enge wrote about Why You Must Become a 10x Brand. In the post, he said:

"You need to be in-demand. If some channel does not make it easy to find you, you need people to miss you. That's why you must behave like an authentic, engaged member of the overall community. Having a great product or service will be a requirement, but that's just table stakes—you need to be a 10x brand."

I'd love to know what you think about this statement. In particular, I would love to hear your answers to the following questions:

• What does becoming a 10x brand mean for you, your business, or your clients?
• What does this look like in small business, medium business, large/huge businesses?
• Is it an easier process for any one of these categories, and how would you go about it?

I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this topic, folks. Don't be shy, let's discuss.

[LearnInternetGrow]

To bring the 10x concept to a macro level, it's about being better than you were and looking at others to learn about what you can do to be better.

Evolve as a person, as a brand, or an organization.

It's about putting in time, care, and thought into something. It's about attention to detail. It's about investing into your end product. Whatever that may be, whether it’s a piece of content (like this answer to a discussion question), a service, a product, or an experience.

That way you can stand behind it.

However, the larger a company grows the harder it is to_have accountability_.

• · If you have a chat box on your site, it's about responding right away.
• · If you have a phone number on the site, it's about answering in a professional manner.
• · If your client has a question, is about answering or following up with the correct answer.
• · If you have a product or service it means going through the user experience and asking yourself where it can be better.

Mostly**, it's common sense**, the main problem with it is that many organizations don't assign anyone with real quality assurance, you know, common sense thinking, instead they task them with specific orders and give them limited authority to act on problems. (Mainly from my corporate experience, although I’m sure others have had this impression of huge conglomerates)

Really, it's the idea baked into theheart of capitalism. If you don't become better you will founder, then run out of money, than dissolve. Do you feel bad for those that dissolve, you shouldn’t, they deserve it, it’s called survival of the fittest.

Some brands have no hope because they are generally disliked, good luck becoming a 10x brand when you are in the business of telecommunications, insurance, or banking because you are already disliked. These organizations have become large and unwieldy and have created a lot of ill-will in the community, for themselves and their industries as a whole.

Who likes calling their communications tech provider, insurance, or bank?. These experiences are often characterized with ridiculous and frustrating automated menus that ask you to type in long account numbers only to have the rep ask you again. They reroute you to wrong departments, and sometimes just hang up, why... no accountability.

Too often customer service representative in these industries don't have access to the info needed by the client and the decision makers are off limits for questioning. These industries are very large and un-capitalistic due to the barriers to entry and government complicity.

Hint: Government regulations could enforce morality and ethics in business but have been largely coopted by the organizations that they are supposed to regulate.

Other industries that have low barriers to entry (real competition) are the places where brands can evolve. They can have honest and meaningful conversations with their clients and prospects, and find out what they want.

Sometimes you want to be better but don't know how. The answer - ask those you serve.

Comcast has never called me asking "What do you wish would change about Comcast?" - They aren't in the position to do this. There is no one at the company who actually cares about client satisfaction. They will try to please you if you are calling to cancel or if you are looking for service but once you are in a contract, they treat you like a second class citizen.

At that point, what do they care about your satisfaction, they have you on a contract and they have your money. Hopefully, you spotted the trick, they should care. Why, because it’s called lifetime value of a customer. When Google Fiber comes around to Chicago (I’m not holding my breath), I won’t feel the least bit bad about switching.

As soon as that contract is up, I will look to the ends of the earth to avoid doing business with a company like that, but sometimes, it’s the quality of internet speed, or the price of a product that is the end all be all decision parameter.

Like in the Amazon example, people will hassle a company for answers and then turn around and give their money to Amazon. It’s unfortunate, but it’s what we deserve as a society if those are our ethics.

Like food and consumer products, you have to pay for quality. If you expect good customer service you will have to pay a bit more. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Being a 10x brand is only possible in industries characterized by flexibility and highly adaptive environments. If you sell manufacturing equipment, and you can’t compete on price, find a way to communicate the value of after the sale support, and really deliver.

If you provide a web based accounting service there are many ways to improve your offer with things like free training and access to knowledge.

You may have noticed that I am using this medium to vent a bit but I hope that my examples are useful when discussing the idea of customer satisfaction and what it really means.

A 10x brand will bend over backwards to make you happy, but at the same time, they shouldn’t break their backs to satisfy their competitors clients.

A 10x brand makes an offer for a product or service that you didn’t know you need but now can’t live without. Maybe you didn’t even know it could exist. Many of the most popular emerging brands are rising to stardom due to new functionality and technology.

Thank you for the discussion idea. Please let me know your thoughts about my somewhat cynical post, I would love to turn this into a conversation.

[EGOL]

Thanks Joe,

I have a site like HappyJoe's.  We do have all of those articles on the site and they pull in most of the traffic.  We run adsense on those pages using the DoubleClick ad server and have blocked all of the direct competitor vendor ads from showing.  We know the conversion rate and average sale in the "store" portion of the site.  That allows us to price house ads to compete with adsense for visibility.  Most of the conversions enter the site through longtail traffic landing on information pages.  Very few enter the site where we compete with the big retailers because we rank below them.  We make good money from adsense but not enough to support our staff and overhead.  So we need the retail sales and get lots of them because we sell consumables.

We get lots of email messages saying... you guys have the best website and the most information.  I would like to buy from you but Amazon has free shipping or is $7 cheaper.  We tell them that we are here to answer their questions and help them by phone if they buy from us.  If they buy from Amazon they are still invited to use our website and we will still answer their email questions, usually with a link to an article, so just look for the article that you need.  We get some of those customers but most buy from Amazon.

Some people cuss at us because we don't have a phone number for tech support on our website, or because we don't modify machines for them, or sell them half of a machine that they trashed after not learning how to use it.  But, they would never think of treating amazon that way.  They know that is the biz model of the big retailers, but they expect HappyJoe to stand on his head and juggle fire sticks for them.  

Maybe if they have no one else, they have to.

After people spend hundreds of dollars on a machine and they can't get it to work, there is no way to get help from amazon and the manufacturer will not reply to them they can get desparate and nasty.  They write telling us that they bought it from our site but we have no record of them.  If they bought it from us and needed a belt or a bolt we would send it right away for free.  We send them a link to an article that solves their problem and they don't like it.

[Joe.Robison]

EGOL - awesome example, and I think it perfectly applies to many many industries, especially ecommerce. It has a bit of a pessimistic outlook at the end, but that's the reality for many online brands who are juggling too many tasks to try to beat, or even compete with, the mega retailers.

What I was imagining you would head towards was that HappyJoe realizes that Google doesn't reward him for his 10x customer support, so after he shuts off his phone he moves the hundreds of questions and answers to his website to create 10x content out of it, and he lives happily ever after.

You might have experience with a similar client but I'd be surprised if someone bought the drill from Amazon and then called HappyJoe for support. Maybe if they have no one else, they have to. At the end of the day if Google wouldn't recognize him being a helpful guy, he needs to build out a massive online help and support center with tons of training docs and videos, right?

[EGOL]

I really like the 10X concept.  I think that it is great and everyone should keep it in mind.

I think though for economic reasons, you can't sink resources into being 10X in every facet of your business because the cost of doing that is way too high.  If you can pull off 2X or 3X, I think it will have the same impact.

Let's compare Amazon.com to HappyJoeDrillPress.com.   Amazon stomps HappyJoe on price and on free shipping. Everybody knows that almost nobody beats Amazon there.

HappyJoe has more content on his website than all of his competitors and even the manufactures combined.  His customer ratings are 4.8 stars out of five.  He has articles that rate each of the different brands and models of drill presses.  He has articles and videos that tell you how to select them, how to use them, how to increase productivity in assembly line work, how to repair them.  He sells all of the supplies and repair parts that you will ever need.  If you have a problem you can email and get a carefully considered reply from HappyJoe himself. If you buy a drill press from HappyJoe you get a phone number that you can call if you have a problem.  If a part on your drill press fails a few months after purchasing you call HappyJoe and he will send a part to you without cost (was manufacturer's fault and not covered by their warranty but HappyJoe takes care of you - that's because he is HappyJoe).

HappyJoe has a carefully optimized website and all of that content that he wrote rules the entire longtail of the drill press niche.  Nobody beats him for advice, fix it, how to, or other customer service queries.

So, Amazon is 10X on price and free shipping (they get crap marks for carefully packing your drill press, they ship it in the retail store box) but HappyJoe boxes each one carefully because he wants you to get a good one).

HappyJoe is 10x on content, 10x on offering free expertise by email and by phone, 10x on  service, 10x on being a great guy.  HappyJoe also pays his workers fair wages and respects his suppliers.

Now how do these companies compete in the SERPs?

HappyJoe owns the longtail.  Amazon, WalMart and two manufacturers rank #1 #2 #3 and #4 on the purchase intent SERPs because they are Billion Dollar Companies that Google thinks should rank up there because people would miss 'em if they were gone.  HappyJoe fights it out with HarborFreight and DrillPressesRus.com for #5 #6 or #7.   HF and DPRus have no content, you can't call them for help so, HappyJoe by default becomes unpaid customer service department for Amazon, WalMart, manufacturers, HF and DPRus, so he stops taking phone calls (just like these other guys) but still has all of that content and gives email replies to anybody and phone consultations from his paying customers).

Google just doesn't recognize the person in this space who is an expert, and a good guy, and the person who is doing all of the customer service work for everybody everywhere on every drill press topic.

HappyJoe does have a few fans who buy from him no matter what.  But he would sell 10X as much if Google ranked him in a position that reflected his position as an expert and good guy.

So, when you decide to become a 10X company, you have to decide where you are going to be 10X because you can't be 10X for everything.  HappyJoe knows that he can't charge lowest prices and he doesn't have a distribution center in every state.  But HappyJoe decided to be 10X in treating people right, and being helpful.   He is doing OK today, but that might not be enough tomorrow when the first page of the SERPs is five adwords ads and three big retailers and two manufacturers.... and when he becomes unpaid customer service for five more companies who sell drill presses but don't know a damn thing about 'em.

[Joe.Robison]

In response to the part about "you need people to miss you", a good example would be the owner of a small quaint Italian restaurant in your neighborhood that everyone loves. The owner moved to your 2nd rate smallish big city from Italy 10 years ago and just loves what he produces and his customers. He's constantly making the rounds every night complimenting, talking to, and cracking jokes with customers. When he's not around people miss him. He has a distinct opinion and perspective, and that's why people keep coming back.

Scaling this up and broadening it out to all businesses, I think it means focusing on a specific segment of your market and putting your stake in the ground, forming an opinion, and keeping the conversation open with that segment of your customers. I mean if you read some company blogs, they're just checking the box to say they have a blog. They're not going deep and passionate and getting opinionated.

Off the top of my head, https://baremetrics.com/blog has an awesome 10x brand blog. It's opinionated, helpful and goes above and beyond. I trust http://www.thekitchn.com/advice more than I trust allrecipes.com or something generic. I love how Ian is a honey badger in his posts - https://www.portent.com/author/ian - he writes like he talks and that's way more engaging than perfectly formatting a long post.

I would view the Moz blog as going deep and connecting with the audience. Contrast that to HubSpot, while although they are volume animals, they kinda just pump out mehh content and let you find the golden nuggets.

Just a few examples so far! It's an open discussion so I don't have a proper conclusion.