MeyerBros

i’ve been listening to an mp3 of Simon Sinek from Re:Focus giving a seminar on marketing. He talks about the ‘golden circle’ - with ‘why’ on the inside, then ‘how’ and ‘what’. the claim is most companies never get to that central why in their mission, research or marketing. the terms seem a bit fuzzy at first, but i think i’m picking up on how he uses them for each aspect.

to sumerize:

first - the organization should be defined from the inside out. the ‘why’ is your belief or philosophy. he suggests that for apple it is ‘iconoclasm’ - breaking the rules and being different. for southwest airlines it is ‘the common person’ etc. that leads to the ‘how’ - for apple it means inovative design (it just looks different) and interfaces. for southwest it means low and simple fares, and casual service (nothing elitist about it). then ‘what’ your company does is the last and least important. apple doesn’t even self define as a computer company - they can do anything and they do. small electronics? music stores? movie previews? it all fits their revolutionary image, so who cares what the product is - they do it.

in terms of marketing you go the same direction - but it’s all about your customer. not “we’re iconoclastic” but “join the music revolution”.

what does this mean for, say, New World or Meyerbros? not “high quality theatre” or “standards-compliant websites” for sure. but what is it? i’m hoping our year of long-term planning at NWA will help us out with that. I think it’s what we’ve been missing for the last several years. we talk about us, and in terms of what we offer and how we offer it. what if, at the annual meeting thursday night we didn’t say “bringing quality theatre to goshen” but we said “subvert the dominant paradigm” “stand the world on it’s head” “change the way you think” - these are the things (or some of the things) that define ‘why’ New World exists. i think that correctly reflects what the founders were aiming for as well as why i’m still there. i also think it’s what our small dedicated audience still believes we exist for - the rest of our audience just seems confused. they don’t care about theatre for it’s own sake, and certainly not about whether we are chicago-style or ‘physical’ or anything like that. and they aren’t sure what we stand for because we aren’t consistent about it. i’m not even sure we all agree on it - and i think that is key.

if people in the inside don’t buy the cause, people on the outside will never buy the cause. because it’s the employees who are making the stuff. it’s the employees who are coming up with the products. it’s the employees who are going to dinner parties and telling their friends what they do for a living… it’s got to work on the inside first… so if you’re the ceo - if you have some employees - you are the personification of the ‘why’. that’s your job.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 1:21 pm by eric and is filed under rants, marketing, startup, theatre, New World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.