Shopping for Success:
Creative usefulness as inspired by retailers

by Dale Dauten

This is a new way of looking at your work and your career, and one that will help you answer the question that gets to the heart of what makes people successful: WHAT ARE YOU FAMOUS FOR? First, here is a copy of my “Corporate Curmudgeon” newspaper column, syndicated by King Features, which ran in September, 2003.

THE CORPORATE CURMUDGEON WE’RE ALL RETAILERS BY DALE DAUTEN “The only pretty store is one full of people.” William Dillard For decades we were advised to think of ourselves as companies: the old Me, Inc. notion. Lately, however, we’re being urged to think of ourselves as brands: In the words of Tom Peters, your “…most important job is to be the marketer for the brand called You.” OK. Then what? The most famous brands in our culture are Coke and Budweiser. So what can we adopt/adapt from them? If you are an accountant, what would the “Budweiser of accountants” mean? Or the “Coca-Cola of Realtors”? I’m not sure, but throw in the “Mr. Peanut of bankers” and the “Slim Jim of stockbrokers” and let’s get the party started. The “you as brand” logic is, of course, that you do what the best brands do, which is to create an image, and the measure of an image is the emotion it evokes. One excellent expression of how this might apply to a career comes from John Winzeler, the charming and enlightened CEO of Winzeler Gear in Chicago, who said in a May graduation address, “I have found within my own working relationships there are people who have established themselves as brands. You just say their name and you have an immediate understanding of who that person is and the qualities they possess. These are people who are dependable, self-motivated, passionate and lifelong learners. …As a result, they have created a higher-level relationship with other associates and me. They have established the ‘Bill’, ‘Mary’, and ‘Mark’ Brands.” You can read in the reaction of a colleague the brand image of most employees; there’s a continuum that passes through the eye roll, the sigh, the shrug, the ”Who?”, the chortle, and the relaxed smile. So, this you-as-brand has a point; however, it’s the same old point, that you want people to think highly of you, and by extension, that you don’t want to be a commodity product, but rather, a premium brand. This is where the brand analogy tends to come up dry: how do you get to be a premium brand? Studying the great brands is likely to lead to a conclusion that image is everything, and that a good ad agency is essential. I’d like to propose another step in the evolution of business analogies: you as retailer. To be the Nordstrom’s of engineers means something. So does being the Home Depot of accountants, or Costco or 7-11. These don’t just suggest that it’s good to evoke an emotion, but suggest ways to do just that. Whereas most career advice boils down to “work hard and smile a lot”, the we’re-all-retailers model comes with a built-in in creativity tool. If you are an accountant and want to create a brand image and so studied Coca-Cola, you might be tempted to go for some physical trademark such as, a bow tie. However, consider how an accountant might emulate various retailers. If you were the Home Depot of accountants, you’d serve the do-it-yourselfers. You might go into small businesses for a couple of hours a week or month and give guidance to the internal accounting person. The Costco of accountants would offer discounted bundles of services, take ‘em or leave ‘em, no special requests or customizing. The Barnes & Noble of accountants would have a massive collection of reference materials and other publications, perhaps serving as the person other accountants go to for support. What got me thinking about retailers was the work of Will Ander, one of the proprietors of what I’ve come to think of as The Little Shop of Insights, more formally known as McMillan/Doolittle, consultants to retailers, headquartered in Chicago. Ander helped The Innovators Lab use his retailer wisdom to develop creative solutions for non-retailers. It works because of the nature of retailers as compared to brands. Whereas a brand is usually just a thing, a retailer is a way of relating to the world. The great retailers evoke an emotion as part of a relationship. Malcolm Forbes once pointed out that “there is a difference between getting what you pay for and what you hope for.” The retailer doesn’t just get paid, but creates a relationship where customers smile as they pay. May the same be true of your career. And I’d like to help. If you go to , I have put together an extended version of this discussion that will allow you to learn from the great retailers and bring some of their genius to your career or department or business. © 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

HOW TO APPLY THE “WE’RE ALL RETAILERS” PHILOSOPHY TO YOUR CAREER…

Why the We’re-All-Retailers model is more useful than “you-as-brand” model is that most brands are things, while retailers are ways of interacting with the marketplace. You can improve the things you offer as an employee, but you still need to develop a way of being in the marketplace.

Will Ander of the consulting firm I mention in the column, McMillan/Doolittle, has developed what he calls the “est” model. He proposed that each retailer must be viewed by consumers as best at some important dimension of the market:
• Cheap-est (Wal-Mart, Costco)
• Hot-est (The Gap, Starbucks)
• Big-est (Home Depot, Barnes & Noble)
• Quick-est (McDonald’s, Walgreens)
• Easy-est (Nordstrom, Saturn)

Ander notes that retailers who are not exceptional on any one of these dimensions fall into the “black hole of retailing” where they have no identity. The same is true for you and your work: the absence of a specific identity puts you in the “black hole” and you become just another ordinary employee where the best you can hope for is “not bad” status, meaning an absence of negative image.

So, let’s use the marketplace genius of retailers to inspire some ideas about you career or your team…
First, let’s finish the example of an accountant…

BIG-EST (even though we’re talking about one person, the size dimension can apply)…
“The Barnes & Noble of accountants”
You would have a massive collection of reference materials and other publications, perhaps serving as the person other accountants go to for support.
“The Home Depot of accountants”..
You serve the do-it-yourselfers. You might go into small businesses for a couple of hours a week or month and give guidance to the internal accounting person.

CHEAP-EST
“The Costco of accountants”…
You would offer discounted bundles of services, take ‘em or leave ‘em, no special requests or customizing.
“The Wal-Mart of accountants”…
You would find low-cost software and other accounting materials and assist clients in using it.

HOT-EST
“The Starbucks of accountants”…
You would create an atmosphere that people want to visit. You would turn the chore of meeting with the accountant into a warm experience, with music, art and food.

QUICK-EST
“The Walgreens of accountants” would have the equivalent of a drive-through pharmacy… perhaps a box where you could pick up and drop off accounting materials, or pre-addressed mailers to send them in. Perhaps there would be a website organized like a Walgreens – you “walk” through the store to get the forms you need.

EASY-EST
“The Saturn of accountants”…
You would offer fixed pricing on several basic models. You might have while-you-wait services, and provide a waiting area (perhaps with workspace and/or internet). Just as Saturn takes of picture of you with your car, you as an accountant would have pictures of your customers and maybe their families and/or businesses. Saturn also has a cut-way car in its showrooms – this could serve as a model of creating informational displays of how various accounting systems work. *

CONCLUSIONS
What all of these retailer role-models provide is a chance to visit each one and use it to inspire creativity. Whether you are an accountant, a market researcher or a carpenter or doctor, you can adapt what you see to your profession.

Say you chose the “Easy-est” dimension. If you’re a doctor, you’d analyze every step in your procedures and compare them again the best retailers. Perhaps you get rid of the counter and sliding glass partition and make it more like going into a Nordstrom store. Perhaps you have the medical equivalent of a “service advisor.” Perhaps you have the option of doing your paperwork on-line, or scheduling your appointment on line or via email. Maybe there are computer based information pieces about various conditions.

The point is that once you choose the dimension and start to visit stores to shop for ideas for your career, you create better ways of helping one segment of the marketplace. You aren’t just creating an image; you are being creativity useful, which becomes what you are famous for.

OTHER RESOURCES ”Creative usefulness” is the over-riding theme of my latest book, The Laughing Warriors: How to Enjoy Killing the Status Quo. The book is available only at www.Dauten.com. Also, if you want to make a statement about your uniqueness, I suggest you get your own Executive Trading Cards. They are a cross between business cards and a personal brochure. They are a perfect vehicle to communicate what you have to offer and what you are famous for. They are the first product of The Innovators' Lab and are available exclusively at www.InnovatorsLab.com