We like to refer to good names as having legs. Recently, we created one with wings.
It started with learning that the Minnesota Oncology and Hematology Foundation wanted advice on its marketing.
It didn't take long to offer our first suggestion: change the name. Theirs was the longest name we could recall hearing since 1964, the year in which Jan and Dean made us aware of the fictitious Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga Sewing Circle, Book Review and Timing Association. It didn't help them that 94% of Americans don't know what oncology means, and 99% cannot define hematology.
What is it that you do, we -- like thousands of others -- asked?
Fortunately, they could answer that clearly. They provide financial, educational and emotional support for people and families with cancer. A vivid example: a single mother recently diagnosed with cancer and with limited resources finds a letter in the mail from the Minnesota Oncology and Hematology Foundation. Inside is a check for the full amount of her next mortgage payment. At this and other critical moments in the cancer patient's life, MOHF (try pronouncing that!) steps in.
It seemed simple to find an apt metaphor for what this group did. They land on people's shoulders and see them through crises.
They are Angels.
But if Angel seemed an ideal name for this group, an added challenge was to try to communicate more without adding unnecessary weight to the name. Knowing that each letter you add to a name after the eighth reduces the memorability of the name, and that a critical task in branding any organization is to devise a name that imprints quickly, we asked ourselves: "How can we suggest that we provide support to people and families with cancer, without adding another word?"
Fortunately, we found our answer right in the middle of the word Angel, and a logo was born:
We fought to omit the word "Foundation," but lost. When this group gets publicity, readers will be far less apt to recall "Angel Foundation" than "Angel." A key task of any service is to pass a prospect's threshold test, which is "I have heard of you." Prospects for every service feel more confident with that information; people choose what feels familiar. So it's the hope of many, and certainly of this author, that the word "Foundation" eventually disappears.
The name also lends itself well to the Foundation's annual awards ceremony. For years, they've given out the Star Awards to people who have aided people and families with cancer. Particularly in Minnesota, Star words abound, including the late lamented pro hockey team, the North Stars. Now, they can give the Angel Awards, and find that the ceremony and the awards bring greater attention to Angel itself. The new name also lends itself to the chance to create a spectacular new Angel award: a gold halo suspended above a black marble base.
We're very gratified with the result, and so are they -- and thank heavens. We all could use more angels on our side.
Highest-Rated Business
Books on Amazon
Based on percentage of readers (minimum 15) who awarded the respective book four or five stars.
| Leading Change | John Kotter | 92% |
| Selling the Invisible | Harry Beckwith | 91% |
| Built to Last | Jim Collins | 91% |
| Maximum Achievement | Brian Tracy | 91% |
| Positioning | Al Ries and Jack Trout | 90% |
| The Innovator's Dilemma | Clayton Christensen | 89% |
| Swim With the Sharks | Harvey Mackay | 88% |
| Good to Great | Jim Collins | 86% |
| Goals | Brian Tracy | 87% |
| The Innovator's Solution | Clayton Christensen | 86% |
THE LIGHTER SIDE
The imminence of Valentine's Day evokes memories that will sound familiar to many of you. It's fourth grade, and I am subtly eavesdropping on other guys to see if their valentines from Vickie Rich are bigger than mine. Too often, they were. (Her real name by the way, and not a character from the Archie comic book.)
Valentine's Day also marks not just a red-card day, but a red-letter one here: the anniversary of the engagement of Beckwith Partners Harry and Christine.
Speaking of lighter fare, we've been retained to help sell fish. Not the kind that swim, but the kind featured in the famous books of the same name (Fish!), and which have been transformed into exceptional training and teaching tools for business and education. If you're interested in learning more, please send us an email. Their testimonial file is very impressive.
"Where Slides Fail Most Vividly" excerpted from Harry and Christine Clifford Beckwith's new book, You: A Field Guide to Selling Yourself (Warner Books September 2006).
Slides do not fail us only because they tend to produce presentations that fail to engage the listeners with the material and with the presenter -- both of which are critical to the presentation's effectiveness.
Slides cheat us because they deprive presentations of what makes a presentation most effective: the soul and the heart.
A vivid illustration of this comes from New Orleans, in the literal wake of its disaster in 2005. In Katrina's aftermath, everyone looked back and said that everyone knew what was coming.
Yet they didn't.
To understand how this could occur, imagine listening to a presentation on New Orleans' emergency preparedness, six months before Hurricane Katrina.
Imagine seeing this slide:
Issues of Concern:
1. Adequacy of Levees
2. Backflow Into
Pontchartrain
3. Other Infrastructure
Issues
You immediately feel the problem. The city's survival, as we later learned to our horror, represented a matter of life and death. But is that danger, that emotion, or that risk conveyed in this slide?
To the contrary, they are obliterated by it.
Ask meeting hosts what they want from a presentation. They want emotional resonance. They want people to be inspired, motivated, entertained; they want the words to pass through the ears of the attendees and alight in their souls.
Far from encouraging this, a slide presentation compels the creator to create data points bereft of any emotional context.
Imagine Martin Luther King at the Washington Memorial that day, his words magically projected onto the Washington Monument for all to read:
1. Have a Dream
a. Better Life
b. Racial Equality
c. Can See
Promised Land
This brings us to a final, seemingly compelling point. Would Lincoln at Gettysburg, Ronald Reagan at the Berlin Wall, or any other great presenters in history have fared better if only they had used visual aids?
Would State of Union addresses have more impact if our Presidents incorporated PowerPoint?
Are our words made more powerful by slides that lack heart and soul?
Then why do we use them?
Have a very, very, very good reason for using "visual aids."
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Find out how.
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Harry Beckwith is the best-selling author of Selling
the Invisible, which has been named one of the top
ten business books of all time, with over 675,000
copies sold in 14 translations. He is also author of
The Invisible Touch and What Clients Love, which
have sold over 275,000 copies in 13 translations. He has been a keynote speaker for 14 Fortune 200 annual sales meetings and the National Speakers' Association convention, and has |
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made presentations in Europe, South America and Asia. He is
cited regularly in national media including CNN,
The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Entrepreneur,
Crain's New York Business and numerous
American, European and Asian newspapers. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Harry resides in Minneapolis with his wife Christine Clifford Beckwith. He is the father of six children. |
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E-mail questions and comments for Harry Beckwith to invisble@bitstream.net.