Know Your Enemy (revisited)

Who is your chief competition? Go ahead - name names.

Coke has Pepsi. Hertz has Avis. Netflix has whichever channel adds a PLUS to its name.

But none of these are the chief competition. For you, for me, for every company and every brand, there is but ONE primary competitor.

The noise.

That's right. You and I and every other communicator are in a cage match with noise, distraction, and information overload. Are you a marketer? Leader? Sales professional? Consultant? If you're one of 8 billion humans, this is your battle.

We are competing with Netflix, Facebook, email, mobile alerts, CNN, ringing phones, demanding colleagues, Hallmark Christmas movies, meetings, Apple updates....need I go on? In a world where we're spending 7-10 hours a day in front of screens, our message has a lot of sensory overload to overcome.

This is one of the two "Ah-ha's" I share at the opening of my book, The Point. Everyone has one enemy, and it's the same for all of us. We have to rise above the noise to get heard, get noticed, and get our point across. It's a war for attention.

(The other Ah-ha is that we also have only ONE primary customer - the human brain. Which provides the key to winning communication design).

You may have a killer product, with a great list of features and benefits. You might stack up very well against a competing company. But if you don't rise above the noise, it doesn't make a bit of difference.

The winner gets heard. The winner breaks through the noise and plants a clear, simple, compelling message in the mind of the customer.

Now sometimes you get lucky, like this astounding event that made a point about the durability of a Stanley mug in the midst of a car fire. I mean, c'mon - you can't plan this kind of marketing supernova. Just remarkable. Especially the touch about the ice cubes.

But our job isn't to wait for viral miracles. That's why communication design - the practice of clarity - is your best strategic advantage.

I help individuals, teams, and companies gain clarity and rise above the competition. Because that's how you'll win at work.