Protest Marketing? Being polarizing...

As a business you need to have a brand and that brand may be something that you decide needs to be polarizing in one way or another. That would be a good decision but what does it mean to be polarizing?

Polarizing means to divide or cause to divide into two sharply contrasting groups or sets of opinions or beliefs.

Protesters are for sure being polarizing even when speaking out on the point as seemingly simple as your right to work or go to the park or the people who want to open up the country vs those who do not.

Of course in business you have to walk the line and not alienate half or all of your customers or potential customers. Reality dictates that you are going to offend a certain percentage of people with whatever you choose to say no matter what it is.

You also have your own personal integrity and personal beliefs with your business and with your brand. So how do you proceed in business and in such a way to grow your business and your brand?

I think that your integrity and what you believe is important and that has to be intricately woven into who you are, your presentations and everything that you do... but you have to do it right. As a business there are certain industries, professions or types of clients I choose not to serve because they go against what I personally believe. This is going to be polarizing to those industries or people when you turn them away and you have to be diplomatic about that policy when you have to invoke it. Presumable you would like the other side to see your side so you at least have to work to not tell them how wrong they are as that is just bad salesmanship and you are selling something, even if it is just an idea at the moment.

When you take a stand you are protesting against certain things or seen by some to be a protester just by taking that stand.

As a result you will potentially be misunderstood, criticized, admonished and you will probably lose a couple friends. I hope you don’t lose any friends or any clients but the truth of it is... you might.

I do know that you’ll lose a lot more money not to mention a piece of your soul if you compromise your integrity.

Taking a stand and being polarizing is powerful and in marketing it sets you apart from the middle. The middle by definition is mediocrity and nobody wants to buy mediocrity.

Maybe sometimes we will want to save a few bucks here and there. Maybe we will even buy something, one time or another, that is slightly below our standards because of convenience. Regardless of that, when it comes to the truly important we are willing to spend a little bit of extra money to get the things that count and to support people that align with our standards. In life we will spend a little with groups and companies that are with us on the things we feel about strongly.

Her are a couple more examples of personal brands that are polarizing...

Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee for short) is the chairman of VaynerX servicing Fortune 100 clients across the company’s 4 locations. Gary is a highly sought after public speaker, a 5-time New York Times bestselling author and he is much more.

Gary and his family immigrated to the US from Belarus in 1978. He lived with 8 family members in a studio apartment in Queens, New York, before relocating to Edison, New Jersey,

He is polarizing to say the least. He has some great and valuable informations but he has a habit of dropping f-bombs like you would not believe and losing audience just because he refused to change who he is on that point. You can look him up and decide if he has value for you. I think he does for sure!

Another person that I admire although sometimes I disagree with the way he says some thing, although I never in principle disagreed, is Grant Cardone. Grant Cardone understands the power of being polarizing and his advice in many arenas is priceless. It is staggering how successful Grant Cardone is and his story of growing up from disadvantaged circumstances is profound and inspiring. 

Grant was also poor growing up and on top of that he grew up without a father. He is a New York Times best-selling author and the size and success of his companies is to say the least impressive. He lives by the motto that “success is your duty, obligation and responsibility”. 

Despite the fact of being polarizing and, as I said, I disagree with the way he presents things occasionally, I have again not found a single piece of advice from him that I disagree with in its’ essence. I highly recommend his books and business training.

To give you my own personal experience with being polarizing. Recently and not for the first time I found myself being polarizing on social media. I will tell you about that in a bit but I discovered that I was saying some things that very much we’re very much being disagreed with, here and there, and I learned a few things. 

Here’s what I gathered from being polarizing and maintain your integrity as a business.

1. You must stay true to who you are and be willing to communicate the truth.
2. When communicating the truth you need to take responsibility for the effect it’s going to create in the community that you’re communicating to.
3. You need to really look at both sides of the equation and although you pick a firm position that may be disagreed with by some; you for sure must consider and act in the greatest good.
4. Compromising your integrity is deadly. Compromising your reality is deadly to yourself personally and to your bank account.
5. People respond positively to people who are keeping it real.
6. Because you care about people you have to understand that not every reality that you have has to be communicated to every person.
7. Sometimes you should take a long walk before you respond.
8. Whatever you say you need to do it in such a way that everyone wins, if not right away, eventually.

And I want to tell you what Gary Vee says here about being mediocre: 

"The middle f***ing sucks.

Vagueness sucks. Lack of drive sucks. Half-assing things sucks.

The middle is what everybody is doing. .... It’s not influential and it’s not special. It’s safe. The middle is safe."

- Gary Vee

So being polarizing matters and it works in marketing and in public relations. 

You did not sign up to be an AVERAGE business owner. You joined up to win and you are smart.

Below is the article I posted that explains what I said and did to inspire, for myself, this article. 

Also if you need help with your strategy to stand out in the crowd let me know. I formed a partnership with a pretty polarizing guy and a good friend Edwin Dearborn. Check us out by clicking here and visiting our new website, available Monday May 4th (May the 4th be with you): GreenDragonCommunications.com 

And what did I do to be polarizing that inspired this article. I posted in support of protesters gathering to get back their Constitutional rights. I was attacked; not just on social media but I was bad mouthed behind my back to my friends. The person had real concerns but their method of handling lacked the courage of conviction as they did not just call to talk to me. Regardless I took the concerns seriously and looked at my actions.

Here is the article and the conclusions I drew: 

To Protest or not to Protest?  https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/protest-question-barry-coziahr

Thanks for listening!

Best,

Barry Coziahr