Magnum Forever

Remember the movie Zoolander? In case you forgot, here's Zoolander in under 9 minutes:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHM53NnAaGc.

A side plot of this movie is that Derek Zoolander has been working on a new look for years called Magnum.  It's an update on Blue Steel, his signature look. At the very end, you get to see Magnum for the first time and everyone just goes WILD.  The male modeling industry thinks it is just innovative and edgy and fresh!  But to everyone else, it's the exact same look as Blue Steel.

In many jobs, you'll hear that the brand is going to undergo a "packaging refresh" or they are going to "overhaul" their look.  Some brands & companies do successfully undergo a total overhaul while staying true to their original brands (think Aussie hair products- newer purple, different shape, better text). 

Old Aussie Package

New Aussie Packages

Some brands completely abandon the old and start over (think Herbal Essences hair products- not even remotely the same).

Old Herbal Essences Package

New Herbal Essences Lineup

And then their are most brands, who nudge something a little, add a burst, put some "texture" on it and call it totally new.  These brands are my Derek Zoolanders.  You never really know who they are unless you work with them because their package never changes.  It looks the same for years and years and years- even when that look starts to become outdated. 

Food categories tend to suffer from this aversion to true change.  Check out the frozen aisle, for instance, and tell me if you can point out the number of frozen brands who have changed their package in the past 5 years.  I can only think of a few myself and Lean Cuisine is only significant change:

Old Lean Cuisine Package

New Lean Cuisine Packages

But otherwise, with food brands, you see a lot of the same packaging over and over again, but they definitely call it new in their office because this year they did a "refresh" and it's much more "modern".  

In a lot of these places, the cry to be more edgy, modern, fresh, etc. comes from a competitor in the category already doing something and seeing great results. When it comes to executing that change though, it's not so simple.  Above all, one must maintain the brand standards, even if the brand standards are outdated.  Afraid to be different or to completely change their look, they adhere to their standards and end up regurgitating the same design with a burst that says "new look!" or adding "texture" to a background.

To my little Derek Zoolanders, Magnum forever, Magnum forever.

Changing the World of Business

These two individuals spend a lot of time acting on the principles I find valuable in business.  Unlike my blog about what to watch out for and what I hate about business, they manage to talk about the ways to be the change I want to see in the world.

They are my Mother Theresa's of business. 

Umair Haque  His blog called bubblegeneration is fantastic and offers new perspective and theories on how to change the business world for the better.  If only I could be so uplifting and thoughtful! For a short dose of daily business inspiration, follow him on twitter @umairh.

Geoff Vuleta The CEO of Farenheit 212, Vuleta is on TOP of trends and cool things.  His whole business model is based on creating a new idea or new product that is going to transform the way consumers use items.  His twitter account also leads you to some of the coolest products on the market.  Check it out @kiwiquick. 

Popularity Matters

Do you remember when you were in middle school and high school and your parents always told you that popularity then wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things when you grew up? That in the real business world, it wouldn't be about how popular you were?

In the words of Glinda from Wicked, it's all about Pop-U-lar. 

In some respects, your parents were right.  The Hollywood version of popular people in movies such as Mean Girls, Sixteen Candles, Can't Hardly Wait, etc.- those guys aren't necessarily the most successful people ever.   And your level of popularity in high school won't often determine your success in business feeding chain.

But being popular in the office does matter.  In the musical Wicked, one of the funny songs done by Glinda is called Popular.  She sings, "It's not about aptitude, it's the way your viewed so it's very shrewd to be very very popular, like me."

And in business this couldn't be more true.  I have watched the dingiest of dingbats get promoted because they were friendly(ish), well known, and well-liked by upper management. Meanwhile,  smarter, more effective people doing the work trudge along in the same positions because someone important doesn't like them or they don't have enough face time with the right people.  I have friends who can't get promoted because in their reviews they've been told that they aren't very well known around the office.   What does that have to do with their ability to excel at their job?

This isn't to say that I think being popular is a bad thing.  I've been popular- it was great.  I've been unpopular- that was fine too.  I don't think that if you are popular, it means you are incapable or stupid. You have rare birds in business who are smart, effective and popular.  At the same time, I don't think popularity should be a part of the decision to promote people.  Promotions and raises should be based on performance.  If you are excelling at your job, you should be promoted.  If you are doing OK, but are popular, that's not a reason to get promoted.  Being more popular at work can help you excel at your job in some instances, but you shouldn't just excel at being well-liked and then move up.  

A performance-based path to success used to be so clear. These days, performance is just a small piece of the pie.  If your performance is just ok, you can still get promoted if you manage to have the right face time and say the right things.  Rhetoric without action will get you a long way if you sound innovative and being friends with the right people will get you even further. 

It's funny how true the adage, "It's not what you know, it's who you know," is in business.  If you are known and liked by the right people, you are going to succeed.  If you are known and disliked by those same people, you'll find yourself stagnating early in your career.



 

"Binding" Contracts

Growing up, there is a a sense that contracts are completely binding.  They are like death and taxes- you can't escape them.  Then after your first apartment lease goes awry or you decide you want out of that pain-in-the-ass 2 year agreement with your cell phone company, you get a little nugget in your head that contracts really aren't so rock solid.

The myth is that all contracts are binding during their duration.

The truth is that a contract is only as solid and binding as the early termination penalties are painful. 

For example, when you sign a 2 year agreement with a cell phone provider, you get a highly discounted phone and monthly service plan with some bells and whistles, such as a phone upgrade.  The early termination fee for most cell phone companies is somewhere between $200 and $400.  If you really hate your provider, it might be worth it to you to get out of that contract.

In business to business contracts the idea is similar, though the stakes are a little higher.   As a service provider to another business you usually have 2 options - a fixed fee contract or an hourly contract.  Hourly contracts typically require 30-60 days written notice to cancel.  That's it.  Because it's an hourly rate, they aren't beholden to pay the service provider anymore than what they work for.   These types of contracts are far from rock solid and make it easy for the business to cancel.  

A fixed fee contract with a set end date is truly the way to go for a service provider.  They are less messy for billing and require a penalty for early cancellation, which often requires the other party to pay up to 75% of the total contract fee. But even in a fixed fee situation, if the business carries a bigger stick (i.e. a bigger bank account) than the service provider, if they want out of the contract, they'll find their way out.

This doesn't mean that no contracts are ever truly binding.  You can certainly have a lawyer draw up a contract that leaves no loopholes for exiting early.  However, in this day and age, businesses, as an allegory for all people, are commitment-phobic and will want some way to get of the contract. 

Sometimes even good working relationships can't save a contract.  They aren't necessarily worth more than the value of the cancellation penalties.  If I learned one thing from my first boss, it was that business is not meant to be personal.  But as human beings, we form attachments to the things that we've built- we pour a little bit of ourselves into our work ( I know I do, it's one of my worst faults) and it becomes personal. At the end of the day though, if canceling the contract equals a better payoff for the business, the contract is going to go away, relationship or not.

Don't kid yourself with contracts.  Do the smart thing and read your contracts front to back or better yet, have a lawyer review it so that you can best understand it's content.  And if you are the one writing the contract, make sure you have a lawyer at the very least read it over to ensure you aren't setting yourself up for failure.