Andy Katz-Mayfield and Jeff Raider are the names behind Harry’s. They decided on the voice, the personal assistant each person who purchases Harry’s gets, and the rules of purchasing blades.
Blake Mycoskie made the decision to give a pair of Toms shoes for each pair purchased.
If you don’t like the concept of our Connection Economy, you can only point your finger at Seth Godin who coined and writes about it.
Authorship – essentially, putting a face to a brand or concept or rule – is the best marketing strategy you can start with.
Without a name, who can you blame for pricing Gillette razors? Who said we have to shower before entering and after exiting a public pool? (Of course it makes sense to, but to have no actual authority figure giving a reason why, well, no wonder why very few obey it.) As for a larger example, who decided we were in a recession?
For businesses who have ridiculous rules of engagement and transactions, they’re free to continue doing so because there’s not one person we can write to, attempt to persuade or flat-out fire.
The reason I started to purchase solely from smaller companies is that there’s a person at the other end that has declared ownership; a single person who decides the policies, so if I don’t agree with them, I know exactly who to write to. Not surprising, though, I never need to.
Every decision, rule, policy, product needs to have one person who stands up for it. If there’s no one standing up for something, it might be because they don’t have something worth standing up for. Are we going to allow that to continue?
Stay Positive & Stand Up For Standing Up
