This morning I hopped on my scooter to go grab a cup of coffee at Joe's Coffee shop down the street, and I couldn't believe what I found. The storm that rudely interrupted my viewing of Braveheart when my power went out last night, in fact was a tornado that destroyed several houses two blocks from my house and our office. We are totally blessed it missed us. Here are some photos…

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We are on a constant mission to be excellent in all areas of matchstic. If we wanna be the best, we might as well learn from the best.

Yesterday, Blake and I took a visit up to Greenville, SC to visit Brains on Fire. Brains on Fire is a naming and identity company, and they were more than gracious to spend all afternoon telling us all we need to know and asking us some really hard questions. The entire staff was incredibly warm and gracious.

Thanks especially to Spike and Geno for really digging in and teaching us a lot.

The things that left the biggest impression on us were:

1 – Commitment to their Culture

So many companies are fearful of just being who they are for fear of people not liking them or thinking they are not "professional".

2 – Flat Organization

With 26 employees, there is no hierarchy. Just owners, and employees. All employees are on the same level.

Thanks to all the folks from Brains on Fire. You truly pay it forward.

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I just saw that commercial while watching TV a minute ago and it struck me as a very strange message. From what I hear Dunkin Donuts coffee is great, but from that commercial I really have no idea. The only message I got from this commercial is, "Are you tired of saying Venti, Café Au Lait, or any other non-english word while at Starbucks? Then come to Dunkin' Donuts and order a latte, it's not necessarily any better coffee but you can say latte instead of Café Au Lait. It should also be of note that not only is this not a very effective strategy in my opinion to get people to switch where they buy their coffee, but the word "Latte" is actually an Italian word, so does Dunkin' Donuts message even make any sense?.

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As a team, we are always reading books, continuing to shape our minds around the building of standout brands. Right now we are reading a great book called The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille. The Culture Code helps us understand why people in different cultures live and buy the way they do. Once you understand the different codes, you can market to each directly in a way that fits them and their culture. Most interesting is understanding more about the American culture through a lens I haven't used before.

Here is a quote from chapter 7, which talks about the codes for quality and perfection.

"Americans are far more responsive to good service than they are to perfection. Crisis is a great opportunity to create loyalty. – Ironically, if your product never breaks down, you never have the opportunity to develop this relationship with the customer. When the customer seeks to replace the product (as he inevitably will), he is likely to look elsewhere, because he hasn't formed a bond with you."

All too often I can get caught up in thinking about how great my product is and forget about what the client's experience is with my company might be.

Thanks for the reminder Clotaire (if indeed, that is your real name).

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The idea of a buying tribe has always been a bit vague to me. Maybe its my defiant, independent spirit, but I didn't want to believe I buy things because others do. That is obviously NOT the case after this weekends shenanigans.

John at our office got a scooter acouple months ago when his car was stolen. His purchase sparked an uproar at the office and talk spread quickly of a matchstic scooter gang. I rode it once, to my house and back, and was totally memorized by my inability to stop singing "Life is a highway, I wanna ride it all night long". I was hooked, and made my purchase last week.

The buying tribe is real. I realized the grass was greener on John's side of the field and wanted my own. No billboard, radio message, or clever TV spot about saving gas drove me to buy a scooter, but John's influence and my inclusion in the matchstic tribe (plus my desire to be free as a bird) led me to my purchase. Behold the power of tribes!!!

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Chapter 7 of The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.

The question posed in this chapter is "What is quality?"

That seems like it would have a simple enough answer, yet it's not. Does Rolex keep better time than a Timex? Does a Montblanc pen write better than a Cross? You may argue one way or another, but the thing is, it's all subjective and up to the individual. People will say Coke tastes better, yet in many blind taste tests they prefer Pepsi.

The power of quality resides in the mind of the buyer, not the showroom. Therefore to create a powerful brand you must choose the area of quality you want to own in the customer's mind and create a powerful perception of that quality. Remember the Law of Contraction: by narrowing your focus you become an specialist in the minds of consumers. Does a cardiologist know more about the heart than a general practitioner? Most people think so, therefore the perception is true.

Higher prices also spur this notion of quality on. It is a benefit to customers, allowing them to obtain psychic satisfaction from the public purchase and consumption of a high-end brand. Would people still pay $150 for a pair of jeans if the name was on the inside as opposed to the outside?

What I learned:

Just because the actual quality of a product is great doesn't mean the public will respond in the expected. It is up to a standout brand to create the perception of quality.

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I was sharing this with Craig the other day, who thought this would make a good entry for our blog. We've been talking about the difference-maker for the vendors we work with. As most businesses do, we get a lot of requests for our business, but are pretty selective about who we work with. Ultimately, our clients depend on us to make good decisions about who we work with as the success of the work we do depends on our vendors (printing, development, writing). We're not just looking for anyone who can do good work – we're looking for the exceptional.

One of our preferred vendors in particular, Dave Cragg over at Brandon's Printing, embodies this exceptional quality. He flips the whole paradigm of who his boss is upside down. Most people see the owner of their company as their boss, which seems pretty normal – right? Clients are just a daily nuisance for most folks. But Dave doesn't see it this way. He told me that at the end of the day I am his boss, and he works for me. All his decisions center around what I want & need. And he's not just saying this. I have seen this come into play a ton of times working with him – he's stopped jobs on press that weren't right to make sure they got them absolutely perfect, he's double-checked shipments to make sure they were going out when he told me they were going to, the list goes on and on, and he does it all without me ever asking him to. Its all on his own initiative. I love how he makes me feel like I'm more important than even his own job security – and I've seen him go out on some limbs before to ensure that my needs were met.

Bottom line – this is so great for us because it ensures that our clients are completely taken care of. So my boss (our clients) becomes his boss as well. This is incredibly rare, and by adopting this philosophy he has ensured that it'll take more than just a few dollars in savings for us to consider working with anybody else.

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Last week I came across a new site called AmieStreet.com it's a site to discover new music, download songs, etc… Nothing too revolutionary at first glance, but when I looked further into it I was impressed with how they turned the usual act of buying music online into more of an experience. The site is unique in the fact that the price of each song or album is decided by the community of the site. For instance when a new song is added it is free, but the more people who download it and the more popular it becomes the higher the price becomes for it. Amie Street has empowered the music fans by allowing them to help set the price for songs. Now instead of the music industry telling you that the new Mountain Goats album "Heretic Pride" costs $9.99 the community at Amie Street has dictated it's price to be $7.64. It's yet to be seen if this new business strategy will do anything to change how the music industry operates, but its encouraging to see someone thinking about differently.

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So WaMu is trying to make me a customer with this new catchy Whoo hoo! initiative. I was driving down the interstate and saw a billboard with just that on it in bright colors. Not sure what the thought is here. They probably want me to see them as energetic, excited or at the least have a personality. Which is pretty much the opposite of how I perceive Bank of America or Wachovia.

Im on board with this thought and I would totally switch. Problem is that I am so locked into the online banking system with Bank of America. Not to mention that here in Atlanta, WaMu ATM's are nowhere to be found. So it really makes no sense for me. How about promoting hassle-free migration of all my online banking information to their system. Talk about how the interface is so much more intuitive and offers better tools. And then offer me no ATM fees so I can use any ATM I want. I love the differentiation initiative but looks and words are cheap. Make the product better and easier to adopt and I will.

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This past Christmas season, we threw the first ever Matchstic Rapping Paper Party. One of the party favors for guests was this fun Rapping Paper Party T-shirt (the one on the left)

Yesterday, I saw the shirt on the right at Urban Outfitters.

Either both Matchstic and Urban Outfitters are both creative geniuses and on the cutting edge of t-shirt designs…

or Urban Outfitters are nuthin but a bunch of dirty thieves.

Either way, I still like our Holiday shirt.

…by the way, I often get asked how one can get a Matchstic shirt. The answer is simple: Come visit us.

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