Last October I attended the Heart of Leadership workshop in Seattle. One of the exercises was stand taking. What do I stand for? What is the commitment I am? (for myself, my organization, my company, my co-workers, my customers, my family, or any area of concern in my life) The power of stand taking happens when you announce out loud to others, what you stand for. I suspect blogging about one’s stands can be as powerful.

I was humbled to participate in a tribute to one of our clients last week. Among others, I was interviewed, on video no less, on their behalf. I was presented with a list of questions to address by the interviewer ahead of time. As I was preparing my responses, I realized, from my perspective, what the essence of my clients company truly is.

To me, our client is a humanistic company. It is a company with a soul. And from the depths of their soul, the will to give uncommon service to all stakeholders flows. This company is imbued with the joy of service, to the community, to society, to the environment, to customers, and to associates.

I sent an email to a business prospect last week. I thought the content of the email would make a good blog post. An edited version of the email follows.

One morning last week after finishing a golf lesson, I was standing in the golf course parking lot pondering Melissa McLean Jory. Melissa is a high school classmate I connected with on facebook last year. Melissa is a nutrition expert, specializing in Celiac disease. Because of her deep knowledge and wonderful personality we hired her to speak about blogging and Celiac disease at our GPS (Green Positioning Summit) workshop last year. Melissa writes an excellent blog, and her facebook posts are very well written. Her voice, her tone, her language is positive, upbeat, informative, happy, humorous, and insightful. It resonates with me; the language makes me smile and demands my attention. Kudos Melissa! So, in this parking lot pondering moment I realized how really important voice, tone and language are to advertising and marketing communication.

Leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future. Skilled leaders accomplish great things and inspire others to grow in responsibility 
and skills. The quotes listed below emphasize the importance of perseverance, service,
 and reliability. Leaders give their best in whatever job they’re doing. Any of us
 can take on leadership roles and qualities just by doing our jobs in a dependable
 way and encouraging others to share in and help us in attaining a worthwhile vision.

I have always been a proponent of using themes for the cover page of weekly ads. In my view, the purpose of the weekly ad is to attract new ad readers and new customers to the store. The purpose of attracting new customers is an important distinction, since most consumers who read weekly ads; tend to read only those of their primary food store.

“To thine own self be true” writes William Shakespeare in Hamlet. “Let your conscience be your guide” the Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio and then asks Jiminy Cricket to serve as Pinocchio’s conscience.

The supermarket industry’s marketing and advertising activities deal almost exclusively with what works today and almost never with what’s going to work tomorrow.

Too few companies run research to determine what their entire market place will be like in three years? In five years? And very few are committed to a vision that basically says, “We truly believe we know where this industry is going. We know what the leader will look like, sound like, think like, and be like in five years, and we know something else. We’re going to be that leader!

High market share and high profit share result from high activity share.

High activity is a sequence of related smaller activities aimed at positioning your store as the best in the areas you select. Strategic Positioning means performing different activities from rivals or performing similar activities in different ways. Differentiation arises from both the choice of activities and how they are performed. Activities, then, are the basic units of competitive advantage. Overall advantage or disadvantage results from all of a company’s activities, not only a few.

Everything, everywhere is in a constant flux of change. I like this quote from Bruce Barton, author, advertising executive and politician, “When you are through changing, you are through.”

Away back in 1970, I read Future Shock, a great book by Alvin Toffler. Future Shock was about change, and the affect that the accelerated rate of technological and social change had on society. From an historic perspective the speed of change from the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 18th century to the “super-industrial society” of the 1970′s was mind-boggling and it has only intensified thousands-fold since then.

Establishing a positive-price perception is critical in today’s economy. Duh! But the key is perception. You should only sacrifice gross dollars when the price point can significantly impact perception.

You don’t have to have the lowest prices on everything. You don’t have to be priced the same as your competitors. You must have your customers leave your store feeling like they received a value for their total shopping experience. This goes beyond shelf prices and integrates operations and retail execution.