How do you frame your company or help your clients frame theirs?  For example, Xerox doesn’t sell copiers, it sells workplace productivity (thanks Harvard Business blog.)

A smart friend from a killer web company in San Francisco said yesterday:  [sic] in this economy we’re looking with clients at areas where there’s a problem that needs to be fixed.  This is not the frame itself, but the method to get at the frame for the customer.

Which gets to the heart of issue:  frame your company in a way that solves a problem for your customer not your solves your sales quota.

Guy Kawasaki in Reality Check says you either “frame or be framed.”  And isn’t this a position you want to influence for your brand?  If you don’t someone else will.  A proper frame gives, well, a frame around which customers can have conversations about your brand.  Your customers are having these conversations all day every day with or without your input.

Guy goes on to asert the following truths of how to control the frame:

  • Be true to yourself:  a frame should represent what you stand for as opposed to what market research might tell you to stand for.   This is just another way of talking about transparency.  Zappos is huge on this.  They put on no airs.  What you see is what you get.  See the interview question: Why is culture so important?
  • Avoid the frontal assault:  When framing the competition do it with faint damning praise.  (Not going into tons of detail here, buy the book!)
  • Align with core values:  these should be the values of your customer and or generally accepted social mores
  • Draw first blood:  better to fire the first shot and force the other party to react to what you’ve done.

Framing your (or your client’s) company is easier said than done.  It asks you to step outside the traditional features, advantages, benefits scenario and take a look at your company in a way that adds to the customer’s dialogue already in progress about your brand.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some carpentry to do.