Disclaimer: Written by a brand new mom of a 6-Day old, please be kind with wording or logic that may seem cloudy or not make much sense.
Friendships are not just for fun and games, but they are the secret to why successful CEOs and business owners create opportunities for themselves that no other resource could ever offer an equivalent level of support for you and the experience you are having as a business owner.
Did you notice tonight’s Super Bowl Commercial about building a FRIENDSHIP with almost everyone and everything you’ve seen? Humans doing human-like things. This is no secret that these are the most iconic, effective, and impressionable clues on marketing.
Inspired by the Super Bowl’s personification of the Turbo Tax desks that looked like animals (connecting non-human things to a somewhat animal-like character), and the CEO of Oatly to build trust and likability of a brand beyond the quality or taste of milk- society likes to feel like they can relate human-to-human in the way they build brand value in their minds.
For example, with the Oatly CEO playing a keyboard in an outfield- I reflected: CEOs are the new mascot/personification of our culture. People want to befriend these brands of our world knowing and trusting the CEOs. It’s what connects something humans need: connection.
One of the things I miss most about not being in college during the Superbowl is not having the pow-wow to analyze commercials in advertising classes. So, I guess I can break down the Oatly commercial with you about the lesson of gaining trust, building a brand, and putting your CEO personality as a symbol of the front person of your band. The objective: just make friends with you!
I’m in the business of assisting entrepreneurs to make meaningful relationships, friends rather!
To break it down: My job is not to guide you on how to get in front of people using branded content, but also, really emphasize the importance of growing your community: engaging, being intentional about who is invited/ who isn’t, and keeping people completely connected with you on a regular basis to add value to your relationship.
Do you have friends around your business?
Friends are so important. They are genuine, they pick you out of the crowd to be on their team, and they may disagree with you, but always support you.
In a business setting, we owe it to the people who have treated us like real people, real friends, when our businesses were opened on Day 1, when we had NOTHING, and when our ideas were sounding way too crazy to make sense in a business setting.
They asked us questions, they spent time with us to get to know us, and they provided honest and truthful feedback when we needed to see a new perspective on something.
Friends are more than just people to provide resources for us- but they make life what life is most meant to be- ENJOYED! Friends give us smiles, hugs, laughs, and moments we never could replace with the most amount of money in the world could ever buy.
So- the biggest question Ask yourself about the friendships you’ve created: do you feel like the people surrounding your business would drop you like it’s hot when the going gets tough, or stick by your side with loyalty?
Or as I like to say: "People you'd want to go on a vacation with for a week- those are the community members you want to attract. Or else, what’s the point of hanging with people you don’t like or with those who don’t want to be around you?”
The fact of the matter is- we may not be the ONLY people who do what we do.
No doubt about it- your business is not unique, but you definitely are. Including each of the relationships you have. There is a lot of competition out there and yet according to CBInsights, the “#1 reason why businesses fail is there’s no market need.” What could create more market need than selling YOU of your business more than anything else!?
If you aren’t developing friendships, your personality and business can easily fall flat, can be less enjoyable, and provide dead-end deals when you only focus on treating people like transactions, not like true, genuine friends.
Do you build a business making friends, or making leads?
CEO’s have a really amazing opportunity nowadays. We aren’t the people sitting behind a glass office in a highrise, but we can truly be the face and the personality behind an incredible community, a movement, and business that really represents something more than transaction building.
As we see it today, we do not have to follow the stigmas of traditional workplace culture. We can truly just focus on building friendships. We all struggle, we are all feeling alone, we face the fears of failures every day, and we do things really courageously to make business decisions that shouldn’t be such a harsh judgment of our character
If you aren’t being intentional about the way you build friendships inside and around your business as you do in your personal life- you are missing out on a huge opportunity to truly make a bigger difference, more enjoyment, and effectively increasing your CEO journey with partnerships and connection over isolating yourself into a list of people who truly don’t care about you, your success, your mission, or if you fail in your endeavors. Do you agree it can be this drastic of a statement to make? Let me know what your thoughts are!
Dana Magnus