Michael Douglas Archives

The other day, I caught a rerun of the iconic 1987 hit Wall Street, starring Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. Always one to glean a fresh insight with every repeat of a great movie, I found in this screening a branding gem. Bud Fox (Sheen), a trader in a brokerage house, had tried but failed for 59 consecutive days to make a face-to-face appointment with Gordon Gekko (Douglas), the master investment banker. But, on Gekko's birthday, Fox prevailed, Cuban cigars in tow. After exchanging a few awkward pleasantries about the young trader's admirable persistence, Gekko gave Fox an immutable lesson in Branding 101 by asking, "Why am I listening to you?" Indeed. Why should any prospect listen to a vendor? Inherent in Gekko's question was a more-fundamental, unspoken question: What do you know about me? Gekko didn't ask about Fox's company or products. As the prospect, he wanted to talk only about himself and his needs -- in this case, illegal insider information. Once Fox realized and addressed that, he got Gekko's attention -- and cash. No kidding. Will vendors ever grasp this simple branding truth? Customers want you to talk about them -- not about cloud this and social-networking that. Really. Alas, judging by their supplier-centric, buzzword-laced homepages, vendors still don't get it -- and this is precisely the point I made in "Use Mirrors to Attract Customers." Rx from The WhiteNoise Doctor™ Branding supersedes all other business activities; it is the first priority, predicated on a deep knowledge of the customer. The brand is the stone in the pond — it begets all subordinate ripples: fundraising, marketing, building, and selling. The stone creates the ripples; the ripples don’t create the stone! When talking to a prospect -- face-to-face, over the phone, or via your homepage -- note that he'll be asking himself, from the outset, Why am I listening to you? If you think it's because of your products, congratulations! You're in the white noise. Hissss. © 2010 Marc H. Rudov. All Rights Reserved. About the Author Marc Rudov is a branding advisor to CEOs,producer of MarcRudovTV, and author of four books

Why Am I Listening to You?