Choosing an enemy of your business or community helps unify your efforts into a movement and quickly attract supporters and repels detractors. Who is your enemy?
Creating Code and Enemies
At this year’s Inbound conference, I had the opportunity to meet one-on-one with HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan. He was not only generous with his time, he also was open to sharing lessons learned from starting a massive software company currently proposing a $100 million initial public offering.
Halligan noted that the most important thing HubSpot did early on was identify their enemy: outbound marketing.
An enemy is not usually a person, but rather a circumstance or belief other people or organizations support. Halligan and his co-founder Dharmesh Shah wrote an article in the early days of HubSpot articulating their frustration and near hatred of traditional advertising. In their eyes, running ads at the masses, who are actively trying to block the ads, is a losing strategy that at best doesn’t work and at worst repels customers from ever working with you.
As Halligan said in our meeting, 80% of the people who read this article probably disagreed with him. That didn’t matter. This article became a rallying cry for the other 20% who agreed with his point of view.
By identifying a shared enemy, the alternative of inbound marketing (a term he coined) became more than a description of HubSpot’s product. It became a movement.
Movements Versus Marketing
Most businesses have their catch phrase or typical description of what they do. Few businesses succeed at creating a movement. A movement is distinct from marketing because its goal is not a conversion of customers, it’s achieving a new reality. A movement creates a cadre of businesses and volunteers working to achieve a goal, not just promote one business.
For HubSpot, their dream was a world in which businesses did not have to convince customers to work with them. Instead, businesses would teach and share information that customers would find. This inbound marketing would build trust and would be more effective and less sleazy than outbound marketing.
The inbound marketing vision resonated with some and spawned an entire ecosystem of products and service providers working to achieve a world of lovable (and helpful) marketing. This inbound ecosystem is growing quickly as the 10,000+ attendees at the Inbound conference attests.
Creating a Movement with an Enemy
In our businesses and organizations, we can create movements.
Instead of convincing customers to work with you, identify the world you hope to live in. As Simon Sinek says, find your why. If you help create this new reality, you will naturally attract business along the way. Said another way, if you make the pond bigger, there will be more fish.
Thus the question: what is your ideal world?
- Is it one in which everyone has clean drinking water (and non-profits give 100% of donations to the cause), like Charity: Water‘s vision?
- Is it a world in which rural businesses have an equal chance to succeed and grow, like our vision at 9 Clouds?
- Is it a world in which a personal event, such as a wedding, should be as customizable as the people in it, like Hitch Design‘s vision?
When you know the outcome you seek, you can create your movement. The best way to start is to create your enemy. An enemy:
- Quickly identifies your position, even if people are unfamiliar with what you do
- Serves as a rallying point for others who share your common enemy
- Propels you towards an audacious goal, which helps attract employees and customers who want to join your mission
- Provides a benchmark for the success and growth of your movement
- Attracts attention from supporters and haters
Warning: Movements are Lonely
When you change the world, the world pushes back.
As Malcolm Gladwell noted at Inbound, starting a revolution doesn’t make you popular. To succeed in bringing about change, you need thick skin and the ability to ignore naysayers and focus on the goal.
You will inevitably hear from your enemy or those who support your enemy. When you do, you know you are doing something right.
Ruffle feathers, find your enemy and create a movement. Not only will you make a dent in the universe, you’ll find yourself growing your business and a supporting ecosystem along the way.
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