Make Your Flaws Your Strength: Building Trust through Vulnerability
Why authentic communication is the most powerful tool to build a bulletproof brand.
Note: the article's contents are a remix from the originals published in chapters 6 (Creating Safe Spaces) and 12 (Finding Your Core) in my book Hacking Communities.
No One Can Relate to Perfection
"There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in"
—"Anthem," by Leonard Cohen
Flaws show that we are human.
Last morning, I saw a Linkedin Post that inspired me to remix and rewrite key excerpts from two of my favorite Hacking Communities chapters: chapters 6 (Creating Safe Spaces) and 12 (Finding Your Core).
Said post came from Chris Davis, New Balance's CMO & Senior VP of Merchandising at New Balance, calling out "To all of the brands out there searching for your authentic voice" and sharing some principles that drove their brand transformation.
Out of five great pieces of advice from him, my favorites are: -"Be unapologetic about who you are - make your marketing ownable and distinctly you" and "Don't take yourself too seriously. Have fun! 👟 😎".
As put by Davis, "Nothing special ever happened from playing it safe".
In this article, I'll share three stories of people and brands who dared to "Embrace the elephant in the room" and took the opportunity to introduce themselves - authentically. The first is a classic branding example from Avis, the car rental company. The second is a personal story, and the third is the story behind ABC anchor Robin Roberts's quote, "make your mess your message."
This article makes the case for vulnerability in brand-building. Let's dive in!
Building Bulletproof Brands
In Branding: In Five and a Half Steps, Michael Johnson says:
"...sometimes the real "truth" is harder to acknowledge. In the early 1960s an agency team toiled over what the car rental company Avis truly offered to the world. Its researchers kept coming back with the same phrase: "We try harder because we have to." There was little else to differentiate Avis from Hertz, the market leader, or the other rental brands.
This research insight led to one of the finest copy lines of the last 50 years: "Avis is only no. 2… We try harder."
This honesty carried over into the headlines—"Avis can't afford not to be nice," "Avis can't afford dirty ashtrays," "Avis can't afford to make you wait." The durability of the insight and the quality of the work continued for decades."
He says they updated their slogan in 2012 but soon returned to "We try harder" sixty years after it was first used. Why? According to Johnson, "because it doesn't pretend to be something it's not (Avis isn't pitching to the world's biggest or best).
It has warmth, humility, is based in a product 'truth,' it is 'defensible' (i.e., hard for others to adopt) and helps Avis stand out in a tricky and competitive market."
Achieving Success by Admitting Failure
In 2013, while in Argentina, I got my first startup experience at an educational startup, helping organize the first 100% conference for entrepreneurs in Latin America (Wisboo Startup Camp Latam).
We had eighty-five sought-after speakers and experts from across the Latin America startup ecosystem. We sold thousands of tickets to people from all across Latin America. The event had been especially popular in countries with less-developed startup ecosystems, such as the Dominican Republic and Ecuador.
For context, Argentina was the birthplace of several Latin American unicorns (companies valued at over US$1 billion). According to an article in Latin America Business Stories, "for over a decade, Argentina was the only Latin American country to breed a unicorn company: in 2007, Mercado Libre held the title, and in 2015, Decolar. Until 2017, the two companies were the only unicorns in the region".
In the early 2010s, every Latin American aspiring entrepreneur or founder interested would look up to Argentina to learn more about tech startups.
At the time, online conferences didn't exist like they do today. We were probably the first of its kind. Our conference technology was not bulletproof, and we faced a major system crash on the first day of the event.
Our users were frustrated. Angry emails and Facebook messages poured in by the minute. My team was devastated. One of the founders was ready to burst into tears. I was ashamed. I considered walking away for a minute. This was the founders' responsibility, or it was the CTO's role to fix it. But that didn't solve my shame problem, nor did it alleviate the problem thousands of frustrated customers faced.
I noticed that the angriest users were the ones who cared the most.
I suggested that we write our customers a letter immediately, admitting we screwed up, apologizing, and saying that although we did not yet know how we would fix it and deliver our promise within a day. If they wanted their money back, they could have it. However, if they could forgive our technical failure and wait just a day, we would make it up, and they'd still get the experience they were promised.
So that's what we did—we admitted our mistake, apologized, and went heads down to fix it. A great majority stayed and sent us notes of support.
That night, we worked until 5 am, when we implemented our solution. We let our users know about it: we would spread the content across three weeks, releasing the burden from our overwhelmed servers that couldn't support so many users at once.
The next thing we knew, founders and aspiring entrepreneurs from all over Latin America were discussing Bitcoin with the legendary Wenceslao Casares, an Argentinean entrepreneur who founded and sat on the boards of numerous big ventures. Previously, his knowledge had only been accessible to entrepreneurs in big cities like Buenos Aires. That was one of approximately 85+ talks to reach Spanish-speaking founders and teams. Other speakers included Marcos Galperin, CEO, and founder of Mercado Libre, one of Latin America's first unicorns and, to date, one of its strongest e-commerce platforms.
Our community only stayed with us after we showed vulnerability. We admitted our mistakes while reminding them that we deeply cared and wanted to deliver the experience, knowledge, and networks we had promised.
We created a stronger community from it.
Leading By Example
"Make your mess your message." —Everybody's Got Something, Robin Roberts
What do you fear that keeps you from being vulnerable?
At first, it may be hard to picture ourselves being vulnerable in a large crowd. Crowds are not community and, as such, can be scary.
To build a community, we often must dare to be the first to share our most vulnerable selves with the crowd.
Robin Roberts, a popular anchor of ABC's Good Morning America, is a great example of sharing vulnerability. When Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana (where she comes from and where her family still lived), she was sent to cover its impact. Before landing, she was unable to communicate with her family. She didn't know if they were alive until she arrived at her mother's house and found them safe outside the damaged house. Soon after, she had to present on camera to communicate the impact of Katrina on national television. She showed up buttoned-up, standing strong to report the happenings. But then Charlie Gibson, her colleague hosting the show from NYC, asked her (on live TV) about her family. "Did you find them? Are they OK?" he asked. And she can't help it. She breaks into tears, breathes deeply, and shares that "yes, they're OK," adding that "so many people (are) affected by this storm who can't get to their loved ones. I was fortunate enough to be able to get down here and see them firsthand."
Charlie Gibson thanked her and the segment ended. Off-camera now, Robin realizes what just happened. That was it. She would be fired. She had cried on live television. Maybe if she was lucky, she could get a job back in Louisiana. Well, the exact opposite happened. She had been authentic. People could relate to that, especially in a moment when so many people were truly suffering from similar pain. She was not just another journalist but someone who they identified with. They wanted to see more of her. In her own words, she learned that "the intent of making your mess your message is that of being of service to others, through what you've gone through."
Later in her career, she applied this same perspective in publicly sharing her experience with breast cancer. She said, "I was trying to help you, and I was helped in return."
As community leaders, we need to be the first to show up. We have to speak our truth and, in doing so, open space for others to truly connect with us.
Originally published on Linkedin