I spent two weeks in the Caribbean over the holidays, listening to a lot of reggae music. My personal favorite is Bob Marley.

Bob Marley came from nothing.

He was born in total poverty in the village called Nine Mile up in the hills of Jamaica, and raised in the Trench Town district of Kingston.

In the 1970s, as Marley’s popularity soared, Trench Town became an all-out war zone sparked by divisive politics, drugs, and corruption.

Yet despite violence and poverty, Trench Town produced some of the greatest music Jamaica has ever known. Not only did Bob Marley emerge from the famous “government yards in Trench Town”, but so did many of his “Wailers”, including Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. To this day Trench Town is famous as the birthplace of rocksteady and reggae music.

Despite coming from absolutely nothing, Bob Marley became a music legend, cultural icon, and modern-day philosopher.

So many great rock stars came from poverty-striken and broken homes, includingElvis, Springsteen, Jay-Z, and Hendrix.

You don’t need power, money, political pull, job security, or corporate influence to be a rock star.

Being a rock star is a choice.

You can chose to create something truly memorable, something game changing, something meaningful… or you can chose to be average and watch the world go by.

Bob Marley chose to speak from his heart and make music that reflected his personal feelings, his religious beliefs, and his cultural heritage. He chose to change the lives of people around him in a positive and powerful way.

If you decide to sit and wait for the right time, circumstance, financial situation, and political climate to “rock”, you’ll be waiting a long, long time.

I think you should choose to rock instead.

Forget about your circumstances and forget about your excuses. Wake up and start rockin’.

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Lennon had McCartney.

Jagger has Richards.

Kanye has Jay Z.

Who in your world makes you noticably better?

There are two kinds of people in the world. A good friend of mine calls them “keys” and “locks”. “Keys” are people who open doors for you and in you. They make what you do better. “Locks” attempt to shut you down. They don’t get it.

Rock stars find collaborators who are “keys”.

If you want your business to be successful, you need to do the same thing.

One thing rock stars are famous for, and hip hop stars even more famous for, is their entourage. Rock stars surround themselves with people who enrich their lives. They eliminate people who don’t. The result is an environment where great things happen. Legendary songs are written. Magic happens.

Certainly business success isn’t as simple as just surrounding yourself with good people, but I can guarantee that it will be a hell of a lot harder to build a winning brand if you surround yourself with nay-sayers, negativity, and pessimists.

“Locks” are out there. They are inevitable. You need to deal with them swiftly and decisively. Get rid of them. If you can’t get rid of them completely, illegitimi non carborundum. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Michael Jackson earned more dead last year than Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, and Madonna.  Jackson’s estate earned $275 million, thanks mainly to his back catalog and the movie This Is It, detailing the concert rehearsals just before his death.

Prior to dying, Jackson was nearly bankrupt.  He left his family with $500 million in debts.  His reputation as a legendary musician was soiled by rampant rumors of indecent acts with children and persistent stories about his eccentric lifestyle.  His career, most would have judged, was over.

Yet today Michael Jackson out-earns many active living celebrities.  Why?

One reason is that his reputation cannot be further damaged by his actions.  Forbes writer Lacey Rose accurately pointed out that in death, a celebrity cannot be tainted by a tabloid story or rehab stint.

Another reason is that the purchase price of a brand naturally increases when a product is in short supply and demand is high.

When Ed Hardy products were only available at cool boutique stores, it was an in-demand brand.  Today, when you can buy Ed Hardy bedsheets at TJ Maxx, the brand’s value has changed dramatically.

When Krispy Kreme donuts were only available in certain states, and only at Krispy Kreme restaurants, the brand was powerful.  When those same donuts are for sale at the gas station, the value decreases.

If you could buy a Rolex watch at Target, would the brand carry the same weight?  When you see you are at a Rolex dealer, you know you are in the presence of quality.

There is a delicate balance between making your product available to all who want it, yet keeping it exclusive enough to have increased perceived value.

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This cartoon was created by Hugh MacLeod at http://www.gapingvoid.com/.  You should definitely visit his site and buy his great book “Ignore Everybody”.  I hope he doesn’t mind me using the cartoon, because it illustrates what I’m talking about here so nicely.

We have a hockey-mad house.  Our two teenage boys play.  I still lace them up. And my wife just joined a ball hockey league.  So quite often we find ourselves at the sports store.

And every time we get to the check-out, the clerk asks “Would you like to enter our draw for a gift card?”

The first few times, I said yes. Who doesn’t want to win a gift card?

But after making at least 20 purchases at this store, I long ago took to saying “no” when asked if I want to enter the gift card draw.

Why?

Because they clearly aren’t talking to me.  They don’t really care.  I can tell because they haven’t asked me for the one single piece of information that would actually allow them to talk to me… my e-mail address.

What are they doing with my phone number anyway?  They could be tracking the geographic appeal of their store.  As smart as that might be, it doesn’t even come close to talking to a customer one-on-one.  They could be selling my phone number to a call center, although that seems unlikely since we are listed in the phone book.  And to add to my suspicion, I’ve never won a gift card from them.

If they asked for my e-mail address, we could begin a relationship. It would be simple in the beginning, like a first date.  They might send me a note asking how the new skates I bought are working out and reminding me that they have a great skate sharpening facility in the store.  And then, once we got to know each other better, we could get more intimate.  By tracking my purchases, they could likely estimate when my kids are likely to grow out of what we bought six months earlier.  They would know what position my kids play, and what special equipment they need for that position.  And armed with that information, they could gently remind me to consider their store first for those purchases.  They could offer me (and other loyal customers) a first look at new equipment coming in, before it goes on sale.  The possibilities are endless.

But instead they ask, rather half-heartedly, for my phone number, and they apparently enter it in a gift card draw that I won’t be winning anytime soon.

Great brands are like great songs.

They speak to you one-on-one.   Everyone has songs that truly connect witht them.  Sure, your analytical left brain knows that the song wasn’t written specifically for you, but in that moment in time the lyrics and music meld with your free-thinking right brain so powerfully that you get lost in the song.  It’s your song.

Expedia is brilliant at that.  Last week I searched for flights to Boston. I didn’t buy, just browsed.  This week I received an e-mail from Expedia telling me that the flights I was looking at have gone on sale, and that hotels for that week are also discounted.  They didn’t spam me with information about Caribbean cruises or flights to Seattle.  They knew what I wanted, and made their message matter one-on-one.

Amazon does the same thing with books and other purchases.  You like Seth Godin?  Here’s a few other books that people who say they like Seth Godin also like.

iTunes?  Same thing.  My tastes are quite bizarre, and my kids use the same iTunes account.  So quite often the iTunes “Genius” will suggest that I might like Jay-Z, Pete Seeger, Dierks Bentley, and Dragonforce.

Funny how these massive multi-national companies can track my preferences so much better than my neighborhood sports store.  Yet they have so much to gain from doing it.

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