About this video
The first aspect of tone of voice, ethos.
Video length: 2:26
Dave Harries: Grant, let’s talk in a bit more depth about this tone of voice that we mentioned. The first aspect of tone of voice which I think is ethos. Talk to me about that?
Grant Leboff: Even by ethos or purpose if you like, is what reason are you in business beyond making money. There’re plenty of commercial organisations out there that are trying to make money, trying to make profits, feed families and everything else. That’s fine but that won’t get your customers excited because they won’t worry about how profitable you are. You’ll have internal goals, possibly profitable goals and turnover et cetera. What beyond that is the reason you’re in business? It’s very important to have something that invigorates everybody internally but also gets customers excited as well.
I’ll give you an example, Bill Gates, when he started Microsoft back in 1977, the vision was a computer in very desk and in every home. That was a big vision that could get people internally at Microsoft excited but also customers could get excited about as well. Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook talks about creating a more open and connected world. Again that’s something that connects to our customers as well as internally as well. It’s just, what is the higher reason for existing? Because it’s that glue that keeps your media, your channels interesting. It’s that glue that will excite customers because they’re not going to come to you just so you make money.
Dave Harries: Presumably it’s vital that the sales force buy into that ethos. They understand it, they feel part of it and they act upon it?
Grant Leboff: Absolutely. To be honest, it’s important that everybody in the company buys into it. Sales people, yes – they’re customer-facing, they really have to, you better tell if they don’t. It gives that authenticity as well. What it does, when you’ve got that ethos and that purpose and it’s very strong, is you end up creating a great culture. Again in an experienced economy, it’s often you don’t differentiate by what you do but how you do something. You’ve got that culture, it makes an enormous difference.
If you take a company like ‘Innocent Drinks’, essentially it’s dull, they just makes fruit smoothies. That’s not particularly original but parts of that whole vision was to help people live healthier lives and die old. Now, once they say that, if they believe it, which I believe they do. If they really believe that, then that’s extrapolated down. That means we’ve got to use the healthiest ingredients. We’ve got to make sure that our drinks are fresh and healthy. It then dovetails into how they deliver on that purpose, on that ethos. You can see, if you start to live that, you attract the right people. You start to become quite a different type of business, even though what you do, a fruit drink, isn’t so different. It’s vitally important.
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