How to Create an Iconic Business with Scott McKain
Sometimes you have a guest with amazing credentials, and sometimes you have a guest with White House credentials. Our guest today is Scott McKain, an expert on how businesses distinguish themselves from the marketplace and win and retain customers. And he’s the author of ICONIC: How Organizations and Leaders Attain, Sustain, and Regain the Highest Level of Distinction. But perhaps the coolest credit on his bio is the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger once saw him speak, and booked him a presentation at the White House in front of the president. You know we talk about that on this episode of Just the Tips, and you’re going to want to hear that story.
How Scott was invited to the White House
So one day Scott walks out to give a presentation, and there sitting in the audience is Arnold Schwarzenegger. After the talk, Arnold told Scott that one day they would work together, but this was during the first Bush presidency, and Scott didn’t expect to be in the next Terminator movie. But Schwarzenegger was named by President George H.W. Bush as the chairman of the president’s Office of Fitness and Sports and he invited Scott to give a talk. And as Scott says, everyone in the audience was famous, and he was the only one he’d never heard of. Scott is a truly in-demand speaker and full of incredible insight and anecdotes on this week’s Just the Tips.
Helping companies stand out in the marketplace
Scott is an expert at helping companies stand out, and the way he came about that is actually a funny story. Scott was working with speakers bureaus, but not landing many gigs. So he started researching how he could differentiate himself, and realized there wasn’t a lot of literature out there about how to stand out. So, he stepped in to fill the void. But sometimes that’s what it takes: a personal journey that discovers a universal problem. This is a really exciting episode of Just the Tips that’s full of great advice for helping your company stand out.
The four cornerstones of becoming iconic
Scott says there are four cornerstones to helping you get your business to stand out. The first is clarity. Scott says that’s especially tougher for a smaller company, because it’s so easy to just chase after money, no matter where it’s coming from, when you’re just starting out. But you have to focus and be ready to say “no.” As he says, if you can express in six seconds what you do, then you’re on the right path. And that’s not a slogan, cautions Scott. A slogan is what you try to sell someone on, but a focus is what you are. You can tell Scott has done the research, and you won’t find a more eloquent speaker on how to make your business stand out. And it’s all on this episode of Just the Tips.
Creativity is key to standing out and becoming iconic
Another cornerstone of standing out is creativity. Now that doesn’t mean you have to do something totally different from someone else, but it means you have to find a new way of doing it, or presenting it. The third cornerstone is communication. That may sound obvious, but Scott has a unique spin on it that you won’t hear anyone else. And what’s the fourth cornerstone? You’ll have to listen to this week’s episode of Just the Tips.
Outline of This Episode
- [3:22] How Scott got booked at the White House
- [5:15] Scott helps companies stand out
- [10:48] How to stand out and become iconic
- [15:26] How Scott coaches businesses to achieve clarity
- [19:15] The difference between a slogan and a focus
- [25:05] You have to be creative
- [31:05] How to improve your communication
- [37:32] Scott’s book ICONIC
Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
