Every time you speak to someone, the dynamics of that interaction dominate the outcome.

Merriam-Webster dictionary tells us the definition of “dynamics” is, a pattern or process of change, growth, or activity. We should focus on the “process of change” part.

When you speak to someone, depending on what you say (and how you act, of course) you influence the “process of change”, for better or worse.

What usually happens during interactions, that reveals the dynamics? Well, there are hundreds of possibilities, but for the most part, we speak and people are: curious to hear more because they haven’t heard it before or, bored ’cause they have; listening or pretending to listen; learning or they are wondering why you think they are so stupid.

Or, most important, they absorb the information and remember it later, or they don’t. (This, to be ridiculously clear, is called Branding.)

All that I’ve described are dynamics of conversation. Every interaction has them (including when people read your web site and materials, by the way), and that fact is only relevant once the dynamics move toward one result or another.

The job of moving the dynamics in a positive direction (for your brand and sales) is yours, every day, during every conversation. If it moves toward a negative result, i.e. boredom, it’s your fault.

And that brings me to the thought of the day: when you speak to someone, if you don’t have differentiated positioning you can convey in about five seconds (or less), the dynamics of the conversation will start going against you.

Your job is to develop valuable, differentiated positioning ideas, and get good at managing the dynamics of your interactions. If you don’t, or aren’t even aware that these things are going on, you’re losing brand identity and revenue like you can’t imagine.

The first test of whether you’re on the right track? Are people genuinely curious to hear more after you’ve Positioned yourself.

I probably talk about this too much, but my preference is to be abundantly clear on this important point:

If you are still using an elevator pitch, or working on one, or generally have the elevator pitch “mindset” - meaning, you’re constantly wondering how best to describe your business to yourself and others in the traditional 30 seconds - you’re demolishing your ability to grow in multiple ways.

First, as a selling technique, nothing could be worse than introducing yourself by describing what you do in 30 seconds, which makes you sound more like the competition, not less. Instead, position for differentiation in no more than 5 seconds, which will drive the context of the remaining conversation, now based on differentiation rather than commoditized details.

Second, a 5 second leading edge of conversation, based on brand positioning and differentiation, doubles as a platform to simultaneously improve internal culture, brand density, i.e. unifying sales and marketing, as well as management modeling, i.e. the basis to make decisions on strategy and operations.

You see, branding should not be seen as a niche element within business; it IS the core driver of business…when done correctly!

Once in a while, when someone REALLY doesn’t understand what I do, they ask if Verbal Branding is similar to an elevator pitch. After my head nearly explodes, I explain that it’s 1) a new branding application to think, speak, and especially sell and, 2) a differentiation development platform to simultaneously improve at least 4 levels of business operations.

Then their head nearly explodes, as it should. Evidence after over six years developing and teaching Verbal Branding has shown it is legitimately unique in the world, and those without such a platform are losing money and brand identity every single day, they just don’t realize it.

Ask more if you like, or I suppose you could just go on losing money every day, trying like heck to get that elevator pitch to do something positive.

This is an interview on the Harvard Business Review blog of my friend Ed Boswell, CEO of Forum Corp. Ed is talking about some of the principals in his new book, Strategic Speed, which he co-authored, most notably about how firms can avoid just going fast without actually accomplishing their strategic goals. In his words, you need to slow down to speed up.

I’m also reading Strategic Speed. The material is quite good, as it talks in depth about the need for clear communications and the simplicity and focus needed to create critical positive results in a rapid way, while avoiding some common missteps.

It’s been hot…really hot. In fact, it’s feels hard to think of anything else when you’re sweating all day.

All I can say is, it’s a chance to go to a cool place and work on things you’re having trouble getting to. The other day I went to a coffee shop three hours early for a meeting so I could concentrate on an article I’m working on. It was time well spent, partly because of their air conditioning.

The other thing I’ve done is reconnect with people I haven’t spoken to in a while. Strange, isn’t it, how you can put your mind in a different place to do different things based on external influences (such as, heat that might otherwise make you crazy) even though they are things you should be doing anyway!!

I realize that might have been a run-on sentence, but I’m pretty sure a necessary one.

Anyway, every day can’t be exactly the same, and who’d want them to be? So take the natural changes that occur and use them to change things up a bit.

What are you having trouble getting to? What would be fun that ordinarily feels indulgent? See where I’m going here? When it’s this hot, I say…just don’t worry about it.

I attended an interesting micro-conference last evening, called the Influencer Project. It was put on by ThoughtLead for the purpose of having 60 thought leaders (via teleconference) each give a tip about attaining digital influence.

Each “influencer” had 60 seconds and by and large all gave some pretty good insights. Without reviewing my notes too much, the tips that stood out were:

• Tell stories online so people can relate more easily to the info being shared
• Consider advertising on Facebook, targeting certain profiles
• Retweet your own Tweets (Guy Kawasaki does this up to four times per day, within 8 hours)
• Use online videos to influence people and to better share critical information
• If you want to influence an influencer, talk about and to them!

I imagine they’ll be doing more of these micro-conferences, so keep a look out in the coming weeks or months.

It would be hard for me to exaggerate just how much I DON’T CARE where Lebron James plays basketball next year. Yet, it’s the only topic that seems more in my face than even the World Cup.

For instance, I turn on one of my favorite TV shows over the long weekend, and what do I see on no less than the Charlie Rose show…four, yes four, sports reporters discussing this exact issue.

I…don’t…care… !!! Stop wasting my time.

It seems to me we have two wars, oil spilling in the gulf every second, a recession, and high unemployment, just to name a few current and pressing issues.

I know they call Lebron “King James”, which is a little strange since I don’t see any championship rings on his fingers; and, I know sports is big business. I also know no matter where he plays next year no one I know will make more money because of it, or have any single thing about their lives change or improve.

Here’s the thought I have floating around in my head: to the degree we (collectively) think things like where Lebron plays next year are important, we as a society are distracted from actual important things and very likely making bad decisions as a country.

Sorry for my partly political rant today, but it won’t happen again for a while - unless something REALLY irritates me!

As you might expect, I notice when other firms use the phrase, Verbal Branding.

Uniformly, they mean “content” development, such as naming, marketing content, tag line development, and web site content development. I mean branding while you speak, during business conversations. That involves the development of a differentiation platform and a new spoken application (which by all accounts is unique in the world marketplace).

As you might realize, my Verbal Branding platform then moves beyond the spoken word to simultaneously improve internal culture, brand density (e.g. unifying sales and marketing), and management modeling.

I guess I’m bias, but I really think these other firms should get out of the way with their, “naming, web content development”, etc. Find another set of language to describe what you do!

For the record: It ain’t Verbal Branding, and it’s several steps lower in importance from what the platform I describe does.

So who’s with me? With vast business ramifications at stake, it’s time to take the words Verbal Branding and view them as is most appropriate, that of a plain language, spoken application of branding, to improve at least four levels of business operation.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

A few weeks ago I spotted an article in the NY Times about a start-up company that lets you design your own shirts online. It’s called Blank Label, and it’s a perfect illustration of having not only good positioning in the market - design your own shirts - but one that has a verbally oriented construction, whether on purpose or not.

The “tag line” is, Designed By You. Stitched By Us.

Most companies, in trying to market themselves, would come up with a tag line more like, We’ll Dress You Like An Idol, or, Dressed To Kill, or something equally ridiculous.

This tag line is meant to tell you the explicit offer, which is exactly how it should be done (but hardly ever is). There’s too much sloganeering going on out there, and it doesn’t work.

Instead, someone there thought out of the box, asking themselves, “when it comes to shirts, what’s the gap in the market - what do people really want that they don’t have”. Boom! The answer: let people design their own shirt and we’ll just make them!

Great positioning. And they aren’t screwing up their offer by creating messaging that takes the consumer AWAY from what they are actually offering. Pretty smart.

By the way, this company can’t keep up with their orders. I don’t have to wonder why.

Nothing hits the nail on the head like a good comic, wouldn’t you agree?

The point is, if you aren’t matching your business actions with your - for lack of a better word - rhetoric, you’ll be in trouble over the long term.

People don’t appreciate you saying one thing and doing another; it doesn’t matter the context. But in business, it means you’re being misleading about things people either spend money on or get paid on.

The other, more generous, way to look at it is, you’re not matching words and action because you don’t have a well enough defined brand. Yup, that’s probably it. If you have a well defined brand, it’ll show you what to say (as long as there’s a verbal branding component), think, and do, who to do it for, and at what price most likely.

If you have the best of intentions, unlike our friend here in today’s cartoon, but still find it difficult to match selling with operations and delivery, it’s a branding problem more than anything else. And it needs to be fixed immediately or you’re stunting your ability to grow.

…revise my long-term business strategy

…eat ice cream

…accept not finding Influencers to speak with

…ignore my clients needs, whether they have to do with my service or not

…take the politics of the day too seriously

…forget to ruminate about the value of a Verbal Branding platform

…worry about the Red Sox catching the Yankees