Business Q & A
History as Competitive Edge
Interview by Robbie Miller Kaplan
author of How to Say It in Your Job Search
Your firm’s history is a low-cost, high-impact marketing tool – a secret weapon that’s especially useful in hard times. Marian Calabro has seen this phenomenon at work in Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and family-owned businesses. She’s the president of CorporateHistory.net LLC, a custom publisher of history books and DVDs for clients such as The Pep Boys, Melwood Horticultural Training Center, Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment Corporation, and Annin & Company, America’s largest flag maker.
Q;
What’s the connection between history and marketing?
A: During a
recession, customers want assurance that your organization has a strong
track record and will be there for them. Employees want that assurance,
too. If your firm has lasted a respectable amount of time, no doubt you
have survived downturns and emerged stronger. The trick is to tap into
that institutional knowledge and share it. Your history is a stranded
asset until you put it to work. Then it becomes a powerful,
cost-effective tool for marketing, community relations, and worker
morale.
Q;
Isn’t marketing strictly a function of the marketing department?
A: Your
employees are always your best marketers. Marketing may not be part of
our job descriptions, but all of us can advance our careers by becoming
better marketers. One way to do that is to connect your customers to
your organization’s roots. In today’s workplace, we get so flooded with
daily concerns that it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger mission. Your
history reconnects you with that. Also, it cuts through the clutter. No
other organization can tell your unique story or show your unique
images.
Q;
Things change so fast these days, the past feels almost irrelevant.
A: Some people
are uncomfortable with the word “history.” Try substituting the word
“knowledge” or “reputation” instead. Or think of history as a way to
measure your achievements. That’s especially vital in the Internet age,
when our work product isn’t always tangible.
Q;
How does this work in the real world?
A:
Here’s one
example. I wrote the history of a publicly-held regional energy company
that turned 100 a few years ago. Their centennial came at a time when
that industry had two black eyes: Enron had self-destructed, and rolling
blackouts were hitting California. Suddenly it wasn’t so unfashionable
for this company to be a “widows and orphans” stock with a century-long
record of paying dividends. In fact, the company made its financial
stability and scandal-free history a subtle theme in its year-long
anniversary campaign. They have revived their uninterrupted-dividends
message as part of their marketing during the current economic downturn.
It still packs a punch.
Q;
Many organizations are brimming with history and institutional
knowledge, but how do they capture it?
A: First, make
the commitment. Then start small, in any number of ways. Within your
department or division, bring long-term and short-term staff together
for periodic sharing—even for a single afternoon. Record the results,
get them transcribed, share them. Construct a timeline, highlighting the
turning points that have moved the organization ahead. Adapt it for your
Intranet and external Web sites. Invite people to contribute information
to it. Archive key materials and make them accessible—to get started on
that, call the nearest graduate school of information services (check
the accredited ones at the American Library Association site,
www.ala.org) or the Society of American Archivists (www.archivists.org).
