Using the "Flywheel" Concept for your Brand

Brands take a lot of work to build. They take so much work, in fact, that it’s very easy to derail a brand-in-process. Often it simply takes a momentary lapse of patience.

There’s a very good chance you’ve watched it happen, or worse, done it yourself. A change in management, or a slip in ratings, causes everyone to rethink a market position and start building a new brand. Or maybe you never even bothered to consider a market position and you just run with whatever comes to mind next.

I’m going to refer, again, to Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great (Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t)”. Among the interesting ideas uncovered in Collins’ research is the “Flywheel Concept”. I think this concept has direct lessons for us.

A flywheel is used to harness kinetic energy. It captures movement and turns it into inertia. It starts with a bit of pushing. At this stage, the flywheel needs regular, steady effort. Over time, the effort needed to keep it moving becomes easier to apply – momentum begins to take hold. Then, after patient, deliberate efforts, the flywheel reaches its breakthrough point. Inertia starts to set in. Now, you need only apply effort at intervals to keep it moving. The wheel is moving primarily on its own momentum.

That’s how it is with brands. At first, they take an extraordinary amount of effort. It starts with proper design, just like a flywheel. The things got to be built to keep moving – so make sure it’s got “legs”.

Then comes the effort it takes to make it move. Steady, regular, patient effort. There are no shortcuts here! You can’t take detours! You’ve got to devote yourself to building the necessary momentum to make inertia kick in. Anything that distracts you from this effort is only going to trip you up.

As the momentum begins to take hold, the effort becomes easier. It’s tempting at this point to think you’re done – you’ve built enough momentum to move onto other things. DON’T! You’re not done! The effort still needs to be applied.

Inertia kicks in when your effort takes on a life of its own. Collins defines what that looks like better than I can, so I’ll leave you in suspense. That way, you’ll buy his book.

The trick to all of this is the effort and the patience. Lord knows our business is very often short on both. But if you think about the brands that have done it right, it’s amazing how the flywheel concept does work.

•Downy
•Oil of Olay
•Starbucks
•Apple
•Nike

As different as these products are, they have one thing in common: These brands have the flywheel in motion. They applied the effort successfully and now have the freedom to simply maintain the momentum.

Here's the kicker: Once kinetic energy has been harnessed, it takes an equal amount of effort to bring the motion back to a state of rest. In other words, if you do this right, you'd have to undo it just as deliberately. Effectively, it becomes something of its own insurance policy AND security system. Now that's quite a trick. More importantly, think of the implications for your business of a brand that moves on its own momentum.

Case in point: The Tylenol Crisis in the 80's. Here was an incident that threatened to quickly kill one of the world's best-known and most-used brands. But Tylenol had so much momentum in its brand that the general public wanted - deep down - to keep using Tylenol. That's momentum at work. Johnson and Johnson's response to the crisis: "Leverage our momentum". It engaged the public with honesty and care, going so far as to tell the public to stop using their product while they addressed the problem. Hell, they even invited 60 Minutes into their offices and labs while they worked it out! Momentum let them do that without killing the business. What's more, when J&J was ready to put the product back on the market, they gave their flywheel a nice steady push. They advertised and promoted their new safety bottles until the momentum was back in full swing.

These days, Tylenol is sold with the same respect for the consumer's need, and, interestingly, with warnings about its misuse. J&J took the honesty and forthrightness it showed in the crisis and turned it into part of their brand. That's brilliant. Lemons into lemonade right there.

Now think of the result if it had been someone else. If it had been a painkiller without the history and momentum of Tylenol. It would've been a very different outcome.

Read more about the flywheel at JimColiins.com.