Food Trucks Matter More Than You Realize

It's no secret to those who know me that there's always some cooking show on the TV, much to the chagrin of Amir who'd rather be watching some form of sports.  So, it should be no surprise that I'm celebrating that Chicago finally has some food trucks.  I've (over)tweeted their locations, their menus and any interesting food truck story that I can find.

What is it about these trucks that are so fascinating other than food??? There is the fun of the truck that chooses my corner and me catching the tweet at just the right time with the announcement of both menu and location.  It's not unlike the joy of hearing the Good Humor truck when we were young albeit without the tech whizz bangery.

The fun is also that dining is one of the few experiences we have where all senses are employed and multiple people can have this same concurrent, intensely human, multisensory experience.  The food truck experience is intensely social.  And it brings me back to this post from early last month which was triggered by this tweet by David Meerman Scott:

"Get out of your nice comfortable office and meet with your potential customers. Use what you learn to create valuable stuff online."

As I mentioned then, it's all well and good that I'm parked behind my laptop like many others in my quest to be all things social.  I came of age in what is now the equivalent of marketing hieroglyphics (aka direct marketing) and am making my strategic experience mesh with what I learn in the social space.

At some point, you've got to have a multisensory experience beyond the tapping of the keyboard and accelerating your (or my) need for reading glasses.  Things become more meaningful with human touch even though I've read that half of all Facebook users log in once a day and one third of time spent online is spent on Facebook.  

We still gather in person for Barcamps and ProductCamps.  We go because we want to mingle and learn from thought leaders and also meet people who are eager to learn just like us.  We like to be with originators and other users.

Let's get back to food trucks.  The chef is the originator of content, products, etc. and can certainly talk it up all she or he wants in a blog, post pictures on Facebook and tweet pictures as well.  But, really, what's the point?  Unless the chef's massively gluttonous, all of those lovely things will go to waste.  The chef has to share.

Similarly, we can sit behind our laptops while damning ourselves to the prosaic turkey on wheat come lunch.  But, we can give ourselves permission to emerge, interact with the originator, witness creativity first hand and maybe meet some new people all at the same time thereby satisfying two intensely human needs: socialization and nourishment.  And all of this happens organically because we happen to read the right tweet at the right time.

Don't believe me? Here's an exchange between Amir and Chef Phillip Foss (see below).  Amir loved his sandwich, by the way, and the joy of something different for lunch.

Parissa Behnia

Idea Chef

678Partners@gmail.com

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Not THAT Parissa. I Don't Make Body Wax: My Personal Brand Dilemma

Hope all is well and thanks to everyone for the great feedback on the last couple of posts.  Sometimes, it feels like I'm talking to myself (in a good way, of course), so I appreciate the conversation!  I learn a lot from you!

Blogs, by definition, are narcissistic and today is no different.  Actually, today might be worse than normal because I'm going to talk about creating my "personal brand" as well as the struggle to maintain and grow it.  I've told you before that I'm on a marketing journey to do the following: make myself a better thinker and begin to learn the whys and wherefores of social media.  I'm the perpetual student and I'm okay with that.

One of the things I did pretty early on was to do some reading.  I pored through many articles like this on Inc. to better understand what I needed to do to make my Personal Brand shine not unlike a Broadway marquee.  Articles like this one instruct one to "have a personality" (um...  I thought I had one but okay) while demonstrating my thought leadership so that I stand out from the crowd.  There are a bunch of other niblets of advice in there, too.

So off I went and Googled myself filled with naive confidence that I would, of course, be near the top of Page 1 if not the top (no need to be greedy, after all).  The result?  I wasn't even close to Page 1 let alone Page 2 of results.

You know what was #1 through (it felt like) infinity? Parissa was, of course.  But this Parissa manufacturers at home body hair removal kits...  Body sugar? She makes it.  Hot, microwaveable wax?  You're covered, no pun intended.  Do you like wax strips?  You're still fine.  Curious about Parissa's quality?  There are product reviews galore.  My reaction: AAAAAAAH!

Since I've been engaging, blogging and tweeting quite a bit, things have changed somewhat.  If you do a search now, you'll still see that my waxing friend is still the #1 suggestion and she's all over the first page of search results with occasionally my mug on the bottom.  Sometimes, my full name shows up as #5 in the list... It's only been just recently that you've not needed to type "Parissa B" to find me.

Smaller businesses like 678 Partners have to distinguish themselves based on style as well as how "present" or "findable" they can be in the online space and what tangible functions they performs.  This is a consultancy that helps senior executives identify, create and grow business opportunities so they are more competitive in the marketplace.  This is like many what many others do.  And I would be on a fool's errand if I rested my fortunes on what 678 Partners functionally does though we are decently good at it, bias set aside.

The key difference is in how we go to market, how we attract new business and how we retain business.  How we engage is sometimes a little more important than what it is we bring to the table.  To stay top of mind, we have to engender some je ne sais quoi, some X factor, some belief that we can help and that we have their interests in mind.  And, this je ne sais quoi has to be so magnetic, they'll always come back to us, they'll always tell others about it.  And yet, they'll never be able to put a finger on exactly why.

And here lies the problem of Personal Brand.  Je ne sais quoi, as we know, means "I do not know what" which is a hard thing to pull off if you subscribe to the idea of a Personal Brand.  We know that it is certainly not fluff.  It's not flashy sites, cutesy odd shaped business cards or how many people we meet at a speed networking event.  It's also not what we tangibly deliver to clients.  It's chemistry.  It's listening for the spoken and unspoken word...  as well as a host of other things.

Ultimately, we can't digitize everything.  Apple can't create apps for our personality or how we connect with people.  I know this is making me sound like a luddite but there you have it...  The best thing that could have happened to me was to realize that it's hard to compete with body wax.  I'm going to have to rely on other tools to rise to the top.

Have a great weekend!

Parissa Behnia
Idea Chef

678Partners@gmail.com
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