Marketing podcast with Pat Flynn
Transparency is a business concept that’s been tossed around liberally these last few years. To some extent social media has forced organizations to be more transparent, because they no longer had the luxury of hiding behind press releases and company spokespersons.
I believe first and foremost in transparency in all things, but how far is too far? I’m not offering a prescription or solid opinion on that. For this post I want to start a discussion as much as anything.
I believe that transparency, sharing information, revealing the numbers, opening the books or whatever form it takes is a healthy core value and not a marketing play.
Internet marketers have often misused the power of transparency by attempting to “prove” how much money their system makes through the display of large checks and bank statements. This is precisely the manipulative guise of transparency I’m not talking about.
One of the truly innovative good guys in this space is my guest for this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, Smart Passive Income creator Pat Flynn.
From the very beginning Pat has published his money making numbers in his monthly report as a way to validate the advice he is giving to others. Here’s where Pat is totally different than most and why he’s so immensely popular. Pat reports on how he does what he does, even when and as it doesn’t work as often as when it does. He refers to himself as a human crash dummy taking all the lumps and sharing in an often open and sometimes humorous way. Don’t get me wrong, Pats wins far outweigh his losses, but it’s this level of openness that has created a large, loyal and trusting community.
My interview with Pat is actually a ramble through a number of online topics, but I wanted to anchor it with the specific topic of transparency that has served him so well.
If information is power then when you share the information you spread the power and that’s one of the best ways to build a healthy internal culture. A healthy internal culture usually seeps out into the market and defines how the world sees your brand.
When everyone in an organization knows how much everything costs, how profit is made and how to save money or make money for the organization, they are better equipped to make decisions like an owner. Have you ever wondered why nobody cares about your business like you do? Maybe it’s because you know more about why you care, how you care and what difference you’re trying to make – have you shared that information?
I stared this post with a title that asked if you can share too much and I pose that question to you the reader really.
Buffer, an organization I’ve written about in the past, takes public transparency to a place few have. In addition to publishing goals and business performance updates, Buffer recently published how their salaries are determined and who, by name, makes what. This move created a tremendous amount of buzz both from those that thought it was bold and innovative and from those that thought it was reckless and overboard.
I believe that transparency along with consensus and autonomy are essential elements of any healthy business and wrestling with getting these elements just right is one of the greatest challenges that small business face.
So, now your turn. How do you make transparency work?
