Ken Schmidt - Make Some Noise: The Unconventional Road to Dominance

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Simon & Schuster

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Copyright 2018 by Ken Schmidt Company, Inc.

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition November 2018

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Interior design by Lewelin Polanco

Jacket photograph by James Schnepf

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-5011-5561-1

ISBN 978-1-5011-5563-5 (ebook)

Dont you just love it when great lessons come from unexpected sources (he purposely asked somebody who just started reading a business book with a guy on a motorcycle on its cover)?

And that reminds me...

Back in the early 1990s, while I was still drawing paychecks as Harley-Davidsons communications director, I rode a brand-spanking-new, beautifully tricked-out Harley one hundred miles straight south from our headquarters in Milwaukee and directly into a Chicago luxury hotels ballroomtalk about making an entrancewhere a group of suit-wearing financial analysts presented me with an award. I smirked a bit when I read the plaque, which said something about Excellence in Financial Communication, because I knew if theyd had more room, theyd have preferred it to reflect the real reason I was being feted and read, Excellence in Turning Us On to Harley-Davidson Before Its Stock Price Quadrupled in Two Years (helpful hint: everybody loves whatever it is you do when youre making them rich).

Man, what a time that was. We were basking in the glow of a cellar-to-penthouse, against-all-odds turnaround at Harley-Davidson that made us the unlikely darlings not just of the motorcycle and investment worlds, but the even more rarified worlds of culture, fashion, media, andgulpcelebrity. Not too shabby for a company that, only a few years earlier, the world pretty much loathed. You think the doormen at that hotel wouldve let me blast through their main entrance back then? Hell no, theyd have called the cops. Your mom, trust me, disliked everything about Harley people.

Thing is, we werent just hot, we were on fire, with long waiting lists of would-be riders willing to pay thousands of dollars more than our already high sticker prices to buy our sold-out bikes. We had politiciansup to and including the presidentpraising us and posing with our bikes for street cred, the biggest rock and country music stars touring our factories and hanging out with us, supermodels wearing our clothes, People -type magazine covers featuring A-listers and their bikes (Im still shaking my head in disbelief over that), and reporters from around the world lighting up our phone lines, trying to figure out where Milwaukee is and what the heck we were doing there that was creating such a huge buzz.

All the while and as crass as it sounds, it was raining cash at Harley headquarters and on long-suffering Harley dealers. The glory and money were godsends after a decades-long drought marked by undesired products, horrendous image problems (see mom), brinkmanship survival, and near financial ruin in the fiercely competitive global motorcycle market. Suffice to say we were enjoying it.

When Elon Musk invents a time machine, Im going to go back and relive those glorious days and Im sure everyone else involved in making this incredible success a reality will be booking passage, too. Itll be nice to see everyone thin, hairy, and giddy again.

But anyway.

As I stood there next to the bike, awkwardly holding the award and shaking the presenters hand for the obligatory grip-and-grin photo op, an analyst asked me precisely the kind of obvious question one of his firms clients, a professional investorthe kind who buys shares of stock in quantities needing two commaswould ask: Whos the biggest threat to Harleys business? Otherwise asked as Whos Harleys toughest competitor? A gift-wrapped, softball of a question if ever there was one.

No matter what you do for a living and how long youve been doing it, if youd been in my shoes, black leather jacket, and (marginally cool) Harley tie that night, you probably couldve answered that, right? Or at least taken a good-enough whack at it to sound convincing. A solid, one-word answer, name-checking a world-famous bike manufacturer would get you back to slurping your congratulatory cocktail and communicating like an award winner while analysts took turns posing on the bike and asking you if they look like Easy Rider.

Well, not so fast, friend. See, I never miss an opportunity to make some noise, the meaning of which youll learn soon enough, in front of highly influential people. So obvious, lame answers to predictable questions just arent in my repertoire. Investment recommendations issued by this guys firm, and the others represented in the room, reached the eyes and ears of the worlds biggest investors each week, all of whom could potentially become major Harley share owners. Because creating demand for said shares falls under my area of responsibilityand explains why I rode through Chicago rush-hour traffic in the first placemy mission that night was to increase the likelihood of these analysts making that happen. And at that moment, the window of opportunity couldnt be open much wider.

Now knowing the stakes, do you think you could answer that simple question in a way that would pique interest, be memorable and story-worthy enough to get repeated and thus achieve your goal of fueling more interest and demand for your employers offerings? And at the same time, would your response build your employers reputation for being staffed by likable, go-to people and great company ambassadors, worth spending more time with and listening to? And would it boost your personal reputation? Or would you just take the easy way out and answer the question the way the would-be Easy Riders (in Brooks Brothers and Ann Taylor) expected?

If you own, manage, or work for a businessof any sizeyou have opportunities like this every day to make some beautiful noise and stand out from your competitors. How you handle them says everything about your business and how you view your market and your place in it. It also says a lot about you, personally. The same goes for everybody working at your business, regardless of job title or responsibility. Everybody.