Aaron Hoos

If you were awesome once, you can’t help but be awesome again, right?

Dan and Chip Heath (of Made to Stick) say no. In this interesting article, Success Can Make You Stupid, the Heath boys show how many of Hollywood’s movie successes are self-fulfilling prophecies — based on established links of trust between directors, producers, actors, key grips, and theater chains. Their premise is this: People who have worked together and found success once will be more likely do another project with those people, spending more money and marketing more diligently, thus creating the self-fulfilling prophecy of a successful movie. (Without explicitly stating it, they are asserting that if the same amount of money and time and effort were put into other movies, they would be as successful).

It’s an interesting idea, and very accurate and it’s a phenomenon that happens in business, too. Chip and Dan remind us that it happens in HR all the time, where the star performers are TOLD they are star performers (and better enabled) and thus become star performers. But it happens elsewhere, too: Strategic initiatives, new products and services, marketing systems, you name it.

In other words, if you decide some aspect of your business is going to be successful and you invest in it (either investing in it more than other aspects of your business or to the exclusion of other initiatives) it will very likely become successful.

We see it in the stock market, too: A stock that everyone is talking about becomes a stock that everyone buys. And when more and more buyers buy a stock, the stock goes up in price… and people talk about it more and buy it more.

So, how can you use this concept to your benefit? It comes down to deciding to focus on one element of your business as the key opportunity that will make your business more successful. Then focus on it. Spend money on it. Work on it. Build it.

If you can overlook the retina-burning red of their website, and if you can get past their awkward stock symbol (STD), you’ll be surprised to discover Global Santander as an impressive organization and the banking industry’s best kept secret.

Santander is the largest bank in the world in terms of bank branches (they have 14,000) and they are the third largest bank in the world in terms of assets (they have $1.5 trillion). They’ve been around since 1857. They seem to be well defined in terms of what they do and how they communicate it. Their mix of geographic markets and demographic markets minimizes their risk. (Read an article at MoneyShow by Forbes International Investment Report Editor John H. Christy III).

So, why haven’t most people heard of them? Well, for one, their focus has not been on US and Canada: They have branches in Europe and Latin America. Latin America has money but doesn’t make economic headlines. (Well, that’s not entirely true: Brazil is the “B” in the BRIC acronym). I’d also suggest that companies that do make headlines lately are ones that are having a rough time in this economy, while a company like Santander has been around for 150 years and just continues to plug away at what it does well.

There’s some interesting potential here for them to grow. In a time when banks are imploding and financial confidence is weakened, a strong company like Santander can come in and make strategic acquisitions. It’s a cheap way to gain fast marketshare. And they already have a North American presence: They’re in Mexico and they have some regional presence in the US with an American bank (Sovereign Bank) and a financial company (formerly Drive Finance now Santander Consumer).

Consumer concerns over “foreign ownership” are a potential threat but they can be addressed with regional, co-branded marketing (on a similar but larger scale to what they are doing at Sovereign Bank and Santander Consumer). Or, they can accomplish it in the same way that the Toyotas and Hondas and Nissans have done it (quite successfully) with heavy investment in communicating that they do business locally.

If I were to recommend how they might gain further entry into the North American market, this would be my recommendation:

1. Start marketing right now. Before you do anything else, flood the market with a bunch of marketing on the size and stability and competitive advantage of Santander.
2. Then, in the US, buy banks. They’re cheap. Pick up some regional banks. Put together a co-branded package to *slowly* switch XYZ bank to XYZ bank by Santander. Make “by Santander” or “backed by Santander” a key part of your co-branding. In Canada, use the bankless PC Financial model (which places kiosks in Loblaws grocery stores). There are other places people shop. (Does Walmart have a bank? I can’t remember. The one near my house doesn’t).
3. Start making in-roads into other countries. (They are in Russia, the “R” in BRIC). I think they could make some ground in India, the Philippines, and they might even have the chops to fill the financial services vacuum in Africa.

ING Direct is another good example of a foreign company doing a good job entering the US & Canadian market. If Santander is looking to make headway into the US/Canadian market, now is the time to do it. They have money, they have sound policies, they have a strong brand, and have little exposure to the mortgage poison that has put many banks on shaky ground.

In terms of the Business Diamond Framework™, all four Function Diamonds are really strong: Their Leadership Diamond has a clear focus and game plan; their Value-Add Diamond has won the trust (and the $1.5 trillion in assets) of Europeans and Latin Americans; their To-Market Diamond articulates clear benefits to their current market; their Support Diamond has made helped them to grow consistently over 150 years. Now, in my opinion, it’s time for them to take it to the next level and become a truly global organization.

In the world of investing, equities pale in comparison to the much larger foreign exchange market. The nature of the market can be riskier and far more rewarding than what most investors are used to. Forex fund BlackHorse is a private fund that pools investors’ money to trade currencies.

BlackHorse Fund contracted me on a long-term basis to work with them. They have a bunch of proprietary systems and methods so I can’t really tell people what I do for them. Still, I can say that I create a bunch of internal and external content and I create and implement a large portion of their communication strategy.

Here’s a quick look at what I’m working on this week:

• Finish a set of internet marketing articles to help position a client in that space
• Write 10 economic and investment news articles about the metals industry
• Finish one ebook and start a second one for a Forex fund
• Finish an ebook for a real estate professional
• Publish a weekly investment newsletter for Top Stock Gurus
• Write blogs for a Saas bookkeeping site
• Implement a marketing plan for the Forex fund
• Implement a marketing plan for LionsFutures, a futures trading platform
• Write blogs for a business coach
• Write web content and presentation material and implement the marketing plan for a business that is launching this week (more on that in a future blog)
• Write articles for VentureHype
• Complete an internal customer service newsletter for the Boyd Group
• Start on a report and an article for StayInTouchSystem

A couple other items in the pipeline but this is the bulk of my effort this week.

TopStockGurus.com is a free report and weekly newsletter in which stock market gurus choose compelling stocks and give their reasons for the choice.

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