Brand Lessons From Colin Kaepernick

Hello everyone, Glen Gould here again. It's Wednesday, and on Wednesday we like to talk about a big tip for your small business. And it couldn't be any better than today, because today we have a great lesson in the public domain that we can talk about, and that is Colin Kaepernick and his brand and what he has done to it or done for it. So you'd have to have been sleeping under a rock over the past week if you haven't found out that Colin Kaepernick, quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, 49ers, decided to protest the United States by sitting down during the national anthem during a preseason game, I believe with the Green Bay Packers. It wasn't so much sitting down during the national anthem that caused the uproar, but the way he approached it after being asked about it. Whether you agree with him or disagree with him, the lesson we ought to learn today about our business is that Colin Kaepernick is a business, just like you are a business, whether you're in business for yourself or you're a part of a business. You actually represent the business to the people you interact with. And so just like that, Colin Kaepernick represents not only himself, but also the San Francisco 49ers, the National Football League, and the United States of America. He represents lots of things. If you really wanted to go back, he represents his high school and his college and his family and all those other things as well. And when he takes an action that's in the public domain, that action then reflects on all of those different constituencies. We can argue whether Colin Kaepernick helped or hurt his brand. But the important thing to realize here is who was he talking to? In the football world, fans and advertisers and sponsors pay the bills. And so when he stood up— or sat down, actually— when he decided to stand up for his beliefs and sit down and then said why he was doing so, that had an impact on the fans, on the sponsors, and on the advertisers. And that means that he has to remember them as his customer. So when you take an action in the public domain, you have to realize that that action should represent your customer's opinion if in fact you want to be congruent with their wants and therefore continue to do business with them. It's pretty obvious Colin Kaepernick's going to have a negative impact in his financial life, and perhaps he doesn't care about that. Of course, there'll be a negative impact on his team as well because now His team is dealing with a controversy rather than dealing with how they're going to beat the next team or the team on opening day. When you take a public domain action, whether it's posting on Facebook or maybe doing a YouTube video like this, or perhaps doing a blog or a Twitter feed or anything else, when you make a statement in the public domain, it impacts a whole lot more people than just your personal opinion. And you have to remember that because somewhere along the line, those people pay the bills. Most of us don't like that anymore. Most of us like to think that we're free to say whatever we want to say, and we are. That's the beauty of this country. Colin Kaepernick is free to say what he wants to say and act as he wants to act, but the marketplace is free to act as it wants to as well. I predict that Colin Kaepernick's going to see a reduction in sponsorships. I would predict that he's going to see a reduction in playing time. I would predict— and of course we've already seen— that fans are burning his jerseys in record numbers. When you act incongruent with the customer, the customer The customer will respond in a negative way. Could he have made his statement without offending so many customers? We all want to be able to be free to be who we are. I mean, after all, if we're going to be in business for ourselves, don't we want to be able to be the truest self that we can be? Well, I believe Colin missed a big opportunity. Rather than react to the questions after his action, he should have preempted that by saying, this is what I believe, and because I believe this, I am going to be I'm not sitting down for the national anthem during this game. That will be the representation of what I believe. But what happened is he did it, which caused all the questions and then the controversy. If he had headed it off in the beginning and stated his beliefs, he probably could have gotten feedback before he did. It would have lessened the impact of the negativity that people felt because he sat down for the national anthem, because the shock value would have already been over. When you decide that you're going to go out and say something, see, a lot of times we'll post something on Facebook or on YouTube or whatever, and it's a reactionary post. I do it myself where I'm tired of hearing something over and over and over that I don't agree with, and finally I snap and I've got to say something, and I say it. But a lot of times I'll type that and then I'll copy it and I'll put it in a Word document and I'll let it simmer for a couple hours, and I'll come back and I'll realize, you know, it's probably not the right place or forum to have that argument because in the end What I want to do is I want to represent myself, my company, my family, my country as well as possible. Sometimes that means thinking about how you're going to respond. Now here's the big lesson for our companies or for our workers or for our personal entrepreneurial endeavors. If you're going to have a position that could possibly be controversial to your clientele, put that up front. Let people know it in advance. Let them know what you stand for, because there's plenty of people who will stand with you, and they will be your customers and constituents. And it's okay if you don't believe something that somebody else does. It's, it's perfectly fine that you can disagree with people. I do business with a lot of people I disagree with because I know where they stand, and I still value the service they provide. I think Colin Kaepernick could have told us where he stood, we could have still valued the service he provides, and everybody would have been better off because we'd be moving closer to a solution to these kind of problems rather than becoming more polarized and moving further away. So I'd like to know what you think. Do you think that Colin Kaepernick has damaged his brand? Do you think he's damaged the 49ers brand and the NFL brand? Or do you think this is just another one of those controversies that'll go away in no time at all as soon as preseason is over and the football season starts? Well, we'll be on to something new. I'd love to have your comments down in the section below. If you like this content, please subscribe. I'd love to have you on our subscription list. You'll get the updates when they come out. We put out a new video every Wednesday that will help help you in your business, whether you work for yourself or you work for a company or you're an entrepreneur. We want to help you because we believe that our work is our greatest path to greater freedom and enjoyment in life.