“Don’t ask me, what you know is true what you know is true, Don’t have to tell you, I love your precious heart” INXS

Year after year INXS smashed out awesome rock songs and it showed in the massive following that they had. They had a consistent behavior. Some of it good, some of it, well I’ll let you use your imagination.

One thing you cannot take away from the INXS boys is that they knew how to rock. They knew their market and they created what they wanted to listen to.

In the process they created a rock solid culture amongst their followers, so much so that even just recently they created a television series on them that everyone just had to watch it.

How does this translate into business? It’s pretty simple really. In fact Steve Martin sums it up perfectly with this saying.

“Be so good they can’t ignore you”

INXS churned out awesome rock music even when their ex manager (yes I watched the television series) pushed them to bow to the status quo and just perform cover songs. “You will never be anything if you don’t follow my advice” he told them.

The boys would not buckle. They knew the culture that they wanted to create and they went about doing it the best way they knew how.

Now it’s highly unlikely that you or I are ever going to have the sort of rock star status the INXS boys had, but it’s not impossible. However we are not going to achieve it doing the same old same old, that everyone else is doing.

Repeatedly I quote from the book Rework and today will be no exception.

“Strong opinions aren’t free. You’ll turn some people off. They’ll accuse you of being arrogant and aloof. That’s life. For everyone that loves you, there will be others that hate you. If no one is upset by what you are saying, you’re probable not pushing hard enough. (And you’re probable boring too.)”

So what is it that create’s culture for your business? Are you game enough to push the boundaries and have you own controversial opinion’s, or will you forever be tied to playing someone else’s cover songs?

Do you want you own loyal groupies (customers) that are frothing at the mouth to purchase everything you create, or are you happy just being boring and never standing out?

“I told you that we could fly, cause we all have wings, just some of us don’t know why”