Gianni Golfera is one of the most credited teachers and researchers in strategies of learning how to improve memory throughout the world. Researchers agree that Gianni Golfera possesses a truly astounding memory. IASC conducted an interview to find out more about his strategies.
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: Welcome to the Institute of Advance Studies and Cooperation to Mr. Golfera Story Brand, Certified Guide. We’re happy to have you here. Can you explain for us a little bit more about what “Story Brand Certified Guide ” means?
Gianni Golfera: Yes, actually, the story brand there is a communication module used by big companies like Apple, Tesla, SB6, and it is a minimalistic approach to clarify your message and to be more effective in your communication, particularly for companies and people who want to talk to the planet about a new idea, because people do not read websites, do not read social media, they jump from one piece of content to another. And the story brand actually is, is sort of framing or translating your product and service in a story because people pay attention when they see the sort of story. And the hero of the story is not the company; it is the client. This is a huge change in the new kind of communication. The client is you, and the company is a sort of guide who has the role of obtaining the desired outcome.
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: Well, that’s very interesting. And you have some big brands working with you. I see Gucci, Bulgari, Ferrari, Buyer, Diesel, BMW. So it’s really happening. I mean, it’s really something because the thing is, out there, we have so many gurus, so many people telling us, you know: “Oh, it’s so easy come to my website, come to do this, come to do that”. And then, you know, you have started this new company and you’re doing pretty well, it seems to me. What’s the key point for you?
Gianni Golfera: Yeah, It is actually not the secret; it is just the method, and I started it in the United States something like 20 years ago by studying with the most important companies in the United States. Company like Nancy do are they’re the genius mind behind the Apple and Tesla or Gary Vaynerchuk for the social media in New York. The other important guy like a Donald Miller or throw into Nike all these important guy. Actually, they communicate for companies in the business-to-business field and not for 1ab people, because most of the market on the planet is marketing for self-help companies. So something like: “I teach you how to be a billionaire by staying at the beach by doing nothing for the day.” But this is not the case. The them our approaches to help company by doing good communication and to provide good results in terms of metrics. So the huge difference is this because the majority of the gurus in the in the field of marketing and the communication are gurus for B2C. So many consumers who dream of a different life. Uh, super easy and something like “Get Rich Quick” or stuff like that. We are totally different because we are working consistently with this company and we have been doing that for about 27 years. So we are getting all their help. We also help Google in Italy to communicate. We are doing it and we have a lot of experience in the way to be a business, not in B2C.
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: We see a lot of focus on branding. You know, many companies spend a huge budget on their branding, but when it comes to the Web, they are not so clear. The message doesn’t come, you know, so clear out of the Web, maybe for them, for the good reason that you mentioned, that people do not pay too much attention. They want to like seal this continent, but they don’t spend much time there. So what would you say is the most important thing for a company to do in order to be noticed? You know, when they first approach you, what do you do? Do you do an analysis of the website that you just Yeah.
Gianni Golfera: So I want to explain to you the most common mistake companies make. So we start from the mistake and we provide some ideas for the branding. The dangerous mistake number one is that it is confusing to them, the personal branding of the employee with the branding of the company. So actually the classic influencer branding is me, me, me, me, my super fantastic, wonderful life, my super, our face, my super life, my passion for everything. And the company often do the mistake of put the company in front of the social media by saying, My company’s the best, we are here. And we started 100 years ago. We gained billions of dollars. So it’s not the case because in the branding of the company, the most important part is to put the client in any role. So we have to remove our company from our social media. We have to remove the product from social media, and we have to pay the maximum attention to the client. So we have to start with the client. Then we have to claim what kind of problem the client is facing concerning your product and service. So the client has three kinds of problems, not just one. We call it the external problem, the problem itself, or the internal problem. How’s the problem making you feel? And the philosophical problem?
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: Why?
Gianni Golfera: You deserve something better. When you talk about the problem, people start to pay attention to your brand, to pay attention to your company, and to the solution. So you start introducing the solution by positioning your company as a guy, not as a hero. So when you position yourself as a guy, then you explain to the market that you are a guy, then you are empathic and also an authority. People start to pay attention immediately after you provide a simple three-step plan to solve the problem. These, these, and these. And the last part, of course, is the results. This is the story brand approach, and this is the best approach for the company. And the problem is that many, many companies are focused on the product. So they show the product back in the in the social media. But people are not interested in the product. People are interested in other people like them. So you have to put the target in front of the pictures, video, and camera and then the proper social media. Because social media is the real news in our new economy, And the best social media for companies is LinkedIn. Also, YouTube, of course, but many times company. We invest a huge amount of energy in Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, but these platforms are only for B2C, not for B2B.
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: We also notice on the social media, the company spend a lot of money for those so-called influencer.
Gianni Golfera: But yes.
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: Now we understand the influencers are not, you know, many times real influencers because they want their numbers. You know, they magnify themselves with the result that, you know, it doesn’t translate into more clientele for them for the company or more attention or more branding for the company. But it’s just a waste of money, you know. But that’s a process that we are starting to understand. Now what’s your take on it? My idea. Of course, it depends on the influencer and on the real target of the company, because most of the time, the influencer is not aligned to the needs of the company because they are focused on a different target. For example, we have a lot of influencers on TikTok. TikTok is like a sort of discovery platform. The attention is very low and the number of girls is very, very fast. But the audience of TikTok in Europe is very young and the attention is very, very, very low. So if you choose your influencer on TikTok, of course, you will have some results. But you are wasting a lot of time and energy, and unfortunately, also money. We also have real influencers like Jennifer Lanier, for example. So I see companies like Trudie doing the doll of Jennifer Lani. So this tells you that when the huge effort in terms of personal branding of Carolina but California, of course, is not for everybody, it’s just for a particular kind of target. So I think of the influencer marketing most of the time is over estimated as people. Yeah, And the actual branding is not like a run, it’s a marathon. So you have to be present again and again and again. So persistency is the key and creating a very, very clear message is super important in an era with the problem of lack of attention. You know, the average person spends something like 3 seconds on one website. So if you are not super, super clear and the communication is not strong, you are wasting a quantity of money, energy, and time. So I think the brand story is a good point for promoting and branding, acquiring clients’ demand time, and then other advice is very important by this tracking everything. So track what happens when you post something, how many people, how many interactions, how many clients, because people confuse the vanity matrix with the real matrix.
So in my opinion, the huge difference between personal branding and influencer branding and the branding for companies is that for the company, we don’t need a huge number of likes and followers. What really matters is money. So how much money are we gaining with these campaigns? How much money we are doing with these strategic campaign of communication of the social? How much money are we making? Doing these particular kind of action for the influencer is a totally different kind of gain for us. What count out of the follower? But when you confuse these two different metrics, you are making a huge mistake.
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: Okay, so I know I have to ask you. I’ve known you for so many years because you wrote so many books about memory. For many, many years, memory was regarded as a superpower. And today, as we rely more and more on technology, it seems to have vanished from many. What’s your take on it? I mean, you know so much about memory and you’ve done such extensive research. Where are we standing with this? With this? That was so well considered. And now it seems like, you know, it’s nowhere to be found.
Gianni Golfera: Yes. So I finished today to prepare for the launch of my new book. It’s called The More Memory Book in the United States. So memory is my specialty. It was my field for many, many years. And they started to have an interest in communication and branding just to launch my business at first, but then many companies asked me how to launch a brand and they stopped branding for the company, but the memories started. Point Yeah, it is a passion in my opinion. The problem today is not concerning. The memory is concerning attention because if you are not paying attention, you are not focusing on something and your performance will be destroyed by the lack of focus. So when you jump from task to another, for example, you check your email, then you do something, and you answer your phone, your text message, and you do. You are doing many things together. You are wasting something like 40% of your mental energy on achieving results. So, in my opinion, the future of memory will be different. I am writing a new book. They call it “school neuro again. Is this for you, innate in your brain? But the real secret is to stay focused on just one thing for 20 minutes and then change. Multitasking is the worst of the worst in the last century because it creates damage in your brain and it’s a problem because the new generation are not able to stay focused and their cognitive performance will be damaged in the future.
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: What do we want? Yeah, we’ve seen that. I’m sorry to interrupt you. We’ve seen that through many, many studies in our science. Every time we collaborate with universities and we focus on attention span, we’ve seen just what you describe. You know, multitasking is killing people and is now giving them the opportunity to really focus and to really get a message. So this is somehow related to web marketing, in that you must do web marketing while keeping in mind that people’s attention spans are decreasing.
Gianni Golfera: Definitely the problem of the multitasking is inside the neurology of the brain, because actually when you are some news, some know, some email and some something, you get your attention, some interruption. It creates in your brain a release of serotonin that works, especially dopamine, and you start to be intoxicated by the dopamine because dopamine is the real addiction. Dopamine is something that happens when you see something new and different, and the more you are distracted, the more dopamine you will have. And the opening, the dopamine, is also strictly related. Also in the addiction like cocaine or other drugs. So the ticktock is the cocaine of the super young guy. So they stay in a video for four or five seconds, then they jump into another, another, another, another, and more. You’re consuming more. You need that dopamine. And when you stop doing that, then you start doing something else, something deeper and something in a creatively creative way, not in a passive way. The dopamine drops down and you start to feel tired. Then you feel the lack of concentration and the lack of attention. The only solution is to create content to grab your attention because the story brand helps you to create the story in your marketing and by putting the people as the hero of the story, you get the attention and the concentration of the consumer. That is the real secret behind the story brand. For example, if you look at Netflix, you can stay focused for six hours on an entire series of Netflix if you are interested, of course. Yeah, but if you are consuming boring tasks like “my iPhone is the best ever,” you start to get bored, then you go away immediately. So the story is set in the future. And are they the only possibility for taking grabbing the attention and maintaining this attention in the time?
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: All right. Well, thank you very much. We really appreciate your time and all this new information there. really interesting. Some collide with the work we’ve done and the research we’ve done. And we certainly look forward to talking to you again about that. You know, the development of your technique and, well, you know what’s next.
Gianni Golfera: I really appreciate it. You know me, and I like to work with you. You know me well, and it is a pleasure for me to stay here.
Gabriele Pao Pei Andreoli: Fantastic. So good luck with everything you do. And thank you very much for being here with us at the Institute for Advanced Studies and Cooperation.
Gianni Golfera: Thank you.