Blog
The Truth About You
Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people. ~ Martina Navratilova If there’s one question you can guarantee to be asked within the first five minutes of meeting someone it’s, “so… what do you do?” We all know it’s coming so why are we so ill prepared for it? During…
How Do You Differentiate Yourself?
Life’s too short to sell things you don’t believe in. ~ Patrick Dixon Often the real value of the work you do isn’t what gets delivered in the package, during the session or in the ebook. In order to differentiate you need to really understand the effect of what you do, sell, offer or deliver…
Brand Names Are The Start Of A Story
From the moment the blue line appears on the pregnancy test and for the next 35 weeks, the one thing that obsesses most couples day and night while waiting for their new arrival is what they will call her. They compulsively leaf through baby name books, trawl websites and test out sound combinations
How Virgin Wins With A Better Story
Good Story means something worth telling that the world wants to hear. ~ Robert McKee Every time a customer encounters your marketing they are filling in the blanks. Their perceptions about your business are being etched in their minds and if you’re doing a great job, in their hearts too over time.
What Story Can People Tell Themselves About You?
This is the story of two businesses. I tell it often. Two cafes, that are literally side by side on the same street. One has a shaded elevated outdoor seating area with a view of the ocean. It is bigger and has a couple of comfy couches inside, where customers can relax over a light…
Compelling
The path to success is not simply determined by the ability to have great ideas. The capacity to understand their relevance in the world, to customers, (real people) and to sell that, is what makes a product, service, cause or idea fly. The MP3 player is one of the best examples of a situation where
Advertising Is Not Real Marketing
Think about the people you do business with and the brands you care about. Are you drawn in by their advertising or their marketing story? That full colour advert in the Sunday supplement is a tactic. So is the expensive, shiny new website you’re having built and those letterpress business cards you
The Secret To Creating Ideas That Matter
Ability, knowledge, education, money, self belief and connections, all fall away in the face of the one thing that really makes ideas infectious. The success of ideas and dreams of leaders and heroes the world over, from Richard Branson, to Steve Jobs, Scott Harrision to Jacqueline Novogratz is pass
People Don’t Want To Buy Your Process
I’m working with a client who is choosing images for her website, she’s worried that they need relate exactly to the services she offers. Maybe you do too? When Grace comes into your salon to have her legs waxed she doesn’t usually ask what kind of wax you use. You might think what she needs…
The One Thing To Remember About Website Traffic
It wasn’t going to be cheap, but Anna figured that she’d outsource all of her online marketing to a company who knew what they were doing. She’d spent the past two years working really hard to build her service business offline, and was hugely successful at converting customers face to face. Now in
Don’t Just Tell Me What It’s Made Of
Jo is an amazing designer. She creates hand made scarves, from locally woven fabrics which she designs herself. Her website tells part of the story. Jo writes about the materials used, the time it takes to create the design, source just the right fabric dyes and weave the most exquisite scarves you
20 Posts From Seth Godin You Probably Missed
Seth Godin’s writing and work continues to inspire marketers and brand storytellers, after more than a decade. I’ve done a deep search through the archives of his blog and uncovered some gems, that you may have missed (some haven’t even been retweeted). Bookmark and enjoy! Seth Godin on the Internet
Being Successful Isn’t About What You Do
Why is it that we’ve all got heroes that many of us haven’t ever met? If heroes are just ordinary people who do something extraordinary, how can they be so ubiquitous and uncommon all at once? I think this video goes part of the way to answering that question. That was you when you were…
Talk About What You’re Really Selling
In the factories we make perfume but in the stores we sell hope . ~ Charles Revlon What makes clients become regulars and turns customers into evangelists? Most of the time it isn’t what you wrap up for them to take home. Do you sell photographs or memories? Does your cafe sell coffee or lifestyle?
Love Is A Marketing Metric
Put your products, service, website, signage, business cards, every touch point to a simple test. Stand in your customer’s shoes and answer one question: what are three things that compel you to say, I love this? ~ Kevin Roberts You can’t go wrong with your brand story and marketing, if you truly
Not Every Heroine Gets To Choose Her Story
Today, more than 600 million girls live in the developing world. Only a handful get to choose their own story. This year 14 million girls aged 15 to 19 will become mothers, not by choice, or by design, but because poverty and lack of education makes it their destiny. Imagine having little or no cont
Artists Don’t Market
Kate is a gifted designer, a true artist. She spends hours foraging through discarded treasures finding just the right fabrics, that others would hardly notice. She lovingly puts them together in her studio, late into the night and creates one beautiful cushion. This cushion is unique, there isn’t a
Why A Better Business Story Matters
Santoso and Dian live within a kilometer of each other in the once sleepy town of Ubud, in Bali. Both men are master wood carvers and work for hours every day hunched on the floor of their tiny workshops. Happily for them Ubud is now the thriving arts center of the island and thousands of…
Uncertainty Book, Interview With Jonathan Fields
Fear of failure is not something that’s imagined, it’s real. In many ways it’s what drives us and ultimately prevents us from doing our best work. Uncertainty is a signpost that what you’re doing matters. ~ Jonathan Fields Jonathan Fields is on a mission to empower us to embrace fear and turn it int
The Best Ideas Don’t Start With Solutions
Have you ever wondered why your ‘big ideas’ get stuck in mind map central, never to see the light of day, or don’t end up being as groundbreaking as you hoped? Part of the answer lies in the way you’ve been working on implementing those ideas. Those moments of genius and excited clarity that you…
