Storytelling
613 posts
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
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…
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
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
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…
10 Rules For Writing A Compelling ‘About Me’ Page
Your about page is one of the most visited pages on your website. It’s the place where prospective customers decide if you’re right for them, and your best chance to convert more website visits to enquiries and more enquiries to customers. That’s why your about page copy is the most important sales
5 Of The Best Brand Stories On The Planet
Yes I know, yet another one of those articles that tells you how to win in business by telling a better brand story, *sigh*. When all you really want to know is how to get lots of people to notice your great idea and then how to make shed loads of money from it. I’m…
20 Ways To Tell A Better Brand Story
Customers don’t buy your results, they buy the story about the difference those results will make. So have amazing ideas, make great things but remember to tell unforgettable true stories. 1. Name and claim a new category. 2. Clearly articulate what you do, without being boring. 3. Give people a gre
Connection Vs Attention
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition
The Quest For Perfection Makes You Invisible
One of my favourite times when my three boys were little was baking days. You can picture the scene, sticky, half licked spoons, flour and chocolate chips everywhere. Those baking days taught me a lot about the value of imperfection. When a three year old is making a gingerbread man he doesn’t ever
Seth Godin On Being An Entrepreneur, Telling Stories And Making Ideas Matter
It’s not every day you get to speak with one of your heroes. I had the opportunity to do just that when I talked to Seth Godin recently. Seth and his work need no introduction and I hope you get to take something away from the conversation we had about being an entrepreneur, telling stories…
Increase The Value Of Your Products And Services For Free
I discovered the most beautiful tea last week. A green tea infused with cherry blossom. I experienced it by accident and would have walked past it on the supermarket shelf. The reason I later paid over $10 for a packet of tea has everything to do with my worldview. The tea was a souvenir of…
You Don’t Have A Marketing Problem
There’s something you’ve convinced yourself of that just simply isn’t true. Like many people I work with, you are working incredibly hard to produce beautiful, life changing products and services, that are not getting the attention they deserve and you can’t understand why your message isn’t reachin
Forgetting The Facts
We all know that love affairs don’t begin with facts Ric Bixter was given a college assignment; to take something boring, that you could buy for less than a couple of dollars and repackage it to make it more interesting and valuable. So Ric set out to tell a different story about elastic bands. One…
Evolving
“Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?” Marianne Williamson Heather Spriggs is an artist. She’s a gifted designer and visionary stylist, with a fine arts degree. Heather is a one off, an original. When I first started working with Heather she had be
The iPhone Doesn’t Matter To Everyone
“Ideas that spread win.” Seth Godin Seth is one of my heros, he’s probably one of yours too. But I’ve been itching to qualify this quote for some time now. Here’s what I believe. Ideas that matter spread. If you want anything you conceive, launch, or care about to ‘win’ then you’ve got to make…
