Strategy
1,155 posts
What Do Your Customers Care About?
Let’s look at some cold, hard, and fun facts. A search on Instagram one morning in mid-September for #me, gave me over 123 million results. Just 18 hours later a further 466,000 had been added. Let’s round that up to half a million a day, which means 26,000 photos with the hashtag ‘me’ are uploaded…
Hedging Is Risky
Have ever been scared to share more about what you stand for? Concerned about opening up about who you really are on your website? Anxious that the products and services you offer might put some people off? You’re not alone. One of the greatest challenges entrepreneurs feel keenly is the fear of sca
The Uncommon Advantage
In the 80s you’d walk into a record shop and the store owner, along with the record company would literally tell you what to buy. In every store there was a wall with 100 square compartments, numbered unsurprisingly—TOP 100. You got to chose from what everyone else liked, or what DJs were playing th
The Art Of The Offer
When we offer something, by definition we are putting it forward for consideration. And that’s often where we get stuck, selling our offerings, or ourselves short, because we become fixated on ‘the what’ of the offer. IKEA doesn’t sell you those six glasses and that red cushion you didn’t really nee
Don’t Just Build A Better Mousetrap
Do you remember when life was simple? A time when all tea bags were square and flat, and came with tea flavoured tea inside? Suddenly out of nowhere the tea landscape got messy and we had round bags, and bags with drawstrings. Tiny artisan tea companies sprouted up, selling boutique teas enveloped i
Do Your Customers Feel Like They Belong?
I got a sensory jolt when I arrived at the QT Hotel on the Gold Coast last week, to speak at the Problogger Conference. The concierge greeted me wearing bright pink shorts and a matching smile, offering home made lemonade from the stand in the foyer. The receptionists wore one piece turquoise jumpsu
5 Steps To Getting Things Done, Strategy Before Tactics
On rare sunny, summer days at the beach in Dublin, my brother and I would have long, drawn out arguments about how deep and wide to dig the moat around our sandcastle. Obsessing over the tactics feels like the important work. We can often trick ourselves into jumping ahead to details that don’t yet
Content Is Not King
If you Google these four words you’ll get over 600 million search results in less than 0.2 seconds. Amongst these links you will read articles about putting as much content ‘out there’ as you can. Others will urge you to ditch advertising and create content instead, because content is the new way to
How To Tell The Story Of Your Idea Using The ‘Value Proposition Hack’
The biggest challenge that many of my clients have isn’t coming up with great ideas, it’s articulating why those ideas should matter, to the right people. Explaining the value of an idea can be tough if you don’t have a place to start. I created the ‘value proposition hack’, so that you would have a
Why People Pay And Why It Matters
The dictionary will tell you that marketing is the activity that surrounds the transfer of goods, from consumer to buyer. This, for that. But we also pay with time, attention and love. And even when we pay with money, it’s rarely a ‘this, for that’ transaction, since all value is subjective. It’s ea
The Diminishing Value Of Access
When a new business opens in your suburb, the first thing they do, with great fanfare, is plaster ‘now open’ signs around the neighbourhood. The ‘we’ve built it, now you’ll come’ mentality is alive and well in every industry. My son, along with thousands of others is in his first year at university.
Don’t Sell A Man A Saw, Teach A Man To Build
Mike works at our local ‘big box’ hardware store, alongside people who cut wood, motion directions and stack paint cans. Each weekend Mike sees a steady stream of ‘have a go’ DIY enthusiasts, the kind of guys who were too busy on their way to becoming accountants and lawyers in their teens, to learn
The Purpose Of Innovation In A ‘Needless’ Economy
For the most part in the West we have everything we need. Roofs over our heads, food in the fridge and a lot more besides. Even in the developing world where more people have mobile phones than have access to toilets, it seems that sometimes ‘wants’ trump real needs. So, if we have everything we…
6 Ways To Become Part Of Your Customer’s Story
Think about the rituals that punctuate your days. Freshly boiled water poured over scented tea, your morning workout, or favourite mug. The ten minutes you use to brainstorm ideas in Evernote, checking emails, or meeting colleagues at lunchtime, your ring tone, playlist, date night….each one adding
A Better Business In 5 Minutes And 3 Easy Steps
I promised three steps and here they are: 1. Grab a drink, a blank sheet of paper and a pen. Switch off your phone and shut your laptop. 2. Now answer this question. “What will your customer say to her friend tomorrow to recommend you, or your products and services?” Don’t respond to anyone else’s…
People Don’t Buy Features, They Buy Promises
Every day another product, tool or app comes to market. One more shortcut to this or that. Want to save lists, share something, buy, sell, store, capture, talk, listen, watch, wake up or waste time? There’s definitely a feature filled app that can help you do that. As marketers we often get bogged d
No Second Chances
The beautiful city were I live is not known for startling customer service. Sad, but true. I think it might be the side effect of a combination of distance and isolation creating monopolies that have endured, making people complacent. When you were four hours on a plane from anywhere before the Inte
Tiny Markets Of Someone
Mr Ryan owned a corner shop in the tiny Dublin suburb where I grew up. It supported his family and employed his children while they studied for over 20 years. He didn’t seem to worry when yet another big supermarket opened close by. Sure, he knew some of his customers would go there for special…
The Best Brands Are Mirrors
The genius of the ‘Dove Sketches’ campaign wasn’t that it highlighted the issues women have around body image and beauty, it was that it held a mirror up to every one of us. It tapped into our collective vulnerability on a visceral level. Brands like Dove, Instagram, Harley-Davidson, Virgin, Nike, M
5 Questions To Ask Before You Schedule A Meeting That Matters
Have you ever been on a Skype call where you could hear the person on the other end trying to quietly eat their lunch in the background? Don’t ever do that. Firstly it’s bad for your digestion, and honestly if you don’t make yourself have a break to eat, what’s the point of getting out…
