Strategy
1,155 posts
The Real Job Of The Genius
On a recent trip to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store I discovered the real job of the Genius. While you might think that the role of the Genius is to fix things, it’s not. The first job of the Genius is to acknowledge your problem and to change how you feel. Chad told…
What’s Wrong With Business Communication And How To Fix It
Business has got a problem. It’s pervasive, eats away at human connection and strips meaning from our interactions. While trying to be professional and sound more knowledgeable we’re sanitising and jargonising our conversations. This is killing our ability to communicate. So how do we transition fro
10 Things That Work Better Than SEO In The Connection Economy
A decade ago if you owned the URL wineseller.com and stuffed your website full of keywords you’d won. You can’t earn loyalty in a category today simply by gaming Google because your customers are searching for relevance not just keywords. Ten things to think about beyond SEO. 1. Build a brand not ju
Using What You Don’t Do To Tell The Story Of What You Do Well
So a customer walks into an artisan bakery and says… “Hey your bread looks great and smells divine, but do you know how hard it is to make a sandwich for my kid’s lunch using those unevenly shaped unsliced loaves? Why don’t you make them in square loaf pans like everyone else?” But since you…
The Cycle Of Persuasion Vs The Cycle Of Loyalty
Shout. Your agenda. Short term gain. 50% off. Buy now pay later. Big funnel gathering the most prospects. Or…. Talk in whispers. Your customer’s agenda. Building trust over time. Products and services people can’t help talking about. “A few people loving you up close and about those people being eno
Sales Is…..
sales noun 1. The exchange of a commodity for money; the action of selling something. 2. A quantity or amount sold. Actually sales is understanding how your customer wants to feel, not what she wants to buy and doing everything you can to get her there. Image by Ed Yourdon.
Winning In The Story Economy
Back to my hair salon. Sally shows up on time. She gets through two colours and three trims buy lunch, then waits impatiently for the hands on the clock to turn the next four hours until closing. Carmel makes five minutes to chat to the pensioner who took two buses to get there. She remembers…
Credentials And The Fraud Police
If I had a dollar for every person I know who is making a difference doing something they care about yet feels insecure about their right to be doing it, I would be funding a very nice round the world trip. There’s the interior decorator who longed to be a stylist but doubted that she…
Tina Roth Eisenberg On Trusting Your Gut And Following Your Passion
Have you ever had an idea you thought might work that still hasn’t seen the light of day? If you’ve longed to bring something you’re passionate about to life it might be time to watch the video chat I had with Tina Roth Eisenberg. Tina is a Swiss designer based in New York who runs…
The Death Of Retail. The Symptom Is Not The Problem
Georgina owns and operates a speciality gluten free food store in Brisbane and like many retailers she’s experiencing a problem. Increasingly people are coming to browse but not to buy. The perception is that if I can get it cheaper or faster online why would I make the trip to your store? So Georgi
The Exponential Value Of Being More Than
So I’m standing at the service counter of the hair salon receiving the bad news that my usual stylist is sick today. “What are you having?” the receptionist enquires. “If it’s just a cut everyone here is capable.” Of course she’s right. Most clients don’t leave with blue hair they didn’t want. Most
Brand Vs. Branding
Branding is….. “The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme.” —The Business Directory Branding in the traditional sense was designed to create recognition and awareness of commodities. It
The Most Important Question You’re Forgetting To Ask
From the outside looking in The Lego Group had a hugely successful business a decade ago. It was a beloved brand that seemed to be surviving the digital age. The balance sheet told a different story though and Lego had more years in the red than in the black between 1998 and 2004. Part of…
What’s The Point?
Business isn’t about transactions and giving people the thing they want. That box of chocolates, an upgraded phone or the business class flight. And marketing isn’t about selling them your facts. It’s about giving people a story to believe in and one that they want to tell. Just like Evan’s. (Take t
The Second Secret Of Great Marketing
I signed up to an email list of a brilliant and famous author over a year ago and hadn’t hear anything since. No blog posts. No regular email. Nothing interesting or relevant to me. Nothing to look forward to. No connection to each other. The author had my permission but it wasn’t much of a…
Why You Don’t Want To Be The Impulse Buy
Have you ever watched people shopping at the airport? They amble distractedly fingering this, picking up that. Nine times out of ten they put things back. Sometimes the packaging, or maybe the boredom gets the better of them and the buy something they had no intention of buying. It’s a win for the m
Why Is Giving Easier Than Taking?
From my first day at school (the day after I turned four,I don’t think my mother could wait a minute longer), we were taught that giving was a great thing. It was a convent school and every day Sister Collette would come around with a box and collect our pennies for babies in Africa. They…
The First Secret To Great Marketing
The first secret to great marketing is knowing where to start. “Marketers have to move upstream now. We have to stop being the last step in the process and start being the first step.” —SETH GODIN Most marketers start by thinking about what they want their customers to do. “Buy now”, “click this”, “
One Trick Pony
In the 1800’s small travelling circuses without big headline acts or a menagerie of exotic animals were known as dog and pony shows. The very average acts on the programme were derided as ‘one trick ponies’. When I was growing up conventional wisdom said that you must strive never to be a ‘one trick
This Time Next Year
“This time next year we’ll be millionaires!” —Derek Trotter CEO of Trotters Independent Traders You probably spend a great deal of time setting business goals, working on strategy and planning for growth. It’s the sensible thing to do. After all how can you get to where you want to go if you don’t k
