Strategy
1,155 posts
Create What People Want
When Ken and Nick lamented the passing of old-style pastrami and then decided to do something about it, they probably had a hunch that there were people who felt just like they did. Once they set to work tasting and testing and re-inventing the ultimate American comfort food they knew they were onto
Why Startups Stall
It’s easy to start something today. Now that the gatekeepers are leaving their gates and the barrier to entry is lower than ever, anyone with an idea and an Internet connection can start a business. You don’t need a big staff on payroll or a factory to get the work done. So more people are…
10 Things To Do With Happy Customers
1. Treasure and thank them. Then work really hard to keep them. 2. Connect them to each other. 3. Reward their loyalty. 4. Give them platforms and places to engage with your brand. 5. Listen to their ideas. 6. Watch how they interact with your product. 7. Ask them what you could be doing better.…
Why The Price Doesn’t Always Matter
At the start of the last school year as I stood in a queue I overheard a mother asking an assistant if the $200 calculator she was holding would be coming down in price. The assistant replied that this had been the price for a while, pointing out that the calculator was only required for…
Marketing Is All About Values
In 1997 Steve Jobs was unhappy about how much Apple was spending on marketing and about the message the company was communicating. He realised that in an increasingly noisy world the chances for any company to be remembered were diminishing and that Apple needed to get really clear about what it was
Story Is The Universal Marketing Tool
Story doesn’t discriminate. It’s not dependent on a big advertising department or celebrity endorsement. It’s the universal marketing tool available to anyone. That includes you. When Target had a store in every suburb. Zappos had a story about delivering ‘wow through service’. When Borders had floo
A Reason To Decide
She spotted the black dress just as she was about to give up. It was perfect. She imagined how it would cling in all the right places at the party on Friday night. And how she would feel when he spotted her across the crowded room. The reason you buy the dress isn’t the same…
Don’t Worry So Much About Awareness
Just the thought of the kind of marketing dollars the big brands will have invested in advertising for the Olympics is enough to make my eyes water. The result, millions of dollars worth of beautifully shot, feel good commercials that probably won’t sell many more phone plans or gold cards. Awarenes
How To Attract More Of The Right Customers
How can you attract more of the customers you want to work with? Easy. Tell people who you want to work with. Tell them with your pricing and your website copy. Talk about your values. Frame your scarcity. Don’t be afraid to spell it out. When Tiffany & Co (who position themselves as the world’s…
20 Questions To Answer Before Asking How Much Money Can I Make?
1. Why do I want to do this? 2. What do I care about? 3. What brings me joy? 4. What am I good at? 5. What’s scarce? 6. What problem can I solve? 7. Who needs me? 8. How can I make a difference? 9. How can I deliver value? 10.What can I change?…
We Don’t Have To
We arrived at the restaurant right on time, because we knew they needed the table by 7pm for the next booking. The waitress forgot to smile as we pushed open the door, where the sign still read ‘closed’. “We’ll be open in three minutes!” she barked. Oh. The smile never made an appearance. But that’s
How To Charge What You’re Worth
The days when you clocked in and out, and got paid by the hour for dipping squares of caramel into big vats of icing, (pink or white—a job my mother did for years), at the factory, are largely gone. You don’t get paid for showing up. And yet that’s how many creative entrepreneurs try to…
Understanding The Problem To Solve
There are a million and one web hosting services on the market. It’s hardly a niche. The market is so saturated, why would you consider launching yet another one? That’s exactly what my friend Kelly did. Her hosting business doesn’t stand out by competing on spec, or uptime. Kelly differentiates by
Because It Matters
How do you stand out when there are two other juice bars on the same street, and half a dozen ‘good enough’ life coaches just three clicks away? If you’ve got the same choices as the competition, how you choose can make all the difference. Do you make decisions based on what’s gone before, or…
What Does The Competition Do?
I was consulting with two financial planners this week. We were discussing what made them different, when they told me this story about working with one of their clients. Jonathan was offered $9 million for his house, which had amazing, never to be replaced views out over the river. He was in a quan
Why Are People Ignoring You?
It’s been a while since I bought a nice glossy magazine. I usually enjoy flicking through one at my favourite cafe. I’m not sure why I was so surprised to get 32 pages into the latest edition of Vogue and still be on the adverts. The entire magazine was 208 pages, 100 of those pages…
Worldviews And The Story Of Bottled Water
Do you remember the first time you saw bottled water for sale? For me it was back in the late 80’s when I was on holiday in Greece, where the tap water wasn’t safe to drink. And then in the 90’s suddenly there it was. A trickle that turned into a deluge, supported by a…
How Can I Make Money From My Idea?
Asking this question is a terrible place to start. I don’t know of many great ideas where the first question the creator asked was, “How can I make money from this idea?” You’ve got to care about the idea and understand the problem you are setting out to solve first. Not in a naive ,…
Attention Is Not The Problem
You’ve may have access to a hundred and one new channels that allow you to broadcast a message, but there are only a handful of ways to get attention for your idea. 1. Advertising The old and expensive way to buy attention. You might be able to buy eyeballs, but you can’t guarantee you’re changing…
Are You Measuring What Matters?
The cafe owner thinks that what’s most important is getting customers seated and served quickly. Because she believes her customers simply value tidy lines and orders pushed through, she creates standards and KPIs. She measures things that enable her staff to tick boxes and make them look hunted. Th
