brand story
942 posts
Who Do Good Ideas Come From?
Everyone knows a good idea is a shortcut to success, profits and growth. Bad ideas lose. Good ideas win. This is why we are obsessed as a culture about where good ideas come from and how to have more of them. As we go in pursuit of a breakthrough idea we turn our gaze outward…
Where Do Most Brand Stories Come Unstuck?
We spend a lot of time finding the right words—the ones that will differentiate us from our competitors and compel the right people to covet and click. And yet even though we’ve assembled the perfect words customers can still sense a disconnect. It isn’t our words in isolation, but the intention beh
Problem Solving 2.0
Think of any one of the myriad of challenges you might face this week. Deliveries are taking longer than expected. There’s a rise in customers complaints. The new product isn’t selling as well as you’d hoped. Your team isn’t gelling. The solution to almost every problem usually begins with the same
What Makes Or Breaks A Business?
When we think about business successes or failures we focus on the highs and lows—the news-worthy triumphs or missteps. These are the moments in which we believe businesses are made or broken. Our theory couldn’t be further from the truth. Businesses succeed or fail on an ordinary Friday afternoon w
The Brand Awareness Checklist
In a competitive, commercial environment the logic is the more people who know about your business the more successful it will be. So we prioritise making more people aware. But if ‘awareness’ is your problem then asking how to get more of it is the wrong question to begin with. The better place to
Aligning Your Ducks
The manager at the burger bar works hard to manage his costs. Part of his strategy is to pay his teen workers below minimum wage. He realises he can save on salaries by cancelling their shifts within an hour’s notice on a slow day. The thing that frustrates him the most is his high staff…
Are You Pressing The Right Buttons?
The guy who knocks on the door at 5 pm is armed with an iPad, a sales pitch and an assumption. He denies he’s trying to sell something. ‘It’s not a sale—it’s a reduction.’ He asks if I’ve looked at the back of my power bills lately. Tells me the prices have risen and he’s…
The Value Of Fixing The Root Of The Problem
The first step to fixing any problem is to acknowledge there is one. If you find yourself starting every email with ‘sorry’, question why you’re constantly doing that. If the software doesn’t work the first time, every time, dig deeper before you need to use it again. If your projects always run ove
A Simple Truth About Business Growth
We’ve all seen what happens when a business is poorly scaled. The cult restaurant adds more tables and loses its magic. The software is ruined when too many features are added. The bespoke tourist attraction becomes tacky. Growth doesn’t come from looking for more opportunities to expand, it’s a res
Why Meaning Is A Competitive Advantage
The day after she turned fourteen, my mum (number ten in a family of eleven), woke early to catch the bus that would take her to work at her first full-time job in a sweet factory. I don’t remember her telling me about how she got the job. It’s likely it happened through word of…
How To Stay True To Your Brand Story
You can spot the best restaurant on Melbourne’s Bourke Street a mile away. It’s the one with fresh flowers on the tables outside and the gleaming windows. If you’re there early enough, you’ll see a professional window cleaner meticulously washing and polishing the glass every other morning, long bef
Two Essential Characteristics Of Story-Driven Brands
You’ve probably had a disappointing experience with a brand or business. Maybe you couldn’t put your finger on what was wrong or why? Customer dissatisfaction is a result of a gap between promises and actions. Filthy bathrooms at the restaurant with the elaborately embossed menu. The snappy flight a
Difference By Design
Yesterday I was registering a domain name online when I noticed the company had tweaked the user interface from cart to checkout. Now when you confirm the purchase, the default option is to register for three years, instead of one. The steps to reverse this are not obvious or easy—which I guess mean
The Easy Part Of Marketing
The easy part of marketing is working out what to say, when and where, to whom, in order to sell what we make. We expend most of our energy on the easy part. The hard part is understanding why it’s important to say what we’re about to say and who will care enough to listen.…
The Secret To Being Exceptional
You might remember when you were a high school student (as I do) trying to work out a revision system that helped you to maximise your chances of academic success. I never had much luck. Teachers held up model students as examples of how ‘hard work’ paid off. Straight-A students it seemed were the o
The Power Of Expectations
The packaging on the flat-pack garden shed promised fast, easy assembly (80% faster than the competitor’s product), using 75% fewer screws, pre-drilled holes and a 30-year warranty. Taking the manufacturer at their word the customer’s expectation is set. The shed takes two people five hours to assem
Less But Better
In the bygone era of local shopping strips lined with family owned businesses the job of each business wasn’t simply to make a profit—it was to add value to the community it served. Every business had a purpose beyond the single bottom line. Every transaction, from a pint of milk to five screws wrap
The Simple (Not Easy) Strategy For Business Growth
When we think about business development opportunities, we mostly begin by knowing exactly where we are today and what goals we want to reach next. From there we set out to widen our net and acquire more customers or users for our existing products and services. Our growth strategy starts with the n
More Vs. Deeper
On the surface of it, the all-you-can-eat buffet seems like a generous bargain. Why is it then that we walk away having had our fill without feeling satisfied? The truth is we know that far from being generous the offer of ‘more’ is a tactic to get the most people through the door. We understand…
Why You Need To Build A Story-Driven Business
What drives our desire to get better at telling the story of our products, services and companies? We’re used to thinking of story as a way to create and communicate value. We know the running shoe with a tick on the side is more valuable than the one without because of the expectations and meaning…
