brand values
582 posts
The Shortcut To The Sale
Yesterday I watched a woman squirm as she was being upsold two post-treatment skincare products priced at $300 by her beauty therapist. Think about the context here. She’d just spent an hour with the therapist, giving her permission to ask questions others can’t ask and allowing her to touch parts o
Three Steps To Telling Better Product Stories
When it comes to marketing our products and services there are a couple of storylines we fall back on. We either invite prospective customers to look at our impressive features and benefits or urge them to notice how much better our product is than anything else that exists in the category. Those ta
Beyond Attention
The black-gloved sales assistant in the jeweller’s window is busy polishing the stones in every ring. Totally absorbed in her task, she starts with the rubies, moves on to the emeralds and finishes with the diamonds. She carefully places them exactly two centimetres apart on velvet lining. The stone
The Art Of Discovering Opportunities
How often do we look down when we could look up? How often do we do the obvious instead of exploring what’s been overlooked? How often do we sit tight when we could dive in? How often do we make excuses instead of making our mark? How often do we look away when we could…
The Business Of Trust
Trust enables every human exchange. Our society can’t function without it. The belief we have in each other’s promises is so great that it even transcends our immediate circle in the physical world. We order books, book hotel rooms and ride in cars with strangers on the word of others who have recom
Getting The Story Formula Right
I often get emails asking about the right and the wrong way to tell a brand story. Questions like: How long should the story be? Should we start this way or that? What’s the best medium to use? The more important point to consider is not the length of the story or where to begin…
Why Do Your Customers Buy?
How thirsty is the college student who pays almost $5 for a Caramel Macchiato at Starbucks? Did the fitness instructor really need to upgrade his iPhone 6 to a 7? Can the mother who religiously gives her kids vitamins each morning prove that they work? When the CEO hires a contract lawyer is she pay
The Good Marketer’s Dilemma
People (including you and me) often convince themselves that they make logical decisions about what to buy based on things like quality and price. If this were true, then there would be no need for businesses to invest in packaging, design or user experience. Packaging, design and copy tell a story
The Power Of Story To Find Value
As business leaders, entrepreneurs and marketers we’re used to leveraging the power of story to describe value. We mostly use stories as a tool for telling. Because we believe the way to succeed is to be more vocal and visible, we create campaigns, sales letters, videos and press releases. We craft
Changing The Customer Experience Narrative
My husband, who is a doctor has been trialling ways to improve the patient experience at the practice where he works one day a week. There are many things about the experience that are out of his control. He can’t control how the receptionist speaks to the patient on arrival, cut the waiting time or
Understanding The Value Gap
You may have noticed how commonplace complimentary gift wrapping has become this festive season. In years gone by this service was offered by bigger department stores or as a fundraiser for charities in local shopping centres. This year though it seems that every retailer from the bookstore to the p
The Characteristics Of Successful Ideas
In an era when we have self-driving cars and delivery drones it’s still possible to encounter: Underwear with five uncomfortable care labels sewn into the seams. A beautiful teapot that becomes too heavy to lift when it’s full. Inconspicuous assembly instructions that confuse rather than clarify. Sp
The Path To Business Growth
Sal was already sweating as she blustered into the gym on Monday morning. She sat down heavily on the bench in the changing room. The things she had hastily stuffed into her gym bag tumbled out as soon as she unzipped it. Sal stopped for a second, realising she hadn’t replaced the three-day-old swea
What Are Your Marketing Goals?
We devote a lot of time to growing our businesses—often around the loose metric of ‘more’. It’s worth defining what ‘more’ looks like for your business. You get closer to your goals when you match effort to desired outcomes, and you can’t do that without understanding which numbers you’re trying to
Worth Vs. Worthy
As business leaders and entrepreneurs, much of our energy and resources are spent understanding how best to communicate our value to customers. Many of the most successful companies flip this thinking on its head. If we create things that are worthy of the time, attention and money of the people we
Metrics For A Job Well Done
Every business has metrics for a job well done. We know when our sales are up and complaints are down. We can measure our organisation’s performance and success in a myriad of ways. For many businesses, success is measured in efficiencies and financial targets. Others choose to pay attention to cust
The Genuine Article
When I was a child growing up in Dublin the biggest compliment you could pay someone was to say they were ‘the genuine article’. Sincerity was something to aspire to, and we witnessed it daily in people’s actions and words. In our carefully curated, photoshopped and filtered world, we are more drawn
Success Is…
Not surprisingly there’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about winning. It’s a subject that’s never far from our minds, especially if we’re leading or building a business. Conventional wisdom dictates that someone has to come out on top, and if we believe this is true we want it to be us…
The Five-Step Brand Story Framework
Most people say the hardest part of telling their brand story is knowing where to begin. That’s because we start in the wrong place, with the wrong question—at the ‘how to’. Instead of wondering what we should say, we need to start our storytelling by asking who the story is for, and then by asking…
Why We Need Brand Stories
Anthropologists tell us story is the universal language that has quite literally ensured the survival of the human race. Our Neanderthal ancestors told stories to pass on information that would keep the tribe safe—tales of misadventure and survival about what to fear or to embrace. We tell stories t
