business
512 posts
The Story Makes The Product Better
For three decades, 10% of the population of the tiny Welsh town, Cardigan, made jeans. 35,000 pairs every week. Then one day the factory died, and the jean artisans could no longer practice their art. They simply had no way to do the thing they did well, until Hiut Denim was founded. Now the company
How Dollar Shave Club Succeeds With A Better Brand Story
How does a startup come on to the scene, take on giant global brands like Gillette, and win? That’s what Dollar Shave Club did, by harnessing the power of great brand storytelling. This is how they did it. By telling the truth, and keeping it simple. With an easy to remember brand name and tagline,…
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
Valuing Creatives. When Love Is Not Enough
No business owner would expect to rent an office for half the going rate, or buy a delivery van for far less than it was worth. Not even a fledgling, bootstrapping, startup founding, entrepreneur. And yet every day designers, creatives and freelancers are asked to drop their rates, do a deal, or con
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…
Being The Most
In the 80’s Starbucks set out to be the most inspiring coffee brand on the planet. When they forgot this in the 90’s and tried becoming the most ubiquitous, they lost their way. If you could be ‘the most’ to people what ‘most’ would you be? Most reliable. Most irresistible. Most ubiquitous. Most lov
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…
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…
Signal Versus Noise. You Get To Choose.
I’ve always loved the name of the blog at 37Signals… Signal vs Noise. They chose well. They write well too. Signal versus noise perfectly describes how we are living and working right now. We want to be connected, both as business entities and as human beings. But we’re sacrificing hearing the signa
The Difference Between Traffic And Visitors
When you optimise your website for “traffic” are you doing your best work? Working out how to get “traffic” to find you is a tactic, that anyone with better technical support than you can win at. Giving “visitors” a reason to stay, means having a strategy for creating great content that can’t be eas
The Internet Is Not A Shortcut
Here is the cold hard truth about the Internet, viral marketing and the way to make your ideas matter. The Internet gives you a million and one chances to amplify what’s great about what you do. It doesn’t actually make your idea better. 70,000 people found Philippa on Instagram. She was an amazing
Being The Best
When I was a kid growing up in Dublin we always sat on the top deck of the bus on a Saturday evening coming home from a day in the city. As we passed Christchurch Cathedral we pressed our noses to the window and looked out at the long queue which snaked half way down…
The Art Of Giving People What They Really Want
The group fitness instructor at our local gym is exceptionally good at giving people what they really want. During a tough early morning Pump® session he doesn’t talk about resting heart rate or thermogenisis. Duane punctuates those last thirty seconds of effort by telling us that this is how we’ll
How Coffee Became As Seductive As Diamonds
I have no idea how this happened, but twenty five years ago when my husband and I were choosing my engagement ring on student budgets, I found myself inside a tiny strategically lit room with a £20,000 ring on my finger. £20,000 was enough to buy a house in Dublin in those days. Fast forward…
Well-Designed Moments Build Brands
That moment when the airline tells you that lost luggage is just a fact of life, or the sales assistant can’t exchange a faulty shirt on the spot because of company policy is a crack in the foundation of the brand. In that moment you begin to disconnect and feel like you don’t belong. Every…
When The Facts Are No Longer Enough
The window on analysis is shrinking. People are moving so fast now that they don’t have time to think. They’re scanning, swiping, clicking, liking, tweeting and moving on at full velocity. They’re making decisions based on feelings not facts. Often choosing not because of what they think, but becaus
Lessons From The $100 Startup + Win A Copy
Sometimes you get to the end of a book and struggle to remember a key message from it. Although The $100 Startup is written for people who aspire to live a life like the author Chris Guillebeau, (who still in his early thirties, has visited more than 175 countries and never had a boss), there…
Begin With The Possibilities, Not The Limitations
When you’re scoping things out. When you’re strategising, or planning how to get from here to where you want to be, you often start by asking the wrong questions. You put your first focus in the wrong place. You start by thinking about what went wrong last time. By telling yourself what you can’t do
