entrepreneurship
349 posts
The Fortune Cookie Principle. The Keys To Telling Your Brand Story
I’ve been working to get my new book into your hands for the past nine months, so I’m thrilled to let you know that The Fortune Cookie Principle: The 20 Keys to a Great Brand Story and Why Your Business Needs One is now available on Amazon. The Kindle edition is on sale at the…
You Don’t Need A Marketing Plan
Every business has a plan. Even if it’s written on the back of a Post-it note. The plan talks about the idea. Who it’s for. How to bring it to market, at what cost and how to get the word out. That final piece of the puzzle is your marketing plan, and yes it’s usually…
Why More Is The Wrong Place To Start
The end goal of all marketing is more. More customers or subscribers. More sales and increased profits. This is the reason business strategy questions and answers often begin, (and end) with the ‘how to’ of getting more. But more is the wrong place to start for two reasons. When you begin by asking,
Why Your Brand Doesn’t Need A Unique Selling Proposition
In the 90s Pampers’ ‘unique selling proposition’ (USP) claimed it was driest nappy on the market. Procter & Gamble prided itself on this benefit, investing heavily in research and development to maintain its USP. In the end that singular focus blinkered the company’s understanding about what mothers
Why I’m Doing This. Questioning What’s Important
It’s rumoured that Tumblr founder David Karp will get $250 million from the deal his company signed with Yahoo earlier this week. Do you think that’s what really matters to him? Was this the prize he had his eye on six years ago when he started? Could money have been the answer that was top…
The Secret Of Disruptive Innovations
When the online eyewear retailer Warby Parker began selling boutique-quality glasses at a $95 price point they weren’t just trying to undercut the bigger players in the industry. Of course they did that and more, growing the company by 500% in just a year and mostly by word of mouth. The average cus
What Does Disney Do?
Only one thing. They set out to make people happy. The Mickey Mouse balloon sales are a pleasant side effect of that. A souvenir of that time when the visitor felt the way she wanted to feel. In business we often set out to sell the cause, forgetting that what’s really valuable is the effect.…
5 Ways To Tell A Better Brand Story Today
It turns out telling your brand story is more about doing than telling. Here are five things you can do today to begin telling a better brand story. 1. Review and rewrite your about page. A great about page isn’t all about you. It should communicate how you can help or delight the reader. That’s…
If You Don’t Like The Story Tell A Different One
The manager at Muffin Break is frustrated. Yet again she’s discovered a customer from the jam-packed sushi bar opposite sitting at one of her tables eating lunch. Of course she wastes no time asking the sushi-eater to leave. I wonder what would happen if instead of angrily telling people to move on,
Paying Attention To The Clues Your Customers Leave
“People tell us who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.” — Donald Draper Have you ever watched someone shopping? People touch things that catch their eye. They buy things that are not on their list because something changed how they feel in the…
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
Your Biggest Obstacle
“Here’s what I’ve got.” Joe said, as he held out his product to me. It wasn’t just a product though. This was something that had consumed him and five figures of his hard earned cash for months. The market research he’d taken as a green light to get going a year earlier hadn’t paid off.…
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…
If You Build It Will They Come?
I spent most of yesterday at Startup Weekend and was excited to hear the feedback from the judges during the final pitches. There were elegant apps and well developed presentations. Some teams had a product ready to roll out this week and others had nothing more than a well validated idea about what
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”, “
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
Building A Brand Versus Selling A Commodity
Ideas spread, products become irreplaceable, and businesses grow when they stop being mere commodities and have meaning attached to them. It’s not possible to be a brand and a commodity all at once. Customers don’t demonstrate loyalty to commodities but they can fall in love with a brand. PRODUCT-ME
Perfect
When a Ryanair flight touches down on time a fanfare sounds over the public address system to celebrate the fact. Flights that arrive on time might be cause for celebration for the airline, but that’s no longer enough to delight most passengers. Just twenty years ago when you made an expensive long
What Business Are You In?
More on those $5 roses that you paid $8 for last week….. On the Saturday before Valentine’s day I went shopping for single white rose. The florist had none on display, but when I asked she went into the fridge and pulled out two dozen. “Oh, these are not at their best. You can see…
