inspiration
205 posts
The Easy Way To Create A Mission And Vision Statement
There’s something beyond skill, talent, investment and resources that powers the most successful companies, and that’s a clear sense of where they are going and why. When you have a compass it’s not only easier to get to where you want to go, it’s also possible to take people with you. I’ve written
The Power Of What We Measure
It’s easier than ever before to create a set of metrics by which to monitor our progress and measure our success. Click-through rates, subscriber numbers, impressions and customer lifetime value are useful data points. What if we measured our success by the results we delivered for our customers? No
3 Questions To Help You Find Your Niche
Look in the jewellery shop windows in any western city and you’ll notice the same trends—rings, bracelets and necklaces designed to appeal to what most people like the look of. Jewellery designer Megan Auman found her niche by marrying her talents as a metalsmith and designer, to create pieces that
Nothing And Everything
“Have you got far to go with those?” the assistant asked, while looking me squarely in the eye, as he was deciding how best to pack my groceries. It was the tiniest gesture, nothing much, and yet it was enough to stop me in my tracks, because it’s not what we’ve come to expect. Nobody…
Why Most Marketing Fails
It’s hard to communicate your value if you don’t know what the customer’s definition of value is. Most marketing fails because the marketer doesn’t understand the story his customer wants to believe, before he tells the story. So the real estate agent starts describing the proximity to great schools
The Awareness Conundrum
Which is better for your business—more people who know about your brand, or fewer people that it matters to? It’s not hard to make our marketing more urgent with better calls to action, bigger ‘buy now’ buttons or a hundred and one other attention-grabbing tactics that don’t scale. What does scale t
How To Tell The Story Of Your Products
Why is real estate copywriting so terrible? Maybe it’s not that bad in your town or city, but wherever I have lived the copy seems to serve one purpose—to fill the space between the images and the floor plan in the brochure. Here are a couple of examples of copy written to sell million dollar…
The Importance Of The First Stroke
The coach leaned forward on her handle bars and across the bike path at the side of the lake. The four girls in the boat who had been training since sun up hung on her every word. “I want you to focus on the first stroke, nothing else. Just keep thinking I am going to…
The ‘Only’ Metric
We often downplay our effort or achievement by using the metric of ‘only’.
Why You Need To Abandon The ‘Everyone’ Mindset
I recently got an email that began…. ‘Hi everyone,’ I didn’t make it past the second word and your customers won’t either. We are too busy, distracted, tired, wary, focused, selfish, savvy or [fill in your blank here], to care about something that’s for everyone. The only messages that get through a
Before You Create Marketing
Recognise that’s it is not your job to create marketing. It’s your job is to as Peter Drucker said, to create and keep a customer. Before Nespresso people paid for coffee by the jar or went to Starbucks. Before iTunes people waited for CDs to be released and shipped. Before Kindle we needed bookcase
How Everything Truly Great Is Inspired
This is the story of a trap we all fall into. Every single entrepreneur or creator without exception is thrown off course by following a similar pattern. It doesn’t matter if you are on the board of a Fortune 500 or a designer trying to get her blog off the ground. The same struggle happens…
How Great Products Are Born, Not Made
When you’re designing a product or service it’s easy to believe that making it the best in the world is what gives you a competitive advantage. But the thing about ‘best’ is that it’s subjective. ‘Best’ isn’t determined by you, it’s your customers and users who decide. The truth is that people don’t
Fear, Procrastination And Getting Runs On The Board
I recently met with a super-smart friend who has an important idea to share with the world, she had three questions about how best to get that idea out there. I had three answers that might help you to get your ideas out there too. Q. What’s the best process for doing xyz? A. The…
Intention Is A Competitive Advantage
Having a competitive advantage is not just about being better in ways that can be measured, it’s about understanding your difference and about knowing how that difference will impact the lives of your customers. Great business leaders know what they want to do well and also importantly what they won
The Entrepreneurial Paradox
By definition entrepreneurs undertake to build whatever they are building at considerable risk to themselves. They do what humans are not naturally evolved to do, which is break free from the pack to try something different—something that might not work and may leave them exposed and on the edge, aw
The Limitations Of Knowing ‘How To’
For years we’ve been rewarded for knowing the right answer. All of those gummed gold stars licked and stuck in copybooks next to neatly spaced handwriting, served their purpose. We can’t help wanting to know the answer. Knowing ‘how to’ is barely an advantage to the twenty first century business own
What If You Had One Line To Tell The Truth About Your Product?
Imagine you have a giant billboard to tell your customers the truth about your product or service. You’ve got just one line to do it in. What would your truth look and sound like? Is the truth in that single sentence what you want it to be? If not, what do you need to do…
Do You Have A Human Business Strategy?
When I was a little girl buying new shoes was always an event. We went to a local shoe shop, the one that advertised the credentials of their ‘specially trained fitters’ in the window. We patiently waited our turn for the magic that was about to happen. This usually involved a matronly woman and wha
30 Questions Every Startup And Entrepreneur Should Answer
We’ve become really good at looking for answers. So good in fact, that we get close to asking a billion questions every day in Google search. And yet as busy business owners and idea creators, we struggle to find time to ask really important questions of ourselves. Here then, are questions worth tak
