relevance
546 posts
What Customers Believe Is Your Competitive Advantage
Ask any business owner about how they stand apart from the competition and they’ll probably begin with the tangible, the things they can easily explain. “We offer a more competitive interest rate.” “Our products have more features. “We have better distribution.” In 2008 Windows accounted for 84% of
What If Your Customers Could Talk?
When was that last time you couldn’t wait to click on a banner ad? Marketers will spend $500 billion on advertising this year. Someone clearly believes advertising is working, even if it’s not. We still think that marketing is how we talk to people about ourselves. Marketing is giving people somethi
How To Write A Mission Statement
By definition a mission statement is the official line on the aims and objectives of your organisation. Academic papers have been written about how mission statements must be cogent (possibly one of the ugliest words in the history of the English language in my opinion). Your mission statement shoul
The 11 Whys Of Product Development
In my work with companies, entrepreneurs and businesses of all stripes, here’s what I’ve found. We mostly get stuck not because we don’t know the right answer, but because we haven’t begun to ask the right questions. Here’s a handy list of questions to ask before you bring your product, service or i
The Difference Between A Good Idea And A Great Idea Is Just One Thing
Actually, the difference between a good and a great anything, (business, movie, hotel, product, blog, book, packaging, design, app, talk, school, song, art…..keep going), is that the great stuff, the things we give a damn about have the heart left in them. Heart the verb, not the hollow muscular org
Your Work Is A Gift. Talking With James Victore
Your work is a gift. Doesn’t this stop you in your tracks for a second? That’s what it did to me when I saw James’s Victore’s talk on the subject (well worth bookmarking to watch later). James runs an independent design studio in Brooklyn, he is known for his original thinking and unforgettable work
Attention Is A Two Way Street
Do you know what’s really ironic? Businesses spend thousands of dollars, manpower, head space and creative energy trying to get the attention of potential customers, and when they get it they waste it. The question for all of us, (not just in business but also in life) is how can we expect what we’r
Creating Difference And Why It Matters
So, I’m sitting in a café writing my next book and thinking of you (this is a sneak peek at the cover, the subtitle isn’t even set in stone yet). I’ve found that thinking about (actually obsessing about) you, and what matters to you, is how I can make the most difference. But let me…
The Value of Soft Data
We assume that the most valuable data is static and lives on graphs and in spreadsheets. Turning to the graphs first, last and always to get to know your customers, is like looking at a child’s development purely on a growth chart. You’re definitely not getting the whole picture. While we’ve been bu
Why You’re Stuck And The Perils Of Peer Gazing
There’s so much cool stuff ‘out there’. So many great ideas already being brought to market. And plenty of people who have done the things (or similar), that you want to do. The trouble is you can’t find a way to stop marveling and being just a teeny bit overawed by them. The Internet has…
The Future Of Storytelling And The Currency Of That Future
So there we were gathered together on an island, (the best kind of place to feel that you’re truly gathered) to talk about the future of storytelling. Some of the best and brightest in the storytelling business from Burberry CEO (soon to be heading up the retail story at Apple), Angela Ahrendts, to
Marketing Is An Art
When you walk into the Bedford Cheese Shop in New York, you’re not seeing cheese sold by the pound, you’re witnessing art being made. A business owner who goes to the trouble of writing these kinds of descriptions on his product is not just a marketer, he’s an artist, practicing with intention, and
What Focus Groups Can’t Tell You
Steve Jobs famously said, “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” The committee might be able to tell you what they think is working, or what’s broken, but they can’t tell you how to matter. And no…
What Do Your Customers Care About?
Let’s look at some cold, hard, and fun facts. A search on Instagram one morning in mid-September for #me, gave me over 123 million results. Just 18 hours later a further 466,000 had been added. Let’s round that up to half a million a day, which means 26,000 photos with the hashtag ‘me’ are uploaded…
Hedging Is Risky
Have ever been scared to share more about what you stand for? Concerned about opening up about who you really are on your website? Anxious that the products and services you offer might put some people off? You’re not alone. One of the greatest challenges entrepreneurs feel keenly is the fear of sca
The Uncommon Advantage
In the 80s you’d walk into a record shop and the store owner, along with the record company would literally tell you what to buy. In every store there was a wall with 100 square compartments, numbered unsurprisingly—TOP 100. You got to chose from what everyone else liked, or what DJs were playing th
Don’t Just Build A Better Mousetrap
Do you remember when life was simple? A time when all tea bags were square and flat, and came with tea flavoured tea inside? Suddenly out of nowhere the tea landscape got messy and we had round bags, and bags with drawstrings. Tiny artisan tea companies sprouted up, selling boutique teas enveloped i
Do Your Customers Feel Like They Belong?
I got a sensory jolt when I arrived at the QT Hotel on the Gold Coast last week, to speak at the Problogger Conference. The concierge greeted me wearing bright pink shorts and a matching smile, offering home made lemonade from the stand in the foyer. The receptionists wore one piece turquoise jumpsu
Content Is Not King
If you Google these four words you’ll get over 600 million search results in less than 0.2 seconds. Amongst these links you will read articles about putting as much content ‘out there’ as you can. Others will urge you to ditch advertising and create content instead, because content is the new way to
Why People Pay And Why It Matters
The dictionary will tell you that marketing is the activity that surrounds the transfer of goods, from consumer to buyer. This, for that. But we also pay with time, attention and love. And even when we pay with money, it’s rarely a ‘this, for that’ transaction, since all value is subjective. It’s ea
