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The One Thing You Need To Learn From The World’s Greatest Marketer
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
Yesterday I did something I don’t normally do…I Googled Seth Godin. Not because I never have cause to, but because I have Seth’s blog on speed dial in my toolbar. The results made me chuckle. You see Seth has been circled by over 95,000 people on Google+ and he has never posted a single update there. He has a very smart profile page, that’s it.
Seth’s strategy is simple and effective. His focus is on building one asset, his own blog, where he posts great content every day, and all roads lead back to Seth’s blog.
Here’s the takeaway for every single business and brand.
Keep the home fires burning. Wherever the foundation of your business is focus there. If you’ve got a tiny cafe, or a chain of laundromats, make them the kind of place people seek out and want to come back to. If your business has a virtual home online, make it the place where people come to be inspired, motivated and educated.
As the guys at 37signals would, say make it the place where you generously “out-teach the competition.”
Keep your home fires burning. Make your business or platform the place where people want to gather.
Image by Zanthia.
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Reframing How You Think About Customers
How many business books have you read where you are urged to think about how to capture the attention of your ‘prospects’? Quite a few I reckon, I’ve read them too, and something about the use of that word in particular always makes me squirm. A ‘prospect’ by definition is either a potential source of profit or a likely customer. Nothing wrong with that you might say. We’re all in business to make a profit —no profit, no business. But viewing your potential customers as walking wallets is another thing entirely.
If you’re thinking about the people who you hope will buy from you simply as prospects, customers, clients, consumers, patrons, corporations or entities, you’re not only missing the point of doing business, you’re also blinkering yourself to a huge opportunity.
The products and services you want to sell will not succeed in the market if you don’t address the emotional wants of ‘real people’.
It’s not enough just to fulfil the material needs of prospects.
Business, (your business), needs to see past the labels it gives the people it serves, to their hopes, dreams, fears and aspirations.
Seeing beyond the ‘prospect’ label has enabled Pebble Technology to tell people the story of how their product will fit into their lives. They’ve raised $7 million and counting in a few weeks on Kickstarter in the process, not because ‘prospects’ needed a Pebble, but because ‘real people’ wanted one.
Customers can get good coffee on any street corner. Real people become regulars in places that take care of them.
Image by Kristen Mckee.
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Why You Need To Change How You Think About Success
filed in Entrepreneurship, Success
From the outside looking in success looks so easy. Successful people make it all look a bit like falling off a log. It’s easy to think that success happens in the moment, or is catalysed by one major event. Like being stranded while travelling, deciding to charter a flight and then selling tickets to other passengers by scrawling the details on a blackboard. Eureka!
In reality success doesn’t happen like this. The opportunities you’ve created didn’t just fall in your lap. They are not the result of one giant leap, but the product of a million tiny decisions you’ve been making every day for years.
It’s the small choices that define us,
not the momentous one off decisions
Danielle didn’t begin building her multi-layered business on the day she launched her website. She was laying those foundations long before she ever came up Fire Starter Sessions. And although it’s a great story, Richard Branson was exercising his entrepreneurial muscle long before he chartered that flight.
Success, like washboard abs, is a habit. The daily practice of making small choices that add up in the end. It’s about doing what you said you’d do, even though nobody but you will notice and knowing in your gut why that matters.
Image by Rattlesnake Jake.
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You’ve Got A Business Idea, Now What?
I’m sure you’ve heard the story about how Richard Branson chartered a private aircraft when his flight to Puerto Rico was cancelled, and how pitched the idea of sharing it to fellow passengers using a chalk board. Although he wasn’t planning to turn this into a long term business venture at the time, Richard still had to create a value proposition in order to get people interested.
He had to begin by asking himself these questions, progressing to number five when he decided to launch Virgin Atlantic.
1. Do people want what I’m planning to make or offer?
2. How can I create and deliver it at a price they are willing to pay?
3. Can this product or service deliver on the promises I make to people?
4. How will I let people know about what I’ve created?
5. Can I generate enough money to build on my idea?
The answers to these five simple questions form the foundation of every business in existence.
Have you answered them yet?
Image bu Denni Schnapp.
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Why I Stopped Working For Coffee And 12 Reasons Why You Should Too
filed in Marketing, Strategy, Worldview
Are there still days when people ask to “pick your brain” and offer to buy you a cup of coffee? It’s tempting to take people up on those offers and flattering that they think you’ve got something valuable to contribute. I know. I’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt. I understand the allure of those $4 an hour consults, because years ago I did my fair share too. Those caffeine filled hours were the catalyst for an eventual epiphany, something that frustrated me so much I decided to launch an independent brand strategy consultancy.
It finally dawned on me that those ideas and plans that were hashed out over a latte all too often never amounted to anything. I’d leave all fired up about this great idea and six months down the track, it was still just that…a great idea.
I believe that because they didn’t really pay for the advice my coffee friends had no skin in the game. They were actually demonstrating a lack of belief in themselves and their ideas. Sure it was fantastic to talk about starting something great. But talking is not the same as doing though and an idea without the execution is just an idea. It has no impact. The execution is what creates the impact and in turn makes money.
In the end I realised that I was helping people to feel good about having goals and dreams, when what I wanted more than anything was to empower them to follow their hearts, back themselves and make a go of those dreams.
WHY WORKING FOR COFFEE DOES NOT WORK
1. A $4 consult doesn’t help people in the long run
They aren’t demonstrating self belief or taking their idea seriously enough to invest in it and do the real strategic work required to make it a success. The result is a lack of execution.
2. You’re wasting their time and yours
There is always an opportunity cost. Time is the one thing you can’t create more of, so you need to use it wisely.
3. It sends the wrong signals to them and you
Teaching people that they don’t need to invest in themselves to achieve what they want isn’t being of service to them. It devalues you in your eyes and in the eyes of the client.
4. It attracts the wrong kind of client
You might work for free to attract business, but does a client-initiated coffee consult really attract your best customers?
5. You won’t do your best work
Cheap kills part of your creative soul. You just don’t do your best work this way. Seeing people fail to execute takes the joy out of your work. Getting reimbursed ups your game.
6. It prevents you from working on other things that do serve you and others
This doesn’t help you to build your legacy.
7. A fair fee for your work forces you to be excellent
As Jason Fried founder of 37signals puts it, “Charging for something makes you want to make it better. For customers, paying for something sets a high expectation. As an entrepreneur, you should welcome that pressure. You should want to be forced to be good at what you do.”
8. It means working with two different sets of expectations, yours and theirs
You are quite possibly hoping to convince them they need more of what you have to offer. They are most likely there to convince themselves that they don’t and that they can get what they need for free.
9. It’s not a fair trade
Your time and your expertise is worth more than a few bucks. Plain and simple.
10. The agenda is dictated by the coffee buyer, not by you
This means it’s not deliberate or intentional, as it needs to be.
11. It’s not strategic
It encourages people to grasp at ,myriad of tactical straws instead of building from a solid foundation.
12. Often it doesn’t align with your values
Somehow coffee consults end up feeling “off”. You won’t be doing your best work and you won’t be as invested in the effort as you need to be.
Of course there are always exceptions to any rule and yes, I still create for love sometimes, for good causes which are close to my heart and in win-win situations. The difference being that, for the most part, the approach is initiated by me. In those instances, I make sure that the work is legacy building, not just ego building and that those choices are made from a place of love.
If you’re still in doubt you can use the handy Should I Work For Free flow chart to help you decide.
Tell me about your experiences of working for free and how you strike a balance.
Image by Mikey G. Ottawa.
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The Number One Marketing Opportunity You’ve Probably Overlooked
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
Yes I know marketing is one of those icky words. It smacks of snake oil salesmen, hard sell merchants and spammers who interrupt without permission. You don’t want to be in any one of those categories and you don’t have to be.
Marketing and branding is about turning up the volume on your mission, so that the right people can hear your message. Often it’s about gently reminding the people who do want to hear from you how you can help them and that receptive audience is right under your nose in your email inbox.
Are you getting the word out about who you are, what you do and why you do it to those people in your email signature?
12 TIPS TO CREATE A GREAT EMAIL SIGNATURE
1. Keep it short, simple and memorable, usually no more than three to four lines.
2. Identify yourself by adding your full name, company and role if appropriate.
3. Use pipes to neatly separate information, (Branding | Website design | SEO |).
4. Add your best contact details, avoid using a string of different numbers unless you really need to.
5. Link to your website or blog. The accepted way to do this is to provide a written URL to insure the link goes through with your message.
6. Include links to your important professional profiles or business pages on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.
7. If you include your logo don’t make your entire signature an image because most email clients store images as attachments and block them by default.
8. If you’ve got room, add your tagline or link to any significant recent achievements or awards.
9. Consider customising the default email signature on your mobile device too; iPhone, iPad or Blackberry.
10. If you want to use specific formatting or graphic links think about using an email signature service like
Wise Stamp.
11. Separate your signature from the email content. The standard break most email clients recognise is – – – –.
12. Don’t be afraid to be you and show some personality in your signature. You’re not just selling, you’re building trust and likeability too.
What ways have you found to promote yourself in your email signature?
Do you have any examples of great email signatures to share?
Image by zen sutherland.
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The Only Reason You’re In Business
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
The reason you’re in business is to make peoples’ lives better.
Every word you write, coffee you serve or pixel you paint is nothing without an audience to consume it, and more importantly care about it.
So here’s the question you need to ask.
How does what you do, make, serve or sell make life better for your clients and customers?
Tell me in just one or two lines. Go ahead, share your answers and links in the comments.
Image by clappstar.
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How To Make Your Message Stick
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
I read an interesting fact on the last few pages of my friend Mark’s new book Return on Influence, apparently most people abandon a business book after reading one third of it. This is an audience who decided they believed in the idea, author or maybe the title and cover design enough to invest, only to abandon it just as she was getting started. We have so many choices now, that we even choose to abandon the things that we choose.
How do you hold people’s attention and get your message to stick?
Think about any book you’ve read, what you remember are the stories. I remember how Klout’s founder Joe Fernandez found himself housebound with time on his hands after he’d had his jaws wired, that this was when he began exploring social scoring and planning world domination. I remember Mark’s story about seeing a friend’s poor review of a restaurant he was at, and how that affected his experience that evening.
“People don’t want more information.
They are up to their eyeballs in information.
They want faith.
Faith in you, your goals, your success, in the story you tell.”
—Annette Simmons
Take a leaf from the book of one of the most successful non-fiction authors of our time Malcolm Gladwell. Make your facts real by painting an unforgettable picture with a story.
Image by darkmatter.
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Create What People Can’t Live Without — 8 Questions To Ask Before Launching An Idea
Where would you be without your laptop, smart phone, Google, take away coffee cups and quick drying nail polish? While you’re busy navigating your day today, think about what you couldn’t live without, the stuff that makes your life that little bit easier. All those things you didn’t even realise you needed, until someone brought them to market.
Every product or service ever created was born from a problem that needed to be solved, or a desire that was waiting to be fulfilled.
An understanding of the problem to solve is the reason we have online check in, Boost Juice and The Genius Bar. So how do you begin to understand the problem to solve? You stand in your customer’s shoes, see her world as it is and then create a better version of it.
That’s how a Sydney Mum invented GameTag and why Starbucks became ‘the third place’.
8 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU LAUNCH AN IDEA
1. Why this product or service and why now?
2. Who am I creating this for?
3. What’s the competition?
4. Do I need to worry about the competition?
5. How is this different and better?
6. How do I research, test, launch, market, distribute, sell, build and scale?
7. Do I need to research, test, and scale or should I just press go?
8. How will I know when I’ve succeeded?
Do you have any stories to share about great products and services that came about through standing in the customer’s shoes, impeccable planning or just starting?
Image by 37prime.
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What’s The Purpose Of A Brand Story?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
If you’ve got a great product or a killer service why do you need a brand story? You only have to look as far as your local cafe or boutique fashion labels to see that all brands are not created equal, and what usually separates the successes from the failures is a good story.
The story makes the product better
The Versalette story from {r}evolution apparel actually makes the product better in the eyes of the consumer. When she buys a Vesalette she can tell herself a story about what she believes is important. She can send a signal to the world about her values and she gets to be a trendsetter into the bargain.
Any business or brand can add a meaningless ‘me too’ tagline under their logo, but if it’s just pixels filling up white space what’s the point? If your story (not just the words your write, but your staff, values, user experience and so on) doesn’t make what you do better, then you’re missing a huge opportunity to help people care enough to invest in you.
Image by Lynda Giddens.