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Who Loves Your Work?
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
Who loves what you do?
Who tells their friends?
Who waits in line?
Who buys the lot?
Who can you help?
Who makes you care?
Who has the problem you can solve?
Who is your muse, your right customer, your reason?
When you know, you’ll be one step closer to doing your best work.
Image by Garry Knight
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The Convenience Trap
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
The homeless man sitting at the Brunswick Street junction doesn’t look up as people walk past. He doesn’t try to catch the eyes he knows are trying to avoid his. He lets the cardboard sign at his feet do the talking. The headline in red crayon tells us that he’s genuinely homeless. There isn’t enough time for a passer-by to take in the detail of most of the rest of what’s written on the sign in smaller print. But the unusual call to action at the bottom stands out.
‘If you’d like to consider regularly donating $5 a month please let me know.’
The homeless man request knows that he doesn’t just need more donors, he understands that he needs more of the right donors—who keep coming back.
In recent years we’ve seen the rise of businesses that make it easy for us to become returning customers. These businesses have worked out that convenience is sticky. And so we’ve seen the rise of subscription services for everything from razors to flowers and apps that will have a meal or ride to our door in minutes. But convenience alone isn’t what drives thriving, sustainable businesses. Companies that merely offer a convenient solution risk disruption. They must live in fear of the next new thing that’s closer or cheaper, faster or fancier.
If we want to earn loyal donors or customers, we must offer them more than convenience. Loyalty is a byproduct of resonance and convenience. Successful causes and companies don’t only make life easier for their donors or customers—they strike a chord with them too.
Image by Kevin McShane
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The Power Of Actionable Feedback
filed in Strategy
How many times do you politely leave a restaurant after a bad experience, vowing never to return, without letting the manager know what you think?
How often have you stopped buying from a brand you once trusted without telling them why?
How valuable would your feedback be, if only these companies were in the habit of asking for it?
It’s hard to ask questions that elicit useful feedback. Fear about the response we might get holds us back because suggestions inevitably make work for us. The trick to making feedback actionable is to ask a specific question of the right people at the right time.
You don’t need everyone’s opinion about everything to improve your product, service or business. But it’s important to ask the people who matter questions about the things you are willing to change.
Image by Garry Knight
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Two Ways To Think About Selling
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Are you selling or are you showing up in the best light for the people who need you?
Sales can be a service. And vice versa.
Image by Garry Knight
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Lucky By Design
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
The cathedral was packed. More than a thousand people arrived on a warm Tuesday morning to attend cafe owner, Sisto Malaspina’s funeral. Many more stood outside—others watched the service at home on their laptops or giant screens in Melbourne’s Federation Square. We were there, not to mourn Sisto’s death, but to celebrate how he had lived. Sisto was a man who was grateful for the privilege to serve people. He felt fortunate to do work that mattered to him. And how he did that work became a reflection of his life and his legacy. Sisto was lucky, for sure.
After the service, the crowd slowly filed out the front entrance. People began talking as we got closer to the door. Two men behind me spoke about the service. Then one asked the other what he was up to next. “Are you heading back to work?” “Yeah, worse luck,” his friend replied.
During the service, one of Sisto’s customers (and friends) had spoken about why he would be missed. “You loved us, and we loved you,” he said. But then he went on to say something that people don’t often articulate. “There’s been a moment when we all wished we were Sisto.”
It was true. Everyone wants to show up to work with as much gratitude and joy, passion and pride as Sisto had done. Not just the people who were fortunate enough to be served coffee or pasta by him at Pellegrini’s—but you and me too.
It’s easy to think that it was alright for Sisto. He had his own business. He was doing something he loved. He was in charge of his destiny. He was one of the lucky ones. Many of us are not that lucky. But what if we could find a way to feel like Sisto? To be lucky by design and to feel fortunate for the work we do—whatever that work is. What if we looked for the moments in our day to make a difference? And if we can’t find some joy in our work, a way to do it with heart and soul, then maybe it’s time to think about how we could change that too?
Image by Valberg Larusson
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Nurture Vs. Growth
filed in Storytelling, Strategy, Success
It’s virtually impossible to think of building a successful business (or life) without having the intention to grow. But sometimes growth for growth’s sake can be a trap. The idea that we have to make a particular metric go up at all costs can lead to unintended compromises. What if instead of thinking about growing our businesses, our expertise or our influence, we thought about how we could nurture them instead?
When we begin to think in terms of nurturing (protecting something while it grows), we are compelled to be more intentional about how we grow. And focusing on how makes all the difference.
Why does your business need to grow?
How does it need to grow?
What does sustainable growth look like for you?
What are you unwilling to compromise on to achieve growth?
What else should you consider before making your next move?
Every journey involves making two decisions. We happily get to where we’re going by figuring out where we want to end up and how we want to get there. Success comes in more than one flavour.
Image by Garry Knight
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The Shorthand Trap
Everywhere we look in our digital world we increasingly see options to choose digital shorthand over a handcrafted, personal response. Gmail’s Smart Reply and Smart Compose features for responding to emails, and LinkedIn’s convenient Quick Replies will save us time today, but what might they cost us in the long run? Who do we become when we allow ourselves to communicate on auto-pilot instead of thoughtfully, with humanity?
Emoji are convenient and getting to inbox zero feels good. But if we don’t take time to find the words to say what we mean what do we sacrifice?
There is not shorthand for caring. No substitute for deep connection. There is no shortcut either.
We have to do the work of being the kind of people who make the effort to build the relationships we want if we are to create the future we want to see. What if we saw communicating longhand as an opportunity?
Image by Garry Knight
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A Deliberate Advantage
Voting is compulsory here in Australia. To make it easier for people polling places now open the weekend before election day. Early voting in our state and local council elections opened last weekend. As we lined up at the entrance to the polling place we were met by representatives of all candidates and parties. Each one tried to thrust a marketing leaflet at us as we passed them, in a last-ditch attempt to get our vote. The only thing to differentiate one candidate from the other was the colour of their shirt or the arrangement of the words ‘people’ and ‘power’ on the brochures.
It’s true that sometimes people don’t decide who to vote for until the last minute. Last minute votes can count. But they don’t build a sustainable advantage or a loyal following over time. Whether we are in politics or business, the real work we do is to show up for the right people consistently, so they know what we stand for, every day—not just on voting day or launch day.
Our goal isn’t to be chosen at random because of the colour of our shirt or a single snappy slogan. It’s to be deliberately sought out again and again for our service, our values and the way we empower and impact the people we serve.
Image by Drew
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Becoming Better Storytellers
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
We’ve all heard the news that attention spans are shrinking. We’ve come to believe that the people we’re trying to reach are always distracted. If that’s so, how do we explain the rise of binge-watching, the success of serialised podcasts and long read articles? What we’re witnessing isn’t just a shift in the way content is consumed. It’s a change in the intention and behaviour of both audiences and content creators according to their preferred platform or media.
The goal of prolific tweeters and grammers is to distract, rather than to immerse their audience. People visit Twitter and Instagram when they want to be distracted. Steaming services want to keep us watching. Their intention gives rise to the creation of engaging content and better storytelling.
How we tell stories changes how people react and respond. How audiences react and respond changes the kinds of stories we tell.
We become better storytellers by knowing who we are and who we want to be to whom. Purposeful storytellers are intentional about the impact they want to have and the messages they choose to send.
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How We Do Matters
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
One of the owners of Melbourne’s most iconic café died tragically a week ago. Sisto Malaspina had been serving espresso to Melburnians at Pellegrini’s since 1974. Tributes poured in from across the community about the impact he and his café had on people and the city. The one that struck me was the story told by a man who arrived in Melbourne to start a new job, with little more than the clothes on his back. When he asked people where he should eat, they said, head to Pellegrini’s. They will feed you like family. Like family.
Making people feel like family was intentional, a choice Sisto and his team made every day.
A choice his business partner and his team will continue to make now he’s gone.
Image by David Brewster