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The Rise Of The Interested
filed in Marketing, Strategy, Success
It doesn’t seem that long ago since a customer would get personal service at a drapery shop even if she was only buying four buttons for the baby cardigan she’d made. A real conversation ensued and colours were carefully matched. By the time money changed hands the assistant knew who the cardigan was for, when the baby was due and how many grandchildren the customer had. In the past, most companies gathered information because they were interested in helping, so they could serve us better. Now we immediately ask for the customer’s email address, we collect data, not out of interest, but often just to leverage it. We’ve allowed efficiency to suck the joy from our work.
Our obsession with optimisation and squeezing the most out of every interaction has led us down the path of knowing the facts, without caring about the stories and the people behind them. I think we’re beginning to realise our mistake. We’re often surprised by what we learn when we express a genuine interest in people. No work was ever worsened because it was carried out with empathy.
Image by Andrew
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Navigating Opportunity
Have you noticed how different the world feels when you set out on a familiar journey but leave five minutes earlier? You experience things you’d ordinarily miss. You become aware of the subtle change in the light or weight of the clouds. The traffic moves easily through green lights, and the birdsong is louder. You see the tall guy in a blue suit walking his Alsatian before heading to work. Pass the homeless people who haven’t yet tidied themselves away. Cross paths with delivery men arriving at closed cafes, laden with fresh vegetables or warm croissants. People seem unhurried. Their cadence altered by the change in the city’s rhythm.
You’re in the same place, walking the same route and yet the terrain seems entirely new.
It’s possible to view opportunity through a similar lens. When you think you’ve hit a wall on your journey, it may not be time to take an alternative path. Maybe you just need to find a different way to navigate it?
Image by Jes
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Only You
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
We had a storm on Saturday. More than 20mm of rain in minutes. We lost power shortly afterwards but managed to isolate the problem until we could get Frank, the electrician to come on Monday. He was busy. One of his big contractors had also called him out that day and they were a priority—regular work that paid the bills. He couldn’t put them off because they wouldn’t wait. As he said, as far as they were concerned, ‘If it wasn’t him it would be somebody else.’ They wanted an electrician, they didn’t care who it was.
How Frank has positioned himself (in his head as much as much as anywhere else) is not where you want to be. Another hat in the ring. Just one of many. The best option as long as it’s fastest or cheapest.
Your aim is to be the one people seek out. The one they don’t want to live without. The business worth crossing town to visit. The deliberate choice for the people you serve best. In a globalised world, we tend to think competition is inevitable. That attitude is often our best defence of our drift towards the middle. Choosing to be at the edge, then staying there is a choice. It’s the harder one at first, but in the end, it becomes the decision that frees us to do our best work.
Image by Stephanus Riosetiawan
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More And Less
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
We sometimes trick ourselves into believing we can have the best of both worlds. A foot in both camps. Full belly and cake on the plate. Working towards a goal means abandoning an alternative worldview. Brands like Mecca Cosmetica, Lululemon and Blue Bottle Coffee thrive because they are crystal clear about their identity. Like them, we have to choose what we will be more of and less of to create a successful business.
More about service, less about volume.
Less about scale, more about significance.
More about affinity, less about awareness.
Less about tomorrow’s results, more about lasting impact.
More about the right customers, less about the most customers.
Less about reach, more about resonance.
More about the long game, less about near-term gains.
Less about competing, more about mattering.
Being all things to everyone is never a sustainable option. The good news is you decide what stance to take.
Image by Sonny Abesamis
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Questions Worth Asking
The progress we make in business and in life hinges on our ability to ask the right questions at the right time. What we need to discern and prioritise are the questions it’s most important to address.
The questions we don’t know the answers to can be divided into three categories:
1. Questions that can’t be answered yet.
2. Questions that aren’t worth asking.
3. Questions we should be answering, but haven’t had the courage or thought to ask.
We spend the majority of our time going around in circles addressing one and two. But it’s three—the questions we haven’t considered that get us to where we want to go. It’s always harder to determine if this is the right path than to inquire, which way next.
What are the questions you’ve been afraid to or have forgotten to ask? These are ones worth answering.
Image by Alexis Mialaret
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Copy And Paste
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
If you can copy and paste the same rejection and send it to every candidate is it worth responding?
If you can replicate your competitor’s innovations why bother to invest in your own ideas?
If you can multitask while you’re on a call to a customer was the call worth making?
If you can ignore the email for a week is that a relationship you value?
If you can pay for attention why worry about investing time to earn loyalty.
The point of the work isn’t simply to get it done. It’s to be proud of the way you’ve done it.
Image by Jacob Botter
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Unlikely
When you’re shopping at Uniqlo, it’s unlikely a sales assistant will ignore you. When you’re a visitor lost in Melbourne, it’s unlikely someone won’t stop to give you directions and a friendly smile. When you take a sip of Tea & Glory tea, it’s unlikely you’ll confuse it with a cup of Tetley.
The best brands are unmistakable, not only because of what the do and the way they do it but also because of the things they don’t and will never do. What are your customers unlikely to experience?
Image by Patrick Vierthaler
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Present Tense Planning
filed in Strategy
When surgeon and author Atul Gawande treats a terminal patient, he doesn’t assess the available options in ways a conventional medical team might have weighed them up in the past. Instead of wondering whether they should keep fighting or if the time has come to give up, he and his colleagues ask a different, more important question.
“What are we fighting for?” They are seeking to understand what a good day looks like for the patient, and then to treat him in a way that enables him to live that day until the end of his life.
Most of us are not making life and death decisions about our work, career paths or business growth, but we’re still planning for the future. We come unstuck while strategising tomorrow’s survival when we compromise on what’s important to us today.
What are you doing on your good days?
What choices do you need to make today to protect them?
Image by Kev Lewis
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The Link Between Actions And Outcomes
When we set a goal to achieve a particular outcome, we zoom out to consider the big picture. And while a result is dependent on knowing what we’re aiming for, it also requires us to do the things that give us the best chance of accomplishing it. A successful attempt to get fit doesn’t hinge on joining the gym or buying the running shoes. It depends on us setting the alarm and doing up the laces.
What are the three smallest steps you can take today, and every day to get you to where you want to go? Start there—then do up your laces.
Image by Stefano Coroso
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Gaining The Advantage
filed in Storytelling, Strategy, Success
This week you answered a customer query and solved her problem. You responded to every email, tweaked your resume and made your case well in the last meeting. You ticked off the things on your to-do list, had a look at your numbers and made solid plans for the weeks ahead. And that’s exactly what your competitors did too.
We spend a lot of our time doing the busy work of trying to gain an advantage in an attempt to compete and win. It turns out that the most sustainable path to significance is to do the things that the competition would never dream of doing—the things that only you would do.
You don’t need to compete when you know who you are.
Image by chat des Balkans