Unlock the Magic in Your Story Now
Get the Free 20 questions to Ask Before Launching Your Idea workbook when you sign up for occasional updates.
Get the Free 20 questions to Ask Before Launching Your Idea workbook when you sign up for occasional updates.
Articles filed in: Storytelling
Winning In The Story Economy
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Back to my hair salon.
Sally shows up on time. She gets through two colours and three trims buy lunch, then waits impatiently for the hands on the clock to turn the next four hours until closing.
Carmel makes five minutes to chat to the pensioner who took two buses to get there. She remembers that the awkward teen just started university and forgets to take a break. The clients who ask for her by name are happy to sit and wait until she’s free. The day is gone before she realises it.
The story we tell both as people and in our work is our impact. You might think it’s impossible to make this scale in a big organisation. And yet story is how Airbnb has grown a hugely successful business with a presence in more than 33,000 cities and 192 countries around the world.
The truth is that story scales and in an increasingly connected world business is built on interactions and not transactions.
Image by Ed Yourdon.
The Death Of Retail. The Symptom Is Not The Problem
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Georgina owns and operates a speciality gluten free food store in Brisbane and like many retailers she’s experiencing a problem. Increasingly people are coming to browse but not to buy. The perception is that if I can get it cheaper or faster online why would I make the trip to your store?
So Georgina has resorted to charging customers a $5 fee to look because she’s tired of people just coming in for advice and then leaving to buy from supermarkets or online stores. I feel her pain and her desperation but I doubt that this will solve her problem.
The reason bricks and mortar stores are closing left and right has everything to do with the perception of price over value. Customers are no longer willing to drive across town to your store, find a parking spot and browse your shelves in the hope that you have the very thing they wanted in stock. They are not going to make a trip just to complete a transaction because they don’t have to.
The value of bricks and mortar stores was that they were the only places to get the thing you wanted. When you can get that thing in two clicks of a mouse where does the value lie?
It lies in the potential of the interaction. The way you make customers feel. In being generous. In finding ways to give people more than you put in their shopping bag. So much more that it’s worth the effort to come back, not for the gluten free flour or a paperback but for the connection with you and the story they can tell themselves.
The retail stores that are dying are trying to sell something (anything!) to everyone instead of finding the people they can delight. The people who aren’t just looking for a bargain. The ones who want something to believe in and who will cross town to pay more if they have to because you touched them.
The businesses that survive won’t have more shelf space and cheaper prices, or even rules to discourage customers from coming in to engage. They are the ones who can work out a way to capitalise on the things the big guys can’t and won’t do.
What’s killing retail isn’t the world wide web, it’s that retailers forgot about creating meaning while they sold commodities. The solution is not to punish people for having a choice. It’s to be the better choice.
Image by thisisbossi.
What’s The Point?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Business isn’t about transactions and giving people the thing they want. That box of chocolates, an upgraded phone or the business class flight.
And marketing isn’t about selling them your facts.
It’s about giving people a story to believe in and one that they want to tell. Just like Evan’s.
(Take the two minutes to watch the video below, it’s worth it!).
The point is to take your customers on a journey to where they want to go.
Even if that’s almost to the end of the world.
Image by Palo.
Tell The Story You Want To Tell
filed in Entrepreneurship, Storytelling
You are not the first person (or the last) to admit that you’ve ended up doing the wrong thing.
For the wrong people.
For the wrong reasons.
Something that didn’t bring you the joy you thought it would.
If you’ve ever wound up at the end of a path that you have chosen and wondered how the heck you got there… try this.
Start telling the story you want to tell, not the story you think you have to tell.
Image by dolahn.
Three True Stories
filed in Storytelling, Worldview
To all of Arthur’s family,
We were so sorry that everything ended up so badly for you all last week.
It is so difficult when owners are prepared to do anything to cure their pet’s problem and it’s still not possible. Thank you for allowing us to try.
He was part of your lives for a short time but it’s amazing how quickly they become part of the family. You are sure to be missing him terribly, we can only hope that each day gets a little bit easier.
Regards
Damian, Paul, Joanna, Rob, Nicole, Jane, Jo, Kris, Amy and all at the vets.
____________________
To the Ryan family,
Just a short note to express our deepest sympathy over your loss of Wilbur. It takes a pretty amazing dog to make it to 19. I think his attitude and tenacity helped him to get there. We hope you have lots of happy memories of Wilbur, as part of your family he will be deeply missed.
Yours Sincerely
Kristen, Garry, Edgar and everyone at the vets.
_____________________
One of my dear friends was diagnosed with cancer last week. She had a five biopsies taken on Friday and was sent home to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday. Her husband and three sons held their breath for four days.
Tuesday came and went. Nobody called. It’s okay that they didn’t have the results. It’s not okay that they didn’t care enough to make time to call and say, “No news yet. Are you okay? Hang in there.”
Each of us has the opportunity to touch someone every single day. To really see people. To add meaning. To care. I’m not sure we do it often enough.
You might not be able to change the outcome, but you can change how people feel in a heartbeat.
Image by B.
This Time Next Year
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
“This time next year we’ll be millionaires!”
—Derek Trotter
CEO of Trotters Independent Traders
You probably spend a great deal of time setting business goals, working on strategy and planning for growth. It’s the sensible thing to do. After all how can you get to where you want to go if you don’t know where you’re headed.
When was the last time you thought about your customers goals? What about where she wants to be this time next year? The only way to become a part of your customer’s story is to understand her story. It turns out that viewing your business through your customer’s lens is a great business strategy.
Image by Johnny Vulcan.
Building A Brand Versus Selling A Commodity
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Ideas spread, products become irreplaceable, and businesses grow when they stop being mere commodities and have meaning attached to them. It’s not possible to be a brand and a commodity all at once. Customers don’t demonstrate loyalty to commodities but they can fall in love with a brand.
PRODUCT-MEANING=COMMODITY
PRODUCT+MEANING=BRAND
Anything you care to think about from a book to a city, a graffiti artist to a platform, a store to a TV show can stop being a commodity and become a brand. Hundreds of business have a ‘swoosh’ based logo. Only one has managed to attach meaning to it.
Story (as distinct from just narrative) is how we attach meaning and significance to anything. That’s why the world’s leading brands and savvy entrepreneurs work hard to tell a better one.
Image by Steve Wilhelm.
What Business Are You In?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
More on those $5 roses that you paid $8 for last week…..
On the Saturday before Valentine’s day I went shopping for single white rose. The florist had none on display, but when I asked she went into the fridge and pulled out two dozen.
“Oh, these are not at their best. You can see they are not going to last long and we can’t use them.” she said.
“That’s a shame, so what will you do with them now?” I asked.
“Oh we’ll just throw them out, but if you want them you can have them for $3 each.”
Contrast that with my experience at the pharmacy just ten minutes before. When they didn’t have the prescribed ointment I needed in stock the young assistant phoned around four other pharmacies (the competition) trying to find it for me.
Here’s the distinction.
The florist thinks she’s in the ‘flower business’ not the ‘brightening someone’s day’ business.
The pharmacy assistant knows he’s not in the ‘drug dispensing business’.
What business are you in?
Image by Paul Cooper.
The Difference Between Value And Valuable
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
On Saturday a single rose would have cost you $5. Today and tomorrow it’s $8. While you clearly got better value for your dollar on Saturday, the roses are more valuable to you today.
Who decides then where the value lies and what’s valuable? The value of your product isn’t just in the price you charge, it’s what the customer perceives it to be.
What makes something more valuable is the story the customer was able to tell himself after he left the florists this morning.
Image by Lynn Friedman.
How To Get The Customers You Deserve
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
You’ve heard a version of this story before. It goes something like this. The customer leaves the restaurant a little disgruntled after a Friday evening dinner. The service had been particularly slow, his table had waited an hour for their meal and the waitstaff hadn’t nipped his complaint in the bud. His next move is to contact the owner to give his feedback. The owner’s response….
“If you wanted fast food you should have gone to McDonald’s” and “I don’t need you or want you to come back”.
When the customer shared his story online and the reporter came knocking the restaurant owner told her the complaint was representative of a trend in people expecting too much from restaurants.
“We’re in the business to make money, we’re not there just to be a convenience to people who want to eat out.” he said.
In a city where cafe culture is thriving this posture could be one of the reasons our owner has to fill his restaurant with people who have bought a discount deal from a group buying website.
The flip side for him and the takeaway for you….
You have the opportunity to tell the story of your business to the people who you want to hear it. You get to shape the kind of brand you’d like to become. You can build your business for the customers you really want to serve.
But your customer’s experience is part of that story and they have a hand in creating the ending. If your story sends the good ones away you’ll get the customers you deserve.
Image by Steve Rhodes.