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: Strategy
The Fortune Cookie Principle™
Every idea, innovation, product and service has two elements.
The cookie…. the commodity, the utility, the tangible, the facts, the logical benefit. The cookie is the thing you put in the shop window which has a fixed inherent value.
Then there’s the fortune, the intangible part of the product or service which is where the real value lies. The fortune is the abstract, the thing that changes how people feel. The real reason they buy the product in the first place. It’s your story and purpose, your vision and values manifested. The fortune gives the product an acquired value or a different perceived value.
People don’t buy fortune cookies because they taste better than every other cookie on the shelf. They buy them for the delight they deliver at the end of a meal.
Marketers spend most of their time selling the cookie, when what they should be doing is finding a better way to tell the story of the fortune.
Bake a good cookie but spend your time working out to tell a great story about the fortune.
Image by Rachael.
The Easy Way Out
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
A $6000 full page advert in a magazine with a readership of 200,000 people might feel like a bargain. All those eyeballs connected to all those credit cards just waiting to discover you.
Now all the advert must do is convince people to pick up the phone.
Buying ads feels safe, but handing over advertising dollars and waiting to be picked is only guaranteed to buy you hope. The promise of new customers is a maybe.
What if the shortcut (the billboard or magazine advert) is not the easy way out at all?
How much goodwill could you create with just 10% of your advertising budget amongst the customers you already have?
There are a thousand different ways to get noticed, and most are a gamble. The easiest way to convince people is to do it one person at a time with truth and connection and love.
Image by scion cho.
People Don’t Buy What You Do
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Michael and Phil Farrell knew how to sell steak. They didn’t do it by having an abundance of tasty cuts in their shop window to tempt strangers or passers by who might fancy a t-bone for dinner that evening. No, they did it by knowing the name of every single customer who walked through their door.
The brothers sold thousands of kilos of steak at premium prices even when times were hard, because a housewife was prepared to juggle the budget to afford them. A trade that was worth it for the amount of joy she experienced when they remembered her name and some tiny detail in her life. She was prepared to ignore the supermarket specials in lieu of the feeling she got when Michael went in the back and brought out a cut of meat he was saving just for her.
The steak was good but that’s not what the customers were there for. They were there for the whole story, not just a good product.
People don’t buy what you do. They buy how it makes them feel.
Image by yooperann.
The Elephant In The Room
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
John (not his real name) was discussing the features and benefits of a new product he’s bringing to market with me yesterday.
He had a niggle, a way which his product worked that other products in the same category didn’t. An elephant in the room. He wondered if this might be a problem.
What if your problem was actually a benefit?
Your weakness could be your strength.
The elephant, that thing you don’t do might be your story.
Image by express monorail.
A Better Way To Say It
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
There’s a little funeral chapel a few kilometres from where I live. A place that’s a far cry from the draughty stone churches I remember from my childhood in Dublin. A beautiful warm room with skylights that allow the sunshine in. It’s surrounded by bush and a cemetery where kangaroos roam and eat the flowers left by mourners who know, and don’t seem to mind.
Then there’s the lovely little cafe right next door with a shaded terrace overlooking the gum trees.
And then there’s the A4 paper sign taped in several places to the walls, that says it all.
Café for paying customers only.
Waiting area outside chapel.
There’s probably a better way to say what you want to say to the potential customers who pass by your door every day.
If there is you should find it.
Image by Jordan.
No Strings
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Alexx saw the sign outside the local gym and decided that there was no excuse. It was just a hundred metres from her front door and was advertising a six week membership for just $99. An opportunity not to be missed.
As she signed up Alexx tried to overlook the quiet desperation of the owner. The headphone jack that didn’t work. Not to mention the dated posters advertising extinct products in the toilet stalls.
When she asked about rush hour periods that she should avoid the gym owner told her that there were none, because things had been a bit quiet lately. He explained the options for extending her membership, the plans and the monthly rates once her initial six weeks were up, then went on to tell her that as long as she didn’t broadcast it he would keep renewing her membership at the $99 rate… “no strings”.
Alexx being a real food low tox living guru asked if he would consider stocking coconut water as an alternative to the high sugar energy drinks that glowed out at her from the fridge.
He said he’d think about it.
Fast forward six weeks and as she passed the fridge Alexx remarked, “Still no coconut water?”
“Hmmm, yeaaaah. Not really at the top of the list I have to be honest. There’s obviously quite a bit to do in the day, as I’m sure you know.”
She did. But despite the convenience and the bargain Alexx didn’t renew her membership.
If you’re going to go to the trouble of losing money to get your customer through the door. Why not go the extra mile to keep her?
‘Strings’ are exactly the reason you’re in business. Connection with your customers is the reason you exist. Your job is to find ways to create as many strings as possible, by going out of your way to make them feel like you care and that they belong.
More strings are your emergency.
Image by Bethan.
6 Questions Every Startup Should Ask
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
1. What problem are we solving?
2. What need are we fulfilling?
3. Who are we solving the problem for?
4. How are we least like the competition?
5. How do we tell that story?
6. Why this, why us and why now?
What questions have you asked yourself?
Image by dasmart.
The Shortcut
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
The secret to overnight success is that there is no such thing as an overnight success.
Here’s the formula.
DO GOOD WORK x TIME = OPPORTUNITY TO SUCCEED
This is how a self-published Kansas mother of three became the number #1 Amazon Business Bestseller in a week when ‘online influencers’ backed by big publishing houses launched books.
Crystal’s success didn’t happen because she wrote and published a book. It was built one blog post, one new subscriber at a time.
It turns out that taking the first step and caring enough to do it again and again is the shortcut.
Image by Dade Freeman.
The Story Is Your Advantage
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
“Whoever tells the best story wins.”
—Annette Simons
This is the whole truth, and it scares all kinds of people, from creators to scientists, fledgling entrepreneurs to established brands. The best man doesn’t always win. It’s not enough to be bigger or better, and that frightens us because our understanding of the world comes from what we were taught at school.
The best students get the best scores, get places at the best universities, get the best jobs, have the best life.
That’s a myth. Every day people who are ‘good enough’ succeed because they tell a better story.
It seems easier to sell features and benefits.
The facts.
Things we can easily explain.
A concrete advantage.
But anyone can make and sell a better widget for cheaper than you can tomorrow. There’s another genius across town writing equally elegant code. Your job then is to build the great thing, but to care enough to tell the best story you can tell about it too.
People don’t buy your widget, your app, your code, your smart phone, your music player, your homemade cupcakes, your fresh flowers, your candles, your music, your computers, your front row seats, your hand poured candles, your organic soap, your graphic design, your printing, your coaching or even your 7-inch tablet.
They buy how it makes them feel.
The story is your advantage.
Image by Robin Robokow.
Speak Human
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
The new perspex sign in the toilets of fast food restaurant read…
“It is our intent to provide you with the cleanest possible facility.
If the room needs attention please notify a Manager.”
I stood in the mirrorless bathroom looking at it for some time wondering how this was supposed to make me feel. There was no room, no time, no budget and no thought for a mirror, and yet someone had carved out a way to make this sign work. A ‘manager’ with a capital ‘M’.
If you go to the trouble of speaking to your customers, speak their language.
Write like you speak. Speak like you care, not like you’re trying to impress.
Give them what they want, not what enables you to put a tick in a box.
If you’re selling bananas, sell the bananas and do it like you mean it.
Image by littlevanities.