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Articles filed in: Strategy
What Should Your Website Do?
What you want your website to do is probably very different from what your customer wants it to do. The trick (as with most elements of your business), is to build for customers and community first to realise the benefits for you later.
“A website turns a stranger into a friend,
and a friend into a customer.”
Seth Godin
You want your website to:
1. Be on the first page in Google.
2. Send customers.
3. Boost credibility.
4. Convert browsers into subscribers.
5. Change followers into fans.
6. Connect you to the right audience.
7. Make you money.
8. Increase your business, bottom line or popularity.
9. Make you look, bigger, better, stronger, faster.
10.Tell a story that people want to believe.
Your customer wants your website to:
1. Be exactly what they were looking for.
2. Give them a solution to a problem.
3. Tell them the answer.
4. Help them to understand.
5. Entertain or educate.
6. Connect them to people, ideas and things they care about.
7. Save them time.
8. Save them money.
9. Be clear and show them the way.
10.Focus on their wants and needs.
How is your business catering for your client’s wants, while fulfilling your needs?
Image by Alexsi Aaltonen.
Why You Should Never Work For Coffee
If you’re a knowledgeable, skilled and gifted freelancer, solopreneur, designer, consultant, coach or someone with something valuable to share, I guarantee that you will get asked this question.
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee, then we can, [insert information seeker’s agenda here]?”
Don’t get me wrong there is some value in getting this kind of offer. In fact if it weren’t for numerous offers of cups of coffee in the early days, I might never have fully appreciated how valuable my skills were, and that’s my point. Your knowledge and gifts are significant too. You should never value them at $4.
If you start out by accepting work and trading your time, (or seeking validation of your ideas) for coffee, then the coffee buyer (and you) will never see what you do as being beyond coffee worthy. This is not a try before they buy situation. This is a dictating the terms of the offer, and gauging an understanding of what you think you’re worth exercise. Believe me, if they’ve paid you in macchiato once, they won’t ever be paying you in dollars, cents, pounds, shillings and pence.
Working for coffee not only devalues you in the eyes of others,
it kills part of your creative genius.
Am I saying that you should never work for free? Not at all! Sometimes working for free is a great strategy. Work for free because you’d like to include something in your portfolio, or because it will be great experience. Work for free because you’d like a testimonial and agree that in advance. Work for free if it’s going to raise your profile and make you visible to new markets. Work for free because you care, which it turns out is actually not working for free at all, but working for love.
Work for free because you choose to. Do it on your terms and never on a coffee buyers, because the first cup of coffee can only lead to one thing… a second cup.
I’d love to hear more about your experience on this topic in the comments.
What do you do in these situations?
What have you learned that might help others in a similar position?
Image by Ian McKenzie.
Pick Yourself
Do you remember the feeling of helplessness in a junior team line up at school, as one by one the captains and team leaders of the moment chose who was ‘in’? Remember the fear of being last, of not being picked and the feeling of having no control over your destiny. As economies tank, and traditional business models break down, we are beginning to question what security is. We’re evaluating the actual value of being picked and weighing that up against being masters of our own destiny.
Since some reports say that 80% of jobs aren’t even advertised and are filled through networks and recommendations, it seems that picking yourself might be an excellent strategy.
“Once you understand that there are problems just waiting to be solved, once you realize that you have all the tools and all the permission you need, then opportunities to contribute abound.”
Seth Godin
Backing your own dream without a safety net seems scary and yet when you look around you at the people you most admire, who have created not just businesses but legacies, you’ll find that they are the ones who have drawn their own line in the sand and dared to cross it.
Tom Fishburne a Harvard Business graduate picked himself the day he left his well paid job to follow his dream of being a cartoonist.
Angela Lussier self published her book Anti Resume Revolution and started a career consulting business on the back of it.
David Mc Kinney and Stuart Hall didn’t worry about the 425,000 other Apps in the iTunes store, they just focused on solving problems and building ‘killer products’. Their Discovr Music App was number one in 28 countries.
Abigail Forsyth was appalled by the amount of waste generated by disposable coffee cups, so she set about doing something to change human behaviour and launched the award winning Keep Cup in 2009, selling 800,000 cups in the first year alone.
If you want to work with a dream client, find a way to show them what you could do for them.
Mike Kus did exactly that when he realigned the Innocent drinks homepage and posted the results on his blog. He may not get the Innocent gig, but I’m betting he’ll land a clutch of other great offers.
Christina and Sandra didn’t wait for publishers to contact them. They wrote and blogged and shared and built communities. They picked themselves and their ships sailed in.
Self selection doesn’t rely on privilege, education and hierarchies. Our world is littered with examples and role models of self selectors, who didn’t wait and wonder. Don’t let tradition, gatekeepers, HR departments or sports captains stand in the way of you making your mark and creating ideas that matter.
What’s your take on this?
Image by Treetop Mom.
How Do You Differentiate Yourself?
Life’s too short to sell things you don’t believe in. ~ Patrick Dixon
Often the real value of the work you do isn’t what gets delivered in the package, during the session or in the ebook. In order to differentiate you need to really understand the effect of what you do, sell, offer or deliver to people. I hope you’ll consider asking yourself some of the questions on this list and maybe add a few of your own.
1. Why do you do what you do?
2. Does your story really define what you do?
3. What makes you, your product, service or business stand out?
4. What makes it blend in?
5. How is your product different?
6. How is your service special?
7. Are you delivering on your promise, original, unique, fastest, flexible, enduring, best?
8. Can you create a new market and do something that hasn’t been done before?
9. Can you reinvent something that’s already been done and do it better?
10. What do people care about right now?
11. What’s not selling today that might, if you marketed it in new ways tomorrow?
12. Could you produce something enduring, that’s scalable?
13. Is it possible to create scarcity?
14. How is your product compelling?
15. Is your name evocative?
16. Does your work start conversations?
17. If not how could you make that happen?
18. Are you giving people a sense of your purpose and values?
19. How does your product or service make people feel?
20. What’s your legacy?
Image by Thomas Hawk.
Advertising Is Not Real Marketing
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
Think about the people you do business with and the brands you care about. Are you drawn in by their advertising or their marketing story?
That full colour advert in the Sunday supplement is a tactic. So is the expensive, shiny new website you’re having built and those letterpress business cards you spent a fortune on. Tactics help you to communicate your message. Real marketing makes it stick.
Real marketing is built into what you do and why you do it. It’s part of your story, something that you do organically when your business is aligned with your mission and values. Kept promises, free returns, getting back to people, clean tables and attentive staff are your real marketing. Real marketing creates an impact, leaves a lasting impression and is as powerful as a smile.
How are you making real marketing work for you?
The Secret To Creating Ideas That Matter
Ability, knowledge, education, money, self belief and connections, all fall away in the face of the one thing that really makes ideas infectious. The success of ideas and dreams of leaders and heroes the world over, from Richard Branson, to Steve Jobs, Scott Harrision to Jacqueline Novogratz is passion. Passion is the most compelling and irresistible emotion there is.
Passion is at the heart of every idea that matters
If you want to experience passion selling an idea in action, take a look at how Charles Hazlewood talks about the Para Orchestra. Charles is founding the world’s first ever world class disabled orchestra. It will be a platform for impossible genius, that will change our perspectives about disability and transform perceptions about what is, and what could be. If you have, and can communicate your ideas with this kind of passion then they will fly.
You can’t learn to be passionate, but you can learn how to communicate your passion. How could you start communicating your ideas with more passion?
Image by Emmie Green.
People Don’t Want To Buy Your Process
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
I’m working with a client who is choosing images for her website, she’s worried that they need relate exactly to the services she offers. Maybe you do too?
When Grace comes into your salon to have her legs waxed she doesn’t usually ask what kind of wax you use. You might think what she needs is to be hair free, but what she really wants is to look sexy on the beach this weekend. Joe doesn’t care much about the work that goes into coding that ’hire me’ graphic for his website. He just wants you to make him look more professional, so he can afford that holiday on the east coast next summer.
Although your energy goes into the process, what your customer is buying are the results. When was the last time you thought about the hard labour of the honey bee when you took a bite out of your toast?
Don’t be afraid to tell people the story of your business in a different way, a way that other businesses choose not to. Practice the art of selling people what they really want. You might be surprised by your results.
Image by TW Collins.
The One Thing To Remember About Website Traffic
It wasn’t going to be cheap, but Anna figured that she’d outsource all of her online marketing to a company who knew what they were doing. She’d spent the past two years working really hard to build her service business offline, and was hugely successful at converting customers face to face. Now in a phase of expansion and growth, Anna decided to target strangers as well as friends.
The five figure marketing company came in and rebuilt her websites. They optimised everything to within an inch of its life, making sure that search engines would love, and more importantly find Anna. Her website visits increased, but her visitors didn’t stick around and crucially they didn’t bother to pick up the phone or email either. Anna was stumped, she’d done everything right, but she began to think that her business wasn’t capable of converting people she’d never met, or who hadn’t been recommended to her. She was wrong. Blinded by a marketing tactic, Anna had forgotten one thing.
Behind every website traffic statistic
is a human being who wants to matter
Anna’s website might be optimised for search engines, but it wasn’t optimised for soul and emotion. Everything that Anna knew about connecting with people offline had been stripped out of her online presence and that mattered to potential customers.
Google can’t really optimise what the non-average, exceptional, client you would kill for wants to buy. Google can’t optimise your purpose, your heart or your soul, your art or judgement, your professionalism, enthusiasm or intention. It’s your job to give people a sense of that even if you’ve never met them.
How are your optimising for soul and emotion? What kind of SEO are you doing?
Image by Alexandra Galvis.
Don’t Just Tell Me What It’s Made Of
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
Jo is an amazing designer. She creates hand made scarves, from locally woven fabrics which she designs herself. Her website tells part of the story. Jo writes about the materials used, the time it takes to create the design, source just the right fabric dyes and weave the most exquisite scarves you have ever seen. I read all about her passion for her work, and why it’s important to be unique. I found out that Jo did made beautiful things, but I didn’t know why I should care about them.
Until I met her that is. “You know that you’ve done the right thing by spending that extra little bit on your scarf, when four or five people in the room stop you to admire it.” Jo said. And just like that I understand why I would want one, not simply because it would look great, but because of how I could imagine myself feeling when I wore it.
When Jamie Oliver makes a salad, he talks about the ingredients he’s added to make it taste perfect, but he doesn’t stop there, he paints a picture of you sharing it with family and friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHDsB6HOFDc
Don’t just make something wonderful. Make me a hero.
Image by Ashley Rose.
20 Posts From Seth Godin You Probably Missed
Seth Godin’s writing and work continues to inspire marketers and brand storytellers, after more than a decade. I’ve done a deep search through the archives of his blog and uncovered some gems, that you may have missed (some haven’t even been retweeted). Bookmark and enjoy!
Seth Godin on the Internet
We wish Google didn’t exist
Why wishing isn’t a good business strategy and three things to focus on.
Vocabulary: “Landing Page”
Landing pages are direct marketing in action.
Different kinds of traffic
Why you want better and not just more traffic.
How to get traffic to your blog
56 gems that will get you thinking again.
10 Things programmers might want to know about marketers
Your products are worthless without marketing.
Seth Godin on Marketing
Farming and hunting
Which is better for your business?
Understanding the funnel
Shouldn’t you be treating your customers differently?
Wait
Your job is to amplify interest, not create it.
What consumers want
It’s not what you think.
The culture of dissatisfaction
Why relationships matter.
Edges and clusters
Getting away from the sweetspot.
Bite sized
The best problems have an easy solution.
Seth Godin on Leadership
Indispensable
Do you want to be that person?
It’s good to be king
You weren’t awarded the right to attention.
A lesson learned at the mall
Investing in more than the minimum.
Leadership is now the strongest marketing strategy
Your job is to do the connecting.
Seth Godin on Ideas
How do I license a great idea?
Sometimes it’s simply how you tell it.
Why are you afraid of process?
Is process underrated?
What makes an idea viral?
It’s not what matters to the originator.
Selling Ideas to a big company.
Two important things to consider.
What are your favourite Seth posts and why?
Image by Dave Durden.