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Articles filed in: Strategy
What Successful People Don’t Do In The Morning…
filed in Strategy
…or in the evening, or even on weekends.
They don’t look for someone else’s secret sauce on a “what successful people do” list, even if there are 730 million search results to tell them how it’s done.
It’s easy to confuse other people’s solutions for your answers.
You don’t have to be defined by what’s gone before you.
Image by Kreg Steppe.
Price Is A Story We Tell Ourselves
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
I’m worth it. It might be gone tomorrow. You could make it at home for half that. This is a one off. People pay for intangible value all the time.
Consider Uber, “the app that connects you with a driver at the tap of a button” on your smartphone. If you simply need to get from point A to point B, why not just call or hail a taxi on the street? Well, apart from the fact that using Uber means you don’t have to wait in the rain, you don’t even need to have cash or credit cards to pay. The real value of the service is not simply in getting people where they need to go. The value of Uber though is in the perception of time saved and the elimination of uncertainty. The ability to know exactly where your driver is and to track him as he gets to you using GPS is something plenty of people reckon is worth paying for. People place a premium on their time. Uber doesn’t need to employ the drivers, or to own the fleet of cars to provide value (to the tune of a rumoured $1 Billion a year).
The sticker price may help us rationalise the decision to reach for our wallet, but often it’s the things we can’t see, and the emotional investment made where most value is created.
Price, and value are stories we tell ourselves. What story are your customers telling?
Image by Yang and Yung.
Seth Godin Is Coming To Australia
Seth’s never made it to Australia before, but he’s finally coming next year. Yes, those were cartwheels you imagined! Anyone who has been following Seth’s work for a while knows that this is a big deal. I’ve got no idea if he’ll make it back ever again, but I’m thrilled that he’s coming this time.
Seth is hosting an intimate Live Q&A event in Sydney on 9th September 2014. It’s going to be a life-changing day. There are only 180 tickets, I hope one has your name on it.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
Image by Dave Pinter.
Ditch The Business Plan And Write A Letter To Your Future Customer
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
This might sound like a pointless and obvious exercise that’s easy to do…..so why would anyone bother? I guarantee you, that if more of the forgettable businesses you’ve visited and never been back to, had written this letter (or their own version of it), they’d be one step closer to remarkable.
Time to ditch the business plan for a second and begin…..
Dear ——————————,
It was great to hear from you today. I remember the day I saw you struggling to ————————, a hundred light bulbs went off when I realised at that moment that I could help you to ————————.
I know that you want to do/create/be/feel/have ———————— and I understand the challenges you face, like ———————— and ————————, because over the past five years I’ve been working on/helped ———————— to overcome similar problems. Understanding your experience is the reason I created ————————.
Here’s how it works.
Once you begin/finish/buy/use ———————— you will be able to ————————.
And that’s the reason I can’t wait to jump out of bed and get to work every morning.
You can try/start/buy it now [hyperlink]. If you have any questions you can contact me anytime at getitnow@whatyouvebeenwaitingforbutdidntknow.com
Best Wishes
Alex
CEO
whatyouvebeenwatingforbutdidntknow.com
Image by Rachel.
The Biggest Problem Facing Entrepreneurs…
…is love. People with great ideas (and average ones too) are in love with the idea itself. Because we’re human, we become irrationally seduced by the potential of our own solutions. This blinds us to what matters most, to the thing that gives the idea the best chance to fly.
Being in love with the idea is what made the Segway falter. It’s also what made Blackberry fall into the abyss and saw Kodak flounder after decades of domination.
Of course you’ve got to believe in the product, service, or solution you’re creating. But what you need more than a love of your product, is love for your customer. You have to care about them to want to make something for them. And you have to understand them to care about them.
Understanding of the customer is why Apple’s packaging feels like a gift. It’s the reason Instagram became unstoppable and how Lululemon amassed a cult following.
Because when you innovate and build your business from a place of empathy and a desire to create difference for your customers it bubbles up into everything you do.
Image by Gillian Chicago.
Why Is The Next Time Never Like The First Time?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Twelve years ago we took our boys on a family holiday to Tuscany. We spent a whole magical day just wandering the beautiful walled city of Lucca. It was there that we had our first taste of real Italian gelato. It turns out that Lucca is the perfect place for circling back on yourself, which is exactly what we did, not once, but twice that afternoon—to try just one more cup of gelato.
Of course we weren’t hungry for ice-cream, what we wanted was to replicate the feeling of the first time.
We often go to great lengths to create memorable experiences for our customers first time round.
It’s easy to set the bar and forget.
But if we are going to matter to our customers we need to think beyond the first time.
The challenge, and the opportunity is to make the next time, feel like the first time.
Image by Adam Bowie.
What Customers Believe Is Your Competitive Advantage
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Ask any business owner about how they stand apart from the competition and they’ll probably begin with the tangible, the things they can easily explain. “We offer a more competitive interest rate.” “Our products have more features. “We have better distribution.”
In 2008 Windows accounted for 84% of personal computing devices shipped. Today that number is just 28%. It turns out that people weren’t buying monitors and motherboards.
Customers don’t often pay for the actual value the product delivers. If they did $4 cups of coffee wouldn’t exist. People pay for the intangible value, for what they experience and what they care about.
If you can’t finish this sentence, then like Microsoft, it might be time for a rethink.
“Our customers love how it feels when they ———————— our product or service, because ————————.”
Your competitive advantage is what your customers believe, not what you make in the factory.
Image by Bianca Nogrady.
What If Your Customers Could Talk?
When was that last time you couldn’t wait to click on a banner ad?
Marketers will spend $500 billion on advertising this year.
Someone clearly believes advertising is working, even if it’s not.
We still think that marketing is how we talk to people about ourselves.
Marketing is giving people something to talk about.
Image by Chris Booth.
How To Write A Mission Statement
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
By definition a mission statement is the official line on the aims and objectives of your organisation. Academic papers have been written about how mission statements must be cogent (possibly one of the ugliest words in the history of the English language in my opinion).
Your mission statement should describe your key market and your contribution. It should explain why your product or service is unique, setting out reasons why a prospective client would, or should choose you. No wonder most businesses find writing a mission statement hard.
If you’re stuck, you could try using the handy mission statement generator to help you come up with a mission statement like this one.
“We will work concertedly to efficiently monetize best practice methods of empowerment to stay pertinent in tomorrow’s world.”
Or try this for size.
“We are committed to globally engineer virtual sources while continuing to quickly leverage web 2.0 services.”
Don’t laugh! I’m sure you’ve read many a meaningless mission statement similar to these ones.
Your mission statement shouldn’t live in a dusty A4 file, or be buried on a long forgotten, never updated page on your website. And it shouldn’t just be something you say.
It should be something you live every day, on purpose.
What are you doing right now, today? Why does your business exist? Why does it matter?
Are you actually on a mission, or are you just saying that you are?
Image by Alex Watson.
Doing Work That Matters
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
My maternal grandfather died in his sleep, while my mother aged just four, lay breathing next to him. She was number ten of eleven children. Ten years later mum was sent to work at a biscuit factory. She hated it from day one. At the end of that first shift she told her mother that she was never going back. She worked there every day for the next four years, until she finally escaped aged eighteen.
My paternal grandmother died in childbirth aged just 36, while her husband who was a baker stayed at home looking after their other ten children. My dad’s first job was as a delivery boy for the local grocer. They gave him a bike and a few shillings at the end of the week, but not enough for shoes.
My parents met at the crisp factory, where they both worked long days frying potatoes in front of huge vats of hot oil. They had worked in other factories before that, packing biscuits or dipping caramels in icing, either pink or white. Work to them was the thing you tolerated because you had no choice. If you were lucky it bought you a couple of cinema tickets and a few hours escape on a Saturday evening.
I remember my dad going to work every day in the vast freezers at the HB factory to fill orders of Cornettos and load boxes of Birdseye ready meals, so that Captain Birdseye could put chunky flakes of sea fresh cod on more plates across the county.
He worked so that we could go to school with food in our bellies (a luxury he never had). So that he could buy a whole set of Encyclopedia Britannica by the week, in the hope of something better for us. So that we would have a nice yard of new green ribbon to wear in our hair on Sunday.
So that we would never want for a new pair of Clarke’s shoes.
My dad got joy from what the work enabled him to do when he wasn’t at work. From the hope of a better future that his ability to bring home a pay packet at the end of each week might bring his children. Work was a means to the promise of a better end. There was little joy or fulfilment in the work itself.
Every single person who is reading this has a choice that isn’t this. We get to care that our work has meaning, that our days are not just something we get through. Let’s not waste it for a second.
Image by Thomas Hawk.