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Articles filed in: Strategy
Petrol Station Flowers
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
‘Petrol station flowers’ never quite hit the mark.
It’s obvious to both the giver and the receiver that they were unplanned….an afterthought.
That the giving of them lacked the thing that’s more important than the blooms themselves.
The intention.
We care about the intention as much as the gift, often more.
Your intention matters in business as it does in life. It costs nothing to care more than the competition. And the flip side of course is that if you care more, you not only have the opportunity to change how your customers feel, you also get to do work that matters to you too.
Image by scorpians and centaurs.
What Versus Why
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy, Worldview
My middle son left school this year and here’s the question everyone asks him.
“What do you want to do?”
I bet it’s a question you’ve been asked too at one time or another.
My seventeen year old tells people he wants to study either architecture or design, and then that he’s off to Billund in Denmark to work as a designer for LEGO. He has absolutely no idea how he’s going to make this happen, but here’s what he once told me.
Can you imagine the feeling of being in a toy shop and seeing a little kid talking excitedly to his Mum about the big LEGO set on the top shelf? The set he wants more than anything in the world. The one you designed.
It’s important to know what you want to do.
Knowing ‘what’ however pales into insignificance when you understand deep down why you’re doing it.
Image by Ben Spark.
Confusing Price With Value
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
There’s a company here in Perth charging $70 an hour to weed gardens. Just weeding, and perhaps a light trim of garden shrubs. Nothing more. They don’t mow lawns (there are already thousands of guys doing that).
They do the job that nobody else wants to take on. The job that plenty of time poor professionals with a particular worldview need to get done. $70 is a bargain to these people. It’s worth every cent for the feeling they get when they pull into the driveway after a twelve hour day.
The price you charge has little to do with how much it costs to make the product or provide the service.
It has everything to do with the value your deliver to the people who need you enough to care.
Image by Billy Liar.
Be That
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
If you say you’re the biggest, fastest, strongest, cheapest, —————est, then be the biggest, fastest, strongest, cheapest, —————est .
If you say you’re the best then be that.
And the flipside? If you say it, then you set the intention of being it.
Which means you have an obligation to go make it happen.
Image by Nicolas Henderson.
Work For Money, Design For Love
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
My friend David Airey has drawn on his personal experience of building a successful freelance design business. He’s also gathered the business insights of leading designers and creatives and shared it all in his new book. Work For Money, Design For Love.
Why I love this book… well the title has a special place in my heart, since I named it, the title also reflects what I believe business (not just the design business) should be about.
It’s fascinating to draw on the knowledge and experience of designers and freelancers who have learned how to build successful businesses on their own terms.
These business building lessons are for everyone, not just for designers. David’s book answers questions like.
How do I find new clients?
How much should I charge for my work?
It includes ideas about launching your online presence, common business mistakes and on and on.
We’re so lucky to have access to the insights of others who are one step ahead of us on the journey.
Go take advantage of it!
Image by David Airey.
Who Is It For?
filed in Storytelling, Strategy, Worldview
They’ve put a beautiful Christmas tree in the foyer of our local leisure centre. It stands almost three metres tall, complete with the usual baubles and wrapped presents underneath. The tree would be perfect if it wasn’t for the temporary barrier that surrounds it on four sides, (you know the kind, the type with the expanding elastic you see if you ever queue at a bank anymore). Oh and the sign which reads, “Do not touch the Christmas display. Thank you for your cooperation.”
The point of the tree should be to deliver joy. Not much joy for the three years olds (who can’t read the sign of course) and have a go at touching it. Or their mothers, who now have to yell at them loudly not to touch the tree, while they wait in line for coffee or an entry ticket to swimming lessons.
Every business decision you make should be prefaced with the question. Who is this for? If you’re doing something to please investors or board members, your suppliers or partners, customers or staff, make sure your decision pleases the right people.
If you really are setting out to delight your customers and not just putting a tick in the box, go stand in their shoes. Once you see the world through their eyes you’ll know who you’re choosing to please.
Image by Geoanne Millares.
The Rocket Artist
We went to a new cafe by accident today. We were late and didn’t feel like queuing for a table at our regular place. Donny, they guy wearing the apron who came to clear the table recognised we were new and asked how we’d enjoyed the coffee. We struck up a conversation about where they sourced the coffee, the quality of their grinders….four times that of grinders at a normal cafe.
It turned out that Donny was the owner. Unlike other owners who were working in back offices on their automation, online booking system and honing their business model, Donny was focused on two things. Producing a great product and making people feel like they belonged. Donny understands that his business and his art is about making people feel, not just making people do. He knows what’s scarce.
Business should be more art than science. More about people than balance sheets.
The job of every business owner is to be rocket artist, to work out what’s scarce and then to do that. If you deliver on what’s scarce the money will follow.
Image by Photographer23.
Marketing Is….
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
mar-ket-ing
noun
1. the act of buying or selling in a market.
2. the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing and selling.
Actually marketing is…..
finding ways to tell the story of what you do so that the people who want and need it will care.
Image by Brett Davis.
Rethinking The Sales Process
The food halls and nail bars were humming last Thursday evening. Apparently when they have a few extra shopping hours people want to do one of two things, grab a bite to eat or have their nails done. The designer clothes boutiques were dead. Not a soul in sight in any of them, apart from one, where the sales assistants were run off their feet for a reason.
That reason was permission.
The suits, shirts and shoes they stock are just as good as those in the store two doors down, not better. What this store has is something even more valuable than the stock that lines their shelves. They have my phone number, my email address and the permission to let me know when there is a genuine sale that I might be interested in. And they know how to use it.
Back in the day you just had to open the door and put stuff in the window. All you needed was a ‘come in we’re open’ sign. Because the customer had fewer choices a store owner didn’t need to give them a reason to walk in.
Thirteen years after Seth Godin wrote Permission Marketing retailers are lamenting the death of the old sales process, and only now realising their mistake.
Online or offline, you need to give people a reason to come now.
And you need to know who to give that reason to.
Image by Jill G.
What’s The Formula?
There was no formula for being commissioned by Starbucks to design the Red Christmas Cup,
so Johanna Basford created one.
There was no step-by-step guide to building a brand around ‘delivering wow through service’ before Zappos did it.
And yet that’s what we want. The how to, the instructions, the rules we can follow.
The businesses that stand out, the entrepreneurs who succeed wildly don’t go looking for the manual, they rewrite it.
Working with a formula that everyone else can follow might allay your fears, but it won’t give you an advantage.
The thing that’s scarce is what people are looking for and you won’t find that in the manual.
Image by liquidnight.