authenticity
259 posts
Quiet Success
Success for my parents, was having a fair day’s work to do, for a fair day’s pay. Success was having money left in your pay packet at the end of the week after the bills were paid. Success was having the wherewithal to take care of your family and contribute to your community—often in ways…
The Things You’re Not Measuring
The more data we have the more we think we need. We measure everything from email open rates to foot traffic. We obsess over numbers of followers and rates of growth. And yet we often forget to take stock of the things we’re proud to have done and the ways we’ve made a difference. Here’s…
Because We Can
It’s a brisk Autumn Monday. The city’s lunchtime trams are busy. As we turn into Collins Street the tram driver begins an unscripted dialogue. He tells us that we’re at “the Paris end” of Collins street in the world’s most liveable city, reminding us that this is “no flash in the pan” because Melbou
The Power Of Promises
“You’ll have it by Friday.” “I’ll call you tomorrow.” “We’ll be there by 3pm.” How many times have promises like these been made to you in the past few weeks, only to be casually broken and replaced by a fresh set soon after? Doing what you say you’ll do is the fastest route to building…
The Unspoken Problem With Traditional Marketing Campaigns And Product Launches
It’s not unheard of for an entrepreneur or organisation to send 10-20 emails during an online product launch. We all understand that part of the job of our marketing is as McKinsey puts it; “…is to reach consumers at the moments that most influence their decisions.” This is why you have no choice bu
Company Culture And The Ripple Effect
By the age of six months, a baby begins to understand that his actions can affect his environment. It’s amazing how as adults we quickly unlearn this. As business leaders when we talk about shaping or changing company culture we sometimes forget to own the fact that we are the culture. Culture is no
The Purpose Of Clever Packaging
If you love chocolate as much as I do you’ve probably heard about the Mast Brothers scandal. The artisan chocolate makers are accused of not being completely transparent about their process when they launched in 2007 and of pulling the wool over customers eyes with “clever packaging”. Transparency a
Meaningful Work
We’ve all witnessed a version of this in action. The speciality restaurant vowing to serve free range, grass fed and organic. The gift shop committed to selling local and artisanal. The designer who refuses to work with fast food companies. Uncompromising—until they think about scaling or they hit a
When It Comes To Customer Insights Go Deeper
Grace is 32 years old, she has worked hard to establish herself on the career ladder and bought her first home. Grace and her partner Mike are trying for a baby. As marketers with a brand story to tell we’re in a hurry to gather as much data as we can about Grace. We want…
Why Getting More Hits To Your Website Is Overrated
Every day you delete messages received from faceless SEO companies who have “noticed you could have a lot more hits to your website”. We are often mistakenly led to believe that our biggest challenge is getting more people to pay attention to our products, services or work. Of course, we can game ou
7 Steps To Becoming A More Strategic Marketer
As marketers we spend much of our time and energy on tactics. We agonise over the creation of lead magnets, spend countless hours honing sales pages and perfecting social media promotions. How To Become A More Strategic Marketer 1. Take a long-term view of your business, one that doesn’t require you
The Noisy Bell And Napkin Worthiness
John Lydgate was right, “you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” And yet a huge part of our job as business leaders, entrepreneurs and product creators is to meet a standard that pleases most of the people we serve, most of the time. Feedback—the information and reactions we receive abo
What Are Your Rules Designed To Do?
It’s never a good sign when a flight doesn’t board on time. When the ground staff make announcements about ‘engineering faults’ and begin handing out meal vouchers you know you’re in trouble. And so it went last month for flight 029 to Hong Kong. Three hours after the first announcement the flight w
The Right Thing To Do
Joe was in a real fix. The equipment he’d been scheduled to hire from the builder’s supplier had accidentally been hired to another customer, there wasn’t an alternative machine available for a month. Joe needed to do something fast, if he didn’t the job he was working on would be behind time by wee
Do Your Actions And Story Align?
Have you ever seen the somber, suited doorman at Cartier chasing a thief, searching a customer’s bag or stopping a young woman from entering the store? Me neither. If he’s not doing that then why is he there? Does the sales assistant at MontBlanc really need to wear a white glove to remove the pen…
The New Rules Of Email Marketing
The old rules are broken. Familiar email marketing tactics might enable us to extract one more sale, but they are definitely not designed to respect our customers—the people who pay our bills, the same people we hope to matter to. They are busy and smart. We should treat them that way. THE NEW RULES
Want To Vs. Have To
The famous fashion designer doesn’t have to pay a fair wage to the workers in the Indian village, who hand bead the $600 dresses she sells to affluent Melburnians. Her customers would never know—and yet she does. The busy graphic designer doesn’t have to make suggested improvements to the slide deck
The Ideal Business
Something unexpected happened while I was on the phone to my health insurer making a quick change to personal details. The operator threw me by asking if I wanted to reduce my cover (and thus, the annual premium). “No sense paying a fortune for something you don’t need.” she said. True—but when I be
Most Marketing
Most marketing is designed to…. Get attention in the moment. Make people choose. Create awareness among many. Persuade people to decide. Most marketing is not designed to…. Build loyalty over time. Make people care. Create affinity with a few. Help people to feel good about their decisions. What mak
The Most Powerful Thing You Didn’t Do Today
Have you ever been footsteps away from a window and yet found yourself opening an app or doing a Google search to check the weather, instead of simply going over to the window and opening the curtains? Me too! Why is that? We are now in the habit of outsourcing our thinking and second guessing…
