Posts Tagged ‘business’
Brand Storytelling And The Rule Of One
Have you ever wondered why movies like Toy Story are so compelling and successful? The best writers in the world speak to universal human themes—the things that drive every one of us no matter what our worldview is. Compelling storylines work because we see ourselves reflected in the characters. Their story is our story. A…
Read MoreThe Powerful Sales Question We Forget To Ask
It was a busy Saturday morning in the department store. Lucy, the kitchen appliance sales assistant didn’t have a lot of time on her hands. She needed to work as efficiently as possible while ensuring that customers felt seen and heard. Lucy’s first customer was shopping for an electric blender. Like many customers, she felt…
Read MoreThe Three Steps To Articulating Value
It’s tempting to begin with product and service descriptions when you are communicating the value your business creates. Of course, it’s easier to start with what we know for sure. We list features, benefits and specifications—telling the customer as much as we can about ‘the what’. And all the while we’re doing it backwards. Intead…
Read MoreThe Importance Of Happy Endings
When we’re serving customers we tend to front-load our effort. Hotel reception staff are well-versed in making a great impression when the guest checks in. Good waiters quickly seat new diners and take orders promptly. Retailers station greeters at the store entrance to welcome and orient new customers. The same is also true for marketing.…
Read MoreYour Story Drives Behaviour
Jackie is a gifted web designer. Her inbox is full of enquiries from people who want to work with her. She loves what she does, but she gets worn down by clients asking for a discount on her already reasonable rates. This behaviour not only affects Jackie’s bottom line and the number of clients she…
Read MoreFrom Awareness To Loyalty
The purpose of your brand story and of every piece of marketing material is to move a prospective customer from awareness to loyalty. When we imagine the customer decision journey as a timeline it’s clear that we need to treat customers differently according to where they are on that journey. THE CUSTOMER DECISION JOURNEY 1.…
Read MoreGrow Your Business By Watching What People Do
I once walked the length for Bourke Street behind a young man in a hurry heading towards Southern Cross Station. His backpack was slung over one shoulder and a designer shopping bag in the other hand bumped his knee as he walked revealing the Christian Louboutin logo. When we both stopped at the lights I…
Read MoreThe Cost Of Interruption
The web design firm can access thousands of contact details for newly registered domains each day. It’s easy from there to hire a bunch of poorly trained phone operatives (who are overqualified to do soulless work but need the money) to interrupt people. It’s possible to scrape, buy, trawl and interrupt a thousand people for…
Read MoreThe Importance Of A Responsive Business Mindset
The beauty salon owner has a limited number of available appointments. Every day she encounters the same problem—zero availability and several last minute cancellations or no-shows. This situation is frustrating and it’s losing her money. She thinks she might solve the problem by implementing a cancellation fee, charging clients who cancel within 24 hours of…
Read MoreThe Importance Of Customer Cues
Ira’s cafe is tucked away at the bottom of a narrow city centre laneway. Without regulars who live close by Ira’s place is dependent on converting tourists and weekend shoppers into diners. Every neighbouring cafe stations a host in the small doorway waiting for passers-by to make a decision. Ira takes up his post in…
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