The Big Bang Is Overrated

When we imagine our ideal product launch we picture attention, applause and armies of customers beating a path to our door. Successful companies hardly ever launch with a big bang. Most hits begin with the slow and steady iteration of a product or service that’s improved by getting it in front of, and in the…

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Good Feedback

The south Dublin café owner is proud of the business he’s growing, and rightly so. In just twelve months he’s built a thriving small business that’s become a meeting place for locals. The kind of place people recommend to their friends. A café people want to return to and talk about. If you spend any…

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Hearts Before Minds

People are creatures of habit. You only have to look at the rituals in your day-to-day to see how patterns permeate life. Think about the things you do on rinse and repeat. The brands you always buy. The supermarket aisles you choose to walk down. The ones you avoid. We have come to believe the…

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Reach Is Overrated

Kate Reid wasn’t expecting people to drive across town to wait in long lines when she first started rolling croissants in her tiny Elwood bakery. She wasn’t making pastries for everyone—just for the kind of people who believed and valued what she believes. Everything could have changed when she moved to her-state-of-the-art bakery in Fitzroy.…

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Just Because You Can

The role of the hotel concierge can be a challenging one. The concierge has to think on his feet. He must immediately earn each new guest’s trust, give people what they don’t always know they want and solve problems on the fly. Some people are better at this than others.  The good concierge knows the…

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Culture Creation

Our usual Friday morning workout instructor is on holiday for a month. The first sign that something has changed in his absence is a drop in the number of people who attend. The time slot is the same. The workout is identical. But fewer people are motivated to come. We’re not just getting up early…

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Sell It Like You Made It

The days when you could go down to the Milofsky’s Hardware supplies, and come away with a couple of screws carefully wrapped in brown paper, which were perfect for the job, are long gone. The days when Mrs O’Hanlon didn’t mind taking this heavy glass jar, then that one, down from the shelves of her sweet…

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Marketing Efficacy And Expectations

When ‘meal replacement’ shakes first came to market they seemed like the answer to a dieter’s prayers. Replacing one or two regular meals with a calorie counted milkshake meant ingesting fewer calories, resulting in rapid weight loss. Meal replacements worked for some people for a little while. Those first few pounds often ‘fell off’. But…

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Another Time

During a high-intensity workout, the trainer reminds the athlete to treat every set as if it were the last. To train as if this was the only sixty seconds, he would cycle that day. In that moment, with that mindset he increases his effort, his performance intensifies and that changes his results. We often presume…

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To Do Or Not To Do

We wake every day with solid ideas and imperfect plans. And yet every day we stall. We blame time. We await readiness or motivation, or both. We rationalise about tomorrow being better. We make assumptions about what it takes to be good enough. We allow doubt and uncertainty to take hold. We wait. Forgetting that…

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