How Dollar Shave Club Succeeds With A Better Brand Story

How does a startup come on to the scene, take on giant global brands like Gillette, and win? That’s what Dollar Shave Club did, by harnessing the power of great brand storytelling. This is how they did it. By telling the truth, and keeping it simple. With an easy to remember brand name and tagline,…

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Understanding The Problem To Solve

There are a million and one web hosting services on the market. It’s hardly a niche. The market is so saturated, why would you consider launching yet another one? That’s exactly what my friend Kelly did. Her hosting business doesn’t stand out by competing on spec, or uptime. Kelly differentiates by understanding the problem to…

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What Does The Competition Do?

I was consulting with two financial planners this week. We were discussing what made them different, when they told me this story about working with one of their clients. Jonathan was offered $9 million for his house, which had amazing, never to be replaced views out over the river. He was in a quandary about…

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Why Are People Ignoring You?

It’s been a while since I bought a nice glossy magazine. I usually enjoy flicking through one at my favourite cafe. I’m not sure why I was so surprised to get 32 pages into the latest edition of Vogue and still be on the adverts. The entire magazine was 208 pages, 100 of those pages…

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Being The Most

In the 80’s Starbucks set out to be the most inspiring coffee brand on the planet. When they forgot this in the 90’s and tried becoming the most ubiquitous, they lost their way. If you could be ‘the most’ to people what ‘most’ would you be? Most reliable. Most irresistible. Most ubiquitous. Most loved. Most…

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Worldviews And The Story Of Bottled Water

Do you remember the first time you saw bottled water for sale? For me it was back in the late 80’s when I was on holiday in Greece, where the tap water wasn’t safe to drink. And then in the 90’s suddenly there it was. A trickle that turned into a deluge, supported by a…

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Attention Is Not The Problem

You’ve may have access to a hundred and one new channels that allow you to broadcast a message, but there are only a handful of ways to get attention for your idea. 1. Advertising The old and expensive way to buy attention. You might be able to buy eyeballs, but you can’t guarantee you’re changing…

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Are You Measuring What Matters?

The cafe owner thinks that what’s most important is getting customers seated and served quickly. Because she believes her customers simply value tidy lines and orders pushed through, she creates standards and KPIs. She measures things that enable her staff to tick boxes and make them look hunted. The truth is people don’t visit her…

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The Difference Between Traffic And Visitors

When you optimise your website for “traffic” are you doing your best work? Working out how to get “traffic” to find you is a tactic, that anyone with better technical support than you can win at. Giving “visitors” a reason to stay, means having a strategy for creating great content that can’t be easily duplicated.…

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The Internet Is Not A Shortcut

Here is the cold hard truth about the Internet, viral marketing and the way to make your ideas matter. The Internet gives you a million and one chances to amplify what’s great about what you do. It doesn’t actually make your idea better. 70,000 people found Philippa on Instagram. She was an amazing visual storyteller,…

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