Why Are Your Customers Here?

The city centre bookstore manager complains to her colleague on the phone about people wandering in on their lunch break to browse because they have nothing else to do. “They’re not coming in for anything in particular.” she sighs. She’s right, for two hours every day hundreds of office workers with nothing else to do…

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True Advantages

If I asked you to list the advantages any global brand has over its competitors you’d likely think of things like access to capital, distribution networks, and other resources that the average business doesn’t have. But these brands are the outliers. When it comes down to it, most businesses have access to similar resources, raw…

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The First Rule Of Increasing Brand Awareness

Sustainable growth is the goal of every business and conventional wisdom tells us that in order to grow we need to command more attention. Ironically, when we begin thinking about how to increase brand awareness we often shift our gaze internally. We work on differentiating from our competitors. We articulate whatever we believe our edge…

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Why Startups Fail

Take a look at this list of reasons startup founders give for failing. These are just some of them. The cost of customer acquisition, ahead of its time, wrong positioning, not enough income, no problem solution fit, wrong target market, low customer adoption, too early, not enough demand, no real audience and too much ego.…

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A Reason To Come

“Hey! Are you after some lunch?” asked the young woman on the pavement waving flyers during the 1 pm rush. She gestured to a place on the side street as she tried to lure people down it with the promise of a discount. Most diners who eat at a restaurant down a side street go…

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The 4 New Stages Of Customer Engagement

The commercial reality for any business is that sales keep the lights on. We’re still following rules that were proposed in the late 1800s by Elias St. Elmo Lewis in order to do that. “The mission of an advertisement is to sell goods. To do this, it must attract attention, of course; but attracting attention…

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The 12-Word Business Plan

Have you ever struggled to illustrate or articulate how your business or idea creates value? This 12-word framework is the simplest way to do it. Take a look at how we could map Blue Apron’s business plan using the 12-word framework. Blue Apron’s 12-Word Business Plan OPPORTUNITY People want to eat healthy, home cooked meals,…

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Why How Matters

How you design the product changes how it feels to use it. How you train your staff changes how the customer is treated. How you answer an email changes how the recipient responds. How much of yourself you bring to work changes how you perform. In a world where more people understand the impact of…

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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…

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Hedging Your Bets Vs A Stake In The Ground

When we’re having problems articulating our story or making ideas resonate it’s often because we’re afraid of putting a stake in the ground. It seems safer to hedge our bets and easier to be more things to more people, than to commit to choosing who to matter to. When you narrow your focus and stake…

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