The Importance Of The First Stroke

The coach leaned forward on her handle bars and across the bike path at the side of the lake. The four girls in the boat who had been training since sun up hung on her every word. “I want you to focus on the first stroke, nothing else. Just keep thinking I am going to…

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The Value Of What We Don’t Know

Six years. That’s how long it took IKEA to research the South Korean culture before they were ready to open the first store there. Six years of understanding what they didn’t know about the story Korean customers lived and wanted to believe—so that they could tell a story that resonated. The goal wasn’t to reinvent…

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We Don’t Buy Things

Once upon a time and not so long ago, almonds were a fatty, to-be-avoided snack. Today they are a protein-rich superfood. Almond sales in the US have increased 220% since 2005. When, and how exactly did almonds change? Of course almonds haven’t changed at all, what has changed is what we believe about them and…

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The Power Of The Minimum Viable Experience

I like my insurance company, or should I say I like the people who work for my insurance company. I’ve been with them almost ten years and have no intention of switching. Their call centre team is well trained and they really go out of their way to be helpful and make the customer feel…

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The Meaningful Advantage

The newspaper delivery van still drives up our street at 4am on Saturday morning. You can hear the rolled, plastic wrapped weekend edition thud onto the neighbour’s lawn as the driver takes aim from the window. And even at 4am you can’t help wondering if this service will be meaningful to enough people to last…

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Why People Buy And Why You Need To Know

We spend a great deal of our time and energy trying to convince people to choose us—often without giving enough consideration to why they might. It turns out that there are only three reasons people buy anything and every product or service falls somewhere on this buying hierarchy.   1. Utility If you lose your…

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When Did Marketing Become About Telling?

In the village marketing was always about showing. Quality was demonstrated and trust was earned. As we outgrew the village and our small circles of trust and influence marketing became about telling. Loyalty was bought and exposure was paid for. But our digital connectedness is taking us back. Back to a world where people can…

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How Value Is Created

Value is created at the intersection of the customer’s worldview and your understanding of how your product meets that. If that’s hard to get your head around think about plugging a real world example into the model. Customer’s Worldview: Branded razors are expensive. The quality doesn’t reflect the price that I pay for them and…

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Clever Marketing

Do you remember those TV ads that succeeded in interrupting or engaging us for sixty seconds? That’s what we used to call clever marketing. Today, clever marketing is no longer about creating the best advertising campaign, it’s about understanding your customer’s worldview and how they want to feel—then delivering on that. Clever marketing creates value…

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