Thinking About How People Feel Vs Making People Do

Every one of us is a marketer. We spend our days persuading people to do what we want them to do. “Buy now.” “Click here.” “Please retweet.” “Only 5 4 left.” “Don’t drink and drive.” “Eat your greens and you’ll grow big and strong.” My friend Mark and his wife Cindy own and run a…

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How To Start Something

1. Make a plan. A physical plan. Get the ideas out of your head and onto paper. 2. Create a deadline and stick to it. Add the action steps that take you from where you are now to where you want to be. 3. Share your goal, or don’t. Being accountable to someone other than…

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How To Scratch Your Customer’s Itch

Speak to the few, the ones who really ‘get it’. Empower them to do what they want to do. Find ways to help them do the things they don’t even know they want to do yet. Tell them the reason you exist. Remember what problem you are solving and spell out how you solve it.…

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The Best Brand Stories Are True

As I was overtaken by the van of a solar panel company on the freeway today, I noticed that they weren’t telling the whole truth. If this is the story you’re telling on your website then your company had better be living it too. “It only takes one person to make an eco-conscious difference in…

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What Does It Take To Be In The 1%?

”99% of ”brands” are about as inspiring, interesting, and enlightening as a cup of lukewarm tea. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t be.” -Umair Haque So the good news then is that it’s not that hard to be the 1%! I asked Umair what he thought it took to be in the 1 %. He…

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10 Things To Do With Happy Customers

1. Treasure and thank them. Then work really hard to keep them. 2. Connect them to each other. 3. Reward their loyalty. 4. Give them platforms and places to engage with your brand. 5. Listen to their ideas. 6. Watch how they interact with your product. 7. Ask them what you could be doing better.…

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When Will You Draw The Line?

When my mother left school aged just 14 she was sent to the Royal Candy sweet factory, to dip caramel by hand into big vats of icing, (pink or white). On the evening of her first day she told her widowed mother (who was raising 11 children single-handed), that she hated it and she wasn’t…

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The Sure Thing

If you’ve ever watched surfers you’ll know that they spend far more time reading the waves, than riding them. And despite all of the waiting, watching and experience, they still sometimes choose the wrong wave to ride. In the end they take their best guess, commit and go. And so it goes for ideas too.…

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How To Charge What You’re Worth

The days when you clocked in and out, and got paid by the hour for dipping squares of caramel into big vats of icing, (pink or white—a job my mother did for years), at the factory, are largely gone. You don’t get paid for showing up. And yet that’s how many creative entrepreneurs try to…

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The Story Makes The Product Better

For three decades, 10% of the population of the tiny Welsh town, Cardigan, made jeans. 35,000 pairs every week. Then one day the factory died, and the jean artisans could no longer practice their art. They simply had no way to do the thing they did well, until Hiut Denim was founded. Now the company’s…

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