Posts Tagged ‘relevance’
Start Setting Your Brand Storytelling Goals
We expect brand storytelling to do a lot of heavy lifting for our business. We want our story to engage prospective customers and communicate the value we create. We rely on storytelling to create a sense of belonging and encourage people to believe in our brand. Ultimately we expect that our story will convince and…
Read MoreThe Measure Of Greatness
I will never forget the first assembly at my children’s school in Australia. Our family had newly migrated to Perth, Western Australia. We wanted to settle our boys as quickly as possible into their new life. So, much to our ten-year-old’s disgust, they were in new schools within two weeks of our arrival. There we…
Read MoreThe Choice
We know how the trip will pan out even before we get on the tram. The driver is agitated. He uses his bell accordingly. He repeatedly ‘dings’ three times, announcing his tram’s presence on the road. His bell is warning system—reflecting his mood. Everything becomes an emergency. How the driver operates the bell changes his…
Read MoreHow To Fill The Gap That’s Yours To Fill
No bookstore can stock more books than Amazon. No local clothing designer can launch a new range faster than Zara. No artisan chocolatier can sell chocolate cheaper than Cadbury. If there’s nothing your bigger, faster, cheaper competitors can’t do, how will your business keep up? How will you survive, let alone thrive? Your sustainable advantage…
Read MoreSquaring The Marketing Circle
The ‘60% OFF’ signs had attracted shoppers to the empty stall. Sales assistants tried to turn browsers into buyers by offering to help. One prospective customer asked if they had any circular rugs in the sale. The assistant showed her a square rug instead. “These are only $100,” she said. In the past, we’ve relied…
Read MoreBig Enough
Conventional business wisdom suggests that success is dependent on achieving scale. We’ve come to equate fulfilling our potential with being number one—having the biggest piece of the pie. In our quest for success, we sometimes forget to question how much pie is enough. Exceeding the optimal amount of pie has consequences. We fail to deliver…
Read MoreCreate The Future You Want To See
The best investment I ever made in myself and my business was buying a copy of Seth Godin’s book, Purple Cow. Seth taught me that remarkability was a choice. Just as business owners don’t work just to pay the bills, writers don’t write just so they can eat. They write to create the change they…
Read MoreMake Fewer Promises
It’s a Saturday night. Jeff, the on-call Planning Enforcement Officer for the local council, is just about to sit down to a takeaway meal and a movie with his wife when his phone rings. Residents close to a new nightclub want him to come and assess the noise levels at the venue. Even before the…
Read MoreChoosing To Be Better
Every business begins with a choice to be better. Not necessarily to be better than the competition, but to be a better option for the people it hopes to serve. As we become mired in the day-to-day work of business building, we can lose sight of our original intention. Nike’s Bill Bowerman chose to be…
Read MoreWhy Do You Want To Tell A Good Brand Story?
Why do you want to get better at storytelling? When I ask clients and potential clients that question, I get a mixed bag of answers. By far the most common reason is to increase brand awareness. Conventional wisdom argues that the more people who know about your product or service, the greater chance you have…
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