Legacy branding
Legacy branding is all about bells and whistles. How YOU or your company —or worse, agencies— build “winning” brands. Because when you have a “winning” brand, you’ll stand out and everyone will care for it. That’s not the case. I have some bad/good news here: People don’t care about your brand. Your customers don’t care about your brand. They care about how they can get what they want —and if your business can help them transform and get delighted, they’re all in. Businesses can’t (and don’t)…
How not to stand out
When it’s all about yourself (and your brand), it’s hard to stand out. When you get to think —like, really think— of your customers, it changes it all. You don’t show up to sell, but to help them to buy.
It won’t fly
That’s the answer to a different approach on sales presented on a project. The founder just said “That won’t fly”. When asked about why, the reply went as “that’s not how things usually happen in Germany”. – Have you tried it before? – No. – So, how do you know it won’t fly? – Because… that’s the way it is. Leaving some room to regroup, the next question was: – “What if you try with a small quantity, in very specific samples? Would that work for you?” – Ok… Sure, /that/ we could try….
Brand centricity
When being brand-centric “my brand, this is why we’re awesome, these are how many awards we’ve won, we build a strong brand” you focus your efforts about yourself. On how to be better than the competition. How to beat them How to win. (As if you could “win” in business) It turns the focus mostly on you and how to attract your customers. In trying to be more attractive, you shift, change and do what it takes to fit in. What if, in place of getting to pull people in, you design the ones you…
Stop writing newsletters
When writing for your market, stop thinking of it as a newsletter. Because, it’s not about news (about you). Also, why would your customers and prospects care about your news? Do they care about “your brand” or about solving their challenges? Instead, think of it as daily (or regular) email. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them. There are enough people, businesses and brands talking about themselves. And people are sick of it. Thinking of how to help them… that’s just a way to…
The marketing way to do marketing
Give as much as you can, at scale, to help the ones you serve. Write, speak, present, podcast… you choose. As friend-of-the-list Jonathan Stark says: “Help people you like get what they want.” Helping is the only way to do marketing. PS.- While I’m at it, if writing is one thing that grabs your interest, Jonathan is launching Email365 this upcoming monday (Nov 14th) —he’s actually guilty of me being in your inbox everyday for the last 349 days and counting. It’s a game-changer.
Giving your ideas away
What if —instead of overservicing and overdelivering— you’d give your ideas for free? What if you open your methodologies? Your approaches? The way you see a particular problem and how you’d fix it? What would your answer to that be? 🙂
After giving your ideas away —for free.
Pre-S: First off, you’re way ahead. I cherish you for this. 🙂 Replies to yesterday’s email were around “that’s the only way to get ahead”. But that’s not the regular response in several industries. There’s a lot of angst around that very question: What if you give your ideas away? Here’s what might happen. Your clients will know how you do the work. Your clients will see how easy it is for you to solve a specific problem Your competitors will build on your ideas. Your approaches will be…
Looking under the hood
Under promising, over delivering, over servicing are not really the problems. They’re symptoms. And they have a few drivers: Cost-based PriceAt the center of the decision-making. Will the price be attractive enough to justify what I offer? FearAt the core of making the offering. Will it be good enough so my proposal doesn’t get rejected (or worse: ghosted)? WorthAt the core of linking the offering to you. Is it a reflection of my worth? Self-worthAt the center of your offering building. If…
Being open and honest.
While underpromising and overdelivering might seem like a good tactic to delight your customers because you want to have some buffer, don’t. There’s another way. You can be open and honest —that’s the core of business, right? Being honest with your customers— and say you don’t know exactly how long or how much exactly it’ll take. That you’ll put in some buffer, just in case. Sure, you can give an estimate of the time, or even a timeline. Just please don’t lie. Friend-of-the-list Jonathan…
