Success and its opposite
Replying to Genevieve Hayes email on “What’s the opposite of success?”, here’s my first attempt at articulating it. 🙂 But first, let’s define success. Success: Achieving a desired state —usually bounded to an outcome (in a sorta defined timeline). It can take many forms and shapes. Like value, it’s completely subjective: it lays in the eye of the beholder. I’d approach success —or better yet— me being successful as being able to have more freedom on the different things I’d want to try and…
You truly over-delivered
“After purchasing your product, I can say you truly over-delivered.” Client If you hear “you over-delivered “… You might want to revise your price, your promise or your product. Maybe all of them. Truth is, you might be over servicing. Attending an overserved market. Or underpriced.
When your clients (and prospects) ask for the price
Don’t. You. Ever. Try. To. Anchor. Them. Giving. Bullshit. First. Stop trying to convince. Set up your differentiated value and stop the bs. “Our goal withX is to make starting and running your own X business accessible. MBA programs cost upwards of $50,000 [→ FIRST ANCHOR] and exclusive masterminds charge $15,000+ [→ SECOND ANCHOR] to help you learn X fundamentals. We think both miss the mark. You don’t need to spend decades working to become a whatever-aspiration-they-try-to-sell-you [Bro…
The job to be done
Jobs To Be Done Theory focuses on taking the customers’ perspective on what they’re really after, so your offerings focus on their needs, rather than the product or technology itself. There are two (let’s call them) schools of thought on Jobs To Be Done Theory. One taking the comms, messaging perspective, and the other one taking an innovation-focus perspective. Is one better than the other? Is one flawed and not the other? Is one truer over the other? Who cares! It’d be nonsense to focus and…
Loyalty to the job
“We have learned that people aren’t loyal to companies or brands. They are loyal to getting a job done better (faster, more predictably, and with higher output/throughput) and/or more cheaply.”[Tenet 08] Tony Ulwick With this, you gotta know that loyalty is not real —when talking on brands. Louis Grenier makes a strong case —and his POV on this brought me ot think that Yeah, there’s no loyalty to the brand. Under Ulwick’s POV, it’s loyalty to the JTBD in an efficient or effective way; despite…
Aggressive. Interrupting. Annoying.
You get bombed by the same kind of ads from this one company. So much so that you see them here, there and everywhere. Aggressive. Interrupting. Annoying. Have you ever bumped into this kind of campaigns? When talking with a friend about workshops and was asked about a well-known guy, here was my reaction: “I fucking hate this guy” This guttural, from the deep-core-in-my-body reaction came out so quickly I didn’t even had time to react and think of the next things. The reason behind it? The…
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…
The math behind overdelivering
Here’s why overdelivering hurts your business. In a math edition. Paul is about to work on a project for Marie. In Paul’s head, underpromising and overdelivering will make a sweet deal in Marie’s eyes to: Close the sale Build a good reputation The opportunity to raise prices next time. [Because great work, right?] It’s the perfect formula… to unprofitability. → The promise in Paul’s head: X BUT → The promise in Paul’s mouth: Y → Paul tells Marie he’ll deliver Y, which is “10” less of what…
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…
The best product wins
You’ve heard this before: if we have a great product, we don’t need marketing. Here’s the thing Product is part of marketing. And marketing is not comms and messaging —or ads.