You C*NT
How many times have you told yourself you CAN’T do something? Because… You don’t have experience. You don’t know how to do that. It’s not how things work. Who are you to do that? You might fail. You have a reputation. You don’t have a reputation. You have to take care of your brand. You don’t have a brand to take care of. You’re not ready. You’re too small. You’re too big. You’re too young. You’re too old. … Those are valid reasons. However, are they really true? Let me pose you a challenge:…
A reputation business
2 rich cousins
After yesterday’s message (on the response from Samsung to Apple re: their new tablets), this reply by fellow daily emailer Wes Wheless from The Lightbulb summarized the feeling: “It feels like two rich cousins fighting in public” Spot on. Besides the comms and whether or not the message went through in their ads, the overall feeling is the same: it’s all about them. And when you (and your business) focus and react to what the competition is doing right or wrong, you’re missing the mark. It’s…
Timing and response
Watch this and hit reply. What does it make you feel?
Seeing the unseen
How do you get to see the unseen? You dive in. You go below the surface and explore, test and find out what’s under there —what other people don’t get to see on the surface. How do you do it? Take a long step (or flip backwards) into the unknown. Feel the pressure as you go down, how it surrounds you and feels like a blanket. Know your tools and judgement. How are things going on? Is it too deep? Can I see things? Now relax and explore. Question everything. Find the gaps. It’s a new world…
Past and… future?
Decision-making advice for business tends to be “your strategy needs to be driven by data”. But data is built in the past. It’s certain. It’s factual. Forecasts, trends, models. They all take data and build a projection into the future with a certain sense of reliability, confidence, or pure imagination. They’re informed by, but not driven by data. Based in the past. Strategy, it’s about the future. Uncertain. Non-factual.
It’s about the future.
Strategy is about the future. Uncertain, risky, unknown. And at the same time, to bring you to an advantage. Strategy is an idea and approach to a goal, that leads to, with the most impactful effort, a position of advantage. While data can help you frame it, it can’t be what drives it. It’s about what could be. It’s about what could the future hold for your customers.
Creating a future
Friend-of-the-list, fellow emailer and data scientist Genevieve Hayes came back to “Past and… future?” with this response (and she knows a thing or two about data-driven things) —shared with permission, bold mine: “Data-driven approaches are like your dive computer. They’re very good at determining the optimal course of action assuming everything continues the way it has in the past. However, they can’t cope with unfamiliar situations. You need humans for that.Or to put it another way: a…
Jumping through hoops
Why not just put your prices down from the start? If your customers are price-sensitive, always haggling, always shopping and driven by the lowest price, showing up with THE lowest price would make them buy directly from you, right? Or is it more like even then, they would ask for more hoops to jump through? What’s your experience? 🙂
Discounts are bad for your customers.
The constant ones. Discounting. It trains them that only price (without context) is the decisive factor. Makes you think of how little you could go for and still make a profit (if any). Risks them to shit customer service. Since your margins are low, going the extra mile —or even care for after sales— for what they need as an extra will only seem like a high expense on your side. It makes you go for more effort (to get more sales), with the same result. Turns into a vicious loop of trying to…