Of course you would. You would actually want to read it immediately. And your customers are no different from you.
Women contemplating what different beauty products will do for them. What woman would buy a product that she believes would make her look ugly?
What’s the main interest of a customer? Or let me re-phrase the question. What’s your main interest? You know the answer. Yourself. Sounds terrible I know, but all human beings have an interest in what happens in their lives. Be honest, so do you. That doesn’t mean that you are selfish. What would your life be like today if you hadn’t taken an interest in it? No need to say more, is there.
Your customers are also interested in what happens in their lives and how you, your products and services could have a positive impact on them and their lives. Still it is sometimes overlooked.
Marketing is about what your customer wants
If you can show your customer what you can do for them you will not have to do any selling. They will buy. In fact they want to feel they made a purchase, not that you have sold them something. In other words, let the customer feel that they had the idea.
Keep that in mind when you produce you promotional material. Focusing on the customer is, and always has been, the key to successful marketing. It does not matter what you need or want to tell them since the customers priority is what they, not you, need or want. Usually there is no need to tell them bluntly what you can do, there are more subtle ways to get the message across. Ideally they will get the impression that you are sympathetic with their ideas and desires and care about them. It’s not for nothing cosmetics companies sign up beautiful celebrities to promote their products.
Customers want you to care about them
They don’t care that you are very proud about your new office or that you have launched an exciting new product. However, if you invite them to a party at the new office or give them a sample of the new product, they will be interested. Even better if you can show them how your new product will make them more attractive to the opposite sex.
Customers don’t care if your company has had the most successful year ever, unless it has a positive impact on them. You get the drift. Your customers thinks about themselves when they read your advertisement. No need to tell them all the positive aspects of your company, just focus on what impact you can have on their lives and they will be interested. Make them feel happy doing what you would like them to do i.e. lead instead of command.
If they don’t see the positive impact you can have on them and their lives, you are on the wrong track . It’s time to adjust your promotional material to make them see the advantages and purchase. Needless to say, their purchase will be a one off if your products/services don’t have the impact on them that they would like. Or to re-phrase it, if you didn’t like the article written about you, would you be happy with the newspaper that published it?
Everything and everyone is a product. A country, city, company, product, service and a person. And how the market perceives the product determines its value. It’s sounds cynic, I know. But if you want to be valued and sought for on the market you have to on a continuous basis make sure your brand is in demand and sells.
Does Chanel have a higher turnover in the developing world than in the West? Most likely. But since it’s a private company the information is not available.
Innovating and updating your brand
When a product is a success all of a sudden the brand matures, growth slows and it comes under pressure from competitors. Europe and the US at the moment are good examples. That’s the time to start innovating and spending again if you want to defend your market position. If not, don’t complain if you lose out to your competitors.
Nothing ever stays the same – not even Cornflakes
You may object that some brands, like Cornflakes, or Chanel for that matter, have been around for a long time. But what we buy today is very different from the same product 50 years ago, not least when it comes to packaging and design. If your brand is out of date you will have to make an investment and innovate yourself. How you want to be perceived depends on what market you are aiming for.
The West needs to get their attraction back
When it comes to countries and continents, Europe and the US have matured and competitors are moving in. But the West seem to take their current status for granted and are not doing enough to defend their market position. What happened to innovation and making their markets more attractive to investors, not to mention more business friendly?
The West is losing out
The market is irrevocably global. That does not mean the concept represent the best of worlds. But the West will continue to lose relative power as a result. It’s ironic isn’t it that thanks to its generosity in exporting the secrets of success, China and other emerging giants are catching up.
Developing nations are not going to cede power to the US and Europe out of gratefulness. So the West needs to face up to reality – their brand is losing out. It’s time to innovate and make it profitable for businesses again to stop them moving to other parts of the world. If not, the West will gradually trade places with the developing world.
No matter how smart we are, as entrepreneurs what we have on day one is a faith based enterprise. Devote one minute and forty two seconds to hear what Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur and Stanford consulting professor, has to say about swiftly turning your vision into a sustainable business model:
Startups are, to quote Blank, religious enterprises. Catch is 95% of the time entrepreneurial visions are hallucinations. And as we all know, entrepreneurial minds are prone to have ideas the world is not yet ready for. It’s hence of essence to make sure we are not ahead of time. Or simply have an idea the market does not want.
So how do entrepreneurs swiftly find out if they are hallucinating?
Steve Blank’s suggestion is to break down the vision into a business model. Then get out in a fairly formal way and test your hypothesis with your customers.
Why should we test our visions?
Because we are not smarter than the collective opinion of our customers, is Steve Blank’s answer. And he is definitely right about that.
If we find out that we are wrong we then make minor changes or, if necessary, a pivot, i.e. a substantial change, to one or more of the business model components. Then we keep on making minor changes or pivots until we have a sustainable business model.
The alternative is to passionately go ahead and try to make an idea that’s not sustainable succeed. Far too many entrepreneurs make that mistake. Some even go bankrupt as a result. Probably most frustration is caused by having ideas that the market isn’t yet ready for. Not least because someone else will launch it in the future. Testing your hypothesis enables you to wait until the timing is right and do something else in the meantime. Or, if possible, gradually launch your idea.
Do you agree with Steve Blank that 95% of the time entrepreneurs are hallucinating? Is it essential to go out and test your hypotheses with your customers? Have you ever tested your visions the way Blank suggests? If so, did you make changes the way he recommends and ended up with a sustainable business model? After hearing what he has to say, will you now go out and test your hypothesis and then make the changes necessary? Or are you of the opinion that the vision you believe in will succeed, provided that you work hard at it?
Empathetic leaders are in high demand in the US. In the Nordic countries however, where empathy is an aspect of leadership, the debate is instead if leaders have become too compassionate.
How empathetic should a leader be? Will future leaders be compassionate or firm?
Is the grass always greener on the other side?
It seems you can’t win. Isn’t it interesting that when empathetic leadership is the norm, it’s benefits are being questioned while in countries with less considerate leadership styles it’s considered ideal? Some Americans even go as far as stating that the era of empathy is upon us.
Empathy a handicap?
In the Nordic countries empathy has long been part of management. Leaders have had to be considerate, weather they wanted to or not. Now however, some Scandinavians argue that being considerate is a weakness because it makes it hard to be firm and take tough decisions.
The ideal US boss is empathetic
Harvard Business Review concluded that empathy is high currency for a leader as is softer and more compassionate leadership styles. When it comes to CEOs being considerate, understanding and sympathise with employees and their feelings is considered optimal.
If you google empathic leader and empathetic leadership you get about 6,500 hits. And in general they are about leaders needing to be more considerate. The author Daniel Pink in his book “A whole new mind” writes that in the future empathy will be crucial for success.
Scandinavia a step further?
So have Sweden and Norway with their generally speaking more empathetic leaders taken the debate a step further by questioning if it’s a handicap? Or is it a step back to question if leadership have become to considerate?
Some claim that considerate leaders worry too much and can even be negatively affected by their environment as a result. If so, does that handicap them as leaders?
It’s common sense that leadership is facilitated by compassion. But taking the current debate in Scandinavia into account, maybe empathy combined with an ability to take tough decisions when necessary is ideal?
Most leaders either adopt a persona that’s excessively tough or overly empathetic, or feared or loved, if you like. Obviously neither leadership style is ideal. Maybe a leader focusing on helping other people to achieve their full potential would be best? A happy medium is obviously the ultimate but how many leaders are both compassionate and tough?
Do you believe empathy is an asset or a handicap for a leader? Will we see more empathetic leaders in the future? If so, will the considerate trend then, like in Scandinavia, be questioned because such leaders worry too much which has a negative effect on their ability to manage? What lies ahead for leadership? Will it, like it always has and still is, be a mix of different kinds of leadership styles? Empathetic – to be or not to be – that’s the question leaders have to ask themselves. Or maybe the debate about the ideal leader has gone to far? The different debates going on in the US and Nordic countries certainly makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s time to accept that leaders are different and empathy works for some and not for others?
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was adviced by Bill Clinton to schedule time to think strategically on a regular basis. Watch this short video of him talking to Garth Saloner, Dean of Stanford Graduate School of Business, about Clinton’s advice:
What Tony Blair has to say applies to all of us, no matter what we are doing. Not least when we run our own businesses. It’s easy to devote all our time to dealing with day to day business and forget about how to reach our goals.
Have events taken over your life?
If so, you are not alone. Apparently most people in high positions spend less than 5% of their time dealing with their priorities. Above all we lose our grip on strategies when dealing with a crisis.
Did Bill Clinton give Tony Blair good advice? Do you schedule time for strategic thinking on how to succeed with your priorities? Is finding time to do so hard? Have you noticed what a difference it makes when you find time for strategic thinking? Have not done so yet, maybe it’s time you do?
How companies communicate with investors is changing. In this short video Elizabeth Blankespoor, assistant professor at Stanford, explains how smaller firms can benefit from using Twitter:
Got some news that the market should know about, tweet it. According to Elizabeth, it works and is actually an effective way of reaching investors.
Twitter should be taken seriously
A lot of new technology is being dismissed because it’s not the way it used to be done and definitely not the normal way of communicating with investors.
A study done at Stanford, however, shows that Twitter works very well indeed. The more invisible your company is to media outlets the more important Twitter is for you. So if you are a start-up or an SME that media hasn’t paid much attention to, you have a lot to gain from using Twitter.
Whether companies like it or not, new technologies are changing the way businesses communicate. And don’t forget that it’s also altering what investors expect from companies. Social media can hence not be ignored, but should be used in ways that benefit your company as much as possible.
Twitter is a great way of delivering company news directly to investors, improve market liquidity and enable you to compete with bigger companies with access to media outlets.
All this obviously depends on who your followers on Twitter are. You have to start by building up the right kind of followers. Then Twitter will be a great tool for reaching not only your investors but media outlets, customers and potential customers as well.
Do you use Twitter? If so, do you have followers that are of importance to your business? Are you tweeting news about your company? Have you had great response? What reaction have you had from investors? Do they like the fact that you are up to date and communicate in innovative ways? Do you agree with Elizabeth Blankespoor that Twitter is a useful tool for reaching investors?
In a world mired by economic problems supermodel Gisele Bündchen in cheap flip flops made a maker of low-priced sandals really take off. Devote 1 minute to watch Bloomberg TV discuss the success story:
Have actually wondered when something “cheap chic” would become a huge hit and make headlines. The timing is perfect and the concept spot on for today’s world. Let’s face it, consumer spending isn’t what it used to be. A lot of people who used to buy haute couture can no longer afford it. But they still want to look chic and wear the right things.
Price lowered and endorsed by celebrities
So what’s better than a celebrity endorsement of an affordable product to appeal to people who can no longer have the means for say, Chanel? Add to that lowering the price even more and you have a winner.
And it worked, no other shoemaker in the world has had such a rally. Can’t help thinking of those flip flops as “equality shoes”. They make poor girls feel like supermodels and the ones that lost a lot of money feel they are still buying what’s trendy and chic. “Gisele wears them, darling”. They love being able to afford the same things their friends who are still mega wealthy buy.
The shoemaker actually made 195 million pairs of sandals last year and the average price was $7. That really shows how concentrating on huge volumes, as opposed to high prices, can be a winner in times like these.
Grendene´shares have doubled the last year. Compare that to the average shoe company that has risen by approximately 23%.
The power of celebrities
Personally had never heard of Grendene before despite the fact that the Brazilian company was founded 1971 and today is a conglomerate with 20,000 employees.
Grendene has been using celebrities such as Claudia Schiffer and Sharon Stone to promote their products for a long time. But despite that, I have never come across the name or any of their adverts before. It’s probably not a coincidence though, since it’s in times like these that their strategy really pays off handsomely. A world mired in deep recession absolutely loves cheap chic. And having Gisele introduce her own line of Grendene plastic sandals in such times is absolutely perfect. A lot of Westerners frown on celebrity endorsements. But it has always worked and always will, especially during hard times.
Have you come across other cheap chic concepts that have become successful recently? Do you agree that looking good for less is a concept bound to become even more popular at the moment, above all in the West, where economic recovery hasn’t yet taken place? Do you think the flip flops, and Grendene, would have been such a hit if it had produced expensive shoes? Or would they have succeeded without Gisele and Shakira? Are we bound to see more cheap chic success stories coming up?
Today your brand will be shared by customers making videos, starting Facebook groups and sending a multitude of tweets. Devote 3 minutes to watching Unilever SVP of Marketing Marc Mathieu talk about how the digital age has shifted marketing from creating myths to finding and sharing truth:
A marketer has to think fundamentally different in our digital world. Branding is not what it used to be, mainly because it’s not all being done by purchased advertising in traditional media. How you go about branding has to adapt to a world where consumers have a say and let the world know what they think.
What’s role does today’s marketer play in shaping a brand?
Marketing used to be about telling a myth and spreading it. Today it’s about telling the truth and sharing it, according to Marc Mathieu. Or rather finding the truth that appeals to people and make them share it. Consequently it’s crucial to build a brand that appeals to people’s values and favour the environment. They have to want to engage with it, participate in it and share it with their friends. Needless to say this fundamentally change the ways brands are built.
Marketing needs to tap into people’s imagination
Marketing needs to enable people instead of telling a finished story. We need more magic and less logic without forgetting that both aspects are important in order to appeal to both to the right and left sides of our brains. It’s also important to use marketing to help people tap into new behaviours that are good for the environment and society. By doing so marketing, like never before, has the ability to play a really positive role in society.
Bottom line – not only you are in charge of your brand
What you are now watching and reading is an example of how I am playing a part in branding Unilever, Marc Mathieu and CNN Money. If my contribution is positive or negative will make a small, but still, contribution to how those brands are perceived.
When searching for Catarina’s World and Catarina Alexon on Google, I have several times come across blog’s written by people I have never even heard about that mention my name and refer to an article I have written with a link to it. They then proceed with writing a post based on my article. So far, it’s only been positive and the same goes for the numerous tweets about me and my blog.
It’s also important to remember that everything you write on social media will brand you. So be nice, respectful and polite. Search engines record everything and forget nothing. Getting into an argument with a bully may come back to haunt you in the future. The same applies to what your employees write on social media.
The way to try to control your brand is to stick to the truth, deliver what you promise, appeal positively to people’s imagination and treat others the way you want to be treated. If negative content about you and your product and services are being spread online it’s time to start creating positive content to push down the negative information on search engines. You can read more about that in my article What’s your online reputation worth? that outlines what you can do if someone has a go at you online.
Do you agree that branding today is fundamentally different due to all of us contributing to branding products and services? Is Marc Mathieu right when he says that it’s essential to tap into people’s values and inspire them to share brands with their friends? Can we through how we brand products and services enable people to adapt behaviours that are good for the environment and society? Have you had positive or negative experiences of how your brand has been shared online? Do you believe it’s possible to 100% control your brand in today’s world?
Are there more efficient ways of getting your message across? Could you increase clarity and have more impact? Devote three minutes to watching Nancy Duarte, CEO of Silicon Valley’s largest design company Duarte, give you some suggestions:
Do you normally just put together some slides for a powerpoint presentation and are certain you will get your message across effectively? According to Nancy that usually doesn’t do the trick.
All audiences are different
What works for one group may not work for another. It’s essential to obsess about what kind of people will be listening to you and come up with stories and ways to make a heart to heart connection with them. Ask yourself what the main message you want to get across to them is. Once you know that, the content has to be built around getting that point across.
Simplify and use contrasts
What’s the order you would like your audience to process your information? How will their eyes move across it? Use contrasts, colours and shapes to come across clearly. If not, your ideas will be camouflaged and your audience will be confused. One idea only should pop out from each slide. So make sure that idea not lost in the mire of too many messages.
Most common mistake
Using your slides as documents instead of a visual aid. If you do and turn your back to the audience they will read faster than you speak. They then start thinking they already know what you are saying.
So make sure you use the slides either as a visual aid or a document they can read from. If you use it as a document with a lot of information don’t stand up and present it. Let the audience read for themselves. Using your slides as visual aids and perform like an actor in front of your audience will however, have much more impact.
Everyone is nervous before a presentation
Even the masters of rhetoric, Cicero and Aristotle, were nervous. Cicero even wrote that if you are not, you most likely don’t master the art of rhetoric. When you speak before an audience it is, according to Cicero, important that you truly master the subject at hand and know how to perform to make the audience react. If not, how can you influence and motivate your audience?
It’s important to memorize as much as you can. Today with powerpoint giving us a helping hand that’s easier than it was for Cicero when he spoke to the senate. Despite that he was a master of getting the senators to see things his way.
Did you find Nancy Duarte’s suggestions useful? Are you nervous before giving a presentation? Do you master the art of performing like an actor and merely use slides as a visual aid? Or do you normally use slides as documents? Do you tailor-make your presentations for different audiences? Do you simplify as much as you can to make sure you get your message across?
Nowadays the market is constantly changing and businesses adapt or die. Preferably you should be a leading player who determines what changes take place and when. So, if you haven’t yet developed a culture of innovation, it’s high time you do. Even a start-up with a proactive philosophy can over time become a market leader. Do you for instance reap the benefits of ideas generated by someone in your organisation?
To succeed in developing a good suggestions is as crucial as realizing when an idea is too expensive and time consuming to be worth while. Especially if it’s questionable if the company will really benefit significantly from it.
In today’s market you need to develop and evolve on a continuous basis. If not, stagnation sets in and you are on the wrong path. What customers want and desire change all the time, competition intensifies, the need to be efficient accelerate, economic fundamentals are altered, re-financing has to be done, new techniques are introduced and your staff turn over. It’s actually easier to list what doesn’t change constantly than what does.
Nothing ever stays the same
Gone are the days when you could just sit back and run your company like a machine. Something is always happening that has an impact on your business. Or as Lewis Carrol put it: “It takes all the running you can manage to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you have to force yourself to run at least twice as fast.” The same goes for risk, to prioritize stability and safety and not taking any risks would be difficult, if not impossible, in today’s integrated world.
Beware of stagnation
Catalysts for change can come from an abundance of stake holders such as; customers, you, your colleagues, the board, science, new and improved technologies, the media, new theories, world events, new competitors and your own strategic planning. What was new half a ago is already out of date.
If you haven’t yet started to innovate on a continuous basis, even change for the sake of change can actually be a good thing. It will add a momentum that break stagnation and stop mold from growing.
From here to success
Innovation equals change and shows a desire to improve. It can happen in a multitude of ways. Could be new products, new marketing, services, business processes or even changing your organization as a whole.
No matter what, the ability of turning ideas into progress is a true mark of a successful innovation. To succeed in developing a good idea is as crucial as realizing when an idea is too expensive and time consuming to be worth while. Especially if it’s questionable if the company will really benefit significantly from the idea in question.
Look at the pros and cons
Unless you have to, don’t start implementing any idea that could be lucrative. Evaluate it carefully by looking at pros and cons. A SWOT analysis is one way of determining the likelihood of succeeding and will give you a good platform for deciding if you are likely to benefit from going ahead or not.
Determine and evaluate results
Before starting a new project it’s vital to decide what would constitute success and what result would be good enough. How will you measure if it’s a success or not? Can it be achieved quickly or do you have to look at the project long term? To measure and follow up results is also a great way of determining how to succeed with future developments. What made it a success? Why was the result just good enough and not excellent? What factors contributed to an outcome that was merely OK? Why did the idea fail?
Step by step
Innovation can actually be fun and challenging. It will facilitate if you can break it down and take one step at a time. Frequently organizations start a project without finishing it. So do it gradually, take action, make sure you are making progress and finish the project. The worst that can happen is that you fail and learn from it.
How do you develop and innovate? Does your business have an innovative culture? Or maybe a culture of creating value? Do you focus on evaluating ideas and suggestions for change? How do you set goals and determine what would constitute a positive change? How do you follow up and determine what mistakes you made and learn from them? Change happens through evolution or revolution but make no bones about it development and innovation needs to be done on a continuous basis. It’s how you go about it that determines if you succeed. If you resist change you will stagnate and competitors will gain the upper hand. And then, one way or another, a revolution will take place, for better or for worse.
