Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
In the hunt for visibility, the space is overflowing with “Look at me” messages.
The irony being that what gets our attention is the exact opposite: “I see you”.
(Here’s a great example of that.)
If your customers knew everything you know, would they still buy?
Well, of course they are never going to know everything, so the real question here is this:
Is the story you are crafting about your offering a truthful representation of what you do (and how you do it)?
Selfish marketers don’t really care. They will happily bend the truth, tweak a few things here and there, and leave anything out that would make the story sound less favorable. Selfish marketers look for ways to tell their story that makes it sound better than the truth.
An early client of mine, some 15 years back, was obsessed with giving their “effectiveness charts” more bang – the problem being that the underlying data had no bang at all. But rather than to optimize the product, they invested heavily in graphic design to make it look like it had bang.
Selfish marketers can’t trust the customer with the decision to buy because they don’t trust in their product, either.
The best brands are different. They start by building great products – products which are actually effective and which really do serve (real) people’s needs and desires in a delightful way.
And so these brands dare to tell true stories about their product and the experiences that their customers have.
The best part is this: For the customer, it will still sound better than the truth – their current truth. And if it’s a truly great product, it will even exceed these expectation. These products delight because the marketer was telling the truth.
Do you trust your product in delivering that experience? Do you dare to tell a true story about it?
Secure the only spot at the airport that sells water and you can basically stop bothering about how you do business. It doesn’t really matter how good or bad your service is or how clear or confusing your communication is, business is almost unavoidable.
For everyone else, clarity in your communication (what can people expect) and providing great service (delivering on what they expect) turns out to be invaluable.
You might copywrite a text faster than anyone else in town. But on the other side of the planet, I can find someone who writes better.
You might make the best burger in New York. But if I’m living in Germany, I will choose a different restaurant for tonight’s meal.
“Faster” and “better” can have a very different value depending on the arena you’re competing in.
Which arena are you competing in? Does it influence how you communicate why people should choose you?
“One of the biggest strategic mistakes you can make is to fail to make the most of your victories. Yet even brilliant leaders sometimes make this mistake. One reason they fail is if they are obsessively searching for the Next Big Thing.
– Jim Collins
What’s not to like about the Next Big Thing, right? I mean, wouldn’t you just love to launch one?
One of the misconceptions about Big Things is that they would just appear and immediately take over the world.
That’s hardly how it works in real life. The iPhone was a niche product when it launched. Facebook was only available at a single university when it launched. Tesla (which is yet to become an actual Big Thing) launched with an expensive niche sports car.
Most Big Things have actually started small and grown big over time … by rigorously observing what worked and what didn’t and then amplifying what worked and fixing what doesn’t.
When you constantly chase the Next Big Thing, you constantly start fresh (read: small).
Instead of asking what else could work, it might pay to regularly ask what’s already working and then amplify that.
(And, of course, there’s a smart distinction to be made between consistency and stagnation.)
When you decorate a diamond you make it less beautiful, not more. Diamonds need to be polished.
Does your product need decoration or polish?
Average blends in.
Edgy stands out.
For example, there’s this super weird fashion store that draws an ever growing crowd of loyal superfans.
It’s no wonder that imitators started to spread who tried to copy the edginess.
And failed.
Because they misunderstood the reason people fell in love with the original. Which was not the fact that they were edgy. It was the fact that they were specific.
The imitators copied the look but lacked the understanding of the specific needs of the customers. The edgy look was a consequence of being specific. The fact that it felt kind of weird was much more a coincidence than a choice.
Being specific almost inevitably leads you to become edgy.
Specific can be weird, but more often than not it isn’t. Weird is just one way of being edgy.
Can you be more specific about who you serve? And what they need?
This Moleskine notebook costs €13.
At your local grocery store, you can get a double pack of similarly looking, similarly equipped notebooks for €3.
Why would anyone pay 8 times the price for a Moleskine?
Because it’s not the notebook that they buy but this story that Moleskines come with:
“Moleskine is the legendary notebook used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin. This trusty, pocket-size travel companion held sketches, tones, stories and ideas before they were turned into famous images or pages of beloved books.”
A notebook is a simple tool. Yet, there’s a lot to say about it. We can speak about the size, the build quality, the material, the features, the variety, the price, and many more aspects …
Moleskine, the maker of that notebook, chose not to speak about any of those. Instead they told a story.
A story that turned a small Milanese publisher called “Modo e Modo” into a beloved worldwide brand. What started as a small independent book publisher now is exclusively devoted to making notebooks. The initial production was 5,000 copies of their notebooks. Today, the company has changed their name to “Moleskine” and runs signature stores in all major cities of the world. They sell millions of their notebooks each year.
For €13!
As I said, you can get a double pack of similar looking notebooks of similar build quality in our local grocery store for 3€. Again: Why on Earth would anyone pay 8x the price for a notebook? Isn’t it just a bundle of blank paper?
No, it’s not.
Because it’s not just any notebook. It’s the same kind of notebook that creative geniuses like Picasso and Ernest Hemingway used to scribble down their ideas. At least that’s what the story suggests. And just think about what became of them …
What Moleskine has achieved with this story is that this is not just a notebook, anymore. It’s a notebook for creative people. And if you are creative, too, then you need a notebook for creative people, right? It’s what all the great creatives used. Creatives can’t just buy a notebook from the supermarket. They must buy a notebook for creative people.
This is a real masterpiece in communication that achieves two things:
Any sustainable business needs customers.
Not every sustainable business needs more customers.
How about yours?
The first step in creating a movement is to create something that moves.
In a way that it can move – the easier it can move, the better.
A brilliant idea that’s hard to explain can’t easily move.
An idea that has no name can’t easily move.
An idea that doesn’t have a story can’t easily move.
An idea that doesn’t make people feel that they belong to the movement can’t easily move.
When an idea has a great name and a simple story that creates a feeling of belonging, it can move much more easily.
What will you create in 2023?
