Category: Ideas

Wildcard Ingredients

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

What creates brand mythology? That special indefinable element. What ensures ‘me too’ brands never make a dent in the original? Often it is a wildcard ingredient. It’s the thing that makes us ‘the original’.

Does your start up have a wildcard ingredient? Something you can own in the mind? It doesn’t have to be an actual ingredient (food / beverage) It can be some form of technology or anything. It’s an input you can talk about.

Many great brands have a wildcard in their positioning:

Red Bull

Taurine

Toyota Prius

Hybrid

ipod

itunes

Yakult

Casei shirota strain

Ebay & Youtube

User generated content (UGC)

Amazon 

Unlimited range (long tail economics)

Subway

Healthy fast food

Bugaboo prams

Most expensive

KFC

11 secret herbs & spices

Wildcards build mythology and cachet. They give us a reason to believe. Build one into your start up.

Trial

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We should use these words selling our start up to a first time customer:

‘Let’s do a trial’ 

It might be a small order, even one box. 

It’s a great fear remover. In their mind they’re not really buying it. In reality, nothing is different, except their risk perception is lowered. We’re just confirming that nothing is fixed and it’s Ok to try something new.

Imagine this…

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Not hiding anything from your audience

Making everything internal – public knowledge

Posting all staff salaries on your intranet

Staff setting their own pay rises

No official office hours

Staff setting their own hours

No official office location

CEO’s cell phone number on the company website

Every employee a shareholder

Sharing all company financials with everyone (internal & external)

Telling consumers your actual profit margin on the product

Telling consumers the retailers profit margin

Maybe printing these profit margins on the packaging

Staff voting on who should get the internal promotion

Suppliers voting on who gets a promotion

First in, best dressed at the car park

Hot desking – corner office to first person to sit there

No offices at all; or offices for all

Staff doing performance reviews of their superiors

Staff setting their managers salary

All performance reviews posted on the intranet

Any staff member allowed to talk to any media person, on any topic

Your bonus this year, is paid on how the company performs in 5 years

(yes, you have to wait, but we pay it even when you’ve left!)

Publishing the carbon output of the company

Publishing waste created per product

Publishing energy used per product

No email

No meeting rooms (no formal meetings)

A public company blog, an staff member can post on (no moderating)

Sure, some of these things would cause chaos, increase politicking, maybe even fraud. But maybe, just maybe, these ideas could transform your start up into something revolutionary.

What can you think of that your company would never do?

Cash flow project

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

A mentor refers to his ‘job’ as a ‘cash flow project’.

I love this description. Temporary in nature – raising funds for what really matters.

briefcase 

It ensures that his entrepreneurial vision is not lost. In fact, the job becomes part of the entrepreneurial process. A great way to influence the subconscious mind.

In reality all things in life become projects: The decision to become an entrepreneur, a trip to the supermarket, and any new business. A job is no different. By defining a job as a project it frees the mind. We know we’re using the system to our advantage, so we won’t feel disillusioned in the short term.

Think Dichotomy

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Extreme dichotomies are emerging in many markets:

 

Hybrid  – Hummer

Business class only airlines – Discount airlines

Subway – Krispy Kreme

Adventure travel – Virtual worlds (Second Life)

Harley Davidson – Vespa

 

Which dichotomy will your start up occupy?

Counter intuitive

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

In my part of the world we have water restrictions in place. The current restrictions allow people to water their garden twice a week: between the hours of 6am-8am and 8pm -10pm.

We all agree it makes sense to water in the cooler hours of the days.

We have now entered the next phase of restrictions. Which only allow us to water the garden once on selected days. If we had decide whether the watering be allowed in the morning or night, we’d all say – at night. Common sense says that there is less evaporation through the night – a more efficient use of water.

The decision was made to only allow watering in the morning. The water authority knows less water will be used. Why? We have to get up early. They know we won’t do it as often. Though it is less efficient, we save more water.

Strategy must be based on behaviour, not rationale.