Category: word of mouth

Beer is the new wine

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I recently had some beers and a meal at a place called Little Creatures dinning hall in Melbourne Australia.

For the uninitiated, Little Creatures is a craft beer which has it’s origins in Australia and has recently opened a flagship ‘dinning hall’ – seen below.

little-creatures-dinning-hall

They’ve simply taken this to a new level. I’m not taking about the fact that they have weird and groovy beer flavours, all naturally brewed. I’m talking about the way they take you on a personal journey with their service.

My favourtie was the beer education programme. They have a ‘pony show’ – I don’t think it’s called that, but it is what I’ll call it for this post.

You get a taste in little groovy pony glasses of all their different beers, then choose one you like. One of their ‘Little Creatures Beer Experts’ comes and sits down on your table with you and they explain all the different types of beers. A real sit down for 10 minutes. A rare treat when the usual sitiation is waiting 10 minutes for crappy service in bars and restuarants. They teach you how to taste each beer and the slight nuances of each. They even provide an idea what type of people generally like the different types.

pony-show

It’s really nice and fun. I even heard the word “sessionable” to describe a beer – They invent some nice jargon to make you feel part of a tribe. Cool.

No need to advertise this little venture. We’ll do that for them….

And this is what cool startups are doing in retail.

2nd worst shop front of all time

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I took this pic of this shop front / side in my local neighbourhood. It’s easy to see when you drive past.

hexworks

Startup blog prize (free book) for anyone who can tell me what they do without calling the number (or knowing someone who works there / digging around).

I’m all for single minded simplicity, but if we are going to go to the effort to paint the brand and phone number, it’s also handy to have a tag line which tells people what we do.

Steve – rentoid.com

Love & brands

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

In order to be in love we need to feel loved. Often we mistake love for other intense emotions such as lust, obsession and even fear.

So if we were to translate this to business parlance it might read like this:

If we want people to love our brand or company, we simply have to make our audience ‘feel loved’.

So then the next questions we should be asking are:

–          Will they love this product?

–          Will they love our value equation?

–          Will they love our guarantee?

–          Will they love our designs?

–          Will love our ‘contact us’ policy or phone staff?

In fact, let’s just start every audience related question with the words ‘Will they love….”

If we do this and focus on being more than good, more than liked and only accept moving towards stuff people will love. Then one day, they may just love our brand.

Brand Manners

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Brands are the personification of things and services. In fact they are the amalgamation of a group of people, which creates an organizational culture and eventually, a set of brand values. Values which in real terms are like those of a person.

In the spirit of the reasoning above here’s an interesting question:

Does your brand have good manners?

That’s actually what we’ve been getting at during this Business 2.0 Post Industrial Complex Devolution. We’ve been getting back to basics. The basics of acceptable behaviour. Moving away from the school yard bully – (read here – large inconsiderate conglomerate) – to something which deserves our attention.

In case we happened to forget – here’s a ready reckoner of ‘Good Manners’

–          Listen to others
–          Have patience
–          Wait your turn to talk
–          Never interrupt
–          Ask for permission
–          Always say ‘please’ and ‘thankyou’
–          Be honest, truthful and pure
–          Be punctual
–          Be tidy
–          Never be rude to anyone – older, younger, richer, poorer
–          Keep out of bad company
–          Be kind to those around you
–          Don’t be selfish, but share your good things
–          Don’t cheat
–          Be polite at all times

Here’s the ironic thing…. some of these sentiments and ideals came directly from the Children’s National Guild of Courtesy – a Good Manners chart which was distributed to elementary / primary schools in UK and Australia from 1898 until approx 1950.

You can download the PDF here: goodmanners

And yet it’s akin to the language we are now hearing from business re-inventionists. In real terms, we’ve just realized that often with success comes bad manners and attitude. Then after the bad manners and attitude comes the inevitable decline. This is why the new world brands are winning – they simply have good manners.

Startups – if we personify our brands, then let’s ensure they have ‘Brand Manners’.

Pre-empt reality – success requires it

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Entrepreneurship and startups are a lot like starting out in your career. People want you to have experience before they will hire you. It’s that ironic circular reference in which it is impossible to get the job, to get the experience required until we’ve got the experience – right? hmmm.

Often startup businesses need a lot of people before the idea, concept or thing simply works. Kind of like email or fax machines. They only become useful when everyone has one…. or at least some form of critical mass in which we can exchange things of value. Aside from the fact this proves that the most powerful element in any business mix is distribution, it also indicates we all have a chasm to cross before success can become a reality.

So how do we cross the chasm? How do we make success a reality?

We must preempt it.

We must preempt our future reality. As though it already exists. We must talk and act as if it has already happened. Not just internally, not just convincing ourselves, but to all of those whose paths we cross day to day in startup land. We have to sell the future, before it arrives, as if it’s already happened.

Sometimes we might have to use ‘creative language’ which somewhat stretches the truth (our current reality). We ought not feel bad – every successful entrepreneur in history has done this. Every successful entrepreneur in the future will do this. It’s just a necessary element in creating the future. It’s not lying, it’s part of the creation process. Screw it – sell the sizzle and make it real. By the time the people catch up to the today’s reality – you’ve already created the future version.

Bill Gates sold MS DOS before he even built it. He said to IBM – “we have what you need.” Despite the fact it was metaphysical at that stage.

Generating media and interest in your start up is one of the areas where this must happen. Whether it’s in traditional media, the blogosphere, or other means, people don’t want to cover us until we’ve had success. What they fail to realise is that their coverage is the thing which often starts the success. Then people who read about our brand, website or widget say, “Wow, I better check that out”. They believe in ‘the people’. If other people are embracing it, it justifies them checking it out. it’s the wisdom of crowds, as far as people are concerned, we only count when other people care.

When people ask about your startup and want the obligitory progress report – paint the most positive picture possible. Use creative language that makes it sound bigger, better and closer. No – use language that says it has already arrived. Make the future your present reality.