There is a Nike commercial that was shot in Kenya with Samburu tribesman speaking in their native language Maa. The slogan “Just Do It” appears when the tribesman is talking. In reality he was saying, “I don’t want these. Give me big shoes.”
Tag: marketing
How to make your business appear smaller
I was inspired by a recent article from the Australian Anthill about making our business appear bigger than we are. But in the age of authenticity, do we really want that? Sure, appearing big can be a good thing depending on our audience. Certainly, the key point in the article to me was ‘How to appear professional’. But why should professional be inextricably associated with big? Maybe the strategy should be to appear as small as possible. The current market place is not short of large corporates who are starting to understand the importance of personal service again. An example that comes to mind is the Bank of Queensland moving to a franchised branch model – where local ownership is of strategic importance to customers. Especially in such a tarnished industry as banking.
So why would we want to appear smaller than we are? Here’s a couple of thought starters:
Service – it is implicit that service is better when dealing directly with a small group of people rather than a faceless corporation
Trust – Smaller companies are way more dependent on you as a customer. You matter more, so you can trust the fact that they will do all they can to keep you.
Underdog – People love to support the up and comer. The person having a real go. Being small should be embraced and leveraged. Often this might be the only reason people do business with you.
So in the spirit of small = good, here’s the startup blog top 10 list of how to act small. Regardless of our actual revenue:
- Have personal contact details of team members on your website. Email, Skype cell phone.
- Remove pointless gatekeepers from your office who insulate hierarchy members from real customers
- Use real language in all written forms of communication. Use a human voice not corporate PR brochure parlance.
- Be honest when you stuff up. Admit it openly and quickly. Don’t make decisions based on repercussions, but on what’s right.
- Write terms and conditions (if you must have them) in a language anyone could understand
- Never call your audience your target. Business is is not skeet shooting, it is about delighting. You are performing for an audience, who can get up and leave at any time…. or even throw rotten tomatoes.
- Give responsibility to individuals not committees. Give them decision authority. It’ll get done quicker and better.
- Don’t gag your people. Allow anyone to comment on the company and what’s happening. It’ll be the best research you can ever do to find out what’s really going on in your company. No ships will be sunk.
- Have a policy of common sense. Not written manuals no employee will ever read.
- Say, “Yes we are only a small company…. and here’s why we are better…”
Quote about design: Steve Jobs
In preparation for teaching a Brand Management Class today at Melbourne University when I came across an important quote from Steve Jobs about the industrial design of the iPod. When the first generation iPod was finally complete and ready to be unveiled to the public Jobs looked back on the process of how the iPod was designed:
“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s the veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it feels like and looks like. Design is how it works.”
Startup blog says: When it comes to design – it should facilitate function before fashion. After which time the human instinct takes over…. the function becomes the fashion.
Brand definition
I’m sick of hearing crap definitions of what a brand is. Especially when they use words like marketplace and sellers, which can often be irrelevant. So here is the Steve Sammartino version:
Brand: A cognitive shortcut from which to make informed decisions.
That’s it. No need to mention selling. Brands don’t have to be sold. No need to mention a market place. Brands don’t just exist in markets – they exist in the total human experience. No need to mention logos, designs, names or symbols – these are part of the cognitive shortcuts. (which could even be a set of directions aboriginal used to locate a reliable waterhole, for which they probably had a name, in far reaching Australia over 1000 years ago). No need to mention products or services – brands can be concepts or ideas (Climate Change). No need to mention differentiation, loyalty or competitive preference – this is part of the informed decisions.
Our job as entrepreneurs is to build something which has meaning, and ultimately become the cognitive shortcut in the space we play in.
Feel free to discuss, agree or throw stones.
What they don’t tell you
It’s easy to get caught up in the brilliant stories of startups going viral to gain awareness, and the simplicity and usability of certain websites turning into large revenue streams. How cool the actual product is, the fact that the founders just built it and the rest just happened. This is the veritable entrepreneurial myth.
Here’s a few things to think about:
How many sales and business development people do you think Google has? Answer = around 5000. And we all thought their non human automated adwords system did it all.
What investment has Twitter made in Public Relations? You think Oprah and Obama just happened upon it? No they were pitched to heavily with a large investment in leading PR firms.
How many Youtube videos were posted by company created accounts? Answer = Hundreds of thousands.
Who seeds the quirky auction items on ebay? Answer = ebay started the game very early on and let the media know.
Everything is not as it seems. Push marketing is alive wand well, just the tactics have changed. It feels very organic and community driven, but the often the community is created by it’s founders and leaders. Nothing wrong with that, it is the job of entrepreneurs to invent said communities. But it makes for better business articles to talk of such things occurring naturally, so the real story is rarely told.
The question for startups is – what tactics can we employ to garner the same momentum?
You’re in good company
This blog is an example of compound effort. Yes, just like interest, effort compounds too. In the 4 years I’ve been writing it every month the readership has increased. With no real marketing of the blog. Just good solid writing, be open and honest, sharing insights, and letting the wondrous SEO of wordpress do the rest on Google for me. A few things worth considering if you’re into blogging and want to build an audience.
- I have written 1 blog entry for every day this blog has been live. Consistency and frequency matter.
- Every entry is on the same topic. Startups and Entrepreneurship. I stay focused by having one of these two words in every entry.
- I love the topic my blog is about. I find it fascinating and would still write it if nobody was reading.
- 70% of my traffic is Long Tail, which means that every entry increases my total traffic flow.
- It taught me more about digital media and the internet that anything else I have done.
Of all things I have done in my career writing this blog has generated the most value. It has documented my thoughts, improved my thinking, built discipline, created a reputation, generated media coverage for rentoid, launched me as a business journalist in other business magazines, it places me number 1 in Google searches for the term startup blog in every country in the world and has built friendships and helped others.
If you read this blog regularly you are among 70,000 other people every month. So you’re in good company. Thanks for reading.
Coffee isn’t coffee
Coffee isn’t coffee.
Coffee is social facilitation
Coffee is a distraction
Coffee is a ritual
Coffee is a reason to meet
Coffee is micro generosity
Coffee is time out
Coffee is a representation of personality and economic status.
Coffee is very rarely a beverage which is a mild stimulous, or thirst quencher. More often it’s one of the ideas above. With this in mind what other categories are waiting to be reinvented to form part of the social structure. As humans we are social creatures, and every now and again a marketing campaign emerges around some form of product which builds in our genetic social dynamic, and when this happens, the category and business is changed forever. The good news for entrepreneurs is that it’s usually the domain of a startup, not an all powerful incumbent.