Ideas for profitable
communication
by Baruch ter Wal
Captain Courageous
November 29th, 2011
There’s a scene in the movie ‘Gladiator’ where Russell Crowe and his buddies are getting charged by a numerically superior group on horses and chariots.
Russ gathers his motley men together and tells them to “Hold…Hold” – hold their ground against their instincts. It looks brave, but in fact it is the only way for them to succeed.
Building a brand requires that same kind of logical courage. If you find that special intersection point where your expertise, your passion and an important problem all intersect, then you need to spend almost all of your time there. As a leader you need to invest all of your marketing budget there, focus the entire design brief there, network there. You might even need to fail there for a while.
If the results aren’t coming, you need to back yourself and be patient. Look again at the definition of that intersection. I promise you that if you’ve really found that zone, it will always lead to good things eventually. So hold.
When you stand your ground, you also stand for something.
My biggest screw-ups (part 3 in an occasional series)
July 18th, 2011
Lee ter Wal is not actually the first business Shaun and I founded. In 2001 we started a web design outfit with a couple of talented guys called, I kid you not, runtheotherway.com
Calling it that wasn’t the screw-up. The screw-up was that we started the company because we wanted to run our own business and be cool. That’s not really enough of a vision. Our first client was a magazine who negotiated a discount by featuring us on their cover all pimped out in Zambesi and Versace. The story (of the business and the article) was about us, not about our customers.
The other day Peter Thiel said that being an entrepreneur wasn’t a useful goal. It’s a side effect – like becoming rich or famous. He said that you should become an entrepreneur if that’s the best way to achieve a goal you’ve become passionate about. If you can better achieve the goal within a corporation or NGO, you should be there.
Runtheotherway lasted 18 months. My memory and filing is a little vague, but I think our second business is 8 years old today. The vision for Lee ter Wal was about partnering with geeks to communicate complex stories. We’ve been lucky to work with lots of cool geeks in organisations large and small. Some of you probably don’t call yourselves geeks, but we affectionately think of you that way anyhow.
Our mission now is to ramp up the ‘partnership’ bit of the vision. We’ve been putting fees at risk, depending on whether a defined outcome is achieved, and taking equity instead of cash. I really like what that does to the designer-client relationship, so I’d be grateful if you could keep your eye out for opportunities to work in that way. Don’t worry about the title of this post. It’ll be fine.
An ode to sacred cows
March 28th, 2011
Should we do it Steve’s way or the high way?
Ok, so you’re going through your sales routine, diligently and truthfully explaining how your offer will save the customer time and make them money.
It’s all going well until you hit this sideshow topic that suddenly becomes the focus of discussion, to the exclusion of everything else. For Maori leaders it might be self determination over their taonga. For the CFO it might be compatibility with their existing financial system. For a software developer things might hinge on whether this can truly be called open-source.
You get bogged down. With each compromise and concession you make, you find yourself wondering what a visionary like Steve Jobs would do. He’d probably slay the sacred cow. He’d tell them to chuck out their old school ideas, and confidently push forward with his agenda – in full confidence that he was making their lives immeasurably better.
[A quick tangent on sacred cows. Usually it is a derisory term. “Haha, look at how their roads get clogged up by those skinny cows. I’d open a hamburger joint and improve traffic flow in one swoop. In the same way you’ve gone and treated a silly notion as sacred, and now it’s clogging up your business.” Should you actually ask a deep thinking Hindu about the topic, however, you might hear a beautiful story about why cows should be treated with reverence in a given context. You might come to think that a story that cool justifies the odd traffic jam.]
Maybe your imaginary Steve is right. But just maybe your customer’s cow deserves to be sacred. Get in their shoes. If you decide that you actually respect the customer’s view, you’ve now got a whole new communication option. Instead of pushing your agenda and then negotiating the sacred obstacles when they arise, you rework your product and proposition in light of the cow.
Then you can lead off with: “Self determination [or compatibility with your systems, or a true open source model] is everything. Everything. That’s at the heart of this proposal.”
My friend Pel calls this ‘taking the high ground’. He takes that high ground with full empathy, genuineness and respect. If you can’t do it that way, you need to find another customer – or take a deep breath and do it Steve’s way.
How to get hitched without botox
January 25th, 2011
In the business-to-business world, getting to first base isn’t worth a lot. It’s long term relationships that really matter.
Repeat business from loyal clients underpins a successful business. And these fans are also a key source of referrals (polygamy is all good in business).
A focus on the long term has several implications. One of them is the importance of truthfulness. Getting someone to believe impressive falsehoods might be just fine if you’re after a one-night stand, but the inevitable disillusionment is the kiss of death for a long term relationship.
If you’re the arty kid who can make them laugh, pitching yourself as yet another captain of the First XV who loves animals is just dumb (feel free to psychoanalyse that metaphor). And yet a surprising number of new clients come to us with a belief that branding is the science of covering up their flaws. “At heart our people are unconfident, so we need you to make us look bold.” “Word on the street is we’re a bit slack at times – so make us sound ultra reliable.” This is a doomed enterprise. It only adds ‘bull$hitter’ to your list of brand attributes.
The real task is to design and tell the most compelling true story anyone has ever heard about you.
If there’s nothing special about you and your business, no designer can help you. If you’ve got something unique to offer, but are struggling to communicate it, we most certainly can.
The guy in the eye patch
October 1st, 2010
My friend Perry says that in a competitive deal there are two winners: the guy who wins and the guy who pulls out early.
This puts a premium on uniqueness. If you stand out from the crowd, you up your chances of winning (if you have a fit with the customer) or losing fast (if you don’t have a fit).
Logos and your look and feel have a role to play in standing out. Unfortunately most businesses tee up the design process in such a way that you’re likely to blend in rather than stand out. You know the process. Under the guidance of your design or branding guru, your team goes to a vineyard to generate the ‘5 words’ that truly sum up your business (and you come back with 7).
But guess what. There are really only 9 words from which everyone is picking – including your competitors. The nine words are some variation of the following: Responsive, Smart, Friendly, Experienced, Innovative. Precise, New, Reliable, Fast. Well done if your team ever came up with a word that is not a synonym of one of these.
Now if everyone is picking from the same 9 words, and if these words are truly guiding the design process, then businesses in a given category are going to look remarkably similar.
Just talking about look and feel, here are some ways to stand out:
1. Focus on the ONE thing that is truly special about you as compared to your competitors, and convey that.
2. Have character. Let a personality shine through – as long as it is in sync with what makes you special.
3. Check out what colours or types of imagery are not being used in your space.
In the movies as in life: the guy in the eye patch is always smart or dumb, never middle of the road.
Show, don’t tell
July 8th, 2010
A whole generation is graduating from our universities with a new mindset: they can be themselves and still be successful.
That’s the impression I got, anyway, running workshops at Survive & Thrive today. I don’t mean to say that the rest of us don’t have that mindset, but typically the importance of being ourselves is something we’ve learned. It involved us breaking some colonial programming.
The talks I gave were about the importance of aligning your business conduct with every claim you make. Indeed, backing up your claims with action should be the most natural thing in the world – because the claims are true.
So if your claim to fame is that you’re passionate about a topic you’ll naturally blog about it, or hold meet-ups about it, or carry out novel research into the area. If you claim to be a “true partner” you’ll naturally put your fees at risk in case of failure, or take equity in some of your clients’ businesses, or think about their issues in the shower. If you’re all about service you will die before you require people who click on the “contact” tab on your website to fill out a form before you’ll talk to them.
Most advisors will say that if your behaviour is not aligned with your marketing claims you need to adjust your behaviour. I think you’ll have more success if you adjust the claims.
Who wants to be “they”?
April 13th, 2010
On the bus today I heard: “They are going to cure cancer in ten years” but also “We were the first to split the atom.” Why?
Being a New Zealander doesn’t necessarily bring you into the fold of “we”. You hear “We went nuclear free in the ‘80s” but also “They want to ban smoking on beaches.”
“We” is about buy-in, about a feeling of connectedness.
How close are you and your customers from referring to each other as “we” instead of “they”?
Lest we forget
March 17th, 2010
We learned some useful things during the recession.
Yesterday I hung out with a room full of buzzing entrepreneurs who saw more opportunities than they had time to grab (I’m not quite sure what Auckland would do without The ICEHOUSE).
As much as it looks like 2010 will be a great year, it was clear that many of the opportunities spring from what we learned during the dark days of 2009.
We learned that marketing benefits – new or deeper relationships and sales – should be measurable.
We learned to seek lower cost channels that were just as effective as the old high cost ways of getting attention (one of my favourite stories was Turners Auctions tripling profits while cutting marketing spend in half to focus on a smart online strategy).
We learned to paint a clear picture of how our products and services would improve our customers’ lives and businesses.
Let’s not forget.
The, ahem, 3 secrets to successful business-to-business communication :-)
January 21st, 2010
Self knowledge; customer insight; design thinking.
- Self knowledge. This is about truth. What does your business truly do better than anyone else? (BTW: that means now, not what you will be the best at, or hope to be the best at.) Narrow the scope until you find it. Ideally it will be something you are also passionate about.
- Customer insight. Who are the people and organisations most in need of the thing you’re best at? What do they currently believe about their needs? What do they currently believe about your ability to meet their needs? (Hint: it won’t be the same as what you believe).
- Design thinking. On a blank piece of paper, paint the world’s most compelling and truthful picture outlining why those customers (with those beliefs) need what you have to offer.
If you’re 100% committed to these three steps, I will always be happy to talk to you with the meter off. Not before 10am though.
How can you change the game?
January 12th, 2010
Here’s a simple recipe for doing something really transformative for your business or career in 2010.
Make a list of the things you’ve been wishing you had the time or money to do. Pick something off the list.
Now (this is the important bit) tell all of your LinkedIn, email, Twitter or flesh and blood friends that you’re going to do it in the next 6 months. Now you’ve got peer pressure to make it happen. As a bonus, people will want to know whether you’ve achieved your goal, and you’ll generate a truckload of free and useful word of mouth marketing.
My game changer is this: I’m going to hire someone smarter than me to drive my business forward.
What’s yours?
Sometimes you need to be narrow minded
December 10th, 2009
Should we be saying “no” to lucrative opportunities just because they fall outside the target market specified in our business plan?
Some of the time it makes sense to grab these opportunities when they fall into our lap. But it almost never makes sense to actively chase them.
There is always a temptation to spread the marketing net too wide. You know that your service can add value across industries, and is useful for both large and small businesses. So that’s the message that you take to market. But if your sales and marketing tries to appeal to everybody, you end up appealing to nobody. Helen Clark may have rubbed many people up the wrong way, but compare her popularity to Phil “all things to all people” Goff.
And the benefits of a clear focus go beyond perception. A clear customer focus
- Helps you pick your marketing channels
- Influences which networking events you’ll attend
- Determines your PR and case study priorities
- Pushes you to make your products special by being sensitive to how customers are different – not how they are the same.
So narrowing your focus, and sticking to that focus in your marketing and planning, helps you to end up with better products that are easier to sell. It’s a no brainer. But so is grabbing the odd amazing opportunity, even if it’s outside your focus. It’s New Zealand, not New York.
Just remember: they’re not gift horses if you’re chasing them.
