My father was a general contractor on Miami Beach in the 1960s. As innovative as my dad was, the business was still a rather analog affair. Supplies were delivered on flatbeds, building materials were inventoried on a clipboard, boards were nailed together by hand, and job sites were cleaned up by laborers with shovels, push ...
Showing your customers not just how you can help them achieve what they want but how they can be who they want to be puts you in a singular position way above your competition.
In this article I’m telling you a little bit about how I’m going to try to evolve in 2018. Or, as my friend wrote back when I reached out: “If you evolve anymore, you’ll be flapping your arms and flying.”
The way to futureproof your brand is to build it around the true emotional benefit you provide for your customers. By letting them know that their lives are better because they do business with you, you’ll be letting your customers know that they should continue to work with you because of — or in spite of — where technology takes us.
Are you operating from fear or are you looking towards accomplishing the things that will make you feel good about yourself and your life? Or are you a dancing bear, yo-yoing back and forth pain and pleasure or are you moving positively into the future? And even more importantly, are you writing resolutions that allow you to further express your authentic truth or are you using resolutions to force yourself into unnatural behaviors?
Each year we burden ourselves with lots of unrealistic promises that we simply know we’re not going to keep. Truth is, I think the less realistic we make the resolutions, the more easily we can ignore them. Perhaps we even subconsciously set ourselves up to fail. Here are some proven suggestions that can help you make the most of the new year.
Soon more workaday businessmen will start reaping the ills of their bad behavior. When that becomes commonplace, businesses in your own hometown — hell, even the company you work for — might have to start dealing with the long overdue fallout of sexual harassment. Remember that people make decisions based on their emotions and justify those decisions with facts. Brands that forget this simple truism do so at their own peril.
Are you presenting your brand, your business, and yourself in simple terms that your customers can understand? Or are you wrapping yourself in acres of tiresome talk? Are you using big words when small ones will do? Are you using long rationalizations when simple examples offer more clarity? Are you writing an SAT essay when you should be tweeting a competitive advantage? If you are, you are squaring the circle.
Showing your customers not just how you can help them achieve what they want but how they can be who they want to be puts you in a singular position way above your competition. And making your customers feel good not about just what you can do for them but about themselves will secure your placement in their roster of critical contributors to their own success.
Like Dr. Doolittle’s Pushmepullyou, there’s no moving forward without cooperation. And in an effective relationships, there’s no giving without taking.
To build desire, increase purchases, and expand your profits, position what you sell as an experience your audience will consume.
Why else would the president insult the pregnant widow of a fallen soldier? Why else would he insult the Puerto Rican victims of Hurricane Maria? Why else would he go to war with the NFL over freedom of speech? It’s much too easy (and naïve) to write it off to him being a clumsy boor. What if there’s something else going on?