Tag: growth

Villain turned hero

Fabrizio1 Comment

Many business books (strategy books, leadership books, self-improvements books) present their ideas in a villain vs hero way.

On one side, there are undesirable strategies, leadership styles, behaviours, tactics and on the other are desirable strategies, leadership styles, behaviours, tactics.

And this is where they fail to inspire change, for two reasons mainly. First of all, very few people identify with the villain – I am not the villain, then why should I change?. And secondly, the positive features of the hero are presented as innate, almost magical – I am not a demi-god, so why bother?.

A villain turned hero approach would probably be more effective. It would humanize failure, introduce shades of grey, and make the whole story more approachable and relatable.

This is something to keep in mind also for the next story you are going to tell.

Your winning way

FabrizioLeave a comment

This way of doing marketing does not work for everybody. In fact, it probably would not work for your company.

But it works for Balsamiq.

I guess the point of this story is the following.

Before jumping into a funnel carousel, before starting to talk about MQLs, SQLs, and SAOs, before paying an agency to figure out your business model and your brand, before running around optimizing the optimizable and hacking the hackable. Take a deep breath.

Find a way that works for your customers and for your business. A way that reflects your values, your purpose, the change you want to see in the world. A way that you are proud to promote, that your leadership is proud to promote, that your employees are proud to promote. A way that lets you build a sustainable business where you and your team are the ones defining success.

There is no other way. It’s your winning way.

The first question

FabrizioLeave a comment

If you have an idea to spread, a change you care to see happening, a product to market, the first question should not be “where is my audience?”.

The first question should be “who is my audience?”.

It is a shift in perspective.

From desperately moving from one channel to the next (and mastering none), with messages that are ineffective (because they are either about you or they aim to appeal to too many), to already knowing where you will be tomorrow.

It is the way to become master of your own future.

Many call it strategy.

Elements of value

Fabrizio1 Comment

It is not enough to say that your company focuses on delivering values to customers.

What is value?

If you don’t stop for a long moment considering this question, you are not focused on value. Value is economical, and it is also technical, social, personal, functional, aspirational. Value takes into consideration material costs, and also possible issues, adoption, expansion, scale. Value is transactional and relational. Value is co-operative.

And once you have identified all the elements that make up your value, you still have two steps to take.

First, you have to understand the why of value. Why does it matter. Not tomorrow, not one year from now, not one day maybe. But now.

Then, you have to build a system that constantly delivers on the elements across the various departments, that captures and measures the elements, that continues assessing them, that creates incremental evidence for them, and that ensures that they are not replicated by competitors and new entrants.

Value is a complex concept, not another organisational buzz word.

The marketer’s dilemma

FabrizioLeave a comment

Got an interesting newsletter from Peep Laja at Wynter.com this morning, that got me thinking of the marketer’s dilemma.

If a marketer does boring and safe, nobody will object. If they do as it’s always been done. If they use terms like productivity, efficiency, streamlined, best-in-class, seamless. Even when every one at the table has a different understanding and a different experience of what those terms mean, nobody will object. Because who is going to stand up and say “what is productivity?”.

If a marketer does specific and unusual, on the other hand, everyone will panic.

Of course, boring and safe will bring you nowhere, because boring and safe is what 94.97% of companies do. So, the marketer’s dilemma is really between being accepted among their peers in the short term and being well received by the market in the long term.

It is a difficult choice.