I have found it! Wurld water that is. A charity set up to sell bottled water.
For every bottle of water sold the profits go to helping the 1 in 6 worldwide who don’t have access to clean water.
Simple concept, nice branding, great cause to get behind (and please do).
Oh and did I say the bottles are made from corn starch thus biodegradable?
It’s not the complete answer but like the Prius it’s the beginning….
Update: The Young & Shand site is live now! (just updating post to capture search traffic).
As is the spirit of the blog – you all get the pre-pre-announcements. Over the past year Duncan Shand & I have worked together on numerous projects (quite successfully) so much so that we have decided to join forces and create Young & Shand a Digital Agency.
Things will really kick off in the New Year (to give us time to enjoy the lovely kiwi summer) but keep an ear out. We’ll be working on our Manifesto to give you guys (and everyone else) an idea of what we stand for.
It’s still early days yet but just a heads up…
ps
We are hiring! We need a Designer / Dev (Generalist) / Marketing Strategist. More details to follow but can email ben@bwagy.com if anything is of interest.
#32: Time Out
Take time out. Have your limits. Keep home time, family time, your own time. This is essential.
#34: Reflection
Review and reflect every week, month and quarter to check your progress.
#35: KPIS
Set Key Performance Indicators and strive to achieve them.
Can someone please build a framework for store assistants to be able to quickly diagnose a customers intent?
Things like:
I don’t know the specifics but a model so that store assistants can recognise the behaviour for a certain outcome then adjust their service accordingly. A win/win for both parties.
Wouldn’t be too hard, grab some security footage for a day, monitor what happens, classify users into purchasing behaviours, link to commonalities. Test again with new footage.
You can be really really specific with your market. In fact squeeze it. Make it small enough that you can deliver insane value to this subset.
The intriguing thing? Once you get this market – because you’ve been so specific, delivered insane value, your customers help you grow the market.
By squeezing and focusing you can actually grow your original market.
A friend of mine is trying the ‘say yes to any social invite’ experiment – whereby instead of saying no to something out of the norm say yes and see what happens.
It’s a great idea, sure to create some great life experiences and remarkable stories.
Why not give it a try, pick something you tend to shy away from and say yes for the next three months…
Or have you already done it before?
Sales Techniques how do you sell someone on what you’ve got?
Honesty is the best tactic. When you’re honest you feel confident in what you’re selling, it forces you to focus on customers that will receive excess value and builds a strong relationship with your customer.
You can apply the old tried and true sales circles etc but I’ll be honest they do work but they’re not for me.
In approaching sales in the back of my mind is:
Based on this thinking the sales techniques to trick / trap consumers isn’t the best approach.
Thus approacing each meeting with the idea:
Is going to arm you with a solid way to sell your product to the right people and grow your business.
Consumers are increasingly sophisticated they want to be looked after they can read a sales pitch and it makes them uncomfortable. Transparency is the only winning approach.
#29: Hiring the first person
Don’t hire someone, get them on a contracting basis for a while.
#30: Make every dollar work for you
Stretch every dollar as far as you can, and I mean as far as you can. Once I used to drink tea at coffee meetings to save a few bucks. (Cheap but was half the price of a coffee).
#31: Eco-System
Find out who your competitors are, send them work when you can’t help a client, it’s an eco-system not a free for all.
Unfortunately I fell ill last week and had to cancel some appointments. Most were understanding (hey I don’t want to get you guys sick) some not so much. One disgruntled person said could have given us more notice. Hang on? It’s not like people plan on being sick….
It was then I wondered wouldn’t it be neat if there was a service that benchmarked small businesses call etiquette – the service rings up businesses and follows certain procedures to rank and score a business. This is then shared online for all to see. Then we can find out which are good to deal with and businesses can get a realistic view of their call staff.
Big businesses already do this (to a degree) but not in such an open format.
Imagine comparing a new hairdresser based on call manner. As Drucker says “what gets measured gets managed”… I think we’d rapidly see an improvement.
One offs are expensive, focus on ongoing relationships where you can work together, get to know one another, take a dance.
For the continual ongoing growing relationship is made up of thousands of small steps, each compounding the previous. It’s this approach which creates tremendous change.
I have always wanted to write a post on the crazies.
These are the people who come up with hair brained schemes to change the world.
However they don’t get the credit till they do just that. Up until that point they are just crazy.
Yet we shy away, they’re different, out there, exude passion.
Take a leap, listen to them, see if you can help. They could be the next big game changer and even if not chances are you’ll learn something new that you’d never have learnt hanging out with regular people.
From the outside looking in at some businesses you wonder how they make money.
Anyone can do that right?
Well actually yes if someone else is doing it and offering as a service – chances are you can do it too.
BUT you’re not in that business.
If someone else can do it much more efficiently and take the stress away they have something of value. What their customers are buying is reassurance that the job will get done.
A classic example of this is recruitment, yes you can seek and attract employees, vet them and do it yourself. However it is probably more efficient to use a recruitment company to seek (and filter) candidates for you. Don’t forget that, you don’t have to change the world to make a buck, just sell reassurance.
My common fault of public companies is that the focus shifts to the next quarter, the next dividend, keeping stockholders happy. And so they should.
Yet…
What is the bigger picture? What are you working towards? A little less in shareholders hands this year could be magnitudes times more in five years.
It’s these big picture perspectives and long term plays that really pay off. Bill Gates was for years saying Microsofts aim was to get a PC in every household. Now that is virtually true.
If they had focused on the short term, forgetting the big picture, they would have ended up with mediocre results.
Great companies think big for the long term.
(And your Marketing should reflect that).
I hate it when people just give sales pitches at conferences.
At least respect my intelligence and try to hide it in something that is of value to the audience.
People come along to conferences to learn, meet people and catch up on industry changes. Not to hear the latest pitch of how to buy your product.
It’s a very ME mindset. I’d rather focus on helping the audience – IF they want to know more they can have a chat afterwards.
And some do. Most dont but this is a quality game not a quantity one. Those that do are usually highly motivated to work with me.
That’s a win for everyone, audience gets info they can act on themselves, I don’t waste time on tyre kickers and those that are motivated can still have a chat.
#26: Financial Buffer
Once you can, build up a three month buffer and keep it there, you never know what is around the corner, I know it’s tempting to invest that amount or use it for something, but the way I see it the return you get by having a three month buffer in case something goes wrong out performs the alternatives.
#27: Blog
Blog. Blogging is the #1 marketing tool. Use it to your advantage; like networking, blog with the intention of helping your customers, you don’t need to give everything away, but answer the common questions, share your experience, compare/contrast competitors, industry news. By helping your audience you build your brand, stimulate an otherwise non existent conversation and build a community.
#28: Avoid fixed costs
Avoid taking on fixed costs, keep everything variable, this helps avoid negative cashflows and ensures flexibility when you need to keep costs to a minimum.
