Kilian Jornet is the greatest athlete you’ve never heard of. He competes in niche sports that require enormous effort and endurance: ski mountaineering, sky running, and ultramarathons. When I say “competes in”, I mean he acquires championships the way you and I acquire gas bills: so regularly and with such certainty that they become almost […]
Corporate philanthropy has been around for hundreds of years. From the town groceries running a line of credit for local families to the local merchants who sponsor Little League to the corporate giants who established the Lilly and Rockefeller and Carnegie and Gates Foundations as well as many others, companies find ways to align…...
You probably know a few business people in your community who “everybody knows.” They’re so visible, so involved, so active in doing good things that others are drawn to them. Not everyone is their client or customer, but they make a friend of everyone they meet. And they meet a lot of people. For […]
I’m guessing that at least half of the companies I’ve turned into Whale Hunters are 20 years old or older. And among those, almost all are family businesses, many in their second generation of leadership, and a few even into the third generation! Others are still being led by the founder, but of those I’ve […]
They say there’s nothing new under the sun. But some things really are new. At least they are for a while. Think of great inventions like the wheel, printing press, the cotton gin, the mass-produced automobile, the airplane. One really new thing today is artificial intelligence. It’s unlike anything we’ve had before. If your […]
What kind of return on investment can you promise to your customers? If they buy your products and services, how is that going to impact their bottom line, increasing revenues and/or decreasing costs? And how fast can they realize that return? If you have that kind of offer to the market, you might consider building […]
Here’s another post in my continuing series on Crafting Your Brand Promise. Small business owners get a great deal of advice about how to avoid commoditization–how to bundle products and services that add value, thereby increasing the price you can charge. But some small businesses have a real edge in offering their customers a low-cost, […]
Some years ago UPS introduced a campaign “I love logistics.” They had a jingle, visuals, and actually defined and claimed “logistics” as their own. They kept it going for a long time, with fresh new ad episodes. Not everyone loved it–some people found the song maddening and had a lot to say about that. BUT […]
No, I am not rushing the holiday season. I am talking about products and how they can represent your brand, in the continuing series on branding that started with this post on crafting your brand promise. It’s a series of 31 various ways of building your brand, finding authentic, unique ways to associate your company […]
Too many small companies try to be all things to all people. Well, we can do this, and that, and the other thing too! Why not offer all of our things to all of our people? The problem is this: if you do all kinds of things, no one will think of you when […]
Your customers want to know why you are able to do what you do, how or where your learned to do it, how have your industry and your peers recognized your accomplishments, and other measures of fitness we call “credentials.” Credentials come in a wide variety of forms. There are the basic ones like […]
In my continuing series on brand differentiation, today’s post focuses on the value of case studies in building your brand. Prospective customers really like to read compelling case studies about how your customers have engaged with you and achieved certain desirable outcomes–more money, less hassle, greater efficiency, higher profit margins, higher quality, etc. But case […]