Bless businesses everywhere: they still just can’t seem to help themselves from doing stupid things to customers. I’m a fan of the business world. It’s takes unbelievable fortitude to front up every day and open the doors. And many times, customers don’t make life easy. I’ve said it before: in general...
Every week I try and share a smattering of different ways you can get to your brand result. But everything doesn’t work for everyone, so here’s another way of thinking about what you’re doing. A couple of weeks ago, in the #brandtodo I posted to LinkedIn and Twitter, I suggested you...
How many times have you seen people make the promise “most trusted” or something similar? Trust assertions of one ilk or another litter organisational identities and positioning statements. Whether trust squats in the purpose statement, lurks in the list of values or makes an appearance on the website’s home page, I...
The idea for this blog took shape during a catch up chat with my friend last week in Perth. We were talking about a recent discussion of his where he’d asked “what are you best in the world at?”. The question has become somewhat of a business standard thanks to the...
Making promises is easy, but keeping them is hard. With best of intentions and a big dash of self-interest, the words are out almost before we connect with the reality of what it will take to deliver what we’ve said. From a simple, “sure let’s grab a coffee at 10am on...
The dance of promises made by an organisation and the experience it delivers can be everything from the smooth glide of Fred and Ginger circling the floor to the awkward missteps and sore toes of a first waltz. Experience and promises circle each other in continual motion. Where one begins and...
“Set your goals” is a clarion call organisations faithfully follow. Goals as part of a strategy, goals for projects, goals for meetings and yes, even brand. Yet, the effort to develop goals goes to waste if it is not supported by the right habits. A recent article delved into the under...
In the process of trying change to renew or invigorate an organisation a lot of things get ignored. In the rush to move forward what gets left behind is the legacy. Every organisation and the resulting brand has a legacy; the result of promises kept over time, the cumulative wealth of...
It’s been quite the few weeks for businesses and unhappy customers. But today my blog isn’t for them or any other businesses. It’s for all the customers out there. In other words all of us, because we’re all customers of something. From lawsuits about mice in hems to burger joints getting into altercations over missing...
When a word is as familiar as “promise” it’s easy to think we know all there is to know about what it is and how it works. The dictionary defines it as “a declaration that something will or will not be done”, and “an express assurance on which expectation is...