I’ve written a few times over the recent years about the myth that you have to delight your customers. And a couple of conversations last week reminded me yet again how entrenched this thinking is. So here we go (again). It started with a conversation (as so many of my blogs...
There is a great book called “On Looking” by author Alexandra Horowitz. In the book the author takes walks around her neighbourhood in New York with different people to see it through different eyes. It’s a wonderful book and its premise is something that I like to encourage people I work...
The obvious topic for my blog this week is the hot water Commonwealth Bank has found itself in through dodgy advice doled out by its financial planners over around a 10 year period. Plenty has been written about the poor and somewhat tardy response by the organisation and others have also...
When people start talking about brand one of the inevitable questions that pops up is “what do you think X org” stands for? This question gets asked of employees, customers, partners – pretty much any stakeholder with a pulse will at some time or another get it thrown at them. It’s...
One of the least explored and often overlooked elements of my brand formula is promises. The keeping of a promise is in the making. But even knowing that, it’s easy to be cavalier about making promises, I know I’m guilty of it from time-to-time. Take the seemingly simple promise of “I’ll meet...
It could be said that reputation is what they say about you when you leave the room. I’ve also heard reputation often used as a de facto for brand, and given I describe brand as the result of the promises you keep and reputation is achieved in much the same...
It shouldn’t be news to anyone who reads this blog regularly that I believe one of the great red herrings of customer satisfaction is the whole idea of “wowing” them – I go so far as to call it the myth of wow. There are a number of good reasons for this and way...
Can we please stop talking about trust like it is a thing we do. Actually I’d like to stop using the word altogether in a business context. Personally I prefer to use the word associated with the old Norse root of the word “traust” – confidence, as suggested by my friend...
This year I’m going to take a swing at some questions that swirl around the brand landscape. Today’s question is the fruit of a conversation that I had before the holidays with Megan Barrow (@meganbarrow of JoElla Marketing). Megan is a great supporter of this blog and I’d promised her a...
What would you like people to think and say about you or your organisation when you are not in the room? Got it… Now think about all the things that you do and don’t do that would make that true. Grab a piece of paper and write down the first five...