Blog
Should You Be Speaking?
When I was younger, my dad used to tell me, “If your lips are moving, you aren't listening and if you aren’t listening, you aren’t learning.” Dad was right. But something that is important to note here is that there is a point in your career where something switches and you’re leading people, organizations and folks want to hear from you. See, they want to hear the tools you used to get over those struggles, they want to hear what it feels like to face and overcome the challenges you’ve come up to and they also want to learn from you as a person. So there comes a time in almost every leader's life where you should be speaking publicly.
Closing Loops: Making Moments For Your Buyers
Remember that time you had to work late? You’re sitting at your desk crushing through the work at hand, then you close your laptop, push your chair back into your desk, and emerge from your workspace. You stumble down the hallway and find your way into your dining room to find that your partner made your favorite meal, has an ice-cold one waiting for you, and your favorite record is playing at just the perfect volume.
Product Photography: Is it worth it?
A picture is worth a…you know the saying but what do your product images say about your brand? Do they tell a consistent story about what is inside of that bag of coffee or is it more of a mystery? We think about this often and it’s a very easy and relatively affordable way to increase trust between your roaster and your buyers as well as to increase overall sales.
Make It Simple
Years ago, your website was a huge part of your brand and being visible to the world. Even just having a site on the world wide web legitimized businesses. But now, everyone and their brother has a website and this has forced some changes to how Google ranks sites and how websites perform. Moreover, user preferences and habits have changed pretty dramatically.
Make That Sh*t Cool
For years, I’ve been saying that your merch should be first cool, then marketing. It needs to be something that folks want to wear, use, take with them and moreover be seen in and with. If it’s cool, folks will wear it, use it and be seen in it…thus fulfilling the goal of said item…marketing that someone else paid for or was subsidized by the buyer.
The Product Problem
For a year, I’ve had a photo on my phone that I just can’t stop thinking about. This photo was posted by one of my LinkedIn connections who had recently visited their local Whole Foods. When they passed the RTD (Ready To Drink) beverage cooler, they got excited about all the fun colors of the cans. Now, colors are cool and all, but it reminded me of a quote from the Incredibles 2 where Syndrome shared his plan to make everyone “super” and in making everyone “super”…no one would be. Silly example, I know, but the point stands. Especially if you are trying to play ball on a retail shel. If you are trying to fit in with your competitors (who share the same shelf space) your product might just end up looking like your competitors.