Tag: Business

Tell the ‘why’ – don’t manipulate

Posted on by philipdodson

Tell the ‘why’ – don’t manipulate

Manipulation is how most companies sell. They use clever marketing techniques to manipulate you to buy their product/service. They add things, chop prices, do deals etc. All of this will bring about more sales.

It works for a while, as all humans are open to being manipulated. However, it never will bring loyalty, as any other company can out manipulate the buyers and people will switch in an instant to a better deal.

It will only bring you the late adopters, the laggards, it will bring you people only driven by price and the manipulations you offer.

Instead, you can build loyalty by inspiring your audience, then you don’t need to sell, you just need a great product/service, delivered well, that will get your customers to do the marketing for you.

Where does the inspiration come from? Simple, just communicate to your potential customers your ‘why’. As in why you do what you do. The what you do will validate the why. Look at all the successful products/services that have a hugely loyal following. All of them will have/do tell you ‘why’ they do what they do.

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It’s why people queue for Apple products, it’s why people don’t mind waiting 6 months + for a Harley Davidson, it’s why people get a ‘Never mind the bollocks’ credit card from Virgin when they already have a wallet full of cards and so on.

Sales & marketing should never be about manipulation. Marketing should be used to communicate your ‘why’ and then sales will come, and come again and again and again. Just make it simple for people to understand you and why you exist, then make it easy for people to buy. Then no need for sales.

By communicating your ‘why’ you will attract like-minded people who identify with your values, what you stand for, why you do what you do. Then they will walk over ‘hot coals’ to get your product/service often when you are more expensive and not always better quality than others.

If you want to look into how this works, check out Simon Sinek’s great book ‘Start with Why’. It is an truly inspirational read.

The next generation of workers

Posted on by philipdodson

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The next generation of workers will be totally different to what we currently think workers are and what work is.

Work is no longer a physical space for many and work certainly is no longer a physical activity for most. Work is more based on ideas, more based on collaboration, on sharing than ever.

The workforce of the future will be increasingly self-employed, will be increasingly part of the connected generation and will be more interested in whether or not what they do on a daily basis is fulfilling or not.

Work is an activity, that for more and more people involves self-promotion and involves creating and sharing content, that hopefully inspires others to engage with us. It is the inspirational quality of the content that we produce and share, that will define the level and quality of engagement.

We will all more and more likely move from one gig to another in collaboration with others. In order for that to work, it will need to be based more and more on shared values and it will based more and more on our individual why and less and less on what we do/have done.

So the workforce will be made up of an army of mainly generation Y, connected, tech savvy, living in the digital world, who will be skilled in promoting themselves to others in order to create meaningful, rewarding collaborations with other like-minded individuals.

Then all that remains is where to do that collaborations. It won’t be done in sterile, non-collaborative traditional office spaces, it won’t happen in people’s living rooms/spare bedrooms or coffee shops.

It will happen in communities and in coworking spaces that cater for this ever-growing new workforce.

This is the future of work – sharing knowledge, working with others, truly understanding the power of helping, giving and working with others to fill the gaps in our skills.

It is the most exciting change in the history of the human race, as the opportunity to collaborate to solve the world’s challenges will be truly revolutionary. We have only scratched the surface in terms of what the human race is capable of, as we have yet to truly harness the power of global collaboration.