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If The Shoe Fits: You And Your Market

Friday, July 28th, 2017

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mYou could be a

  • charismatic, visionary leader;
  • talented manager;
  • brilliant developer;
  • fine storyteller; and
  • able to raise multiple, large investment rounds.

You could still fail.

Why?

For the same reason nearly half of startups fail.

42% of startups fail because of no market need according to CB Insights.

Peter Drucker says it best.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Story Power

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2017

Ask any 21st Century marketer about brand building and they will tell you ‘it’s all about the story’.

Every brand works to tell stories that draw people in; that they want to share.

The obvious social deafness of major brands is hard to fathom, with Nivea and Pepsi being two of the most recent.

Nivea’s “White is Purity” ad was pulled and the entire campaign canceled two days after its appearance on Facebook.

The company provided what has come to be a boilerplate apology.

“We are deeply sorry to anyone who may take offense to this specific post,” the company said in a statement. “Diversity and equal opportunity are crucial values of Nivea.”

Within days it was Pepsi on the social media hot seat for an incredibly insensitive, incredibly white ad focusing on the Black Lives Matter protests.

The ad was pulled in hours, although, as you can see, nothing posted is ever truly deleted; here is Pepsi’s gussied up version of the boilerplate apology.

“Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly, we missed the mark and apologize,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday. “We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are pulling the content and halting any further rollout.”

Nivea’s story was from an agency, while Pepsi’s was developed in-house.

While I’m no fan of social media in general and its penchant for spreading fake news, in this case the lightening reactions actually did some good.

Heineken is another story (pun intended) entirely and has the awards to prove it, so it isn’t surprising that it was Heineken that successfully created the story the others screwed up so badly.

The take-away is that stories are a two-edged sword, so be sure to do them outside the echo chamber or don’t do them.

Image credit: Heineken and Team cast

Ducks in a Row: the Power of Storytelling Cultures

Tuesday, April 12th, 2016

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lidok/7584888654/

Six years ago I recommended using stories as a management tool; three years later I wrote that entrepreneurs should use stories to present themselves to the world.

Now a Carmine Gallo, a much bigger name than me, has written The Storyteller’s Secret, highlighting the importance of story from building a culture to building a brand or entire company.

Vinod Khosla, billionaire venture capitalist here in Silicon Valley, where I live, tells me that the biggest problem he sees is that people are fact-telling when they pitch him. They’re giving facts and information and he says, “that’s not enough, Carmine. They have to do storytelling.”

When Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, another big venture capital firm, tells me the most underrated skill is storytelling, or when Richard Branson, who I interviewed, said, “entrepreneurs who cannot tell a story will never be successful”

Of course, what can you expect from generations that don’t read much and think communication is an email or, worse yet, texting?

When it comes to a storytelling culture it has to start from the top and isn’t just a good story about the product.

Every day at the Ritz-Carlton there is a brief morning meeting of housekeeping.

And they ask the question of the employees: “Is there a great customer experience that you’ve been a part of, that you can share with the rest of us? (…)They start sharing stories with one another, and then they start competing for who has better stories. They get recognized publicly.”

Southwest’s success is the result of a masterful storytelling culture.

So they created what’s called a storytelling culture, where every week the HR teams go out, and they take videos of real passengers who have had a struggle, or have maybe almost missed a funeral or a birth, or a life-changing event, and stuff like that. But they were able to do it because of Southwest.

Apple is a giant at storytelling, as is Microsoft and Zappos.

So is Whole Foods, KPMG, every farm-to-table restaurant and even ugly food.

Just don’t kid yourself about why the stories work.

The work because they are real, true, authentic or any other adjective you care to use.

The stories are based on/backed by employee actions, which is what makes them resonate.

That means the CEO and all the executive team not only believes in the importance of customer experience, but also knows that the experience is created and facilitated by their people at all levels — especially the front-line people.

Lida / Flickr

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