All the notes were taken directly from the source mentioned!
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How to make it happen?
- Offer a creative solution
- Narrow who’s it for (smallest viable market)
- Create a compelling story
- Spread the word
- Show up consistently
Solution = Feeling
Mirror of desire: Purpose, not product (purpose cannot be commoditized)
- The product or service has to be Social, Fun, Competitive
- Fax machines works better if your colleagues have one too
Quarter-inch drill bit Fragment
Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt famously said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want a quarter-inch hole.”
The lesson is that the drill bit is merely a feature, a means to an end, but what people truly want is the hole it makes.
But that doesn’t go nearly far enough. No one wants a hole.
What people want is the shelf that will go on the wall once they drill the hole.
Actually, what they want is how they’ll feel once they see how uncluttered everything is, when they put their stuff on the shelf that went on the wall now that there’s a quarter-inch hole.
But wait…
They also want the satisfaction of knowing they did it themselves.
Or perhaps the increase in status they’ll get when their spouse admires the the work.
Or the peace of mind that comes from knowing that the bedroom isn’t a mess, and that it feels safe and clean.
“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want to feel safe and respected.”
We are not so much interested in features as we are in the emotions that those features evoke
That’s what they’re buying: a feeling, not a wallet. Identity that feeling before you spend time making a wallet
The form, sound, look and feel triggers your unconscious
Why would your viable customers choose you from your competitors?
XY grid method (see the charts link at the button)
Pick two axes. One is arrayed horizontally (X) and one vertically (Y). For each axis, choose something that people care about. It could be something like convenience, price, healthfulness, performance, popularity, skill level, or efficacy. For example, there are six ways to get some diamonds across town. On one axis we have speed, and on the other we have security. It turns out that both an armored car and the postal service will happily insure a small envelope of diamonds, but one will take a long time and the other will take an afternoon.
Wrong Assumptions in Marketing:
1. Assume that the people you’re seeking to serve are well-informed, rational, independent, long-term choice makers.
2. Assuming that everyone is like you, knows what you know, wants what you want.
Early adopters want things that are new, the laggards want things to never change.
Rather, assume people will act according to their current irrational urges, ignoring information, that runs counter to their beliefs, trading long-term for short-term benefits and most of all, being influenced by the culture they identify with.
The customer is always right. However, they don’t always know what they want.
Air, water, health, and roof are needs. Everything else is a want. If we are privileged enough, we decide that those other things we want are actually needs. However, people are absolutely terrible at inventing new ways to address those wants.They often prefer to use a familiar solution to satisfy their wants, even if it’s not working very well.
Map and understand the worldview of the culture we seek to change.
Smallest viable market (SMM) What’s the minimum number of people you would need to influence to make it worth the effort
Don’t be the comedian that beats himself and thinks of quitting comedy altogether (thinking that no one is laughing with his best material), without realizing the audience was a group of Italians who don’t understand english…
Make change that’s so profound, people can’t help but talk about it
Worldview, desires/fears,
Status (feel about themselves when they are by themselves)
Walk away from the ocean and look for a large swimming pool
Story
Dog food is for dog owners. It’s for the way it makes them feel, the satisfaction of taking care of an animal that responds with loyalty and affection, the status of buying a luxury good, and the generosity of sharing it
Match the worldview of the people being served (tell the story in a language they are eager to understand).
Pricing is a story
Pricing shapes what people believe about your service
Price should be aligned with the extremes you claimed as part of your positioning
How do you know how good is your story?
Use metrics to measure your funnel
Customer Journey
Good Stories
1. Connect us to our purpose and vision for our career or business.
2. Allow us to celebrate our strengths by remembering how we got from there to here.
3. Deepen our understanding of our unique value and what differentiates us in the marketplace.
4. Reinforce our core values.
5. Help us to act in alignment and make value-based decisions.
6. Encourage us to respond to customers instead of react to the marketplace.
7. Attract customers who want to support businesses that reflect or represent their values.
8. Build brand loyalty and give customers a story to tell.
9. Attract the kind of like-minded employees we want.
10. Help us to stay motivated and continue to do work we’re proud of
Spread the word
Why do ideas spread like viruses? Research Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point
- Mavens (information specialists from 0). Once they figure it out they want to flat the learning curve so that other people can learn it so that you can talk about it.
- Rule of 150: After you put it in front of the right 150 people, connectors come to spread it.
How? Every good customer gets you another one
The tension of being left behind, we don’t want to feel left out. We want to be in sync, we want to do what people like us are doing
Effective education creates tension, because just before you learn something, you’re aware you don’t know it yet
The goal isn’t winning; it’s being part of the group
The more specific, the better…
Make it easy to spread
SUCCESs (From Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath)
- Simple
- Unexpected
- Concrete
- Credible
- Emotional
- Story
Consistency: The market associate frequency with trust
It’s entirely possible you were telling the wrong story to the wrong person in the wrong way on the right day, or even on the wrong day.
Fix your funnel
1. You can make sure that the right people are attracted to it.
2. You can make sure that the promise that brought them in aligns with where you hope they will go
3. You can remove steps so that fewer decisions are required.
4. You can support those you’re engaging with, reinforcing their dreams and ameliorating their fears as you go.
5. You can use tension to create forward motion.
6. You can, most of all, hand those who have successfully engaged in the funnel a megaphone, a tool they can use to tell the others. People like us do things like this.
Conclusion
Do something remarkable and put it in front of people predisposed to care.
Additional charts from the book can be found here
Simple Marketing Worksheet
1. Connect us to our purpose and vision for our career or business.
2. Allow us to celebrate our strengths by remembering how we got from there to here.
3. Deepen our understanding of our unique value and what differentiates us in the marketplace.
4. Reinforce our core values.
5. Help us to act in alignment and make value-based decisions.
6. Encourage us to respond to customers instead of react to the marketplace.
7. Attract customers who want to support businesses that reflect or represent their values.
8. Build brand loyalty and give customers a story to tell.
9. Attract the kind of like-minded employees we want.
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