Show How Much You Care

I got a card from a friend this week. He had been out the country for a while, he had popped back into the country for a friend’s wedding. We arranged to meet up and as we said goodbye he handed me an envelope. Inside was not just any card, it was a card that mattered. When I opened it and saw the picture I choked up with emotion. I had not even read the words inside and was almost a blubbering wreck. A few years ago we had been in a theme park together. In the park store there was a Star Wars sections complete with toy light sabres. Being totally mature and ration adults we had a mini light sabre duel laughing at a shared love of the movie franchise. The whole moment lasted a few minutes before we regained sanity and put the light sabres back on the shelf. I picked up a miniature model of Master Yoda on a keyring before we left. The card he gave me had an image of Yoda on the front. The minute I saw it I knew that this was not some random pick from the card counter at the supermarket. No, this was a unique and especially chosen vehicle through which to celebrate friendship. It showed that he knew me.

If you are going to make an offer that people cannot refuse then you need to show that you know them. Generic offers are too easy to refuse. The offer that shows that you really understand me, understand the unique problems I face in my business and go about offering a solution to them that is the offer I am interested in. An old client I had not seen for a while came to visit this week, he offered to rent me office space. He had done no homework. I am perfectly happy where I am now, I had left a similar space in the area he was offering two years prior. The very reasons I left the area would be coming back to haunt me at his venue. He lost the sale within the first sentence.

People are not going to use your services just because you have built a business. They will use you because you meet a need in their organisation or in their lives. Do your research. Figure out what people want; ask if you have to. Really figure it out then offer it to them. Be creative in your figuring out. Get key people in the organisations you want to sell to, get a few of them together for a breakfast, listen to their conversation, and take the occasional note on what they chat about. Chances are they have similar problems, problems you could create a solution to. Great relationships do not just happen, they are built over time.

Nearly every business has some form of social media outreach today. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Linkedin profiles, and newsletters ply us with a daily stream of drivel that is supposed to grip our attention and remind us of services that are on offer. Most of it is about as appealing as a wilted piece of lettuce on stale toast. There is nothing at all that indicates that you have any real knowledge of me as a client. You are just putting something out there because everyone else is doing it. Social media is a tool and like all tools needs to be used wisely and in the correct manner. Put out what appeals to your group-that is assuming that by now you have figured out which group you are actually marketing to. The bonus to social media is that in most cases people have to sign up to hear from you. That means they are probably already interested in you. You do not have to please everyone, merely the few followers who you have picked up along the way. Blasting out irrelevant junk through your media is akin to taking tablets for a headache without understanding the root cause of why you have a jackhammer between your eyebrows.

The other aspect of making an offer that people cannot refuse is to find a way of them avoiding saying ‘no’. The great classic example of this is the sales clerk in a clothing store who walks up to a client (assuming they walk up at all, many in Zimbabwe do not even bother at all), offers to help and gets told ‘no, I’m just browsing’. That is a ridiculous answer. There has to be a reason the person walked into the store, some attraction that got them in, something that they were in fact looking for. ‘Just browsing’ is a fob off to avoid committing to a purchase made out of a possibly irrational fear. Break that fear, create a conversation that requires an action point regardless of the outcome. Create a connection with the client, find out what they really want and offer it to them. Are you out of their price range? Then take their details and call them when you have a sale on. Great salespeople do not just ‘upsell’ with a ‘can I get you anything else’ no they match the sale to the client. ‘We have a great pair of cufflinks to go with that shirt.’ ‘We notice that you run out of data every month, we have an upgraded package that will work out cheaper than you buying extra every month.’ Find a way to meet that need, then do it again and again and again. Cause when you show how much you know me, it shows that you really care.

Why Wait Till Things are Better?

I don't think I could say it much clearer myself. Seth Godin's post on starting out with the values, style and commitment at the beginning of a project rather than waiting till 'later' has a lot in it that Zimbabweans (and the rest of the world) could apply. If we did we may have a better country.

The Offer You Can't Refuse

Check out this post on Emerging Ideas ;they encapsulate the idea of an 'offer you can't refuse' so well..
I have huge admiration for The Godfather; the characters, the music, and the screenplay are the stuff of legends.  We could all learn to make better offers.

Becoming an Icon

Michelangelo's David is a masterpiece. It has become synonymous with the word sculpture. What would it take for your name to become synonymous with your field or area of expertise? When people talk about your craft, or your type of product does your name come top of that list? What steps can you take to do work that is so remarkable that it becomes the benchmark of your industry?

Preempting the Response

Every now and again disaster will strike. A key player in your team falls ill suddenly, the rules in business change due to a court ruling, something drastic happens that you could not prevent. You can train the response in advance, making it part of your culture, pre-empting the more common things like a sick-day. A swift, appropriate response mitigates much of the disaster.

Why Cecil the Lion's story works so well-what we can learn

It has been brought to the (largely deaf) attention of a world preoccupied with a story as to why Cecil the Lion's story is receiving more attention than other issues that result in human death/disappearance. Check here and here for examples from Zimbabwe and the rest of the world. Not withstanding the use of media to promote a story that times well with a UN resolution on illegal wildlife trafficking there are a few reasons why Cecil the Lion resonates with us so strongly. Firstly the story has a clearly identified protagonist- the martyred, innocent lion Cecil who has no voice for himself; any other lion without a name and I doubt people would care as much. There are clearly identified antagonists who we can vilify, antagonists who have admitted to their part in the killing. And there is a clear violation of moral principle being told in the story-the taking of a collared Cecil from somewhere he was safe and luring him to an area where, without him realising it, he was a suitable candidate for a hunt. It is the clarity of the elements of the story that make it so powerful. Add to it a couple of horror details like bleeding for 40 hours before death and you have what is clearly a best seller. There is also created in the mind of the reader an identifiable pressing problem to be filled-that of justice-justice ably dispensed by the internet community on any platform associated with the 'villains'.


Unfortunately a dreadful and shocking abduction without a clearly identified antagonist is unlikely to grab our attention as much. Likewise a unnamed, dead, migrant we cannot identify with does not make a good protagonist in our minds as readers.


The best story wins.


(Please note that this post is not a commentary on the relative morality of these topics, rather it is simply pointing out what make the elements of a great story. Any story we tell; be it as a business about our product, in the news, or as individuals needs to have similar clear parts for it to resonate as well with the hearers.)

Setting the New Industry Standard.

If you are anything like me you are probably a bit of an information junkie, you are always looking around to see what is trending, what is happening, what the new standards are in business. Here is a question; what is stopping you from becoming the industry standard in your field? What is stopping you from becoming the person who is setting the trends?

In reality probably nothing but fear. Step up and step out. Start putting your ideas and thoughts out there. Start a blog, a YouTube channel, create a Udemy course, do what you need to do to get your work out there. Thoughtfully and conscientiously get started on building your reputation.