Every business can change people’s lives for a second, a day, or forever. 

 

People will ultimately forget what you and your business said and did, but never forget how you made them feel.

Great businesses create space for people to pause and reflect, even join their community – that space is where transformation happens. It is not about magic – it is about a plan – it’s the real reason a robust strategy and strategic narrative matter in highly competitive markets. 

B2B and high dollar value B2C businesses educate and sell to diverse segments – different locations, education, personas, roles, and responsibilities. Important decision-makers (families and friends) or procurement panels – few will have little direct experience with the problems your business solves – or the value of your goods and services at the consumer level. 

The question becomes how to unite all the diverse decision-makers so that your product and services are the only solutions. 

 

The problem-solution approach

How it works: we think your business has a problem, and we have a solution that is one of more of these compared to our competitors; we can make your business 

• more competitive, 
• profitable,
• faster, 
• simpler,
• better, 
• cheaper,

Today if there is an initial success in this approach – the new business is only a short time away from its competitors reacting and changing their offers – nullifying their offers.

What works today?

Re-framing how your business solves your buyer’s problems 

Today there are changes in your market that require that you act differently, as a business life-or-death or an opportunity/threat narrative – which will require you to overcome obstacles x, y and z. By the way, we help businesses like yours do that better.

The best way to close a deal is by first uniting all decision-makers in a common cause – a community.

• Resonates with all, 
• Turns all of their problems into shared obstacles to winning, 
• Tesla has done this fantastically well – a shared community of those who want to save the planet and save 70% cheaper fuel costs by using batteries. 

It’s unlikely that Tesla’s success would have been so great if it had focussed on – we save you money with cheaper running costs – buy from us now. 

Why this works

•  As a communications device, it uses the same framework as the best-selling books and movies of all time,
• It re-positions all stakeholders in a common cause, on a new mission to solve the problem(s),  
• A joint mission that resonates with all of them and which turns all their problems into shared obstacles to winning now. 
• It resonates with people – because done well – we remember storytelling 22x more than just an advertisement – just facts and figures.
• It engages with ideal buyers and stakeholders more – often building a new movement, a community of like-minded people, 

Businesses like Patagonia started in the 1970s using this type of framework – their initial movement and community building were the early environmentalists.

Other Global brands that use this approach are 

• Casper – bed in a box
• Warby Parker – prescription glasses online for less
• Allbirds – NZ sneakers with fluffy wool inlaid
• Zoura – subscription accounting 
• and millions more, 

A simplistic framework helps remove complexity.

 

To sell more today, you need to capture more 1) attention from your ideal buyers – 2) engage with them more and 3) sell more—a three-step approach. 

We know – the most valuable asset in the world today is attention.

Attention: is increasingly more brutal to gain and more expensive. The strategy and tactics to capture more attention are a long list – success here is a vital element for every business. 

An important note – there is more content created each day than eyeballs on the planet to read it. Just adding more won’t get you noticed – adding more value will. 

Engagement: at both a strategic and execution level, one of the core communications steps towards better engagement is via a strategic narrative format. When you start with helping potential buyers’ perspectives, make sense of their suspicions or doubts that they need to do it differently – to achieve their aims. 

Framing – winners, like you, are now winning by doing X and showing your potential buyers that winners are already embracing the new narrative – is more engaging and provides the space for them to think – have I got it wrong? 

The advantages include

• It differentiates and positions your business to stand out and stand up compared to your competitors. 
• It is difficult for competitors to attack, 
• It is a powerful community-building asset by telling a bigger story than just your products and services, with your business’s values and purpose at its core.
• It helps power businesses to improve staff retention and attraction – businesses with a purpose and cause have less difficulty finding the best, 

A strategic narrative – is your business’s corporate strategy to win more – turned into action. 

McKinsey’s global research explains further how to win more. 

• Omni-channel buying: (multiple social media and other channels) no matter their industry, country, size or buyer relationship stage – there are now no exceptions – every buyer wants more digital omnichannel buying opportunities, 

• Omni-channel selling: is now a 15-plus ( for some businesses 25 plus) channel world – email, in-person, social media outreach, website, landing pages, zoom, organic and paid social media, sales chatbot, Google search, PPC, mobility marketing, and Apps, to name just a few. 

• More Omni-channels = more sales – there are no exceptions. 

We now live in a Social Selling economy. Every industry is changing: it’s a global phenomenon.

Today

• new revenue acquisition can be complex,
• it is no longer simply adding more paid advertising,

How is your business breaking free and winning more growth? 

Regards 

David