The stories we tell

Do you remember buying your first car? The stories you told yourself about what was important about that first car? Did you want a red car (because they go faster)? Was it important to have a bull-bar (because you drive on a road with kangaroos)? What stories did you tell yourself about what was important?

Back in 1995, when I bought my first car, this purchase was heavily influenced by my Dad. He told me that the best cars were Japanese cars. The top three (in his view) were Toyota, Mazda and Subaru. Although I trusted my Dad’s judgement on what made a good car, I bought a Honda. I liked it’s sleek sporty two door look. It suited the image story I told myself. The salesman, sensing my doubts over Dad’s list, reassured me that the Honda was also built in Japan.

In my view, based purely on the upbringing from my Dad, Japanese cars were built better, would last longer and be more reliable. That story didn’t help me when the clutch failed on my (new to me) Japanese built car after the first two weeks of owning it.

Changing stories

I needed that car to get myself to my job and I had to sort it out. The car dealer had the opportunity to contribute to the next part of the story. They wouldn’t admit it was a warranty issue. They implied that because I was a ‘girl’ I probably didn’t know what a clutch was meant to feel like. I was 24 at the time (yes, a late bloomer as far as buying first cars go) and had been driving manual cars since I was 16 or earlier. I’d used a clutch or two in my time…

I had to fight long and hard for the dealer to fix the clutch under warranty. I was without a car for months, and I had to tackle an inconvenient public transport system. The whole experience changed everything for me. For a good long while the story I told myself was that used car dealers were sexist and that they sucked at customer service. (I have since worked in retail car sales and I know a lot of very decent, honest, caring people in that industry. I would never want to tar them with this story brush. Others, though, I would paint in high-vis fluoro to alert people to the danger lying therein – pardon the pun. But I digress…)

We all have frames

Red cars go faster ... or is that just a story we tell ourselves?

Maybe the story is not that we want a red car because it goes faster, but what it is that the red car says about us.

Perhaps we tell ourselves that a red car allows us to be perceived as unique.

Maybe what is important about the bull-bar is not only about the Kangaroos, but about how we feel that extra bit protected with an extra lump of metal between us and the car in front.

The stories we tell ourselves frame our existence. If our view is that ALL used car sales people are jerks, we’re unlikely to go and buy a used car from any of them. Some of us believe the story that says we’ll get a better deal if we buy a car privately. Others hold the belief that a vehicle purchased with warranty is always a better risk.

When it comes to how we do our marketing, it doesn’t matter whether you agree with the story I believe. It only matters that you believe that my story matters to me. That you have empathy for what my experience is. You may not agree with it. It may not be your experience. But that you say “I see your story. It’s not my story. I don’t believe what you believe. And that is OK.”

Which frame will you choose?

The way I see it, there are two options:

“I have this product/service to sell, I’ve worked very hard to make it, I have a lot invested in it. You should buy it.”

“I see you. I realise that you may be nervous about this. How can I help you move past that fear so that you can know what I know and experience what I experience?”

We can appear over-eager, or even desperate. It can feel like all that matters is making the sale. Or we can make the choice to be kind, supportive helpful people who are here to serve rather than just to make a buck. Very few of us don’t need to make a buck, but it’s our choice whether we do it in a way that lifts others.

To do that, we have to see the need – those deeper, more hidden underlying stories that people tell themselves. It means having empathy for their perspective and determining how best to help them, to make the choice to serve with empathy.

If we choose the right frame our approach changes. It moves from being one of desperation and entitlement to one founded in kindness and generosity. The world needs more of both of those things.

What stories do your customers want YOU to know?

PS. If your customer stories seem more like a mystery novel, give me a yell. I’d love to help you see your customers in a whole new way.

Don’t do what I do

In a group of similar people, it’s often tempting to ask others how they do things. It’s a comfort to feel a sense of ‘sameness’, knowing that we’re not alone. Surely if others have succeeded then we may be able to repeat their formula and do the same.

Some things are pretty straight forward: how to install a software package; how do I register a business; how do I set up an email address?

With marketing, each of our customer and client scenarios are unique, because our people who matter are unique. We are dealing with real humans. Everyone we deal with – from the CEO of a large company down to the work at home Mum trying to run a side-hustle – has worries, hopes, fears, memories, desires and needs.

Mathematically speaking

Let’s say you’re a maths tutor.

Your customers might be parents, between the ages of 30-50, above average income, two cars, a mortgage and children aged 9- 14.

All of that may be correct – and useful – if you’re doing some kind of demographic targeting. Psycho-graphics give us an alternative view on these people, so we have to ask different questions.

What matters to these people? What does it give them if their children improve or succeed? How does it improve or maintain their perceived status?

It might be that your customers care deeply about their children not falling behind in school. It may bring back memories for them about the failings of their own education. Alternatively, those parents may have been high achievers at school. It may be important for their own sense of status to ensure that their children have the same experience.

Whatever the stories that our clients/customers tell themselves, what matters is that we are helping them achieve what they want to achieve.

Marketers make change. We change people from one emotional state to another. We take people on a journey; we help them become the person they’ve dreamed of becoming, a little bit at a time.
THIS IS MARKETING – Seth Godin

If we frame our marketing this way, it becomes less about how our cohorts are doing it and more about finding the best way to connect with the people who seek the change we’re offering.

Not doing what I’m doing is what is needed

Don’t do what I do because it might work for you. Do the things that WILL help others become what they want to be*. With care and commitment it WILL work for you.

*Stay tuned – next week I’m going to delve into one of the most frequently asked questions… ‘what do people want’! Follow my Facebook page for more info.

If you want to get started on building the strategy that can reach and connect with your customers, get in touch here.

Better marketing – first things first!

Ignore the ghost of marketing past

If we want to do better marketing – marketing we can be proud of – first we have to recognise what it is, and what it isn’t.

In the past we’ve been led to believe that our marketing has to reach the maximum number of people. They’ll just have to see what we’re offering so that they’ll take it. If we tell (or sell) them enough features or benefits, they are bound to snap it up, right?

For some people, that’s true… it will be right for them and they may relate and sign up or purchase what we’re offering. That’s normally a pretty small number if we’re mass marketing though, because we’re yelling our message out at a whole lot of people who aren’t ‘our’ people. The effort (and expense) is wasted, and actually rather annoying, making people even less likely to engage with us in the future.

We can do better marketing than interrupting people when they are watching their favourite TV show. — The way we were: outdated, interruption style marketing.

I first studied marketing more than twenty years ago. The “Four Ps” – Product, Price, Promotion and Place – were everything. If those things were ticked off on our ‘marketing plan’ then we were sorted. We shoved our message in front of as many people as we could and hoped that if we annoyed enough people our sales and (more recently) our click-through rates would cover a multitude of sins.

We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto

Fortunately, in the era of technology and innovation we’re in, we don’t have to operate that way. With the resources we have, we are able to put our message in front of people we want to see it. More importantly, we can (and should) put it in front of the people who choose to see it.

If we continue to pursue the narrow definition of marketing we had in the past, we are relegating ourselves to the definition of crazy. You know the one “if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep getting what we’ve been getting”. Changing the flavour (or the tactic) used to annoy someone – no matter how new and shiny it is – will still annoy them. We’ll continue to be frustrated by our lack of results and have to live with marketing that we’re not proud of.

Marketing changes when we come to the realisation that we are here to serve others and to help them solve their problem (whatever that may be). To do that, we must know who they are, where to find them and then have their engagement and permission.

If we re-frame marketing starting with why we’re doing what we’re doing, it gives us a compass for what we do and how we do it. “Why am I providing the service that I am? Why am I selling what I’m selling?” What is it that truly drives you, gets you out of bed in the morning, or gets you the most fired up*?

If we know our ‘why’ and can define our ‘who’ then perhaps the new marketing mix starts with ‘Purpose’ followed closely by ‘People’ and what they give to us: ‘Permission’.

What’s it all about, Alfie?

Your purpose is to make an impact, you’re seeking to make change happen. It might be behavioural change (educating people to use less plastic, for example), it could be introducing a financial literacy curriculum into schools, or even changing the way a group interacts. That change might seem insignificant or it might be (literally) world changing, how big the change is doesn’t matter. Marketing is how that change can come about.

Marketing is the act of making change happen.
Seth Godin

If we want to do work we’re proud of, we have to understand the change we seek to make and find the people who want to take the journey with us.

Why, why, why…

If we really want to get back to ‘first things first’ then it’s about finding our reason why.

Before we can even start to think about marketing plans and reading the latest ‘how-to’ guides and getting our heads around what the next ‘quick fix’ of marketing is, we really have to understand the true reason we’re doing what we’re doing.

What is the change that you are seeking to make? Who can you help?

Helping passionate small business owners understand how to reach the people who need them and supporting those business owners to do better, more meaningful, ethical and welcome marketing, is mine.

What’s yours?

Write it down somewhere. Stick it up on your wall next to where you work. And please, if you would, let me know what it is – either here or on my Facebook page.

I’d love to know how I might support you to share your why.

*Simon Sinek explains this beautifully and simply in his “Starts with Why” TED Talk

12 months on

"This is marketing" bestselling book by Seth Godin — Seth Godin’s bestselling book, “THIS IS MARKETING” which was compiled based on the seminar I participated in. Feel so grateful to have been a part of it.

12 months ago, I commenced Seth Godin’s “The Marketing Seminar” and 120 or so days later, I finished it.

Except, that I didn’t really finish it… Getting to the end of the supplied content was somewhat aptly called ‘Commencement’ and there’s a good reason for that. It was just the beginning.

It was the start of me seeing things very differently. The most important thing for me to rediscover at the time was that marketing doesn’t have to suck the enthusiasm and life force out of you just to ‘make a buck’, and for me making a buck comes secondary to doing stuff that matters.

It doesn’t have to suck to make a buck.
Heather Smith

Although marketing is how I earn my living I felt like earning it was draining me of my will to live (metaphorically speaking, of course). Each day I felt less and less motivated to do it. I felt fake, insincere, and like I was doing things I really didn’t believe in (because, let’s face it, I probably was). My nasty inner voice kept saying to me “who am I to be telling people how to do this stuff “.

If people want to know, how can I NOT tell them?

The Marketing Seminar changed all that. I had several ‘ah ha’ moments during the seminar, one of which was about the true value of empathy (I’ll talk more on this another day – it’s several topics unto itself). The other most valuable insight was that I was doing people a disservice by NOT sharing what I know, and that by helping people do better marketing I can help them achieve their dreams. I’m not talking about airy fairy ‘buy more shit to fill up my house’ dreams. I mean the kind of dreams that change the world (even on a small scale) or even the kind of dreams that allow you to do your really fulfilling work for the people who need what you’re offering.

That nasty inner voice of mine is wrong, I’m the perfect person to share what I know with others who want to see their change happen. Not because I’m better than anyone else but because I want to help them know what I know. Finding out WHO you need to reach, what matters to those people and sharing your story with them is the way to see change happen.

And that is what marketing really is.

And I can help with that…

The only thing worse than starting something and failing, is not starting it in the first place.
Seth Godin

12 months on is better than never

So, it’s been 12 months since I did ‘The Marketing Seminar’ and this is where it starts, where the rubber hits the road. This is the first of (I hope) 52 blog posts for the year (and email communications if you’re on my email list) because it’s time for me (albeit 12 months late) to make a start on helping you reach the people you seek to serve.

But wait, there’s more…

Like the six free steak knives you never knew you needed, I’ve also got something to offer… I have a spare copy of “This is Marketing” by Seth Godin and I don’t need two of them.

Head on over to my Facebook page and tell me (in a comment on the post for this article) what your biggest frustration is with your marketing. I’ll post my spare copy to the person who I think it can help the most.

No comments to show.

Make it personal

To make a difference, make it personal…

If you want people to engage with what you’re sharing, build a connection to it.

If you’re sharing it, you are the connection.

So, if you’re connecting others to something (a story, a page, a cause, a fundraiser, a blog or a friend) tell them why you care enough to share.

If you don’t want to share your connection perhaps that’s an opportunity for reflection … why ARE you sharing it? Are you sharing out of obligation? Has sharing just become habitual? If you don’t want to be personally associated with it, why not? Why don’t you want to be connected to it? What has you feeling that you SHOULD share but you don’t want to commit your own words to it? Does it put you ‘on the hook’ for something, making you accountable? Perhaps it’s that you don’t really believe in it… The reasons are likely to be as unique as you are.

“Without strategy the content is just stuff, and the world has enough stuff.” *

Our strategy is our reason why… If we don’t have a reason for sharing something, should we? Isn’t the world already full of “stuff” … aren’t our news feeds and our emails already overfull with things we may not actually care about?

So, you’re saying Don’t Share?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not writing this to discourage you from sharing, I’m writing it to admonish you to make what you share meaningful in a trifecta of ways – to you, to the person you’re sharing for and to the rest of the world. Your personal connection may just be the difference between people scrolling on by or stopping to check it out.

If you’re not sure what to write when you’re sharing ask yourself: Why am I supporting this cause/friend/whatever? What is important to me about this? What is it about this thing I’m sharing that means something to me?

Chances are if it means something for you, it might also mean something significant for those who you are sharing with. Chances are people will care BECAUSE you care, and even if they don’t, that’s OK. It’s not for everyone.

Be generous. Make it personal.

I, for one, am always keen to know what’s important to you and why.

Heather x

PS. To clarify, I’m talking here about sharing other people’s posts, pages, causes etc, because I see so many of these pass me by without a note of explanation as to why people are sharing them. That said, it applies to whatever you write/post/share really… 🙂

*I’ve seen this quote attributed to many different people, and I don’t like using quotes without crediting the author, however I’ve not been able to pin down the true author. I’ve seen it credited to Arjun Basu, Seth Godin and others. I’ll thank each of them here.

Marketing is a marathon

One thing I know.

Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.

I was at the gym the other day – yeah, yeah, for those of you who know me … stop laughing now! I’m not a gym kind of person, but I’ve had one of those ‘awakenings’. You know the ones, where someone highly medically qualified told me I should lose some weight. Ouch! But whatever, the reality was, I knew it… I felt it… I was just stagnant (literally) and in denial about those clothes that must have shrunk in the wash! I was going nowhere but my clothing size was on the UP!

But I digress…

At the gym the other day, on my first day back after a good 4 weeks of relapse, and feeling like absolute sh*t, I saw THIS sign…

I realised that even if I only make it once a week (cos my life is hectic and the gym is a an hour round trip and therefore two hours out of my narrow child-free window) it’s better than what I was doing about my fitness before, which was a big fat hairy zero. Subsequently – unsurprisingly – it netted me exactly zero of my goals which I somehow magically wanted to have just happen without me lifting a finger, or a leg, or a weight.

Fitness is a marathon not a sprint (unfortunately I was always a sprinter in my younger days) and it’s going to take some time to get my head into the habit and my body out of bed when I don’t want to. But I will because a) I’ve just told all of you lot – eeek – and so I’m accountable and b) I need to do it. I have long term goals and these affect the rest of my life. This is serious, Mum! Bugger, bugger, someone forgot to Peter Pan me and keep me young forever!

Fitness and marketing – alike?

So this week it also became clear to me that marketing is also a marathon. I received an email from a friend, who was about to become a client. Paraphrasing her email, the gist was this:

“Our business has been very quiet since we spoke, so we’re not going to build our website now.”

This made me really sad, but I get it.

I SO totally get it.

It’s so HARD when cash flow is tight. It’s HARD when you’ve taken the MASSIVE leap of starting your own business and you don’t have a back up income any more. It’s SO difficult because sometimes even when your business has already established some regular income, doing something ‘extra’ means finding some ‘extra’, and finding ‘extra” means doing some more hard yards (mostly).

Chicken or Egg – what if it’s neither?

But then we get to marketing chicken and egg (to draw in another analogy).

You need some money to do some marketing. But you need the marketing to bring in the work to get some money.

It could go on forever, so it has to stop somewhere. There is no right or wrong, but what if it doesn’t have to be either. What if you just did something – rather than waiting for the ‘perfect’ website just build a ‘good enough’ one. Rather than relying on your money to pay for a website, why not try your own creativity instead and use some of the other talents you have… Like taking photos? How about Instagram? Like telling stories, start a Facebook page… Create a google listing… do something, but whatever you do, don’t give up on your dream.

Slow progress is better than no progress, right? A little bit done, is better than nothing, right?

This is not a sales pitch.

Now I don’t want to sound all sales-pitchy here – that’s not what prompted me to write this post. I’m not worried about the money for this job, I’m worried about my friend and the business she is running. This has truly made me sad. I want to help this special small business. We can do it. Slowly. Cost Effectively. Most importantly, we can do it together in a way that works for this particular business.

Like any good fitness plan – it starts with a plan. We need to have a conversation. We need to be open. Honest. Creative about how we might go about doing something new NOW even when finances are tight.

Whatever happens, please don’t stop everything… marketing IS a marathon, but if you’re sitting on the lounge waiting and hoping to lose weight – or waiting and hoping for leads, sales, bookings or whatever to turn up in your In Box – you’re going to miss the race.

Pete, Kate and I implore you… “Don’t give up!”

Onwords and upwords,

Heather x

Let’s start a conversation

Marketing - clock with stopping time quote Here’s another relevant quote/ analogy – attributed to many people, but based on my research, most likely to be Henry Ford. What does make me chuckle is it being attributed to Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States of America. I wonder what the advertising budgets and mediums were in the mid-late 1700s? 🙂

I digress – again – contact me!

What’s your point?

Finding your purpose (and so much more…)

In my past life I was once an auditor.

I know! That sounds just RIVETING, doesn’t it?

Recently I’ve had reason to be working with a colleague from those days, and it’s reminded me of some of the fun of being an auditor. One of the more tedious aspects – yet SO critical – is in the data quality control.

Because garbage in => garbage out.

So, when you’re getting your audit team together (regardless of what they are auditing) it’s SO critical for them to know the long term goal. Who is going to use the information you’re collecting? What is it going to be used for? How does it need to be used? What happens if they don’t get it right?

What's your purpose? Where are you headed?

What’s auditing got to do with … well, anything, really?*

The point is – yes, I’m getting to it -that everyone works better with a communicated purpose.

That includes me (as I sit here with a world of chaos on my desk, and a jumbled up list of things to do).

And you.

Now, I don’t begin to think that I know what it is that’s on your mind at the moment, but whatever it is, try asking yourself this:

What am I trying to achieve?

What do I need to be able to do with this when I’m finished?

Does thinking about those things change how you feel about what you’ve got to do?

Now, given that I’m clearly going to move this towards marketing, since that’s what I do… Let’s think about how that applies to key areas of marketing.

Feel free to answer the questions above in your head for these categories (just as a sample):

Website –
Advertising –
Public Relations –
Social Media –

No cop outs like “because I have to have one” for website – that won’t get you anywhere.

Sometimes if we REALLY think about what our goals are, we’ll realise that we’re not really in the game. That what we do on those things ISN’T actually achieving them.

A company whose blog I follow shut down their Facebook page, even though they had 38,000 followers. Seems odd, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t we all love to have that many followers?

The thing was they were spending a lot of money and time on Facebook trying to engage with customers, but it wasn’t getting them what they were aiming for. Whatever the reasons for that, and regardless of other paths they could have taken, their decision was to let their Facebook page go and invest in other more beneficial platforms. They evaluated their purpose for their page against the results, and realised that something had to give.

Knowing your purpose is the beginning – of everything really. Life, the Universe and Marketing.

Write when you know why you are writing.

Build when you understand what you’re building, and what it will be used for.

Create once you have a vision.

Find your purpose.

That’s the point.

From there, you know where you are going.

Happy travels.

Heather x

*No offence intended to anyone who is an Auditor – I’ve worked with plenty of them, and they are lovely people. They too, need purpose… 😉