Answer these five questions now to make sure you build a storytelling budget that can withstand the changes you are most likely to face.
Read MoreThink back to a business or networking event you were at in the last few weeks. Maybe even a family gathering or standing in line at the store. Someone likely asked you, “What do you do?” Think hard--what was the expression on the listener’s face as you started to explain? If it was rapt attention and excitement, congratulations, your story is amazing. If it was confusion, boredom or irritation, you story needs work.
Read MoreCounter-intuitive though it may be, more is not better. Harvard Business Review reported on one study that demonstrated this paradox beautifully. Researchers presented shoppers at a store with two variations of a sample table: first, they offered a display table with 24 gourmet jams to try and a $1 discount coupon to buy one of the jams.
Read MoreIf the way you communicate your story with customers leaves them flat, you may be lacking a brand voice. What can you do now to identify your brand voice and get it life in all your communications?
If your marketing sounds stilted, formal and generally so dull that even the most interested reader can’t get through it all, your brand voice may have gotten a bit, well, stifled along the way. It may be that you’ve never considered that your brand should have a voice. It may be that you learned somewhere along the way that all business communications should be formal and impersonal, or it doesn’t count as business. Whatever the real reason, it’s time to make some changes.
Read MoreLeading economists and CEOs such as Paul Polman, Mark Benioff and even Jack Welch, once a great proponent of the shareholder value focus, are increasingly vocal in insisting that shareholder return is important, but that it is the result of taking care of customers and employees first.
Read MoreIn the mad rush for really big data—the more of it, the better—we may risk losing sight of the most valuable part of business--people. I love data as much as the next person, and use it whenever I can. But a set of data points does not a real person make. I don’t love the idea of being visualized as a set of data points on someone’s dashboard. It’s a safe bet that you don’t, either.
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