Thoranna

Why, Oh Why, Oh Why?

Why, oh why, do you do what you do? Have you ever asked yourself? I believe that there are better and worthier reasons for running a business than just making money. You can call me naive, but that’s the way it is. The fact is also, that businesses that stand for something more than just making money – well, they tend to make more money!

In her book, Passion Brands: Why Some Brands Are Just Gotta Have, Drive All Night For, and Tell All Your Friends About, Kate Newlin talks about what it is that makes people love certain brands. And loved brands have loyal customers that will not go elsewhere, but not only that, they spread the message and thereby create more business. It is clear from the book and its underlying research that the businesses that stand for something, have clear values and share those values and their outlook on life with their customers, those businesses reap the rewards of customer loyalty and better business.

That does not mean you can just slap something on to use for marketing. If you decide, for example, to promote the value of environmentalism, it is not enough to put one recycling bin out back and leave it at that. You need to take those values to heart, take them all the way and make them permeate everything the business does. Whitewashing won’t work. This is why it is better to actually find what matters to you, your employees and your customers and then build on that. I have a few favourite brands that have very strong values. Many of them do this really well. They may not be perfect – no one is – but they do this well. [Read more…]

What Businesses Can Learn From My Son’s Kindergarten

We have been very lucky in that both our children have attended a local kindergarten which we have all been very very happy with.This particular kindergarten has been widely discussed in Iceland, as it has a strong philosophy. Not that I am going to discuss that here in any detail, but a few of the things they do are things that businesses can learn a lot from when it comes to customer experience.

One of the criticism it has is that it is very organised. Everything is marked. The children sit in specific marked places on the floor in the main room during various activities and they have marked places in the hallway where they wait when going on field trips and such. Each and every item and piece of furniture is marked with the color of each group, and the places and spaces for things are marked with those colors in cupboards, shelves and drawers. The thing that most people notice is that the floor is marked with arrows which indicates where the children should walk – right hand traffic like in the streets :)

This has never been a problem for me, and is definitely not as strict as it sounds. When the thinking behind it was explained to me, I actually thought it was great. When a small child comes into a big, strange, new place like kindergarten, where there are a lot of other children and loads of new grownups, it must be quite scary. A strange, large new world. If they don’t immediately get a feeling of belonging in that place, and knowing where they fit in, little people can easily get very insecure.

By making sure that they have their own space, they know that they have a place in this world, and that they won’t get lost or left out. By marking all items and furniture, things don’t get lost, the children learn that there is a place for everything and everything in its place and it teaches them to respect things – and tidy up :) Overall, all these things help make a large and complicated word a little bit more simple and a little bit more secure for little individuals who are taking their first steps into that a big new world where one can easily feel scared and insecure.

So what has any of this got to do with business? Well, I’ll tell you. [Read more…]

I Have Been Reminded

In autumn 2013 I had been travelling a lot around Iceland, speaking and lecturing. As I wrote this, I was in the Westman Islands, north of the Icelandic mainland, unable to get to the mainland for an extra night because of a storm and some really really high waves.

As part of my travels, I have had to book accommodation, and as with so many of us, my first place to look is online. This search of mine has reminded me of some very important things when it comes to marketing. Both dos and don’ts. In particular, I was reminded of these three: [Read more…]

Sorry, I Can’t Help You…

At certain times of year I always get a few phone calls and emails from panicking people, asking me to help them market their product or service. This is often just before the Christmas holidays. This does not just happen in November, it even happens in December! So I am going to write this blog post to enlighten you, and for me to link next time I need to respond to such an email :)

My answer is simple: “Sorry, I can’t help you”. There is no magic marketing potion that works in just a few days or weeks. If you have not been taking care of your marketing until now, a burst of activity just before the holidays is not going to make much of a difference. To add to the fact that marketing takes time, you are also trying to get people’s attention at a time where everybody is shouting at them to buy this or that and the noise is deafening. [Read more…]

I Love Pablo!

Once I went into a shop to look for snow pants for my daughter. As I came in there was no one in the store. In a little while a man comes out and when I ask him whether he has any snow pants for a 9-year-old girl he points absentmindedly in to a corner and says; “if we have them, they are over there”. He then took up a newspaper and started reading! I didn’t find any snow pants, and if I had, a don’t think I would have bought them. Why should I? I got zero service.

Then recently I went shopping at Wrentham Outlet just outside Boston. Like many women I know, I hate buying jeans. I love my jeans, use them a lot, but hate trying them on. But as I was in the land of the blue jeans, and there was a huge Levi’s store with great deals, I figured I’d undertake the torture of jeans shopping.

I entered the store with my heart thumping and anxiety levels spiking. Confused I scanned shelves after shelves of jeans and tried to tell myself it would be all right. [Read more…]