Adam Fairhead
No, I don’t mean the kind we’re all used to receiving.
Beyond the pushy peddling of wares we don’t need.
Beyond “Hello Mr. Prospect.”
What is a value-based, help-people-move-forward, “I’m so glad you called” type of sales call, really?
In our teams, we’ve found that it’s the asking of (and helping find answers to) four questions:
#1: Where do you want to go? If you don’t know where you want to go, you can’t get there. If we don’t know...
Adam Fairhead
Ever watched a performance of ‘Tui shou’?
You’ll find a video of two individuals practicing “push hands” tai chi, moving slowly in response to the actions of each other.
Those actions aren’t forceful, combative reactions designed to overpower an opponent. They’re complimentary, harmonising responses designed to guide a participant.
What a beautiful metaphor for marketing.
Marketing activities shouldn’t be about forceful reactions to user behaviour. Businesses and individuals engaged in marketing practices aren’t engaged in combat, yet most marketing vernacular...
Adam Fairhead
Apparently, Warren Buffett’s favorite investment holding period is “forever.”
Does that make him patient, or stubborn?
Forever could be patiently waiting, or stubbornly holding. See what he did recently…
He sold all $7 billion of his airline stocks earlier this year, based on only a short period of new data.
Does that make him patient, or stubborn?
Stubbornness would cling to the investment because “forever is my favorite”. Patience would advocate playing the long game, even if the long game...
Adam Fairhead
How you write down your ideas matters:
If you capture ideas in Word, they will receive the structure and rigidity of straight lines and font selection, possibly before the idea is fully formed. The polish you gain dampens divergent thinking and idea development.
If you capture ideas on paper, they will receive the fluidity and flexibility of analog, no fonts or straight lines to worry about. But from total freedom comes the opportunity to leave ideas in low fidelity, never...
Adam Fairhead
What (or who) is at the center of your business?
A meaningful marketing message does not have you at the center. Your team inhabits just a part of a much larger narrative. With the customer at the center and their narrative as your new world, messages become more profound.
A meaningful product or service does not have you at the center. Your customers have more problems than you could possibly solve alone. So don’t solve them alone. Be it a...
Adam Fairhead
When everything else is equal, he who connects best with a great message wins.
When your competitors run great ads too, your connection with your audience through a great message is what makes the difference.
When your competitors have a fancy website too, your connection with your audience through a great message is what makes the difference.
When your competitors have a strong salesforce too, your connection with your audience through a great message is what makes the difference.
If...
Adam Fairhead
Should we ask our target audience what keeps them up at night?
It depends:
If they’re clear on all the problems present in their world, asking them draws us a straight-line between what they need and what we can deliver for them.
But who’s clear on all the problems present in their world, really?
Most of the time, we can ask but listen to the answers they’re unable to provide.
In doing so, we can tell their peers not only...
Adam Fairhead
Create, serve, make a difference. But don’t forget to protect the creator along the way:
Make great products, but once they’re great, what is left of you? Protect the creator by not burning yourself to a crisp in the heat of the “hustle”.
Give what you can to those you serve, but once their problems are solved, how do yours look? Protect the creator by not creating more problems than you solve.
Try to change the world, but once it’s...
Adam Fairhead
Most complex things are just lots of much simpler things, put together.
If the complex challenge standing before you were to be broken down into just 5 steps, what would they be?
Perhaps one of those steps is to simply decide to not over-complicate this.
Or perhaps one of those steps is to give it to someone with experience in solving that problem (or to find 3 people who could and pick 1).
Maybe one of the steps is to...
Adam Fairhead
…And you didn’t even realize it.
You don’t remember anymore, not like you used to. You used to remember information and when someone asked where you learned it, you would struggle to recall where it came from. The information was what was important, not the source.
We bookmark more, now. Bookmarks are more valuable than information, because knowing where to get the information is more valuable when the information is abundant and always in our pockets.
And so our brains...
Adam Fairhead
Does marketing create anxiety in you or your team?
Don’t compromise, add value:
“Cost of living is high in our area” – that’s not a problem you get to pass on to your potential customers. Don’t compromise, add value.
“Everyone else is selling more” – that’s based on perception, not reality, don’t compromise your consultative sales decisions because of it. Add value.
“We have a quota” – not the problem of those on the other end of the phone. Don’t...
Adam Fairhead
Meet Mr. Phone.
A marvel in technology, really.
This guy is more powerful than a space rocket.
More connected than the president was 20 years ago.
He’s your primary device, your frequent focus, and one of your biggest technological investments.
What does he actually get used for?
Looking at photos of what strangers on IG are eating for lunch.
As a doer and creator of meaningful work, what could YOU use Mr. Phone for if you remembered it’s a presidential...
Adam Fairhead
The way we define the problem informs how we approach its resolution:
“I have a sales problem”: Do you? Is it only objection isolation and motivating closes that is holding you back, or could it be the offer, value you bring or the connection you form (or don’t form) that is influencing your sales performance?
“I have a conversions problem”: Do you? Is it only progression point targeting and bucket testing that you require in order to solve this, or...
Adam Fairhead
Sometimes, people change their minds because of your product.
When you reveal a better way and the concerns of your market pale in comparison to the status or desire or transformation it produces, cults emerge. Think about the computer or phone you use, for instance.
But more often, people don’t change their minds because of your product.
More often, they know where they want to go and simply need a (new? better? any?) way of getting there. Where achieving that...
Adam Fairhead
“Follow these 14 steps to become rich”
“Use this secret Facebook hack to triple your results” Seen these marketing messages before, right?
There’s a reason for that:
The feeling of ‘order’ they provide is intoxicating. For every human brain out there. Little do many know that the pursuit for complete and eternal order in their marketing is what plummets businesses into chaos.
The reality is that the world doesn’t behave like that. We ride along in a small...
Adam Fairhead
Marketing can seem like a mysterious thing.
Things don’t work, until they do… and then they work, until you stop working them.
Good news! You can make it less mysterious:
#1: Stop treating it as mysterious. Doing so creates the wrong mindset, one banking on the wheel of fortune rather than on the wisdom born of a focused pursuit of those you wish to serve.
#2: Stop making it about you. See #1.
It’s only mysterious when you focus on...
Adam Fairhead
Products products products.
Lifestyle lifestyle lifestyle.
Offers offers offers.
Scroll through most social media feeds, this is what we see.
Where did all the humans go?
We want to see you. The real you, what you believe in that we believe in too. What you’re for (and against) that we can get behind.
We want to see ourselves. The real us, showing us that you’ve done your homework. What we’re faced with and where we’re going, that you can help...
Adam Fairhead
Social distancing is an interesting opportunity for people doing meaningful work…on location.
Many conversations sprung up online asking what to do, such as this one where an individual has a partner who may have contracted COVID:
“We’re booked 9 days out with jobs, do I just cancel/reschedule all these if I’m positive? Not sure what to do in this situation.”
We can use opportunities like these to benefit short-term or long-term, but not both.
Which narrative do we...
Adam Fairhead
When we (really) move our work from Product-focused to Customer-focused, we go through massive “IDK” (“I don’t know”).
We don’t know what to do, for a moment. Because our product and marketing roadmaps were based entirely upon what we want to do, what we want to achieve.
We don’t know what to feel, for a moment. Because our affections had been with our work, our craft, our vision for ourselves… rather than our audience, their needs, and their vision for...
Adam Fairhead
“Go broad and serve everyone, they all need you!”
No, they don’t.
Not if you’re going to miss the vastness of their world, and how intricate each part of it is.
When we go for everyone, it’s like judging a state by its interstate.
For example, our creative team does a lot with legal businesses. What they need is different to what healthcare companies need, so the services, offers and goals all differ massively. Furthermore, not all legal...
Adam Fairhead
Do you test things in your marketing?
Be careful:
Everything you say and test is your brand. Whether it succeeds or fails, some of us will remember you by what you said when you tried out that new thing.
Marketing testing isn’t for finding a better version of your future self, but to find a better way of connecting with your people.
It’s a conversation, one where you hand your best customers a cup of tea and ask, “So tell...
Adam Fairhead
Meet The Narrator.
The Narrator is one of the voices inside the heads of a very select few entrepreneurs, business leaders, and marketers.
He’s the voice that advocates for those you wish to serve, employing tactics and techniques designed to realign everything you do toward their world.
He dissuades us all from falling in love with ebooks and up-sells, instead advocating that those same affections be directed toward our people, so we can understand and serve them better.
Hearing this...
Adam Fairhead
Meet Mort.
Mort’s one of the voices inside the minds of many digital marketers and self-proclaimed internet millionaires.
He’s the voice that advocates following all the “best practices” and dark patterns available in the digital marketing toolkit, never missing an opportunity...
Adam Fairhead
We all have them: mental modals are shortcuts we design for prompt, patterned reasoning.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff challenges our mental models by asserting we should look for reliability and validity:
“When it comes to mental models, questioning the validity of a mental model is equivalent to asking yourself: is this the right mental model for the situation? There are many mental models, and it may be that you apply the margin of safety mental model, when really you...
Adam Fairhead
Great products don’t seem to require a silver tongue to sell, do they?
Their value is clearly understood by their target market. Perhaps the product is obviously superior from first glance. Rarely is this the case.
More often, the product designer has spent time getting to know those the product was designed for, learned of their pains, solved them, then told them about it.
The connection between problem and solution has no space between them. Isn’t this what makes a...
Adam Fairhead
Try learning things on a “need to learn” basis.
When you “need to** know”, you probably don’t need to know, do you? You just **want to know.
But what does the knowing amount to?
You’ll have to learn how to apply it as soon as you know it, so might as well learn things on a need to learn basis instead.
That saves you from the wasted hours or evenings “researching” things that don’t impact the week. Or “preparing” for...
Adam Fairhead
If you understand it, you can draw it.
Your idea. What does it look like? If you can’t draw it, you don’t get understand it. Until it can take form, you can’t shape that form into anything.
Your product development. What does it look like? When our team worked on defining narrative structures to help brands connect with their audiences, the work wasn’t done until it could be drawn, simply and plainly.
Your vision for the future of your work....
Adam Fairhead
No, it’s not annoying, if done correctly:
If you didn’t message your spouse again that one time after you first met, perhaps you’d never have gotten together.
If you didn’t call your sales prospect again that time after you’d sent them an email full of lovely goodies, perhaps they’d never have been able to benefit from your gift.
If you didn’t offer to solve that problem for that person or company even though they hadn’t asked, perhaps they’d still have...
Adam Fairhead
For businesses that run primarily online, there is no pandemic.
Do you run online advertising? More people are online…
Do you send direct mail? Everyone’s at home near their mailbox, likely able to answer the door to the mailman…
Do you sell products or services? People probably have more time to hear you out than usual…
People are scared of what the future holds, but they always have been…
The pandemic is mental, for businesses doing meaningful work. The cure...
Adam Fairhead
It’s rare, dignified marketing.
“Buy this course to change your life instantly” is a fib, isn’t it. Buying courses and attending webinars does not create progress. Helping people makes progress. Helping people how they want to be helped makes even more.
“Learn how to create a $xxxx product that practically sells itself” is destined for failure. Starting with your desires – when your desires aren’t aligned with your market’s – leads only to tears.
Morally bankrupt pursuits of other people’s...
Adam Fairhead
It’s not cold email that’s the problem.
Or retargeting ads, or salespeople calling you on the phone, or direct mail in your postbox.
The problem is value-less, care-less, self-absorbed nature by which these channels are utilised by the vast majority of businesses.
The short-term solution is to cut off such activities, apply to DoNotCall lists, and throw all full-colour mail straight in the garbage. But it’s not a long-term solution, is it?
We love receiving gifts in the mail. We...
I create a newsletter called GrowthCandy. Each issue shares one idea to help build and spread your work, delivered as a short comic. Fast to read. Easy to apply. Hard to forget!