Win or die
Content is king
When you hear the name Michelin, what do you think of? Tyres, or guidebooks? The same company produces both of course, and the relationship between the two is fascinating. The guide originated as a piece of content marketing to stimulate demand for tyres.
In 1900 there were only 3000 cars on the (terrible) French roads, and brothers Andre and Edouard Michelin wanted their owners to buy more tyres. So, they wrote a guide, demystifying for motorists the complex and confusing amenities they would encounter.
By the 1930s they were sophisticated enough to not just charge for the guide, but rate restaurants explicitly with (tyre-wearing) driving in mind. 3 stars represented ‘exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey’, 2 stars ‘excellent cooking, worth a detour’ and 1 star, ‘a very good restaurant in its category’. (There are, in 2021, just 135 of the most coveted 3-star restaurants, with almost half in France and Japan alone).
The guide was a moment of content marketing brilliance, because Michelin succeeded in creating a very durable halo association for a mundane product (tyres), while providing genuinely useful information for their customers who needed a simplified way of understanding road facilities, which were highly opaque and variable.
A more contemporary example of using content marketing to build customer literacy is US insurer, policygenius.com, which overtly seeks to educate the public on insurance, as a pathway to selling it. Similarly, in my own area of work, palliative care providers that I work with are actively engaged in demystifying the journey through — and beyond — a serious illness, which often (but not always) ends with a person’s death.
Question: What don’t your customers understand, which if they did, would increase uptake of your products or services?
Radical honesty
Here in Melbourne, we’re locked down (again). Hopefully briefly, but once more it’s created challenges that many I speak to experience: getting work done while home-schooling, changing priorities on the hop with customers or clients, the endless rescheduling and asking, “Will we postpone, or go digital?”, and the isolation and solitude.
In my family, we’ve had tears (yes, mine too), over some of the above. And, the frustration has led us to have some radically honest conversations. About our experience. About our expectations. And, about what we ask of each other. It hasn’t always been easy but, when we’ve done it (imperfectly, I might add), it’s been very worthwhile.
I notice the same in organisations I work with. Those doing well in these difficult times have developed ways of communicating honestly. Their leaders speak openly, and authentically, about their vulnerabilities and disappointments, their desire to control and their fear they can’t, their admission of mistakes and failures, and their frustration of simply ‘not knowing’. Of course, they’re still getting on with business and, for those who practice radical honesty, they’re getting on better than most.
Question: What is hardest for your colleagues to speak about?
Win or die
This week, I read an interesting answer to a simple historical question: “Why did the USA lose the Vietnam War?” Here’s what Western Australian, John Fenn, replied on Quora:
“According to General Giap, the Vietnamese military leader, the US lost mainly because of one thing. They let their people go home after a year of duty. As soon as an American soldier became competent and experienced he was sent home and replaced by an inexperienced man. Not only that, they really only got 9 months good service out of a man, because for the first few weeks he was learning the ropes and in the last months he was hiding from danger.
General Giap said if the Americans had told their people that they were going to stay in the country until they either won, or they were dead, there was not much the Viet Kong could have done to win.”
When Võ Nguyên Giáp died in 2013 at the age of 102 he was renowned as one of the 20th century’s greatest military strategists.
Question: What ‘no choice but to win’ scenarios can you set up to ensure your people aren’t unconsciously given an option to fail?
Please quickly click the ‘heart’ to let me know you’ve enjoyed reading this week.
For those in Victoria, I hope you are managing with what we’re now calling Lockdown #4, and are able to use even a smidge of radical honesty in your day-to-day life.
Have a good weekend and see you next Friday,
Andrew