By Clemens Rettich, on January 11th, 2012 
Thinking from the back of the envelope…
Sometimes It’s Not Enough to be Unique
Sometimes the value we offer just doesn’t match a need in our market or community. As the common wisdom once went, “There’s no selling coal in Newcastle.” They’ve already got lots, thank you!
We call that a market without white space. It’s all filled with lots of shapes and colours already, and doesn’t need any more.
It’s also a sponge. When a sponge is full, shy of wringing it out, nothing you can do is going to make room for more. Changing up your . . . → Read More: Find a New Sponge
By Clemens Rettich, on November 15th, 2011 
What are you selling?
If nothing, then you are not in business. If only commodities, then you won’t be in business for long.
“But wait,” you say “I am a service provider. I don’t sell commodities. So I guess I’m safe.”
Sorry. A service alone is still a commodity. In the brave new world of social business, anything is a commodity to the extent to which it is a) a transaction that consists only of the exchange of a good or service for money, and b) reproducible in every important way.
So a service which is repeated over . . . → Read More: The Social Market: Relationships, Stories, and Desire
By Clemens Rettich, on October 11th, 2011 
This morning, (October 11, 2011) IBM (TSX: IBM:US) released a valuable study into the pressures, stresses, and some successes of corporate Chief Marketing Officers trying to come to terms with the rapidly shifting ground-rules in their worlds.
IBM conducted face to face interviews with more than 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries and 19 industries. This study, entitled From Stretched to Strengthened is part of an ongoing work called the C-Suite research program, interviewing 15,000 CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CHROs and CSCOs.
Over the next few days I will be exploring different facets of the CMO study; it has . . . → Read More: 2011 IBM Study: What Keeps Your CMO Awake At Night?
By Clemens Rettich, on August 26th, 2011 
Meeting with the production team of a client this morning, we explored the implications of being a luxury brand, which this company is.
One of the points I made was that for luxury brands, the stories & the myths matter as much as the products themselves. The creative, labour-intensive process combined with the challenge of producing or sourcing extremely high-quality materials makes for a compelling story.
One of the team members commented that she was comfortable writing about the process on their blog, but felt that she needed to work hard to keep herself out of the story. “I . . . → Read More: It’s Your Story… Using Stories to Market Your Business
By Clemens Rettich, on January 29th, 2010
You spend considerable time and effort networking. You think you are doing it all right. You understand the 20/80 rule, and you focus your time and energies on the 20% of connections that get you 80% of your business. Your ‘elevator pitch’ has perfect pitch. You go to all the right functions to see and be seen.
But something’s not right.
Despite all your efforts, you just can’t quite seem to make those connections stick. You meet the right people and say the right things, but your book of business isn’t growing. Why?
Here are 11 things that . . . → Read More: Eleven Ways To Sabotage Your Own Networking
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