The Campaign
On Tuesday 16th July 2013 Thank you launched the #colesandwoolworths campaign.
If you haven’t seen their campaign video, watch it here.
Few businesses can really claim to be changing the world, especially ones as small as Thankyou. But I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone to dispute the fact that these guys truly are.
But wow, doesn’t the launch of Thankyou’s campaign just highlight two fundamental things that all small business owners must get:
1. Have a mission
Be determined to create a business that has a purpose and a mission bigger than you. Be clear on what that is before you go into business. If you haven’t found something that has touched, moved or inspired you into action, then keep looking until you do. Even if its merely the exploration of an ideology, philosophy or industry genre. Great, your mission is to explore that. Going into business purely for your own benefit — whether that be money, recognition or to solely create a better life for YOU — is so fraught with danger. Seriously, ask yourself, why are you in business (and be brutally honest)? Lost for words? Does it ultimately boil down to YOU? I’m gonna put it out there: If it isn’t crystal clear in your own mind you will survive at best but you will never thrive. At the heart of any successful campaign is a cause. At the heart of any great businesses is a mission. Find yours and it will be like watching a snowball gather momentum and mass as it rolls down a hill. That’s an exciting and energising thing to see unfold. Whatever happens, you don’t want to find yourself pushing s#!t up hill. That’s just hard work…
2. Run regular campaigns
When you’re not running a campaign, plan a campaign. When you’re not planning a campaign, think about your next campaign. Do you regularly talk about campaigns with customers, prospects, partners, suppliers and your team? When someone asks you how business is going, do you find yourself talking about your current or upcoming campaign? Do you even language it as a campaign? If not, then you must. Campaigns are the lifeblood of a small business (or any business for that matter). Yet most small business owners don’t look at their business as a campaign vehicle that takes the product they’ve created out to market. They’re too focused on the product itself and miss the point of what a business is designed to do. Create a product without the campaign and you have a hobby at best. Create a product with strong campaigns wrapped around it and now you have a thriving business.
Why do most small business owners struggle with the concept that their business is actually a campaign vehicle not a marketable product alone? Because generally speaking, most small business owners are weak (skill wise) in sales and marketing. This is particularly true for service-based small business owners. They start their business because they have a talent or a particular skill which delivers a lot of value to people. They then seek to commercialise that talent or skill but often fall down when it comes to making money from it. Why? Because they lack the skills and experience required to market and sell that talent (they typically got to where they are by honing the talent, not honing the skill of selling and marketing that talent — this is why university degrees are largely useless, they’re too focused on the talent itself rather than selling and marketing that talent to the world). If you think its all about the product (or the talent) then you’ve missed the point. You can have the best product or the best talent but you will always lose to an inferior product or inferior talent that is out-marketed and out-sold by your competitor.
