The biggest things start small

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The summer in between my senior year of college and my first year of “grown-up” life I read Atlas Shrugged. It inspired me to not settle – to go after the big dreams – to hear the words “that can not be done” and have the only thing that I think be “Oh hell yes, watch me”.

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Months ago Adam and I were taking a meeting while going for a run on the river in Rochester – working for yourself means you’re always working and you get to pick from where (which is why my toes are buried in sand right now) – any way,  we see these huge buildings abandoned and I stare at them and I think “I want to build something like that” or “I want to transform those spaces into something amazing”.  It just seems so huge – so big – so improbable.

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I look at the work that George Eastman did – the empire he created and how the politics of big business eroded his vision and I think there must be a better way.

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This weekend I stood among the redwoods in Muir Woods – I was in awe. Trees always bring me great perspective.  Hundreds of feet tall, some over a thousand years old and they all have one thing in common – they started small.  The size of a tomato seed to be exact.  Is that not just an amazing wonderful thought to hold on to?

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I struck up a conversation with the person next to me at a coffee shop yesterday and they asked me a little bit about what I do and I was telling them about how I loved the big businesses that I get to work with but my passion was really working with the one man shops and the not-for-profits pushing forward their dream because they have the most potential, the most drive and the biggest things start small….because everything does.

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Sometimes I feel small – that my impact is minor – but this weekend, with the rush of the breeze from these wise trees around me, I was reminded that it isn’t about how small we are when we start – it’s about how we grow.

How In-N-Out Burger Gets it Perfect

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I’m in California for a couple of weeks – it’s a working vacation full of awesome and after 4 days I can tell you that this is exactly what I needed. I feel like I was an old iPhone – never really getting to 100% charged for a little bit there. I would get 80% charged at different points but we were never fully juiced.  I can tell you that right now that I am so juiced you couldn’t stop me even if it was your sole mission in life.  Speaking of Mission – Santa Barbara, CA is absolutely amazing. If it’s not on your list you stop right now and go write it down.

Yesterday as I was driving from San Francisco to Santa Barbara the natural stop for lunch was In-N-Out Burger.  If you have never been to In-N-Out you can go check out their site and their NOT secret menu.  The chain is famous for having an extremely devoted cult-like following  and lines around the block when a new location opens. How is In-N-Out nailing it….

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  1. They don’t over-complicate things.  They recognize that what they do best is burgers with cheese and french fries.  They have a couple of variations but their menu does not change – they just do what they do and they do it well.
  2. In-N-Out then goes on and says “we like onions – but we get not everyone does” – so they explicitly call that out. The lesson here is that you should do what you do best but LISTEN to what people want and offer an option that gives that to them.
  3. In-N-Out tells you their WHY. When they deliver to you you can read WHY things are important to them – they give you the behind the scenes of WHY they pull apart the lettuce themselves – WHY they slice the tomatoes fresh – How they do things matters – so they tell you.

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Bottom line – keep it simple. Do what you do, do it well while tailoring it as much as you can to your customers. Finally,  make your WHY apparent to your customers, explicitly or otherwise, and they will reward you for it.

We Read Stuff That Will Help You

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We like to stay informed here in Capra-land, so we read stuff. A lot. It’s a nice thing about the internet, you know, tons of information at your beck and call. Some of it is even quite good. Here’s a selection of what we’ve been reading over the past week.

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  1. Winners and Losers: Online Reputation Management Trends, Forbes.com: Discusses what some major corporations are doing to manage their brands online, and gives great examples of what is working and what is not.
  2. 2 Sentences that Engage Customers, Inc.com: Cuts to the chase in discussing the best ways to directly address your customers to tell them what you do and why you do it.
  3. Overcoming the Impossibility of Amazing, Seth Godin: The important thing when addressing any challenge is to start. If you set the starting bar at “amazing,” you may never get out of the starting blocks

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We read this stuff all the time. If you want to follow what we’re reading, check out our reading list at caprastrategy.tumblr.com.

 

Client Spotlight: Heather Saffer of The Dollop Book of Frosting and HeatherSaffer.com

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Hi there.  It’s Cass.  I note that because I use a whole lot of I here and we tend to be a “we” company but this is an I thing. 

A couple of years ago I met this chick and upon meeting her I thought: This girl is a FORCE of nature.

She was running a great (no, not just great:  AMAZING) cupcake shop in our new hometown. We met through Adam (I love how small the world is) and before I knew it I was sitting next to Heather at the screening of her big win on The Food Networks Cupcake Wars.

In the months after the win Heather felt that thing that you feel when you’ve given something all you’ve got and you want more.  There were hours spent strategizing thinking about what the right next move was.

And then Heather took some time to marinate.  (this is always a good idea – marinate a bit,  you’ll know when you’re ready to make the move)

Fast forward to a few months ago Heather and I are talking over coffee and she says: I need a new site. I need to reinvent what I’m doing so it feels like ME. I just want to be ME online and get paid for it.  And you know what?  That’s exactly what we did.

In scope for this project was a complete redesign – consolidation of a whole lot of different brands – editorial planning for the next three months (including video) as she prepares to see her incredible frostings in print (you can go pre-order her book The Dollop Book of Frosting: Sweet and Savory Icings, Spreads, Meringues, and Ganaches for Dessert and Beyond today on Amazon – you will not regret this decision) and figuring out a monetization plan for her site that worked for her life.

My favorite parts about the site: It is so Heather that I feel that same feeling of: This chick is a force of nature from being on the site.  On top of that we integrated social COMPLETELY because Heather lives and breathes in the social space and they love her there.

Check the full site out here: heathersaffer.com

 

 

What Do Fish, Mice and Your Customers Have In Common?

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Could be anything, right? Sometimes it’s hard to get a handle on your customers – they can be slippery like a fish. They often do things you don’t expect – they’re sneaky like mice. But what are you really trying to do with each of these three things? That’s right, you’re trying to catch them. To lure them in. And how do you do that?

With bait.

Some fish like worms, some like minnows and some just chase shiny things. Some mice like cheese, others like peanut butter and some are too smart for any of that. Customers are the same way. The real problem is finding the perfect bait. You have to think of what’s REALLY going to motivate your customer to visit your page, sign up for your list or buy your product. Here are 2 things you should consider when trying to find the perfect bait:

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  • What is the customer’s alternative? If you’re a gym or fitness trainer, your competition is the free running trail or the $20 pull-up bar in the customer’s doorway at home. You’ll need to give them an incentive to give up their cheap option and get them hooked on your superior offering. Maybe a free or reduced price membership is the key. Once they’ve tried you, they’ll have to admit your service is worth the money.
  • What is most important in a customer’s decision? If you’re a photographer, there’s a good chance this is how amazing your photographs are. What you need are beautiful Instagram and Pinterest pages to catch the attention of all those wannabe photographers so they share your images far and wide and bring in potential new customers.

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Two weeks ago we talked a lot about content. Now that you have that content in place, it’s time to draw your customers to that content and make sure that they stick around for the really good stuff. And that starts with finding just the right bait.