What business are you really in?

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a keen photographer. When I was two years old, my parents had family portraits taken of us, by a professional photographer in his studio. As an active, exuberant child, I didn’t sit still or have the patience to wait for all the preparation for the portrait photos, so, to keep me occupied, the photographer gave me an empty Agfa film box. I used that box, to play as a photographer, pretending it was a camera. There is even a portrait of me with that box.

My very first job out of university, was with Agfa, working in their chemical research division on the development of new instant photographic material for the home darkroom. To say that this was my dream job at the time would be a massive understatement! For a little while, things were wonderful. The work was interesting, challenging, fascinating and rewarding. And then, came the Sony Mavica – the first consumer digital camera, which was launched to the public market.

In this episode, I want to explore the concept of our dream customer’s transformation some more, and I’ll share with you my story that truly depicts the importance of knowing what business you are in and what transformational marketing really is about. 

Do you truly understand what business you are in? What’s the bridge or the vehicle you provide to take your customer from their before state to their desired after state? Do you know exactly what the before state and after state of your dream customer is?

Listen to the podcast to learn more. 

Listen to the Podcast

Show Notes – The Bridge: Getting Your Customer from their Before State to their After State

• Understand what business you are really in and the transformation you are enabling for your customers.
• Focus on the customer experience rather than the product. Focus on improving your customer’s experience rather than your existing products.
• People don’t buy products or services. They buy the transformation (hence, the name Transformational Marketing). They buy the desired outcomes, and your product or service is the bridge or vehicle to that desired outcome.
• Focus on the transformation and keep looking out for the best ways you can enable your customers to achieve their desired result. 

Think about that principle of business – people buy transformations – and how it applies to your own business. What business are you really in? What’s the bridge or the vehicle you provide to take your customer from their before state to their desired after state? Are there other, maybe better bridges or vehicles?

2-year old me with my film box

My mission is to do Good Marketing, to make marketing Human, to make marketing a FORCE for GOOD – characterized by service, empathy, transparency and to make a meaningful difference to the people we care about AND to their customers too

Thank you for coming on this journey of Marketing Transformation with me. Let’s make marketing human again.

Resources

• Tales of Marketing Transformation Facebook Group – Join the Community here (Free but Priceless!)
• The InnovaBuzz Podcast – our other podcast on Innovation and Marketing, with awesome guests each week.

Listen to the Podcast