If you own or run a business, or you do any marketing, you probably know how hard it can be to cut through and get attention in a competitive market.

So how do some companies get their market raving about their product or service?

Guy Kawasaki was the chief evangelist for Apple, back in the early days of the Apple Mac. He is chief evangelist for Canva.

Kawasaki knows a thing or two about cutting through the noise and creating a cult following for a product.

So what is the secret?

In his book The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, Kawasaki shares a strategy for breaking through.

Kawasaki said he learned that it’s easy to evangelise a great product – and hard to evangelise a bad one:

“I’ve tried to evangelize people with great stuff, and I’ve tried to evangelize people with crap.
Evangelism is much easier with great stuff.”

So, choose great products or services to promote. Kawasaki puts it this way:

“I call this ‘Guy’s Golden Touch.’ It doesn’t mean that whatever I touch turns to gold. I wish. It means, ‘Whatever is gold, Guy touches.'”

If the starting point is a great product, what does that look like?

For Kawasaki, that means find a product that is both:

• Differentiated in the market (it’s not just the same as what everyone else is doing)
• Valuable (it delivers a real and valued value proposition to an audience)

• If you have high differentiation in the market and high value, you are in the zone for cutting through and creating value – and evangelising to build a cult following.
• If you have high value and low differentiation you are in a competitive space – and it will be harder to cut through and to evangelise.
• If you have high differentiation and low low value to a market, it will be hard to sell – and perhaps it’s time to pivot to a new market focus where your differentiation can add greater value.
• If you have no value and no differentiation, it’s time to rethink the business.

The underlying principle here is:

• Being highly differentiated helps with marketing – you stand out more easily, there is less competition
• Being highly valuable helps with your sales – your value proposition is clear and compelling, and aligned to the buyers’ needs.

Put the two together, and you have a very compelling combo.

Put It To Work For Your Business

Whether or not you want to evangelise a product, this is a good strategic lens to keep in mind.

Let me know how you apply this – I’d love to hear your feedback!

About Me

I am passionate about activating human potential – helping make the world a better place.

I do what I can to improve the thinking and tools we have available in our industry and in the world.

I work with smart, creative leaders – transformation leaders such as coaches and consultants, thought leaders such as speakers and authors, and change agents and difference-makers –  to help them make a bigger difference through their work.

I help these leaders sharpen their ideas and messages to cut through and be heard.

And I work with strategy so that have clarity, the right plan, and the right action steps to get to where they want to get to.

You can learn more about me from my home page www.lauchlanmackinnon.com 

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