If It Looks Like a Duck
I once worked with a client who wanted to launch a new product to their existing market. They had been aware for some time that the niche they were known for was drying up due to market conditions beyond their control. Wisely, they had taken steps to build a new product, but weren’t sure how to present it to customers. They called me in to help with a game plan.
With a 20+ year reputation doing work that is now obsolete, the business challenge was to leverage their reputation, while ensuring customers saw them in a new light, able to offer new solutions, rather than pigeon-holing them in the same old, out-of-date box.
As a business you don’t want to lose a strong reputation, but you can’t afford for people to continue to view you as the people who do X when you now do A. It’s a bit like relatives who continue sending kiddie toys for Christmas, because the last time they saw you, you were 8 years old. The picture they have in their mind no longer reflects reality. They need a new one.
In addition to proactively marketing, if the client was going to convince anyone they were different, they would need to embrace and clearly communicate the critical — notice I didn’t say huge — shift in the business. They needed to do something that would trigger customers into noticing them in a new light.
They needed to refresh how they presented the business, crank up the level of visual professionalism, revise the 20 year old logo (for a start). Consider it a “look like a duck, quack like a duck and people will realize you’re a duck” approach. You have to look and behave in a new way to be perceived in a new way.
Sadly, the client was locked onto their dated persona and couldn’t let go. They wanted to look and act the same, but tell people they were a different bird. And frankly, that just doesn’t fly.
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