This is a Linkedin post by Jesse Pujji. Jessi a serial entrepreneur that lives in the US. He has:
- Bootstrapped to an 8-figure exist with his previous startup, Ampush
- Is currently building GatewayX, a venture studio that he plans to bootstrap to $1B+
- Executive Chairman & Founder of GrowthAssistant.com
- ex-McKinsey Consultant
Guest Author: Jesse Pujji
You don’t need to be a master manipulator to get people to say “yes”.
I learned this the hard way my soph year when I interned on Wall St.
Yes. I was smart. But I had no idea how to influence people.
…Everything changed when I discovered the simple secret to getting anyone to do what I wanted:
At Goldman, every morning I’d ask the traders, “Does anyone want me to get coffee?”
But every morning, all the trader’s told me “no thanks.”
Then one morning, a mentor at the office pulled me aside and said: “nobody wants to be the reason you go out.”
Hmmm.
So the next day I switched to: “I’m going out for coffee. Anyone want one?”
I shit you not, I got requests for 10 coffees.
The lesson? If nobody’s buying WHAT you’re selling, try changing HOW you’re offering it.
This got me thinking of a few notable examples of successful brand positioning reframes:
1. 𝐎𝐥𝐝 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐞
In the early 2000’s, it was an old man’s brand.
Then, the company put quirky videos on social media and became the unconventional brand that only younger people understood.
Sales skyrocketed.
2. 𝐕𝐖
In the 1950s, the Volkswagen Beetle couldn’t compete with muscle cars.
So to stand out, the company intentionally called itself small, using “Think Small” as it’s slogan on ad campaigns.
By focusing on the counterculture market, it increased US sales and made the VW Beetle the icon it is today.
3. 𝐃𝐨𝐯𝐞
In 2004, Dove noticed a widening gap between women’s perception of beauty and what was portrayed in mass-market advertising.
To jump on the opportunity, they launched their “Real Beauty” campaign to promote a positive body-image to its customers
It worked.
Even though the product was the same, simply reframing it around a dif standard of beauty helped increase Dove’s sales from $2.5 billion to $4 billion in the decade following the campaign’s launch.
My intern days are over, but I’ll never forget that vital lesson: it’s not always the product that needs to change… it’s how you present it.
