This One Strategy Tripled Sales at a Chocolate Shop. Here’s The Precise Checklist I Used to Turbocharge Their Business.

It was in the middle of my 40-year career.

Being a native New Yorker where I’d started my career, I’d had good success working on everything from branding and rebranding for Estée Lauder to Revlon to designing a cover of Rolling Stone (no joke) as well as the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

I’d even had lunch with Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, in his stunning 4-story-tall townhouse on the Upper East Side.

But I chose to focus on small-to-medium-sized companies because they are more nimble and I valued working directly with the owners, CEOs, and founders and bringing their vision to life.

I hate politics and games. That’s why I have no layers of folks between me and that person with the dream that I am helping.

I'm there to make one thing happen: make their vision come true and close the gap between today and what?should?be happening.

At that time, I had a new opportunity arise: rebranding a boutique chocolatier.

Their chocolates were, in a word,?amazing.

Their packaging on the other hand was, in a word, nightmarish. Being the last human in a Zombie apocalypse would have been a more welcoming alternative.

So, I looked at the problem.?

It was simple yet all too common (I discovered in years to come):

His strength (his talent as a chocolatier) fueled and blinded him to his weakness (as a business person and marketer).

He was so convinced of the superiority of his chocolates (rightfully so) that he made this crushing error: He figured anybody who loved remarkable chocolate would somehow find out about it through word of mouth or through some cosmic network (like cashing in on some karmic credits for goodness done in the past).

Fact: None of us “gets the good stuff we deserve.” We earn it. As much as it’s part of fables and Hollywood scripts, none of us is immune to the crap, the crumbs, the “WTF did I do to deserve this pile of dung?” stuff every now and then. And when you’re in business, you need to be prepared for the worst.

The simple truth is: We each make happen “what we deserve.”

In Business, Telepathy Sucks. Big Time.

I told him outright: “In business, telepathy is not a marketing strategy.”?

People won’t “get” how awesome you are. You have to work out how to bring your awesomeness to them.

I further told him his box “sucked” as it was flimsy, looked like some cheap item in a supermarket, and was not respecting the buyers and letting them know they’d made the right choice.

The 300% Difference.

I decided to study the competition and do what NONE of them were doing.

The result? A mind-numbing 300% increase in sales.

The first month after the rebrand (in which I redesigned the box with a distinct color palette and typography, adding tons of fascinating chocolate trivia, used European design accents, and more), the box was simply put on the back counter behind the front display. That was the only change. NO other changes: No sexy people with plunging necklines, no new flavors, no incentives, no new hours, no new signage, NOTHING.?

The response was simply astonishing: The SAME people coming through the shop had now purchased 3X the number of chocolate truffles.?

THREE TIMES THE AMOUNT.?In 30 days. The next month was higher. The following month was even higher, exceeding their best month of the year: February.

The 9-Step Checklist for Awesomeness (or How to 3X Your Sales)?

1. Look at what your competition’s doing. Really look. Spot the commonality amongst your competition
2. Decide to not blend in and play according to the rules of the industry and category
3. Find out what you can do and say that will?make you different ?by elevating the conversation and educating your customer
4. Take that foundation of differentiation and now amplify it with all of your design, art direction, and message points
5. Take all your messaging and now double your efforts with more distinctions (NOT features) that educate people more while elevating the value your customer gets just from dealing with you
6. Make sure anything physical (each touchpoint) aligns with your point of difference (if your brand is simple, then make your packages align to simple; if you’re about quality, then make your physical items match up to that promise of quality)
7. Now, choose channels that also drive and amplify your point of difference
8. Realize “not all differences are the same” — in other words, differentiate enough to?truly?stand apart, to?truly?educate your customer, to truly drive a movement and not merely. How do you know if you’ve hit the mark? People should be saying “Why didn’t anyone think of this before?” If they’re not, you haven’t done enough
9. Perfect what you’ve done while you’re selling and getting your product or service out there?

That is what’s achievable. Seriously.

Don’t believe me? Let's hop on a call and I’ll show you what you’re missing.

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Bestselling author of?Brand Intervention?and Google’s #1-ranked rebranding expert, my four decades of expertise have generated in excess of $4 billion in sales, transforming not only how brands are seen, but how they sell, how they negotiate, and how they lead and inspire their culture.

I’m honored to have received over 320 international awards including the rare honor of being presented the?Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship?medallion.

I help CEOs guide their companies to the proven path for the future by carving out the dialog that impacts hearts and minds and opens eyes.?Need help? Let’s talk.