Wonderfuel Issue Number 22 – What does joy sound like to you?

One of the best things about joy is that it’s stimulated by all the senses.

So this week is a joy pivot away from joy spotting to joy hearing.

And the sound?

One of the most unmistakable sounds in the world, if you are British.

The sound of an ice cream van, played out of a speaker that seems to distort the notes so they are slightly tinny and out of tune, like the battery is about to run out.

One of the best things about joy is that it is a trigger. A trigger to childhood memories. Ice cream all over our fingers, faces and clothes and not caring in the slightest about it.

Ice cream vans for me are all about remembering all the things we did as kids when we had a more carefree attitude to life and to pleasing others. Adults, to be clear, you do not need permission to go and get an ice cream from a van and feel like a kid again. Nor do you need to ask anyone’s permission to experience the kind of joy you did as a kid. In fact, the opposite. Why not make the joy jump back and watch how many others tag along for the ride. Kind of why you are reading this newsletter, right?

What is not so joyful however, is running out of the house and hearing those chimes getting more and more faint…

I once knew someone who convinced their kids that the ice cream van only ever played the chimes when it had sold out of ice cream. They subscribe to this. They know who they are. Let's leave it at that.

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// Quote of the week //

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// The founder diary //

Following on from last week’s story about having to jump the barriers at the train station. This is another story from hat tricky period.

I was one of three partners at our agency. I focussed on the creative, one other focussed on finances and new business, with the third looking after clients on a daily basis.

The agency had been cooking on gas for many years, and part of its growth prior to me arriving was my two business partners reaching out to find their third musketeer, the creative one, me.

I came in, the greenest of green. My first business. All the (creative) gear, no (business) idea.

About 5 years into the partnership, we’d been struggling for almost a year when one day my business partner turned to us and said, “Chaps, we need to have a chat about the corporation tax, VAT and PAYE.”

Previously, only ever operating as a sole trader while freelancing, I had no idea about such things.

We were in the shit, fifty-three thousand pounds worth of shit to be precise. We had no option to finance the debt. The banks would not touch us and we eventually had to go with a high-interest loan, securing the money against our houses. Except I didn’t have a house. Well, I did, but I was going through a divorce and was unable to be part of the agreement. So, we had to have a gentlemen’s agreement with my business partners that I was good for my share of the loan if things went even further wrong. To this day that was a truely amazing jesture.

We spent the next few years slowly chipping away at the loan and then, at the point that we were back to square one, I knew it was time. It was time for the two original partners to return to their dynamic duo partnership and time for me to move on and focus on what I loved the most and what I was best at, designing and creating.

The lesson learnt was a huge one. Much like last week’s, where looking after the pennies was what counted, this was about looking after the business behind the work.

I’d always thought my job was the creative stuff. Someone else looked after the numbers. But being responsible for one part of a business doesn’t absolve you from understanding the rest of it.

Creativity might be what gets me out of bed in the morning.

But cash is what keeps the bed underneath me.

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// The joyful brand – Avanti West Coast Trains //

This week I have gone rogue and gone with an advert rather than a brand.

I say I, but this was my wife's choice actually. This one grabbed her attention and prompted a wonderfuel chat the other day on a walk about how the only adverts that get our attention these days are the ones that make us belly laugh.

Laugh at anything and it is more than likely it will create a positive memory that will get logged for a rather long time.

Fast trains promoted by a resoundingly slow animal, a tortoise. Okay, a little humorous irony there. But give that slow tortoise a pair of rollerblades and you're giving it the freedom, glide and grace to go anywhere.

And that is it, right in that moment, Avanti West Coast Trains are showing you how you will feel if you use their trains. The key word there being feel.

If you own or lead a business and you want to grow it, make more money or outgun your competitors, the simplest and quickest way to do this is to show your audience very clearly how their life will be better because of your brand.

Using joy to do this is one clear way to create a memory about your brand that lasts in their mind. I call stratejoy™  and I recently delivered a webinar on this exact topic: How brands and businesses can win by making people feel better.

You can view my stratejoy™ video here

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// From the archives – Victoria and Mayfair //

Design is not always about the end product. Design is a process. It’s a journey. It’s exploring. And the more you explore, the more amazing the discoveries you make.

I have kept almost all my sketchbooks from my 30-year career and there’s one thing that is in almost all of them.

Sketches.

This concept would never have happened had it not been for my badly drawn letters. Drawn way too quickly. Looking nothing like actual letters at all. But actually looking everything like the opening doors of a room plan.

Sometimes the most obvious ideas are the best ones.

“Thanks so much for this marvellous work. 5 of the 7 concepts we would have happily used. But this one is the clear winner — it has a real ‘wow’ factor. It’s genius.”

Roger Jones – Founder, Victoria and Mayfair Offices.

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// Word of the fortnight – Wonderdog //

Every industry has one. The brand nobody expected to make it. Too small, too underfunded, too outnumbered by competitors with bigger budgets and bigger egos.

Then somehow, it wins anyway.

Not by trying to look like the big players. By refusing to look the same as them. By trying to stand alone  in a place all its own.

I've started calling these brands Wonderdogs.

A Wonderdog is an underdog that's transformed into an unforgettable brand or business through confidence and stratejoy.

Confidence, because a Wonderdog knows exactly what it is and doesn't apologise for it. And stratejoy, because being scrappy isn't the same as being lucky, there's always a plan underneath the personality and joy is what makes people feel something enough to remember you.

Big budgets can buy reach. They can't buy being loved.

That's the Wonderdog advantage. And if you're currently the smallest player in your market, that's not a disadvantage. That's your opening.

If you have an underdog business that you are looking to make into a wonderdog brand, I would love to chat more about how to I can help you do this.

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// The emotional revolution has begun and most buinesses have not even noticed. Has yours? //

Everywhere I look, businesses are preparing for the AI revolution. I think they’ve missed the one that’s already happening. It isn’t technological. It’s emotional.

Read the full “Emotional Revolution” article here