Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tish Gance. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Tish, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

I get thrown into the Marketing space a lot because my work heavily affects marketing, yet I am not a marketer. The usual pain point of my clients is their marketing (website underperforms, needing a marketing strategy, etc) yet the root problem is always related to developing a strong customer experience and brand differentiation in the marketplace.

Poor marketing is always the result of poor messaging and a lack of understanding your customers. Yet when most business owners feel they have a lack of customers, sales, or want to dive into a new market they self-diagnose that they MUST go purchase some new marketing immediately to increase their bottom line. And wen they go to a typical marketer, of course that marketer is going to say whatever voodoo they do is going to solve the problem, because they are married to their tactic and are good at what they do (hopefully). Typical marketers are focused on quantitative data and results…we just need more to make you more! It’s all a numbers game! You want more, we’ll get you more, and show you all these fancy numbers you don’t understand, but look…MORE!!!

The issue with this isn’t the marketer’s tactics necessarily, it’s that PEOPLE ARE NOT NUMBERS. Until Skynet comes and the bots enslave us all in the MATRIX, BUSINESS IS STILL DONE WITH PEOPLE. SO stripping all the humanity out of your customers into “User A has a 35% purchase preference” is madness. If looking at past numbers would guarantee returns on future numbers, We’d all be rich from investing in the stock market and never lose a penny!

As a BRAND MECHANIC, I work with my customers agnostically to find out what is actually wrong with their marketing engine, so we fix the right problem the right way. Yes, you MIGHT need to build awareness with an ad campaign, but how exactly does it fit currently into your Customer Experience, and how will it assist with the outcomes they seek for their lives? Or is the problem you have lots of interested potential customers, but when they interact with your website, sales staff, or other materials they get confused or price conscious? Maybe they are ready to buy, but they don’t know how or are uncomfortable with your purchase process, so they abandon their carts…all of these can appear as a marketing issue if you only look at the numbers, but don’t consider the CONTEXT of the customer’s journey.

So what do I do different than the industry standard? I’m focused on making your business the best possible fit for your customers at ALL points of their interactions with you – setting you apart from your competition by highlighting your VALUE and refining your Customer Experience.

Tish, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hi, I’m Tish. I’m not a marketer, nor do I play one on TV. I’m a strategist, messaging expert and Brand Mechanic… I see your marketing as an engine, part of the greater whole of the car that is your business.

My clients are typically Niche, Boutique, or Luxury brands who seek to dominate their markets with exemplary Customer Experiences on and offline. They always excel at what they do, but are struggling or confused on how to demonstrate it in their marketing, messaging, and sales efforts. They’ve tried some tools, maybe hired an agency, or attempted their own campaigns, yet feel they are missing the mark when it comes to growing a new customer segment or attracting more ideal customers.

You may be thinking… “But Tish, if you’re not a marketer, why should I work with you vs. someone who specializes in a specific kind of marketing or in my specific business model?” Well, I’m glad you asked.

Asking a Focused Marketing Expert if they can help you with lagging sales is a lot like going to the Auto Dealership and asking the lead sales guy why your car keeps stalling out. Even if he has a tech background, his job isn’t to fix your car… it’s TO SELL YOU A NEW CAR. And preferably one from his lot with a nice fat commission.

Similarly, you might be savvy and your team is exploring new marketing avenues… Using the same car analogy: are you considering adding a wing to your minivan, just because wings are the new marketing darling? Are you adding racing stripes to go faster because your competition added stripes, when really you need a new transmission? What is actually going on with your marketing engine, and are you truly equipped to fix that?

I’m here to fix the Brand Strategy you have and make it run BETTER, FASTER and MORE EFFICIENTLY.

No conflict of interest, pure problem solving.

Just like a trusted Auto Mechanic, before deciding what to fix or replace in your Marketing Engine I start by running a diagnostic to determine what’s truly in need of repair. Adding random parts until you solve an engine problem is expensive in the Auto world, and it’s downright UNACCEPTABLE in business.

No guesswork – integrating your goals, I pressure test to KNOW we’re reworking the RIGHT AREAS OF YOUR MARKETING PLAN. I make you lighter, faster, and more refined so you spend fewer resources while getting stronger results throughout your business.

Most importantly, you are INFORMED on WHERE and WHY you need to invest in your Brand Marketing so you know your investments will pay off.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Due to the sensitive nature of my work and the almighty NDA, I can’t really share deep meaty details about many of the successes I’ve helped craft. HOWEVER, here’s one of my favorite stories I tell…

A couple of years ago, Tiffany’s (yeah THAT Tiffany’s) noticed that the age of their buyers was primarily middle aged to older women of means. This made Tiffany’s wonder why they were not attracting young, affluent buyers since from what they could tell, they should be selling quite well to these folks. And they should be showing off their Tiffany’s on social media in ways that other brands were benefiting from.

So Tiffany’s did the “typical” method of delving into how they could attract this young market. The did competitive analysis of their perceived rivals in the market, they looked at oodles of trend data, social media analytics, other purchasing analytics, and paid tons of money for Market Research… to then have an Agency tell them who and how their target audience should be marketed to, based on everything BUT actually talking to real Tiffany’s customers.

Tiffany’s then launched their “Not Your Mother’s Tiffany’s” campaign, placing skinny, trendy models wearing moody makeup from Calvin Klein ads in various “come hither” poses in bangles and necklaces with designs that matched what influencers were excited about. It was almost indistinguishable from other ads for clothing, purses, and shoes catering to the same market.

And it failed SPECTACULARLY. So spectacularly, Tiffany’s not only had to pull the campaign, they issued a Public Apology to try and mitigate the outrage caused by the campaign.

What Tiffany’s (and their Agency) forgot to incorporate in their campaign was their BASE AUDIENCE. Because they were so busy trying to be like other brands, they not only excluded their primary fan base, they unintentionally went out of their way to offend and shun them.

Within the first day of the ads appearing, previous Tiffany’s customers took to social media shaming the brand, many asking “Since I’m a mother, now I am out of style? Isn’t Tiffany’s supposed to be timeless?” Many women made a big display of listing all of their Tiffany’s on Poshmark and other resale sites, stating they would now buy only from Cartier. Tiffany’s Ad Bill posters around cities had “LEAVE MY MOTHER OUT OF THIS” graffitied boldly on them. Tiffany’s is still working to recover their reputation from this misstep over 3 years later.

So what SHOULD Tiffany’s have done?

Well, they should have called me first! Their main problem wasn’t the vast amount of data they collected in their market research… The problem was it lacked CONTEXT related to their current (and large) customer base. In their panic to attract a new customer base, they excluded and additionally offended their current one.

What would you have done, Tish?

1. Talk with and observe their current client base. What is it about Tiffany’s that makes it special FOR YOU? When did you get your first Tiffany’s? How old were you? What were the circumstances, and how did it make you feel? If you have kids, how are you sharing your love of Tiffany’s with them? What would you like to see from Tiffany’s to make it easier to share the mystique of Tiffany’s with others? Find out what it is about Tiffany’s that can’t be reproduced by other brands.

2. Compared these answers with the market data, to see where there is overlap and gaps that can be leveraged. What’s missing from the experience when you are a younger customer vs. an older, or repeat customer?

3. Our biggest advocates are previous Tiffany’s patrons, so how can we leverage THAT army of folks to share their experiences on social media, and become further brand advocates of Tiffany’s?

4. Then apply all that to developing a strong and inclusive campaign that adds to the Tiffany’s family, instead of isolating… because odds are, these new young customers will someday be mothers themselves!

I would have launched the “What’s your Tiffany’s Moment?” campaign, celebrating all of the special moments that the customer interviews had revealed…Mom handing down Grandma’s Tiffany’s necklace, husband purchasing Tiffany’s for his wife after the birth of their child, Uncle giving Tiffany’s as a graduation present… And especially with a young, professional woman celebrating a new corner office, holiday with the girls, or other big life event with her box of Tiffany’s FRONT AND CENTER!

By including the current customers into the mix, they now see themselves in the campaign and are encouraged to take the actions they see. They will likely even think of Tiffany’s in other situations adjacent to the ones in the campaign. And both the new, young market and the previous clientele are experiencing what COULD BE when you receive your Tiffany’s… precious memories that you can share and pass down for generations.

It’s not about the design of the jewelry keeping up with the times… that is merely a feature of Tiffany’s. Tiffany’s TIMELESSNESS is what makes it special, and by only doing the predictable and numbers driven market analysis, that main ingredient was thrown to the side for trends and keeping up with the perceived competition.

Hey Tiffany’s, you forgot your PEOPLE.

If you want to know what the secret sauce is for you in market differentiation, we should talk.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

FIRST: No Bullshit. Truly, being purely honest with my customers and telling them exactly what needs to happen, whether they want to hear it or not, is key. Most marketers will say just about anything to make the customer feel good about what they are doing, even if it’s not actually getting results. Bad marketers will pull a lot of smoke and mirrors with fancy dashboards and reports that their customers have no clue how to decipher, and are too proud to ask for more details. I will tell you your stuff sucks, your baby is ugly…and here’s how we’re going to fix it as efficiently as possible.

SECOND: FUN!!! Business should be fun! There’s so much dry, boring, meh stuff out there in business already, why are you adding to that pile? Why should you just accept that to get where you need in business, it’s going to suck? IT SHOULD NOT SUCK! It should be enjoyable for you AND your customers. How can you possibly create an enjoyable customer experience if you are miserable doing it? So let’s stop doing that, shall we?

THIRD: Honesty to my own brand. I was mimicking who I perceived my competition to be, and it almost forced me into bankruptcy. I was doing what I THOUGHT people wanted…the exact opposite of what I was trying to preach to my clients! So I got a great coach, started “just doing me”, and being authentic to how *I* wanted to run my business, not following someone else’s blueprint or rules. And that’s when things caught fire, because I was demonstrating that a great customer experience is most important to grow your business, and mine (or yours) is unique and MEMORABLE when executed authentically.

Contact Info:

• Website: apexdbydesign.com
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/TishGance
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svh0dBdaDmI&ab_channel=TishGance