3 Story Branding Principles

We All Love a Bargain, Don’t We?

My family and I love dollar stores. In fact, we love them so much that when we took a family vacation to Japan in 2019, we sought after a 100 yen Store. We were told that they were everywhere in Japan, but it took us a few days to track one down. But once we did, we had so much fun finding trinkets and souvenirs that we had multiple bags of stuff by the time we left!

 I’m not sure why we love dollar stores so much, we all know deep down that the quality of the merchandise is fair at best. I think it’s the hunt for the bargain that is so fun.

But with any product or service, there are three basic principles that it affects: time, cost, and quality. As a consumer, we desire all three. We want the product or service to be quick, inexpensive, and high-quality. But in reality, we can only choose two of the three. Dollar stores are obvious on which two they focus on; quick and inexpensive.

The same goes for Story Branding, you can only focus on two of the three. Companies that try to do all three, end up burning out employees, experience high turnover and eventually failing.

Be Intentional On Your Focus Principles

When you offer a product or service, be intentional on which two principles you want to focus on. If you choose to have a high-quality product with a quick turnaround time, make sure you and your client know that the cost might be higher than your competition.

If you have a client who needs a quick turnaround time and is under a budget, make sure they understand that the quality of the product or service might not be up to your typical standards. And if cost and quality are a factor for you or your client, know that it might take some time to produce the product.

Practical Ways This Helps

1. Provides ways to explain to a client why your cost, quality, or timeline is more than others. If a client doesn’t understand why they can’t have all three of these principles, use the triangle diagram to explain why.

2. Provides tools to consider when quoting a product or service. When quoting a product, it’s easy to want to give the best price, give high quality, and over promise the deadline. Make sure you keep this in mind when providing quotes. Last thing you want to do is lose a client from over promising.

3. Provides a barometer on the health of your organization, making sure you are not overextending on promises of quality, time, and price. If you see poor morale or exhaustion in your employees, it’s time to evaluate the three principles. Most likely you’re choosing three instead of two principles.

Just like the dollar store down the street, make sure you keep these principles at the forefront of your mind.