Turning the Kaleidoscope
The beginning of a new year is a great time for mixing things up and 2021 is certainly no exception! So often, new perspective comes from looking at the same thing from a different angle. At Argentum, we call that turning the kaleidoscope. While there’s no question that it’s not always easy to do, it is exciting to work with teams who are open to using a different lens to see the same things in a whole new way.
 
Josh Shefner and Jacob Foss, co-founders of Agricycle Global, are turning the kaleidoscope with their international team in a big way. We recently joined the board of this social enterprise company to help them increase their already outsized impact on third world farmers, especially women, by building and distributing simple dehydrators to upcycle agricultural products that would otherwise go to waste.
 
At Hangio, founder Ayo Aigbe identified a fresh way to reimagine the clothes hanger and, while still a freshman in college, developed an innovative, patented solution. The response to her initial production runs has been fantastic, and she’s scaling as fast as she can.
 
In other news, the response to our 2020 webinar, Maximizing Your Marketing Budget, was fantastic. Thank you to everyone who attended! That webinar also generated a great group for the Beta of our online, self-directed positioning course: Compete to Win. Information on the next cohort will come out later in Q1. In the interim, enjoy the video below that shares one of our favorite ways to help people think differently about messaging and the human brain.
 
The two other articles provide fodder to help you turn your own company’s kaleidoscope. The first is a recent Harvard Business Review article about how to think differently about your category. The second is an overview of a recent UPS study that shows how the millennial perspective is (and is not) changing the face of manufacturing and industrial buying.
 
Happy New Year!
Look at Your Competitive Set in a New Way
A recent Harvard Business Review article, Cultural Innovation, by Douglas Holt, resonated with me on multiple levels as it touches on things I teach like positioning and the foundation of word-of-mouth advertising, as well as tying neatly to my personal experiences in the corporate world when I ran marketing for Equal sweetener.
 
While the overall piece is ostensibly about creating category innovation, it provides a great blueprint for thinking differently about how to position your product if you’re a challenger brand.

Check out our Equal sweetener analogy; it's a great case study!
Thinking Differently: Messaging and the Human Brain
When I’m teaching, there’s nothing more fun than finding a succinct example that makes the light bulb go off in people’s heads. One of my favorites is the metaphor I use to help people understand why clearly focused messaging is so important if you’re going to get your target to listen to you.

Switch on your own light bulb by watching here!
A Fresh Look at How B2B Customers Buy
The last few years have seen a flurry of new Argentum clients in the distribution space. Differentiating as a distributor is challenging, as you’re typically carrying the same products at the same price as your competitors. Because of this, these distributors have been some of our most challenging clients to position.
 
One of these current clients, Aldon, a 104 year-old distributor and manufacturer of rail safety equipment, recently pointed us to the UPS Industrial Buying Dynamics study. Conducted bi-annually, the most recent study included a deep dive into everyone’s favorite topic: the influence of millennials.

Thank you!
We appreciate your continued referrals and are always excited to meet new businesses that might need our supplemental marketing strategy services.

To learn more about Argentum, visit our website, and feel free to share this newsletter with anyone who might find it useful!

Best,
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