Today I want to refer back to Guy Kawaski’s post about »The Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing« from which I think the first four match up the unique history of biestmilch.
When we started out in the beginning of 2000 one thing was very clear to us: the product story we were going to tell over the years yet to come must be excellent, exciting, unique and sustaining. Otherwise a company with so little capital and human resources like ours won’t be able to launch this product.
In those days we were not aware of the fact that biestmilch is asking for pioneer work at its best. Now, after all these years of very hard work where mistakes, failures and success were and are still so closely related to each other, it seems to me that we belong exactly to those small businesses that are so typical theses days: small and flexible, self-exploiting putting a lot of efforts into building up trust and quality relations with the customers, and in the same time always on the edge of falling on either side of the ridge.
Aspirations and beliefs
»More than any other topic,
people like to hear about aspirations and beliefs. This may be why
religion is the most popular word-of-mouth topic, ever. Aspirations are
helpful because they help us connect emotionally to the speaker, the
company, and the issues. They help us see into a person or company’s
soul.«
Now, applying this quote to the biestmilch business: Biestmilch in
the beginning was only an idea, later it became a vision, and, today it
is our life experiment. We put everything into it, from the view-point
of hardware, software and wet-ware. It is our belief – and the more we
work with it the more it is based on solid grounds of science and
experience -, that biestmilch is one of the most effective substances
produced by nature. It is a therapeutic option for the treatment of chronic diseases far
ahead before any conventional diagnostic tool catches hold of the
disease’s pathological substrate. It is our aspiration to make this
complex outstanding substance a matter of lifestyle. Honestly, you
need a great deal of belief and aspiration to survive all drawbacks and
frustrations on this way.
David vs. Goliath
»Sharing stories about how a small
organization is taking on a big company is great business sport.
Rooting for the underdog grabs our emotions, creates meaning, and
invokes passion. We like to listen to the little guy talk about how
he’s going to win and why the world—or the industry—will be a better
place for it«.
Biestmilch.com is definitely a small company. Three owners and at
max. 2 employees, two freelancers cooperating on a more or less
permanent basis. When we started, no market existed for biestmilch
(first milk/colostrum), no product history, no figures, no positioning
of the substance, no scientific backing etc. etc. … We still work on
these major issues ;-)… Even though, I think by now our understanding
and subsequently the positioning of this amazing substance is very
precise, thoroughly thought through and it meets modern scientific
standards in biological complexity research. But we are still David not
really knowing our Goliath. Our Goliath resembles more the Golem, who is a
very unpredictable creature.
Avalanche about to roll
»The mountain is rumbling, the
sun is getting stronger, but the rocks and snow are yet to fall. You
want to tune in and listen to the “avalanche about to roll” topic
because you know that there’s a chance that you will be killed if
caught unaware. This theme taps into our desire to get the inside story
before it’s widely known. It’s not only interesting to hear someone
speak about these ideas, they have the ingredients for optimal viral
and pass-along effect.«
Biestmilch has the potential to develop into an avalanche that is
about to revolutionize the health market and the therapeutic approach
to chronic diseases. If I talk about Biestmilch, I mean the substance,
not our brand. It may not be the case that we succeed. But somebody
will achieve this goal. Sometimes, when I’m caught by overwhelming
feelings of doubt, I may say it is not us. Anyhow, we did pioneer work
and left the beaten path to achieve this goal which means to take a very high risk.
Contrarian/counterintuitive/challenging assumptions
Contrarian perspectives defy conventional wisdom; they are
positions that often are not in line with—or may even be directly
opposite to—the wisdom of the crowd. The boldness of contrarian views
grabs attention; the more original and less arrogant they are, the more
useful they will be in provoking meaningful conversations.
Biestmilch challenges state of the art medical science and practice. It defies classical diagnosis and treatment. Biestmilch treats disease states not the pathological diagnosis. Biestmilch turns classical medical epistemology upside-down. Just to cut a long story short. Biestmilch for us is a milieu modulator, and this applies to infections as well as to genetic diseases…
»Counterintuitive
ideas fight with what our intuition (as opposed to a majority of the
public) says is true. When you introduce counterintuitive ideas, it
takes people a minute to reconcile the objective truth with their gut
assumption about the topic. Framing views counter to how we intuitively
think about topics—going against natural “gut instincts”—pauses and
then resets how we think and talk about concepts.«
To choose the name biestmilch was clearly counterintuitive. But against all odds and senior advices it turned out to be exactly the right thing to do. The name is accepted and well received despite its oscillating meaning between positive and negative connotations.
Challenging
widely-held assumptions means that when everyone else says the reason
for an event is X, you show that it’s actually Y. Challenging
assumptions is good for debate and discussion, and especially important
in protecting corporate reputation.
Our assumptions are challenging. Biestmilch is not following the mainstream comprehension of medicine. For us (=biestmilch) 😉 everything within the body is about regulation not about supplementation or substitution respectively. Biestmilch to our opinion modulates regulatory processes.
Writing this post I’m well aware of the fact that this is a very rough and superficial outline of an extremely complex story that may be difficult to be understood because of its shortcuts. Anyhow, I felt tempted to comment Guy’s post, so I did. One should not care too much. This is what hesitant Austrian-Germans can learn from an American ;-).
