Category Design Tip: To Grow Your Business, Bake In Radical Generosity
Category Design Tip: To Grow Your Business, Bake In Radical Generosity
Radical generosity is a core characteristic of mission-driven category creators.
Dear Friend, Subscriber, And Category Pirate,
This weekâs Category Design Tip peeks into the rabbit hole of gifting and radical generosity.
Because in order to grow, every organization must have a strategy to win consumers, employees, and investors.
Radical generosity is a legendary place to start.
To chart your own category course (our mini-books are the best maps!), hop aboard The Pirate Ship and subscribe below:
What Is Radical Generosity In Category Design?
Radical generosity is abundance.
Itâs Netflix dropping episodes of an entire season all at once so customers can binge them.
Itâs Lil Wayne in the early 2000s, releasing dozens of mixtapes and hundreds of songs online for free.
Itâs Keurig welcoming competing brands into their ecosystem so customers can drink the coffee they want, even âfrenemiesâ like Starbucks.
Radical generosity is a core characteristic of mission-driven category creators. Their mission lets them unlock new levels of problem-solving and creativity that most never imagine. And their pursuit has more to do with the presence of a positive than the absence of a negative (competition).
So they always tilt in the direction of radical generosity toward customers, employees, value-chain partners, investors, and of course, the community and society overall.
The Best Category Designers Make Radical Generosity A Part Of Their Business Plans
They bring new things into the world, create new demand for new âsolutionsâ to new or reimagined problems, and make it a priority to be generous in the process.
For example, Seeâs Candies accounts for radical generosity on their P&L, giving away one million pounds of chocolates per year for free (aka, 1/26th of their revenue). This isnât just an arbitrary decision. Itâs a core part of the company, the product, and the customer experience.
Southwest Airlines does the same thing.
It built the cost of no-hidden fees into its business model. It made the decision to not âsurprise attack the customerâ with baggage $60 fees at the airport. Instead, the airline accounted for the cost from the very beginningâwhich is one of the reasons why it ranks the highest in customer satisfaction.
Being radically generous is a fixed cost, just like rent.
To practice radical generosity, we encourage you to start with this checklist.
How can radical generosity reinforce your companyâs mission and POV?
How can it turn âregular employeesâ or âregular consumersâ into Superemployees or Superconsumers?
How can it show the individual who receives the âgiftâ of radical generosity that you really understand them?
Remember, itâs not just âthe gift itselfâ that matters, but also the experience you create through radical generosity. The best gifts create memories. So how do you turn this into an experience where the gift-giver and the gift-receiver can make a memory together?
The key is to find something else (other than yourself and your own personal wants & needs) to be on a mission for.
To find your mission and learn how to âgiftâ radical generosity, check out our mini-books Missionaries vs Mercenaries and The Christmas Gift Growth Strategy.
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Arrrrrrr,
Category Pirates
PS: Donât forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:
âď¸ Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One
âď¸ The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche
PPS: Sign up for (or share) our free email course:
đ´ââ ď¸ The 7-Day Category Accelerator course walks through the fundamentals of Category Design and gets you up to speed quickly, so you can start âthinking different.â