How Category Design Can Change the Story of Your Business

I’m in the middle of rebranding my business. There are so many things I can do, so many things I want to do, yet I also want my brand positioning to be clear and attractive. I want others to love my brand as much as I do. As I’m working on this, I see a cartoon by Gaping Void that says, “Don’t be the best in the world at what you do. Be the only person in the world at what you do.”

Seeing that makes everything click. I think, “Yes! That describes my work which is unique in so many ways.” I already kind of am the only person doing what I do. And I really want to highlight that… but I need help. So my husband Mark, who I’ve grabbed in my excitement, says to me, “We gotta talk to Peter. This is his zone of genius.”

That first conversation with Peter changes everything. What he does is revolutionary in so many ways. And I’ve brought him onto the show today to discuss exactly what it is that he does and how he helps redefine business.

If you want to know:

What is category design, how does it help you understand your audience better, and what is the most common challenge when people start approaching business with this new way of thinking? How do you use it to attract potential customers or clients? And how did a customer survey company use category design and find itself worth several billion dollars more than competitors like Survey Monkey?

Get a pen and your replay button ready because this episode is chock full of priceless lessons you’ll want to listen to again and again!

• How to rethink your business positioning and make it unique
• How POV storytelling in marketing messages differs from conventional marketing
• How to use category design to spark intrigue in your business

As a graduate of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Peter Goldie has spent the past decade as an angel investor and used his knack for creating and launching market-dominating products to advise on business, strategy, and marketing. He honed his marketing expertise while in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble where he built revenue for brands such as Crisco, Pringles, and Ivory. Now his firm advises companies on the emerging concept of category design for business.

In addition, Peter founded two startups and has held several operational roles at different companies over the years. He served as GM and SVP at the top digital ecommerce agency Fluid and was the GM and VP at Macromedia where he helped make Flash the most distributed software worldwide. He also took on the position of GM at Alias/Wavefront where he assisted in the creation of the Computer Aided Industrial Design (CAID) category and the launching of the world’s leading 3D animation product, Maya (which won an Oscar for scientific and technical achievement).