The Fortune Cookie Principle

The Fortune Cookie Principle explains why a great product or service isn’t enough, how you can tell a compelling story about your brand and why that’s the most important aspect of running a business today.

When you’re done eating at a Chinese restaurant, the fortune cookie comes just at the right time. It satisfies your craving for something sweet after having a hearty entree. But that’s just one half of the story. The cookie’s not the reason you come back to the restaurant. The fortune inside might be.

If you get a quote about friendship inside like I did and it makes the night feel special and memorable, guess which restaurant will pop into your head the next time you want to get dinner with friends?

That’s how the two pieces of the fortune cookie metaphor work together:

The cookie is the tangible product or service you’re offering to people. It fulfills a rational need, it’s useful and it makes your customers’ lives easier the same way each time. The fortune is the intangible story you tell about your brand. This is what carries your values, purpose and vision into the world and hopefully, your fans will make it part of their identity over time.

Most of our behavior as consumers isn’t driven by rational thought, so without a good fortune, even the best cookie won’t sell.

One of the most powerful parts of your story, which consumers judge you by, is your vision. Like the cat told Alice when she landed in Wonderland: If you don’t know where you want to go, it won’t matter which road you take. People always want to know where you’ll take your brand next, so they can decide whether you’re still worth following.

Bernadette suggests these three questions to figure out your vision:

How will your company affect the future? Do you want to bring education to those, who can’t afford it? Abolish single-use coffee cups? Make a certain group of people laugh? How will your day-to-day work support this vision? Are you going to donate books? Offer only reusable cups to employees? Upload weekly comedy videos? How will your vision make customers feel and act? Will they get smarter? Have a clear conscience? Happier?

This vision will change over time. That’s normal. It doesn’t have to be particularly noble or profound either. Those help, of course, because people want to feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves, but even a small change for a large group of people goes a long way.