Tips and tools: Costco’s Kirkland play, Trello’s “one to four million,” CIA elicitation tricks, and stories from the front line

Published: September 2025

Here are some great resources we have recently shared with one another

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Costco’s Kirkland play (and what it teaches about brand trust)

Costco’s in-house brand, Kirkland, is now bigger than Coca-Cola and Pepsi combined. But it wasn’t always this way.

This short video on Why Costco went all in on Kirkland—and how it paid off explains the bold strategy behind Kirkland’s growth. Two of the most important decisions weren’t made in a boardroom—they came from leaders walking the floor of their stores and listening closely to customers, Genchi Genbutsu style.

It’s a reminder that customers reward companies that take long-term bets on value and consistency. If you work in product, pricing, or brand strategy, this one’s a masterclass.

Four million to one: a support story worth retelling

Imagine you have 4,000 customers: you’d probably hire a small support team. But what if you had four million customers?

If you were Trello in 2014, the answer was just one person.

Bar chart comparing Trello members to support staff, showing millions of members and a very small number of staff.
Trello customers versus support staff (2014).

Brian Cervino’s piece Four Million to One (Or How I Handle Trello Support) is an insightful and funny reminder that customer support doesn’t always scale like engineering does. Sometimes, one thoughtful human can support millions by focusing on what really matters.

It also reframes support not as a “cost” but as part of the product experience itself, an idea that still underpins great SaaS businesses today. And of course, we’re always on the lookout for ways to do things better.

The CIA’s subtle art of elicitation

Think about a topic you know well. Now imagine someone at a party makes a statement that’s completely wrong about it. Your instinct might be to correct them, and that’s exactly the reaction elicitation relies on.

This video on elicitation explains how the CIA uses subtle conversation techniques to get people talking without them realizing. It’s not about manipulation, it’s about asking the right open-ended questions and letting human nature do the rest.

Marketers, researchers, and sales teams can learn a lot from this. It’s a fascinating study in the psychology of disclosure.

What it’s like to be… someone else entirely

Red and white name tag graphic on a teal background reading: What It’s Like To Be… with Dan Heath.

We’ve been listening to Dan Heath’s entertaining podcast, “What It’s Like To Be…”

Finally, for your next podcast walk: What It’s Like To Be…, hosted by Dan Heath, takes you inside unusual professions, from prison wardens to aircraft carrier captains, from barmen in Dublin to Christmas tree farmers.

It’s a fun listen, but also a gentle reminder for copywriters and marketers: every audience has its own insider language, hopes, and fears. Understanding that context is the key to persuasion.

If you’re new to the podcast, start with the Dublin barman episode, where you’ll discover why the word Craic (pronounced “crack”) is so untranslatable to outsiders.

Have you come across something worth sharing? If so, let us know. We could include it in a future article.

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