I have a saying, “Love the Clueless”. The truth is if you want an objective look at what you’re doing as an organization, ask someone that knows nothing about your industry. Listen to the words they use when they describe what they see. That’s exactly the words you should use to explain, market, and spread [...]
Encourage Intelligent Conflict
Conflict is something companies are scared of. I never really understood this, because out of conflict comes the most passionate, insightful, and meaningful solutions. Conflict can be a blessing or a curse depending on how your organization is lead and the environment you have created. Most entrepreneurs have trouble letting go of their dictatorship (after [...]
The Simple Definition of Brand
There’s a lot of people out there that are charging thousands of dollars to build you a “brand”. Some design firms will simply submit to you 2 designs (un-researched) and let you pick one. Some ‘gurus’ will charge you $5k to come sit in a room and talk about how holistic they should make your [...]
Don’t Get Stuck
Getting stuck in your business is usually a symptom of stale ideas, too much overhead and a lack of innovation. Many companies think that their competition is a guy/girl down the street that is in the same boat they are. The truth of the matter is your competition is hundreds, maybe thousands, of people that [...]
Subtract If It Doesn’t Add
The reason it is so important to define what your value proposition is, is because it allows you to ask yourself an important question: Does this thing (action, cost, software) add to my value proposition to my customer? This question allows you to keep your organization from getting fat. If it doesn’t add to your [...]
My How Marketing Has Changed
Marketing works best when it’s ‘baked in’ to the product. As more and more people become savvy to the ways of evil marketers, if your product doesn’t deliver, it doesn’t stand a chance no matter how much you spend to market it. Imagine if you could invest all of your money into making the product [...]
The New Growth Strategy
Focusing on the wrong things (or too many things) can paralyze an organization and leave it feeling stuck. The simple and most effective way to pinpoint your strategy for growth is to focus on increasing 2 things: 1) Profit Per Employee (PPE) 2) Value to Customers Growth is important, but only lean, potent, and valuable [...]
A New Kind of Metric
Most companies measure their revenues because it feels good to tell people that they are a “X” Million dollar company. That is nothing more than ego. To chase a growth number just for growth’s sake is organizational suicide. If you look at the P&L of most of these million dollar companies, you’ll notice a pattern. [...]
The Value of Good Ideas
So many times we try to cram marketing & sales down people’s throats. If the idea is bad in the first place, it’s going to be an uphill battle the whole way. Seth Godin calls this a Meatball Sundae. Putting good marketing on top of a bad product doesn’t taste very well in the long [...]
What Are We Actually Doing?
I know we all “do” a lot of things during the day… But somehow nothing seems to get “done”. All of the tasks we do (i.e.-checking email) don’t really add anything to our lives or business. We just let ourselves get too distracted to get the real work done. Why don’t we all just go [...]
