Reading Time: < 1 minMany agencies will produce monthly or quarterly reports for their clients that are 20 pages long, full of charts and graphs and data. Everything in there is useful, but very few clients will take the time to read through a 20 page report. Over the years at GreenMellen, we’ve worked to reduce the quantity of […]
Business
Experts lead the process
Reading Time: < 1 minAre you an expert at what you do? If so, then you should be leading the way in conversations with your clients. Not in a pushy, obnoxious way, but you should be the one to drive things forward. In his book “The Business of Expertise“, David C. Baker compares it to other professions. When you’re […]
Cause blindness can lead to bad things
Reading Time: < 1 minAs preached all throughout the book “The Infinite Game“, having a stated cause for your company is essential. However, if you become too confident in your own cause, you can see your competitors as being inferior and you might miss ways that you could improve. From the book: Cause Blindness is when we become so […]
It’ll be interesting to see how you guys figure this out
Reading Time: < 1 minBo Burlingham’s book “Small Giants” covered 14 businesses that chose to stay small, as opposed to being bought out or going public, and the things they did to help them succeed. There were a ton of great lessons in the book, and I encourage you to check it out for yourself, but a great one […]
Don’t make a bigger mistake
Reading Time: 2 minSometimes you will execute something perfectly, yet another person might think you’ve made a mistake. Depending on who that is, it might be worth owning up to your “mistake” rather than making a bigger one by trying to correct them. In his pursuit of excellence, Danny Meyer shares these thoughts in the book “Unreasonable Hospitality“, […]
Excellence doesn’t need to be perfect
Reading Time: < 1 minIt’s been said that “perfection is the enemy of done”, in that people will work so hard to make a product or idea absolutely perfect that it never gets finished. However, something doesn’t need to be perfect for it to still be excellent. In his book “Unreasonable Hospitality“, author Will Guidara puts it like this: […]
HBO Max is playing the finite game
Reading Time: 2 minSimon Sinek’s excellent book “The Infinite Game” breaks down two types of companies. Those playing a finite game try to win right now at all costs. These are companies that make questionable moves in order to satisfy their investors. To quote King Louis XV of France in 1757, “After me comes the flood” — I’ll […]
Give or take?
Reading Time: 2 minAfter my recent post “experts don’t cold call“, I had an interesting comment from a friend. He defended cold calling to a degree, and ended with “you have to start somewhere when you’re new“. I agree with that, but you have a choice when you’re new: you can choose to give of yourself, or you […]
Set them free to do their thing
Reading Time: 2 minWhen building websites, or really any kind of marketing deliverable, we have to strike an interesting balance. On the one hand, we have a tight scope of work and a clear directive on what needs to happen. On the other hand, we’re not always sure exactly what that looks like. If someone needs a new […]
Personalization versus personal
Reading Time: < 1 minI’ve shared before my dislike for most forms of automation, and personalization is often closely related. Both of those are marginally acceptable for huge companies, but it’s shaky at best. It’s cute that Verizon sends emails that actually start with my name, but as Seth Godin has said, “A mail merge makes nobody happy“. Personalization […]