Reading Time: < 1 minTom Murphy is one of those guys that not enough people know about it. He ran Capital Cities Communications (which you also likely haven’t heard of) for years back in the 1960’s until it eventually acquired the ABC network in 1985, which was later purchased by Disney in 1986. His story is fascinating, and a […]
Business
Stewardship, not ownership
Reading Time: < 1 minKevin Paul Scott has a fantastic description of the idea of “stewardship” versus that of “ownership”. In his book “Return on Inspiration“, he says: “Stewards take care of things for other people; owners look out for their own interests. When we look at companies through this lens, we see that some owners act more like […]
Train people well enough so they can leave
Reading Time: < 1 minThere’s a maxim I’ve heard a few times over the years that goes something like: “You should invest in your team to make them the best that they can be. This may mean that some leave for better opportunities, but that beats the opposite of just not investing in them at all.“ This came to […]
Marketing automation works best when it’s backed by humans
Reading Time: 2 minIf you’ve followed my writing for very long, you know I’m not a big fan of automated emails. There are cases where they are done correctly and can be valuable, but the most common implementation seems to be “cool, let’s blast stuff out!”. If you’re going to automate, I suggest two main rules: It seems […]
You can’t fix it later
Reading Time: 2 minIn listening to the Founders podcast, one big theme runs through almost every story that is shared — the founders become incredibly wealthy, but lose their marriage, children, and/or health as a result of it. An example is Larry Miller, who owned the Utah Jazz. He had it all, but he had nothing. From the […]
The “Maker’s Schedule” vs the “Manager’s Schedule”
Reading Time: < 1 minWhen I was reading Josh Kaufman’s “The Personal MBA“, he shared this interesting viewpoint about our calendars from Paul Graham. He said: Paul Graham, a venture capitalist, programmer, and essayist, calls this batching strategy “Maker’s Schedule/Manager’s Schedule.” If you’re trying to create something, the worst thing you can possibly do is to try to fit […]
But how will we track it?
Reading Time: < 1 minI recently saw a popular post on LinkedIn that said “To kill a great marketing idea in six words or less, just ask ‘how will we track it?’“ Initially, it sounds like a valid thought. If you can’t track it, why do it? Tracking can be quite important, and we track all that we can, […]
It doesn’t matter what you think your customers “should” care about
Reading Time: < 1 minLast month I shared a bit about how I feel the web should be these days. As I pointed out in that post, my “should” is irrelevant. I can push toward that better web to a degree, and I’ll continue to, but I also need to spend most of my time dealing with the web […]
Your experience is someone else’s benefit
Reading Time: < 1 minMany of the best businesses in the world were formed to solve a specific problem that the founder had, and then they simply worked to help others solve the the same problem. I still love the quote from Rory Vaden that I shared a few years ago when he said “You’re most powerfully positioned to […]
Strategy lasts longer than tactics
Reading Time: < 1 minIn recently reading Alex M H Smith’s “No Bullsh*t Strategy” he shared some interesting thoughts on strategies versus marketing tactics. In essence, his approach is that strategies should be something you set once and run for years, while the specific tactics may change quite often. Specifically, he says: “What you need to get comfortable with […]