Reading Time: < 1 minThere are a lot of people with millions of followers on social media. Many call themselves “influencers” because they feel they have influence over their followers, but in most cases they really don’t. William Irvine’s excellent book “A Guide to the Good Life” says it perfectly: “If we seek social status, we give other people […]
Trust
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 […]
Mistakes versus carelessness
Reading Time: < 1 minMany times when reading books, little things pop out at me that simply help me clarify how two words relate to one another. I’ve talked about a complaint versus a problem, social networking versus social media, interpersonal empathy versus social empathy, routines versus practices, attunement versus empathy, precision versus intent, knowing versus understanding, and dozens […]
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“, […]
Boast or fact?
Reading Time: < 1 minWhen marketing your company, there’s a fine line between boasting and sharing facts. Boasting can be fine is certain cases, but facts should always win. A recent post from Jonathan Stark laid this out perfectly, and he compared it to the movie “Elf” where Buddy tries the “World’s Best Cup Of Coffee”. If you’ve not […]
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 […]
Experts don’t cold call
Reading Time: 2 minSome of the funniest emails I get are from “SEO experts”, and I’m sure you get many of the same. My initial thought is “if they’re so good at SEO, why do they need to resort to spam?”. Of course, they’re not any good at it, which is why spam becomes their tactic. In a […]
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 […]