Collected thoughts, quotes and minutiae from my Internet travels

What if a simple way to make decisions was to take yourself out of the equation?

Words are a programming language.

In the same way that we can program computers with programming languages, we can influence, and be influenced by mere words.

Your USP = knowledge of your customer.

Here is a quick way to make sure you are really thinking about your customer, from their perspective, instead of the customer avatar in your head.

Your Music and People by Derek Sivers is still one of the best marketing books I've read. If marketing is your thang, don't skip it.

Like to read business books?

Me too. A good business book can communicate powerful ideas distilled from real experience into swift takeaways and engaging stories that help deliver the message. (Of course, there are the “fluff” books…but that's for another post 😄 )

"Via negativa" is the study of what *not* to do.

It can be really useful when talking to people who have "done it before" (which is the fastest and simplest way to help you figure things out). Since they lived it, they can still remember what it was like, what they tried, what failed, and what worked.

In the same way that one route to success is to stop doing unsuccessful things, the value in such a conversation might be in asking about mistakes, pitfalls etc (of which there are likely many), versus the things that worked out (of which there are probably few, and very specific to a time/place/situation).

What's the difference between sales and customer development?

Not a trick question. I've mixed these up in the past and approached a conversation with the wrong intent. More recently, I've had this conversation twice in the last week and a few things struck me that might help others get clarity or even reframe the type of conversation they are having.

When famed investor Keith Rabois meets with a new CEO, he asks to see:

1) Their priorities

2) Their calendar

They rarely ever match.

He tells them that their goal is to get them to match.

If you often find yourself being the generalist in the room, some basic mental models can help you add to the conversation without having the deep expertise that others in the room possess.

Storytelling is one of those “small hinges swing big doors” points of leverage for solopreneurs and small businesses

What is an audience?

In the music sense, it’s the people *not* on the stage, who are showering their favourite artists with love and appreciation, singing their songs.

In the business sense, a useful way to think about your audience is “a group of people who share a common interest or goal whom I want to empower”.

How does marketing make change happen?

Here are 2 ways to think about it:

Insight Driven: When you have an insight and deliver such innovation that people willingly choose to make a new decision, adopt a new habit etc.

Pattern-Match Driven: When you provide an option that matches a decision they’ve already made. This isn’t a new decision, merely new information.

Contributing to The Carbon Alamanac was an unbelievable experience. Hearing Seth Godin talking about it on the Tim Ferriss podcast recently reminded me of something Seth said about promotion while creating The Almanac.

All successful cultural promotion (be it books, public health issues etc), operate in a loop:

1) Awareness

2) Tension

We have all heard about SMART goals. And some of us might know about SMARTER goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound, Evaluate, and Reward.).

But a simple rewrite to the 'ER' part that I heard recently on Dr. Richard MacKinnon's fantastic WorkLifePsych podcast changed my goalsetting the most...

When the goal is to build a business, where does the founder begin?

This question popped up in a text message conversation with a friend. He was busy working on a hobby project, and considering taking it live, launching and getting real users.

His question is the question that hits anyone starting a business - where do I start?

I subscribe to Seth Godin's idea that marketing is about change. This involves changing people's actions, perceptions, or the conversation. That change has to be specific to be valuable. Instead of wasting our resources shouting into the void hoping to snare anyone, we get to choose the right (smaller than you think) audience for whom we can provide the most value and hopefully, delight.

So many things in life are best explained with an iceberg analogy, and this is no different. If building and selling are above the water, what’s underneath?

When you go behind the scenes of building and selling, I believe there are some shared core skills at play.

Here is a position I'll take to make this post more interesting: Many entrepreneurs and business owners make the mistake of focusing too much on building, without first selling a product or service that truly solves a problem for their customers. In this post, I’ll explore the power of selling before building, and how it can set you up for success over the long term.

Here is a position I'll take to make this post more interesting: Many entrepreneurs and business owners make the mistake of focusing too much on selling, without first building a product or service that truly solves a problem for their customers. In this post, I’ll explore the power of building before selling, and how it can set you up for success over the long term.