The Flip: Focus
The ability to choose where to put your energy so your impact is of greater magnitude. This is where you excel at —and where the right fits, inspiration (and money) are. Focus can help you streamline your journey and accelerate the change you strive for. Benefits of Focus Follows a simple decision-making process. Enables you to say No to what’s not (truly) important. Enables you to build expertise faster. Helps you discriminate opportunities from distractions. Lets you follow your progress in…
Minding The Gap
To find a Product-Market Fit means you must fit into what’s already there. What will fit into the market?Only what’s known to fit. Nothing too different. Safe. You need to mold (fit) your product or offering to what’s in the market. A continuum of What Is. The focus is on what you offer, meaning “How could I fit my product into the market so it (the product) competes?” In a market where everything feels the same, what’s the tie-breaker? Price. When your customer doesn’t know how to compare…
Mind the gap
When hearing “Mind the gap”, you’re supposed to be careful and watch your step… so you don’t fall into the void, into the unknown. What if you thought of it in a different way? Mind the gap → Look for that void, for that untaken space in your market where needs are unmet and step in.
Self-Focused v Others-Focused
What’s your focus gap? Where are you focusing your efforts on your comms and messaging? Here’s a self-audit to start seeing where’s your focus. Something VERY important: It’s a spectrum —it’s totally ok to be somewhere in between. The idea is for you to identify where you are. Think of it as a dial. Wherever you are, you can regulate and adapt your messaging to a new state. 🙂 LanguageDo you use your language or your client’s? SELF •————————————————• OTHERS…
Focus Gaps
You started working on your personal inventory and are asking yourself “Now what?” You move onto what’s your current Focus Gap. Your very own self-audit to start seeing things under a different light. Are you focused on yourself or on others? You can review your comms and messaging under these 2 lenses (on your website, brochures or any kind of media you use). Self-Focused It’s all about you. Our work, what we do, what we see, how we work, how we help, our vision, about us, our projects, our…
A perfect combo
A clusterfuck. The perfect combo for failure. To avoid it, start Thinking Like A Diver. Clusterfuck [diving].— A hectic situation where too much is happening at once. It causes stress and can lead to uncomfortable situations for all parties involved in said clusterfuck. Underwater, it increases the risks to everyone involved —the diver himself and the ones diving along with (in so many different ways). Losing control of a situation means moving faster (causing fatigue), wasting oxygen, lose…
Dive certifications
You know what’s interesting about dive certifications? They’re a productized service. You know how much time it’ll take you. You know the scope of work. You have a fixed, published price for it. And it’s scalable (yes, hiring more hands to do the work, but still a kind of scalability). The easy thing for the people interested in diving and get a certification is that they self-select —either by location, pricing or other benefits. Schools, certifications, dives and more are all listed and the…
Breaking a market
In an atomized market, if you do average, you get average. To stand out you need to be an outlier. Thinking as most people, in diving it could be in a very special location, a special feature, etc. However, when the space is price-driven, you need to change the context. You need to be the obvious choice. Breaking a market For the outliers in the market: they don’t focus on the price, but look for a different kind of either an offer or a different kind of buyer, like a more sophisticated…
There will be more dives
You’ve seen now a bit of how diving could relate to business and how some principles could be applied. If there’s one thing I wish for you to stick with —especially in this world of uncertainty, fast-pace and busy-ness— is to Think Like A Diver. Remember to pause, assess, correct and go with your gut. You have the tools. You can make the time. Thinking like a diver will put you in advantage: you’ll see things moving in slow motion and gain perspective. If after your assessment you decide your…
Marketing bullshit
Here are some beliefs that are well-extended in business. Most of them though, take an approach from 100 years ago: an industrial era, not a knowledge era. Thought leadershit The best product wins The best marketing wins The best advertising wins Build and they’ll come You need to start with low prices to enter the market Work for free [aka pricing zero] Show your value (working for free) and then they’ll pay you. Perfect your pitch The more ads, the more they’ll buy your stuff Price is costs…