That one riff
“Super simple and basic, but it’s effective!Super busy stuff or a lot of unnecessary notes? NO!” That’s Kirk Hammett talking about one of Metallica’s most popular (and loved) songs. What would you say about your approach to work with clients? Are you looking for simple and basic? Are they looking for simple and basic? Or is it all about busy and ornamental?
Maximizing profit
When you’re selling what everyone else is selling, it might give the impression you need to match the rest. 1 way to do that —actually, how the vast majority sees it— is by cutting costs down. It relies on 2 models: Mark-up / mark-down prices (a way of cost-plus pricing). Coming from the industrialized age of business and mass production industries. A method vastly used and (still) taught as a core subject at universities. Shareholder value theory. Maximize the gap between price and costs, as…
Feels like magic
Magic doesn’t exist. Yet you create it. Here’s something I learned from a magic course I took at university (entertainment for restaurants and bars —a past life): Magic exists. And it doesn’t exist. Doesn’t exist in the fairy-tale sense. However, magic is that awe people feel when they get to find, see and experience the unexpected. Magic is about surprise. About delight. It takes a shit-ton of work to get it done, and when it does, it’s not about the performer, but about the audience. About…
Your positioning can’t be fixed.
Having this gap between the what you do and how you do it is what often times feels like a positioning problem. However, your positioning can’t be fixed. Not in a one-time event. Or simply filling blanks in a template. That will help, for sure. But it goes way deeper. It requires: Structural changes Mindset changes Business changes It asks (and forces) you to question how you see things and what you’re able to see. It’s in-depth work. It’s painful. It takes time. It’s a long game —but not…
A Gap
After receiving and having a few conversations on these 2 questions: What’s your ONE thing? What makes your ONE thing unlike to what others might say about the same thing? Something stood out: The first question (What) was simple to elaborate and understand. On the second question though, articulating the How seemed more complex. There was a gap between those 2 concepts and how to connect them organically. Do you feel the same when asked about what’s your ONE thing?
The thing about your ONE thing
What’s THE thing about your one thing? What makes it unlike to what others might say about the same thing?
Doing it the wrong way
“If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way.” Interview to Jerry Seinfeld – Harvard Business Review Following yesterday’s email about helping your client with what they want, not what they need, this last part needed some closure (or opening). When you’re looking for new ways, different approaches, how to break from what is, to devise, see and design new futures, you’ll be wasteful. That’s just reality. You can’t make something that’ll work out at the first try (well, in most of the…
Compressed experience
That’s how Andrew Skotzko, from Product Leadership Daily, defines intuition. ???? When thinking of it, here’s a question that comes to mind: How can you get good at trusting your intuition? Well, by training it. It can come in various shapes and forms: Opening yourself to new experiences and environments. Seeing the patterns that appear in your practice. Making the wrong decisions in a controlled environment. Experimenting different ways to get your goals. That’s how you get to see pathways and…
The age of A.Y.
Just like artificial intelligence is not really intelligence, it’s a way of pattern recollection —intelligence needs the capacity to make decisions based on those pattern-recollections, -filtering and -recognition. We’re also in the age of A.Y. The Artificial You. Where, to succeed in a market, you treat yourself as a product. Taking approaches that work for things, to apply on people. Seeing what sticks and molding this AY into something that would be a fit. A construct (an artificial one)…
What about testimonials?
Friend of the list Genevieve Hayes came back with a question after yesterday’s email on one thing you don’t need to build your authority: a personal brand. (shared with permission) What about testimonials? I know that, ideally, it would be great to have quotes from dozens of people who love your work but that’s not always possible early on. Furthermore, I’ve always suspected some of the testimonials on some websites aren’t actually real. How important do you think testimonials are in building…
