Being Mikey
Think for a second your name’s Mikey (from Mikayla or Mike —your choice). Running a small or solo business based on expertise and figuring out how to stand out in your market —or at least how to get noticed. Here are a few things that make you different from a big, large co, something like… Nike: You don’t have the big (and deep) pockets of Nike. You can’t sustain a large ad campaign throughout different channels. You can’t run ANY large campaign You don’t have a PR agency/team You don’t…
Noise
Find your voice. Be contrarian. Be authentic. Getting all of these will make you stand out in your market. You’ll start “to print money”. Bullshit. First. You already have a voice. Just like a baby learning how to make their body and vocal chords to work, you have a voice. Second. A polemic won’t build you up into anything for the long term. Yeah, you might get viral. And gone with the next contrarian comment from someone else. Forgettable. Third. Be authentic. Because everyone else is a…
No-Idea-Phobia
Friend of the list and daily emailer Kevin Freidberg wrote about the No Idea Phobia, the fear to —when writing daily—go out of ideas on what to write next. His title though, made me think of another kind of No-Idea-Phobia. The one that’s present in the backburner of our heads as consultants and entrepreneurs: to not be able to say “I have no idea, let’s figure it out together” in a new scenario with your prospects and clients. Because you believe saying “I have NO idea”: Might not be seen as…
Optimizing the wrong things
◘ We’re talking with an agency to improve our website.They’ve told us we need to improve our SEO, links and so on. With that, our website will be better. FOUR WEEKS LATER… ◘ We’re now optimized and we see our load times are short, our links aren’t broken. ♠ Cool! So what was the goal of optimizing, again? ◘ Making it better. ♠ Ok. And now that it’s better… are you getting more leads? ◘ Oh! No… It’s still the same as usual. Optimizing the wrong things will keep you busy. The thing is, it…
Release the(ir) anchor
A real conversation that just happened: ☼ What do you think you’ll charge for this project? ► Between 80K and 60K [Silence…] ☼ Humm… and why not between 60K and 80K? ► You’re right. Maybe I’m going too little. Should I go 100K…? ☼ No, no, no. 80K is fine. Let’s talk about 80K. In a negotiation about price, you can use several levers to make your case (it also requires you to be ready to let go. Not everything will follow, and that’s OK). One of these levers is price anchoring. You leave…
First steps to leading transformations
Making transformations relies on knowing how to ask the right questions. How to lead the system for everyone to speak up. How to build trust —systemically. Your first questions: What do they want? What will this want achieve? Why do they want this? How did they get to this decision? Making these kind of questions will push your clients to think of what’s the big thing behind what they want. When that happens, your odds to help them succeed will grow. And they’ll have clarity of where they’re…
Seeing innovation as innovation
There are 2 (among many other) ways to approach innovation: → From looking at it as a siloed activity. → From breaking things knowing they’ll affect the whole business. If you’re looking to break things into the innovative side, while looking for a siloed, efficient, safe approach… you might be doing it the wrong way. Look at innovation like The Beastie Boys (check their documentary on AppleTV+). do things. break things. reinvent things. go with your gut and jump against what you find…
Customer Failure
There’s this new discipline called Customer Success. I take that is opposed to whatever everyone else does: look for ways the customer fails. Was there something called Customer Failure? As in, we the business will do everything we can to make you fail and don’t get a return on what you’re paying? That’d be a scam, right? It just seems a given. That you want your customer to succeed. Or is there something else?
How fast can you…?
A prospect reaches out to you and says “I want a strategy by the end of the week. How fast can you deliver on it?” Since you don’t do magic, you might have a few questions to ask: Who’s your ideal client? What’s your market segmentation? What’s your most and least profitable product? What’s your most and least sold product? What’s your goal for the year? How would you define a good year? How would you define a “Meh” year? What would a home run year look like? Etc. Here’s the thing If you…
The opposite of self-conscious
Unaware of caring That can make you do things you think you’re not prepared for. To go and jump into the pool —and invent water on the way down. To ship and do. To care about your clients and how you could help them. To make a change that’ll improve their lives and businesses. Focusing on this will help you stand out. Just like a kid unaware of caring in the early 70’s. His name is Anthony Kiedis [TS 08:15].
