Change
Last couple of years, systemic change has become mainstream. Shows, podcasts, books have been published recurring to the idea that systemic change is needed to stop the decay of the environment or that it will help change how (broken) things work. I agree. However, the lens the vast majority sees systemic change through is of incremental change. They picture it like a waterfall. As if one fix will lead to fix the other one at a time, ignoring (consciously or not) they’re interrelated. That is…
It’s not fair
There’s no fair thing. Not from your POV as a seller / service provider. What you charge has nothing to do with you. Or if you find it “fair”. It’s about what’s important to your clients. If they think the work you’ll do will mean 500K to pay you and it’s acceptable to them, they’ll pay you (and you’ll take it). You don’t say “Oh, I don’t think it’s fair (to me) because it might take me 20 minutes to get that done or it’ll cost me 20K or I’ll be happy with 7K because that’s what ‘I’m worth'”….
Ditch the beginner’s mind
Beginner’s mind v accepting to not know. The first is about trying to find a pattern. Start with a clean slate. Trying to figure out the right questions to make. Accepting not knowing is embracing the unknown and go deeper to explore, to make better questions. One is about starts, the other about change and transformation.
The Earth is flat
You sell time. And time is money. Those statements are the equivalent of saying “the Earth is flat”. Just because some people believe it, it doesn’t make it a fact.
A shiny ribbon
You receive a present and are asked: “What did you get?” Your reply: “A nice, blue, shiny ribbon.” Wait. What? The ribbon is what makes the present nicer, what completes the picture of it, a part of it. But that’s not the present itself. Same is with marketing and storytelling. So, to whoever tells you that “marketing is storytelling”, think twice. It’s the other way around. Storytelling is (a tiny bit) of (one/few points of) marketing. Does it help? Yeah. Is it all about storytelling? No….
Don’t bridge the gap. Own it.
Bridging a gap to avoid going into the depths of it might not always be the best choice. It’d leave too many things on the table. Yes, you might need to bridge gaps some times —yet not every gap needs to be bridged. Imagine the Grand Canyon with lots of bridges all over it. It would only create noise. Owning a gap, on the other side, makes you accept it as it is. There’s nothing to fix, it is what it is. It has unknowns that you can explore. It has potential to do and be so much more than…
The Flip. p2. Narrative
It’s the thread of what you do and what overarching story it tells. It’s a sustained arc about how you show up, what you do from a high altitude view and how you frame the world: on opportunities or threats. John Hagel has studied the power of narratives and how they’re different from stories. Stories are: about the individual: you, me, someone imaginary self-contained: have a beginning, middle, end focusing on one point (hence, the moral of the story) Narratives are: about the audience: they…
A question for you.
Quick question: When someone tells you or you hear “Mind the gap”, what do you understand and what’s your action to take? 🙂
The Flip. Ep.1. Purpose
Forget about mission and vision statements —they’re useless in this context. This is not a marketing / branding exercise and definitely NOT aspirational (there’s a HUGE difference between aspirational and inspirational, but that’s for another email). It’s who you are and what you stand for. I’m taking you’re in the business of helping people get what they want. If not, that’s ok too. But maybe this is not the kind of email you want to read. Purpose Actionable, yet fuzzy. It’s the thing that…
Markets and fits
What’s a market? Friend of the list, Jonathan Stark, sent this email where he described what a market is: “Market—a place, virtual or otherwise, where buyers and sellers gather to facilitate the exchange of goods and services.” There are a few things to add that also make a market work: They don’t have defined nor definitive rules —yet, they can be regulated. Players can come and go as long as they have 2 things: will AND resources. Markets can expand, contract or cease to exist. There are no…
