Archive of posts from May 2024

Is your business growing properly?

Clients regularly ask this about their own businesses.

Here’s how to calculate the answer:

1) Define ‘right-size’
‘Bigger’ is not a size.
Choose an actual size.

2) Define the optimal experience
What do customers want to hear?
What do customers want to receive?
How would customers love to receive it?

3) Is #2 moving you toward #1?
If Yes: stop stressing 😎
If No: change #2

Produce an amazing experience.
Supplies last until you right-size.

Ignoring ad targeting features?
= “Let’s speak to everybody, thus nobody”

Using overly broad ad copy?
“Let’s speak to everybody, thus nobody”

Underestimating ad visuals
= “Let’s just do what others do, thus not stand out”

Not A/B testing ad elements
= “It’s fine to not explore what our people truly want”

Skipping analytics review?
= “It’s fine to not explore what our people truly want”

Ads should be expressions of care and fiduciary responsibility.
Not daddy’s billboards.

Marketing = what you say while in the room.

Branding = what they say when you’re not.

These words often get mixed up in a lot of other things. But that’s really all they boil down to.

Now. Doing the exact same thing as everyone else can mean you’re marketing.

But it definitely means you’re not branding.

Here’s why:

If you say the same thing as everyone else, they won’t say anything about it when you’re gone.

Ergo, there is no branding.

Want to build a brand?

Remember to be different. Your special kind of different.

Because you’re so unique already.

Harness it, apply it to what you say, and let it be remembered.

Congratulations! You’re branding.

Is there a ‘secret’ to irresistible marketing?

Nah. No secret. But there are patterns. 3 of them, in fact.

Since the market’s inundated with content, why not follow them?

After all, you don’t just want to be seen. You want to be unforgettable. So this week, we’re diving into the three key elements that make that happen. They’re not new-fangled things. They’re timeless. Just like you’re about to be:

Learn WHAT they want

Talk to them. Learn their inner-narrative. Decide where in that inner-narrative your work should fit. Then tell their narrative back to them with you included. By giving people what they truly want, you lay the groundwork for engagement and loyalty.

Deliver it HOW they love to receive it

Explore the various channels and formats your audience prefers, whether it’s social media, email newsletters, podcasts, or interactive experiences. Explore what it is they love about the specific content they consume on those channels, so you can show up as one of the ones they love, not one of the ones they skip.

Build quality at that intersection

That intersection of WHAT and HOW is your sub-niche. The amount of high-quality material at that specific intersection is likely very small. So over-cook your response: create materials so remarkable in that intersection that it simple cannot be ignored. Great storytelling. Amazing visuals. Immersive experiences. Think big and own that intersection.

I explore this topic in more detail in this week’s issue of The Productoon newsletter. Check it out!

Sometimes time doesn’t feel real.

If I multitask, time goes fast. Not much gets done.

If I go deep with uninterrupted singletasking, time goes slowly, and lots gets done.

A fast day with little to show for it.

Or a slow day with lots of progress and time left to spare.

We may not literally be bending time.

But it’s the next best thing if you’re creating work that matters.

“Are my competitors better than me?”
“Are they delivering way better product/service than me?”
“Are they smarter marketers or salespeople than me?”
“Or just way smarter in general than me?”

Unlikely.

More likely they’re one of the following…

• Better at bluffing online than you,
• More consistent than you,
• Both.

Listen…

• You’re smart enough. Your competitors srsly aren’t smarter.
• You have the skills. If you don’t, upskill & you’re good.
• Your marketing may not be edutaining enough.
• You may not know your market well enough.
• You may not be consistent enough.

Otherwise, you’re absolutely set.

All problems ahead are solvable.

Don’t want to be a replaceable hype-man?

You need Evergreen Ubiquity.

Being your company’s ‘hype-man’ means…

• Waste time on checklist productivity,
• Go to market on the back-foot,
• Chase people around,
• Discount your stuff,
• Hamster wheel. Yeurgh.

But ‘Evergreen Ubiquity’ draws folks in…

• Very educational, and very entertaining.
• You’re drawn to it for its contribution in your life.
• You’re drawn to it for the personalities you bonded with.
• You’re drawn to it because it’s a small part of your identity.
• You go to it, it doesn’t chase after you.

Things you need for that:

• To know your customers way better than you do now
• To know how they love to consume content/products
• To know what they consider ‘completely un-ignorable’
• To build at the intersection of those things
• To ‘pay the price’ of it taking time to build

Which would you rather be?

Here’s 3 truths across ALL marketing.
Don’t be guilty of missing any of them:

1. People like things that give more, not ask more.
2. People like enjoyable things, not boring things.
3. People like well-made things, not regurgitated trash.

Example: Free samples of tasty, healthy chocolate that makes you lose lbs.

We’re not here to make boring templated asks.
We’re here to make lives empirically better,
safely, and give them a blast doing it.

(P.S. sign me up for that chocolate 🙃)

What is creative success?
Or success as a creative?

Most define it all wrong:

You’ll encounter people online who will make you feel like you should be ‘achieving’ more. ‘Doing’ more. ‘Turning over’ more. Being ‘featured’ more.

More more more.

And they all miss the point entirely.
The point? That which you set out to achieve in the first place.

Some set out to create for fun after the day’s responsibilities are complete.
Some set out to create as a side-income.
Some set out to create full-time.
None are right or wrong.
Only decisions, based on what you want to achieve.

Some want to work on a few projects they feel passionately about.
Some want to work on as many projects as possible, touching them only briefly.
Some want to work only on their own projects.
Some want to work only with clients.
None are right or wrong.
Only decisions, based on what you want to achieve.

Maybe you want to make lots of money from your work.
Maybe enjoying your day has monetary worth of its own.
Maybe you don’t care about how much you make.
None are right or wrong.
Only decisions, based on what you want to achieve.

What is creative success?

Not listening to others, if their noise isn’t serving you.

You succeed when you set a goal for yourself — your goal - and give it your best shot.

We’ll be very proud of you for doing that.

And you should be proud of you too.

I enjoy gardening on the weekends.
It makes focus so much easier during the week.

If you think your time is worth $30/hour, or $50/hour, or $100/hour, or $200/hour…
…Make sure you keep doing things you could pay someone $10–20/hour to do.

Gardening is a great example.

Feel how much effort goes into an hour.
Feel how much your back aches after an hour.
Notice how much sweat is on your brow after an hour.

So when you go and sit at a desk,
Ready to do your creative work,
You’ll appreciate just how much you need to bring to each hour someone paid you.

Is it 2X the sweat? 4X the sweat?

Your focus will never be the same.

Is there anything worse than a relationship ending?

You can probably think of a time that happens. Ughh. Yowch.
Exhausting to think about.

If your product had feelings, it’d probably feel the same way about customers who leave.

And we can’t have that.

There are 3 ways you can use edutainment principles to increase customer retention for your product or service. Your product’s feelings are at stake:

1) Your brand becomes a friend, not just a service provider

When a service provider comes to your house, you offer them a drink then keep out of their way. You want them there only for as long as they’re doing precisely what they need to, then you want them gone.

When a friend comes to your house, you offer them your whole fridge, a place to stay if they need it. You want them there for as long as they want to be there.The difference is profound. We need to give the brand a voice and personality (in both product UX and content) to ‘befriend’ rather than merely ‘transact’. Make signing up easy, valuable, and enjoyable. Make getting started easy, valuable, and enjoyable. Don’t behave like a service provider. Behave like a friend.

2) Edutaining content: another reason to stay engaged

Knowledgebase. FAQs. Documentation. Guides. These all sound boring, don’t they? That impression didn’t come from nowhere. We learned this the hard way over many years: going deeper with a product is kinda boring.

But we want users to go deeper. So use better paradigms. If your people enjoy the comic in their newspaper, use that paradigm. If your people enjoy watching fun videos on YouTube or Netflix in their own time, use that paradigm. If your people like playing games, use that paradigm. Give them WHAT they want to know, HOW they love to consume.

I explore this topic in more detail in this week’s issue of The Productoon newsletter. Check it out!

I was asked this question recently.

Pondered it… and I figure it this way:

Marketing is the voice you share while in the room.

Brand is the voice residue you leave behind in their minds.

Which of these 4 choices is best?

• what does it say about you:

1. Valuable + boring
2. Useless + enjoyable
3. Useless + boring
4. Valuable + enjoyable

Most ads/content are 3.
Most good content is 1.
Most things we look forward to are 2.

The opportunity is clear, isn’t it?

See if you can spot the pattern here:

• Burnout = Focusing on the wrong things
• Imposter syndrome = Focusing on the wrong things
• Money worries at the start = Focusing on the wrong things
• Struggling to sell = Focusing on the wrong things or the wrong people
• Not standing out = Focusing on the wrong things

Protect your focus as though it’s a newborn lamb, friends.

Which is more fickle in your business:

Your target market, or algorithms?

Optimise for those who’ll stick by you.

Different types of leverage:

Solo operator wants to stay solo, so uses as many time-saving tools as possible to maximise leverage while staying solo.

Solo operator wants a small team, so delegates as many SOP-based tasks to others as possible to buy back time.

Solo operator doesn’t want to be solo, so shares the load with others who help figure out the problems together.

None of these are right or wrong.

But if you don’t know your own goals, you can’t mobilise toward them. You’ll risk choosing the wrong forms of leverage just because someone with different goals told you to.

Do you, champ.

How is creating less… actually creating more?

Creating ‘less’ means you create ‘better’.

And ‘better’ is more highly valued by the market.

If you want your work to be more highly valued…

If you want more from your creativity…

Create less.

We’re told we should be making great offers…

But look at your own behaviour. Is this true?

Here’s what you may notice:

OK offers: no claims, average terms, no bonuses.

Good offers: big claims, great terms and great bonuses.

Great offers: no claims, average terms, no bonuses.

Wait… how can OK and Great be the same?

Let’s find the answer in some examples:

Let’s take a designer toy collector.

If their favourite artist launches a new drop, and they like how it looks, they just need to know the time and place. They don’t need extras or refund policies to convince them. They already set aside the funds.

Or when a new iPhone comes out.

Apple fans know that Samsung will give you a powerful phone with a great screen, 7 years of support, a charger, a free tablet, the list goes on. But they’re already set on buying the next iPhone and it hasn’t even been announced yet.

Why didn’t the designer need a ‘killer offer’?

Because the artist took them on a journey they see their role in (purveyor of fine designer goods, first to back a winning horse, the identity of having a keen eye)
Because the artist gave more than they asked for (showing up regularly at micro-events around the world, limited run drops and gifts for many years)
Because the artist made it enjoyable (collecting scarce goods is naturally addictive and enjoyable for many people)

Why didn’t Jobs need a ‘killer offer’?

Because Jobs took them on a journey they see their role in (1984 dystopian future, which he associated with Microsoft)
Because Jobs gave more than he asked for (fought for tech that cared about design, fought labels for uniform 99¢ tracks, fought for tablet segment to not be geeks-only, etc)
Because Jobs made it enjoyable (the marketing, the unboxing, the setup, the UI, the identity)

And that’s just for designer toys and gadgets.

Nobody ‘needs’ these things.

Meanwhile, my social inboxes are exploding with strangers offering to ‘grow my business’ with huge claims, seemingly-great terms and seemingly-great bonuses.

And yet I just delete them.

It’s not the offer that needs to be irresistible.

It’s the brand.

I explore this topic in more detail in this week’s issue of The Productoon newsletter. Check it out!

Nobody wants to sign up for your product.

Nor refer others to sign up too. How do we fix this?

One way is to gamify your onboarding:

Reward behaviour you want repeated
If you want them to do it and leave, optimise for that.
If you want them to enjoy it and share, optimise for that.

Make them look good in front of peers
If you want them to tell nobody, try bribing them.
If you want them to tell everybody, increase their status.

Make it exciting for them to do
If you want them to become churn, optimise based on logic.
If you want them to become fans, optimise for emotion.