Adam Fairhead
The inner world of every entrepreneur or member of an innovative team I’ve ever met is (or has been, or will be again) full of doubt and issues of some description…
It’s useful signal.
Like when your body tells you it’s too cold, or it’s hungry.
Treat it like a signal. That’s what it’s there for. It means there’s something to look at.
Take confidence issues for instance. They mean you either don’t know something you think you should, or...
Adam Fairhead
I’ve still got the box for the original iPod in the attic.
Why?
I loved the experience that had been prepared for me throughout the unboxing.
You probably have some boxes knocking around your house too, for things you enjoyed opening.
Perhaps it’s the one from your Mac. Perhaps it’s the one from your Hermès necklace.
You kept it because the experience was great. Because it drew you closer to a brand you’ve come to value.** It was so good,...
Adam Fairhead
Read any good books lately?
I hope you didn’t agree with everything in it:
Agreeing with everything might be a sign you didn’t integrate it into your world. You’re not them, their world isn’t yours, everything is not the same. There’s value in seeing what fits and what doesn’t – otherwise we can’t apply what we learn.
Take what you can that fits your world. Read with the intention of finding those pieces. Read with the intention of discarding the...
Adam Fairhead
Totally overhauling an industry, all at once, is expensive.
Comfort and familiarity are real things that we all experience.
For example, new computer interface that’s much better than our current ones may be much better, but if we’re slow using it because of the steep learning-curve, it’s unlikely to enter a production environment anytime soon. Smaller improvements that empathize with current understanding, elevating people to achieve more right away, will be far more likely to be embraced.
Take Apple and...
Adam Fairhead
Ambiguity breeds anxiety:
For your market. If they can’t tell what you do (specifically) and for whom (specifically) then they’ll greet you with the same lukewarm response the rest of the market receives. Specificity changes that.
For your customers. If they can’t tell where you’re going (specifically) just for them (specifically) then they’ll maintain the same “one foot in, one foot out” relationship with you that you’re used to. Specificity changes that.
For your team. If they can’t tell where...
Adam Fairhead
“We need more funnels and web pages and email sequences and other marketing stuff” Hold up.
Short answer: you don’t need all those things.
Long answer: you don’t need all those things right now, or possibly ever, depending on your body of work and audience you’ve elected to serve.
The temptation is to throw “more” at a marketing problem in hope it will resolve itself from brute force.
What we’re all slow to learn is this:
One audience...
Adam Fairhead
You may have a great product or service.
You may have great offer or powerful risk-reversal.
You may have a fair price and reasonable terms of engagement.
But if you have no voice – a unique message, shared clearly and confidently – you can be copied, moved aside or marginalized.
We can buy those things from anywhere that elects to offer them. We can only buy you from you.
Adam Fairhead
Everyone thinks they’re the best in the business.
But everyone can’t be the best in the business. Only the best is.
That leaves us with only one question: what does “the best” mean?
Good news: those you wish to serve have already defined what “best” means. Possibly as a product or service, but more likely as a set of criteria that are important to them. Possibly already defined, but more likely as a set of ideas or beliefs they hold...
Adam Fairhead
How do you feel about your work today?
Great, or just not in the mood?
When we look at our approach to our work on any given day (or hour), it often comes down to these two options.
“Great” can become “Not in the mood” when something sets us back. We can get stuck in the delta between “where I was” and “where I am”. It’s how athletes lose games. Easily done.
But “Not in the mood” can become “Great”...
Adam Fairhead
Val Geisel, an email strategist, muses on the lack of ability to track users in Basecamp’s new “HEY” email service.
“Email send –> increased sales over the next 12 hours = email contributed to revenue! Yes, we can’t track if someone opened our email 7 days later & decides to buy because of that email but… can we let that go? Can we loosen the reins on data & hold on tight to humans?”
More of the marketing...
Adam Fairhead
Nothing says “we care about you” like ill-prepared messaging.
We routinely discuss the power good communication has in our marketing messaging work.
When I stumbled upon this KFC mishap, I had to share it with you – it’s a great, stark example of this.
“Finger lickin’ good” makes sense to English speaking western markets.
But China, where the message was cheaply transcribed and not fully considered, it manifested as what effectively translates to: “We’ll eat your fingers off.”
Quite a...
Adam Fairhead
Show me your apps, I’ll show you your focus.
It may seem like a silly connection to make. We all have many apps on our phones, but we can tell a lot about our focus by what tools we keep close by.
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit on your home screen? Unless you’re a social media manager, your focus may be sinking into the wrong places.
Bejeweled, Candy Crush and PlantsVsZombies on your home screen? We can be confident that your...
Adam Fairhead
“We serve everybody.”
The above statement shows how little one knows about “everybody.”
Many businesses discover that, upon selecting “somebody”, their problems run deeper than they could previous see or appreciate.
Upon selecting a portion of those somebodies, yet more layers of discovery unfold. Deeper and deeper we go.
The more you care to pay attention to your chosen few, the more you’ll see new colors in their world. Speaking to them reveals your ability to care beyond mere lip...
Adam Fairhead
Thinking of “revamping” your website?
I wouldn’t, if I were you.
What’s a “revamp” mean?
If you want results, what it should mean is:_ “I’m going to rethink our website. I’m going to reprioritise what our website is doing for us by recommitting it with those it exists to serve.”_
But “revamp” usually means something quite different. Usually, it means a cosmetic tweak where the fundamentals don’t change, and you don’t move closer to those you wish to serve.
The...
Adam Fairhead
Is your product for me?
Can I tell that it’s for me just by looking at your messaging?
Your website? Your ads, your videos on social media?
Or do I need to figure that out for myself, or as part of a screening call with your sales department?
You may want to serve the world, change the world. Make that happen. But not by speaking to everyone at once. Instead, speak to your people one at a time as they...
Adam Fairhead
“Can I talk to you about my idea?” Sorry, never.
“I’m working on my idea!” This is a lie we tell ourselves.
Ideas are for having, not for working on.
If your idea is a new product or service that may or may not be worth pursuing, work on a feasibility study, or call a potential prospect. Pursue or dismiss the product or service based on your findings. The idea is complete and won’t benefit from more “work”.
If your...
Adam Fairhead
If your cause-driven work is to develop and thrive, we must learn how to learn:
If you’re told you’re gifted, failing could mean (to you) that your gift is fading – the mystical “gift” giveth and taketh away.
If you’re told you worked hard for a win, failing simply means more work leads to success.
If you’re told you should succeed, failure at a task can represent a failure as a person – you had the ability then somehow regressed.
...
Adam Fairhead
There are many times in our pursuit of meaningful work that we choose to wait.
Most of those times are times we should have taken action. Most people wait too often, too long.
So it’s easier to have a “when to wait” list, then a “when to take action” list:
A response to an important question should be a response, not a reaction. Slow it down to do it justice.
An emotional topic that gets us fired up taunts us...
Adam Fairhead
What’s “better”, and what’s “better” worth?
“Disband the riots” is a quantifiable task. One solvable with tear gas and rubber bullets, it seems. Mission complete.
What does “better” look like there? It could be the emotional labor of building bridges with a community you exist to protect. Harder to quantify, but worth quantifying for the betterment of a public service (not to mention fewer riots)
“Deliver the food to their door” is a quantifiable task. One solvable by getting there,...
Adam Fairhead
America is on fire.
Twitter is ablaze with videos of police brutality and racial injustice.
What can we learn from this as members of cause-driven companies?
There have always been countless bully-cops, and we should have been filming them all along. They’d have been discharged many moons sooner, and we’d have felt a little safer in our homes and on our streets.
Not all cops are bad, but it only takes one event to start national protests. One video started...
Adam Fairhead
Perhaps the fact you don’t fit into a box is precisely why people should take notice.
If Tesla just marketed “cars”, they’d be entering a bloodbath. Tesla’s focus on electric energy WITH cars is what sets them apart. Controversy was always going to be a part of their founder’s persona – he’s blending worlds in an industry that doesn’t traditionally appreciate change.
If our Creative studio just marketed “websites”, they’d miss a world of what makes them so effective. The...
Adam Fairhead
At post number 911, I thought it only made sense to address a state of emergency.
The world, at the time of writing, is in massive flux. There are big problems which seem insurmountable.
Things can feel that way within our organizations, too. A problem that requires a significant change in direction to solve. Where many variables are unknown, or skills lacking.
Break it down.
Street riots calm when the public doesn’t demonize all policemen because of the acts of...
Adam Fairhead
It’s the wrong question.
It makes the world about you, your problems, and your inventory.
Compare that to when people do buy:
When you make the world about them, their problems, and their journey.
We all want to move forward in our lives and businesses. We buy when people can make that happen in ways we can see and understand.
Coronavirus or no coronavirus, we’ll buy from you if you communicate properly with us and ask the right question.
It’s...
Adam Fairhead
Oftentimes while doing important work, we’re faced with tasks we know we’re supposed to do, but we don’t want to do.
So what often gets done consequently?
Everything but the thing you’re supposed to do.
Your intuition may have revealed the important tasks to you. Or maybe you need counsel to identify them. Either way:
Doing other things still feels like progress, even though it may be marginalizing your potential and wasting opportunity.
Doing other things may look like progress...
Adam Fairhead
I enjoy being marketed to. I enjoy the leadership of those who genuinely care about my causes and my works. And I enjoy pulling back the curtain for those who were lulled into the false belief that selfish ends can be masked with a guise of service.
For example:
“Get my free book, just pay the shipping… plus my one-time offer for buying my $97 shovel-ware. Video on the left, payment form on the right. Sensational copy below covering...
Adam Fairhead
Where are the leaders?
Everyone seems to have a book that will “change your life”. Or that will “transform your business”. It probably won’t achieve that which it described, in most cases, especially when left as words on a page for others to decide and implement alone. Are these leaders, or just liars?
Everyone’s got an opinion. About the government’s decisions. About the way their boss should have handled the company. It probably won’t become action, though, beyond dinnertime rambling....
Adam Fairhead
I’m not a religious man.
But I’m religious about the contagion of faith:
In teams, faith is contagious. Faith in your ability to become the best at what you do. Faith that each individual contains the genius and greatness needed to make it so. It’s felt, and adopted as one’s own.
In sales, faith is contagious. Faith in your ability to produce ethical forward-motion for those in your care. Faith that your prescription will be the best prescription for their...
Adam Fairhead
Do some tasks worry you?
Why is that?
If you’re inconsistent in your approach to your work, you never know which “you” will show up to do the job. That’s reason enough to worry, like driving an unreliable car through a storm.
If you’re consistent in your approach to your work, you have a trailing indicator of what results to expect. That’s reason enough to not worry, like driving a reliable car through any weather.
The more we grow as...
Adam Fairhead
How do you approach important work?
With haste or fear? Rushing it through because the result is important will only dilute the result and spoil the fun. So too will fear.
How about calmly & creatively? Pausing for thought, we can elevate our work by slowing it just slightly, wielding creative, divergent ideas as an artist wields his favorite paintbrush.
It doesn’t slow the result or the process. Calm and creativity accelerate you toward even better bodies of work, in...
Adam Fairhead
The motive is clear, whether you think it is or not.
If you call a prospect with a product, the motive is clear: “This person wants to sell me something, therefore I am not interested.”
If you call a prospect with an answer to a question they’ve been wrestling with, the motive is clear: “This person has what I need.”
If you make an offer that adds them to your “funnel”, the motive is clear: “This person is probably going...
I create a newsletter called GrowthCandy. Each issue shares one idea to help build and spread your work, delivered as a short comic. Fast to read. Easy to apply. Hard to forget!