Adam Fairhead
Interesting thing about respect:
When you lead a sales or coaching call, you don’t just wander in late with no plan. You’re there on time, with a roadmap for how the session is going to go, in order to ensure it’s a successful session for everybody.
When you begin a project, you can’t work the plan without planning the work, or you’ll just waste time and opportunity without getting anything done.
When you show up tomorrow, are you going to...
Adam Fairhead
If you use Google for everything, Google can shut you down.
Email, calendar, advertising, photos, website, analytics, the list goes on.
Perhaps you’ve been building your work in this way, where you’re dependent on one channel (Facebook Ads?) or contact (a critical referral source?) for the success of your work or your ability to reach those you serve.
The Internet is resilient because it doesn’t require Google, or Amazon, or any one entity in order to survive and heal itself....
Adam Fairhead
Feel anxious sometimes?
Solving problems while not solving problems is “anxiety”.
When lying in bed at night, or eating your lunch, or trying to get something else done… anxiety emerges when we want to solve a problem while we’re not.
You’re great at solving problems while you’re fully engaged in a particular problem. You’re terrible at doing it at 3am while half-asleep. That’s okay.
Being thankful that we get to solve problems while not solving them is “peace”.
Being mindful...
Adam Fairhead
2021 is coming whether we like it (or are ready for it) or not.
It doesn’t care if sales are down. If people aren’t interested in what’s for sale, we get to change what we offer! Change is what you signed up for when you elected to serve a body of people.
It doesn’t care if products are struggling. If people have different needs, in different quantities or volumes or frequencies, we get to change to be a better steward...
Adam Fairhead
Why make ugly things?
If you want to make beautiful things, you have to first make ugly things… until your skills improve enough to create the kind of results that you want.
If you only make beautiful things, you’re not learning and growing… you’re just sticking to skills you’ve already developed, rather than stretching them or creating new ones.
Learning to love making ugly things – to be proud of them just as you are the beautiful things – is...
Adam Fairhead
Who are your competitors?
Other industry players? They could be, if you decide to paint within the lines and conduct yourself precisely as everyone else does, adding or removing nothing from the formula or the result. Moving the goal posts is allowed, doing things differently changes who you can be compared to.
Industry alternative players? They could be, if you decide to fight for the same result as it is perceived in the buyer’s mind, without creating new clarity that...
Adam Fairhead
Do you journal?
You might find it improves your focus:
Reviewing hopes and goals that became reality remind us to celebrate the wins we’ve achieved that we maybe didn’t pause to fully recognise.
Regrets we feel about wasted time are squashed by paper reminders that much of what we’ve done probably exceeds our past goals anyway.
Goals that have shifted over time are good reminders that what’s important to us today may not be quite so important later, just as...
Adam Fairhead
Let’s say you’re running a project:
If you run it with a focus on making it run smoothly, chances are it’ll run smoothly. If a stakeholder or client gets in the way of the smooth sailing, they’ll be taken care of in the interest of creating the result we’re looking for.
If you run it with a focus on making the client happy, chances are they’ll be happy. If a project needs to be crazy behind the scenes to make...
Adam Fairhead
According to Seneca the Younger, the Greek word “euthymia” means to sense your own path and to stay on it without getting distracted by those who intersect it.
I read this evening that this word, when translated into English, means ‘tranquility’. Love that.
The fact that “keeping to your path”, that “staying the course” and “not being distracted by the noise” means ‘tranquility’ is a wonderful reminder of why frenetically dancing from idea to idea or course to course ‘means’...
Adam Fairhead
Trump lost the US Presidential elections.
He’s being a sore loser, and so are his followers. He’s teaching his tribe that failure is to be contended, rather than learned from. And so riots and juvenile tantrums pervade the streets of DC.
Lincoln lost his run for house speaker, nomination for Congress, renomination for Congress, his run for Senate (twice) and nomination for Vice President. Yet he taught perseverance by learning and trying again, rather than by meltdowns. Trying that led...
Adam Fairhead
The gap between knowing the problem and knowing the solution is uncomfortable.
There could be seemingly endless routes to explore. There are unanswered questions and unclear parameters all standing between where you are and the solution you’re looking for.
And so we leap:
Leaps are assumptions made about what a customer might think about a marketing idea, without listening to them.
Leaps are product developments that could help the company and its customers, that are explored without first doing the...
Adam Fairhead
Is it possible to make life or business decisions that only exist in the future, today?
Without a crystal ball or guessing?
Yes:
When we’re inconsistent with ourselves and our work, more decisions need to be made. When choices such as “the simpler option” vs “the more elaborate option”, or “the better value one” vs “the cheaper one” are on the table ready for decision making, who knows which you’ll choose if you’ve not defined what you value?
When we...
Adam Fairhead
What does “culture” have to do with producing great work?
If there are great processes but no cultural alignment among those implementing them, seemingly-psychic team collaboration becomes bureaucratic defensive driving.
If there are great team members but no cultural alignment among them, compounding excellence becomes a competition among divas.
If there are great clients but no cultural alignment among those serving them, remarkable referral-worthy experiences become disjointed and forgettable ones.
Culture’s a fancy word for “we believe in doing things...
Adam Fairhead
Do your tools inspire you to do better?
Or are they just ways of getting stuff done?
Apple Photos makes organising and accessing my photos easy, encouraging me to take more photos. Adobe Lightroom wraps my shots with photography tutorials and precision tools, which inspires me to take better photos.
Gmail makes keeping tons of emails easy thanks to good search and Big Tech-subsidised pricing, encouraging me to send more emails. Basecamp’s ‘Hey’ email service passionately combats trackers and emails...
Adam Fairhead
Hands up if you’ve ever employed the help of a professional services provider, only to be left massively underwhelmed with the level of care and output from the whole encounter.
That’s a lot of hands!
It could mean we expect too much. That the idea of someone being brilliant for us is too much to ask, and that “acceptable” should be acceptable.
It could mean we try too hard. That we see what others do and wrinkle at the thought...
Adam Fairhead
Are you great at what you do?
Great!
Do you have organised genius, or disorganised genius?
Disorganised genius is a gamble. It’s when you know how to do great things, but every project is a blank canvas with no structure, checks or reviews to enable you to access consistent greatness. You’ll remember some things and forget others, creating something great but not as great as you’re capable of.
Organised genius you can bet on. It’s when you know how to...
Adam Fairhead
Adding certain things to our work takes away our power to do it well:
Testing and optimisations work best if done calmly and methodically. Adding hustle or urgency takes away our powers, as tests are cut short and optimisations become based on reactions and guesswork rather than empirical evidence.
Sales-related conversations work best if done calmly and methodically, keeping the needs of others above our own. Adding sensationalism and pressure takes away our power, as consumers tire of hype and...
Adam Fairhead
You probably know the formula:
“Unsolicited + Mass-message = Spam”
Questions like “why are my marketing messages going to spam” are easily answerable by remembering the formula. You used it precisely as above, and got the correct output.
Similarly, questions like “how do I do outbound marketing that isn’t spam?” are also easily answerable by remembering the formula. To change the output, change one of the inputs, either from ‘unsolicited’ to ‘solicited’, or ‘mass-message’ to ‘personal’.
Bonus points for changing...
Adam Fairhead
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.” —Steve Jobs
When you hear “great work”, what do you think of?
We say it quite a lot:
When an employee or peer completes a task with no obvious flaws, we often say “great work”.
When our peers or parents acknowledge a new skill we’ve learned or a certificate...
Adam Fairhead
Ever burned out?
Stinks, doesn’t it.
Here’s why I think it happens:
Step 1: You perceive a situation to be both incorrect (something isn’t right) and internal (it affects your freedoms or emotional safety) in some way.
Step 2: You don’t (or can’t) make peace with that situation (internally).
Step 3: You carry that dissonance until you burn out.
Here’s how to avoid it:
Step 1: You perceive a situation to be both incorrect (something isn’t right) and internal (it...
Adam Fairhead
The problem with copying products and services is that you start off superfluous.
When someone brings their unique approach to the market, uniquely addressing the needs of those they wish to serve, the only way to beat them at their game is to be better or cheaper.
And being a copy means you seldom achieve “better”, leaving you in a race to the bottom that you may run the risk of winning.
But when you bring your unique approach to...
Adam Fairhead
Can generosity be pragmatic?
Let’s see:
When you’re not generous, the right people may or may not move forward with you, and you may or may not get to help them. The wrong people may or may not move forward too, but they’re besides the point.
When you’re generous, the right people don’t take advantage, they simply move closer to you and you get the opportunity to serve them. The wrong people may take advantage, but they were the wrong...
Adam Fairhead
There are two kinds of free media.
They mean entirely different things.
Free media #1: Facebook is free to signup and use. You’re not charged for signing up, uploading your photos and interests, or sharing things with your friends, because advertisers are charged because you signed up, uploaded your photos and interests, and share things with your friends.
The information isn’t yours. It’s theirs. That’s the trade. A trade isn’t free. It’s a trade.
Free media #2: Open mediums such...
Adam Fairhead
You’ve got two choices.
Which do you choose, when a prospect asks you for something you don’t have?
Offering things you don’t have or can’t confidently solve weakens your promise, dilutes your brand, tarnishes your reputation and damages your relationships.
If those things sound appealing, expand your offerings to accommodate every need and never tell anyone “No”. Many sales will occur on the path to failure.
If those things don’t sound appealing, then committing to your area of genius while...
Adam Fairhead
Are you an expert in your field?
The answer is interesting.
We want to hear “Yes!” because it makes us feel looked after, comforted by the thought that you have a subject covered entirely. “You got this.”
But hearing “No!” is more often the relationship true experts have with their craft. The more they know, the more they know they don’t know, and the more humbled they feel by their areas of practice.
A library of books you’ve not yet...
Adam Fairhead
Sure, you don’t.
Unless you have something important to share that will help people move forward. If your product or service creates meaningful, ethical advantage for others, why not share the thinking that goes behind it so that we can learn what makes it so great?
Unless you want to nurture your responsibility as a leader for those you serve. If you recognise that fiduciary responsibility, why not act upon it in using an evergreen medium that everyone can use...
Adam Fairhead
We can all probably agree that learning is good.
But most of us don’t have a process for learning.
In our teams I often advocate for “Process + Work + Humility” as a formula for creating results in our respective areas of practice.
The ‘Work’ and ‘Humility’ parts are fairly easy to grasp. But ‘Process’?
Everything we do is subject to a process, it may just not be a particularly great or repeatable one. The way we make a cup...
Adam Fairhead
What’s the difference between having opinions and being a part of a movement?
Consider if your opinions do these things:
Then it’s not...
Adam Fairhead
Most of us have them.
Our businesses and projects are held back by them.
What’s yours?
Let’s look at some examples:
“Who’s your target audience / what message do you deploy methodically for that particular target audience?” More businesses are afraid of this one than you can imagine. Our Creative team witnesses this on a near-daily basis.
“How many referral systems do you have in place and methodically use?” Answering this without bending the concept of a referral ‘system’ and...
Adam Fairhead
A ‘busy’ day doesn’t mean an ‘effective’ day, or a ‘better’ day.
After all, if we spend all day working on things that don’t move the needle, we earn the redundant badge of “productive”.
Similarly, an ‘effective’ day doesn’t mean a ‘busy’ day either. If we spend just enough time to drive things forward, without the rest, we create compounding mental margin for an even more ‘effective’ day tomorrow.
‘Hustle’ tries to draw parallels between two things that have no...
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!