The most successful companies these days aren’t creating content, they’re curating it.

Founders & startups fail when they try to solve problems they’re not connected to or haven’t personally experienced. For a product to be viral, the founder has to:<ul><li>Make it so great that it advertises itself.</li><li>Embed growth within it.</li></ul>

A Viral Product

If you work really hard at something, you can achieve great things. New York embodies that for sure. Everyone here is dreaming, everyone here is doing. You pull anyone over on the street and they’ll tell you what they’re excited about and what they’re moving towards. At the end of the day, if someone really has a vision and they’re serious about it, I think you have to be in the middle of everything to make it work. In places like New York, San Francisco, and LA… you’re just surrounded by all of these like-minded people.

The Value Of Serendipity

If you have an idea: Take action, make something, work hard, and watch what happens.

So many of the brilliant, creative minds of our generation came from Tumblr. Creative directors at massive companies, and people running their own agencies, all recognize themselves as Tumblr kids. <ul><li>Tumblr is all about curating other people’s content, as opposed to creating your own (and there aren’t many social platforms out there that encourage this)</li><li>Putting out your own content can sometimes be intimidating, while simply sharing someone else’s is much easier</li><li>In a way, content curation empowers those who aren’t creating to still be creative</li></ul>

Tumblr: The Creative Dark Horse Of Social Media

If you decide to build a startup but can’t relate to the problem, you’ll constantly be spending time on market research. But, if you can relate to the problem, YOU ARE the market research (and the customer). Often, your intuition can tell you things that would be impossible to measure with dataWhen looking for a co-founder, find someone who has the skills that you lack.

Solving Problems We Don’t Relate To

A framework for assessing ideas:If you and your co-founder both agree on an idea, one of you should still play devil’s advocate (even if you’re a solo founder, try coming up with several reasons why the idea might, in fact, be a bad one).

Assessment Of Ideas: Devils Advocate

Before I even present an idea, I have run it through the wash… and I try to kill it. And if that idea is still with me a few days after, it’s probably time to raise it.

You don’t have to be an engineer anymore to build a software company. You just have to know how to give explicit details and draw a sketch of what you want – then, you can hire someone to build it. However, one of the best skills you can learn is coding. Coding and petroleum engineering jobs will be some of the last to be automated by AI.

Learning To Code

You don’t have to be completely original to succeed in life: <ul><li>Google built off of other existing search engines.</li><li>Wikipedia wasn’t the first online encyclopedia.</li><li>Bitcoin was far from the first cryptocurrency.</li></ul>

Being Original Is Optional

A Podcast about Making your Product Viral and Successful.

My guest today is Andy McCune, an entrepreneur and creative who co-founded Unfold, a mobile design tool kit for storytellers that was acquired by Squarespace. He also runs an Instagram account called Earth (@earth on Instagram) with 1.1 million followers. Andy is one of the very most talented people I know. And he has a more intuitive, make-it-and-test-it way of working than most of the people on this podcast. I’ve built a friendship with him as he’s flown under the radar for years. I remember talking to Andy about Unfold back when it was just a small side project, and it’s been a joy to watch Andy grow and scale the business. Please enjoy my conversation with Andy McCune.

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

business

Business

startup

Startups

podcasts

Podcasts

product

Product & Design

A deep dive into the stories, habits, ideas, strategies and methods that drive fulfilled people and create enormous success for them.   Guests are diverse, but they share profound similarities. They’re guided by purpose, live with intense joy, learn passionately, and see the world with a unique lens.   Guests include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Seth Godin, and Tyler Cowen.

North Star Podcast: Hosted by David Perell

Andy McCune: How Products Go Viral

There’s no need to go into this too much as for any business owner, this is 101 - but it is always the foundation of getting your pricing strategy right. Ensure you understand how much your product has cost to develop, how much it will cost to deliver and how that cost will scale as more clients come on board (more servers, more support staff etc).

Understand your costs

Now, just because you're in the same market as your competition, it doesn't mean you have to copy their pricing strategy, nor should you look at competing on price. However, you should leverage the work that they've done to understand their buyers, and the psychology behind it. Look at how they've segmented their customers (small, medium, enterprise ...). Understand how their pricing scales. Do they increase pricing based on:<ul><li>features</li><li>users</li><li>business size</li><li>other consumption-based metrics</li></ul>If there's a well understood theme across your market, you should probably consider adopting it.

Understand the market

So many technology companies go to market competing on price rather than value.You definitely don’t have to be the cheapest, however, you also don't need to be the most expensive. This largely comes down the phrase "If it's that cheap, it must be rubbish" - I've seen it time and time again, where SaaS companies have struggled by going to market with a super cheap pricing model, then had massive success by raising their prices considerably! Who knew?!

Perceived Value

I got a call from a large global business that liked the product, and wanted an unlimited license for their 10,000 employees and £500k/mo wasn't the budget they had in mind! Nor should it have been!Our pricing model needed to adapt to allow businesses of different sizes to pay more, but scale relative to the value the solution was delivering them. We implemented a system where you had Up to 5 users, Up to 15 users, Up to 50 users and More. The price ceiling is about understanding the amount of money you're saving the client. Most B2B SaaS solutions top out at about £10k/month/problem solved.

The Price Ceiling

Think of this as putting yourself in the shoes of the company exec pitching their budget - what saving or benefit will they need to demonstrate to win the approval of the CFO? Importantly, which exec will be the one to best position your product to get the green light on budget?The top tip here is to work out where the money will come from in your target clients - which line item in which budget is going to give you the revenue you need, and who is in charge of signing it off - you'll sometimes be surprised, because it's not always the person you think it is.

The Existing Budget

If you're about to launch a SaaS platform, you can't really go wrong by analysing how some of the most successful businesses have approached their pricing matrix. I know it's cliché, but they will have spent a lot of time and money in understanding the customer, their psychology, the market, the budgets and many other factors.SalesForce are masters for pricing; at first glance you might think that their pricing model is simplistic - fundamentally it boils down to a bronze, silver, gold style model. However, the way they've constructed the matrix heavily encourages you into the next level.

Taking inspiration

After saying all of this, you don't have to, and probably won't get it right first time. When you first go to market, irrespective of how well prepped you are, how well understood the market is, the chances are your pricing model will need to adapt as you grow and the market changes. The top tip that I would advise to here is that it's a lot simpler to reduce your prices than it is to increase them!

Test and Adapt

When you first take your product to market, beyond the price, clients also want to see proof points and case studies. If they're the first customer, this will always make them nervous, particularly if there's a lot of money on the line. This is where the old adage of "No-one ever got fired for buying IBM" comes in. Choosing the ‘safe’, known option as opposed to the challenger is a defensible position for the person signing off the budget.Don't be afraid to battle and do deals to get your first 20 clients in and using your product. The information you'll get from them will be invaluable.

Don't be afraid to deal to get going

Peter Rossi, Co-Founder and Strategy Director at Equals Collective


Yet when they actually go to market with their product, their pricing strategy has had very little thought and is always a mad scramble to get in place.

problemsolving

Problem Solving

8 tips on setting the right price for your tech service

Smartcuts (smart shortcuts) are tools to shorten the path to success. There are several basic categories of smartcuts. 
First, you can find ways to shorten the job, cutting out unnecessary steps, people and processes. Once you’ve abridged the task at hand, you can use your energy more efficiently and maximize your effort. Finally, use your momentum to soar, gaining momentum so that you never stop.

Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators and Icons Accelerate Success

College students play a game called ‘Bigger and Better’, where they start trading small objects(like a toothpick or a snack bar) and eventually trade up to bigger stuff like a stereo in their hands.Playing the game and paying your dues is really a trap that results in you getting stuck. This is a new day, and the old paradigms don’t work anymore. We need to be college students continuously trading up, trading bigger and better. We need to jump sideways like cheetahs. We need to think like entrepreneurs. We need to hack the ladder.

Bigger And Better: Trading Up To Hack The Game

Waiting for a mentor is like waiting for a charming prince. Pursue your goal, and if you happen to find a good mentor, cool. If not, cool. Study the people who went before you. You can’t always get a mentor, but you can always learn from history. Jimmy Fallon’s manager was his personal mentor, but Fallon also looked for inspiration from comedians who came before him, even though he didn’t know them. Louis C.K. struggled and eventually, he did find a mentor in George Carlin, and consciously studied and mimicked Carlin’s delivery. After he adopted this strategy he quickly rose to stardom.

Don’t Wait For A Mentor

Feedback doesn’t usually work, because people are too self-conscious to take it to heart. And if feedback makes us self-conscious, it can make us perform worse. Nevertheless, negative feedback can be immensely helpful, if we can manage to focus on the task rather than on ourselves. It’s hard to be objective about ourselves and our performance, but that’s exactly what we must do — put egos aside and accept the feedback. To learn from negative feedback, you’ve got to get comfortable with failure.

Feedback: Fail Fast, Fail Often

Famous scientist and mathematician Freeman Dyson doesn’t think schools should teach kids math; rather, schools should teach kids the tools they need to do math. Instead of memorizing multiplication tables, kids should learn to use calculators. It turns out that hands-on learning makes us want to learn.  Similarly, platforms help us master the basics much quicker. What we all need is to learn to use platforms. Platforms can be tools like calculators. They can also be environments, like schools. More innovation happens in urban areas, because cities are platforms.

Leveraging Platforms

First movers have a high failure rate. Early leaders do not. The first movers have to do all the heavy lifting, like getting the infrastructure set up. Early leaders can then come in and get a free ride. But sometimes the first wave is the best one, after all. Sometimes hard work isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to get in the water and know which wave to ride.

Waves: First Movers

Imagine you’re at a party where you don’t know anyone. If you’re outgoing, you might walk up to someone and start talking to them. If you’re an introvert, you might wait for someone to talk to you. Either of these tactics might lead to conversations with a couple of people. Now imagine you have a friend at the party who is outgoing and talkative. Your friend introduces you to everyone she thinks you should know, and you end up talking to 12 different people. Your friend has played the role of a superconnector.

Superconnectors

Wealthy people get depressed once they no longer have anything to work toward. Astronauts have this problem as well. So it turns out that people in dead-end jobs and really successful people have more in common than you might guess: they both get depressed because they feel they aren’t progressing or moving forward. People need to feel progress and feel they are moving forward. In fact, momentum is more important than quality or financials or most anything else. And sometimes the perception of momentum is as good as momentum itself.

Constant Momentum

To innovate is to do something new. Disruptive innovation is when something new changes the game so completely as to eliminate all the established players. Disruptive innovations usually save either time or money. These technologies are simplifiers. They make things easier; they make things simpler.

Innovation

Innovators have a talent for simplification, for zeroing in on what matters, and for focusing on the important challenges that they face. And innovative geniuses eliminate unimportant decisions from their lives. Steve Jobs, for example, always wore black turtlenecks and one style of jeans so he didn’t have to waste time deciding what to wear. Having to make multiple small and inconsequential decisions can sap a person’s subsequent self-control, and deplete patience and willpower. Clearing out the clutter of minor decisions can improve the quality of big decisions.

Simplification: Removing Decisions

Entrepreneur Elon Musk sold his first video game at age 12, and by 31, he had started and sold two companies. With time and money on his hands, he began to study space travel. The kind of smartcuts that drive Elon Musk’s success is called 10x Thinking — the art of taking a big swing. To really make big improvements, you have to change things, sometimes drastically. And to do this, you have to let go of some assumptions. You can’t just look for improvement, which will get you just 10% better. You’re looking for 10x better.

10x Thinking

These hacks help you face a situation that “everybody knows” how to solve

books

Books

teamwork

Teamwork

communication

Communication

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

Think Outside The Box

The way to grow and move upwards.. faster.

Entrepreneur and journalist Shane Snow (Wired, Fast Company, The New Yorker, and cofounder of Contently) analyzes the lives of people and companies that do incredible things in implausibly short time. How do some startups go from zero to billions in mere months? How did Alexander the Great, YouTube tycoon Michelle Phan, and Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon climb to the top in less time than it takes most of us to get a promotion? What do high-growth businesses, world-class heart surgeons, and underdog marketers do in common to beat the norm? One way or another, they do it like computer hackers. They employ what psychologists call "lateral thinking: to rethink convention and break "rules" that aren't rules. These are not shortcuts, which produce often dubious short-term gains, but ethical "smartcuts" that eliminate unnecessary effort and yield sustainable momentum. In Smartcuts, Snow shatters common wisdom about success, revealing how conventions like "paying dues" prevent progress, why kids shouldn't learn times tables, and how, paradoxically, it's easier to build a huge business than a small one. From SpaceX to The Cuban Revolution, from Ferrari to Skrillex, Smartcuts is a narrative adventure that busts old myths about success and shows how innovators and icons do the incredible by working smarter—and how perhaps the rest of us can, too.

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

Entrepreneur and journalist Shane Snow (Wired, Fast Company, The New Yorker, and cofounder of Contently) analyzes the lives of people and companies that do incredible things in implausibly short time.How do some startups go from zero to billions in mere months? How did Alexander the Great, YouTube tycoon Michelle Phan, and Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon climb to the top in less time than it takes most of us to get a promotion? What do high-growth businesses, world-class heart surgeons, and underdog marketers do in common to beat the norm?One way or another, they do it like computer hackers. They employ what psychologists call "lateral thinking: to rethink convention and break "rules" that aren't rules.These are not shortcuts, which produce often dubious short-term gains, but ethical "smartcuts" that eliminate unnecessary effort and yield sustainable momentum. In Smartcuts, Snow shatters common wisdom about success, revealing how conventions like "paying dues" prevent progress, why kids shouldn't learn times tables, and how, paradoxically, it's easier to build a huge business than a small one.From SpaceX to The Cuban Revolution, from Ferrari to Skrillex, Smartcuts is a narrative adventure that busts old myths about success and shows how innovators and icons do the incredible by working smarter—and how perhaps the rest of us can, too.

Shane Snow is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Shane Snow has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Shane Snow's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Shane Snow

Smartcuts

Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success

In the early stages of a new business, it is usually the founder who takes on many tasks themselves. With progress over time, the goal is to delegate secondary tasks so that the executives can focus on the 20% of tasks that will generate 80% of the results to scale the company.The main objective is to be able to answer yes to the question: “If I were not present, would my company still generate money?” That’s an excellent indication of whether or not you are financially independent.If you have several sources of income, you will get that much closer to becoming financially independent.

1. Achieving Financial Independence

It is important to make sure that your first business is mature and developed enough before you start focusing on an eventual second source of income. However, I believe it is also important for entrepreneurs to always have an ambitious attitude and seek new sources of growth.Having multiple sources of income can decrease your risk of losing it all. If the business to which you’re dedicating all your efforts goes bankrupt or fails, you will lose your only source of income, and you will be left empty-handed. When you have several sources of steady income, that worry is reduced.

2. Greater Stability And Safety

Everyone wants to live their dream life, but not everyone is able to achieve that goal. If you are smart and manage more than one source of income, then you have a real chance of creating the dream life you want. The more time and effort you put into building your sources of income, the greater the chances you will achieve financial freedom to live the life you want.You may decide to invest more freely in your time and personal development, you could choose to continue building additional sources of income, or you may want to travel the world and enjoy it with your family.

5. Living Your Dream Life

You’ve likely heard the expression,“Wealth begets wealth.” Essentially, higher amounts of money and income will attract more money and ROI. Having multiple sources of income will allow you to invest a greater proportion in both your primary company and other new sources of income. In short, you will likely be able to scale faster because it is a virtuous cycle.

3. Scaling Faster

With the rise of remote work, there has recently been more debate about what is best: working in an office or from the comfort of your home. This is relative, as both options have their benefits and disadvantages.No matter your opinion, as your own boss, you will be the one to decide where and when to work on your businesses. And when you have the increased flexibility of an entrepreneur, you can monitor and strengthen your sources of income while continuously identifying new opportunities that aren’t limited to your geographic area.

4. Working From The Comfort Of Your Own Home 

Multiple sources of income provide you with a wider safety net and the chance to achieve financial freedom.

 Five Benefits Of Having Multiple Sources Of Income As An Entrepreneur

What makes a product great is not the idea of it or what it can do, but the way it is positioned. Business positioning is not about the competitive pursuit of a niche; it's about finding the right business model.
A business model describes the rationale for the way the company creates, delivers, and captures value. Simply put, it is the way a business makes money. This includes figuring out what the product is, who your end customer is, and what the business value proposition is.

The business model

<ol><li>Who can I serve? The real boss in your startup is your client because they are the ones who decide if they buy from you or not. </li><li>How can I serve you? This means designing and developing a product that corresponds exactly to what customers would value having. </li><li>What is the value? Value is not a monetary amount, but the satisfaction someone feels using your product. Yes, this implies that the value is merely subjective. </li><li>Are you doing it for them? Unless you already know who your customer is and the type of product they might value, there is no way to answer this question.</li></ol>

Questions you need to solve to perfect your business model

How are you creating and capturing value?

4 ways to perfect your business model

Choosing a business partner is similar to choosing a life partner. If you make a wrong decision, it can make life overly complicated. When you know you will need to spend countless hours together, it is wise to find someone with whom you can get along and trust well. Choosing a co-founder requires you to make a level-headed and informed decision.

Choosing a co-founder

It is often good to find someone who can balance your strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you don't have sufficient technical knowledge, look for one that can balance it out. The business partner you choose should be willing to fit with the culture of your company.

Complementary skills

To maintain a working relationship, choose someone you can respect and talk things over with. The person should be as intelligent and hardworking as you. Both of you should respect and accept the other's contribution to the company.

Mutual respect

The mission and passion of both partners should be aligned. Ensure that you are united over shared interests and are on the same page as far as the company's future is concerned.

Mission and passion alignment

A business partner should have a matched personality to yours. You will need to meet various people, and both of you should be presentable and confident. If you can unwind with your business partner, you will be more able to meet the challenges of the job.

Personality match

Choosing a business partner can be equal to choosing someone to get married to and when you make the wrong decisions, life can all be extremely messy.

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

What Should You be Looking in Your Co-founder?

Have you ever seen an ad from someone on Facebook (or while conducting a Google Search) that claimed the presenter was an “expert” or a “guru” at some business-related topic? For example, imagine an ad that says something like this: “I’ve helped businesses generate $1MM+ in new leads” or “I’m the marketing guru who can help you double your ROI.”That’s because every independent contractor, agency, and consultant in the world is competing on a global stage to win business. And if you want to win business, you have to be <a href="https://readwrite.com/2021/10/27/brand-building-101-learn-how-to-build-a-brand/">perceived as an expert </a>– or at least, that’s the way it used to be.

Experts And Gurus Everywhere

Online platforms like Google attempt to incentivize high-quality content by disproportionately promoting and rewarding content that serves as an authoritative take on a given subject. For example, a History professor’s 50-page dissertation should be ranked higher than a middle-schooler’s 50-word blog post, despite their similar subject matter. It’s why <a href="https://seo.co/pillar-content/">developing pillar content </a>is so important for SEO and other marketing strategies. Additionally, consumers tend to prefer working with experienced and knowledgeable professionals in all matters: this is common sense.

The Role Of Google And Consumers

It’s highly rewarding to be an expert.If you can establish yourself as a knowledgeable and respected professional in a given industry, you’ll enjoy more leads, a higher retention rate, and even more satisfied customers (as long as your performance isn’t terrible).

Reasons For The Overabundance Of Self-Proclaimed Experts

Anyone can call themselves an expert. What is an “expert” anyway? Is it someone who gets a certain degree or has a certain number of years in the field? Or is it someone who reaches a suitable threshold of knowledge in a given area? On some level, it doesn’t matter – because anyone can call themselves an expert in the digital age. A person may claim to be a PhD-holding serial entrepreneur, despite being a 19-year-old still in college and trying to start up a freelance business.

Visibility reinforces expertise. Thanks to the mere exposure effect and a handful of other cognitive biases, it’s natural that repeated exposure to a person (or a brand) makes us think more highly of them. If we see a collection of different ads from an individual marketing guru over the course of a few months, we’ll begin to think of them as being a more prominent and well-respected expert than they actually are – even if the effect is subconscious.

“Experts” force “experts” to emerge.If you only have a year of experience, you can’t exactly find success marketing yourself honestly. How does this ad sound: “I’m not very experienced, but I’ll try my best – and I’m probably cheaper than my competitors!” The mere existence of competitors who all bill themselves as experts means you need to bill yourself as an expert if you want to keep pace.

The nature of the internet incentivizes echo chambers and misinformation. The internet contains practically unlimited access to information and connective potential with everyone in the developed world. While this can be a tremendous strength, it also leads people to develop their own echo chambers – and makes it easy to find misinformation. Whatever your opinion is, you’re only one quick search away from finding a so-called “expert” who agrees with you, and a full community of people ( along with intelligent bots ) who will regurgitate your own opinions back to you.

Consumer trust is declining. It’s not all marketers’ faults, but generally, consumer trust is declining. After years of iffy coverage from the mainstream media, lies from politicians all over the political spectrum, and the overwhelming prevalence of misleading marketing and advertising, average consumers take everything they hear with a grain of salt. If you call yourself an expert with years of experience and tell them you can help them improve their business, your work is cut out for you – you’ll have to go to extensive lengths to prove this.

Consequences For Marketers (And Creators)

Terms like “expert” and “guru” are losing meaning. If you want to use terms like “expert” or “guru” in your marketing as a way to describe yourself, you’ll have to revisit that strategy. These terms are so popular and so widely misused that they’ve begun to lose their meaning. Once distinguishing markers of authority, these words have become cheap and easily exchanged.

Competitive differentiation is becoming harder. Most of your competitors are probably heavily invested in content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing , and other strategies meant to establish them as popularly perceived experts. They’re also pushing themselves as experts in your specific industry, making it harder for you to make the same claim. As a result, competitive differentiation is becoming harder and harder.

Understand and review your competition. If you want to stand out from the competition, you have to understand your competition. That means taking the time on a regular basis to read your competitors’ core pieces of content, review their lead generation strategies, and possibly even evaluate their customers. The more you understand about them, the more you’ll be able to grow your own strategies; you can find more ways to creatively distinguish your business from theirs and get ideas for how to promote yourself innovatively.

How To Thrive In A World Where Expertise Is Dead

Focus on a narrow niche. Some brands attempt to market themselves as broadly as possible, trying to reach the largest possible target audience to win more sales. But this isn’t the best idea when the market is flooded with competitors. Instead, it’s better to focus on a narrow target niche . Instead of describing yourself as a general “marketing expert,” you can become an expert in a very specific strategy, or become an expert at serving a specific industry or type of business.

Show, don’t tell.In the world of fiction writing, a common piece of advice is to “show, not tell.” In other words, you want to demonstrate something to your audience rather than explaining it to them explicitly. Instead of saying, “Bob was nervous,” you could say, “Bob padded the sweat from his brow and began to fidget.” Similarly, instead of calling yourself an expert, you can simply show your audience how much of an expert you are. The best way to do this is to develop consistently good content over time, then publish and syndicate it.

Prove your claims. Make sure you prove your claims. You’re an expert – but why? How much experience have you had? What miracles have you been able to work?

Expertise is “dead” in the sense that pretty much everyone is a self-described expert. But you still need to show your expertise is you want to continue competing in this landscape. Find a way to differentiate yourself – and still showcase your authority – if you want to thrive.

Differentiate & Showcase

Expertise is dead. And experts killed it. 

When experts get involved, expertise dies. Here we discuss why experts have killed expertise and what to do about it.

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

Expertise Is Dead: How to Stand Out When Everyone's an Expert

A business has to be customer-focused, it has to speak the language of the customers. You can’t be pushing what you think is cool, or pushing the technology. You need to understand what’s important for your clients.

Be Customer Focused

Community is the best marketing. You need to leverage your community to do your marketing for free. How do you build communities?Look for places where people post or talk about problems your product/service can solve.Find groups or pages that people are creating on Facebook, Reddit, Quora etc.

Leverage Communities 

Your Circle Of Influence is the people and networks you already have in place. You can use other people’s knowledge or relationships to get other people’s business. If what you are selling is both valuable and scarce, then you can leverage your Circle of Influence to close more sales. This doesn’t mean treating people like commodities.

Leverage Existing Circle Of Influence

You don’t need to come up with ideas for your content. People give you their problems all the time — 1) in blog posts, tweets, and reader comments,2) in email submissions and3) in events or conferences.Think about what motivates people.Content, not sales.

Content First Marketing Strategy

Be consistent and put in the hard work. You can’t expect to be successful with 0 dollar marketing if you don’t put in the work of creating content, distributing, engaging and adding value. Be bullish. It’s not enough to show up every now and then. You have to be there regularly, contributing quality content that others know about well enough to read and share with their friends.

Be Consistent, and put in the hard work

Thoughtfully marketing a product or service can cost a good deal less than a penny. It only takes a few minutes of active time invested per customer, and costs can be as low as zero. To be clear…

career

Career

How to market with 0 dollar budget

Six years ago, this book took the enigma of management and clarified it for me. It's the antidote to micromanagement and frees a manager and an employee to do their best work. One management strategy that stuck with me is the "one-minute Praisings".

1. One Minute Manager

Robert Kiyosaki grew up with a "poor dad" and retained the poor dad mindset through college. He realized that money can be managed to grow wealth and increase opportunities.

2. Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Nassim Taleb's Antifragile put words, data, stories, and brilliance to something I've sensed at a gut level but was never aware of. It Concretized this way of thinking: always be open to change by challenging everything.

3. Antifragile

by Mason Currey  This book eloquently and efficiently describes specific examples of famous creative people from history who remind me that I’m not batshit crazy for trying to create or do something out of the ordinary.

4. Daily Rituals

by Luke Sullivan  This is about how to write advertisements. It’s a jaunty book about moving people to buy with words and images (i.e., storytelling).If you write emails, CTAs, or social copy, you could probably benefit from the lessons in this book.

5. Hey Whipple, Squeeze This

Our best work comes from our basest desires. People do what they feel like doing. Strip away the fake morals, the shallow altruism of “second-handers,” and the prison of caring what people think you should do with your life and let yourself (and others) do your best, most authentic work. True impact and lasting goodness come from a central purpose in the individual.When working with people, discover their most core desires and liberate them to create. As a result, they will do their best work, they will love it, you will love it, and it will be beautiful, and everyone will love it.

6. The Fountainhead

Ron Willingham's ad is one that connects the buyer’s exact need to the seller’s exact product or service. If what you’re selling isn’t genuinely helpful to someone’s life, you are making one of three mistakes: 1) you are selling a thing to the wrong person, 2) you shouldn’t be selling the thing, or 3) the thing shouldn’t be sold at all (i.e., it’s a bad product or service)

7. Integrity Selling

by Patrick Lencioni  He tells the fictitious story of how an executive gives up his corporate job to own and manage an Italian restaurant in Lake Tahoe. It’s a simple story, but it illustrates brilliant points that helped me recognize if my job needed restructuring or if I’m fairly managing my expectations of someone over me.

8. 5 Signs of a Miserable Job

Austin Kleon paints a portrait of how secrecy kills a project and how opening up the creative journey is a powerful marketing strategy. "if you build it they will come" is out, replaced with "as you build it they will come"

9. Show Your Work

If you consider yourself ambitious, this book will help you assess the size of your ambition and how it is probably not — nor should it be — the size of someone’s like Steve jobs. If left unchecked, it can ruin the delicate balance of life satisfaction. Knowing my role in life and recognizing what it is and what it is not, helped me be at peace with tougher decisions.

10. Steve Jobs Biography

Stanley's book, Visioneering, taught him about Goal-Setting. He says you should always be shooting for something bigger and better. But don't let a process dictate the future. This creates shallow, sedentary thinking and Close-Mindedness. He says it instilled in him the value of setting a goal and taking action to achieve it.

11. Visioneering

Peterson's book 12 rules for life should be a welcomed read to someone who didn't grow up with a good relationship with their parents. "pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient."

12. 12 Rules For Life

Runaway millionaire is a novel about a family broken by greed, ambition, betrayal, and lust for power and restored by an unexpected, Transformative love. In retrospect, I think I saw myself as the son and God as the father character.

Bonus: Runaway Millionaire

This short list of books may not impress you — some of the books may even seem basic — but they were formative in my development as a person throughout my late teens, early twenties, and recent…

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Reading & Writing

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Society, Arts & Culture

A Book Can Change Your Life. These 12 Books Changed Mine

Silence is often underestimated. Interestingly it serves two purposes in a business discussion. It can allow the other person to talk, or even force them to speak.Regardless of the application of silence, when used with effective listening, you can drive a business conversation into a successful outcome.

Use Silence As A Tactical Tool

Anxiety and excitement can easily drive you down the rabbit hole of offering solutions without having a clear understanding of the business situation/problem. Unfortunately, a solution is only valid if it meets a known problem or business situation.Never be in a haste to speak, listen to understand the business context so you can gather your thoughts and drive the conversation towards a meaningful outcome.

Listen First To Understand The Context

There’s a thin line between speaking and overspeaking.  Sometimes it is best to be the listener. Recognising the importance of silence and how to use it as a tactical tool in business is an art a lot of successful salesman have mastered.  So here are some of the practical tips I have taken into my business that have also worked for me.

Mark McCormack, dubbed 'the most powerful man in sport', founded IMG (International Management Group) on a handshake. It was the first and is the most successful sports management company in the world, becoming a multi-million dollar, worldwide corporation whose activities in the business and marketing spheres are so diverse as to defy classification. Here, Mark McCormack reveals the secret of his success to key business issues such as analysing yourself and others, sales, negotiation, time management, decision-making and communication. What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School fills the gaps between a business school education and the street knowledge that comes from the day-to-day experience of running a business and managing people. It shares the business skills, techniques and wisdom gleaned from twenty-five years of experience.

What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School

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