short story
This email saved my business a few years ago. I put together a list of 342 chief technology officers, at small firms. I send them this story. It yielded enough calls to generate a couple of clients. One client, Curiosity Stream, was just fantastic to work with, and a lot of my earliest show-off-able work […]
Kate’s problem
Kate just found out the client she really wanted to land, won’t. They didn’t even reach out and tell her. She had to follow-up with them. They said she was a finalist. They said the decision was to go in a ‘different direction’. That felt like saying any direction except towards her. Kate will never […]
You’re sweet.
When you copy-pasted my email into a your LinkedIn post, that was really nice, thank-you for doing that. When you forwarded an email to someone to help them out, that was really nice, thank-you for doing that. And it was my privilege to help your friend. When you replied to one of the emails to […]
tell your story, pls
I’m 300 times into figuring out how to make a person, company or product ‘different’. 281 wins. Figuring out an ‘angle’ is so valuable. And since it doesn’t cost anything (unless you pay someone like me), the ROI is NUTS — sky-high. 5 lessons from 300x: The smaller you are the harder it is to […]
A story: we aren’t close, but I like her (if that makes sense).
Do you know someone and you think it’s INSANE that new clients aren’t rushing to buy from them? That’s Amy. Amy and I aren’t close. But I like her. She’s on her own as a solopreneur. She wants to help companies develop a go-to-market strategy. No one is hiring her. She’s posting on LinkedIn like […]
Not disappointed in you.
My ‘pricing mentor’ explained the difference between price disappointment and price surprise. Like most small businesses, pricing is oftentimes vexing. Here’s the advice… “When you quote someone your price and they sound disappointed, they’re not disappointed in you. They’re disappointed because they want it but costs more than they hoped. If […]
make this short promo
I just finished a call with the inimitable Katie Walter. Her client (she’s a fractional CMO) is creating some promo videos (aka sizzle reels), and I gave her my structure for writing them. It’s just 7 steps. Here’s what you want the audience to THINK during the beginning of the the 7 “acts”. […]
What does he do?
Companies want to say a lot of things. I figure out what goes first. Reshape it to get through. Repeat. So people get curious. And engage. Old: Proposed: It’s everything you’d want a job to be — useful, valuable, creative, hard, and paid for. 😀
penning self-love
You should probably delete that line or phrase you wrote. The one you keep re-reading because it’s so clever. It’s penned self-love. Writing + reading is a joint experience. Preserving a line you should have cut, because it makes YOU feel good, is bad. There’s a 12-letter word for willful self-pleasure like that. I won’t […]
the question that kills attention
… is a question. Virtually all questions, as a headline, subject line, or opening line, kill reader attention. Because when you ask a question up front, you push labor onto the reader before the reader knows you’re worth it. People think questions are cheap easy engagement. They’re not. A great question is a masterpiece. There […]