Adjust the end to your means
If you don’t have the resources, capabilities, or equipment necessary to make something that looks like it had an enormous budget, or which matches the prevailing trendy aesthetic, try something else.
Dear Charlie
The task was to sell a German-made car in America, less than 15 years after the end of World War II. Oh, and it looked and drove nothing like the most popular cars of the day. So how do you introduce a new car in a hostile market dominated by giants?
Even if you lose, you win
If there are red flags during the sales process, if the project seems doomed from the start, those issues won’t suddenly go away once there’s money, expectations, committees, and deadlines involved.
You can’t bully yourself to better marketing
Frankly, entrepreneurs and creative types tend to bully themselves. Not because they don’t know what to do, but because they feel like they know exactly what they should be doing, but aren’t. Or can’t.
Don’t predict, prepare
Nobody knows what happens next. No one’s predictions will be very accurate. We’ll look back and wonder how it wasn’t obvious, but nothing that seems obvious now is likely to be right.
You paid the fare—make sure you arrive
The most important concept in strategy is commitment. Not a commitment to do the same thing forever. Not a stubborn resistance to change. But a commitment to truly give a direction your all.
Not lazy, but afraid
Why do we put off marketing work we know we should be doing? The fact is, if we aren’t confident an action is going to create positive results, we won’t do it. We’ll procrastinate. We’ll avoid it. We’ll make excuses. It’s not because we’re lazy, it’s because we’re scared.
They’re stuck too
2020 is a year of anxieties for everyone, business owners included. And a particular strain of anxiety I’ve noticed is over competition.
We must start with gold
Everything we do in our business either reinforces or damages our market position. Including, or even especially, how our product works and looks.
Every decision is a marketing decision
My favorite cognitive bias is called “déformation professionelle.” Basically, we see the world through our jobs. It’s a bias I certainly have. I see everything through a marketing strategy lens. Often, that just makes me a boring conversation partner. But, sometimes, it actually helps.
End the anxiety of marketing
When we meet with a new client, a very common sentiment is a sense of anxiety that pervades their marketing. Some say they hate it. Some say they like it, but it stresses them out. Others have just been trying to ignore it, or let someone else handle it.
You can’t throw work against a thinking problem
All of us can get caught in the trap of believing we can simply work our way out of trouble. Hustle culture has taught us that the answer to any given problem is to throw time and effort against it. But the truth is, if you’re going in the wrong direction, going faster doesn’t help.