Daily Lab: Focus exercise
A quick exercise to hone your marketing focus on your most valuable actions and clients:
specific
100 posts
Daily Lab: Say it to someone
It’s a little silly to make such a basic point, but groups don’t really buy things—people do.
Daily Lab: Do less, demonstrate more
If you do too much, you’ll never be able to effectively demonstrate it all.
Commentary: Always Know What to Say
Welcome to the background commentary and recommended reading for the “Always Know What to Say” mental model and the “Making Marketing Messages” framework exercise.
Model: Always Know What to Say
All the social media posts, paid ads, press releases, and website redesigns in the world won’t get you profitable customers if you’re not talking to the right person, about the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, in the right place.
Money-Making Marketing in 5 Steps
The reason your marketing is struggling is not because you don’t know what to do. It’s not struggling because you don’t know what to say. It’s struggling because you hate it.
What’s your bicycle of the mind?
Marketing cannot save a company, nor can it make one.
"You'll get eaten alive."
In 1916, the Saturday Evening Post published “Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Business Man” by Robert Updegraff. In the story, the titular Adams becomes a sought-after consultant to business leaders who know they've been blinded by their own narrow perspective.
Charge your value or lose it
I was talking to a good friend about a business idea he’s been mulling. He presented his (excellent) plan for the work he’d do, and the clients he’d attract. And then he said, “And I think I’ll just charge a couple hundred bucks for it.” Because I can’t help myself, I immediately blurted out, “No.”
You want to be weird
There are only two dependable ways to create a profitable business: By being meaningfully different from your competition in a way that provides greater value to a specific set of customers. Or by being so streamlined, efficient, and operationally effective that you can be the cheapest option.
“There’s no such thing as a marketing emergency”
I thought the best way I could be helpful to you today is to just make your marketing a little easier. A little bit less stressful or overwhelming, so you can focus on other things.
Flailing for attention
The job of a marketer is not to make marketing assets, or to implement tactics. Or to just get attention. The job is to get customers. Nobody cares about our ads, our social media posts, our videos, or even our newsletters. They care about their own problems, their own lives, their own jobs.
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