Be Awesome: You Too, Professional Services
A primer on “Minimum Viable Personality” by robot dinosaur FAKEGRIMLOCK FAKEGRIMLOCK self-describes as a robot dinosaur who is on a mission to “DESTROY SUCK ON INTERNET, REPLACE WITH AWESOME!” He mostly is speaking to startups “…PUNCH STARTUPS IN FACE WITH TRUTH UNTIL FAIL BEATEN OUT OF THEM.” But his message is relevant to the professional services business, too. Because when your prospects are making a decision, they too only care about two things: “Does it work?” And “Is it interesting?” Let’s assume your services exist and that they work. That is the price of...
Read MoreHow Ink is Made: Video
For my designers and marketers: An outstanding example of how the Printing Ink Company (Canada) leverages point of view, expertise and craftsmanship to differentiate itself and create rapport with the viewer. Hat tip to Design Taxi .
Read MoreThree Ways to Maximize the Impact of Your Content
A strong point of view, consistency and confidence necessary for content to make a lasting impression with prospects, influencers and the market. Impact. It means to impinge or make contact especially forcefully. And as a business leader, you have it, especially when it comes to your people. But when it comes to impacting your external audience, prospects, influencers, or your market with content – chances are good that you need to kick it up a notch. Here are three ways you can. 1. Take a stand. Marketing and technology firms (the two types of firms I work with) are very similar in that...
Read MoreObsessed With Strategy
I keep a photocopy of “Strategy Means Saying ‘No’” an article by David Maister, handy on my desk. It serves as a source of comfort, an antidote to the resistance and fear response of clients to my insistence that they need to be “not for” some people, if they are ever to become known for anything beyond than “we do everything for everyone.” In fact, of late, I’ve become quite obsessed with strategy. Fueling the fire is a new book “Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works,” by A.G. Lafley, former Chairman, President and CEO,...
Read MoreHow to Create Content That Changes The World
When it comes to creating content, many of us keep taking and breaking the same oath over and over again. It goes like this: “Starting today (this month, this year), I am going to produce a steady stream of relevant content that a) will capture and keep the attention of my audience and b) will keep me from getting bored and frustrated and giving up.” I believe there is a good reason that we keep breaking this promise to ourselves and I’m going to attempt to unpack my theory for you in this post. To get to this conclusion I deconstructed the content creation issues of...
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