What If Hype Had A Bigger Purpose?

I find it hard to believe the message that’s scrawled on the chalk board outside the deserted new cafe that still has that ‘unlived in’ feeling about it. The flustered, newly-minted barista is a dead giveaway. Every passer-by knows that it takes more than a week in business before you can make an all caps,…

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Fear, Procrastination And Getting Runs On The Board

I recently met with a super-smart friend who has an important idea to share with the world, she had three questions about how best to get that idea out there. I had three answers that might help you to get your ideas out there too. Q. What’s the best process for doing xyz? A. The…

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The Most Overlooked Part Of A Marketing Strategy

How often do our potential customers come to us and invite us in? That’s exactly what happens when someone visits an about page, they are asking us to tell them more and most of the time we blow it. We spend billions of dollars and countless hours every year trying to get people’s attention and…

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Why A Good Idea Is Not Enough

It took at least 40 years for the computer to go from being a series of ideas and advances to a commercial success. The difference between a good idea and a commercial success is context—the understanding about where that idea fits, how it will be useful in the world and who will care about it.…

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What Gap Is Your Business Closing?

Business is all about closing gaps. Closing the gap between aspirations and attainment, intention and achievement, between wants and experiences. Products and services can also close gaps between needs and functionality, innovation and utility, feelings and facts. But perhaps most importantly, what you do closes the gap between dreams and reality, loneliness and belonging and…

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Are You Ready To Tell People About You?

Have you ever come away from being asked the, ‘so, tell me about you’ question in a professional setting and felt like you nailed it—even just a little bit? How do you sum up the essence of who you are, what you stand for and what you’re capable of without sounding like an over-rehearsed egotist,…

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All Of The People, All Of The Time

All around us big vanilla businesses and corporations are struggling to understand how to connect with customers and give people what they want. Businesses like McDonalds are ‘resetting’ and trying to find new ways to improve speed and affordability of their core offerings. Their strategy is to become even faster and cheaper. Meanwhile Mexican food…

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Freedom Is Something You Make

When I was growing up (and maybe when you were too), there were two ways you could earn a living. You could have a job, or have a business. Two clear choices, work for a boss, or be the boss. Career guidance advice went something like this… “Get good grades, to get a qualification, to…

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Shifting The Focus From Results To Relationships

There’s a problem with how performance is measured by both ourselves and in our organisations. Typically you have a budget and targets to achieve. The purpose of the budget is to make sales go up, or waiting times go down. Our systems are designed to judge and reward us on results. If the campaign you…

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No Business Is In A Market Of One

When dance partners compete they know the other couples are there on the dance floor with them, but they never focus on what the competition is doing. Instead they relentlessly hone each move and perform it for the audience as if it were their only chance to dance the dance. They don’t allow the fact…

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