Not Just Anyone

Most often, the goal of our marketing is to be found. That goal dictates our marketing strategy. If you’re trying to be found, you’ll seek out opportunities to interrupt everyone, anywhere. But there is an alternative. What would it take for you to be the brand people intentionally chose? How could you become the one…

Read More

The World Inside Your Customer’s Heart

There are few better lessons in the art of storytelling than those learned by watching a great real estate agent auction a good property, on a chilly Melbourne morning. Last Saturday, I looked on as an agent sold a million dollar home by reminding potential buyers how they would feel every weekend as they strolled…

Read More

The Sure Thing

Before we create a product, design a service or build a business we want to be certain the idea will fly. We want to know for sure that if we build it, people will come. If we only did the things we were certain would work, we’d never create anything original. Originality is a leap…

Read More

The Downside Of The Comparative Advantage

A new cafe opens in Melbourne every other week. Our city is full to bursting with every kind of cafe you could wish for—from holes-in-the-wall doling out espresso to morning commuters, to leisurely brunch places in the suburbs where friends linger and city lunch spots where business deals are done. So how does a new…

Read More

All Figured Out

It’s doubtful that when Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, now the world’s wealthiest man, launched the company over twenty years ago he had every tactical move figured out. The Bezos of 1999 couldn’t have predicted how his company would come to dominate and diversify. While he may not have understood the exact next step on the…

Read More

Profit And…

My mother started working over sixty years ago. As the tenth child of a widow, with nothing more than a basic education she had very few choices. She could be a seamstress or a replaceable cog on the assembly line at one of any number of factories. Sadly the factory jobs won because those jobs…

Read More

More What?

All marketing is an attempt to amplify. The story we tell and the marketing we do depends on our priorities. Do you want to be more visible, more trusted, more respected, more desirable, more loved or something else? Begin with that end in mind and craft your message accordingly. Image by Jason Ogden

Read More

How Are You Measuring Your Lead?

As a society, we have become obsessed with getting and staying ahead. We have become addicted to winning, and thus to comparing ourselves to others—not just in business, but in life too. But being ahead, either materially or psychologically is a slippery slope to a mindset of never enough. A culture designed to separate us…

Read More

Done Right Is Better Than Perfect

Last week, someone—a person with a business, a living to make and maybe mouths to feed, took time to find the contact form on my website to send me this message. Hello Are you an online marketer, do you own a business or businesses? I was just looking at your website. Do you want real…

Read More

The Difference Between Good And Great

The tiny Italian restaurant in Carlton is in full swing. It’s 6 pm, and a couple of experienced chefs are cranking out meals. The kitchen is a well-oiled machine, the oven is at capacity, as diners and Uber Eats drivers converge at once. The food is good. It’s just not great—unlike the food served at…

Read More