Louder Than Words

We’re obsessed with finding the right words to communicate our value. We finesse our LinkedIn bios, agonise over product descriptions and sales pages. Of course, words have enormous power. But they are worthless without the actions that support them. It’s no good describing how great your product is if you haven’t put in the work…

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What Do The Best Salespeople Do?

A young couple spent a while ‘just looking’ in the furniture store before approaching a salesperson to ask about fabric choices on a particular sofa. She showed them the swatches and said nothing. The guy asked if they had anything like it—a large squashy four-seater in leather. They didn’t. “What size exactly are you looking…

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The First Rule Of Standing Out

If you want to stand out, do the thing that’s in short supply. When everyone is fighting for attention, be the one who earns permission. When everyone is looking for an angle, be the one who acts with integrity. When everyone is chasing growth, be the one who deepens connection. When everyone seeks scale, be…

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Is Your Business Reacting Or Responding?

It was impossible to walk down any high street in June without running into a notice informing you fidget spinners were BACK IN STOCK. The fidget spinner was clearly ‘the thing’ of the moment. A month later we’re already beginning to witness its decline. Another fad bites the dust. A fad by definition is transient.…

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The Value Of Subtraction

The call centre operator’s power is limited. He can’t bypass the company’s systems and processes. He is employed to apply a band-aid to the wound—buying the company some time until someone in another department (who he has no direct access to) can solve the problem. He should be empowered to delight and when he’s not…

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Noticed Vs. Remembered

For every ten things we do today to get noticed we will do one thing worthy of being remembered. The irony, of course, is what we want deep down is to do work that’s remembered—not just noticed. We only achieve that goal by redressing this imbalance—forsaking the desire for attention today, to double down on…

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Four Stories Every Business Needs

Every marketer knows he needs to tell his customers a story about what he’s creating—one he hopes will help them buy into his idea or buy his product. The second story is that of his existing customer and her relationship with his product or service. The best business leaders reflect on how using their product…

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Why We Need To Redefine Greatness

By most conventional measures of success Uber is a great company. From a standing start in 2009 to a valuation of $70 billion early in 2017, the ride-hailing app has become the most valuable private technology company in the world. Uber has achieved the kind of growth many companies dream of and yet the recent…

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Mean It Like You Say It

The Sunday ice-cream scooper at the gelato place on Spring Street makes new customers sample every flavour before they buy anything. She knows her gelato inside and out. Her enthusiasm is infectious. She reels off the most popular flavours and tells stories about how pistachio lovers always return to pistachio having tried everything else because…

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The Incremental Advantage

Despite what we know about how distracted our customers can be and how endless their choices are, when it comes to our messaging and marketing, we often overestimate our ability to cut through. You only have to spend five minutes watching someone scrolling through a feed on their smartphone (try it), or see how the…

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