create a non-striving business
Before I talk about "selling out", I want to talk about the two sides of creativity, process and product. Process: the internal work of uncovering something personally meaningful through creative output. Product: a finished, cohesive work that other people can access and find value in. Process and product are two sides … [Read more...]
A marketing formula is a way of reaching your target market that consistently works and you can rely on to create a steady stream of new clients. Every successful business has at least one or two of these reliable methods of getting new clients that they consistently use. Otherwise you're reinventing the wheel every … [Read more...]
People are attracted to truth. If you want people to follow you, stand for something. Stand for something you believe is true and good, and make your business reflect that. Write a credo, a manifesto. Why are you in business? What matters to you? And then demonstrate it. For example, let’s say you do massage. You … [Read more...]
Several years ago I was talking to a friend about marketing and she said, "I was struggling with how to market my business, but one day I had a breakthrough. I just realized that duh, marketing is just about _________!" And I totally expected her next word to be "focus". (It wasn't.) Focus was my breakthrough … [Read more...]
This post is in response to Mark Silver's post Can Branding Ever Be Heart-Centered? Mark wants to rename branding "worldview". I don't - I like the word "branding". It means something specific - but maybe not what you think it means. Your associations with this word might be from seeing graphical logos or "brand … [Read more...]
I once had a prospective customer call me up and demand a sales pitch. He said "Sell me what you've got". I was caught off guard. I'm used to people calling to ask me questions, not calling to demand I sell them something. I said, uh, well, have you looked through the website? Yes. Did you have any questions? Then he got … [Read more...]
I've been reading the lastest issue of What is Enlightenment which is my new favorite magazine. The theme is "bright green" environmentalism which is about going beyond the guilt-Luddite dynamic that says we should all feel bad for breathing precious oxygen and go back to living in caves. That kind of environmentalism just … [Read more...]
Darren over at ProBlogger speaks about The Secret of Sustainable Blogging being making sure that your blog not just serves your readers but you as well, or else you will burn out and get bored of it. This applies to any business I think, and it's a beef I have with books like The Four Hour Work Week. Like other 'how to … [Read more...]
