sales

Unorthodoxy

My latest book is due out on September 20th. Unorthodoxy: A Contrarian Marketer’s Philosophy For Surviving The Dying Internet is a philosophical take on how the internet as we know it is dying, how most people are actually on the bottom of the bell curve, and how we really aren’t that unique or creative after all. Misanthropic, perhaps, but true nonetheless. The internet has changed from decentralized & diverse to centralized & platform-focused. This changes what we need to focus on as marketers, as sales guys, as brands, as humans in general. Look for more information closer to release. This book is a departure from our earlier tactical books. My entire goal is to show how we have to shift… 

Delayed Gratification & Business-Building

In 1972, a professor at Stanford named Walter Mischel conducted a famous study which would become known as the “Stanford marshmallow experiment”.  Children were left in a room for 15 minutes with a single marshmallow, and offered the choice of either one immediate reward, or two rewards (as long as they didn’t eat the marshmallow by the time the researcher returned). If they were able to resist eating the single marshmallow, they were rewarded with another snack of their choice. The beauty of this study was not quite so much the insight about kids and marshmallows, but that it was a quite extensive study that actually followed up on the child’s progression through life for years. It turned out that… 

Relationships or Specifications?

It’s a fact which doesn’t sit well with some: the work itself doesn’t matter quite as much as who is doing it. Especially when we’re talking about service businesses. People buy based upon your likability — not whether you’re the absolute best, or whether you’re the cheapest. At first glance, this seems unfair. After having this discussion with a few folks, I’ve realized that many more people disagree with this statement than I first suspected. Because, if all things were equal, shouldn’t someone hire for value — getting the best work for the money? Yes, if all else is equal. But things are not all equal. And there is a hidden, intangible value to relationships that often trumps specifications. Let’s…