Reading Time: < 1 min While building audience personas is a vital piece of any marketing campaign, it’s also a bit strange. We build this very specific idea of who the customer is, knowing that this exact person doesn’t exist. In his book, “The Design of Everyday Things“, author Don Norman says: There is no such thing as the average […]
Business
Too much feedback is a problem
Reading Time: 2 min I talk a lot about giving feedback on here, both in terms of how to give good feedback to others, and how to appreciate feedback as a gift when it’s given to you. In both cases, though, too much feedback can be problematic. Too much feedback could mean that your work is simply not good […]
Clear ownership in disagreements with your partner
Reading Time: 2 min When it comes to issues with your partner, whether that it’s marriage or in business, knowing who has the final say on a particular issue is hugely important. In my experience, this can be difficult to sort out in a marriage (you both have equal ownership in home, your children, etc), but can be a […]
You never have all of the facts
Reading Time: 2 min People work hard to try to have “all of the facts” when making a decision, which is a wise thing to do. At some point, though, you need to realize that you can’t literally have all of the facts and you just need to make the best decision that you can. I love this quote […]
Title it from their perspective
Reading Time: < 1 min If I’m talking with my friend Steve and we set a meeting for next week, I might send out the calendar invite to him with the title of “Meet with Steve“. On my calendar that makes sense, but now Steve has an event called “Meet with Steve” on his, where the title is completely useless. […]
Tax the things you want to see less of
Reading Time: 2 min Taxes can serve a few purposes — they can help bring in more money to the government, and they can encourage people to do less of a particular behavior (and often they do both). Toll lanes bring in revenue but also limit who is on them so that they’re a faster way to go. If […]
Avoiding schlep blindness
Reading Time: 3 min Just over a decade ago, Paul Graham coined the phrase “schlep blindness”. It essentially means that we often become blind to tedious, unpleasant tasks and simply put up with them. Paul shared this example from Stripe, the credit card processing company: The most striking example I know of schlep blindness is Stripe, or rather Stripe’s idea. […]
Find more problems
Reading Time: 2 min None of us want problems to pop up, but worse is ignoring them when they do. Discovering and resolving problems and deficiencies are one of the best ways to grow your business. At GreenMellen, we have multiple meetings every week (with different groups) to unpack and resolve issues that come up. Each one leads to […]
Retargeting and Remarketing aren’t quite the same
Reading Time: < 1 min When it comes to marketing, I’ve long interchanged the words “Retargeting” and “Remarketing”, considering them similar enough to essentially be the same thing. They’re indeed quite similar, but different enough that it’s worth being precise. Both of them are ways to reach back out to potential leads for your product, but you go about them […]
Which one do you like?
Reading Time: < 1 min When presenting options for feedback, a common question is simply asking “which one do you like?”. While that might be a good question at times, it’s generally not a smart way to go. Similar to the bad suggestion of “make it darker“, asking “which one do you like?” is pointing things in the wrong direction. […]