Reading Time: < 1 min I’ve shared before my dislike for most forms of automation, and personalization is often closely related. Both of those are marginally acceptable for huge companies, but it’s shaky at best. It’s cute that Verizon sends emails that actually start with my name, but as Seth Godin has said, “A mail merge makes nobody happy“. Personalization […]
Trust
The truth versus paywalls
Reading Time: 2 min It feels like most information today is free, and it largely is. Movies and music are locked up in services like Netflix and Spotify, but most news and information is free, right? It largely is, but the growing list of news outlets that are putting up paywalls is becoming troublesome. I don’t object to them […]
Great communication is built on trust
Reading Time: 2 min In his book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things“, author Ben Horowitz shares simple yet powerful way to speed up communication: trust. Ben simply says: “In any human interaction, the required amount of communication is inversely proportional to the level of trust.” The more you trust someone, the easier the communication. If you know their […]
Who wants to hear your message?
Reading Time: < 1 min As time goes on, I’m becoming increasingly annoyed with unexpected interruption-based marketing. I’ve mentioned before that I’m fine with ads during TV shows, podcasts, and other areas where I expect it. I don’t like them, but I recognize that it’s part of the deal and it’s my “payment” for the content. Fair enough. However, as […]
Honest skepticism
Reading Time: 2 min If you disagree with something I post on here, or something you read elsewhere, or with a position that a political candidate holds, that’s great! You shouldn’t (and really can’t) agree with everything out there, so holding your position is very important. However, what if you later realize that you were wrong? If you said […]
How strongly do you support your favorite political candidates?
Reading Time: 2 min I’ve shared a few times my affection for “purple people” — those that are willing to vote for candidates that will best serve us, rather than just blindly voting their party line. In every election, every time, there are some pretty bad characters on both sides of the aisle. How you act regarding those politicians […]
What are the reasons not to buy?
Reading Time: 2 min In a recent episode of GaryVee’s podcast (I think it was in this one), he expressed a desire to often try to talk people out of buying his services, for a few reasons. First, he wants to make sure people are serious. I’ve noticed a few times over the years that the people that jump […]
What would it take for you to turn away?
Reading Time: < 1 min There are a lot of people that I trust, but very few that I trust unconditionally. When it comes to leadership in politics, there is no one that I will follow “no matter what”. Some have been close. Mike Boyce was transparent, focused, and always did what he felt was the right thing, and I […]
Fix the damage, don’t bury it
Reading Time: < 1 min In the past few months, I’ve seen a few situations on social media that were odd to me. First, a few months friend of mine shared a fake story related to George Floyd and his family. After he posted, it was shared a handful of times by other friends of his. Eventually someone pointed out […]
If we spam you, please be polite to us
Reading Time: 2 min I recently came across a fascinating thread on LinkedIn where salespeople were frustrated by being “ghosted” by potential clients. They’d reach out, and simply get no response. Ghosting someone isn’t generally a nice thing to do, but there was a big difference with this thread — almost everyone in there was sending cold emails (you […]