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Will anyone care about your product?

That’s the question companies need to ask when building new products. Quality is ubiquitous. The noise is deafening. No longer can you rely on an amazing product. You have to create a strong brand. In fact, your brand is more important than ever. You need to stand for something that matters to the people that matter to your success. Ignore that and you will be ignored. That’s hardly good for business. In the SaaS world, the stakes are high. Currently there are 8,500 marketing software products alone. That’s up from 500 a decade ago. This is partly due to the

Patrick

My three focus words for 2021

It’s time to share my three words for 2021. At first glance you may scratch your head at what they have to do with business. Yet everything is interconnected: When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. John Muir They’re dang simple words but behind them is actually quite a lot of substance. It was hard to identify what my words should be. Initially I’d settled on attention and curiosity. Yet that’s already my focus. And an easy place for me to operate. These three words are surprisingly a

Patrick

May we have your attention?

How often have you asked that question of your customers? We’re in an era where the scarcity is time. The scarcity is attention. And we’re not able to make more of it. Buy more of it. Or recover it once used. As a brand, you’re competing with everyone and everything else for attention. You’re not able to make the pie larger. You’re capturing it from someone else. How do you earn the right to that attention? And what will you do with it? Squander it? Use it wisely? Have a glance at where all of our attention goes below. Everyday we: It

Patrick

Why we’re afraid to sell

Over the years I’ve heard how many people excel at making their product or delivering a service but suck at selling because they’re afraid of rejection. Some of you will say you don’t like sales because it has a bad rap. Or that you’re an introvert. Or that the phone isn’t ringing so you can’t sell. Or any number of excuses. And excuses these are. We admire those that are good at sales. We think of top sales people as extroverts with a gift to gab. Yes, that helps. That so many of us don’t like sales is why

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Introducing the Unvarnished Business Podcast

On the surface, the most successful people in business make it look so easy. So perfect. Just like the curated social media feeds of perfect lives we might envy, we often think we’re the only ones having the challenges we do. The imposture syndrome. The questioning. Looking for the map only we can write. The failures that force us to get back up day after day to hit our goals. It’s never as straightforward as we’d like. Everyone is figuring it out as they go. Navigating market forces beyond their control. There’s always uncertainty. But that’s the power of the

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The noise of opportunity

Everywhere you go you’re faced with nearly infinite choices and opportunities. Whether feature creep on your products or product creep where you try to be all things to all people. Someone, maybe you, has a new idea that seems like the next big thing. FOMO makes you want to pursue it. After all, what if your competitors beat you to it? It’s especially important to stay focused when your business is just starting out. Too many choices requiring customers to do too much research slows the decision making. It may even cause a prospect to never choose or go elsewhere.

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The marketing funnel minus the jargon

Marketing can be complicated. So much jargon. So many tools. So many options. Much is written about marketing funnels and there’s software that helps you with reporting metrics. There are lead funnels, sales funnels, funnels for webinars, and so forth. At each stage there’s a conversion and a portion of your audience drops out. Think of it like moving on to the next round of a game. Who will become your next customer today? Let’s not make it more complicated than it needs to be. 1. Awareness. At this stage your future customer has little to no idea who you

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How to plan a marketing campaign

Thinking through all of the steps of your next marketing campaign will increase your success rate and ROI – and help you avoid getting through the process only to find yourself at a dead end and needing to restart. Let’s break it down into a straightforward process designed to get you to launch faster. Start with your campaign goal The key to an effective marketing campaign is to begin with the end in mind. Sound familiar? Presumably, your goal is to generate sales. But that’s too vague of a campaign goal. You might want to build demand for your product

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Have you recession-proofed your business?

Coronavirus has upended how we live, shop and work. Many restaurants and hotels are closing for good. Malls before the pandemic were already losing anchor tenants and now that is accelerating with JC Penney closing up to 250 stores, Macy’s 125 and Nordstrom 16. Now that people are avoiding indoor spaces they will likely see faster decline. Many smaller stores have clauses that cut them loose from their leases if a mall loses two or more anchor tenants. Business has been going online for awhile but that is accelerating. People have learned to work remotely and shop for most everything online.

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Writing

Will anyone care about your product?

My three focus words for 2021

May we have your attention?

Why we’re afraid to sell

Introducing the Unvarnished Business Podcast

The noise of opportunity

The marketing funnel minus the jargon

How to plan a marketing campaign

Have you recession-proofed your business?

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