A Brain So Smart It’s Stupid
How to remember the details when your brain is determined to forget.
What’s in a Name — The Power Behind Brand Identity
Here are 4 important considerations to choose a strong name.
When Everyone’s “Good”
When meetings end early and everyone nods along, it may not be efficiency. It may be self-protection.
Steve Jobs Presentation Techniques That Still Work Today
Three things separate Steve’s presentations from the ones we immediately forget about.
THE WIZARD (bi)WEEKLY
Twice a month we’ll send our best advice, no strings attached.
Let’s grow your business.
No spam. No nonsense.
VRBO’s New Campaign Isn’t Working — Here’s Why
They’re pretending they’re different than Airbnb and hoping we’re stupid.
Shared Suffering: The Missing Ingredient in Customer Loyalty
How do we share suffering? That’s easy: Identify your common enemies.
Innovation or Iteration? Spin Master’s Paw Patrol Playbook
Toys change but there’s always just 11 patterns of play. So they knew what would work.
What Your Praise Teaches
If you celebrate outcomes but never the values behind them, people learn that results matter more than integrity.
Partner Book of the Month
Latest Monday Morning Memo
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How Selling with Purpose Drives Better Business Growth
McLeod proved that having a mission beyond just money yields bigger profits.
Why this Nike Ad was actually a FAILURE
It was brilliantly written and exquisitely produced. But they forgot who usually buys Nike.
The Unignorable Jingle: Win Hearts & Customers in 8 Seconds
Brevity and memorability make them effective in social media, TV, and radio.
Lip Bar – Think big, start small. It’s better to fail than regret.
Shark Tank ripped her apart but she learned something pivotal.
What They’re Not Saying Out Loud
What to do when employees soften the truth to keeps things smooth (and hidden).
From Sales Failure to Success: A Career-Changing Story
After thousands of people, this big New York sales trainer says I’m his least likely to succeed.
Why Do Your Ads Sound Like a Lecture?
The only education your ad should deliver is why the customer should give a damn.
Unwrapping Mars Part 2: How to Spot and Seize Opportunity
His stepmom controls the chocolate. So he partners with her competitor.
What Can Your Business Learn from the OJ Simpson Chase?
It drove Domino’s best sales day ever. Tap into the power of shared experience.
Start Noticing Again
How to recognize the quiet distress signals in your business. When things are bending but not yet broken.
Accountability in Business: Expectations vs Agreements
Leaders are often certain their team knows what they want. But then I go talk to the team.
Five Doses of Medicinal Business Tonic
Start these today to attract more relational buyers, the kind that build the most profitable businesses.
Unwrapping Mars: The Gritty Story Behind its Sweet Success
Father and son were estranged. But a century later the family still owns the company?
Misaligned
The early signs of cultural misalignment don’t come with a neon warning light. They arrive in the form of subtle comments.
Mastering Sales Communication: Lessons from Alan Alda
Even smart people have trouble communicating effectively. Alan’s 5 step method helps.
How Uber Eats Pulled Off One of the Smartest Ads in Years
It’s a shared experience everybody has gone through so people feel something.
Be Known Before You’re Needed: The Secret to Better Marketing
Slow and steady wins. Leads don’t get 100 quotes if they have a name they trust.
When Ads Won’t Work, You Need A “Street Team”
Sometimes you don’t need mass media or social media. You need a two-legged army.
The Cost of Not Talking Money
The vibe is good. But something in the numbers keeps slipping through the cracks. Why?
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Sales: Aristotle’s Persuasion Secrets
There are 3 elements to persuasion. Pathos, logos, and ethos.
The Promise of the Butterfly Effect
Lots of small changes make off the chart results. It works in life. It works in business.
Brand Ads: Brilliant Long Game or Bottom-Line Killer?
Do brand ads actually work, or are they just smoke, mirrors, and Madison Avenue charm?
How Nescafé Turned Instant Coffee Into a Premium Brand
I realized why I disliked it, why it worked, and why I’d run the ads even though I disliked them.
When “We’re Like a Family” Becomes a Shield
Teams thrive on clarity, not just kindness. Is your company sidestepping discomfort?
Scrabble’s Slow Burn: Lessons in Business Perseverance
He launched the game in 1938. Almost 20 years later it finally explodes.
Mastering First Principles in Sales: Transform Your Approach
Principle 1: Don’t try to convince the customer to think and feel like you do.
The Most Powerful Part of Your Story Is the One You Don’t Tell
The best writing knows that persuasion isn’t about pressure. It’s about resonance.
The Word That Makes Us Cringe
It usually isn’t comfortable, easy, or fun. But your business will never grow without it.
When Culture Becomes a Cover Story
Culture. Not the kind companies post on their websites, but the kind you can feel in the room.
Why Your Google Ads Are Bleeding Money
Two PPC experts explain what’s wrong with most of the accounts that they take over.
Knowing your needs better than you do. Marriott’s model.
He succeeded 3 times in a row. How’d he find opportunities?
Hypnagogic State: The Secret to Boosting Your Creative Thinking
Edison and Dali used this long before science explained it.
NIKE ads are finally good again!
They remembered their core audience and spoke to the passion and emotions involved.
Painting With Words
Your words attract either transactional or relational customers, so telling the story of your business well is crucial.
Radio Ads Cost How Much?!
In many cities, spending a dollar reaches somebody with 60-second ads three times a week for a full 52 weeks.
The Most Important Place in Your Business Is Where the Wires Can’t Reach
This kind of presence can’t be automated. But it’s often the reason people stay loyal.
The SECRET To Better Advertising – Entertainment ISN’T Always Funny
When you’re cringing, it doesn’t feel like an ad.
Turtle Power – How Absurdity Built an Empire
They maxed out their cards and got a loan from an uncle. How’d they reach $17 billion?
Marketing Is Dead. Long Live Marketing!
When you understand how humans actually buy, you don’t have to force the sale.
How Pixar’s Culture Drives Financial Success
Their movies net half a billion dollars each. Can we learn what makes them special?
Culture Shows the Way, Strategy Pays the Bills
“If you focus on culture, you don’t need to worry about revenue.” It sounds nice. But it’s not true.
Lure of the Aurora Borealis
Tourists want to gaze at the sky, but it’s too frigid. See how a hotel turned an obstacle into an opportunity.
Connect 4: Turning ‘Different Thinking’ into an Advantage
Howard’s dyslexia spurred innovative ideas, but his Hasbro bosses rejected them.
Marketing’s Focus Group Trap
Why the “smartest” person in the room is ruining your marketing.
Why Your Brand Can’t Afford to Forget What AI Will Never Hold
Are we building for speed, or are we building for staying power?
Unexpected Sales Lessons from a Master Bartender
If you master connection then nobody is buying off the right-hand side of the menu.
Snickers Uses Shared Experience To Make Incredible Advertising
It’s all about entertainment and emotion. They’re owning your brain for 30 seconds.
The Metric Trap Sabotaging Your Marketing
Offline advertising is perhaps 10 times more effective than you think, and digital is about a third.
How Hilton grew despite a bad economy
How did Conrad create the first modern hotel experience facing economic headwinds?
Bold Consistency
Both bird feeders and ad campaigns will typically fail to attract their intended targets for similar reasons.
How to Handle Bad News in Business
Just because your door is open, doesn’t mean you’re approachable.
How To Sell Brown Liquor
How does Nick, a non-marketer, get people making road trips to line up before the store opens?
You never forget your first real coach
They’ll either help you grow or reinforce the belief that coaching is just a fancy word for pressure.
Bet the House, Hit the Road – A Barber’s Belief in UNO
At 60 years old he mortgages his home and it’s not selling.
Public Service Advertising Done Right
It’s really hard to educate the consumer, but they made a dull subject sparkle.
Drifters, Surfers, Drowners, and Sailors
There are four kinds of people you meet when you’re sailing the water of life. Only one finds success.
The Art of Storytelling and Whiskey Tasting with Paul Boomer
The way you share things and the settings that you provide make all the difference.
The Marketing Trap Every Small Business Falls For
A recent report describes the “damage, not deliverance” that results from over-reliance on digital advertising.
Get A Clue – Combining Concepts Can Be A Game-Changer
The inventor drew inspiration from disparate fields to create something extraordinary.
The Simple Formula for Getting Everyone to Use a New Strategy
Every choice, big or small, either reinforces your brand’s identity or confuses it.
Mastering the Art of Sales: Substance or Style?
One client didn’t want me back because my backup wore nicer shoes.
AI Ate Your SEO — Now What?
How can business owners respond to this switch from Google to AI and win?
Stallone’s Rocky Ride From Selling His Dog to Owning Hollywood
When building your dream, staying power is everything.
Always Replace Yourself
If something dies the moment you stop touching it, you have a micro-management hell-hole.
Time Management for Sales Success: Feed the Ducks Wisely
There are days when you’re not going to want to do work. And that’s okay.
Investing effort vs. spending time
How does your business serve? Customers pay you to do. Clients hire you to be. They look alike. But they don’t act alike.
The Costco Story – Turning Restrictions into Retail Gold
It would have been easy for the experience to become crappy, but for some reason, it isn’t.
Ideas are Living Things
When an idea pops into your head, if it’s truly valuable, you can guarantee you aren’t the only one that it appeared to.
Quality vs. Price: Why Paying Too Little Can Cost You Everything
You can’t apologize for your price. There’s a good reason for it.
Bypass Logic & Win Hearts With The Princess Bride Effect
Seeing an ad alerts the inner critic and gets logic going. We can suspend that disbelief.
You Can Quantify Trust
People trust numbers. They trust them even when those numbers might not tell them the whole story.
Howard Johnson’s – The First Restaurant Franchise
How did they go from 2 locations in 1935 up to 107 locations 4 years later?
Social Media: Focus On People With A Command To Watch
What is it that physiologically strikes people that stops their thumb from scrolling?
Sales Success Secrets: How Being the “Dumbest” Person in the Room Wins
People hear “dumbest” as a negative, when it’s actually the most curious.
Customers never bond with facts
When they realize your brand’s story is a part of their story, they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.
Want your ads to get noticed? Deny a common truth.
When something violates our expectations, the hippocampus prioritizes that information.
Lite Beer: How listening launched a whole new category
It’s not going to sell if you don’t help customers identify with your brand.
Your Greatest Power: 5 Keys for Winning in Business and in Life
The capacity to “choose” is your most valuable resource.
Leader, Manager, Coach – What’s the Difference?
What separates the three roles and skills? Is one the best? How do you identify them?
How to create a strategy – Let’s get real.
If it’s something that’s really common, it’s a tactic. It’s not a strategy because a strategy can’t be repurposed.
Unique Selling Propositions
The problem with most marketing consultants is they try to make their client’s product seem unique.
Play angle of approach for fun and profit
Angle of approach lets you transform a rolling piece of scrap into a dream car.
The Psychology of Pricing: Anchoring Techniques
Adding a decoy can increase selection of the most expensive option from 32% up to 84%.
Ding dong! Avon calling! – Why it worked.
Persis showed how the best way to market to women was to have women selling.
Which Marketing Strategy is Most Effective?
Growing a business requires two types of strategies: Overarching Marketing Strategy and Message Strategy.
My Spock Meets Don Quixote
To be a successful entrepreneur you have to be one part Don Quixote and one part Mr. Spock.
How Did You Hear About Us?
Asking is selfish and goes nowhere. And don’t ever make your problem the customer’s problem, ever.
The Rise of Root Beer – Attaching to the Familiar
How did a pharmacist popularize his alternative to polluted water or alcohol? Can we use the same play?
Mastering Sales Onboarding: Tips for Training New Reps
Replacing someone due to poor onboarding can cost 50% of their annual salary.
How to Become Famous on a Small Marketing Budget
There are 3 main levers that can help you become famous and wealthy.
Digital Advertising: The Magic Money-Burning Machine?
How do you ensure that your digital advertising performs like an investment rather than an expense?
Calendly’s Formula – Dive Into The Customer Experience
There was software he found that solved bits and pieces, but none checked all the boxes.
Hyper Empathy: The Double-Edged Sword in Sales
When does it go too far and become unconsciously just about, “I want you to like me?”
Everyone Should Have a Jingle
What makes a great jingle? And what does the science of audio branding teach us about them?
Our Simple, 6-Step Sequence for Cementing Your Success
Your business needs a real plan to build a cohesive brand and attract your best customers.
Is ROAS the Crown Jewel of Marketing Metrics?
You’re lucky if you can confidently track more than 50% of conversions. So what’s the alternative?
Yahtzee’s Rise To #1 – What The Creator Got Right His 2nd Time
A door-to-door salesman creates Bingo and stays broke. How did he make millions on his next game?
QR Codes: How to Use Them the Right Way
QR codes offer a powerful bridge between the physical and digital worlds, but they’re often misused.
Beware The Flying Monkeys
Even a Technicolor scarecrow could follow these 5 lessons for small business owners.
Drumming Up Passion and Commitment
You ask one guy what he’s doing, he says, “Laying bricks.” You ask the next guy, “I’m building a cathedral.”