2025-06-23 17:03:00
The Beatles changed music. Starbucks changed coffee. Perhaps your project is aiming to reach a large audience.
Consultants call it market share. What percentage of the available market have you reached with your idea? No one hits everyone, but many organizations seek to be a monopoly, or perhaps noticeable in scale.
This flies in the face of embracing the smallest viable market. When we’re seeking scale and market share, we need to think about everyone. We need to aim for the middle, sand off the edges, and become the normal, practical, popular choice.
Along the way, hard-working leaders think, “Hey, if we shoot for 40% market share and end up with just 3%, we’ll still be fine.”
The thing is, you don’t get to 3% of the market by trying for 40% and failing.
You get there by embracing the 1% and doing such a good job that the word spreads.
The smallest viable audience gives you focus, traction and positive direction. The smallest viable audience takes humility, guts and responsibility.
Instead of seeking to fail your way to enough, it makes more sense to commit your way to better.
2025-06-22 17:03:00
Nothing is perfect…
But everything can get better.
There’s never enough time…
But there’s time enough to make a difference.
Someone will always be opposed to the change we seek to make.
And there’s always someone who wants to help.
Anything can happen…
But something will.
2025-06-21 16:07:00
This is the way to understand business-to-business selling.
After you’ve left with the purchase order, what does the buyer tell the boss? What does the boss tell the investors or the press?
This helps decode why giant companies like Google or Facebook buy a company or don’t. It explains why McKinsey can charge 20 times as much for consulting as a former McKinsey consultant can. It explains why TV ads continue to be purchased, and why it’s so difficult for a new entity with a better product to get traction.
“What will I tell my boss?” is the key question.
If you don’t have a good answer, the person you’re calling on will default to, “it’s just like we used to have, but cheaper.”
2025-06-20 17:03:00
Even at a distance, we can sometimes tell if someone is educated, rich, powerful or physically attractive.
But that doesn’t always correlate with smart, kind or honest.
Strong signals might not be the same as useful ones.
2025-06-19 17:03:00
We don’t get a chance to do yesterday over again.
The best reason to think about the past is because it gives us the opportunity to improve the future.
Because we don’t get tomorrow over again either.
Happy Juneteenth.
2025-06-18 16:44:00
Please who?
If you’re on a social media network, are you seeking to optimize for the algorithm, the owners of the tech stock or your personal goals?
If you’re publishing a book, are you working for the book or is the book working for you?
You might be able to get the folks in the back row to smile a bit if you play your hit song just like it is on the radio, but perhaps your objective is to please the real fans in the front row–by jamming on something new.
Of course, it’s really difficult to please everyone. Which means that we have to figure out which someone we’re here for.
