Oh To Be Heard

Want to be heard?

Tell a story.

A compelling and entertaining story. The story has an evil to overcome, a hero who will set the wrongs right, and a guide that quietly helps them get there.

The story resonates with the audience, compels them to come together as one tribe. To become involved and to take action.

No need to shout. If the story is good a whisper suffices. Stories are remembered. Blabbering about how great we are and why everyone should do what they are told are forgotten.

Tell a good story.

What's a strategy?

You have a mission. A big hairy goal that is out to rid an evil.

You know who you are saving. You have a target customer to whom you say yes to, and no to everyone else. No being more important than yes.

You know what the customer values and what they don’t.

You know how you will differentiate yourself for that customer by deciding what to invest in, but more importantly what to divest from, and by doing that you create “white space” between you and your competitors.

Some combination of the differentiators gives you an advantage that is very difficult for your competitors to replicate.

You have a story to tell that succinctly describes your advantage and offer. Your customers get it, and appreciate it, and they tell two others, and so on.

You plan in three year windows, quarter by quarter, with week by week for the current quarter, to execute your strategy and deliver your mission.

Everything that must be done is owned and measured, and held to account and examined in a repeating rhythm and cadence.

Easy to sum up, very hard to do. If you are a mere mortal, like me, don’t try it on your own, get a coach.

What are you worth?

What are you worth? What the market will pay for you.

If you stand side by side with your competitors with no differentiation the market will buy on price.

If what you offer has extra value that can’t be found from your competitors, the market, or some portion of the market, will pay more.

Caveat. If they know about your value add.

If they know that you are a guide to even greater value.

If they don’t know, you are back on the shelf regardless of the extras you bring, and price is your only comparative.

Hat Tip to Donald Miller for the inspiration.

Placebos for Good

If everything and anything can be a placebo think about the potential we have. The creative canvas that is available to us. We can actually bend reality to create new realities.

Now we just need to make sure we do the right thing with the power we have.

Solve or Be The Problem

Disagree without being disagreeable.

Solve the problem, don’t become the problem.

There is a fine line between righteous and fundamentalist.

Neither solves disagreements.

Empathy and compromise do.