Blog

Marketing is simple — and, misunderstood.

Short pieces that unlearn the noise: influence over convincing, aim over results, your customer over the masses.

How AI decides which businesses to recommend.

Chicago traded up to take Trubisky and passed on Mahomes. Everyone had the same information — what separated them was how it got weighed. That’s the job AI is doing when someone asks it who to hire. ...

Why doesn’t my business show up in ChatGPT?

TMZ once called our landline looking for the famous T.J. Miller. They got me. Right name, wrong person — and that’s usually why AI recommends someone else instead of your business. ...

The difference between aim and result.

It is impossible to focus on the target and your aim at the same time. A lesson from the front sight of a firearm — and from Walter Payton — on why results-focused marketing misses. ...

The gift of marketing.

A thoughtful gift beats an envelope of cash because someone knew you. Is your marketing an envelope of cash, or a gift that shows you care? ...

Guerilla marketing, marketing combinations, marketing ingredients, and synergistic marketing.

Levinson said it plainly: single-weapon marketing is dead — combinations work, and they help each other work. Eighty years of evidence, from the Harvard marketing mix to Guerrilla Marketing, says the same thing. ...

Be like Apple, or Nike, or — but, not — Starbucks.

The largest companies on earth do not market for the masses. The granular details — values, preferences, beliefs — are your customer. Know them, and your story tells itself. ...

Do you have a strategy for why you do what you do?

Plans fail without strategies. Strategy says “I’m driving from LA to New York” — planning is the car, the snacks, the route. How “Think Different” rebuilt Apple without naming a single product spec. ...

You are in control — or, are you?

You decide the product, the placement, the promotion, the price. Or does your customer? They’re giving you input on all four — whether or not you’re hearing it. ...

Are you genuinely influencing and inspiring people who are like you?

100 people who are already convinced are more easily influenced and inspired than 1,000 who need convincing. Businesses grow because of the 100 — not the 1,000. ...

The maturation of marketing.

Immature marketing segments by age, geography, income. Mature marketing segments by values, beliefs, and aspirations. Walking Kotler’s stages — and the heart of marketing that never changes. ...