Why you buy what you buy
The phone you own, why did you buy it? The career you chose, why did you pick it? The coffee brand you obsess over, why
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Is YouTube acting dishonestly?
Last week, a study by Mozilla was published to show that YouTube’s “dislike” buttons don’t seem to do much. The study found that YouTube continues
What does it look like?
If you’ve ever played Monopoly, you know what it feels like to play the game. Which is the point of this brilliant new campaign by
The Bullshitter’s Playbook: Name frames
Bullshitters are going to bullshit. There’s nothing you can do about that. But what you can do is to show up prepared so you spot
The truth about cars
There was a time when cars didn’t have seat belts. There was even a time when car makers hesitated to equip their cars with seat
All amounts to something in the end
A golden rule in storytelling is that anything the author spends much time on will amount to something in the story. If it didn’t, the
How do we get our team on track?
Here’s a more useful question to ask: What would make them choose the track if they had the choice? Great leaders understand that brilliant people
Adding features
Clarity is an infinite game. When new ideas pop up or new features get added to the product, we need to adapt the story we
When saying it out loud hurts
When was the last time you read out loud the text on your website? Try it now! How does it feel? How about your bio?
When customers refuse to understand us
You see something bad, you see how to make it good, but the others don’t see it. What do you do? Let’s say you’ve found
What Rocky teaches us about business storytelling
Almost everyone has been Rocky at one point in their life. You just knew that you have what it takes … if only the world
What selfish marketers overlook
Some marketers treat us as kind of dumb. For example in the way they try to persuade us by hiding their cons and exaggerating their
How is clarity to be achieved?
“And how is clarity to be achieved? Mainly by taking trouble and by writing to serve people rather than to impress them.” — F. L.
The comfortable place of honesty
You’re an honest marketer. That’s why you don’t overpromise. You care for keeping your promises. I do, too. But still: could your promises be bolder?
“Smoke on the Water” and duplicate content
If Deep Purple ended a concert without having played “Smoke on the Water”, the fans would almost certainly be very angry with them. Most content
You have been granted a free wish
Congratulations! You have been granted a free wish: You can be known as the world’s premier resource for one thing. But one thing only. What
Can you draw it?
Because when you can draw it, it means you can see it. And when you can see it, it means that it’s concrete. What you
“I’ve said it very clearly.”
Well, you have. But is that even the point? I mean, even leaving aside the question whether it actually was as clear to them as
Inner clarity, outer confusion
Clarity is a tricky beast. We can feel inner clarity but sense outer confusion. Confusion’s best mate is the Curse of Knowledge which reassures us
Clarity and complexity
Clarity doesn’t make complexity go away, it makes complexity accessible. The purpose of clarity is to make the difficult feel easy. To give us an
Public Q&A on September, 7th
I’m doing a rare public Q&A on September 7th. Whether you’re trying to grow your business or are starting a new venture, join me for
Making people fall in love with what you make
Marketing is widely considered to be the art of making people fall in love with what you make. But what if you turned this around
How to become a virtuoso
Becoming a virtuoso is actually kind of easy: Practice slowly. The hard part is patience. The patience to actually go as slow as it takes.
“Buy now”
When you ask your customer to “buy now”, what are you actually asking for? Money? Commitment? The beginning of a relationship? A favor? Gratitude? Excitement?
Shining eyes
Shining eyes are among the most reliable compasses for doing work that matters. Benjamin Zander pointed it out in his brilliant TED talk: “I realized
Who cares?
It’s just details. It’s just decoration. It’s just the back side. It’s just a corner case. It’s just implementation. It’s just a meeting. It’s just
Thank you for your attention
The most overrated speaking advice is to never say “Thank you for your attention!” It will ruin your talk, the advice goes, because it’s boring
Last minute ideas
That moment when inspiration strikes.You can’t control that.Sometimes it strikes last minute. When it strikes, everything immediately becomes so obvious. You’re mad at yourself that
Persuading people
The moment you try to persuade your customer you essentially admit that … i) either you don’t fully understand what really matters to them orii)
Struggle with focusing on a core message?
If you struggle with focusing on a core message, here’s some good news for you: Your audience will happily do the job for you. The
How to outcompete bullshitters
Whatever industry you’re in, you will be competing with bullshitters: people who promise big but don’t bother whether they can actually deliver big (if at
“I have a feeling”
Think about tomorrow’s agenda. Now ask your gut. What does it tell you? Yay! This will be the absolute best use of my time. Could
Where and why, not how
Leaders who light the path find the words to capture where a team is going and why it’s going there. What they usually don’t do
What customers want
Are you giving your customers what they want or what they need? Many of the people who care for making an impact and who have
Just thinking
When was the last time you were just sitting somewhere and thinking? No devices, books, magazines, music etc. Just you thinking … Some thoughts will
Curiosity
Many presenters tell their audience everything but fail to make them curious for anything. It’s exactly the other way around: Start from curiosity and ignore
Who you want to become
Social media doesn’t feed you based on who you want to become but based on who you are (according to their data). And yet, the
Consider the of course effect
In chasing the “wow effect”, many businesses overlook the “of course effect”. The of course effect is what makes it a no-brainer to choose your
Monty Python’s animations
Want maximum effect from minimal work? That’s why I use cutout. It’s the quickest and easiest form of animation that I know. – Terry Gilliam
Gentle nudges
My daughter wanted to take a workshop. I called the organizer to register her. I was told that my daughter’s on the list although … well,
Here’s an extra hour for you
If you could have one extra hour in your day, what would you do with it? Empty your todo list?Spend more time with family/friends?Have some
Brutal honesty
Do you trust you customer with the decision to buy from you? In other words: If they knew everything you know, would they buy? If
The 4R-sequence
Rigour leads to relevance leads to resonance leads to results. Start with rigour.Stick with what’s relevant and let go of the rest.Amplify it to resonate.Wait
5 evil forces that keep you from finding clarity
The Fear of FocusWhen you’re seeking clarity, you know that you need to focus, right? But focus on what? The fear of focus is the
How champions think
A book tip: “How champions think“ by Dr. Bob Rotella. Don’t let the title mislead you. This is not one of these cheesy motivational bullshit
When you want it so badly
“All of a sudden, he couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up and wanted to do something, wanted to change something. His fists were clenched.
Ready or not?
“The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.” – Lorne Michaels These are the words of Saturday Night Live
How to become a megastar
Here’s an interesting piece from Apple Music on the band Coldplay: You don’t become one of the biggest bands in the world without sticking to
When was the last time you asked?
“This is deep in our DNA!” Except that it wasn’t as the two founders had to learn when they faced the facts. We had asked
Life
You try.You fail.You learn.You try.You fail.You learn.You try.You fail.You learn.You try.You fail.You learn.You try.You fail.You learn.You try.You fail.You learn.You try.You fail.You learn.You try.You succeed. Stick
Everybody is interesting
“We believe that everybody has a story and is creative in their own way.” – Astrid Klein Long-time reader Thomas Maile nominated Mark Dytham and
Of course you hire a coach
When you’re an athlete, of course you’re working with a coach. Even the best athletes still have a coach. Actually, to be more precise, especially
What was the boldest promise you ever made to a customer?
Why didn’t you make it bolder? Bold promises are a competitive advantage. Too often, though, we leave that advantage to the bullshitters. Bullshitters don’t care
We need to spice it up
The whole piece needs to be more emotional to get people interested. Let’s add some in. Juice it up with some nice storytelling. And gorgeous
There’s something wrong with storytelling
If storytelling is that ancient tool that fuels all human learning, then shouldn’t it be easier after all these years? Shouldn’t we just have learnt
Most storytelling is selfish
Let’s face it, storytelling in business is mostly selfish. It’s about getting attention, engagement, and ultimately, the deal. The childhood stories people tell, the holiday
Fake tension vs. real tension
Bad newspapers lead with fake tension.Great newspapers lead with real tension.What’s the difference? Fake tension is created by holding information back.Real tension is created by
Silly Faces
Making a silly face and writing a provocative statement beneath it is one of the best ways to get people on YouTube to click on
Interesting
Absurd gets rejected.Obvious gets ignored. Interesting sits in the sweet-spot in between. What about your idea is non-obvious so that it gets people’s attention and
A new life is calling …
The phone rings. A new life is calling. What do you reply? I tell ’em I’m not interested, I’m happy. I tell ’em I’m not
First you hate ’em, then you love ’em
The leaders who push you to your best results are often the leaders who you hate in the moment but admire in hindsight. As a
The Creator’s Adventure
Here’s a tightly packed conversation I had with Bryan McAnulty on his podcast “The Creator’s Adventure”. We discussed why it’s so hard to focus when
Clarity sometimes masks as rigor
People who appear clearer in their actions are often mainly more rigorous in making decisions. They make a single decision rather than a dozen small
“I’m not creative!”
“I’m not creative!”, she said. Maybe she wasn’t. But maybe she was and just didn’t stick with the problem long enough … Here’s what Monty
Silly things marketers do
Among the silliest things marketers do is decorate diamonds. You don’t decorate a diamond, you polish it. You don’t hide its beauty underneath layers of
The simple words habit
The more you know about something, the harder it gets to speak about that thing in simple terms, right? Well, unless you’ve committed to the
Open doors
Two very different ways to create an offer: No. 1: Leave as many doors open as possible and make sure that there’s something in it
Key takeaways from Flip the Script
On Wednesday, Shane Cradock and I had a lot of fun doing some public thinking. In our free webinar, more than 50 leaders from across
Public thinking
The world of tech is messy and noisy. Trends come so fast and disappear so quickly that it’s hard to understand what’s really going on,
Standing at a crossroads
It’s Friday night. You’re standing at a crossroads. Left, there’s a party waiting for you. Right, there’s a relaxing walk through the park waiting for
Audience responsibility
One of the newer trends on LinkedIn is to tease a post with a provocative statement and then use some blank lines so that you
Wait, is this really it?
Some of us are happy. Some of us are successful.Not all of us are both, happy and successful.They don’t always come together. For example, some
Clarity means making decisions
Not the easy ones. The hard ones. The ones that provide direction: This is where you’re headed. This is what matters most. For example, if
One thought
If you can manage to plant ONE THOUGHT in my head, you’ve changed my life. You’ve also achieved way more than almost any other piece
Instant clarity calls
I’m launching a new service: Instant clarity calls. It’s for you if you‘ve been juggling ideas in your mind for days and feel that right
What’s your promise?
Marketers spend so much time looking for fancy statements that they sometimes forget to just plainly state their promise. What’s yours?
If the meeting isn’t working, change the meeting.
The default way of dealing with bad meetings is to pick up the phone and check social media, Slack, or mail. This has become an
No one laughed.
Recently, I went to an OpenMic event where comedians get the chance to test their programs. One of the performances was heartbreaking. No one laughed.
Each and every day, great ideas die.
Obviously, for these ideas it wasn’t enough to be great ideas. They failed to spread. Ideas spread when theyi) resonateii) can be easily passed along
If failure was an option …
… what would you do differently? Let’s say in the way you lead your team? Which conversation did you avoid because you were afraid of
The Pareto trap
The Pareto rule suggests that for many tasks, you can achieve about 80% of the result with about 20% of the effort. But should you?
Rule no. 1
Rule no. 1 in communication is brutal:If they didn’t get, they didn’t get it. End of story. There really is no point in arguing that
The storytelling difference
There’s a huge difference between telling stories DURING a speech and telling a story WITH your speech. Most storytelling advice aims at the former. It
Gut it wrong?
My gut doesn’t know what is right.But it knows what feels right. And that’s enough of a reason for me to look closer. I don’t
Brilliance booster
When you hire a coach, it’s most likely because you want to improve your situation in some way. But there’s a huge gap between how
In love with an idea
Did you ever act foolishly after you’ve fallen in love with someone? Probably, your mind went a little over the top with all the things
Conditions for clarity
Four ways to improve the conditions for clarity in your thinking: Sleep well. Eat well. Take care of your physical health. Take care of your
When it’s over, it’s over
Another simple truth that great authors understand:When the story is over, it’s over. Great authors don’t repeat the end a second, third or even a
What’s the boldest promise you can make?
I’m speaking of bold promises that you actually intend to keep. I mean, it’s easy to make bold promises when you don’t intend to keep
The surprising diversity of success
I’m lucky enough to count some of the most successful people among my friends and family. One of them is running a hidden champion. Another
How to scare an introvert
Show them this picture of a crowded space and tell them that you’re giving them a great opportunity to network and meet lots of fun
The environmentally friendly way to communicate
Less confusion means shorter meetings. Shorter meetings mean less time on zoom. Which means less data that travels over the Internet. And less power to
The stupidity of wasps (and humans)
I’m looking at a wasp trying to fly through the sliding glass door of our living room. It’s half way open but the wasp is
Let me repeat this for you
When people don’t get what you mean, repeating what you said – using the exact same words – won’t make it easier to understand. (Here’s an alternative.)
The most effective way to avoid company speak
… is to imagine a specific person’s face when preparing your communication, someone you know well for quite some time. Imagine sitting down with them and
This is the game you’re in
-> Passionate beats eloquent-> Prominent beats competent-> Relatable beats spectacular-> Relevant beats fancy-> Simple beats complex-> Useful beats beautiful-> Wow beats aha in the short
It’s unique because it’s for them
Be unique rather than better! That’s almost too obvious to state, right? Because when you are, you’re in a class of your own. People can
Every change starts with someone who sees a better future
“I see that we can change the way people listen to music.”“I see a time when no-one is judged by the color of their skin
Wild Hearts
No, it’s not how you did it in the past.No, it’s not guaranteed to work.It’s even possible that you get some pushback on this.But it’s
Managers not allowed
In 2007, Jos de Blok started a revolution in the Dutch healthcare market. He decided that the best managers are no managers and founded the
Clarity is an infinite game
Alert: The Universe is on a mission to distract you from remaining focused. It will never stop trying to get you off track. Even if