Wow, did I ever butcher this joke. “The CEO, CFO, and Marketing Manager walk into the bar…” You can watch the video below to see how I killed my stand-up career before it even started… …but here’s what I was trying to convey. Depending on WHO you are, you probably have a different need for the same ...

Do you have a business coach that pushes you to do things outside of your comfort zone? If not, you should. Recently one of my good friends was brainstorming new strategies for generating sales within the next 30 days. We sat down, brainstormed ideas for quantity THEN ranked based on effort and ...

Want to know why building a tech startup is TWICE as hard as opening a restaurant? It’s because both the product AND the market are unknown. They need to be figured out… … for a sushi restaurant, you just need to know if people in your city eat sushi – which most do. So the risk is only in building ...

The other week I had the privilege of having Greg Crabtree, the author of Simple Numbers, over to my house for dinner. What I love about Greg is how he simplifies everything down to its core essence… … or a farm analogy 🙂 I absolutely love the way he teaches and tells stories. He’s from ...

When I was building Spheric Technologies, we had a certain strategic partner that played a vital role in our company’s 150% year over year growth. Massive impact. Great synergy between our core customers and their own. Yet ultimately… We had to cut ties. And here’s why…

Do you consider yourself to be an expert in your field? So many founders that I meet aren’t shy to make that claim. And like them, perhaps you’ve also paid your dues, put in the time, and built something awesome. But unless the market actually PERCEIVES you as an authority on that topic, all that ...

By now I’m sure you’ve heard that storytelling plays a HUGE part in your marketing. And with good reason. Done right, storytelling has the power to attract investors, create raving fans, crystallize your team and puts extra zeros on your bottom line. Key word: Done right.

So I’m sitting in the waiting room for 45 minutes and I can’t believe I’m still here. I’m the kind of guy who hasn’t touched a piece of physical mail in 7 years because I find it super inefficient. (Shoutout to Lisa who helps me with my mail… she’s A-W-E-S-O-M-E!) But then I realize – I’m not here ...

On Nov 7th, 2013 I walked into the speakers lounge at the Growth Hacker Conference and met Andy Johns (@ibringtraffic) for the first time. Andy worked on growth teams at Facebook, Twitter, Quora and now was at WealthFront. He’s one of the “Original Gangsters” (OG’s) in the growth space – just read ...

There’s a great quote from the brilliant management consultant, Peter Drucker, which really summarizes what I’d like to teach you today: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” ~ Peter Drucker If you have 100 customers, ...

If you’ve started a company (or are growing a business) and every time you share your business idea with other people, they start asking “oh, so you’re like [X] company?”, then you have competition. You don’t decide who your competition is, your customers do by their actions and choices.