“Zero-Cost” Knowledge Makes No Sense
Knowledge is not an output of a system. It is not a commodity. It’s actually pretty simple. Knowledge means nothing without a knower.
From First Impressions to Long-Term Success
Monday: pending deliverables for three new skeptical clients. I can SAY that they’ll receive drafts in their voice and with accurate treatments of complex financial topics. I can PROMISE that first drafts are more than 95% of the way to final. But do they really BELIEVE it? They say yes to a project, but they […]
The Value of Expert Language
In specialized industries like institutional finance and fintech, beware of writers and content professionals with knee-jerk reactions related to jargon, simplicity, and clarity. Those reactions are often biased and self-serving. Saying “it might be confusing” often just means “I don’t understand.” In other words, watch out for generic conventional wisdom that doesn’t apply. Don’t let […]
Why Smaller is Better
Better things are happening in private communities than the big public social networks. I’m experiencing constructive dialogue, meaningful insights, deeper affinity, and higher resonance in places like invite-only Slack channels, mastermind or other learning groups on Mighty Networks etc., newsletters, and even Telegram or WhatsApp groups. What I like best: It becomes harder and harder […]
Harvesting Strawberries with a Lawnmower
Here’s what causes things in business go awry. Organizations are status machines. Companies are economic value machines. When you try to make one kind of machine do the work of another kind of machine, you get messy results. It’s like trying to use a lawnmower to harvest strawberries. Organizational dynamics cause people to save face, […]
From Order-Takers to Strategic Partners
Marketers in complex industries like institutional finance have many inner demons to wrestle. Here’s what I mean. The conventional expectation is that marketers need to straddle the line between the client and the industry. They aspire to bring relevant trends, client insights, and industry knowledge to the table. But the reality is more nuanced than […]
Writing for the World You Want
Are you serious enough about thought leadership to take your topic seriously? Once upon a time, writing gurus used to say we should write for people at a 10th-grade reading level. Then it went down to 8th. Then 6th-grade reading became the threshold. Recently, I’ve seen people seriously proposing 5th and even 3rd-grade reading levels […]
Why Your ‘Why’ Matters
Founders, innovators, product managers: When you’re building something new, it’s easy to start ignoring the why. It’s even more likely that you forget to be vocal about why. Then you finally have something ready for investors or the market—but you feel like you’re starting at zero again. Your idea of what is new and better […]
Trust Over Traffic
One thing B2B marketers often get wrong—they use generic, mass-market tactics for small-to-mid-sized businesses when their buyers are large enterprises. They put traffic ahead of trust. This mistake seems more common among smaller and newer providers, but it happens elsewhere, too. The thing is, the buying decision for a high-stakes, high-ticket purchase doesn’t work like […]
The Unique Dynamics of High-Stakes Content
“High-stakes content” works differently. Rules from generic B2B content world don’t apply. What makes the stakes high? Ultimately, it’s the impact of the implicit decisions you’re expecting your reader to make. Institutional finance is one such example. Maybe not in the moment of reading, but at some point, your reader is going to entrust the […]