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🧐 You can have whatever internet you want, just not that one

The internet's platforms are either fading into the background, only to be used for AI fodder or being designed to create echo chambers. Your future customers are cozy in their custom digital spaces, designed to keep you, your podcast, social media posts, and ads out. So time for a Plan B.

The apocalypse collapse

You have permission to stop doing it the way it's been done. To stop selling with all of the bad habits of the last decade. You can invite your prospects back into their aspirations, their best beliefs about themselves, and all the possibilities that make them Americans.

Postponing your potential.

Leaders under-index the impact of their own decisions while over-indexing the impact of national or global headlines. So while your category is on its heels (trust us, it is), it's time to get aggressive.

Zuck's perfect fit, Ursula steals voices, and The Obvious Answers Factory™️™️™️

I briefly considered joining the ranks of firms that collect fees for not thinking about you at all. And that was something I couldn't do.

Why not theft?, "very demure," and the glorious rise of the midmarket

FWD 106: this week we hit all the accelerants out of summer, the power of slang, and why midmarkets and humility are back in fashion

The times they are a-changin'

Olympics fever changes the national mood (and the strategy for brands) and why you must only lead what you love

The questions RIAs are asking about marketing this year

The industry is at an inflection point where nearly all growth efforts are about to be subsumed in the attention-consuming fire of M&A. The only way for firms to control their own destiny is to control their growth strategy, and to do that, you've got to ask better questions.

A market crash tells us who we are (and other uncomfortable truths...)

The economy is in the Find Out stage of the classic F*** Around and Find Out narrative generated by Silicon Valley. But you don't have to participate.

Who wants this to fail?

Growth is change. And everyone of us has reasons to fight change. The magic of growing your venture is knowing in advance where the fight is, and how to care for people through the process.

Is your "good culture" holding you back?

I've watched hundreds of hours of cooking shows and seen some ingredients cooked so many different times and in different ways they're almost a cliché. One ingredient that stands out, especially to a non-southerner like me, is okra. Chefs say, "It's so delicious!

Don't Click Me

Lead-chasing through the old internet click maze is the greatest negative transfer of value from mid-market businesses to Silicon Valley ever conceived. It is a virus keeping businesses in the thralls of a long-lost fantasy. And you don't have to do it anymore.

How everything gets better

Changing our minds is an essential feature of commerce. If people can't retain the agency, then only very powerful actors with very deep pockets get to decide for everyone else. The good news? The future outlook on getting our minds back looks pretty good.

So what do you do now?

As the Open Web closes, an era of trust shortcuts and workarounds closes with it. And now you must begin on a new era of Trust-Made Growth™️ in a post-trust world. Here are seven jumpstarts. You can't and shouldn't do them all. But you can do one. Let's dive in.

The Web-ending whimper

Doing business on the Internet used to be fun… and profitable. But in the last six months, the Internet's four foundational promises have been permanently broken. Now, ventures like yours have to pivot to a very different future.