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Marketing

The category design and design-thinking has driven the growth charts of the 21st century. By contrast, the work of "marketing" spent much of that time relegated to chasing data around the internet. No longer. By re-infusing insight, culture, design, and creative into a central engine for growth, ventures can once again find their way through the sea of sameness.

Don't Click Me

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.

So what do you do now?

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.

Segment... or die.

Segment... or die.

There is no growth plan for consultative ventures without properly built segmentation. You can't create content that matters. You can't show differentiated value to new prospects. You can't provide legendary service. And, in all likelihood, you're on the path to obscurity.

Hidden growth killers

Hidden growth killers

Growth killers hide in plain sight. They are often treated as cultural quirks. And in many cases when I’ve challenged about them, the leaders treat them as isolated problems or communication breakdowns, not systemic issues. Willful blindness feels good, but it doesn’t make growth.

They decide with their eyes first

They decide with their eyes first

Trust-dependent ventures must think like designers. From visual layouts to client experiences, from lobby layouts to website UX, it’s imperative to your trust-based growth that you bring a design mind to the party. Featuring Guest Contributor Laura Sorensen

Seven marketing predictions for 2024

Seven marketing predictions for 2024

Growth in 2024 will not be for the faint of heart. We are one year further into the unraveling of the digital marketing panacea. 2024 will accelerate the fracturing of digital marketing, and the strategic gap between marketing and strategy has to be solved.

The next great competitive advantage

The next great competitive advantage

The turn-of-the-millennium competitive advantages are waning. The Venture Capital bubble in Silicon Valley is resetting our view of where to find value. The gas that ran the Digital Revolution is on empty. Businesses need to define what happens next.