Category: Promotion
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Suits and the backlist
Over a decade ago, early in my career, I worked at an office in the Canadian Pacific Heritage Building in Toronto. I would often come across a film set with several iconic yellow New York City cabs in a quiet street nearby. I later found out it was the set of Suits. The first season…
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Be somebody else’s good luck
My friend Peter recently wrote about the power of reaching out to two contacts—former clients, industry friends, other agencies, old friends, investors, etc.—per week. It’s clear to him that this is one of the most valuable things he could be doing for his businesses. He writes, “The network that brings us leads, talent, knowledge, and…
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The power of small updates
One way to make your work easier is to constantly share updates about it. Rituals like standups are built to facilitate and encourage this. You want to constantly get feedback from people and show them how you’re moving along—even if it’s just to make sure that the final work doesn’t deviate too far from the…
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Weirdly Brilliant
When my friend Jason told me he would write a book in 30 days, I was interested in following along. Was it possible for someone to make a book worth reading in 30 days? I recently found out when I received a copy of his book, Weirdly Brilliant. Jason really leaned into the strengths of…
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A business needs its own magazine
Backstory is the name of a bookstore in London, UK. This bookstore publishes a self-titled magazine that I picked up recently. It’s good. More importantly, it makes sense. Backstory works with a community of people including distributors and authors, so this magazine is a channel for them to highlight the community and as a launchpad…
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Retitling
In 2000, Robert Solomon released his book, Brain Surgery for Suits: 56 Things Every Account Person Should Know. In 2016, that piece of work was re-released as the title it’s best known for, The Art of Client Service: The Classic Guide, Updated for Today’s Marketers and Advertisers. Same work, new packaging, with two additional chapters. …
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The long, hard, stupid way at Hacker News
A few years ago, I joined Chris Do at The Futur podcast, where I mentioned a story about Momofuku displaying chickens that they weren’t actually serving. I didn’t do a great job explaining the story. After I heard Frank Chimero mention a similar idea six months ago, my brain remembered the idea and I wrote…
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Two ideas to stand out when you’re applying to jobs
First idea: Email the person who is hiring for the job to introduce yourself. If you’re not sure, make the best guess. For example, if you’re applying for a job as a content marketing manager, email the marketing director. If you’re applying for a job as a security engineer, email the director of security. It…
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Follow your excitement, try experiments, make more work
When Ryan Holiday writes about creative work, I read. His book Perennial Seller has been super helpful as I’ve been promoting Creative Doing. In one of his recent posts, he explains that his third book, The Obstacle Is the Way (and ensuing series on stoic philosophy), was nowhere near a sure thing when he wrote…
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Editing a call-to-action
In the middle of a great show, a jazz musician asks us—the audience, “Does anybody still listen to CDs?” Nobody raises their hand. “Of course not,” he laughs. So do we. He tells us the title of his new album, which he made CDs for. He also adds that it is available on Spotify and…