In life, business, and personal endeavors, the question of where to start often looms large. It's a question I frequently encounter when consulting with real estate agents, mortgage professionals, and those striving to excel in their respective fields. The answer to this million-dollar question, though nuanced by individual circumstances, is simple: start.
The meticulous language and high price tag create an aura of superiority, but the real value is in the brand, which suggests unparalleled excellence. Luxury brands tap into the logic that higher prices equate to better quality.
Infinite games, unlike finite ones, have no defined endpoint and invite us to constantly evolve and improve. Success isn't about beating the competition but outlasting it. In a world filled with 'finite games,' embracing an 'infinite mindset' can set you free from limitations and lead to a path of abundance and continual growth.
Could the effervescent allure of Champagne hold the key to deciphering the financial future of the United States? While the notion might initially seem whimsical, research conducted by NPR's Planet Money team suggests a surprisingly strong link between Champagne consumption and the average American household income.
Embracing "less is more" prompts us to question the value of our actions. By stopping what doesn't matter, we enrich our lives through subtraction.
Prosperous individuals understand this. Success often means eliminating distractions and focusing on essentials, propelling acceleration through subtraction.
The digital ecosystem's explosive growth and A.I. advancements contribute to the struggle to capture consumers' attention. As creativity dwindles, the advertising industry grapples with the question: where have all the poets gone? Simplicity and poetic expression may hold the key to navigating this transformative landscape.
In today's ever-changing financial landscape, I find myself captivated by the intricate dance of the economy and financial markets. As I closely monitor prevailing opinions and situational narratives, I sense that change is imminent. Uncertainty is an integral part of life, and preparing for the unexpected requires us to cultivate the right mindset.
In these uncertain times, I wanted to share a few thoughts. Remember, focus on what you can control, create a solid plan of action, and ensure your assumptions are accurate. To succeed, uncover the keys and unlock hidden strategies.
In a world of uncertainty, making small yet pivotal decisions can shape our lives and businesses. Taking action is the key ingredient, as every success story involves doing something. Trust in your instincts and use context as a filter to navigate through conflicting opinions.
In anticipation of an AI-driven future that may reshape history, it is crucial to establish a set of enduring business laws. By embracing these laws, entrepreneurs can navigate the dynamic business landscape and shape their desired outcomes.
Sears was once a dominant force, accounting for 1% of the U.S. economy and having 3,500 retail stores. However, its decline began with the completion of the Sears Tower in 1974. In contrast, Amazon continues to grow and diversify, owning over 40 companies today.
I always enjoy breaking the rules and looking for exceptions to those rules. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to one of those exceptions - a bird that can sleep while flying in midair! The Alpine Swift is a crafty little bird that can remain in the air for up to seven months without landing. It can eat insects, sleep, and even drink water off its wing while flying, breaking all the rules.
Striving to be "right" all the time may not be the best approach, and that being "less wrong" is a better option. Cognitive biases can be transferred to AI, leading to biased decision-making by algorithms and it is essential to address this issue by developing fairness-aware machine learning and explainable AI to reduce the impact of bias in AI systems.
The vagueness doctrine in American constitutional law declares that a law is invalid if it is not clear enough. If a statute is too ambiguous, the average citizen may find it difficult to understand and, therefore, it becomes unenforceable.
The Abilene Paradox is a phenomenon in which a group of people makes a unanimous decision that goes against their individual wishes and interests. It is a failure to manage agreement and is often a result of the pressure to conform in group decision-making. Today, this paradox is all around us, especially on social media platforms where members seek conformity at all costs, choosing to join the herd and acting against their own interests.
A catch-22 is a problematic situation where the solution is denied by the circumstances or rules that make up the problem. Catch-22s can be found in many aspects of life, including employment, real estate, economics, and business. Understanding the value of tradeoffs and the finite nature of time can help individuals navigate these challenging situations.
Have you ever heard of the Innovator's Dilemma? It's this theory that says even successful companies can lose their market leadership and fail when new technologies and unexpected competitors enter the market. And now, we're facing a new kind of disruption from Artificial Intelligence language models like OpenAI and ChatGPT.
I'm all about embracing the absurdity in ideas and taking a fresh approach in life and business. Forget about universal truths and axioms, let's dive into aphorisms born from experience instead. Well, I've got one for you: You can actually make more money by not focusing solely on it.
The Efficient Market Hypothesis suggests that the price of an asset reflects its true value because all the information about the asset is incorporated in the price. However, Information is not the issue, rather the knowledge about the information and the time it takes to interpret and act on the information is the real obstacle.
The advanced artificial intelligence (A.I.) software developed by OpenAI, called ChatGPT, a for-profit company, valued at over $29 billion, has taken the world by storm. I explore the potential dangers of this A.I., such as its learning from existing digital noise pollution and the fear of it replacing humans in the near future.
Imagine for a moment that you wanted to start your own movement, build your own town, and create your own community. And you stumbled upon a company that would graciously give you the land for free.
The dead internet theory is the idea that the internet crossed the "living" threshold about six years ago – and "died," (suggesting that artificial intelligence and bots have taken the internet over entirely.)
How much water is in the ocean? A quick Google search says that there are 352 quintillion gallons of water in the ocean. That's a lot of aqua. But here’s another question for you…what would happen if we added a quintillion gallons of water to the ocean every day?
Finding real connection at the apex of the information age requires a bit of critical thinking, luck, and at least a basic understanding of human psychology.
Wikipedia describes the Information Age as a “historical period that began in the mid-20th century, characterized by an epochal shift from traditional industry established by the Industrial Revolution to an economy primarily based on information technology.”
The Peter Principle is the invisible virus that permeates every business, industry, and institution in the world creating the mother of all identity crises along the way.
I first heard these two powerful words from my business sensei, Jay Abraham. In the business world, ambivalent uncertainty is your biggest competitor. It's a car stuck in neutral—with no forward motion.
Ever heard of Taiichi Ohno? Neither did I until I opened an old business book I had in my office, which I like to do from time to time for random inspiration, (and highly recommend doing.) And there he was, Taiichi Ohno, the creator of the 5-Why technique, and soon my memory was coming back to me.
A weighty question indeed. But, let me ask it again, because it may be the missing ingredient in whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish in your life. Are you doing what you’re doing for "applause" or "purpose?"
Applying the 80/20 Rule works for just about everything in life. But in the marketing and advertising biz, it's probably closer to 95/5. That is to say—95% of your results will come from just 5% of your activities.
Call me crazy but I like good ole fashioned economics. Maybe that's why I chose business/economics as my major in college. Any econ buffs out there paying attention to the M2 lately?
The "C-Suite" in corporate America is filled with sad face clowns. I don’t mean this disparagingly, heck, I used to be one of them. How could I forget the very moment that I discovered this stunning realization!
Marketing pundits like to debate what constitutes the proper balance of long-term brand building and short-term “performance marketing” that drive quick sales. But that debate completely missed the point.
Let me introduce you to one of the finest marketing tales ever told about a simple yet successful businessman from the advertising industry – a little gem of a book titled Obvious Adams – The Story of a Successful Businessman.
Advertising today is all about the interruption.Let me cut right to it and not mince any fine words here…interruption is rude, annoying, and destroying your brand. The marketing buzzards and sheep advertisers who follow their wicked ways have weaponized interruption in the digital ecosystem we all live in today.
Ever heard of it? Liar! (I just made it up.) But maybe the theory is real after all. When I’m looking for marketing inspiration, I often turn to science. Science, in its own unique way, can explain pretty much everything.
It’s exactly what the marketing world needs today, a movement to eliminate and ban shiny new toy marketing and the buzzards who preach it. We’ll call it Marketing DOGMA 22.
It's a mouthful, I know. But mighty important words to marketing folks like me. Attention is in high demand out there in the marketingverse, and most marketers will do and say just about anything to get it…but, then again, they just don't get it.
A new and emerging problem for marketers – phantom traffic jams. What are they? And the traffic jams seem to be getting worse, as every single car on the road these days seem to be in a massive hurry, and much like today's marketers, they've lost any and all patience.
You may remember the scene from the movie Elf when Buddy is exploring New York City and comes across a coffee shop that claims to have the world’s best coffee, so naturally, he enters the shop and says…
It’s the start of a new year my fine marketing muse friends, what do you say that we ease our way into our 2022 journey with some lighthearted fun, as it will only get more serious and complicated from here, right?
All right, kids, it’s a new year, and time for some new marketing resolutions. The funny thing about resolutions, most don’t stick around long enough to happen. Why’s that? Because most resolutions are lacking in the resolve part of the equation.
Consumption – different than acquisition. It's less exciting. Even boring. Wondrous things may happen if we slow down the acquisition and invest more in consumption.
Ready to have some marketing fun? Alrighty then, let's dive in. Below is a real quote on a real website that I'm sure you can find with little effort – it perfectly summates the sorry state of marketing we sadly must endure today.
Ever wonder how hard it must be to write a hit single in the music business? For the people that pay the artists (record companies), that's their goal. But for the artists who create them, that's decidedly not the goal.
In a world where “everyone’s selling something,” I’m thinking we need to change the paradigm of selling entirely. But selling just ain’t the same as it used to be.
Marketers love metrics and marketing speak. Share of voice (SOV) is an oldie but goodie. The share of voice metric was created to measure and compare a brand’s media spending against the total media spending of the brand's category.
No doubt you’ve heard the saying "opposites attract." The "opposites attract" concept was introduced by Robert Francis Winch in a journal article published in 1955 in the American Sociological Review titled, "The Theory of Complementary Needs in Mate-Selection: A Test of On Kind of Complementariness."
I read an interesting marketing case study article recently (yes, that's how I spend a lot of my spare time) and was enlightened by the results. It summarized a digital ad campaign using Google AdWords and broke the results data into two separate categories—branded keywords versus unbranded keywords.
I still remember the day – the day that I decided that I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, it was back in the mid-seventies, and I was approaching my early teens.
According to eMarketer, total worldwide digital ad spending will reach $455.30 billion this year. That’s a lot of dough and it's expected to grow another 15% in 2022.
Developed by strategist and U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd, the OODA Loop is a military model designed to provide a foundation of rational thinking in high-risk, confusing, or chaotic situations.
A mega-valuable, dangerously simple, ingenious, user friendly, easy-to-implement, bulletproof breakthrough, 3-step plan that any business can use to kick-start and accelerate their success!
But do metrics even matter? Which ones? Why? And For Who? Our digitally connected and socially engaged world loves metrics – you can find them everywhere you look.
In law, consideration involves a benefit which must be bargained for between the parties and is the essential reason for a party to enter into a contract.
The digital, always-on, connected economy we live in today is littered with marketing tactics designed to "beat the system." The first question one might be curious to ask is…what "system" are you referring to exactly?
Whatever business or industry you’re in, it’s easy to find people giving advice. Too much advice in fact. Too much advice propels the “shiny object syndrome” forward.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines generic as not being or having a particular brand name, and having no particularly distinctive quality or application.
Marketers continue to preach quick fix “silver bullets” and sure-fire tactics that will single-handedly hit the target and create instantaneous success. Better to think in terms of butterflies.
Triple-A is the highest level of play in Minor League Baseball in the U.S. Marketing has its own version of Triple-A too and it is primarily made of three moving parts - abundance, algorithm, and audience.
In Essentialism, Greg McKeown challenges the core assumption of 'we can have it all' and 'I have to do everything' and replaces it with the pursuit of 'the right thing, in the right way, at the right time.'
Perception and reality have been forever changed in 2020 as almost every facet of life has been altered in one way or another. Where the only constant is change, bringing with it dilemmas for marketers.
In marketing, you’re either a fly or a bee. And there’s a big difference. One lives a purpose-filled existence while the other is an annoying pest. As a marketer, which one are you?
Let’s say you’re an agent who has made it into that coveted top 20% group – congratulations!
Now you can now sit back, put your feet up on your desk, and just wait for the phone to ring from buyers and sellers right? You’re in high demand, right?
And you're wasting precious marketing dollars. In marketing, attention is the highest price consumer asset and true to the law of supply, “content” and “messaging” in their attempts. Here are the top 5 reasons why.
You don't know until you know. And if you know because the market has responded favorably, then you keep doing what you know until the market stops reacting favorably.
You know what they say about opinions right? But, what about “prevailing opinions?” For marketers, they’re the path of least resistance as everyone is caught up in the momentum of the moment. It’s easier to follow the herd and do what everyone else is doing – it feels safe. In reality, it’s the exact opposite.
I love words. Words tell stories. Stories stand the test of time. Great stories captivate, enrich, educate, enthrall, enlighten – they change us. Why don’t brands and marketers tell more stories?
It might seem counter-intuitive, but did you know that elephants are excellent swimmers? Despite their size, elephants are untiring swimmers who move all four legs to propel them in the water, enabling them to move fast.
It’s an industry I’ve spent the last nine years in as an advocate for real estate agents – call me crazy, but as a career salesman myself, I’m passionate about the challenge agents have in differentiating themselves in this hyper-competitive and crowded space.
And in today’s attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) marketing world, this just adds to the noise, confusion, and eroding the trust that consumers have with brands.
I’ve been having all kinds of interesting marketing conversations lately, which got me thinking. Today’s marketing dialog has changed for the worse. I call it "intellectual tennis."
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