Three years ago, I was in the worst shape of my life. I was approaching 300lbs, grabbing fast food at least once a day, and avoiding exercise at all costs. Though I’ve always enjoyed a nice, leisurely hike outdoors, I’ve never been athletic. The only sport in which I participated in high school was track, as a shotput and discus thrower. I did this because everybody who wanted to be...
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." So the famous Serenity Prayer begins. Most of us acknowledge the wisdom of accepting the things that are out of our control, that life throws us curve balls and we must learn to accept them. However, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche takes this a step further (as do other stoic philosophers), and claims that we would do our...
You don’t have to hire an expensive firm to have a Public Relations (PR) strategy as a startup. The beauty of today’s internet is that anybody has the power to reach tens of thousands, even millions, with a properly timed tweet, hacker news mention, or mention on an influential blog. You don’t have to make it onto a cover story in Inc. or Entrepreneur in order to achieve your PR goals, in fact...
The first step in developing a marketing plan is to become obsessed with knowing your audience. That’s right, obsessed. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend on Google Adwords, or how many conference booths you rent out if you are off-course with knowing who your audience is.
Last week I wrote about the importance of knowing your audience, and tools for getting to know more about your target demographic. This week I’ll be diving into ways to get to know their biggest pain points. We’ll go through the tools available to seek out some potentially unsolved pains that they have, as well as pitfalls to avoid, like why asking them to identify their pain points is a...
It’s no fun to write a blog post only to have low engagement once you hit Publish. You’ve spent time researching a topic, written down the words in the most creative way you know how, spell-checked, and even had a friend proof-read the article. All of this, and the post doesn’t take off the way you thought it would.
Nothing does a better job promoting your brand than fanatical customers. We’re more likely to buy from someone that we know or trust who enjoys a product than just believing the company themselves behind the product. Customers who make a purchase must first be satisfied with their purchase, then they become loyal customers, and hopefully turn into brand advocates.
Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, runs his company in a slightly unique way. Instead of focusing strictly on the bottom line, market share, or outdoing the competition in sales, he is passionate about delivering happiness to both his employees and his customers. For example, the budget that most companies would spend on paid advertising, Hsieh invested in customer service and customer experience...
Last week I wrote a review of Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath. One of the qualities of the book that impressed me most was the large number of stories used to illustrate its main points. The book would have been much less inspiring without them. I decided after reading that book, that as I publish my own books, I will be sure to make them rife with stories.
This week I finished reading Made to Stick by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. The book is centered around six principles of sticky ideas and is geared toward marketers, writers, leaders, coaches… anybody who has ever needed to get a message across.
HI, I'M RYAN. I believe the best way to learn and remember is by writing things down and sharing them with others. This blog exists to help me synthesize and process my journey towards self-improvement.