29 April 2019
This week's additions focus on leadership, marketing, and mindset, with new digests from StoryBrand With Donald Miller, Noah Kagan, and Ahrefs. Highlights include Restate the opponent's position accurately before responding to anything. Guerrilla tactics that got Morning Brew's first thousand subscribers
Showing 10 digests for 29 April 2019.
Conflict resolution
YouTube
How to defuse opposition by articulating the other side's view
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
May 3, 2019
Conflict resolution
9
Identity & self-belief
6
Restate the opponent's position accurately before responding to anything.
Humility in hires beats raw talent; ego eventually crashes organizations.
Assuming the other person might be right unlocks productive disagreement.
How Morning Brew built a million-subscriber email newsletter from scratch
Noah Kagan
May 2, 2019
Case studies
9
Email marketing
8
Growth hacking
7
Guerrilla tactics that got Morning Brew's first thousand subscribers
Paid ads drove 60% of growth — but only after the flywheel was proven
Charging per unique open aligns incentives and attracted Fortune 500 advertisers
Prospecting & outreach
YouTube
How to stand out in sales: lead with empathy and authority
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
May 2, 2019
Customers want empathy and authority — not a product pitch.
You've seen their problem more than they have — use that.
A two-line post-it note preps any sales call or email.
Ranking number one on Google is not your most important SEO metric
Ahrefs
May 1, 2019
SEO
9
Content marketing
6
The #1 ranking page gets the most traffic only 49% of the time.
Matching search intent precisely can jump a page from position 40 to top 5.
Page-level content gap analysis reveals subtopics competitors cover that you don't.
How to get outside perspective through CEO peer groups
Bill Gallagher
May 1, 2019
Management
8
Long-term planning
6
Identity & self-belief
5
Diverse-industry peer groups outperform same-sector ones every time.
Peers spot value-contradicting decisions your employees never will.
Outside perspective turns slow pivots into fast, rewarded commitments.
Founder interviews
YouTube
From software engineer to full-time YouTuber: Jarvis Johnson on making the leap
Y Combinator
May 1, 2019
Founder interviews
9
Identity & self-belief
6
Holding two jobs at once kept him from fully investing in either.
Paying off student debt first built the runway that made risk possible.
You can't iterate your way to a content vision — A/B testing finds local maxima only.
Business operating systems
Podcast
Open and closed systems: how to scale with both
Masters of Scale
April 30, 2019
Business operating systems
9
Management
6
Neither fully open nor fully closed organizations scale well alone
Volunteer translators caught paid professionals' errors within 36 hours
Open protocols enable value creation; closed networks capture it
Drop business jargon to win more customers
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
April 30, 2019
Copywriting
9
Prospecting & outreach
6
Jargon signals insecurity, not expertise — plain language sells
Customers can't buy what they can't understand
Audit your website: circle and replace every jargon phrase
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
How to find and compensate startup advisors
Y Combinator
April 30, 2019
Hiring & recruitment
8
Equity & cap tables
7
Advisors 3–5 years ahead of you are the most useful
Equity grants typically run 0.25%–0.75% over two years
CEOs must synthesise advice from many sources, not outsource decisions
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
Why job titles should serve employees, not hierarchies
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
April 29, 2019
Hiring & recruitment
8
Prospecting & outreach
5
Your title determines whether external calls get returned.
Give small-company employees the biggest credible title possible.
Toms founder still uses 'Chief Shoe Giver' after 12 years.