1 July 2019
This week's additions focus on marketing, customer, and leadership, with new digests from StoryBrand With Donald Miller, Ahrefs, and Bill Gallagher. Highlights include One bad customer poisons your team's view of everyone Deals stall because buyers don't see what's in it for them
Showing 9 digests for 1 July 2019.
Never badmouth a customer: the one rule for better service
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
July 5, 2019
Communication
8
Customer experience
6
One bad customer poisons your team's view of everyone
Replace judgment with 'I'm challenged' to stay solution-focused
Customers can sense when a business isn't genuinely for them
Closing techniques
YouTube
How to close any deal using clarity, not pressure
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
July 5, 2019
Closing techniques
9
Objection handling
6
Deals stall because buyers don't see what's in it for them
A one-page benefits breakdown turned a stalled sale into a signed deal
Re-engage past rejections — they may have lacked clarity, not interest
How search engines work and what to optimise for SEO
Ahrefs
July 3, 2019
Matching search intent matters more than keyword density
Backlinks act as quality votes that build page authority
Page speed and mobile-friendliness are confirmed Google ranking factors
Aligning brand and culture to build a more powerful organisation
Bill Gallagher
July 3, 2019
Culture building
10
Branding
7
Business models
5
Generic values become wallpaper — unique culture is unstoppable
Wells Fargo shows how brand-culture gaps destroy hard-won reputation
Structure and incentives drive culture more than rituals and artifacts
Customer discovery
YouTube
Make Your Product Relevant by Naming the Pain It Solves
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
July 3, 2019
Customer discovery
8
Copywriting
7
Products feel irrelevant when companies lose sight of customer pain.
Map each revenue stream to the specific pain it resolves.
Name the pain in marketing copy; specificity drives purchases.
Wufoo lessons and Startup School 2019 updates with Kevin Hale
Y Combinator
July 3, 2019
Case studies
9
Product-market fit
7
Customer experience
6
Wufoo reached acquisition on $50k and 10 employees — by design
Honest weekly self-assessment beats optimism for early-stage progress
Vetting co-founders is dating, not a marriage proposal on day one
Founder interviews
Podcast
Gwyneth Paltrow on building Goop as a second-act founder
Masters of Scale
July 2, 2019
Founder interviews
10
Fundraising & VC
6
Culture building
6
Why building trust before revenue made Goop fundable
Celebrity status hurt in VC meetings after the first 90 seconds
Going from family to village exposes every assumption about culture
Opportunity cost: why chasing good revenue kills great revenue
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
July 2, 2019
Unit economics
9
Long-term planning
7
Pricing psychology
5
Accepting $5,000 gigs blocked $500,000 in book revenue
Good opportunities are often the enemy of great ones
Always calculate the revenue and overhead cost of every decision
Beat stronger competitors by leading with customer compassion
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
July 2, 2019
Branding
8
Customer experience
6
Competitors who lead with their own story make themselves the hero — easy to beat.
Customers choose whoever best understands their pain, not the most credentialed.
Out-empathise bigger rivals: compassion costs nothing and wins customer trust.