varun nair
0 followers · 285 views
on the atlas · 33
- Luxury Beliefs are Status Symbols4 savers
- Should you actually listen to your customers? - Basic Arts1 savers
- How to write and talk in a strategically powerful way - Basic Arts1 savers
- What is "insight speed" and how do you get there? - Basic Arts1 savers
- Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April Dunford1 savers
- Understanding the Job of a Market Category1 savers
- This Is the Person Selling Your Product | Stay SaaSy1 savers
- (Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - Commoncog1 savers
- Some things to learn from the British East India Company's growth and demise2 savers
- On Medici and Thiel - by Rohit - Strange Loop Canon12 savers
- Shein: The TikTok of Ecommerce - Not Boring by Packy McCormick8 savers
- Be Wary of Imitating High-Status People Who Can Afford to Countersignal3 savers
- Dueling Over Platforms1 savers
- The power of defaults « julian.digital8 savers
- The third magic - by Noah Smith - Noahpinion4 savers
- Playing on Hard Mode – Stratechery by Ben Thompson1 savers
- How Status Signaling Evolved - by Erik Torenberg2 savers
- The GACC Marketing Brief: The best framework we’ve created1 savers
- Earnestness6 savers
- The Other "MoviePass Economy" - by Byrne Hobart - The Diff1 savers
- Microsoft Office - Suite Success - Commoncog1 savers
- Amazon Prime - Burn to Grow - Commoncog1 savers
- Instagram - The Bigger Picture - Commoncog1 savers
- Building Products at Airbnb - by Ken Norton1 savers
- How Nike Won the Cultural Marathon - The New York Times1 savers
- TikTok and the Sorting Hat — Remains of the Day5 savers
- Don’t Surround Yourself With Smarter People54 savers
- Building & Investing in Marketplaces - Colossus®1 savers
- Stratechery by Ben Thompson22 savers
- What Good, Cash-Strapped Hiring Looks Like - Commonplace - The Commoncog Blog1 savers
- Ads Don't Work That Way9 savers
- Quit Your Job18 savers
- The Gervais Principle III: The Curse of Development3 savers
highlights · 441
They’ll encourage you to commodify They’ll distract you from your core strategy
Should you actually listen to your customers? - Basic ArtsYou see although the goal here is explicitly to serve customers as best we can, I actually don’t believe that the customers themselves are the best inspiration for how we can do that.
Should you actually listen to your customers? - Basic ArtsNot only that, people often use “jargon” like this when they don’t really know what they’re saying. They use technical language as a sort of “shield”, to get people nodding along even when nothing of value is being said; so a secondary benefit of avoiding them is to expose yourself.
How to write and talk in a strategically powerful way - Basic ArtsThe reason this is so important is because terms like these have loose meanings that vary from person to person. This means when you use them, everyone hears something different.
How to write and talk in a strategically powerful way - Basic ArtsDon’t say “positioning”. Say “the stuff we’re comparing ourselves to”.
How to write and talk in a strategically powerful way - Basic ArtsDon’t tell me you’re “disruptive”. Instead just tell me precisely what you’re doing, and if it’s true I’ll respond by saying “wow, that’s disruptive!”
How to write and talk in a strategically powerful way - Basic ArtsRemove all value judgement words from your writing.
How to write and talk in a strategically powerful way - Basic ArtsWhat do I mean by powerful? Clear Specific Exciting And content rich
How to write and talk in a strategically powerful way - Basic ArtsIt’s what aligns your team It’s what connects you with customers It’s what structures your thinking
How to write and talk in a strategically powerful way - Basic Artsmy service to clients is to inject a medicinal dose of unprofessionalism into their generally overly-professional processes.
What is "insight speed" and how do you get there? - Basic Artsthe managerial revolution has, for good reason, emphasised the value of “professionalism”. Professionalism essentially means standardisation of practices. It is an attempt to make everyone in an organisation as similar, and thus as predictable and reliable as possible.
What is "insight speed" and how do you get there? - Basic Artsbut I would say that we are at least always friend-ly, and have an easy co-conspiratorial relationship which makes the work not only effective, but pleasant too.
What is "insight speed" and how do you get there? - Basic Artssales and marketing should use the same inputs for whatever storytelling structure they choose, and those inputs should come from our positioning.
Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April DunfordSales, on the other hand, is dealing with a very narrow set of prospects that are actively engaged in a purchase process right now.
Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April DunfordSales needs room to stretch the story on the fly in a live environment.
Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April DunfordA story structure that doesn’t leave room for discovery isn’t going to get used by sales.
Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April DunfordSales needs a story structure designed to help educate a buyer about how best to make a decision.
Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April DunfordOur primary job in sales is to help guide prospects through the purchase process
Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April DunfordOften in marketing, we are simply trying to capture an audience’s attention and get their permission to continue marketing to them.
Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April DunfordBut then, the minute the prospect hits sales, what do they get? A firehose of features! A product walkthrough that takes an attitude of “Hey, we are just here to give you the facts, Jack!” No perfectly crafted value propositions woven into a story, no narrative that strings the pitch together, nada.
Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April Dunfordyou will see a focus on negotiation skills, building empathy with a buyer, handling objections, and closing
Sales-First Storytelling - Positioning with April DunfordWe start with competitive alternatives (what would your customers do if you didn’t exist), then list the capabilities you have that are distinct from the alternatives, and then we translate those distinct capabilities into differentiated value.
Understanding the Job of a Market CategoryOur market category has a specific job to do - and that job is to help our best-fit prospects understand our differentiated value.
Understanding the Job of a Market Category“Differentiated Value” defines why a buyer should choose us, and “Best-Fit Customer” defines who those buyers are.
Understanding the Job of a Market CategoryThe job of a market category is to take a prospect that doesn’t know that much about your product and point them in the direction of your differentiated value. That’s it
Understanding the Job of a Market CategoryWe need to determine what value we can deliver that the other alternative cannot and which customers care the most about that value
Understanding the Job of a Market CategoryPut another way, we need our market category to effectively point our best-fit prospects toward our differentiated value
Understanding the Job of a Market CategoryMaybe it would make more sense to position it as a marketing automation tool or a prospect tracker for marketers.
Understanding the Job of a Market CategoryStill, we have other tools to set the context for a product, including pricing, the capabilities and value we choose to highlight, the customers we choose to talk about, branding components, and, of course, our choice of market category.
Understanding the Job of a Market CategoryAt the most foundational level, sales works because spending money is an emotional decision, and the person selling your product provides the emotional lubricant to break through obstacles.
This Is the Person Selling Your Product | Stay SaaSySales is the mechanism that allows for effective price discovery.
This Is the Person Selling Your Product | Stay SaaSyThe person selling your product spends a very large amount of time helping customers successfully navigate their own complex organizations, and purchase a product that they already want
This Is the Person Selling Your Product | Stay SaaSyIf the person selling your product is successful, you will sell more of your product for a higher price to happier customers.
This Is the Person Selling Your Product | Stay SaaSyBecause we practiced a monthly one-on-one meeting that focused on helping them with their career growth, our employees understood that if they stuck around, they were guaranteed to progress along the path.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogIt made expectations for new employees radically clear. If a candidate made it to the final rounds of our interview, we would introduce the career ladder to the candidate and explain where in the ladder he or she was being hired at. The requirements for that level became the criteria for passing probation.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogOur hiring strategy for senior engineers rested on the insight that good engineers could be found in outsourcing companies; that they were being overlooked by the VC-funded, high-flying startups in the country,
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogThe rest of the year would be spent in monthly one-on-ones, and the established norm was for managers to help their subordinates with their growth
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogThe other big policy change I implemented was to say that we conducted levelling only twice a year: once at the end of June, and another at the end of December.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogThe only way to get a raise was to go up a level, which meant there was added financial incentives to work on one’s career path in the company.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogCareer ladders consist of two elements: a list of clear requirements for each level in the ladder, and a salary range attached to the levels.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogThe solution I eventually settled on was to define a career ladder across the entire product team, with fixed compensation levels for each rung in the ladder. (Transparent career ladders are common in large tech companies, but relatively rare in small startups in South East Asia.)
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogEvery month, our one-on-ones would highlight a new challenge, a new lesson, or a new goal to achieve in the coming month.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - Commoncogif we meet the psychological needs of our subordinates, we need not compete on compensation alone.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - Commoncogpeople tend to maximise compensation when they are searching for a job. But when they’re already in a job, they are more affected by psychological factors.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - Commoncogpeople also fear the inevitable rejections that come during a job search.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogIn the introduction to this book, I mentioned something I called the ‘ugh’ field. People do not usually enjoy venturing into the unknown. We may not be perfectly happy in our current job, but who knows if our next job is worse? So we stick around longer than we sh
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogMarkets are a powerful and useful analogy. We think that a labour market is like any other market: that is, employees are rational actors that seek compensation levels that match the value they offer. The more valuable the set of skills an employee has, the higher the expected compensation. Therefore, if an employee leaves you, it is because you cannot offer compensation that matches her skillset. And if you cannot compete with compensation, the rational response is to move to a less competitive labour market, or to settle for less-skilled employees.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogA star employee has left your startup. She’s left you to join a large company, and her compensation at this large company is at least double what you paid. How do you react to this change? Should you: Increase your compensation levels? You can’t double everyone’s pay, but you can certainly increase it a little. Change your selection process for hiring? Maybe there was something about this person that caused them to look at larger companies. Perhaps if you hired differently, your new hires would be less likely to leave. The spectrum that most people default to is that of skill: if you cannot hi…
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogThe worldview is this: we think compensation is the most important factor for retention.
(Book Excerpt) Compensation: How does money affect retention? - CommoncogYou need at least a few people who are freelance gunslingers to go unlock opportunities you can’t know about, to explore more of the territory
Some things to learn from the British East India Company's growth and demise