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Short term versus long termMechanical versus organicPhilip's MessageTomorrow I want to hear about your lead gen model and in particular the mechincal method. i think that's potentially a sticky, powerful term for you to use. it's evocative, but invites questions/conversation, which is great POV material---Notes on Mechanical Lead Gen Requires something you have direct control over Paid ads, regular ol' prospecting, Podcast Pipeline, intentional referral strategy Background: the best leads are the ones that trust you deeply and decide, on their own, that they want to work with you; only problem is that you have minimal control over the number of opps that come in this way organic v. mechanical = pull v. push The more you want to control your growth strategy, you'll need to add a mechanical channel, especially because it gives you predictability

L - What I did then, What I'd do today Then: aligned with another entrepreneur, website, email newsletter, LinkedIn, specialized Today: Specialize, Outbound (LinkedIn + email), Content, SEO, paid traffic, event marketing

(Philip here) This was a fun one! It's music to my ears to hear Liston say "I think you're right about that", and he said this a lot in this episode.I'm kidding a little bit, but it really was an interesting episode. We started out by acknowledging the decline in trust in institutions, but quickly started to explore the implications for us: Are content marketers partially to blame for this decline? After all, implicit in the publishing we do is the claim: "Trust us -- the little guy -- on this! You don't need those big slow-moving out-of-date institutions to help you, we've got you covered!" What role does The Great Fragmenter, social media, play in this decline? Does the world have a somewhat fixed amount of trust that it deploys wherever it can, and now that less of this "trust reservoir" is flowing to institutions, does that mean that more of it can flow to us? How do we earn new trust in a world where institutions have less trust to transfer us? This was a fun, interesting reflection on one of the big tre

Continuing our flagrant clickbait-ifying of show titles, we talk about how email newsletters are dead. Over. Cooked. Kaput.We are really talking about one manifestation of a larger issue, which is the oversupply of information on the Internet, and how moving to a new format that you may have just started hearing about is not going to save you from having to deal with the fundamentals of figuring out how to create subscriber value.That was a fun episode for us!

Liston likes to tilt at windmills. One of his favorites is trying to get +Philip to seriously consider using paid advertising to gain visibility for his workshop offerings.Today, Liston tries again, this time tempting Philip with a 30-minute walkthrough of how Philip might use paid Facebook advertising to connect with buyers for his Specialization workshop.Links:https://philipmorganconsulting.com/workshops/specialization-workshop/

Liston and I are wading into the shark-infested waters of speculating. Of bloviating about trends.The first trend we have something to say about today is content. 

Philip has been... livestreaming. Does that mean he is surrounded by pulsating purple LED lights, grinding away at a first-person shooter?No. No it does not.It does raise some questions, though, as to why he has been livestreaming and what he hopes to accomplish by doing so. Answers in today's episode.Links:https://philipmorganconsulting.com/the-expertise-incubator/tei-curriculum/

The curse of knowledge is a very versatile curse! It interferes with our ability to explain things to those who are less experienced than we are, and...as we become more sophisticated marketers, we develop a sort of hypersensitivity to certain commonly-used marketing methods. This, in a way, is a manifestation of the curse of knowledge, and it can interfere with our ability to sell stuff.Liston and I discuss this topic in today's episode.

Recently, Liston concieved, designed, implemented, and shut down a productized service in about 2 months time. During that time, he sold 2 clients on the service, and created+shipped a website, outbound email sequence, and sales deck for the service.The biggest asset he built might have been what he learned about designing and implementing a productized services. He shares the main takeaways in today's episode.Links: The sales deck for Liston's productized services: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SlSmwGrs7-6aweMjBunBCdipbcOVv-MLswuYuVguJ5s/edit?usp=sharing 

In today's episode, Liston and I tackle the question: is pain or gain the greater motivator?I (Philip) somewhat reluctantly arrive at a conclusion I don't want to after examining my own experience with change and motivation. Is pain the greater motivator?  How do you frame gain as the greater motivator? Why do you have to motivate people at all? Can you motivate? Does it matter if the marketer/salesperson motivates? Luxury brands seem to be selling status, aspiration, etc, not the lack of those things

This episode is a fast-and-loose overrview of various approaches to email marketing.Liston and I start with describing the 3 forms of value creation that email marketing can be based on, and then move on to defining 5 sub-genres and the tradeoffs they each make among those 3 forms of value creation.Our notes from this episode, including links to the email lists we discuss: 3 forms of value creation reader/subscriber value traditional newsletter curation articles / blog / podcast / other  short-term monetary valueselling shit! long-term expertise valuefrequent emails to clarify your thinking different approaches are different tradeoffs between these 3 forms of value sub-genres: "news-surfer" Stratechery: https://stratechery.com/ Kevin Hillstrom: https://blog.minethatdata.com Ben Evans: https://www.ben-evans.com/ Scott Galloway: https://www.profgalloway.com/ "world-changer" Jonathan Stark: https://jonathanstark.com/ Seth Godin: https://seths.blog/\ "ultimate curator"  Azem Azhar: https://www.exp

Liston is in the middle of running an online event called ClientCon. What better time to find out what it's like to envision, plan, and execute a sizeable (30 speakers) online event?Of course, Philip starts with the question "what makes ClientCon different from the terrible 'online summits' littering the Internet?"Check out this inside look into what it takes to pull off an event like this.Links:https://clientcon.servedontsell.com/

Tom Chritchlow is an independent strategy consultant, and a wealth of knowledge about how to open up new opportunity with questioning. Read Tom's in-progress book: https://tomcritchlow.com/strategy/ Helsinki Lab's Recipes for Systemic Change: http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/peoplepods/themes/hdl/downloads/In_Studio-Recipes_for_Systemic_Change.pdf Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BXZIMCY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 The Art of the Gig: https://artofgig.substack.com/ Stripe Partners: Strategy as a Network: http://www.stripepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Stripe_Partners_Strategy_as_a_Network.pdf

Tom Chritchlow is an indepedent strategy consultant, and a weath of knowledge about how to open up new opportunity with questioning. Read Tom's in-progress book: https://tomcritchlow.com/strategy/ Helsinki Lab's Recipes for Systemic Change: http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/peoplepods/themes/hdl/downloads/In_Studio-Recipes_for_Systemic_Change.pdf Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BXZIMCY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 The Art of the Gig: https://artofgig.substack.com/ Stripe Partners: Strategy as a Network: http://www.stripepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Stripe_Partners_Strategy_as_a_Network.pdf

Liston has twice launched a workshop (https://servedontsell.com/workshop/) and it's sold reasonably well both times.In today's episode we discuss what Liston learrned. We cover the different sales approaches he considered, the marketing experiments he tried, and lots else.

Intellectual property. Two serious-sounding words that make it seem like you need lawyers and contracts and DRM and who knows what else.Liston and I think, nope!, you don't need any of that.What you do need is: A specialization A few years of relevant experience under your belt And a desire to create new efficiency in delivery or profitability in pricing We see intellectual property (IP) as a much more flexible thing; a way that lots of folks can make their expertise-driven business better.We begin what probably will be a longer discussion arc in today's episode, and start to lay the groundwork for your cultivation of unique, valuable IP.

Philip is not actually as empathetic as he thinks. Or is he?!?!That's the starting point for this episode of Offline. The ending point is: Maybe it's the curse of knowledge; not empathy. We all have to deal with one or both of these issues as we cultivate deeper expertise. Maybe it's a question about the work it takes to package expertise to make it consumable by a non-expert audience! Either way, this episode is a good overview of the important questions that we experts face a bit further along our journey.

At some point, Liston said "something something ALL SALES IS BECOMING MARKETING." Philip wanted to know more.In today's episode, Liston obliges.Main points from the episode: People are doing more research independently Salespeople don't act as gatekeepers information any longer More people involved in selling, and more consensus-driven decision making Generally speaking, younger generation seems to prefer asynchronous communication  You have to write and publish OR you can do direct outreach that loo