Marketing Advisor, Mentor, & Educator
Kevin C. Whelan
Alastair McDermott had me on his podcast recently, The Recognized Authority.
We chatted about the transition from selling execution to advisory services and knowledge products, what it means to be a fiduciary for our clients, some ethics and trust considerations, niching, and a whole lot more.
Give this a listen and subscribe to his show to hear from other great guests he’s had on his show before, including Alan Weiss, David C. Baker, Jonathan Stark, Philip Morgan, and Chris Do coming soon.
I interviewed Dagobert Renouf of Logology last week on how he’s been so successful on Twitter.
Dagobert is extremely active and publishes a meme every day of the week, which is a big hit for his 30k+ audience.
But like any successful story, there’s an underlying mindset and strategy that makes the tactics more successful.
So I wanted to dig into those. And he delivered.
We’ll get into the specifics of:
Listen in to hear this episode—it already changed my thinking and approach to Twitter.
Mentioned links
> Click here to listen or add Mindshare Radio to your podcast player.
P.S. You’ll hear me saying “mm-hmm” a lot, which may be slightly annoying to the listener (it annoyed me) so I will fix that for future episodes!
I know I said I’m stopping my daily publishing habit, but old habits die hard. You can bet I’m showing up again today because I want to. Onto the show…
It can be nerve-wracking to propose a project that is more expensive or takes longer than a client is asking for.
Our first instinct might be to charge the bare minimum to get the job done. Or to promise the most ideal of timelines—assuming nothing will go wrong—to win the deal and avoid pushback and rejection.
But we know that’s not realistic. Something always comes up.
The problem is, while you think you’re giving the client what they want, you’re actually undercutting both you and them.
You’re reducing the likelihood of achieving the very thing they’re hiring you to do, which is to get a business result.
In this episode, I talk about one magical phrase that gives you and your clients more confidence to do better and more expensive work than they originally hoped for.
And why it’s the best thing for them—and you—to take this approach more often.
Listen to the 2:35 episode or add Mindshare Radio to your podcast player for future recordings.
I recently decided to switch from daily publishing to a more flexible format.
In this episode of Mindshare Radio, I break down the reasons why I started publishing daily in the first place (549 days ago) as well as the reasons for giving myself permission to publish whenever I want instead.
I’m still extremely bullish on daily content. It’s a highly powerful tactic if it aligns with your strategy.
But for now, I’m choosing flexibility. Listen to find out more.
Listen to the full episode here.
P.S. I’d love your thoughts. Hit reply and tell me what you’re doing related to publishing.
I’ve decided to stop writing daily. Or at least, to feel like I have to write daily.
It’s been 548 consecutive days including today. I’ve loved the process. It’s helped me think through and articulate my ideas.
But like anything, if you feel like you have to do something, it can become a chore. And nobody wants to read somebody’s chore.
Instead, I’ll write when I want to write.
I’ll still keep the fire under my bottom to publish often. I like the forcing function it creates to show up at a keyboard and publish my best idea that day—whatever that is.
But I won’t feel like I have to publish something. The difference is subtle.
Writing daily has allowed me to build traction with my mentorship work, develop a community, and clarify my thinking. I’m grateful for that.
I plan to keep doing this work a long time. It’s rewarding to me. I’ll just do it at a pace that feels right for me.
So maybe I’ll write to you again tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll skip a day.
Regardless, I’ll do what feels right, not what I feel I have to do.
What’s a problem you’re uniquely capable of solving?
Something that interests you and keeps your attention. Something you could work on for a long time. Something the market also wants to solve.
Maybe, instead of chasing opportunities, you could do more of that.
Memes are an incredibly powerful form of communication.
They allow ideas to replicate and spread virally using a combination of wit, creativity, and repetitive visuals.
Just look at how well they perform on social media.
And if you can learn to harness the power of the meme, you stand a much better chance of getting your ideas to spread.
…but only if you know how to do it.
This Monday (sorry for the late notice!), I’m going to do a live interview with someone who has mastered the art of the meme, Dagobert Renouf.
He’s been able to grow his Twitter following (30k followers) and his logo business dramatically over the past year since starting to create publish unique startup memes almost daily.
If you want to explore the art of memes-as-marketing, for you and your clients, be sure to register for Monday’s live interview.
You’ll be able to ask the strategic and tactical questions needed to learn exactly how he does it.
No plans for publishing the recording yet, so be sure to tune in—even if you’re just listening in the background.
I plan to leave no stone unturned.
Register here if you’re interested: https://lu.ma/dagobert-renouf
When you price your services, there’s something called customer surplus to consider.
Customer surplus, in this case, means the amount of profit your customers gain after deducting your costs.
Not all profit is financial, but it’s easier to think about it in financial terms.
On the one hand, you want to price your services high enough to attract people who need and value the outcome of your services.
People with the highest needs want to buy expensive solutions because they need them to work. Higher prices are both a signal of quality and they allow you to invest the resources to do great work.
On the other, you don’t want to price too high or you risk capturing too much of the customer surplus, making your products and services less compelling.
It also makes you less likely to be referred because the price to value ratio after an engagement wasn’t high enough to have people rave about you.
You also can’t drop your prices too low or your ideal customers also won’t buy it because, profit aside, they want and need something of quality that will actually solve their problems.
So should you price your work? Give this a listen to unpack the concept some more.
This Monday, May 9th at 8am PST/11am EST/4pm UK, I’ll be chatting with Dagobert Renouf about how he grew his Twitter following to 30k followers and his startup, logology.co.
Why should you attend?
Dagobert publishes a daily startup meme he creates himself and gets tons of engagement each time. He’s a cult favourite. And for good reason.
He’s also highly interactive with his followers and startup community at large, adding insightful commentary—not just generic replies.
Dagobert is worth following and learning from if you want to grow your audience on Twitter and other platforms. My plan is to dig out the gold in his head so we can all learn from his success.
We’ll get into the specifics of:
There will be time for Q&A toward the end and throughout the conversation. The style will be relaxed and informal.
Please attend live if you’d like to ask questions and attend. I will record this webinar but not sure if/when/where I will publish it.
This event is open to the public, so you’re welcome and encouraged to bring a friend!
Register here: https://lu.ma/dagobert-renouf
I’ve always been a little vague in my mind about whether my daily writings are emails, blog posts, or something else.
My workflow is to publish to WordPress and have it auto-send to my email subscribers (you) via ConvertKit and RSS.
I also share it in the Mindshare community to engage in conversations with members when they find topics interesting.
So does that mean my posts are blog posts, emails, or community content?
In my mind, I’m writing letters to my subscribers.
They’re conversational. Designed to get you thinking about one core idea without a lot of fluff. It’s almost like a running dialogue with you, my reader.
If I wrote with the intention of creating blog posts, they would take a much different form and serve a different function.
The medium forms the message.
Start with the intended medium and let the format flow from there.