Writing

When your champion sees the vision but the rest of your buying committee is dragging their feet like, “Okay yeah you sell software whatever, bruh” I like to find the most vocal detractor from a deal that recently closed and get them on the phone. For our example here today, assume this cast of characters:…

Talk to your sales leaders and you might hear, “I can’t get anyone in product to listen to me. Every time I ask for a feature, they tell me there’s no demand. But I am literally on the phone with buyers who won’t move without this.” Talk to your product leaders and you might hear,…

This is the Commander’s Intent strategy framework I used to help my teammates navigate the ambiguous moment of launching a new product from 0-1. It’s a leadership framework of military origin (Prussian then American). I have found it useful for asking others to help you transform an ambiguous vision that lives inside your head into…

4 years ago I led a team of 10 to launch an enterprise fintech product. The lesson that most helped me turn our vision into reality was this: Buy-in is something you build. In previous roles, I blamed everyone else when my projects stalled. “Woe is me, no one wants to do research.” “Grumble grumble,…

That’s the first half of a joke (“joke”) I used to tell with new copywriting clients. They would hire me to create a deliverable to improve a single metric owned by a single department. But a few weeks later each and every client found themselves confronting difficult truths about their company-wide strategy, even before they…