Dive deep into business, brand and strategy.
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When switching banks becomes a conversation
Banks have spent decades making banking easier while leaving the customer responsible for doing it. The branch became a website. The website became an app. You could check your balance at midnight, deposit a cheque from your kitchen and move money without speaking to anyone. But you still had to…
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Stuck is not loyal
Why banks mistake learned helplessness for loyalty, and what changes when leaving gets easier. Ask a bank why its customers stay and you will hear words like trust, relationship and loyalty. Ask the customers, and you may hear something else. “My paycheque goes there.”“Our mortgage is with them.”“We opened the…
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The purchase does not prove you are the “only” option
“Be different. Own your category. Become the only choice.” This advice carries a familiar promise: find what makes your business unique, make that difference clear, and customers will choose you. The appeal is easy to see. Building a business is hard. Competition creates doubt. Being the “only” seems to offer…
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Get your shit together — above the fold
♛ 29.09.2026 Just look like you have your shit together Read Time: 12 Minutes Hello The problem with positioning and personal brand advice is that it keeps confusing the appearance of credibility with the conditions that produce it. My beef with almost all of positioning and personal brand advice online is…
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Protecting the change you make possible for people
Imagine a project manager who starts every morning chasing updates. They open five tools, message six people and still cannot tell whether Friday’s deadline is in trouble. Then they find a product that helps them see what needs attention and decide what to do. They spend less time checking and…
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Just look like you have your shit together
The problem with positioning and personal brand advice is that it keeps confusing the appearance of credibility with the conditions that produce it. My beef with almost all of positioning and personal brand advice online is simple: underneath the frameworks, scripts, hooks, and templates, the instruction is often the same.…
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Company > Customer (also PSA for KIT users)
♛ 22.09.2026 When the company becomes more important than the customer Read Time: 8 Minutes Hello I don’t find “we’re customer-centric” very convincing. I want to know what happens when serving a customer gets in the way of hitting a target. That’s where I would look for the truth about a…
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When the company becomes more important than the customer
I don’t find “we’re customer-centric” very convincing. I want to know what happens when serving a customer gets in the way of hitting a target. That’s where I would look for the truth about a business. Imagine you run a support team. You want customers to spend less time on…
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Your P&L is your brand
♛ 15.09.2026 Your P&L is your brand Read Time: 12 Minutes Hello Your customers don’t read your financial statements. They experience them. I keep coming back to two statements. In March 2024, Nike’s finance chief acknowledged that the company had become too focused on its sales-channel targets and paid too little…
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Your budget is your positioning strategy
♛ 08.09.2026 Your positioning problem starts with the CEO Read Time: 12 Minutes Hello Three quick things before we dive into this week’s Digest. 1. The newsletter is here a day early. Figured tomorrow morning will be chaos for folks coming back from a long weekend. Article I wrote: What Nike’s CEO…
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What Nike’s CEO Failed to Understand
Positioning, capital allocation and the cost of getting the business wrong In March 2024, Nike’s chief financial officer described the mistake with unusual clarity. Matt Friend said the company had been “more focused on trying to achieve a mix of marketplace targets than we have on serving consumer demand where…
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What is your positioning?
Hello, How do you find a brand’s position? TL;DR — If I wanted to find out how other people feel and think about you, would I start with what you say about yourself, or find out what other people are saying about you when you’re not in the room? And…
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