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Candidate’s follow-ups are a key signal in our hiring process. The badger quotient.

When determining whom to hire, employers care about how quickly they receive replies from the job seekers and service providers they contact.
…
Fast replies signal a provider’s future responsiveness and increase hiring likelihood independently from other signals of future responsiveness, such as a worker’s quality (Study 2) or the content of the message sent (Study 4). Together, our studies identify a distinct signal that employees can control to increase their hireability: replying to messages quickly. Empirically, every minute counts.

From the paper: Speed Is a Signal: When Faster Replies Increase Hiring Likelihood

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Things can look great on paper. But paper isn’t reality.

The longer something is just on paper, the less you’re learning.

As Jaylen Brown said, throw the ball up.

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What’s Your Strategy In 3 Words or Less?

Many strategies contain multiple ideas, but cohesive strategies can boil everything down to one organizing principle.

There is no universal principle*.

It is hard to both focus and diversify.
Or expand and simplify.
Or change the experience and create a new primary channel.

If the principle changes, your strategy needs to change too.

*growth doesn’t count. It’s the outcome, not the foundation.

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Sometimes you don’t need to strategize or analyze or “dig in and ideate a plan.”

Sometimes you just need to put your head down and grind.

Ideas without execution are like opinions; everyone has them and few people care.

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Everyone focuses on preparing for the moment.

But what happens after the moment?

When it’s not longer new and the excitement’s worn off. But you have to keep going. Because you promised you would.

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If you want to turn customers into fans, make help them feel like this:

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What loop is your marketing stuck in?
What groove should you be locked in?

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The world is broader (and weirder (but not W.E.I.R.D.er)) than the mirror you use as a lens.

Your audience is not a monoculture or a monolith.

People share demographics by chance. They share tastes by choice.

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What is it your brand actually offers?

Not the product category or service line or buzzword. Or, god forbid, the “lifestyle”.

Why do people choose you?

What is your house speciality?

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When seeking to change or improve performance, the common default is addition.

Mention more selling points. Launch more products. Add more colors. Create more ads.

More. More. More.

But the more might be the problem.

In plants, pruning leads to growth.

Focus. Simplify. Double down. Subtract