Greg's Right FIT #528 – This week: Productivity, Fast Sales, Mixtapes

Quick notes to help you find new business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

• Thoughts on Productivity Tech
• Being Human
• Random Stuff

Thoughts on Productivity Tech

• Technology (I'm looking at you LLMs) that helps us do more with less effort takes an investment of time. Humans work slower than tech, but understand us better. It's starting to feel like most of us will end up using small task apps that incorporate LLMs versus outsourcing everything to a platform. They're just harder to train than people.
• This weekend I'm thinking about smoking some meat. Heating low and slow brings out the best flavor in cooking. It applies to our high gain work activities too. Think about low and slow to intensify end results.
• If I want to get more done in a day, there's no better technology than finishing the day on paper before it starts. We all do it before leaving on vacation, right? Make a list, check it off. It's old school, but it works.
• As we use technology to automate the boring bits, double check that we're optimizing for person-to-person events. We don't want to be robots, we just want to be more consistent. Make our human parts more human.

Being Human – Fast money

Growth is tough. If you're not venture funded, you'll be buying growth with dollars from current sales. It's tough, but not impossible. I use this grid for self-funded growth because it tends to generate the most cash the fastest. We can use the new cash to fund growth in other areas.

• An easy way to think about growth is to divide your business into old/new customers and old/new products. Focus on growing the existing products to existing customers segment, first. Increasing customer share is in first place because the customers know you and your work. 
• The second focus for growth is to identify areas where you can bring new products to existing customers. They know you and your work, so there is trust you can build on as you iterate on your new product delivery.
• The third focus area for your growth is existing products to new customers. The reason it works is because you have customers that can vouch for the quality of your work and stories you can tell about expected outcomes. 
• The last area to focus on is new products to new customers because it's tough. Don't believe me? Ask your local startup who lives in this world. No trust, no track record, and nothing but a promise makes for a rocky path to quick sales. 

The last point is real. I'm helping a startup and trying to get money for an unproven concept is as challenging a sale as there is. If you're there, look for places where people are doing a job already. Treat it like a mini grid within a grid.

Substitute customers and products with processes and outcomes. If you're plugging into a new customer's existing process and improving existing outcomes, adoption is fast. If you're trying to convince them to try a new process to get an outcome they've never experienced, it's a slog.

Good stuff.

Random Stuff

“Creating is living doubly. The groping, anxious quest of a Proust, his meticulous collecting of flowers, of wallpapers, and of anxieties, signifies nothing else. At the same time, it has no more significance than the continual and imperceptible creation in which all absurd men indulge every day of their lives.”
― Albert Camus

One of my favorite sections of "Beastie Boys Book" is the essay on mix-tapes. Mine were never as cool as what Ad Rock shows off, but when you made or received one, the feeling was the same. Someone sharing something interesting/important to them with you.

I remember making one for my lovely bride when we were a-courtin' back in the day. She was away in London for a semester. International calls were expensive. So we exchanged letters, postcards, and little gifts. Like mix-tapes. It was one of the ways you showed someone, "I care."

It's not like making a playlist on Spotify or Apple Music today, because you only had between 60 and 90 minutes of music to share per tape. It required a little editing. Some thoughtful curation. "Do I include this one? What am I trying to say? Will she notice this lyric? Will she figure out why I picked this?" As the mixer you were taking a chance, albeit a low risk one, putting yourself out there. "This is what I think is cool, I hope you do too."

Certain songs from those mixtapes will probably always remind the recipient of specific times. Like, I can't hear Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Cutter" without being transported to the nubby cloth covered front seat of my little orange 1978 Datsun pickup. I can feel the stick shift in my hand, I can see the tape deck, I can hear the thin metal sound when the door shuts, and most of all, I can smell it. I know what came before the song and what comes after. Good times in the sunshine mobile.

Making artifacts for someone is the most human of activities.

Create something for someone this weekend. I'll start.