My Grand Delusion About Marketing (Is My Grand Delusion About You)
We begin with yet-more wisdom from Uncle Tony:
"Thinking that your story is so interesting that other people will want to listen to it or read it or pay to hear it — what kind of person thinks that? A monster of self-regard. It's not normal thinking."
To be clear, Anthony Bourdain is not criticizing people who think that. He's encouraging it. He WAS that, and he wanted YOU to be that too. In one sense, he was being self-deprecating. "How could I possibly think that? I must be a monster. I'm irrational." In another sense, however, he was urging that same mentality among more creatives.
I want to urge that from you too.
I haaate where marketing has landed lately. It's gotten shouty, pushy, volume-based. More charlatans, not fewer, are preying on people's baser instincts and fears. More inexperienced people, not fewer, are claiming they know the "secrets" to your success. (I love whenever I encounter an audience growth guru who has no audience and shares no examples of helping others grow theirs in reality.)
Add to this mess all the AI slop, and man-oh-man do we need some wisdom from Uncle Tony. Because as the Dunning–Kruger effect suggests, people with limited competence often overestimate their abilities. Likewise, people with an excellent level competence often underestimate themselves (because they know how much they don't know, having actually looked hard at a domain or craft).
All this to say, it's time, dear reader. It's time for you to step up. It's time for us all to step up. To use our voices as the creative tools they really are, and to close this dangerous gap I'm noticing. It's the gap between knowing something worth knowing ... and saying something worth hearing.
When you are an expert, what you know matters. But what you say and how you say it must make that clear. And right now on the internet, a ton of people are great at saying things that SOUND worthy of your time, but look harder at them, and they bring no real expertise behind that, no substance, nothing genuinely worthwhile.
But not you. YOU have actual substance and expertise. The question now is simple but profound:
Can you ensure they care? Can you package and communicate your expertise to differentiate and resonate?
I have an audacious mission for my business and my career. I'm planting the flag for it now. You see, I believe people who bring actual expertise and a genuine desire to serve others should be THE trusted voices today. NOT the charlatans, the shouters, the people relishing their chance to produce more AI slop. Mediocrity created at breathtaking scale.
Enough.
I want to equip people with substance and the drive to serve with the communication power they need to fight back.
Unfortunately, in this fight, I see a lot of those same wonderful people shrugging and going, "Yeah I hate the tactics those others use, but what else can I do?" I get it, but it breaks my heart. I think there's a better way—one I've been privileged to pursue my career and teach to clients/audiences.
Develop and own a premise.
Build an entire platform of impact.
We need to stop creating "content," and learn to develop IP: a big idea and all the thinking around it that allows you to explore, distribute, own, and monetize your expertise.
Don't market more. Matter more.
Think resonance over reach.
Ask yourself, "What if I had to whisper?"
What if you couldn't shout, couldn't hype, couldn't appear on 7 social apps or turn 1 piece of content into 18 small bits? What if you could never turn up the volume?
You'd need to turn up the power.
What would you say if that situation was forced on you? What would you whisper that would still hit hard?
While others try to get in front of their audience 10 times this week, try to say something they think about 10 times a day.
I've benefitted from a lifetime investing in this approach to communication. Through hard work, great mentors, tons of practice, and let's face it, a whole lot of privilege gifted to me at birth, I've been able to earn a living as a writer, speaker, host, marketer, storyteller... a public voice who, happily, receives kind words from kind humans that sound like this: "I love how you never resort to all those terrible tactics. That's why I follow you."
And that makes ME happy and makes my EGO happy. But the I firmly believe it's possible for others too.
Because it's a choice. Because it’s a craft. Creating higher-impact ideas, messaging, stories, and content requires a process, a practice, a posture you adopt.
I'm here to say, it's both possible and profitable to reject the grimy tactics used by all those vapid voices and actually master the right stuff, the personal and transferable skills, which transforms you from yet-another option with expertise and competence... into THE pick. Their FAVORITE, if you will. (And if I have anything to do with it, you will.)
It is possible to go from scattered thinking to focused message, "wall of smarts" presentations to exceptional speeches, commodity content to memorable works, and from constantly chasing business to being highly sought.
[What you know] matters, but [what you say] and [how you say it] has to make that clear.
So that's my job. Call me a messaging and speaking strategist and consultant. Call me an author and speaker. Call me whatever you like, I've stopped trying to give myself a title. Instead, I'm giving myself a mission.
I believe people of substance are about to have their moment, and I'm going to have a heavy say in ensuring that happens. Even if the internet appears to be trending in the opposite direction, that's just going to create more demand for YOU showing up as the BEST OF YOU. People will be (and are) desperate for that. They're desperate for voices with actual substance to offer to step into the role of storyteller too.
When people make choices, they play favorites. Are you one of them? I'm committing my career to ensuring you are.
Don't be the best. Be their favorite.
Thank you, internet. You're having a bad moment, and as a result, you've created the biggest opportunity for the rest of us who care.