50 For 50: 50 Insights on Strategy, Branding, Marketing, and Pricing.

Hey!

I was just in NY. So I stopped at the Northern Tier Visitor’s Center.

Today, I want to revisit @David C. Baker’s “Drop and Give Me 20” idea.

You can learn about David’s explanation here.

I did the exercise in the past.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve collected the ideas I made in my notebooks throughout the year.

I came up with a list of 50.

So here we go:

• Strategy before tactics.
• 80% of businesses don’t have a real strategy.
• Planning isn’t strategy. Most plans are procrastination in disguise.
• No amount of execution can fix a broken strategy.
• If everyone’s doing it, everyone’s probably wrong.
• You can’t have a unique outcome without a unique strategy.
• The best strategies are simple, specific, and ruthless in focus.
• If you can’t put your strategy on one sheet of paper, you probably haven’t worked hard enough.
• Most businesses lose because they play not to lose. Strategy is about playing to win.
• The world is crazy. That’s why strategy is more important than ever.
• If you don’t stand out in your market, you don’t exist.
• Your brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.
• Every moment is a brand moment. You’re always ‘on.’
• A generic brand is worse than having no brand at all.
• Your audience doesn’t care about your purpose. They care about how you help them.
• ‘Start with why’ is BS.
• Your brand isn’t just a logo.
• If no one remembers you, your brand didn’t work.
• Most branding advice is fluff. Brands are built by being relevant, and consistent.
• Brands that are afraid to take a stance end up being ignored.
• Most marketing is shit because it doesn’t start with the customer.
• Your audience doesn’t care how hard you worked.
• You give up on your marketing long before your audience even knows you’re there.
• Indifference is the death of marketing.
• Relevance beats reach. A smaller, engaged audience is worth more than a bigger, indifferent one.
• Marketing isn’t about you. It’s about your audience’s problem.
• A great offer won’t fix a bad product.
• If no one notices your marketing, it isn’t working.
• Most funnels fail because they assume customers are robots.
• A generic sales funnel is worse than no sales funnel at all.
• Pricing is marketing’s MVP moment.
• Price equals perceived value.
• Luxury pricing only works when the experience feels like a luxury.
• A race to the bottom is a race to irrelevance.
• Discounts are for dummies.
• If you don’t know what you’re worth, your customers won’t either.
• Revenue is a vanity metric. Profit is what matters.
• Underpricing tells your market you don’t believe in yourself.
• Pricing demands research. Guessing isn’t a strategy.
• Dynamic pricing is powerful, but gouging kills trust.
• If you don’t differentiate, you compete on price. And that’s a losing game.
• Your competition isn’t just the other guys—it’s apathy.
• Market leaders don’t follow trends. They set them.
• You don’t need a bigger audience. You need a better one.
• Success starts by knowing what success looks like.
• Stop letting your sales team tell you what customers want. Go find out.
• Data is reactive. Research is proactive.
• More content isn’t the answer.
• Playing it safe is the riskiest move you can make.
• Everything is marketing. Act like it.

What do you think?

Do any of these hit for you?

I’ve set up a Business of Value Slack Channel…drop by and tell me what you think of the list.

I will come back to this list over the next few weeks.

So think about this now.

See you next week.

Dave

P.S. Share this on your social media or with someone who would benefit from this.