Small Business Success: Beyond the Sales Funnel

Many small business owners are obsessed with the sales funnel, and for good reason. It's the path customers take from awareness to purchase. But what happens after the sale? And what about all the other moving parts that keep your business running? Lasting success is about building a robust business from the inside out. This means cultivating strong foundations, aligning your operations with core values, and fostering a culture that prioritises long-term sustainability over short-term gains, all part of a holistic business approach.

The Holistic Approach to Growth

Thinking beyond the sales funnel means looking at business growth from a wider angle. It involves examining every part of your operation, from customer service to your supply chain, and seeing how they all connect. When your internal processes run smoothly, your team is happier, and your customers feel that positive energy. This good experience becomes your best marketing tool, creating loyal advocates who do the selling for you. Many well-known strategies exist to grow a small business, but they all benefit from a strong internal foundation. It’s about creating a healthy ecosystem, not just a high-performing sales machine.

Optimise Your Backend Operations

Your backend operations are the engine room of your business. This includes everything from how you manage inventory and fulfil orders to your internal communication and project management systems. Inefficiencies here can be a silent killer, draining time, money, and morale. Take a good look at your daily workflows. Are there repetitive tasks you could automate? Are you using software that actually helps your team, or just adds another layer of complexity? Streamlining these processes is one of the most powerful unconventional growth levers you can pull. A tidy operational house means you can handle growth without the wheels falling off.

Financial Health Fuels Innovation

You can't innovate or seize new opportunities if you're constantly stressed about cash flow. Having a clear, real-time view of your financial position is essential. This starts with the basics: separating your business and personal finances. It’s a simple step that makes bookkeeping, tax time, and financial planning immeasurably easier. When your finances are organised, you can make smarter decisions about where to invest for growth, whether that's in new equipment, marketing campaigns, or hiring your next team member. If you're still mixing funds, your first move should be to open a business account online or in person and start keeping your personal and business spending separate.

Building a Sustainable Business

A flash-in-the-pan success is exciting, but a sustainable business is the real prize. Sustainability isn't just about environmental practices; it's about creating a company with longevity. This is built on strong relationships with your customers, your staff, and your suppliers. Are you actively gathering customer feedback and acting on it? Are you creating a positive work culture where your team feels valued? A business that prioritises people and builds a strong brand reputation is one that can weather economic storms and adapt to changing market conditions. It’s about playing the long game, not just chasing the next quick win.

Time Saved is Revenue Earned

For a small business owner, time is your most finite and valuable resource. Every hour you spend on administrative busywork or fixing operational mistakes is an hour you can't spend on strategy, customer engagement, or product development. The efficiencies you create in your backend operations and financial management directly translate into more time. Think about it: automating your invoicing, using templates for common emails, or organising your digital files might each save you only a few minutes a day. But over a week, a month, or a year, those minutes add up to hundreds of hours that can be reinvested into activities that actually generate revenue.

Focusing solely on the sales funnel is like tending to one plant while the rest of the garden withers. Start by picking one backend process this week, be it financial, operational, or administrative, and find a way to make it just 10% more efficient. That small change is the first step toward building a truly resilient business.

What Mistakes Can Turn Buying a Business into a Bad Idea?

Needless to say, buying a business can be an excellent move. For the right person, at the right time, it can be one of the smartest career decisions they make. There’s already something there to work with, which is a huge deal. Customers may already know the name, they’ve got the customer trust and loyalty to said brand, money may already be coming in, and there may already be a routine in place, instead of a giant blank page of confusion from starting from scratch.

So no, buying a business doesn’t inherently mean it's a bad idea, but it also isn’t always inherently a good idea either. Of course, “can be a good idea” is doing a lot of work there. A good opportunity can turn sour pretty fast when somebody walks into it with stars in their eyes, a rushed plan, and a very selective relationship with reality. That’s usually where the trouble starts, not with the idea itself, but with how the decision gets handled. Basically, if you avoid these mistakes, you should most likely be in the clear.

Getting too Excited About the Shortcut

Part of the appeal is obvious, right? Starting from scratch sounds exhausting to a lot of people, and sure, fair enough. Buying something already traded feels like skipping the ugliest stage of the process. Meaning, there’s no building from nothing, no sitting there begging the market to care, no wondering if the idea will even work. So, it’s absolutely no wonder that this can feel incredibly appealing, especially for somebody who’s already tired of uncertainty and wants something that looks more solid, more stable, you could even say. 

But that excitement is exactly what can cloud judgment for some people. It can make the brain fill in some blanks, and it can make you come up with flattering assumptions. Basically, it starts seeing stability, ease, momentum, and freedom. But of course, since you’re not seeing the reality here, the business could very well be sitting there with tired systems, thin margins, awkward staffing, and an owner who’s held it together through some questionable miracle. 

So then you’re going to carry the burdens, the really ugly parts, and it’s due to cloudy judgment and hope. So that’s the trap here. The shortcut starts looking so attractive that the person forgets to ask how messy the road still is once they step onto it.

Just Shopping with Feelings Instead of Judgement

Which does go up with the above. But think about it, maybe you’re just looking through some local listings of some businesses for sale, you’re not necessarily in shopping mode, but you’re super curious. And then something catches the eye, the listing looks polished, the branding feels decent, the location sounds nice, and the imagination gets there before logic does. Now, clearly, this isn’t ideal here. 

It’s fairly obvious here, but buying a business isn’t even supposed to feel like comparing something casual. It’s not supposed to feel like comparing kitchen appliances, clothes, a sofa, you know, fun things. Instead, you should be vigilant, cautious, and questioning. 

Think about it, a slick listing can still be hiding weak systems, tired goodwill, patchy staff, or a business model that looked much healthier two years ago than it does now. A good-looking photo and some decent copy doesn’t honestly mean anything, it just means they’re theyre trying to sell their business, that's all. Sellers know how to present things attractively. That’s not a crime, it’s just part of selling. Still, buyers need enough discipline to remember that attractive and worthwhile are not the same thing.

Skipping Over Why the Owner is Leaving

Should there be alarm bells going off? Well, no, not necessarily, everyone has their own personal reasons why they want to see it. Maybe they’re just wanting to retire, could be health changes, family changes, needing to move, burnout (which is very common), or some people just get tired of it (especially if it’s anything in the hospitality industry). So it doesn’t always mean theres some sort of disaster that's lurking. 

Still, it would be very nice if all businesses came with a little honesty label attached, wouldn’t it? Sometimes the owner’s leaving because the trade’s getting rougher, costs are climbing, the workload’s unbearable, customer habits have shifted, or the whole thing has become much harder to keep profitable than it used to be. Of course, some business owners will be transparent about that, especially if they’re not in a rush or if they’re not desperate (or they’re just a genuinely honest good person). But it’s not always clear like that. 

So if somebody’s buying, curiosity is optional here. Meaning here that it’s essential. You need to ask questions, like why, what’s happening in the market, what’s been changing, what’s getting harder, and what the headaches are that are attached to it. There are plenty of questions to ask here. It’s not necessarily a cynical approach here, but you need to be fully awake and aware of all of this.

See it as Buying a Job Instead of Buying a Business

This one catches people out all the time. The business looks established, the sales look real, the operation looks busy enough, and then the buyer steps in and realises the whole thing revolves around one human being doing absolutely everything. Nope, this is definitely not an exaggeration, and it's far more common than you might even expect here. So, every important customer relationship, every supplier conversation, every exception, every fix, every little decision, every bit of undocumented know-how, all parked in the seller’s head.

Which of course sounds super intense (and it is), so it’s not going to be the easiest when it comes to that transition period. Now, with that part said, plenty of owner-led businesses can still be good opportunities. But the buyer has to understand what’s actually being purchased. If the value depends heavily on one person’s memory, personality, goodwill, and constant involvement, then the handover could get messy quickly, and it’ll be you picking up all the pieces. 

Reasons Coffee Shops are Big Business

The rise of coffee houses and cafe culture is one which has dominated the world of leisure and hospitality in the last couple of decades. But what is it about these establishments that has appealed to us so much in recent times? 

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In this post, we will take a closer look at this phenomenon from a number of different angles to get more of an explanation about it. By the end, you may well be looking for your own ecoware to get involved in this growing trend. From Starbucks to Central Perk, let’s go into more detail about the economic and cultural factors behind the rise of coffee.

Chain of Command

Now one of the most famous brands in the world, it is hard to remember a time when there wasn’t a Starbucks on every corner. In 1994, there were over 400 stores in the US. Six years later in 2000, this number had shot up to over 4,500 globally, and then over 10,000 in 2005. Starbucks helped to make the coffee trend global, but it also helped to spark up a resistance as people who wanted to take on ‘big business’ began to open up their own independent coffee shops. 

A Little Help from Friends

Did watching those six impossibly good looking friends sitting around in Central Perk without a care in the world help coffee houses? Well, it certainly didn’t hurt. Shows like Friends and Seinfeld helped to market big metropolitan cities to young people, bringing in a whole host of new coffee drinkers. As well as providing a place to sit and relax, carrying around a takeaway coffee cup became the universal sign of a busy person rushing off to somewhere important.

The Internet Strikes Again

Remember when the term cyber cafe was a thing? Nowadays, WiFi is expected in every coffee shop you enter, along with a host of people sitting on their laptops, tablets and phones busily working and creating - or at least looking like they are. And since there are more people working remotely, as freelancers or running their own business, coffee shops provide a makeshift office to more and more people every day. 

Affordable Socialising 

You might argue that the prices at Starbucks aren’t exactly cheap, but people don’t tend to drink latte after latte the way they would drink beer in a bar. So, coffee shops have provided a more affordable social setting for people during the day. And let’s face it, it might give off the wrong impression if you decide to hold a business meeting in the pub. With so many different types of coffee shops, each one has their own identity and attracts a certain type of person. You may be looking for somewhere warm and welcoming or somewhere you can be anonymous to get on with some work.

With coffee shops continuing to open up at a rapid rate, these are just a few of the reasons why this trend continues to be so hot.

The Sweet Strategy of Corporate Gifting

Corporate gifting has long been an essential part of business culture, fostering stronger relationships with clients, partners, and employees. It's more than just a token gesture; it's a strategic tool that can significantly boost brand visibility and customer loyalty.

In the competitive corporate world, standing out is paramount. Traditional gifting options like pens, mugs, or key chains, while useful, often fail to create lasting impressions. This is where unique and thoughtful gifts come into play. One such avenue is the delightful world of customised edible treats - a sweet strategy indeed!

Why Customised Cookies and Cupcakes Go Down a Treat

Customised cookies and cupcakes are an excellent choice for corporate gifting. They're not just a tasty indulgence; they're a personalised treat that can leave a long-lasting impression. Imagine a box of gourmet, hand-decorated cupcakes, each one uniquely designed with your company's logo or message, perhaps even reflecting a special occasion or theme relevant to the recipient. These aren't just sweets; they're miniature billboards promoting your brand in an unexpected yet effective way.

The appeal of edible gifts extends beyond their novelty factor. They evoke emotions and memories associated with pleasant experiences, such as celebrations or cosy gatherings. Sharing these treats can create a sense of camaraderie and warmth, humanising the corporate image. It's not just about the gift itself; it's about the experience and sentiment that come with it.

Moreover, edible gifts are (almost) universally appreciated. Unlike products tailored to specific interests or needs, sweets appeal across a wide demographic. They're suitable for vegans and meat-eaters alike, catering to diverse dietary preferences without offence.

When it comes to corporate gifting, quality is key. Customers can tell the difference between mass-produced items and thoughtfully crafted ones. High-quality ingredients, meticulous design, and attention to detail are hallmarks of professionally baked customised treats. They demonstrate your commitment to excellence and respect for your recipients' tastes.

Beyond their aesthetic and gastronomic appeal, these personalised treats can also serve as conversation starters during business meetings or networking events. They break the ice, fostering a relaxed atmosphere conducive to meaningful interactions.

In conclusion, corporate gifting is a powerful tool when used wisely. Customised cookies and cupcakes offer an innovative, personal, and delicious approach to this age-old practice. They provide a sweet strategy that not only enhances your brand image but also warms relationships, creating memorable experiences that resonate far beyond the final bite. So why not consider adding a dash of sugar and spice to your corporate gifting repertoire? It might just be the recipe for success you're after.

How to Drive More Business to Your Site

In business, you need customers. To get those customers, they need to have access. To provide them access, they need to be able to find you easily. While all of this may seem extremely elementary in terms of business strategy and implementation, it can actually become quite difficult to achieve. This quandary applies both to brick-and-mortar establishments and company websites. Continue reading for some tried and true tips that will help you drive traffic to your sites and bring in more business at the same time.

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Pay Attention to Driving Traffic Patterns and Ease of Access

If you are constructing a new office building or company campus in a newly developed area of your community, you will need to conduct a traffic impact assessment. Your local municipality or city will generally require this, and even if they do not, it is a good idea to take this on yourself. Hire a professional assessment company to ensure everything is done right. They have the skills and experience to understand the nuances of traffic patterns, the potential for environmental impact on the surrounding areas, and the variety of traffic needs that your new building will require, such as access roads, turn lanes, and traffic lights, to name but a few.

Ease of access to your new company site is essential for continued success and growth. If your employees have a difficult time coming to the new location and returning home each day, this will place an undue burden on their private lives and increase their fuel expenditures. None of this equates to a happy work life. They may begin looking for other employment opportunities. If your valuable customers and clients find themselves in a similar situation, all it will take is a few quick online queries, and they will likely take their business and money elsewhere. Those are just some of the reasons why conducting a traffic impact assessment is so important, beyond the obvious governmental requirements.

Assess Your Online Presence

One of the best ways to drive more traffic to your site, your website, that is, is to start by conducting an audit on the website itself. Look for broken links and relevant content. Pay special attention to on-page and off-page optimisation opportunities, as well.

A significant part of your website audit should include assessing the look, feel, and functionality of the website. Pretend you are a first-time visitor looking for information. Determine whether the contact information and the navigation hamburger are easy to find. If not, those must be remedied. Users do not want to search for things they should have easy access to. Next, take notice of the clarity of the website. Are the images too noisy and overwhelming? Do they reflect your brand well, or are they loud and outdated? Look at the background images and colour schemes. You want them to blend in seamlessly while enhancing the sight without interfering with the content.

Finally, inspect your company’s search query rankings. You want to always populate at the top of page one of a query. Work with a reputable company to create better SEO and conversion opportunities and bring more people to your site through engaging content.

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Driving more business to your company’s respective sites is a lifeline. Work to ensure ease of access for on-site visitors and website users to keep growing your company.

The worst business jargon and phrases of 2024

Business – especially the university-corporate sausage factory pipeline – loves to sound smarter than they actually are, by using esoteric jargon. Repeated over and over, it grates the ears like nails over chalkboard.

In 2024, there was no shortage of innovative and disruptive game-changing jargon – with almost none of it being useful or helpful. Here’s some of the worst that I’ve encountered and most likely, some of you have too.

Read the list at Flying Solo.

Chilling out as a business activity (Flying Solo)

In one of my favourite boyhood adventure graphic novels, The Adventures of Tintin, the bumbling pair of detectives Thomson and Thompson are driving in circles around a fictional African desert. At one point, a faster car zooms past and Thomson steps out of the vehicle. Bewildered, Thompson backs up their rickety jeep and asks, “I say, why would you step out while we were moving?”

“Moving?” he says, bewildered, “that car went so fast I thought we were standing still!”

Talk to anyone born in Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and standing still is as foreign to them as it is to a shark – if they stop swimming, they literally die.

Literally literally, not figuratively literally, like post-Millennials would say.

Being still in an ever-moving world though, feels like a luxury. For a soloist like us, it’s almost unimaginable.

Read the rest at Flying Solo.

The Power of Professional Copywriting Services for Australian Businesses

Though business comes and goes in cycles, the power of marketing can’t be understated. Digital marketing opens up new avenues for Australian businesses to reach more people and sell their brand not only here, but overseas as well. As part of any digital marketing strategy, a copywriter should be part of your arsenal of persuasion. So why should an Australian business invest in professional copywriting services? What are the advantages of having an Australian copywriter on call or on retainer?

Why Invest in Professional Copywriting Services?

What you say is how you sell. Investing in professional copywriting services is an investment in your overall marketing and communications strategy. Copywriting services can help your business craft a strategy around digital marketing – every piece of content you post will need some kind of copy to help promote your business or sell your product or service.

Greater reach inevitably leads to higher sales volumes or inquiries. These profits can be re-invested into marketing and copywriting to spur on even more growth down the line.

Crafting SEO-Optimised Copy for Better Organic Visibility

Did all those words sound like they meant something? If you aren’t a copywriter or work in digital marketing, they can feel a bit confusing. In simple terms, SEO refers to Search Engine Optimisation. This is the art and science of writing copy or text on websites so search engines (Google for the most part) will rank your page higher than other competing pages with similar or identical information. Google displays pages on their Search Engine Results Page (SERP) in order of relevance. The higher your webpage ranks on the SERP for a chosen keyword, the more likely it will be clicked on.

According to a study of 80 million keywords and billions of searches by Search Engine Journal in 2020, 28.5% of clicks go to the organic (non-paid) result in the 1st position. It’s diminishing returns after that: 2nd gets 15.7%, while 3rd gets 11%. 10th spot gets about 2.5% of the clicks on average.

SEO is an investment in increasing this organic visibility by helping your site and pages climb up SERPs for chosen keywords. This is a long-term strategy for growth, as it decreases reliance on Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising and builds your authority as an authoritative and trustworthy source for information on that keyword – and in sales, this is worth its weight in gold.

Leveraging Persuasive Writing Techniques to Drive Conversions

If you’ve ever read SEO copy, it often sounds like text written by robots for other robots. Sometimes keywords will be “stuffed” into places that make even the most grammatically nonchalant wince. From that perspective, it’s done its job: you clicked on the top link, after all. But here’s where it falls apart in terms of conversions. The copy just doesn’t convince anyone to put their faith in your brand. Something drives them away.

SEO leads the horse to water; but persuasive writing on the page gets it to drink.

Copywriting is about balancing on-page SEO as well as using persuasive techniques to get people to perform an action (I write about calls to action in my blog about email marketing here.) It may be to buy a product, sign up for a service, or simply hand over an email address for a mailing list. These techniques may be straight-forward calls to action (Buy Now, While Stocks Last!) or thematic (appeals to reason, appeals to the hip-pocket, etc.)

Australian businesses need copywriters to help them leverage persuasion as part of their communications in order to drive sales and inquiries. This should be the prime motivator in your marketing – the art of the sale. However, without tailoring it to local audiences, it can quickly go awry.

Tailoring Your Copy to Australian Business Needs

If you have ever taken a trip abroad – or perhaps lived abroad – you will quickly notice how culture affects a business’ sales approach. When I lived in Atlanta, Georgia it was not uncommon for salespeople, even in shoe stores, to push products on me when I hadn’t asked for them. Once, when I was at the mall having a browse at one such shoe shop, an enterprising young sales associate noticed I was wearing Converse Chuck Taylors.

A pair of my beloved red Chuck Taylors.

I’d barely crossed the threshold of the entrance and he immediately rushed toward me. He knelt down and started buffing my white toe tips with a special polishing product. Before I could tell him to stop, he was rattling off all these benefits, ending the encounter by telling me his name (presumably so he could get a commission.)

This behaviour would be unthinkable in Australian shops.

Australian business needs are different from overseas needs, which means overseas copywriters that aren’t immersed in our culture will find it difficult to replicate or cater to our approach. The “hard sell” is often seen as sketchy or “suss” (we had purchase over that word before Among Us, thank you!)

Copywriting services in Australia require a flexibility and versatility of prose to tailor certain tones of voice and style to their audiences. Corporate businesses will use highly abstract and academic style language, while small businesses may use more persuasive or colloquial language – good Aussie copywriters can deftly sprinkle in some Aussie vernacular as well.

If your copy reads as if it was written by a foreigner, it will come across as inauthentic – which can lead to high bounce rates and poor conversions, even if your SEO is on point. (I mean, ridgy-didge.)

Choosing the Right Copywriting Service Provider

Not all copywriters are created equal – some are more creative while others are more technical (read my post about the differences between them here.) You should choose a copywriter that can understand your business and effectively sell the idea and the tangible result to as many potential customers as possible. They need to connect you to your audience and help clarify your message. Your business may want to choose a copywriter with a particular niche; though hiring generalists (such as myself) may open the door for new and creative opportunities for marketing that your competitors may not have thought of before, differentiating yourself from the pack.

Ultimately, they need to be a part of your team and need to gel with your overall business methods and processes. Unfortunately, not every copywriter will be a good fit; nor will every copywriter want to work with your company for any number of reasons. Make sure to research different copywriters and get to know them as if they were a potential employee; you could build a fruitful partnership that lasts decades!

A copywriter who knows their SEO stuff, is persuasive to a fault, and works well with your company can unleash a wave of powerful marketing on your potential customers!

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Leverage the power of an award-winning Australian SEO copywriter at I Sell Words! Contact me below and let’s get started!

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Taking care of business: Insider tips for musicians (Flying Solo)

Australia has no shortage of solo musical talent: Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins, Peter Andre (hey, he still counts!) … However, as we groove along and tap our feet to their sublime sounds, we also have to realise that these are musos living off their craft; in the same way an accountant, copywriter or graphic designer lives off theirs.

Read the rest at Flying Solo.

How To Write Evergreen Content For Your Business

Living in a fast paced world where news goes in one ear and out the other in a matter of minutes, having solid evergreen content for your business will feel like herding cats - cats who may or may not exist depending if you look at them or not. (Schrödinger’s content, perhaps?)

With some businesses, some truths remain self evident. Good narrative writing, no matter what language you speak, will always need a beginning, middle, and an end. In Accounting, showing people how to balance their books will always be a valuable skill to impart.

So what is evergreen content, and how do you write it for your business?

What Evergreen Content Looks Like - And What It Doesn’t Look Like

Evergreen content is content that will be relevant now, tomorrow, and (hopefully) five years from now. Evergreen topics are ones that people will always be interested in and will search for consistently.

Topics based on:

• Recent news or current events - X did Y at Z time

• Temporary trends and fads

• Pop culture

• Statistics or reports

Are not evergreen, as the map they are trying to create will not correspond to the real-world territory for very long. There’s nothing more disheartening finding out-of-date statistics when conducting a research project.

Evergreen topics may look like:

• How to come up with ideas for your blog

• How to write a mission statement

• Steps for creating and sticking to a budget

• Choosing complimentary colours for your logo

Usually, evergreen topics are highly abstract in nature - they don’t focus on a specific application that may not exist in a year or two - and conversely they don’t try to predict the next best thing. It remains as relevant now as it will five or even ten years down the track.

Researching and Writing Evergreen Content

Evergreen content needs to be thoroughly researched - even if you feel that the topic is “played out,” you can conduct research by looking up already popular articles on the topic. You know you have researched the topic to its limit when you are finding new articles or websites that contain almost the exact same information.

Now that you have your research, it’s time to write the content. Evergreen content is rarely “novel” - but there’s nothing preventing you from putting your own spin on things. Coming up with new ideas for blogs is a broad topic - though you could drill down into a niche such as Finance or Automotive to appeal to a select audience. You may want to produce smaller pieces, or create long-form ‘skyscraper’ content that touches on almost everything there is to know about the topic.

Evergreen content should be aimed at laypeople or beginners. It shouldn’t contain jargon; unless it’s vital to the topic. At any rate, you need to explain what it means and how it fits into the broader subject.

Evergreen Content and SEO

Evergreen content should form part of your comprehensive SEO and content strategy. That means choosing the right keywords, optimising the meta descriptions, having relevant headings, adding links and having good backlinks. It should be authoritative and valuable to others - not a cynical play at boosting your Search Engine Results.

Repurposing Evergreen Content

You may be thinking - once I’ve written my evergreen content, that’s it - I’ve painted myself into a corner. I can’t say the same thing on the same topic twice! That may be true, but you can refresh evergreen content by:

• Turning it into a video or podcast.

• Reminding your audience of the content via social media.

• Looking at the “state of” or “trends in” the topic as a follow-up (which unfortunately is not evergreen, but may be useful for others in their research.)

• Create case studies based on others who have followed your advice.

• Turn your information into an infographic.

• Use it as the basis for an email onboarding campaign.

• Tailor it for other websites or niches.

I’ve worked with businesses where I’ve written evergreen content on subjects so many times I’ve seen them in my dreams. The information is relevant but tailored for certain audiences. “How to get a car loan with bad credit,” with a little creativity and research can also become “Tips for single dads to get a car with impaired credit” which speaks directly to certain demographics.

What’s Next

That’s up to you - pick something you’re knowledgeable in, something other people will find useful, and start writing!

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Looking to get your own evergreen content up and running, written by a copywriter who’s worked with some of Australia’s top ASX 200 companies? Contact me to get started!

Language Is Mental Health In Action

Language is thought in action. What does that mean, Tom? I'm glad you asked.

I don't want to crawl too far down a rabbit hole, but almost all of us subvocalise our thoughts. Subvocalisation is that inner monologue we hear when we read or think - you're likely subvocalising right now, reading this sentence. Yes, it's all very meta.

One of the ways we confuse ourselves is to skip the thought bit and think language is action. It isn't. It's just a thought, an idea. Communism the idea didn't kill 100 million people directly, those acting in its name did. (That said, it's still a bad idea.)

When we humans confuse thought with action, we do silly things like compose text messages in our head and forget to actually send them or have arguments against our colleagues in the shower (which we inevitably win.)

The problem with this is our nervous system often doesn't know the difference between what's perceived and what's real. We can think our way into anxiety and depression, aided by complex and repetitive trauma that's located in our viscera - our gut feelings, as it turns out, play a big role in our moods and emotional wellbeing.

This poses a problem for the "talking cure." According to trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk, responding to trauma through medication and talking alone doesn't always work in isolation. I've been on mild anti-depressants/anxiety medication since high school. I can definitely attest to Dr. van der Kolk's assessment. In everyday situations, especially when we're feeling low, it can be attributed to the narrative we spin about ourselves.

Your brain will believe what you tell it is true. The root of depression, as put in a meme, is the result of nasty rumours you tell about yourself. So how can you flip the script, or at least try to?

What I Do

The first act is to open up and own what you say. If something doesn't feel right, ask someone you trust and talk it out. No, they might not understand. But at least you will get it off your chest. Join a support group, see a counsellor, do whatever suits you best. Always use the "I" statement. Not "you know" or "you know when..." No, I don't know. Own what you say and often the solution will become clear.

Second, journal. Keep a daily (or near enough) journal. Opening up by writing things down is not only good for tracking your own progress but getting clarity on your thoughts.

Truth isn't a convenience, it's a winner's mindset.

Third, tell the truth. Tell it to yourself, tell it to your loved ones, tell it to everyone around you, as hard as it seems. If you say "Oh, I tell the truth 90% of the time..." Well, how do I know I'm getting the 90% or the 10% that's BS? Truth is the currency of business. Hiding things, being dishonest, pretending everything's alright...reality always kicks down the door of fantasy. Always. Truth isn't a convenience, it's a winner's mindset.

All three elements are explained much better in the following books, which I recommend every businessperson read:

A Rational Guide To Living by Drs. Albert Ellis & Robert Harper, Ph.D
The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious by Dr. Paul Wazlawick, Ph.D.
The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday
Daring Greatly by Dr. Brene Brown, PhD.

It doesn't always work, but it works much better than the alternative.

The Reality of Discovery

"We are blind
to the worlds within us
Waiting to be born"

- Swedish poet and philosopher Tomas Lindberg (also the vocalist for death metal band At the Gates)

This may come as a shock to many of you, but I was never very good at maths.

I took up more time of my maths classes wondering why in British English we pluralise "maths" but not "tax" while in American English they do the opposite. I should probably look that up.

I never saw the point in mathematics as a subject. "We already know the answer to this," I said to my good friend and tutor Shai (RIP 1986-2017). "It's in the back of the book." He smiled and said, "The answer is always there, but it's important we discover it." Mathematics is sort of like time, insofar that a clock isn't "keeping" or "measuring" time but giving us a practical representation of it for our consumption. Numbers, algebra, calculus, etc. is the same. It's giving our brains an opportunity to discover the answer. Because the answer is "always" there.

Not so with the humanities.

When I was in high school, my now favourite book series The Expanse by James S. A. Corey did not exist. At all. There was no process of "finding the answer" to The Expanse and all my imagining or trying to (in maths class most likely) would not produce the same result. It is as individual to the authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham as the mole on my head is to me. However it strikes me that the humanities and the sciences is bound by one tether, and that is discovery.

As Lindberg says (before screaming the house down), there are entire worlds within us waiting to be born. This could be the world of Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry, the world of Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, the world of portable digital music by Steve Jobs and his iPod; there are entire alternate realities in our heads that we can project out into the world and make real.

When it comes to almost anything in life, nothing is "real" unless we "discover" it first. When businesses approach me to write their copy, I am giving others an opportunity to make their world real to other people. It sounds a bit grandiose, but the process of using words as a vehicle to help one's discovery is the way our value becomes "real" to the world at large.

Building something and hoping people will come is not discovery. Telling and sharing the world within us with others makes discovery happen.

Have I Become Obsolete? (and other fun)

Have you ever got a link in your email or WhatsApp and got the shock of your life? I did the other day.

A friend of mine linked me to an AI-powered natural language application to Talk To Transformer.

What's that you ask?

It's a machine that completes text for you based on a few lines of input.

Just like The Simpsons archvillain Mr. Burns ordering a thousand monkeys to write the best novel in history, this AI called GPT-2 works on kind of the same principle. It scours the internet as its source, completing sentences, paragraphs, and perhaps one day, entire books as it learns what you need it to say.

It predicts the next word one might have said, much like a predictive text application in your smartphone.

Despite the occasional "Sorry honey, running late for yogurt tonight", machine generated language is not new. Last year, Facebook's own AI developed its own internal language without user intervention.

Australia's very own ReporterMate, an AI-driven journalism program, spat out this article about political donations prior to the Federal Election for The Guardian. The Associated Press also uses AI to help assist reporters with articles.

So it's off to the trash heap for me! Well, not quite.

There may be a time when a machine will write better than I could ever hope to.

I don't think that time is now.

Humans using machines as tools or extensions of ourselves will become more complex and more useful. Perhaps language generators such as these will automate some tasks such as modifying legal boilerplate or updating business information.

I'm not running scared yet; but I am fascinated to see what lies ahead.

As for what Talk To Transformer came up with as an alternative to this post, see below.

Why being someone’s “my” is the ultimate business referral

Imagine this scenario. You’re at the gym with your good friend, and you wince as you get up from a particularly gnarly stretch. Grabbing your back, your friend tells you, “You should see my chiropractor. She’s great.”

Of course, your friend hasn’t captured this hapless medical professional and stored her in the attic, just in case. But the language around who we trust with our business is that of ownership.

Owning our opinions, choices, and mistakes is an integral part of maturity. It is one reason “I” statements demonstrate that willingness to “own our shit.” 

Owning whom we place our sacred trust in is vital to our business experience.

Read more at Flying Solo.

Why every soloist should journal

Dear Diary, I feel a bit nervous telling everyone about writing in you. What if they laugh at me? What if they think I’m being precious? Worst of all, what if they ignore me?!

Well, at least I got it out there. I tried my best. That’s all that matters.

Journalling is a time-honoured tradition. So many people that shaped the world jotted down their thoughts for the day, every day (or close enough to it.): Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Alexis de Toqueville, George S. Patton, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, George Lucas, Alfred Deakin, Teddy Roosevelt. That’s some great company, there. Research even tells us that outstanding leadership requires insight, and writing a journal can help achieve that.

That’s not to say journalling will spur you to instant success, of course. But it does give you pause to reflect, analyse, and process where you are and where you’d like to go.

Read the entire post on Flying Solo.

Turning Phrases, Turning Heads - My BBN Seminar

I'm delighted to formally announce my seminar for the Bayside Business Network Seminar Series! Here are the details:

What’s the secret to a great turn of phrase? Can you learn to think different? Or can you Just do it? Can a simple clutch of words turn a brand from meh into I’m Lovin’ It?

Turning Phrases, Turning Heads takes the mystery out of words – business’ most powerful ally and most fearsome foe. Learn simple ways to turn drab prose into clear, concise and dynamic writing. Enhance your business by mastering the basics of rhetoric, persuasion and cutting through to customers (well, metaphorically of course.) Spur your thoughts into intention, your intention into action and your action into success. (I’ll also teach you the term for that rhetorical turn of phrase, too!) Learn the best tips for keeping people on your site, buying from you and coming back for more.

Lapsed writers, nervous scribblers and maths nerds all – you too can coin masterful phrases and turn heads in this fun, engaging and enlightening seminar!

Cost: FREE for members, $25 for non-members.

Authentic Authenticity

It's been a whirlwind few months at ISW, with plenty of new projects coming in. One aspect they all share in common is authenticity.

Authenticity is hard to come by in this day and age. The paragon of "authentic" media in the face of "stodgy old fossils" is the VICE brand. VICE was founded in Montreal in 1994. VICE was and still is printing a free "edgy" and in your face magazine, satirising and promoting new trends, music and underground culture. By the end of the decade, they had local editions in the US, UK, Australia.

In the late 2000s, they moved into new media, producing documentaries on topics the "old media" found unprofitable. Now they have a weekly documentary series screened on premium cable channel HBO. They're also launching a half-hour daily news bulletin. It was transformed from a locally funded zine into a $915 million (US) digital media empire. Though they've reined in their brash and often controversial style, they've made a killing by staying true to their authentic roots - even if their success is underpinned by commercialism.

Businesses, like individuals, believe they can achieve greatness by "faking it" until they make it. For VICE, being who they are without apology launched them to unsurpassed heights while comparable media companies fell.

Do you strive for authenticity? Do you know a business or company that might benefit from a dose of authenticity? Let me know! I'd love to have a conversation with them.