The differentiation trap: please stop making this mistake

The other week, I wrote about two of my favourite business words: “really” and “actually”. But now I want to rail against one of my most hated words: “Just”. As in, “isn’t this just…?”, or “aren’t you just talking about …?”. This is quite personal because I get this quite a lot when sharing strategy […]

The two most powerful words in business – use them constantly

Your language determines your thoughts. Your thoughts determine your actions. Your actions determine your results. So I guess in a sense those postmodernists were right about something – the way you use language matters. More than you think. Luckily however we don’t need to overthink it too drastically when it comes to business. In fact […]

Struggling with your messaging? It’s easier than you think…

In this newsletter, I’m going to show you the easy way to turn strategy into world class messaging. Not just messaging actually – but world class sales, marketing, and branding; because at the end of the day all of these things are simply messaging applied in different contexts. I appreciate this will sound like heresy […]

The Casino Technique: why some people always seem to win, and others struggle

Do you believe that success comes down to luck? Whether it’s for your business or yourself, do you think that although your own actions are important, it is ultimately circumstance that separates the winners and losers? Clearly this is a tempting and logical conclusion. After all, if you look back on any success story, you […]

How I find market-bending strategies (without even trying)

This is the most powerful strategic technique that exists. So powerful in fact, that it isn’t only responsible for the development of the world’s best businesses —— it actually undergirds the development of every living thing on the planet. Oh, and what’s even better: it’s so easy that you barely have to lift a finger. […]

The 5 strategic mistakes (that don’t look like mistakes)

One of the things that makes strategy tricky, is that it’s war against yourself. It’s not really a knowledge-based discipline, like engineering or medicine, where you just have to know stuff. It’s more of a discipline of consistently and relentlessly going against your instincts, and what seems sensible at that moment in time. It’s sort […]

Sharing my vision: The Starbucks of Strategy

You know how they say “don’t talk about yourself, talk about your customer”? Yeah well just for today I’m going to ignore that, and talk about me me me – what I’m trying to do here, my vision for Basic Arts, and OK perhaps a little bit about what that might mean for you. Why […]

The only 3 ways to grow

Believe it or not, strategy is meant to make things easy. And the key to making things easy always boils down to this: Transforming an ambition into an act This applies to anything really. “Losing weight” (an ambition) is hard, because you might not know where to begin. But “stop eating sugar” (an act) is […]

Forget failure, here’s how to learn from success

Most of us are pretty good at blaming outside factors for our failures. The economy sucked My business partner screwed me Our team stinks Etc. Now I’m not going to tell you to stop making such excuses, and to start taking responsibility for yourself (even though you should). No, for the purposes of this piece […]

Literally everything I know about business in 3 bullet points

OK, I have a confession to make: I don’t really know what the word “marketing” means. I don’t know what the word “proposition” means. I don’t know what the word “positioning” means. I don’t really know precisely what any technical business word means, even “strategy” (or at least what other people mean when they say […]