This week’s interviewee is Louis Grenier, founder of Slices Consulting and fighter of bad marketing with his podcast EveryoneHatesMarketers.com.
1. Biggest mistake you made in the last year & how you fixed it?
But let’s pick a big one.
I used to be obsessed about overcoming my weaknesses.
I’ve never liked to write for example. But I kept trying to fight this. As a business owner, you do need to constantly push yourself to get out of your comfort zone to be better at what you do.
While focusing on getting better at writing, I also started to interview people about marketing. And I found out that I enjoyed that way more than writing. This is why Gary Vee rarely writes blog posts. Not that he’s bad at it. It’s just that he prefers to do other things that produce great results since he’s willing to go the distance.
Focus on your strengths. Buy the book, Strengths Finder.
2. A lightbulb moment
It came from an Elon Musk video interview I watched on YouTube a few months ago, where he talks about First Principles. The guys from Basecamp also talked about it when it comes to business.
In business, you need to focus on the right things. And this is really tough when you have a lot of stuff going on at the same time. Using First Principles allows you to focus on what really matters right now, and in 10 or 50 years. Put simply, you need to dig into what you know to be true and always be true. For example, will marketers use the same technology in 2 years, 5 years or even 20 years? Nope. Therefore, should you get obsessed over knowing how to use every single marketing tools under the sun? Nope.
However, will marketers still use technology in 2 years, 5 years or even 20 years? Yes. Therefore, should you obsess over being flexible and welcome new technologies if there are helpful? Yes.
3. Tip for tomorrow
You don’t know what you don’t know.
Read:
- Turn the Ship Around
- Good to Great
- Incognito: The Secret Life of The Brain
- The Brain Audit
- Thing Explainer
- 100 Things Every Designer Needs to know about people
Want to share your advice?
NWB confessional style interviews are posted every Monday from people in the business community. They are not self-promoting, or carefully selected quotes to make you sound good. They are full of useful, actionable insights from experience, not egos or bravado. If you like NWB’s style and have something useful to say, we’d love to interview you. Tweet @nowankybollocks or email katie [at] subjectconsulting.com.